...

Shueisha Ends Serialization Of Mariko Kikuchi’s Manga For Hurting Religious Sentiments

The manga ended serialization due to insufficient fact-checking and incorrect expression of the theme.

The editorial department of Shueisha announced on March 17, 2022, that Mariko Kikuchi’s essay manga titled “Kami-sama” no Iru Ie de Sodachimashita ~Shūkyō 2-Sei na Watashi-tachi~ (A Home Life With God ~We Children Born Into Religion~) on the publisher’s Yomitai website has ended serialization due to insufficient fact-checking and incorrect expression of the theme.

Shueisha explained, “There were some places where the editorial department did not sufficiently confirm the facts and examine the expressions at the production stage.”

kamisama banner01 scaled e1631770873153

The publisher suspended chapters 1-4 marking them as “under reexamination” and had to terminate the release of chapter 5 due to the wrong depiction of the “children born into religion”.

According to Yomitai, the 5th chapter released in February strayed from the theme which centers on the problems faced between the children born into a faith and their “relationship with parents”. Instead, the chapter focused on the main character being in anguish due to the antisocial nature of the cult.

“The purpose of this work was to raise issues about the anguish that “children born into religion” has in “relationship with parents”, but in the fifth episode, There was a part that was drawn as if it were the antisocial nature of the cult/doctrine is the cause of the anguish of the main character.”

As a result, readers who believe in particular faiths or groups were affected, and no amount of discussion with the author could solve the problem.

“We have continued discussions, but we could not find a landing point,” said Kikuchi.

Kikuchi started serializing “Kami-sama” no Iru Ie de Sodachimashita ~Shūkyō 2-Sei na Watashi-tachi~ on Sept 22, 2021. The final chapter was released and terminated on Feb 26, 2022.

The anthology essay manga tells a different story about a different faith every chapter, and center on children who were born into a religion due to having parents practicing the faith, and who had no choice in their entry into the religion. Kikuchi draws from her own experience of being born into a religion.

Kikuchi’s A Life Turned Upside Down: My Dad’s an Alcoholic (Yō to Bakemono ni Naru Chichi ga Tsurai) manga ran in Akita Shoten’s Champion Cross magazine in 2017. A new one-shot then ran in Akita Shoten’s Elegance Eve magazine later that year. Akita Shoten published one volume for the manga. Seven Seas Entertainment licensed the manga and will release it in November.

The manga inspired a live-action film that opened in Japan in March 2020.

Source: Yomitai, Kyodo

Related posts

1 thought on “Shueisha Ends Serialization Of Mariko Kikuchi’s Manga For Hurting Religious Sentiments”

  1. Haven’t read the manga, but I think the whole culture of Manga-making is also to inspire people to think differently. And as such, perhaps a slight warning would have been sufficient. Imagine an idea being good (albeit not “reasonable”), but being censored because readers disapprove of it.

    Thing is, they can always avoid reading Manga they disapprove of. A decreasing readership, but certainly with the freedom of being able to say what has to said.

    Reply

Leave a Comment