Japanese publisher Shueisha has halted shipment of all Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure DVDs & manga after online protesters complained about a single scene in which the villain orders the death of the hero while reading the Koran (screen capture left). They issued a public apology to their “Muslim audience” (link), vowing to remove other inappropriate scenes such as buildings that resemble mosques.
Muslim audience? The anime series is 7 years old! And the protests began only after it was posted youtube. So either Muslims weren’t buying it or didn’t have a problem with it.
And they shouldn’t have a problem with it. Why can’t a Muslim be portrayed as a bad guy? Like it’s such a stretch (zing). Had these fanatics actually watched the series, they’d know that the villain couldn’t be less Muslim – he’s a British vampire!
In fact the book in question, which is never named, wasn’t intended to represent the Koran. The non-Arabic speaking staff unknowingly inserted passages from the Koran in order to fit the Egyptian setting. Nevertheless, Sheikh Abdul Hamid Attrash, chairman of the Fatwa Committee at Al-Azhar, declared “This is an insult to the religion and the producers would be considered to be enemies of Islam.”
