Anime: Censorship and Consequences

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VLSmooth
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Anime: Censorship and Consequences

Post by VLSmooth »

Editorial: One Piece: The Ultimate Opportunity and the Ultimate Blunder ( Link )

An 11,000+ word monster with the following edited summary:
Alan Tse wrote:...4Kids... killed (One Piece's)... potential... (to become) a... phenomenon in North America
  • I've watched One Piece (subbed) up to ep162, and read most of the manga
  • I understand his stance
  • I agree with most of it, despite his zeal, rambling, spelling errors, and wall-of-text tendencies
More Detail:
  • One Piece is INCREDIBLY popular in Japan
  • Manga (Comic) started on 1997-08-04 (still ongoing @ 39 volumes)
  • February 2005: Set the record for the fastest Japanese manga publication to reach 10,000,000 copies sold
  • Anime started on 1999-10-20 (still ongoing @ ep245 and 6 movies)
  • By ep64, 20 episodes were already cut by 4Kids US release
  • General Edits
  • Eiichiro Oda (author) was a former assistant to Nobuhiro Watsuki of Rurouni Kenshin fame
The plausibility of the following statement saddens me ._.
Alan Tse wrote:So what happened to all this potential from the number one anime? 4Kids is what happened to it. Thanks to 4Kids and their editing, people's impression of One Piece is that of a children's show about a bunch of odd pirates and is completely unsubstantial and unenjoyable. Thanks to 4Kids, One Piece will never become popular enough to duplicate its Japanese success. Thanks to 4Kids, the weirdness of One Piece will be a reason for ridicule instead of a reason for being more entertaining. Thanks to 4Kids and how they continue to make bad dubs for marketing purposes, people will never be able to watch and enjoy the brilliance that is the original One Piece.
More Links:

Jonathan
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Post by Jonathan »

What kind of "Censorship" and "bad dubs for marketing purposes" are we talking about? Why would a company deliberately hamstring the commercial appeal of their product?

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Post by VLSmooth »

Dwindlehop wrote:What kind of "Censorship" and "bad dubs for marketing purposes" are we talking about? Why would a company deliberately hamstring the commercial appeal of their product?
Simple: Mis-guided beliefs

One Piece is obviously an extremely lucrative property. So is the 6-11 audience (note: One Piece's popularity applies to all ages in Japan). A naive best-of-both worlds approach would be to apply a proven cash cow to the most lucrative consumers.

"controversial" issues are expensive and troublesome, hence censoring directed to the demographic. However, this was done with a blind-eye to consistency and what makes One Piece an attractive property in the first place.

So yes, it's likely negligence on the part of 4Kids, shooting themselves in the foot without knowing it, while still making a decent profit regardless. The potential is ridculously greater though...

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Post by Alan »

Anime in the US is and will remain "a different kind of cartoon", with a primary target audience of kids ranging from grade school aged to mid adolescence. This is where the money is. College students (for the most part) in the US are not going to buy action figures, which is where most of the money from cartoons comes from. College students (for the most part) are not going to buy and play the collectible card games. In the US, kids (well their parents) are where the money is to be made. So in the US, anime is for kids - this may require substantial editing to make them acceptable for Saturday morning TV standards. So that is what they'll do.

For anime to become a genre watched by adults in the US requires a cultural change in the perception of cartoons. Companies like 4kids are not going to bother trying to enact this type of change because 1) there's no money in it for them to do so, and 2) it would be way too difficult with no payoffs. So 4kids is doing nothing essentially wrong - it's just adapting their product for a different target audience in a different culture.

4kids has not passed up some wonderful opportunity to make One Piece a national phenomenon. The American television audience would never give One Piece a chance to become a national television phenomenon - they'd give it maybe 5 seconds and change the channel. There is a difference between something like One Piece and something like The Simpsons or Family Guy - one takes place in a fantastic world that seems to have nothing to do with real life and the others do. Why do you think Futurama was a commercial failure despite being a fairly good show? And even with Family Guy, that show was cancelled for a while before they brought it back. With a few very spectacular exceptions, cartoons are not popular with adults.

The sooner you (and Alan Tse) recognize this and stop caring about how anime in the US is being portrayed, the happier you'll be and the less angsty you'll get about stuff that has nothing to do with you.
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Post by VLSmooth »

Alan wrote:Anime in the US is and will remain "a different kind of cartoon"
For a while, yes, but obviously the future is uncertain. This is primarily regarding the passing of generations akin to the cultural change you mentioned. For example, gaming's popularity has grown due to gamers in the past now entering adulthood.
Alan wrote:The American television audience would never give One Piece a chance to become a national television phenomenon - they'd give it maybe 5 seconds and change the channel.
Yep, I can see that happening. Japan's circumstances were certainly different considering the solid fan base from the manga.
Alan wrote:The sooner you (and Alan Tse) recognize this and stop caring about how anime in the US is being portrayed, the happier you'll be and the less angsty you'll get about stuff that has nothing to do with you.
Seemed a tad bit sharp there...

I'm just sympathizing with the writer, since I found the editorial amusing nonetheless; being versed in the material helps. I agree with the writer that One Piece has potential, but accept that change won't happen quickly, if ever. Just because something has potential doesn't mean it's easy to exercise.

Even though I read it, I don't plan on redirecting my "angst" into writing something like that; the topic's not that amusing. As for my post, it was just something that others might find amusing / an archival point I could look up when bored sometime.

Imho, the editing of blood, foul language, heck even the lollipop and guns are annoying but ultimately understandable since they minimally impact the story while allowing the show to be seen at all. Removing plot, such as entire character backstories and slice-of-life scenes, is harder to rationalize.

Probably the most annoying issue concerns DVD distribution. The only acquirable US DVD version is edited by 4Kids. Alternatively, and less convenient for some, there are always fansubs.

Another amusing tidbit:
Wikipedia wrote:From episode 207 (aired October 31, 2004) onwards, One Piece has been simulcast in both HDTV and standard definition. The HDTV version is not simply a "letterboxed" version of the "normal" episode, but actually animated completely in the 16:9 aspect ratio, while the "standard" 4:3 version crops off the right and left sides of the frame.

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Post by Jonathan »

The interesting question to me is what content is deemed appropriate for all ages by Japanese culture but is age-inappropriate for American 6-11 year-olds? As far as I know, developed nations differ significantly in what they deem acceptable mature content in their entertainment. I didn't think there was much differentiation between what was acceptable all-ages content. Perhaps I'm wrong?

Also, way to quote the "a" from Tse's article. That extra level of fidelity gave the summary so much more impact. :D

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Post by VLSmooth »

Dwindlehop wrote:The interesting question to me is what content is deemed appropriate for all ages by Japanese culture but is age-inappropriate for American 6-11 year-olds?
Disclaimer: This contains hastily generated opinion and sarcasm; read at your own risk.

Summary List of Inappropriate Content for American 6-11 year-olds: (off the top of my head)
  • Death
  • Gray Issues (questioning bad! related to role-models)
  • Pacing
  • Nudity / Sexual Inneudo
  • Religion
First off, a few complaints from angry parents is all it takes to cause immense trouble and even litigation. Majority rule applies lightly to intolerant fanatics. Therefore, companies are encouraged to be conservative.

The most prevalent inappropriate issue is "death". This includes anything that implies death, including blood and guns (but strangely not blades; go figure). Other examples of death censorship include Sven's death in Voltron (blue lion pilot before the princess) being cut out and the robotic foot soldiers in TMNT (hey, they're robots, that's fine!).

Perhaps censors believe shielding kids from thoughts of death will help them better handle encounters with it in life? Yeah, that doesn't make sense to me either.

Next come gray issues. Apparently, everything must be black and white; anything else is too complex for children to comprehend. Thought provoking stimuli? Giving them the benefit of the doubt to figure things out? What, are you crazy? They're too impressionable! It's our job to take advantage of that and force upon them what we know is appropriate.

Therefore, protagonists must be perfect role-models, with no permanent "flaws". Cursing, smoking, drinking? No way! Dark, tragic past providing motivation? Nothing bad happens to good guys; that's the benefit of being good! Antagonists with redeeming qualities? Ridiculous! Villains must be evil beyond a doubt to show kids what not to become. Who cares about logic or plausibility. Bad guys are simply there as a foil to show how good the good guys are!

Hmm... on second thought, cursing, smoking, drinking are too heavy for kids to handle. We'd better remove them completely. Darn, we can't use those to make the bad guys even worse. Oh well, it's all for the sake of the children since we know best!

Pacing... things should always be fast and active! Subtlety? Blah, waste of time. Contrast you say? There's no time for contrast; we need speed, explosions, wham bam thank you ma'am!

Nudity and sexual inneudo... they're inappropriate because... just because! Do you want kids becoming sex fiends? There, I didn't think so. Besides, what would your mother say?</sarcastic rant>

Religion... did you see the CNN article about the "God Bless America" banner on a government building? Yep, there's heated debate about that too, with amusing hate mail to boot! Regarding One Piece, this is why anything resembling crosses is edited out (cross-shaped pole Zoro with tied to, medical crosses, sword hilts, etc).

Sorry, not much time to proofread, got lazy.
Last edited by VLSmooth on Tue Oct 18, 2005 4:27 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Post by VLSmooth »

This can be seen as a consequence of designing for the lowest common denominator, regarding people.

Yes, I still hate assuming/considering people stupid. One could interpret censors are treating kids like morons.

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Post by Jason »

I don't know about you, but I didn't really use logic when I was 6-11 years old. Also, during that time I never saw grey. Things were either black or white. The human brain usually doesn't understand concepts of duality and metaphor until the teenage years. Luckily for everyone involved, the brain mostly filters out any such concepts or attempts to understand them within the limited context of past experience. So therefore children usually don't get the adult jokes in disney movies and their parents are happy about it.

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Post by VLSmooth »

Here's Althorn's response (still playing FFXI) since I cross-posted the thread here: (Note: Dio = Alan)
Althorn wrote:Some of it's sheer stupidity. Other things aren't.

Obviously, you're not going to get nudity on TV, short of something like HBO. You can't even display nudity in a live-action TV series, let alone an animated cartoon. So worrying about that isn't really going to be productive.

Violence is another matter entirely. And this is where a lot of the blame can be pointed. You can have violence and even death. Robotech still killed Roy Fokker, after all. But people take that much further than they need to. Just don't get too graphic.

People get uptight about religion - and as near as I can tell, the fault mainly rests with the people putting shows together. As long as the religious symbols are either neutral or positive, there's rarely a problem. And the people making decisions can get some really, really strange ideas in this area. Bandai performed their own censorship of G Gundam before handing it over to Cartoon Network, and one of the changes that the Japanese introduced was to change the name of the Nether (for Netherlands) Gundam. They were afraid that people would associate Nether with Hell (never mind that the main bad guy mecha in the series is the Devil Gundam...).

I think the worst edit I've seen, though (and I haven't really looked for too many) is what Fox did to Escaflowne. Not only did they cut bits and pieces of the individual episodes, but they completely removed the entire first episode. Given how important that becomes later on down the line, its probably a mercy that the show didn't survive past the halfway mark.

As for anime in America - Dio's right. The idea of "unreal" in a TV show simply doesn't catch on too well. People will go for horror, but not really anything past that. The only exceptions are military science fiction - where war isn't necessarily the focus, but rather a military vessel/station. Star Trek is obviously the most well-known example of this, though its also included Battlestar Galactica (both old and new), and Babylon 5. By and large, though, people prefer shows that are supposedly in a realistic setting. Dio's right, but probably not for the reason he thinks he is.

There's also the cultural issues at play that can prevent a show from catching on. The Osaka jokes in Azumanga Daioh obviously aren't going to work quite as well with the American audience at large simply because people won't be as familiar with the reasoning behind the jokes. And there are plenty of less obvious examples of this sort of thing.

About the most "odd-ball" series that I can think of off the top of my head that might have a chance of succeeding in the US is Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex. And that's largely because the show is set in an almost recognizeable setting, and is largely speculative sci-fi that makes conjectures about what the world of the not too distant future might be like. Or in other words, its not too badly out of whack.

And with regards to Sven...

I could have sworn that there were some sequences of him running around with an off-world human princess long after he lost his job as mecha pilot...

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Post by VLSmooth »

My response:
Althorn wrote:I could have sworn that there were some sequences of him running around with an off-world human princess long after he lost his job as mecha pilot...
You're partially right (the comment stirred my curiousity). Good catch!

From: http://www.absoluteanime.com/voltron/sven.htm
Character Description: Sven

Sven did not stay long with the team, as he was injured in a battle with the evil witch Haggar early in the series. In the original Japanese version, Sven died at this point, but in the American version he was only injured and taken to another planet which had better hospitals than those on Planet Arus [Planet Altea]. As it turned out, Zarkon's forces attacked the planet where Sven was recovering, and Sven was taken captive along with other citizens of the world. Sven and some of the others were then sent to Planet Doom [Planet Galra], where they were used as slaves. Sven, useless as a slave because he was still weak, was thrown in to a cave by himself and left for dead. Then one day Princess Romelle was thrown down a hole by Prince Lotor, where she met Sven who helped her to escape. He didn't want to go back to Planet Arus because he felt that he had failed the Voltron Force. Princess Romelle told him to call them, but he refused. She kept on telling him, so that he eventually calls them through a comlink, and when he does calls Planet Arus everybody is glad to see that he is OK. So the Voltron Force goes out to save them, and Sven and the Princess escape by taking one of Zarkon's ships. They get out of Planet Doom while Voltron is on his way. When they finally catch up to Voltron, Lotor brings out a RoBeast which almost defeated Voltron, if it wasn't for Sven and the Princess. So, after the battle they return to Princess Romelle's planet and Sven tells Keith that he is going to stay with the Princess.... and Keith told him....."Remember you will always be with the Voltron Force...and when you want to come back you will be welcomed...." And that's what happened to Sven.

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Post by VLSmooth »

Jason wrote:I don't know about you, but I didn't really use logic when I was 6-11 years old.
Perhaps I was weird, but I remember rationalizing actions by at least 2nd grade. Since I graduated high school (12th grade) at 17, I was 6-7 years old at the time. Granted, I think that was the time I started asking tons of questions and may have even started arguing with my parents then.
Jason wrote:Luckily for everyone involved, the brain mostly filters out any such concepts or attempts to understand them within the limited context of past experience.
If this is so, what's the harm in keeping the non-obvious inappropriate details? (mostly referring to pure character interaction, covered by subtlety above)

The people that understand it might appreciate it. Those that don't won't be any the wiser, hence how Shrek was successful among all ages.

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Post by Peijen »

If you have time to argue about anime why don't you go check with your co-worker about that position for me.

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