Persona 5 Box Art Censored?

Published: June 8, 2016 9:55 AM /

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Box Art

Atlus have just revealed the North American release date for the eagerly awaited Persona 5, which will be Valentine’s Day 2017 with some swanky Valentine’s-themed special editions for the enthusiasts out there. If you want to hear all about the launch plans then make sure you give our article here a look. Read on, however, if you want to learn more about why a cast member’s cleavage was removed from the US box art and more.

Persona 5 Box Art
North American (left), Japanese (right),

Persona 5’s newly revealed US box art has been making the rounds on various websites. Why? Because for some reason, the girl at the bottom left has had her breasts covered up in comparison to the original, Japanese version.

Whilst at first, some feared that the box art had been affected by censorship. Atlus’ PR Manager John Hardin stepped in to explain that the change was due to different placement/size of the ESRB and CERO logos.

https://twitter.com/JohnLHardin/status/740191804771819520

https://twitter.com/JohnLHardin/status/740192008623394817

Whilst Mr Hardin has told fans to “take the tinfoil hats off”, a Twitter user named @ArtOfDPX decided to test his statement anyway. Here are their results:

https://twitter.com/ArtOfDPX/status/740278251344433154

As you can see above, the logo does obstruct a fairly large portion of the cat-like creatures face. Worth noting is that the ESRB's logo there is significantly larger than the CERO logo as shown in the second screenshot by ArtOfDPX. Although, it would be far from the first time.

Atlus Box Art
Poor Teddy's face keeps getting cut out of Persona game covers.

The ESRB logo has covered other animal characters’ faces in multiple games in the series. The above shows the character Teddy having their face recently blocked in both Persona 4 Arena Ultimax and Persona Q. It may be that Atlus USA or Sega have decided they want to change that some going forward, or only want so much covered by the logo.

Odin Sphere Box Art
North American (left), Japanese (right),

It’s also interesting to point out that another Atlus game, Odin Sphere Leifthrasir, also made changes to the box art overseas. If you pay close attention above to the middle girl’s skirt, you’ll notice that the outfit has been changed to hide an upskirt shot. The title was released June 7th, 2016 and this time the change is clearly not due to the ESRB logo.

Additionally, the ESRB does have some very strict guidelines for advertising and this includes box art. This line, in particular, is especially important:

Graphic and/or excessive depictions of nudity or sexual situations

For example: Overtly sexualized depictions of a character's body parts, such as breasts, buttocks, etc., partial or full nudity (e.g., female breasts, pubic hair, genitalia), depictions of sex or sexual references (e.g., intercourse, oral sex, masturbation)

So perhaps that “tinfoil hats” comment was uncalled for? Who knows.

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EggRaptor
| Past Author

Censored Gaming is a former TechRaptor Contributor.