Man, the Japanese are just weird.

No offense to your adopted homeland there, Ashcraft, but they have some... Interesting preferences in gaming.

But hey, to each their own. Their very perverted own.

Touching is good

Too bad soccer and pedophilia aren't that popular in the States.

@PapaBear434:

Japan has lower rates of Sex crimes, childhood pregnancies, etc. then the US

Dang. Another game I'll have to import.

And before the comments go all "what pervs!" I ask you, which is healthier: Wanting to virtually touch boobs or virtually gut-shoot someone?

@PapaBear434: Japanese perverts are just as weird as perverts everywhere.

It's not like the West is devoid of hot coffees or BMX XXXs.

Lol, KFC.

@Avinash_Tyagi:

Japan also has useless police that don't bother tracking down even harassers caught on tape at train stations, legal non-tracked abortion with no age limits either, and several other factors that contribute to a very serious problem. It's so bad that several train lines run special women-only cars to reduce the rate of crimes.

As a result of this I can no longer eat KFC without talking about child molestation, sexual harassment and rape... ... comparing this to what I was previously talking about during lunch this is actually an improvement.

Erotic games coming out on the DS doesn't surprise me at all. If anything, I'm surprised it's taken this long for something like this to arrive. Japan's industry for pornographic/dating games is a big market. When a gaming device allows you to touch the screen to interact, what do you think those developers thought?

I'm sure there are plenty of erotic games that have come out on previous consoles - we just never heard about them because they obviously never make it to Western shores.

What would bother me is seeing someone playing this out in the public. I'd rather they did it in their own privacy time!

@Avinash_Tyagi: The rates aren't lower they are either unchecked or hidden.

@Avinash_Tyagi:

That's what the typical Japanophile would say.

What you said could mean anything. Like "Canada has a lower obesity rate than the US"...by only 1-2%.

@grosolan:

Uh-huh, you don't think the crime rates in the US are higher than reported as well, get real, a lot of crimes are never reported, especially sex crimes

@Karttikeya:

Actually its a lot lower

@Bellamy:
What has legal untracked abortion got to do with the price of cheese? The EU has got generally more liberal laws on abortion than the US, yet also lower rates, so I'm not sure the relevance.

Let's face it, every culture has its own dodgy set of tastes. The Japanese just make games and cartoons about them, and seemingly aren't as repressed as the west (the Christian world?) in showing them.

@Avinash_Tyagi:
You can compare stuff to the US til your heart bleeds. That doesn't make Japan any less perverted. Unless of course you're cool with touching little girls, in that case I guess it would be heaven.

@Bellamy:

Those type of things happen in every society, but even taking those things into account the rates are far lower (some stats staee that only 16% of all sex crimes are reported in the US for example)

And better to have Abortion be legal

@ARboom:

I'd rather them touch computer versions of little girls than molest real girls

@Avinash_Tyagi:
So it's not perverted to fantasize about and indulge in touching little girls as long as it's on a computer screen and not in real life? Um, Okay....

Japan may have these kinds of games but at least they aren't degrading REAL women with shit like Girls Gone Wild.

@ARboom:

Less perverted then it happening in real life

@Hoogie:
A-ha. AHAHA. You have a lot to learn about the dark underbelly of Japan my friend. The part they don't want us gaijin to see!

@Avinash_Tyagi:
But it's still perverted, right? I rest my case.

Not a moment too soon, baby!
Long live the molestation!!

@ARboom: But at least that is a dark underbelly, not a 3 hour infomercial on TV

Ewww... KFC!

@ARBOOM

No more than playing FPS makes you have murderous intents.

@houkoholic:
Oh, I'm not saying playing a game like this will make you go after the real thing, just that it's perverted, and the people who DO play them should feel a little shame while they are 'enjoying' it ... you know.

@Avinash_Tyagi:

Oops, I meant overweight.

My witch hunting genes are tingling! I am fairly certain they are witches. I will have to check.

@ARboom:

Oh, like people playing FPS should feel a little shame because they enjoy head-shoting people? Get real.

It's hypocritic that gamers would readily defend violent video games as fantasies when people like JT opens his trap but then can turn around the same second and tell amongsts themselves that games involve sex is "wrong". Why the double standard? What makes it different? That's what I want to know.

@houkoholic:

Shooting an enemy is not "sad", this is.

That's the difference.

@Karttikeya:

How? Most gamers probably don't even know how to handle a real gun in RL and would probably piss their pants when someone points a real gun at their head, and yet it's not "sad" that they're pretending to be a save-the-world-hero and shooting up enemies left and right? What makes that any different than a loser who can't get a GF in RL and want to live a fantasy of getting laid?

Oh wait, it's no different, because *gasp* both are living a form of fantasy via videogames.

@houkoholic:
Fantasizing about becoming a save-the-world hero is a little different than fantasizing about being a pedophile. At least in my book, but you obviously see things different.

@ARboom:

What about playing a game as a murdering gangster who beats up/kills hookers, sounds just as bad to me

@Avinash_Tyagi:
Sounds just as bad, yes. IS just as bad? No.

Without getting too graphic, these games are designed to get people off who want to touch little girls. Games like GTA are designed to attract a wide audience of normal people. GTA stays within socially accepted bounds. How many times have you gone to the movies and seen someone killed. Now how many times have gone to a movie and seen sexually explicit content containing underaged girls? Now why is that?

Now if you'll excuse me, my Daily Show has downloaded and I need to go be a socially accepting liberal. Yes, I'm serious, and yes, I realize that's a touch droll.

uh what now GTA is within socially accepted bounds...

ok so what your saying is japanese pedohilia (which isn't what the ds games are promoting anyway) is wrong (which is it) so not sociallly acceptable.

Shooting people in the street, stealing cars, breaking laws, knocking women/men anyone to the ground and stomping them to death or close to is not wrong as its socially acceptable i.e. gta?

Right what you have there is a double standard you see, you can't accuse the Japanese of being perverts and sickos because they like games involving women, effectivly softporn and say its theres nothing sick and wrong about you to like games like GTA because its socialy acceptable to do the things you can do in gta... because guess what its not. the horror. Surprise surprise you can get the death penalty for shooting someone, you just go to jail for pedophilia hum, in the US anyway, should go complain to congress about that and get them to switch that around.

Am waiting for the ability for the DS to realise am pissing on the screen.

Who wants to touch ??

ARBOOM, when you have categorised fantasy in videogame as morally good and bad as you have just done, you've basically opened the entire door for anti-game people to f**k you over.

Surely then, if using your book, then you'll have no objection to labeling games which lets players play terrorists, Nazi Germans, drug dealing gangsters, hired hitmans, or human-wiping alien races then as "bad" too, no? Surely these cannot be socially acceptable and are bad fantasies and people should be ashamed to play them. Heck we shouldn't be allowed to enjoy games with bad fantasies too because they infuse bad ideas! But hey what do I know? Since my book is different to yours, right?

Think about this one long and hard and tell me again, why draw the line there?

Now this looks touch worthy!

Yes I know Im going to jail...

Since I don't *think* anyone has said it (then topic went to political bs quick) I'll say it... with glee.

KFC.... Finger Lickn' Good

@ARboom: If you can say these games are designed to get people off who want to touch little girls, then you could by extension say Manhunt was designed to get people off on very graphic murders in cold blood.

Just because you've been more exposed to violence and may consider it passé versus sexually explicit content doesn't mean that the former is any more "acceptable" than the latter.

What was your point again? Oh, that's right. It was moot.

Pfft.

Some people like poking images of young girls who go "Kyaaaaaa!" in games.

Some people like killing people and stealing their cars in games.

While neither is right, neither hurts anyone and both are fantasy.

Any arguments relating to people playing games and wanting to act them out can be applied to either game and is therefor moot.

That is all.

Damn it, Impurethinker, you just beat me to the "Finger Lickin' Good" joke!

I'm not even done with Doki Doki Majo Shinpan yet, and now there is another game on the horizon? Sheesh. If it's out by October, I might actually pick that up while I'm in Japan.

As for crime rates in Japan, I do think it's less here than elsewhere.

Everybody here (in Japan) leaves their bike with the tiniest lock I've ever seen, while back home in the Netherlands, even if you have a big chain lock in addition to your ART-approved ring lock, it will still probably get stolen at some point.

I also often leave my door to my balcony open (live on the ground floor) even when I'm away for a short while, or while I sleep. If you try that in the Netherlands, you can say bye-bye to your laptop and wallet.

So, at least my perception of Japan is that there isn't much crime here, compared to the Netherlands. At least for these kind of crimes.

Here's hoping this game has the same ammount of coverage as Doki Doki Majo Shinpan had! Those were fun posts, aside from people getting worked up for nothing.

sexual predator educational gaming? sign me up! I bet it'd be rated Teen, too.

Comparing this to GTA is a little disingenuous. For the more accurate comparison, you should look at the fact that when the prospect of kids appearing in GTA, gamers themselves took issue with it.

American society draws a lot of strange, subjective lines. Violence is ok, unless it's a game, and then critics start trying to decide what's "acceptable" violence. Is it to much to put a shotgun under a guys chin and pull the trigger? Or is that ok, but putting a guys head in a vice going to far?

The subject of sexual content, Americans are horribly uptight about. Sex is dirty, and is the quickest way to raise your movie, comic book, or game rating. Hell, if it's in a game, it's an automatic "M" rating, even if it's not part of the actual game (see PC version of Oblivion's "boobie" patch.) The level of acceptable content is a lot less clear here.

This crap gets debated back and forth, ad infinitum, because it's all based on personal prudishness and levels of individual, embedded shame.

Where Americans seem to have a universal line in both these subjects, however, is when it involves kids. You don't hurt kids, you don't have sex with kids. Hell, the idea of hurting kids, even evil ones for the purpose of survival, is one of the main plot points in the upcoming "Bioshock." And they even offer a reward for not hurting them, encouraging you NOT kill hurt or kill the little wenches.

America has this notion that a kids life is a very fragile, and somehow more important, than a full adults life. It's obvious why that is, so we won't get into that here.

Other cultures have other feelings on the matter. The attitudes toward sex and violence and appropriate ages for both are much different than they are stateside. It's to be expected.

But that understanding doesn't stop this American from going "A game where you are a Pee-Wee Soccer coach where you try to molest pre-pubescent girls? What the fuck...."

People seem to be missing the fact that Japanese girls generally look younger than Western girls, sometimes quite a bit younger. And they generally have small breasts and petite frames even when fully grown.

The girls in the pic accompanying this story look to be about 18-20 years old by Japanese standards. So the pedophilia angle doesn't really ring true. These girls are in an age range that just about every red-blooded male on the planet fantasizes about.

Pervy touching and soccer?! Want!

@erlik:

Well, MAYBE in this case that's true. But the witch-hunting game takes place in high school, does it not?

And according to reliable sources, the Japanese have been into other, let's say creepy, affections with young girls.

Ahaha, the Japanese and their anime girls.

@PapaBear434: At least Japan doesnt have GPS tracked child molestors like the states do. ;D