There’s a very civilized discussion on censorship going on on the Tokyopop message boards right now. I’ll link to the most recent page, in which someone complains that Viz edited a nipple out of Midori Days (which strikes me as sort of pointless, given the theme of that book). Novels editor Kara Stambach points out that most chain stores won’t carry a book that has a “mature” rating and suggests we look at the big picture:
Is censoring lame? Yes. Would missing out on a great book b/c of a nipple be worth it? Hm, not usually, in my opinion. Are the people at VIZ twirling their mustaches as they gleefully butcher out nipples in their books? I doubt it; they probably love their products as much as we do.
Her point is valid: Publishers have to be able to sell their books, and if a nipple is going to get in the way, it will have to be covered up. And she’s optimistic that someday they will be able to set aside the white-out and star stickers:
I believe someday we’ll get there. Someday the masses with conservative attitudes won’t get all up in arms b/c they’ll realize 1. comics aren’t just for kids 2. monkey-see, monkey-do works for monkeys, not rational human beings 3. exposure to art and ideas is everyone’s basic intellectual right and should be self-governed and 4. boobs never hurt anybody.
I think it ties in rather nicely with the discussion at Love Manga a-la ‘to Thong or not to Thong?’ No, boobs never hurt anybody [hell, they kept me quite happy in my first year of life] but that’s just it; it’s the perception of how those boobs are displayed on any given page.
I abhor all forms of censorship, but let me play devils advy here:
Koike’s ‘Lady Snowblood’ has copious amounts of nudity. Some of its just nudity, other parts is ‘nudity during sex’. DH shrinks wraps the books, but I still find them on bookshelves; perhaps Austin Texas is just more progressive, but DH doesn’t seem to have a problem with moving them to B&N or anywhere else for that matter. >_> If you’re going to edit fanserve-boobage in the name of taste [or what some publishers call, market realities] than why not edit all manga boobage? I think this is the problem fans of ‘fanservice’ have with the TenTen issue; if mature readers are allowed their explicit-in-sex nudity in titles like Koike’s, then why aren’t fanserve-fans allowed their bits of pornage for the fun of it.
-Tina
Because fanservice by its very nature doesn’t fit with the rest of the book. If a book is rated 13+, it’s probably being read by 11-year-olds and it probably has a plot that is appropriate for that age, so a panty shot or a wardrobe malfunction is out of place. I think what went wrong with Tenjho Tenge is that the story wasn’t appropriate for younger kids anyway, so covering up the boobs’n’butts to give it a lower rating was just stupid. Rate it 16+ and leave the boobs alone.
OTOH, I have in my home right now a Tokyopop tome called Because I’m the Goddess, which is about a very bosomy goddess who has a lot of wardrobe malfunctions. It’s more or less the point of the book, which is rated 16+. I find this much less offensive than the panty shots in standard shoujo or shonen manga. The book has no sex or violence, like TenTen; it’s just a comedy about a big-boobed goddess and her effect on men. I let my daughters (12 and 13) read it, and I agreed with the younger one that despite the rampant fanservice, it is pretty funny.
*fanservice by its very nature doesn’t fit with the rest of the book.*
I always felt this way also, ^^ but as David and I were speaking about earlier, why would one license Og knowing that fanserve is part of the menu. I suggested to Dave that CMX, at that time, just didn’t know what hell it was doing in terms of licensing; oh hey this is popular, let’s bring it over and market it to kids because manga’s for kids, right?]. But Dave said something I thought was interesting: *so… as long as the fanservice serves the plot then its okay…? surely thats not fanservice anymore?*
Nope. It’s a question of appropriateness.
Here’s an example: volume 1 of Et Cetera, which is a big hit in the sixth and seventh grades around here, has one really weird shot that doesn’t fit with the rest of the book. Mostly it’s a western/adventure tale about a feisty girl with a magic gun and perfectly appropriate for 11-year-olds (it’s rated 13+). But there’s one scene where the heroine gets under another woman’s skirt, rips off her panties, and stands between her legs, gun blazing. The panel doesn’t depict any pubic hair or genitals, but it’s a rather arresting image and not really appropriate for kids that age. It doesn’t belong in that book, even though it does fit with the plot.
I’m not a huge fan of T&A books either, as the usual arguments apply (demeaning to women, unrealistic, etc.). But at least they’re up front (heh!) about what they’re doing.
That’s interesting. So do you think the mangaka put that scene there for the sole purpose of fanserve; or do you think they were just telling their story in anyway they see fit. I know as a creator, I don’t always think about what going to be ‘hawt’ for my fans in terms of writing.
Was Et Cetera made for kids? That’s the question. Was the manga-ka writing for kids? Same law applies to Warner Bros catalogue of Loony Toons. Once upon a time it was ok to show Bugs Bunny tunes without edits; recently however, I’ve noted key scenes missing from these toons due to the fact they’re on Boomerang. 0_o. I was exposed to the same shows as a kid and they didn’t daunt me, what makes my ten-year-old any different than me?
Again, playing advocate here, I’ve kids of my own and one of them is addicted to Sgt Frog, but you know what, I let him read it because every time he finds some fanserve he ‘doesn’t get’ he asks me about it and WE TALK. I know this is such a scary concept for some parents. ^_- Mind you, I’m not going to let him read Berserk to open a dialogue about mature matters, but I think there are times when I appreciate light doses of fanserve in titles marketed to tweens.
Appropriateness, that is an interesting choice of word Brigid.
I’m not going to justify fanservice one way or the other, but I cannot see how you could apply what’s appropriate for you and yours when the source material is from a completely different culture. To say the image doesn’t belong in the book is a little disingenuous to the creator and whoever the buyers and target audience where back in Japan.
Just because what we deem as appropriate doesn’t mean anyone else does, in this country or others. If we go that route whole swathes of reading material would start being censored, and that’s not a route I want to go down. The simple solution fits me fine, let each parent dictate what they think is “appropriate” for their child.
Easy for me to say, I don’t have kids.
I’m not criticizing the Japanese for putting it in. I respect the fact that it’s a different culture. But manga published in the U.S. is not Japanese; it’s American. Or rather, it’s a foreign product that has already been altered to suit American audiences. It has already been translated into English, which is a pretty profound change right there. So I don’t think it’s a huge jump to institute truth in advertising. That’s what I’m talking about. Aoi House can be all about panties and that’s fine, because I know what it is. What I object to is including nudity and sexual content in a book that is clearly designed for young children, kids who are just beginning to learn about sex, because in our culture, that’s not appropriate. And the kids who are reading the book are American, not Japanese.
You have to start at the baseline of what’s acceptable in your society and work from there. I’m not saying a parent can’t choose to let their kids read more mature books. I’ve been letting my kids read 16+ for over a year. It’s just that the content of the book should be consistent. Otherwise there are too many nasty surprises, and manga gets a bad name, which doesn’t benefit any of us.
I see “appropriateness” as applying more to the story and the tone it seemed to be aiming for originally. My usual beef with fanservice comes when I don’t think it belongs in the particular title. I found it creepy that Sgt. Frog was peeping on a pubescent girl in the bath and making notes on her breats’ development to the point that I had a hard time enjoying the cuteness of the rest of the series because this character who was initially funny because he wasn’t as threatening as he thought, suddenly had this behavior I associated with unstable, “timebomb” characters.
Similarly, there was a elementary-school mystery manga (I can’t remember if it was Case Closed or K. Case Files) where the preview chapter had a scene where a girl leans over a window, providing a panty shot. I lost interest right there, leering at what looks like very underaged characters is a deal breaker for me.
Either way, both cases count as “appropriateness” in my mind because when I first looked at these titles, I didn’t feel like I was signing up for panty shots and when those came along, the title became something other than what made it sound appealing in the first place.
Meanwhile, Tuxedo Gin was always a very raunchy title, so the frequent nudity never bothered me, except for when male bodies were drawn so badly.
On nitpick I have on some of the arguments about some chains not carrying Mature titles… I remember hearing in a 2005 YAOICon report that B&N doesn’t carry Mature titles as a policy, but then a few months later I found Kikaider which had an M rating (for mild nudity, I presume) and later noticed a couple of other M’s on the B&N shelves. So, somehow, those M titles get through — does it happen by accident? is a per-title exception available (Kikaider’s vol 1 M rating seemed a bit harsh, unless it was a series rating)? or does the no Mature titles rule apply only to certain genres?
Appropriateness cuts both ways. I got a shipment from Tokyopop that included Grenadier. Here’s their description of the main character:
And in case that isn’t clear enough, one look at the cover shows you what you’re going to get. But when Rushuna is (inevitably) attacked in the bath and has to rise up out of the suds, totally nude, to blast away her attacker, someone whited out her nipples. All the rest of the breast is visible, but not the nipples. WTF?? I definitely think they should have drawn the whole thing. I don’t think any souls were saved by that white-out.
Which raises an interesting philosophical question: I assume Tokyopop made that edit. But what about a manga that has censorship in the original, because of Japanese laws (I believe for a long time genitals were off limits). Would redrawing a Japanese work to eliminate censorship be more or less authentic than leaving in the fig leaves/pixels/white space?
*Would redrawing a Japanese work to eliminate censorship be more or less authentic than leaving in the fig leaves/pixels/white space?* I think that’s a bad idea, but in BL this form of self-censorship does often take place depending on who your publisher is. In terms of it coming to America, when DQ licensed ‘Brother’, it was said they requested manga-ka Yuzuha Ougi ‘redraw’ what was, in Japan, censored out. One of the reason this was so appealing to BL fans is because we know that BL titles in Japan are often ‘censored’ -some with this tiny little black strip [quite tongue-cheek-ridiculous and I wont link to an example because I’m not sure of your blogs standard readership age] and many employ a method of drawing we in the states call the GCOL or ‘glowing cones of light’. The reason DQ went to this extreme was because, in the early days of licensing, many companies were bringing over BL titles intended for teen readers in Japan and calling them ‘Yaoi’. In the mind of BL fen, if you’re calling something “yaoi” which in Japan equates to “the hard stuff” then you shouldn’t be delivering something that barely qualities as BL. So when one company touted they were ‘bringing over the hottest Yaoi titles’ what fans got was ‘hot yaoi’ but censored to an extent and this was unsettling. We know its BL, we know we can only get it online most times, and we know it comes shrink-wrapped…so why the need for white out and missing scene? 0_o.
As for Japan laws now, BL mangaka get away with quite a bit, but pubic is still OFF LIMITS.
-Tina
^^
That’s an interesting question, Brigid.
I think, for me, edits annoy me when they don’t feel “appropriate”. I mean, drawing-in censored aspects of a title are fine because, in most cases, the censored bits are part of the series’ point.
OTOH, the CMX edits annoyed me because it didn’t feel appropriate, based on what I was hearing about the title. The plot sounded very mature, so how did drawn-on bras make a difference?