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NEWS: Sword Art Online Episode Censors More Content on U.S.-Based Streaming Services

I'm not sure that anyone's mentioned this, and perhaps it doesn't matter, but during this scene, in the context of the story, spoiler[Kirito is the only living, breathing human in the scene. The rest are bottom-up AIs. The perpetrators, victims, and Eugeo are all computer simulations using fluctlights. None of them are actual living, breathing people connected to an interface like an AmuSphere. So technically, it's just Kirito observing the behavior of a bunch of 1's and 0's in this simulation, perhaps wondering if the decision matrix will lead to a violation of the Taboo Index. Technically, it's a pure computer simulation of rape, with only one actual human observer.] Maybe that makes it more disturbing, though?

This is when things get difficult. If someone is allergic to peanuts, shall we ban those around them from eating peanut butter? How far do we take it, exactly? Some schools restrict students from bringing peanut-containing foods to school if someone in their class is allergic. Is that fair, when the ratio of people is 30:1? What about when the whole school can't have it because of one person and the ratio is 1000:1? What about if we ban it entirely and nobody can have peanuts? Where, exactly, does one draw the line? And at what point does a person stop becoming responsible for their own situation and it becomes others responsibility to do it for them?

When that one can have potentially life-threatening reactions to peanuts (which is, unfortunately, a real thing in some cases) then yes, that restriction/ban is absolutely warranted. That it's inconvenient or a nuisance for the others is irrelevant.

Now, whether or not the censorship issue is in the same boat as that is another story. You should probably give better thought as to what you're using for examples.

Shiflan wrote:

This is when things get difficult. If someone is allergic to peanuts, shall we ban those around them from eating peanut butter? How far do we take it, exactly? Some schools restrict students from bringing peanut-containing foods to school if someone in their class is allergic. Is that fair, when the ratio of people is 30:1? What about when the whole school can't have it because of one person and the ratio is 1000:1? What about if we ban it entirely and nobody can have peanuts? Where, exactly, does one draw the line? And at what point does a person stop becoming responsible for their own situation and it becomes others responsibility to do it for them?

When that one can have potentially life-threatening reactions to peanuts (which is, unfortunately, a real thing in some cases) then yes, that restriction/ban is absolutely warranted. That it's inconvenient or a nuisance for the others is irrelevant.

Now, whether or not the censorship issue is in the same boat as that is another story. You should probably give better thought as to what you're using for examples.

Anyone engaging in a business contract gets to make demands. That's the point of having a contract. Both sides do it. Now it is certainly true that not all of those demands may be agreed to and make their way into the final contact, but you absolutely can ask.

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But as to your second, I understood you to be making the assertion that content warnings led to more censored versions, which to me is a case of correlation rather than causation.

That sounds perfectly reasonable, yes. They're both symptoms of the same problem, one just just more severe than the other. Where there's smoke (warnings) there's fire (censorship).

[snip]

I have zero problems with warnings as long as they don't spoil the plot.
I blame whoever implements the censorship for that censorship. It's clearly not CR or Hulu's fault if Aniplex is the one who gave them a censored show. OTOH, the same logic could apply to CR or Hulu. It's possible that CR or Hulu, knowing that this was a hot button issue with a lot of awareness currently, contractually demanded that certain content be edited out. Whether or not that happened I have no idea, but if CR or hulu made the request then I would blame them. Right now we don't know who to blame which is why I haven't blamed anyone yet.

But like I said above, it's all symptoms of the same disease. It's not that warnings themselves cause censorship, it's that censorship is another step along the same path. Once we see the first step then we expect the 2nd to soon follow, which it did.

Just trying to think of a constructive way to address the issue that would compromise for both sides. I dunno, maybe I'm just ignorant to how difficult it would actually be to do haha.

BasketBalljones wrote:

Just trying to think of a constructive way to address the issue that would compromise for both sides. I dunno, maybe I'm just ignorant to how difficult it would actually be to do haha.

I applaud the fact that you want to be positive, but I honestly don't see a "problem" here at all. As I mentioned above, Anime-watching is a recreational activity. Nobody is being forced to watch it against their will. Nobody is being "exposed" to it by accident like, say, secondhand smoke. Therefore it's ALREADY a choice. There's no need to add more levels of choice because a choice already exists. People have to actively choose to watch anime.

If you are in a situation where you might honestly have problems if you were to see a violent, sexual, or other kind of triggering scene then it's on you to do your homework before you watch, the same way that a person with allergies needs to be vigilant about what they eat. What's so hard about that? I deal with my food allergies without expecting other people to shoulder that burden for me, so why can people who need to avoid violent anime scenes not do the same?

I think you're making a few leaps of logic here, not the least of which is that three separate licensing companies would even know/care about which episode/scene to target, or that Aniplex would even agree to such a weirdly outlandish request

I think it's much more reasonable to assume that Aniplex either planned from the start to release a more censored version to the US....

But in either case, I sincerely doubt content warnings were at fault; I don't think Aniplex gives two flying figs about content warnings. I think they DO care about fan reaction, and in trying to head off Goblin Slayer 2.0, they instead pissed off their SAO fanbase when they realized they'd gotten an edited version.

...maybe the person should leave and eat somewhere else if they are allergic to the peanuts instead of bothering the other people who enjoy eating the peanuts.

I suspect there is some sort of contractual agreement between the streaming services / TV stations and the licensors which stipulates what level of content each one is willing to broadcast and the licensors supply "custom edits" for each one. T

OTOH, the same logic could apply to CR or Hulu. It's possible that CR or Hulu, knowing that this was a hot button issue with a lot of awareness currently, contractually demanded that certain content be edited out. Whether or not that happened I have no idea, but if CR or hulu made the request then I would blame them.

Right now we don't know who to blame which is why I haven't blamed anyone yet.

I hate censorship. They should at least make two versions so people can choose (i'm sure majority of people prefer to watch uncensored)

That may be correct for the broadcasters to some extent (or perhaps more that the owner company knows what sort of things each channel takes, so knows how to cater to their needs) but I can tell you it isn't correct for the licensor services.
The owner company (in this case Aniplex) has control over the content, the licensors do not have power to state which version they want unless the owner company specifically asks, which in 99.9999999% of cases (included no doubt this one), they would never do as they don't really care. The hierarchy is
OWNER(ANIPLEX)
LICENSOR
so licensor can't make demands and have no control over supplied materials and really are just happy to get what they can get.

Echii wrote:

I hate censorship. They should at least make two versions so people can choose (i'm sure majority of people prefer to watch uncensored)

From what I have seen most of the people who promote censorship don't want there to be an option. That is why it is almost never about adding the option of having a censored version of a show since they know that most people would want to watch the uncensored version.