December 16, 2010

They ain't the same

Pete seems to be confused about the difference between dating games, where the player wins if he gets a girl to "confess", and eroge, which is short for "erotic game", and in which the player wins if he manages to have sex with one or more of the girls. (Both of which are distinct from otome games in which the protagonist is a girl, and in which you win if one of the boys confesses.)

Yosuga no Sora is based on an eroge. The World Only God Knows is about a nerd who is good at playing dating games (not eroge). I'm not clear on which kind of game it is that the imouto is hooked on in My Sister can't be this cute.

I personally don't have any interest in either kind of game, but given how violent a large proportion of eroge are, I find them a lot more objectionable. Rape is very common, and child molestation is nearly universal, and some kinds of eroge are notorious for their dungeon scenes.

I don't have the same kind of visceral objection to dating games, I just think they're insipid. And the idea that any game like that would teach you any kind of lesson applicable to the real world is ludicrous.

UPDATE: By the way, a visual novel is different again. Dating games and eroge don't tend to have story lines. They set up a situation, and there may be events as time passes, but the story is the player's interaction with the girls. Visual novels (e.g. Clannad) are much deeper.

I also thought I'd mention that one of the creepiest scenes in Bottle Fairy shows Tama-chan, the kindergartener next door, playing a dating game.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 10:52 AM | Comments (18) | Add Comment
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1 The title character (the little sister) in Ore Imouto is addicted to Imouto Ergo games.  The main character for The World God Only Knows plays mainly dating sim.

Posted by: BigFire at December 16, 2010 11:51 AM (Kwn4z)

2 I think you may be drawing sharp lines when the reality is a continuum. There are eroge which are dating sims with a little additional spice, all the way up to plain ol' porn games that have the dating sim format. There are visual novels with pornographic content, ranging from just a touch to porn-movie plot. The Venn diagrams have lots of overlap, unsurprisingly given the subject matter. There's even multi-version games which come with and without pornography, but are otherwise identical; that's about the best proof that the genres overlap.

Heck, there was even an -anime- released that way - can't recall the title, but it was four episodes as fairly forgettable porn or 60 minutes of not-actually-that-bad show without the porn. Dragon something something... I've got it on the shelf at home somewhere.

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at December 16, 2010 01:37 PM (pWQz4)

3 In the end though, usage is often looser than the definitions given.  Not saying you're wrong, just that some people use a term without understanding it, and get it wrong.  Case in point: recently, some fansub groups are releasing omakes, but calling them OVA's.  Reh?

And then there's Avatar's point -- remember, F/SN started life as a visual novel, but with sex scenes.  For the anime, they substituted bad "whoosh-y" dragon CGI.

Posted by: ubu at December 16, 2010 02:07 PM (i7ZAU)

4 Avatar is probably talking about Dragon Knight. If I may further guess, specifically the OVA subtitled Wheel of Time. That one was indeed stronger in the plot department than it strictly needed to be. I understand that ADV even released an all-ages cut of it, though I have no idea how well it turned out. I imagine not too badly.

Posted by: gaiaswill at December 16, 2010 09:02 PM (7QHNK)

5 Dragon Knight 4, yeah.

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at December 16, 2010 09:38 PM (mRjOr)

6
I also thought I'd mention that one of the creepiest scenes in Bottle Fairy shows Tama-chan, the kindergartener next door, playing a dating game.
Considering that her default outfit is a thigh-length kimono and stockings (hello, zettai ryouiki), plus a meido pinafore and crayon-shaped hair decs... the dating game isn't close to being the creepiest thing about her.

Posted by: Mikeski at December 16, 2010 11:28 PM (GbSQF)

7 Because of Wonderduck's post today, I went and read the Wikipedia article about Kanon. It says that there were two versions of the game, one adult-only and one all-ages. The difference was that there was a sex scene with each of the girls in the adult-only version, which was snipped out for the all-ages version. And Kanon is a full VN, not just a dating sim. So I guess the lines really are very fuzzy in some cases.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at December 16, 2010 11:36 PM (+rSRq)

8 "recently, some fansub groups are releasing omakes, but calling them OVA's."

The term OVA technically only implies that it never aired on tv and was sent straight to VHS/DVD/Blu-Ray/whatever. Seeing as how that is the case for omakes, I don't see any problem with that.

Posted by: Jordi Vermeulen at December 17, 2010 02:29 AM (AJZdn)

9 I wanted to mention Kanon's fuzzy status here earlier, but I didn't want to give away my #2 all-time pick...

Posted by: Wonderduck at December 17, 2010 06:17 AM (W8Men)

10 "The term OVA technically only implies that it never aired on tv and was sent straight to VHS/DVD/Blu-Ray/whatever. Seeing as how that is the case for omakes, I don't see any problem with that."

Then what do you call the short segments at the beginning of Goshuso-sama Ninomiya-kun?  And what about the meido arc in Yosuga no Sora?

My expectation when I see "OAV" is a 20-45 minute episode or short movie.  Not a 3-5 minute skit -- which is what I think of as "omake".  Perhaps that makes me the one using the terms wrong, but that ties back to the core point: overlap and confusion.

If the world would simply follow the rules I set out for it, things would be much simpler....

Posted by: ubu at December 17, 2010 07:14 AM (i7ZAU)

11

Actually, these days some OVAs do get broadcast. Nowadays, "OVA" pretty much means "not produced at a weekly schedule".

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at December 17, 2010 08:59 AM (+rSRq)

12 Hmm. By that standard, Katanagatari was an OVA, not a series, despite having a regular (albeit monthly) schedule and 12 episodes.   The world defies neat pigeonholing, but at some point, you just have to apply the "threshold rule"* and get on with business.

*The flip side of "one size fits all" in the world of bureaucracy.  In other words,"if it's insignificant, don't try to make an exception for it."

Posted by: ubu at December 17, 2010 11:40 AM (i7ZAU)

13 The all-ages version of adult games/Visual Novels seems to be developed for the console market. In addition to Kanon, To Heart and Suika have multiple versions. Key's latest VN, Little Busters! was released all-ages, but it's expected that there'll be an adult version.

As for things like rape, I wouldn't say they dominate eroge any more than they dominate anime.

Posted by: muon at December 17, 2010 11:17 PM (kzJXl)

14 Unfortunately, rape does tend to dominate hentai anime. Seems like every new hentai title that gets listed on BakaBT includes "rape" as a keyword.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at December 18, 2010 12:12 AM (+rSRq)

15 Once you get the fansubbers into the loop, you can't separate their tastes from what the original market's providing.  That's like going to 4chan and deciding it's all straights or futa freaks based on a comparison of /d/ and /h/. .

That's not to say that there hasn't been an increase in rape hentai and doujins though.

Posted by: ubu at December 18, 2010 08:11 AM (GfCSm)

16 There's definitely some selection bias in what we see; a friend who lived in Japan for several years used to rent adult videos with her husband, and says almost everything on the shelves was pretty tame, and nothing like the selection you see at import sites. When I was looking for a particularly pervy game in one of the Akihabara retailers (as a gift for a deserving friend, honest!), the guy working in the game section didn't even recognize the company who made it.

-j

Posted by: J Greely at December 18, 2010 08:48 AM (2XtN5)

17 What kind of friend would deserve a hentai sim?

.....On second thought, never mind!

Posted by: ubu at December 18, 2010 11:06 AM (GfCSm)

18 A more complete description of how the 3 terms link together I wrote here.

Posted by: Ymarsakar at December 20, 2010 08:47 PM (tUhkS)

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