"A fan petition was created, garnering over 10,000 signatures, and a year later, Viz announced they would stop censoring "Dragon Ball" and increased its "age rating" to 13 and up instead, reprinting the first three graphic novels.<ref name="autogenerated1"></ref> However, they continued to censor several characters' lips by shading them in completely.This avoided racist stereotypes, such as that of Mr. Popo's image.<ref name="IGNPopo"></ref> In October 2009, Wicomico County Public Schools in Maryland banned the "Dragon Ball" manga from their school district because it "depicts nudity, sexual contact between children and sexual innuendo among adults and children."