In a controversial decision, the Brevard County School Board has banned the popular Japanese manga Sasaki & Miyano, Vol. 1 from its district libraries, despite the book’s content not violating state statutes.
The decision came after a brief discussion at the board’s meeting on Aug 27, 2024, where the relationship depicted in the manga and its unconventional format were cited as reasons for its removal.
During the board meeting, Chair Megan Wright stated that while Sasaki & Miyano did not explicitly violate House Bill 1069, which restricts certain graphic depictions and other content in school materials, she still found the content inappropriate for students.
Wright specifically highlighted the manga’s focus on a romantic relationship between two male characters as inappropriate, although she insisted that the relationship itself was not the reason for the book’s removal.
She also questioned the way the book was read ‘backwards’ when kids should be reading books from left to right, bottom to top.
“I am not going to be voting to keep this one there, and I’m just going to tell you why,” Wright said. “This book focuses on nothing other than a relationship that’s inappropriate. You start the book, you read it backwards, you read it. I mean, literally, when you start reading a book, which we’ve been teaching our kids from day one, you start at the beginning and read from left to right, bottom to top. Not that book, you don’t. And so it’s just, to me, I’m going, no this is not the highest and best book we can offer our kids.“
Board Member Katye Campbell also expressed her personal dislike for the book, calling it “kind of stupid,” but acknowledged that it did not violate any statutes.
Despite this, Wright and other board members decided to pull the manga from school libraries. Jennifer Jenkins and Katye Campbell voted against the removal of the book.
The initial complaint:
Sasaki & Miyano is a manga series by Shou Harusono that follows the budding relationship between two high school boys. It features common young adult themes, such as dealing with teenage crushes and navigating personal identities.
However, the fact that both main characters are male was a key point of contention for a woman who filed a formal complaint against the book in March.
Despite admitting to never having read the manga, she claimed that its content could be harmful to students and that it might encourage or suggest sexual orientation to young readers.
“Sexual orientation should not be encouraged, suggested or implanted in our youth,” she wrote in her complaint. “Children are harmed by being exposed to age-inappropriate, obscene, explicit content. These experiences can lead to struggles with porno, compulsive masturbation, sexual identity, shame, self-esteem, and developing and maintaining healthy relationships.“
Interestingly, this complainant suggested Chainsaw Man manga as an alternative to Sasaki and Miyano.
Part of a larger trend:
The ban on Sasaki & Miyano is part of a larger trend of book challenges across Florida, where parents and community members have raised concerns over materials they consider inappropriate for school libraries.
These challenges have often targeted books featuring LGBTQ characters, despite such content not necessarily violating the statutes set by House Bill 1069.
In many cases, including Brevard’s decision, books have been banned as a precautionary measure. In fact, in December last year, the Florida government argued that that school districts should have a First Amendment right to remove LGBTQ books, or any books for that matter.
The decision to ban Sasaki & Miyano has already sparked debate among community members, with some, including the BPS board member Jennifer Jenkins, questioning the board’s rationale for removing a book that does not violate state laws.
“Today in Brevard County we banned a book because our chair couldn’t understand why a Japanese translation was being read from right to left. Well that & she accidentally said the LGBTQ relationship was ‘inappropriate‘,” Jenkins said in her post on X.
As part of the formal review process, Sasaki & Miyano was initially removed from circulation pending a committee review.
The review committee had recommended keeping the book in libraries, citing no statutory violations. However, with the board’s decision, the manga will remain banned from Brevard district libraries.
Other titles currently under review in Brevard County include People Kill People by Ellen Hopkins.