In the ending cutscene in the Japanese version, Gruntilda's skull was replaced with a sack that resembles her clothing. This change was most likely made to comply with political outcry in Japan over the 1997 Kobe child murders, during which a 14-year old boy murdered two fellow students on separate occasions, the first victim having been beheaded. The cryptic nature of these crimes garnered enough attention in Japanese media and politics to cause the National Diet to reduce the age of criminal responsibility in Japan from 16 to 14 years old in the year 2000, the same year Banjo-Tooie was released. Despite this change, Gruntilda's eyeball can still be seen falling out of the bag in the censored version, and this change was not applied to the Xbox Live Arcade version.