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Editing & Censorship in Anime


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Maxxx17



Joined: 22 Aug 2021
Posts: 12
PostPosted: Sun Aug 22, 2021 12:01 pm Reply with quote
Couldn't stand the problems with that censorship
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Chiibi



Joined: 19 Dec 2011
Posts: 4828
PostPosted: Sun Aug 22, 2021 12:33 pm Reply with quote
Censorship is the worst and there will never be anything good about it.

Unless...perhaps the racist stereotypes....I can understand some of the edits there...because they can get pretty offensive. That's mostly in the really old stuff though.

As far as sex and violence though?

Unless you're marketing to preschoolers....please leave the cartoons alone. Twisted Evil

Quote:
Long gone are the ultra violent or bloody anime of the 80's and early 90's for example.


Idk man, Jojo's pretty intense....so is Higurashi. Higurashi Gou episode 16 did this (I wanna say ten minutes cause it felt like it) really LONG, drawn out scene of gore and torture and....I couldn't take it. The funny part was I was in a group with Discord watching it and we were ALL screaming for it to stop. Laughing

So....yeah, blood and guts scenes are alive and well in anime. I'm honestly surprised how far Demon Slayer goes with its violence...that is a new standard for shounen anime...at least that I am aware of.
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Redbeard 101
Oscar the Grouch
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Joined: 14 Aug 2006
Posts: 16935
PostPosted: Sun Aug 22, 2021 5:31 pm Reply with quote
Maxxx17 wrote:
Couldn't stand the problems with that censorship


What censorship are you referring to?


Chiibi wrote:

Quote:
Long gone are the ultra violent or bloody anime of the 80's and early 90's for example.


Idk man, Jojo's pretty intense....so is Higurashi. Higurashi Gou episode 16 did this (I wanna say ten minutes cause it felt like it) really LONG, drawn out scene of gore and torture and....I couldn't take it. The funny part was I was in a group with Discord watching it and we were ALL screaming for it to stop. Laughing

So....yeah, blood and guts scenes are alive and well in anime. I'm honestly surprised how far Demon Slayer goes with its violence...that is a new standard for shounen anime...at least that I am aware of.

There are some titles that have more copious amounts of violence and gore, but it's not the same as in ages past. The amount of titles that would fall into this category compared to the over all percentage of titles produced each year is far below what it used to be. Yea there are still gory and ultra violent shows made, but there are fewer and fewer of those made each year compared to the overall total of titles produced.

There is also something to be said for the visceral nature of the violence and gore. Is Demon Slayer violent with lots of action? Sure. Does it have dismemberment? Sure. Compare it to say Ninja Scroll though and you have 2 quite different titles in terms of tone with their violence. Many series now a days have much more stylized violence and gore. It's not really the same as the more visceral and realistic feeling violence and gore that dominated the 80's and early 90's anime scene.
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Chiibi



Joined: 19 Dec 2011
Posts: 4828
PostPosted: Sun Aug 22, 2021 7:45 pm Reply with quote
@Redbeard 101

The most violent stuff back then were OVAs and movies though, right? Because they were only released on home video, they could go as far as they wanted to go. My favorite vampire show, Nightwalker started off as four pretty graphic OVAs but when it got a TV timeslot, the violence and gore got toned down a lot.

TV anime normally didn't get to the level of Ninja Scroll, Wicked City or Battle Angel. (I haven't seen Fist of the North Star but I don't think it went as far as those OVAs?) So I think it's more about "the lack of OVAs" now, right?
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Naftali Poritz



Joined: 25 Apr 2017
Posts: 30
PostPosted: Fri Aug 27, 2021 6:43 pm Reply with quote
I think the reason for all this censorship is that America and English speaking countries are puritanical, and think fanservice and nudity is shameful. It all seems to originate over 2000 years ago from the story of Adam And Eve when they ate from the forbidden tree, then became self aware of their nudity, and were told by the king of the universe that nudity and sexuality is shameful, and to cover themselves with fig leaves. Since then, people in Western culture, especially in English speaking countries think nudity and sexuality is sinful, unlike the traditional Japanese culture, where is was normal for men and women to even bath together.

Problem is that Sony of America forced Sony of Japan to be puritanical and start censoring nudity and fanservice. I don't believe in censorship, and Anime and games from Japan should be released here in America uncensored.
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TarsTarkas



Joined: 20 Dec 2007
Posts: 5821
Location: Virginia, United States
PostPosted: Thu Sep 30, 2021 6:36 pm Reply with quote
Naftali Poritz wrote:
I think the reason for all this censorship is that America and English speaking countries are puritanical, and think fanservice and nudity is shameful.


At one time I would have said the same to some degree. But things changed from the turn of the century. The religious right were such things came from, are no longer the powerhouses that they used to be.

There has been a paradigm shift about such things. Now our shields and pikes must be turned to the left, the progessive left. That is where the calls for censorship and 'editing for content' are the strongest.

Even the argument has shifted. It is not about puritanism anymore, but political correctness. But it boils down to the same thing, one group of people telling another group of people what they can watch or not watch. It is all about control.
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SenpaiDuckie
ANN Community Manager


Joined: 16 Sep 2021
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PostPosted: Sat Oct 02, 2021 10:52 am Reply with quote
First of all, I love how this thread progressed on the origin of censorship. It is critical and has multiple angles that was considered. The thing with censorship on anime and manga goes way back on Japan's nation branding and international trade.

In history, Japan needed to rebrand themselves due to the WWII events and became a soft power themselves. When it comes to anime and manga, they needed that censorship as it is part of their marketing strategy for the West. The Japanese believe and know that the taste of Western countries are different from them and even from their neighboring countries, and needed to meet the Western standards. The censorship is included because in the US, anime and cartoons are usually mixed up. Japan knew that cartoons in the West are mainly shown to kids. In comparison to them, anime and manga has history. It was used for their political movement (it goes way back 1900's) and it may not be obvious at first, but their underlying themes can somehow be rated as R if brought to the US.

Hence, I want to talk about this one:

Naftali Poritz wrote:

Problem is that Sony of America forced Sony of Japan to be puritanical and start censoring nudity and fanservice. I don't believe in censorship, and Anime and games from Japan should be released here in America uncensored.


In my opinion, It does sound bad that US Sony forced Japan Sony to do censorship and fanservice, but it is also best to keep in mind that Japan (and maybe even the US) have statistics on what kind of people watch anime or even what genre is most watched... including the R genres. It is hard for Japan to change their marketing strategy or branding for the West. It goes way back their history after all.

As an endnote, I hope my reply helps and contributes to this thread! Very Happy
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Chocobos



Joined: 17 May 2021
Posts: 21
PostPosted: Sat Oct 02, 2021 12:41 pm Reply with quote
I am against any censorship - let the creator decide to which audience he or she addresses his work, and let people decide what is good for them.
I hate DC and Marvel animations because nobody ever dies there (ALMOST NEVER) - but I'm delighted with the Invincible. With the Invincible, the DC animations look like a parody
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AmpersandsUnited



Joined: 22 Mar 2012
Posts: 633
PostPosted: Sun Oct 03, 2021 1:32 pm Reply with quote
Chocobos wrote:
I am against any censorship - let the creator decide to which audience he or she addresses his work, and let people decide what is good for them.
I hate DC and Marvel animations because nobody ever dies there (ALMOST NEVER) - but I'm delighted with the Invincible. With the Invincible, the DC animations look like a parody


It sounds like your issue is with the stagnant narrative of cape comics that they can never permanently kill off characters or end stories due to marketing rather than actual violence censorship . I suppose that's a form of corporate and creative censorship, but the writers for those companies don't own the characters, the company does, so it's technically the creator is deciding for themselves not to kill their cash cow characters off. Invincible was a creator-owned series so Kirkman could do whatever he wanted.

TarsTarkas wrote:
But it boils down to the same thing, one group of people telling another group of people what they can watch or not watch. It is all about control.


As the saying goes: the players may have changed, but the game remains the same. Just be glad it's still just as easy to avoid those who would try to control and inhibit the kinds of anime and manga you want to enjoy as it was back in the days when kids channels and television blocks ruled the landscape.
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MysticGon



Joined: 29 May 2020
Posts: 43
PostPosted: Thu Oct 14, 2021 3:00 pm Reply with quote
I think it will be okay for now. Sony Pictures and Sony Music don't answer to censorship-happy Sony Interactive. Sony Corp leadership might want them to try and cooperate but they don't really have to when they are all fairly successful at what they do.
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Myrick



Joined: 24 Dec 2021
Posts: 16
Location: Reno, Nevada
PostPosted: Fri Dec 24, 2021 10:57 pm Reply with quote
I think there is some cause for concern but mostly "no". Fan-service has become really excessive in anime(especially when the target audience are mostly kids) that censorship can be well-deserved.
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TarsTarkas



Joined: 20 Dec 2007
Posts: 5821
Location: Virginia, United States
PostPosted: Sun Dec 26, 2021 5:27 am Reply with quote
Myrick wrote:
I think there is some cause for concern but mostly "no". Fan-service has become really excessive in anime(especially when the target audience are mostly kids) that censorship can be well-deserved.


That is what ratings are for. I am tired of hearing the argument that adults can't watch certain stuff because kids might watch it. Even though, almost every kid now has a smart phone or tablet/iPad that allows them to freely browse the dark web. Not to mention, all the bad stuff they pass amongst their own peer groups.
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P€|\||§_|\/|ast@



Joined: 14 Feb 2006
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Location: IN your nightmares
PostPosted: Sun Dec 26, 2021 9:15 am Reply with quote
TarsTarkas wrote:
Myrick wrote:
I think there is some cause for concern but mostly "no". Fan-service has become really excessive in anime(especially when the target audience are mostly kids) that censorship can be well-deserved.


That is what ratings are for. I am tired of hearing the argument that adults can't watch certain stuff because kids might watch it. Even though, almost every kid now has a smart phone or tablet/iPad that allows them to freely browse the dark web. Not to mention, all the bad stuff they pass amongst their own peer groups.
I had a bit of a different interpretation of what Myrick said. It seemed they were referring to fanservice in shows even targeted towards kids. But like you said with accessibility, target audiences are largely irrelevant; what people watch is what they're interested in and there's really no foolproof method to restrict certain things from certain people.

Which is why saying "fanservice is excessive these days" is not really accurate. It's a consequence of demand: The proportion of viewers who feel the market as a whole is too "fanservicey" is smaller than that who feel its about right or not enough. But it also goes back to accessibility because ratings do exist, information about every program's content is so readily available, and whatever people are willing to watch there's really no one else to blame if the content is too sexual, violent or otherwise offensive.
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Redbeard 101
Oscar the Grouch
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PostPosted: Sun Dec 26, 2021 11:22 am Reply with quote
TarsTarkas wrote:

That is what ratings are for. I am tired of hearing the argument that adults can't watch certain stuff because kids might watch it. Even though, almost every kid now has a smart phone or tablet/iPad that allows them to freely browse the dark web. Not to mention, all the bad stuff they pass amongst their own peer groups.


There is a big difference between shows aimed for adults, and those that are night. More and more of the shows that are aimed at younger audiences contain much more excessive amounts of fanservice now a days. Simply saying "that's what ratings are for" is disingenuous and ignores that fact. Yes, adults should be able to watch what we want to, but don't sit there and pretend that all of these shows are aimed solely at adults. They're not.

Past wrote:
But like you said with accessibility, target audiences are largely irrelevant; what people watch is what they're interested in and there's really no foolproof method to restrict certain things from certain people.......

Which is why saying "fanservice is excessive these days" is not really accurate.


Target audiences are still quite relevant, and fanservice has become much more prevalent in all genres of shows. So yes, it is getting excessive when it's being used more and more across all spectrums of anime to push sales. Instead of more effort being put into plot and characters in many cases. We can debate other factors as to why the T&A is becoming more prevalent (such as perhaps studios being pushed with impossible deadlines to churn out title after title so you rely on T&A gags and camera angles to get easy views from people when you don't have the time to more deeply flesh out characters), but it really is. More importantly there are countless titles anymore where the fanservice carries a big tonal shift from the story that makes it stand out more. This is coming from someone who actually enjoys T&A, and even I can acknowledge that yea, in many cases it is becoming a tad excessive.

I'm not even going to go into how every time a breast is covered up people going on these moral "this is all censorship!!!" tirades. If a company wants to EDIT their own product, in terms of nudity/sexual content, to make it more assessable that's their call. I can't fault them for that, and that is not "censorship" to me. Especially not in the anime fandom when you can just wait for the bloody BR's and see the unedited versions. The amount of vitriol and incensed rage by fans over covering up an anime tiddie, compared to real cases of censorship around the world that affect lives, is also becoming quite excessive.
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P€|\||§_|\/|ast@



Joined: 14 Feb 2006
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PostPosted: Sun Dec 26, 2021 12:19 pm Reply with quote
Redbeard 101 wrote:
Target audiences are still quite relevant, and fanservice has become much more prevalent in all genres of shows. So yes, it is getting excessive when it's being used more and more across all spectrums of anime to push sales.
To me fanservice is whether its covered up or not. Or another way to put it, if your attention is meant to be drawn to a breast or crotch, however covered up it is, that's still fanservice. More fanservice to draw viewers (to ads if not sales of the actual video) rather than story, writing or real substance is a very valid complaint. But I don't think of fanservice to be necessarily synonymous with adult oriented, or sexually explicit. It's a term that literally means artists giving visual pleasure to viewers. It also exists because of and as a type of marketing strategy so that's why I explained it earlier as an arguably unavoidable effect of demand.

Whether from the censorship or free expression point of view, all the arguments and complaints about fanservice do have merits. But simply viewing anime as a commercial product designed to earn money (if it doesn't we know it can't really exist), is the prevalence of fanservice really outpacing the growth of anime overall? I think this is a trend that can be seen over time, I mean comparing with the amount of fanservice in each decade, but some of that can be attributed to how creations are a continuously cumulative attribute, so originality becomes increasingly difficult (or taken for granted).
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