Anime News

Manga-ka in Tiff with Son's School
Date: 9/3/2005
Award Winning Manga-ka Scolded for Basing Manga Events on Real School


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Manga-ka Rieko Saibara is embroiled in a dispute with the school her eldest son attends, regarding a panel of her manga "Mainichi Kasan" ("Daily/Everyday Mom"), where 5 school children are called "the 5 class dummies".

After the panel was published in November she was called in by her son's class teacher, who told her that she was causing trouble for the school and demanded that she refrain from depicting school scenes. This begat a longer dispute that remains unresolved today. Saibara says her work is fiction and that she has the right to freedom of expression, while the school says she should take more consideration for the other children and their patrons and that her manga clearly depicts that school, even featuring that school's name.

Saibara received the Japan Media Arts Festival Award last year, and the Tezuka Osamu Cultural Prize this year, both for her work on Mainichi Kasan. The strip depicts the daily life of a woman and her children.
Source: Anime News Network