In General:

• Excessively Japanese things like rice cakes and genuinely funny gags will be removed, rewritten, or otherwise reworked into something wholesome and corny. (Subliminal message: Funimation wants to turn the world into cornbread.)
• Part of the show WILL be cut out, if not for content than simply to make up for the difference between commercial breaks. See, whereas Escaflowne on FOX had a whopping three or four three-minute interruptions, Japanese shows typically just have one long (I hear five minutes) break in the middle. So, in any case, you're gonna lose at least three or four minutes to the noble cause of $capitalism$!!!
• Theme songs- Japanese lyrics must go! This is done in a nationwide attempt to prevent children from learning anything that won't be rendered in coloring book or 'For Dummies' format. If the opening isn't omitted altogether, then the songs will be replaced by bad techno or failing that, the most amatuer singer they can find.
• (at least) One character will have a voice so nasal, and/or high pitched and/or overly deadpan it will make anyone over twelve ram glass bottles into their ears in an attempt to be rid of the sound.
• There will never be an anime that diehard fans like better in English than Japanese.
• Saban really loves their synthesizers, so expect a lot of 'ahhhhhhhhhhhh.... ohhhhhhhhhhhh' choral crap punctuated by techno beats.
• MAZE TV was released in two formats in Japan. The one that aired on television featured full nude transformation scenes and half the first episode was Maze in her underwear in her room. The home video release is the one CPM adapted for the American rendition. They probably felt guilty for subjecting us to cheesecake like Aika and the MAZE OAV. Oh yeah, and MAZE will never be televised because a girl turning into a sex fiend at night would be pretty hard to clean up. Although I bet Funimation or Saban could give it a try.

Coping With Loss

• Children aren't to know about death until Grampa's (or Grandma's) heart goes out on top of a hooker. So, for the sake of psychologists, TV companies aren't allowed to show people dying even when it's obvious to even a six year old with rust in his head that the character should die.
• 'Kill' becomes 'hurt,' 'get,' or sometimes 'finish.' (but only on late night, uncut episodes)
• Only really evil or really good characters will get killed. Anyone in the middle simply goes to another dimension or falls into a coma. Or, more likely, they all become friends and team up against someone who deserves to die.
• Powerful visuals like Heero soaked in blood, reaching towards the camera, will be calmly sidestepped. Why should art have a message?
• Nobody dies in DBZ. This is actually Toriyama's fault.

Relationships

• In Japan, there's supposedly no age of consent. That doesn't necessarily mean anything to this section, it's just a bit of trivia.
• Zoicite is a gay man. I cannot tell in words how devastating this was to me. I thought she was cute.
• ... and on that subject, those two AIN'T COUSINS. We're looking at pastel rendered Tokyo here, not Alabama.
• Maybe another factor leading to Escaflowne's cancellation involved Allen's fixation on his sister.
• The concept of arranged marriages shouldn't be brought up if it can be helped. Especially arranged marriages within a family.

Violence

• Excessively violent scenes will be removed by chimpanzees and Parkinson's patients in big mittens so that the cuts are glaring and obvious, and often following scenes will confuse the hell out of you. "Hey, when did he start having a black spot on his shirt?(see third topic under this subject)"
• As mentioned under Coping with Loss, people don't die... they just go to another dimension, get hurt badly, fall into a coma, or will be spliced into the final episode so that some little kid can gurgle 'Yay! He's alright!'
• If nobody with any editing skill is on hand, which happens a lot, okay, blood is just blacked out with a magic marker, swept under a rug, or unconvincingly painted over digitally.

Fan Service

• (This means you, Tenchi, DBZ, Sailormoon... etc) Clipart that came with the computer will be placed in front of naughty parts. Trees, mysterious patches of cloth, and bald people's heads are popular. So are NEON ORANGE BATHING SUITS.
• Racy language needs to be worked down to the point of baby talk, despite the fact any newborn knows Ryoko is teasing Ayeka about her bust and Master Roshi doesn't give a right damn about Bulma's new hair.
• A correllary of the above, extended instances are replaced with a series of childish jokes that leave everyone scratching each others chins, confused as to the meaning and why they're mysteriously horny.

Name Game

• Partially related to the bit about theme songs, networks want kids to know how to spell their favorite character names. That way, when they run an idiot art contest, the red teletubby with the yellow scribble on its head is plainly labeled as 'Goku, by Terry Bastard, Age 8. Ratsass, Ohio.' That means replacing most Japanese names with American uh, equivalents. (Rei=Raye, Minako=Mina, Hikaru=Rick, Sodom=Katana?!)
• Even if the character is an alien or something, the name can be changed if someone along the line just wants to do it. Kamjin=Khyron, Vega=Bison...
• And finally, to the Digimon guys... It's funnier when half the monsters have names that are filthy in Spanish.

DBZ and The Devil

• The hulking dickhead we know as Hercule was originally named Mr. Satan. His daughter Videl's name is an anagram for 'devil.' Only one of them was changed.
• Much like the incredibly fake overlays that turned Master Roshi's porno mags into dating guides, watch for loads of hastily-added "HERCULE" banners.
• The ogres from that one episode somewhere when they still couldn't say 'kill' had T-shirts that said 'Hell.' For the kiddies, it was changed to HFIL (Home for Infinite Losers) which was less offensive except for the fact it made it look like their shirts had the German "Heil!" on them.

Miscellanous

• There was a gun-crazed John Wayne clone in Pokemon. And yet they let Team Rocket have missile launchers in an episode they kept. Not to mention one of James/Kojiro's disguises was a full bodysuit with fake breasts. (Wizard's Anime Invasion)
• How about when FOX yanked the entire first episode of Escaflowne?
• The Southern Cross arc of Robotech was actually Superdimensional Cavalry Southern Cross, and it took place on another planet. Ever wonder why they never show the sky for too long? There were two moons. Also, 'Zor Prime' was actually an SC soldier who was kidnapped, brainwashed, etc by the bad guys.
• Others missing episodes- Outlaw Star, Tenchi Muyo! DBZ- and a lot of Sailor Moon. At least ten total. Not that I care personally.
• In a truly inspiringly braindead move, the final episode of the first Slayers season is missing like the last five minutes in the dubbed version. What's the matter? Lisa Ortiz have to go somewhere all of a sudden?

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