"Raunchy" Shoujo Manga?

Another piece of trashy J-news from WaiWai, this time about American girls' obsession with shoujo manga. Besides having some interesting observations, the article is chock full of the usual tabloid silliness characteristic of this news source, which is, of course, what makes it amusing. The article starts with:

"Americans can't get enough of shojo manga, the racy comic books for elementary schoolgirls that have recently been filled with stories with such themes as homosexual love and relations between incestuous lesbian sisters"

Heh... "racy" comic books for "elementary schoolgirls." And those topics sound pretty indecent.

"We now devote one third of our entire floor space to comics," Shingo Nozaki, an employee at Japanese bookseller Kinokuniya's suburban New York outlet

About 80 percent of the store's customers are American teen girls.

"Kids from junior high and high school flood into the store as soon as school finishes," Nozaki tells Shukan Shincho.

The popularity of manga is definitely intersting. The "suburban New York outlet" mentioned here seems to refer to the Kinokuniya branch at the Pallisades Mall in Nyack. I do wonder why they go to Kino instead of just Borders; guess Kino is just cooler. And, where in the previous quote they say that this manga is for elementary school girls, now they say that it's junior high and high schoolers who are buying it.

Well then, so where is this "racy" indecency mentioned in the opening paragraph?

Currently selling well in the U.S. is Fruits Basket, a shojo manga by Natsuki Takaya. Fortunately, the weekly opines, that's a decent story unlikely to create an unfavorable impression of Japan.

"Our biggest sellers," Nozaki tells Shukan Shincho "are undoubtedly the shojo manga that have the cutest pictures."

Yeah... Fruits Basket. I can't think of anything less indecent than that. And the biggest sellers are the ones with the "cutest pictures." Raunchy, elementary school indecency seems nowhere to be found.

Those who are reading carefully may notice that yesterday's Techno-Elitism (5) entry is now missing. I made a serious factual error in one of the features I was discussing and have withdrawn the article, pending repair.