Seven Seas Entertainment apparently caved in from the pressure from some very vocal anime fans and canceled Nymphet. Forumers at the Anime News Network forums seem to believe that their discussion about the title brought on this decision. Their discussion mainly focused on how it would change the perception of manga and anime in the United States (ok, most of it had to do with whether the content of the manga was “wrong” or not.)

To be honest, I’m not really sure what I think about Seven Seas’s decision. I can understand the reasoning behind it. They would certainly be under a considerable amount of flak if some popular news outlet got a hold of the manga and started talking about how manga is geared toward pedophiles. That would certainly be bad press. It’s unfortunate that America was founded by puritans (and by that, I don’t mean the actually country, but more like a lot of the original settlers had very deep religious ideologies which carried into the American moral fiber.)

What I don’t like is the fact that many people in that forum had never actually read the manga. To be perfectly honest, I’ve only read little snippets here and there of it, but I actually haven’t made any judgments about it. I was planning on buying the manga to see if I’d like it. Judging from the little bits I read, it’s actually pretty entertaining.

I believe that this whole ordeal would have been better played out if everyone participated actually read the source material. The whole columnist that started it all didn’t even read it. It seems as though most of this was caused by sheer paranoia, which is somewhat understandable since such paranoia occurs throughout history. It still really sucks, though, and I hate unnecessary paranoia and the easily susceptible people who are affected by it. In conclusion, I hate people.

It’s also interesting to note that the Anime News Network went down not too long after the news was announced. I wouldn’t be surprised if this had something to do with some pissed off 4channers.