Five in one day!!

[Hon'ya-chan]

Certain mangas have the plastic wrap on them, obviously to "prevent" little kiddies looking at some naughty stuff. Because of a couple incidents in the past, the guy that does manga has taken the task of using clear packing tape and sensors to make sure that kids either don't walk off with them, or "alert" us to them trying to open it.

Of course, yesterday, it happened not once, but 5 times!!

Incident #1

So i'm in the next aisle over, shelving some extra Hemingway and Fitzgerald from a botched school order, when I hear an unusual noise coming from the aisle where the manga is. From two aisles away I could hear it. I go via the "back way' and see a kid calmly removing the plastic wrap of a copy of I"s. I stand behind him and tell him to give me the manga and get the hell outta the store for the day because he was circumventing a security device. He is shocked, and leaves sheepishly.

Incident #2

Me and the guy were taking some manga left elsewhere in the store to reshelve, when he notices two girls reading manag in sci-fi. As he approaches them, he notices that they have taken Volume 1 of The Gentlemen's Alliance, and all of our copies are shrinkwrapped because it contained a poster. The guy opted not to tape it, but did add the hard sensor on them. I stand about a cople feet from him. Turns out one of the girls had "given permission" to the other girl to open the manga. And they also pocketed the poster to boot. He tells them to leave before he has them thrown out by Mall Security for theft and give back the manga and the poster.

Incident #3

For some odd reason, several of the big companies have had a hit/miss policy on manga that should be bagged and what shouldn't be bagged. Nana was bag-free up until Volume #5. Surprise, surprise, I catch a kid reading unwrapped copies of both Nana #5 and #6.

Incident #4

The biggest problem has to be the "Adult" manga with the hyper-violence and sex . Both me and the other guy have found a pile of Yaoi and Violence wrapped manga "Unwrapped" as of late.

Cue another kid, whom had unwrapped several titles totalling 7 manga volumes. Needless to say, I wasn't too impressed after their reasoning was "I wanted to see it before I bought it."

Howabout asking us first?

Incident #5

Again, some of the manga companies can't really make up their minds on whether to shrink wrap or not to shrinkwrap. Of course, this is "Justification" for some of the kids to rip open shrinkwrapped manga.

A Justification one kid tried to pull. Nice try, howabout complaining to the company.

[rerant]

Forgive my ignorance, but why does Manga have to have censors on it, and why is it such an issue for people to read it?
I know nothing of Manga so... yeah... I don't get it.

[BookstoreEscapee]

Forgive my ignorance, but why does Manga have to have censors on it, and why is it such an issue for people to read it?
I know nothing of Manga so... yeah... I don't get it.

Some manga series are very adult-oriented, with nudity and other sexual content, homosexuality, extreme violence, and other "adult" themes. Others are geared toward teens and are much less "graphic" (no pun intended - they are graphic novels).

At B&N, at least, there are 2 manga sections - in the Graphic Novels section at the end of SciFi, and in the Teen Series section. There are some in the Graphic Novels that are clearly marked "Teen" so I don't really know why they aren't in Teen, but others are marked "16+" or "Adult" (or "mature content" or whatever indication the publisher uses). Some adults, but especially kids (early-mid teens, usually) often spend hours lounging around on the floor flipping through the books, or just reading them, and will open shrink wrapped titles and leave the wrap stuffed in between books or laying on the shelves or wherever their lazy ass feels like leaving it. Shrink wrapping is up to the publisher; Store1 has a shrink wrap machine so they can re-wrap it if they want, but Store2 doesn't have a machine so I could never re-wrap it. They were always stuffed to the gills with sensor tags, though.

Can you tell that manga was the bane of my existence?

-ams- who is not a fan (no offense, folks, but I just don't get it!), but who used to shelve a ton of it as Fiction Lead at B&N

[Gawdzillers]

They should have sensors on Inuyasha, to keep everyone from reading that crap.

"INUYASHAAAAAAAA"
"KAGOMEEEEEEEEEEE"
repeat as necessary until the book ends.

[Hon'ya-chan]

Censorship - the act of censoring a work or medium.

Sensor - those little white tags that make the paddles go BBBBBBBBBBBEEEEEEEEEEEPPPPPPPP!!!! in the front. Comes in the less sticky and the Skin-tearing versions.

[Aldous]

Hey Gawdzillas, show a little respect, not all manga is that bad. Some of them are actually quite good. Now in respects to the shrink wrap, I bought every issue of Battle Royale, an adult only manga, all of them shrink wrapped for obvious reasons, you can't turn a page without graphic violence, language, or sex. Great story behind it too. I'd get pissed whenever I saw my tome unwrapped, and some kid thinking that it had to do with wrestling. Nevermind the brats reading the back, or even looking at the cover which usually depicts a weapon.

[Killer Bees]

I don't understand the manga thing. But then I don't understand the popularity of rap "music", Paris Hilton or perming your eyelashes.

[Jester]

I don't understand the manga thing. But then I don't understand the popularity of rap "music", Paris Hilton or perming your eyelashes.

I'm sorry, I know I'm a guy and not up on all the latest female fashion or makeup tips, but.....

there are people that not only curl but actually PERM their EYELASHES?!?!?!?!?


Um......WHY?

[Velfarre2001]

The manga thing happens to encompass MANY genres, as much as any other storytelling medium. Action, comedy, mystery, romance, combos of the aforementioned, etc....

You don't get it because you have not seen one you like yet.

[BlaqueKatt]

I highly reccomend "pet shop of Horrors" if you can still find it-it's great-10 books in the series it was released about 2 or 3 years ago. shows SCs getting comeuppance-example from the anime based off the book-

D-pet store owner Count D-who sells "interesting pets"*
SC-yeah we know who this is

SC-(on phone, yelling)-"you sold me a defective tiger, I don't know what your trying to pull, but when I invited my friends to see it it was only a painting.!!!!"
D-"I see well I sold you a tiger yes, but you signed a contract saying you agreed that you wouldn't show it to anyone."
SC-"Well what's the point of buying atiger if you can't show it off?!!"
D-"well that was one of the stipulations of the contract-you broke the contract."
SC-"yeah but...(sounds of tiger growling in background)...wait get it off me aaaa!"(sounds of SC getting eaten by tiger)
D-(sighs)"Contract broken, when will they learn?"

*he sells all sorts of animals with a strange contract, that when broken, ends very badly, usually in the death of the pet owner. He sells a rabbit that looks like a couples dead daughter, a mermaid, a gorgon, various human looking cats, a human looking bird, and various other animals.

[napoleana]

For some odd reason, several of the big companies have had a hit/miss policy on manga that should be bagged and what shouldn't be bagged.

Maybe you know this, but the reason why #1-4 weren't shrink-wrapped is because it used to have a lower rating as, even though it had sex scenes, they weren't the ACT of sex, it was two people being semi-nude (nothing graphic - at most, you saw the smallest nipple-less boobs ever) cuddling afterwards or just being intimate. Occasionally, they talked about it, but, again, nothing graphic.

Of course, in Japan, no one bats an eye at it. If you approach the topic of sex maturely, so will your kids. But the prudes in the US found out about it, and a handful of news teams (local, not national) did stories about "kids" being able to buy/read "porn" in bookstores. (You'd have to be pretty freaking desperate to jerk-off to Nana.)

So the company upped the rating. In a twist, the author has hardly written any such scenes since then.

Forgive my ignorance, but why does Manga have to have censors on it, and why is it such an issue for people to read it?

Again: Sensors. Electronic devices that make the theft thingies go "beep beep." Anyway, I'm quoting this just because I wanted to add my two cents:

In every bookstore I have bought manga in around here, they ALL have sensors. Even the ones that aren't shrink wrapped and therefore can have the sensors taken out if you remember to look for them (usual hidden IN the book somewhere - if the store chooses the right size, it can take a while to find). Why? Because manga is $10 a pop and is very popular among teens to young for most jobs. Get where I'm going with this?

BTW, a former thief & exboyfriend has educated me that gothy pants are perfectly sized for hiding up to 3 manga in one pocket without looking suspicious. I know there's a lot of fine goths out there (me and many of my friends among them), but just so you know what to look for, look for extra weight in large pockets on the lower legs of goth pants. These pants should not hang strait down - they should be baggy and loose.

[Sliceanddice]

I know one that should never been seen by children but i love- Battle Vixens... trust me on this.

[Tuxian]

Very much agreed on that. Now, I'm a big fan of Ikkitousen (the anime adaptation of the Battle Vixens manga), but in no way, shape, or form is the series even remotely appropriate for children, or even young teens. As an example of some things that go on in the anime (some of which may or may not be in the manga):

-Most of the Toushi, or fighters, are young women in high schools, and tend to wear short skirts, at least until their clothes get shredded during a fight.
-Various lesbian and bisexual activity going on.
-One girl raping another just off-camera.
-One girl with a penchant to dress in a kinky french maid outfit, and fight with handcuffs and wrestling submission moves, breaking several people's limbs.
-LOTS of blood.
-A character who nearly _disembowels_ herself while in the midst of a battle frenzy.
-A character getting an arm ripped off during a fight. (this one's in the manga, the anime just has the character crippled).

And those are just SOME of the things that happen. I have had to deal with these people at my local BAM, too. The kids that will lay there in the aisle, blocking traffic, and reading through the manga. I usually look at them (I'm 6'4" and 300 lbs, a BIG guy), and tell them to go find their parents. Most of the time, they listen, and skedaddle back to the parents, who're sitting in the coffee area ignoring their kids.

I myself am an avid consumer and collector of manga, much of my collection is imported and untranslated, though. I get what I can when I can, there's just so much out there that somtimes, it's hard to choose.

Oh, and I'll second the reccomendation for Pet Shop of Horrors. Great title that all CS posters should read.

[Andara Bledin]

Some manga publishers are completely schitzophrenic on which titles should be wrapped and which shouldn't. And the bookstore we used to patronize had absolutely zero clue or interest in how they stocked the stuff.

Then stores go crazy with the sensor tags. I once made a mild complaint to the clerk that the tags were too sticky and pulled up ink off of the pages, so they should try to hit white spots and the lady categorically denied even the possibility that the tags lifted ink. You could feel the condescention for adults who would bother to read comic books.

Manga isn't for everyone. Some people just don't have an interest in the format. *shrug* But manga covers just about every genra there is, including the mastery of Go.

^-.-^

[BookstoreEscapee]

I admit, I got a good laugh when I saw some titles that came out while I was still in Store2. We have already established that I am not a manga fan, I will now add that I am not a romance fan either. Not by a long shot. (Which is not to say I wouldn't like some romance in my own life , but I don't read the stuff.) Anyway, we got some books that were Romance Manga...written by well-known romance authors and illustrated by (I assume well-known) manga artists.

For the record, the sensor tags we used were the sticker type, but we would just take scissors (or a box cutter, in my case; lots quicker once you get the hang of it) and cut them apart so we could leave the backing paper on and slip them into books without them getting damaged. We only actually stick them on shrink-wrap. Though sometimes a corner would get ripped and then they would stick to the page and rip it.