Maryland School District to Remove Dragon Ball Manga Due to "Sexual Content"

Humberto Saabedra

Dragon Ball Volume 1

The Wicomico County Public Schools will seek to remove all copies of the Dragon Ball manga from its elementary and middle schools after after a county council member showed what he described as “sexual” content in the volume.

During Tuesday’s council meeting, the concil member said, “In cartoon format, [the manga volume] depicts nudity, sexual contact between children and sexual innuendo among adults and children.” Wicomico Schools Superintendent John Fredericksen added, “I’d say it’s coming off the shelves as soon as I can get a phone call back to the office.”

A committee will make the final decision on the book sometime this week, as Fredricksen stated that graphic novels appeal to children who are not reading traditional books and that the manga volume was possibly purchased with grant funding, meaning that the committee will need to consider the decision to pull the series.

Seems to me that the parent should have focused on explaining the content found in the book, but that required her to do her job as a parent, which obviously didn’t happen.

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Journalist since 2006, initially covering the retail wireless sector before pivoting to anime and manga trade reporting in 2008. Founder and publisher of AnimeNews.biz (2008–2017), followed by a 13-year tenure at Crunchyroll News (2011–2024) and launching K-Comics Beat with Comics Beat in 2024. Now stripping away consumer noise to build independent, data-backed intelligence desks focused on cross-border licensing telemetry, production committee balance sheets, and industrial supply-chain forensics.

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