With Shiny Days in development, we should discuss it. I just want to throw in my few cents. As excited as I am for this release, there is a couple conditions in which I would not purchase it.
1. If they cut the Kokoro content. As controversial as that content is, I refuse to buy an incomplete product. Whenever a company cuts content in the localization process, I feel like I am being ripped off. It is a standard I stand by, it does not just apply to H-Games, but video games and anime as well. Jast is good with keeping in content, so I am hoping this is not the case. Knowing how controversial the Kokoro stuff is and the possible legal gray zone, it does worry me though.
2. If it is censored. The School Days HQ release was probably the most groundbreaking H-Game release ever seen in the west. It was a fully animated H-Game, but they still uncensored all of the scenes. Shiny Days ups the H-Scenes and it would be terrible if Japan's Orwellian censorship got in the way. Again, Jast did it with School Days, I doubt they wouldn't do it with the sequel. I am still worried that it might be too difficult this time and it will have the same blurry junk as the shitty Japanese version.
I don't expect Jast to do either of these things. They have been great at localizing games and I expect the best from them. I am very excited about Shiny Days and am waiting with baited breath for its release. The first thing does have me a bit worried though. Anyone else have any concerns about the eventual release of Shiny Days?
Shiny Days will not have mosaics. JAST doesn't release games with mosaics. There's absolutely zero worries there.
I'm a huge School Days series fan. I even played Cross Days in Japanese just because it didn't look likely that JAST would license it any time soon.
I'm also worried that Kokoro scenes will be cut. I'm a bit of a lolicon, and I really like Kokoro, so that's why I care. There's precedent to suggest these scenes will be cut. There's also precedent suggesting they might not because the work as a whole has literary or artistic value. I'm sure JAST is carefully considering how they want to handle this situation.
We'll start an official post on this soon.
Looks like the pre-order page is up on JAST USA and J-List! I did notice that on JAST USA pre-order page when you click on the J-List link for the hard copy I’m directed to the J-List page for Kana not Shiny.
Also when you say “The full game on two dual-layer DVDs (18 GB total install)” does that mean the “full game”, as in uncut?
After seeing the limited-edition features, I'm super-excited about this! It looks like they're giving Shiny Days the same VIP treatment the School Days HQ Special Edition got. I seem to be less of a stickler about 100% content maintenance than many here (more power to you, fellas), so I'll probably pre-order here in the next few days. I am quite interested in the details about possible censorship that you mention, but more from an academic standpoint than anything.
I refuse to buy a watered down product. As someone who opposes censorship ideologically, I couldn’t support something that violates my principals. It is one thing to support an author who is an asshole who makes great work. It is another thing to support the work itself if it violates your principals. You are very intellectual about this jacksprat1, so I can respect you. I cannot respect people who buy a censored product solely because “Its the only version available, so oh well.” I am holding off on the preorder until the full details are released. They were honest with another recent novel, so I expect that this will be the case with Shiny Days. If they say “content was removed” I am not getting the game under any circumstances. I hope that any other opponent of censorship does the same. I am not going to boycott it just because I am “a lolicon” (although I am one). Even if it was a hardcore granny sex scene that was censored I still wouldn’t get the game. I am holding out for Jast to do the bolder thing, though I have my doubts. Until then, my purchase is still in limbo.
Understood, Ronald. We're sorry we coudn't release this content and ship it all around the world, to Australia, the UK, Canada etc., or even to Florida. We won't be releasing a patch for the scenes that are removed, though it will certainly appear since the Internet is what it is. I hope you'll support us, and we're making it easy to do so by lowering the price of the LE and adding great stuff. But if you don't want to support us, we'll eventually get the message and will switch to doing games that no content need ever be cut from for any reason...which would close off a lot of games entirely.
If we were to release a "100% pure" version that was absolutely faithful to the original, you'd have mosaic censorship on every genital. Shall we do that instead?