Chinese to Japanese: “Stop Censoring Your Anime!”

• Author: Artefact
• Categories: Anime, News
• Date: Dec 28, 2011 17:22 JST


• Tags: Censorship, China, DVD Extras, LDP, Marketing, Oppai, Pantsu, Politics, TV
  

Even the Chinese have been complaining about the excessive levels of censorship Japanese anime and manga are now subject to, whether due to the attentions of Herr Ishihara or simply down to the prevalence of censorship marketing.

Some of the commentary from Chinese otaku:

“I’ve been checking out some old Japanese anime lately –  I found something a little surprising.  H scenes were all OK back then it seems. Honestly, it seems things were more liberal back then?”

“Right, they used to show boobs with no problem back then. Like in Lupin III and so on, despite it being the seventies they were shown. Now all you get is great beams of holy light flashing about…”

“They even had them in the first Gundam. But nothing in Seed? And always in OPs…”

“My first recollections are of scenes of Rei and Mamiya getting their tops ripped off in Fist of the North Star. They even showed that stuff on our TV without issue, despite cutting out loads of other stuff.”

“They were showing all that stuff fine in the nineties even here.”

“When did all the breasts start getting covered up by weird beams of light?”

“Japan’s TV anime censorship is getting worse and worse. I doubt they could even air Fist of the North Star now.”

Amongst Japanese otaku there is some debate as to whether increasing levels of anime censorship can be blamed on moral hysteria and persecution of otaku on the part of Japanese politicians and media, or simply on cynical efforts by studios to goad viewers into buying the disc release by cutting out all the juicy bits and merely pretending it has something to do with censorship.

Whatever the case, there does seem to be some awareness that when even Chinese feel compelled to complain about their censorship, there is something very wrong indeed:

“You can see it all on the disc release. This is all a sales tactic.”

“Japanese politicians are scum!”

“All those LDP politicians are trying to get anime and manga banned completely. The number of crazy politicians here is really increasing, they are totally nuts now.”

“Censorship these days is really bad though, you can’t even see normal panchira uncensored any longer.”

“Pay up and you can see it all, you filthy chinks!”

“Who cares what a bunch of dirty Chinese pirates have to say!”

“What right have they to an opinion when they just watch it all illegally!”

“How starved of ero are they?”

“This is all the fault of the LDP’s crazy Korean cultist supporters.”

“Late night anime is pretty amazing though… they may not show it directly like ero-anime, but the fetishistic way they present things is quite something.”

“You used to be able to see even Shizuka-chan’s breasts and pantsu without issue.”

“A few years ago, I remember being told by a neighbourhood mother of two who’d just seen a Yattaman remake that you don’t see that sort of thing at all anymore.”

“Kiss x Sis and Yosuga no Sora were the talk of our school, but our teacher just said that there was much more stuff like that before.”

“I don’t see a problem with boobs, but Yosuga takes things too far!”

“Japan is headed in a strange direction.”

“I really think the commercial reasons for censorship predominate now…”

“Qwaser and so on are packed with ero, but aren’t tlight beams just a ploy to increase DVD sales? They can’t just show anime for free.”

“TV used to be good, now it’s pure trash. No wonder viewerships are down.”

“Just look at late night Fuji TV – you can see all kinds of explicit [3D] bondage programming.”

“Terrestrial censorship isn’t just targeting anime though. If anything I think anime is getting off lightly.”

“After the LDP and Koumeito [minor Buddhist cultist party formerly in a governing coalition with the LDP] got into a coalition, the level of ‘voluntary restraint’ on TV got really severe, didn’t it?”

“Now they are in opposition they have become even more obsessed with censorship though… I’m really worried about what they’ll do when they get back in.”

“They are totally obsessed with child porn now, they’ll ban as much as they can.”

“I really do get the impression that their crazies have taken over since they got knocked into opposition.”

“Wasn’t the first piece of legislation they proposed after losing power a ban on ero?”

“Right. Although there isn’t much agreement in their party about anything.”

“Those net right wingers who support them are just as crazy as they are though.”

“Holy light is the right way of describing those beams…”