I just read her post like 10 times to be sure, but I don’t see where she said that.
She just put her 2-cents about what she thought of lolicon censoring.
By suggesting that they take games with limited loli content and censor it to not piss off the loli fans (which is weird, considering that’s exactly what happened here, since Nanami was the only loli in the game and had no explicit sex scenes), it’s perfectly obvious that she implied all the complainers being fans of “loli”, despite the fact that some complainers have specifically stated that they weren’t loli fans but didn’t like it being censored either.
Context, dear. Look at the couple of posts above me.
I asked if every single game included a loli.
Someone said yes, because the Japanese had a weird twisted need.
Someone appeared to take offense at loli-lovers being labeled as weird and twisted.
Therefore, in my followup, I pointed out that I have no objection to people being loli-lovers.
… How is it ‘weird’ that I’m clearly saying “perhaps they’re doing the best they can, then”?
I know perfectly well that you object to the games being censored, fullstop. I remember previous discussions enough that I’m NOT one of the people who looked confused at your being uspet even though the censored bits were clearly announced - I know that’s not sufficient for your taste, although it is for mine and some others. (I’m not, however, sure what exactly you expect companies to do instead. Translate only non-H games? I wouldn’t mind but most of the board probably would!)
A VN without a naked loli ?
This… is blasphemy… This is madness.
I know I wouldn’t mind. 8)
Agreed. 
I always felt that mainstream VN titles - those that aren’t aimed at a specific niche ¬ñ followed a distinct pattern to include a basic template of girls for maximum audience attention. Back in the 1990’s it was like: the childhood friend, the tomboy, the intellectual, the lolicon, the rich girl, etc. Nowa days it’s like: the tsundere, the yandere, the kuudere (or is it dandere now), the lolicon, etc.
Lolicon never went out of fashion. 
In fact ther could be an alternative solution.
Just like there is a warning on cigarettes packs in Belgium (“smoking kills”), they could give a warning when there is a naked loli :
http://img519.imageshack.us/img519/3058/a6ad298835c85f4c4d82ab0gb3.jpg
What about places were lolicon is illegal (like Canada) or semi-illegal (like the US)? Doing that’s only a cop magnet. 
The only real long term solution, is campaigning for the removal of censorship and obscenity laws in your country.
True, as far as it goes.
Not true, as it turns out. Merely because they don’t actually have the power to arrest anyone does’t mean that people never end up prosecuted based on their activities. Special interest group can have a very severe effect on public policy. The activities of special interest groups leads to changes all the time. Many of them good, many of them bad. The ACLU, for example, is a special interest group, and they have had a profound effect on the development of constitutional law in this country. So has the NRA. So have the groups that want to push creationism in public schools. The special interest groups that support gay marriage and the special interest groups that oppose it are essentially driving the whole public debate on the issue. Special interest groups are a core feature of how democracies operate.
Bush announced a step-up in prosecution of obscenity to please special interest groups. These prosecutions don’t happen in a vacuum. Public pressure DOES affect how the law is enforced, and exerting public pressure is what special interest groups do.
Well, I could come up with a solution or two. They could simply choose to reject all titles with loli-content before licensing like I’ve been saying dozens of times. Alternatively, they could stop getting wound up in all the panic/paranoia induced by the media that sensationalizes incidents with any sort of anti-porn backing, stand their ground in a calm manner, and use that stance to reinforce the confidence of their fans.
If push comes to shove, I wouldn’t mind them releasing just non-H games myself, assuming their localizations are decent. But even the perceived threat of sex-negative feminazis (which the sex-positive feminists are too stupid/incompetent to oppose in an organized fashion) are still not enough to outweigh the costs of not releasing H-games.
Redrawing the CG in such a case would potentially be a far-reaching change. They might have to redo the character’s appearance thru more than just those 6 CGs. Or maybe they DID redraw them, and they “removed” the originals. I mean, what, they’re going to do like the original release of Nocturnal Illusion, and just chop the images out, so the screen will fade to black for those parts?
But I think you’ve hit the nail on the head. Jast USA has the resources to say “Sure, we can pay to have the artist retouch these CGs”, and MangaGamer does not.
I would gladly welcome mosaic’ing on controversial CG, if it meant the CG would be preserved. After all, then we wouldn’t be getting a “butchered” or censored release from the Japanese version, since the Japanese version has mosaics too. It would actually be rather improved, since the other scenes would be mosaic-free.
Yes, key word there being “changes” [in laws]. If there’s no law to prosecute a perceived crime under, then it’s not a crime. US law is vague enough that special interest groups could affect prosecution, because the laws are in place (e.g., obscenity laws like the Protect Act) but generally not prosecuted. I don’t believe that’s the case with Dutch law or Japanese law. Yes, if shit hit the fan and MG’s games sparked a wave of controversy, then new laws may be passed and they’d be forced to comply. That isn’t the situation right now.
I’ve been reading up on this ever since the Handley case and the RapeLay controversy started brewing. There eventually will be a fight over this. The body of evidence continues to grow that porn is harmless, yet the law presumes that its harm is self-evident. The Supreme Court is going to have to revisit the issue. It could go either way.
Similarly, the law in Japan simply states that things offensive to public morals that are indecent are banned. That’s it. It’s just as vague as it is here, and just as infrequently used.
Put it this way - remember when the RapeLay controversy was brewing, and the Japanese government looked like they were going to pass a law? Then all of a sudden, a store that had been open for years mysteriously gets raided? It’s in the other thread about that whole mess. This kind of selective enforcement is by no means just a US thing.
Rule: Laws are to preserve current social standards.
Corollary: Laws only matter when society wants to enforcement them.
Addendum: Special interest supersedes society.
Exception: Public embarrassment supersedes special interest.
Reversal: Autocracy.
Perversion: Machiavellian.
Cancellation: Anarchy.
Nah, that was just an additional complaint. The fans who complain simply abhor censorship in any way, shape, or form. They’d rather that a game remain in Japan than be released modified.
As I noted then, there’s no good will to be gained by notifying customers ahead of time. No matter what, they’ll moan, bitch, and swear off future titles from the publisher. JAST USA knew it, and in that sense, their decision wasn’t incorrect. You might as well attract as little attention to it as possible and watch the shitstorm from the sidelines.
As for the right direction, it depends on the impact on sales. If the vast majority of customers refuse to buy even a slightly modified product, the publisher would be best off avoiding titles that have censorship potential (deprives others who’re okay with the changes, but it’s business). However, if sales aren’t seriously impacted, they can do whatever they want.
I think that’s ridiculous and spiteful. I personally don’t care all that much whether a game is translated or not; I can’t really read translations anyway because it just feels too wrong to read a VN in any language other than Japanese - even if they were written in e.g. English in the first place =P.
But I don’t want to deprive other people of serviceable localisations, even if I may express concerns about modifications made to them.
To clarify: B173 M3 was always strictly about the censorship. If I recall correctly, the main person angry about not being informed was umarekawari. As much as I could argue about this issue (again), I won’t. The lines have been drawn and neither side will budge on the issue. Therefore I will spend my time on more productive activities. I will say though that I agree that the character in question doesn’t look like a loli to me.
I always defined lolicon as a body of someone 10 years or younger - the look before a person hits their teenage transformation from hormones and puberty.
I think you missed the point I made here. To rephrase, JAST suggested that if they wanted to, Family Project could’ve been released with only text alterations to clarify that Mitsuri was 18+ throughout the entirety of the story–they declined to do so because it would’ve butchered key themes, and they felt simply redrawing the CG was the least invasive means of avoiding potential legal trouble. In other words, text OR CG alteration are acceptable (for them) methods to avoid legal trouble–they’ll pick whichever method ends up being least invasive on a case by case basis. Mangagamer, with their focus on the CG and how “loli” the characters look, seems to believe that removing CG is the only solution. JAST’s approach seems to be much more flexible and accomodating than Mangagamer’s–at least as the two companies have stated so far.
As to your ending question, it’s looking like there will indeed just be blackness where the CGs used to be. That or a generic background.
Er, how would Soul Link be altered, exactly? Because I don’t see how you can make Nanami any older than she is (you can track her EXACT age, in days, just by following the story carefully. You aren’t given a number; you can see how old this girl is). Her actual age shouldn’t an issue anyway she’s not human or even really humanoid, her appearance is only external so I don’t see why it matters - the only thing they care about is how young she LOOKS. Now, I don’t think personally she looks young enough for it to be a problem, but evidently MangaGamer think it is a problem, and it’s ultimately up to them. I highly doubt they would alter the work if they didn’t feel it was necessary.