Promotional Still of Reincarnated as a Neglected Noble: Raising My Baby Brother With Memories From My Past Life, abbreviated as SHIROHIYO © Original Creator: Yashiro. Production Studio: Studio Comet. Publisher: TO Books. North American License Holder: Crunchyroll. Used for editorial purposes.
Anime streamer ratings have become a joke. Take Crunchyroll’s handling of SHIROHIYO. At first, they slapped it with a 14+ rating for “sexualized imagery” and “violence.” But where was the so-called content?
The goddess character does wear a slightly revealing outfit, but nothing is played for titillation. By most standards, it’s tame.
Princess Hyakka from SHIROHIYO, episode 9: “The Greatest Singer in the Empire Is Born!” © Original Creator: Yashiro. Production Studio: Studio Comet. Publisher: TO Books. North American License Holder: Crunchyroll. Used for editorial purposes.
As for “violence,” the closest example is a boy imagining his half-brother brandishing a sword in a fantasy sequence. No gore. No brutality. Yet it was treated as if it belonged on a parental-advisory watchlist.
And here’s the kicker: not long after I first complained about it on X, Crunchyroll quietly shifted the anime streamer rating down to 12+ with only a violence warning. No explanation. No accountability.
This inconsistency isn’t unique to SHIROHIYO. Amazon Prime, Netflix, and others make the same inflated calls, sometimes exaggerating what’s on screen and other times downplaying it. The result? Fans (and parents) can’t trust these platforms to give accurate guidance.
If anime streamer ratings are supposed to help viewers make informed choices, they should be consistent, transparent, and based on actual content. Right now, they’re anything but.
Your friendly old otaku at Old Otaku’s Notebook
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