Erika Yoshida, the screenwriter for the Bocchi the Rock! anime series recently participated in an interview where she had some things to say about fanservice and censorship.

According to Yoshida, in her work there are things that she considers to be “noise” which detracts from the intended message of the source material when adapting it to television. This has led to concern among some fans that Yoshida may be censoring her projects for ideological reasons similar to western translators.

Yoshida goes on to say that she feels that fanservice in works such as Maebashi Witches (another title she worked on) amounts to child sexual exploitation. However she appears to only hold these feelings for official works, and in what appears to be a contradictory statement says: “I don’t mind if fans interpret the characters however they like, and I think they’re free to draw and imagine whatever they want on their own.” (Translation: Google)

Yoshida then explains how she feels about the “noise” of fanservice and what sort of content she felt the need to remove from Bocchi the Rock! such as:

“In the original manga, Hitori-chan (the main character, Goto Hitori) is naked in the scene where she takes a bath, but in the anime she is in a swimsuit. If depictions like that were the selling point of Bozaro, that would be fine, but I don’t think that’s the case, and I thought that depictions like that would be distracting when aiming for dominance.”

Author’s Note: Bozaro is an abbreviation of Bocchi the Rock! (BOcchi ZA ROkku)

It’s worth mentioning that Yoshida claims that she worked closely with the original creator of the series while adapting it to anime.

When adapting a series for television, audiences begrudgingly accept that some censorship is inevitable due to a difference between what you can get away with on TV vs. in a book. However fans are concerned that Yoshida’s particular statements put a moral judgement on fanservice which could extend to ecchi titles as a whole.

Censorship in anime and manga is becoming a global issue, with institutions such as the UN and even lawmakers in the US drafting resolutions and laws which could have a chilling effect on freedom of expression.

Update: Maganote-sensei who created Mushoku Tensei has spoken up to criticize Yoshida’s statements: