Remember folks that Japan and America work differently, there’s just no way around it. People in Japan outright ignore what they don’t like and talk in their own private time for the things they disdain, as people in Japan are more private. While here in the US specifically, folks will outright say it loud and clear making sure their opinion is known by everybody. Just turn on any new station, especially Fox News, you might even get a good laugh out of it.

The point I’m making is I have no problem with NISA personally. While I can understand where purists are coming from, and I agree art in general should not have to “bend over to the man” as they say, in this case however, even the development team agreed with NISA and supports their decisions as they know how things work differently in other region besides their own.

In conclusion, yes censorship sucks, but sometimes it’s needed when a business like NISA needs to look out for themselves because they are a business, and it’s not just about reputation or how they’re frighten over publicity. The fact is, the game needs a rating, and having elements like bathing little girls is something that can get them the stamp of an AO rating as well as bad publicity. Which, if you don’t know, can mean death to your game as no retail store will want to carry it.

Remember, even if they sell a Limited Edition exclusively on their website like they did with Neptuina MK 2, they still sold the standard edition at regular retail stores as well as their own website. So censorship might be “evil”, but as you can see, really it’s a necessary evil to get things that we want sometimes. As far as my own opinion, I go with the other camp on this one in that I’m just glad to be getting the game in the end.

Thanks goes to NISA for their continued work on bringing us any JRPG they can get developed by their Japanese studio or just simply getting publishing rights to;  games we probably would have never gotten otherwise. So I might have sounded negative by comparing NISA with Atlus and so forth, but I don’t mean any ill will at all;  I love them both and I understand business is business. I think that’s something we can all agree on. Times have changed indeed, but that does not mean everything will go perfectly, the way we want it. All things considered, that’s life and we just move on and go with the flow. I know that’s not a really popular answer, but some things can’t be helped.

 

David Fernandes
(Community Manager) David is an assistant admin and community manager at oprainfall. He joined the Operation Rainfall Campaign at the beginning, and became one of the staff as the first wave of new volunteers were needed back in mid June. He is an avid video game collector, and lover of most game genres. David spends much of his time in a futile effort in clearing out his ever growing video game backlog.