[quote]This is my second statement regarding NYMPHET, where I’ll explain my reasoning behind the decision to cancel the title.

But first, here’s a general timeline:

On Thursday, May 24th, in response to the growing online debates about our upcoming release of NYMPHET, we posted an open letter on our site explaining my views on the title and my decision to hold the title until further notice. As I mentioned in that first letter, my intention was to discuss the title in more detail with various vendors, while keeping an eye on the growing debate. My initial goal was to find a solution that would make everyone happy. (A lofty goal that may be impossible to achieve.)

On Friday, May 25th, I was in constant communication with my distributor about this issue. One of the major book chains had already refused to take the title, and another was unsure and wanted to evaluate it some more. In the meantime, on an almost hourly basis, I was getting notification that one vendor after another was canceling their orders on NYMPHET.

On Tuesday, May 29th, Anime News Network posted my first letter, triggering even further debate online. I was then contacted by various online publications to comment on the controversy. Later that day, I decided to cancel the title once and for all, after six days of research and reflection.

My purpose in detailing the above timeline is to address criticism that we decided to cancel the title merely one day after posting my first letter. This is not true; we posted the letter on Thursday night on Gomanga.com, then sent it to Anime News Network on Friday morning, whereupon they posted it on the following Tuesday. In the meantime, I performed my due diligence in carefully evaluating the whole situation over the course of six days.

There are various reasons I decided to “pull the plugâ€

Well... I don't *like* it. But thank you for taking the time to explain it so thoroughly and carefully.

I suspected the vendors were scampering ... I'll go back and review the pages you speak of but I don't recall anything over the line compared with printed fiction freely available in your typical B&N or Borders (where they leave the Naked Lady Coffeetable Books on the aisle tables near the children's section O.o ). I still view the series as a tamed down version of Lolita with all the mixed emotions from characters one might expect in complicated situations. I wonder if anyone has noticed the last few Negima volumes or some of the events coming up in 16 or 17... ... ... ... funny how that works.

Again, thanks for the explanation.... but I'm depressed that angry mobs can still scare ideas and print into oblivion when there are *actual* problems they should be focusing on. My opinion of ANN and their part in this hasn't improved.

He's talking about the scene with Rin and the teacher locked in the gym storage room if I recall correctly.

Well... I'm off to sleep, I'll take a look at the specific pages and edit this in the morning. I don't figure that was a deciding piece of the rationale anyway (from a business perspective -- its all the orders being back-canceled that would get my attention).
People who have read Faulkner, Steinbeck, Vonnegut, or some other American classics know there's some nasty happenings described in the classics (incest, rape, pedo-whatever, slaughter, etc.)

My cynicism comes from knowing the kinds of books many vendors have no problem at all selling or displaying in their brick'n'mortar stores. My local B&N has "naked people coffeetable books" piled on a huge table next to the children's section and the restrooms. They have the Dummie's Guide to Sex on an endcap next to the comic books (yes, it has explicit pics).
oh the hypocrisy

(right, I'm ranting repetitively instead of going to read the problematic sections mentioned ... the funny thing is that the only thing I remember hitting my "disturbing" nerve was the use of the "pedo-bear" as Rin's plushie --- I thought that was lame pandering)

NEXT MORNING EDIT: I've reviewed the pages he points out... I disagree that it "crosses any line" when taken in context of what happens before and what happens after. Its the pivot point at which she really moves from wanting to torture him to having a crush on him. Without it, the following scene involving the teacher's love interest (his fellow teacher) would make have far less impact (the stairway scene). It also drives the teacher's suspicion that Rin is being abused in some way at home.

<shrug> ah well..... I consider it a win for the "burn the books" crowd who seemed to be learning that the best way to punt a book is before it even reaches the shelf.

>>As I outlined above, when I delved deeper into the series and its subsequent volumes, I realized that my initial position was wrong and that some of the content is indeed objectionable, and not something that I can further rationalize or justify.

I figured this was the case ever since your first letter, as your defense of the title seemed surprisingly oblivious to the actual content. I recently flicked through the later volumes myself and conceed that you were probably wise not to release it, and I was very surprised after seeing the later content, that you had licensed it at all. Now it's making sense.

It's still a shame, and I don't find the content in the other volumes objectionable. Depressing, but probably for the best.

If you're referring to the 4chan meme, then it has nothing to do with that teddy bear. Not sure how you say it's lame pandering. :S

Yes, since this is a Japanese title, the 4chan bit doesn't really work.

Pedobear was based on a 2chan meme called simply "Kuma", a bear that hated large corporations, it was NOT related to lolicon in any way. 4chan later adopted it for that purpose.

I WAS kinda suspecting this issue to come up earlier, based on the later volumes. Watahiya Kawaru actually did say, in an interview, that she was trying to push the standards of what could be printed in a mainstream magazine. So, it would probably be quite a problem here..

Now then, I'd like to start by saying that while I personally have no problems with the content in this manga, I respect the decision to not publish it here, as that would be asking for trouble. That said, I don't see the need to basically claim that the content has no redeeming qualities, or to claim that we haven't seen the 2nd or 3rd chapter in order to debunk our arguments. I sincerely hope that he's simply trying to save face, because he's really starting to sound like the puritans that argued against the manga in the first place. I do not approve of pedophilia, lets get that out of the way right now, and I don't even have to point out why. But that does not mean that someone who writes about it or draws about it is a pervert. Its fantasy, fiction. I can't really explain it, but somehow I don't make the connection between a little girl in an anime or manga with a little girl in real life, because generally speaking, they're totally different, and I believe this to be the general mindset of people who enjoy manga such as this. Manga is generally written by adults, thus children in a manga are of course going to have adult traits, as no adult can think from the point of view of a child, perhaps thats why I can't make the connection. The manga doesn't take itself to seriously, so why take it seriously like that?

You know, nevermind the fact that the manga was writen by a woman, which I think would have some bearing on weather or not this is acceptable.

For you tl:dr people, my point is, to say this manga is essentially evil is completely absurd, and its insulting to the manga's fans to make such comments, especially given these circumstances.

First off, I'd like to start by Saying you have not lost me as a costumer, SevenSeas, But you have lost my respect. I will still buy your releases, But only because I don't like leaving a series unfinished. If all my series had been finished, You would've lost me as a costumer. Now onto my full opinion.

I believe, like most people, that what you did is Outrageous and Offending. I mean Come on, So what, It had "A" Bad scene in it, Thats like throwing out an entire movie just because the director didn't like how one scene filmed. STUPID.

Now, I'm going to get this straight. This book was directed at teens and the such.... So why care? It's not like we are 10, and shouldn't be learning about sex and Bs like that. We are Older, and Above that. We learn about crap like that Whether we want to or not, So why base it on something like that?

Ok, So the books Directed at teens. So that means Teens are your majority buyers.... Hmmmm.... I think that means that you should ask a teen what he/she thinks, and ask if he/she cares that theres a few so called "Bad" scenes in it. And if they don't, But the stores do, Then they Obviously are hypocritical as* holes who should burn in hell. Like crankydragon said, I've been in book stores where they sell Worse BS than a little Pedophelia, and they put that worse stuff near the children's section, So why do you care what they think? They obviously don't care about children, And i bet if they saw all the Arguments for the series, They would reconsider just because it would be a good chance to make some money.

Anyways, I digress.

SevenSeas, In my collection of manga and light novels, You have a shelf of your own, Thats how much I liked you. Enough to make a shelf for your books. Anyways, I did that because I liked your whole "No censorship" Policy. I mean, I LOVE it. But you know, I think some might agree with me. If it comes down to You Censoring some of the manga, Or us plain out not getting it, We would rather you censor those few pages and release it, Opposed to you getting our hopes up and then canceling it.

But if you could have Published it without censoring, That woulda been great, Because honestly, I doubt theres anything to extreme in that book, Seeing how it's drawn by a female (No offense, It's just that in Manga drawn by male's with "Bad" Content in it, It tends to be worse than when a Female draws it"


anyways, Those are my 2 cents, not that you really care enough to un-cancel Knj.

While I'm VERY dissapointed that it won't be published AT ALL, I respect that you're pulling the manga for the right reasons.

I admit, I hadn't seen volume 3, and your admitance that neither had you didn't know what happened later in the series is also something thats satisfied me.

If the reasons for canceling the manga had been because of pressure from the fans, then I probably would have followed through and refused to buy any Seven Seas books. However, since this is not the case, I guess I'd best go pre-order He Is My Master now.

Now that I have seen your rationale, I will say that it makes sense. Not having read this series, I can't second guess the folks who have.

I think the folks who are flame-spraying you over this need to point their flamethrowers on the true culprits: the uninformed internet ranters and the book chain buyers. Fear reigneth supreme!

The above comments concerning bookstore hypocrisy are spot on. Have you complained to the store managers? I would be interested to know how they responded.

All that aside, SSE continues to have my support and best wishes for their future endeavours.

From a business perspective I can understand why something like this can get cancelled.
However, it may not have been the intention, but I find some parts in that first post insulting. It just comes across that the people who do know what's the content and don't have a problem with it have some kind of inferior moral standards.

I do hope I just read that the wrong way but if this does describe the sentiments of this company, i can not justify buying from them.

What happened with "if it’s good enough for the Japanese, then it’s good enough for us"?

KnJ was a title that caught my interst but I wouldn't really be into it. I'd buy it but it wouldn't be something I normally read. It was your other titles that really caught my interest. That being said...

You've expressed your reasons and given reasons for them. However, you've violated your own said principles and the trust of your customers. I don't doubt in the least SSE has been hurt drastically by this decision. No matter what you say the public will think, and does think, you caved into the pressure. This can be expressed by those already saying they will no longer buy a title from Seven Seas.

You say that it's the future titles that will draw people in, but you have to ask yourself this question now, "Do you really think a publisher/mangaka/author will consider giving you thier license now since you've set this precedent?" If they won't license to you how will you bring the said titles here?

I've never read beyond the first volume, but I'm perfectly happy in taking Jason's word that it goes to a darker place in later volumes and isn't really appropriate to be published by SSE. There are plenty of other titles coming out for me to check out.

I'm sad for the waste of time and money in prepping the book all the way to the printers, but that's just me being my economical self.

While I can understand the decision as a *business* decision (ie, publishing the book may be too much for a small publisher like SSE, from a legal bill perspective), I do have to voice my disappointment in the clearest terms possible.

So much for the Land of the Free. This country is still in medieval times, where Fear and Dogma ruled supreme.

Good luck, Seven Seas. You buckled on this one, you'll buckle again. You just gave an "in" for loud, vocal *MINORITIES* to stick a crowbar in your door and kick it down.

Frankly, judging by the kinda shaky process you guys described of licensing a property without being fully aware of that property's contents (you COULD"VE talked to the Japanese publisher AND the author to clear this up BEFORE you signed the dotted line!), I highly doubt you'll be around in 10 years.

Those who want this book *will* find it, by hook, or crook. That's the beautiful part of the internet. You can't shut it down, you can't effectively censor it. You can inconvenience it, slow it down some, but you can't kill it. This book will be read in this country, and Seven Seas will *not* see a penny from it.

Perhaps the most fitting punishment, yes?

Goodbye, and be good to yourselves. I doubt I'll be back to this forum.

Mr. DeAngelis,

Thank you for explaining your decision. I’m sorry that this wasn’t the series that you had originally thought it would be. I applaud your courage to admit your original assessment of the series was wrong. This action only strengthens my faith in your company and your products.

On an unrelated side note, I’m pleading that your company make appearances at some east coast conventions in 2008. Your fans out here would like a chance to get to meet all of you in person.

Your loyal customer,
Ed Sizemore

I've got a question: how did Tokyopop manage to license and distribute all 15 volumes of Battle Royale without being attacked? Keep in mind that all crimes depicted in Battle Royale are felony (murder, rape, incestuous sex, etc.) committed by 9th graders (plus kidnapping by the adults), while pranks in Kodomo no Jikan cannot even be regarded as a criminal acts.

Good point, Good point. But i think its because Tokyopop is more well known, And can do things like that without the risk of losing buisness

Thats just America. Violence is okay, as long as no one has sex.

It IS somewhat hypocritical, but basically, it comes down to the fact that Mitsuko doesn't LOOK like a 9th grader. You could also put it down to the fact that it could be considered "a statement" on society.

Theres a huge difference between the two stories, but it basically boils down to society having horribly confused morals and ethics.

you also need to consider that TP hired a famous author to rewrite the English version of BR, which helped with publicity.

SS is too small to take big risks, I guess.