Kyoukai no Nai Sekai was originally serialized on Manga Box by DeNA in Japanese, English, and Traditional Chinese starting on September 9, 2014. It was originally supposed to be published in volume format by Kodansha under their Weekly Shōnen Magazine imprint beginning in March 2015, but the release was canceled due to “problematic language.” As such, Manga Box discontinued serialization after Chapter 15, including the English translation. The series was picked up in Japanese by Kadokawa in Monthly Shōnen Ace beginning with the June 2015 issue released on April 2, 2015, with the first volume being released on April 25, 2015.

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On March 15, 2015, Ikuya Daikokudou made a blog post detailing why the series got canceled. Some excerpts translated:

Regarding problematic language

I’d heard that Kodansha was concerned about the parts of the story that reinforce stereotypical gender roles, including the message that “men should act like men, and women should act like women.” (My point of contact is my editor at Manga Box, so this is just hearsay.) They said that they wanted to avoid any complaints from sexual minorities.

This is most evident in the fifth chapter: there’s a scene where the protagonist becomes a woman in VR and is given a male lover, and the VR operator says that “Girls should fall in love with guys.” I’m well aware that this is a terrible thing to say to people who like people of the same gender, so why did I have the operator say that?

This manga depicts a world where you can easily change your sex between male and female. In such a world, people who don’t have any doubts about their sexuality or are apathetic about it would be more likely to think “If you like men/women, why don’t you just become a woman/man?” than in our world. Over the course of the story, the protagonist encounters the heroines who have crossed this boundary. Because of this, he gradually starts to question this indifference, and eventually becomes more tolerant of different ways of life. This line was included partly to give additional background and partly to help depict how the protagonist changes.

The problematic language is just the personal opinions of people within the world of the manga. Even if it’s unwelcome in the real world, the statements would eventually be rejected once the manga is taken as a whole, so I figured that it wouldn’t end up being a problem. Likewise, when I discussed it with the Manga Box editorial department before and after writing Chapter 5, they agreed that it wouldn’t be a problem. However, it resurfaced when the scene was about to be published in volume format.

If we had known this would be a problem, we could have postponed the scene until right before it was necessary, or we could have agreed to avoid it during the serialization. The lack of coordination between the publisher Kodansha, the editors at Manga Box, and the author seems to be the main reason why it was canceled.

It’s regrettable that a part of the manga which wasn’t intended to be depicted in a positive light (and would in fact be depicted negatively later on) led to the publication being canceled as a result.

To address Kodansha’s concerns, I thought that we might be able to eliminate the problem by not only changing the relevant scene but also adding a chapter to the volume that would serve as a counterpoint (namely, a story about a boy and a girl who are conflicted about whether they can like the same sex without changing their sex). However, before I could even start, Kodansha informed me that their decision was final, so all I have so far is the plot of the revised draft.

If there’s a publisher out there who’d like to pick up this series, I’d be happy to discuss these revisions with them.

One thing that I’d like to add

I’ve heard that some people think that there’s too much comedy for a series that deals with sex changes. This might well be true—some people might take offense to the number of jokes. But on the other hand, if we as authors only ever depict the pains of sex changes in a serious manner as the main focus, then the only readers will be people who are already interested in the subject.

I believe that when minorities experience discrimination, it’s often because the majority is apathetic to their problems, rather than out of true malice. In that case, by creating a romantic comedy that is occasionally serious, it would better reach these otherwise uninterested people. Due to their wide target audience, these are the sorts of things I had in mind when I decided to draw this for Manga Box. My hope is that when readers who were indifferent toward minorities before meet someone in real life who is a minority, they’ll think, “Oh, I remember seeing a character like that in a manga at some point,” instead of instinctually rejecting them for simply being different from themselves. My secret wish for this manga is that something like that will happen.

Though, it’s a little embarrassing as a manga artist to be talking about these sorts of things outside of the work itself.

Yet another thing I’d like to add

As an author, I understand that it’s difficult for a company to take risks, but I also think that Kodansha’s stance is too defensive. However, as an author, I’m also sympathetic to Kodansha’s decision to self-censor. This is because the discourse around sexual minorities has become more extreme recently, after Shibuya Ward issued an ordinance in support of same-sex couples.

I was surprised to hear that there was a protest against supporting same-sex couples in Shibuya last week. I knew there were people with negative views, but I wasn’t sure if their opposition was actually strong enough to take action by demonstrating. While public awareness of sexual minorities is steadily growing, the conflict is also deepening, and both sides keep on getting even louder. Even one of the editors said that “the time’s not right.”

In this atmosphere, I wonder if publishers will simply decide to avoid the topic entirely, since it’s too dangerous to even touch it… After all these years of progress in understanding sexual minorities, I’m worried that they’ll do a complete 180° and start walking on eggshells when dealing with these topics. I hope my fears are unfounded.