UK Monster Hunter PSP - edited/censored?

[Johnny]

Interested in picking up the first Monster Hunter PSP game. I would normally just go with the US version but I've heard it's edited to remove blood when attacking monsters. Obviously, I want to avoid edits so am looking at the UK version.

Can anyone confirm whether it is unedited and if not, is the Japanese version (or its sequel) playable without knowledge of the language?

[MattyD]

IIRC all the Western versions of Monster Hunter have been censored because apparently Westerners don't like cruelty to animals

Basically the beasts don't have a 'life guage' but you can tell how hurt they are by their behaviour (limping etc) and by how badly sliced up they look. This was deemed too cruel and shocking for carnivorous Westerners to stomach so they removed most of the blood etc. Obviously tampering with this directly affects the game's central mechanic somewhat. However, the original PS2 game had very little text so the Jap version should be fine even if you don't understand any of the lingo.