The History Of Censorship Affecting Anime Content & Games (Visa, Mastercard, PayPal, Patreon)

Censorship in the anime industry goes decades back in its entirety, but if we look at:

Anime games.
Ecchi games.
Hentai games.

Or any variation (child-friendly or otherwise), anime gaming censorship still has a history worth pointing out.

So let’s talk about it.

We’ll break it down by:

Year.
Month.
Company.
Timeline.

In chronological order.

2018: The beginning of the censorship train from payment processors

2018 seems like a while ago for many people. It was 7 years ago, after all. But what people don’t realize or have forgotten is that platforms like TUMBLR are where the censorship began.

Particularly with payment processors.

Apple Pay, or the Apple Store, pressured Tumblr into censoring and banning adult anime content (and adult content in general, I assume).

This, of course, was an effort not just by APPLE removing Tumblr from its app store, but Visa and Mastercard behind the scenes with the loaded gun to the back of their heads.

This was a big deal. But most people dismissed it and didn’t predict or think of how this could evolve into something more dramatic in the future (which it does).

2018 was also the year VALVE, the parent company of Steam, started the tirade of censorship, though back in 201,8 this was of course lightweight.

The real battle hadn’t even begun at this stage.

2019-2020: Patreon and PayPal bring down the hammer

Let’s start with PayPal, the “legal criminals” of the corporate world, who, long before banning anime creators, created all sorts of legal issues for sellers on eBay and other online platforms.

In 2019, PayPal started giving a hard time to various creators involving anime content. Their excuse, as is the case with many gatekeepers, was “Loli” content and anything of the sort.

Of course, this is the proxy, the front man, so to speak.

In reality, it was a gateway to censoring foreign content like anime that they have personal issues with (typical of Western companies) and have the power to censor based on personal, not legal, issues.

Next comes Patreon in 2020 with their “blurry” guidelines

What the fuck is this shit??? #anime is basically all under age now #patreon? Do you not think for one moment that this is totally lacking any common business sense? If you don’t want to do business with independent creators, just come out and say it. pic.twitter.com/6af7MjfNFq
— Bob BQ (@bbq_bq) March 12, 2020

What the fuck is this shit??? #anime is basically all under age now #patreon? Do you not think for one moment that this is totally lacking any common business sense? If you don’t want to do business with independent creators, just come out and say it.

This person wasn’t wrong. But there are caveats. It’s not just the fact that Patreon secretly had issues with Independent creators, but the fact that they’re anime-related creators.

This becomes obvious through digging, and I dug deep to reveal the truth.

This was revealed, in part, by a Patreon anime artist beforehand:

QUOTE:

“All Japanese styles can be said to be out. As long as you do Japanese style, even if the character has big breasts, Patreons official said it’ll be classed as a minor, so I had to delete 90% of my art on Patreon.”

As I pointed out in the original article, Patreon interestingly highlights “Japanese style” drawings, meaning Western style drawings were excluded from the censorship.

This led to some curious responses from Patreon, and they were caught in their lies

We’d like to clarify a recent rumor about our guidelines. We do not limit any specific style (like anime) of art. But our guidelines do not allow sexualized depictions of minors. If you have questions or want clarification, you can always reach our team at guidelines@patreon.com.
— Patreon (@Patreon) March 13, 2020

That’s not what you said to your Japanese users. pic.twitter.com/yjZK2czuBZ
— 指揮官Τιμ⚥🔞 PysOps Survivor, DDR OG, No More Tears (@Tim_at_where) March 14, 2020

First, Patreon made a statement claiming they don’t limit drawings like anime, and use the tired old trope of “minors” as a front man for their censorship.

Ultimately, their statement was proven to be disingenuous since they secretly relayed a message to Japanese users that they decided to OMIT from their original statement.

The original statement in question:

When analysed, it simply meant:

Anything Japanese related.
Anything similar to anime.
And anything NOT in a westernised art style.

Is ultimately lined up for the firing squad and eliminated from their platform.

No questions asked.

It also assumed short characters are children, which is ironically insulting to the many women of the world who are short and therefore treated as “children” either physically or otherwise.

During this stage of the game, right after OnlyFans was supposedly gonna be blocked by Visa and Mastercard, they used the opportunity to instead go after FICTION.

Because, ya know, fiction is a real problem that affects real people (unlike OnlyFans, which they reversed their decision on).

Ironic considering down the line, Mastercard & Visa ignored charges for child sexual content (real children) revealed by a whistleblower.

2022-2024: Pixiv, Fantia, DL Site under immense pressure

It became well known that Pixiv had a scandal with its artists. Many left the platform in droves, and there was controversy that spread across social media about CENSORSHIP.

This was covered here.

It’s a tiresome case of a platform kicking fans in the nuts and buckling to outside pressure (Visa, Mastercard) instead of collectively fighting back against the BS.

Fantia quietly started self censoring during this time also.

This led to more outcomes like:

Google Play Begins Deleting Visual Novel & Eroge Apps Globally.
DL Site facing pressure from payment processors and being forced to comply.
AI moderation across social networks like Quora (prior to 2024 actually), YouTube, Facebook, etc, targeting anime under the guise of “inappropriate”.
Anime and manga titles being removed or rewritten in Western countries (no surprise). Remember Interspecies Reviewers?
Japan starting to polish its image (certain companies, I should say) to cater even more to Western sensitivities (that’s putting it nicely).

Google, in a very unsurprising manner, began censoring anime related content such as visual novels in 2024, and Amazon followed suit.

2025: Valve quietly removes 100s of anime games based on the usual rhetoric

Now this brings us closer to the Online Safety Act (UK), which ironically was passed as a law the same day it was reported that Valve shelved 100s of anime games.

As history shows, it started with Valve in 2018, and here they are again, years later, ramping up the censorship with a VISA gun pointing to the back of their head and a dagger-shaped Mastercard pointing at their neck.

And the censorship hammer swinging at customers who just wanna have fun playing games.

The UK Online Safety Act: A MAJOR Turning Point (July 2025)

Ever since the Online Safety Act came into play, even MORE anime games, websites, content, and the like have faced scrutiny.

But it goes even deeper than that when you realize it’s connected to censorship via Steam and other platforms over the years, which will be covered in a separate post.

This seemingly NEW law has been in the works since 2023 and is wreaking havoc among fandom communities.

OFCOM, the UK regulator, is the villain in this story.

What does all this mean for the future of anime games and content?

In the end, it means this sort of content will do one of a few things:

Bury deep underground but still profit and thrive.
Creators will fight back and get what’s rightfully theirs either by creating independent platforms or other methods.
VPNS will rise, as they are, and this will circumvent censorship just like its been doing for years.

And the cycle will repeat itself as many times as is needed until the bullshit comes to an end.

And by bullshit, I don’t mean age-restricting hentai or porn, I mean gatekeeping legal, appropriate content under the guise of “dangerous, problematic” and other nonsensical talking points.

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Censorship Incoming: How The UK’s Online Safety Act Could Silence Hentai and Doujinshi