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Toonami Producer on Editing Process
Bonker writes "Anime News Network is featuring an interview with Jason Demarco, senior writer and producer for Cartoon Network's 'Toonami' block. Mr. Demarco explains why and how the editing process for several anime shown on Toonami, Midnight Run, and Adult Swim happen, as well as the pressure they're under to produce a product acceptable not only to fans but to parents as well. " Gives an interesting perspective on what CN goes through
to get certain anime on US TV. I've said it before, but I'd still love a Toonami channel that didn't need to edit (or maybe just less). I watch more Toonami then any channel.
[Censor'd]
Humpty Dumpty was pushed.
That should be 'toonami' not 'tonami'!
Why does the adult swim have to be so highly rated if they censor it? I watch anime to see lots of action (with blood of course) and at least some partial nudity. They might as well censor it down completely if they cut that stuff out.
Q: How do you determine what to edit?
A: Whiny parents screaming, "Won't somebody think of the children?"
www.lucernesys.comHorizon: Calendar-based personal finance
It'd be really nice to have a Toonami channel that had only subbed anime (for those of us who don't prefer dubs). It'd certainly save me money, as I waste my money on tons of DVDs.
It's good to see our subscription dollars hard at work, with CmdrTaco always finding new and more obvious ways to misspell the headlines.
-forque
There's more to Toonami than Anime. (Although not much more these days) I know this may put me in the vast geek minority, but I'm just not a big anime fan. And for the record, it's really annoying now that SGC2C is down to once a week...
Hi... I'm Larry... the shivering chipmunk... brrrrr!... I'm cold... I need a sweater...
I mean do it like a movie on TV skip the violent scenes, skip the adult scenes, and for the foul language insert phrases like, Son of a Gun, and don't let me beat you up.
"The secret of success is to know something nobody else knows." -Aristotle Onassis
And for the record, it's really annoying now that SGC2C is down to once a week...
hmm... because it sucks and it's terribly boring?
For the record --- Plural of penis is penes ...
is it that bad seein a hot chick again? if i see a hot chick walkin down the hall i dont say "repost"
juat buy DVD thats Unedited.
and higher quality
Nothing's gonna solve the editing problem. It's on a network aimed at children, and children do watch.
Only way to get around that here in the states would be to have sci-fi suck it up and show it uncut with a (frequent) TV-M rating (though many shows would be unfairly labeled as such).
Even then, many of the best shows won't ever make it on TV here, simply because they don't have the style of Bebop, the Action element of gundam, and the "crap" that somehow attracts people like Dragonball Z does.
Editing will likely bar some shows entirely from network TV. ADV, who holds the N. Am. license to Evangelion have said it won't be licensed for TV if it has to be edited.
Or sometimes it's politics. The head of Toonami is a BIG Rurouni Kenshin fan. Problem is, Media Blasters can't show their (the original version) on TV. If kenshin ever hits the air in the US, it'll hit as "Samurai X," a hacked up, rewritten version of the original show (not related to the ADV release of the Kenshin OAVs as Samurai X).
Screw TV. I'll stick with my DVDs thank you.
A friend and I were just discussing Cartoon Network's current juggling act of all the material everyone wants to see, especially us not getting our fix of old-school cartoons. They should split into three different channels:
TOONAMI: The current anime lineup, as well as stuff for "more mature audiences" later for the hardcore adult animers (or some undersexed, anime-hooked nerds like those who will read this reply, and therefore will mod it down, wrecking my karma. Meanies.)
CARTOON CARTOON: Move all those goddamn annoying "Cartoon Cartoons" to this network. You know, stuff like Cow and Chicken and Sheep in the Big City. Some of it is good, but a select minority. Most of it is trash, but it brings in ratings from the little ones.
OLD SCHOOL CARTOON NETWORK: My favorite. Scooby-Doo (all sans Scrappy), Hong Kong Phooey, Superfriends, Wacky Racers, Looney Tunes, Tom and Jerry, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Pink Panther, Snagglepuss, Huckleberry Hound, and all the good old stuff that I miss.
Divide and conquer, Cartoon Network, by heeding the call of the wild Eddy Johnson!
Anonymous Coward: (n.) 1. nerd at school or library. 2. karmawhore in training. 3. embarrased prep.
From the article:
... Anime is often full of stereotypes surrounding race and religion that non-otaku will not understand and will take offense to. ... People in America generally don't want that kind of thing in their cartoons, however you and I may feel about it."
"Any direct references to religion, especially juxtaposed with violence, sexuality or hypocrisy, is not allowed.
Maybe if Americans had the chance to see cartoons with that kind of thing, they'd change their minds. Of course this is probably a mixed blessing, as Evangelion is already incomprehensible enough without TV-Y7 editing...
Green-voting, republican-registered, socialist-libertarian.
Is there that much quality anime that would warrant an entire toonami channel? I'm not an anime expert, but I can barely count off ten titles that are worth showing repeatedly, let alone in the 23.428 minutes that CN gives the anime shows...
Black and grey are both shades of white.
I thought it was "Toonami."
Posted by CmdrTaco
Ah, there's the culprit. And we're expected to pay for this?
--saint
As far as I can tell, if Taco replaces the word "then" with "than" permanently, he'd be more right than wrong, and it would fix one of his most common grammar/spelling mistakes.
Typically, I've seen a few types of editing of anime when they make a US version, especially for TV. Here are just a few:
Crappy 80's Hack and Slash:
We saw this with "Robotech" and "Voltron," where
huge portions of things were hacked out. In the case of Robotech, they combined multiple series, that had no relation to one another, into one. Thankfully, most people remember Robotech for the sections that were really Macross.
Pointlessly stupid cultural editing:
This includes changing the names of characters to
sound more American, and attempting to remove all
hints that the characters were originally supposed to be Japanese, living in Japan, etc, even though it is obviously Japanese animation.
God forbid that little Timmy realizes that there are other cultures out there that aren't American.
Pointless Censorship
This is mainly what Toonami has to deal with.
Typically, people feel the need to edit out "Bad Stuff". However, it always seems that people FAIL at this. An example is that there was a drink that was supposed to be sake in an episode of DBZ, and they ended up making it milk or something. This is all fine and good, but this is a series that features huge muscled guys blowing eachother up with high powered energy attacks. I guess it is
important that we sheild Junior from alcohol, but
showing him acts of superhuman violence and fights that span several weeks worth of episodes is OK.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
What I don't understand is how a network show on primetime like NYPD Blue can show real life nudity, but a cable show on at 11 pm can't show cartoonish nudity.
Just makes no sense.
A large part of the problem is that the shows on Toonami were originally made for an older age group than the group they are marketed for here in the US.
Take for example a popular Toonami show, Dragonball Z. When it was originally aired in Japan back in the early 90s, it was primarily for 13 & 14 year olds. But here in the US, it's marketed towards 9 & 10 year olds. So, the cartoon has to be largely censored to meet the new age group. Indeed, when DBZ is aired on the international channel in Japanese, it is rated for 14+, IIRC. (P.S., its been a few years since I've seen that show on TV, so if any of this has changed, correct me!)
Another large part of the problem is the cultural background difference. In Japan, what gets aired for their younger children is far less censored for the same children here in the states. What happens is you wind up with matter being heavily censored in the import to the US. When Midnight Run used to air Gundam Wing, they would air the uncut version of the episode they played earlier that day. It's a shame every episode couldn't be aired like that, it was far more enjoyable.
One of my local PBS stations (KTEH San Jose) shows unedited, subtitled anime from time to time (usually Sunday nights). They have in the past shown the whole Evangelion series completely unedited, and are currently running Dirty Pair, but unfortunatly they have been very inconsistant with running Anime. But still, they seem to be the only "network" willing to show pure uncensored anime. They might be our only hope for the time being. It wouldn't hurt to write or call your local PBS station to ask for some anime programs. The only bad part about PBS is the constant begging for money.
What mean last sentence?
http://pcblues.com - Digits and Wood
Escaflowne online has a site about the editing/censoring that
The Cartoon Network has done on one of their shows Outlaw Star.
It's quite interesting the changes that were made. Some are simple digital edits that add clothing for nude characters, removal of blood, to whole scene cuts, and even in one case an episode cut.
Cartoon network has changed a lot of the series they show (DBZ's Mr. Satan to Hercule...even digitally changed on some of the signs the fans hold up). Some are for good reasons, some are probably them being over cautious.
Don't forget the REAL service that cartoon network is serving in exposing people to other forms of animation that they may end up liking. Some of the big anime conventions like Fanime and Anime Expo have gained a whole new fan base because anime has been shown on Cartoon Channel (and even Fox when it was showing Escaflowne).
Someone earlier slammed Robotech, and some of the earlier anime which was brought to the US by Harmony Gold, but without it, a number of us may have missed out on a whole genre that is quite appealing.
If Cartoon Network is going to censor stuff, let them. If you dont want to see their censored versions, go out and buy some of the multitudes of anime dvd's you can find for sale. And believe me there are many more great series out there that Cartoon Network won't be showing. Not because they don't want to, but there's just so much to choose from.
-Alex
If you really want a Toonami channel that doesn't edit, that shows subtitled in the wee hours of the night the only model that can be followed is the premium channel model.
In order to get good quality anime on the air you have to provide it by subscription model and Prove that you can make money doing it that way. Toonami has a name advantage and if they keep on having good results with adult swim and midnight run they might be able to manage to run a 24/7 premium uncut anime channel under the toonami brand.
As long as advertisers have input on what can be shown and as long as parents can complain and be activists against you then you'll always be forced to edit. The minute you go to subscription model it is the consumers of the content who decide what you can or can't do. If Anime fans are in charge it wouldn't be edited.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
...I'd like to see Encore (the Action Channel people) fire up two all-Anime, pay TV networks. One subbed, one dubbed. That way all types of fans are happy. Both would be unedited, and anything that comes in Widescreen would be shown as such. With all the options on Digital Cable these days, why not add these two?
Blog Prophyts - Right On, Man
Who is going to kill the Afghans of the future if they don't learn how to do it growing up?
(Gundam Wing) in one of the last few episodes Duo goes into a door, steps out again and says "That's definitely not what I expected to find!". What did they edit out there? I can't seem to find anything on the net about it.
Of course Merry Melodies and countless pre-1970's era cartoons (especially earlier in the century) were full of stereotypes and underlying racial/political/religious/nationalist things. And they were geared soley toward adults.
But even now you still see them on CN. And even on normal network stations at 10am on a saturday morning for kids to suck up.
Which reminds me... whatever happened to saturday morning cartoons? I'm in my early twenties but even I can remember back when ABC,CBS,NBC,UPN,FOX all had hours and hours (about 6am to 3pm) of cartoons and kids would sit in front of the tube enjoying them all morning, like a kid should.
Now it's all infomercials and purchased religious programming with a few political shows and a martha stewart thrown in here or there.
Re, In Japan, what gets aired for their younger children is far less censored...
Sailor Moon was originally written for little girls of 9 to 12. In one Sailor Moon special, all the original "pretty soldiers" (junior high-aged girls themselves) get bloodily massacred one by one as they save the world. I have to say I was astounded.
There are some pretty deep cultural differences here that go beyond censorship standards.
Personally, I'm dubious about showing kids cartoons, or reading them stories or even non-fiction that will promote the idea of glorious, spectacular self-immolation. Sept. 11 shows what happens when people get into that frame of mind.
I prefer the mindset of the guy who, when a grenade landed in the back of a truck carrying a bunch of troops including him, picked it up and threw it back out again. Of course, you can't extract much drama from that.
I'm hooked on anime.
I blame it all on Toonami.
I've spent all day watching cowboy bebop.
=================
Unix is very user friendly, it's just picky about who its friends are.
Nice try.
If I had moderation points right now I would score this +1 Sympathy.
If they didn't edit the shows, they'd have to call it "Poonami".
For some odd reason, a lot of people in the U.S. think that cartoons are only for kids. Thus they assume that any cartoon should be suitable for junior, and get pissed when their presumption is wrong.
I've got a better question, why can't we show nudity? I'm not talking about sexual acts with nudity, I'm talking about plain old nudity. The U.S. really needs to get off it's damn hangups and realize that there isn't anything inherently dirty about the nude human body. If anything, the fear of nudity causes more problems than it could possibly be solving.
BlackGriffen
Gives an interesting perspective on what CN goes through to get certain anime on US TV
Do you even know what they have to go through to show CowboyNeal Bebop? It ain't pretty.
Karma: Excellent Birds (mostly as a result of listening to Laurie Anderson)
why do they have to cater to the parents of children watching cartoons at 1AM??? or 3AM???
shit, if my kid is up that late, chances are they are doing their own thing thats probably far worse than cartoon blood or what ever they are cutting out
moo.
I mean when did Pater suddenly become the guy who controls Anime on TV?
I wouldn't mind watching the cartyoon network if they subtitled everything instead of playing the dubbs - so far only gundam wing, armitage 3rd (only in english i think), and ghost in the shell - are the only ones where the english voices were dubbed decently(somewhat) - most of the time the characters voices are so annoying or far from the original that it ruins the show or worse - in the case of blackjack some of the plot actually changes(very little but still) if you watch it subtitled versus dubbed. and lets not forget about the bastardization they did with tenchi - ryoko the hottest character sounded like a fucking drag queen!
Ave Molech Setting
Plural of penis is gay.
National CyberCrime Prevention Foundation
Appeal to Disney for Respectful Treatment of Asian Films:
http://www.petitiononline.com/warthkf/
Please sign the petition. Thanks.
encore's action channel quite often shows unedited anime. no, it's not *usually* a series (although they've been known to), but at least it's a step further than CN on the unedited scale ...
This is a pretty good interview, but the interviewer is really a bit too hung up on specific edits. I realize that's the whole point of their site, but damn. "Why did you paint a bathing suit on this woman here?" "What about the bathing suits under the towels in this episode?"
The interviewee made it pretty clear up front, I thought, that they've got guidelines to follow. It's clearly a decision made by the CN executives, and not this guy. Doesn't seem fair to make him defend himself repeatedly for it.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I read on the news story on Slashdot recently regarding this new block of Adult Swim that Cowboy Bebop would be continuing to air.
Much to my surprise, I tune the channel onto Cartoon Network and I hear this very instructive voice narrating a tale about a brown moose and a grey squirrel with cute little aerial goggles.
"This isn't Cowboy Bebop," I muttered after about 15 minutes.
I found out later that this was Rocky and Bullwinkle, NOT Cowboy Bebop.
So where did it go?
or
Isn't it found in the last place I looked?
-Spezzer
For the record --- Plural of penis is penes ...
He's right
http://www.circumstitions.com/Glossary.html
penes
L. plural of penis. Penises is clear; peni and penii would be the plurals of "penus" and "penius".
"Face it, a nation that maintains a 72% approval rating on George W. Bush is a nation with a very loose grip on reality.
Are you serious about this? If so, the US is even more fscked in the head than I thought.
Here in Australia the series was shown at 8:30 pm in the evening on free-to-air TV. And as far as I know uncut.
Guess we will never see Neon Genesis Evangelion on CN without turning it into some close to Pokemon.
Eva-01 I choose you!!!!
Get a life.
I just purchased the 4th and 5th DBZ movies, Lord Slug and Cooler's Revenge, and realized how bad FUNimation put them together. I'm not against Dream Theater or the Deathtones, but keep them out of my anime. It would have been cool if they where on a different audio track, but FUNimation doesn't do that. I'd prefer music that was close to the original soundtrack.
A good example of good old fashing effort would be the gundam models and their marketing. Sure, I doubt they sell a lot, but the presentation isn't "HOLY SHIT LOOK! AWESOME DBZ SHIT! YOU KNOW YOU WANT IT NOW!" It takes a bit higher thought process to really comprehend.
I admit, it would be harder to market stuff for something like Cowboy Bebop with very little familiar images. However, it wouldn't be too hard to sell the CDs, since its really part of what makes Cowboy Bebop complete.
I suppose the biggest hurdle is having a united marketing front. Its a hell of a lot harder to market things when company A makes the cartoon, company B translates and distributes the cartoon, and company C gets the rights to the figures, and company D gets TShirt sales. I'm sure there's a term for it, but I'm no marketing major. It works best when company A makes the cartoon, and pays to manufacture and promote the "accessories." Of course we're dealing with US-localized anime, so company B brings it to the US, but can't afford the down payment to get the extra shit as well, or perhaps is denied it by the maker for their own use.
I Browse at +4 Flamebait
Open Source Sysadmin
I also highly recommend:
:D
:D
:/
Cowboy Bebop - Knocking on Heaven's Doors, a movie (animated) that lasts about 2 hours, some of the best fighting sequence, music, etc. ever. It has not been released in the US yet, but the various ANime groups has released it on the net.
Trigun - another 26-episode series that starts out pretty funny but the story gets pretty serious towards the end.
FLCL - this is one of the most INSANE anime series (6 episodes) I have seen to date... rock'n'roll music, insane drawing sequences, characters are a riot too... oh and there's the story that will leave you confused (that's a good thing) for a long time...
Rurouni Kenshin OVA - really bloody, lot's of violence and samurai = teh win
Vampire Princess Miyu OVA - pretty spookey stuff. 4 episodes. i loved it.
last and not least, the most easiest going series:
Noir - it's a modern tale about Noir - a group of 2-female assassins, lot's of plot twists, accompanied by a great musical score... and hot chicks with guns = teh win
Love Hina - it's pretty silly at cheesy but hilarious at times... 'bout a guy living in a dorm... female dorm... you know it's gonna be good... still rated PG-13...
on a side note, I also recommend getting soundtracks for some of these anime series (bebop and noir among my favorite ones)
cheers.
The fans of Newcastle United Football Club call themselves the 'Toon army'.
continous loops of the same episodes being shown on Toonami? They keep showing the same series of DBZ and never get past a certian episode number. Also what happened to Outlaw Star? They were showing that then all of the sudden switched and put Dragon Ball in its spot. I wish they stop repeating the same episodes and put different stuff in the loop.
This article is just about the most anal (fruedian)thing I've read in a while. Its not about editing or CN itself, my problem with this is the moralists that more or less created the standards for the TV rating system. A system so weirdly complex that most people hardly pay attention to it.
Many moralists are simply religious figures, mostly catholics. Celibate men in black dresses helped created these restrictions and decided on what is appropriate and what isn't. The hilarity of turning guns into blasters was too much for me. What is the difference? The end result is if you're shot or zapped or what have you - then you have been injured.
The sexual hangups these ratings reveal are truly scary. I'm not suggesting that they air nude scenes, but sexuality, kissing, etc are natural and positive aspects of humanity. Many moralists take these acts as disgraceful things we need to hide and the the standards show it.
I don't want to blame religious people in general, as moralists and censors come from all sorts of backgrounds, but historically from early film on the religious establishment has had its thumb on free expression for a while. While a lot of the power has waned in the US, other countries are dealing with 1920's hangups turned into law by these moralists everyday.
I think CN has done a great job in delivering this programming in the conservative and sometimes hysterical US, where emasculation and protecting children define popular society. My real beef is how these ratings were created and quickly adopted by the networks without proper feedback from the people who actually live here, pay taxes, watch these shows, and buy advertised products.
I watch more Toonami then any channel.
/. editors learn some basic grammar?!?!?!?!?!?!?
than than than than than!
When will
Pooty tweet
I don't care, I just want them to add invader ZIM!
Am I the only one here that would KILL SOMEBODY WITH HOT BULLETS OF SHOTGUN to get that show on American teevee?- of-american-consumers treatment
I mean, weren't there some 180 or so eps, only about 35-40 or so got the ol' dub-and-vomit-into-the-welcome-and-waiting-mouths
Why is it when I hit ^R that ZSH calls me a cocksucker?
I read the article and I have seen the same claims made elsewhere that most of the editing on the Tenchi series are done by CN (Cartoon Network).
While still in university, the student run TV station would run some anime (dubbed and undubbed) from time to time. I first saw Tenchi on this station (dubbed) and MOST of the edits highlighted in the article where in the tape (this was about 2000) which is some time before the series appeared on CN. The most obvious edits were the addition of bathing suits and the "tea" references. In fact, the work is almost identical between CN and that tape.
I believe pioneer (or whoever) did most of the editing.
Found: I watch more Toonami then any channel.
Expected: Third grade education.
About a year and a half ago, I wrote a little piece of satire called the "Anime Convention FAQ"
Now... Looking at this article that Rob posted, I go there to find that like 80 friggin percent of the document discusses what.......you guessed it....cartoon sex. Out of 23 questions in this interview, questions 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, and 17 deal with how to handle important issues like a cartoon characters boobs and nipples, gay cartoon characters, cartoon sex, even down to handle the friggin camera angles of cartoon sex. Theres something really, really wrong with people who watch Anime, especially if it means they're forming some sort of sexual fixation on it.
For cryin out loud, its a damn CARTOON, guys. Wanting to fuck a cartoon puts you right up there with people who assign personalities to inflatible sex dolls. Look, Anime is fine if you enjoy the style and the content, but if you're getting some sort of sexual arousal out of it, thats patently fucked up.
Its sad to see what started as a joke snowball into something increasingly true as time goes on..Especially one takes into account the number of "anime porn" sites on the web, that cater to freaks with this sort of fetish/compulsion. Anime isn't for people who appreciate artistic style, it seems. Its for homely guys who cant get a date, and are tired of taking "Rosey Palm and her five sisters" out on a date.
Real girlfriends should be 36-25-36. Not 1024x768.
Cheers,
Bowie J. Poag
Heh, while Evangelion is a great series, it's definately not a kid series. There are some very heavy subjects that Eva deals with, and it's not presented in the most easily digestible fashion. This is more the reason Eva will probably never make it to TV. Well, that, and End of Evangelion isn't licensed for the US (ADV got screwed out of the license, and nobody has officially released it here,) and the series is about 100 times better if you cut episodes 25 and 26 and just show End of Eva.
The only way Eva and other similarly intense shows (X TV, among others) will ever hit American TV is if Toonami spins off to its own channel (which is seeming more and more likely, as Toonami is already most of CN's lineup, it'd make sense for them to spin it off) and they show more "mature" stuff at night (Eva is pretty much the definition of "mature" anime, hentai and the like is usually actually very juvenile.) It'd be nice to see all this stuff on TV, but I think we'll just have to settle for buying the DVDs and downloading fansubs.
See post header. You have a link? Also, when the fuck is Propaganda going back up? I miss that little sack of cynicism.
Why is it when I hit ^R that ZSH calls me a cocksucker?
They could have two versions online : one for the adults, unedited, and one for kids with the violent scenes edited out. It is not that difficult.
Two words: revenue stream. As in the affiliates weren't getting enough of it. They get more dollars selling time to religion, advertisers, and politicians than buying children's programming and finding advertisers for it.
NBC, Fox, and WB really are the oddballs in this game, because they have a second party to answer to -- whereas Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network have no-one to answer to. The networks have affiliates to split ad revenues with, but CN and Nick pocket theirs. And finally, CN and Nick are fully children's networks, so they can sell adtime in bulk, to advertisers who know their audience; the networks never had that luxary, so rates may not have been as plush, with airtime limited.. you get my point.
It should also be noted that with the acquisition of Saban Ent. by Disneyland, as well as Family Channel, Disney is now in control of three children's channels and a massive library of children's content. I don't think the networks are even bit players anymore, this is now truly a Battle of the Titans: AOL-TW, Viacom (I believe they own Nick), and Disney-ABC.
(And to make this more confusing: Fox has sold their Saturday Morning block to none other than 4Kids Ent., the folks who brought you Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh.)
No penguins were harmed in the making of this post.
Action.
Adventure.
Male viewers in the 8-12 (and I suppose upwards to 16) demographic.
Nobody on this site is part of the target audience (though some of you may claim your fellows act like they are). Nobody here is being aimed at by advertisers. We're talking about Cartoon Network... Williams Street... Ted Turner's home address, NOT Sean Atkin's (Head of Toonami Prog.) Home For Really Cool Japanese Animation.
The whole Adult Swim thing is an experiment to see if there is a market for adult-targeted animation. Obviously Sean and the crew at Williams St. have gotten the suits to check out whether adults really do watch "cartoons". The fruits of that will not be Toonami. Toonami is a brandname for action cartoons, not a vehicle for anime to hit mainstream. Toonami happens to have anime, because those shows have a ton of action -- but also because anime is cheap to import and dub compared to funding the actual animation of a series. Money is always king here, hand's down.
So before fanboyish wetdreams of a "Toonami Channel" continue, grab your towel and jump into the pool with Adult Swim; and then make sure the suits in Atlanta know you like it, ALOT. Because Toonami has never been and is never going to be the "Anime Channel"; it's not for US, it's for the kids.
No penguins were harmed in the making of this post.
Got to love that broad brush you paint alot of people with. Sort of the same brush folks use to paint people with above-average computer skills as "nerds" and "geeks" -- you know, lower than them because of being "less normal". Whatever the fuck that means -- I've never met a normal person -- but I digress.
I take the view that the original article was nothing more than food for the bean counters. Anime fandom is a bit like most other geek-leaning fandoms: tons of anal-retentives who ignore normal things (taking baths, socializing, etc); all for the joys of super-analyzing their particular hobby down to the sub-atomic particles. What do you want? The original article is on a column about edits to anime. Of course it's going to be spacious and go into detail that's not important to the normal viewer.
But I do find it rather funny that Yet Another Idiot is pushing the "anime is kiddie p0rn" angle. From your chest-puffing boast regarding having written a "manual" that says anime cons are big circlejerks to your quickness in pointing out the obvious content of the questions that relate to sex or sexuality; I'd say you're the one with the "sex" problem here. I suppose you could just be a sexually-frustrated middle-aged pot-bellied fella who wants to feel bigger by shooting at a rather harmless fandom (and one that doesn't really roll through Slashdot in any significant numbers).
If the only significant thing you have to say is "anime is kiddie p0rn", then why the hell are you responding to this? Somehow, in some small way, you hope to find fans who will rally around your silly and unimportant assertions? Rah rah for you. If you even knew what the hell Toonami was, you might actually be capable of contributing a worthwhile response; but alas, you're simply a windbag like many a "superior" nut I've run across. Perhaps you lazily typed in a worthless source of info in your quest for truth, and decided this was anime as far as you could find it with the search tools at your disposal. Did you even bother to Google your way to a passing understanding?
Read. Watch. Learn.
Do these things BEFORE you open your mouth (or pound your keyboard); you might actually (gasp) change your view of things!
No penguins were harmed in the making of this post.
I remember seeing Evangelion on German TV (Vox) one or two years ago. Very late at night, and subtitled, I think. What I'm wondering is whether that was censored? I doubt they had the resources to do that, but if anybody in the know has seen it, please clarify.
It should be noted that sometimes it's the licensor that does the editing. FUNimation is the company responsible for much of the Dragonball Z censoring. Nelvana is the company responsible for hacking up Cardcaptor Sakura into Cardcaptors.
Yes, Cartoon Network does some of their own censoring, but sometimes they don't get the original, unedited material to begin with.
... Comboy Bebop, Gundam and Tenchi sure aren't, anyway. Sailor Moon arguably is. DBZ could be. The reason these series are being edited is because, to the ignorant minds of many, anime = cartoons and cartoons are only for kids. Way wrong. WAY way wrong.
... Evangelion would probably have a tough time as well.
If you buy these series on DVD, unedited as they are then, you will find that they're rated as 15+ or even 18+. And here we have TV targeting 6-14? God, please let these children watch those series as they were supposed to be when they grow up.
Also, the apparent wussyness of American parents is stunning. I live in Sweden, we have a culture that's arguably one of the most americanized in all of Europe, and if Cowboy Bebop was shown unedited on our TV, I very much doubt there'd be any complaints. And given our legal system (which has slightly more sanity in it than the US one) lawsuits would be out of the question.
Also, stringent rules on content like this, especially when it comes to death and religion, keeps so many good animes off the screen it's tragic. I am thinking series like Hellsing here
Let's all hope that the next generation of American parents know how to raise their children, instead of having the TV networks do it for them, complaining when they see something they think might be harmful. Screw them I say, their kids are going to be exposed to that no matter what, and probably are already (through the Internet, hello Rotten dot com).
Quality, performance, value; you get only two, and you don't always get to pick.
This and a 24/7 star trek channel...
:))
Mmmm, no reason to ever turn off the TV... (hell it'd be reason to turn ON the tv
---
Live Long & Prosper \\//_
CYA STUX =`B^) 'da Captain,
Jedi & Last *-fytr
... why anime fans are so anxious to see unedited anime series on TV. It's not like you can't buy the unedited DVDs and then watch them at your leisure!
:).
Personally, there's a lot of anime movies that I absolutely love, but I never really liked any of the serial shows... they just have hopelessly convoluted and complicated plots, and really aren't that interesting. Shrug. Maybe it's just because I have more important things to worry about than stories involving the ongoing struggle between giant robots hell-bent on destroying the earth
While I'm at it: what's the obsession with subtitled anime? I've watched my fair share of anime, and I've never once seen an instance where subtitles and dubs made a significant difference. The dubs are saying approximately the same thing that the subtitles are saying... it's not like the subtitled dialogue presents a completely different story than the dubbed dialogue does. Furthermore, don't you fanboys realize that anime distributors are taking you for a ride? Common sense dictates that subtitling costs less money than dubbing, yet subtitled animes cost more than dubbed ones. The reason they cost more is because the distributors know you're willing to pay extra for something that doesn't really make a big difference.
Hey, don't mod me down... no trolling here, I'm just interested to see what you guys think about these legitimate American anime issues.
We definatley need an all anime channel that shows unedited Anime. However it's sad that still some anime gets edited in the U.S. So far the only channels i've seen unedited anime on have been Showtime, Starz, Encore, and the Action channel.
Well the obvious solution to the fansubbing "problem" is for them to take care of the international licensing, dubbing, subbing, and production while they're making and marketing the show so it can be released worldwide nearly simultaneously, while taking advantage of the larger market to lower costs for the shows. They should also invest and market/work with channels like Cartoon Network that actually put TV anime where it belongs - on TV. Then there'd be no demand for fansubs in the first place.
Instead the Japanese producers ignored the international market for forever, and even now make few efforts to distribute internationally directly. Meanwhile independent international distributors take a "wait-and-see" attitude to decide whether to bring a show over, which ironically enough depends largely on the response of the fansub community to the show to make the decision and generate pre-release hype. Neither of them puts any money into marketing to the general audience, instead focusing purely on the existing fanbase and the youngest audiences. They may lose some profits, but that's the price they pay for playing it safe. Maybe if these companies stopped blaming their market and started catering to them instead, they might actually make some money.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
Looking at the new Adult Swim line up, I've been wondering why Yu Yu Hokusi and Pilot Candidate were put into this block. I've seen the entire YuYu Hokusa series (highly recommended) and it's definitely NOT more violent than DBZ. Pilot Candidate also looks pretty tame so far. The Interview suggested that these shows were really slated for Toonami originally which makes much more sense. Thus, while I won't allow my kids to watch Cowboy Bebop, these 2 shows are no problem at all. Perhaps they'll move them out of Adult Swim some day.
Claiming that people shouldn't have beliefs because you don't understand them really only proves the second presumption, not the first.
Jack Valenti and the MPAA are to technology as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone
Say what you will about Canadians, but at least we get to watch a lot more unedited content :) Sure, the networks wait until after 9pm to show it, but at least you can watch it without wondering where the hell all the cool scenes went.
:)
I remember the first time I saw Vampire Hunter D, it was on TBS. We couldn't figure out why D was talking to his crotch the whole movie, and why it talked back. For some reason they edited out the mouth on his hand completely, so it always looked like he was looking down to converse with his groin, or a midget hidden in his pants.
It wasn't until I saw the full version that it started to make sense (although how much sense does a mouth in the middle of your palm make, anyway?)
I just finished watching a VHS tape that had the last two weeks of Digimon from Fox on Saturday mornings on it. Digimon airs twice on Saturdays at 9:00AM and 10:30AM, and what do I see on it? A cybernetic monster biker shooting cute little creatures multiple times with his two double barrel sawed-off shotguns. The scene even slows down, Matrix-like, to show the shotgun shells blowing his enemies to bits. This has been typical of the last few years of Fox's editing of Digimon, which has previously shown one of the heroes being bitten clear in half, two full 30+ episode story arcs about a male and female angel ("Angemon" and "Angewomon") facing off against demons ("Devimon" and "Apocalymon"), a blood thirsty berserker hero creature that graphically slaughters his enemies, and numerous scenes where children have been beaten, tied up, taken hostage, or kidnapped.
Cartoon Network, a cable channel, has no defense for editing violence, violence toward children, religious references, cursing, and most of the other things that it find objectionable out of the shows that it airs from 5:00-7:00PM (EST) in the afternoon if Fox, a network station which is held to much stricter legal editing standards, does not have to adhere to the same ridiculous editing standards with the shows that they play at 9:00AM and 10:30AM on a Saturday morning.
I wonder if Japanese edit US shows as much as the American does to Japanese show. Does anyone know?
It's sad to say but true, American kids are being raised to be pussies. It's not the kids fault it's the parents for getting so worked up over foul language and blood. American parents are raising their kids to grow up in a fairy tale world of non reality, because anything else might corrupt the minds of the children and actualy give them a mind of their own. Anime is aired in Japan and intended for children 10+ (Japans children are even smarter and more productive, Anime educational? :). Where as here in the US to see a show as it was intended to be showed we have to purchace the "forbidon fruit" the Special "Unedited Version". I've read some of the other posts on here about how anime is all about the sexual content involved, well all I have to say is FUCK YOU! The reson anime is so good is because it has a fucking story line! Some American animation is pretty good (ie. Dextor's Lab, PPG, Sealab etc...). The only problem is they are one show story lines, if that. Where as most Anime series have complex story lines that span the entire series. Now, I know my llttle rant here maybe a little off suject, my point still stands (at least I think it does). We as a nation need to stop being so sensitive and instead of leaving our kids to be babysat by the television, and then bitching oven the content that the babysitter showed them. We need to show our kids reality and not the make beleave censored world which we through them into totally unprepaired for.
:)
If you understood my little rant, great. If you didn't don't worry, I don't think many people will.
P.S. please don't flame me for the baad spelling, I know and accept that I am a bad spellor