While Yusei Matsui has had a stellar year with his latest manga adaptation of The Elusive Samurai garnering acclaim, his previous hit, Assassination Classroom, has seen better days. As reported by WMBF News on November 15, 2024, Horry County School District recently moved to take Assassination Classroom out of its libraries, without possibility of a challenge for five years. The request was initially made by a concerned mother of a ninth grader who checked the book out, with the mother citing the series' "pictures of violence, guns, and other content she believes is inappropriate for students her daughter’s age."

Despite Assassination Classroom being about its main characters killing their powerful otherworldly homeroom teacher to save their planet, the series' violence and other mature themes are quite tame. The manga is well-loved by its readers and was nominated for the Best U.S. Edition of International Material—Asia category at the 2016 Eisner Awards, indicating strong critical reception in the United States. However, the ban on Assassination Classroom in American school libraries is merely the latest in media censorship.

Assassination Classroom: One of the Most Banned Manga in the United States

The Knee-Jerk Reaction Is Understandable

Given its premise and the persistent problem of violence or shootings in US schools, the reactionary stance to ban Assassination Classroom is an incident not isolated to Horry County. Comics Beat reported the series as the most prominently banned manga in America in 2023, "banned in 6 school districts, banned pending investigation in 3 school districts, and removed without a formal ban in 1 district." This places the manga above My Hero Academia, Soul Eater, and Black Butler, the latter of which is far less tame than Assassination Classroom.

Anime News Network further reported that the manga depicts "handguns, rifles, knives, and potions," as the parent further claimed, prompting a District Reconsideration Committee review. The review's results resulted in the formal removal, yet another instance of schools banning reading content due to subject matter viewed as indecent or promoting violence. This places Assassination Classroom and other manga in fascinating company as an important topic in American literature sensibilities.

Assassination Classroom s Prominent Books as Banned Literature in Libraries

Their Removal Will Prompt Greater Readership

The problem with prompting this removal is that it can often provoke the curiosity of its readers, especially with Assassination Classroom being a comedy with great characters, Assassination Classroom's ban is surely a misguided decision. But it also places the manga in surprising company alongside prominent American literature like To Kill a Mockingbird.

But as Erin Gruwell, the teacher behind The Freedom Writers Diary has put it, "The best way to get a teenager to read a book is to ban it." Given that The Freedom Writers Diary was also banned this year from Horry County School libraries, according to MyHorryNews, for being "age-inappropriate," it couldn't be more on the nose. As for Assassination Classroom, its removal will certainly not prevent it from being accessed by curious readers, bringing into question what was truly accomplished with this ban.

Sources: WMBF, Comics Beat, Anime News Network, MyHorryNews