World Comic Book Review

26th April 2024

Pixelated Images, Obscenity, Japanese Manga, and The Inspiration of Detention

“What is Obscenity?”
(Koyama Press, May 2016)
Writer: Rokudenashiko

We start this article by noting it is not a review: we have not yet received a copy of the graphic novel, “What is Obscenity?” But we look forward to doing that, and in any event the stir surrounding Rokudenashiko and her work is of itself newsworthy.

As we have previously discussed in our article on “Prison School”, comic books in Japan (“manga”) are frequently a creative vehicle for pornography. Article 175 of the Criminal Code of Japan forbids distributing “indecent” materials. The practical consequence of that law is that gentalia is either drawn in an entirely fuzzy or obscured way, or are overlaid by a “mozaiku” (meaning a “mosaic”, or pixelated image).

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Prison School: Panties, Cleavages, and a Well-Written Story Underneath

Prison School (review)
(Kodansha, February 2011-onwards)
Writer: Akira Hiramoto

“Prison School” is a manga franchise written and illustrated by Japanese writer Akira Hiramoto. It started serialization in Kodansha’s Weekly Young Magazine on 7 February 2011 and continues to this day. “Prison School” has spawned an anime series and a live action TV series along the way.

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One Would Think the Deep Had White Hair

Leviathan vol 1-12
Mediaworks, 1999-2005
Writer: Eiji Ohtsuka
Review by Neil Raymundo, Feb 23, 2016

The Leviathan in the Old Testament is a dragon that dwells in the oceans, originally created with both male and female representatives, but proved to be so dangerous that God slew the female in order to prevent the species from multiplying and destroying the world. It is said that the Leviathan is a bringer of end times, and that its flesh will be served in a banquet for the righteous on the advent of the Messiah.

In the Japanese manga-style comic book entitled “Leviathan”, published by Mediaworks and written by Eiji Ohtsuka, a character named Samizo Kouhei went to Cappadocia accompanied by several friends for a UN peacekeeping mission, one in which they are tasked to negotiate with anti-government guerillas. The entire team went missing and only Samizo Kouhei managed to return. Except Kouhei now consists of the stitched body parts of the missing UN peacekeeping team, an ancient coin embedded in its forehead.

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The Undead Hunters of Tokyo

Tokyo Ghoul Vol 1
Shueisha Inc (Japanese original) 2011; Viz Media (English translation) June 2015
Writer: Sui Ishida

Review by DG Stewart, 8 January 2016

“Kodokushi” is the Japanese word for “lonely death”: a common enough phenomenon in Japan where haunting alienation from the community is prevalent as a consequence of, amongst other things, Japan’s extended economic stagnation. Many Japanese people, particularly unemployed and middle-aged men, die alone and unnoticed, and it is such an issue that Tokyo’s Shinjuku ward began a lonely-death awareness campaign.

Mr Ishida’s anime comic is concerned not with elderly men dying a lonely death, but with a young, awkward student named Ken Kaneki. Ken attends the imaginary Kamii University, located in Nerima ward in Tokyo. He is hopeless with girls, and hides in the shadow of his good childhood friend, the extroverted Hide. A pretty young woman named Rize slowly becomes interested in Ken, as a consequence of a mutual interest in a sinister book entitled “Egg of the Black Goat”. The two end up walking together down an alley. Rize leans in, apparently nervous, and then abruptly transforms into a ghoul and takes an enormous bite out of Ken’s shoulder and neck. The alley is otherwise empty: Ken’s version of kodokushi will be more horrific than most, but yet not an unexpected thing in Tokyo.

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