---
title: '"Actually, We Killed Censorship for Japanese Artists"'
source: 'https://youtube.com/watch?v=x9PuV_iFbG8'
video_id: 'x9PuV_iFbG8'
date: 2026-06-26
duration_sec: 495
---

# "Actually, We Killed Censorship for Japanese Artists"

> Source: ["Actually, We Killed Censorship for Japanese Artists"](https://youtube.com/watch?v=x9PuV_iFbG8)

## Summary

Fantia, a major platform for artists to monetize their work, announced the withdrawal of highly controversial censorship guidelines that had caused widespread panic among its users. The guidelines, influenced by Japan's Article 175, would have required artists to retroactively censor NSFW content or face account suspension and potential legal repercussions. Despite this reversal, the platform has suffered a severe loss of trust, potentially jeopardizing its future.

### Key Points

- **Fantia Withdraws Censorship Guidelines** [0:07] — Fantia announced the complete withdrawal of new censorship guidelines that had been introduced over a month ago.
- **Background and Context** [0:18] — Fantia was a popular site for artists to post and monetize artwork. New guidelines forced retroactive censorship of NSFW content under threat of account suspension and reporting to authorities.
- **Artist Exodus** [0:57] — Thousands of artists left Fantia through various means: stopping posts, retroactively censoring work, or deleting accounts entirely due to fear and panic.
- **Role of Payment Processors** [1:46] — Initial speculation suggested banks and payment processors (Visa, Mastercard, PayPal) pressured Fantia to enforce censorship.
- **Article 175 as Driving Factor** [2:09] — Further information revealed that Japan's Article 175, which prohibits depiction of genitalia, was a key driver behind the censorship guidelines.
- **Withdrawal and Miscommunication** [3:33] — Fantia announced they are withdrawing the censorship guidelines entirely, citing that the rules were originally meant for live-action content, not for 2D/illustrations.
- **Loss of Trust** [4:52] — Despite the withdrawal, Fantia has broken creator trust due to lack of transparency and overreaction. Many artists are unwilling to return to the platform.
- **Predicted Decline of Fantia** [6:12] — The speaker believes Fantia may not survive due to its willingness to bow to censorship pressures and the resulting loss of trust among creators.
- **Broader Censorship Trends** [7:18] — The situation is part of a larger trend of escalating censorship in anime, manga, and dating apps, driven by external forces like payment processors and foreign investors.
- **Foreign Investment Concerns** [7:39] — Recent acquisitions, such as Oasis Management buying Kadokawa, raise concerns about external interests trying to restrict and monetize anime and art.

### Conclusion

Fantia's reversal is positive for artists, but the platform has irreparably damaged its reputation. This incident highlights the broader, escalating problem of self-censorship driven by financial and legal pressures in the anime and manga industry.

## Transcript

I have some great news to cover today.
So this morning, this news right here by
Fantia came out, which you could see on
screen. And this is them announcing that
they are fully withdrawing their
censorship guidelines that they
announced over a month ago. For those
that have no idea what's going on here
and need a brief rundown, let me give
you the lore. So basically about a month
ago, this is a site that was very well
known for having artists being able to
be paid on it, artists to be able to
post their artwork. It's been around for
a very long time. It is a very big site
for artists to be able to, you know,
showcase their skills and be able to
make money off of it. And so, out of
nowhere, Fantaia overnight introduced
new guidelines that said that if you do
not retroactively censor all of your
artwork and pretty much blackbox
anything that might be NSFW, there is a
possibility besides just your account
getting suspended and you no longer
being able to make money and all your
artwork being lost, you might be
reported to the authorities. I'm not
even joking. And this caused obviously a
cascading effect to where thousands upon
thousands of artists on their site,
Japanese artists in general, to
basically leave the site. And there was
many ways they did this. Either a they
just stopped posting because they were
fearful of these guidelines and didn't
even know how to tackle them. Some tried
to actually tackle these new guidelines
by retroactively censoring their old
work, and we'll talk about that in a
second. And when others decided to go
the nuclear route and just delete their
entire account for they don't actually
have to worry about potentially any
issues arising to where might they might
get debanked, they might get reported to
authorities or something like that. It
caused a lot of fear, a lot of panic and
basically the site took a massive hit.
And now one of the big discussions
around the entire topic of what was
going on with Fantia and I covered this
over a month ago. The big thing that
came up was that it's most likely
payment processors or banks to some
degree because this is a story that we
see over and over and over again that
you have like payment processors like
Visa, Mastercard, even PayPal and even
banks even some Japanese banks too kind
of listening in from the western side of
banks in the world basically forcing
creators, artists and stuff to censor
themselves. So that seemed like the
actual logical conclusion on what was
going on and why this happened to begin
with. However, with a little bit more
information coming out, we come to find
out apparently one of the big driving
factors that was basically getting this
guideline change from Fantia that was
just so nuclear that was risking
destroying their entire site was that um
it was from article 175. Now, for those
that don't know what article 175 is, I
don't blame you if you don't, but here's
the brief gist of it. It is basically a
law within Japan to where Japan and
Japanese artist and you know basically
even real life stuff cannot show any you
know genitalia. They can't show
anything. That is why like if you read
dojans for instance or adult manga and
stuff you see things censored with like
certain like censor bars and stuff is
because of article 175. And so basically
whoever was in charge of article 175 or
you know using the force of that and the
rules of that was pushing down on Fantia
to cause these guidelines. So from my
understanding that means that it must
either have been someone in a
governmental agency maybe someone with a
big bank or something. I I don't really
know. The point of the matter is is that
article 175 is being used to basically
force Fantia to censor themselves, which
is very scary because obviously this is
one of the most draconic censorship laws
within Japan that a lot of artists and
manga authors and stuff have complained
about for decades at this point to get
it removed. And so maybe this entire
conversation might cause uh some form of
momentum to actually get that repealed
or removed within Japan. But the point
is is that that was apparently one of
the main causes. So, we get into the
stuff today. Fantia, like I said,
announced this and they said they're
withdrawing their entirety of their
guidelines, censoring everybody and uh
getting rid of like basically trying to
remove you from the site or reporting
you. Apparently, from either a
miscommunication or something going on,
the um the rules that were being applied
was only focusing on liveaction content.
Makes sense. Okay. And so basically
instead of focusing just on the 3D side
of things like Fantaia focusing on 3D
and censoring that type of stuff or
forcing creators to censor 3D, they
decided to go after drawings, 2Ds, and
stuff like the illustrations as well. It
was a retroactive thing that just
basically nuked everything instead of
actually what was being requested of
them. Now, here's the thing. I think the
reason why this happened is a big reason
is that a lot of these Japanese
companies, a lot of these uh sites that
host like let's say adult Japanese
content and art and stuff like that.
Obviously, they're very fearful. I mean,
anyone that's in that type of work has
definitely seen the um the overall
oppression from payment processors and
banks. So, maybe the reason why that
Fania went so nuclear on basically
causing a censorship like retroactively
on even drawings is because of that.
It's not hard to believe. However,
Fantia, when they did this, they made a
very big miscalculation because they
have now broken the trust of their
creators. They didn't even try to be
fully transparent or even try to fight
back into any degree. Even if they
couldn't, there could have been more
effort to it, which caused basically
widespread panic. And a lot of artists
that even even with this news that's
coming out, they don't even want to
return to the platform. They don't want
to come back to Fantia and post their
stuff if this site could easily throw
you to the wolves and scare you to such
degree where you could potentially lose
your income overnight. So, I think in
general, obviously, this is good news
that artists can now start freely
posting once again on the site, but I
think it's bad news because this
basically more or less showcases the um
the ripple effect of what censorship
does after it's already been hit hitting
so many things around you. Eventually,
there will be just an overcorrection.
There will be over censorship just to be
able to get something settled for they
don't have to worry about it. This is
selfcensorship at its core. And that's
one of the big things that um these
payment processors and pro-sensorship
individuals like is that they no longer
need to tell you what to censor. You
just you overcorrect to such a degree
you start censoring things so much
because you're fear fearful of being in
trouble that basically everything is
completely sanitized. And I mean there's
even an article actually that came out
today which I'll show here that even
talks about the sanitization of anime
and manga in the industry. I might me
need to make a full dedicated video to
that as well in a bit. And so in
conclusion, where are we at now? Well,
Fantaia as a site, I think, is probably
done. I don't think they're probably
going to survive. I think that if I had
to take an educated guess, they're
probably going to slowly spiral and die.
There is always a possibility that maybe
they could um potentially get their
reputation fixed once again. But the
fact that they were so willing to bow
down, bend the knee, is definitely kind
of burnt a lot of people that probably
never want to touch their platform
again. And I wouldn't blame anyone for
that. On top of that as well, I do think
that um this is not going to be the last
time we see something like this happen.
I feel like uh the fact that Fant was
already willing to bend over like this.
I feel like it might happen again with
them and maybe other sites eventually. I
I just think that in general what we
have definitely seen from this entire
situation is that a lot of Japanese
companies and sites that have a lot of
this artwork, they're scared. They are
very scared. They don't know what to do
and they just go nuclear just to be able
to protect themselves. And you can't
blame completely a business for that.
But it is still an overreaction. And
this is the environment that has been
created now thanks to just uh the
constant problems of either censoring
dating apps to censoring you know
artwork getting manga sites taken down
you know forcing anime manga to censor
itself. All these different type of
things has caused this. It's caused this
issue to bubble to the surface. It is no
longer just a like small little thing.
it is escalating and everybody is
starting to become aware of it. Um, and
then when you have the recent stuff that
I talked about yesterday with Oasis
Management and how they are basically
getting into like Kadakawa and buying
them out and you have these foreign
interest companies and the groups
basically trying to invest in anime and
change it. There's just a lot of things
that are really horrifying because you
could just see a lot of these external
forces really just trying to restrict
Japan and artwork itself to get what
they want and as much money as they can
out of it. But um I guess I will leave
it at that. If you enjoy my content, I
would greatly appreciate it if you
subscribe. Um you all be safe, stay
healthy, and I'll talk to you all later.
TV out.