librarypunk - 066 - The Manga Librarian

Episode Date: September 13, 2022

We’re talkin’ manga collections again! Ashley Hawkins comes on to talk about school libraries, manga collections, book challenges, and generally give us some reading recommendations! Ashley Hawkins (@manga_librarian) / Twitter  Manga Librarian Guide to Graphic Novels in Libraries   Manga Collection Development for Librarians: The Basics School Librarians United with Amy Hermon: 141 Manga Librarian Manga and Women: Buying Manga for School Libraries in the #MeToo Era Media Referenced Talk to My Back  Berserk (manga) - Wikipedia  Parents, school librarians concerned about repercussions as Missouri’s ban on ‘sexually explicit material’ law takes effect DENPA Yen Press LibraryPass Comics Plus Sora + Public Library CONNECT Witch Hat Atelier - Wikipedia Cat + Gamer - Wikipedia Boys Run the Riot - Wikipedia

I saw your tweet about the science teachers, sending back the box of graphic novels and was it nonfiction? Yeah, it's all nonfiction. Yeah, that was fun. It's so frustrating because I feel like I go through this every year with teachers where we have to go through a whole re-education process and we have to work. together to recognize that we've got to meet all of our students' needs and not just meet what your preferences are as the teacher. It was interesting because this episode doesn't come out yet, but our last episode, we just did with Emily Knox.

I don't want to get her name wrong. Is Emily Knox, yeah. Where part of her thesis about why books get paid. band is because they are seen as manifestations of ideas themselves. So that's where we get the sort of I don't like using the word fetishization,

but it is sort of like it's embodied in a way with value that it doesn't necessarily have. And so if the format of the book is wrong, then maybe the ideas in the book is wrong. And I think that might be what's happening with your teachers who don't

like graphic novels, which one was about like the Soviet space program, right? I think I've seen that book. Yeah. Yeah, it's about like the dog that was sent into space. And it's a fairly, it's a mature book. It's, you know, and you can spark really interesting conversation with it. But yeah, it was, it was the first time the students have, the students even told me because there were students helping us today, because tomorrow's the first day of school. And they, They told me they're like, Miss Hawkins, this is the first time we've ever actually seen you angry.

And I'm like, I'm like, you're right, because I am. It wasn't really great of them to tell you that books that you like, because these are all graphic novel manga readers. I'm like, the books that you like are not real books and their kid's books, quote unquote, which telling a teenager that even though their kids, But telling a teenager, those are just kids' books that does something to them. And I'm like, that's not fair to the kids. That was my cat. I'm sorry. But yeah, it wasn't very fair to them.

And that's what makes me angry. It's like, you tell it to me to my face, I'll be very cool. But don't say it to the kids because that's not fair. Your cats are hugging now, so it's probably fine. I'm Justin. I'm a Skullcom librarian. My pronouns are he and him. I'm Sadie. I work IT at a public library. My pronouns are they them. And we have a guest. Would you like to introduce yourself? Hi. My name is Ashley Hawkins. I work as a school librarian in New York City. I am frequently known as the manga librarian and my pronouns are she her. Welcome. Thanks for coming on. Thank you for having me. school librarian, I think. I've been trying to get a school librarian on for a while. I don't think we've had any one who's a school librarian. Oh, yeah, huh. I was going to say Fabaazi, but I think she wasn't working as a school librarian when we had her on. Oh, maybe. It's a little weird that we

haven't had a school librarian on at this point. I'm trying, especially with like the the Follett library system stuff, the reporting for students or the limiting of student privileges in the library. Does your school, I almost said university, does your school use Follett? Actually, yes, we do use Follett Destiny, that's the system that New York City uses. And actually, I am on the New York City School Librarian Association Board. and we as a board actually crafted a statement of disapproval when that was about to happen because I in particular was very, was very disturbed by the potential for what could happen across the country.

And it's like, okay, we're a big purchasing power in terms of this system. It's like, so we really need to be very forward. like we do not want this to happen. And we are a big user. Let's make sure that we are very clear. Like, we do not want this to be a part of this program. Yeah, that was a big topic for us. Yeah, and it's pretty opaque to people outside of school libraries because, you know,

you have your own separate track in library school. There's a lot of work with public school teachers that really embeds you in their world and your e-resources systems are all completely different, which I do want to, if we have time, get to comics and e-resources because I know licensing is a nightmare and especially licensing of fictional work seems to be particularly just worse somehow. So we've talked about manga before, but it was sort of limited in how much we could talk about e-resources. But my first question is, why specialize in manga collection and talk about it and write about it? So there's like a few different reasons, but my main thing is always equity.

For me, it's an equity issue. As a school librarian, manga is a lot of what my students read. And manga can be expensive to access because you're talking about even if one individual book costs $10, like some of these series go for like 100 volumes. that is of huge cost. So you have a cost limitation. There's limitations of access because of how quickly things can go out of print,

particularly when we're talking about Shozhou manga. Shozhou being manga that is written primarily for feminine audiences. It's marketed in Japan for girls between the ages of about 12 to 18. And we see a lot of that just kind of go out of print very quickly. And it's like, if you have it in a library, it's more likely to be in the system for a while. And a lot of actual manga collectors will go and search library sales to get manga that has been weeded because that's actually a great source for getting manga that

maybe has been held on to for a while. But for me, what I really remember is when I was a teenager, I was very poor. And I could not afford to buy manga. So what I did is I sat on the floor of a bookstore. And for me, that was something I could do. And for my students, I am a school librarian in East Flatbush in Brooklyn, which is a mostly Afro-Caribbean neighborhood. My students, if they go into a retail environment and they loiter,

which is really what I was doing, they are not going to be treated as nicely as I was treated as a white girl in a wheelchair in the south. That is just the reality of what my students face. I hear about them being bothered no matter where they go. So I want them to be able to enjoy what it is they like to read, which is mostly manga, but it isn't just manga, in a space where I know they're safe or being able to check it out from me, take it home, enjoy it, spend your time with it. If you want to draw

from the pages, use it as your resource for artistic inspiration. You can do that. You can interact with it as though it's your own and then bring it back to me. It's an equity thing because, You know, not not everyone can access that. And also, I personally have a passion for it. I love manga. It's my hyperfixation. I just have been obsessed with it

ever since I was like 13 years old. I still have an obsession with it. I have a manga collection myself. And it's just, it's something I enjoy. It's something that I, I just, I love manga. So it brings me personal joy to talk about it. And luckily, because I have a lot of knowledge from having just been obsessed with it for most of my life, it can help other librarians make collection development decisions.

Yeah, I think those are pretty good reasons. And also, I know that manga collecting is really difficult, and it does require a certain amount of specialist knowledge of the publishing industry, especially when things go out of print, when things get translated. I bought my first set of complete set of a full run of a manga this year. Well, it's still on pre-order, but I've usually only bought like one-off comics. But finally, I got one where I was like, I just want to own this. Even though I've already read it like twice. I just want to like have it so I can read it in my own pace.

I think the only full set of comics I actually have beside that is the Scott Pilgrim comics, which I bought in French so I could practice my French back in grad school. I'm looking at my 20 volumes of bleach and thinking how I was spared trying to keep up with that series by working in a public library. So, yeah, you said, you know, going to like a Barnes & Noble and reading, and I just got a very vivid picture of the line of teenagers in the manga section every time I would go. So, yeah, it's not just a class issue, but it's also, you know, they were always white teenagers. Yeah, no, it's definitely a certain barrier that exists there. And it's, and the thing is, there is a certain identification that the black community has with a lot of these stories. And the problem is that there can be some racial gatekeeping that happens within the anime community and the manga community. And it's, it's definitely a thing. It's a thing that is talked to. about. And the thing is like Dragon Ball Z is like incredibly important to the black community. Akira, super important. There's so many references in hip hop culture to both of those things.

And still, we see a lot of gatekeeping that happens for black nerds who want to participate in the culture from being told, oh, you can't cosplay. of certain characters. You can't do this. You can't do that. And I just want to make sure that my students are in a space that is where I say, no, all these things can happen and you can totally be a part of this community and it is safe here for you to do that. So that's also part of just making sure my students are always welcomed and safe and feeling included. And do you run like a manga club at your school or do they do it through the public library? Yes, I do run a club, and it's very popular.

It's one of my two most popular programs. It's that in Dungeons and Dragons. And it's the same kids that go to both programs. And we even went to anime and Way C together last year, and we just, we watch anime. We talk about what we see. We read manga together. We even have included manga into our GSA.

say. So we we kind of plug it into different things. And it just is very much just a culture, part of the culture of the library that we just kind of plug anime and manga into whatever it is we're doing. You have a note here about having limitations in what you can buy compared to public libraries. And of course, this is the collection development aspect that, again, I've always wanted to bring someone in who does school libraries because it's a completely foreign world to me. So what are the limitations you're dealing with selecting for a high school? So when you're selecting for a high school, it's a little bit freer than if you're selecting for elementary or middle school. Elementary school librarians are the ones who actually come to me for the most help because they don't know what it is they can buy unless they like really know manga.

but you are very much, as a school librarian, you have your collection development policy. And then there's often certain policies that are already in place through your school board or through your department of education. I have a fairly free policy, but I also have to make sure that things are age. I use age relevant instead of age appropriate because I don't think that necessarily. necessarily things are inappropriate. I think that they just may not be relevant. Like there's a really great manga that's called Talk to My Back, which actually has nothing that is sexually explicit or violent or anything that

anybody might say, oh, that's not appropriate, quote unquote. But it is very much a manga that is for adults. It deals with adult issues of like, what does it mean to be a wife and a mother? what are the gender expectations of women in Japanese society. So it takes like a certain level of maturity. So it's something that I wouldn't select because I don't think it's relevant to my students. But also there are some things that I don't have in my library because my students may not be mature enough for it yet. Or maybe some of my students who are on the older range are ready for it.

but I can't really have it because I serve 9 through 12. So I'm serving a gamut of students. So sometimes there will be students that are ready for it. There's a manga called Berserk. It is an incredibly popular manga. You're nodding your head so you know exactly what I'm talking about. It also deals a lot with sexual assault, rape, all these, a lot of violence. And it takes a certain mature.

to delve into that and read it with a certain levity. And not all of my students are quite there. And for some of my students, it might be very triggering. There are certain parts of Berserk that were very triggering for me to read. So I have to be very balanced in like, is this for everyone? is this meeting the needs of my collection development policy, is there's all these like different things you've got away because also you have a limited budget,

much, much more limited than you would at a public library. My budget each year is about $6,000. So my selection has to be like super intentional. And so if something's not going to serve all of my students, then I can always say, I know how to access this through the public library. I'm also very lucky.

I am married to a Y.A. librarian. So I can say, go see my husband at the branch. He'll hook you up. We have a good partnership that way. That kind of helps. Having a good relationship

with the public library, even if you're not married to the public librarian, is very helpful for a school librarian. Yeah, I think most of the public library stuff I ended up doing as a kid was through my school library sending me there for like programming, either like probably during the summer mostly.

But yeah, I don't remember using it much until high school when I needed other resources because we just were never really allowed to go to the library at high school. Because it didn't really have any like spare time in the day. It's just when could you do it unless you were a work study student like I was? So I had like a crazy schedule. Like I had one class a day my senior year of high school. So I was just like roll in at like 10 a.m. roll out, go to college, go to work at like 6 p.m.

You know, I would just show up in the high school whenever I wanted to. That's what I have stress dreams about is like I somehow didn't get my high school diploma. There's always a part of the dream where I'm like, wait a minute, I have two master's degrees. What am I doing here? That's kind of hilarious. No one has ever asked me for my high school diploma, which I did never pick up. So technically, I'm not entirely sure I did graduate high school. That's funny because I had one of those dreams just the other night was like,

I'm 36. Like high school's far, far behind me. Like, what is this? I'm going to take away my college diploma if I didn't go to weightlifting class or whatever. Yeah, I know that having worked in a public library, before I worked in IT, I worked in like the public service side of things. And I don't know what that area's high school libraries were like, but I know that we got, a lot of manga dedicated teenagers coming through. And we were lucky in at least for a year or two had a librarian who was really dedicated to making sure that that was a good, robust collection

before he left for a different job. So it's always good to see that sort of dedication because manga is often disregarded as, you know, kid stuff or it's all violent and worthless or whatever when it's actually, it's just a medium like a lot of other things are. Yeah. And particularly right now, we are getting like such an array of manga that we haven't seen before. We're getting a lot of the very artsy. We're getting a lot of classic things that publishers were maybe hesitant to license before now. Before, for a little bit of, context. There was a manga boom earlier in the 21st century, and then there was a burst of the bubble. And then when that happened, every manga publisher got very nervous. And so for a long time,

everybody just kind of stuck to what they knew would sell. Your Naruto's, your Dragon Ball Z's, shonen jump, action, very masculine-oriented. But now, we're actually starting to see like we're getting a lot of really wonderful LGBTQ plus manga we're getting just more of an array of what's actually put out in Japan because

in Japan manga is just a huge format. If you go to Japan you'll just see aisles upon aisles of manga and in every type of genre in fiction, nonfiction, memoir, everything. And all we get is like a small slice, but at least now the slice is like slightly more varied, has more toppings, I guess.

And so it's a really interesting time right now. And I think it's like very promising for what we can kind of get. There's some really interesting titles that are coming out within the next year that just are not what people think manga. is. And even what's come out within the past couple of years is not what people think manga is. And I just think it's really cool. Yeah, I've gotten a lot of Nagata Khabi's work. We had Matthew Murray on and he recommended her work, their work. I don't actually remember what pronounce I used. In translation, it probably wouldn't make any sense anyway. But I did get all of her works, including her most recent one, which I actually didn't like that much. She's a very frustrating

person to read because she's got like very severe mental health issues and you just want to like grab her by the shoulders and be like what is wrong with you like once in a while it's a very frustrating author but that's that kind of memoir comic is something I would more expect in like a really big format with something like today is the last day of the rest of your life like a really long form memoir that moves really slowly um with a lot of slow moving panels so I imagine there's a lot of stuff coming out that as new translators and new translation outfits and licensing open up, that would be pretty nice. I only had one volume of manga ever as a kid.

So I just had like volume one of Fushigugiugi. And like that was it. I just because we didn't have a bookstore in my town. So I had to get at the mall. And the mall is like an hour drive away. So I think manga collections and rural public libraries probably get a whole lot of play. I'm sure they do around here, although we do still have a mall. So yeah, I can't wait to see what comes out.

And I hope. I was wondering, do you think the uptick in interest is because people are seeing comics as a more viable format for, I want to say adults, but also like older teenagers? Like, is that fueling collection development? I think that might be part of it. It may also just be our generation was more of a graphic reading generation. And therefore we've just sort of brought up like also my generation of like hyper manga fixated people, we've just been very annoying and been like, we want this, we want that. We want we want manga.

That's for us now. We're grownups now. We want to here's our money. We have money. Please take it. So I think that's part of it. But I think, yeah, there is definitely, there's been a shift of taking graphic formats more seriously.

And with that is definitely a movement to start looking at international comics and not just American comics. And that may be part

of the way in. And just kind of looking at what are some of the influences that maybe are at play, which is why I think we're starting to get. There are some very foundational manga that are just now getting translated from like the 80s and 90s or even the 70s. And I think there's just more and more of just seeing graphic formats as literary.

And therefore that's kind of driving things. But also it's just part of it, I think is just that it's selling. And the more it's selling, the more they're willing to put money into it. and the more they're willing to try new things. The weeds have money now. Yeah, pretty much. Is that my only anime drop? I feel like I have more.

I'm going to fix that. Oh, wait. That's right, boys. Mondo cool. Yeah, classic line from that dub. With the book challenges, I guess we could talk about that. I wrote in the notes I was interested in age-appropriate reading, collection development, and current hostility against libraries,

is manga on the radar for groups like Moms for Liberty? The Moms for Liberty in particular? Not yet, but manga is slowly starting to be challenged. There was just a challenge in, I should have written down where it was. I think it was Oklahoma, but I'm not sure. But there was a challenge recently against Fire Force. and that I think is kind of... The one about the firemen?

Yes. The firefighters? Yeah. Is it like a Uri-on-Ice sort of situation where they are beautiful firefighters who long to learn from each other? No, that would actually be... Honestly, I'm not even the biggest fan of fire force, but now I've got to, like, defend it. but it's actually just a

it's a shonen series it actually has some kind of it has the author or the mangaka has a bit of a chip on his shoulder because he has received criticism for his portrayal of women in the series from actually people in from women in Japan

and he actually famously put a chapter in fire force about a woman who is a total shrew and criticizes the girl who frequently is scantily clad. And basically she gets schooled for having her shrewish ways and her son just looks down on her as a horrible woman by the end of the chapter. it's just but at the same time

now he's gotten caught up in the crosshairs of people who actually he might kind of agree with on certain points it's a very messy situation it's because there's there are some sexual situations in the manga

where the character who is scantily clad has like an ability where she makes people grope her. Oh. Yeah. It's confusing to me. So there's scenes where the protagonist will just be groping her. And so quite honestly,

Fire Forces, not necessarily a manga that I want in my school library, because those scenes I find might be particularly triggering for my female students because this doesn't feel consensual. And it's a bit much with how it's portrayed. But it was on, it must have been on somebody's shelf because it's now been pulled from somebody's shelf. And the problem is really that I don't know their collection development policy. I don't know their community. Maybe this is totally fine for their community. Who knows who they serve? Maybe they serve is this school that it was at actually like a school that is a transitional school. You know, there are some schools that serve like populations that are 17 through 21 or students that take a little longer to get through high school.

You don't know exactly like who it is their serving or what it is what their collection is actually entailing. So it's like, I can't make a judgment as an outside person. and if you didn't go through the avenues of actually challenging this appropriately, then we don't know like, is what you had the problem with these particular scenes? Did you actually put them in context? Because even I'm having a hard time remembering to put them in context because I read this like two or three years ago. So it's not easy to like parse through this because it's not as on that. ahead with as it might be with something where it's obviously where it's an obvious attack on

identity or an attack on this. It's like, what is the issue here? Or is this just a way to just keep going at all books haphazardly because we're just flipping through books to find something we don't like and then we'll just keep striking books off as we go down the list. So, It's very messy. And my big concern is once you start getting manga on the radar, then the problematic manga might get the attention of these hyper puritanical people. And then they're going to start looking at the manga that is LGBTQ plus that doesn't have anything like that and is completely appropriate and relevant.

and then where do we go from there? Because then that's what's going to actually get them fired up. Because one of the top-selling manga of the past couple years for Kadansha is a series title, Boys Run the Riot. And it is about a trans boy who starts a fashion line with his best friend and goes on an affirming journey to find his identity and proudly say, I am a boy, this is what I want to do. I am not ashamed of who I am.

It's a beautiful, beautiful manga. And students have told me, I've had a student tell me that nothing has made them feel seen, like this manga has made them feel seen. And if you take that away from my kids, I'm going to be very upset. I'm going to be incredibly upset because they deserve that. Or you're not going to take it from my kids. You're going to take it from kids in places where you have these draconian rules. And I'm just very worried about challenges to any type of manga than leading to just cutting off access and cutting off things that bring kids comfort, bring them joy, bring them community.

and just, because that's the thing, when you cut a kid off from manga and anime, it's not just cutting them off from content, you also can cut them off from community. And isolating a young person is incredibly dangerous. Yeah, and that's always part of the question with these book challenges too, is, you know, there's the problematic content or the stuff that maybe doesn't translate as well, or there's like cultural context.

it's completely missing or completely hard for Americans to understand. There's that sort of thing. And then it gets, yeah, conflated with, like, LGBTQ content and, you know, that sort of narrative. And I grew up with an older brother who was very into manga and anime. And he was a big fan of, uh, Ron Mo one half. And I'm gender fluid. So as I, as I'm sure many, many people are probably read Ronma one half and was like, holy shit, like, you know, it was very self-adenaifying for me. I, you know, I didn't figure

out it was gender fluid until much later in life, but it's like, oh, well, I loved Romo One Half, no wonder. But at the same time, there's a lot of like weird consent stuff in Ronma One Half that is from like, you know, 80s and 90s is it was when that was published, I think. That's about the time I was reading it. But yeah, so, yeah, I could see why manga could be particularly concerning when it comes to book challenges because things like genderqueer, it's pretty obvious on its face why people are against it

or protesting it or whatever. And yeah, if it like skips over your normal sort of challenge procedures, then yeah, a lot of that gets lost because why did you pull it from the shelf if there's no formal challenge to it? Like you have to make them say it explicitly. Otherwise, it just gets lost in the mess.

Yeah, it's like we need to know exactly what it is you have the problem with, not just give us a whole big list of here's everything we want gone and it's all lumped together. And now it's like now you're going to start to because the thing is we also see like, oh, we're going to take it from schools. But now we're going to start to say, oh, we took it out of the schools. So we're going to take it out of the public library. There's absolutely no reason to take fire force out of a public library. It's fine for adults. It's questionable for schools because of what's there and it's sticky and there's just issues there. But for a public library, it's fine.

And that's the conflation that's there too. It's like collection development. And it's what the public doesn't understand. Collection development is different for a school than it is for a public library. And just because something doesn't belong in a school library doesn't mean that it needs to be removed from a public library. But that also doesn't mean that just anybody has the right to say what does or does not go into a school library that needs professional assessment. Yeah, I kind of have a question. Just in general, like you talk about how, you know, taking manga and anime away from these kids is like a breach of community for.

them nonetheless. And like when it comes to those sort of sticky issues, like maybe, you know, you don't have it necessarily in your collection or maybe your kids are reading it through the public library. Like, and you say, you know, you try hard to have a safe space. Like, do you see kind of helping kids navigating some of understanding that and like contextualizing it? Like, do you, do you see a lot of that in your work? Or is that something you'll lean away from? No, because what happens is I get asked, why don't I have this or that? Because I have a huge manga collection. So sometimes what isn't there, sometimes we'll stick out to a kid.

And the thing is, actually, with Fire Force, we've watched the anime, because the anime does not have, is not as problematic as the manga. It's been cleaned up quite a bit. So we've actually watched some of the anime. And we had the discussion. We actually sat down and talked about it. Like, why haven't I bought Fire Force if we've sat down, we've watched it, and I know you all like it, and you're reading it. And we kind of talked about what's in there, like what's the content that. And just kind of having that discussion of like, well, not everybody at the school is ready for this and can understand that maybe this behavior is negative.

or can separate that. And maybe you can, but maybe some other people can. And I need to be careful about making sure that everything is relevant to everybody who comes into the library. So if I know you can access it through the public library, if I know there's other ways for you to get to it, then I won't prioritize it. and I will prioritize getting things that maybe might be harder to get. Being since I kind of find it sticky and it maybe even kind of goes against some of our collection development policies in the city,

then maybe we'll leave that for the public library and I'll just tell you where to get it. But having very honest conversations about why I've made those decisions. And I do allow the students to advocate. Like, if you can advocate back to me a very vital reason, like, why we need this and why my judgment of it might be incorrect, then maybe I'll reassess. And with a couple of series, kids have just turned around and like, no, you're right about that. And there's been some things that I've, I can't think of them off the top of my head right now because I'm trying to think of it and now I can't. But there have been a couple of things that I kind of had a hesitation, but students like made a very strong case for, no, it actually teaches you this lesson, this lesson, this lesson. And so I actually said, okay, we'll get a few volumes of it then.

And then we'll see how it circulates and see how people feel about it. and then maybe we'll get more. So you're like actively inviting your students into parts of your collection management policy? Yes. Yeah. Student inclusion is like super important to everything I do. And that is something that I actively try to. I try to include them in collection development.

I try to include them in what programs we do. That's like super vital to. the work we do. Part of it being part of the school culture, but also some of it just being my own personal philosophy. I mean, that's pretty good. I wish I could get my faculty members as involved in collection development. Basically, I just make all their selections for them and just say, would you ever stamp this please? Which is a really bad system and I don't like doing it, but whatever, it's what we're stuck with for whatever reason. But with the book challenges, like you were saying everything being sort of a list slump together, I think I don't,

as a default, believe anything, anyone bringing these kinds of book challenges has to say about like why they want to challenge a book. I think it's just a rampant anti-intellectualism. And as you said, like once it gets narrower and like they'll focus in on problematic content, that will just be a rationalization after the fact that will, if you take all of this in good faith, you will get tripped up once they learn to do this. So it's a whole point of like, just be aggressively against it in the first place to say, What we've talked about every time we talk about book challenges is saying affirmative defense of curating these things. So we think queer people are cool and we want to have stuff for them in the library.

And that's our position. And yeah, it's subjective, but what are you going to do? Like, you know, you don't get to ask God about whether or not this is like the right thing to do. You just do it. And you're just like, oh, because I like queer people and they're my friends. And I want to have shit that they'll like in the library. and yeah, and that's really the argument. That's the end of the argument.

Hopefully. Yeah, I mean, well, at the end, after that, you just dig in your heels, I think, is really the only thing you do is repeat yourself. That's how I feel about the book challenges. I think taking them seriously is losing the battle before you start because I just don't think any of it's in good faith. I think maybe once in a while you'll get someone saying like, oh, this, it brings up a second thought that I had while you were talking, which was the infantilization. of like adults and saying like, oh, the public library is for children, therefore everything there has to be child appropriate, as if like adults don't use the library, they don't need it.

Like I remember doing college prep stuff and going through biology textbooks. I'm pretty sure there were like anatomy textbooks in the public library, very, very small public library that you wouldn't give to a third grader in their sex ed class. But they were in the public library where they could have just picked them up. And it's like, yeah, because I need that book. I'm not a third grader. So I wonder if maybe that's what people are thinking is at public libraries or primarily for children. Yeah, they're equating it to a place where they took their kids for story time.

And therefore, that's all that happens is children's services without realizing that adult services are actually probably what comprises the majority of a public librarian's day, because children are generally only available for a certain part of the day. So there's a whole other like section of the library they haven't gone into for whatever reason, you know. And people who haven't used the library since they were children, I think is also part of that. I think whenever you work, I saw this a lot in working the front desk at a community college, more or less. The people who need the most are just like the majority of your, business. So it's always the people who always need the most and are also the most intensive in time and support that they need. And that's where a lot of your work and focus goes. So it's a relatively

smaller amount of people who have a disproportionate amount of need. But also libraries are for everyone. And you should just get a library card and go on the e-resources stuff, even if you never want to go down to the branch and read comics on that. So I've been going through our local comics collection, trying to find some stuff that I want to read. But on e databases, how have those been going for comics? I saw you already have written some response in the notes. Yeah. But you don't have to do.

It helps me to like align what I'm going to say. Yeah, me too. So with manga in particular, there's like some interesting stuff that maybe doesn't even really pertain to American comics. manga is actually more widely licensed digitally. So actually, there's way more available in digital format than there is in print. And part of this is because things will go out of print, but rights holders will hold on to the license. Viz does this. Viz will let things go out of print, but they will still hold on to the actual license and still sell the digital version for ages.

there are a lot of titles that like if you go on eBay or whatever, there are YouTubers who are selling volumes of Basara, which is a very wonderful show show manga that many people want to read. And they're selling it for like $1,500 for a set. But if I wanted to go provide that to my students, I could go get the whole set on Overdrive and add it. to my SORA collection for $699 a volume. So, but it won't be in print.

The manga community does kind of prioritize things in print, but that is because there is a collector's community that kind of, it's becoming very akin to the retro gaming community. And just this, that's its own sort of animal. But really, you can get a ton of stuff. in digital and it's a wider diversity of stuff. Most of what Kodansha has in their digital first licenses is actually feminine stuff. So it's Shozhou and Josei.

So Shosio being for girls, Jose being for women. And those titles, they actually put out pretty regularly. They're constantly pumping out these really great titles for girls and women, but they're only on digital. People actually call it digital jail because you can't buy it in print,

but it's available. And there's a wider variety there. There is some stuff that doesn't get digitally licensed, and that'll be according to the Mangaka's preference, so the creator's preference. So things like Rosa Versailles does not have a digital equivalent. Dark Horse, does not release their things in digital.

Neither does Denpa, which is a smaller publisher, and they publish really good stuff. So I'm always buying their stuff in print just for me. And they do like French flaps, beautiful paper, wonderful printing. They take forever, but it's worth it. They, yeah, and they get really rare, wonderful licenses. Like, they always come out with things and you're like, wait, they got that?

How? How'd they even find? somebody to let them have it. Just crazy stuff. So it really comes down to does the Mangaka want it available digitally? Are they comfortable with that?

Some of them aren't because a lot of them have experienced piracy. And so they would rather their work not be available digitally as much as possible. They're trying to restrict as much of the digital availability as possible. Unfortunately, I don't know how successful

that is in preventing the piracy of their work. But that seems to be their line of thinking. And also some of them just feel that their work, I think with Ikeda, the Mangaka behind Rosa Versa, I think she just purely feels that her work needs to be on paper. I think that's an old traditionalist Shozhou Mangaka point of view. That's some of what you're kind of dealing with. there's most of the manga publishers are available on overdrive the only major one that isn't is yen press but they are now partnered with comics plus through library library pass and so now things like emma and a bride story some really great yen press titles are now available digitally that were not available digitally before so

I think Comics Plus is like your best bang for your buck. If you want to just, if you want to just have like a nice prepaid, I'm just going to give some money over. And I've got manga and comics and whatever. It's there and it's taking care of for you. And the selection and the age leveling is all done for you. And you don't have to stress about it. So I think that, particularly for schools,

it's a very nice solution for schools. and my kids actually use our comics plus more than they use our SORA, even though we've got a ton of stuff on SORA through the New York City collection. I think they actually like the interface better. And what is Sora? Is that like Libby? Yes, that is the school version of Libby. Ah, so you learn something now. So it's owned by Overdrive, like everything.

Yeah, like everything. Overdrive is the worst. Well, they're not as bad as Was the one that just had all that Nazi shit That Callan was talking about? Hoopla? Yeah. For being chuds.

Yeah. Yeah. Isn't Shōjou manga, because that's mostly what you've been talking about. It's also published differently, because I was just reading a manga about Shio manga creator. And isn't it published in a different book format in Japan?

Does that, like, limit the print options as well? Once they license translations? No, all manga, once it's collected, is put into what they call Tenkoban. It's a pretty standardized format. But Shozhou is put into, basically it's what magazine it gets put into. So Shozhou magazines are towards girls. But actually, there's like a wide array of like what will be in a particular Shosho magazine. Some of them will be more fantasy.

sea base. Some of them will have more like school stories. Some of them will be on the older range of Shozhou. Maybe like girls just going into college and, you know, having first love there. There's like a wide array of stuff. And there's horror Shosho. Tomi by Junji Ito. That is Shosho. So there's like the idea of what Shosho is, but it's really just a demographic. And it's very wide, although there are conventions. So Shozhou tends to have like more wide open pages, more focus on wide glittering eyes, more emotionality. And then Shonen, which is for boys, tends to be a bit more action based, tighter panels, more array effects kind of in the background. A lot of people will say that Shonen manga looks very busy to them.

And actually, there's some Shonin manga that, like, I even have a hard time reading because it's like, it's so much on a page because I'm more of a Shozha reader. And so I like the nice flow and ebb. Not that I don't read any Shonan, but some of it is like, it can be like very visually. Like, it's kind of like a punch in the face sometimes because that's, That's the feeling it wants you to have. Like, you're in the action. You're there. But some people play with, it's just like with regular comics, though.

Some artists will play more with panels. Some people will break the rules. And some people bring some show show show show show. Some shonen stuff over into Shonin. Like, there's a lot more malleability, particularly now, because they're just kind of playing with the format. Yeah, I think it's a good time. for the industry, although I wonder how long it will last.

Watching, like, things get anime adaptations and then kind of, you know that they will never finish. So there was one, I want to say it's Shonen, but they did one season that was like really beautifully animated, and I'm like, they're never going to finish. It was like seven years ago now. I'm like, okay, well, I know the comic goes further than that, so I'll just have to read the comic if I want to get back to it. Yeah. And there's the other few things that are like animated like garbage.

And you're just like, oh, it's season five, cool. Generally speaking, really beautifully animated anime, if it is usually a commercial for the manga. It's a way to get you to read the manga. That's usually what it is. That's what a lot of show show show anime tends to be nowadays, but you'll get the 12 episode core. And then it's like, okay, if you want to know what happens,

You're going to like, yeah, where's season two of Yona of the Dawn, which has like 38 volumes now? It's one of the most popular manga in Japan. Season two, who knows? So. Interesting. I don't know this one. It looks like Inayasha, just its style. It's what it reminds me of.

It's kind of, I mean, I guess stylistically, it's kind of similar. It's, it's about a princess who basically has lived kind of a, calm, quiet life for most of her life. And then one night her cousin, who she has had a crush on for all of her life, kills her father. And she finds herself thrust into being an outcast as she runs away with her bodyguard into the wilderness and has to assemble a group of people to try and take back her kingdom. And it's like, it's a total 180 from the first volume as it's, it gets very bloody and very dark, but also has like a very sweet romance to it. It's, it's a very popular series. And who knows when it will end. So, so thinking about educating or helping other librarians,

What like three manga do you wish like every librarian would read? I think everybody should read Which Hat Atelier, which is probably my favorite manga. It is a manga that has the most gorgeous artwork. Kamome Sharama is the Mangaka. And she just has the most beautiful line art. Every panel is gorgeous. And it is about a young girl who discovers the truth about magic in her world and has to try and uncover all the secrets of magic in her world in order to try and save her mother. But there's also like a delicate wonder and joy to it.

So it's not all sadness and, oh, no, my poor mom. I accidentally turned her into stone. There's, there's like a, there's so much beauty and life to it. And there's more than just the protagonist, too. As she goes on her journey, like things widen out and you start to see more and more of the world. And it's actually an incredibly diverse manga. And it's getting more and more depth as the volumes progress. And it's dealing with deeper and deeper issues.

In the most recently published volume, it actually dealt with childhood sexual assault and very mature but not overly explicit way. And it's a wonderful manga. It is the ultimate replacement for that wizard boy book series. Second, I mean, I want everybody to read Cat Plus Gamer, but that is my personal bias. I personally have a bias towards cat manga. Cat Plus gamer is actually just a really nice, sweet manga about an office lady who takes in a cat, and she happens to be a gamer. And she approaches raising her cat in the same way you would build a character in a video game.

That's adorable. Yeah, she levels up her cat. or at least she's trying to. But yeah, it's just a cute juxtaposition of cats in video games and with a female protagonist. And it just, it's just a really good series. And probably Boys Run the Riot, which I talked about earlier. It's any series that a student tells me such a, gives me such an endorsement of,

I will go to bat for forever. I personally love it and I personally enjoyed it, but it meant so much more to that student than that student had read so many other things but had never talked about anything else the way they talked about boys from the riot. Great. I think that's a good spot for everyone to get started. Is there anything you want to plug while we wrap up? Anything you want people to read? I'll definitely have your website and some of the articles that we read.

Is there anything else you want people to be aware of? Let me see. Yeah, my main thing is my site manga librarian. I try to put things out regularly, but it comes in spurts when I have time. Also, when people need things, I do take requests. So if there's like a pressing collection development need,

if you're trying to find a review for something, I'll review it. I also wrote an article on collection development for the, for booklists guide to graphic novels and libraries, which is their one that they actually have freely available. Like, you don't have to pay to access it. So I wrote an article on collection development, which is actually geared towards any librarian, not just school librarians. And yeah, I write an article monthly for Knowledge Quest. I'm out there. I'm always around.

I'm always happy to answer questions about manga. I'm always happy to, I'm always happy to help because I know this can be confusing for people. I'm always happy to define things, to explain things. Awesome. I'll put all that in the, actually I already have. So thanks so much for coming on. Yeah, thanks for coming on.

Kept it under an hour and a half this time. We've been going long in a lot of our episodes. And good. night.