“Macias agrees and has little doubt that otaku will influence attitudes about sexual expression here. “When you see a kid sitting in Borders reading a manga, he’s not just reading a comic book,” Macias said. “There is something really powerful going on there.”’

I know later comments said that Macias’ quotes were taken out of context of his source material in order to further the skewed view Mr. Alexander was pushing, but not knowing that it made me chuckle.

Um, what manga is the kid reading that’s so powerful it’s going to influence his, all his friends’, and all their friends’ views on sexual expression? It just reminds me of one of those terrible middle school shock and lies flicks from the 50s. All they need is some middle aged guy in a bad suit with slicked back hair and thick horn rimmed glasses saying “It could be your child reading this stuff. Or yours, or yours, (turns and faces the camera and points at you) or yours!”

However, one thing I do find interesting is that the only people who appear to be commenting on this article are anime/manga fans (myself included). Which makes me wonder exactly what % of the visitors to this page reading this article were lead there from an anime/manga fansite/blog/etc. Some google analytics would yield some interesting results I’d imagine.

Hopefully the only people who really read this article and actually took anything said in it to heart are anime/manga fans and they know it’s a pile of garbage. The danger here is when equally misinformed readers stumble across such an article. They likely will skim through the article, not read any of the comments regarding it, and have a horribly skewed idea of what anime and manga is about. Mr. Alexander was at least careful enough to say that not all anime/manga deals with the things he is mentioning (unfortunately, neither were some titles he mentioned as examples), but that is one tiny sentence among a wall of hateful graffiti.

Are there sexually explicit, exceedingly violent, and what one might consider perverted anime/manga out there? Absolutely. However, there is just as much of the same type of media being produced by American studios. Unlike American cartoons or (mainstream) American comics, anime/manga tend to delve into a much wider spectrum of genres. There are adult comics, just like there is adult manga. Both can often be found in the same shop. There are pornographic live action movies, just like there are pornographic anime – again, both can often be found in the same shop.

However, the way Mr. Alexander presents this information is that the explicit anime/manga are being sold in places where the same types of books/movies from American producers are not, which is simply untrue and I think the most irreverent piece of misinformation in the article. I will however admit that often times at a place such as Borders they do include the “adult” themed manga in the same area as manga aimed at teens and children. This however is simply because they do not classify their manga as anything but simply “manga” and typically the adult themed titles are plastic wrapped and have a warning sticker (this is usually by choice of the publisher, not the retailer). There’s a children’s books section, a teen’s books section, an erotic book section, etc. But there is pretty much just one “manga” section that does not divide titles into any particular genre except maybe “shoujo” titles.

The same can be said for anime. Unless visiting a store which specializes in anime or other more fringe media, there isn’t a comedy/action/drama/romance/horror section. There’s just one big section of anime and it’s sorted alphabetically.

Imagine if you walked into a book store and all the books were simply put on the shelves in alphabetical order. Same with movies. Would Mr. Alexander then be writing an article saying that all books and movies are falling into a dark abyss of perverted debauchery because as you’re looking for a movie for you six year old you come across a title about homosexual relationships? The scary thing is, based on his level of research and the poor aptitude of his editors, he very well might.

Yeah, yeah, there’s more to anime than what he talks about, just as there’s more to reptiles than turtle-sex.

Big deal.

No matter what the article is about, the facts presented should be correct. If I write an article about the French Revolution am I not held responsible if I mention and present incorrect information about the American Revolution?
-Narutaki

Even sex articles and entertainment articles have editorial standards. You can’t go around saying whatever you want just to make a point. You should also do a decent amount of research before you submit an article to a major news website.
-Hisui

They don’t have to do any of these things, because the article wasn’t about anime and manga, it was about sex, and how anime and manga could be used as a supplement to jaded sex-lives. Look at the page! The article is squeezed in between “the joys of pregnant sex” and “avatar sex”.