From our other sites
The story
Calls spread across social media to have manga titles like “Resista” and “The Apothecary Diaries” designated as harmful publications over their sexual content — calls that even made it onto a politician’s blog — and the story became a hot topic on 5ch. It started with criticism of “Resista”‘s middle-aged male protagonist, but once users pointed out that the same logic applied to the age gap between Jinshi and Maomao in “The Apothecary Diaries,” the backlash spread to BL (boys’ love) and TL (teens’ love) titles as well. The thread saw criticism that regulation of sexual content skews heavily toward male-oriented works, mixed with pushback against the whole “ban whatever I personally dislike” mindset.
On the Harmful-Publication Designation Tied to “Resista” and “The Apothecary Diaries” – Jun Nagaki (ながきじゅん) | Senkyo.com
11/6/2026
Right now on X (formerly Twitter),
Source: go2senkyo.com / Original article here
What people said
Women go out of their way to march right into stuff they find offensive and try to stamp it out.
That's true.
Women tend to not be able to just ignore something they don't like once it's in their field of view — they try to crush it.
Same thing with throwing out a husband's collection.
Wonder what's going through their heads with that one.
I first learned the word and concept of "dōtan kyohi" (refusing to associate with fans who like the same idol/character) from the internet.
That's not a mindset a guy would ever come up with on his own.
Probably reflects the gender ratio of sex offenders.
You could also chalk it up to the physical difference needed to actually commit violence.
Why is Teens Love (TL) — manga even minors can read — so ridiculously explicit?
Some unregulated BL is even aimed at kids, so "lax" doesn't even begin to cover it.
At the end of the day it's just "I don't like it, so ban it!"
They dress it up with all sorts of rhetoric, but that's all it really boils down to.
Pretty much every argument in this world comes down to that.
What you'd call "position talk" — self-interest dressed up as principle.
Isn't "The Apothecary Diaries" aimed at middle/high schoolers?
Personally I prefer "Osouji-san," the one people call a ripoff of it, lol
The Apothecary Diaries fanbase is mostly adults, I'd say — sure, there are some middle/high schoolers too, but…
Threads about YouTubers and TikTokers/streamers get made on this board all the time now, so they probably figured slapping a "(streamer)" tag on it makes it fair game.
BL, yeah, that's a no-go.
End result: even more works end up getting dragged into the mess.
This would've all been over if the feminists had just said sorry and backed down.
I don't think all BL should be banned, but…
if it were male-oriented, stuff at this level would get banned without question — it's been running wild. It's just weird that it's been left alone until now.
Re: #42
Looking at how this played out, nobody actually set out to torch The Apothecary Diaries.
It was more like: "Depending on how you look at it, Resista and The Apothecary Diaries are both creepy the same way, right? So if you're going to regulate Resista, you'd have to regulate The Apothecary Diaries too."
And it should've ended right there with: "Yeah, both are creepy, but neither needs to be regulated."
That's the nature of a pile-on campaign, so it can't be helped.
You say "oji attack," but people turn into stalkers within the same age group too.
If the standard is "it could lead to crime," wouldn't you have to ban all romance?
Up until then she just read as a young adult woman — what's even the basis for criticizing it?
Come on, spoiling it for us free-chapter readers!
For The Apothecary Diaries, the counter-argument is: isn't it just a powerful man one-sidedly piling on romantic and sexual feelings for a 16-17-year-old girl who has zero interest in him and is actually put off by it?
As I recall, it went: "Resista's protagonist is creepy" → countered with "well, Jinshi is creepy too."
I see — yeah, the Resista old guy is definitely creepy, but Jinshi just got dragged into it for no reason, lol
It's not about looks — it's because Maomao was a minor at the start of the story…
The people who were bashing Resista turned around and defended The Apothecary Diaries as "different"…
But if the rule is "any sexual content you personally dislike gets torched and banned," they got hit with the counter: "fine, then any sexual content I dislike gets torched too, right?"
That's way worse than Resista…
What both have in common is that an older guy obsessing over a young girl is just creepy, period.
The age gap in The Apothecary Diaries is only 2-3 years.
If there's a difference, it's that Jinshi's actual age goes from 19 to 22, so if you really wanted to force a defense, you could call it age-appropriate romance.
Background and Key Issues
Harmful-publication designations are based on prefectural youth-protection ordinances and restrict how books can be sold in stores on grounds of sexual or violent content; the standards and enforcement vary by local government. The sticking point in this thread was the claim that such regulation falls heavily on male-oriented works while rarely touching female-oriented genres like BL and TL — a “bias.” Some pushed back, noting that Maomao, the heroine of “The Apothecary Diaries,” ages from 19 to 22 over the course of the story, so judging the series purely on an age gap misses that context. The thread revealed that both sides of the debate, despite holding opposite positions, were leaning on the same underlying logic — “ban whatever content I personally dislike” — suggesting the fight over regulating sexual content is a structural problem that goes well beyond any single title.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Entertainment & Sports Breaking News+) thread “[Manga] On the Harmful-Publication Designation Tied to “Resista” and “The Apothecary Diaries”.”
Leave a Reply