The third season of The Seven Deadly Sins anime, Wrath of Gods, recently debuted on Japanese television much to the dismay of fans who found that depictions of blood and gore were being heavily censored.
In the first episode of the new season, titled The Light That Drives off Darkness, viewers discovered that depictions of blood, such as Escanor slicing a demon in half or Merlin blowing a hole in a demon with her Purgatory Venom technique, were colored bright white and that depictions of gore, such as Ban using his ‘Snatch’ ability to take out a monsters heart, were colored black:
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As this episode provided a re-cap for viewers of the previous season, this censorship was most notable when recounting Melodias’ death at the hands of Estarossa, as the scene was depicted with a giant black circle covering up Melodias’ wounds, which were clearly visible in the original episode:
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Fans have expressed their displeasure regarding the censorship on social media:
We need a better quality and non – censore version of the anime
— Abdelhamed Zaroog (@Abdel_Zroog) October 10, 2019
NICE ! pic.twitter.com/IIeijubHPq
— OhDepressivo (@OhDepressivo) October 10, 2019
It’s a shame! What you did with this Anime! pic.twitter.com/RjicF05ERq
— David Tlou2 Hype (@David76663867) October 10, 2019
血を検閲しないでください😥
— Daniel Flores (@Lancerot269) October 10, 2019
The season premiere marks the debut of Studio Deen as the series’ primary animator, replacing A-1 Pictures who had worked on the previous two seasons, and of the series on its new broadcast home, TV Tokyo. It is currently unknown what roles, if any, these two companies had on implementing the heavy censorship.
It’s unclear if this censorship will carry over to the United States release that will come to Netflix.