Content Violations Review: Manga.Metamorphosis 2013

Metamorphosis is an infamous shock hentai about a middle school graduate who — as part of the storyline — is given drugs, has graphic nonconsensual sex, develops an addiction to doing sex while on drugs, is pushed towards prostitution, is definitively and repeatedly raped, and a bunch of other really other disturbing things before she commits suicide by overdosing on heroin. Yeah.

Now, before this page was added (originally in February 2023 before it moved namespaces in December), the validity of the work was conversed over in the P5 flag evaluations thread, and the consensus that formed there was along the lines of it being Porn with Plot, entertaining the idea of it being "a graphic Seinen" along the lines of something like Berserk.

However, the discussion kind of glanced over important details that to me raise alarm bells where the CP is concerned, first one being that the protagonist (the subject of a lot of graphic and uncomfortably violent rape) is like, 15? (average age of graduating "middle school" in Japan) I don't know my minutiae in what counts as "underage" in Japan but if she's being violated by her "classmates" and rendered homeless after being disowned by her parents, that conjures a substantial difference in tone from displaying graphic sex when compared to that of adults from a Dark Fantasy like Berserk. Second, unlike Berserk, Metamorphosis is definitively hentai — it was initially serialized in Comic X-Eros, a hentai publication, and published in Fakku, a hentai publication. There was definitely some eye for it being fetishistic and for tittilation purposes in some capacity.

I do understand there being potential merits in the conversation people have of it being Porn with Plot and could be permissible as a really visceral drama/tragedy with intense sexual elements — there are a decent amount of valid entries that don't read as being written one-handed or overly-delving into the fetishistic depravity of the work — and I am aware of conversations about the work's author who for all I can tell was approaching it at least in part as an earnest erotic drama.

Problem is though, still shitloads of graphic underage sex through publications of pornography, and that crosses a boundary for me. Alan Moore is one of the most critically-acclaimed writers in the history of western comic books and wrote Lost Girls — a thoughtful, philosophically heavy book about the underage sexcapades of Wendy Darling, Alice Fairchild, and Dorothy Gale — which was critically acclaimed and touted as an "erotic graphic novel" against Moore's wishes, himself actively insinuating it being "pornography" (true story!), and that book didn't survive the P5's inspection. And this is a subjective take, but I don't think Metamorphosis comes close to the heady thoughtfulness and moral introspection of that kind of work that warrants such graphic detail; it feels like the lessons and moral takeaways that can be gathered from it seem incidental more than anything. It certainly doesn't feel like a coming-of-age-story where sex leads to personal development in a way only sex can — the protagonist suffers a lot, then dies. The end.

[edit: last thing of note from the P5 thread discussions: someone there claimed that the author retconned the Downer Ending to claim it was a Show Within a Show in response to the backlash for how depressing it was. According to the current Trivia page, that's not actually true — he was just giving his blessing to a Fix Fic with that premise, he otherwise sticks by the story being as bleak as presented. No personal judgement, but this still does make me tilt my head as to what his authorial intent was.]

But that's just me — what are your thoughts on this?

Edited by number9robotic on Feb 2nd 2024 at 12:46:36 PM

Opening.

Pinging ~badtothebaritone ~Libraryseraph ~worldwidewoomy ~Siegfried1337 ~Willbyr ~Ayumi-chan if they can add something new to the previous consensus.

With what robotic said, I'm fine with the page being cut on those reasons. Though I haven't read the manga in a while (and will not because that shit was traumatizing), so I would like more opinions on that.

Keep.

The reason I say this is because, by my reading of the trope page, it really is Requiem for a Dream in manga form. It's about the life and early death of a fifteen-year-old, drug-addicted sex worker, and the sex and rape on panel are in service of that. To an extent, it feels that they're necessary to tell the story honestly.

Edited by Ramidel on Feb 2nd 2024 at 12:09:20 AM

Agreed with Ramidel's reasoning as well, and as such will be voting Keep as well. However, unlike Ramidel, I have read every single part of the manga and can confirm that everything Ramidel said was true.

Edited by Siegfried1337 on Feb 2nd 2024 at 1:49:30 AM

part of me lowkey doubts that the explicit hentai panels are that necessary to the plot, but i really don't wanna skim it again, that shit messed me up...

explicit x-ray blowup panels aside, the rest of the story is (mostly) serviceable with or without. leaning keep for my vote, although i wouldn't miss it if the page was voted cut.

Edited by worldwidewoomy on Feb 2nd 2024 at 5:41:09 AM

I actually do feel like the some of the scenes (not counting the much more explicit scenes mentioned ) are part of the story, so changing my mind to keep, but like said, I won’t miss it if we decide to bring the scissors.

I'm fine keeping based on my previous arguments but I'm not gonna argue too passionately

Nuts, I had a reply written up and then I got distracted and forgot to actually post it.

At any rate, my vote is Keep. I always figured it would be a long shot to have the page in the first place, but IMO its overall story, its memetic status, and the parallels to Requiem for a Dream put it in a unique place that 99.99...9% of other hentai don't come close to approaching, to where I believe it having a page is warranted, as a case of "the exception that proves (the existence of) the rule" in terms of the Content Policy if nothing else. I'm not gonna lose sleep if it does end up getting cut, but that's where I stand.

Edited by Willbyr on Feb 2nd 2024 at 8:44:15 AM

Based only on the arguments here (as I have no interest in actually reading it), it looks to be keepable to me.

Seeing a few borderline keeps for it having enough genuine drama and plot to justify, which is fair, but as folks haven't acknowledged it here yet, I do wanna highlight again the age of the character, which is much more of an issue to me than the graphic sex and other abuse (though, like, keep that in mind). I know late-teens can be a grey area in terms of what's "underage" but this comic really pushes it for me — the protagonist definitely ain't the age of the folks in Requiem for a Dream. Thoughts on that?

While it's a bit rhetoric since it's a known porn work, how much graphic are graphics? (I don't have the guts to check)

We don't have a ban on pedophilia as topic if the work is careful about it, but if it's extremely detailed, we had works killed with an argument that scenes are too detailed and are ambiguously made with appeal in mind.

yeah, I kinda doubt that all of those full-panel spreads of Saki climaxing are that necessary to the plot. (i'm joking a little bit but. Cmon)

im a lil torn, but i can't just throw both a keep and a cut vote and call it a day, things don't work like that unfortunately 😔

Edited by worldwidewoomy on Feb 2nd 2024 at 12:03:20 PM

I haven't read it because I don't feel like torturing myself so I'm just going off of its reputation, but I think the fact that Metamorphosis is clearly (so I've been told) intended as a deconstruction of a lot of stereotypical Porn Without Plot schoolgirl hentai gives it a literary validity that most of those don't have. Explicit though it is, it's meant to make you uncomfortable, not titillate you. I'm still leaning keep but I admit it's a serious edge case (no pun intended).

Edited by StarSword on Feb 2nd 2024 at 7:09:45 AM

Yep, that's why we're here. I'd hate to have to remove any work on this wiki that people find critically respectable (or at least interesting in a non-pornographic way), but at the same time I don't want folks to get in trouble for keeping this around.

So as someone who has actually read it, I don't actually think it's intentionally meant to be a deconstruction of hentai tropes. While I wouldn't go as far as to accuse it of being literal misery porn as the author seems to have put some level of earnest thought into the drama of it, I feel like that's kinda as far as it goes — it's a dark, uncomfortable tragedy that he wanted to tell, but I don't think he was trying to make a statement on hentai as a whole, and the fact that the protagonist experiences Surprisingly Realistic Outcomes seems incidental rather than metacommentary. That doesn't make it inherently exploitative in a way as a lot of this sort of porn is excluded from the site is written, but it's also, like... not not that, either, and that concerns me.

We definitely should have more opinions from folks who have read this comic and can verify matters of its content — judging by how infamous this is, I'm actually not sure how easy or hard that will be, haha

Edited by number9robotic on Feb 2nd 2024 at 11:04:29 AM

Question: Is the character's age ever actually specified, or do we just know the school year she's in?

I don't have the stomach for this kind of thing to read myself and thus I don't want to make any judgements of my own. I do lean towards keeping it, but I'm not too fussed one way or another.

She starts off the story having just graduated from "middle school" and is starting "high school", comparable in the west to "junior high" and "senior high" schools, putting her age as roughly 15-16.

Voting "Keep". There is clear artistic merit, as indicated by the very fact that it has a plotline, and a prior discussion voted to keep it.

Yeah, that checks out. Some quick searching in Japanese says she should indeed be 15-16, which is what I was pretty sure was the case (I'm vaguely familiar with Japanese school grades because of anime/manga, but it's always good to double-check these things imo).

Thanks for the clarification! Since they're being kind of vague about her age plus all the other reasons people are listing, I'm definitely on the keep side of things. But as I said, I wouldn't be upset if it got cut considering the graphic nature of the content (even if said content is a deconstruction and whatnot).

Edited by Zazie122 on Feb 3rd 2024 at 12:20:35 AM

I'm very conflicted between keeping and cutting because while the reasons for a cut are valid, it still has a clear plot regarding Saki's spiralling downfall (deconstruction of hentai or not). So for now, I'm gonna change my vote to in-between but leaning on keep.

Somewhat unrelated, but do I recall an author's note about how his editors were just as shocked on how he wrote such a depressing tale and page even mentions an alternative ending where the whole manga was a TV drama and all of the character are actors of said drama.

I'm actually heavily leaning cut here, although I haven't read this. I'd say graphic depictions of sex involving a 15-year old that's still ultimately played for titilation to even some degree based on OP's assessment and the other comments here would override any serious deconstructive storyline. Like, if what worldwidewoomy was saying about X-ray panels is Not Hyperbole, that seems pretty damning right there that there's some titilation intent. IIRC 16 is the minimum on this wiki, and I don't think this should be held as an exception.

I thought the "no explicit sexual content of characters under 16" rule was more for fanfic recommendations? The content policy says

and

Also, there's no conformation she's actually 15. She could be 16.

Edited by Zazie122 on Feb 7th 2024 at 7:54:52 AM

Explicit sexual activity involving 15 year olds is indeed heavily suspect and it would take special conditions to justify it, but it's only a cut-by-default for fanfic recommendations, yes.

Fwiw I'm not trying to argue that it isn't, just that the specific policy about "nothing featuring explicit sex involving characters under 16" refers strictly to fanfic recs.

If that rule is meant to refer to works in general that 15-year-olds are a no-go, then it should be stated on the Content Policy page because I feel like it might not be clear enough in that case.

I don't feel that strongly about Metamorphosis and if it stays cut, I do understand why, but I wanted to clarify that the policy they were thinking of was, as far as I'm aware, for fanfic recs.

Of course, if I'm being an idiot and am wrong, then uh. Please ignore me.

It's not the most strict ban and why this forum is a thing. The main point is to prevent works that may support fetishes that cross the line from getting publicity and by proxy us getting publicity from specific audiences. If the story is dramatic enough, it can get a pass because we are about literary analysis, but if it is unnecessarily graphic, then we should consider what traffic the page could be attracting instead.