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At time mark 20:11 of ep.10 in Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid, Tohru gives to her a Christmas present to help with back pain. She opens the present, which is apparently some sort of living creature from Tohru's world which must be ground up before use. However, the anime on both Crunchyroll and Funimation censor it with a heavily pixelated effect.

pixelated image of present in box

What is it? My research shows this is an anime original episode, so I guess the manga would be no help. I've checked other forums where this question has been asked, but I did not find an answer.

RichF
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This is just how anime shows "a very disgusting thing vaguely shaped and colored like this". It's not a new thing, off the top of my head I can remember one other instance for which we have a question here: Why are there censored/retracted art when there is no problem and here's the video of that fragment. Also see this question and its answer: Why do they censor vomiting in anime?

Hakase
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  • Okay, thank you. So the version as seen in Japan had the same pixelation as the image from Crunchyroll and Funimation? I guess this is like a trope understood by Japanese folks then. In US productions they would find another way of representing the disgustingness. Either that, or intentionally gross out viewers. I had just assumed this particular image was something acceptable within Japanese mores that a Western audience would reject within a child-friendly series. – RichF May 11 '17 at 01:16
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    @RichF You see this a few times in Miss Kobayashi. I think it's also used as shortcut to show something weird and alien from the other world without having to come up something that's convincingly weird and alien looking. Also this isn't meant to be a child-friendly series. It aired at midnight and Japan, and much of it's content (eg. drunkeness, Lucoa) wouldn't be considered acceptable for children in Japan or the West. – Ross Ridge May 11 '17 at 04:31
  • @RossRidge Oh, the other instances must not have registered. // With Japanese mores its hard for me to tell what is considered child-friendly. In _One Piece_, the hero Sanji incessantly smokes, something that an American cartoon would reserve for bad, shifty characters, if at all. And in early _Dragonball_ episodes, Bulma literally shoots Goku in the head several times. Not to mention Goku removing her panties while she slept. // It happens so often, I had assumed adults drinking heavily was considered normative, like smoking. Lucoa seemed like a sight-gag figure, not actual fan-servicy. – RichF May 11 '17 at 09:34
  • @RichF you can usually look up every anime or manga's age rating on database sites, like [here it says PG-13](https://myanimelist.net/anime/33206/Kobayashi-san_Chi_no_Maid_Dragon) (although that's the common rating title given by Motion Picture Association of America, but it could be frivolously translated from another country's similar rating for 13+, not sure what their source there is) – Hakase May 11 '17 at 12:12
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    @RichF Lucoa gets covered up an dragged off a couple times during the series because of what she's wearing in public is deemed unacceptable. While that's done as a gag, it also demonstrates that the show knows they've crossed a line. – Ross Ridge May 12 '17 at 04:06