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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.
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's good to see our subscription dollars hard at work, with CmdrTaco always finding new and more obvious ways to misspell the headlines.
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.
Oh Good Lord! You have no idea! It would be too easy to fill a Toonami channel. There are more themes in Anime beyond just big robots, "big" girls in big robots, reluctant boy with 6 girlfriends, etc.
The editing requirements could be Promethian, however.
I swear by MacOS X. Although I use to swear *at* MacOS 9...
I thought it was "Toonami."
Posted by CmdrTaco
Ah, there's the culprit. And we're expected to pay for this?
--saint
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.
There is plenty of good anime. However, I'm not sure
how much of that would really be very successful on American television.
For Example:
I don't think showing Love Hina would survive through the censorship ringers. If every
panty shot and accidental incident of the male
character walking in on the females while they
are naked is removed, there wouldn't be that much
to put on air.
Nadesico is just full of parody and references to other anime. I don't think most American viewers
would appreciate the show within the show, Gekigangar 3, very much.
InuYasha is probably too heavily based on Japanese
mythology. Plus, while it is an excellent series,
it has lots of violent fighting that would probably
be destroyed by censors.
And showing Evangelion would probably make Toonami the target of every religous, human rights, parenting, whatever group in the country unless they edited it so much that it wouldn't be the same series.
....
Though there is probably plently of lucritive opportunity for someone to start a tentacle pr0n channel on Pay-Per-View. (Joke)
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
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.
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
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.
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)
As for the editing, I have an idealistic rant on that topic:
Why do we need editing at all for these things? What is wrong with seeing someone naked, or drinking alcohol, or swearing? As Bennett Haselton pointed out, cuss words are just syllables. Bodies are just bodies. This insanity pervades society, and I'm sick of it! It isn't just just religious right wackos who sold their brains to God and think that the rest of us have sold our souls to the devil, it's common among just about everyone you walk up to, at least where I live. Kids in school will curse copiously at each other and call each other "gaywad!" and "jewish!", and it is overlooked. If one of them curses in front of an adult with a word like fuck, however, they'll be scolded in a burning fuse tone of voice. Why the hipocrisy?
Nudity is natural. A little artful nudity can add an excellent touch to something that would stand without it, as a rule. So why is it so near ubiquitously percieved in America as "harmful to children"? Why do films containing suggestive scenes like the one in Zorro actually carry warning labels?
I wish someone would come along and end our society's insanity. But most likely these things will be washed away by time. I await the future.
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.
Good point. Shitty parents like that aren't likely to complain either (and if they do we ought to sling their parenting habits right back at them).
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
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.
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Open Source Sysadmin
This was my typo and not Taco's. He fixed it after the fact. The Then/Than was all his, tho....
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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.
Actually...I do know what Toonami is. I also know what "psychosexual disorders" are, having taken a few courses in Abnormal Psychology here at the U. This sort of stuff falls quite easilly into what I would call a fetish, since it seems the majority of interest expressed in Anime is not for its style and its content, but rather of its emphasis on sex.
My guess is, Anime fans are fans because getting off on cartoon tits is somehow safe, and non-threatening. Its a one-way relationship, which allows the individual to develop their own arousal in a controlled way, versus risking the emotions of someone else. Fear of pussy, essentially.
Bottom line, more and more these days, Anime is a fetishist activity. Thats what makes me sick. Enjoy a cartoon for what it is. A cartoon. Entertainment. Like a movie, or a play. Getting sexually aroused by a cartoon equates with assigning a personality to a blow-up doll. Its just plain fucked up.
For the record, the reason why I read the post is because I'm a fan of Sealab. Its one of the funniest fucking things i've ever seen.
Bowie J. Poag
Kids don't wake up in the middle of the night to watch TV. Even if they did, it's easy enough to prevent them from doing so, and more importantly worth the effort.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
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?
Well the intersting nature of Japanese pronunciation and transliteration means Lupin can also be spelled Rupan, thus dodging the issue.
Oh yeah. Also, fuck the French and their perpetual and overly-restrictive copyrights.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
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?)
How is getting excited by a well-drawn image of, say, Faye Valentine and a well-photographed image of, say, Gillian Anderson different?
Dana Scully may be portrayed by a live human, but as far I'm concerned, both are completely unobtainable. It's irrelevant to my prurient nature what kind of media I'm looking at.
GTRacer
- My wife isn't reading this, is she?
Defending IP by destroying access to it? That makes sense, RIAA/MPAA. Go to the corner until you can play nice!
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.