Jason Thompson, Author at Gizmodo

Escape from Canada’s Manga Censorship Dungeon

Last summer, civil liberties groups Comic Book Legal Defense Fund and Comic Legends Legal Defense Fund helped defend Ryan Matheson, an American citizen who faced a year in Canadian prison for possession of child pornography. Why? The charges against the 27-year-old software engineer had come via Canadian customs officers who found manga on Matheson’s laptop.…

Books & Comics Jason Thompson Mar 19

Why Manga Publishing Is Dying (And How It Could Get Better)

If in 2007, manga was like a foreign movie star who had arrived on American shores to make it big, the last four years have been like watching that star run out of roles, run out of money, sell their house, go into rehab, and end up barely limping along in infomercials. Dropping Sales Manga…

io9 Jason Thompson Jan 23

American Faces Minimum 1 Year in Prison for Bringing Manga to Canada On His Laptop

If you’re traveling to Canada, a country whose customs officials are notorious for playing the role of morality police, you’d better leave your Japanese comics at home — whether they’re in print or digital. The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund announced today in a press release that it’s forming a coalition to support the defense…

Books & Comics Jason Thompson Jun 24

Manga’s Greatest Apocalypses

From earthquakes to slime molds, from zombies to the romance of decay, here are the manga you’ll want to read to prepare for the End of Days. “Visions of world cataclysm constitute one of the most powerful and most mysterious of all the categories of science fiction,” wrote J.G. Ballard, apocalyptic sci-fi writer extraordinaire, in…

io9 Jason Thompson May 9

5 Brilliantly Perverted Manga

Before Pokémon in Toys-R-Us and Naruto in Wal-Mart, before manga was all about selling stuff to 14-year-olds, there was a time when anime and manga were all about sexual degeneracy. Of course, America is just as infested as Japan is with weird pornography, impreg fanfic and “secret baby” romance novels. But what manga does have,…

Books & Comics Jason Thompson May 7

To Protect and Kill: Morality in Action Manga

Just as Watchmen criticized the morality of superhero comics, manga like Bokurano and Fullmetal Alchemist criticize the “smiles and happy endings” of shonen manga. “I…hate hurting things…and breaking things…I wish we could all get along…If I can avoid a battle…I think that’s best…” — To-Ru Zekuu and Yuna Takanagi, Shiki Tsukai “I’m not going to…

io9 Jason Thompson Mar 11

The Long Tentacle of H.P. Lovecraft in Manga (NSFW)

Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos has left its slimy mark on Japanese manga, anime, pinball, and dating sim games. It always comes back to those infamous tentacles, as seen in adult horror anime such as Toshio Maeda’s Urotsukidoji: Legend of the Overfiend. H.P. Lovecraft (1890-1937), the famous horror writer, hated seafood, and he filled his stories with…

io9 Jason Thompson Jan 4

Lovecraft In Japan part 2

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io9 Jason Thompson Jan 4

Militant Cute and Sexy Politics in Japanese Moe Comics [NSFW]

The Japanese catchphrase moe means “budding,” mostly applied to young girls. But it’s also part of Japanese political satire – in moe comics, the U.S. military and war-torn countries of Central Asia are represented as cute girls and metrosexual boys. If phatic language is language which smooths over social tasks and reassures us rather than…

Books & Comics Jason Thompson Nov 13

Dragon Ball, Spice and Wolf, and “Low-Class Filth” in Manga (NSFW)

Why have so many manga titles – including the ever-popular Dragon Ball – been censored in the United States? The fact is that fans here buy manga because they love the Japanese sensibility that censors want to whitewash out. “What a hideous and polluted land I have come to unawares!” -the Shinto deity Izanagi upon…

io9 Jason Thompson Oct 16

Jason Thompson

Escape from Canada’s Manga Censorship Dungeon

Why Manga Publishing Is Dying (And How It Could Get Better)

American Faces Minimum 1 Year in Prison for Bringing Manga to Canada On His Laptop

Manga’s Greatest Apocalypses

5 Brilliantly Perverted Manga

To Protect and Kill: Morality in Action Manga

The Long Tentacle of H.P. Lovecraft in Manga (NSFW)

Lovecraft In Japan part 2

Militant Cute and Sexy Politics in Japanese Moe Comics [NSFW]

Dragon Ball, Spice and Wolf, and “Low-Class Filth” in Manga (NSFW)

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