Bowdlerise / Anime & Manga A-I

A-B

• Much to everybody's suprise, every titans and others were given shorts in Malaysian release of the Attack on Titan manga due to nudity. More information can be seen here, and here.
• In one version of the ADV-translated Azumanga Daioh manga, the "hello, little lady" game where Tomo's Dad spun her around by the yukata sash and Yomi's subsequent reaction was changed to both of Tomo's parents participating and Yomi wondering how old Tomo was. The implications (if you know what the "game" implied, at least before Tomo and her father Completely Missed The Point) of this change are astounding.
• In the Shonen Jump preview for Bakuman。, all references to Moritaka believing that his uncle Nobuhiro "Taro Kawaguchi" Mashiro commited suicide (he didn't, as Moritaka realizes in Chapter 3) are replaced with euphemisms, like "end it all." ("My parents told me he died from overworking, but I think it was something much worse."). The changes become especially unconvincing in Chapter 2, when Moritaka asks Akito how his uncle could have died from overworking if he wasn't serialized, and when Moritaka, arguing with his mother over going into mangaka, tells her he won't end up like his uncle, horrifying her with his mistaken belief about the cause of his uncle's death.
• Battle of the Planets transformed Science Ninja Team Gatchaman into a children's show:
  • Hermaphrodite villain Berg Katse became Zoltar and his "twin sister" (or similar-looking unrelated women). The youngest hero Jinpei was changed from a kid to a genetically engineered being with weird speech patterns.
  • All scenes of violence and bloodshed removed, and a "narrator" would pop up to explain how the bad guys had been "temporarily stunned" by our heroes' weapons.
  • A robot named 7-Zark-7 (animated in a completely different style) was inserted to pad the running length because so much had been cut. He would usually provide An Aesop at the end of the show.
  • Zark was apparently (to judge by the art) in the upper dome of Center Neptune. He served as narrator, including reassuring the kiddies that nobody was really hurt, when he wasn't taking credit for numerous good ideas and machines, or having really disturbing conversations with the early warning system on Pluto.
  • For some time, there was an urban legend that Jinpei/Keyop's speech patterns had been edited to remove swearing. The release of the unedited Gatchaman by ADV in the mid-2000s demonstrates that this wasn't true. It would seem that Sandy Frank made him a clone with an odd speech pattern to try to push the "sci-fi" angle further, and for him to have a "funny accent" to set him apart from the other characters. Before they went with the idea of him being a cloned child, his accent was to be a side-effect of him being an alien.
  • While the G-Force dub was less censored in comparison, the writers attempted to censor the deaths of Joe/Dirk's parents and say that Galactor "almost" killed them (while cutting the flashback to their death scene). When this proved to be a key point in a later episode, they forgot about their previous edit.
  • Saban's dub of the Gatchaman sequels, known as Eagle Riders, is another case of bowdlerisation. In an attempt to cover up a villain's death at the end of the first sequel and try to merge the two series closer together, the Gatchaman II villain is said to have been "transformed" into the big bad of Gatchaman Fighter. Other than that, character deaths were generally covered up or cut out, entire episodes were dropped while others were spliced together, and Saban's dubbing effort proved very inconsistent as the writers stumbled to get themselves out of plot holes they'd created.
• In a case where the network, studio, or licensee has taken great pains to bowdlerize an entire anime series and all of its episodes, Animax-South East Asia actually had all Beelzebub episodes edited for re-broadcast in the region with totally naked titular character Baby Beel wearing a diaper.
• Downplayed with the 1997 anime adaptation of Berserk. The series significantly tones down the violence and sexual content compared to the manga, at least until the finale when it shows the Eclipse about as graphically as the standards of the time allowed.
• A reprint of Black Jack censored a scene in which a child character used the derogatory term 'katawa' to refer to his crippled brother, instead referring to him as "sick." This completely removes the impact of part of the storyline, in which the child is explained why the term is wrong and hurtful.
• The anime version of Bobobo-bo Bo-bobo tones down a few things. For example, Softon's head becomes pink, to avoid Toilet Humor around him (even though that's his entire point in the manga, though in the anime, it refers to ice cream instead), giving Serviceman an older appearance after thinking he looked too "innocent", and one minor villain with the gimmick of wearing panties with a large plastic duck popping out from the front now wears them... on his head. The main thing was in the manga, any hit would cause blood spewing from the mouth, which was not present in the anime.
• In the Bokurano manga one of the protagonists was raped by her teachers friends and ended up pregnant as a result. In the anime she was instead groomed by her teacher into having a sexual relationship with him, which is only marginally less disturbing.

C-D

• Cardcaptor Sakura:
  • Cardcaptors, the Americanized (or, licensed and dubbed by a Canadian company) version of Cardcaptor Sakura, is probably the third-most-infamous example after One Piece and Sailor Moon. It eliminated all of the series' crushes (not just the ones involving cousins or same-sex pairings), despite it being y'know, a romance show. Strangely, the same-sex crushes managed to get a lot more Dub Text through than the heterosexual ones. They also changed nearly all of the characters' names.
  • The Hebrew dub for Cardcaptor Sakura removed Yukito's love for Touya. So after Sakura confesses her love to Yukito, the Israeli viewer learns that he doesn't feel the same way because he already has Touya as a very close friend. Also, for the rest of the episode, the words "a very close friend" are repeated again and again. Because Touya is Yukito's very close friend. They also censored Syaoran's crush on Yukito, and tried to pass it as "admiration". Then they gave Syaoran lines like "why do I feel this way about Kinomoto? I admire Yukito!"
• The Italian dub of Case Closed early on referred to the substance that was used to de-age Shinichi as a "magic potion" rather than a drug. Later episodes changed it into a less ridiculous "medicine".
• Disney Channel Asia's airing of The Cat Returns cuts out a bit of the scene where Haru is being "entertained" by the court whilst in the Kingdom of Cats. One of the acts involves a cat tossing a fish as though it were a knife at a cat stuck to a board. The thrower's fish slashes the cat's top, causing it to fall down. This prompts her to cover up her chest area and run out of court. This prompts the king to have the thrower expelled from court by throwing him out of the window. The entire act, and the thrower's expulsion, are cut. Also cut is one of the patrons laughing at the following act (the cat with the face painted on his body) and then being thrown out of the window himself. This leads to the acts who have not performed stepping backward out of fear for no reason (the King's line of "the next act better not stink" is cut as well).
• Animax Asia's airing of Cells at Work! had all instances of leukocytes killing any virus with highly blood-like cytoplasm spewing out of it discarded wholesale. Episode 3 of Cells at Work! CODE BLACK had almost five minutes cut out due to the depiction of an erection.
• The French dub of the City Hunter anime, titled Nicky Larson (which is Ryo Saeba's name in the dub), had all of its mature elements removed so that it could've been shown on a children television program, much like Ken le survivant before it. Ryo's occupation was changed from a hitman to a bodyguard, his perverseness was downplayed by having Ryo hit on his female clients in "vegetarian restaurants" instead of love motels, and instead of live bullets, his gun fires knockdown "balls" that renders his targets unconscious.
• In the original manga version of Death Note, Misa wears cross earrings. In the anime, they are changed to fleur de lis earrings. Similarly, Mello had a lot of religious imagery in the manga (crosses and even a Virgin Mary graphic once on his ever-changing outfits, a crucifix and a small Marian shrine in his living space, a rosary (incorrectly) worn as a necklace, a bracelet that matches the rosary, and a little cross charm on his gun). All his crosses are edited out for the anime, and the wall crucifix and Marian shrine are not seen in his living space. Special mention goes to the rosary, where the crucifix at the bottom is changed to a nondescript red stick charm. Interestingly, the Misa collector's figure included with volume 5 of the DVD series retains the cross, and she is also depicted with it in the anime's first opening. Lampshaded in this fancomic "You can't beat Kira without your lucky chili."
• In Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, In his moment of sheer desperation as Genya is most certainly about to die after being sliced in half by Kokushibo's last attack, Sanemi in the original japanese dialogue directly mentions God while voicing his plea not to let Genya die in his arms, the official Viz translation removes the direct claim to make it so Sanemi is voicing his plea towards an unspecified higher power. The series as a whole is heavily centered around Buddhism beliefs, Sanemi's desperate pleading is the only time a character directly wishes for God's help.
• Digimon Adventure:
  • A number of "gross" Digimon make heavy use of Toilet Humor in the Japanese version — the Numemon throw (pink) poop, for instance, while Sukamon is a living yellow turd and likewise throws pink crap. In the English dub, the Numemons' projectiles are called "Nume sludge" and Sukamon is changed to a living lemon meringue who throws pudding.
  • An interesting example from the Arabic dub of Adventure and 02: To get past some extremely strict media regulations in a few countries its network, Spacetoon, served, the concept of Digivolving does not exist for this dub. Instead, the higher forms of the basic Digimon are their older siblings who live in an unseen base and "switch out" with their younger ones to fight evil. Also, in Tamers, the symbol on Calumon's head is digitally removed. Their reason? Because it looked too much like the Star of David.
  • There was also one instance where the Buddhist sutras that were chanted by Joe to weaken a King Mook version of a Bakemon were changed to the mantra "Bakemon, lose your power." Unfortunately, this caused a Dub-Induced Plot Hole near the end of the Myotismon arc.
• Digimon Data Squad was intended to be Darker and Edgier than previous series and was aimed at teenagers in Japan, but in the US it was rated TV-Y7 and Studiopolis made many changes reminiscent of 4Kids as a result. One of the most glaring was in the episode "A Birthday Kristy Will Never Forget!", where they changed BomberNanimon (a Digimon shaped like a giant Cartoon Bomb) to "Citramon" (a giant orange), as well as changing its threat to blow up an amusement park to drowning it in juice after several bad citrus jokes.
• Digimon Fusion:
  • The USA English dub of Fusion has several edits, including a reduction of both Lilithmon (here renamed "Laylamon") and Mervamon's breasts and cleavage and altering Deputymon's design to make him look less like a real gun (by making him blue and adding glow inside the barrel to imply he's a laser gun).
  • In Malaysia, an episode of Digimon Fusion Battles that aired on Disney XD blurred over Bastemon and Lilithmon's breasts (though with the latter, this was inconsistent; some shots were left untouched). Also, at one point in the episode, Akari makes a slash at Lilithmon's face, making a cut and causing it to bleed. This too was blurred over.
  • The Italian dub cuts a few fart jokes made by Jijimon in early episodes.
• Doraemon had its Naked People Are Funny scenes re-animated in Viz's English dub to get around the Anglo/American nudity taboo, since the show otherwise has no to very little objectionable content.

E-G

• Elfen Lied:
  • A promo disc by ADV Films (often released to anime clubs in high schools and universities, with a TV-14 rating and edits if necessary on the discs) included the first episode of the series. Every single time gore or nudity appeared on-screen, the episode cut to a still black background◊. By the end of the episode, anyone who watched it saw more black background than the actual show.
  • The version of the series available on German streaming site Clipfish was cut to remove the scenes which earned it a FSK 18 rating (as Clipfish won't stream anything above a 16 rating). All the nudity is intact in the first episode; however, the scene in which Lucy brutally slaughters a room full of guards is heavily chopped up.
• Fairy Tail's anime aired in a morning timeslot in Japan, so there's some bowdlerization in the manga-to-anime transition.
  • Fights in the anime tend to use Bloodless Carnage, while the manga has no restriction.
  • After Lucy was kidnapped by Gajeel in the manga he threw daggers at her; in the anime, she was beaten up by him^note A rare case where Bowdlerising a scene arguably makes it worse..
  • In the start of the Tower of Paradise Arc, Simon blows up the table instead of slapping Juvia.
  • Dirty Old Man Makarov says that Lucy has a "Nice Body" and no longer refers to her breasts.
  • In the manga, Erza Scarlet knocks out Erza Knightwalker and steals her clothes to pull the Impersonating the Evil Twin trick (leaving the real Knightwalker topless and in panties), while in the anime, Scarlet simply knocks Knightwalker out and then duplicates her outfit with her magic.
• Fatal Fury: The Motion Picture, on the Sci Fi Channel broadcast, had very distracting censor bars over Mai Shiranui's bottom and chest.
• An interesting French example is Ken le Survivant, the French version of the Fist of the North Star anime. While Fist was originally shown in prime-time in Japan, it was picked up by a French children's channel without verifying the content of the actual anime and immediately attracted the ire of Moral Guardians. The show was quickly retooled as a Gag Dub which edited most of the violence out.
• Fruits Basket:
  • The version of Fruits Basket (2019) that airs on Australian children's channel ABC Me cuts all of Shigure's and Ayame's perverted behavior, cuts down a girl's bullying in a way that changes the meaning (the scene cuts to the teacher walking in before she is burnt with a match, making the viewer believe they only threatened her with it), and either awkwardly chops out or mutes sections of dialogue that have mild swear words ('piss', 'bitch', 'bastard', 'shit'). One episode was even skipped in its entirety due to references to suicide (episode 19). These edits are supposedly in order to make the show appropriate for a PG rating, even though the uncensored version of the first season was already passed from the Australian Classification Board with a PG rating.
  • Kagura threatened Kyo with marriage as a child using a knife in the Fruits Basket manga but used a rock in the in the 2001 anime adaptation. It was kept for the 2019 remake.
• Fullmetal Alchemist:
  • The manga has a scene where Greed is pinned to a giant cross-shaped slab of rock. The American release edited the slab by filling in portions so it looks like a generic oval-shaped slab of stone. No other part of the US manga release is censored, but this one single edit still caused fans to go absolutely ballistic. The later box set version, however, is uncensored with the cross shape intact. In Brotherhood, the arms of the cross were removed from the scene entirely, even in the original Japanese version, avoiding the issue entirely.
  • One Brazilian channel aired Fullmetal Alchemist (2003) in their kids' block; naturally, there was some serious editing done to make it acceptable. All blood (with the exception of the drops the Elric brothers used for their human alchemy attempt) was cut out or badly edited out digitally (in one case, Tim Marcoh's death, very cheaply, MS Paint-like), as were fanservice shots and entire scenes deemed too violent (the last episode particularly was ripped to shreds, and left more than one character's fates ambiguous). Fortunately Animax Brazil aired the series uncut, and the previously mentioned channel never aired Brotherhood. (Strangely, although the first three DVD box sets were released uncut, the fourth and last was released with the TV edits. Very unfortunate, especially since those were undoubtedly the most edited episodes, and the box outright states the show to be completely uncensored).
• Gals!: The first episode is about Aya secretly "working" as an Enjo Kosai (dating older men for money) to escape a high-pressure home life, and her friend Ran trying to stop her. The Italian dub removes all the Enjo Kosai references and Aya's secret "vice" is changed into her being a shopaholic who spends too much money.
• A fan rip of Gantz on an unofficial anime streaming site censors the series quite gratuitously — for example, in the first episode, during the scene where Kurono fantasizes about all the females in his class nude, the entire scene is pixelated. This happens again on Kishimoto's introduction inconsistently — her bare breasts are allowed to remain uncensored in the OP, but as she is dragged to be raped by Hatanka the entire screen is pixelated. This was done supposedly due to a large amount of members on the site being pre-teens/young teens, but one must question whether the gory, sexually-charged world of Gantz is appropriate for young audiences just by pixelating nudity.
• Get Backers:
  • Lost in the manga-to-anime shift: More boobs and more blood. Notably, Kazuki comes across as much more dangerous: rather than just tying people up and maybe a few bloodless slashes, he can be seen severing limbs and sewing people's eyes, mouths, and ears shut, and then tying them up. And leaving them there. For about a week. Yeah.
  • There was also a chapter early in the manga that was cut out of the anime entirely involving Ban & Ginji infiltrating a ring of illegal organ traders who get their organs by kidnapping people, putting them into drug-induced comas and dissecting them while still alive. During Ban's application of the Jagan/Evil-Eye, we see pretty graphic depictions of some of the victims.
• GoLion was pretty violent by non-Japanese standards. In the Voltron dub, all the violent and repulsive scenes were cut, as with the character deaths (examples being certain aliens and mutants changed into robots, as well as Takashi and Ryou Shirogane being one character rather than two). in addition, some episodes were given footage from Dairugger XV to pad their running length. All of the non-anime footage was used as the infamous season two.
• Great Teacher Onizuka has relatively little of this in the dub, but one amusing example: When Tomoko is filming a commercial for daikon ("radishes" in the dub), the original tagline "It's thick...and huge" becomes "I love you, radish."

H-I

• The anime version of Hetalia: Axis Powers, while adapting the manga closely in some aspects, had its own examples of this trope:
  • The Italy brothers' implied nudity while sleeping was edited so that both would be wearing tank tops, instead of showing their bared chests. Other scenes of North Italy in the nude or even simply being shirtless were edited in a similar fashion, so that he'd be wearing a bright pink tank top. Any bottom nudity was concealed by having him wear yellow boxers (save for a gag in one episode where he was censored anyway).
  • A shirtless scene of Spain was edited so that he'd wear a red tank top, along with removing his cross necklace. In the same scene, the younger Romano was originally depicted completely naked, but covering himself up with a pillow. In the anime adaptation, boxers and a tank top are drawn over his body, even though he's still mostly concealed by the pillow.
  • In one strip, Prussia discovers a beat-up and bloodied Hungary, exhausted after her battle with Turkey. DEEN removed the blood and cuts, and simply showed some dirt and bruises on her face.
  • The episode of Japan and China's history together left out the final segment, in which Japan violently attacks China with a sword (which has been debated over whether it represents the First or Second Sino-Japanese War). The same episode also changed Japan's flat-out denial of being related to China to him reluctantly agreeing. As a result, instead of berating Japan for his denial, China becomes annoyed that Japan hesitated to agree. Tibet was also replaced with a talking panda, possibly due to Unfortunate Implications involving the real life situation with China. In addition, a line referencing the "Battle of Keichoo" (during the moon-gazing scene) was excised.
  • Germany and Prussia's Iron Cross charms were removed, and Germany's uniform was edited to be teal instead of green in an attempt to downplay the SS connection. Season 5 (The Beautiful World) averted this, and restored the uniform color and cross.
  • A scene with the younger America was altered to remove the depiction of him with a rifle.
  • To avert controversy and for marketing purposes, any instances of the WWII-era flags for the Axis Powers were altered to show the modern country flags.
  • At the climax of the Chibitalia story, Chibitalia originally gave Holy Roman Empire his panties as a parting gift. The anime adaptation changed the sequence so that Chibitalia offered his deck brush as a gift (despite him not holding it in the previous scenes).
  • The punchline to the strip where Italy hits puberty is toned down due to its implication: The original punchline has France say that sex is something you do with a person you "like", with him proceeding to leer at Italy and ask if he likes him. In the anime? France instead goes into a heavily-censored explanation of what sex entails, causing Italy to become confused.
  • The "German Simulator" segment removed South Korea, after the controversy over the character. There was originally a gag where he complains of the lousy service at the supermarket, then rolls around and gets stepped on by others in line. Although DEEN hastily edited him out of the segment before the episode could air (and may have also done this with a cameo in the very first episode), one shot still depicts him from behind in line (ahoge especially visible) and in front of Austria.
• The earlier Italian dub of Honoo no Alpen Rose heavily edited every episode to hide the fact that the series is set during World War II and removed all the swastikas. The series later got a second dub that had no cuts.
• Hunter × Hunter:
  • The 1999 anime had two Italian dubs: one made for the DVD release, which is uncut, and one for TV (but was still included in the DVD releases as an extra) that is edited in a 4-Kids like way. Among other edits, it called the Zoldycks "mercernaries" instead of "assassins", made heavy use of Never Say "Die" (characters would often say "eliminate" or "finish"), and changed Leorio's Crotch-Grab Sex Check gamble on Leroute in Trick Tower to a bet on whether or not her large pigtails were a wig. Accidentally, the TV broadcast of the series in 2007 initially used the uncut edit... but after the unsuspecting TV station aired the scene of Killua ripping out Johness's heart, backlash from Moral Guardians ensued, they realized the error and restarted the show from the first episode, this time using the edited cut.
  • There was also some bowdlerisation in the transition from manga to anime, as well as from the 1999 to the 2011 adaptation, especially early on, when the latter aired in a morning timeslot in Japan. This was subverted when it moved to a late night timeslot during the Chimera Ant arc.
    • The 2011 anime has several instances of Bloodless Carnage where the manga and 1999 anime don't, especially in its first two cours.^note That is, the Hunter Exam and Zoldyck family arcs. The two most noticeable examples are when Hisoka turns an examinee's arm into flower petals instead of chopping it off, and when Killua puts Johness's heart in a bag and hands it back to him instead of crushing it in his hand, letting the blood gush out.
    • In the 1999 anime, it's said that Leroute is in prison for talking her parents to suicide. In the 2011 anime, her Boss Subtitles say that she repeatedly trafficked endangered species.
    • A minor example that changes the impact of some dialogue: At one point in the Yorknew arc, Gon and Killua find Leorio enjoying wine in their hotel room with the counterfeiter they previously met at a shop. Leorio asks if they want some, and Gon and Killua politely refuse, saying they're only twelve. In the manga, Leorio replies that the drinking age is twelve in his home country, but in the 2011 anime, he says it's 16.
    • The 1999 anime toned down Gon's questionable decision to sell his Hunter's license in exchange for auction money. He's more hesitant to do so in this adaptation than in the manga and 2011 anime, but goes through with it in all versions.
    • The 1999 anime also made Kurapika less cold-blooded in regard to killing the Phantom Troupe. He even suffers a nervous breakdown after killing Uvogin.
    • The 2011 adaptation and Viz translations in the manga remove Killua's perverted thought when Gon and Leorio research conditional auctioning or binding. Instead, he thinks about how Gon and Leorio are both simpleminded instead in the anime, in the manga, he thinks it's a "meet market"^note A less known term for casual sex meetings instead.
  • The French dub of the 2011 anime tones down Hisoka's dialog during his fight with Gon in Heaven's Arena. He now comments on how strong Gon is rather than on his looks.
• The Italian dub of Idol Densetsu Eriko by MediaSet had some of these:
  • The dubbing company wanted to remove all references to Japan, so even scenes that have Japanese text and letters are cut out.
  • In Episode 34, Old Memories, Eriko and her mother Minako bathe together. In the nude. This was cut for obvious reasons.
  • A fan talks to Eriko on the radio about their suicidal feelings and the scene cuts to her trying to run into traffic, jump in a river and leap off a building. The Italian edition keeps this in, but instead says that the fan wants to run away from home instead of wanting to commit suicide.
• The Shonen Jump manga I"s received some censorship in its American publication to get an "Older Teen" instead of the more-restricted "Mature"; when the Photoshopped nude photo of Iori went around, her nipples were censored with stars, and similar scenes throughout the series (up until volume 12, where the rest of the series has a "PARENTAL ADVISORY: EXPLICIT CONTENT" sticker, still strangely with an Older Teen rating) received Censor Steam or Digital Bikini. The preview in the actual Shonen Jump magazine rated Teen was even more censored, with the opening photoshoot on Iori edited to a PG-rated level and scenes of fondling/groping removed or covered. Considering Viz had published other series with female nipples at an Older Teen rating, this appeared to a double standard for the Shonen Jump label.
• In the last episode of Isabelle of Paris, everyone except the main character is massacred by the French army. In the French edition of the anime, it never aired.

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