{"id":38022,"date":"2022-06-18T17:42:15","date_gmt":"2022-06-18T21:42:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.animenation.net\/blog\/?p=38022"},"modified":"2022-06-18T17:42:15","modified_gmt":"2022-06-18T21:42:15","slug":"ask-john-should-creators-be-allowed-to-alter-their-prior-works","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.animenation.net\/blog\/ask-john-should-creators-be-allowed-to-alter-their-prior-works\/","title":{"rendered":"Ask John: Should Creators Be Allowed to Alter Their Prior Works?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Question:<\/strong> Do you believe when an anime creator or mangaka releases a work to the public that it’s final? Should an artist be able to go back and change their work if they are unsatisfied with it? Should a corporation have the right if they legally own the property to change at their whim or should the original creator have the final say?<\/p>\n

Answer:<\/strong>
\nThis question has two answers, and both are rather complicated. If the discussion is limited strictly to manga and anime, the answer is a bit clearer. At least in the modern era, the Japanese publishing industry and Japanese audiences have been receptive to the practice of revising literature post-release. Particularly because anime and manga are often created on tight schedules, Japanese audiences typically look favorably upon artists that clean up, correct, or revise their work after the fact. For example, the first collected volume of Yasuhiro Kano\u2019s manga Kiruru Kill Me<\/em>, published in English by Seven Seas Entertainment, includes addendum pages that show how one character\u2019s dialogue in the original Shounen Jump+<\/em> online serialization was drastically rewritten for the print publication. The character Aijima\u2019s personality was completely reversed from the original digital publication to the print publication. <\/p>\n

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A particularly famous example from anime derives from director Masahiko Ohta\u2019s 2006 Yoake Mae yori Ruriiro na<\/em> television series. In episode 3 a cabbage was illustrated as an unblemished green sphere. The cabbage was redrawn to look more realistic and identifiable as a vegetable for the series\u2019 home video release. The \u201cquality cabbage\u201d became such a widely known joke, that nine years later director Tatsuya Yoshihara comically homaged the spherical cabbage in Monster Musume no Iru Nichijou<\/em> episode 12.<\/p>\n

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To provide another egregious example, studio Arms fell so far behind on its production schedule for the 2014 Wizard Barristers: Benmashi Cecil<\/em> television series that a dramatic scene from episode 11 was originally broadcast with most of its scene cuts missing. The animation was completed for the series\u2019 home video release.<\/p>\n

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Click on the image above to watch the original broadcast version of the scene on YouTube. The corrected home video version is below.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n