Forum - View topicThis Week in Anime - Smoke 'Em If You Got 'Em
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Lord Geo
Posts: 3005 Location: North Brunswick, New Jersey |
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I do find it amusing that this starts with the image form JoJo: Stardust Crusaders with Oingo/Zenyatta (disguised as Jotaro, via his Stand) smoking a bunch of cigarettes at once, because the SC anime was notorious for the actual Jotaro constantly being censored via silhouette whenever he visibly smoked (at least, that's what happened in the original TV version, which is what Crunchyroll simulcasted... & maybe still streams?), due to Jotaro being a high school student & Japanese TV having restrictions about showing anyone underage smoking now.
However, Oingo was of proper age so the anime could get away with showing him smoking, even though he visibly was disguised as the underaged Jotaro! Japanese TV standards can be a trip. |
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Scottran7
 Posts: 11 |
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I'm surprised they didn't bring up Yu Yu Hakusho as an instance where smoking was important. In episode 11, if Genkai hadn't thrown her lit cigarette earlier, Yusuke wouldn't have been able to see and would have been done for against Kibano! End of the main character right there!
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Vanadise
 Posts: 600 |
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I sometimes feel like I'm alone in having a visceral, disgusted reaction to visual depictions of characters smoking. I'll put up with it if it's a rare occurrence that's associated with a secondary character or if it's a one-time thing that is relevant to the story somehow, but like, I'll admit I dropped Kowloon Generic Romance after the first episode because while the story seemed interesting, I just could not handle constant zoomed-in shots of characters smoking. It's gross.
I realize this is probably a result of growing up in a house with two parents who were chain smokers, so the house constantly smelled like smoke, everything was stained yellow, and I didn't even realize until I went to college and got away from it for a while how even my clothes smelled like smoke. I've been out of there for a few decades now, but it was awful, and I suspect a lot of people have no idea what it's actually like to open up a computer case and see nicotine stains caked over everything. Despite all that, characters with Japanese-style pipes are not as bad. Kiri from Konohana Kitan is allowed. |
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tintor2
 Posts: 2717 |
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I remember Yusuke smoking in the manga but not in the anime. Same with Shikamaru who just keeps Asuma's cigars until he can finally move on with his death. When it comes to adult characters, Kogami almost smokes in every series or movie of PsychoPass he is something which the voiceactors loved in 2014 when Akane gave him the light automatically. Subaru from X (or X1999) also smokes for confusing reasons but there is a scene in the manga that Kamui tells him it is bad for his body in a shy fashion. |
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Silver Kirin
Posts: 1773 |
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I don't feel any disgust when I see an anime character, or any fictional character, smoking, but since I'm not a smoker I don't think I understand the different symbolisms when a character does it. To be honest, and I don't want to sound preachy or anything, I'm sometimes amazed at how commonplace smoking still is in anime, growing up in the late '90 in Argentina cigarettes ads on television were already banned only a few years after I was born, but I remember stil seeing ads on print media and on billboards, until they were banned in the early 2000s, while my parents didn't smoke, other realtives did, even when they were guests in our huose and they even smoked when I was present, I think that's what made me never want to smoke in my life, even though I became exposed to secondhand smoke when I went to places like arcades and internet cafés. Thankfully, I think these days people smoke much less where I live Going back to anime and manga, not saying that they should censor the depiction of tobacco use, but I wonder if things will change if future generations will drop the habit |
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invalidname
 Contributor Posts: 2554 Location: Grand Rapids, MI |
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Forgive my bringing up Rumbling Hearts again, but we need to have a word about Dr. Motoko Kouzuki.
Accomplished neurosurgeon. Who smokes constantly. Around patients' families. Around patients. In patient rooms. Where they have those nozzles of pure O2. That is either severe addiction, or reckless commitment to the bit. |
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Cryssoberyl
 Posts: 273 |
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You aren't alone. I also grew up with smoking parents and developed a visceral sensory and intellectual hatred for it. I literally cannot breathe in cigarette smoke, I have to hold my breath and move away at even the slightest whiff. The act of smoking is itself absolutely disgusting and there is never anything positive or artistically interesting about watching the human brain turn traitor to the cell-colony under its stewardship, slow-poisoning their bodies and polluting their surroundings.
Yes, the endorsement is what you're doing here in this article by calling it "cool", "hot", "erotic" etc., and you need to stop. This is not the first time I've noticed this tendency in ANN content. Stop romanticizing smoking. |
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pi8you
 Posts: 284 Location: Minneapolis |
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Fun article, especially as someone that can vaguely remember when they didn't even separate smoking and non-smoking sections in restaurants, and it's always nice to see Zveda mentioned.
Could probably go down the rabbit hole for a while, but a couple of other good smoking-looks-so-cool entries would be ACCA-13 and Showa Genroku Rakugo Shinju. Smokers are also good for the comedy of a character Just Trying To Have One Smoke, like in Planetes where that simple task required moving heaven and earth. |
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mdo7
 Posts: 8236 Location: Katy, Texas, USA |
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I never understood why anime and media (not counting any media and anime made in previous decades) needs to show smoking since it's already known that cigarettes or any form of smoking (including E-cigarettes) have no positive health benefit at all. I mean unless you want to get cancer, or have an accelerated aging, then I don't know why you would need to show character smoking in there (that includes anime).
Jojo's smoking censorship just look stupid!!! I mean this looks stupid, compare to 4Kids' changing Sanji's cigarette to a lollipop: 
Why didn't the Japanese thought of this instead of blackening it out. Don't get me wrong, I deplore 4Kid's censorship but at least they find a good way to censor cigarettes rather then doing what Jojo did.
Not only that, it undermine what doctors like her would be doing when it comes to portrayal of promoting good health. A medical doctor would know how dangerous cigarettes not only for both self-health and public health reason, but for public safety reasons. Did Dr. Kouzuki not realize that smoking cigarettes near oxygen tanks (it has happened before), & isopropyl alcohol (which is very flammable) are big fire hazards!!! So no medical doctors shouldn't have any legitimate reasons to be smoking at where they work at, that includes hospital when they're working with their patients. Last edited by mdo7 on Tue May 27, 2025 1:59 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Duck Du Normandie
 SubscriberPosts: 74 |
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Not just you. As someone who is actually allergic to tobacco smoke, and have been since birth, I never have been able to see smoking as cool. Full-body hives just isn't sexy to me. |
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Greed1914
 Posts: 5368 |
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I'm currently working my way through the Yakuza games, and it stuck out to me just how prevalent smoking is, but I think it sort of serves a narrative purpose there. You've got a bunch of characters who don't realistically expect to live to old age due to the constant presence of violence in their lives. And for the characters who do live longer in the series, some of them occasionally comment that smoking is yet another thing that makes them feel like relics from the past.
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Tenchi
 Posts: 4663 Location: Ottawa... now I'm an ex-Anglo Montrealer. |
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My favourite manga-to-anime change to a teenage character who smokes is in Strawberry Marshmallow.
In the manga, Chika Itou's older sister Nobue is a 16-year old high school student who smokes. In anime, portaying smoking among high school students is rather frowned upon, so they just upped Nobue's age to 20, at least officially. Nobue does introduce herself as 16 in the first episode of the anime but then claims it's a joke and that she's really 20. |
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Dr. Wily
Posts: 868 |
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Surprised they mentioned the Chainsaw Man example without mentioning that Naruto does the same thing with Shikamaru taking up Asuma's smokes after his death.
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quoss
Posts: 132 |
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Vices and making unhealthy choices a dozen+ a day is human, often warranted, and certainly has a place in fiction, as well as reality. Desiring a removal of a commonplace vice like smoking from fiction is an example of censorship/erasure/sanitization and Ig it needs to be said that these are bad things. If fools emulate behavior they would regret or cause harm to others, that is their own fault for lacking sense, not the work's just for having the thing. Not going to fault any singular producer choice like the Fruits Basket remake taking the vice out but I mean anyone wanting it gone across the board is foolish, practically and artistically. If a creator designs a character who smokes and they edit out the smoking trait out of concern for impressionable nitwits watching, I'd hope that character's reason for smoking and the shots we could've gotten expressing that are somehow replaced well. Because yeah, to a lot of people smoking looks sexy and cool and obviously can serve to make a scene more interesting and provide storytelling. The character is making an unhealthy choice, wow why, is it worth it to them or are they dumb, yay pretty smoke, yay distinctive smell that evokes immediate understanding of aforementioned notions, yay prop, moody posture... the list can go on forever. There will always be places, smells, things that aren't suited to some people; this doesn't call for their total eradication and certainly not in fiction.
For reality, I'm in the camp that is definitely in favor of letting people poison themselves if that's their prerogative. Educate people then let people do as they will. Anything else is too much control; not everybody enjoys life lol and some of us will gladly smoke or drink if it means reality sucks less for a minute or two. The illegality of smoking in businesses is also whack to me; a business ought to have the right to choose, I think, just as people can choose what businesses to go into, but welp. I'd say smoking sections are outdated in the sense that second-hand smoke would still be a huge problem for the non-smoking section so yep, all or nothing would be the idea but I'm not actually campaigning for this, just wrapping up the thought. The article was fun and interesting... I enjoy when the well-written back-and-forths of TWIA touch on topics that fire up the comments lol. As always, I got some new shows to watch from it too and sadly, I don't have many that I've already seen with coolass smokers to mention. Clearly we need more smoking representation. |
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King Chicken
 Posts: 170 |
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Because people smoke in the real world? Why should media shy away from things people actually do? It would feel like some kind of hollow reflection of our world where all the "bad stuff" is conveniently gone and never acknowledged. Should anime get rid of alcohol next or showing characters drunk because being drunk is bad? Or overweight characters who eat a lot because being fat is unhealthy? These are real things that happen every day. and exist in our world. No need to shy away from reality. |
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