Rail Wars! is not a true ecchi anime, and yet it has gotten sexier with each successive episode, culminating in some potential nude scenes in episode four.
Potential screen cropping.
Suspicious foreground object.
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This foreground censorship was actually removed partially on the crunchyroll version.
This creates a degree of optimism that the previous suspicious foreground object might change on BD too (credit to Max Power).
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Potential screen cropping and/or blank boobs.
Long distance blank boobs.
Potential screen cropping and/or blank boobs.
Potential screen cropping and/or blank boobs.
Potential screen cropping and/or blank boobs.
The previous three episodes did not contain any potential nudity, but were still fairly heavy on suggestive fanservice. In particular, this show has more than a slight preoccupation with tight, shapely backsides. Every girl seems to have a bubble butt and covers it with dresses, jeans, underwear, or swimsuits that are consistently at least one size too small. Even ordinary clothing seems to always be shiny as to accentuate curves.
The combination of quality art, fanboy nerdery (in this case, trains), suggestive yet innocent service, vaguely possible nude scenes, and the unceasing obsession with cute butts reminds me a lot of Vividred Operation . Of course, that anime delivered on blu-ray. But that was kind of expected given the series thematic and production ties to Strike Witches .
Will this series show nipples? In terms of recent history, the odds say no. It is very rare to see surprise nudity (meaning no blatant censorship on the broadcast ala Strike the Blood ) from a mainstream anime with production values this nice. The only recent exceptions I can think of are Vividred Operation , Jormungand and Noucome . Noucome was just one scene with non-character (random girls) nudity so it doesn’t really apply to this topic, and Jormungand was actually just staying faithful to the manga, so it could have been foreseen. Vividred Operation was a pleasant surprise but was hardly a shocker given the context of the series.
More commonly, you see shows tease nudity and then troll by not adding it on blu-ray. Ro-Kyu-Bu! , ImoCho , Majestic Prince , Blood Lad , Bakemonogatari , Akuma no Riddle … the list goes on and on.
Even though I know the odds say that Rail Wars! won’t have nudity, my gut feel is a bit more optimistic, mostly because it has similar characteristics to Vividred Operation . Additionally, Rail Wars! was produced by a relatively new animation company which tends to be a good indicator for nudity.
I also thought it was an eyebrow raiser when the show hinted at future nudity early in this episode and then went back to the well again later in the same episode. It’s a bit unusual to troll twice in the same episode.
If this show does opt for nudity, this episode could actually end up being pretty nice as there is no shortage of opportunity. There are at least eight shots that could be modified to add nudity without much effort.
This is something to monitor going forward. If this episode ends up being an outlier and we only get a couple more suspicious scenes the rest of the anime, then I would be less optimistic. But if they are constantly jamming naked scenes into every other episode, then you start to wonder if this series has a real shot at being an exception.
