"Re: Sharin no Kuni Project" Kickstarter preview page is up

[trickzzter]

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/tokyootakumode/1154534962?token=38feb8c5

From Sharin no Kuni EN PR twitter:

Quote

We'd love you to take a good look at the preview page, but here's a brief overview of the changes to the new campaign:

1. Addition of the Hozuki Chapters from “Sharin no Kuni, Yuukyuu no Shounen Shoujo” A fuller Sharin no Kuni experience for all backers!

2. New Stretch Goal and Addition of a PS Vita Version Reduced goal for the fandisc heroine chapters, and for the much-demanded Vita version!

3. Addition of Various Highly Demanded Reward & Add-on Items Dakimakuras! T-shirts! Heroine sets! Custom PCs! And much much more!

4. Funding Goal Set at $80,000, with Significant Lowering of Development Costs We've reworked the budget to make for a more achievable goal!

Those are the main points, but you can see all the changes in detail on the preview page! We're looking forward to your contributions!

[Soulless Watcher]

This is a really fucking retarded thing to get annoyed about, but what the hell is up with the "RE" in the RE: Sharin no Kuni Project? Well, I guess it is still not as bad as "MuvLuv: A pretty sweet visual novel series".

Well anyways, even though I probably will not back this one, it is always good to see more of the big titles officially localized by another company aside from the usual three (aka not sekai project). 

[Flutterz]

Wow, not adding the other routes from the fandisk? What a ripoff

Also I didn't know how much I wanted this until now

[Flutterz]

15 minutes ago, Zenophilious said:

Aren't they having it as a stretch goal?  Why would you read it without the sex, though?  It's bad enough as it is with it

  Hide contents

No, Mana, NOOOOOOOO 

  Without it, it becomes mindless slice-of-life drivel (and I like good SoL), at least as far as I read into that machine-TL'd garbage.

"" tho

[Dergonu]

Lol, all the people not backing because there is mosiacs... Its literally the law. Its impressive enough that Frontwing managed to make Akabei Soft cough up the H in the first place. Mosiacs has been a thing in VNs since the dawn of man, so why are people still complaining about them lol. 

[Soulless Watcher]

11 minutes ago, Dergonu said:

 Mosiacs has been a thing in VNs since the dawn of man, so why are people still complaining about them lol. 

Because according to western ideas on obscenity it seems kinda silly, even though ironically it was western ideas pushed on eastern ideas that caused the mosiacs. 

[Dergonu]

7 minutes ago, OutoftheBox said:

I wasn't aware that western countries had laws that prohibit showing genitals.

They explain it in the kickstarter. Frontwing is a Japanese company, and so they must follow Japanese laws. This isn't a game produced at the same tme in the west, like Corona Blossom, so they are bound by the Japanese laws when doing this. So yes, they are literally bound by the Japanese laws on mosiacs when they do this stuff.

4 minutes ago, Zenophilious said:

Uhhh...it's a fundraising campaign for the English release.  They actually don't have to put the mosaics in the English release, as they illustrated with CoroBlo Vol. 2 (supposedly?  Haven't seen any uncensored CGs).  They're acting as an English translation company, so why should there be any mosaics if they're releasing it outside of Japan only?  There's no real reason, other than not wanting to spend money and effort on it.

It's probably just AS2 being stupid.  I mean, it took a near failure (which admittedly happened anyway, but refusing to put in the porn killed the early momentum) for them to realize people wanted the porn in the first place.  They obviously don't understand their English fanbase that well.

Again, what I said above.
There should be mosiacs because they don't have the power to make that choice. It's different for an IP they made themselves, that they can control, like Corona blossom. It's all written on their page about the 18+ version; it's not up to them.

 

Another thing to keep in mind is that a lot of Japanese artists won't want their artwork uncesored, and might pull out (giggity) if they are told they will attempt to uncensor it. These things go a lot deeper than just "we are from the west, we like our porn uncensored!" If it was that simple, alright fair enough, but its not, not by a long shot.

[Nandemonai]

31 minutes ago, Dergonu said:

They explain it in the kickstarter. Frontwing is a Japanese company, and so they must follow Japanese laws. This isn't a game produced at the same tme in the west, like Corona Blossom, so they are bound by the Japanese laws when doing this. So yes, they are literally bound by the Japanese laws on mosiacs when they do this stuff.

That might be what they say, but it's wrong.  H-OVAs are routinely uncensored in western releases.  (Granted, they don't really do too many of those anymore.  But the point still stands, they did once upon a time release quite a few of them and they were all uncensored.)  Almost all games released in English don't have mosaics.  This trend goes back almost twenty years!

Some companies are unnecessarily paranoid about mosaics.  In fact, in ages past, these companies would simply pass on localization altogether.  You can find 5 to 10 year old statements from Peter Payne saying things to the effect of  'talks fail for a number of reasons, one of them being mosaics'.  Nowadays, they do things like Nitroplus (watermark the images in Demonbane) or Eden (leave the mosaics in, but shrink them) or even just leave them there altogether.

However, this is not legally obligatory.  The law only prohibits distribution within Japan.  Even possession  in Japan is legal.  And absolutely no one has gotten into trouble for un-mosaicing Japanese porn for foreign release.  Not a single soul.

Instead, I see other reasons why some companies make this decision is made for other reasons: they don't want to piss off their Japanese fans by providing an arguably superior product to other markets (which I believe is why the market for h-ovas has died).  Or some company won't understand how much people in the West care, so they figure 'why bother?' or honestly don't even realize it's controversial at all, and just leave them there from force of habit.  Or a company might be paranoid about, well, RapeLay 2.0 (hell, Minori - I think - was so worried about that, that they demanded an ESRB rating be obtained for - I think it was Eden?) and they think that putting the mosaics there will somehow make a difference.

[Edit:  Be less confusing]

[Dergonu]

14 minutes ago, Zenophilious said:

That still makes absolutely no sense.  Either it's AS2's fault, or you're saying that neither of them can lift a finger to do anything about it because the two versions weren't released simultaneously?  I don't see anything about AS2 there, just Frontwing saying that "they", Frontwing, can't do anything about it, while saying something that is contradicted by the uncensored release of CoroBlo.  I don't know about you, but I've never heard anything about a law preventing a Japanese company from releasing uncensored porn in a different country, although I know pretty much nothing about Japanese law other than the whole "obscenity" thing pretty much everyone knows about.

@SpeedBeatz, would you possibly be able to clarify?

There is a lot of stuff beyond just a company saying "naw man, we don't like that." Mosiacs in Japanese 18+ productions is something that is quite deeply rooted in there at this point. There is the artists point of view, (they might not want it), there is the fear that the game WILL make it to Japan, violating the laws there. (Let's face it; it takes a simple upload and bam, it's done.) Another issue is the fact that these are both Japanese companies, not an English company trying to bring over a Japanese company's production.

What I'm trying to say is, a lot of people look at this as, "oh hell no! we don't get to see the vagina without pixels over it? I WON'T BACK!" This is a totally unreasonable argument, as it simply isn't that easy to "just make a patch for the English readers" that has no mosiacs. There is a LOT that needs to be thought out. For all we know, this could be because the artist who worked on the game said no. Or it could be something else entierly. The point here is, if it was that simple, they would of course have done it to please the fans, but the fact is that it simply won't be that easily done. Mosiacs in 18+ stuff in Japan is a seriously complicated thing to understand for westerners I guess, but the fact that it is legit a LAW there should make it pretty obvious that it's taken quite seriously.

4 minutes ago, Nandemonai said:

They don't understand how much people in the West care, so they figure 'why bother?' or honestly don't even realize it's controversial at all, and just leave them there from force of habit.

This is 100% wrong. Just read their post and look at how they are handling Corona Blossom, their own game. They are trying their absolute best to meet this requirement from western fans, but the truth is that it isn't that easy. They said, they really want to do something about this to simply please everyone, but they can't.

 

Please read this to understand what I mean:

About mosaic censorship in the 18+ patch

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We are definitely aware of the fact that a number of you hoped for the x-rated scenes to have mosaics removed for the international version, and we appreciate all of your comments and feedback.

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As Frontwing is a Japanese company, all of our software is created to conform with Japanese legal standards, and this includes the localized versions which we are priveleged to be able to make and share with fans around the world.

 

[Nier]

24 minutes ago, Dergonu said:

Another thing to keep in mind is that a lot of Japanese artists won't want their artwork uncesored, and might pull out (giggity) if they are told they will attempt to uncensor it. These things go a lot deeper than just "we are from the west, we like our porn uncensored!" If it was that simple, alright fair enough, but its not, not by a long shot.

Yep, see here:

Also, this Kickstarter is available for japanese backers too and it is against the law to distribute non-mosaiced material. The reason why Frontwing was able to do it, is because they would manually take all japanese backers and send them different rewards than what everyone else would get, for Corona Blossom Vol.2 Frontwing procuded two physical versions, an unmosaiced physical version and a mosaiced physical version, the mosaiced physical version was produced for Japan and the unmosaiced physical version was produced for everyone else. But here, it wouldn't be feasible to reproduce this scenario as japan already have multiple japanese releases of Sharin.

 

[Nandemonai]

3 minutes ago, Dergonu said:

This is 100% wrong. Just read their post and look at how they are handling Corona Blossom, their own game. They are trying their absolute best to meet this requirement from western fans, but the truth is that it isn't that easy. They said, they really want to do something about this to simply please everyone, but they can't.

I've edited my post to be a bit more clear.  I was speaking in general terms about my impression of the several companies that have released mosaiced games in English.  I understand that Frontwing got the message; that was a big feedback item from Corona Blossom vol. 1 and they definitely paid attention.

[SpeedBeatz]

What I can say is this: it's not a matter of not releasing mosaic-free because we don't feel like it, or because we're too cheap, or because we don't think it's important.  If it was feasible for us to be offering the game mosaic-free, we would be.

I don't have the most up-to-the-minute info on every single factor that made it not possible, and I'll see what I can do about further explanations (no promises, though), but if it were something we could change we absolutely would have done so before relaunching the campaign.

[Dergonu]

I feel bad for Frontwing, taking the heat for this as if it's their fault. This has already been an established thing in localizations for a long, long time. Not all releases can be decensored, that's it really.... The fact that they are this open and humble about it is really impressive tbh. If it was another company, they would most likely just have gotten fed up with  this stuff by now and put down their foot saying "it won't happen." They really are doing a good job of listening to their fans, but they can't do the impossible. If they aren't allowed to make an uncensored version, choosing not to back because of that is just way too unreasonable.

[Yuuko]

4 minutes ago, Nier said:

Yep, see here:

 

This thread is the shittiest thing ever because it is not the truth. I've seen people linking this thread all over the place when it wasn't even mosaics that was the problem.

[Nier]

4 minutes ago, Kiriririri said:

This thread is the shittiest thing ever because it is not the truth. I've seen people linking this thread all over the place when it wasn't even mosaics that was the problem.

Quote

Unfortunately, we've had to remove the Craving Scolding chapter by Sayori. Sayori's editor at the publisher in Japan failed to inform the artist that their work would be made available on FAKKU uncensored. Sayori is especially sensitive about making her work available without censorship, she also does the art for the NEKOPARA games which have censored art despite an official English 18+ patch.

Fortunately, we are on good terms with the artist. So we will continue working with her in an attempt to find a solution. But for now, the chapter has been removed.

Are you saying you know "the truth" more so than the people directly involved in this?

The fact is that FAKKU went ahead and released a Manga made by Sayori before it was mosaiced, Sayori saw this and wasn't happy about it so she voiced her displeasure about the state of affair which resulted in FAKKU having to take down the Manga.

[Yuuko]

2 minutes ago, Nier said:

Are you saying you know "the truth" more so than the people directly involved in this?

The fact is that FAKKU went ahead and released a Manga made by Sayori before it was mosaiced, Sayori saw this and wasn't happy about it so she asked them to take down the Manga.

Sayori didn't know it would be releases on Fakku in the first place. She also only got paid by Wanigami to put her doujin on their magazine. She knew nothing about Fakku release. Mosaics were not the reason it was deleted. (This was directly heard from Sayori.)

[Nier]

Just now, Kiriririri said:

Sayori didn't know it would be releases on Fakku in the first place. She also only got paid by Wanigami to put her doujin on their magazine. She knew nothing about Fakku release. Mosaics were not the reason it was released.

FAKKU's creator is not saying this.

[Yuuko]

5 minutes ago, Nier said:

FAKKU's creator is not saying this.

So you believe something that Fakku's creator heard from Wani Magazine that heard it from Sayori instead of just Sayori? Whatever I'm out.

[Dergonu]

4 minutes ago, Zenophilious said:

Thank you for responding.  I understand that it might not be possible to say the exact reason, but I'd appreciate the closest answer possible, as the web page that I linked is incredibly vague.

Did you scroll down?

Quote

As Frontwing is a Japanese company, all of our software is created to conform with Japanese legal standards, and this includes the localized versions which we are priveleged to be able to make and share with fans around the world.

Quote

Above all, we want to be able to provide the best experiences possible for visual novel fans everywhere, and we are taking your desires for mosaic-free releases under very serious consideration, including all of your advice on how to accomplish that goal.  That being said, as Frontwing will be acting as the publisher for this project, offering a mosaic-free version will not be possible.  We hope that you can understand our position in this matter.

It's all there.

[Soulless Watcher]

9 minutes ago, Zenophilious said:

I'm not trying to imply that the people saying that they won't buy it without uncensored labia/vaginas and penises are being reasonable.  I'm just curious if there's a law that explicitly prohibits doing so, or it's just fear of the possibility of legal consequences, which is an entirely different situation.  Minori was the same way with ef, IIRC, and even though there was nothing to worry about, MG couldn't convince them to change their minds, and so they ended up with reduced mosaics.

From what I understand the laws on mosaics are incredibly vague and deliberately hard to interpret the exact parameters of what is allowed and what isn't. At the risk of opening another can of worms, kinda like lolicon and child pornography laws in the west. 

[Nier]

4 minutes ago, Soulless Watcher said:

From what I understand the laws on mosaics are incredibly vague and deliberately hard to interpret the exact parameters of what is allowed and what isn't. At the risk of opening another can of worms, kinda like lolicon and child pornography laws. 

Drawings are not considered as "child pornography" in Japan.

[Soulless Watcher]

Just now, Nier said:

Drawings are not considered as "child pornography" in Japan.

Well, I meant western laws on child pornography.

[Nier]

1 minute ago, Soulless Watcher said:

Well, I meant more of the western laws on child pornography.

In that case, mosaics or not, if something gets categorized as "child pornography" (in the west) having mosaics will not help your case.

[Soulless Watcher]

7 minutes ago, Nier said:

In that case, mosaics or not, if something gets categorized as "child pornography" (in the west) having mosaics will not help your case.

Well you just missed my point, what I was trying to get across was that mosaic laws don't say that pornography must have mosaics, but it must not have obscene objects (which are defined as "to promote a sense of shame or disgust in human beings"). I was just comparing how the laws are similar in that they don't directly outlaw the item in question, but highly indicate that laws do apply. 

[Nier]

4 minutes ago, Soulless Watcher said:

Well you just missed my point, what I was trying to get across was that mosaic laws don't say that pornography must have mosaics, but it must not have obscene objects. I was just comparing how the laws are similar in that they don't directly outlaw the item in question, but highly indicate that laws do apply. 

Those points only apply for Japan, what could be used as a defense in Japan (adding mosaics to mask genitals), won't have much of a weight in the West, so leaving mosaics in to avoid getting in trouble due to the "child pornography laws in the west" makes no sense.