Fire Force, known in Japan as En’en no Shouboutai or 炎炎ノ消防隊, has been censored on Toonami. Two scenes in particular were edited out and changed to lessen the amount of fan-service on display, resulting in some fans calling out Toonami for the censorship.
Sankaku Complex did a quick article pointing out how the third episode that aired on Toonami was met with censorship. A scene involving the main protagonist and a character named Tamaki Kotatsu originally saw the protagonist mistakenly touching her boob when she intercepted him, after backing away she attempts to take a swing at him but ends up falling into his arms, with his hands wrapping around her buttocks.
You can see the full, uncensored scene in question below, courtesy of Lollikips.
So how did Toonami censor the episode when it aired on cable? Well, Twitter user Glenn Guishard shared a clip, which you can view below.
#FireFore DAMN YOU #Toonami HOW DARE YOU CENSOR THIS @PlatinumEquinox pic.twitter.com/QH22Sno8oi
— Glenn Guishard (@guishmonster) August 11, 2019
As you can see, the Toonami version actually makes the scene look more lewd, since you don’t see what happen, you just see her face expression. And then when she falls into his arms they cutaway from him grabbing her butt. They next show her on the ground whining about being groped.
It’s one of the common cases of censorship actually making things seem worse than what they were.
Obviously fans were not pleased with the censorship, especially given that the episode aired late at night and should have been allowed to show everything.
When confronted about the subject, Toonami co-creator Jason DeMarco, deferred blame away from Toonami, claiming that it wasn’t them who censored the episode of Fire Force.
I dunno why ppl keep asking this, but we are not editing the Fire Force episodes.
— LORD DEATH DEMARCO (@Clarknova1) August 11, 2019
It’s not us. Believe it or don’t. 🤷🏻♂️
— LORD DEATH DEMARCO (@Clarknova1) August 11, 2019
As others in the thread pointed out, while DeMarco may have abdicated responsibility over the censorship, others pointed out that the episode was not censored on the Funimation stream, meaning that this was on the end of Toonami and not the original distributor.
and the butt grab. Both parts were on Funimation’s stream, but not Toonami’s broadcast. Those specific parts of the scene were completely cut from broadcast
— Ragna (@Ragnawing) August 11, 2019
DeMarco opted not to respond to any further queries about the censorship, but this isn’t the first time this has happened, nor the first time that this particular topic came up regarding Toonami and its censorship practices.
Previously DeMarco stated that the Food Wars censorship was the result of the Standards and Practices department at Toonami censoring the episode(s) to accommodate cable standards, which doesn’t make any sense at all given that these shows are usually airing late at night and show far less nudity or sexual content than other standard live-action shows that come on at night on other cable stations.
Nevertheless, take note that censorship has already taken hold of Toonami, and you can probably expect more shows and more episodes to have its fan-service and ecchi content removed in order to appease the prudes that run the block.
(Thanks for the news tip ThyBonesConsumed)
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