Again, anime is a medium that can appeal to all genders and all ages. Pokémon still thrives for kids—and sometimes adults—as well as more heartwarming series like Komi Can’t Communicate. Yet, some of us more mature-orientated anime fans want our full-blown nudity and oppai without any form of censorship. An anime we expected to deliver that was supposed to be the ecchi/harem ultimate series, World’s End Harem…went into heavy censorship levels and became the most talked-about anime of 2022…for the wrong reasons.

As many streaming services allow different versions to be watched—like HDIVE—the oppai blocking pain seen in World’s End Harem was unnecessary. Not only is the censoring so invasive—it can at times block entire scenes—but it degrades the entire concept seen from the original source material. The manga for World’s End Harem was meant to be a fantasy of one man left in the world now being loved by all women to restart the world but it became a joke to see some girls in the show be so heavily censored they are almost walking black bars! This is a prime example of censorship being so detrimental to an anime that it begs the question…why?

There are some anime that many fans were genuinely surprised that had such censored imagery. Tokyo Ghoul was extremely censored with bloody scenes being replaced with giant black shadows that just ruined the atmosphere of the series. They also had a few vicious fights—some of the best from the manga—replaced with giant multi-colored mosaic images to prevent blood bath moments. Adults already know what blood looks like—probably from cutting ourselves on manga ends/pages or opening a new FIGMA box—so this level of censoring just seems silly.

Western audiences might think we’re the only ones who get heavy censorship in anime but that is far from the truth. Most recently, China censored one of the best anime of 2021 in the form of Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid Season 2. Here, one of the newcomers, Ilulu, had her bust so reduced that it made her loli design actually make sense! Her giant oppai—which are extremely large if we’re being honest—were basically completely removed and even her dress was altered to avoid showing her pantsu! 2021 and 2022 weren’t kind to ecchi fans in the anime community, we can feel the pain worldwide and not just in one particular country.

Will We Ever Seen A Day again, where All Anime is Uncensored?
Okay, digressing from our mature nature for a moment we have to remember that censorship in anime isn’t just to hurt us anime viewers but to protect younger audiences. There are times when censoring anime is absolutely ridiculous—as we noted above—but some anime being censored or at least offering a more PG experience isn’t such a bad thing. That’s why there will never be a day where all anime is uncensored…but we can always hope, right?