CAA: Christian Anime Alliance

When companies translate manga into english, do they edit them? A friend of mine says the Rorouni Kenshin is probably edited for content... But they musy have done a god job at it, or something... Help?

It honestly depends on the company, I think. For example, the original Ghost in the Shell manga had a six page sex scene that was removed when it was translated to English, because it really added nothing to the storyline and would have probably lowered sales of the manga, since they wouldn't be able to market it to as wide of an audience.

That was a very long sentence.

I've been on the internet and seen how they edited the Pokemon manga as well (the realistic one, not the cartoony one), by changing Misty's barely-there swimsuit to a black full-body suit, and placing speech balloons in convenient locations so as to cover up certain revealing scenes, toning down language...etc. etc., in an effort to keep it kid-friendly.

As I said, it probably depends on the company and who they're trying to market the series to.

Pokemon was edited! Wowsers! Nothing's sacred!

I know from my previous experience as a DBZ fan that the manga was edited by Vis because of complaining parents. Because they got complaints on language and violence, they had the choice of kicking it up to a "Teen" rating and having a smaller audience or editing it and keeping it "All Ages". Needless to say, they took the one that brought them more money. Strangely, Dragonball was unedited.

Warrior 4 Jesus wrote:Pokemon was edited! Wowsers! Nothing's sacred!

Actually, this fact has been mentioned on the site before, but the guy who did the "realistic" manga for Pokemon (whose name escapes me) ended up being fired, and the series was left uncompleted because they didn't like how he drew certain stuff, and I'll leave it at that.

Can you point me to the article please?

Warrior 4 Jesus wrote:Can you point me to the article please?

I won't post a link to an article here (rules, y'know), but I will place a quote from a website that talks about it. If you type in Pokemon manga and Toshihiro Ono (on google), you should find some info.

"From what I understand, it was actually Viz/NoA who made Toshihiro Ono stop making the manga, and it was because of child pornography-type reasons. I remember reading somewhere that he would have liked to continue and have the gang going through the Jouto region, but it seems like he was forced to stop because of pressure from Nintendo/Viz."

I saw some of the manga pages that were cut out from the American release, and um...yeah. That's all I have to say about that. It's a shame, as the art style was excellent, the storyline was much better than the anime, the video games, or any of the other manga. Just that there was too much nudity and perverse humor (boo), and if he'd stopped it, we could've enjoyed that manga series for years to come. *Sighs*

Okay, fair enough. Thanks!

It probably depends alot on the age bracket that the manga company thinks the particular title will be marketed to. The younger the age bracket the more likely that there will be editting.

But, honestly, I wouldn't pull your hair out over it.

Most manga (including Rurouni Kenshin) has not been edited.
Most of the manga that are edited is the stuff that is tied to shows geared towards kids in the US.
Granted, there isn't really that much editing done anymore, although several of the Shonen Jump titles were edited as of late.

No doubt lots of Manga has been edited, I wouldn't be suprised at least.
If your going to edit anime, your probably going to edit manga too.