AMBot | 09/23/2007 | Reading Time: 4 Min.
Form your own opinion about it...
"DeFi":
Those who wanted to watch the final episode of the anime series "School Days" in Japan this week were in for a surprise. Instead of the long-awaited episode 12, an advertisement for fishing boat trips in New Zealand flickered across the screen. Two days later, fans of the series "Higurashi no naku koro ni kai" were also confronted with the fact that the broadcast would be frozen at episode 11 for the time being, replaced by the cooking show "Goku Uma★KING Gourmet First Star!" What had happened?
In recent years, there has been a general sensitization among the parent generation in this country toward media aimed at children and adolescents that contain violence. Incidents like the Emsdetten school shooting fueled negative sentiments and ultimately led, among other things, to widespread self-censorship in German television regarding depictions of violence in children's/youth programming. Anime fans felt this particularly strongly, as series like Conan or Naruto were heavily cut or edited. Whether the removal or retouching of all blood, the conversion of wine into water, or the elimination of cigarettes and overly revealing outfits is sensible or achieves the intended goal is another matter. Alongside the censorship of violence in German youth programming and the well-known strict censorship of sexually suggestive content in the U.S., Japan had until now been known for a comparatively relaxed approach in this regard.
However, after a police officer was attacked and killed by his daughter with an axe on September 18 in KYOTANABE, Kyoto, Japanese television is now also resorting to censorship. TV Kanagawa was the first to react, halting the broadcast of the final episode of "School Days." This anime is based on a computer game about a student love triangle with around 20 different possible endings. One of these alternate endings involves a schoolgirl attacking a victim with a knife.
As a spokesperson for TV Kanagawa explained, the final episode of "School Days" also contained a violent depiction of a schoolgirl, though it had already been toned down by coloring the blood black. Given recent events, however, they decided to forgo broadcasting it altogether. The satellite channel AT-X, which exclusively airs anime for viewers over 15, is still considering whether to air the episode.
Meanwhile, other broadcasters have also reacted. Chiba Television Broadcasting and Aichi Television Broadcasting have likewise opted not to air the episode. Additionally, the series "Higurashi no naku koro ni kai," a mystery murder series, has been temporarily suspended after episode 11.
While it can certainly be appreciated that the media landscape in Japan is making an effort to show solidarity with the events in Kyoto, the reactions from the media and politicians in Japan, much like in Germany, have a somewhat knee-jerk flavor. After all, just as here, far more gruesome depictions of violence than those now being censored remain freely available. It remains to be hoped that widespread censorship does not take hold in Japan as well. As the discussion around censorship in anime and computer games here has shown, it is extremely complicated, if not impossible, to cleanly and clearly separate sensible youth protection from exaggerated, knee-jerk reactions.
Source: Pummeldex
In recent years, there has been a general sensitization among the parent generation in this country toward media aimed at children and adolescents that contain violence. Incidents like the Emsdetten school shooting fueled negative sentiments and ultimately led, among other things, to widespread self-censorship in German television regarding depictions of violence in children's/youth programming. Anime fans felt this particularly strongly, as series like Conan or Naruto were heavily cut or edited. Whether the removal or retouching of all blood, the conversion of wine into water, or the elimination of cigarettes and overly revealing outfits is sensible or achieves the intended goal is another matter. Alongside the censorship of violence in German youth programming and the well-known strict censorship of sexually suggestive content in the U.S., Japan had until now been known for a comparatively relaxed approach in this regard.
However, after a police officer was attacked and killed by his daughter with an axe on September 18 in KYOTANABE, Kyoto, Japanese television is now also resorting to censorship. TV Kanagawa was the first to react, halting the broadcast of the final episode of "School Days." This anime is based on a computer game about a student love triangle with around 20 different possible endings. One of these alternate endings involves a schoolgirl attacking a victim with a knife.
As a spokesperson for TV Kanagawa explained, the final episode of "School Days" also contained a violent depiction of a schoolgirl, though it had already been toned down by coloring the blood black. Given recent events, however, they decided to forgo broadcasting it altogether. The satellite channel AT-X, which exclusively airs anime for viewers over 15, is still considering whether to air the episode.
Meanwhile, other broadcasters have also reacted. Chiba Television Broadcasting and Aichi Television Broadcasting have likewise opted not to air the episode. Additionally, the series "Higurashi no naku koro ni kai," a mystery murder series, has been temporarily suspended after episode 11.
While it can certainly be appreciated that the media landscape in Japan is making an effort to show solidarity with the events in Kyoto, the reactions from the media and politicians in Japan, much like in Germany, have a somewhat knee-jerk flavor. After all, just as here, far more gruesome depictions of violence than those now being censored remain freely available. It remains to be hoped that widespread censorship does not take hold in Japan as well. As the discussion around censorship in anime and computer games here has shown, it is extremely complicated, if not impossible, to cleanly and clearly separate sensible youth protection from exaggerated, knee-jerk reactions.
Source: Pummeldex
This article was originally published in German. It was translated with technical support and editorially reviewed before publication.
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