Innocent boxed eroge that doesn't freak Customs

Visual Novel Community Archive, 2000-2009
#1

Here’s the deal: I have a friend who wants to start eroge. He’s not interested in a particular genre quite yet, but wants it to be good eroge. That is to say, something that generally is considered top of the line my the general community. An award winner would generally be safe: Devil on G String or Harukani Aogi, Uruwashino would pass for example… or a title that you’d stake your soul as great eroge (like I swear by MinDeaD BlooD as good eroge).

Now the first kicker: the outer packaging to the eroge in question, can not have erotic scenes blatantly plastered on it. So if customs opens the package, it doesn’t scream: “THIS IS PORN!!! RAWR!!!” The other kicker, is that if this game is installed on a test machine, porn doesn’t automatically fly up on the title screen nor does it appear for the first 15 or 30 minutes.

Case point example: Da Capo 2

Innocent looking front cover. Innocent looking back cover. No nakkid pics on the box… no sex until well into the game. This would pass totally.

However a game like Yosuga no Sora would fail:

Front is innocent, but the back cover has one naughty scene. Also the game shows a quick image of sex (even if it’s only like a 5 second flash) during the first few minutes of the introduction.

Obviously anything from groups like Black Cyc, Black Lilith, Anim, etc… are totally out of the question (since they put zero effort to hide what’s inside). :stuck_out_tongue:

Any suggestions?

#2

hmmm…sounds like your friend lives in a country with draconian policies.

my advice would be if he lives in Europe

  1. get it sent to frined in neighboring and more relaxed country [Olf how’s france?]
  2. take it across border physically
    3.???
  3. profit :wink: :wink:

In alll seriousness though Im at loss , eventually your friend is going to hit a brick wall as thats really strict and some great game boxes have sex scenes.

#3

Interesting challenge you have here Narg. I don’t know, what does the back of the box for Tsukihime look like? It’s been so long since I borrowed it from my classmate that I can’t remember.

#4

US military actually. He’s stationed in Europe. So basically he has to get past two customs. The host nation’s and the military’s. :stuck_out_tongue:

Generally the military itself doesn’t care about porn per se, but certain personnel have to enforce if they see it. So if the base official notes porn when rummaging through the mail, they destroy it. But if you have some hidden in a box in your personal quarters, they won’t take it from you (basically don’t ask, don’t tell).

Hmmm… not sure… although I don’t think I could actually find a copy of Tsukihime on the market. They’re almost impossible to find at an affordable price. However Type-Moon doesn’t plaster porn on their boxes, as FATE shows. I guess that means the upcoming remake will be safe.

For those curious, I’m getting these box scans from Hobby Search. Just don’t direct link to them. :wink:

#5

I found some boxes in my collection that may qualify:

[list]
[] Soul Link (Navel)[/]
[] Triangle Heart 1-2-3 DVD Edition (Janis)[/]
[] Tsuyokiss (Candysoft)[/]
[] Pia Carrot 3 (F&C 02)[/]
[] Canvas DVD (F&C 01)[/]
[] Majokko a’la mode (F&C 01)[/][/list]

Except “Soul Link”, all if these are ren’ai games, so sex-scenes should also only occur later in the story.
Forget “Soul Link” if they start testplaying it! Directly in the beginning, the story starts with a sex-scene!
Forget it twice, if you get the limited-edition-box that includes the artbook - because the artbook definitely contains prints of ero-CGs.

Oh, and while the games don’t have images on the box that go beyond lingerie/panty-shots, every box carries its “18”-kin-sticker, so determining from the box that the age-restriction being caused by brutality is unlikely could still lead to the correct conclusion that there is sexual content.

#6

Both tsukihime and tsukibako are safe.

G-Senjou no Maou, Sharin etc. are of course all safe too. (G-Senjou especially, since you’d need to hold down the skip button for about half an hour and successfully navigate your way onto Tsubaki’s route to see one at the earliest).

Finally, may I recommend dlsite? There’s lots of great titles, like Yumemishi, Katahane etc. and no associated packaging.

#7

Thanks for the link to the article Narg. Apparently there are some exceptions to the rules. As I understand it, my step-father recently shipped a whole box full of magazines to a friend stationed in Afghanistan. The intelligence guys use the magazines as payment to the locals since there is a high demand for them. As you might expect, given the Islamic culture, the magazines aren’t available any other way, and men are men no matter what culture they are in.

#8

It’s not just there, in South Korea porn is illegal. Yet the two tours I served over there showed me one thing, you can’t stop men from getting porn. You only had to walk of post for about 2-3 minutes before you could buy some. The whole idea of the ban is ridiculous in the first place. Back on topic though, Shin Koihime Musou fits the bill, there’s only one H scene very early and only if you go the Go/Wu route. Aside from that you could also throw in Little Busters EX. It wasn’t a favorite of mine but the H is certainly not early nor displayed on the box. Plus both have some actual gameplay that might help keep him from getting overwhelmed by the amount of text.

#9

The Sharin no Kuni box might not be ok (back cover) and Haruka ni Aogi is very borderline (back cover) too. G-Senjou no Maou is fine though. All of Key’s games (apart from Tomoyo After) have worksafe covers and don’t have any early ero-scenes, but besides that I can’t find anything else that’s got a worksafe box and would potentially be considered as top tier. I’d second Lancer-X’s suggestion of using dlsite to avoid any potential problems, as the 18 sticker + the writing on the back of most packages could get you caught, regardless of what the cover looked like.

#10

Looking through my collection, good games that meet your definition of “safe” packaging are:

AIR -Standard Edition-
Kanon -Standard Edition-
Little Busters! EX
Flyable Heart
Ashita no Kimi to Autame Ni

#11

Ohh, good catch. I admit to have mostly been working from memory, and I couldn’t remember anything objectionable on the packaging.

While it meets the definition of ‘safe’, from what I’ve played I’m not sure it meets the definition of ‘good game’. Matter of tastes, I suppose.

#12

Kara no Shoujo from Innocent Grey is safe because the game’s in a white box with just a small bit of cover art on the front.

Shikigami 2008 is almost safe since there’s only one ero image on the back in the rtop ight corner that’s easy to miss.

One question, and this is assuming that this friend of yours has money, but what about the box set releases from Cyc? Full Metal Box, at least the side it shows on erogeshop looks safe, Daraku Box might be passable since the front cover doesn’t show full nudity and the back cover just shows the logos for the games contained; don’t know about Hinakin Box.

#13

Ahahahahaha no way. Yes, the outside is fine, but if they open it up at ALL… you don’t even need to put any of the discs in to get the ero. It’s right there!

#14

One thing I thought I might remind people of just in case they forget: keep in mind opening movies for the games. If not for the opening movie for YMK (and possibly the non-sexual nude moments of Aya early in the game), I would totally suggest it.

#15

Yeah, with YMK it would be better to buy it for download.

Or, even better, get the version PP localised and support them. Not sure if it’s available for download or not, but a lot of their titles are.

#16

Yeah, the localized version is available in a download form. I recall that being announced semi-recently.

#17

Well, I’d think DL would be a better option, since the EOCS 18+ seal is rather prominent on most games…

Heres the CSA seals from there site:

#18

I’m loving it to pieces. I love cute, fluffy slice-of-life stuff, though.

#19

I don’t know if it’s possible to do, and its probably a bad idea but I’ll throw it out anyway.

Ship the game to yourself, repackage it in a DVD case, re-seal it and send. I can’t imagine they’d bust open a House Party 2 DVD to check for porn.

(Note that this is more a joke than anything else, the mention of House Party 2 and the Pajama Jammy Jam therein should be a dead giveaway.

#20

To be honest, the seals don’t mean much to most customs, unless they have someone on staff who can read it (and I seriously doubt that, given what I’ve seen with typical customs). If they could identify the 18 seal, then they could also read the back of the box or instruction manual. Hence the whole no porn thing. If you see nakkid pictures on a box, with an 18 seal… then yea… it’s obviously porn. Otherwise, they’d most likely over look it as a seal of quality or brand name. Or I could just peal the thing off myself. It’s just a sticker.

As a matter of fact, show that 18 symbol on GameFAQ’s… I bet a lot of people won’t know what it means, until someone who reads Japanese says something. It’s just Moonspeak to everyone else. :stuck_out_tongue:

Asked him about DLSite… he tells me the IP address has been blocked on the base firewall (makes sense… porn site and all)