History ExecutiveMeddling / AnimeAndManga

* ''Anime/GalileiDonna'': The anime was supposed to run for two-cours with the storyline already planned out, but was then asked by Aniplex to [[http://forums.animesuki.com/showpost.php?p=4952213&postcount=574 cut down to 11 episodes.]]

* Adriana Olmedo voicing Sailor Jupiter in the Latin Spanish dub of ''Anime/SailorMoonCrystal'' instead of the late Creator/AraceliDeLeon's daughter Creator/MarianaOrtiz, who had voiced Jupiter for the Talk Box DVD's and in addition had auditioned for Crystal!Jupiter and in addition had been speculated by many Latin American Moonies to be the new Jupiter for the series, has been speculated to have been caused by this. Executive Meddling also led to Creator/RocioGarcel being replaced by Irene Jimenez as Luna; Irene was initially just a stand-in while Garcel was out of commission due to health issues.

** The abrupt, anti-climactic ending of the "Mythos" arc in the manga was caused by then-recently hired editor-in-chief at Weekly Shonen King. He began to pressure Ishinomori with the threat of cancelling Cyborg 009 over the fact that the arc was "too confusing" for kids to understand and had too many characters, so Ishinomori wrapped the arc up in a haste that had implications. The meddling and dissatisfaction with the Shonen King staff lead to the arc being considered non-canon when the feature moved to Kodansha's "Weekly Shonen Magazine", with the ''Undergound Empire of Yomi'' arc not referencing its events at all and acting as if the Vietnam arc had been the team's previous adventure.

** Takeuchi originally only planned the manga to last one year, and [[Anime/SailorMoon the anime]] was also intended to only be a 46 episode series, ending with the deaths of the main characters at the end of the Dark Kingdom arc. The popularity of the franchise led to the anime getting more series and naturally, Takeuchi being required to keep stretching out her storyline from series to series.

** In the later prints of the manga, Takeuchi added some {{Yonkoma}} at the end of every volume, explaining how she came with some of the ideas that made it into the final version, some of them are about how [[WhatCouldHaveBeen she originally intended things to be drastically different]] until her editor, Fumio Osano, told her to do some changes. For example, the manga was going to be even DarkerAndEdgier than it is, compared to the [[LighterAndSofter anime adaptation]], as she planned to get the Sailor Senshi killed [[KilledOffForReal permanently]] at the end of the first act, including an early and graphic death for Sailor Mercury. Also, Sailor Mercury was going to be an android or a cyborg, something that was later used for Hotaru/Sailor Saturn.

* Adriana Olmedo voicing Sailor Jupiter in the Latin Spanish dub of ''Anime/SailorMoonCrystal'' instead of the late Creator/AraceliDeLeon's daughter Creator/MarianaOrtiz, who had voiced Jupiter for the Talk Box DVD's and in addition had auditioned for Crystal!Jupiter and in addition had been speculated by many Latin American Moonies to be the new Jupiter for the series, has been speculated to have been caused by this.
** Similary, Executive Meddling led to Creator/RocioGarcel being replaced by Irene Jimenez as Luna, and Irene was initially just a stand-in while Garcel was out of commission due to health issues.

** Creator/TakeshiShudo's original intention for the series was one that could be [[DoingItForTheArt enjoyed by both children and adults]]. However, CreativeDifferences with the show's staff saw him forced to include the StrictlyFormula elements which have largely characterized the show. Shudo's blogs reveal the direction he originally had in mind for the series, namely that Ash and Gary's rivalry would be an ongoing StoryArc, and the finale would involve a conflict between humans and Pokémon -- but that meddling from the staff meant the show ended up going on far longer than he'd intended. On a lesser note, [[http://dogasu.bulbagarden.net/movies/pm_lord_unknown_tower_entei/lord_unknown_tower_entei_mythical_third_movie.html his original idea]] for the third movie (which involved a reanimated ''Tyrannosaurus rex'' fossil, as well as the mystery of real-world animals in relation to Pokémon) was rejected by the staff because they thought it lacked success potential.

* ''Manga/AstroBoy'': The entirety of the "Blue Knight" saga and the subsequent story arc were added due to editor mandate. Apparently, Astro's willingness to work with the police and try to change the social order from within made him unpopular with the new generation of student radicals in the late '60s who believed that modern society was corrupt beyond all redemption, and called Astro Boy a hopelessly idealistic anachronism. Creator/OsamuTezuka's editors at ''Shōnen Kobunsha'' magazine noticed this and ordered him to make the series DarkerAndEdgier and have him fight against the forces of law and order.

* The foreign versions of the 2018 ''Manga/CaptainTsubasa'' anime kept the original names and title at the request of the anime's producers. This did not go over well with fans who know Tsubasa by other names [[note]](e.g. ''Supercampeones'' in Latin Spanish, ''Olive et Tom'' in French, and ''Holly e Benji'' in Italian)[[/note]]
** Regarding the original version, Yōichi Takahashi has had to deal more than once with this (e.g. at least two matches from World Youth Cup were totally skipped).
* The manga adaptation of ''LightNovel/ACertainMagicalIndex'' skipped the Deep Blood arc, which features Aisa Himegami as the female deuteragonist, [[https://m.imgur.com/a/2A7wmgx due to the Editorial Staff wanting to reach the Science Side and Mikoto-focused story arc (namely, the Sister arc) quickly]]. Unfortunately, skipping that story arc means sacrificing important character growth for the male lead Touma Kamijou and an AdaptationInducedPlothole as well: since the Deep Blood arc never happened in the manga, therefore Himegami's life was never in danger (at least before the Daihaseisai) and Himegami would have absolutely no reason to transfer schools from Kirigaoka Girls Academy (one of the elite schools of Academy City) to Touma's high school (which is just an ordinary school with many Level 0s).

* ''Franchise/DragonBall'':

* ''Manga/BattleAngelAlita'': The author was working on a special celebration chapter -- chapter 100 -- which would be the headliner for the phonebook sized ''Ultra Jump'' magazine in Japan. It was around this time that his publisher's legal department approached him with censorship demands for the reprints, [[http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2010-06-28/battle-angel-alita/last-order-manga-put-on-hiatus demanding he change a line]] using the word "crazy" as it "may offend people with incurable mental disorders." The suggested changes were "mad" or "angry" instead. He caved in because they also cited a part of his contract stating that if he missed the deadline on chapter 100, they would prohibit all future reprints of ''Battle Angel Alita'', effectively ending his career. He later regretted it, especially when he discovered they had made similar changes without his knowledge. He approached them with an ultimatum -- either the legal team apologize to him for overstepping their bounds and [[http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2010-08-18/battle-angel-alita/gunnm/lo-manga-return-planned recall the edited versions]], or he'd switch to a different publisher. They didn't, so [[http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2011-02-08/battle-angel-alita/gunnm/lo-manga-to-resume-in-march he did.]]

* ''Franchise/{{Naruto}}'': Creator Creator/MasashiKishimoto shares several stories about editors and executive meddling in [[http://web.archive.org/web/20170924111946/http://naruto.wikia.com/wiki/Thread:164031 this 2014 Fuji TV Kobayashi interview]]:

** In a rather odd example, Cure Black's outfit from the original ''Anime/FutariWaPrettyCure'' was changed in Max Heart after complaints from parental groups about her exposed belly button in her original design. Later seasons would bring back belly button showing outfits in spite of this.

** ''Codename: Sailor V'' was meant to be a one-shot comic that became popular and was continued. When Toei got wind of it and wanted to make it into an OVA, Takeuchi was asked to expand it into a team format. Sailor Moon was soon created and V was made into a member of her team under the name Sailor Venus. Due to Moon's quick popularity, the OVA starring Sailor V was never made and her series was wrapped up after Sailor Moon's despite being much shorter.
** Takeuchi originally only planned the manga to last one year, and the anime was also intended to only be a 46 episode series, ending with the deaths of the main characters at the end of the Dark Kingdom arc. The popularity of the franchise led to the anime getting more series and naturally, Takeuchi being required to keep stretching out her storyline from series to series.

* ''LightNovel/{{Slayers}}'':

** The even more intense fights of ''Anime/GoPrincessPrecure'' were once again stated by some parent groups to be too violent, so executives forced the animation staff to tone down the fisticuffs in the series, notably with ''Anime/MahouGirlsPrecure'' focusing more on transformation based special attacks and, rather infamously, ended up causing ''Anime/KiraKiraPrecureALaMode'' to have ''no'' fisticuffs at all, not even later on in the show, something even Splash Star ended up managing to do by its second half. ''Anime/HugttoPrettyCure'' brought this back in spades, with the official movie for the series even being a crossover with the Max Heart incarnations of Cure Black and White.

* ''Manga/{{Bleach}}'':
** Creator/TiteKubo mentioned in an interview that he'd originally planned to continue the sequence of UrbanFantasy stories that the manga opens with and to further develop Ichigo's other classmates. However, Shueisha overruled this, ordering him to hurry up the schedule and introduce the Shinigami, so as to kickstart the MythArc.
** Kubo admitted that he had never planned for the Arrancar Arc to go on as long as it did. The Arrancars became unexpectedly popular with the fans, so the editors wanted each one to be given ADayInTheLimelight. This meant that the arc stretched on for ''years'' longer than originally planned.
** When ''Anime/BleachHellVerse'' was released to DVD, the Japanese edition included a message from Kubo explaining that crediting him with the film was inaccurate. The filmmakers rewrote the script he'd provided at the last minute, with the end product being almost nothing like the original (they'd also rejected all of his ideas and refused Kubo's request that his name be removed from the credits).

** In the later prints of the manga, Takeuchi added some {{Yonkoma}} at the end of every volume, explaining how she came with some of the ideas that made it into the final version, some of them are about how [[WhatCouldHaveBeen she originally intended things to be drastically different]] until her editor, Fumio Osano, told her to do some changes. For example, the manga was going to be even DarkerAndEdgier than it is, compared to the [[LighterAndSofter anime adaptation]], as she planned to [[KillEmAll get the Sailor Senshi killed]] [[KilledOffForReal permanently]] at the end of the first act, including an early and graphic death for Sailor Mercury. Also, Sailor Mercury was going to be an android or a cyborg, something that was later used for Hotaru/Sailor Saturn.

** The abrupt, anti-climactic ending of the "Mythos" arc in the manga was caused by then-recently hired editor-in-chief at Weekly Shonen King. He began to pressure Ishinomori with the threat of cancelling Cyborg 009 over the fact that the arc was "too confusing" for kids to understand and had too many characters, so Ishinomori wrapped the arc up in a haste that had KillEmAll implications. The meddling and dissatisfaction with the Shonen King staff lead to the arc being considered non-canon when the feature moved to Kodansha's "Weekly Shonen Magazine", with the ''Undergound Empire of Yomi'' arc not referencing its events at all and acting as if the Vietnam arc had been the team's previous adventure.

** The rather controversial more literal re-translation of the anime for the 2019 Netflix release was the result of Khara gaining creative control of the translation process, just like they were for Funimation's release of [[Anime/RebuildOfEvangelion the third Rebuild film]] due to the negative reception of the dub's theatrical run in North America. Not only that, but Creator/CarrieKeranen confirmed in a now-deleted tweet that the studio also had to personally approve the new voice cast in order for the project to get the final greenlight.
** Later in 2021, it turned out that not only did Gainax attempt the same thing for the ADV dub as what Khara pulled off on Netflix, but that they used the exact same script as Khara. In a [[https://twitter.com/amandawinnlee/status/1376266147750797312 pair of]] [[https://twitter.com/amandawinnlee/status/1376266404307955712 tweets]] by Creator/AmandaWinnLee (who voiced Rei in the ADV dub), she revealed that Khara's script was completely unchanged from Gainax's, and it took the ADV dub's director putting his foot down to Gainax's face to let the team go ahead with the more {{Woolseyism}}-heavy script that audiences heard back in the day.

* ''Anime/NeonGenesisEvangelion'': Originally, Creator/HideakiAnno intended to use a piece of the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polovtsian_Dances Polovtsian Dances]] for the opening, but the studio came to the conclusion that it would be too confusing for the viewers and thus had "Cruel Angel's Thesis" made to replace it with modern J-pop.
** Studio Khara bullied the US staff at least twice in regards to the dub's script. ADV avoided this by pushing back and doing their own thing, while Netflix buckled and was forced to use a script that was made around 2001 18 years later (and the original ADV cast was forced to sign [=NDAs=] to both hide that they were replaced and not reveal what had happened with the script). Not even Funimation was immune to this; after the convention premiere of ''Anime/RebuildOfEvangelion 3.0'' they were forced to redo ''the entire movie''.

** The 4Kids dub itself owes its very existence to this; 4Kids only really wanted to get the license to ''Anime/OjamajoDoremi'' and possibly a few others, but Toei was desperate to have someone capable of getting ''One Piece'' on American TV handle the license, and forced them to dub it. 4Kids reluctantly agreed to the terms despite feeling the show wasn't appropriate for them, and decided to dub it until they could legally drop the license. The result caused anime fans to treat [=4Kids=] as evil monsters who destroy anime.

[[quoteright:350:[[Manga/AstroBoy https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/executive_meddling_9.png]]

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** In ''[[Anime/DragonBallZKai Dragon Ball Z Kai: The Final Chapters]]'', Creator/FUNimation hired members of Creator/TeamFourStar to voice the characters in the SoBadItsGood Cell Games Reenactment in a sequence with many references to ''WebVideo/DragonBallZAbridged'' and ''DBZ'' memes in general. Creator/ToeiAnimation found out about this thanks to a Toonami promo that used an audio clip from that scene and ordered Funimation to re-edit it, replacing TFS's audio with that from the original dub of ''DBZ''. Fans were not pleased. Then in late 2017, Toei leaned on Funimation to stop hiring members of Team Four Star for their dubs, effectively getting some of them "greylisted".

** As of the ''Manga/DragonBallSuper'' era, as the one who writes stories for new arcs, Toriyama now finds himself in the interesting position of simultaneously being subject to ''and'' the source of this trope. As an example of the former, employees at Toei Animation noted the popularity of the non-canon character Broly, culminating in the character being rebooted into main continuity by Toriyama in the film ''Anime/DragonBallSuperBroly''. As an example of the latter, Toriyama quite frequently gives notes and corrections to Toyotaro, who draws the manga.

*** The loss of the Dark Ocean arc, and Dagomon as an antagonist. Both were introduced Creator/ChiakiKonaka, who later directed ''Anime/DigimonTamers'' (see below for Tamers-specific examples); he and several other writers threatened to break their contracts out of protest, but Toei was unwilling to allow so and gave them the rights to their own series in order to keep them on.

** Ryo Akiyama being included in ''Anime/DigimonTamers'' was the result of this, as Bandai insisted he be added to the story against Chiaki Konaka's wishes. Konaka [[WriterRevolt retaliated]] by intentionally minimizing the role Bandai wanted Ryo to play in the story. Konaka also originally wrote Juri's father as a Yakuza member, but Toei refused.
** In the series itself, he and Bob were instructed by Fox Kids to make the series "funnier" which annoyed a lot of fans, eventually Jeff and Bob left, Fox Kids must have backed off because the final 8 episodes of the season were noticably less GagDub.