Since its 2017 debut, Azur Lane has dominated the mobile gaming market with a plethora of busty “babes “shipgirls” available through in-game gacha mechanics.
Developers Shanghai Manjuu and Xiamen Yongshi have mastered appealing to their audience by consistently releasing new characters and revealing skins, accompanied by captivating Live2D animations designed to excite players, we previously mentioned how Azur Lane broke social media with the inclusion of one of their captivating additions with ginormous tits, offending plenty of puritans.
However, this endearing fanservice has recently caused them trouble on Twitter.
On May 24th, the official Azur Lane Twitter account announced the potential removal of certain past posts made by the account. This action follows a request from Twitter’s policy team to regulate their content. As it has become abundantly clear that Elon Musk is favoring bots that try and allure users with nude photographs over raunchy fanservice for a game designed for mature audiences.
The account disclosed the possibility of deleting six posts created by them. This action was prompted by a request from Twitter’s policy team to regulate the content of these posts, particularly those containing images of swimsuit characters from the game and including sexual content.
These posts also feature videos showing animated movements such as breast shaking and 4-panel comics. It appears that these expressions were deemed subject to regulation under Twitter’s policies.
However, it was clarified that only posts from their Twitter account are affected, meanwhile the thousands of individuals producing erotic artwork featuring characters from Azur Lane aren’t being scrutinized at all.
The news unsurprisingly was met with strong disapproval from fans, who quickly directed their frustration towards the Twitter team responsible for the decision. This measure contradicted the platform’s previous reputation for being more permissive towards adult content.
Adding to the dissatisfaction, Elon Musk had promised fewer regulations and more freedom of speech upon acquiring Twitter in 2022, however the only changes the world’s most influential con artist has made to the platform was offering the ability to purchase Twitter Blue to access basic features.
Understandably, fans of the popular game feel that this sanction is unjust and rather hypocritical given how the platform is awash with literal porn bots.
New guidelines for adult content have been introduced from May 2024, defining it as any material intended to sexually excite, including pornography produced and distributed with consent.
This definition closely aligns with that of sensitive media posted by the official Azur Lane account. Notably, specific examples include full or partial nudity (including enlarged shots of genitals, buttocks, and breasts) and explicit or implicit sexual behaviors or actions imitating sexual behaviors.
A significant change is the expanded inclusion of manga, anime, adult manga/anime, AI-generated content, photo content, and animation content in the category of adult content.
Given that all censored posts from the Azur Lane Twitter account were published after May 21, it’s plausible that we’re witnessing the implementation of the new guidelines.
However, at present, the English account seems to remain unaffected, particularly as it often shares captivating artwork created by artists on Twitter. This suggests either that the American account has not yet been subjected to sanctions or that we are witnessing another instance of blatant anti-Asian bias, where content produced or promoted by Asian nations is segregated while Western users enjoy the freedom to share explicit content.
Currently, the official Azur Lane Twitter account, operating in Japanese, is adapting to Twitter’s policies by sharing “offensive” CG artworks with added censorship. This includes using light rays or elusive fog/mist to obscure the more revealing parts of the girls in their illustrations.
However, Twitter’s demands for censorship of Azur Lane’s risqué illustrations are unlikely to hinder the game’s popularity or lead to in-game censorship.
Meanwhile, Azur Lane’s developers, Manjuu, are actively working on their next project, “Azur Promilia.” This open-world gacha game combines base-building, farming, resource gathering, and RPG mechanics, akin to a blend of Genshin Impact and Palworld.
The game will feature exclusively female characters, aside from the protagonist, distinguishing it from games like Genshin Impact and Wuthering Waves, whose communities have been influenced by fujoshis and trans activists imposing lesbian head canons on everyone.
I, for one, am eagerly awaiting more news about Azur Promilia and am keeping my fingers crossed that Twitter’s puritan censorship policies don’t expand any further.
