Let's Speculate: Final Fantasy Censorship

[Discoalucard]

Read this interview bit with Akitoshi Kawazu regarding Final Fantasy XII:

GS: Can you tell us about the contents of the scene that you originally cut to get a lower rating in Japan?

AK: It's a scene where Penelo, who has been kidnapped by some characters in the game, and at the time right before the Japanese release there were various incidents in the real world which...basically there were some similarities there that would have made it a difficult thing to release at the lower age rating that we wanted.

This scene was restored in the American version, which is here (and is fairly early in the game, so you don't need to worry about being too spoiled...it's right after you escape the prison with Balthier and Fran and head off to the Bujerba Mines):

www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-gKm5tQaCA

Nothing too violent, right? Oddly enough, the Japanese GBA version of FF6 has also been censored a bit - the part where Celes where captured and chained to a wall was removed, although I can't remember to what extent (I'll have to get there myself.) They're both scenes with slightly cruel treatment to captured prisoners.

The amount of censoring happening in Japanese games lately (and only in Japan, strangely enough) is quite fascinating. People were all up in arms about the ESRB amounting to a huge censorship organization, but it's much less stringent than Japan's recently revised CERO system, wherein the most violent games are deemed worse than porn and (so I'm told) are practically hidden from most shoppers sights at retail.

I'm really wondering what incidecent Kawazu was referring to. Apparently back in 2004, Japan went through a few hostage situations (much like America) in Iraq where visiting Japanese citizens were captured, demanding that Japan remove the SDF troops from the region (I didn't even know Japan had troops in Iraq.) As most of us know, many citizens of other countries are fiercely opposed to allying with the US and stationing their troops there, so this was a pretty big deal for the Koizumi administration. A few of them made it back - others weren't so lucky. Anyway, the last reported incident I can find about this is from late 2004, and the Japanese FFXII came out in early 2006 - there's a good eighteen months difference. Could that be what Kawazu was referring to? Or maybe something not reported by English speaking media?

[Neo Rasa]

It was probably a more recent incident not reported outside of east Asia.

The marketing of these games is true though, you have to dig around in the back of the store behind layers of more safe product or ask at the counter in some more mainstream stores.

This sort of began in the late nineties though, there were several games in which blood/more violent content was added for the US version (the original Bushido Blade and Sword of the Berserk come to mind).

Ninja Gaiden, Dead Rising and Resident Evil 4 are three recent examples, no decapitations in any of them in Japan!

Resident Evil 4 also had several things in-game removed like the impaled woman in one of the earliest sheds in the game (this version oddly making it into the US store demo as it was based on a demo build older than even the Famitsu demo that was released three months prior). The US version retains all of this content.

[sirjake]

I really don't see what's wrong with that scene. At first I thought you meant that they took a scene out a scene where it implied rape.

[Neo Rasa]

That's kind of his point, culturally it DOES trigger implications of rape/ruthless murder.

[Discoalucard]

Actually, read this:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsutomu_Miyazaki

It happened nearly twenty years ago, but his death sentence was upheld by the Japanese Supreme Court in January 2006, two months before FFXII came out over there:

The Supreme Court has upheld the death sentence handed down by lower courts to Tsutomu Miyazaki, 43, who was charged with kidnapping and murdering four young girls in Saitama Prefecture and Tokyo 17 years ago. The highest court concluded that the original judgment recognizing Miyazaki's legal competence was appropriate.

It was a case that sent shock waves throughout Japanese society and gave rise to the term "otaku" (freak or nerd). With the Supreme Court's ruling, the court debate about whether Miyazaki should be held criminally responsible has come to an end. But despite the fact that the court case lasted 16 years, the mystery of Miyazaki's dark mind remains.

Three recent murders of young girls -- a case in Hiroshima in November followed by similar ones in Tochigi and Kyoto Prefectures in December -- have deepened concern for children's safety. Therefore, it is especially worrying that, 16 years after Miyazaki was arraigned, society has not yet learned convincing lessons for working out effective measures to prevent such crimes.

Both of the removed scenes involved around implied violence to captured (young) females - and since video games are a medium still associated with otaku, perhaps Square-Enix did not CERO to find a correlation between the two.

[Discoalucard]

OK I checked out the FF6 censorship. In the SNES/SFC versions, the guards beat up Celes while interrogating her, then she collapses as they leave. When you enter the room with Locke, she's in chains.

In the GBA version, the guards don't hit her at all, and she mysteriously collapses after they leave anywhere. When you walk in, she's still lying on the floor, not chained up.


SNES


GBA

[The bag of sand]

Wow thats strange.

[Scylla]

While it would be easy to take the stand that Japan becoming more inclined to using censorship is a bad thing, I'd rather state that it's a GOOD thing that the most violent games are regarded as worse than porn. America has its morality all backwards with the attitude "Sure, my son can go see -insert generic gory horror flick here- and play Grand Theft Auto, but oh God, it's a nipple, I'm going to have a fucking heart attack!"

[kal]

Actually the Japanese are pretty nutty about there Censorship in general I always thought.

[michiyoyoshiku]

kal said:

Actually the Japanese are pretty nutty about there Censorship in general I always thought.

Breasts ok.....Penis and vagina not ok

[kal]

But if the 'Penis' is a 'tentacle' then it's okay.

[michiyoyoshiku]

the outline of a penis is ok (see Battle Royal Manga)

[Neo Rasa]

Interesting contrast here. CHeck out the US theatrical and Japanese television preview trailers for Death Wish III (called Super Magnum in Japan).

The rape scene that's cut short in ALL currently existing versions of the movie is fully shown in the Japanese trailer for the television broadcasting.

US: www.youtube.com/watch?v=kh2CSXUQbns

Japan: youtube.com/watch?v=3952mRmITGA

Check out the Terminator-influenced sound/graphic design for the US trailer.

[brianc]

In the Japanese Yggdra Union, there is a bath scene where Yggdra is covered by a leaf. In the US version, the leaf is gone and more skin is showing.

[Discoalucard]

Yeah that is very weird.

They also censored the bath scenes in the PSP version of Riviera. CERO at work again.