In the original Japanese release of Dragon Ball Z: Bio-Broly, Trunks flips Bio-Broly the bird. However, in the recently released Blu-ray version, he does not.
As pointed out by Twitter user Nappasan, here’s how the edited version differs:
The edited version is on the left and the original one is on the right. Below is a comparison of both in motion:
The gesture was also removed from this month’s Dragon Ball Z: Bojack Unbound Blu-ray release.
Dragon Ball fans will know that middle fingers have appeared throughout the different iterations as taunts. Editing them out isn’t new, either. The bird was cut from certain international releases and in recent years, the hand gesture has been censored for Japanese TV rebroadcasts.
But this is the Blu-ray release.
Flipping people off is not originally an obscene gesture in Japan, but due to the American popular culture, loads of people know what it means.
Blu-ray release or not, since kids in Japan love Dragon Ball, there was probably a concern that children would copy the gesture or that it would also be difficult to broadcast these HD remasters on Japanese TV.