Self-Censored Release

"Moral judgeyness aside, it's just weird from a fandom perspective how a lot of popular VN franchises started out as niche porn that was later cleaned up for general audiences – there's this whole aspect of the IP's history that you have to awkwardly skirt around any time the subject comes up in polite company. Like, imagine if Batman's first known appearance had been in an oddly high-budget Tijuana bible, and every time a comics industry thinkpiece wanted to name-check the iconic page depicting the first time he donned the cowl, they had to discreetly crop out the panel where he's getting railed by Superman."

— David J. Prokopetz

Some works have a past connecting them back to a previous, sometimes unwholesome incarnation, such as a previous version of a work being pornographic. A self-censored release involves the work being toned down to be more suitable for mainstream audiences.

This may happen from being derived from early drafts of other works of the authors, especially creators who worked in the doujinshi industry: limited runs of self-published fan comics. Some kinds of dōjinshi happen to be outright pornographic in an attempt to gain some quick capital with fans, creating the potentially unsettling feeling the character started in the mind of the author with an unsavory tone. For some artists, this can be a little awkward, but the attempt to hide it is pretty futile in practice.

While keeping the porn might stay true to form, mainstream works tend to be more lucrative. In addition, because of the different attitude toward such things in Western society, this can be a shaky prospect, as many artists become well-remembered for their racier art, and often make attempts to distance themselves from it.

This is a Sister Trope of Tamer and Chaster and Lighter and Softer, which is where an adaptation or later installment of a work (typically by a different production team) tones down the original's sexual or disturbing content; conversely, Hotter and Sexier and Darker and Edgier cover the opposite angles. Porn Creator Going Mainstream covers In-Universe examples of creators of pornographic works branching out into non-pornographic works. Other related tropes include Creator Backlash (where a creator expresses dislike for a past work in hindsight), Bury Your Art (where a creator actively tries to erase a previously published work from history), I Was Young and Needed the Money (a general excuse for an Old Shame), Rule 34 (a "rule of the Internet" that "if it exists, there is a porn version of it"), and Rated G for Gangsta (a general trend of creators producing more mainstream-friendly content when they get popular). Fanservice is a more different kind of opposite.

---

Examples:

Anime and Manga

• Dream Hunter Rem started life as a one-shot hentai OVA. Due to popular demand, this one-shot was re-edited and re-released with a newly made episode as a mainstream title and eventually spawned four sequels.
• The Elder Sister-like One: The original story was a series of onee-shota (mature woman with adolescent boy) hentai doujins. However, the underlying relationship was so heartwarming that it was made into an all-ages monthly serial. Extensive Ship Teasing ensued. On the other hand, Pochi has continued to produce the H doujins even while working on the serial ...and author notes indicate that the doujins are canon to the manga and simply take place further down the timeline.
• Hellsing: Kohta Hirano, the creator, started out writing freelance hentai featuring characters that eventually became the cast of the aforementioned work. In fact, one of his works, Legend of Vampire Hunter, is identical in plot and character design to the first book of Hellsing — except, of course, that the busty police officer is only threatened with rape in the latter work. Hirano being Hirano, he lampshades this all the time in the author's notes in the first volumes. Other characters used in previous hentai titles that were roped into the Hellsing series; Alexander Anderson from the short comic Angel Dust, Pip Bernadotte and the Major from Coyote, Doc and Schrödinger from Doc's Story, Renaldo from Magic School and the Captain from Desert Guardian. One of Anderson's many nicknames is "Angel Dust Anderson".
• Mezzo Forte was originally a hentai OVA. Curiously, each of the two Mezzo Forte episodes only has a single two-minute sex scene — and it's easily edited out without any plot impact, as was done in some US versions. Japanese contractual obligations to add hentai material, meet overseas distributor's adult content policies. Mezzo Forte was not supposed to be porn at first, but the producer bankrolling it believed it was the only way it would make money and forced the team to add in the gratuitous nudity and sex. Basically, the American release was what they had really wanted to do all along (once they found a different publisher). The followup TV series was also non-hentai.
• Project A-Ko, similar to Kanon and AIR, was originally produced as part of the Cream Lemon hentai series, but the producers thought the comedy was too good to be broken up with sex scenes. They left plenty of Fanservice in, though, like a few shots of B-Ko bathing, and lots of Panty Shots.
• SHUFFLE!, openly — somewhere around episode 10, an R-15 warning was added to the television broadcast, after which the ecchi content was upped... occasionally.

Comedy

• Paul Reubens's Pee-Wee Herman was a stand-up character for adult comedy nightclubs and his playhouse show played out like a kids' show with adult humor (the type that is more R-rated, not PG-rated, as seen in many animated films and TV shows). One of his routines involved him and his friend Hammy wearing shoe mirrors to see up Hammy's sister's dress. Hammy's sister catches them trying to look up her dress, then tells them the joke is on them because she's not wearing any panties.

Comic Books

• Empowered grew out of Adam Warren being forced by financial difficulties to turn to the questionable but lucrative market of superhero-themed bondage pin-ups. Gradually, he found the single images developing into longer gag strips, and finally a full-blown comic series with fleshed-out characters. (Although while it doesn't have any graphic nudity or hardcore images, the comic still has strong erotica and sex-comedy elements.)
• Nickelodeon Magazine featured a comic strip titled Patty-Cake that was written by Scott Roberts and first appeared in the magazine in 1998, but the series actually began as a comic book distributed by Permanent Press that began publication in 1994. The pre-Nickelodeon Magazine comics were more adult, featuring occasional profanity and mature humor.
• A non-sexual example, The Phoenix features a comic strip called Looshkin, featuring the titular blue cat and a living teddy bear named Bear. The strip features a lot of slapstick and Surreal Humour. The original incarnation, the 2003-2005 Alternative Comics series Bear, had that but also included swearing and stronger violence, so it was aimed at adults.

Fan Works

• Hivefled is a complex, plot-driven Alternate Universe Fic. The Kink Meme fic it originated from, Reprise, was basically just horrible torture-rape.

Films — Live-Action

• In the 1970s and 1980s it was not uncommon for porn films to have second versions released to mainstream theatres with sex scenes either removed or toned down. Examples include Café Flesh and Dixie Ray, Hollywood Star (the latter actually having an actual well-known film and TV actor, Cameron Mitchell, in a supporting - but non-sexual - role). Averted with the infamous Deep Throat, which was released uncensored (since an R-rated cut would have been pointless). Since the 1980s it has been commonplace for some of the higher-budgeted porn films to shoot sex scenes with a second camera, or restage them altogether, to allow versions of the films to be shown on cable or released to video where hardcore is illegal. Such productions regularly appear today on networks like Cinemax.
• The 1975 horror film Forced Entry was a loose remake of a 1973 porno of the same name.

Live-Action TV

• Dream On had nude scenes with alternate takes wearing underwear for broadcast syndication (it also briefly aired on the Fox network).
• When The Sopranos was being produced, they made sure to be prepared to change certain scenes for syndication. They would frequently record alternate versions of scenes where a nude character (often the strippers in the club) would be in bikinis or lingerie, and occasionally a scene would be recorded with softer dialogue to avoid Hong Kong Dub later.
• Stargate SG-1: The Pilot Movie "Children of the Gods" includes a lengthy scene of full-frontal female nudity when Apophis offers Daniel Jackson's wife Sha're to his queen Amaunet as a host. This was added at the behest of original network Showtime and is kept on the DVDs of the series; however, syndicated airings, reruns after the Channel Hop to the Sci-Fi Channel, and the recut of the episode as a Made-for-TV Movie cut it down to Shoulders-Up Nudity and Toplessness from the Back.

Music

• Some hentaigrind bands such as Aloys Fudanshi abandoned the hentai side of things and switched to regular Grindcore, blackened Death Metal and powerviolence from Alive onwards.
• The Black Eyed Peas re-wrote "Let's Get Retarded", a song from their 2003 album Elephunk, as "Let's Get It Started" to serve as a promo song for television coverage of the 2004 NBA Playoffs. Guess which version ended up becoming a bigger hit...
• Goldo's One-Hit Wonder "Boom-Da-Boom" is mainly known for the version that describes the narrator being in a dream involving various Disney characters (and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, for some reason). The original version was about the narrator getting involved in a high-speed chase-turned-fight which goes From Bad to Worse when someone pulls out an AK-47.
• John Lennon wrote a song titled "Maharishi", full of swearing as The Diss Track on said Indian guru who disappointed him. The version recorded by The Beatles in The White Album might have a dirtier title in "Sexy Sadie", but its language is cleaner and some lyrics are more vague if still bitter because George Harrison asked Lennon so.
• Little Richard's original lyrics to "Tutti Frutti" contained unacceptable levels of swearing and sexual innuendo (being a pretty transparent reference to gay anal sex) for contemporary radio broadcast, so songwriter Dorothy LaBostrie was brought in to hurriedly write new, clean, lyrics.
• Klaus Schulze's album Body Love and its sequel album began as the score to a pornographic film of the same name.
• The original version of the song "Blind Dance" by Violet UK is 18 minutes long, a near ethereal Gothic Metal Intercourse with You song centering around Intercourse with You and the protagonist being a submissive in BDSM, and containing The Immodest Orgasm combined with Cluster F-Bomb. The commercial/radio edit version barely clocks in at 4 minutes (if that) and is an ambient sound/electronic Apocalyptic Log with some bits of the drums and orchestra from the original thrown in. Both actually are good, but they aren't even the same song despite the name.
• Jackie Wilson and La Vern Baker recorded an X-rated version of their duet "Think Twice" as a piss take during the recording sessions for that single, which later turned up on bootlegs and specialty compilations.
• The hymn "What Child Is This?" (among other Christmas and New Year texts) is set to the tune of "Greensleeves", which is usually interpreted as either a song about a promiscuous young woman or a prostitute, or a song about a woman being mistaken for one of these things.

Pro Wrestling

• A fair number of professional wrestlers in WWE have undergone some changes, sometimes as a result of a Heel–Face Turn but more generally because WWE has in recent years attempted to become more family-friendly. The most notable of these is John Cena, who rose to fame as a heel that belittled his opponents through R-Rated rap promos. Within record time, Cena was PG-ized by the WWE when they saw his popularity and has gone full-tilt towards erasing any edginess about Cena in favor for a G-Rated version of Cena that they could shill to children. On the Divas side, Mickie James (who did several nude photoshoots before becoming a WWE wrestler) and Kelly Kelly, who started out with fairly perverted gimmicks (Psycho Lesbian and "extreme exhibitionist," respectively) before being converted to generic Divas.

Video Games

• The maid training simulator/Virtual Paper Doll H-Game Custom Order Maid 3D 2 received a clean 12+ release titled Custom Order Maid 3D 2: It's A Night Magic. There's also Custom Cast, an all ages mobile app version of just the character creator intended for Vtubers which also has an option to create male characters, unlike the original (without mods, at least).
• Data East began its line of billiards games with a clean Arcade Game titled Side Pocket. However, all the (likewise clean) console releases of Side Pocket, not counting the Numbered Sequels, were based either on the nudity-enhanced update Pocket Gal or its sequel Pocket Gal Deluxe.
• The Porn with Plot RPG Dragon Knight 4 was ported to the SNES and PlayStation with all the Optional Sexual Encounters removed.
• Duel Savior Destiny originally had sexual content in Duel Savior Justice, but it later received a clean release that turned most of the sex scenes into something far more PG, faded to black on others and replaced the harem route with one focused around the princess character from the original game who did not originally have a route. In order to do so, she gets dragged along to a number of scenes that were clearly originally written without her presence, making her rather stand out.
• In I=MGCM, Studio MGCM has made two versions released simultaneously: The DX version and the regular version. The regular version of said game has all pornographic scenes and dialogues from the DX version removed and some of them are replaced with scenes that makes sense for general audiences. However, this game still has some Fanservice, Stripperiffic dresses, Sex Comedy, Les Yay subtexts, and visual innuendos that include some Demon Realm plants and critters that look like women's breasts, male sex organs, etc., but it's still relatively clean. Because of this, all the main story scenes, dreams scenes, hallucinations, Visions of Another Self and imagine spots, that are exclusively available in the DX version, are left to players' imaginations.
• Kimihagu was originally an 18+ H-Game for the PC (in Japan only). Six years later, however, it received a 17+ port for the iPhone (still in Japan only).
• The eroge Koikatsu also has an all ages character creator-only version called Vkatsu meant for Vtubers. A clean version of the game called Koikatsu Party also received a worldwide release.
• OMORI first came into the world in late 2011 as a teenager whose favorite things were looking up porn on his laptop and video games. Even before Omocat cancelled the graphic novel in favour of making the eponymous game, the Omori's Story one-shot lacked any trace of sexual content in favour of Omori spending a fun day out of Headspace with his friends - and by the time the announcement trailer was released in 2014, she had aged him down to a preteen and laid the final nail in the coffin for any explicit elements.
• Taito's Puzznic had one version exclusive to Japanese arcades that rewarded level completion with topless girlie pictures. The PC-98 port replaced them with clothed anime girls, while many other versions, including all home versions, had no girls at all.
• Scarlet Blade is already a risque piece of work; but it turns out that freecree, the CG artist, was simply using cropped versions of his much more risque versions of his artwork and has put them shamelessly on display.
• The Witcher had a lot of female nudity for fanservice, all of which was replaced with censored art in the international release. Studio CD Projekt RED offers an optional "Director's Cut" patch to restore it. The sequels didn't bother, nudity and softcore sex in mature-rated video games having become more acceptable since then.

Visual Novels

• Aquaplus/Leaf:
  • Tears to Tiara was originally a adult PC game. Later remade for the PS3 with (what is generally regarded as) superior character design. The anime then took the PS3's take on things.
  • Utawarerumono was initially an adult game. Its huge success led to an anime and a PlayStation 2 game, both 'clean' to the point of often lacking fanservice (at least of more conventional sorts, though it does occasionally come up). The PlayStation 2 version followed the original, adult game closely but cut off on the brink of an H-scene then picking up afterwards. Only the original, adult game however, so openly blind-sides the player with the revelation that Dorii and Guraa are actually male. The others just kinda leave you unsettlingly uncertain.
• Aselia the Eternal - The Spirit of Eternity Sword was originally an H-game/RPG mix for the PC. Eventually, it was ported to the PlayStation 2, which doesn't allow adult content. Then it was ported back. So all the references to the sex are there and you can even pinpoint when it happened, you'll just never see it.
• ATOM GRRRL!! was released for Steam with the majority of the yuri left implied, though Big E's "weapon" was left uncensored.
• Many are surprised to find that Comic Party was originally an H-game, considering that all the console versions of the game were pretty clean, as was the anime adaptation (rated PG in most countries) which contained almost no fanservice. (Some of the bonus OVAs and the sequel Revolution series do add some brief nudity, but no sex.)
• Key/Visual Arts' games Kanon and AIR were originally H-Games, but the anime adaptations and later releases of the games were clean, and many people thought the hentai actually detracted from the story. (And was oddly placed. See Mai's arc in Kanon, where they go to the school to fight demons, but take a break to eat supper and do it on the desks.) On that note, there's also Eternal Fighter Zero.
• The remake of Kikokugai: The Cyber Slayer removes the explicit sex, presumably opening the novel up to a new audience nine years later.
• Inverted in the case of Little Busters!. Initially released as a clean visual novel with a gripping plot, followed by a manga adaptation, they then re-released it as Little Busters! Ecstasy as an adult version of the original one (plus extras).
• Downplayed in Muv-Luv's non-erotic versions, where they get away with as much as they possibly can, either fading to black at the very last possible moment or showing the scene anyway but the CGs cropped and the most explicit bits cut out. It's notably Muv-Luv Alternative that does the latter, which is understandable given that its content is definitely not meant for anyone who couldn't handle seeing sex and is more to appease the rating systems. The studio also offers a free decensoring patch for the Western releases.
• Subverted in Norn9; the game has scenes that look like this and cuts to black before the characters actually have sex...but the only releases have been all-ages, meaning there never were any sex scenes to remove to begin with.
• Otoboku - Maidens Are Falling For Me started as an H-Game, which is ironic, given how shy Mizuho is in the only slightly ecchi anime.
• Phantom Thief Silver Cat: As per Steam's regulations, the commercial release features censored imagery (save for a couple of oversights), though dialogue makes it clear what's happening in every scene regardless.
• Rumbling Hearts received the usual removal of sex scenes when it was ported to Dreamcast and PS2, but also has one particular ending replaced in the ports. Said ending involved the protagonist getting kidnapped by his love interest, forced to undergo hormonal replacement therapy, and sexually assaulted. The ports replaced this with a more run-of-the-mill happy ending.
• The remake of YU-NO predictably cut the sex scenes, but it's still very obvious what happened. This was also averted on its first console port - the Sega Saturn - due to the Saturn performing so poorly Sega allowed them in a fit of desperation.

Webcomics

• Wendy: Wendy, one of Jackie Lesnick's best remembered characters (or character templates) began as the focal character of The Wendy Project, a site showcasing tons of pinups of Wendy and her friends (which, according to the artist's retrospective, were rather badly drawn). The characters would eventually star in the increasingly more wholesome comic bearing Wendy's name, and Wendy's character design was later reused in the filler series Cute Wendy, which became a runaway success and spawned its own sequel/spinoff Girly. Despite the Creator Backlash involved, Jackie has continued to produce short pornographic comics on her Slipshine subscription service to this day, some of which still feature Wendy prominently, although slightly better drawn now.
• Before the webcomic got its start, Las Lindas artist Chalo had a number of pictures of Mora in some rather NSFW situations. Once the comic became popular, the pics were eventually deleted from his art pages, though they occasionally still pop up from time to time on imageboards. The move is somewhat ironic, given the Fanservice-heavy nature of the comic and that Mora has since been shown and implied to have had sex multiple times throughout, not to mention that Chalo does still occasionally post NSFW art of his characters on his social media accounts.

Western Animation

• The rejected Cartoon Network pilot Bottom's Butte was originally planned as an adult cartoon called Bottoms Up, with the storyboard for the pilot's original draft "Woman in Heat" being about Peanette trying to help Beverly get laid (the two hooking up with a pair of twin brothers who are anthropomorphic cigarettes) and ending with Beverly naked.
• Dead End: Paranormal Park is based on Deadendia, in turn based on Dead End. The former iterations have plenty of raunchy sex jokes and in the case of Deadendia even guest participations by porn artists, but the Netflix show has been largely purged of that and doesn't really have anything objectionable for kids barring homophobic countries banning the show.
• The UK kids series Dodo is based on the short film Not the End of the World which has main character Joe sleeping naked, popular girl Molly smoking and Joe's friend mentioning he heard that Molly let a guy touch her boob. Though the series still has some dirty jokes that only adults and older kids will get.
• Downplayed with Jimmy Two-Shoes, which was pitched as a Black Comedy for older teens rather than adults, but was nevertheless saw its premise neutered when Disney XD and wanted to aim for a younger demographic. The initial concept explicitly took place in Hell after titular main character was mistakenly sent there after being killed by a bus ramming him over, with other changes including Heloise intended to be the spirit of a Serial Killer and Lucius being the Devil himself. Some of the surfaced concept art show also depicts far more gruesome slapstick (most prominently, this one◊) than the final show.
• The TV series Oh No! It's An Alien Invasion is based on a short called Oh Shit!.
• The Powerpuff Girls originally premiered in a short called Whoopass Stew!, where Professor Utonium created the "Whoopass Girls" by accidentally adding a literal can of whoopass to his concoction instead of Chemical X. It was Darker and Edgier in general, including having the girls kill their enemies instead of just beating them up.
• Regular Show, whose early seasons already straddled the line between content suitable for Cartoon Network and its nighttime sibling [adult swim], has some of its characters originate from two student films creator J.G. Quintel did in college. One is "The Naive Man from Lolliland," which, aside from a single use of the word "hell," isn't considered all that raunchy. "2 in the AM PM," however, contains explicit swearing and references to drug abuse, with the entire premise surrounding two clerks eating candy laced with LSD during the night shift and tripping out.
• Rick and Morty is already a pretty crude show, but it's based off of an even cruder short Justin Roiland did for Channel 101 called The Real Animated Adventures of Doc and Mharti, a Back to the Future parody where the solution to literally every problem the main characters encounter is for Mharti to lick Doc's balls. Yes, each instance of this was fully (if crudely) animated.

---