Library Wars: Love and War

Library Wars: Love and War, Volumes 1-9 by Hiro Arikawa, 1784 pages

Library Wars: Love and War is an interesting manga series. As you can guess from the title it takes place in and around a library, but it is not about two warring libraries. Instead it is about a library systems fight against censorship. It tells of a Media Betterment Act (MBA) that bans all media that could be harmful to Japan, the setting in most manga. Through this act they (the Media Betterment Committee (MBC)) tries to confiscate and destroy everything they deem to be harmful.

The harshness of the censorship prompts some local governments to for a Library Defense Force that protects the libraries, which become Library Defense Force bases, from the MBC. This leads to some armed clashes and raids from the MBC. The manga itself follows the life of a new recruit to the Library Defense Force named Iku Kasahara through her struggles with the MBC, life and of course love.

I really enjoyed reading this manga series but in some ways it hits too close to home. Already we are seeing the first signs of censorship in this country. There are books that are banned from some schools and Google can give you a list of books that were banned by school and or libraries at one time. Right now there are no laws I am aware of that would prevent libraries or schools from having these books if they can stand the angry parents and patrons having those books might bring.

 But what if a law passed banning those books? What would the libraries here do? While I hope it never happens it is interesting to consider how everyone would react.