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• A live-action TV version for the controversial webtoon The Elementary School Student That I Love has been canceled because it's about an elementary school teacher sexualizing a 5th grader

Sometimes you just need to read the title of something to know it isn’t for you. This is especially true of manga, light novels, and anime, which have a tendency to give the whole plot away in the title. A webtoon titled The Elementary School Student That I Love is a prime example of that. Despite the gross premise, it had enough readers worldwide that a live-action adaptation was planned until everyone involved realized it is about a teacher who sexualized her student.

Live-action adaptations of manga and comics always have to deal with some of the more risqué moments from the source material in creative ways, but this is one that shouldn't have gotten out of the planning stages. The Elementary School Student That I Love is about a teacher who develops feelings for someone while playing an online game. She later finds out that the man she thought she was playing with is actually one of her students in the fifth grade. This is presented not as a comedic misunderstanding and a call to reevaluate her life but as a romantic complication, which is where the plot starts to run off the rails.

The webtoon originates in South Korea, where it earned significant backlash when a live-action adaptation was announced. Thankfully, over the weekend, the production company in charge of the adaptation of The Elementary School Student That I Love confirmed that they were suspending any future development on the series, citing “serious concerns raised by society” and the “changing sensitivities and expectations of the public.” Basically, everyone online, including the largest South Korean teachers’ union, told them that this was a terrible idea.

We’re not usually on the side of canceling shows, but this is a special situation. How this show got this far through the production process without anyone wondering if it was a gross concept is beyond us. This is definitely a situation where public backlash has been used as a force for good.

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