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Hey, Answerman! - Hey, Censorman!


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enurtsol



Joined: 01 May 2007
Posts: 14746
PostPosted: Fri Oct 28, 2011 4:54 am Reply with quote
Off the top of my head, I've only known two N. Americans to succeed in Japan's anime industry, and they took two totally different paths. One is Jan Scott-Frazier (A. go to Japan early and work your way up), and the other is Justin Leach (B. succeed in America first and use that resume to work in Japan) . The niece could decide which path suites her. The same with manga: there's the Jamie Lano path (A), and the Felipe Smith or the Chinese guy "L-Dart" path (B).
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ss-hikaru



Joined: 16 Nov 2010
Posts: 269
Location: Western Australia
PostPosted: Fri Oct 28, 2011 5:28 am Reply with quote
Ooh, that question about buying online versus in a brick and mortar shop reminds me of my situation a couple of years ago. In my city we have this really good store that imports both manga, dvds and other assorted merchandise from the US that I used to go to religiously for all my manga. I bought so many volumes at prices ranging from AU$16 to AU$23, going back almost every week to see if they had volumes I wanted in stock. Then when one day they told me they weren't going to order in anymore single volumes of Rurouni Kenshin (only the VIZbig editions) I went online, discovered JustManga, then discovered RightStuf, and I have never been back. I felt guilty at first, but when you're saving $6+ on every single volume of manga (and you love long running series like I do), the road to take is pretty damn obvious. I used to feel bad not purchasing Madman's releases of manga too, but the $3 price difference, plus all the bad experiences I've had with their staff at conventions has made me feel completely not guilty at all.
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writerpatrick



Joined: 29 Mar 2006
Posts: 670
Location: Canada
PostPosted: Fri Oct 28, 2011 6:42 am Reply with quote
By the time the niece is old enough to work in animation it's possible that much of the work will either be done by computer or farmed out using the Internet so that national boundaries aren't such an issue.
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prime_pm



Joined: 06 Feb 2004
Posts: 2333
Location: Your Mother's Bedroom
PostPosted: Fri Oct 28, 2011 8:10 am Reply with quote
Well, it would certainly change the storyline in Bakuman, that's for sure.
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ljaesch



Joined: 03 Apr 2009
Posts: 299
Location: Enumclaw, WA
PostPosted: Fri Oct 28, 2011 8:54 am Reply with quote
Brian, I really appreciated how you handled your response to the first letter in this week's column.

My 14-year-old daughter has also talked about wanting to work in manga when she's older, so I'll definitely need to have her sit down and read through that response.
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Asterisk-CGY



Joined: 09 Mar 2007
Posts: 398
PostPosted: Fri Oct 28, 2011 9:33 am Reply with quote
Also criticism. Learn to dissect criticism. Especially from the internet. It may the rudest stuff ever, but they had to have started somewhere.

Life drawing, best lesson any artist could take.
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Zalis116
Moderator


Joined: 31 Mar 2005
Posts: 6864
Location: Kazune City
PostPosted: Fri Oct 28, 2011 9:45 am Reply with quote
Quote:
Also, broadcast restrictions have become much tighter in recent years. Evangelion in particular caused a shitstorm with various parental groups (due largely to its high profile), so after that nudity became verboten, despite family-hour anime like Ranma 1/2 flashing tits on the screen several times an episode just 10 years earlier. And there's no way you could get away with exploding heads a la Fist of the North Star today.

I imagine teenage alcohol use took the same trajectory. We've gone from Madoka the Lush in Kimagure Orange Road (1987) to every teenager being a complete teetotaler in current anime, even latenight shows.

Though Ranma actually started 6 and ended a mere 3 years before Evangelion aired.
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ljaesch



Joined: 03 Apr 2009
Posts: 299
Location: Enumclaw, WA
PostPosted: Fri Oct 28, 2011 10:13 am Reply with quote
Asterisk-CGY, I agree with this. To me, anyone who goes into a creative field needs to be able to deal with, dissect, and learn from criticism.

Asterisk-CGY wrote:
Also criticism. Learn to dissect criticism. Especially from the internet. It may the rudest stuff ever, but they had to have started somewhere.

Life drawing, best lesson any artist could take.
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mdo7



Joined: 23 May 2007
Posts: 6248
Location: Katy, Texas, USA
PostPosted: Fri Oct 28, 2011 10:24 am Reply with quote
About Japan censorship, yeah it can be a little odd from time to time. I pay attention to Japan censorship on not only anime/manga but also video game and movie. I did find their censorship quite odd and confusing.

I think some of us might have seen gory and graphic violent movies from Japan like Tokyo Gore Police, Machine Girl, or some of Takeshi Miike's selected films. They don't get censored when they're shown in theater (please correct me if Japan start censoring gore in movie). But when it's video game that has gore it get censored, No more Heroes is one example, I know there are more game with blood and gore that might be censored in Japan. This also applied to western game also, like I know that Fallout 3 was censored in Japan because of the Fatman reference and the mission involving nuking a town. Also there were other thing that were censored in Fallout 3.

Quote:
TT: Yeah. The mission is still there, but there are always two routes to the missions. We had to close that part of the mission. But we kept a lot of the decapitations in. The only alterations we made was that part and also humans... Human decapitations we had to cut. Mutants and ghouls and all that are still there.


I also know Call of Duty: Black Ops was also censored in Japan for the same reason, gore and decapitation. I'll end the graphic violence section of the censorship in Japan.

About sex and nudity, it's also kind of confusing we have seen anime with a lot nudity and sex in them (although they do get censored on Japanese TV now these day). I think some of you probably heard of Rosario + Vampire being censored for pantyshot. Eroge visual novel have nudity and pornographic sex (although the genital are censored), and I know when they get console port, the sex scene get removed and no traces of nudity. So any game with graphic sex and nudity is automatically censor when it get console port, and any western game that has nudity and sex in it will get censored when it gert a Japanese release. Mafia 2 is one example.

I have a huge grudge against CERO (Japan's equivalent of ESRB) because of their censorship policy. Other then video game, I don't know any other form of censorship that Japan does.
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configspace



Joined: 16 Aug 2008
Posts: 3717
PostPosted: Fri Oct 28, 2011 10:59 am Reply with quote
WRT to the niece and the industry, aside from actually working in Japan, you can still get a job in the industry working on the same styles through companies like UDON and especially game companies like Square-Enix and Capcom. I'd recommend not wasting money going to an art college though.

WRT censorship, it's totally ironic if Evangelion was the trigger considering as was mentioned, how Ranma had plenty of nudity in an explicitly ecchi context. However since there's no actual law or mandate like there is here with the FCC for OTA TV, I think they could get away with uncensored broadcast TV shows if they really wanted to, considering how casually risque mainstream tv shows already are (e.g. here and here), how book/manga covers aren't censored, and the fact that the vast majority of anime are shown very late night/past-midnight anyways. Other than the reason for mitigating complaints, I think it's to promote video sales and AT-X viewership (which is owned by TV Tokyo) Laughing

For example Sekirei S1 episode 9 aired completely uncensored and Sekirei S2 episode 1 - early premiere version was partially uncensored. There are also discrepancies like how Majikoi is less censored on TV Kanagawa than Tokyo MX.


Last edited by configspace on Fri Oct 28, 2011 11:17 am; edited 1 time in total
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KENZICHI



Joined: 16 Oct 2010
Posts: 1101
PostPosted: Fri Oct 28, 2011 11:04 am Reply with quote
Shonen Jump isn't going to be available in printed edition anymore? I had no idea! Confused
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LagannImpact



Joined: 03 Apr 2009
Posts: 574
PostPosted: Fri Oct 28, 2011 1:12 pm Reply with quote
So in other words "kuso" is more akin to "poop" or "feces" than "shit"? Or perhaps it's more like like "crap?" The words mean the exact same thing, but "shit" is considered the most obscene of the words for it, with "crap" being somewhere in the middle. Or maybe it's like "scat" and those who aren't "in" the know have absolutely no idea what that is until it's used in context.

And therein lies the folly of translation. Essentially the only time the Japanese really "cuss" in anime is when they do it in English, which is somewhat prevalent in recent productions.
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jsevakis
Former ANN Editor in Chief


Joined: 28 Jul 2003
Posts: 1684
Location: Los Angeles, CA
PostPosted: Fri Oct 28, 2011 2:24 pm Reply with quote
LagannImpact wrote:
So in other words "kuso" is more akin to "poop" or "feces" than "shit"? Or perhaps it's more like like "crap?" The words mean the exact same thing, but "shit" is considered the most obscene of the words for it, with "crap" being somewhere in the middle. Or maybe it's like "scat" and those who aren't "in" the know have absolutely no idea what that is until it's used in context.


More like "crap". (If they mean actual fecal matter, they'd probably use "unko" or "unchi".) It's a mildly rude expletive, nothing more. The problem is, with full weight and context, writing "crap" for the translation can seem really lame and mild. For example, a thug, after just taking a giant punch that sent him flying into trash cans, would say, "KuSSOOOOO!!!" as he spits out a tooth. Subtitle that as "Crap," and people would laugh. It'd sound like a bad TV-friendly edit of an R-rated movie.

LagannImpact wrote:
And therein lies the folly of translation. Essentially the only time the Japanese really "cuss" in anime is when they do it in English, which is somewhat prevalent in recent productions.

Only if the implied "family friendliness" of the presentation is more important to you than the meaning of the full conversation.

OR

It could just be that we're two countries with different languages and behavioral standards that don't match up or have clear parallels occasionally.


Last edited by jsevakis on Fri Oct 28, 2011 2:29 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Shay Guy



Joined: 03 Jul 2009
Posts: 2093
PostPosted: Fri Oct 28, 2011 2:29 pm Reply with quote
Apparently, the reason episode 6 of Gurren Lagann was ultimately rejected by TV Tokyo was because peeking into the women's side at a bathhouse is illegal and they couldn't show that, specifically, on Sunday mornings.

Yeah, the mindsets of foreign institutions can be disorienting. (And who wants to live in an institution, anyway?)
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TitanXL



Joined: 08 Jun 2010
Posts: 4036
PostPosted: Fri Oct 28, 2011 2:44 pm Reply with quote
Shay Guy wrote:
Apparently, the reason episode 6 of Gurren Lagann was ultimately rejected by TV Tokyo was because peeking into the women's side at a bathhouse is illegal and they couldn't show that, specifically, on Sunday mornings.


Yeah, I guess that's why they never use that trope on any harem animes or even shounen anime like Naruto, Pokemon, and others which also air on TV Tokyo.

Oh wait.

Silly Japan.
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