I liked this book! It was a fun read, and I liked that a bunch of librarians got together to protect books from censorship. After the federal government passes the Media Betterment Act, the Media Betterment Committee is established to rid society of books that are deemed offensive. Their sole purpose is to deny citizens access to free media. In protest, local governments created their own group of armed personnel to fight back and save books and magazines from the overzealous destruction of the Media Betterment Committee. Think about it – a war with armed librarians battling it out with restrictive government watchdogs who want to dictate what people can read.

One of the things I like about Iku is that she has some of the traits traditionally assigned to male manga heroes. She’s a dumb jock who cares deeply about her job and tries to make up for her shortcomings by trying hard. Her companion in school is her roommate Asako Shibazaki who is enrolled in the more cerebral librarian track while Iku tries to master the physical capabilities necessary to become the first female member of the LDF. The only problem Iku has with her training is her drill instructor Atsushi Dojo. He seems to have singled her out for harsher treatment, or does he just have high expectations for her?

Library Wars is a perfectly decent read, but it does have some issues. Firstly, the basic concept, as inherited by the series of light novels upon which the manga is based. If the national government has banned offensive books, why isn’t it going after the publishers of these books isntead of waiting until they’ve actually been printed to go confiscate them from bookstores? That doesn’t make much sense.