Permitted and Prohibited Desires: Mothers, Comics, and Censorship in Japan

Erect-nippled, cartoonish breasts floating, like clouds, across a children’s television program; sexually explicit scenes of rape and brutality mainstreamed in mass-marketed, highly accessible comic books for both children and adults; food in children’s lunch boxes meticulously sculpted to look like Zen monks (hard-boiled egg) or octopuses (wieners