幼なじみは大統領 Released, a new level in beautiful eroge weirdness Options

[Kagetenshi]

So in what may be a new level of weird twists for eroge, Alcot has released 幼なじみは大統領〜My Girlfriend Is The President〜, whose plot centers around a spaceship crash killing off the real president and the aliens, attempting to fix their mistake, appoint the nearest random girl to be the new president and brainwash everyone into accepting this. The main character apparently wasn't affected for some reason.

Promotional Video (safe, I think)

Official page (safe except for Graphic section and maybe some of the voice samples)

I just thought that this was something I should share with you all.

~J

[Tanegar]

Japan: Earth's greatest natural supply of weirdness for over sixty years. How boring our lives would be without it.

[hobgoblin]

heh, just goes to show how interesting those parts of the world that have not gotten "strangled" by abrahamic religions can be (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[WyldKnight]

You call em interesting, I call them weird and not good weird just weird weird. I regret going to Japan, should have gone to France instead or heck even Canada. At least there I wouldn't have groaned in sheer terror at some of the things they do.

[Kagetenshi]

My condolences that you're such a stick-in-the-mud (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

(More seriously, it's true, different people will have different levels of compatibility with a culture. For me, Japan was a place I could see spending the rest of my days.)

~J

[Adarael]

Oh my god. One of the testers down the hall has been testing this in Japanese, and I keep passing her, looking at the screen and getting more and more confused. I kept thinking, "I am reading that wrong. That is not what they are saying."

[Stahlseele]

Right now, i am more partial to To Aru Kagaku No Railgun.
Honestly? I don't even know why, and i find it funny enough.

Also, if you are go there, try sankaku complex for weird japanese stuff.
but watch out, that site is horribly NSFW.

[pbangarth]

You call em interesting, I call them weird and not good weird just weird weird. I regret going to Japan, should have gone to France instead or heck even Canada. At least there I wouldn't have groaned in sheer terror at some of the things they do.

(emphasis mine)

Oh, WyldKnight, how little you know of us. We work very hard keeping the world thinking of us as singing mounties and hosers. But eight months of winter, WyldKnight. It changes a man.

[Heath Robinson]

I find it strange that people are heralding this as a new level in Japanese weirdness. Major political figures have already featured in H manga. Not the ersatz political figures you see in this. Then you have Mari-tan (learn English by way of FMJ quotes), and Saya no Uta (it's about a man meeting an intergalactic alien horror after developing a psychological disorder where he sees everything as if it were made out of meat or human entrails - he sees the horror as a cute girl). There is also a serialised comic about international political leaders playing Mahjong, currently against Moon Nazis. This registers as but the merest blip on the RADAR.

I compare this to the media and reality of the west, and am really unsure if Americans have any place to declare Japan weird. There are people in the US who claim snakehandling brings them closer to their deity (they're Abrahamic), there are people who believe that a few words from a believer in an Abrahamic religion can cure crippling disabilities, there are those who believe that the Antichrist was voted into presidency of the United States of America, there is a movie about Moon Nazis attacking the earth coming up, we play games about construction and demolition company bringing their adverse operational philosophies to blows, and then we have the perverse and insane nature of the comic known as the Invisibles.

Just because you don't hear about the insanity doesn't mean it ain't happening.

[Kagetenshi]

So, I just want to offer some of my background here. I translate ero-manga as a hobby, so I've been exposed to a considerable stack of the stuff. I'm aware of some of the stranger things out there, and some of the tamer through my other hobbies. I think I know the mahjong manga, though I'm not sure as I don't follow it and thus wouldn't know about the moon nazis. I'm chest-deep in the insanity.

Nevertheless, this premise strikes me as delightfully weird. Weird in a way that nothing else you've described does. Maybe it's just me.

Anyway, I've started playing it and may post reviews along the way. Eroge are something that I am new to, so I may well be enthused over common features (for example, I spent about a minute laughing when I got killed for saying that I'd borrowed the game and therefore didn't have the manual. This may be a common trope, I don't know.) due to the novelty of it all.

~J

[Tanegar]

I compare this to the media and reality of the west, and am really unsure if Americans have any place to declare Japan weird. There are people in the US who claim snakehandling brings them closer to their deity (they're Abrahamic), there are people who believe that a few words from a believer in an Abrahamic religion can cure crippling disabilities, there are those who believe that the Antichrist was voted into presidency of the United States of America...

Ahh, see, you're confusing "weird" with "batshit insane." There's a difference. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Chrysalis]

I suppose it could be weirder. Why does Japanese have an immense fetish on school girls?

Weirder could be a gay h-manga with the world's political leaders.

[Stahlseele]

Why does Japanese have an immense fetish on school girls?

Better Question would be: Why does the Rest of the World not have this as much?

[hobgoblin]

oh, but they have, they just dont want to talk about it, as its not commonly "accepted"...

[Heath Robinson]

Why does Japanese have an immense fetish on school girls?

Your question should be "why do people have such a strong fetish for the accoutrements of a school age girl?"

The answer is that youth is attractive on a primal, very basic level. Youth means healthier, more energetic, less prone to disease, more likely to survive to bring a child to term and less likely to die in childbirth. It is an utterly natural thing to be attracted to girls younger than the modern prudes say is reasonable - we have adapted to find the symbols of that kind of mate more attractive. They still must be sexually mature, of course, but younger sexually mature women are generally considered better the world over.

Makeup and cosmetic procedures exist to cover up the blemishes of aging, and only in particular regions do girls try to make themselves look older than they are. Those regions are pretty much exclusively the ones that provide significant incentives to never get caught up in a relationship with a girl younger than a particular age.

The accoutrements of a school aged girl, where they are universal enough, are highly visible symbols of youth. It is only natural that people fetishise that. The fetishisation itself is easy, since you only see the uniforms outside of the context of a school age girl in the circumstances where it is being used deliberately as part of the fetish. Half of porn is self-deception, so one more lie about the age of the participants of the frankly ridiculously unnatural act you are seeing on screen is unlikely to be the straw that broke the camels back.

Where Japan has the sailor uniform, Britain has young women in skirts, shirts and ties ("back to school" nights were making the rounds in clubs a few years ago, at the very least), America has College Coeds and Catholic Schoolgirls. If I knew more about the French I'd give you their equivalent.

[Kagetenshi]

Weirder could be a gay h-manga with the world's political leaders.

I suppose now is the proper time to link to the parody of the game's trailer…

~J

[Wounded Ronin]

I translate ero-manga as a hobby

Some hobby. Most of the ero-manga I found on the internet makes me feel as though I've been anally violated by Sigmund Freud. Usually I also don't "like" the art style since many of those artists seem pre-occupied with drawing boobs the size of watermelons.

[ravensmuse]

This is funny, because just yesterday I was in a comic book shop and found President Evil: 100 Days Later, whose main character is Obama with a katana fighting evil zombified versions of Octomom, Michael Jackson, Kate Goeslin...

So yeah. We're just as weird as anyone else.

Of course, my favorite weird at the moment was that manga awhile back that depicted America as a generously endowed blonde, blue eyed woman in a USA flag bikini roping up evil nazis. I mean, hello?

[hobgoblin]

Of course, my favorite weird at the moment was that manga awhile back that depicted America as a generously endowed blonde, blue eyed woman in a USA flag bikini roping up evil nazis. I mean, hello?

heh, check out the american pilot in strike witches some time (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

basically, if she is american, she is probably a highly front loaded, airhead blonde...

i think i know the series in question btw, but the name escapes me. It basically about characters representing nations, with all the classical stereotypical traits that come with that...

[Kagetenshi]

Some hobby. Most of the ero-manga I found on the internet makes me feel as though I've been anally violated by Sigmund Freud. Usually I also don't "like" the art style since many of those artists seem pre-occupied with drawing boobs the size of watermelons.

There are some styles that are common and tend to collect in certain anthologies; ridiculously massive breasts is one such style. I also don't generally see much in that one, but it's just popular, not an overwhelming majority or anything.

~J

[Stahlseele]

heh, check out the american pilot in strike witches some time (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

basically, if she is american, she is probably a highly front loaded, airhead blonde...

i think i know the series in question btw, but the name escapes me. It basically about characters representing nations, with all the classical stereotypical traits that come with that...

Viva Freedom?
Please don't ask how i know about such things.

[ravensmuse]

You could also be talking about Axis Powers Hetalia, which is a representation of all of the nations in the WWI era. A (young) friend of mine is obsessed with it and I'd never heard of it until her.

And then of course, you have that Transformers thing with the young women...

[Stahlseele]

Kiss Players . . Megatron is a dirty old man with a tentacoo wape tongue . .

[WyldKnight]

(emphasis mine)

Oh, WyldKnight, how little you know of us. We work very hard keeping the world thinking of us as singing mounties and hosers. But eight months of winter, WyldKnight. It changes a man.

Lol, I can only imagine and I have only 2 words for why japan freaks me the hell out.

Rape Simulator.

They could make the cure for bloody cancer and I would still say "YOU MADE A GAME ABOUT RAPING 15 YEAR OLDS!" Least any terrible things America has done can be justified with "Were a country of mostly bible tards, kinda hard not to commit a crime against humanity."

Quick note there is a different between a Christian and a bible tard. A real Christian will basically leave you alone even if they don't agree because that is literally what it says to do the others....well we've all seen them. No, I am quite sure Jesus would not agree with going to war. Kind of goes against the whole love and peace deal.

[ravensmuse]

Jesus Wyldknight, way to color color two nations with one giant brush...

There's no real excusing the rape simulators, I'll give you that. It's messed up and - guess what - the majority of the Japanese completely agree with you. Hell, most of the world agrees with you. But there are a lot of really messed up people in the world with some really deviant tastes, and products like that are going to come out. It's sad, but it exists.

To completely disown an entire country because of that is reactionary and kind of messed up in itself. Study some of the things I have while doing research for some of my DDH articles - Japanese fashion, the arts, their sports, literature, culture - and realize that they're a bunch of really interesting people with some idiosyncratic tendencies stemming from the fact that they were raised in a tradition far, far different from most of the West. I think it's that difference that makes them the most interesting to me.

And then to claim that America is full of "bible tards?" and say that nothing we've done is in any way compared to the small, tiny really, niche of rape simulations? That's messed up duder.

I mean, I can laugh about a lot of the weirder things that have slipped out over the ocean, but I don't find them disgusting for what some small sector of their culture emulates. For me, the good far, far outweighs the weird shit that comes out of there.