Cause for Jojo’s Bizarre Adventures Withdrawal Revealed
Image via JapanProbe
The reason why Japanese anime production studio A.P.P.P. recently halted distribution of its Jojo’s Bizarre Adventures anime series has now come to light. A.P.P.P. and manga publisher Shueisha have temporarily ceased distribution of Hirohiko Araki’s fantasy story in response to complaints from Islamic protesters.
The sixth episode of the Jojo prequel OVA series, originally released on September 28, 2001, includes a scene in which villain Dio, who happens to be in Egypt at the time, takes a momentary break from reading an Arabic text to order the execution of his enemies. The animation used a randomly selected passage of Arabic text. However, seven years later observers noticed that the Arabic text is actually an excerpt from the Koran, leading Sheikh Abdul Hamid Al-Atrash, chairman of the Fatwa Committee the Al-Azhar University in Cairo, Egypt, to declare, “The scene depicts Muslims as terrorists.” The same scene in the original manga does not depict any legible specific language, and manga creator Hirohiko Araki was not aware that the animation had used a recognizable language.
Araki’s manga, though, is apparently not guiltless, as apparently both the manga and anime depict “buildings that look like mosques” during fight scenes. Considering that Jojo’s Bizarre Adventures is an action manga that is partially set in the Middle East, this fact shouldn’t be surprising.
In response to Islamic outrage, Shueisha and A.P.P.P. have made a formal public apology and have ceased sale and distribution of the Jojo’s Bizarre Adventures anime and manga until all offending scenes have been altered.
Source: Anime News Network
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The world is wussing out to Islamist extremists way too much.
While it’s become sport to bash Christians in the mainstream media and pop culture and Jews have generally had a good sense of humor about Jewish culture in general, Moslems just don’t seem to have a sense of humor about their religion and themselves at all.
To the professor in Cairo — I’m sorry, but most of the guys making waves in terrorism today ARE extremist Moslems and you’re one of the guys urging them on! The hypocrisy and double-standards of these guys is amazing.
Why is everyone so darn afraid of a segment of the population that is so backward? We’re giving in to these bullies instead of standing up to our rights to heckle and expose them for what they are — chauvinists, misogynists, and cowards who hide behind our civil laws and liberties while not respecting anybody else’s opinions and civilization.
Organized religion has been the target of numerous anime and RPGs, usually showing the fault in dedicating yourself to a religion without critical thought. Christianity has seen its fair share of anime bashings in the past without too much upset, so what we have here is just a case of political nervousness.
The same thing happened with the Angel Cop release, where one of the enemies was originally a Jewish organization, and this was met with heavy critism, resulting in changing the organization to a communist group (I’m recalling all of this, so I might be wrong).
Whatever the content, I oppose any alteration to anime, since it’s an art form. Art can be offensive. I don’t see anyone throwing a shirt on the Venus de Milos.
On a personal note, I ordered the entire JoJo’s series just weeks before it was pulled. I’m extremely pleased that I did before it was sent to be mutilated.
First of all, its Muslim not Moslim. What the hell is an Islamist? Is that like a Christianist? Because Muslim terrorists are in the news that means were all backwards terrorists?
And what happened to decency? People keep talking about how the world would be better if everyone was half decent then talk about their right to take a dump on everyone else’s beliefs in the same breath. Anime is a commercial art. Thick red line under commercial. There was no artistic expression in using the Quranic text. He’s just as ignorant as anyone else in the anime industry and used the first thing he found. As a Muslim, I don’t find that scene offensive. If the professor wanted to make a fuss there’s much more objectionable like Quran reciting in the background while people having sex in Overfiend or the words Allah and Mohammad used to summon demons in Kujaku O. The depiction of Muslims in ZZ Gundam shows how much research they did. Laziness and ignorance is something I can’t respect even if it’s disguised as “art”. Not that that was the only problem ZZ had. There are other examples and I blame it all on ignorance. Not that Japan has a monopoly on ignorance.
I also oppose alteration to anime. That includes dubs. I refused to buy the Lupin TV series because of the alterations. And yes, Angel Cop did have alterations.