Forum - View topicNEWS: Idea Factory Discusses Censoring in Western Monster Monpiece
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revolutionotaku
Posts: 889 |
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The CBLDF posted an article on this subject.
http://cbldf.org/2014/01/when-creative-expression-has-consequences-is-censorship-far-behind/ |
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terminus24
 Posts: 304 |
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I'm kinda surprised that games like Senran Kagura come over here and get rated T with arguably more objectionable content (Example here. NSFW warning.), yet this game gets an M rating and censorship, to boot. Maybe it's the lolis?
Actually, I'm almost positive it's the lolis. Anyways, sad to say it, but it looks like Idea Factory International isn't off to a good start. |
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configspace
Posts: 3717 |
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People including people here, who claim they don't mind or are in favor of it whenever it suites their sensibilities or subjective opinions, strike me as also the kind of unprincipled person who would be the first to vote away your freedom based on their likes and dislikes.
It doesn't affect them, yet they still can't let go what other people do. They feel compelled to interfere or support the interference, because in their desires for control and shaping thoughts, they think they're doing some good. If people can't stick to being principled over some as simple and inconsequential as this, when it comes to using real force over something they find more offensive, then there's no hope to convince them otherwise. But it's easy to see people don't want to be principled to begin with. They want "freedom for me, not for thee" purely based on feelings or subjective values. “Political tags — such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth — are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. The former are idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number. The latter are surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors than the other sort.” -- Heinlein
Idea Factory gave the game an M-rating themselves apparently since PSN uses publisher submitted ratings as a basis. However, Idea Factory themselves here are also to blame for preemptively caving into outside sentiment and rather than satisfy customer demand. What are the outsiders going to do? Boycott the game? Yes, please do! if you don't like it, don't buy it. The irony with this move is that it'll end up being a boycott for the English version by their own target customers. |
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revolutionotaku
Posts: 889 |
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Here's a list of other countries that censors video games.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_regionally_censored_video_games |
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Lavnovice9
Posts: 276 |
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But if someone wants to play a masturbatory game about murdering people, then their sanity is intact? I don't get how people can say some sexy drawings is bad or a huge deal but have no big deal with games like Manhunt or Grand Theft Auto which feature horribly violent and realistic torture. If we're going to accuse people of thought crime then they should both being a problem. If you want to say people who play games with lolis in it are pedophiles then you should also be saying people who play games with violence and murder in them are psychopaths and sociopaths. People rarely do though and they have no problem admitting they like Grand Theft Auto or some other violent shooter game. Why is one okay in American culture but the other isn't? I personally think it's even a worse problem that thousands of 10 year olds are playing Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto but full grown adults can't play something like this. That seems so backwards to me than what the reality actually is. |
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animefanworried
Posts: 126 |
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You're not going to go anywhere with this line of argument. Many of the people crusading against lolis play violent video-games themselves, and they're never going to admit that something they like might be a problem; and since they don't like lolis, they'll never admit that they might not be a problem. In retrospect, just get use to the hypocrisy. It really doesn't help that violence is glorified in North America but sex demonized, thereby maintaining the double standard even more. You should just get use to seeing those people righteously fighting against overbearing parents who try to ban violence, but then turn around and do the same thing to another group they themselves don't like. But hey, its not the same thing: Finding fictional depictions of young girls attractive is totally gross (Which still isn't a convincing argument as to why it should be banned anyway), but enjoying fictional depictions of carnage is perfectly healthy. The truth is, the world would be a far better place if people kept their own personal bias and opinions to themselves and just drew the moral line at the place it should always have been: Fiction is, you know, fictional and therefor should be left alone. Its a far better outcome to let people inform themselves on which games they think are suitable and which ones to avoid, thus allowing the players the option to decide for themselves, than it is to allow censorship to be arbitrarily applied by the shifting standards of various people who have different moral boundaries and beliefs. |
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revolutionotaku
Posts: 889 |
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"I guess parents don't give a crap about violence if there's sex things to worry about."
-Stan Marsh ("South Park") |
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Zac
ANN Executive Editor
 Posts: 7912 Location: Anime News Network Technodrome |
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All this grandstanding and speechifying about censorship would totally be warranted if it weren't just a company covering its own ass and making the decision itself to cut out some cheesecake shots of underage cartoon girls for the western market.
Most of the rhetoric (which we see repeated in every thread about a company deciding to edit a release) seems like it's being made under the assumption that some evil outside entity is forcing these people to make these edits, which is never the case. This isn't the government or Sony or some concerned parents organization stepping in, it's a company making a business decision to edit out stuff they think might not be so well-received in this market. Right or wrong, that's all it is - a choice made entirely of their own free will, in what they think is the best interest of their business. So you can think they're shooting themselves in the foot or they're being shrewd or whatever, but the hyperbolic speechifying about the dangers of censorship is totally unwarranted in this case and every other case like it. Won't stop the internet from continuing to willfully misunderstand and misinterpret what censorship actually is, though. Carry on, I guess. |
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partysmores
 Posts: 284 |
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What about the big-breasted legal girls that got censored, huh? Not so much underage cheesecake there as much as a fear of America's reaction to breasts. |
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War_Destroyer
Posts: 29 |
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The images in question are just exploitative sexual garbage. This wouldn't even be up for debate if the same images were done with real life young girls... Many argue about how ANY censoring is wrong, how this is art (and is somehow exempt?), no harm no foul, but I find it disturbing to have my little girl grow up in a place where there are people enjoying and possessing images of little girls in panties in the aforementioned sexual poses with accepting expressions...
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Top Gun
 Posts: 4597 |
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I fully support the right for these images to exist in the first place. I also fully support a company's decision to remove said images for an international release. Shockingly enough, different regions have different standards when it comes to what sorts of content are considered appropriate there. Hell, there have been games released in Europe where blood splatters had to be changed to green (which I personally find far more ridiculous than being concerned about underage sexualization, but I digress). As Zac noted, this is a case of a company trying to make money with a commercial product, and deciding that certain aspects of said product need to be changed to fit the local cultural standards. This happens every day all over the world for all sorts of content, and so long as it isn't some government-mandated decree (like Australia's godawful game ratings system), it's not "censorship."
And really, let's not beat around the bush here: this particular brand of hardcore otaku-pandering fetishization is very much symptomatic of Japan's very real widespread cultural malaise in matters of sexuality. I see people railing about America's perceived puritanism, but here we have a country with a full-blown demographics crisis, one-third of whose population has been polled as having no interest in sexual relationships, and has a burgeoning otaku fanbase that rabidly devours imouto moe...this is not something to be held up as a paragon of artistic expression here. It's more of a cry for help. |
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Animehermit
 Posts: 964 Location: The Argama |
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That's a great question for the studio behind this game. There are western games and tv shows with tits in them guys, this isn't the west being prude. |
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partysmores
Posts: 284 |
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Is your little girl virtual? No? Then you've got nothing to worry about. |
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War_Destroyer
Posts: 29 |
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What images are you talking about? Are you actually looking at the actual photobucket images, or still looking sensationalized articles that only speculated about what may be censored. Legal girls? Please tell... which were legal? |
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Rahxephon91
 Posts: 1859 Location: Park Forest IL. |
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SEX=lolis. The people "crusading" against lolis are not against sex. You people are so adamant to turn the other side into this prudish conservative monster that you make the same mistake you're rivals do why they try to label you all as creep. You can easily be all for sexual revolution and what not, but also not be for images that sexualise very young people. There is quite a diffrence with sexualised adults and sexualzed children. What is there to admit? What is the hyporcisy? No one here at all is claming "there should be no sex what so ever in games and whatnot". Where has anyone said that, please find it. Because I don't think think anyone here is crusading and trying to get them to censor Killer is Dead, Catherine, Dead or Alive and whatnot, because the issue is not sex. The issue is sexualised images of young people. Understand the distinction please. And no, kids shouldn't be exposed to violent video games either. Sex and violence should be introduced whenever who's in charge of the kid thinks they can handle it. There's no hypocrisy. Well I guess there is if you see nothing wrong with images of sexualised young kids, but that's the point. The argument starts there. It dosen't contend with anything close to "sex is wrong". Stop trying to make it seem like that.
Does America have it's problems. Of course, but it's a hellva lot better then it's ever been. And it's not like Japan is some awesome sexual progressive land either. These places are just different. |
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