animation What happened to anime in the past?

[FirePuppy 645]

By today's standards, most anime importing companies comply with the intended target audience, but in years past, it's a different story to some. For example, the original 90's Sailor Moon, which is all along designed for adolescents, was edited to make it look like as if it were for suitable for young kids. In fact, in my childhood, I never even thought it was a kid's show at all.

[Moon Glow 81]

I grew up with Sailor Moon in the 90's as a young kid and I honestly never questioned the age group for it lol - My mother, as well, who watched with me sometimes didn't take any issue with it. They censored a lot of the more "inappropriate" content (in quotations because back then they covered up the homosexual relationship between Sailor Neptune and Sailor Uranus as part of the inappropriate content lol) and the battle scenes were really nothing so bad you couldn't watch in Pokemon.

This is essentially the same case for most 90's and early 2000's anime, though. Dragon Ball had a handful of scenes which were edited out for Western consumption

[Twilight Luna 30,996]

I remember the original Voltron show was edited to make it more kid friendly. In the original Japanese, one of the original pilots was killed but in the US version he was just injured.

Shows like DBZ got sensored a lot due to brief nudity, violence, and blood. So much was sensored that the US show numbering’s are different from the original Japanese.

Edited August 22, 2018 by Twilight Luna

[碇 シンジン 27,427]

Those imported versions are horrible it's because the companies didn't have the balls to broadcast them as they are so they basically whitewashed everything out of them.

I mean the '90s has some of the best anime I recommend watching the original Japanese version as us versions are too localised and whitewashed so they don't even make any sense

[cuteycindyhoney 13,285]

The anime "Cardcaptor Sakura" is one of my all time favorites. I'd advise anyone to stay away from the horrible monstrosity of  "Cardcaptors" as aired in the United States in I think 2001. They did some heavy handed editing in every episode, ignored that they were in Japan, even though you see Tokyo Tower in the distance in nearly every episode. The started with episode eight, so they could introduce a boy character in the first episode to try to make him more of a focus in the show. The renamed most of the characters to give them American sounding names. They even went so far as when Sakura served her big brother and his friend soup,(Sakura has a serous crush on her brother's friend) they had the dub call them hamburgers, even though you could clearly see that they were soup bowls on the tray. Oh, and rice balls were called donuts. Out of 70 episodes, they cut the run time down to 39, in an effort to make it an action packed boy's show. I still shudder when I think of how they ruined a wonderful and charming anime!  

Oh, and I love the new show, "Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card"!

I hope they don't butcher it for an American release!

[Hachiroku 127]

Back then stuff would get censored and poorly edited for a western audience.

[TBD 17,231]

Me personally, whether the western ruin it or not, new anime these days are way too sissy and the art style are all the same.

[Red Cedar 1,407]

I think imported anime has sunk to the level of the lowest common denominator of audiences. I'm going to date myself here, but my first experience with imported anime was Space Cruiser Yamato, which aired in North America as Star Blazers. It was unlike any other cartoon I had ever seen as a boy. There was a continuing storyline, not just a plot of evil villain gets thwarted and then a new scheme is hatched next week. Characters had complex motives. The "bad guy" was acting to save his people. And characters (gasp) died!

The problem is the perceived need in North America to sanitize life for kids. And while happy stories for children have their place, we shouldn't shy away from the heavy, grey area topics that make a good epic, and indeed, make up life.

[Rainbow Dash 1,471]

On one hand I wanna say its a dubbed thing. Most dubbed anime is waaaay different than the original. Case in point Ghost Stories. In Japan its a serious anime. In America thanks to some dude, its a comedy. Japan is also a bit more looser when it comes to baring skin.

However, on the other side, American Cartoons in the 90's also got away with some adult situations. Rocko's Modern Life anyone? On top of that, the humor from some of those cartoons would not fly today without being branded mature. REN AND STIMPY.

[Prospekt 10,984]

I'm kinda glad I wasn't around to watch anime in the 90s and early 2000s. The dub editing was simply ridiculous sometimes. A few shows made it through fairly intact, usually because they were aired in adult-oriented programming blocks. But then there was anime after anime that suffered the fate of Sailor Moon.

The Dragon Ball franchise, for instance, had significant stuff cut. There's nudity in the very first episode of the first DB series when young Goku goes skinny dipping. Throughout each series, there are a few characters who are downright perverted, and adult jokes do get sprinkled in from time to time. Now, the former isn't necessarily a problem because Japan is a lot more lenient when it comes to nudity. But the latter would probably generate intense controversy if the show were to air on kids TV without censorship. An uncensored Master Roshi is fine on Toonami, not Nickelodeon.

 

[Nostalgia27 60]

On 8/22/2018 at 10:45 PM, cuteycindyhoney said:

They did some heavy handed editing in every episode, ignored that they were in Japan, even though you see Tokyo Tower in the distance in nearly every episode. The started with episode eight, so they could introduce a boy character in the first episode to try to make him more of a focus in the show. The renamed most of the characters to give them American sounding names. They even went so far as when Sakura served her big brother and his friend soup,(Sakura has a serous crush on her brother's friend) they had the dub call them hamburgers, even though you could clearly see that they were soup bowls on the tray. Oh, and rice balls were called donuts. Out of 70 episodes, they cut the run time down to 39, in an effort to make it an action packed boy's show.

 

Yeah, and like with Sailor Moon, they removed any sign of homosexual/lesbian relationships (i.e Tomoyo's crush on Sakura, Sonomi's love for Nadeshiko, Touya x Yukito etc.) They even cut several romance scenes between Sakura and Syaoran, which makes like no sense seeing as they're a straight couple, and also the main relationship in the show. Some examples of what they censored are Syaoran's confession to Sakura in the second to last episode, and even the airport scene where Syaoran gives Sakura his hand-made teddy bear before returning to Hong Kong. In Cardcaptors, he just says "I'm going back to Hong Kong", and exits. There are several other things they also removed, such as Syaoran's interrupted confessions, and the many times when he blushed at the sight of her. I'm just glad that the second movie was dubbed by a different studio, which stayed true to the original. I'm sure if Nelvana dubbed it, instead of having Sakura yell "I love you!" and jump into Syaoran's arms, they probably would've made her say "I'm glad you came back!" or "We captured all the Clow Cards!" or something cringey like that. And that donut part tho... reminds me of that scene in the Pokémon dub where they're all eating rice balls and then Brock is like, "tHeSe dOnUts aRe gReAt! jElLy-FiLlEd aRe mY fAvOuRiTe!" Putting that aside, it's always great to meet a fellow CCS fan! I may be a relatively new fan, but this anime has really made a big impact on me. I'm still waiting for Clear Card season 2... been about 2 years. The manga is still ongoing though, and has continued where the anime left off.

Edited March 8, 2020 by Nostalgia27

[Pastel Heart 6,463]

Western companies see a series and see dollar signs first. In Sailor Moons case, it was perfect to market to young girls, which worked, they sold Sailor Moon dolls and I remember seeing ads for them 

In doing this though they changed a lot of the original series to make it more "kid friendly", like removing the yuri and yaoi (wasnt so accepted back then) 

DBZ and YGO same thing except not aimed at a female demographic. The changes in YGO were atleast more on the funny side.

"DON'T MOVE OR WE WILL SHOOT YOU WITH OUR INVISIBLE GUNS"

[cuteycindyhoney 13,285]

5 hours ago, Nostalgia27 said:

 

Yeah, and like with Sailor Moon, they removed any sign of homosexual/lesbian relationships (i.e Tomoyo's crush on Sakura, Sonomi's love for Nadeshiko, Touya x Yukito etc.) They even cut several romance scenes between Sakura and Syaoran, which makes like no sense seeing as they're a straight couple, and also the main relationship in the show. Some examples of what they censored are Syaoran's confession to Sakura in the second to last episode, and even the airport scene where Syaoran gives Sakura his hand-made teddy bear before returning to Hong Kong. In Cardcaptors, he just says "I'm going back to Hong Kong", and exits. There are several other things they also removed, such as Syaoran's interrupted confessions, and the many times when he blushed at the sight of her. I'm just glad that the second movie was dubbed by a different studio, which stayed true to the original. I'm sure if Nelvana dubbed it, instead of having Sakura yell "I love you!" and jump into Syaoran's arms, they probably would've made her say "I'm glad you came back!" or "We captured all the Clow Cards!" or something cringey like that. And that donut part tho... reminds me of that scene in the Pokémon dub where they're all eating rice balls and then Brock is like, "tHeSe dOnUts aRe gReAt! jElLy-FiLlEd aRe mY fAvOuRiTe!" Putting that aside, it's always great to meet a fellow CCS fan! I may be a relatively new fan, but this anime has really made a big impact on me. I'm still waiting for Clear Card season 2... been about 2 years. The manga is still ongoing though, and has continued where the anime left off.

Oh, I loved Clear Card too. I'm also waiting for a second series.

[Fluttershutter 2,154]

Back then they were still marketing animation almost entirely to kids. Also Japanese culture wasn't as well known in the west. 

One thing I never understood is why they did all the work to make Power Rangers rather than just play Super Sentai.

Edited March 9, 2020 by Fluttershutter

[Paleopony 690]

On 2018-08-22 at 2:48 AM, FirePuppy said:

For example, the original 90's Sailor Moon, which is all along designed for adolescents, was edited to make it look like as if it were for suitable for young kids.

I thought Sailor Moon was for little girls! 

[Sonic Shimmer 4,117]

The assumption that only children liked animation led to shows like One Piece that were enjoyed by older fans in Japan being pointlessly altered and censored for the Western releases.

[Megas 27,141]

They aren’t bound to censorship anymore because companies that air them nowadays have gotten smarter about knowing who their target audiences are