For older news: No Editing Zone News Archives

Tuesday, April 10th, 2007

Sorry for the lack of updates lately, but real life issues have prevented me from spending a lot of time on the site. A couple quick updates on recent edits today.

Legend of the Pervert censored Media Blaster/Kitty's release of Legend of the Pervet has been censored (despite being advertisited as 'uncut and uncensored') to remove a scene with a young looking character. More details in THIS thread on Anime on DVD.

Gunbuster R1 DVDs edited Bandai Visual USA's release of Gunbuster on R1 DVD has been edited to remove the parody of the Charriot's of Fire theme from episode 1 and replaced with reworked generic music used elsewhere in the show.

Sunday, August 27th, 2006

Manga edits continue

It's getting harder and harder to find unedited manga in the United States, or even to guess if an existing series that has been released unedited will continue to be released unedited. Right on the heels of Viz Media's censored Midori Day's Volume 7 (nipples were removed from several panels, while earlier volumes were uncensored), Tokyopop has edited Tsukuyomi Moon Phase volume 4 (again to remove nipples that were not removed from volume 1). What makes Tokyopop's edits to volume 4 particularly mindless, is they left in scenes of torture, sexual assault, and bondage that are clearly not appropriate for the 13+ rating they gave this title. Tsukuyomi Moon Phase seems to have been rated too low to start with in order to appease booksellers and sell to more people, when it should have been at least 16+ to start. As the series gets even more mature from here, it's anyone's guess what might be edited or how they'll handle it. But until they reprint volume 4 without the edits panels, I will not be buying the rest of this series.

Given the increasing number of edited manga titles happening recently, I've started a thread on Anime on DVD to try and get a single list together of all the edits (many of them happing recently) being done to manga in United States. Check the thread HERE.

Sadly, it seems the push to get titles into big book retailers (Barnes & Noble and Borders, for example) is driving this censorship. Either directly requested by the retailers, or suggested or hinted at by them to get them to carry particular books. I have no problems with booksellers deciding what books they will or won't carry, but to not carry an unedited book and then carry the edited book is equivalent to supporting and encouraging censorship. They might as well setup a book burning party in front of their stores.

Censorship is something I will not support or tolerate. I will be very careful with my manga purchases from now on (I've pretty much had to stop my Viz purchases, since they've shown that they can't be trusted on any series) and will do what I can to convince manga publishers and booksellers to reverse this disturbing trend.

As I do with edited anime, I encourage all manga fans to avoid buying any manga that has been edited and to let the manga companies and booksellers know that you don't support censorship and request that they stop supporting this mindless censorship and editing.

Sunday, June 19th, 2006

NO EDITING ZONE WEBMASTER/PRINCIPAL CONTRIBUTOR NEEDED

Sadly, real life issues, lack of time to devote to the No Editing Zone, and other factors have limited what I have been able to do with the No Editing Zone lately (hence the nearly year long gap since the last update).

While I can't fully devote as much time to the issue of editing and censorship in anime (and manga) any longer, I do still passionately believe in the need for the No Editing Zone to exist to inform anime fans of alterations made to anime titles and to encourage companies to do the right thing and release uncut and uncensored anime in North America.

So, I am now seeking a person (or personS) to help. Primarily, I'd like someone to take over updates to the No Editing Zone site, writing editing reports, and carrying the torch. These tasks could be spread over several people if needed and there is enough interest. I still may be able to contribute on occasion, but I find I can't do it all myself and don't have the time or energy to lead the charge.

I will still provide the web hosting space (for at least a year) on animeprime.com (I am not seeking to turn the entire animeprime.com web site over, just the No Editing Zone portion) and would expect the person to adhere to the the existing No Editing Zone Credo (see No Editing Zone). Eventually, the No Editing Zone could be transitioned to another existing web site or a dedicated web site.

If interested, please email me at JIM [ a t ] ANIMEPRIME.COM so we can discuss the details.

For older news: No Editing Zone News Archives