Short answer: Yes.
Long answer: Yessssssssssssssssss.
Actually it does. The US Supreme Court has ruled that the Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996 did not pertain to cartoon images or the like. Obscenity laws, which Hanley pled guilty to, vary from state to state and the game as a whole could fall under those laws.
No, but it DOES mean that they may pursue obscenity trails more aggressively now, so that means it’s more dangerous than before, though only slightly.
Also, Lolicon is a particular branch of obscenity that’s being targeted now. So having an underage character nude (Even if it is just nudity, in a game like THIS, which has an amount of outright sexual moments, do you think it would be easy to argue that it ISN’T sexual? Especially considering Matsuri’s genitals are in clear view on a couple of them?) is a liability. Granted, it isn’t likely to cause much trouble, but would it really be worth the risk just to please a few hardcore fans?
Please note that I’m playing devil’s advocate here, I do think this was an overreaction, but I understand where their coming from.
Funny you should mention that game considering they have a few copies there even though it’s out of print. I’ll be sure to bring that up with him tomorrow assuming I have the chance. Now, anyone else got any questions and if so try to have them well thought out so I don’t have to interpret what you’re saying.
Jeez, What a fine mess this turned out to be
I couldn’t agree more… 
If it was just the genitals they could have censored it with just some panties and not the chest area (note i still don’t think that was necessary as mosaics covered it and similar content is shown on television with similar censoring). As your asking whether it’s sexual, well if the primary itent really is the story, then a few of the scenes could still be fine, such as the bathroom scene, where no sexual intercourse was taking place because of the artistic value. The other scenes might not be able to pass such muster, however given that that title is centered around the storyline it is still arguable.
Is it worth it to please some fans? That depends on whether PP thinks it will get more sales, not only for this title, but over the long-term. If by this censoring they would turn enough hard-core fans off enough that they will start telling people not to buy their games and people listen to these fans, then it obviously might not be worth it. If however, those fans complain but sales are relatively unchanged for the title and those fans come back, it was worth it.
for all its worth, I believe in the UK they have changed to law to be something of the form of, if a sane person look at the still image (with no other reference to girls age), would she look underage? if yes, add the punter to the sex offenders register. Although I don’t remember if it apply to drawn characters or not.
any way, Equality Now is trying to ask the UN to force the Japanese government to pass a law similar to “Extreme Porn” law of the UK. They seem to be really offended by porn (especially eroge) and wish to make the Japanese government to take an action that even the USofA doesn’t take! :evil:
Equality Now Demands UN Hentai Ban
http://www.sankakucomplex.com/2009/07/2 … entai-ban/ (NSFW)
P.S. for all it worth, feminist no longer have my backing in any way or form. This is the first time I am in the receiving end of their “action” and it really make me wander about their other “actions”.
Wonder what all these pitiful moral jack asses are going to do when most people give up on the supposed law as many more people are gravitating to such ideals already. The more tight fisted these governments have become, the less they have actually achieved. In fact, such legislation only seems to spawn the internet nodes for such content, which effectively strips the law of most of its power.
You would also think such governments would worry far more about actual real world issues that they seem to be completely inept at controlling. You know those pesky things such as economies and growing civil unrest… funny, they only seemed to be adding fuel to the latter one.
Sorry, I was unclear. I was responding to the now underlined part of your quote.
Please, don’t ever treat news from sankaku as accurate. Read the actual letter PDF, not the completely made-up summary sankaku posted. sankaku’s commenters are insane misogynists who think actual rape and murder are an appropriate response to a political debate about censorship.
EN has no power whatsoever. They only write letters, and they do it on a wide variety of subjects. Just a quick glance at their website will tell you that they’re also writing letters about forced marriages, forced divorces, activists in captivity, schools for girls, sex tourism, systemic rape in Africa, female genital mutilation…
They are particularly creeped out by hentai because hentai fans keep mailing them death threats and gang-rape videos, whereas most of the people they write about just ignore them. How well would YOU react if you were being inundated with hate mail threatening to rape and kill your family?
I am a feminist. You should be as well. That doesn’t mean you should support EN, especially on the hentai thing, because they’re wrong in this instance. Censorship is bad, even when it comes to creepy porn. However, they are only a tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of feminists (you may as well say “I hate all white people because of EN!”) and them being stupidly wrong on one subject has no bearing on whether they are wrong on all other subjects.
Of course, the more this goes on, the more it starts to seem like EN was right all along… like the fans of rape hentai are evil misogynists. I mean, I hope you can’t really think that it makes sense to oppose all feminist beliefs (like the right of women to an education, a job, not being forced into marriage or sex slavery, not being murdered at the drop of a hat because your family thinks you brought shame on them by smiling at a man in public) just because someone took some of your porn away…
I suppose it’d be a bit much to ask for people to stop giving EN more ammo with these sorts of inane and comically disproportionate reactions, huh?
Way to convince them that they’re right, guys*! =P
*no, I’m not talking to you. at least, I don’t think anyone here would be stupid enough to send the kind of mail papillion is talking about =P A simple mail stating that their attention is misdirected and the outcomes they are pursuing will not benefit their cause (Banning Rapelay won’t help females any more than banning Mugen Kairou or Discipline would help males. Girls don’t play these games, then decide they’re going to go kidnap some youth and subject him to captivity and rape. At least, I hope not. I have nightmares about this at times >_>) will suffice.
I’d like to hope that anyone shallow and fickle enough to get these ideas solely from playing a computer game is also too stupid to carry them out! 
Actually, this line of thinking does have some justification. It’s twisted, but here it is: If I (over)react to subset A (EN) of group B (feminists) by demonizing group B, group B will pressure subset A to be quiet, because subset A is giving group B a bad name. We all recognize this on an intuitive level, likely without even thinking about it. Of course, what I describe is only one potential outcome of many. But if I were group B, I’d certainly worry about radical subsets giving people the wrong idea about the group as a whole. I’m not excusing this line of reasoning (it’s manipulative and makes the practician appear either ignorant or diabolical), but there it is.
The Economy’s condition isn’t going to improve anytime soon I can assure you of that. As for civil unrest, when haven’t we had that ? The level’s just gone up and down over the years. Since these governments seem to be unable to do ANYTHING about the more important RL problems, they’re focusing in on 1 of the things they can do: slapping panties, mosaics, and other forms of censorship on a nude, appears to be young, implied underage Loli.
Mira from Sumaga:
Nonwork-safe:
http://i1017.photobucket.com/albums/af298/Dark_Shiki/04.jpg
http://i1017.photobucket.com/albums/af298/Dark_Shiki/03.jpg
http://i1017.photobucket.com/albums/af298/Dark_Shiki/e54b816dc3ee4fd0992120c7c25fad15.jpg
I think she’s rather cute. >.>
She isn’t human, however…
She’s a robot!
Form /jp thread:
So I wouldn’t worry about her…
The economy will recover, and not soon you are right, but it will recover on “their” terms, the international bankers and global elite, and only after the US Dollar has been replaced. Civil unrest is exactly what they are hoping for, and they will create it eventually. If we don’t become violent, they wil just take the next step and try to supress our freedom even more, until we are forced to try and regain control of our lives.
Censorship is a miniscule probelm compared to the overall scheme, nothing more than a trite distraction unitl they start censoring political speach. Slippery slope your say? Not really, not until governments actually begin targeting speach and literature bent on removing them from power. There is some legislation already ratified to give the US government some of that power, it’s in both versions of the Patriot Act, of course you won’t read about it or hear about it in the mainstream media.
It’s painfully obvious whom is in control now, when the elected officials don’t even read the legislation they pass on to be signed into law, we can assume they in fact do not even draft it. The lobbyists draft the bills and hand them to their representatives (not ours anymore) to be paraded and passed with out so much as a whimper from us, thanks to the media.
Thanks for the reply, but you shouldn’t quote images. Bad for page loads. I’m somewhat of a culprit already for posting them as images.
I like that dialogue though. Even more so because I could read and comprehend all of the Japanese except for the kanji for “age”. That doesn’t happen too often.
It’s not much different form how things have ALWAYS been, really. McCarthyism did the same thing before, so this is nothing new. They’ve been trying to suppress political speech, but it never actually succeed. Also, I doubt violence will solve this, if that’s what your implying.
This is nothing new, its been going on for decades. You should join some activist groups in combating this.
This has been a problem for a long time, however, and while it shouldn’t be taken lightly, it isn’t anything new. You also pointed out one of the many reasons why I dislike the media.