In earlier hentai, like many before 2010, genitals are directly shown. But after a certain point, all hentai have their genitals pixelated, first female ones, then the male. When exactly did those changes happen? What caused the changes in censorship? It can't stem from the international, since there're still many uncensored obscene videos broadly available on the internet.
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5Adult content has always been censored in Japan. Are you sure you weren't watching imported (=uncensored) versions? – Jimmy Jan 12 '23 at 18:12
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@Jimmy Do the hentai before 2005 you watched have their genitals pixelated? – Ibrahim Jan 12 '23 at 23:12
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From what I've seen, either pixelated, blacked out, or whited out. Never uncensored. – Jimmy Jan 13 '23 at 01:39
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2Related: [What are the anime censorship laws in Japan?](https://anime.stackexchange.com/q/4940/2516) and [What are the anime censorship laws in the United States?](https://anime.stackexchange.com/q/20185/2516) – Aki Tanaka Jan 13 '23 at 02:31
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You can have a look at the interviews given by Shindo L, the author of _Metamorphosis_ to get an insight of how censorship in the industry works (Warning: Crude language and NSFW terms included): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gl2aHWx5HFg and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SD9-4pUPH0 – Fumikage Tokoyami Jan 13 '23 at 05:27
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Hentai (R18) has been always censored in Japan, but how much seems to have been a decision on publishers' side.
From what I see from a brief web search:
- According to this blog post, some editors of hentai magazines were arrested because they did not put enough cover (pixelation or black stripes) on genitals etc. This happened in July 2013.
- Another blog post says, regarding Doujinshi, the organizing body of Comic Market started requiring stricter censoring (bolder stripes on or whiting out the genitals) starting from Summer 2017.
So over these 10 years, censorship has actually been increasing, which is probably consistent with your impression.
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Ken Akamatsu, mangaka known for Love Hina and Negima, won a seat in the House of Councillors (equivalent of Senate in the US) last year, advocating the freedom of expression. According to the description, it seems that issues stemmed from (talk of) Trans-Pacific Partnership, because of which Japan needs to adjust publications towards international/American standards. I'm not clear about this, but probably the concern is related to child pornography (The first blog link above mentions that a Swedish translator of Japanese manga was arrested in 2010 because some images were regared as child pornography, and then acquitted in the Supreme Court in 2012).
sundowner
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As to why the uncensored version became extinct, there's a blog on this. It's quoted below for reference. Long story short, the producers released uncensored version outside of Japan originally. But after domestic fans found this out, they no longer bought those sold in Japan, reducing the industry profits. So, producers then decided not to release uncensored version even overseas.
Many people don't realize that hentai is censored in Japan. The naughty bits are always obscured with a mosaic filter (or something similar) when you buy hentai (or any other adult video) over there. But hentai is always animated in its full glory to begin with.
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Those uncensored versions are kept for sale to overseas areas, which don't have those censorship laws on the books. The fans don't want that censorship, so the US publishers always request the uncensored versions.
I've seen some hentai titles where the animators got lazy and didn't draw any detail where they knew censorship would take place, but the majority of hentai has quite a bit of detail down there. (Sometimes, quite horrifying detail.)
In recent years, web savvy fans in Japan realized that they were getting a bum deal compared to fans overseas, who didn't have to deal with the censorship. They started importing uncensored American hentai DVDs, and not buying or renting the super-expensive Japanese discs. So the hentai producers decided not to allow the uncensored masters to be published overseas anymore. Most publishers balk at this, and don't want to proceed with licensing it.
