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SakechanBD wrote:

Her. I'm a female.

I do apologize sincerely for this.

Quote:

I don't think I was trying to be clever at all. I never said that the point of the game was to be able to sleep with as many girls as you can-- I just said that it was a possibility. At no point did I say, "The whole point of this game is to have sex with lots of girls!"

But you did say, and I quote "Air is based on one of those games where, if you play your cards right, you get to sleep with as many ladies as you want.". Which we can all agree is false, correct? And for what it's worth, you cannot sleep with Hijiri, Haruko, Michiru, Tohno's mum and Kanna, and these are just the faced, important characters excluding another handful of minor female characters, which already outweights the number of characters you *can* sleep with.

In eroge, there will be many NPCs which no matter how hard you the player wants which you will never be able to sleep with. Just like how in some games there will be characters which you can never "kill" or "friend" even if you the player wants. So even taking that sentence out of the context of AIR and applied to the genre as a whole it is still clearly false.

Quote:

And, to be fair, the review is based on the anime series. I could have easily taken out that sentence, and it wouldn't have affected the review one bit. I have nothing against eroge, nor do I have any kind of hidden agenda. I think you're taking that sentence a little too seriously.

However I don't think it is unfair for calling out on someone passing an uninformed judgement (the sentence in no way reads like an opinion) on a game/a genre of games, no matter what one's original intention (or unintention) is or was. Like I said I understand the review in general is positive, but it does not alter the fac that the opening line passes/re-affirms a gross misconception about the genre as a fact (and clearly from someone who has NOT played the game), and in turn paints the anime which was adopted from the game in a negative light, and even in some ways affect other anime works which are adopted from eroge. There are a number of titles out now in the English speaking community that are adopted from eroge, and for example I can swap Air with a title like Utawarerumono, Fate/Stay Night, Tsukihime, To Heart, Shuffle! etc and if taking the same attitude which you took with Air as with these works, what do you think the reactions will be or how it affects the general perception towards this particular area of game adaptation works?

Anime fans are so readily to throw up their arms in defense of gross generalisation painted by mass media (anime is kids cartoon, anime is pokemon, anime is porn etc), yet it's disappointing that people inside the profession and industry itself does the same. And if you already acknowledge that taking out that sentence does not affect the review, then why not simply do so when we can all agree that this sentence is clearly false? The internet is full of misinformation as it is already, but knowing that you have control over how this particular piece of misinformation can be spread, on a site that prides itself as one of the biggest English anime news site on the net, is it too much to ask for a little bit of factual correctness?

Air is an anime adopted from an eroge - games with adult sexual content, nothing more, nothing less. No more than anime is just a word for animation. So just call it that and don't pass (mis)judgement on its contents.

houkoholic wrote:

But you did say, and I quote "Air is based on one of those games where, if you play your cards right, you get to sleep with as many ladies as you want.". Which we can all agree is false, correct? And for what it's worth, you cannot sleep with Hijiri, Haruko, Michiru, Tohno's mum and Kanna, and these are just the faced, important characters excluding another handful of minor female characters, which already outweights the number of characters you *can* sleep with.

It's a hyperbole. It would be like me saying, "Gears of War is a testosterone-driven game that lets you kill as many people as you want," although there are also NPCs that you're not allowed to kill, and you're not allowed to kill your own guys. The statement would also connotate that the game is nothing but a simple bloodbath, when there is a story to that as well. However, you don't generally see people get defensive over a statement like that. I don't have to be factually correct and say, "You can kill a modest amount of people, but only in certain situations, and only when it advances the storyline."

For the most part, every single eroge-based anime that I've ever reviewed, I've almost always given a very positive review of, with the exception of To Heart. So if you're going to pass judgment on the way that I review anime based on one sentence I wrote about the Air game, then that in itself is "misinformed."

I'm not misjudging the contents of eroge. I know exactly what eroge entail. I've played some. But the fact remains is that these games *are* sexual in nature, and in many of them, you get to sleep with some girls. If that's false, then I'll eat my hat.

So you can sleep with "some" girls, but not "all" of the girls. I'll be sure to choose my words more correctly next time.

houkoholic wrote:

blah blah blah don't say anything bad about my porno games

Why are you so defensive about this? You're playing porn games, just admit it. The goal is to screw the girl of your choice at the end. You can spout platitudes about the oh-so-amazing storylines or talk about how you teared up when Kanna-chan went "~uguu~" when you gave her a chocolate heart (shortly before screwing her brains out) but in the end it's a porn game, just admit it.

Air: Yessss! I was hoping you'd really dig this series, Bamboo, glad to know that was the case. I would disagree about the Potato comments, though...I'll admit I'm not really a "cute animal mascot" fan (though Ryo-Ohki's alright) so the character isn't really in there for me, but I found Potato to be especially irritating.

Slayers: Agreed on all counts. Although I didn't really get into Slayers until 2001 or so, I had watched it back in the olden days when it was one of Software Sculptors very first releases aside Zenki. The review doesn't mention: does this new collection still have the original SS dub? Even though she's no Megumi, I always liked Lisa Ortiz as Lina Inverse.

Wings of Honneamise: As evidenced by my glowing feature on it in Protoculture Addicts, Wings is hands down one of my favorite anime of all time, and it depresses me that it's only being released in this format. I have no Blu-Ray or HD-DVD player and no intention of buying one, so why in God's name would I pay $80 for this? I'd rather just keep my VHS copy.

Also, I'm surprised to see the hatred, both in the column and in this thread, for the Animaze dub. Lequinni's "morning after" speech is altered a bit and so is Shiro's monologue in the final scene, but otherwise, the dub is quite well-acted in my opinion, especially considering its vintage. Robert Matthews is practically flawless as Shirotsugh, and any dub with Bryan "the dad from Malcolm in the Middle" Cranston in it can't be all bad.

SakechanBD wrote:

So if you're going to pass judgment on the way that I review anime based on one sentence I wrote about the Air game, then that in itself is "misinformed."

I never passed judgement on the interview, merely that quote. Never did I once refered to the content of the review. And hey like I said, twice, it was a generally positive review. So what are you trying to tell me here?

Quote:

I've played some. But the fact remains is that these games *are* sexual in nature, and in many of them, you get to sleep with some girls. If that's false, then I'll eat my hat.

I never said these games were not sexual in nature, and I was the one that stressed, several times, the fact that eroge are games with adult sexual content and that Air is an eroge! I'm merely calling you out on your choice to describe these games and wish that you would describe them in a more correct way that leads to less misunderstanding. Hyperbole are a double-edged sword, and like I mentioned before, anime fans won't be too happy about some "hyperbole" the media uses to describe anime either. Sex is already a touchy subject, more so than violence, so I think it would help a long way if we can reduce the level of noise going around.

Zac wrote:

Why are you so defensive about this? You're playing porn games, just admit it. The goal is to screw the girl of your choice at the end. You can spout platitudes about the oh-so-amazing storylines or talk about how you teared up when Kanna-chan went "~uguu~" when you gave her a chocolate heart (shortly before screwing her brains out) but in the end it's a porn game, just admit it. but in the end it's a porn game, just admit it.

Zac, your post displays the very thing I don't wish to see. And quite frankly it's especially disappointing to see an editor of an anime site - it itself a sector of the entertainment industry that suffers from the exact same alienation and stereotyping from other media outlets, doing the same thing to itself. I would say don't do what you don't want others do to you, but hey if that's how you like to run things then that's your call.

Besides, who's being defensive here? I would really appreciate you pointing out to me where and when did I start defending these games with amazing storylines or what have you. And before you even begin - Misuzu's sex scene is not integral to the story is a fact due to the choice given to the player is inconsequential to the progress of the story, choosing to sleep with Minagi misses out on a chunk of her story is also a fact because it cuts the story short by throwing the player straight to the bad end. Notice that neither were my opinions but were facts based on the gameplay mechanics and story structure, nor did I for even a moment made any opiniated arguments based on my personal preception of the quality of the story writing or story telling methods.

Again as I've addressed SakechanBD, if you ever bothered to read you would clearly see that I admit that these games have sexual related content, nor have I ever denied the fact that I do play some of these games. I'm more than old enough to play these games and I work in the games industry in Japan for a multi-million dollar international foreign firm, I care how the industry is being preceived both on a personal and professional level because it affects my work. I and others joke about eroge all the time, but when it comes to matters which are serious (of which I would think a review on a site like this should be, but I guess I'm wrong?), we can treat the subject matter in at least a mature way and a little more respect. From your post though, it just reaffirms certain impressions I have on this site.

houkoholic wrote:

SakechanBD wrote:

So if you're going to pass judgment on the way that I review anime based on one sentence I wrote about the Air game, then that in itself is "misinformed."

I never passed judgement on the interview, merely that quote. Never did I once refered to the content of the review. And hey like I said, twice, it was a generally positive review. So what are you trying to tell me here?

^^;; Actually, that was my bad. When I read your post the first time, when you were mentioning Fate/Stay, Tsuki, To Heart, etc, I thought your post read something along the lines of, "If you take the same attitude to [these series], what do you think your reaction would be to them?" or something to that effect. Reading your post again, I realized that I totally read it wrong.

Quote:

I never said these games were not sexual in nature, and I was the one that repeatedly stressed the fact that eroge are games with adult sexual content.

I know, I was reiterating the point, aside from what you already wrote. I was merely trying to claim that I, too, knew what an h-game was, and that what I wrote wasn't entirely false, just exaggerated.

Frankly, I don't think American perceptions of Japanese h-games are going to dent the industry one bit. There is a limited market stateside for such games, and though there's fan interest, not very many companies are willing to translate and distribute the games domestically, which is a shame, because there's a lot of fan demand for stuff like Tsukihime, Fate/Stay, Kanon, etc.

SakechanBD wrote:

^^;; Actually, that was my bad. When I read your post the first time, when you were mentioning Fate/Stay, Tsuki, To Heart, etc, I thought your post read something along the lines of, "If you take the same attitude to [these series], what do you think your reaction would be to them?" or something to that effect. Reading your post again, I realized that I totally read it wrong.

That's cool, I'm glad we sorted out that misunderstanding.

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Frankly, I don't think American perceptions of Japanese h-games are going to dent the industry one bit. There is a limited market stateside for such games, and though there's fan interest, not very many companies are willing to translate and distribute the games domestically.

I'm less worried about the games themselves - my company don't deal with h-games anyway. I'm more worried about the general perception of sexual themes in games, and also anime - pass, current and upcoming - that are adopted from games. Games and anime are getting to be very tightly tied together that the perception of an anime can affect the game which it is based on and vice versa. I think you would agree though that it mores than raises a few eyebrows when someone tries to tell you a show is based on a game where you can sleep with as many girls as you wish and then proceeding with showing them a character profile of a child character such as Ileya from Fate/Stay Night or Eruru from Utawarerumono for example. It's just not pretty to say the least and is damaging to some otherwise potentially very intriging shows. Not to mention that it can be easily taken out of context and further fuel some misconception about anime as well as gaming in general.

Question! If the story is good enough to sell the game, why even add the porn? Does it double the sales or something?

Unholy_Nny wrote:

Question! If the story is good enough to sell the game, why even add the porn? Does it double the sales or something?

Yes, it does increase sales - but there is more to it than that. Many of these games are first released as a version designed to run on PC-based platforms, and contain varying degrees of ero content. If the game proves to be reasonably popular, it will frequently be revised to run on game consoles in an "all ages" or "13+/15+" version. The ero content will be removed and replaced with additional storylines - frequently a secondary character in the original PC game will be featured as a heroine in the console version. A good example would be Shuffle!: it started off as a PC eroge with 5 heroines and ero scenes; later a PS2 console game version called Shuffle! On the Stage was released that had no ero content but added storylines for 2 additional heroines (Mayumi=Thyme and Kareha) who were secondary characters in the original game. Air and Kanon also have been released in two versions. The increased sales come about because in addition to those who simply want to buy the non-ero console game, many of the same people who bought the adult version of the game will ALSO go out and buy the console game version in order to play through the added storylines. Plus the buzz generated by the success of the original eroge serves as free advertisement for the console version.

There are also some games that have developed in the opposite direction. Natsuiro no Sunadokei (Hourglass of Summer) was originally released as a 15+ rated PS2 console game, then afterward a version with added ero scenes was released for the PC. Clannad - from Key, the company that created Kanon and Air - was also released without any ero scenes. A sequel to Clannad called "Tomoyo After: It's a Wonderful Life" was released afterward, and the sequel does contain ero content.

Huh. I have Hirameki's awful DVD ver. of Hourglass of Summer (I still found it fun), but I always thought it had been edited like they did with a few of their other DVD-type releases. (Such as Phantom of Inferno. Which is unplayable, not because of the edits, but because of the horrid quality of their faulty DVDs)

I am so glad they moved to PC... Porting games to a DVD with password based save options was the worst. idea. ever.

[Actually, with Hourglass, I had originally thought it was made without adult content, then I saw some screens that made me think otherwise]

But that's a rather clever marketing strategy... I kinda knew most of that, but I wasn't sure. Thanks for the info!

I don't really see an issue in double packing WoH for those that want to future proof their collection (provided they've already made the choice between formats), as that's common for SACD releases, so it's not too far-fitched. I do agree that the price is a tad steep though, when the DVD (or HD format provided if you're buying it like above) is essentially bonus. I also find it odd that there's no DVD/HD only option. I don't have an HD set (Best Buy screwed us on that the last time we bought a TV) nor do I have the means to get one any time soon. Hence HD formats are worthless to me for such a steep markup at this time, and I can understand the reverse for those already with HD.

Looks like I'll stick with my sub VHS.

roujin wrote:

Quote:

Air is based on one of those games where, if you play your cards right, you get to sleep with as many ladies as you want. But, like most of the successful game-based anime series out there, you can barely tell, which is nice.

Gah! I have to completely disagree on this one. Maybe because I was conscious of the game's roots, I couldn't help but think of the more devious outcomes that the series could've taken. It's the same thing that happened with Kanon, I couldn't disconnect the games and the anime.

I would also have to disagree, not because I knew the source (don't remember if I did,) but because it was blatently obvious from the presentation, style, and oh yeah, how long it took to introduce (aka see anywhere on screen in either fore or background) another male character outside of the lead.

Richard J. wrote:

To be serious, I don't think they see any of this as a marketing issue. All they really seem to want is to act like the R1 market is the same as the Japanese market (Is it R2? My brain hurts from Exam of Doom.) They want a big return on a few episodes and to heck with us lowly English dub fans. (According to them, we're not real fans anyway.)

Drat, beaten out on the "get the DVD now and watch the HD later when you upgrade" point, The only defense to this could be saying it is better to get all the buyer's remorse and double-dipping done and out of the way once & up-front.

As to their thinking, all I can think of with BVUSA's stance (assuming they aren't just completely ignorant fools) is in exactly why everyone says it will fail. The R1 market has been trained to expect bigger episode counts, better content, more languages, etc. So if they are going to make the grotesque profit margins here as they do over there, we have to be retrained to tolerate and later accept R2 style releases. Yes, hopefully this will blow up in their faces, but for the chance at R2 margins on R1 sales, they had to try.

SakechanBD wrote:

I have nothing against eroge, nor do I have any kind of hidden agenda.

*quirked eyebrows* So how would you say this relates to your statement an issue (for lack of a better term) or three back when you stated you wouldn't review hentai anymore and the reasons listed then?

bglassbrook wrote:

SakechanBD wrote:

I have nothing against eroge, nor do I have any kind of hidden agenda.

*quirked eyebrows* So how would you say this relates to your statement an issue (for lack of a better term) or three back when you stated you wouldn't review hentai anymore and the reasons listed then?

For starters, the anime I review that are based off eroge are not themselves erotic in nature, so the two are not related.

I don't personally have an issue against hentai either, but I've decided not to review hentai because I don't think it's necessarily appropriate. It would be as if Ebert & Roeper suddenly started reviewing pornography.

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