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Here's part 2 of my conversation with Comic Vine's Babs on rape, female sexuality in comics, and in this particular video, more on hentai versus American porno comics.

It occurred to me as I was editing the video another point I completely failed to make: although we've moved leaps and bounds, America still sticks with the general idea that comic books and video games are for kids, which is another reason why sexualization on the same level as a fair amount of manga is so odd and awkward to American eyes. By contrast, manga in Japan has pretty much always been read by adults and children alike.

Japan also has one major difference in its comics culture. Both American comics and Japanese comics grew post-World War II; America's Golden Age of Comics continued through the 40s and Osamu Tezuka debuted in 1946, immediately after the end of WWII. But what the two countries had suffered through the wars simply didn't compare; the idea of hiding dark, scary, adult things from kids who had lived through two a-bomb droppings was simply foreign to the Japanese, where America moved briskly into the 1950s' vision of the perfect nuclear family.

As with before, be sure you hit up Comic Vine's thread on the same topic for more discussion on the other side of the fence!