The Nipples Must Go!

In the early years Nikkatsu could market VHS tapes with images of
exposed breasts on the front and back covers.


Later when Nikkatsu repackaged their films a second time they consolidated
the titles into several series with standardized artwork. The front cover now just
featured the face of the main actress and nudity was relegated to the back cover.


But when recording mediums changed from VHS to DVD and then to BD exposed breasts
were no longer acceptable. In designing these new covers media companies reused artwork
from the original movie posters and other existing promotional materials. The problem is
some of this material had exposed breasts that couldn’t be shown in today’s retail market.
The nipples had to be erased or covered up. So with some alteration the old artwork could
now be reused.

To highlight some of the interesting design choices that were made I have assembled pairs
of examples with the original poster on the left and the altered artwork on the right.
See if you can spot the differences.

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