Tamer and Chaster

How to put your coquettish comic characters in a chaste cartoon.

Krusty: Now, boys, uh, the network has a problem with some of your lyrics. Would you mind changing them for the show?
Red Hot Chili Peppers: Forget you, clown. Our lyrics are like our children, man. No way.
Krusty: Well, okay. But here, where you say, "What I got/You gotta get/And put it in you" — how about just, "What I'd like/Is I'd like to/Hug and kiss you"?
Red Hot Chili Peppers: Wow, that's much better. Everyone can enjoy that.

— The Simpsons, "Krusty Gets Kancelled"

The chaste twin of Hotter and Sexier, when something is Tone Shifted to be far less sexual and vulgar than an earlier incarnation or installment.

Possible reasons for this shift in tone include the creators thinking of the censors, wanting a bigger audience for their material, or the former sexual content is considered shameful. In a Porn with Plot story, expect the ongoing story to be more invested to the plot and less to the porn.

One tool creators might use to achieve this includes the Digital Bikini, especially in anime works.

Also related to Bowdlerise, which is about editing questionable or offensive content from a work; and Lighter and Softer, especially when the work opens itself up for children. See also Self-Censored Release when the original creators make a later installment or version with objectionable content removed.

Related to Lighter and Softer and Adaptational Modesty. Compare and contrast Younger and Hipper. See also Tone Shift.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Demonbane is the anime adaptation of series of eroge for the PC, but removing the adult content doesn't impact the mecha/Lovecraft story much.
• The first Devil Hunter Yohko OAV had scenes that bordered on softcore porn, like a Brainwashed and Crazy Osamu's Attempted Rape of Yohko. However, the OAV after that one was Lighter and Softer to appeal to younger audiences.
• Doujin Work's anime adaptation considerably tones down any fanservice from the original manga; even the anime's Beach Episodes are pretty tame by anime standards.
• The Electric Tale of Pikachu is notoriously Hotter and Sexier than anything else Pokémon related, no small part in thanks to the fact the mangaka is also a hentai artist. Later chapters attempted to tone down the sexuality though, including swapping Misty's stripperiffic design for something resembling her anime design more.
• In the light novel and manga versions of Farming Life In Another World, the main character Hiraku runs a village made up mostly of women who keep him up much of the night explicitly trying to become mothers, even setting up locks on the outside of his room so he can't escape. In the anime, while the elves make frequent reference to their desire to have Hiraku help them repopulate their clan, they never act on it, and he deliberately pretends not to notice or understand anything they're saying. Even Hiraku's eventual children are largely removed from the story. The last few episodes show Lu ending up pregnant, but with hardly even a tacit acknowledgement that she and Hiraku have taken that leap in their relationship, to the point where some anime-only viewers may almost wonder how.
• Downplayed with Food Wars!: While the signature foodgasms of the manga can still result in sexy scenes, there have been an equal amount of times where the foodgasms simply are used for comedy rather than fanservice, which includes characters becoming vegetable-themed magical girls, a parody of Free!, etc.
• The anime adaptation of From the New World tones down and makes less explicit the sexual elements from the original novel. Meanwhile the manga version ramps up the fanservice with more revealing clothing and gratuitous makeout scenes.
• In Hetalia: Axis Powers along with becoming Lighter and Softer, the Fanservice, while still very present, is a lot less than in the earliest strips. The earlier strips had a lot more Black Comedy Rape and much more Homoerotic Subtext, some so blatant it could only be called text. Some of the old fanservicey strips were even deleted. Ironically, inverted with the fifth season of the anime. After 4 seasons of toning down the fanservice, the 5th season goes all out in pandering to the Yaoi Fangirls, animating some of the raunchiest strips such as April Fools 2011 and Buon San Valentino.
• The Latin American version of Kishin Douji Zenki was toned down in various scenes which showed Full-Frontal Assault, changing and extending other scenes, since the anime was adapted to be emitted for younger audiences during the "anime fever" of The '90s.
• The original K-On! manga had some notable moments of Fanservice (like Mio's infamous and very blatant Panty Shot and many of the costumes Sawako makes), but the anime greatly tones these elements down.
• Luminous Witches features the least amount of fanservice and skinship in the World Witches series so far, and even its resident Beach Episode is pretty tame by the series' standards. The Luminous Witches' outfits, from their special performance uniforms to their default military getups, are pretty modest and not too revealing. Only Mana's default outfit shows the most skin in the series, and even then, not by much. The lack of a Lovable Sex Maniac and the sparse and almost non-existent use of panty shots are also big contributors.
• Lyrical Nanoha is this compared to its parent series Triangle Heart. While Triangle Heart is an Eroge, Nanoha at most goes for some occasional Fanservice and is firmly in No Hugging, No Kissing territory.
• Mezzo Forte: The two-episode OVA featured full, well-animated, sex scenes worthy of an adult rating. However, the television series cuts out the sex but maintains some of the hardcore violence.
• Zigzagged in Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid. The anime is, on average, significantly less risque than the manga and focuses more on the themes of found family, but at the same time, Kyoto Animation added fanservice to scenes where none existed in the manga (most prominently seen in the Beach Episode, where they had Lucoa come along).
• Naruto: In early episodes of the Naruto anime, Naruto's "Sexy Jutsu" form was completely naked (albeit with Censor Steam), whereas in later ones in Naruto Shippuuden it's clothed. In Boruto, even during the Time-travel arc when they visit the pre-Time Skip Era Leaf Village, Naruto's Sexy Jutsu is shown fully clothed.
• Negima! Magister Negi Magi is known for having a lot of fanservice, but Studio SHAFT's adaptation Negima!? (second season) has hardly any, instead being a Denser and Wackier Quirky Work. The OVAs, however, bring back the fanservice in full force.
• One Piece: One Piece Film: Gold took place on a Las Vegas-style resort island and was full of sexy & busty women in skimpy outfits with lots of jiggly chests and Male Gaze (including from Nami who starts the movie wearing only a bikini). The follow-up film One Piece Stampede heavily tones it down, with almost no skimpy outfits and no jiggling. Nami's outfit throughout is even sensible (by her standards). This is likely due to Film Gold getting heavily edited in China, so Toei didn't want to do that for Stampede.
• Outlaw Star:
  • The early manga has some sexual content the anime cut, most notably a lengthy on-panel sex scene between Gene and Hilda that was changed to an offscreen encounter after which they're partially clothed.
  • The English TV version on Cartoon Network further toned down the anime, adding a Digital Bikini to Melfina in the first episodes, making Fred Luo's mannerisms and hitting on Gene less blatant, and omitting the Hot Springs Episode entirely. The DVD releases (and the re-airings on Toonami/[adult swim]) have all the original scenes available, including the censored episode.
• Papillon Rose lampshades this the New Season by the once perverted cat Rama, saying the titular heroine needs a new weapon and attack move.
• Reign of the Seven Spellblades: The original Light Novels include a lot of fairly frank discussion of sexuality that is dropped from or diminished in the adaptations (which are marketed to the Shōnen Demographic).
  • Neither adaptation includes Chela's suggestion from volume 2 that Pete take advantage of being a reversi to experiment sexually, and episode 13 of the anime cuts Miligan jokingly propositioning Oliver after they win the Battle of Hell's Armies.
  • Downplayed with Ophelia Salvadori, whose Sex Magic and backstory of sex abuse are so key to volume 3's story it's impossible to avoid completely. However, she's depicted visibly pregnant by rape in the flashback to her first meeting with Carlos Whitrow; the corresponding scene in episode 13 cuts the then-current pregnancy but keeps her line asking Carlos if they're the next "man"^note Carlos was assigned male at birth but magically neutered in order to serve as Ophelia's minder without being vulnerable to her Perfume, and has a non-binary gender identity. she's expected to breed with.
• Saki RE: King's Tile Draw is a Gender Fliped retelling of the early arcs of Saki, but this time played completely straight. Unlike the mainline series increasingly becoming less shy about showing the cast nude, in racy clothing, or upping their busts to multiple times their original size, RE has the boys stay at one size the whole series and doesn't indulge in any fanservice.
• The original Sgt. Frog manga tends to have a raunchy sense of humor, often using the female characters as vehicles for Fanservice. The anime still has some occasional fanservice as a Parental Bonus, but it's a lot more toned down in comparison to the manga due to being aimed at a younger audience. Even the art style is modified to look more family-friendly.
• The earliest chapters of Soul Eater had some rather crass fanservice (for instance, Black Star once lifted up Tsubaki's skirt while interrogating Sid) that later chapters and the anime adaptation leave out.
• Complaints from Japanese parents caused the Yo-kai Watch anime to tone down its jokes in later episodes.
• World's End Harem has gotten two flavors of this in its spinoffs:
  • World's End Harem: Fantasia, a raunchy fantasy manga with multiple explicit sex scenes, has a High School AU gag spinoff of its own that's considerably less lewd.
  • World's End Harem ~Brittania Lumiere~ serves as this to the franchise as a whole, being a straight fantasy manga despite the male harem premise. There are a couple of sex scenes that are handled by Sexy Discretion Shot.

Comic Books

• Archie Comics: The comics featured quite a bit of fanservice from the '40s-'80s and had several issues that had the characters making sexual references. Afterward, Archie made an attempt to portray their characters as chaste. This included censoring sexual jokes in re-issues, essentially banning certain issues from being re-issued, and attempting to outright retcon Cheryl Blossom away in the early 2000s. Eventually, Archie did away with these restrictions and in the 2010s began embracing the Hotter and Sexier treatment.
• Green Lantern: In the New 52, the Star Sapphires costumes aren't nearly as stripperiffic as the old ones.
• Harley Quinn: Riley Rossmo's redesign of Harley Quinn for Harley Quinn (Rebirth) gives her a costume that is much less revealing than the notoriously stripperiffic ones she'd worn since the New 52 era. The more cartoony art style also leads to a general reduction in the level of fanservice.
• Power Girl: In the New 52, for about a year Power Girl had a much more modest costume◊ that even lacked her infamous "boob window".
• Spider-Woman: Spider-Woman spent decades as one of Marvel's Ms. Fanservice heroines, with her very skintight outfit that highlights her large bust, and frequent Male Gaze shots of her behind. Jessica Drew would then change her costume to a far more modest outfit in her 2014 series, which no longer highlighted her body in such a way and the Male Gaze elements were gone. That said, this ended up being temporary due to Status Quo Is God, and the 2019 Strikeforce saw her returning to the classic skintight outfit once again.
• Squadron Supreme: The original Supreme Power series, being an Ultimate Universe take on the original series for Marvel's MAX imprint, took full advantage of the leniency towards content the mature rating enabled by featuring tons of uncensored nudity. This began to be toned down in later installments (primarily due to them being published under Marvel instead of MAX and therefore having to abide the mainstream publisher's content restrictions), to the extent that the 2006 Squadron Supreme series had the Amphibian, who initially went nude with little concern over what people would think of her, reluctantly donning a costume per Doctor Spectrum's wishes, the few panels beforehand where she's still naked no longer showing her breasts, genitalia and buttocks unobscured.
• Supergirl: The New 52 era series Supergirl (2011), changed Supergirl's costume, while showing a lot of leg, was otherwise very notably downplayed in favor of a more ordinary teenaged girl look.
• Teen Titans: Starfire has always been a stripperiffic Ms. Fanservice but the New 52 reboot appearance in Red Hood and the Outlaws made her more so than before. This was met with heavy criticism, resulting in her eventual redesign in Starfire (2015) to be more like her cartoon counterpart. Her costume still shows skin but in a far tamer manner.
• WildCATS: Void has an appearance that is essentially "what if the Silver Surfer was a hot woman?" Her original appearance was of a human face on a silver female body that accentuated all her curves. The rebooted version present in The Wild Storm has the same backstory of a Russian woman who was changed by a space experiment, but she wears her astronaut outfit, which isn't form-fitting and gives off more of a cute vibe. Taken a step further it's revealed that this isn't her real appearance, but just something she does to appear more human — she's actually a faceless silver humanoid figure that possesses no physical sexual characteristics at all.
• Wonder Woman: This was about the only area where Wonder Woman Post Crisis volume 2 was tamer than volume 1. George Perez was just as kinky and politically outspoken as William Moulton Marston, but Perez's kinks weren't tied to his politics in the same way Marston's were and Perez was coming in on the heels of decades editorial spent trying to tone down the kinky elements of Wonder Woman. Volume 4, if not exactly kinky, otherwise went back to the levels of sexual subtext and overtness as volume 1.
• X-Men: Elizabeth "Betsy" Braddock gets to play with this trope thanks to Excalibur (2019). For years after she had her mind swapped with the ninja assassin Kwannon, Betsy was known for her "ninja thong swimsuit". Once she reclaimed her original body, she started to tone it down. Now that Kwannon is in her old body again and is pulling that shift with that outfit, Betsy gets to become Captain Britain and the armor she wears covers a lot of skin.

Films — Animation

• Disney's Peter Pan provides two examples:
  • Tinker Bell has become so iconic that she's basically Disney's second mascot, right after Mickey Mouse; she also has her own spin-off franchise with Disney Fairies. As such, a lot of images and merchandise tones down her original, pinup-esque design (as well as making her more of a Plucky Girl instead of a Clingy Jealous Girl), though you can find some of the older design targeted for older fans.
  • Return To Never Land also has all the mermaids wearing tops. In the original, some were only covered by Godiva Hair or leis.

Films — Live-Action

• The Blue Lagoon (1949), unlike its source novel, has its sexual content toned down, which can be attributed to the implementation of The Hays Code.
• Bumblebee has almost none of the raunchy sexual humor that Michael Bay's predecessors had. The female protagonist is also nearly fully clothed throughout the film, unlike the female characters in Bay's series.
• In Birds of Prey (2020), Harley Quinn's costumes are a bit less revealing than in Suicide Squad (2016), but more importantly the film has much, much less Male Gaze. This continued in The Suicide Squad.
• Carrie:
  • The 1976 film removed all sex scenes between Sue and Tommy, likewise deleting a subplot that involved Sue thinking she might be pregnant because of it. Chris and Billy's two graphic trysts with Questionable Consent are also toned down to Chris about to give him fully consensual oral sex. The film also however goes the other way round; the scene in the showers at the start, given a handful of sentences in the book, becomes a slow-motion Fanservice sequence of various girls naked or getting dressed. Additionally, Carrie is given a bathtub scene where she washes off the pig's blood.
  • The 2002 film toned down the shower scene from the 1976 film - where the girls are either in Modesty Towels or only showing bras. Chris and Billy are shown in bed together, but Chris has a Modesty Bedsheet. Carrie's bathtub scene happens again but this time, she's fully clothed.
  • The 2013 film likewise has no nudity in the shower scene (as Chloe Grace Moretz was only sixteen at the time); Carrie is nude when it happens in the book and other two films but is wearing a Modesty Towel here. Tommy and Sue get their sex scene restored, but Chris and Billy don't have theirs; a deleted scene did show some foreplay, but it was fully clothed. Ironically, the film does apply Adaptational Skimpiness to the first gym class scene; a volleyball game in 1976 and baseball in 2002, it now happens in a pool to get the girls into swimsuits (and give Tommy a Shirtless Scene).
• Rum Tum Tugger in Cats is still Mr. Fanservice but isn't as flamboyant or as sexualized as his traditional version in the Cats play.
• Evan Almighty lacks most of the raunchy humor of Bruce Almighty.
• The Lovely Bones omits the book's very graphic rape sequence between Mr Harvey and Susie, to spare the fourteen-year-old Saoirse Ronan having to film such a scene. The book has a sequence where Susie possesses Ruth and uses her body to have sex with Ray; the film changes it to just a kiss. Any other sex scenes from the book aren't depicted.
• Space Jam: A New Legacy notably reduced Lola Bunny's bust size and toned down her sexualization in the first film.

Literature

• The film and TV adaptations of Logan's Run had to be by comparison to the novels, which was a case of tropes are not bad and understandably so. The original novel had things like orgy houses with glass walls where strangers could hook up, watch, and be watched by others having anonymous sex, with a thirteen-year-old girl propositioning the protagonist by saying she was sexually skilled above all others available and another minor character saying she was sexually involved with a boy ("boys" and "girls" in this setting means ages 7-13)! Casual drug use was also very common. Needless to say, the adaptations bumped the death age from 21 to 30 and greatly toned down the oversexed setting. They also changed Logan's character from a near-sociopath Consummate Professional hitman who had been looking for Sanctuary in order to be a legend in destroying it in the original books to a bit more of an Adaptational Nice Guy; Michael York's Logan was more or less a Jerk with a Heart of Gold who got drafted into the job, and Gregory Harrison's was a soft-spoken Hitman with a Heart who was already questioning things before he ended up running.
• Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation: Mo Dao Zu Shi:
  • The animated adaptation of the novel tones down a lot of the overt eroticism and Gorn from the novel and removes the sexual content entirely due to Chinese censorship regulations. Censorship also forces Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji's relationship to be downplayed and never stated onscreen to be romantic (Wei Wuxian's hammy acting as Mo Xuanyu aside), though the Ship Tease is enough to drive the point home to viewers by the epilogue. The chibi spinoff (which is already Lighter and Softer) similarly tones down the romance, although it's less subtle on the premise that it's a gag series with questionable canonicity and shouldn't be taken seriously.
  • The Untamed greatly tones down all disturbing aspects of the novel and removes all the romantic aspects between Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji turning them into Heterosexual Life-Partners instead to pass censorship while still keeping the original dynamic between the two.
• While The Missus by E. L. James does still have sexual content (it's erotica after all), there are fewer sex scenes and they generally aren't as explicit compared to The Mister (and especially Fifty Shades of Grey, the author's BDSM-themed breakthrough book series which is implied to be set in the same universe), with much of the sexual stuff being more suggestive or relying on innuendo rather than detailed descriptions of sex acts.

Live-Action TV

• Season 1 of Altered Carbon featured a copious amount of nudity while the Lighter and Softer second season only had a single brief nude scene.
• The Arrowverse in general has less skintight and skimpy costumes than the comics the various shows are based on, partially due to the reality of costuming and stunt work, partially due to the CW's large teen audience, and partially due to a desire to downplay the sexualization of their cast.
• Breaking Bad had a bit more sex in its first season, best exemplified by the Pilot episode which features a topless woman and ends with Walt having anal sex with his wife, Skyler. As the series progressed, sex was put in a lot less focus, and whenever characters did do the deed, it usually just showed them Post-Sex with a Modesty Bedsheet.
• Charmed (1998)'s final season became this, in heavy contrast to the Fanservice heavy fifth and sixth seasons (the seventh was somewhere in the middle). This is due to all three lead actresses protesting the skimpy outfits, so the Halliwells no longer get turned into Cute Monster Girls, and Phoebe's wardrobe in particular is toned down. Holly Marie Combs' pregnancy meant that her clothes would be more modest. A new character, Billie, was introduced to fill the Ms. Fanservice requirements, but she didn't go as far as the sisters had in previous seasons.
• The Dukes of Hazzard: When it was discovered, a few episodes into the first season, that the show was becoming popular with children, the producers toned down the sexual content considerably. While Bo was still popular with the ladies, references to his sexual adventures were cut, and while Daisy continued to dress in skimpy clothing she behaved in a more modest and less flirtatious way.
• Game of Thrones: The first three seasons weren't averse to erotic scenes at all. Season 4 onwards contains far fewer of them. Emilia Clarke in particular became more confident haggling with producers about topless scenes and, while Daenerys would have many love scenes, she would usually wear a Modesty Bedsheet or have Toplessness from the Back.
• Ghost Whisperer had Melinda in a very sexy and skimpy wardrobe in the first season. To save costs, it was toned down from the second onwards.
• NYPD Blue started as a very Grim and Gritty Police Procedural with nudity and swearing on broadcast TV. After the first year, the nudity was toned down and eventually disappeared, and the swearing likewise dwindled during the course of the show, so that by the end of the run a viewer would be hard-pressed to find anything out of the ordinary about it.
• Although Supernatural has never been blatantly oversexualized, the early seasons did make use of the fact that its two male leads are very attractive, using shirtless scenes, sex scenes, lots of talk of one-nighters, and the tag line "Scary is the new Sexy". By the seventh season, these have all but disappeared and it's rare to see any of the leads not fully dressed in three layers. In-universe, it's a sign of the characters aging in a "been there, done that" fashion. When the series started, Dean was 26 and Sam was 22; by season 15 they'll be 41 and 37, respectively.
• The first season of Westworld had lots of nudity and sex scenes, with the Hosts being frequently used as Sex Bots for the guests among their other purposes as well as also featuring an onscreen orgy. While sexual content is still present in later seasons, far fewer instances occur.
• The Witcher (2019):
  • Geralt and Yennefer don't appear quite as libertine as in the books. Granted, that hardly makes either chaste.
  • The show in general also greatly reduces the amount of on-screen sexual violence that was present in the books, including omitting a scene where Yenn is sexually assaulted by Reavers (which also makes Yarpin a more sympathetic character given he was willing to go along with a plan to gang-rape her after killing the dragon), removing the infamous love potion-enabled Double Standard Rape: Female on Male between Triss and Geralt when the former came to Kaer Morhen, and so far leaving any inclusion of rape to being referenced in backstory.
  • Season 2 and 3 have almost no nudity or sexual content to speak of, to the point where four sorceresses stripping to share a bath is filmed in cutaways that would fit in a PG-13 film.

Music

• The novelization of "Banned from Argo" tells the story behind the Bawdy Song's lyrics, with the seemingly sexual situations involving Kirk, Spock, and Nurse Chapel having other explanations, and Sulu's plants "seducing" the governor's wife being a hysterical exaggeration by the man to explain his wife leaving him.
• Janet Jackson's 2015 album Unbreakable was almost free of sexual content, and is very tame compared to her previous albums.
• Jewel mostly returned to her chaste folk/country roots after her polarizing pop album.
• Zigzagged but mostly played straight with X Japan over the 2008 reunion and forward, which used to have songs such as "Stab Me In The Back", "Orgasm", "Standing Sex", and the like — as well as lots of onstage man-on-man fanservice - as a regular feature of the setlist for almost all live shows. Post-2008, "Orgasm" was the only one to remain in the setlist (and only then) for certain shows for the full version — the gigs outside Japan didn't even feature the full version if they featured it at all), and most of the homoerotic fanservice became more of the Witty Banter and Call-Back variety.

Professional Wrestling

• Trish Stratus was introduced as a Ms. Fanservice valet, who filmed seductive vignettes rolling around on tables, had an affair with Vince McMahon, and competed in bra and panties matches. Around 2002-2003, when she Took a Level in Badass, her character became much less sexual, her ring gear was more modest and focus was more on her wrestling than sex appeal. While her 2004 heel turn did see her initially as an evil seductress who broke Chris Jericho's heart, she did end up back in the wrestling role again.
• Mickie James debuted as a Psycho Lesbian who wrestled in short skirts and would sometimes plant a kiss on her opponents to distract them before her finisher. Around the time WWE switched to PG, Mickie was the Kid-Appeal Character.
• Candice Michelle was a sexy valet who seduced Vince McMahon and competed in Playboy Pillow Fights in her first two years in WWE. Like Trish Stratus, she focused on her ring work and adopted slightly more modest ring attire.
• Melina's initial ring entrance had her doing the splits slowly and seductively on the ring apron, usually while wearing a short skirt to allow a panty shot - and the first match she competed in was a Bra & Panties one. She too eventually became a more serious wrestler, swapping the skirts for long tights, and the splits were done in a way to highlight the impressive athleticism rather than just sex appeal.
• Maria Kanellis was forced to stop doing the Bronco Buster in the ring once WWE switched to PG.
• Kelly Kelly debuted doing a striptease segment on ECW, competed in swimsuit contests, and was part of a Ms. Fanservice dance trio called 'Extreme Expose'. After the PG switch, she was portrayed as more of a Girl Next Door. And while they would draw attention to whenever she graced the cover of a magazine like Maxim and she did the stink face in some of her matches, she was pushed as a more serious wrestler with a Good Is Not Nice persona.
• Layla too was part of 'Extreme Expose', and a Ms. Fanservice from her Diva Search days. Then in 2008, she became William Regal's modest 'queen' and later after becoming part of LayCool, she was more The Ditz. She did reverse this in 2014 when she became Fandango's dance partner and had a few Catfights with Summer Rae.
• Downplayed with Molly Holly. She was already a Token Wholesome amongst the sexualized Divas when she debuted in 2000 (having told WWE she would not do risque storylines), but she did provide mild Fanservice with her ring gear showing slight cleavage, the occasional Sexy Santa Dress and swimsuit shoots for the Divas. A 2002 Face–Heel Turn saw her character becoming a self-righteous prude who hated any sexuality and targeted Divas who flaunted their bodies. There was also a swimsuit contest where she competed wearing a demure 1950s-style bathing suit, and the 'Divas Undressed' lingerie shoot had her wearing modest pajamas.
• Michelle McCool debuted as part of the Diva Search, where she'd be wearing a bikini every other week, and later became a sexy teacher who dropped innuendos in promos. Around 2007, she turned into an All-American Face whose ring gear was slightly more modest. Even with her 2009 heel run, she avoided becoming more sexual - first as a ruthless Blood Knight and second as a ditzy Alpha Bitch.
• Jillian Hall was initially known for her huge breasts, and a storyline in OVW involved her implants leaking into her brain to turn her into a Dumb Blonde. In WWE, one of her moves would literally be giving another Diva Marshmallow Hell. Around WWE's PG switch, this was dropped and they focused more on her being a Dreadful Musician.

Toys

• Bratz:
  • The dolls were always controversial for being too sexualized and mature for their target audience of 9-to-12-year-olds. In the 2010s, the series attempted to retool itself with a more G-rated image. Gone was the emphasis on fashion, the dolls were now about creativity and taking selfies. This turned the title of the series into a bit of The Artifact as the girls were no longer "bratty". The reboot ended up bombing. They also created the Bratzillaz line of dolls, which were cuter in style but were "creepy" dolls based on Monster High.
  • The Bratz Babyz originally dressed in Age-Inappropriate Dress, with their styles being copies of their teenage counterparts' clothes. This was later toned down so that the girls dress more like normal children, and the Bratz Kidz line released even later showed the girls dressed more like how one would typically expect kids of that age range to (ref◊).
• Monster High itself had a lot of Parental Bonuses that was eliminated once the franchise got rebooted.

Video Games

• Action Taimanin: By virtue of being the first non-hentai game of the franchise.
  • While Kotaro gets plenty of Ship Tease and suggestive interaction with almost every character, nothing explicit happens (either on-screen or off) between them and he is a Nice Guy that doesn't even qualifies as a Chivalrous Pervert here, whereas his appearances in other games had him explicitly form a harem and having sex with the girls. In Battle Arena, he’s outright brainwashing and raping some of them.
  • While Edwin Black is still interested in Asagi, it is severely downplayed (helped by Black making only a couple of appearances in the story) compared to the visual novels where one of his main goals was to make her his wife/Sex Slave (and he succeeded in a few of the bad endings).
  • Likewise, the monsters' and demons' general desire to rape the Taimanin is extremely downplayed, even if still hinted at a couple of times.
  • The outfits worn by the characters are (relatively) tamer as well. For example, Rinko's original appearance had her nipples visibly poking through the suit, but here they are covered.
  • Succubi are present, and while they are clearly after (preferably young) men to charm and enthrall for "fun", the most we actually see them do to their victims is using them as servants, masseurs, or swindling them out of their money.
• Battletoads (2020) changed the design of notoriously stripperiffic villainess The Dark Queen from her black teddy and thigh-high boots to a practically Puritan black and purple jumpsuit. The game even threw in a Take That, Audience! aimed at people who disliked the change where the Dark Queen throws a minor character out of an airlock for criticizing it.
• Bayonetta is a series of Stylish Action games with its fair share of vulgarity and a titular teasing Hot Witch character who uses her hair as both clothing and a weapon (meaning the stronger the attack, the more nude she becomes). The spin-off game Bayonetta Origins: Cereza and the Lost Demon stars said character as a prepubescent girl and lacks the usual adult language and fanservice as a result, in addition to taking on a stylized fairy tale art style.
• Bombshell and its prequel Ion Fury, despite their relation to the Duke Nukem series, has very little if any sexualization. Amusingly, Ion Fury itself is Bloodier and Gorier in relation to the other two.
• Dead or Alive 6 initially marketed itself with less lewd material to focus more on the gameplay, even showing in trailers and gameplay more males (Hayabusa, Zack, Jann Lee, and Hayate) than females (Kasumi and Helena), both of them with fewer curves and more coverage (especially Kasumi). As the game continued to add stripperiffic}} costumes for the ladies over time, this became increasingly subverted.
• Dynasty Warriors:
  • Zig-zagged with Zhenji, whose outfit seems to rotate between modest and revealing every game. She starts out stripperiffic in 3, then turns modest in 4, then back to Stripperrific in 5, then back to modest in 6, then back to stripperiffic again in 7 before finally settling on modest for good from 8 onward.
  • Bao Sanniang. In her debut game, she bares her cleavage, midriff, and legs. In 8, her suit covers most of her upper body, although her cleavage and legs are prominently shown. In 9, her outfit covers all of her upper body, and she now wears thigh armor which deemphasizes her legs.
  • 9 in general tones down many of the series' blatantly and unrealistically provocative clothing in favor of more practical ones. Resident Ms. Fanservice Diaochan, for example, replaces her literally Chinese stripper attire from 8 with a classy blouse, although she still bares her left leg. Even the male characters are affected; Zhang Bao, well-known in his debut game for taking a cue from his father and baring his torso (showing his ripped abs in the process) is now more modestly dressed.
• The first two games in The Elder Scrolls series, Arena and Daggerfall, both feature topless female characters and generally sexier outfits. Starting with Morrowind, topless characters are removed and clothing in general becomes much more conservative. Come Skyrim, Amazonian Beauty Nords and Nubile Savage outfits (such as the Fur and Forsworn armor sets) make a comeback but are still nowhere near as sexualized as earlier entries in the series. The modding community, on the other hand...
• EverQuest II zig-zagged this trope. When Update 64 came out Antonia Bayle - the game's "mascot" who'd previously dressed in a bra and a belt with a sash - went through a Plot-Relevant Age-Up and switched her bra and sash for a relatively demure gown. On the other hand, halter-top armor was introduced about this same time, and a couple of stripperiffic villainesses (Cara Omica and Sullon Zek) were introduced.
• Fallout 4 is far cleaner than the other games in the series. There are no brothels (even though Goodneighbor is based on Scollay Square, which was once a Red Light District in its real-life namesake), prostitutes, or sex slaves anywhere in the game, and raider women tend to dress far more modestly. Outside of implications in a single character's backstory, there is also not a single instance of rape, despite the setting. If the player romances any of the companions, consummation is a simple fade-to-black, a cartoony picture of Vault Boy waking up only wearing pants, and a mildly suggestive comment, as opposed to the previous game going for a much longer fade-to-black and loud moaning.
• After Fire Emblem Fates received criticism for class outfits that are one thread short of an M-rating, Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia and Fire Emblem: Three Houses featured more modest character designs.
• God of War (PS4) has absolutely no sex scenes and minigames, and in contrast to the previous entries, every female character that appears in the game is portrayed with much less emphasis on their sexuality, including Kratos' late wife.
• Guilty Gear -STRIVE- follows this direction with the entire cast wearing much more urban-inspired fashion, which consequently has everyone looking more covered than they have ever been. And the game itself also follows a more restrained style compared to the more bombastic one of the series' past.
• After being Hotter and Sexier in the third and fourth installments, Cortana from Halo was redesigned so she doesn't look like she's nude anymore and, as of the fifth game, has a spacesuit-esque body. It helps that as of 2015, she is practically Microsoft's mascot, although outside of Halo she is represented as a blue circular halo.
• While the Hitman series has had a fairly dark and adult tone since the third game, Contracts, the devs seem to have felt that they may have taken things a bit too far with the fifth game, Absolution, whose lurid, Grindhouse-inspired aesthetic (including a team of S&M latex-wearing dominatrix nuns as enemies) was widely panned by famous cultural critics and even mainstream press outlets. The sixth and seventh games in the series, Hitman and Hitman 2, were a return to the more James Bond-esque "international man of mystery" vibe of the first two games in the series, and the games even include an Assassin's Creed-style disclaimer stating that the games were made by a diverse, multi-gender, multi-ethnic team.
• Mass Effect 3 zig-zags this trope compared to the previous games: your squadmates now wear more conservative clothing this time around (the former squadmate who wore nothing but tattoos from the waist up included), and mentions of sex outside of romance subplots take a back seat to trying to save the galaxy. On the other hand, the sex scenes are even more risque than the first game, showing much more skin than before.
• In Mortal Kombat X, female characters (most notably Kitana) wear clothes that cover more than previous entries, as the design team strove for outfits that were more realistic while still appealing.
  • Mortal Kombat 11 would tone down sexiness to an even greater extent, among the most notable being Skarlet—who trades in the barely-there wear from her debut to a red/black bodysuit for assassination that reveals her face and cleavage at the most.
• The original release for Ninja Gaiden 3 (2012) really tried to make the series a little more grounded, with Ryu only equipping what he has in hand, no unexplained magic save statues, etc. That also extends in the attempt to tone down the provocative designs the series has been known for under Team Ninja’s hands, all new females seen are dressed quite modestly compared to what the series has provided before, with only Momiji sticking out as she still wears her original outfit. Then comes the Razor’s Edge re-release in 2013, the same way it tried to undo some of the attempts at making the series more grounded, it also brought back some of the risqué content, the new cutscenes with Ayane containing some little nudity and gratuitous breast jiggling.
• Omoriboy never directly showed sexual content, but it was implied through Omori's laptop showing racy pictures and him always having tissue boxes nearby, as well as his introductory panel having him admit he masturbates frequently. His counterpart in OMORI is a much more melancholy preteen, so his laptop instead shows static and the tissues were said to dry his tears.
• The Soul Series, a franchise that's very well-known for its emphasis on fanservice, temporarily became this in Soulcalibur V, in which the new head of the dev team, Daishi Odashima, specifically wanted the series to be taken more seriously and be less dependent on it. Ivy, the poster girl for fanservice in the series, received a more modest outfit, while many of the other female fighters were cut out due to a 17-year Time Skip as smaller-chested successors took their place. One of the few returning female combatants was Hilde, the armor-wearing Token Wholesome princess from IV, still as wholesome as ever, though this was arguably counterbalanced by fellow veteran Tira—never a modest dresser to begin with—having perhaps her most scanty default attire to date, as well as newcomer Elysium taking on the form of Sophitia, but with even less clothing than the Grecian holy warrior wore in III and IV. Furthermore, there was much less Male Gaze and butt jiggle physics were cut.
• Saints Row IV is a minor case. Many of the Fanservice elements and stripperiffic potential is still very much there, right up to the Sex Appeal slider and a pretty lengthy segment where the player spends a whole mission in the nude for a very justifiable reason (although it's not sexualized at all), but unlike Saints Row: The Third the game is not overdosed with sex jokes at every turn—in fact, there are very little, and with more general humor, Reference Overdosed, and Affectionate Parody in their place.
  • And then Saints Row: Gat Out of Hell had no nudity at all, with the references to the Lust sin simply being Played for Laughs. In Europe, it even received a lower rating (PEGI 16) because of this (as well as the fact that almost all of the enemies aren't human-looking anymore).
• Agents of Mayhem, the Saints Row Spin-Off, takes it much further. This time around, the fanservice is minimal at best, with many women not being played for fanservice at all. The game even includes a fully-covered Middle Eastern heroine as a playable character.
• The Sims:
  • Since 3, they have made Woohoo less explicit. In 1, using the vibration bed introduced in the Livin' Large expansion (the only way to have sex in the game), Sims are naked (but pixellated) when they get out from under the covers. In 2, Woohooing (now can be done in any double bed) will end with both participants wearing underwear and the default setting has a rather raunchy, although still PG-level, cutscene. In 3 and 4, Woohooing is basically just shown as is above the sheet, and it ends with both participants wearing what they wore previously. Even if one managed to no clip, the movements are completely random and anatomically impossible instead of anything titillating.
  • Although all the games have been rated T, the first game had a bit more raunchy elements to it than subsequent games. In addition to the vibrating bed that Sims use while naked, there were things like seriously revealing clothing sets in Livin' Large and House Party and scantily-clad dancers that jumped out of a birthday cake, among several other things.
• Rouge the Bat, Ms. Fanservice of Sonic the Hedgehog, was given a bodysuit in Sonic Heroes, covering her shoulders, arms, and back and intending to make Rouge less provocative. The effect was the opposite and she was changed back to her revealing catsuit in future titles. In general, Rouge is a tamer in every game after Sonic Adventure 2, which gave the bat very revealing alternative outfits.
• Leisure Suit Larry 2: Looking for Love (in Several Wrong Places), became infamous for having the sexual humor of the original tone downed considerably (at the request of Sierra Online) compared to Leisure Suit Larry. This is a big reason why the game does not include any age verification (unlike the first game) and is also likely why the game was not as big of a seller either. Al Lowe and Sierra Online would correct their mistake in the third game of the series, which marked a return to sexual humor.
• Lara Croft from the Tomb Raider series went through a good portion of her life as a video game icon with two major traits: she is a badass adventurer and she is quite sexy, Lara’s image was heavily promoted as such for about 12 years, through two separate continuities; however, the third continuity which began in 2013 presented itself with a new take on Lara’s image, while she remains the same adventurer as always, the sex symbol image was discarded, despite Lara remaining as beautiful as always, she isn’t presented with sexually suggestive profiling and clothing anymore.
• Jill Valentine in Resident Evil 3: Nemesis wore a tube top, mini skirt, and boots. Jill's outfit got a redesign in Resident Evil 3 (Remake) where she now wears a tank top and jeans for practicality. Even her original outfit, available as DLC, was redesigned with a skort instead of a mini skirt, likely to avoid Panty Shots now that the camera angles are no longer fixed like the original game.
• A company-wide version: Since the release of the PlayStation 4, Sony has implemented new content rules for developers, limiting sexual content and fanservice in games released on Sony's consoles. This is ironic since Sony originally made its name in gaming for having virtually no licensing restrictions as the Hotter and Sexier and Rated M for Manly alternatives when compared to Nintendo. To further the irony, there have been games that have been censored for the Playstation 4, such as Omega Labyrinth Life, that have been released uncensored on the Nintendo Switch!
• Xenoblade Chronicles 3 has considerably less Fanservice baked into the character designs than its predecessor, which was infamous for its main heroine's stripperiffic outfit. It also contains almost no innuendo or sex-related humor, though that's partly a side effect of the main cast being born in People Jars and thus having no knowledge of sexual reproduction in the first place.

Visual Novels

• Grisaia: Phantom Trigger is the fourth installment of the Grisaia series (not counting spin-offs and side stories) and the first to be a non-eroge.
• NEKOPARA -catboys paradise- is the Spear Counterpart entry in the NEKOPARA series, and the least raunchy of the games. While the other entries are H-Games with all-ages versions available, -Catboys Paradise- was developed as an all-ages title from the start.

Webcomics

• The first part of Ennui GO! saw the characters engage in numerous on-panel sex and nude scenes. The second part reduced the sexual content down to only mentions and implications. It's justified by the change in characters — the main cast in the first part were a group of fully legal adults, while the main cast in the second part are entirely underage.

Western Animation

• Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Chipettes started off as tame Distaff Counterparts to the main trio, but by the mid-'80s they were (intentionally or not) much less tame than before. They often wore Age Inappropriate outfits and did risque dance moves for characters who were implied to be eight at least once. The Alvin and the Chipmunks live-action film attempted to do away with their midriff-baring outfits and short skirts. ALVINNN!!! and the Chipmunks portrays them in a similar fashion.
• Betty Boop is possibly one of the earliest examples — the advent of The Hays Code forced the producers of the cartoon to change her from a flirtatious flapper in a very short dress to a much more conservatively dressed spinster/career girl. This was eventually undone years later. Betty Boop has since gone back to being a sexy flapper in a red dress.
• Cadillacs and Dinosaurs is an adaptation of Xenozoic Tales which removes much of the violence and sexualization of the comic book. So no assassination of the Terhune Brothers and no nude Hannah Dundee or her in a barbarian fur bikini.
• Dead End: Paranormal Park is a kid's cartoon, but DeadEndia, the webcomic the show is based on, has plenty of sex jokes and scenes, including one of the characters getting AIDS.
• Invincible (2021), in addition to the early 2000's edgy jokes being removed from the show, it also removes the gratuitous Fanservice it had concerning how super heroines, female villains, and female aliens were portrayed in the comics, many, if not most, of them were in the Most Common Superpower group, with curves for days, often dressed in skintight Leotard of Power to outright stripperiffic outfits, and battle damage leaving said women with Male Gaze gaps in their clothing could happen as well. The show has all women more modestly dressed, with more average curves and battle damage is not fetishized in any way.
• Totally Spies! not only had heavy amounts of sexual innuendo but used transformations to check every item in the fetish list (giantess, shrinking woman, muscle growth, weight gain, age progression, age regression, werewolf-like transformation, etc.). The spinoff, The Amazing Spiez!, has none of that.
• The Legend of Vox Machina: Whilst Scanlan is still very much a Lovable Sex Maniac who wants to do anyone, he's a lot more respectful about it than he was in Critical Role, especially in the way he flirts with Pike.
• Spider-Man: The New Animated Series is an odd example, given it is a considerably Darker and Edgier and Ruder and Cruder compared to the Spider-Man Trilogy directed by Sam Raimi (the show loosely follows the continuity of the first film) but in terms of sexual content, the series is a lot more tamer. While sexual relationships between characters are heavily implied, the first movie famously had Mary Jane Watson in a Sexy Soaked Shirt, Peter Parker and Norman Osborn had shirtless scenes and the sequels also had a lot more fanservice than the animated show.

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