Grown men have made a best-seller out of a realistic sex-education manga comic book aimed at elementary school girls in Japan, Mainichi Daily News reports.

Men, generally in their 30s, obsessed with manga depicting young girls’ sexuality are called Otaku in Japan.

The article quotes one writer as saying: “Moe is a word the otaku use to describe the thrill people get when they see pretty, two-dimensional girls, mostly in media such as anime or manga. ‘Moetan,’ a collection of English vocabulary words aimed at helping kids prepare for entrance exams (with the main character being a little girl getting ready to try and enter junior high school), sold 150,000 copies, so the otaku market knows no bounds.”

Hopefully some young girls will also end up reading the book as well, though, as the manga itself has been lauded for its realistic portrayal of emerging sexuality.

Posted by Jess McCabe on 27 May 2005, at 9:56 AM