Official Post about Starless ~ Nymphomaniacs' Paradise

JAST Games Game Discussions
#1

As you know, JAST USA has announced we’ll be releasing Starless in English in Spring of 2015. This is the official post that discusses the changes in the English version of this game, so fans can understand the details and choose whether or not to order.

First of all, Will/Empress is a great company, and they have worked together with us to make Starless available to their international fans. They understand and gave approval to the changes to the game that needed to be made for a release outside Japan. To symbolize this change, it was Empress that suggested a change in title for the game from “Starless ~ 21st Century Nymphomaniacs” to “Starless ~ Nymphoniacs’ Paradise.”

To those who don’t know the story of Starless, it’s an amazing and high-quality fetish game in which you play Yukito Sawatari, a young man who takes a part-time job sexually servicing the high-class mistress of Mamiya Major, her daughters and various other ladies. The game explores nearly every sexual fetish that’s been conceived of.

The problem we faced in localizing Starless was ensuring we do not endanger our fans (or visual novels as a whole) with material that could be problematic if released in their entirety, since they’re not legal everywhere. In some games there’s some leeway with the content since it only represents one or two images, and no one cares. But Starless is defined by its most extreme (and awesome) fetishes, and we knew that not all of them could remain in a general English release.

Our English release will have completely uncensored CGs with no mosaics. Nothing from the main storyline has been cut or changed, and the game experience is nearly the same as the original. If you’re familiar with the Starless anime (which also removed content from the game), the experience will be similar.

The visual elements that will be removed in the English version of Starless will be:

  • CGs related to scatology (usually 2-3 images in a series at the end of a sex scene, occasionally a bit more)
  • CGs related to beastiality
  • CGs related to cutting a certain body part with a guillotine that should not be cut

Many will agree that these themes are outside the “comfort zone” of most fans. What we want to do is create an awesome experience that fans can enjoy without the most extreme elements causing potential problems for the future of visual novels. The entire story, including the vast majority of the more than 3000 game CGs, and all ten endings, will remain.

There are some fans who want all of the original game content in the English version of the game, and we understand this. We’re quite certain patches will be made available which restore this content, with the assistance of various fan groups, after the game is released.

If you have any questions, please forward any questions to support@jastusa.com.
We hope you’ll preorder the game, so future Sei Shoujo titles can be ported in the future. You can see the game at http://www.jastusa.com/starless.html

#2

Thanks for the info, Peter! I’m not sure if I’m going to be getting this game, but I’m glad you guys are being up front about this, and to be honest, though I’m against censorship in general, none of this is stuff I’m too sorry to see get cut. I’m curious, though, if this is a massive fetish game, is there a list somewhere of what sort of fetishes are included? I can think of a couple that would make it a must buy for me.

#3

It really doesn’t make sense to censor anything in eroge that’s extreme all the way through. You really could have just put a warning about the content.

#4

Oh man! Are you serious? I hated the animation and loved the game. I believe this game is ONE of the best, if not the best game in the history of h-games. And as you pointed it, it has almost all the fetishes out there in it. Add that and then add one of the best artists in hentai industry, and what you have is a combination of awesomeness.

Errm I maybe wrong but those who played Starless and loved it would disagree with that notion because “most fans” you speak of would be the fans who played the original, dissected every bits of it and loved it back in 2011. That’s why I can imagine that those who played the game would be the only fans who would want to order this game, which is supposedly be totally uncensored and totally uncut. Because generally tamed and vanilla games are licensed by the American companies, Starless is a rare exception, so why ruin the experience by editing out the original, when knowing the fact that most people who are interested to buy this game are fans (the same fans you speak of) the original and loved it back in 2011. Instead of speaking for everyone, just mention that there were legal complications and that’s it. Most fans you speak of would rather want to see the full contents rather than being censored and make a masterpiece in to a total vanilla garbage.

Also, I can solace with the bestiality parts as they aren’t legal in some places but cutting scat is pointless. Why are they being cut exactly? Unless the game is going to be available for all ages, it is pointless to cut the scat. Most scat scenes aren’t that hardcore anyway compare to some other scenes from the game. Heck one of the ending is probably the MOST hardcore thing I have ever seen in hentai. And, by the way, how can all 10 endings be kept, when there is an exclusive bestiality ending in there as well? Yes, there is! I checked my Japanese version of the game and there is one ending that has bestiality ending with one of the main character in the game. And who are these groups who may release patches to restore the game to its original format? And if there will be patches, will the missing/cut scenes be uncensored and in full English, as well?

Well, if the game is indeed going to be the Starless the animation, then I may just cancel my pre-order, since I hated the Starless animation. The animation ruined the entire experience for me. Heck the Bible Black and Discipline animation was WAY more hardcore than the games. Oh well…after 3 years of anticipating and waiting for an epic experience of this game, I am disappointed that there will be this much cut from the game. I mean the scat at least should have been kept intact, right? Cutting 2 to 3 or even more images from the scat scenes are just pointless, if you ask me!

#5

Parsing the statement very carefully, “Nothing from the main storyline has been cut or changed” and calling the censored elements “visual elements that will be removed in the English version” says to me how they can keep the bestiality ending. Remember the original release of Nocturnal Illusion? (Maybe not; it’s very old at this point.) Arisa is a really-hundred-years-old ghost who looks much younger- the loli. In the late nineties, this just plain wouldn’t fly. So the scenes featuring Arisa were censored. However, the scenes were important to the plot (to the point where her arc wouldn’t make much sense without it). So rather than removing the scenes entirely, the game just faded to black where in the original the scene was shown. (And it was sloppy, as was the standard back then - going to the scene viewer for those scenes would crash the game.) All affected scenes are still part of the game’s script; the CG were stripped out because of legal issues. The scenes were fully translated - badly, as was par for the course back then, but to the same standard as the rest of the game. (The fan patches to add them back in has to add back censored CG, because only the original localizers would have those and they’re looooong gone.)

Ten bucks says that’s what Jast’s doing here. (Well, minus the bug NI had where the scene would become confused because of the bad script command and loop a bunch of times.) The game’s text will still describe everything, and it even sounds like the VA will still be there. Just not the images. Which would imply that a fan restoration patch would just have to swap out some image files. (Which probably means - like NI’s uncensor patch - they’d be censored.)

Also - scat is in many places just as restricted as bestiality. I’d be curious to know if Jast talked to a lawyer before the decisions of what to cut were made. Peter?

#6

I can understand the bestiality, since that would be a whole new thing in western released erotic visual novels and the legality is very questionable.
The scat is a little weird though? I can name a fair few games with scat content released uncensored. Though it’s a minor amount compared to Starless.
Jast own Sensei 2, Tsuki -possession- and Water Closet have scat and possibly more. They sell on J-list to.
Kitty Media Bible Black and Discipline have scat. The first one is still available to buy on J-list.
Even some of MG’s releases have scat.
I thought they might censor the Scat like in Empress’ Dominance making it see-through with a optional choice.

X-Change3 also got a few CG cut, the CG patch released later added back in the cut CG, but were they uncensored?

The dick chopping while extreme and a total boner killer, I still find the “cut” a little odd. (Bad pun sue me!) Sort of like South park Stan’s dad and the penis magic.
MG are releasing euphoria at some point and that’s got some real gruesome stuff too.

I’m happy to get Starless released translated with the maximum amount of uncensored CG possible, but i do think it’s a little over zealous on the cuts.
I do think the majority of western fans of Starless who are willing to buy it would be due to the hardcore fetish nature combined with Sei’s amazing unique artwork which created a very unique game and fan’s of the original JP release. I can’t see how the “cuts” will create more potential buyers with out alienating more buyers due to the nature of the content but that’s just my view.
I’m personal still buying the game to support Empress and future game localizations, this is the best work they have done yet, next being Dominance.
I own all of Empress JP releases except Cleavage and even some art books.

I’m am very disappointed in the volume of cuts and would love to see the day no cuts are necessary for adult only hardcore sexual fantasy content.
Can’t JAST release a patch with mosaic censorship on the necessary scenes, like the original release but translated to English? I’d rather have that then CG completely cut-out all together.
Otherwise I’m more than willing to work on a patch to add in the cut content myself once the game is released.
If any one can give me a guide/advice/tools needed in compiling a patch.

#7

Unfortunately we judged that the amount of problematic content, and the fact that it’s something that’s sent across international borders regularly, was too risky. We have four concerns: not getting you arrested, not getting in trouble ourselves, not causing harm to visual novels in general through, ahem, news pieces by certain TV networks, and not causing problems for Will.

#8

Yes we know there’s an odd scat route in some games. The number of scenes that end with a tiny bit of scat is more than 50% in this game, so it would be make too tempting a target by any news media wanting to do a hit piece (please don’t make me name the game they brought up last time), or by any DA wanting to make himself look good for his electorate, is just too great. We knew this going into the project – Will is a great company and they frankly needs to access the outside-of-Japan market if they’re going to survive as a company.

(Not sure if it’s common knowledge, but Will is behind another game which got greatly edited to make it all ages, which a lot of fans were not okay with. We will not be making any changes to Starless other than those that are expressly banned by most Western countries. Fans who want the complete experience will have that eventually, they just can’t have everything (including the really dark stuff) in the release version.

Do you really want a huge problem to happen, which stops all the progress visual novels have been making lately?

#9

Exodist, thanks for your comments. I do think that a scat-less Starless will appeal to more people, actually, since if you ask 100 people off the street if they’d like to play a game like this 98 would say no. The main thing is, we want to avoid doing anything that harms Will (all Japanese companies are super nervous about selling erotic products to the West after Rapelay-gate, and some (I’m looking at you, Minori) are so fearful they put restrictions on normal ero of the kind that’s been sold for nearly 20 years. (The upcoming ef release is still lightly censored.)

We do totally want to do more Empress/Sei Shoujo titles, if sales of this game are good.

#10

Nandemonai, thanks for the comments. We won’t change any story elements, we just can’t show certain things in a game we’ll be shipping to places like Australia. Authorities in conservative countries probably hate the idea of amazingly sexually empowered women, but they can’t take action against that. If we are too careless and leave that level of banned visual material in the game, it could be very bad for the finally-taking-off visual novel industry. Nothing story-wise will be changed, though, including endings. Some of those scenes will just be trimmed.

#11

Dogma, I also hated the animation, but mainly because it was of such low quality. I’ll always pick a game an amazing artist like Sei Shoujo drew by hand over five years over a low-budget anime made in a third world country for cost reasons.

Understood. Though as a guy who stands at conventions and tries to explain to normal fans that no, these aren’t DVDs, they’re really a cool kind of game experience from Japan, I am pretty sure that the game without those themes will be easier to sell. But you are right.

Scat and bestiality are both unambiguously something that any ambitious DA would cheerfully take action against, if brought to his attention. And where the law clearly allows for leeway about whether “the work, taken as a whole, has valid artistic value” (for the occasional fear about oh-no-maybe-this-character-is-17-what-will-we-do? sex scene), these themes are automatically NG, at least as normal porn goes. Remember how much certain elements of our society love to pick on video games, too.

Understood. We’ll do our best with the game, since part of what we’re doing is helping Will access the market outside Japan, which they need in order to survive. I’m do believe that, in the end, our “play it safe but allow a patch for the more dedicated fans” approach will prove best in this case.

#12

I was under the impression that Jast was going to officially release a patch with the cut material, or am I wrong? My purchase depends entirely on that patch; it would show that, while content must be censored for legal reasons, you still allow the option for customers who do want the missing material.

Otherwise, if you are banking on the possibility that a fan group could independently release a patch, then it would be like there hasn’t been any progress since X-Change or Family Project, and Starless would just be censorship without compromise.

The censorship of scat seems extreme, considering scat-themed games have been released before, namely, Water Closet.

All eroge automatically have “all characters are 18” age disclaimers from the time of their release. Characters ages are never explicitly stated to be younger than that. (On the topic of ages, I ordered a copy of Musumaker, a loli raising/training sim, via your custom order system without any issues being raised. So Jast is apparently just fine with loli-ge being sold.)

#13

Pick game known for being hardcore to translate
Have translator translate all the scenes
Announce you’re removing all the hardcore content
Alienate the audience for this product

gj

#14

Errm in Starless, two characters are not even 18 (I won’t name who they are) but according to the progression of the story, one doesn’t have to be a genius to figure out that those two characters are of at least 5 to 6 years younger than the main protagonist, who is 18 years of age, as he is about to head out to University (which is the appropriate age for Japanese students to pass their high school and move to college). Although they never talk about the age in the game, they do discuss the “young-ness” of these characters, particularly for one of the character who has young, pre-pubescent-like voice (a la girly voice or Justin Bieber haha). And what about incest theme? I thought this was illegal too on some instances? Starless is filled with incest theme and I am not sure how you guys will maintain that, unless you changed the dialogues and mashed it up in such way that they are all unrelated or something. Haha that would be hilarious and a tragedy, like Shakespearean plays. :? Oh well I will know the difference since I can read little bit Japanese and I played through the Japanese version very thoroughly, so I understand the entire story pretty well, including all the dialogues.

By the way, I can see everyone is asking this question but no one is answering, especially the official staffs and that is if the patches are released, will they be fan made or official? And if they are official, will they restore every CG that are cut to their fullest uncensored and English glories or will they be censored but just in English? If the patches are released by the fan, then I can imagine the CG will be censored and half-assed translated to English, but I sure hope it doesn’t come to that.

Thanks for your replies.

Also this because you didn’t have to wait 3 years for that. You could have just come out flat immediately after it was announced licensed that you guys made a HUGE mistake when you decided to license one of the MOST hardcore game ever made and now decided to release the game but many things will be cut. Bam…all the dramas, anticipations, and waiting could have been ended 3 years ago. :roll:

Edit: I would also like to point out that the outcries over banned contents mostly target the ones that are fully animated and/or intentionally stick out. Rapely made such massive headline because, well…first, the title itself gives away to everyone and second, when people play it, all they see is animated gameply where they do…errm things to girls that are outrageous. For visual novel, it just art that has voices and writings. It’s like reading manga and I have never seen manga being questioned or brought in to the spotlight by any activists or any groups. Most of these materials (in fact, all of the controversies) were brought attention because they have explicit animated scenes that show the carnage. Starless is just still pictures with writings in them and voices and I have no idea how this can bring controversies when people will see girls are having sex with animals, which are available most adult websites that are run by Western artist who like to draw bestiality. Unless people who sit through the game and read every texts and listen every voices, they can’t cry outrage by simply looking at still pictures of girls having sex with animals or they are pooping all over the screens. Haha

#15

Just to clarify–all that’s being removed is CGs, right? No changes to the text or missing lines?

You’re right that Australia is incredibly conservative, problematically so. But last I checked, selling unrated games is illegal in Australia. Since you don’t get your games rated, they’re NG no matter what content they have. Technically, you shouldn’t even ship your games to Australia.

Legally speaking, there’s probably not much that could be done in a US court. The game would likely pass the MIller Test. Canada is a different matter, and it’s probably a significant market for J-List–but many of your games are already on their banned from import list. I doubt the content cuts would be enough to allow this game to escape the same fate.

Overall, I’m not sure I buy the legal argument, though I can certainly understand the desire to not spawn another Rapelay incident.

#16

Thanks for the informative reply Peter. Got my copy ordered and picked up two other games I need for my collection. Hope more info on the booklet contents might be added once finalized.

is that a poo related pun :twisted: :lol:

No one wants a huge problem, and be the center of a shit storm. Well maybe the masochist do.
Starless could still be target even cut, even Littlewitch Romanesque could be a target and labeled a game for pedo’s who like to groom very young looking but “over 18 girls”. Fans of the VN medium have grown since the Rapelay issue. The hard work, risk, and passion from people and companies growing the medium of VN’s regardless, and the amazing variety available from all the different creators to the the fan base is what makes it what it is now. We have films like the human centipede, that shock and horror people and game like GTAV where you can have sex with a prostitute then blow her brains out yet this didn’t stop the commercial success, in light of negative press. Then you have real porn that goes from soft to extremely hardcore.

Any fan of VN know the variety available and pick up what cater to personal preference and taste. Starless is for those who are more perversely deviant and seeking that sort of enjoyment with amazing art work to go with the story. While a game like Littlewitch Romanesque is for those who want a cuter, sim-rasing theme and this variety of availability appeals to different audiences yet grows the whole medium.

Moenovel was started by WILL and it’s a shame what they did to If My Heart had Wings and didn’t wanna release a uncut 18+ version to compare data sales. I believe this is the stance of WILL higher-ups in regards to localization.

#17

And what about AN OPTION to turn scat/bloody content on/off? Just make special checkbox in options menu - this way it will make every possible customer happy. Is it THAT difficult?
Also, afaik scat is LEGAL everywhere - why so cautious? 0_0 Even if moralguardians would be angry - so what? They angry about every possible porn out there - or even violent game - it just brings more popularity (and money) for those.
And no, it’s not Rapelay case - since this game is about femdom. Feminist will not be interested in this - this game main target audience is masochistic man. And why you cut the most focal point of masofap content - extreme humiliation form which will make any masochist extreme happy? What do you think your potential customer would feel now?

Also, some quote from vndb:
" Also, yes, fans will probably fix it. By hacking in the original images from exhentai or wherever. Which is strictly speaking, illegal. Sure, nobody will give a damn, but still. Also, this’ll just endorse piracy: if fans fix it, then the fixed version is going to be up as torrent, with “UNCENSORED VERSION” in the title. You can take a guess where will people get there copy. Especially considering that censoring things is a berserk button for many. And let’s face it: this is hardcore porn with a whole range of kinks. The “ban violence in media!” and the “ban porn!” fundamentalist crowd, the ones that advocates such censorship the most loudly, are not exactly their target audience."

#18

But that means these groups of people will still have to use censored CG from the original game. This will have no values anyway as it just goes back to squire one. You’re better off with the original censored Japanese version than pitiful attempts on adding the missing cgs from the censored Japanese version of the game. Unless they have access to the uncensored cg for the patch, no matter what these groups come up with, it will still be incomplete and pointless.

Also, I just checked the amounts of CGs of the scat and bestiality contents from the original game, and if my counting is correct, I say about 70-75 CGs were combined to express those fetishes. If that many CGs are actually stripped from the uncensored version, then…well that’s just very bad, particularly when they are charging almost 50 bucks for the game (limited edition).

#19

I’m probably not the target audience for Starless to begin with, but I have to say that I completely respect and approve of the way Peter is handling the outreach over these edits. I feel like we’re seeing a lot of lessons learned from the school of hard PR knocks from previous censored releases. For example…

[list]* We’re getting clear advance notice of exactly what was changed months in advance and mere days after it was placed up for pre-order.

  • The message is posted right on the forums, where the folks most aware of the original’s details and who would be most concerned about changes will easily find it.
  • We received a sound argument for the changes that were made from an artistic, legal, and business statement that pretty much covers all conceivable bases that I can think of.
  • Dissenting opinion is being respected, and JAST is giving its blessing to an unofficial fan patch to a product they probably paid a hefty amount to license in its existing state(!). Tell me the last time you heard that come out of a gaming company’s mouth?
  • We’ve been assured that no material change was made to the plot, all endings are intact, and only a few CGs are affected in a game with 3,000 of them.[/list]

Did that cover the list of usual shitstorm kindling? Good good good.

I can and do respect those who oppose any edits ever from a principled anti-censorship standpoint, but I feel like it’s misplaced criticism in a case like this. Ten, even five years ago, I don’t think the visual novel industry would have touched a Starless localization with a 10-foot pole. The argument that “I’m sure it would hold up in court” is honestly more academic than sensible when you get down to it . Think about it: what rational company not possessed of a gigantic profit margin would willingly and knowingly place themselves in a position where they would wind up getting sued in court to begin with? Especially since the prospective judge or jury would almost certainly approach the case from a standpoint that the problem scenes are incredibly obscene? You’d better hope for damned sure that bewigged gentleman has a few copies of Water Closet and Little My Maid stacked beneath his legal reviews if you want to stand a chance.

The fact that we are getting games like Starless and Littlewitch Romanesque 99.7% uncensored is something of a small miracle that I’m very grateful for. It shows JAST is dedicated to the artistic integrity of the medium and respects its fans enough to reach out to them over changes that clearly weren’t their druthers to begin with. I know some people will miss the removed content, but it is what it is, and I appreciate the forthrightness with which this was handled.

After all, legal business is some serious shit, and way too risky to screw the pooch over. (Now, I just hope no one chops off my willy for this post. Ahyuck-hyuck-huck…)

#20

That wording… :slight_smile:

Note that we’re not making any changes in this game at all. By our judgement, any reasonable person would judge the game to have valid artistic merit.

Yes. Originally we had planned on releasing a full version some day potentially, but all the negativity of the cuts turned us off on the idea. We might reconsider if there’s interest, and if Will was on board.