An announcement last month by Digital Manga Publications that it had been asked to remove its yaoi titles from the DMP iPad app has raised the specter of a new wave of censorship that appears to be especially directed at gay-themed comics.  In an article on the Manga Bookshelf site, Melinda Beasi makes the case that the Apple’s “iCensorship” falls most heavily on gay material.

 

Beasi quotes Jennifer LeBlanc, the editor of Viz Media’s new BL (“Boys Love” or yaoi) imprint stating frankly, “Because of Apple’s strict content policy, we have no plans for developing an iOS app at this time.”  Of course the future of yaoi on the iPad might be gray rather than black, because at least some of DMP’s yaoi titles still remain available via its iPad app at the time this article was written, though DMP’s February Twitter announcement indicates that time might not be on the publisher’s side.

 

Apple’s censorship of comics is not limited to material with homosexual themes.  But in making her case that it is applied with greater vigor to gay-themed comics, Beasi points out that there is a wide range of yaoi titles from those that depict nothing more than a kiss to books filled with nudity and sexual activities, so to categorically ban yaoi titles of all sorts (if indeed that is what is happening with DMP’s titles) would be unfair, especially given the nudity and explicit examples of heterosexual activity Beasi found in iPad versions of DC’s Catwoman #1 and Y: The Last Man #57.