I penned a lengthy article about The Fruit of Grisaia for my good buddy Matt Sainsbury over at Digitally Downloaded, and it was published today. Please go and read it (it's spoiler-free!); I was really pleased with how it came out.
In the piece, I noted that I believe the 18+ version of The Fruit of Grisaia to be the definitive version, and I stand by this statement, even with the all-ages version on Steam incorporating a few new scenes from the (also all-ages) Vita version to make up for the lack of rude bits. The story is mature and adult, after all, sex aside, so there's really no reason to read a version that is neutered in any way when a version more true to the writers' original vision exists.
This prompted an interesting discussion on Twitter after the fact, not directly related to Grisaia, but to sexual content in games and visual novels in general. We're still in a situation where a visual novel featuring explicit sexual activity — such as Grisaia, or numerous others like it — isn't able to be featured on high-profile storefronts like Steam on PC, the PlayStation Store on PS3, PS4 and Vita, and the Xbox Live Marketplace on Microsoft platforms. And I'm not talking about nukige (the visual novel equivalent of a "gonzo" porn movie, where the sexual content is pretty much the sole reason for its existence) — I'm talking about eroge, which are visual novels that incorporate sexual content as part of their narrative.
The Fruit of Grisaia features a number of scenes where the sexually explicit situations are integral to the overall narrative. I won't give specifics to protect those who intend to read it against spoilers, but suffice to say that in each and every case, the sex scenes serve a purpose, whether it's to reflect the deepening relationship between the protagonist and the heroines, to provide a tragic juxtaposition between pathos and eroticism, or simply to demonstrate another aspect of the characters' personalities. In Amane's route in particular, the sex scenes are very much front-loaded towards the start of her individual path, with the remainder exploring exactly why she is, in her own words, such a slut. And boy does she have some interesting and compelling reasons. But I digress.
The unfortunate thing with this topic is that there's a curious double-standard applied between Western and Eastern publishers in particular. Western publishers such as Rockstar and CD Projekt can get away with depicting explicit sex acts in their games such as Grand Theft Auto and The Witcher, but if a Japanese game dares to show a little skin, it makes the collected prudes of the world clutch at their pearl necklaces (not that kind of pearl necklace) and faint onto their chaise-longues. At best, we get "minor edits" to cover things up and make things a bit less explicitly sexual — Dungeon Travelers 2 on Vita, for example, had an image that depicted a monster girl apparently fellating a ghost changed so that she was just writhing around a bit instead — while at worst we end up with butchered "all-ages" releases cutting out entire scenes.
All-ages releases aren't always bad if they're done well, of course; one of my favourite visual novels, Aselia the Eternal, began life as an eroge but subsequently got expanded to such a degree in its all-ages console format (which was subsequently backported to PC, and this was the version that got localised) that the non-dirty version is now considered to be the definitive way to enjoy that particular tale. But there are cases such as The Fruit of Grisaia where I simply can't imagine them quite working in the same way without the erotic scenes.
The discussion on Twitter turned to localisation specialists Sekai Project, who Kickstarted the Grisaia trilogy and were originally intending to only bring us an all-ages release. After considerable feedback from fans, they eventually relented and agreed to publish a localised 18+ version of Grisaia via their Denpasoft imprint, even going so far as to allow Kickstarter pledges (like me!) to upgrade their donation and get digital copies of the 18+ versions as well as the physical, packaged and digital Steam releases of the all-ages versions.
In my experience so far, Sekai Project know their craft and they understand the art form that is the visual novel. They recognise that eroticism is an important part of many of these works, hence the existence of Denpasoft in the first place. But the concerning thing for some people is that the 18+ releases don't seem to get much attention, even from Sekai Project themselves. Denpasoft's website is a pretty bare-bones affair, and its Twitter account isn't particularly active, whereas Sekai Project is always tweeting about something or other, launching new Kickstarters and generally enthusing about their work — and with good reason.
Why, though, are the 18+ releases dirty little secrets rather than celebrated and promoted alongside the all-ages versions? I don't have a definitive answer for that, only theories, but I wonder how close to the mark I am.
In short, Sekai Project as a brand is keen to promote the Japanese visual novel as a valid art form and type of game to be celebrated by as many people as possible. Their keenness to get their work on Steam shows a keenness to get these titles in front of as many people as possible, since Steam is an enormous market to tap into. Unfortunately, Steam doesn't allow adult content — aside from the aforementioned exceptions for Western games — and so any originally 18+ visual novels that come to steam will have been necessarily neutered. Sometimes there are fan patches available to restore the cut content, though in situations like The Fruit of Grisaia, the all-ages and 18+ versions are completely different base games — the 18+ version is based on the PC original, the all-ages version on the Vita version — and cannot be easily patched.
Sekai Project, as a brand keen to get their stuff noticed, is probably aware of the way the games press has been in the last few years with regard to anything even remotely sexual. As such, their apparent unwillingness to promote the explicitly sexual versions of their games is probably less to do with them being "ashamed" of the content itself, and more an attempt to enjoy a quiet life without enraging the massed heavenly hosts of Anita Sarkeesian's 43rd Puritan Squadron (Polygon Division). Can you imagine what those narrow-minded, sex-negative fun vacuums would make of your average visual novel sex scene? It wouldn't be pretty. Fuck Anita Sarkeesian, and fuck what she has done to intellectual discourse about games as art. (I'm aware it's not entirely her fault, of course, but the members of the press who endlessly bleat on about feminism and the like are pretty much following her cultish teachings to the letter.)
I'm not saying that all visual novels have to have sex in them to be good, of course. But sex is an important part of art, which visual novels are, and sex is also an important part of relationships, which visual novels tend to depict with a strong degree of intimacy. Sex is a basic fact of life, of humanity, and the fact that there are so many roadblocks to exploring it effectively in video games and visual novels is kind of sad, really; thankfully, we're not (yet) in a situation where publishers like JAST, MangaGamer and Sekai Project are giving up on publishing erotic content in the West completely, but we're also sure as hell not (yet) in a situation where a mainstream press site would be able to publish something about a work of The Fruit of Grisaia's ilk without getting a massive hate-boner and then spunking vitriol all over the page, completely missing the point of the "controversial" content in the process; I vividly remember just mentioning Kana Little Sister in one piece on USgamer, and getting attacked by one particularly puritanical reader for "promoting a pedophilic incest simulator".
It's difficult to know how this situation can be improved — or even if it needs to be improved. Could there be scope for a Steam-esque platform that allows adult games to be released and promoted, rather than relying on Web stores that many people have understandable hesitancy trusting? I wonder. In the meantime, I'll keep banging my drum about the most interesting, compelling eroge — and, hell, nukige, since there's plenty of interesting stuff there, too — and hope that at least a few people will listen.
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*applause* Good rant. I'm in your camp.
I would imagine eroge isn't on Steam or other digital distribution platforms for the same reason you can't watch adult movies on Netflix or buy them on iTunes. Mainstream distribution platforms quite simply don't host adult entertainment. By western standards, eroge is probably considered simply a lighter shade of porn. Like a lot of things in Japanese culture, maybe it's a nuance that just doesn't exist in western languages.
As for the difference from western games that display explicit sex acts like The Witcher 3, I imagine most people see those games as on the same level as the explicit sex you might see on and HBO show, Game of Thrones in particular. In those cases sex is often part of the story, but not really a main draw, and explicit depiction is basically never a hugely important component. It's kind of just there. You could censor Witcher 3 (as it actually was in Japan) and the meaning still get's across.
As for other Japanese games that show lots of skin, I'd just chalk that up to the manner of depictions in each case. Dungeon Travelers 2 in particular is seen as problematic because, well, the characters in question look like children to many people. The company that localized it was probably afraid it would run into actual legal problems by pushing it out uncensored. In the case of Fatal Frame V I feel like any publisher other than Nintendo would have left the costumes untouched, but Nintendo remains an extremely cautious publisher that wasn't even willing to give FFV a retail release outside Japan or release the previous game in English at all. It went in minimal-risk. I chalk a lot of other examples and the publicity around them to just being the western media placing a magnifying glass on the meme that is "weird Japan."
I have watched many movies on Netflix that are more explicet than most of the eroge that I've played, including Fruit of Grisalia. And Witcher 2 and 3 has more graphic sex than most, but general pales to Game of Thrones. Pete is correct about the double standard. But I'd rather they not apply that at all to Witcher games either. There is a difference between eroge and nukkuge but overall the treatment of anything sexual or nudity in our industry is more "problematic" than anything else. You can all be prudes and you can all be children, that's fine, but stop trying to impose your will on those that do not conform to those beliefs. But I hold the game companies just as responsible as the NeoGaf and Polygon political correctness machine. They shouldn't only cater to the churchnet. And platform holders have no business deciding what you should or shouldn't be able to publish. My DVD player doesn't tell me I can't watch porn, and I don't want my Steam library or PS4 to stop me from playing full on pornographic games either. That is none of their business.
I think that's the important thing here; not everyone is the same, and no-one should try to impose their will on others. Unfortunately, a call to "ban" something is an inherently stronger suggestion than to "allow" something, since banning something deprives someone of something, while allowing something affords people the opportunity to make a choice as to whether or not they want to engage with something. Sadly, the "ban" crowd are the ones with the loudest voices at present, despite their frequent protestations that "they're not trying to take our games away". Thankfully, there are enough people willing to fight back and stand up for what they believe in when it comes to freedom of expression.
To be honest I just dropped into these comments to discuss this with Pete specifically, so I'd rather not drag this on too much.
The comments below talking about the definition of obscenity probably strike at the real truth of the problem. From what I've seen of the screenshots on this blog, explicit scenes with Makina in particular would probably be considered illegal in some countries at first glance because she looks like a small child. Even if it passed a "scientific or artistic merit" test, it's still considered too obscene to make it onto mainstream distribution channels. I think there's definitely a cultural barrier too. From what I can understand, Grisaia or other similar "eroge" seem to be the video game equivalent of romance novels. The distinction between "eroge" and "nukige" doesn't really exist in the west, partly because in the west this "interactive romance fiction" barely exists at all. Western mainstream content distributors are probably scarcely aware of it. The stuff on HBO, and the Witcher games, are simply a more well-known quantity in the west. Japanese visual novels will also probably remain a niche for the foreseeable future, like foreign art films or whatever. I think channels like MangaGamer and JAST are probably where you'll continue to get them uncensored.
As for the comments on "problematic" stuff, I'll just say I think people who think it's about sexual prudishness or puritanism are kind of missing the point. The problem some people have with a lot of outwardly sexualized depictions of women in games is a lot of them are put there purely for the enjoyment of male audience members. I haven't played Grisaia so I can't judge it. Pete says the sex in that game is integral to the story and that its female characters are given a lot of agency (which is what has always mattered in this discussion). Maybe someone else would look at it and determine it has elements still largely put there to titillate men. I would say this is certainly the case with games like DOA. It's not really about "what" sexual content is in a game, but "why" it's there. Plus, the desire has never really been to remove games made to titillate male customers, but to just make more games with more nuanced and purposeful depictions of women (and minorities) to balance things out. I would argue that strong female characters are a bit more common in Japanese anime and games than western games but many 1) are extremely niche, and 2) often come with a whole host of other problematic elements, mostly for a bunch of deep macroeconomic reasons I'd rather not discuss here. Maybe other people have called for a ban on loli stuff.
I think that's about as much as I'm willing to discussion in this comments section. I've already had parts of this discussion with Pete back at the Squad forums.
Forgot to mention this, but PlayStation and Xbox don't allow straight-up porn because they are closed platforms. Your DVD player or Blu-Ray player is an open platform where at most the hardware is regulated by a consortium of companies. Again, it's the same reason you don't see any on Netflix or iTunes. Steam itself is a closed platform within PC, which is an open platform. You want more freedom in what you play than consoles offer? Then stick to an open platform, which right now basically just means PC or Android.
There's quite a bit to unpack here. I'm hesitant to even mention anything at all, but I tend to read a majority of what you post and find few people are willing to engage you with dissent or challenge your assertions.
The issue you describe here is complex, and I admit there is no simple answer as to how adult material should be marketed or sold. However, you are coming at the topic from an angle too narrow to progress the issue. Your concern is with video games, but the issue has more to do with depictions of sexual themes in all media. Media depicting sexual acts is judged in a binary fashion mostly because we have limited methods of regulating obscenity. Accounting for artistic merit and cultural norms is complicated when we are essentially deciding what media is viable in a public marketplace.
Let's use Grisaia as an example. Although the original Fruit of Grisaia was, to the best of my knowledge, not rated by CERO, if it had been it would have likely been given the 'Z' rating. This is likely why the PSP and Vita releases were altered, as the sale of Z-rated games is heavily restricted. The question I'd pose is this: Given the original Grisaia's theoretical Z rating, is it pornography or art?
Many, yourself included, would consider it art. Although my experience with Grisaia is far more limited than yours, I would consider Grisaia art as well. Given this, should Grisaia, in its original form, be available for sale in all markets?
Probably not.
Although Grisaia has artistic merit, in its original and unadulterated form, it fails certain obscenity clauses in both the East and West. For example, the scene you have depicted here, even in context, would not pass scrutiny. If Grisaia were a film depicting this scene, it too would be given a commercially-prohibitive rating in both Japan and abroad. Does this prohibitive rating diminish the artistic merit of The Fruit of Grisaia? Not at all. Would it limit the number of theaters showing Grisaia? Absolutely.
The concern you address extends far beyond video games. Whether mainstream marketplaces should be obligated to sell "obscene" material with artistic merit is complicated. The artistic value of a piece of media is not dictated by its commercial viability. These concepts are mutually exclusive, and extend into every medium.
The issue you have isn't with Steam, or Sony, or the culture of interactive media. The issue you have is with the definition of obscenity, and it is much, much larger than games.
I actually agree with a lot of this, and I accept that I'm focusing entirely on video games here, because that's primarily where my experience and expertise lies.
I think the question we need to ask ourselves is why certain things are considered "obscene" when they're things that people do and don't get arrested for. A titwank, for example, is nothing to faint onto the couch over — lots of people do it and it doesn't hurt anyone, so why shouldn't we be able to depict it in media without the work in question becoming commercially unviable (or, at least, commercially unviable on mainstream platforms)?
I don't really have an answer for that, unfortunately; if we did, I wouldn't need to write pieces like this at all in the first place. It's just a bit frustrating for people like me — and the many other eroge enthusiasts out there — to have stuff rejected, lambasted or simply ignored purely by virtue of it being considered — unreasonably in many cases — as pornography.
The times are changing slowly, gradually; the fact I can even buy the 18+ version of Grisaia in English is a sign of progress. But we still have a ways to go, and I wonder what exactly we need to put in place for creators to be able to have a bit more "freedom" of expression while still being able to, say, protect the more vulnerable members of society from content they might not want to engage with.