The line between reasonable censorship and blatant oppression is a blurred one. Often, banned comics can often be considered too violent, too extreme, or too graphic for children. However, the motive to protect also brings with it the caveat of preventing important discussions and crucial perspectives. Unless, of course, that is the true motive for banning some comics.
One such comic, briefly banned for eight months in the towns of Matsue and Izumisano in Japan, is the manga “Barefoot Gen” by Keiji Nakazawa. “Barefoot Gen” is a semi-autobiographical anti-war manga illustrating the life of a seven-year-old boy in the aftermath of the bombing of Hiroshima. The comic depicts people’s skin burned off or their body parts being dismembered and addresses some of Japan’s war crimes during World War II, such as the Rape of Nanking.
The school board in Matsue officially claimed that they banned the manga because of how gruesome the imagery was for children, according to the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (CBLDF) webpage on “Banned Comics: Case Files.” But, it is no secret that some Japanese nationalists deny such war crimes, and some in Matsue were outspoken about the comic’s “ultra-leftist” ideology, according to CBLDF. The ban raises the question of censorship with ulterior motives, especially in the context of the manga.
The children of Matsue and Izumisano who might’ve read Nakawaza’s “Barefoot Gen” could have learned to understand the nuances of not only war, but any type of conflict. They could have been able to acknowledge the reality of Japan’s war crimes while still being able to mourn their own country’s losses from the war, learning that conflict is never black and white.
Another World War II period comic that school districts have challenged is Pulitzer-Prize-winning “Maus” by Art Spiegelman. “Maus” illustrates Spiegelman’s father, a survivor of the Holocaust, and his experiences as a Polish Jew.
All the characters in the comic are depicted as animals; the Germans are cats, the Poles are pigs, and the Jews are mice. Spiegelman explained, in an interview conducted by PEN America in 2023, that he chose to tell his father’s story through animals to make the comic more universal. Even though the Holocaust was unique to specific groups of people, Spiegelman wanted to emphasize themes of dehumanization.
A Tennessee school district in 2022 challenged and banned “Maus” for the image of a “nude woman,” a drawing of Spiegelman’s mother after she committed suicide, according to the same interview. However, Spiegelman thought that the real reason why the district banned his work was that parents were uncomfortable with the history of the Holocaust.
To ban “Maus” was an act of offense to Spiegelman and his father because a few people decided the few nude panels in the graphic novel outweighed the significant literary merit of the comic. Spiegelman and his father’s compelling narrative was reduced to being inappropriate because he had chosen to tell his story authentically. No matter the circumstance or reason, censorship invalidates a victim’s experiences and prevents them from sharing their story.
Comics offer the opportunity to fully immerse their readers in a story through their illustrations — a reason why comics are especially susceptible to challenges and bans. It’s difficult to fully picture the extent of how gruesome events are when the reader is simply reading words on a page, but it only takes one picture seared into a reader’s mind to spark a change of mindset.
Readers can criticize graphic and offensive content in a comic, but many may overlook the much more important themes in comics. When confronting history and its atrocities, it is impossible not to feel uncomfortable. The acknowledgement of tragedies and war crimes only comes from understanding and perceiving the incomprehensible. The only way to prevent something catastrophic from happening in the future is to learn from the past.
No one can truly be an educated member of society if they remain sheltered from reality, no matter how dark it may be. While there is a duty of schools to protect their students, schools cannot be complicit in banning critical pieces of media when their primary goal is to educate the next generation.
