Ask John: Is it Fair to Call Fullmetal Alchemist Uncut on American TV if it’s Edited?

Question:
Is it fair for Funimation and Cartoon Network to promote the American broadcast of Fullmetal Alchemist as uncut, yet admit that it was digitally edited? Isn’t digital editing, for violence or any other reason, taking away an arguably vital elements from a series, and therefore ‘cutting’ it? I can remember several series (Outlaw Star and Blue Sub No. 6 come to mind first) where the removal or altering of a single element caused much of the impact of a scene to be lost, or even made a dramatic scene laughable.

Answer:
No one (at least, no one in the fan community) knows yet exactly what Fullmetal Alchemist will be like when it’s broadcast on the Cartoon Network. FUNimation has vaguely confirmed that the series will be digitally edited but uncut for its American television broadcast. Having personally watched much of the series, I’m doubtful of how the Cartoon Network can possibly air Fullmetal Alchemist without removing major portions of the show because there are sequences in the series that seem too graphic and objectionable for a Cartoon Network broadcast even in a toned-down, edited form. Numerous scenes and sequences in Fullmetal Alchemist are far more brutal and gruesome than anything seen in Cowboy Bebop, and even the less shocking violence of Cowboy Bebop still had to be edited to meet Cartoon Network broadcast standards.

But the question of the viability of Fullmetal Alchemist on American television aside, to be precise, there is a difference between “digital editing” and “uncut.” Digital editing suggests that blood and gore have been digitally painted over or obscured. The footage is still in place; it’s just not as it appeared during its original Japanese television broadcast. So the American television broadcast could be theoretically called uncut because no footage is actually missing. Certain things in the footage, though, may be obscured or altered. To provide a more illustrative analogy, if an hour long film is broadcast with a giant digital mosaic censoring over the picture, it’s still uncut because it’s still an hour long and no footage is missing. You just can’t see footage because it’s been digitally edited.

This isn’t the first time that something like this has happened in the domestic anime industry. In fact, it happens routinely. For American television, nudity was obscured in Dragonball, and Tenchi Muyo had swimsuits painted on over nude female characters. In Cowboy Bebop blood and bullet wounds were digitally removed. In Blue Submarine No. 6 cigarettes were digitally removed. And the October/November issue of Anime Insider magazine confirms that the American television broadcast of One Piece will digitally transform Sanji’s omnipresent cigarette into a lollipop. Loose home video examples include the domestic releases of the Demon Lord Dante and Nadesico TV series. In the case of Mao Dante, the American version is censored but uncut because all of the original footage is present but some of it is obscured in the American version. In the case of all of the currently existing American versions of the Nadesico TV series, no footage is missing, but Japanese text on-screen in signs and computer screens has been digitally replaced with English text. (Thankfully the upcoming “Anime Essentials” re-issue of the Nadesico TV series will be free of all of the American editing.)

I won’t argue the fact that digital editing of any kind alters the impact of a scene from the way its Japanese animators wanted that scene to be conveyed. There’s no doubt that if animators put a lot of blood and graphic gore into a scene, it’s there because the animators wanted it to be there. The much maligned Noir is bloodless because its director wanted the show to be bloodless. On the other hand, Fullmetal Alchemist is bloody and gruesome because its animation staff wants it to be that way, perhaps to counterbalance the cheerful personalities of the characters, or perhaps to graphically illustrate the effects and repercussions of violence. Fullmetal Alchemist is simply not a show that can be broadcast on American network television in its unaltered Japanese state because of the differences between American and Japanese acceptance of depictions of violence. From the perspective of anime fans, it’s probably not agreeable for FUNimation to tout the Cartoon Network broadcast of Fullmetal Alchemist as uncut, but digitally edited. From the perspective of FUNimation and the Cartoon Network, emphasizing that the broadcast of Fullmetal Alchemist will be uncut (but digitally edited) is probably a very profitable advertising maneuver. I won’t say what’s “fair.” I’ve presented my opinions and a balanced argument (I hope). I’ll leave it up to you to conclude your own decisions.