Florida’s latest book ban shows what it’s really all about after banning this wholesome BL manga

There are a variety of manga that aren’t appropriate for younger readers, so you’d think that if a book ban was going to target manga, it would focus on series that feature brutality, sexual abuse, and torture.

Florida’s Brevard School District had different priorities, choosing to ban a popular boys-love manga, Sasaki and Miyano. The chair of one public school board in the district, Megan Wright, announced her issues during a recent public meeting. “This book focuses on nothing other than a relationship that’s inappropriate,” she said before going on to display her ignorance over the book being written “backwards.” It’s common for manga to be consumed from right to left—but apparently, this is also an issue.

Wright claimed the first volume of the manga is “inappropriate.” Are there any sexual themes in that volume? Let me hash the story out, in case you haven’t read the manga or watched the anime.

Miyano is a shy boy who loves to read boys-love manga. He gets bullied but is saved by his upperclassman, Sasaki. Throughout chapters one to seven, covered by the first volume that these panelists detest, Sasaki learns to come to terms with his budding feelings for Miyano.

There’s nothing explicit about these chapters, but the intention of the ban is clear. Wright either did not read the book or does not want to simply say outright that she believes LGBTQ+ existence is wrong—that it’s wrong for kids to learn that they can have feelings for people of the same sex without feeling ashamed. If Sasaki and Miyano portrayed a heterosexual relationship, it would undoubtedly be categorized as a regular, wholesome, high school shōjo manga.

The panel did not understand the assignment

The recommendations provided for what kids should read instead of Sasaki and Miyano are incredibly telling. LGBTQ+ content is deemed inappropriate, so kids should apparently read Chainsaw Man and Seven Deadly Sins instead. These were the suggestions reportedly given by the original complainant who objected to Sasaki and Miyano being in libraries. (Remember that under these ridiculous book bans, it only takes a single complaint to trigger an inquiry into a book.)

Nevermind, I suppose, that Seven Deadly Sins has gore and sexual themes. Chainsaw Man depicts sexual assault, grooming, self-harm, and literal demons. In case the committee missed this, Quanxi from Chainsaw Man literally has a group of girlfriends. Was this material not banned because Quanxi and her girlfriends are villains?

This just goes to show that the committee is inconsistent or spared no time to read the material properly. It was never about protecting students, but about forwarding their agenda to erase literature that does not align with their bigoted ideologies.