You all know that I'm big manga fan but there is one thing that rubs me the wrong way, censorship. We all know that manga in Japan is mostly uncensored which is cool but in the United States, it's a different story.
Just look at all those parental advisory logos
When is come to the United States, it is up to the companies to decide it they are going to edit stuff out. Viz media is well known for censoring nudity(Claymore), really extreme violence(Jojo's Bizarre Adventure) and any religious references(Full Metal Alchemist) from their manga. I know that Viz has a policy to censor their manga just so they can reach a wider audience and to meet the demands of some mega-stores like Wal-Mart. However, Viz did try releasing an uncensored version of Dragon ball but it was not successful.Tokyo Pop and Dark Horse do release their manga uncensored but at a small price; they use a parental advisory logo on the front cover. I know that book don't have an actual age rating system so they adopted the P.A. logo from the music industry. I personally find it to be a double edge sword, the reason why is because it does inform the parents of what their children are reading but at the same time it's very annoying. Old Tokyo Pop and Dark Horse use P. A. sticker which can be removed but it may damage the cover. Newer Tokyo Pop makes the P. A. logo part of the cover artwork which bothers me.
I really hate that sticker.
The real reason why companies censor manga and use the P. A. logo is to cover their butts from being sued. In the U.S. people will sue for anything. I can imagine some angry mother suing a manga company because little Bobby saw some "disturbing" images in manga at the bookstore. So, what do you think about this topic?
10 comments:
The PA logo has never bothered me, honestly, though I suppose it'd be best if they included the sticker on the outside of a shrinkwrapped book so the sticker won't damage the cover and won't be part of the design. But regardless, I'd much prefer the logo over censored manga.
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Recall that incident when a mom bought that Batgirl comic (by DC Comics!) for her son and was angry that Batgirl was shown (partially) nude (after her son saw it first)? Of course part of the equation is that she held the same basic assumption of "Comics is for kids", and odds are such people would classify Manga as such.
Technically, censorship is when the government mandates something be blocked, removed, or edited. A company doing these things on its own is just editing. ^_~
Dark Horse used to edit manga quite a bit. Take "Gunsmith Cats" as an example. In the original publication, Dark Horse changed the age of May to 18 due to the fact that she's a sex addict at 17. Further, they did other changes and edits to the original release. With the re-release of the Japanese bunkobon versions of the manga, Dark Horse decided not to edit much of anything.
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To be honest I didnt notice any censorship in Claymore but its a bummer they do censor the Manga.How is the censorship taking place?Just editing nipples out or something different?
I dont care for Toykopops Parental Advisory Logo since its small and guarantees me that im getting uncensored stuff
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I got to agree with Kiri, the sign doesn't bother me at all. In fact, in some cases I feel it is very fitting. They do but them on there for a reason.
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Old boy and Welcome the NHK do indeed need those stickers. Great stories, but dark ones.
Yeah those stickers always bothered me. AS Kiri said, why not just put them on the shrinkwrap? If I have a sticker on my book I always want to take it off because I like my books to look nice and clean. But, like your photo above, it can sometimes mess up the cover.
But I do say I prefer the logo over censorship. I like my manga to be the real deal.
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There was censorship in SkipBeat! Kyoko did this gesture that I really didn't understand and like a year later I realized it was just the middle finger she was giving. I hadn't realized how strictly manga was censored until that point. Honestly it makes me unhappy. I didn't even realize there was nudity in Claymore until this post. And they wonder why so many people read the scans for free. When they do stuff like that I lose any will to defend the manga industry in the US, they don't deserve it. That being said I still buy it official, but that's because I have a huge preference on holding a book in my hands versus reading from the computer.
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some manga use to have the PA sticker on the shrink wrap but many people removed it at the stores just to read manga.
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