Reconstruction 8.2 (2008)

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Not just for children's television: Anime and the changing editing practices of American television networks / Laurie Cubbison

 

<1> Each fall season brings a new set of cartoons to children's television, and over the past several years more and more of these cartoons are coming from Japan. While Japanese animation serves as the medium for television series and movies aimed at everyone from very young children to adult men and women, the primary American animation audience is still considered to be young boys, even with the advent of animation blocks aimed at older viewers. As a result, anime that is aired on American television has often been edited in order to appeal to that audience and to keep from offending their parents, with the Standards and Practices office of American television networks serving as the arbiter of American values. However, since the creation of the Adult Swim block by Cartoon Network in 2003 and the decision of other networks to show anime skewed to older audiences, editing of anime has diminished on cable networks, even for series and networks aimed at children. By 2007 anime had been nearly eliminated from traditional over-the-air networks, resulting in a less Americanized and less sanitized presentation of anime to American television viewers.

<2> Children's entertainment is a global industry encompassing television series, movies, toys, comic books, games, and videos, with all of these products closely interconnected through licensing agreements and merchandising tie-ins. At this point, the biggest players are the western media conglomerates – Disney Corporation, TimeWarner, Viacom and News Corporation [1] – and Japanese toy and game companies – Bandai, Sony, Sega and Nintendo. These Japanese toy and game companies are responsible for many of the children's anime series derided by advocacy groups as being little more than program-length commercials. Pokémon, for instance, was developed as a card and video game by Nintendo, and Digimon started out as a digital pet marketed by Bandai. Other anime series originated as manga, or Japanese comics.

<3> These anime series are being repackaged by several US and Canadian companies for English-speaking audiences, companies that include Viz, FUNimation, Nelvana and 4Kids Entertainment. The repackaging process begins with the translation of the series into English and then the dubbing and/or subtitling of the series for distribution through home video or network broadcast. Whether or not a series is altered further depends on whether the company intends to license the series for airing on children's television. [2] If so, the series may be targeted at a different age and gender demographic than it had been in Japan through a restructuring of the narrative to fit the new audience. The production company may also choose to eliminate those aspects of the story - character names, locations, cultural attributes - that identify the series' Japanese origins, recasting them according to North American cultural norms and moral values (particularly in relation to violence, alcohol, smoking, and sexuality). [3]

<4> These North American versions of anime dominate the English-speaking world of children's entertainment. Hiring and recording a cast of dub actors is an expensive proposition, and so the anime companies tend to only make one English version for global distribution. The fact that the North American market is the largest portion of the English-speaking market means that translation and dubbing take on US and Canadian accents (often to the dismay of English-speaking fans elsewhere in the world). In addition, FoxKids and Cartoon Network have international network affiliates, and so the version of a series that has been edited for U.S. is very often the version that airs in Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia. An example of the situation that arises is Escaflowne: produced in Japan, dubbed in Vancouver, British Columbia, edited in the United States, and distributed in the U.S., U.K. and Canada by Bandai's North American subsidiary and aired in the U.S. on the FoxKids block on the Fox channel. Although Escaflowne was canceled in the United States after several episodes, the rest of the edited version continued in Canada and the U.K. Cardcaptors, dubbed by the same Vancouver studio for a Canadian company, Nelvana, was shown in U.K., Canada, and Australia, as well as the United States. [4]

<5> Beyond dubbing and translating, an anime series intended for airing on one of these children's programming networks will receive additional editing under the guidance of the network's American standards and practices department in order to tailor the show to American audiences, a practice referred to as localization. Different networks localize anime series to varying degrees based on the gender and age of the target audience and according to varying network philosophies on localization. Localization consists of four varieties of changes to an existing anime series: demographic shift, Americanization, narrative restructuring and values-based editing.

<6> Studies of children's entertainment and the role of the network Standards and Practices department in children's television, such as the book Saturday Morning Censors by Heather Hendershot, have focused on the relationship between cartoon producers and network censors, but not on the censorship of existing series that are brought to the United States and then edited for a new audience. While Hendershot discusses the fact that American-produced cartoons are often animated in Asia, she does not seem to be aware that some of the programs she discusses, such as Mighty Orbots and Voltron, were Asian in origin, Japanese specifically, and were repackaged for English-speaking audiences. Rather she interprets the Asian names listed in the credits as out-sourced labor for the American animation industry. While many, if not most, American cartoons are out-sourced to Korea for the animation, ignoring the Japanese origin of other cartoons leads to a misunderstanding of the cultural origins of given stories. In addition, studies of children's entertainment, such as Norma Odom Pecora's The Business of Children's Entertainment, tend to overlook the role played by Japanese toy and game companies in producing shows and toys for the world market, seeing Japan as a market for American products rather than producers of programs for export. Much of this misreading of the production history of such shows can be attributed to the extent to which they were localized.

<7> As described by Hendershot and by Maureen Furniss, the usual relationship between producers and network standards departments occurs at the script stage, and Furniss describes the battles between American cartoon producers and their networks during production. Interviews with various American cartoon producers have provided the most information about network policies on acceptable and unacceptable content, since these guidelines are rarely made available outside the networks themselves. In discussing the implications of network censorship for foreign-produced series, Furniss describes the construction of Robotech from three separate anime series in the 1980s by Carl Macek:

In modifying the episodes, Macek stresses that his intention was to 'adapt' rather than 'translate' the series. He says he considered the cultural significance of the product in relation to its new audience, as well as the original language of the production, but he was interested in 'the soul of the work' rather than what each character said literally. (206)

Furniss reports that Macek's mandate from NBC was to eliminate blood from violent scenes although she cites an analysis of the series by Anthony Beal that argues that Macek's edits actually serve to heighten the violence because even though the most violent scenes were removed, so were other less-action oriented scenes that served to balance the violence in the original (207). I will return to this issue of the unintended consequences of editing standards when I address the role of the v-chip in permitting a looser standard of editing.

 

Editing for a New Audience: Boys, six to eleven years old

<8> One way in which anime may be repackaged in the west is through a demographic shift in the target audience of the show. Because of the toy market, young boys are considered to be the principal cartoon audience in the United States. In order to lure advertisers, programs are targeted at this audience, which can create difficulties when a Japanese series aimed at a different demographic is licensed for airing on a U.S. network. The Japanese audience for animated series is much broader, including girls as well as boys, as well as a broader age range, from pre-school to adult. Shows that are chosen for U.S. broadcast because of their proven popularity in Japan, regardless of their intended demographic, have often been shifted to a different audience in the west. For instance, Escaflowne, an adventure serial featuring a 15-year-old girl and boy as the main characters, and intended to appeal to an adolescent audience of both girls and boys, was edited in such a way as to de-emphasize the main female character and the more romantic parts of the narrative so as not to alienate young boys. Thus, the new target audience was not only more male than female, but also younger than the Japanese target audience.

<9> A similar demographic shift undergone by Cardcaptor Sakura in its transformation to Cardcaptors resulted in the most drastic repackaging of any of the recent anime series airing on U.S. television. In its Japanese incarnation, Cardcaptor Sakura tells the story of a 10-year-old girl – Kinamoto Sakura – who discovers that she must use her magical powers to capture magical cards that have escaped to create havoc in her community. Intended for girls of the same age as its heroine, the show is very "cute" and very girly, although with a good bit of action. In the eighth episode she acquires a male rival, Li Syaoron, who is also seeking to capture the cards and take advantage of their power. As the two capture cards, the powers of those cards are then available for use in capturing other cards. The demographic shift to include an audience of boys as well as girls prompted KidsWB to raise Syaoron's status within the narrative through several moves, most notably the elimination of the first seven episodes which preceded his entry into the story, the elimination of romantic elements (although several of these almost certainly disappeared in values-based editing as well), and the elimination of other "girly" episodes later in the series.

<10> In discussing the role of narrative restructuring on Escaflowne and Cardcaptors, it is necessary to point out a significant difference between anime and traditional American televised cartoons. Most American cartoon shows use an episodic structure for their narratives, with each episode being the equivalent of a short story using a certain cast of characters. For example, Cartoon Network's homegrown series, such as Powerpuff Girls and Codename: Kids Next Door, among others, consist of half hour programs that may tell one or two self-contained stories that do not carry a narrative arc across episodes. Events that take place in one episode do not continue to influence the story in another, unless the producers decide to make a follow-up story. This narrative structure enables broadcasters to air the episodes in any order. Most anime series, in contrast, use a serial narrative form, with each episode containing events that have implications for future episodes to a greater or lesser degree. Pokémon, while largely episodic in terms of the story structure of each individual program, still maintains the narrative frame of Ash Ketchum traveling from gym to gym for Pokémon battles that will enable him to compete in league tournaments. Meanwhile, other series are novel-like in their structure, taking 50 episodes or more to reach the conclusion, Gundam Wing being an excellent example. Some of the most popular series, such as Dragon Ball Z and Naruto, have episode counts extending into the hundreds, with each new episode building on the existing narrative. One way that American networks tinker with anime series is by restructuring and reducing the serial aspects of the narrative, which is the kind of restructuring received by Cardcaptors and Escaflowne.

<11> The ways in which the narratives of these series were restructured is quite different, even though both made extensive use of flashbacks. Tenku no Escaflowne uses a non-linear narrative structure in order to foreshadow future events. In an interview with Andrew Osmond of Cinescape, Germaine Turner, editor of Escaflowne for FoxKids, pointed out additional reasons for restructuring the narrative of a show being shifted to a younger audience. Hitomi, the female lead, is a magical girl with fortune-telling abilities, and the story addresses the romantic relationships she finds. Van, the male lead, pilots a mecha, a giant mechanical fighting armor common in many anime intended for teenage boys. The series uses foreshadowing and flashbacks through Hitomi's visions of the future. According to Turner, while FoxKids hoped to attract a broader audience with the series, it still needed to be edited for FoxKids's primary demographic: 6-to11-year-old boys. As was the case with Cardcaptors, the female lead was downplayed, and the first episode was deleted, with specific scenes appearing later in the form of flashbacks. Also often appearing later in the form of flashbacks were Hitomi's visions of the future, which were moved from their foreshadowing position in the narrative nearer to the point at which the events occurred. Values-based edits for violence also resulted in changes to the narrative as the editor made up for time cut from one episode by inserting scenes from the next episode. These changes didn't keep the series from being canceled on U.S. television, however.

<12> In contrast, Cardcaptor Sakura uses a very linear narrative structure. Sakura and Syaoron collect magical cards, which they then use to capture new cards in subsequent episodes. When the series was transformed into Cardcaptors, the narrative was restructured in order to eliminate episodes that would not appeal to boys, and the order of the episodes was changed in order to place the more exciting captures early in the series so as to attract and sustain an audience. As a result, the cards were being captured out of order, with flashbacks being constructed by the North American editors to show how a card that was being used in an episode had been captured, even though the episode in which the card had been captured aired later or not all.

<13> Narrative restructuring is not the only way that children's anime may be reversioned for American audiences. Series may also be localized so that viewers may more closely identify with the characters culturally. The three anime series shown primarily on KidsWB (originally on The WB Network and later on CW) are also the ones that underwent the most Americanization: Pokémon, Cardcaptors and Yu-Gi-Oh. Americanization refers to the altering of the characters and setting of an anime series according to social class and ethnic background of the North American target audience. As a result the series loses its Japanese cultural background. The effect is that the series is transformed to more closely match the experiences of a white, middle-class American child. Characters may have their Japanese names changed to those names found in a typical American school. This form of localization was experienced by Cardcaptor Sakura as it became Cardcaptors. All the events of Cardcaptor Sakura take place as magical adventures in the real world, and the show was the most Americanized of the anime series that have appeared on US television since 2000. When Cardcaptors was first announced, Sakura had been renamed Niki, to the howls of anime fans (Surette). As a result of the protests, Sakura retained her given name, but her family name changed from Kinomoto to Avalon, and the names of all the other characters changed to trendy American names.

<14> Not only may the characters be Americanized, but the setting may change from a Japanese community to an Americanized one, as when the town of Tomoeda as the setting for Cardcaptor Sakura was renamed as Reedington in Cardcaptors. However, Americanization may also involve the digital erasure of signs in kanji and kana and their replacement with Roman letters, as well as the removal of scenes and episodes that deal significantly with Japanese culture, particularly those featuring festivals associated with Shinto shrines. Anime series that aired on KidsWB appeared to undergo the most Americanization of children's anime, those on the Cartoon Network the least, and those on the FoxKids block that later moved to the ABC/Disney networks falling somewhere in between.

<15>  Both Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh are localized by 4Kids Entertainment. Pokémon is set in an alternate reality – Pokémon World – which mimics the real world in some aspects, is completely fantastic in others, but also contains episodes that are "steeped in Japanese culture," according to Laurel Graeber, who added, "The American producers go through each episode frame by frame, painting over any Japanese characters. And their work on the scripts goes far beyond translating and dubbing." For instance, Satoshi and Kasumi were renamed Ash and Misty. Graeber cites Norman Grossfeld of 4Kids Productions on changes to personalities of the characters, jokes, and the "'Eastern philosophy of life in the original,'" stated Grossfeld. "'The goals and physical humor of each episode are the same, but word for word we change it'" (qtd. in Graeber). Al Kahn, chief executive officer of 4Kids, said in the Los Angeles Times that:

"We spend a fortune on localization…. [Episodes] are not just dubs, we rewrite them, re-score them, re-storyline them. We want to be sure that it's exactly going to be something that American kids understand and like. We may spend another 50% of what we pay for them [in rights] just to localize them." (Mallory)

This attitude toward the anime that they license has earned 4Kids the disapproval of many anime fans, for whom the authentically Japanese text is more important than the ability of American children to identify with it.

<16> An interesting contrast is the series Digimon, which was produced by Saban Entertainment, first for FoxKids and later for ABC/Disney. The setting of Digimon includes both the real world and a fantastic Digital World, but the real world setting is identified as Tokyo, with a tour of other countries occurring in its second season. The third season takes place in the Shinjuku section of Tokyo, with well-known landmarks on view. For the most part, the names of the Digimon child characters are, if not their original names, fairly close Anglophone equivalents, or else Anglophone nicknames are given that match some aspect of the character's Japanese name, such as Koushiro "Izzy" Izumi and Yamato "Matt" Ishida. The third season of Digimon features a half-Chinese family. In the Americanization of the show, the boy's name was changed from Jenrya Lee to Henry Wong, but his father, who becomes a major character in the series, retains his Chinese name, Janyu. Up until the fourth season, the Digimon licensors made no effort to replace the Japanese text with English text. Indeed Digimon has an international sensibility even in its Japanese version, with Janyu presented as one of an multi-national group of computer programmers who had created the digimon monsters, and Yamato Ishida and his brother eventually identified as having a quarter French ancestry.

<17> Of the range of approaches to localization, Cartoon Network has shown a reluctance to engage in much Americanization for its own sake, although it has aired series that originally appeared on its Time/Warner sister, KidsWB, in their Americanized form. In the Mallory article above that quoted Kahn, Dea Perez of Cartoon Network, was quoted as saying "'We're trying desperately not to [Americanize]….We may tweak a couple of things for American audiences, but we don't want to Americanize the shows at all.'" While some of Cartoon Network's anime, such as Dragon Ball Z, are set in an only vaguely, Earthlike world, many of them, the various Gundam series in particular, already had a global sensibility in their Japanese incarnations, featuring characters of European, Asian and American descent living in space. Even so, the Japanese stereotypes of other nationalities that appear at various points can be jarring to westerners, and so some of Cartoon Network's Americanization downplays certain ethnic stereotypes considered offensive in the United States. Cartoon Network thus demonstrates a commitment to cultural awareness that does not assume a white American norm.

<18> Over time, not only did Cartoon Network choose not to erase the Japanese content from the series it aired, but it also chose to air series explicitly rooted in Japanese culture. Rurouni Kenshin, for instance, was set during the early years of the Meiji era of Japanese history and featured characters coping with the cultural upheaval following the end of the samurai era. Similarly, in 2005, the network began airing Naruto, an immensely popular anime featuring ninjas, during its Toonami block, not only retaining the Japanese cultural elements of the series, but also its Japanese language opening songs.

<19>  While Cartoon Network does not Americanize its anime ethnically, it does edit to accommodate American moral values, such as the downplaying of ethnic stereotypes mentioned above. In discussing values-based edits, I'm referring primarily to edits of material that considered inappropriate for American children's television, such as references to alcohol and cigarettes as well as to sex and violence, as determined by governmental agencies and advocacy groups. Kyle Pope has tracked edits for animenewsnetwork.com, comparing televised versions on Cartoon Networks with the uncut, subtitled DVD version of various series. In 2002, he interviewed Jason Demarco Sr., writer and producer for Cartoon Network's Toonami block, the network's first block of anime. According to Demarco, value-based edits for Toonami shows include:

Alcohol consumption (directly), Gambling (directly), abuse of minors, blood from any major wound, language (obviously, this includes "kill" and references to God, as well as the whole spectrum of "swear" words), and - here's where it gets tricky - "situations considered too brutal or intense for younger viewers".

Additionally, smoking is also prohibited, as are implied female nudity, sexual references, and religious references. Interestingly, the example of Naruto seems to indicate a loosening of these rules. One of the adult characters is described as a gambling addict, while other adults mention alcohol consumption, with younger characters careful to state that they're too young to drink. Certain key scenes involving dripping blood were also retained, although other scenes have seen a significant reduction in blood. According to Demarco,

Being a big fan of Tenchi [Muyo], I wanted to preserve scenes we would otherwise have to cut out of the series. I also felt that cutting out all of the nudity would leave us with a story that is total gobbledygook. This involved painting on bikinis, painting out blood, re-editing for time (hated that), and having new voice over read. That required gathering all of the actors who hadn't worked on that show in quite a while, going through every single script, and then making necessary changes.

Such edits often involve cultural differences between Japan and the United States over such practices as bathing in an onsen, or hot spring, so that even implied nudity is forbidden, according to Demarco:

Well, as you know the majority of our audience is boys 9-14, but we still have a great deal of children 6-11 watching every day. This being the case, even implied nudity - i.e., two ladies talking to one another with nothing but towels on - has to be toned down. It may seem silly to you, but the parents of younger children really demand this sort of thing.

Failure to make values-based edits may have consequences for the network airing a program, as Demarco explains:

Any direct references to religion, especially juxtaposed with violence, sexuality or hypocrisy, is not allowed. Here's an example: in Tenchi Universe, there is an episode where Ryoko goes to a slot machine. In the unedited version, there were Stars of David on the machine (!). We didn't notice this, and when it aired we had several people calling to complain and even threatening to sue.

Although anime fans such as those represented by Kyle Pope resent such edits as detracting from the artistic integrity of the anime series, the network executives who air the shows are forced to be conscious of not only the target audience, but also the concerns of parents.

<20> Of the networks airing anime on U.S. television, Cartoon Network not only is the one most likely to engage only in values-based edits, but it is also the one pursuing an older audience than the 6-to-11-year-old age group. According to Dea Perez, Cartoon Network's vice president of programming, "the network is cognizant that [anime] attracts older viewers. 'Anime programming has a much broader appeal than many of our shows. It's more sophisticated by nature,' she said. 'It's rooted in myths and legends'" (qtd. in Reynolds).

<21> Some of the differences between Cartoon Network's editing practices and those of children's entertainment companies such as 4Kids Entertainment and Nelvana Inc., which package programs for Saturday morning television, may be tied to the V-Chip rating system developed as a result of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The rating system was designed to work with V-chip technology within television sets that would block viewers from accessing programs above a certain rating. The rating system was intended to rate programs according to target age groups, and eventually additional ratings for types of content were included. The rating for each show now appears in the top left corner of the screen as the show begins:

• TV-Y – appropriate for all children

• TV-Y7 – appropriate for older children (at or over the age of seven years old)

• TV-G – appropriate for general audiences

• TV-PG – "parental guidance suggested"

• TV-14 – intended for teen and adult audiences

• TV-MA – "for mature audiences only" due to sexuality, language or violence

According to Joanne Cantor, content ratings include D for sexual dialogue, V for violence, L for language, and S for sexuality. Violence is further described with FV, for fantasy violence that cannot be imitated by young children. The rating system grew out of a demand that parents be able to control their children's viewing, with particular concern for exposure to violence (Kirsh, Singer and Singer).

<22> Initially, concerns over violence on children's television were limited to acts of aggression, but over time increasing attention has been given to the contextual factors surrounding the violent act within the narrative and the degree to which those factors may encourage or discourage aggressive behavior by young viewers. Wilson et al. identified eight such factors, which they then used to analyze children's programming. These factors include:

1. The perpetrator of the act of violence as either a hero or a villain

2. The reason for the act

3. The use of weapons, particularly guns and knives

4. The extent or graphic nature of the violent act

5. The realism with which the violence is depicted

6. The consequences for the perpetrator in terms of reward and/or punishment

7. The consequences of the violence for the victim

8. The level of humor associated with the violent act (Wilson et al, 10-11)

In conducting the study, Wilson et al. coded the suffering of the victim shown in the program versus the "'likely harm,' or the amount of injury and damage that would result from the same violent act had it occurred in real life" (16-17). Wilson et al. concluded that

across several measures, children's shows are less likely than other types of programming to portray the serious consequences of violence. For example, a higher proportion of violent incidents in children's programs involve victims who experience no physical harm or pain. In addition, two out of three violent incidents in children's shows depict an unrealistically low level of harm compared to what would happen in real life if such violence were to occur. (28)

Wilson et al. view the sanitization of violence in children's television as problematic, since the depiction of the negative consequences to victims has been shown to discourage aggressive behavior in child viewers. This acknowledgement of the role of contextual factors surrounding televised violence opens the door for a more nuanced view of violent content in anime, which is often both more violent and less sanitized than in North American children's programming.

<23> The V-chip ratings received by children's television programming range from TV-Y for programs aimed at pre-school aged children to TV-Y7 for shows aimed at elementary school aged children and TV-PG for adolescents. Saturday morning programs that appear on traditional broadcast networks are generally rated either TV-Y or TV-Y7, with an occasional adjustment to TV-Y7-FV. My unscientific study of the V-chip ratings received by both American and Japanese animation that aired on Saturday mornings leads to this conclusion. [5] The demographic distinction between the ratings becomes significant when one takes a closer look at Cartoon Network's approach to editing anime.

<24> Cartoon Network first began pursuing an older audience of anime fans by presenting Gundam Wing in two versions. Gundam Wing, a series telling the story of an ongoing war and the roles played by five 15-year-old mecha pilots, required minimal editing to meet Toonami's TV-Y7 standard, the primary edits being references to death. For example, one pilot who nicknamed himself the God of Death was re-nicknamed as the Great Destroyer, with "destroy" being a standard euphemism for "kill" in edited anime. The TV-Y7-FV edited version ran in Toonami's afternoon block (which extended from 4 pm until 7 pm at the time). As the dubbed but unedited version was being prepared for home video release, Cartoon Network began running the unedited version in its midnight time slot with a TV-PG rating for those episodes which contained language referring to death or mentions of hell. Because Gundam Wing's violence took place between fighter pilots operating giant military hardware rather than hand-to-hand combat between individuals, its violence rating was typically FV.

<25> Response to the "Midnight Run" airing of Gundam Wing was so positive from older fans that the network began developing the Adult Swim block in 2001, a block of anime and American cartoons that were intended for an adult audience and edited to a TV-14 standard, with disclaimers posted to warn parents that the programs in the Adult Swim block were not intended for young children. Cowboy Bebop was the first adult anime added to the line-up. The block was so successful that an additional night was added, dividing the block into two: Adult Swim Comedy, consisting of American cartoons such as Space Ghost Coast to Coast and Baby Blues, and Adult Swim Action, consisting of Japanese anime. However, at the time that the network moved to add the action block, it had several already edited series waiting to be added to the Toonami block. Those series, with their Toonami-level edits, were added to the Adult Swim Action block instead, leading many anime fans to wonder how serious the network actually was about presenting un-edited anime.

<26> As the block has matured, however, the Toonami series were replaced by series licensed and edited specifically for Adult Swim. Eventually, the Adult Swim block expanded to include a Monday-Thursday overnight block, adding Friday overnights in June of 2007. By 2007, the block had revived the Fox series Family Guy and Futurama, animated Aaron MacGruder's comic strip The Boondocks, and provided a home for a number of other animated programs aimed at the 18-34-year-old male, as opposed to the prized 6-11-year-old male of the children's market. The usual rating for series on Adult Swim is TV-14, with the comedy shows typically receiving DL descriptors for dialogue and language, and the anime receiving the V descriptor. Adult Swim also airs shows with a TV-MA rating, however. The Boondocks, for instance, was generally rated TV-MA for its language.

<27> The success of "Midnight Run" and TG-PG-rated anime for Toonami also paved the way for Cartoon Network to shift the Toonami block to target the 9-14-year-old block of tween boys. When the 9-14-year-old "tween" demographic emerged as a force within children's television programming, the term was used in reference to the Disney Channel's live-action situation comedies appealing to girls in this age group; however, the category allows for an animation audience between the 6-11-year-old audience of the Saturday morning cartoon and the 18-34-year-old audience of Adult Swim - the evolving audience for Cartoon Network's Toonami.

<28> One of the most popular anime with male tweens is Naruto, a series about young ninjas in training, which began airing on Cartoon Network in 2005 with a rating of TV-PG as well as D or V descriptors depending on the content of a given episode. Naruto provided the clearest evidence that Cartoon Network's attitude toward editing has changed, and its success challenged the practices carried out by companies such as 4Kids and Nelvana. Distributed in English by VIZ Media LLC, which is owned by ShoPro Japan, the series is one of a number of anime based on comics published in the Japanese periodical Shonen Jump, aimed at 9-14-year-old boys. The series retains this demographic on Cartoon Network by virtue of the TV-PG rating, a rating that allows the network not to edit it to a TV-Y7 rating for the 6-11-year-old market. Nor is the series Americanized. Not only is it "steeped in Japanese culture" but it also retains its Japanese language opening songs. [6]

<29> Naruto is also the most violent series to appear on the Toonami block. Many of the 12-year-old characters have suffered tragic childhoods, and the effect of their histories on their current selves is explored in full. Characters die and some of the younger characters are badly injured in bloody battles that could not be shown with a TV-Y7 rating. Indeed, the level of violence would have kept the series off children's television only a few years before. But unlike the series studied by Wilson et al., the negative effects of those battles are not sanitized, as evidenced by the fight between Rock Lee and Gaara. In this fight, which takes place during a tournament-style exam, Rock Lee is so badly injured that his dream of becoming a ninja may be over. Over the course of the following episodes he is shown to be recovering very slowly, and events a month later in the narrative show him not only still on crutches but also suffering from envy and despair as his rivals surpass him. Another brutal fight in this tournament, in which Neji defeats his female cousin Hinata, serves to motivate the title character Naruto in his own later fight with Neji. Thus, although the violence of the scenes that lead to devastating injuries for Rock Lee and Hinata may be likely to dismay adult viewers unused to such scenes in children's programming, the consequences may leave young viewers with a more profound sense of the damage done.

<30> While Naruto is less edited than past shows, it is still edited to a degree, with the most common edits involving flowing blood and lit cigarettes. However, one of the few major edits in Naruto features the alteration of a crucifixion-like scene, transforming a cross into a board, even though the character involved retains a crucificial posture. Voice actor Crispin Freeman, who plays the character Itachi on Naruto as well as many other characters on anime airing on Cartoon Network, reported that

As far as Naruto goes, we did two different dubs of the scene. One where Kakashi is screaming in horrible pain while he's being strung up on a cross shaped board. That's obviously for the DVD. The broadcast version had him strung up on a rectangular board and making much smaller, less blood-curdling screams as he gets stabbed... over... and over...

Freeman describes two key changes to the scene: the change from a crucifixion image to a less religiously loaded image and the diminished reaction of the character to being tortured. The edit of the religious reference, as mentioned by DeMarco, signifies one of the few kinds of values-based edits to continue on Cartoon Network - the alteration or elimination of images that suggest a visual reference to a specific religion. Just as intriguing is the difference in the voice acting of the scene, as Freeman describes it. A scene that once might have been cut altogether is retained but voiced in a manner that lessens its intensity.

<31> Freeman's reference to the DVD release points up an additional factor with regard to anime on network television. Whether or not the networks themselves are paying attention to the fandom, the production companies that localize anime series for the networks are being forced to offer uncut versions of their series on home video in order to satisfy the fan community. Usually the series for younger children are not marketed to anime fans. For instance, Pokémon and Digimon were only offered on video in their localized forms. Objections to the Americanization of Cardcaptors were so strong, however, that Nelvana and its distributor Pioneer [7] were compelled to release subtitled-only VHS and DVD versions of Cardcaptor Sakura as well as VHS and DVD versions of Cardcaptors. Incidently, the home video release of the localized Cardcaptors was suspended prior to finishing the series because of poor sales. The cancellation of the Cardcaptors video release points up the relative purchasing power of anime fans as compared to children and their parents. Anime fans approach their hobby with a collector's mentality, investing a great deal of money in collecting their favorite series, so long as the release satisfies their criteria for authenticity (Cubbison). Naruto's DVD release was also handled in a manner to distinguish between the edited release and the unedited release. The edited versions are sold as individual DVDs, while the unedited versions are sold in box sets designed to appeal to the older, more devoted fans. American anime distributors are thus placed in an awkward position if they try to market their shows as children's television: License the series to the networks, have them edited (sometimes drastically) by Standards and Practices to suit American parental advocacy groups and then alienate the purist-minded anime fans who actually purchase the resulting videos.

<32> The fate of One Piece exemplifies this situation. A series about a happy-go-lucky pirate crew, One Piece is a popular anime with a very vocal following. One Piece was licensed by anime fans' most hated distributor: 4Kids Entertainment, Inc. for its Saturday morning Fox Box beginning in 2004 ("One Piece to Debut") and was later added to the Toonami block. According to popular culture news site ICv2, "While the pirate-themed One Piece could be seen as suitable fodder for Saturday morning viewers, the series has elements of humor (and violence) that could make it a major hit with the slightly older anime fans who watch the Cartoon Network's Toonami block" ("One Piece on Toonami"). By late 2005, ICv2 was reporting on the fan anger over the Saturday morning level edits being applied to One Piece:

One Piece is one of the most popular anime (and manga) series in Japan, but the series, in its original form, is more teen-oriented, while the 4Kids' adaptation targets a much younger Saturday morning demographic, resulting in numerous cut from the original Japanese series. The cuts have angered the hardcore U.S. anime community - and the American version of One Piece has never begun to approach the success the series enjoys in Japan. ("One Piece Returns")

The lack of success was due to the highly vocal campaign against 4Kids' adaptation by the fans, criticizing everything from the edits to the choice of voice actors and the altering of the series' music. By December 2006, 4Kids had surrendered, announcing that it was no longer adapting the series ("4Kids White"). Four months later, FUNimation announced that it had acquired the series. As one of the major anime distributors, FUNimation pledged a different approach: a lightly edited airing on Cartoon Network, a new cast, and a full unedited DVD release ("One Piece on Cartoon Network"). In an interview with Rob Bricken of animeOnline, Ltd., Justin Cook, production manager for FUNimation, explained that the series would still be required to follow editing standards for smoking and alcohol as well as violence: "'We're looking for ways to change it as little as possible to cause the least amount of interruption. We have to edit out some things to get it on TV, but we're going to make up for that by giving the audience the most we can with the acting'" (Bricken). Thus, the last heavily edited series found a home outside children's television.

<33> By 2007, only two anime series remained on Saturday morning television in the United States - 4Kids' Sonic X and Yu-Gi-Oh!- - and anime on children's television was limited to Cartoon Network and the Jetix block of Toon Disney. However, during the same period anime increased on networks aimed at older audiences, receiving V-chip ratings to match. This change in the marketing of anime by television networks indicates a recognition by the networks and by anime distributors that anime may not be a profitable source of cartoons for the 6-11-year-old children's television audience but also that anime can be profitable as a product in its own right when targeted to a different demographic.

<34> The history of anime on North American television can be divided into three stages. During the first stage, anime served purely as animation fodder for children's television and was edited to satisfy producers' assumptions about what North American children and parents would accept. The Japanese origins of the story were completely disguised. During the second stage, networks and distributors started to recognize that viewers outside the target audience were watching children's television because the shows were anime instead of in spite of them being anime. These new viewers were also vocal, protesting the localization and editing practices that had been used to transform the series for the children's market. These protests encouraged networks and distributors to lessen the degree of localization but also to promote series as being anime and to highlight their Japanese origin. In the third, current stage, the marketing of anime to older audiences on programming blocks and networks aimed at adults has allowed anime to escape the editing practices of children's television and emerge as a form of entertainment appropriate for teens and adults.

Works Cited

"4Kids White Flags One Piece After 104 Episodes." ICv2. 7 December 2006. 10 July 2007. <http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/9725.html>.

Austin, Scott. "Disney Closes Fox Family Worldwide Buy." Dow Jones News Service. 24 October 2001. 6 September 2002.

Bricken, Rob. "One More Time." animeOnline.com. 12 April 2007. 10 July 2007. <http://www.animeonline.com/index.php?page=news_featured&ent_id=101234>.

Cantor, Joanne. "Ratings for program content: the role of research findings.(Children and Television)." The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 557 (May 1998): 54(16). InfoTrac OneFile. Thomson Gale. Radford University Library. 9 July 2007  <http://web3.infotrac.galegroup.com>.

Cardcaptors. By CLAMP. KidsWB. WPIX, New York. 2000-2001.

Cardcaptor Sakura. Dir. Morio Asaka. 1998. Digital videodisc series. Pioneer Entertainment. 2001-2002.

Cubbison, Laurie. "anime fans, DVDs, and the authentic text." Velvet Light Trap 56 (Fall 2005): 45(13). InfoTrac OneFile. Thomson Gale. Radford University Library. 9 July 2007  <http://find.galegroup.com>.

Demarco, Jason. Interview. "The Edit List Special: Cartoon Network Editing Interview." By Kyle Pope. Anime News Network 26 February 2002. 26 February 2002. <http://animenewsnetwork.com/columns/edit-list.php?id=83>.

Digimon: Digital Monsters. Prod. Terry O'Malley. FoxKids. WFXR, Roanoke, Virginia. 1999-2002.

Escaflowne. Prod. Ken Iyadomi. FoxKids. WFXR, Roanoke, Virginia. 2000.

Freeman, Crispin. Post to amrc-l. 12 June 2007.

Furniss, Maureen. Art in Motion: Animation Aesthetics. London: John Libbey & Company, 1998.

Graeber, Laurel. "Masters of the Universe, Youth Division." New York Times 29 August 1999, late ed.: 13-1. LexisNexis. McConnell Library, Radford, VA. 4 September 2002. <http://web.lexisnexis.com>.

Gundam Wing. Dir. Gordon Hunt. Cartoon Network. 2000-2001.

Hendershot, Heather. Saturday Morning Censors: Television Regulation Before the V-chip. Durham, N.C.: Duke U P, 1998.

Kirsh, Stephen J. Children, Adolescents, and Media Violence: A Critical Look at the Research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2006.

Lowry, Brian. "NBC and Fox Hire Sitters for Kids." Los Angeles Times 31 August 2002, home ed.: Calendar 1. LexisNexis. McConnell Library, Radford, VA. 6 September 2002. <http://web.lexisnexis.com>.

Mallory, Michael. "Kids' Anime Hits Critical Mass." Los Angeles Times 12 October 2001, home ed.: Calendar 18. LexisNexis. McConnell Library, Radford, VA. 20 July 2002. <http://web.lexisnexis.com>.

Naruto. Dir. Hayato Date. Cartoon Network. 2005-2007.

"One Piece on Cartoon Network." ICv2. 16 April 2007. 10 July 2007. <http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/10411.html>.

"One Piece on Toonami in April." ICv2. 8 April 2005. 10 July 2007. <http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/6693.html>.

"One Piece Returns to 4Kids Block." ICv2. 27 December 2006. 10 July 2007. <http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/7992.html>.

"One Piece to Debut on Fox Box." ICv2. 9 June 2004. 10 July 2007. <http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/5065.html>.

Pecora, Norma Odom. The Business of Children's Entertainment. New York: The Guilford Press, 1998.

Pokémon. Prod. Norman J. Grossfeld, Alfred R. Kahn, and Thomas J. Kenney. KidsWB. WPIX, New York. 1998-2000.

Reynolds, Mike. "The Trouble With Teens: Cable Programmers Still Find this Group to be Elusive." Multichannel News, 23.8 (25 Feb. 2002): 22A. Expanded Academic ASAP. McConnell Library, Radford, VA. 24 April 2002. <http://web3.infotrac.galegroup.com>.

Singer, Dorothy G., and Jerome L. Singer, Eds. Handbook of Children and the Media. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2001.

Surrette, Louise. "Get Ready for the New Japanese Invasion: 'Cardcaptor' Niki and Pals to Take on Pokemon." The Ottawa Citizen 13 August 1999, final ed.: D1. LexisNexis. McConnell Library, Radford, VA. 20 July 2002. <http://web.lexisnexis.com>.

Turner, Germaine. Interview. "Escaflowne Explained." By Andrew Osmond. Cinescape 19 September 2000. 9 September 2002 <http://www.cinescape.com/0/Editorial.asp?aff_id=0&this_cat=Television&action=page&obj_id=24300>.

Wilson, Barbara J. et al. "Violence in children's television programming: assessing the risks." Journal of Communication 52.1 (March 2002): 5(31). InfoTrac OneFile. Thomson Gale. Radford University Library. 9 July 2007 <http://find.galegroup.com>.

 

Notes

[1] The media conglomerates enter the picture as their children's television programming divisions are the primary American television outlets for anime. TimeWarner owns the Cartoon Network and did own the WB network, on which KidsWB programming appeared, and. News Corporation recently sold the Fox Family Channel and Saban Entertainment Inc to the Walt Disney Corporation, with Fox Family Channel then becoming ABC Family and the shows packaged by Saban Entertainment Inc. moving from FoxKids, News Corporation's children's television division, to ABC properties in 2002 (Austin). By 2007 many of the series once produced by Saban, including Digimon and Power Rangers as well as other Japanese imports, were airing on Toon Disney. Meanwhile News Corp leased its Saturday morning block on the Fox network to 4Kids Entertainment, which had also provided Time/Warner networks with such anime series as Pokémon and Yu-Gi-Oh (Lowry). Viacom's Nickelodeon channel has been limited in its anime programming, most recenlty airing a new version of Speed Racer, one of the first Japanese series to air worldwide. These networks are also the primary television outlet for children's anime in other English-speaking countries as well through Fox Kids Europe and Cartoon Network's many international outlets. [^]

[2] Since the mid-1990s, the following U.S. networks have aired anime series: Fox, KidsWB, ABC Family, Cartoon Network, Encore Action, Encore WAM, Showtime Beyond, Toon Disney, G4-TechTV, Independent Film Channel, ImaginAsian and the International Channel. In addition, two major Texas-based anime distributors, FUNimation and A. D. Vision, Inc., have launched digital cable channels in order to promote their offerings. These channels have not been not widely available, however. [^]

[3] I use "North American" explicitly to indicate the role that both United States and Canadian companies play in the production of English language versions of anime. The role played by Canadian companies such as Nelvana and Ocean Studios is often elided in discussions of anime localization. [^]

[4] Although the North American version had eliminated the Japanese credit sequences and several episodes, fans reported that the Australian broadcast restored the original episode order as well as the original opening credits. [^]

[5] This unscientific study is based on my own video archive, which is by no means complete. I do believe a scientific study of the ratings received by various series, correlated with content, would provide a valuable understanding of how these ratings function with regard to production and editing standards. [^]

[6] In this, Naruto follows the lead of anime airing on Adult Swim, where the original songs also are retained, occasionally with romanized subtitles. [^]

[7] Pioneer Entertainment Inc became Geneon Entertainment (USA) Inc. in 2003. It is a subsidiary of Dentsu, Inc. and d-rights, Inc., a subsidiary of Mitsubishi. I point out the parent companies of anime distributors such as Geneon and VIZ in order to note the role of the Japanese corporations in the North American anime market. [^]

 

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