Don’t bring your manga to Canada!

Gee, and I thought that my country was strict. This blogger had her manga looked through by Canadian customs officers and ..

As soon as I declared that I had some of the japanese inspired comic books called manga, a Custom’s officer said, “That’s the stuff from Japan; there is some really obscene and filthy stuff.”

No, I pointed out, these was printed in America and very mainstream. As more and more officers were called in, the six manga books I had were examined in detail. They were looking, they told me, for pornographic, obscene and adult material. “The age rating is on the back of each book.” (each manga book has ratings like 13+ or 15+ – mine were 13+).

I was informed that I could have put different covers on or done anything else I could to get the pornography in and that if I spoke anymore, the books would be seized. So I stood there and watched my previously new books get examined page by page, thumbed through and pressed open because it was assumed if I read manga, that I was a sex offender.

That sounds like a joke doesn’t it. Except the exact same phrase “That stuff from Japan…” was used two weeks earlier on my last trip through Customs and my manga examined for the same reason; because Japanese manga is “really filthy stuff.” The reason I was so heavily raided this time, I found out afterward, was one of the manga titles had the word “boy” in the title, which “alerted” them to pedophile materials. Huh? Can someone please go get my next issue of the romance manga Tokyo Boys and Girls from the US? I’m too scared.

Gee. This is as good as the time when a Malaysian daily claimed that all anime was h3ntai. (Read this blog entry: Anime is pron)

t was a big hoo-haa in my country and thank goodness a few other newspapers quickly corrected that newspaper. Not that they'd admit that they did wrong. To them, it was justified. Hmm.

So, much misconception about the terms "anime" and "manga" still exists. Ask any book supplier in Malaysia and they'll tell you the problems they have with bringing some manga over. Many are confiscated – and I'm not talking yaoi stuff. Some are regular shojo and shonen titles. Someone told me that Saikano was on the "banned" list for one of the bookstores because it had love-making scenes.

I remember the time when my good friend brought some yoai manga from Singapore across the border to Malaysia. She was worried that she'd be arrested. (Incidently, in Singapore, you have to produce your passport/ID if you want to buy yaoi! Look ma, I'm buying pron!) I laughed it off then, thinking that it's such a joke, but with the post above, now I am starting to worry. -_-" And the manga that she got was more shonen-ai-ish than anything else. It's definitely not in the "hotness" realm like Embracing Love.

And that's why I live on scanlations. In my country, where sodomy is a crime, yaoi is just banned.

Ah, thank your lucky stars if you live in America, people! You guys not only have anime conventions and the like, you get to buy manga without fear!