Violence in Anime and Manga

Episode 12 of School Days was canceled without reason but was most probably due to the recent axe killing - a 16 year old girl didn't like her dad so decided to chop him up. For those who dont know, School days not only features girls with large eyes, it also features girls with large sharp objects.

While it can no way be said that this killing was due to the influence of anime, I do get a bit surprised from time to time at the amount of violent content available in anime as well as manga.
If you pick up one of those telephone book thick manga left on the trains, you will see it either full of bukkake eyes or full of people getting beaten, torn, stabbed, shredded, skewered, blended etc.
I guess salary men read them on the way to/from work to relieve stress instead of hurling themselves under a train.

While I know that most of you enjoy the fan service in manga and anime, what do you think about the violence? A lot of this manga and anime is readily available to children. Would you let your kids watch anime/read manga?

I personally like Claymore (all the blood seems to be purple anyway) but haven't been too keen on the go-around-chopping-*people* as in Higurashi.
I still and always will believe in how manga and anime serves as an excellent means of learning Japanese though.

BTW, the image in this post is taken from Akibaos - the School Days product section at Toranoana in Akiba has been turned into a "Nice Boat" corner. The "Nice Boat" phrase now refers to this incident of School Days being replaced by a scenic video which includes a rather nice boat on a lake.