Danica Davidson
March 10, 2025 
Late last week the Rutherford County School board in Tennessee voted to remove multiple book titles from its school library shelves, including volumes of Assassination Classroom by Yusei Matsui. Among the other titles, they also banned Catch-22 by Joseph Heller, a classic which is used in their own schools for required reading in AP English.
Specifically, volumes 1-8 and 11 of Assassination Classroom have been removed, but not the whole series.
As for the seemingly contradictory nature of banning required reading in the form of Catch-22, Rutherford County Schools lawyer Jeff Reed remarked, “What books are available in the library is a different issue from what books are used in the classroom. That is a separate issue. That’s the way the (state law) is written. It may seem odd, but that’s the way the law is written.”
The other books pulled were Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen; Perfect Chemistry by Simone Elkeles; and Yolk by Mary H.K. Choi.
You can watch the whole school board meeting here. The book removal part starts at about 32:21 with Assassination Classroom.
Rutherford County Schools Board Meeting
Rutherford County school libraries have already pulled dozens of other book titles from their shelves.
Recent years have seen a rise in book bans across the country, sometimes involving manga. Assassination Classroom by far is the manga series that has received the most bans in America. While the title is meant to be provocative, creator Matsui has stressed that the manga takes on real-world issues like getting through difficult situations, saying, “Assassination Classroom has an odd name that might make some people reluctant to pick it up, but inside it has lessons upon lessons about how to get through life’s challenges, and I believe those are important lessons.”
VIZ Media publishes the manga in English and gave this description for it:
Assassination Classroom Plot
Meet the would-be assassins of class 3-E: Sugino, who let his grades slip and got kicked off the baseball team. Karma, who’s doing well in his classes but keeps getting suspended for fighting. And Okuda, who lacks both academic and social skills, yet excels at one subject: chemistry. Who has the best chance of winning that reward? Will the deed be accomplished through pity, brute force or poison…? And what chance does their teacher have of repairing his students’ tattered self-esteem?
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Danica Davidson is the author of the bestselling Manga Art for Beginners with artist Melanie Westin, plus its sequel, Manga Art for Everyone, and the first-of-its-kind manga chalk book Chalk Art Manga, both illustrated by professional Japanese mangaka Rena Saiya. Check out her other comics and books at www.danicadavidson.com.
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