< Bowdlerise

Bowdlerise/Anime and Manga

For this one particular medium, The Other Wiki did a lot of studies on the Bowdlerisation subject. Now that's a lengthy article.

It also needs to be pointed out that many of the anime edits—at least in North America—only apply to the television broadcast version of the show. Typically, the home video version of that same episode will be unedited (exceptions include the English-only versions of Sailor Moon and Naruto, as well as the entirety of 4Kids's output).

  • Pretty much all of the anime properties dubbed by 4Kids! Entertainment (such as Yu-Gi-Oh!, One Piece, and Pokémon) have fallen victim to bowdlerization, to the point where you can pretty much consider some of them crushed down to a fine powder in terms of relative quality.
  • The 4Kids version of One Piece may be the most infamous case:
    • Sanji no longer smokes, but he has a lollipop.
      • A smokin' cigarette!
    • Zoro's swords no longer cut people open, and so there's a memorable scene where his blade cut through a giant stone mallet and then "knocked out" the guy beyond it.
    • When Mihawk sliced Zoro open across his whole chest, they removed all the blood from the image.
    • All references to ale become 'juice' or, if you were cheating in the Drinking Contest, 'ginger tea'.
    • Belle-Mère's death is removed.
      • A case of bowdlerization making something worse, because instead of just being killed, she's imprisoned and presumably enslaved by Arlong until she eventually died.
    • Nami is afraid that Arlong will hurt people, and she hates him because he fills people with fear, not because he shot her mother right in front of her, or rather, imprisoned her mother when she was ten.
    • In a case of So Bad It's Good, Captain Smoker Chaser (even "Smoker" was too edgy) no longer smokes several cigars at once, but he has "smoke breath" from his Moku-Moku Fruit, a Devil Cursed Curséd Fruit that enables its user to turn into smoke.
    • They replaced all guns in One Piece with water pistols or pop-guns, except one, which was replaced with a mallet on a spring!
    • When a man is shot point blank by one of Shank's men (to show how ruthless and powerful they are) Shanks informs the bandit that the gun was full of blanks and the man simply fainted.
      • Which is actually a really, really irresponsible change, as this delivers the message that blanks are perfectly safe to fire at people. Nothing fired out of a gun at a person is guaranteed to be non-lethal, especially so if you're firing point-blank, at their freaking temple. Ironically, this is exact opposite of the original point of the scene, which had Shanks warning some bandits not to point guns around unless they were fully prepared both to kill with one and to die by one.
    • Nami uses a "rubber knife" to stab Usopp, then tells him to fall in the water. In the original story, she stabbed her own hand instead of Usopp, getting blood on him, and he fell into the water out of shock, only realizing that Nami had planned for him to escape after making it to safety.
    • Krieg's poison arrows were replaced with poison suction-cups. Even then, the visual representation of the 'poison suction-cup' part only came into play AFTER they made their mark.
  • The Korean broadcast version of One Piece painted over Zoro's swords to make them look like billy clubs.
    • In the transition from manga to anime, and the Japanese manga to English one, Mr. 2 is no longer an "okama", or Japanese transvestite (the Viz manga suggests that he doesn't want a female partner, rather than being both male and female). By the time the Impel Down arc reached the anime, however, the censors just gave up and let the term be used because an entire island worth of transvestites is introduced, including a legion of transvestites dressed like Vegas hookers and a very important character with Gender Bender powers that happens to be designed after Dr. Frank-N-Furter from The Rocky Horror Picture Show.
      • Surprisingly enough, that scene's largely intact in the English Manga and Funimation subs.
      • Mr. 2's image song was always "Oh Come My Way"--say it quickly. Perhaps more importantly, 'okama' is not just 'transvestite.' For one, you can find straight transvestites...
      • The Viz manga uses "Oh Come My Way" as a translation of Bon Clay's governing ethos (it's suggestive enough to count as a decent translation). Even if it shies away from calling him a transvestite, it does not censor his cloak, unlike the (Japanese) anime. Actually, the only visual that is edited in Viz's manga are a couple of early occurrences of Ace's tattoo, which originally contained a manji. Oda himself would change the tattoo design later on.
    • In the Skypiea arc in the English translation of the manga, Eneru's title is "Kami" rather than "God". This could be culturally motivated by the Japanese concept of "kami" (it is not always analogous to the Western concept of a god), but it's fairly clear that Eneru thinks he is a God. Eneru becomes "King" in the broadcast Funimation dub episodes ("Perhaps they lacked royal protection"), but some episodes later in the arc that were only shown on Australian Cartoon Network had him use the term "God".
      • It turns out that Funimation recorded two separate dubs for Season 3. One that aired on Toonami and was required to maintain continuity with the earlier 4Kids dub as well as satisfy the famously-strict US Broadcast standards (so any mention of God was right out), and one for the DVD release that didn't give two shits about what Cartoon Network or the FCC wanted. The uncut Funimation DVD's use "God" throughout.
    • The Italian sub scenes are rarely edited, but dialogues and names are bads... including Luffy being called Rubber, Usopp being pronouced Asop and all the D. names are removed. And yet in the Thriller Bark saga Blackbeard is called Marshall D. Teach and later Ray calls Luffy "Monkey D. Rubber". Also a lot of double entendre, funny stuff and insults going beyond "babbeo" (fool) are removed.
  • One infamous case of Bowdlerization in Yu-Gi-Oh! GX centers around Professor Cobra's final fate. In the original, Yubel gives him a false vision of his son still being alive, using it to lead him off the edge of the elevated duel arena he was dueling Judai on to his death, before transporting everyone else to another dimension. Since 4Kids can Never Say "Die", Cobra's death walk was hastily cut out, abruptly jumping from the very start of the false vision straight to the dimension-hopping. Bizarrely, they left in Professor Stein falling to his death in an extremely similar fashion, an event which happened around six episodes previously.
  • The original Yu-Gi-Oh! anime was notorious for this as well, particularly with the use of the Shadow Realm. While Shadow Games were part of the original story, they were far less common than they were in the 4Kids dub and often had different consequences. In the original version of the story, the Shadow Realm did not exist. Shadow Games could be played in another dimension (which was the basis of the American Shadow Realm), and the penalty for losing said game could involve being sent to a prison dimension. But in the dub, the "Shadow Realm" was, with a few exceptions, simply a replacement for death. In one notable example, a battle involved the contestants being locked in place with a "spinning shadow disk" edging close as life points were lost. If the disk touched the player (because their life points reached zero), then they'd be "sent to the shadow realm". In the original version of this story, the disks were simply buzzsaws that would dismember the loser.
    • http://www.yu-jyo.net/ Showcases all the differences between the original episodes and the candy-land versions that 4Kids aired. The sheer amount of (often clumsily-done) censorship is staggering.
    • In an episode of the VR arc, Seto and Mokuba are tied to crosses in the original. The crosses were edited to become vaguely shaped hunks of rock when the show came to the US.
    • In any given episode where guns are used, the gun will be edited out, leaving characters (including intimidating guards) pointing their fingers at each other -- though that doesn't stop anyone from acting like they're holding instruments of death harm. For instance after Bandit Keith loses to Joey he pulls a gun out of his pocket and points it at Pegasus' head, but in the edited 4Kids version he points his finger at his head. And he still talks like he's going to shoot him. They realize that guns can't be deleted during Solomon's flashback in Egypt. Ahmet instead threatens Solomon with a slingshot.
    • Apparently, religious references are also off-limits -- in the arc Digital Nightmare of the original series, all Bible references, including allusions to The Apocalypse, The Flood, and The Creation, were edited out. In fact, the main antagonist's deck was called the "Seven Days of Creation" in the original, which went missing, yet again, from the dub.
    • They cut a reference to Mai having been a casino dealer on a cruise ship previous to playing in the tournament. Let that sink in. They cut a reference to gambling in a show centered on a card game. And yet gambling cards in Jounoichi's deck are perfectly fine.
    • They toned down the torture Malik received during his childhood and changed his motivation from avenging his father (he doesn't know he's the one responsible) and freeing his family's destiny from being tied to the Pharaoh to becoming the new Pharaoh of the entire world, making him less sympathetic in the process.
    • Many of the cards that originally portray religious symbols, nudity, violent weapons and gore were modified for overseas Trading Card Game and anime. You can see the list on this page with examples like Monster Reborn changed the ankh to a stylized crystal and Destiny Board's message from "DEATH" to "FINAL".
      • Similarly, the Dark Magician Girl has her bust reduced by editing out cleavage lines, the pentagram brooch replaced by a red jewel, and a single shot in her first appearance edits a close up of her legs to include a mini-skirt (which is gone in the next shot, and from that point on is never seen again). Then again, you can see why some of the cards imagery was toned down. Check out the original art for cards like Last Day of Witch, Final Flame and Soul of the Pure. ...Oh, and Fiend Comedian.
        • She's just one of many who have their busts reduced for the international release. While most of these edits also involved covering up cleavage, some, such as Lady Ninja Yae and Helios - The Primordial Sun, are purely for the sake of reducing bust sizes, and Deep Sea Diva doesn't appear to have gotten any smaller but has had her clothing slightly recolored to deemphasize them. Apparently large breasts are considered Harmful to Minors even if they're fully covered.
          • Some of the cards that had bust reductions hardly had any to speak of in the first place, making them completely flat-chested. This despite others that were reduces still being... ample, if less so than in their original art.
    • To go with the 5D's example below, ITV 1 recently aired Pyramid of Light (This troper caught it when it was on one Sunday at 2AM), and a few small scenes were oddly enough cut out from it, two of which that stand out include the Egyptian Gods being destroyed by the effect of Pyramid of Light, and Yami getting stabbed by Peten the Dark Clown.
    • 4kids didn't start the Bowdlerization. Both original Japanese-dubbed anime adaptations of the manga are themselves Bowdlerized. There's less violence and Mind Rape compared to the manga, in part because the second series skips the first 60 or so chapters (the story before Duelist Kingdom), but even what did get adapted was toned down a bit (like Marik's father's death being slightly less bloody in the anime). Consider that next time you get mad at 4kids for censoring something.
    • There was some bowdlerization in between the original Japanese Duel Monsters and GX. In duels, the various gruesome ways monsters were destroyed (slashed, impaled, eaten, etc.), were generally replaced with an attack causing a monster to explode.
  • It's currently unknown what 4Kids will do to censor Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's, but most viewers agree they're going to have to do something with all of the intense and objectionable material in it.
    • When Yusei's getting marked as a criminal in that dub, he utters, "Is it supposed to tickle?" Compare the Japanese equivalent:

Yusei: AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!! *falls on the floor and starts writhing in pain.*

      • It's also difficult to claim that the change makes Yusei more Badass, seeing as how the laser that burns the marker onto Yusei's face in the Japanese version is just chaged into a harmless spray for the English dub.
    • In Episode 57 of the original Japanese release, Rudger Goodwin (Roman in the dub) cuts off his left arm (the one with the Signer birthmark), places it in a capsule of preservative liquid, and gives it to his brother Rex. In the dub, Roman does not cut off his arm, and somehow "seals" his birthmark in the capsule.
      • Yet in episode 26, they show Rex reaching into the capsule when the other marks are being set off, and the arm is not edited out in any way. Talk about consistant...
      • In the same episode in the original Japanese release, after being defeated by Yusei, Rudger blows up his prosthetic arm, destroying the bridge they were dueling on and sending Yusei plummetting into a reactor. In the dub, since what happened in the original could be seen as committing suicide, it's the destruction of Roman's Earthbound God/Immortal Uru that causes the bridge to blow up.
    • When Yusei is watching the tapes of children being tortured by Sayer, Jack's assistant kindly points out that the children are not in pain, in fact they are creating the electrical shocks surrounding them. However this does not explain the shown child screaming his head off. Instead of being killed by the shocks, the kids go "missing" in the dub.
    • In episode 35 Yusei gets a large shard of glass embedded in his stomach after falling off his Duel Runner. In the dub, however, the shard and blood are edited out and instead of screaming in pain as he does in the original, Yusei says "Ah, my gut!"
    • In the original, Carly is thrown out a window and falls several stories before crashing through the roof of another building, which kills her. In the dub she is just shown disappearing into a cloud of smoke and her body is not displayed. However the implication that she died is still there.
    • Another, but a rather interesting one - CITV airs Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's over in the UK. For some reason, the scenes in which Jack punches Yusei in episode 43 is cut. Jack grabs Yusei and then it cuts to Jack glaring before going into the next scene. Then a few minutes later, Yusei is on his knees, and around 10 seconds later, he's lying flat on his face. What REALLY makes this jarring though is that Yusei's "Why did you punch me?" line was not cut out. A fight scene edit from a network that also airs shows like Ben 10 and Huntik...
    • And there's the duel against Lotten. In the original, he calls off the duel and tries to escape, but Kiryu catches up to him and forces the duel to continue. But since Kiryu's final move involved his monster shooting Lotten in the head (never mind it was just a hologram) the dub changes this to Kiryu catching up to Lotten and arresting him, declaring that he's not going to bother finishing the duel since Lotten was a coward and abandoned it.
  • In Kirby Right Back At Ya, another dub by 4Kids, the chainsaw that King Dedede uses to cut down a forest is turned into a laser chainsaw.
  • The transformation of an early adult-oriented anime Science Ninja Team Gatchaman into Battle of the Planets in the post-Star Wars space-show frenzy. Hermaphrodite villain Berg Katse became Zoltar and his "twin sister". The youngest hero Jinpei was changed from a kid to a genetically engineered being with weird speech patterns. All of the copious blood was removed, and a "narrator" would pop up to explain how the bad guys had been "temporarily stunned" by our heroes' weapons. Finally, a robot (animated in a completely different style) was inserted to pad the running length because so much had been cut. He would usually provide an Aesop at the end of the show.
    • Zark was apparently (to judge by the art) in the upper dome of Center Neptune. He served as narrator, including reassuring the kiddies that nobody was really hurt, when he wasn't taking credit for numerous good ideas and machines, or having really disturbing conversations with the early warning system on Pluto.
    • For some time, there was an urban legend that Jinpei/Keyop's speech patterns had been edited to remove swearing. The release of unedited Gatchaman by ADV in the mid-2000s demonstrates that this wasn't true.
  • The same Bowdlerising above was somehow committed by World Events Productions when they changed Beast King Golion to Lion Voltron, and then Space Musketeer Bismarck to Saber Rider and the Star Sheriffs. Like Battle of the Planets, both dubs also use footage and characters animated similar to BOTP's robot scenes
    • Golion was itself pretty violent anime by non-Japanese standards. In the Voltron dub, all the violent and repulsive scenes were cut, as with the character deaths (examples being certain aliens and mutants changed into robots, as well as Takashe and Ryou Shirogane being one character rather than two). in addition, some episodes were given footage from Dairugger XV to pad their running length. All of the Non Japanese Anime footage was used as the infamous season two.
    • As you might notice, Saber Rider might be a Gag Dub, as Bismarck is not really a space western. In fact the character WEP called "Saber Rider" is Not Even Second In Command in the team. For some reason the Bismarck space cruiser was given a voice in the dub, which was ironic because the voice was never used when the ship was in complete robot transformation (but knowing the ship didn't speak in in the original anime, some would disapprove of the ship voice). Although the enemy forces are from the same dimension as the good guys, the dub states that the enemies come from another dimension, and if they get shot or stabbed or such the enemies are said to be "forced back to their own universe for a short amount of time". a good example being the slain alien spy from the first episode appearing as a major character in some non-Japanese episodes, which were used to make up for the Bismarck episodes WEP did not want to pick up. Also, there was a handsome Anti-Villain whom the dub stated was human... but was originally not.
  • The English dub of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann edited a scene in the bath house episode where the heroes are seen floating along a glowing purple band through a group of well-endowed playboy bunnies. The band keeps you from seeing the heroes' heads rubbing across their funbags.
  • The FUNimation dub of Kodomo no Omocha blandly sanitizes many of Sana's more outrageous statements, starting with the title of the first episode -- "I'm A Grade School Student With A Pimp" became "I'm A Grade School Student With An Agent". This practice stopped after the first four episodes. Fortunately, the subtitles (or at least one of the subtitle options) retain the unsanitized lines.
  • While the anime adaptation actually got off scot-free (it helped that it was licensed by Central Park Media and all), the translated Slayers novels were edited inconsistently to a degree; while swearing and death were kept in, any sexual references were either toned down or removed. There is one scene in the first novel where a sorcerer encourages his companions to rape Lina; when he asks a fish-creature to do it, there is an inside joke that involves egg-laying and him fertilizing them, meaning, he has no idea about the concept of human procreation. The same scenario was used in one of the manga adaptations (Super Explosive Demon Story), and when it was translated, the rape threat was also censored.
  • While Sailor Moon's rather infamous Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune were changed from being Schoolgirl Lesbians to being "cousins," most of the edits didn't extend to any of the original visual innuendo -- making them incestuous lesbians, which is hardly new to anime but probably wasn't their intention. Meanwhile, in season one, Zoisite was suddenly a heterosexual woman with a flat chest and an annoying laugh. In Sailor Moon S, Lita implied that she had a mom who was allergic to cats (in the original, her parents died in a plane accident -- which is the reason why Lita has a fear of airplanes, and lives alone). Raye's grandfather was originally very lecherous (he still is in the dubbed version, but it was toned down in some places). New dialogue helped here, but in one episode from Sailor Moon R, Raye shows Grampa a magazine ad. The dub claims it's an ad for ladies' wrestling lessons at his dojo (that Grampa accidentally made into a two-page spread instead of a one-inch ad with Grampa freaking out over how much a two-page spread is going to set him back), but it originally was a warning for girls to look out for a dirty old man in the neighborhood who would molest them if he had a chance. Was included a big pic of Grampa with a "WATCH OUT!" header.
    • Little things like that were always being changed in the DiC dub (and, to a lesser extent, the Cloverway dubs); in one episode, when chasing Zoisite (who is about to steal a Rainbow Crystal supposedly inside a little girl) into a narrow alley, Sailors Moon, Mercury, and Jupiter cram themselves in and are unable to move. Sailor Mercury attempts her bubble attack, which requires a certain awkward pose, and trips, leaving her bent forward with her backside in the air, unable to actually fall forward. Jupiter, behind her and much taller, has a close-up view of her posterior -- and she blushes and stares, wide-eyed, as Mercury struggles to stand up. In some airings, Mercury fell half-way down but not completely and Lita's blushing was digitally removed from her cheeks.
    • One awesome episode that aired in the U.S. (in which Sailor Moon goes to a gala thinking that a princess with a rare crystal is the Moon Princess they've been looking for) features Usagi going to a fancy party and proceeding to get "sick" because she drank too much "juice".
      • This was done twice. At least the second time (season 3/Sailor Moon S) they were pretty clear that "juice" was being used as a euphemism for booze.
      • It's possible that, whenever Usagi began drinking alcohol, she really thought it was just juice.
    • And of course, in the original, Makoto says that she should get a certain role in a play because she has the largest breasts; in the dub, Lita says it's because she has the most talent.
      • Though the voice acting and visuals gave this away as an Unusual Euphamism pretty clearly.
  • Fish Eye is gay and sometimes changes gender to fit whatever disguise he's using that episode. In the dub, they just made him a girl just like with Zoisite. But then one episode has "her" in a Shirtless Scene; later airings would have it edited to a close-up on Fish-Eye's face, but in its first run, there were no edits because it was an ordinary male chest.
  • An interesting French example is Ken le survivant, the French version of the Hokuto no Ken anime. While Hokuto No Ken was originally shown in prime-time in Japan, it was picked up by a French children's channel without verifying the content of the actual anime and attracted the ire of Moral Guardians. The show was quickly revised as a Gag Dub which edited most of the violence out.
  • Naruto's infamous German dub removed all blood, dead bodies, and bladed weapons, something that's more than slightly intrusive on a ninja-themed show. Also nobody is allowed to say "dead" or "death" which screws with Sasuke's whole motivation, as the viewer never learns that his whole clan was killed.
    • The transfer to anime from manga toned down some of the more gruesome injuries. When Haku fake-killed Zabuza the needles went into his neck instead of through his neck. Haku was stabbed but not impaled (the same goes for Naruto when he fought Sasuke). Gato was pushed off a bridge instead of beheaded. Zaku's arms had holes blown in them and his match ended then instead of one being blown off and the other being sliced open with Shino punching him in the face afterward. In a non-violent example, the joke where Konohamaru shows off his new sexy technique removes the one with Sasuke and Sai as Yaoi Guys, but not the one with the two women and Shikamaru temporarily taking up smoking while avenging Asuma is removed. A couple Vomit Indiscretion Shots are left out as well.
      • In the English manga, they turn into silhouettes, but they're still there.
      • They also edited Sasuke's injuries while fighting Haku, such as the, no less than three needles crisscrossing through his neck.
    • Although it's pretty good about it, the Cartoon Network broadcast version cuts several things as well -- such as the Naruto/Sasuke kiss (even though they keep it in during the flashback when Naruto believes Sasuke is dead) or the part when Naruto stabs himself with a kunai (though a line of dialogue makes what happened obvious).
      • The uncut version of the dub restores the alcohol references, and also keeps the blood and sometimes adds (restores? depends on which they recorded first) profanity (like Shikamaru saying "we'll nail these bastards" in Episode 110).
      • The Jetix version. Nuff said.
    • The manga, though not as heavy-handed, took a few edits as well in the U.S. Such as the whole potion/special elixir (which was actually alcohol) deal during Rock Lee's battle in the Sasuke Retrieval arc, and editing the Shikamaru puffing a cigarette after Asuma's death and his defeating Hidan with it as well and a couple other scenes where he appears to now be clasping air. 'Course, the original anime also changed this as well, having him use Asuma's lighter as a memento, as well as his method to light the paper bombs on Hidan.
    • Early on in the series, when some of Gato's thugs kidnap Tsunami and are about to kill her son Inari, she threatens to bite her tongue and kill herself if they do, which would leave Gato unable to use any hostages against her father Tazuna. In the dub, she says she'll do anything the kidnappers want, with a fairly threatening look on her face and tone in her voice. This is one of the few edits that wasn't changed back in the uncut version (possibly just as an oversight).
    • The broadcast version can also be noticeably random with was it does and doesn't edit. For instance Sasuke is allowed to wander through a street littered with blood-covered dead bodies but moments later a wipe that was clearly meant to look like blood was made bright green (a similar edit happened a lot earlier, but wasn't followed by actual violence). Gaara always kills people in silhouette but another character is allowed to stuff them in a box and stab it until blood pours onto the ground.
    • Another jarring cut is during the final Zabuza/Kakashi fight, when Kakashi stabs two kunai into each of Zabuza's arms to render them useless. The actual stabbing scenes are cut and the kunai are rotoscoped out, so it's extremely unclear what happens. Kakashi just spins some kunai and then suddenly Zabuza stops using his arms.
    • The edits to Naruto Shippuden on Disney XD are QUITE jarring at times. Sometimes there is Never Say "Die", and they won't allow anyone to get stabbed (which makes things really awkward when Sasori stabs Sakura through when she saves Chiyo, or when Sasuke stabs Yamato through the shoulder). The thing is, they rated it correctly-PG. I don't think Disney understand that under the PG rating, they can get away with death, stabbing etc.
  • A rare double Bowdlerization occurs in Rurouni Kenshin: in the anime adaptation, Saito defeats Usui by pinning him to a wall using the Gatotsu Zeroshiki. When the dub was shown on American television, they removed the sword. And in the original manga, the Gatotsu Zeroshiki rips Usui's body in half! It's by far the most violent scene in the manga because you can see Usui's intestines.
  • More in the manga-to-anime shift: GetBackers? More boobs and more blood. Notably, Kazuki comes across as much more dangerous: rather than just tying people up and maybe a few bloodless slashes, he can be seen severing limbs and sewing people's eyes, mouths, and ears shut, and then tying them up. And leaving them there. For about a week. Yeah.
  • The English dub of Gash Bell, aside from a complete title change ("Zatch Bell", because of the former being the name of a type of severe wound or a euphemism for female genetalia), had an edited broadcast dub like the rest of Viz Media's anime, but because it never had the same Cash Cow Franchise power as, say, Naruto, it was edited at an inconsistent rate. A big inconsistent edit is in the guns; sometimes they appear normally, but in the episode where Kyo and Gash/Zatch aid Li-en in saving her Mamodo partner Wonrei, the guns the guards have are painted green, but they fire regular bullets.
    • This series is also huge with the Dub Name Change trope (including the titular Mamodo). Just go there and see.
    • And the flamboyant singer Folgore had a signature song he sang for fun; in the Japanese version, he sang about his love of breasts; this was changed to a generic "let's have a good day" song in the English dub.
    • Most of the above statements were carried over in the translation of the manga as well.
  • Cardcaptors, the Americanized (read: licensed and dubbed by a Canadian company) version of Cardcaptor Sakura, is probably the third-most-infamous example after One Piece and Sailor Moon. It eliminated all of the series' same-sex crushes, despite all of the romance in the original series being portrayed in a strictly non-sexual fashion. They also changed nearly all of the characters' names.
    • In the case of Syaoran and Yukito (Lee and Julian), they completely and utterly failed to remove the crush. If you squint, they also didn't do a good job covering up Tomoyo's crush on Sakura, although they did cover up the fact that they were cousins. Why they'd cover up Tomoyo and Sakura being second cousins, we have no idea. Especially since they turned Yamazaki and Chiharu from childhood friends/sweethearts into cousins. Go figure.
    • Made even worse when you go back and watch the dub, and realize that all the scenes blatantly depicting Syaorans growing feelings for Sakura are either toned down or completely cut out.
  • A very minor (mostly cosmetic) change made in Pioneer's translation of the Pretty Sammy series was to replace all instances of "Sexy/Sexual" with "Lovely" in Pixy Misa's incantations. This wouldn't really be noteworthy... except for the fact that in the subtitled versions, you can still clearly hear her saying "Pixy Sexual Fire," while the subtitles claim it is "Pixy Lovely Fire".
  • The infamous 1980s-1990s French dubs for children of anime such as Dragonball Z sometimes censored Kame Sennin's sexual harassment of Bulma without censoring the images. In one of the first episodes of Dragonball Z, Bulma brings Kame a gift, and he starts fondling her breasts while saying she should let him pet her instead. In the French dub, he does exactly the same thing, but exclaims "I bet these are chocolates!" (speaking of the gift, but it sounds like he means...).
  • Infamously, the original English dub of Dragonball Z (handled in a joint effort by Funimation and Saban with voice actors from The Ocean Group) bowdlerized the many character deaths by referring to the afterlife as "the other dimension" and dead characters as having been "sent to the other dimension". In one episode, Goku visits Hell (here, simply a place in the afterlife) and meets two body-building oni wearing shirts that read "HELL" in block letters; Saban/Funimation edited the shirts to read "HFIL" and referred to the location as the "Home For Infinite Losers".
    • This was reportedly the result of Saban's censorship guidelines at the time, which were particularly draconian; they forbid any explicit references to death, alcohol, or cigarettes, and even prohibited showing "children in distress", which meant that scenes of young Gohan crying had to be digitally altered to remove his tears. The now-defunct fansite DBZ Uncensored chronicled a long list of these changes on an episode-by-episode basis, detailing how Funimation digitally erased cigarettes, changed the color of Roshi's beer from yellow to blue (resulting in the "Frothy Mugs of Water" trope), and even added shrubbery and rocks to certain scenes in order to obscure Gohan's rather frequent displays of nudity. In one instance, Dende's younger brother Kargo simply disappears without explanation and is never mentioned again; in reality, Kargo, a child, is brutally killed on-screen right next to a thoroughly traumatized Dende.
    • The Nicktoons TV broadcasted version of Dragonball Kai, a version of Dragonball Z that leaves out filler to be closer to the manga, is more forgiving with this scene, cutting out Kargo getting hit but leaving the body unedited a few seconds later (evidently, they're allowed to imply brutality but can't show it, especially if a child is involved). The Nicktoons version also showed Krillin's impalement with all references to the wound edited (though the implication that Krillin's been impaled is still present).
    • In Argentina, Magic Kids used to broadcast the show uncensored. Due to its popularity, Cartoon Network currently shows the uncensored version, and the animated movies are also uncensored.
    • While this is just the tip of the iceberg for Bowdlerization of both Dragonball and Dragonball Z (even after Saban handed control of DBZ back to Funimation full-time), Funimation eventually made things semi-right by going back and redubbing those original episodes, then made it fully right by releasing those episodes in their uncut version on DVD. While Funimation would continue to Bowdlerize Dragonball (although the Bowdlerization after they got it away from Saban would be considerably less destructive), this was done only to the episodes when they aired on Cartoon Network; all of their DVD releases of Dragonball material have featured uncut versions of the episodes (including the original Japanese language version).
      • Parodied in the Abridged Series: "Oh my God, they blew up the cargo robot! ... And the cargo was people!!!"
    • When Son Gohan's Super-Powered Evil Side beats the crap out of the Mini Me Cell clones, they actually get gibbed instead of just a black smoke explosion. Countless other changes abound...
    • In the original manga Vegeta decapitates Guldo with a karate chop, resulting in a fountain of blood; in the anime he fires a beam through his neck and pops his head off with no blood.
    • When the Saiyans first arrive on Earth in the Ocean/Saban dub, Nappa (after just blowing up an entire city) comments on how it's lucky it was a Sunday and all those buildings were empty. Never mind how he knew what "Sunday" was mere moments after arriving on Earth, let alone that said day would be a day off for the majority of people. The Abridged Series subverts this mightily.

Bystander: So, are you guys aliens, or--
* MASSIVE FIREBALL*

      • According to the games, they seem to know about days of the week, considering Raditz's attacks are all named after them.
    • When Raditz first arrived, he crashed in the middle of some farmer's field. The farmer fires his rifle at Raditz, who catches the bullet, scoffs, and then flicks it back at him, striking the farmer right in the middle of the forehead. In the re-cut, the farmer simply falls over in shock at the sight of Raditz catching the bullet.
    • The US manga has had quite a few edits as well:
      1) Mr. Popo's lips were removed so he doesn't look like a blackfaced minstrel (an outdated racial stereotype that Americans now consider an Old Shame). This is slightly better than what the 4Kids broadcast of Dragon Ball Kai did with him: they recolored him blue. No wonder Mr. Popo got rid of Blue Popo on the abridged series.
      2) Roshi's request to grope Bulma's breasts in exchange for putting out Frypan Mountain's fire is changed to him just looking at them (this also removes the "puff-puff" joke). Also at the start of the DBZ storyline the request is again changed to him asking for a kiss. Immediately after Bulma calls him "ornery" instead of "perverted."
      3) All instances of giving the middle finger are changed to the character making a fist.
      4) In Trunks' bad future there's a scene were #17 holds a gun under a man's chin and then shoots him off-panel. In the US the gun is removed, implying #17 just punched the guy. That wouldn't be bad, except you see #17 reach for his gun in the previous panel! Also, how is punching a guy to death better than shooting him? This makes even less sense when you consider they left in the scene with the two gunmen shooting the elderly couple before encountering Buu and Mr. Satan.
      5) Some images of a naked young Gohan have his penis removed. This makes no sense since Goku isn't edited earlier in the manga (though this could have been done to please all ages).
      6) Bulma was originally braless underneath her strapless top, but in the US manga she wears a strapless bra.
  • Transformers Energon has "sparkling grape juice." Kind of like the "synthetic orange juice" served at the mess hall on Vehicle Voltron.
    • Also, Mirage's (same gender) crush on Galvatron. Like the Sailor Moon example with Amara and Michelle, they edited the dialogue, but not the animation itself, which leaves the giant heart that Mirage manifests at one point more than a little suspicious.
    • Considering how hyperactive anime double-takes are, they probably felt that part could be handwaved as easily as Louis Armstrong's zany beefcake heartings.
  • The dub version of Powerpuff Girls Z has plenty of examples, the most notable being the episode where the Rowdyruff Boys make their debut:
    • While in the original the Boys climb on a roof and take a piss on people's heads, in the dub they are completely re-drawn, showing them holding a garden hose and wetting people with it.
    • When the Boys start attacking the Powerpuff Girls, they flip their skirts. This was cut in the dub.
    • They then proceed to humiliate them further by taking off their pants and mooning them. Guess what happened to the scene in the dub.
    • One dub change that didn't involve the Rowdyruff Boys: Turning Snake of the Gangreen Gang into a woman named Ivy. Note that even anyone familiar with the American original Powerpuff Girls series would know that that's supposed to be a guy...
    • The villain Great Michel is an extremely effeminate campy hairdresser guy in the original. In the dub he's turned into a woman.
    • Sakurako transforms into Sedusa because she wants to be 'sexy like Miss Bellum' and make her love interest notice her. In the dub of course this motive is removed. Later, she finds her boyfriend chatting with his female college professor. She turns into Sedusa because she thinks he's cheating on her with said professor. In the dub, she simply thinks that he found a new friend and that he no longer wants to be her friend.
    • In the original, Bubbles' childhood friend Taka has been isolated in a hospital for 7 years over a chronic, potentially lethal heart condition. In the dub (where he's renamed as Cody), he only goes there over a minor injury.
    • They also have long white socks/stockings digitally added in the English dub.
    • Fuzzy Lumpkins marks his territory by hand-printing all over it. After falling in love with Ms Bellum, he dreams of smacking her butt, marking it this way to "claim" her. In the dub that scene was cut.
  • Inverted in Zoids, which has at the T. rex-ish Berserk Führer changed into the more ferocious sounding Berserk Fury in the English dub.
  • Funnily enough, there's also a much rarer but still used inversion of this sort of editing called "Fifteening" -- upping the language content of a dub to make it seem edgier. Manga Entertainment used to be the biggest offender, but there's still others.
  • The anime version of Bobobo-Bo Bo-bobo tones down a few things. For example, Softon's head becomes pink, to avoid Toilet Humor around him (even though that's his entire point in the manga), giving Serviceman an older appearance after thinking he looked too "innocent", and one minor villain who wears panties with a duck popping out of the front now wears them... on his head. And yes, I said his.
  • Sonic X was frequently Bowdlerised. "Real" firearms became lasers (quite tricky when you consider there was a large backstory involving a military organisation), several shots of human-shaped characters being hurt were removed, all upper-front shots of the character Rouge were eliminated, there was no swearing, and some scenes made no sense whatsoever. Some say the Bowdlerising of the final episode was so blatant it actually knocked several scenes out of sequence.
    • What made it even more amusing/wall-banging was that they put in lasers, but didn't edit out the spent cartridges ejecting from the guns. In another example, the first episode with Eggman after the premiere cut out all of his robot's rampage at the beach and through the city, going almost immediately from the robot emerging from the water to Sonic fighting it atop a building.
    • Early in the Sonic Adventure arc, the scene when the police fire at Chaos only to find their bullets do nothing is cut for obvious reasons. Note that this scene is one of the first things you see in the actual game.
    • In episode 59, when Sonic confronts the Chaotix, there was originally a shot of Espio holding a knife. This was cut from the dub.
    • When the Chaotix introduce themselves to the viewer in episode 39, they had an image of them on the screen while they talked about themselves. Espio's had him holding a throwing knife, the background was covered in blood, and while this was shown he talked about how he was responsible for the attacks. 4kids replaced the images with reused clips of the character talking, and what Espio said was completely different.
      • Originally, the episode had Charmy rent some Sonic X DVDs in as a way for the Chaotix to figure out what's going on, as they don't know what the newspaper is talking about[1]. They realize they don't have the right kind of device to watch them, so Espio steals a DVD player. 4kids didn't want to have Espio stealing, so they removed everything related to the DVDs and added a long montage when Vector reads the newspaper which he now understands completely.
    • Maria was changed from having been killed by GUN to having been "captured."
    • Molly doesn't die in an explosion in the dub. Instead, she "flies her ship into space to help other planets fight the Metarex."
    • They couldn't remove Cosmo's death scene completely, so they instead tried to remove emotional depth. Tails manages to keep it together enough to say 'goodbye', whereas in the Japanese he's barely able to manage to do anything more than screaming, crying, arguing, and slamming his head on the control panel for the Sonic Driver.
    • In episode 67, Chris getting stabbed is changed to him being punched and knocked out.
    • Almost all blood was erased. Almost being because in episode 73, Shadow has a small cut above his eye at one point, which 4kids either didn't see or forgot to erase.
  • Mega Man NT Warrior also suffered from frequent Bowderdization. Shots containing projectile weapons pointed towards the camera were edited out. Swords were airbrused with a glow to look like lightsabers, though they usually ended up looking more like glowing popsicles. And for some reason, the dub seemed to make an attempt to hide the blatantly obvious fact that Commander Beef was Masa in a Paper-Thin Disguise.
  • An interesting example from the Arabic dub of Digimon Adventure: to get past some extremely strict media regulations, the concept of Digivolving does not exist for this dub. Instead, the higher forms of the basic Digimon are their older siblings.
    • Similar thing was done with the Latin American Spanish dub of Sailor Moon. In the fifth season, Sailor Stars, there are the Sailor Starlights - women who disguised themselves as men on earth and revert to their female form when transformed. Since Seiya has a crush on Usagi throughout the season and to prevent a Uranus-Neptune thing again, they turned the Three Lights into real men who call their sisters from their homeplanet to take their place in battle.
  • Bleach's anime significantly reduces or obscures the violence in many scenes in the manga, like when Yammy splits open an Arrancar nurse's head (he punches her into the wall), when Grimmjow kills Luppi by blowing his torso away with a Cero (the flash from the cero obscures the gore), and when Szayel uses Gabriel on Nemu (instead of impregnating her and forcing her to give birth to him, he turns into a pink mist and comes out her mouth, with enlarged cells dividing to recreate his body). One recent and somewhat clumsily executed example is the treatment of the scene where Harribel's Fraccion cut off and fuse their left arms to create Allon; they don't quite cut off their arms, but turn them into red energy, and instead of a bloody stump, there's a glowing red sphere where their left arms end.
    • Instead of Allon ripping Rangiku's entire right side out below the ribs like in the manga, the anime merely has her appear badly bruised and with massive internal damage.
    • More manga-to-anime censorship: one infamous example is where Ichigo cuts a guy's arm off; in the anime, Ichigo jumps, and his opponent's arm just falls off -- you never see the actual cut. (In the same episode, litres of spit fly from the characters' mouths instead of the blood shown in the manga. What the...?) Also, the Mad Scientist Szayel Aporro turns his minion into a purple blob before eating it, instead of devouring him whole. And another; when Chad's arm into pieces, it was replaced with multiple lacerations on his arm.
      • Another arm-chopping incident: early in the manga, Gin cuts off a giant guard's arm with his shikai. In the anime, Gin only leaves him with a not particularly deep wound on his arm, which still takes some hard work by Orihime to heal. considering the latest news concerning Shinso, it might be Fridge Brilliance since that is a pOIsonous zampakuto.
    • Kukaku Shiba is changed from missing her right arm to wearing a prosthetic.
    • Another one: Most of the characters who wear hakama or revealing outfits have their skin covered by white cloth. Most noticeably is Soifon, who has everything except her shoulders covered in the anime, even though in the dialogue she specifically mentions that the clothes have no back. This is also noticeable on many of the Arrancar, most noticeable Halibel, and even some of the male Arrancar.
      • Harribel's/Halibel's outfit bared the bottom of her breasts in the Japanese manga, but in the official U.S. translations her top extends to cover her whole breasts. In addition, after she takes off the little jacket to show her Espada number, in the anime (at least) her Stripperiffic covering extends to the undersides of her breasts and around her back, too.
    • When Ichigo goes through the fight to defeat his Inner Hollow, at one point he fights Kensei in the real world as a Hollow. In the manga, Kensei cuts off Ichigo's left arm, and it grows back as a Hollowfied arm. In the anime, Kensei only slashes the left shoulder, and the wound is then instantly healed by his Hollow side.
      • Also, the next time we see Kensei in the manga (a few chapters later), he has a bloody temple from his fight with Ichigo. In the anime, he's just a little scuffed up.
    • In the manga, Aizen takes a huge chunk out of Ichigo's hip, toned down in the anime.
    • Ishida loses his forearm when he goes against Ulquiorra second form in the manga, the anime version he simply just gets what looks like a badly scratched forearm much like what happened to Rangiku a few eps back.
    • In the anime, Grimmjow stomps on Loly after bitch slapping her. In the manga, he kicks her in the stomach and tears off her leg before stomping on her.
    • In the manga, Loly punches Orihime and threatens to tear out her fingernails. In the anime, she merely slaps her and doesn't give any specific threat.
    • In the recent Ichigo vs. Ulquiorra fight, instead of the massive amounts of burnt flesh and blood pouring from Ichigo in the Manga, the anime has Ichigo being covered in scratches.
    • The second Ichigo vs. Grimmjow had Grimmjow covered in black blood, and then the blood suddenly disappears and becomes a bunch of sratches (as opposed to being covered in blood in the Manga).
    • The anime cuts out massive amounts of blood from the Ichigo vs. Hollow Ichigo fight...and turns all the blood black.
    • In Ichigo's first fight with Ulquiorra, the Manga featured Ichigo having a severely burnt and bloody body while the Anime, on the other hand, had his body full of...you guessed it...scratches.
      • Yeah, scratches were their "To-Go" for this trope.
    • The Shonen Jump releases sometimes tone down the violence and some of the dialogue regarding Rangiku's breasts, like when she offers to give Orihime a hug instead of absorbing her tears with her breasts.
    • In the fight with Szayel, Uryu's Seele Schneider goes through Szayel's neck/chest area in the manga. In the anime, it's silhouetted and the arrow goes through his stomach.
    • When Harribel destroys Hitsugaya's ice clone, the manga has the cut bleeding profusely, as if it were real. In the anime, the blood is gone and it goes from way too conveniently convincing to so unconvincing, it's a miracle she bought the decoy. This doubles as an example of Voodoo Shark, since while it solves the problem of how an ice-clone can appear to be bleeding, it then creates a Plot Hole as to exactly why this would fool Harribel considering her accomplished status.
    • When Gin attacks Hiyori, in the manga, she's cut in half just above the waist. In the anime, he stabs her, but does cut the blade out the rest of the way, leaving her in one piece, but still horribly wounded.
    • In the recent manga Fullbringer arc, when Ichigo's fullbring powers are developing and energy surrounds his hand in the shape of the Manji (the kanji used to write the "ban" part of Bankai), the anime changes the shape slightly so the outline resembles a square. This is curious, since the anime retains the Manji shape on Ichigo's Bankai sword.
      • Also during Ichigo's fight with Tsukishima, where the manga has him cut off the latter's arm, in the anime he simply leaves a gash.
    • Some of the subtext between Nnoitra and Orihime was toned down during the transition from manga to anime. For instance, where the manga has him shove his fingers down Orihime’s throat during Ichigo’s fight with Tesra/Tesla, in the anime he covers her mouth with his hand.
  • Yu Yu Hakusho's dub broadcast edits out smoking, which removes Yusuke's strategy for victory in one fight. This also counts for the transition from manga to anime -- in the manga, he uses one of his own cigarettes, while in the anime, he uses one that Genkai (who smokes in that scene and never smokes again), threw at him. In the Three Kings saga, the demon who Kurama hired to attack Yomi, resulting in him being blinded, appears mostly intact, but emaciated in the anime, while in the manga, much of his body, including a good part of his chest, and one of his arms, has rotted away.
    • No mention of the fact that, in the manga, Mukuro is a sex slave who was raped repeatedly by her father, who actually had her fitted with cybernetics at birth so she would be unable to fight back, until she finally disfigured herself with acid so that he wouldn't want to do it any more? This culminated in Hiei's idea of a good birthday present being to bring him to her, trapped inside a special plant that granted him paralysis and a Healing Factor so that she could torture him all she wanted, potentially for the rest of eternity. In the anime and the English-translated manga, Murkuro is a cybernetically enhanced ex-slave who paid for her freedom by cutting off the flesh from half her body.
    • The anime is generally good about making its bowdlerization look natural, but there's an odd bit in Hiei's fight with Seiryu. In the manga, he literally falls apart after the delayed effect of Hiei's slashing. In the anime, he starts cracking and bleeding--and then disappears in a whirlwind of mist.
  • MAR has a character named Halloween who wore a giant cross chained to his back, as well as an ärm that attacks with the same. The American release of the manga edited the cross out by removing the horizontal portion, making it into a giant rectangular slab that looks more like a coffin or a generic headstone than a cross. The editing is at least well-done; if you didn't see the original release, you'd never know it was supposed to be a cross.
    • Oddly enough the anime adaptation itself was plagued with this in the Japanese version no less. Changes that are usually made in edited English dubs were made, such as referring to alcohol as juice. Not to mention all the blood and violence that was either toned down from the manga, or just removed completely.
  • Similarly, Fullmetal Alchemist has a scene in the manga where Greed is pinned to a giant cross-shaped slab of rock. The American release edited the slab by filling in portions so it looks like a generic oval-shaped slab of stone. No other part of the US manga release is censored, but this one single edit still caused fans to go absolutely ballistic.
    • The later box set version, however, is uncensored with the cross shape intact.
    • In the anime they (Japan) removed the arms of the cross.
  • The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya had this with "Remote Island Syndrome", which is changed from the book through the addition of Kyon's little sister, who in the novel attempted to come along, but was discovered and left at home. Once on the island, the SOS Brigade members avail themselves of as much alcohol as their host can muster, which can't be shown on Japanese TV, since the characters are still in high school. The TV show has them doing things appropriate for the presence of a grade-schooler instead. Minus the murder-mystery part, anyway...
    • Making it completely nonsensical when Haruhi declares in the movie Dissappearance that she's never going to drink alcohol again; it's not like we ever saw her drink and get hangover in the first place.
      • The issue is addressed in the English dub of the film. In that, she says she'll never drink so long as she lives, implying that she's never actually gotten drunk before.
  • The Hebrew dub for Cardcaptor Sakura removed Yukito's love for Touya. So after Sakura confesses her love to Yukito, the Israeli viewer learns that he doesn't feel the same way because he already has Touya as a very close friend. Also, for the rest of the episode, the words "a very close friend" are repeated again and again. Because Touya is Yukito's very close friend.
    • They also censored Sayoran's crush on Yukito, and tried to pass it as admiration. That's right, Sayoran blushes and stutters around Yukito because he admires him, that makes perfect sense. Then they gave Sayoran lines like "why do I feel this way about Kinomoto? I admire Yukito!" Good job, dubbers.
  • This is Monsters original poster. This is Monsters American poster [dead link] . Gee, the gun disappeared. This is made stranger by the fact that that's the only gun edited out in the American release.
  • The Warrior Cats manga, which, despite following mostly non-violent (except for Rise of Scourge) backstories, still manages heavy Bowdlerisation in the form of Bloodless Carnage. The fact that these mangas still manage to get a 10+ rating makes this one wonder what they would do with an uncensored adaptation of the original novels. However, they're still allowed to say "die", and one significant character in the Tigerstar and Sasha manga does die a somewhat unpleasant death.
    • Somewhat averted by Shattered Peace. Although the art style still makes things seem Lighter and Softer, the artist clearly wasn't trying to hide any blood in the chicken coop scene.
  • The "Knights of the Zodiac" Cartoon Network broadcast dub of Saint Seiya. It got Bowdlerised so bad that it basically ruined the classic series' chances of succeeding on the English market. Even ADV's uncut and much more loyal to the source material DVD release couldn't save it, and after the 60-episode license ran out, that was it. No More Export For You The most glaring examples:
    • Dying blood various colors and calling it "spiritual energy."
    • Eliminating all religious references (This being a series about warrior-saints fighting holy wars in the name of their goddess Athena)
    • Never Say "Die"
    • Upping the characters' ages so they're talking about 17-year-olds going into battle rather than 14-year-olds. (Granted, the art makes that part easy...)
    • And, of course, the Flanderization of almost all characters, especially Shun, who was chickified as much as a male character can be; and Hyoga, the Siberian with a surfer's accent.
  • On another note regarding Pokémon, the title is sometimes accused of being the product of bowdlerization due to the original Japanese title translating to Pocket Monsters. In reality, the localized title was a portmanteau to dodge legal issues with an existing toy line called Monster In My Pocket.
    • The term "Pokémon" is used all the time in the Japanese originals, though; it wasn't invented by the translators. "Pocket Monsters" rarely ever appears other than in the titles of the anime series and some of the games.
      • Diamond, Pearl, and Platinum acknowledge that "Pokémon" is short for "Pocket Monster" in the English version. A minor NPC mentions that the "Pokétch" is short for "Pokémon Watch", which ultimately makes it short for "Pocket Monster Watch".
    • Viz's 2009 edition of the Pokémon Adventures manga was edited to remove the scene where Green hides Poké Balls in her bra.
    • The first movie was overall edited to contain a strong moral against racism and violence. The most notable change was Mew's speech to Mewtwo about how real strength comes from the heart, meanwhile in the original version it was instead talking about how clones are inferior and therefore should all die.
  • In Kiki's Delivery Service, when Osono offers Kiki a drink during their first meeting, in the original the drink was coffee. You can't give coffee to American kids! So the English dub changed it to "hot chocolate".
  • The French dub of the City Hunter anime, titled Nicky Larson (which is Ryo Saeba's name in the dub), had all of its mature elements removed so that it could've been shown on a children television program, much like Ken le survivant before it. Ryo's occupation was changed from a hitman to a bodyguard, his perverseness was downplayed by having Ryo hit on his female clients in "vegetarian restaurants" instead of love motels, and instead of live bullets, his gun fires knockdown "balls" that renders his targets unconscious.
  • Tenchi Muyo! really suffered from this when aired on Cartoon Network, especially the OVAs. This was the series that created the Digital Bikini to get the Hot Springs Episode past the censors (and there were plenty of them), all the characters (with the exception of Sasami, who always wore a towel) were given airbrushed bikinis. This would be used in other anime such as Outlaw Star and G Gundam. Another thing they would do is relabel the sake the characters drank from time to time (especially Ryoko) as "tea", leading to moments where Ryoko would be drunk off her ass after drinking tea and one hilarious moment where Tenchi calmly tells Ryoko "I don't want to drink tea". Strangely, when Rurouni Kenshin was brought to Cartoon Network, the tea reference was dropped altogether (yet references to a character drinking alcohol were changed to characters acting crazy or rude).
    • The editing also leads to an interesting but minor plot hole due to this -- in the seventh OVA episode, Tenchi is stuck in Washu's lab and the scientist is in need for "samples". After Tenchi complains about Sasami waiting for them, it jump cuts to Sasami, who asks where everyone was. While they explain where Tenchi, Washu, Ryoko and Ayeka were, nothing is mentioned of Mihoshi. That's because she was in Washu's lab during the cut segment!
      • For real fun, most of the uses of "tea" in Tenchi had the word be oddly drawn out into two syllables ("C'mon Tenchi, have some teeeeea!"), as if they felt the need to completely erase the original word "sake".
  • This has happens a lot in Fairy Tail. For example: after Lucy was kidnapped by Gajeel in the manga he threw daggers at her; compare in the anime when she was beaten by him. Just recently in the start of the Tower of Paradise Arc: Simon blows up the table instead of slapping Juvia.
    • Also, the Dirty Old Man Makarov says that Lucy has a "Nice Body" and no longer refers to her breasts. Averted however with Rob (Erza's "grandfather") and one of Zeref's followers in Erza's flashback: In the original manga they're blasted down by magics but retain their form. In the anime the poor saps are literally turned into dust.
  • In one version of the ADV-translated Azumanga Daioh manga, the "hello, little lady" game where Tomo's Dad spun her around by the yukata sash and Yomi's subsequent reaction was changed to both of Tomo's parents participating and Yomi wondering how old Tomo was. The Unfortunate Implications (if you know what the "game" implied, at least before Tomo and her father Completely Missed The Point) are astounding.
  • In the Shonen Jump preview for Bakuman｡, all references to Moritaka believing that his uncle Nobuhiro "Taro Kawaguchi" Mashiro commited suicide (he didn't, as Moritaka realizes in Chapter 3) are replaced with euphemisms, like "end it all." ("My parents told me he died from overworking, but I think it was something much worse.")
  • G Gundam had name changes to a significant number of the Gundams, which were mandated by Bandai. Examples include the eponymous Gundam changing from "God" to "Burning", the Big Bad Gundam going from "Devil" to "Dark" (as does anything associated with it, like the Death Army and DG Cells), and the Gundams with names that might be seen as racially insensitive (like Mexico's Tequila Gundam) being made completely innocuous (in this case, Spike Gundam). However, this only holds true for the dub; the subtitled version uses the original names. Not to mention, in at least one episode Mark Gatha (Domon's voice actor) apparently managed to slip in "God".
    • When Gundam Wing aired on Toonami, all blood was digitally painted out, swear words were cut (though apparently "crap" was okay, since Quatre got away with that in one episode) and [[Never Say "Die" references to death were softened, which meant Duo's nickname "God of Death" became "Great Destroyer. However, this was also rather famously averted as Cartoon Network had a second, uncut airing at midnight which is believed to be the inspiration for Adult Swim.
      • Reportedly, in the edit aired in the Middle East Relena's knee- and thigh-length skirts were digitally altered to ankle-length to meet with Muslim sensibilities.
    • Gundam SEED had more objectionable content, including a sex scene featuring the 15-year-old protagonist Kira and the Cyclops System, a microwave-based weapon whose victims explode into Ludicrous Gibs. However, in SEEDs case personal firearms were turned into laser pistols, with cheesy MS Paint-style graphics added on, resulting in the Gundam fandom meme of "Disco Guns". Notably, both G or Wing were allowed to keep their guns intact, which was especially obvious in Gs first episode where Domon catches about a dozen bullets.
      • Of course, when SEED was moved to a Friday Night Death Slot, the disco guns appeared a bit more sporadically, with the final two episodes not using them at all (even in a flashback to an earlier episode). One popular fan theory suggests that the edits were intentionally cheesy because Bandai knew the fans would be well aware of the change and figured "We might as well give them something to laugh about".
  • Karakuridouji Ultimo's English translation does this a lot. They basically removed all of Rune's lines about his love for Yamato ("Yamato... is mine") and changed them to lines that don't even make sense ("Yamato... different?"). Also, they put digital bikinis on everybody when they go into Icon Mode with the doji, making some of the scenes more awkward.
    • Karakuridouji Ultimo is actually a bizarre example of this trope. They removed EVERY curseword including crap, and toned down some violence (not in the volumes though). But some of the more suggestive jokes were left in. Some pretty distubing stuff, like a doji being molested on panel was not even touched, nor was K's comments about Sayama. As for Rune, chapter 10 was censored a fair amount, but in the next chapter he asks Yamato to marry him anyway. Hell, they even turned a completly innocent line of his into a rather suggestive one. There will probaly be even less censorship as the series is starting to get Darker and Edgier bit by bit.
  • Rave Master removes some partial nudity (as well as talk about breasts and panties), a scene of light groping, and casinos are changed to "arcades" (though in one of Elie's flashbacks, they don't really hide that her Dad bet on horseraces). Also an actual bomb planted on a train was dubbed as a "stink bomb". Besides that, everything was pretty much untouched, even Haru Glory dicing up a horde of monsters (helped that they had black blood).
  • Great Teacher Onizuka has relatively little of this in the dub, but one amusing example: When Tomoko is filming a commercial for daikon ("radishes" in the dub), the original tagline "It's thick...and huge" becomes "I love you, radish."
  • Outlaw Star, besides the aforementioned digital bikinis, also had a number of censored moments during its US TV broadcast. Some of the bigger ones include Gene's non-Caster Gun guns being labeled as blasters despite the fact that you hear gunshots and, in one particular scene, Gene's companion Jim touches him on the side and pulls back, freaking out when he finds blood on his hand. The Cartoon Network version had the blood removed so Jim's reaction goes from freaking out over Gene being wounded to freaking out over him having a hand (it should also be noted that when the episode that had this scene first aired, the censors didn't edit out Jim saying, "What the hell is this?" before freaking out). As with nearly every other non-4Kids show on this list, the DVD episodes for Outlaw Star are completely uncut.
    • Other alterations include:
      • Fred Luo's amorous advances on Gene and Jim (and some references to Fred being attracted to Gene).
      • References to Twilight Suzuka as an assassin were more censored than Fred Luo's homosexual attraction to Gene (a website called Anime News Network has noticed this).
      • Hot Ice Hilda's suicide by tooth bomb/cyanide tablet was removed, making it look like she committed suicide by falling into Farfallas's sun and taking the creepy child demon with her (the flashback to Hot Ice Hilda's death also edited it this way). How that's an improvement is anyone's guess. She still killed herself -- what does it matter if it was by detonating a bomb or letting herself fall into a hot, gaseous star?
      • Gene's line "she's nuts to get naked" (referring to Melfina getting in the Outlaw Star) changed to "she's nuts to get wet." Yet another example of a line that still carries questionable connotations even with Bowdlerization.
      • A poker game in an early episode was changed to "go fish."
      • Jim's suggestion that Gene sell his body to pay off a bill was changed to selling his car (which is ridiculous, as the Ehefrau is the only car Gene and Jim have and it belongs to Jim)
      • "Space cherry" was changed to "space rookie," and instead of "losing it," you either "are a space rookie" or you're not.
  • A surprisingly well-done example of Bowdlerization is School Rumble, when depictions of underage drinking in the manga were removed in the anime. The lost gags were replaced with new ones that generally worked just as well and were not at all awkward, so unless you'd already read the manga, you'd have no idea any "censorship" occurred at all.
  • In the anime version of Death Note, Misa's cross necklace is replaced with a fleur de lis, and all crosses worn by Mello are removed. Interestingly, the Misa collector's figure included with volume 5 of the DVD series retains the cross, and she is also depicted with it the anime's first opening.
  • In a case where the network, studio, or licensee has taken great pains to bowdlerize an entire anime series and all of its episodes, Animax-South East Asia actually had all Beelzebub episodes edited for re-broadcast in the region with totally naked titular character Baby Beel wearing a diaper.
  • The Wandering Son anime removed Fumiya smoking. Justified in that Fumiya couldn't have been any older than 15 at the time of that scene.
  • While most anime are uncut it most Asian regions, Korea's Berry Berry Mew Mew had a fair amount of bowderlization. To aim it towards an audience of five year old girls, a lot of bowderlization was done. In some scenes, Kisshyu's pants are raised up to keep his stomach lines from showing and the blood on him was removed in episode 39. All close up, onscreen human kissing was cut out but it was still said by the characters that Kisshyu stole Berry's first kiss and that she has to get kissed to turn into a cat and back, so kissing wasn't totally taken away from the show. The Chimera Anima in episode 51 was also edited slightly to keep its breast lines from showing. Despite that, all the death and dark tones of the 2nd half of the series were kept in. Also, the Insert Songs were changed. For example, Glider became the Opening Theme to The Fantasy Game.
  • Spanish dubbing studio Luk Internacional is heading into this territory with their Crayon Shin-chan and Kochikame dubs. No, the sexual stuff is intact. However, they sometimes seem to have a 4kids-level dislike of Japanese culture and like to hide it whenever possible. Two Egregious examples: In Crayon Shin-chan, Masao's nickname of "Riceball Head" is changed to "Onion Head", which would normally count as a Woolseyism except they even do it when obvious visual references to riceballs are shown. Even worse was an episode of Kochikame about the Hanami festival. Not only they kept referring to it as a "picnic" and nothing more, something they did in Crayon Shin-chan twice beforehand, they called the cherry blossom trees almond trees, for no reason unless they absolutely needed to hide that little bit of Japanese culture. To be fair, this seems to be depending on the translator, as they can go the opposite route at times too, but when they do this, they do it bad.
  • A pair of Japanese TV networks refused to air the controversial anime Kodomo No Jikan. Those that did present the show only did so with massive amounts of censorship, to the point of it being nearly unwatchable. Sections of, or occasionally the entire screen would be blocked by a colorful square with an image of the main character turning the logo with her feet. And it would stay up for a while, while the viewer has absolutely no clue as to what is happening. At all. In fact, it was almost like watching nothing but that colorful background with Rin turning the logo, with audio that was almost entirely like "So they [beep] and then [beep] with [beep] and [beep beep] over with the [beep] next to a [beep] in a [beep] and [beep beep beeeeeeeeep]." One wonders why they bothered.
  1. ↑ "ARK was falling?" What's ARK? What was falling down?
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