Battle Girls: Time Paradox cut by the BBFC

I'm 15 and I don't think evangelion is that bad. It really depends on how mature the child is. I honestly think that most "child safe" mass media is pretty thoughtless stuff that I think probably maeks people stupid. I really don't regret watching FMA/code geass when I was 12 doing what ever stuff is aimed at 12 year olds. I think that lots parents that wont let their child watch a 15 but lets them play violent games like call of duty are hypocritical. Adults can watch whatever they want as long as real people aren't being harmed. I think instead of a straight age rating system it should be based on maturity.
 
Why is the BBFC even still a thing? Anime is such a niche, just let the industry rate itself. In the US, only movies and video games that choose to submit themselves are officially rated. TV shows are left to rate themselves.

Battle Girls: Time Paradox has been on US store shelves with a "TV-14" rating for several months now fully uncut. I have yet to see any moral outrage or riots over it.
 
The thing I don't understand is that they are ostensibly an organisation run to protect the public, but it's quite clear they also have a shrewd business plan too - ie. charging per minute for everything they rate. Ie. the big extras debacle where companies were unwilling to put more extras on a release because it'd mean more BBFC fees. See also the voluntary charges for digital certification.

Imagine something like Manga's Yu Gi Oh release - all quite safe PG rated stuff, but you've basically got to pay for some guy to sit through all 49 eps of it and give an official seal of approval before it can legally go out into the shops.
 
black1blade said:
It's not like anime is too hard to rate, you can tell by the show.


Not always; look at School Days, for instance. If someone watches it without prior knowledge of the show, they're in for a treat.
 
Lutga said:
The thing I don't understand is that they are ostensibly an organisation run to protect the public, but it's quite clear they also have a shrewd business plan too - ie. charging per minute for everything they rate. Ie. the big extras debacle where companies were unwilling to put more extras on a release because it'd mean more BBFC fees. See also the voluntary charges for digital certification.

Imagine something like Manga's Yu Gi Oh release - all quite safe PG rated stuff, but you've basically got to pay for some guy to sit through all 49 eps of it and give an official seal of approval before it can legally go out into the shops.

Yep, it's a big problem that's helped suppress niche releases over the years, anime and regular film and TV. The fee might seem quite small, but for titles with really limited markets, having to pay BBFC submission fees can increase the sales needed to break even over a point where a release isn't viable. This is especially true for series or titles with lots of extras. My personal opinion is that distributors should either have the option to apply their own ratings but risk not being able to get wide distribution, or the BBFC should be fully publicly funded and shouldn't charge fees.

st_owly said:
I don't think a BBFC certificate is a legal requirement, but shops basically won't stock anything without one IIRC. Feel free to correct me though.

It is I'm afraid. It technically wasn't until 2010 due to a legal screw up in 1984 that no-one noticed until 2009, but for all intents and purposes every video or DVD sold in the UK since 1984 has had to carry a BBFC certificate. It's illegal to sell without one, which is why we had a rash of UK based region 1 DVD sellers shut down in the early 2000s.
 
They're probably getting scared though, as they know that as viewing habits become more digital, they are less and less able to enforce their fees. It wouldn't surprise me at all if the at the moment voluntary digital certificate became compulsory at some point in the future.
 
Rui said:
Doesn't the fact that we're now brainstorming what the obscene content could have been rather render the BBFC's work as guardians of our morality redundant?

As for me, that illogical Code Geass cut was the last straw. I have no interest in underage cartoon characters whatsoever but the people doing the censoring are clearly making it up as they go along. The only way that Geass cut made sense is if you subscribe to the sexist, schoolboy logic that breast size correlates with a woman's age because the context was completely ignored in favour of that bra cup measurement.

It makes no sense to have humans in some countries subject to restrictions that their fellow human beings elsewhere are not. Anime can never be 'child abuse' because no children were involved in the process. It can be obscene, sure, but that label seems to be handed out completely inconsistently under the guise of a vaguely-worded law. The day they get their talons into streaming and ruin that industry for us too is the day I leave this place for good. Outside of work actually aimed at children, the BBFC seems to be doing more for encouraging piracy and evasion than improving morality.

People from the future are going to laugh so much seeing the harmless stuff that was considered obscene in our time, much as the uncensored violence from old films ends up being viewed as acceptable later on.

Edit: Seriously, why are the BBFC even being paid in this case? They charge the distributors for a service which is mandatory, then despite being made up of adults vulnerable to the twisted allure of pervy anime, they decide that other adults aren't capable of watching it without becoming criminals. Meanwhile, the uncensored version is readily available from hundreds (if not thousands) of places, legally and illegally, and actually thousands of people in the UK have already seen it anyway. Hardened lawbreaking paedophiles will have been all over the rips on an illegal torrent site months and months ago. How many borderline criminals see that something has been cut by a few seconds and decide that actually, they don't find underaged smut sexy after all? What is the point in what the BBFC are doing?

If they want to be taken seriously why don't they come up with a way to update the system that doesn't treat the people of this country like infants whilst speeding the local film distributors to an early grave?

R

If you're unhappy with the system then take it up with your local MP, it's parliamentarians who pass the laws that the BBFC have to support with their decisions. I have a degree of sympathy for their position as they have to take into account a variety of laws passed over the years by numerous administrations in response to various pressures.
 
So, here's a question, Digimon got put onto Amazon Prime VOD (As in everything that wasn't Xross Wars or the Movies) a few months back, did that have to go though cert?

Cuz that's an easy 200 some episodes they'd have to punt though.
 
robot monkey said:
Rui said:
A lot of sensible stuff
If you're unhappy with the system then take it up with your local MP, it's parliamentarians who pass the laws that the BBFC have to support with their decisions. I have a degree of sympathy for their position as they have to take into account a variety of laws passed over the years by numerous administrations in response to various pressures.
Who says people haven't taken it up with their elected officials? That doesn't mean they can't still voice their opinions on here.

And BBFC employees know what they signed up for. If you don't want to be shot at don't become a soldier. If you don't want to be criticised for being pro-censorship don't become a censor.
 
black1blade said:
Has there ever been anything that has been rejected?
I can only find the cut La Blue Girl Returns on the BBFC site, but the original was rejected outright IIRC.

ConanThe3rd said:
So, here's a question, Digimon got put onto Amazon Prime VOD (As in everything that wasn't Xross Wars or the Movies) a few months back, did that have to go though cert?

Cuz that's an easy 200 some episodes they'd have to punt though.
Certificate isn't required online (and some Digimon has already been rated - 20-odd episodes of Adventure, and a few of both 02 and Tamers have been releases on Home Video in the past)

Are films that are downloaded from the internet rated by the BBFC?

Many are. Although streaming and downloading of films is not yet regulated by law, working with the major video distributors and platforms, we have developed a scheme for platforms offering downloads and streaming video to use BBFC age ratings and BBFCinsight. This is designed to help you make informed decisions about what you and your family watch.
http://www.bbfc.co.uk/about-bbfc/faqs#F16
 
ayase said:
robot monkey said:
Rui said:
A lot of sensible stuff
If you're unhappy with the system then take it up with your local MP, it's parliamentarians who pass the laws that the BBFC have to support with their decisions. I have a degree of sympathy for their position as they have to take into account a variety of laws passed over the years by numerous administrations in response to various pressures.
Who says people haven't taken it up with their elected officials? That doesn't mean they can't still voice their opinions on here.

And BBFC employees know what they signed up for. If you don't want to be shot at don't become a soldier. If you don't want to be criticised for being pro-censorship don't become a censor.

I would bet not many had taken it up with their local MPs & if they had they were probably given short shirft after all if you're an elected official who wants to be seen opposing laws sold as being for child protection.
 
My MP failed to impress when I last wrote to her on a similar subject. I think you're spot on about them blending it all in with child protection issues too, which makes it impossible to argue - which is a terrible shame, as the actual perpetrators of child abuse in this country are numerous and there's no evidence that I know of which firmly links them to anime, manga, BBFC ratings or anything else. It's embarrassing that our country is being treated as though it's more puritanical than the Bible Belt in the US when I don't think that it is (culturally speaking).

I wish that pre-downfall Manga UK or another noisy UK subculture company could have started an actual campaign, because I think that's the only way to be heard at this point. And since it benefits the industry more than it benefits us as individuals (we can just import...) it would make an awful lot of sense for someone to do this.

R
 
My constituency has been conservative for 25 years, so I doubt I'd get any kind of positive answer out of him. Should have seen the snotty response I got from his secretary when I asked about suggesting a revision of the rape laws to make the wording gender neutral...
 
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