Worlds Within Worlds...

While one always has to look at WaiWai with a critical eye (this section of the Mainichi newspaper is like a mini-tabloid that always plays up any puriel angle it can find), this article is pretty interesting.

Obviously manga for women can have all kinds of content in it, yaoi or otherwise. And shonen titles will be forever trying to push the envelope on what level of fanservice they can fit in (and seemingly have been slapped down a bit before in the past). However, according to this article, raunchy content is also on the rise in magazines for girls. It is pretty interesting looking at this and comparing it to our own industry:

From a Mom:

"I started shaking in terror from the moment I turned the page. I never dreamed my daughter was reading such a shocking manga," the 40-year-old mom tells
...
"They're selling in ordinary bookstores and my daughter buys them with her pocket money," Yoshimi says. "I liked manga, too, when I was a kid and I wasn't worried at all when my daughter first started reading them."

From a "manga expert":

"You've got to think that theses comics are being read by girls who perhaps a year earlier hadn't even begun budding breasts and they're now reading stuff like, in one manga for instance, finding a young boy to 'train' and turn into a sex toy. It even made me feel sick."

Of course kids aren't worried:

"Of course I'm interested in sexy stuff and it's a bit exciting to read it," a sixth grader from Tokyo tells Sunday Mainichi. "But I know there's a difference between manga and reality and I don't pay much attention to what I read."

Besides mentions of sex-laden spam and other live-action stuff on the internet being worse, a student also has this to say:

"Cool girls are already out with their boyfriends having sex and couldn't give a damn about manga," a third-year junior high schoolgirl from Kanagawa Prefecture says. "Just sitting there reading a manga is proof that the girl is not cool, which naturally means she hasn't got a boyfriend and isn't having sex. Rather than being worried (by shojo manga), parents should feel at ease."

You didn't think stereotypes like this only happened in the US did you? I recommend checking the whole article out...

[Via AoDVD]