Funimation Streams Uncensored Strike Witches Episodes

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Episodes 3, 4 originally broadcasted & streamed with nudity edited out in 2008
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The North American anime distributor Funimation began streaming the uncensored version of Strike Witches episodes 3 and 4 this past weekend. These anime episodes contained nudity that was not broadcasted during their Japanese premiere in July of 2008. Funimation requires viewers to enter their age before streaming mature material. The company plans to release the series on DVD in early 2010.

When the Bost TV, Crunchyroll, and Youtube websites simulcasted these episodes worldwide, they streamed the same censored version that aired on Japanese television. The uncensored version was eventually released on DVD in Japan. The Strike Witches anime is inspired by the artwork of Humikane Shimada, an illustrator of mecha-girls whose bodies have been merged with real-life and imaginary machinery and weapons.

In a separate development, the first episode of the To Aru Kagaku no Railgun anime series included a shower scene that ran this past week in several different versions throughout Japan. Several stations showed the scene with added "steam" to conceal the characters' bodies during the shower scene — with some stations showing more steam, and others using less steam or none at all. The anime adapts Motoi Fuyukawa's To Aru Kagaku no Railgun (A Certain Scientific Railgun) manga, which is itself a spinoff from Kazuma Kamachi's To Aru Majutsu no Index (A Certain Magical Index) light novels. Other television anime series in the past have been shown with levels of editing that varied with each local station.