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Chicks On Anime - Censorship Part 1

Manga 'editing' and 'censorship' is basically just an attempt to make manga more accepted and popular in America... from changing character names to cutting violence and sex and so forth. But all this is something very different from the specter of government 'censorship' and an obscenity conviction, like in the case of Christopher Handley.

And I very much enjoy the work of artists like Hideshi Hino and Suehiro Maruo, which can definitely be categorized as objectionable.

In terms of censorship, yeah, I'm more lenient of the type brought on by the publishers, such as airbrushing out cigarettes, painting out blood, and what not. I don't want to buy those products anymore, but I do partially understand where they're coming from.

I'd like to add, as far as Japanese manga in the U.S. goes, that there is one example of censorship on the part of a U.S. publisher that I wholeheartedly approve of: In Please Save My Earth Vol. 1, the heroine sees what she thinks is a gay love scene. She runs away in embarrassment when they see her peeking at them, and little text in the original Japanese edition says, "I'm scared of AIDS!" VIZ took it out, and I applaud them for it. The book was written back when knowledge of HIV/AIDS in Japan was limited; a statement like that would look bigoted to broadminded people these days in Japan as well, and I sincerely doubt that either the publisher or the mangaka would have allowed that sort of sentiment about gay men to sneak in today.

for my own part, I can see why people would get very uncomfortable with some racial depictions in manga, like Chocolove in Shaman King or Mr. Popo in Dragon Ball.

I really, really wish Disney would release Song of the South. But there are others who would scream at me for voicing that opinion.

"Run, they have AIDS!" would not be the same, at least under Canadian law, as saying, "I like pictures of little girls." The former, at a more extreme level, might advocate the systematic destruction of gay men. The latter, presumably, does not advocate the systematic destruction of little girls.

Or to give another example, when I first saw Ranma 1/2, I did think "Whoa, this gender-bending is really weird"

I don't know if I should talk about this publicly, but Viz's standards have changed a lot, so what's unacceptable one month, or in a high-selling manga, might be acceptable the next month, or in a lower-selling manga which people aren't paying as close attention to.

Perhaps the closest comparison would be the kind of pro-censorship crusaders, like Jack Thompson, who have gone after videogames like Grand Theft Auto. I sometimes wonder, knock on wood, how manga has been so lucky as to have avoided coming under attack in the same manner.

On the other hand, the attempts to censor games like GTA have been a resounding failure so far and Thompson was disbarred.

LordPrometheus wrote:

I'm well aware of these facts; my entire point was that AIDS was first diagnosed in gay humans. I should have chosen my words more carefully, I suppose.

No, you didn't know that. Nobody who had knowledge of those facts would say "AIDS started with the gays!" unless they were intentionally trying to spin it.

Yeesh, what's with the hostility, Zac? Is a guy not allowed to make a slightly inaccurate choice of words around here without getting blasted??

Hi, I can add to this actually-- it's reviewed on a case by case basis for context. My title was recently licensed by a German publisher; and she is allowed to use the American cover of my book--which does feature the swastika. Same goes for Art Spiegelman's German edition of Maus, published from Rowohlt Verlag.

The name "sauwastika" is sometimes given to the left-facing form of the swastika (卍),[16] though the term is merely an alternate spelling of swastika. Indians of most faiths sometimes use the symbol in both orientations, mostly for symmetry. Buddhists outside India generally use the left-facing swastika rather than the right-facing swastika, although both can be used. There are some who claim that the left-facing swastika has inauspicious or "evil" connotations, although others dismiss this as superstition, possibly associated with the stigma of left handedness. Significantly, the left-facing swastika is often carved in a see-through lattice in entrance doors of Buddhist temples in China. When exiting the temple, one sees the reverse side of this lattice on the same door, which looks like a right-facing swastika.

Zac wrote:

LordPrometheus wrote: I'm well aware of these facts; my entire point was that AIDS was first diagnosed in gay humans. I should have chosen my words more carefully, I suppose. No, you didn't know that. Nobody who had knowledge of those facts would say "AIDS started with the gays!" unless they were intentionally trying to spin it.

Go back and read what I said. I said "AIDS in humans started with gays". Take special note of the "in humans" part. I added that clause specifically because I was aware that the virus originated in chimps, but was first discovered in the gay population. The human strain may or may not have originated with gays, which is why I said I could have chosen my words more carefully.

Yeesh, what's with the hostility, Zac? Is a guy not allowed to make a slightly inaccurate choice of words around here without getting blasted??

Well, censoring falls under my job description, so reading this and the responses to it is really interesting to me.

Personally, I think censoring is annoying and shouldn't be done. But honestly, I think it may be a necessary part of our current manga industry. Sure, WE may not be offended, but WE only make up a certain small corner of the book-reading market. There are many people out there that will not buy a certain book because it has something that offends them in it. It's sad, but it's true. The manga publishers are definitely filled with manga lovers, but they're also businesses who would like to see the books they put out sell well. If we want to continue to have manga put out in our countries, we may have to buck up and accept some censorship, whether we like it or not.

And for companies, it's probably safer to censor than to not censor. Reprinting can be very costly, especially if new printing plates have to be made. Because of the fiasco with the Koran being in the hands of the villain in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, distribution in Japan has been halted, something that could effect world-wide distribution. It's something that will probably be censored, but if it had been censored in the first place, this problem wouldn't have arisen. (Now who can tell what will cause fiascos like these form day to day, I'm just using the JoJo one as an example...)

Jason, thank-you for saying that censored pages are often approved by editors/companies in Japan. I've had discussions with some fans who are all for putting all the "blame" on American companies and do not understand this.

Sorry for the long and winding post!

The UK has already had a very public "manga scare" back in the '90s, over "Legend of the Overfiend" and other "video nasties." It's something we've been spared so far in the U.S.

Quote:

The UK has already had a very public "manga scare" back in the '90s, over "Legend of the Overfiend" and other "video nasties." It's something we've been spared so far in the U.S.

Fortunately or not (depending on one's views on the subject) our recent Extreme Pornography law has given hentai the all clear.

There is no evidence that pornography incites men to violence against women, anyway, though if definitive, empirical proof of it were to be found, I'd have to rethink my stance on the issues.

But I'm not going to deny someone else their hobbies, disgusting as I may think they are. And I'd rather someone have an outlet for their interests in fiction, rather than in real life.

Dragynstorm wrote:

Well, censoring falls under my job description, so reading this and the responses to it is really interesting to me.

So, um, do you work in manga editing? Or, if not what job do you do that requires censorship? Now that you've brought this up I'm just curious on what it is you do, heh.

Unit 03.5-ish wrote:

Dragynstorm wrote: Well, censoring falls under my job description, so reading this and the responses to it is really interesting to me. So, um, do you work in manga editing? Or, if not what job do you do that requires censorship? Now that you've brought this up I'm just curious on what it is you do, heh.

I do edit manga (I'm a letterer/touch-up artist). And because of that, I'm sort of a bad guy when it comes to censoring, since I am one of the people that actually takes out the blood and nipples and puts the pants on young boys. ;;

Despite the lack of evidence showing violence against women resulting from pornography (as pointed out in the article), how can one deny that it has a negative effect psychologically and socially? ....