Ultraman Ultra Power fiasco

In the recent event of the Ultraman fiasco, here is my thought on this issue an who I think is at fault here.


So before I started ranting, I will provide brief description on what is the deal of the issue. Basically, The publication of  Ultraman comic; Ultraman Ultra Power is banned by the Ministry of Home Affairs that have the content that are detrimental to public order. While there is many speculation on why is the comic is banned such as the use of word 'Ultra Power' that is a word referring to the power possessed by the Home Affairs Ministry. But a picture posted in Twitter showed that the used the word of 'Allah' to refer the Ultra King.

So now, I would be okay if it is banned because the use the word 'Allah'. It might confused people especially those who are not familiar with the use of the word. Not all people would be able to differentiate between dumb translation and the right translation. This is why I am kind of find when the word 'Allah' is not allowed to be used in the Bible translation, to avoid confusion. I'm not gonna go into this very religious sensitive issue. Back to the Ultraman issue, this is action is necessary as it may cause some people to use it for religious mockery and will cause detrimental public order. However if the reason of the banned is due to the use of word 'Ultra Power', I will be pissed off because it is dumb. I have mentioned this in my Facebook post, how many Malaysian know that the word 'Ultra Power' is referring to the Ministry of Home Affairs and how many sane people would effectively use for detrimental to public order ?

So who's the blame in this issue ? First of all the Ministry Home Affairs has a partial blame in this issue because did not release full statement on the specific reason why the comic is banned. If you checked the news excerpt here , they just released that the comic is banned because it has content are detrimental to public order without specifying what exact content that cause it. This will be then lead to people to go find the book and if they find the English translation and found nothing that cause detrimental to public order, it will end up with more mockery to the already piled up mockery government.

Secondly, this just show how low the treatment and attention given by the government to comic industry. Shouldn't translated stuff goes through a board for check up like the movie goes to Film Censorship Board. Here in US, there is a censorship board even for comic, and they even have rating for comic so the content is appropriate to the readers' age. In contrast, I don't think there is any censorship board for comic in Malaysia. It is just whatever the distributor want to censor in the comic. I have read translated Mai Hime and it still really minimum censorship in it. This is also make me wonder how much of censorship translated version of Gantz in Malaysia.

excerpt from Mai Hime Manga

In my opinion, this should be a wake up call for the government to be more aware of translated materials from foreign countries. But at the same time, hopefully this does not become the beginning of fall of comic industry in Malaysia just like how the Censorship Board almost destroy the comic industry in United States. An issue that I have about comic industry in Malaysia is that the government and the public  consider comic is a kid stuff when it is not. Manga is targeted for late teens and sometimes for young adults. Just like how translated religious materials goes through censorship to avoid mistranslation as well as confusion, translated material like novels and comic should as well.

For now, it is a right step from the government but a wrong way of doing it. I'm eager to see what will this develop into in the future. The government, the distributor , and public should be aware that comic is not necessarily for kid and should be more careful first in translating and choosing the right materials for kid to read.

What do you think of this issue ? Who should be blame for this ? Sound off your thought in the comment section. Stay tuned for more article from us and be sure to follow us at Comikrew Studio.