The Blunder of Anime Editing

So, I pop in Photon, one of the newer anime releases from last year, sit back, and prepare to watch. Suddenly, on the screen, comes a huge warning, something to the effect of, "All characters depicted in this anime are aged 19 or older! Don't sue us for child porn!" Okay, so maybe that wasn't exactly the message, but that's what it said to me. Yet another victim of the culture differences between Japan and America. Even completely fictional characters in anime must not appear to be underage if there is any nudity at all. In Japan, nothing at all comes of harmless nudity as in discs like Photon, but in America anything involving nudity is subject to the complete misunderstanding of others. As a result of this, Photon's voice, belonging to a boy of about 7 or 8, sounds instead like a 30-year-old in the dub, making it look completely ridiculous.

Photon isn't the only anime to suffer from these sorts of things. All hentai (adult anime) that takes place in high school in Japan is mis-subtitled on purpose here to pretend that the characters are supposed to be in college. Luckily, this really has no effect on the anime whatsoever (after all who cares about the plot!). But other titles fare not so well. Anything intended for broadcast on American television is subject to huge cuts, as I mentioned in a previous column. Escaflowne, Gundam Wing, and Outlaw Star had cuts left and right, to take out blood (how horrible!), any references to alcohol, cursing, any nudity (however slight), and so on. These same shows are perfectly acceptable in Japan, but being brought over to America, and especially to television, places them in control of the censors.

Perhaps the biggest editing fiasco in recent times was the editing of the film Kite by Media Blasters. Kite was released in 1999, and many changes were made to the film in order to tone down the sexual content for the American release. While some people argue that the cuts were acceptable in order to make the film more accessible, I really feel that editing by others of films is unacceptable. Especially in cases where the films are just edited to make them "less offensive", because who gets to decide what is offensive? The only thing that comes of editing like this is a non-complete film for little to no reason. If people find things offensive, it should be their choice to not buy it, not some company's choice to edit someone's work to make them a few more bucks. Making editing into a commercial business cuts into the actual work that the creator did, and the fact that Americans cannot bring themselves to accept any culture except theirs is not a good excuse to start doing it.

Thankfully, recently people in the anime community have been more aware of the problem, and there is even a great site called the "Animé No Editing Zone" (http://www.animeprime.com/edit/index.html) that is devoted to information about cuts in anime series to date. Recently there have been few large edits aside from those for American TV, and in the companies' defense, unedited versions have always been available on DVD. Let's hope that in the future, this policy continues, and maybe as networks get more and more anime their attitudes toward different views in Japanese culture may change also.

As an addendum to this week's column, I'd like to suggest a few new titles slated to come out soon that I think any anime fan should check out and maybe even buy.

Shamanic Princess - Set to be released February 13th by CPM, is an anime with an outstanding plot, centering on Tiara and Lena, two girls with shamanic powers. They are friends, but find themselves on opposing sides of a mission. The plot makes this anime great in and of itself, and the artwork is in a unique style that fits right in with the setting, a touch of Europe in your anime. I highly recommend this series, and all 6 episodes will be on one DVD, with an MSRP of $29.99. A deal that shouldn't be missed.

Card Captor Sakura - This series is viewed by a lot of people as too cutesy and just another magical girl series, but CCS stands out above the rest of the genre. The plot focuses on Sakura, a girl in elementary school who accidentally lets out all the cards from a magical book and finds herself with the job of recapturing them all. Her relationships with the other characters are what the series is about, and they are very well done. I can't recommend this series enough, at least give it a try, as it's not just a series for girls. Released by Pioneer, the third disc comes out in March, and the first two discs are already released.

Blue Seed - An old gem, this series was released on VHS by ADVision long ago, but if you missed this series then, I recommend you pick it up now. Battles with plant-monsters, panty shots, a woman obsessed with heavy weaponry, intrigue, what more could you ask for? The entire series will be on 4 discs, for 26 episodes, each with an MSRP of $29.98, so it's also a great deal. Pick it up, you won't be disappointed. And so ends another column. Otanoshimi ni!