Danica Davidson
December 2, 2024 
Dozens of manga have been pulled from school districts in Tennessee to comply with the state’s new obscenity laws.
For starters, Rutherford County Schools yanked more than 150 books from its districts shelves, and it’s reviewing the first volume of Fire Force and the first eight volumes of Assassination Classroom. A supporter wanting these manga banned insisted they had “pornographic material.” If that were the case, it would have been rated Mature, but both series are listed for teens.
School board member Frances Rosales picked the books to be looked at and possibly banned. School board member Caleb Tidwell found the books in question graphic both by school policy and by state law.
Tennessee recently changed its laws on what counts as an “obscenity.” Now any books “containing nudity or describes or depicts sexual excitement, sexual conduct, excess violence or sadomasochistic abuse” can count as obscenity.
Meanwhile, Wilson County Schools has pulled approximately 400 books from the school library shelves in its district. The following manga have been impacted: Jujutsu Kaisen, Case Closed, JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure, Bingo Stray Dogs, Fist of the North Star, The Tempest Manga Shakespeare, My Hero Academia: Vigilantes (just volumes 1 and 3), Vampire Knight, Parasyte, Rosario + Vampire, Attack on Titan (this ban includes all subseries as well), Tokyo Ghoul, The Promised Neverland, Blue Exorcist, Durarara!! (just volume 2), Bloom Into You, Soul Eater, Akira, The Seven Deadly Sins, Inuyasha, Black Butler, Hunter x Hunter, Alice 19th, and Air Gear.
Lists of these books are being sent to some other schools in Tennessee as a go-to guide for books that might be seen as problematic, raising the potential for them to be banned elsewhere as well.
This comes after a South Carolina district pulled Assassination Classroom after a mom argued high schoolers’ brains couldn’t handle it, and children’s manga Unico is being reviewed in North Carolina for being too “violent.”
Source: ANN
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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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