Forum - View topicINTEREST: Remembering the U.S. Censorship of Electric Tales of Pikachu Over 20 Years Later
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yurigasaki
Posts: 193 |
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I had a single volume of this when I was very young and never revisited it as an adult so I had no idea how incredibly horny it was until just now
 that's gonna be a yikes from me, y'all!
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Whitestrider
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It's almost comical how much they censored some works...Remember Blue Dragon? Some people are really afraid of boobs...
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Ggultra2764
 Subscriber Posts: 3979 Location: New York state. |
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Yeah, recall hearing how unusually saucy this manga was in spite of Pokemon being aimed for family audiences. The mangaka for Electric Tale of Pikachu, Toshihiro Ono, was known for creating hentai manga titles under a pseudonym. That probably explains why female characters like Misty and Jesse were far more, er... developed in their bodily proportions compared to other Pokemon media depictions of the characters.
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Raven.In.Pink
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If it was any other franchise, I’d agree. Some people’s negativity towards big breasts in anime borders on overreaction... But In this case, I understand why. Pokémon is marketed towards young children and maybe it’s puritanical, but not many adults appreciate the thought of their kids reading Pokémon and then seeing that it has spicy material. Heck, I was at least 9 when I read Electric Tales. I’m sure that if it was uncensored, my mom would’ve burned the book if she caught a glimpse of 12 year old Misty’s original swimsuit. |
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Heishi
 Posts: 1357 |
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I believe this artist drew the art for this one yuri manga centered around wrestling. For some reason, that one was never finished. Don't know why. |
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TsukasaElkKite
 Posts: 4032 |
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As an adult, I’m still stunned that this was even allowed to be published at all.
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animefan57892
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As far as I am concerned, those content (such as 5 tweet's images) is quite ordinary for children to read. I think it's more like those parents don't teach their kids about proper sex knowledge or they think children are too young to know that. From my perspective, children are not stupid, they just need someone to teach them properly or kids find out these knowledge by themselves through various ways (hey, even wikipedia's entry 'virgina' has an "improper" image for children, i guess for those parents children should can only access censored internet). |
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harminia
 Posts: 2064 Location: australia |
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I had some of the little magazine style releases of this where it'd have like 2 or so chapters each release. (Is that the single comic book issue? I don't know the terminology for them).
I'm pretty sure mine was uncensored though as I recall May having big pointy boobs. When I first learned the artist was a hentai artist I was kinda like ?!!! but in retrospect it was pretty obvious. It was a weird choice getting a hentai artist to draw an official Pokemon comic and not rein him in over it, but I enjoyed the comics. They were really fun and had silly expressions that appealed to tween me. |
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Ushio
Posts: 636 |
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How are woman being shown to have breasts above a-cup being saucy? I can understand the Misty swim suit but just woman characters having breasts? We aren't talking topless shots. |
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taishou*
 Posts: 129 |
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Looking back, I'm surprised at how racy it was considering it ran in Corocoro.
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harminia
Posts: 2064 Location: australia |
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idk, Corocoro like to play it loose to me. There's been stuff in Corocoro that I know would be absolutely rioted about in western media. Maybe Corocoro back then was a bit different though, not sure. |
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ZelosZoidberg
 Posts: 748 |
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Raven.In.Pink
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I agree. Again, I see nothing wrong with big breasts in general. It isn’t even the breasts that are an issue for me, rather it’s the blatant sexual portrayal of certain characters like Misty. In any other franchise it’s not a problem, but if I were I parent I would definitely be concerned if I saw it in Pokémon- a franchise I would trust to be safe. I also agree with animefan57892 that kids are not stupid and that most find out about hardcore anime fan service by the time they’re in middle school (I sure did.) But it’s still a case where my position in censorship is somewhat torn because I’m normally against it, but in this case, from a caretaker’s POV, I kinda get why they had to. Probably the most responsible thing would’ve been to keep the manga uncensored but market it as a manga for teens and up. |
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Florete
Posts: 386 |
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This manga is way more than just "women have breasts above a-cup." It's pretty heavily sexualized, especially considering it's Pokemon of all things. Like Raven.In.Pink, I'm strongly against censorship, but even I raised an eyebrow when I found out about this manga. |
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El Hermano
 Posts: 450 Location: Texas |
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People these days might forget Pokemon was a lot more in tune with it's Japanese roots for the first 5 or so generations before it started focusing on global and international markets. The early anime of course had characters like Kasumi and Takeshi who both had gimmicks in tune with their tropey anime archetypes. Takeshi meeting girls and asking them if they're 18 yet and if they say no he'll come back for them later. Numerous Kasumi fanservice scenes and her always introducing herself as a sexy young girl. Naturally these were eliminated and toned down in the English dub as well, but I'm sure people at least know about the various banned episodes like the beach one. The manga were no exception, in addition to this one, the most famous manga had a gag where Red would constantly get his pants pulled down and his Pippi/Clefairy grabbing his testicles and squeezing them. Juvenile humor in Japan, but obviously drawing genitalia in a kids comic in the west is a huge no-no.
Pokemon is pretty much a global/western franchise now. They even changed to the American logo in Japan years back to match the global one. It's unlikely it'll ever go back to its Japanese roots. Even the high market figurines of the female trainers are pretty tame and have shorts on under their skirt which is usually unheard of for otaku figures. Same with the gacha game, Masters, not having sexualized art or skins that is typical of the gacha genre. I think the anime phased out Team Rocket crossdressing these days as well, although I haven't watched the newest series. |
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