Publisher Square Enix has shared a message to fans using the global version of its MANGA UP! app. . For those who don't know, this app has been quite controversial since its release due to its unnecessary and blatant censorship. Countless black bars covered various images, ultimately ruining the reading experience.
However, the company has announced that all black bars have been removed from its catalog and that all suggestive content has been returned to its original, half-baked iteration. However, the modification as a whole has not been completely ruled out for the future. The full message is quoted below:
- Hello MANGA UP fans! Fans: Thank you for sharing your feedback on MANGA UP! We've heard your feedback and have released an update to the app that removes the use of black bars from all content. As of today, suggestive content has been restored to its original art and explicit content has been addressed using blurring or shadowing techniques that are less intrusive to the reading experience. In the future, we will do our best to modify the illustrations only when absolutely necessary and to do so as smoothly as possible for the storytelling.”
And what do they mean by “blurring or shading techniques that are less intrusive”? A fan shared one of the panels of the Sono Bisque Doll wa Koi wo Suru ( My Dress-Up Darling ) manga, showing that Marin Kitagawa's crotch is no longer shown with a huge black censor box, but rather the panel has been edited to leave the area without any detail. On the left the original panel, on the right the edition of Manga UP!:
Even so, it is worth mentioning that Square Enix has not given up its abusive tactic of selling the content. It turns out that you have to pay to get access to each of the available chapters. That by itself is not a problem, after all there is no point in getting something completely free, but the abusive thing about the publisher is the following: it separates the chapters into up to four parts, and each one is sold separately!
