Anime Director Masaomi Andou Says He “Bans Animators” From Adding Panty Shots in His Anime

Anime director Masaomi Andou became a topic of discussion after sharing on his Twitter profile that he “bans animators” in anime he directs from inserting panty shots or bouncing breast scenes.

Among the anime he has directed are SHY, Astra Lost in Space, Hakumei and Mikochi, Scum’s Wish, School-Live! and others. And even though Scum’s Wish is a series that includes sex scenes, he said the following:

“I will avoid quoting directly, but I saw people saying that it’s a lie that ‘animators take any opportunity to insert panty shots (showing underwear)’ into anime.

But that itself is a lie. Those people do exist.

In practice, there are animators who draw panty shots or bouncing breasts even when nobody asked for it. Because of that, in some works I direct I establish rules in advance banning that kind of thing depending on the project.

But you see →

There are people who have spent their entire lives dedicated to ‘drawing erotic things’, the type of people who are constantly glued to their desks drawing. So it’s somewhat inevitable that sexuality (a natural impulse) ends up appearing in their drawings. For those people it is something very serious, almost unavoidable.

We are all colleagues who dedicated our lives to creating works, each one with their own kind of libido or passion burning inside.

So when someone talks about this by cutting out only the ‘nice’ and convenient parts of the industry, it irritates me a lot.

In fact, I even know animators like that who died young. That’s why I can’t accept when someone talks as if those people don’t exist, or casually denies their existence.

I believe that it is precisely because there are so many different kinds of people that we have the accumulation of animation techniques and the industry history we have today.

Ah, but of course… when someone breaks a rule that was established, that’s extremely annoying too (laughs).

Because it takes work to fix afterward!

I myself have worked in studios where, when delivering an episode with intense battle scenes, the team had to review frame by frame to check if there wasn’t even a single frame or pixel showing underwear — depending on the broadcaster, they can be that strict.

But in the end, I think it all depends on TPO (time, place and occasion). In other words, since this kind of checking really exists in practice, saying that ‘animators don’t insert panty shots on their own’ simply doesn’t make sense…

This is also a complaint from someone on the side responsible for the final delivery of the material… truly.”

If you didn’t understand what he meant, to summarize simply: he is saying that there really are animators who add sexualized scenes on their own, even when it wasn’t requested in the script or by the director.

Some people were saying that it’s a lie that animators add “panty shots” (scenes showing underwear) or hidden fanservice in anime.

He says that is not a lie — it really happens. According to him, there are animators who:

• draw underwear showing
• draw bouncing breasts
• or other sexualized things

even when nobody asked for it.

Because of that, he says that in some anime he directed he had to create rules banning that kind of thing. Despite complaining, he also says he understands the reason. He explains that there are artists who:

• spent their entire lives drawing erotic things
• have a very strong interest in that
• so it naturally “leaks” into their drawing style.

In other words, he sees it as part of those artists’ creative personality. But in the end he says it’s annoying having to later remove the panty shots those animators inserted without permission.

What do you think? Some people are seeing this as him trying to censor fanservice in anime.