Japanese TV Station Cancels Controversial NSFW Anime Broadcast

The Winter 2020 anime season is well underway, and while fans have already chosen their standout favorites for the season, there’s one series that’s been getting a ton of attention lately. The anime adaptation of Amahara and masha’s manga series, Interspecies Reviewers, has been at the center of hot debate over the last week as the controversial NSFW anime series has been removed from Funimation, Amazon Prime Video, and more a few weeks after the series began airing in Japan. While licensing of the series in the West is still up in the air, it seems Japan isn’t too hot on the series either.

According to the official Twitter account for Interspecies Reviewers, Tokyo MX has canceled its airing of the anime series due to “organizational reasons” for the network. According to a report from Crunchyroll, the anime will continue to air on other networks such as KBS Kyoto, Sun TV, BS11, and AT-X, but the broadcast on TOKYO MX will be replaced by a program about boats.

This is serendipitous for sure as fans have reignited the “Nice Boat” gag from 2008 as a result. Back when School Days‘ final episode was pulled in respect for a major tragedy at the time and replaced with footage of a boat, members of the staff went on to comment “nice boat” about the whole ordeal. Clearly this is a much different situation with its own set of complications, but it’s still a hilarious bit of coming full circle with anime broadcasts.

There is currently no word on the future of Interspecies Reviewers, and its status in the West now hangs in the air. The controversy stems from its source material, but it was quite easy to believe this was another ecchi series. Produced by Passione, the same studio behind High School DxD Hero, the anime adaptation of the series follows a trio of fantasy characters that live in a world of legal and widely accepted sex work from a plethora of succubi. Due to various kinds of succubi, the trio can’t decide on which are the best and decide to venture around the world and “review” each of their encounters.

While the anime is indeed lewd, perhaps it’s pushing the envelope too far for some as it depicts many of the actual reviews. In the original manga version of the series, the reviews are presented as blocks of text but the anime spices things up by featuring a few visuals that are more pornographic than usually seen in ecchi anime. The adaptation has not fully crossed the line into hardcore, but its borderline elements were most likely too much to take a chance on for licensors.

What do you think of this controversy? Have you seen Interspecies Reviewers for yourself? Let us know your thoughts in the comments or talk to me directly about all things anime and other cool things @Valdezology on Twitter!

via Crunchyroll