Censorship in a Nutshell (Updated)

There’s been a huge hubbub on the Internet recently over FUNimation’s decision to censor “objectionable content” from the home entertainment release of their recent acquisition Dance in the Vampire Bund. I’ve already been more than vocal about it on Twitter. Here, I’m just going to summarize my thoughts:

• What FUNimation is doing is censorship. They are removing “material which may be considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or inconvenient to the government or media organizations.” That is censorship.
• People are making assumptions about why FUNimation is doing this, claiming it’s because of the Handley case or it’s a “smart business decision.” We know nothing yet.
• If you support a company’s decision to censor, then by the laws of logic, you support censorship.
• If you are truly against censorship, you should be fighting this decision, not supporting it. Allowing this to happen or just “dealing with it” is only going to help set a precedent.
• For further reading see here, here, and here.

Also note that I am not boycotting FUNimation. I will still continue to support their non-censored releases.

UPDATE 3/10:

FUNimation has issued a follow-up statement regarding this. While they plan to continue to release edited versions of the episodes via online streaming and television broadcast (likely FUNimation Channel), they are “considering” releasing the home entertainment version (DVD and possibly Blu-ray) unedited. They stated that the episodes that have aired so far are suitable for a home entertainment release, but being that there are still episodes that have yet to air, the final decision is up in the air (see what I did there?).

If the DVD/BD release does in fact turn out to be unedited, then I will be okay with this. I am okay with censorship as long as there is an unedited version available (without having to resort to fansubs or overpriced R2 DVDs). I will now be hopeful and optimistic that FUNimation will choose to give the fans what they want: an unedited, uncensored home entertainment release.