Bocchi the Rock! is once again at the center of controversy. In Japan, some followers started a online petition to demand that the screenwriter Erika Yoshida be removed from the second season, after she admitted in an interview to having removed fanservice scenes from the original manga, calling them “noise.”
The demands of the petition
The text requires three main points: the Yoshida removal as a screenwriter in the second season, the elimination of his credit in the first, and a formal apology to the author Aki Hamaji. According to the signatories, one of the affected scenes was the protagonist's “ice bath,” considered unnecessary by Yoshida, which for them constitutes censorship of the original work.
Criticism of the screenwriter
The petition accuses Yoshida of publicly disqualifying illustrations and moments created by Hamaji, calling them “harmful” or “sexual exploitation.” The organizers maintain that in the production of an anime it is essential “respect the essence of the work and faithfully reflect the creator's intention”so as not to break trust with the public.
Little support so far
Despite the controversy, the document so far only brings together 347 signatures. Even so, the promoters claim that their goal is to protect creative freedom and prevent adaptations from becoming “tools of ideological propaganda.”
Do you think that a scriptwriter's changes can enrich the adaptation of a manga or should they always follow the original material to the letter?
