jeez couldn't you guys just sell popcorn here? there's not enough in the world for the salt in this thread.

If you think Rance is bad, why not go all the way? Those murder simulators are morally objectionable, why should you be killing people at all? I don't need to list these and honestly I don't care if you're the hero or the bad guy as long as you're killing human beings, so let's give that a shot shall we?

Why play Hitman, where you get contracted to kill? Thief, where you steal stuff, isn't that morally objectionable too? You could play as literal Italian Mafia mobsters in the Mafia games or play dictator in the Tropico series. Heck, Postal 2 is a goldmine of questionable moral crap (you could literally use a cat as a makeshift silencer!) and I don't see any of you going on and on about it. If you want to take Rance down, you've got buttloads of work to do if you really believe in your cause. Otherwise, you might as well just admit you hate it because it's a hentai game from Japan, a country that's so culturally different to the point it comes off as mindblogging to some of you - in this case, just get used to it, cause you'll see more and more of both Japan's finest and weirdest.

Aim your misguided energy at actual, real life children being trafficked and raped. Aim your energy at resolving wars all around the world. You might have better luck doing that, than complaining about Rance, a luxury product and a game that you don't have to play at all.

I haven't played the game(s), I also don't plan on playing the game(s), and I don't even could buy the game(s) here (without using a VPN) if I wanted to play it...but I think, this is quite an interesting piece of info:

Excerpt from "The CRPG Book", page 377:

(quote)
Sengoku Rance is actually a very complex turn-based Strategy/RPG [...]
[...]
The storyline also tricks you.

Rance is meant as a parody of the RPG hero, who travels with scantily clad females, uses violence as a solution to everything and always sees himself as a hero – even as he rapes women or slays monsters while they beg for mercy.

But what starts as a comedic parody seamlessly transitions into a game about responsibility to friends and allies as Rance slowly shows compassion, and closes out in grim horror, with the tolls of war taking him into a cycle of depression that affects gameplay.

Packing a surprising story, challenging battles, great artwork and multiple endings, Sengoku Rance is quite the work.
I highly recommend everyone giving it a try, even if Eroge is not your thing. (DT)
(end of quote)

...and people call ME a prude? Jesus man, you need to chill and think for a bit.

Do you really think a POLISH company would be allowed to sell pedo shit? I hate that i get bombarded with porn game ads, but come on.

Don't you dare to bring in reasoning without warning!
That has to be ignored by force by all those who got it all wrong.

Since I am not at all in these manga/anime RPG games, I will still ignore it however :)

But the description sounds a lot different than the descriptions by the sworn enemies of this game.

The internet has also made it a lot simpler to observe self-owns, instead of waiting for it to be rumored in a tabloid and then suppressed with a hush. For example, Tommy Tallarico making 17 million dollars vanish in his bid to use the Intellivision brand as his personal trophy toilet; who is now in the self-own phase as not only is he deeply in debt, but the companies he said would fail have instead had fine runs. (Evercade, Atari VCS, Playdate, et al.)

The entire market he was aiming for was not only saturated, but has since been twice eaten.

You are right again, and Pedro Pascal's tweet was smart enough to continue on with Disney's Mandalorian, equal rights for consequences are not that equal. So one can be "stupid" all the way when it fits the current trend.

It's one thing to say something which is against the law or close to it (e.g. apeal to kill people with different views, nation, religion, etc.) - this should have consequences for certain, this does not always happen. But if the statement has something to do with politics, one should be extremely careful to not offend those who can punish in return.

Unfortunalely the way I see it almost every country is going to be like that (dictatorship regime). Freedom of speech is a myth, it's my opinion and no words can sway it, only observation to prove how wrong I am / was. Time will tell, for now my best bet is still on Iceland country.

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" - Evelyn Beatrice Hall

And, despite Telika's claim, laws regarding CP are generally about protecting children, just like age of consent laws are. Sex or nude photography doesn't have to involve torture, but it is still considered to be something that can seriously harm a person and is likely to cause serious regrets & emotional strains (a kid is not considered mature enough to decide for themselves if they want to involve in such activity with a grown-up; the reality and regrets will hit them once they themselves grow up or think about the implications of their nude photos being distributed...). It's not about punishing people for the "assholery" of being attracted to kids. Nevermind that enjoying 2D animu girls has little to do with attraction to real kids.

(Sadly some jurisdictions are slipping to insanity and even going as far as trying to punish kids for having nude photos of themselves, but that doesn't change the original intent of the laws)

An oddly erotic three-minute-old stick figure doesn't need these protections any more than a comic drawn by a professional manga artist does.

It is exactly what it does and it is harmful. It normalizes pedophilia AND it normalizes rape. It makes it just cool - the way it's advertised, presented and also discussed in these very literal circle jerk.

And that is why laws -at least in Switzerland- are punishing pedophile imagery, whether it is drawn art of fabricated by actually torturing children. There is only a difference of degree in front of the law, meaning a bit fewer jail years if it is "only" artificially fabricated imagery.

And of course, ultra-conservatives (paradoxically often the same ones who start screaming about "propaganda" if homosexual couples are humanized in a fiction) love to push the "mere words/images never harm anyone". Except that it's precisely words and images that define normalcy, values, acceptability, it's words and image that fabricate genocides, that enforce racism, that entrench sexism, that convey, weaken, defend, define and reproduce norms and values in a socioculture. And that is why there is currently a very self-aware "culture war" about it, with a strong pushback (and forth) on popular fiction (such as implicit rape culture in action movies or even romances - again, what defines our shifting cultural sense of normalcy and coolness).

But again, there are on one side the legitimate debates about pure representations and all the subtle borderline situations that get stomped in this raging "culture war" (such as the meaning of irony, or the value of realistic descriptions, or the threshold of a work's definition and acceptable impurity, and all sorts of thought-provoking deliberate ambiguities, all of which that tends to be flatted by zealots). But none of these really apply to masturbation material. Ejaculation is endorsement. You can play a baddie in a game, or on a theater stage, and keep some sort of intellectual distance and irony, playing pretend some level of cynicism, and "pupetting" the evil faced by the heroes in a rich world. But if that's what you claim you're doing while orgasming, you're a hilariously creepy hypocrite. When owners of pedophile material (and by the way, pedophilia is rape, even if not all rape is pedophilia) are on trial, the "oh I was just playing pretend" and "oh it was just an ironical stash of porn, see" is not a strong defense. And I don't think these games here are being bought in an analytical, academic investigation perspective.

So what it comes down to is the standard defence of inacceptabe apologetic discourses ("just words, mah free speeeech") which is already a purely political fallacy, but made even more inept by the fact that we're talking pornography here. And this -breaching physical reality- means adhesion to a whole different level than lol my sith lord is a real stinker innit.

Especially in a company that publicizes adhesion to ESG norms, going full "pedophilia is cool, rape is fun" is pretty quesionnable. No, that's how it goes here (gog needs money, and video shops are often kept afloat by their porn section - and by their most ridiculous clients). Thing is, it's a forum, and you're not as much strictly among yourselves as you'd think. You're in public (hi), and you can expect the onlookers (hello) to point their finger at you from time to time, as you trottle home with your latest japanese schoolgirl rape simulator (bought for gameplay analysis exclusively of course). Live with that.

Welcome to 2023 I guess.

I Agree with some of your logic here, but pedophilia is not rape. Pedophilia is when someone is attracted to prepubescent children. You're you're conflating it with statutory "rape", and by the way, statutory rapists don't have to be pedophiles in the least.

Many make that mistake and also extend what you wrote bold to everything under 18. But it sounds good and this way you can badmouth someone or something easily. I actually pity those who can never give their body what it desires. One can decide what it does, but he can't influence what it wants.

I could not say, if that manga style is way for the japanese around that problem, or if it's just a culture thing, bases on what we saw earlier in this thread.

To those decrying the cultural decay that drawings of children invoke, what of a small legal-age woman who is extremely flat-chested? The same principles presumably apply: said to be legal, looks nothing of the sort. Australia forbids it, much to the chagrin of A-cup women.

In fact, I'd be delighted to know how you feel about family-friendly nudist sites, which often feature HD pictures of anyone, any age.

It's just anecdata but having spelunked some image boards and related forums, the intersection of people who are into lolicon (manga/anime) and those who are into realistic 3d renders of similar subjects seems pretty small. As in the latter (who share such art made using 3d modelling applications) get pushed out of the former communities out into their own spaces (and moderators on 2d boards flat out reject the 3d stuff). I quite mean it when I say enjoying 2D animu girls has little to do with attraction to real kids. That of course applies to "mature" anime characters as well; imagine your stereotypical neet hikikomori with body pillows of busty anime ladies having zero interest in real women and you understand.

But that's just a broad-strokes observation; it's impossible to speak for everyone. I wouldn't be surprised if, for some, manga were just a way around that problem you refer to.

At this point things get rather silly, because then you'd have to decry National Geographic Nudity. or just plain ole nude arts.

Well, if one wanted a "Venus" for his living room, it really meant he wanted a naked chick painted to his wall.
The Amazons could also be called greek porn, their description was complete nonsense. They just wanted to show some breasts on vases.