It’s been a while since I saw a manga under threat of being banned in schools. The last story I covered on this topic centered around whether or not Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid was appropriate for middle school. Well with the recent increase in book banning over here in the good old land of the free, it seems some parents want to crack down on all this inappropriate content. Like, uh, Assassination Classroom apparently. It is now banned in some schools in Florida and Wisconsin, some being high schools and some being middle. I honestly understood some of the fuss around Kobayashi considering the explicit content the series contains, but as far as I know I’m not sure that Assassination Classroom has anything that is sexually charged or worth removing from the libraries.
One of the moms argued that the series “promotes violence against teachers” since the plotline is that the classroom of students must find a way to kill their alien sensei. And by god is that one of the dumbest arguments I’ve heard in my life. “Yuh if you engage with this media that depicts something, you’re gonna want to do it too!”. Listen I’ve seen my fair share of cooking shows and related content, and what do you know I still don’t cook much at all. Sure you can argue that kids are impressionable, I mean I thought so much shit was cool or not back then thanks to marketing and social pressure, but making the extreme claim that the manga will promote the kids to turn to murder just doesn’t quite hold up weight. Since I’ve personally never read the series I don’t want to make any concrete claims so I’m calling on the fans to chime in down below.
Okay uh, keep those tentacles to yourself and you can stay in my library, sensei.
Even if there was some explicit violence/nudity, I don’t think I’d give a shit at the high school level. Back then I was digging through PornHub and hentai sites every night on the regular. If Assassination Classroom was the worst thing I saw that day, I’d be a blessed little boy. Middle school I could understand more if the opposition’s argument was something better than “the kids will kill their teacher because of this story right here officer”. Have you read the manga? Do you think the districts were right to ban this series, or was it a complete overreaction from the staff and parents? Find a series you like, pick up a few copies, and remember to hide your contraband fiction in the darkest corners you can find!
