Censorship on TV is an unfortunate but necessary compromise within the anime industry. For reasons both understandable and excessively puritanical, explicit depictions of gore, nudity, and other adult themes can't be carelessly aired on TV. Usually, these took the form of awkward cuts or edits.
That being said, some censors overstepped their bounds. At times, the censorship was harmlessly hilarious. But in other cases, it was so deliberate and extreme that it sparked fan outrage and mockery. Some instances of censorship in anime were so intrusive that they outright ruined the anime, and turned the very act of censorship into a joke.
Updated on March 25, 2023 by Angelo Delos Trinos: Weird censorship has always been a part of anime, and it won't be leaving any time soon. Even after societal values became more progressive, Japanese networks and international localizers always find hilariously bizarre ways to censor things. This list was expanded to include even more strange examples of censorship.
Explicit imagery and themes will be discussed.
15 JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders
JoJo's Bizarre Adventure never shied away from violence and disturbing imagery, which is why its strict anti-smoking censorship can take fans by surprise. In Stardust Crusaders, any instance of Jotaro Kujo (who was famously voiced by Matt Mercer) smoking was blacked out. Meanwhile, close-ups of gore were left alone.
This was thanks to Japan's censorship laws, which forbade the depiction of minors smoking. Despite his build and demeanor, Jotaro was still a 17-year-old delinquent during his trek to Egypt. While this didn't ruin Stardust Crusaders' entertainment value, it was still a very weird distraction.
14 TerraforMARS
TerraforMARS followed the brutal war between humans and monstrous humanoid cockroaches living on Mars, so some cuts on broadcast television were expected. However, the way Japanese television stations did this was simultaneously lazy and hilariously bad. Basically, they awkwardly blacked any instance of gore.
Beheaded corpses and disembodied limbs were obscured by black circles. Detailed kills shown in wide shots had half of their scenes hidden by a large obtrusive shadow. Unsurprisingly, these censors became the subject of online mockery. Crunchyroll reassured subscribers that its broadcast of TerraforMARS would be uncut.
13 Blood-C
Blood-C is an incredibly violent anime about Saya Kisaragi's war against the monstrous Elder Bairns, which are feared for brutalizing their victims. Broadcasting something this bloody would be challenging for any network, but the way this horror anime was televised during its initial run was incredibly detrimental.
To obscure Blood-C's kills and dismemberments, its network either blacked or whited out entire parts of the screen so that almost nothing could be seen. As underwhelming as Blood: The Last Vampire's spiritual successor was, this severe censorship was the final straw for a frustrated fanbase who all but abandoned the anime in retaliation.
12 Tokyo Ghoul
Tokyo Ghoul is one of the goriest horror anime of the 2010s, which is why its censorship was vehemently hated by viewers. If half of the scene wasn't obscured by blurs or black smears, the color inversion was ramped up to incomprehensible degrees. This was done because the somewhat overratedTokyo Ghoul broke many Japanese censorship rules.
Reportedly, Tokyo Ghoul was so violent that the only way it could be aired in Japan uncut was if it were excessively censored. These extreme measures were what international viewers saw during the anime's simulcast. Fortunately, the poorly adapted Tokyo Ghoul's uncensored (and better) versions became available later on.
11 Fist Of The North Star: The Movie
To older anime fans, Fist of the North Star: The Movie is their first brush with egregious anime censorship. Whenever the movie cut to a character's injuries or whenever the seinen hero Kenshiro blew up someone, the scene's color grading suddenly exploded to the point where it was impossible to comprehend what was going on.
Except for some very rare Italian tapes, all of Fist of the North Star: The Movie's video releases were censored this way. The original footage has long been lost to time. Even with today's looser restrictions to fictional violence and improved animating techniques, it's impossible to restore the movie to its intended form.
10 My Hero Academia
Momo Yaoyorozu's revealing costume has always been a subject of debate among My Hero Academia fans. While some felt it was justified given her Quirk, others thought it was improper for a high schooler to wear such an outfit. The debate was so heated that Momo's restrained outfit in the mobile game's ads even caused a furor.
Meanwhile, the Philippines' broadcast of the detrimentally popular My Hero Academia agreed with the criticisms. Here, Momo's cleavage was awkwardly blurred out through what looked like a rushed photo editing job. Given the country's conservative culture, this wasn't too surprising to Filipino viewers. This still didn't make it any less laughably bad.
9 Rosario+Vampire
One of Rosario+Vampire's anime-exclusive characters was Kou (Batty in English), a shapeshifting bat who acted as the narrator. However, Kou did more than just provide witty color commentary. Whenever fanservice was about to transpire, Kou swooped in to cover up anything that would be considered too lewd for TV.
While this may sound perfect for some comedic moments, Kou was too inconsistent to be funny. Besides coming out of nowhere with little to no comic timing, Kou didn't even cover up all the nudity or fanservice. Kou's censorship was exclusive to Rosario+Vampire's televised broadcast, and they're absent in the DVD releases.
8 World's End Harem
World's End Harem is a notorious ecchi/harem post-apocalypse where the few surviving men must repopulate the world. Unsurprisingly, the anime was loaded with fanservice and nudity. Despite its adult content, World's End Harem was still aired on general television. This necessitated so much censorship that rendered it almost unwatchable.
In free Japanese TV channels and Crunchyroll, entire scenes of World's End Harem were blacked out so much that all viewers could see was a black glitch with a few flashes of characters. This led to review bombings on Crunchyroll and prompted the producers to promise that the DVD release would feature uncut "forbidden scenes."
7 EX-ARM
EX-ARM is already known as one of the worst anime ever made, and the controversial way it depicted its kissing scenes only made things worse. Whenever Alma and Minami Uezeno kissed, a white light flashed just before their lips connected. The scene would then transition to the next one through a jarring whiteout.
Angry viewers accused the animators of censoring the kiss because it was shared by two women. However, others surmised that this was unintentional. AniTuber Canipa posited that the whiteout was the animators' way of covering up the character models' lack of poseable facial features.Given EX-ARM's overall incompetence, this made too much sense.
6 Digimon Data Squad
If Digimon was a kid's anime, Digimon Data Squad (or Digimon Savers in Japan) was for teenagers. Digimon Data Squad added the kind of edge and violence that teenagers would love but would disturb younger viewers. However, Toon Disney apparently didn't agree with this and demanded that Studiopolis make the anime kid-friendly.
The most notorious change was turning BomberNanimon into Citramon. If BomberNanimon was a dangerous living bomb, Citramon was an annoying orange who made bad citrus jokes and wanted to drown an amusement park in juice. This censorship was so ridiculous that some fans actually loved it as a guilty pleasure.
5 Science Ninja Team Gatchaman
When the teen-rated (and outdated) Science Ninja Team Gatchaman was first localized, it was forcibly turned into a condescending children's cartoon. Sandy Frank Entertainment censored and cut so much that there was barely anything left to air. Their solution to this was to pad scenes with their own creation: the preachy robot 7-Zark-7.
7-Zark-7 was Battle of the Planets' narrator and color commentator. Whenever things got too violent or emotional, 7-Zark-7 (who was animated in a completely different style) interrupted the episode to sugarcoat everything. Gunshots were explained away with "stun blasts," and deaths were hand waved as random vanishing acts.
4 Sailor Moon S
When Sailor Moon first aired in America, the country was highly conservative and puritanical. This influenced many of Cloverway's censors and cuts. Cloverway essentially remade Sailor Moon from a classic magical girl anime to a moralizing "girly" cartoon. The most infamous change was turning Sailors Neptune and Uranus from lovers to cousins.
Sailor Moon's original cut didn't shy away from Neptune's and Uranus' relationship. Cloverway erased their love by rewriting them into cousins who were really, really close. This attempt to appease moral guardians backfired spectacularly. Even today, Neptune and Uranus' incest is used as a punchline to mock homophobic censors.
3 Naruto, One Piece, Pokemon, & Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters By 4Kids
When it comes to egregious anime censorship, no one comes close to 4Kids Entertainment in infamy. Operating as a licensing group from 1995 to 2012, 4Kids was notorious not just for its awkwardly Americanized Naruto, One Piece, Pokemon, and Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters, but for its legendarily bad and patronizing censorship.
For example: Sanji's cigarette was crudely replaced with a lollipop, while the evil businessman Maximillion Pegasus' agents had their pistols replaced with finger guns. There's actually a reason for this. In brief, 4Kids was forced to tone down PG-13 shows for young viewers as per their contract with the anime's Japanese distributors.
2 Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid S
For better and worse, one of Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid's most recognized features was its female characters' figures. Most fans saw no problem with this, while others felt it needlessly oversexualized the women. China, on the other hand, took the latter's side to the extreme by demanding that the dragons be given smaller cup sizes.
The lovable maid Tohru, Elma, and Lucoa's chests were shrunk, while Ilulu's vanished. Their revealing outfits were also closed up, and Ilulu got a new conservative attire. At worst, this affected some off-color jokes. This was seen by most people as part of the Chinese government's infamously heavy-handed practices.
1 School Days
School Days' macabre love triangle ended gruesomely, first with Sekai beheading Makoto before she was disemboweled by a vengeful Kotonoha. In Japan, however, viewers didn't get to see this bloody conclusion. Instead, what they saw was 30 minutes of a nice boat sailing set to Johann Sebastian Bach's "Air on a G String."
The reason for this was deadly serious. The anime's network felt School Days' finale was too similar to a real-life axe murder that happened just one day before its premiere. After the initial confusion and shock, both School Days' fans and creators took the nice boat in stride and turned it into one of the anime fandom's most beloved memes.