VIZ censors their I''s Manga release

I''s was a great manga (read it all in scanlations) and while it dealt a lot with sexual desires it was kept under an aura of love and respect

and nothing ever actually happened beyond fantasies ^^;

Putting stars over the nipples would definitely make me feel like reading some cheap porn graphic novel, thats just stupid. Yet another proof that licensors barely care about the product they're licensing and are stupid and money-driven Actually I feel like hearing another conversation between two of those guys (man Im gonna make a living of this )

Executive 1: So we decided to license one of those Japanese porn comics?
Executive 2: Yeah, those japanese are all pervert, but surely we can make money of this too now that we started a japanese stuff trend.
Ex1: But you know if we license something like this, our target customers would be adults.
Ex2: Oohh you're right.... but wait... adults dont read comics
Ex1: OMG thats true! Then no one will buy it! what shall we do?
Ex2: Hmmm, I guess we have no other choice than to try to sell it to the little kids that actually buy comics.
Ex1: Wouldnt it be a bit too much for them? Lets check one of the chapters *flips quickly thru a random chapter*
Ex2: OMG!! look, that girl is showing her bare breasts!
Ex1: Oh noes! Heavens Forbid! *keeps staring anyways*
Ex2: We cant let the little kids see the nipples! they would be scarred for life! *stares* What can we do to censor them?
Ex1: D'uh, like you censor all nipples, with little stars
Ex2: Oh great idea, but what about if there's more objectionable content?
Ex1: What do you expect me to do? To read all the fregging thing to find out? We just need to censor the most visible stuff and those stupid kids would never know we're selling porn to them, bwahaha
Ex2: Bwahaha, we're so clever. Now, can I keep that uncensored chapter?
Ex1: Sorry I got dibs on it, closest thing I have had to a real woman in years.
Ex2: Same here

[DistMan]

An scan of the rumored stars have been posted:
http://www.ksg.harvard.edu/socpol/images/Is_page_65.jpg


Maen..really? HOW IN THE WORLD could someone even AGREE with that kind of censoring? It looks...redicilous..it's downright uggly.

[MechaTama31]

Not to mention inconsistent. In the bottom right panel, there are clearly no stars, or marks of any kind on that lovely rack.

I haven't read this, but I'm against censorship. Censoring completly changes the meaning of art, IMO. I want to be able to enjoy art as the artist intended it to be seen. I don't see why an 18+ or a Parental Advisory Mature Content sticker wouldn't be enough. It looks like that deals with mature content anyway.
Also, the stars made me laugh in a way that the artist, I'm sure, didn't intend.

[Mercurial Morpheus]

Wow, that actually makes the scene look dirtier than if they were left bare. It really draws even more attention to her breasts. :mad:

[tardo]

For some reason, i find it sexier when they just remove the nipples altogether... but thats just me. whoever drew those stars, sucks.

[Hero Killer Id]

man i stopped to look at this and i had no idea they made the stars so big lol. It's pretty retarded if you ask me. but I wasn't going to pick up this title anyway. though I was going to pick up TEN TEN and now I won't

[DistMan]

In an article at ICv2 VIZ spokesperson states:

"Any (very minimal) edits done to any manga title are to fit the criteria of audiences in the U.S., and we follow and respect the wishes of the creator to the letter, as we did in this instance. There are never, at any time, any edits done without the creator's full knowledge and approval."

The spokesperson also noted that in volume 3 of the Japanese version of the series, the creator used stars over the woman's breasts.

Link to ICv2 article
http://www.icv2.com/articles/home/6656.html

Quite lame if you ask me. It's the standard bullshit reasponse. The stars in volume 3 are there in that specific image as a joke. I.e intended by the author to make one particular scene a bit funny. That kind of lame response certainly didn't help making my judgement of VIZ any better. I'm gonna buy the remainin NGE volumes (whenever they get released..as VIZ are slow as hell with thim) and the remaining Möbius volumes then I'll serioucly consider boycotting them as a whole if continue like this.

Other censored works from VIZ are:
Descendants of Darkness
Hikaru no Go
Ultimate Muscle to mention some of them.

A thread which contains information about edited volumes, what kind of edits etc can be found here:
http://forums.animeondvd.com/showthr...o=&fpart=1

[LazyWulfran]

Originally Posted by DistMan

Alright, both you and I have second hand info on this so I'll speculate and mention what I've heard.

It is true that Oh Great (the creator of TenTen, Air Gear Silky Whip etc) signed off the edits, but there's no info which say that he actually liked it. Look at it this way, Oh Great! ofcourse want's as many as possible to read TenTen right? And I'm sure he'd like for Americans and other westerners to be able to read his work. Soo, let's say that CMX told him something along the lines of: "Well, we'll have to make these edits here or the manga won't sell in US due to our cultural differences and soccer moms" and so on. Oh Great which afaik isn't a 'big' author and doesn't have a very big studio ofcourse signed off these edits (with signed off i mean 'aprooved') so that he could have the manga brought to the american shelves.

There is NO way that I think Oh Great actually would MAKE a request to censor the material. Just look at the past. Oh Great actually RE-DREW some frames in Silky Whip (As Japan have stronger censoring laws on hentai) for the american market so that the viewers here would be able to enjoy it as Oh Great had envisioned it.

You're assuming that Oh Great intends that TenTen (a fighting comic with a lot of fanservice) and Silky Whip (as I recall, a pure hentai comic) have the same audience. You're also assuming that CMX coerced him into signing off on removing the fanservice based on the first assumption. It seems like a bit of a stretch to me. Why does it seem so impossible that Oh Great! would come to the same conclusion listed above ("Well, we'll have to make these edits here or the manga won't sell in US due to our cultural differences and soccer moms") and decide in advance to have the manga edited for the US release? It wouldn't be the first time that a mangaka has done that. And there's a lot more money to be made selling to the DBZ and Naruto crowd.

Also, if CMX was going to go as far as they did with TenTen, why not censor their other works? As far as I can tell, there haven't been any complaints about anything else. And I can confirm that they left the fanservice in Madara alone.

[DistMan]

You're assuming that Oh Great intends that TenTen (a fighting comic with a lot of fanservice) and Silky Whip (as I recall, a pure hentai comic) have the same audience.

Nope, never mentioned that anywhere in my post, re-read it and you'll see that it's so.

I used that info to further strengthen my point that Oh great himself SUGGESTING that edits be made is downright rredicilous IMHO. Not only that, If he would've been the one to suggest the edits I think he would've done them himself. I do not thing Oh Great is pleased with the quality of those edits, if at all. Thsoe edits are the worst kind of amateur edits I've seen. Well, it's hard to say wheter the stars in I''s are worse...Probably. Bottlomline is, Oh Great is an artist who is famous for his artwork and from having studied his earlier releases and his attitude with Silky Whip for instance I simply can not imagine that he'd want for his work to get edited.

You're also assuming that CMX coerced him into signing off on removing the fanservice based on the first assumption. It seems like a bit of a stretch to me. Why does it seem so impossible that Oh Great! would come to the same conclusion listed above ("Well, we'll have to make these edits here or the manga won't sell in US due to our cultural differences and soccer moms") and decide in advance to have the manga edited for the US release?

Well, first of all I don't think Oh Great have a deeper understanding of the American Culture. That's an assumption I made based on the fact that only a fraction of the people in Japan are able to even speak English. Oh Great would probably assume the people at CMX knew what they were talking about (I know I probably given that I didn't know much about the other countrys culture). See my comments above about why I don't think Oh Great suggested them. Look, Del Rey tried the same thing with Negima, they told Akamatsu that certain edits were neccessary due to the culture, and he aggreed. Fans got to know of these intended edits (prolly via the pre-rels) and made one helluva ruckus about it. Del Rey changed their attitude about it and decided to release Negima shrinkwrapped and unedited instead. It's probably not hard for the licensors to 'convince' the manga authors what's 'best for their release in US' . The past has clearly shown that it's indeed easy, and it's not like the author can do much if the licensors say "well, these edits are neccessary or we can't release your title".

It wouldn't be the first time that a mangaka has done that

Which other mangaka SUGGESTED to make edits so that it could fit better into the american 'culture'? It's true that Makazaku took it on himself to make a couple of edits in VGAI (added panties in a couple of scenes) but he did AFAIK NOT suggest the changes, nor did VIZ if iirc, it was a decicion made in japan.

And there's a lot more money to be made selling to the DBZ and Naruto crowd.

So that is a reason to dumb down, butch and change events and dialogues in a title clearly aimed at the mature readers so that it goes well with the Naruto readers? Did you think 'CardCaptors' was alright to? Or the edits in Escaflowne where they tried to make Van the main character?

Also, if CMX was going to go as far as they did with TenTen, why not censor their other works? As far as I can tell, there haven't been any complaints about anything else. And I can confirm that they left the fanservice in Madara alone.

Becuase CMX probably thought that TenTen would become their flagship. It's got violence and highly detailed fighting right? OFCOURSE the naruto people will love it, right? Yeah...soo they took it, tried to dumb it down and failed misserable. Madora is under a mature label and they INTENDED for it to be sold to a mature audience, whereas they wanted TenTen which is originaly intended for a just as mature audience to be available for the teens.

Hahaha, I can't wait to hear about what CMX next step will be. The events in Volume 1 are NOTHING compared to what will come in the later volumes. The fact that the sexual stuff, S&M, tortures whatever shows up in quite some raw forms later on would alone say that Oh Great himself didn't suggest any edits. That's like shooting yourself in the foot.

Like "Hey, I built this car here, it's got 850Horsepowers, one helluva torque, lightweight chassie etc etc etc" and then, I suggest "we replace the engine with a VW Golf 1.4L engine, 14 rims and replace the chassie with a standard steelframe...Hey, it's still got my brand on it and the shape is the same...that should be enough, right?" etc etc, becuase...it would probably go better with uhh lessay culture in Uzbekistan.


I don't understand why in the word the manga companies focus so much on the younger 13+ audience with these long running titles. It's us, the people with some cash in the pocket who can afford to shell out the bucks every months. Hey, it's as VIZ said with I''s, they made the edits neccessary so that the intended audience would be able to read it. The fact that I think they're full of crap is another story. They CHANGE the target audience becuase they think they will reach a larger audience. As i frote on AoDVD..they censor the nipples in I''s but they think the well detailed pantieshots, sexually loaded situations and the other rather ranchy material is alright. I dunno, but that goes totally against my sense of logic.