THE MANGA BIBLE - AKA - The idiotic spin of Journalists!

I don't know if anyone else in the UK caught the Jeremy Vyne show on BBC Radio 2 dated the 23rd December 2008...

...there was a discussion about The Manga Bible where our host was asking listeners if they thought it should exist.

The presenter pretty much said, to paraphrase 'should bible stories be presented through a medium that was associated with violence and pornography?'

Obviously designed to get people 'talking' (it annoyed me anyway)... can't all forms of media be associated with violence and pornography anyway?

The media uses this kind of technique when it wants to whip its readers into a frenzy in order to sell newspapers bait listeners etc.

I seem to recall that The Sun ran scare campaigns over the Child's Play movies on one page whilst accepting (cash) advertisements for the cinema release of Halloween 4 a few pages later.

Anyone with any knowledge of Manga knows that violence and pornography are not the only focus of this medium... hell anyone who reads and watches films should know this without any specialist knowledge of this sub-genre, but many listeners will have taken this to heart and believed it to be gospel.

I don't claim to be an expert on this style of animation, but from my own limited exposure to the genre, I've seen a few violent and pornographic examples, but I've also seen just as many films that are upbeat, magical and even spiritual - the work of Studio Gibli comes to mind here.

One particular caller mentioned that there was the same kind of reaction to Bible stories being re-written in modern English back in the day.

To me, this kind of journalism is no better than the shock theatre of the Jerry Springer's of the world. I mentioned the comments of Mr. Vyne to a friend in this context, and although I know he's an intelligent human being, he could not make the connection.

For me this boils down to a simple fact, when will human beings accept that human beings responsible for violent acts should be held accountable for these acts... and yet there's still this need to blame inanimate objects for violent behaviour etc.

This morning, I looked at pictures from last nights celebrations and found images of alcohol fueled violence in graphic detail, for the UK at any rate.

People and the culture they have created around themselves are responsible.

Don't blame the beer it has no thought process, you do!