Manga Censorship Guide? Creating a custom uncensored manga collection

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sumpter360
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Manga Censorship Guide? Creating a custom uncensored manga collection

Post by sumpter360 » Thu Jun 15, 2017 11:23 am

Hey all!

I, like plenty I'm sure, have been reluctant to buy the Dragon Ball manga, in hopes of a true uncensored version being released. It seems I've heard that each release has it's own forms of censorship in some form or another, so there is no perfect release. I am interested in creating one.

What I need to begin my project is a list of the different English releases, along with which releases have what censorship, in addition to where I can find the uncensored version. I checked Kanzenshuu, but only found info on the differences between the Japanese releases, nothing regarding the English. So I figured you all would have the knowledge I need to begin my project.

Please list any info you can, including which chapters (and volume) from which releases have what censorship and another release that has the part uncensored.

Thanks!

EDIT:

FYI, I do plan to legally purchase the necessary physical copies of the manga. Just need to know what I need :)
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Re: Manga Censorship Guide? Creating a custom uncensored manga collection

Post by Robo4900 » Thu Jun 15, 2017 7:32 pm

I don't know a whole lot about this, but here's what I do know, just to get some basic stuff out of the way...
  • There is no fully-uncensored English release.
  • People commonly point to the 3-in-1s as the "Most uncensored release", but this isn't really true. It's less censored than the VizBigs, but a little more censored than the volumes, depending on the printings.
  • Assuming you aim for certain printings of certain volumes, the volumes are actually the least censored release. The differences aren't huge, but they're there.
  • The VizBigs are essentially the standard DB manga release; they're the cheapest, they're the best quality, they're the only one to contain any of the original colour, but they're middling in terms of censorship.
  • Viz's full colours only cover the Saiyan and Freeza arcs at the moment, so we won't know how those rank in censorship until at least the end of the Cell arc.
  • There was an online-only release of the first 23 chapters of the full colour DB manga. This is the only time we've ever had a fully-uncensored release of any kind. But as I say, it only covers the first 23 chapters.
  • The only way you'll get a fully-uncensored release of the DB manga at the moment is to get the Japanese manga, and manually edit the Viz dialogue into the speech bubbles yourself.
Now with that out of the way, hopefully someone can go into more detail about this. I must admit -- I've always wanted to know the details about the censorship on the various releases.
The point of Dragon Ball is to enjoy it. Never lose sight of that.

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Re: Manga Censorship Guide? Creating a custom uncensored manga collection

Post by Jinzoningen MULE » Thu Jun 15, 2017 8:29 pm

I've always been under the impression that the digital release was the least censored, but I hate digital comics, so I never bothered to check for myself. It's something to look into, in any case.
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Re: Manga Censorship Guide? Creating a custom uncensored manga collection

Post by Robo4900 » Fri Jun 16, 2017 6:12 am

I think the digital volumes release uses the content from the first printings. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure those are the least-censored versions, which would make the digital volumes the least-censored release.
The point of Dragon Ball is to enjoy it. Never lose sight of that.

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Re: Manga Censorship Guide? Creating a custom uncensored manga collection

Post by cheddarsword » Sat Jun 17, 2017 3:22 am

Maybe if someone goes in and translates the original manga directly, we could settle Bulma's age discrepancy between the original manga and DB-/Jaco.

Now then. I have hiccups that must be cured. good night.

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Re: Manga Censorship Guide? Creating a custom uncensored manga collection

Post by Jinzoningen MULE » Sat Jun 17, 2017 10:23 am

cheddarsword wrote:Maybe if someone goes in and translates the original manga directly, we could settle Bulma's age discrepancy between the original manga and DB-/Jaco.
There's nothing to settle, Toriyama just made a mistake when writing Jaco.
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Re: Manga Censorship Guide? Creating a custom uncensored manga collection

Post by Robo4900 » Sun Jun 18, 2017 8:07 pm

Indeed. A new translation could fix the mistakes of the old one(Although, as I've said before, I'm pretty sure the only mistakes that are really worth taking the time to fix are the censorship, and some of the translation style inconsistency, which could easily be fixed by just swapping out a couple of words, like Djinn Boo > Majin Boo, or Light Of Death > Demonic Piercing Light Death Canon), but if it was that way in the original manga, the only way a new translation could "Fix" it would be by being less accurate, which would probably annoy more people than it would please.
The point of Dragon Ball is to enjoy it. Never lose sight of that.

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