Thanks, Photoshop, we needed you!
If you’ve watched anime enough, you know what “Steam Girls” are, even if you haven’t heard the term before. “Steam Girls” refers to a time-honored anime tradition: in the obligatory “onsen episode,” the animators show a bunch of naked girls in a bath house, but cover their naughty bits with artfully placed bands of steam to avoid the wrath of the TV censors. Full Metal Panic? Fumoffu has perhaps the most hilarious variation on this decades-old workaround, doing visual gymnastics with everything from butterflies to rubber duckies to keep the viewer from seeing anything truly indecent.
In recent years, advertising revenues have plummeted, and DVD sales have become more and more important to the success or failure of a TV series. Accordingly, the focus of steam censorship has shifted away from making the show fit for TV, and has become a way of telling pervy fans “Buy the show on DVD and we’ll take this digital steam away for your viewing pleasure!” This season, the censorship has hit new heights (or new lows, depending on who you talk to) with the shows Omamori Himari, Seikon no Qwaser, and Ladies versus Butlers!
This week’s episodes of Omamori Himari and Ladies versus Butlers were especially butchered, with giant ham-fisted white splotches all over the screen (see above – other sites have more screen caps, or you can see it yourself on Crunchyroll) that basically scream “I am a crippled version of this show!”
Do you think it’s smart business, or does it just annoy you these days?
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