Anime can be unpredictable and challenging, often pushing the boundaries of storytelling. This can lead to complaints, protests, or even official bans from some nations. Some nations ban certain anime due to objections to inappropriate content, such as harsh critiques of a nation’s history or leaders, or extreme gore or sexual content that a government deems unsuitable for viewing.
Here are top 10 banned anime’s in the world.
1. Death Note
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The story follows Light Yagami, a genius high school student who discovers a mysterious notebook: the “Death Note”, which belonged to the shinigami Ryuk, and grants the user the supernatural ability to kill anyone whose name is written in its pages. Death Note is banned in China due to its theme. The show is about death, justice, murder and violence so it is considered as a corrupting influence on kids.
2. Attack on Titan
Set in a post-apocalyptic world where the remains of humanity live behind walls protecting them from giant humanoid Titans, Attack on Titan follows protagonist Eren Yeager, along with friends Mikasa Ackerman and Armin Arlert. When a Colossal Titan breaches the wall of their hometown, Titans destroy the city and eat Eren’s mother. Due to its bloody, disgusting and disturbing visuals, it has been banned in China. While millions of viewers love this anime, China thinks this show portrays a lot of excessive violence which is very unhealthy for the younger audience.
3. Parasyte The Maxim
Parasyte sees protagonist Shinichi Izumi fused with an alien parasite to gain bizarre powers. They then fought more monstrous human/alien hybrids. Parasyte couldn’t be distributed online or in print in China. However, one of the likely reasons for the ban was Parasyte’s body horror and gore. Based on recent bans, China seems to have a habit of banning anime with high volumes of blood.
4. Shoujo Tsubaki
Shoujo Tsubaki is a controversial 1992 anime film about a young girl who is abused and raped at a circus after her mother dies. The film is known for its dark, depressing, and intense storyline, with gore scenes and horrific visuals. The film has left many viewers traumatized, leading to the destruction of the tapes and making it banned almost everywhere, including Japan. The film’s intense storyline and disturbing gore scenes have left a lasting impact on viewers.
5. Tokyo Ghoul
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Tokyo Ghoul is one of the best-selling manga of all time, and one of the most popular manga adaptations of the 2010s. But in 2017, it was banned in China because some believed that it encouraged a dangerous trend of teenagers sewing threads onto their skin, or using embroidery and piercings.
According to the International Business Times, Tokyo Ghoul was also blacklisted because it showed several scenes of extensive violence and crimes against public morality. It was considered too unsavory for China’s censors. More recently, Sony removed the Tokyo Ghoul anime from Russia since it removed all of its anime services in that country recently.
6. Pokémon
Pokémon is a worldwide phenomenon, and it airs in many languages in many different nations. While a few episodes were banned for sensitive or harmful content in some countries, Saudi Arabia completely banned the entire anime. The religious authorities of Saudi Arabia declared that Pokemon promotes gambling and Jewish sentiments. Since then, there have been many conspiracy theories revolving around the show claiming it to be a Zionist conspiracy.
7. Record Of Ragnarok
Record of Ragnarok, a manga by Netflix, depicts Hindu god Shiva as a slacker who seeks to kill humanity. India banned the anime due to Hindu practitioners’ criticism of the drastic changes to Shiva’s appearance and his temperament. Netflix initially tried to cut Shiva out before removing the banned anime from Netflix India. Record of Ragnarok’s superior manga, however, can still be bought in the country.
8. Kite
Kite features a girl who can use bullets to make people explode. However, it was not this extreme violence that made Kite widely uncomfortable. Instead, Kite was banned in Norway due to an extremely graphic scene of sexual assault. The victim was the protagonist, Sawa, who was also a minor.
Because of Norway’s laws against child pornography, Kite was banned and prohibited from being sold or screened anywhere. Conversely, Kite didn’t become a banned anime in the United States. Instead, it was heavily edited when it first arrived.
9. Sailor Moon
Saudi Arabia has a strict rule prohibiting media featuring women in leading roles, leading to the ban on the entire magical girl genre. Sailor Moon, a prominent anime, was banned due to religious slights. Toei refused to license Sailor Moon to Saudi Arabia due to its strict moral standards. The ban was lifted in 2021 when Netflix added Sailor Moon Eternal to the country’s library. However, hundreds of other magical girl anime remain banned in Saudi Arabia.
10. Inferno Cop
China banned 38 anime in 2015, citing them as violent, pornography, terrorism, and crimes against public morality. Inferno Cop, a nonsensical comedy, was one of the country’s strangest bans. Despite not meeting these criteria, Studio Trigger’s underrated Inferno Cop was blacklisted. Despite this, fans of the banned anime took it as a source of pride, despite the ban’s controversial nature.
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