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NEWS: Viz Edits


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Woko



Joined: 30 Mar 2005
Posts: 18
PostPosted: Wed Mar 30, 2005 10:17 am Reply with quote
I can't help myself but Americans are totally crazy. Censore a nipple? Erase a character? No problem in a fanatic christian country. Talk about a "free" country.
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Mayko



Joined: 16 Apr 2004
Posts: 11
PostPosted: Wed Mar 30, 2005 10:25 am Reply with quote
what character was removed? *just read Descendants of Darkness/Yami No Matsuei 4*
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renkinjutsushi



Joined: 02 Sep 2004
Posts: 7
Location: Kentucky
PostPosted: Wed Mar 30, 2005 10:27 am Reply with quote
Woko wrote:
I can't help myself but Americans are totally crazy. Censore a nipple? Erase a character? No problem in a fanatic christian country. Talk about a "free" country.


Indeed. Could be worse, though. They could be restricting us from buying the original tankobons, which is usually my plan anyway. Gah, this idiotic censorship stuff. You just shrink-wrap the product and put an 17+ sticker on it, people.

*remembers when she was ID'd buying Inuyasha manga*
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Beatdigga



Joined: 26 Oct 2003
Posts: 4352
Location: New York
PostPosted: Wed Mar 30, 2005 11:05 am Reply with quote
Editing their manga is only going to hurt the bottom line, not help it. Viz needs to realize that.
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Kiyoko



Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Posts: 131
Location: Pennsylvania
PostPosted: Wed Mar 30, 2005 11:11 am Reply with quote
Mayko wrote:
what character was removed? *just read Descendants of Darkness/Yami No Matsuei 4*


It wasn't originally obscured by a mosiac as ANN says, but the characters were positioned in a way that you couldn't see anything physically, but it was heavily implied as to what was going on, and one of the characters was removed by Viz to remove the innuendo that anything was going on at all.

It's on page 147, the scene shows a nude character sitting by himself with his "partner" talking off-panel. In the original, there was a second person with him, with his head in the nude boy's lap. I have a scan of the original with the Viz version as comparison, but since it is for mature audiences, send me a private message and I'll send you the URL.
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Hermetic



Joined: 21 Jan 2005
Posts: 1
PostPosted: Wed Mar 30, 2005 11:43 am Reply with quote
Woko wrote:
I can't help myself but Americans are totally crazy. Censore a nipple? Erase a character? No problem in a fanatic christian country. Talk about a "free" country.


Presupposing that Viz is filled with fanatical Christians, of course. Oh wait, they're based out of San Francisco, the de facto capital of the Socialist Republic of California, by far one of the most - if not the most - liberal state in the Union. Fanatical indeed...

Sorry, just my two cents.
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Anime_Freak



Joined: 07 Dec 2002
Posts: 420
Location: Oklahoma
PostPosted: Wed Mar 30, 2005 11:57 am Reply with quote
renkinjutsushi wrote:
Woko wrote:
I can't help myself but Americans are totally crazy. Censore a nipple? Erase a character? No problem in a fanatic christian country. Talk about a "free" country.


Indeed. Could be worse, though. They could be restricting us from buying the original tankobons, which is usually my plan anyway. Gah, this idiotic censorship stuff. You just shrink-wrap the product and put an 17+ sticker on it, people.

*remembers when she was ID'd buying Inuyasha manga*


Yes they could. Tokyopop did it with the Battle Royale manga, it was shrink wrapped and had a 17+ sticker on it, atleast the first volume did, when I picked up my copy I had special ordered.
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ANN_Bamboo
ANN Contributor


Joined: 05 Jan 2002
Posts: 3904
Location: CO
PostPosted: Wed Mar 30, 2005 12:24 pm Reply with quote
What gets me is... why a star? If you're going to censor breasts, why not go as far as to draw a bra over it? If you just see stars on someone's chest, you KNOW they're nipples. 13 year old boys KNOW what nipples look like. It's not making it any less scandalous by putting stars. I'm not sure parents would be any happier to find their sons looking at women with stars on their tits, as opposed to a nipple.
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Woko



Joined: 30 Mar 2005
Posts: 18
PostPosted: Wed Mar 30, 2005 12:48 pm Reply with quote
Hermetic wrote:
Woko wrote:
I can't help myself but Americans are totally crazy. Censore a nipple? Erase a character? No problem in a fanatic christian country. Talk about a "free" country.


Presupposing that Viz is filled with fanatical Christians, of course. Oh wait, they're based out of San Francisco, the de facto capital of the Socialist Republic of California, by far one of the most - if not the most - liberal state in the Union. Fanatical indeed...

Sorry, just my two cents.


Well, if it's not the reason (the only one I could possibly think of), WHY would they censor it?? Why are so many animes/mangas in the US censored? Is it forbidden to draw nipples?
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Izlude



Joined: 04 Jul 2003
Posts: 323
Location: Wherever The Wind Takes Me
PostPosted: Wed Mar 30, 2005 12:49 pm Reply with quote
What I don't get is, Viz never had problems showing this stuff before, whether in Blood:The Last Vampire, Bastard:Heavy Metal Dark Fantasy and the like.

Then again, Viz went through some new management since then haven't they? >_>
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Lost_Toys



Joined: 10 Jun 2003
Posts: 50
PostPosted: Wed Mar 30, 2005 12:49 pm Reply with quote
SakechanBD wrote:
What gets me is... why a star? If you're going to censor breasts, why not go as far as to draw a bra over it? If you just see stars on someone's chest, you KNOW they're nipples. 13 year old boys KNOW what nipples look like. It's not making it any less scandalous by putting stars. I'm not sure parents would be any happier to find their sons looking at women with stars on their tits, as opposed to a nipple.


I also know what reproduction organs look like, and yet, if I buy pronography in Japan I get it censored. Why don't they just leave it alone?

What you need to remember is the difference between implicit and explicit. Implicit has ambiguity, it requires [in this case] a reader to imagine what is underneeth these stars. An explicit image, on the other hand, has no ambiguity to it. This is what turns the heads of lawmakers, "soccer moms" and other groups which will take offense to the nudity.

Now, you could say sell it at a 17+ rating. Here is the problem with this: retail. Most retail shops [I am talking about Walmarts, Best Buys, etc.] will most likely not carry the title [there have been exceptions] due to the nature of it being 17+. It used to be that sales in specialty shops [like comic shops] were enough to justify a release, but with the changing economy, large chains have become your profitable venue. Therefore, you do the best you can to ensure that all outfits will stock your product [once again, there are always exceptions because there is always a market for niche products]
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Godaistudios



Joined: 12 Jun 2003
Posts: 2075
Location: Albuquerque, NM (the land of entrapment)
PostPosted: Wed Mar 30, 2005 12:56 pm Reply with quote
SakechanBD wrote:
What gets me is... why a star? If you're going to censor breasts, why not go as far as to draw a bra over it? If you just see stars on someone's chest, you KNOW they're nipples. 13 year old boys KNOW what nipples look like. It's not making it any less scandalous by putting stars. I'm not sure parents would be any happier to find their sons looking at women with stars on their tits, as opposed to a nipple.


Indeed - it really rather draws more attention to the pic than not. This rather amusing post on Anime on DVD says a bit:

RandyCat wrote:
Being a female, (and also, among the large female readership of manga), I believe now my only choice of action is to find a suitable pair of stars, or bra, or something, and have it glued onto my chest. After all, female breasts are obscene in North America, and heaven forbid that when I am taking a shower, or changing my clothes, I might actually catch a glimpse of them. I might go blind, or crazy. Thank you, Viz, for reminding us females about our unfortunate obscenity.


Since it feels like a trend is being established here, this is the most frustrated I've felt as a fan in a very long time. It's the kind of frustration where I'd almost quit being a fan because all the politics are overriding my ability to enjoy the product. This isn't the way to do business. Personally, I hope the volume tanks and Viz relents and gives us the proper version. I purchase 7-8 volumes of manga a month easy. Are they (CMX and Viz especially) trying to tell me they don't want my money anymore? This is the kind of action that causes the honest fans to become bootleggers... and then the companies bring about a double standard talking about their failings when the fans aren't supportive enough. My message to all the companies out there:

You want us to support you? Be supportive of us. It's our money that's keeping you in business.

'nuff said.

I adhere to the sentiment, "If you have to censor it, don't license it." It's not doing the fans any favors.
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ryusaki





PostPosted: Wed Mar 30, 2005 1:14 pm Reply with quote
well... i was really think about buying I"S but now that viz is doing this I'll just go ahead and buy Maburaho...
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Sakura Shinguji



Joined: 09 Feb 2005
Posts: 190
PostPosted: Wed Mar 30, 2005 1:24 pm Reply with quote
SakechanBD wrote:
What gets me is... why a star? If you're going to censor breasts, why not go as far as to draw a bra over it? If you just see stars on someone's chest, you KNOW they're nipples. 13 year old boys KNOW what nipples look like. It's not making it any less scandalous by putting stars. I'm not sure parents would be any happier to find their sons looking at women with stars on their tits, as opposed to a nipple.


Indeed. While I'm not condoning Viz' decision by any means, they probably should've just edited the nipples out completely rather than covering them with stars which, as you note, only draws attention to the fact that there're bare breasts there in the first place. I mean, fans by and large seem to be (mostly) okay with the Barbie-doll sort of nudity we see when it comes to bare breasts in anime that has to abide by Japanese TV broadcast standards, so it's unfathomable to me why Viz felt the need to use stars. Unless, of course, we're to believe that in the world of I''s all females have stars on their breasts instead of nipples. -_-
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s_j



Joined: 18 Oct 2004
Posts: 162
PostPosted: Wed Mar 30, 2005 1:32 pm Reply with quote
[quote="Hermetic"]
Woko wrote:

Presupposing that Viz is filled with fanatical Christians, of course.


It's probably not that they themselves are prudes, but that they are kow-towing to prudes. They are acquiescing to the percieved conservative shift in this country, and the fear of irrating the few but very vocal censors. And should anyone be surprised when our administration has vowed to up speech prosecutions, is headed by a porn czar who would like to go after mainstream material like Playboy, and the FCC recently announced its intentions to make stricter guidelines and expand their powers to cable and satellite systems? Have we all conveniently forgotten what happened in Georgia? Viz, like DC, are just scared.

While I don't think this in any way should spare them the wrath of readers, we must explore and understand their position...why they had to make such a decision in the first place. It's not as simple as maximizing their readership. The TenTen fiasco has obviously shown that that doesn't work.
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