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

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

heh, just goes to show how interesting those parts of the world that have not gotten "strangled" by abrahamic religions can be

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.

My condolences that you're such a stick-in-the-mud

(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

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."

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.

(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.

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.

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

Ahh, see, you're confusing "weird" with "batshit insane." There's a difference.

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.

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

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

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.

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

~J

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.

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?

heh, check out the american pilot in strike witches some time

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...

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

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

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...

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

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.

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.

Let me give a shot: "no victim".

How's that?

(The content of your point stands.)

~J

Update on progress: I've been kidnapped by the president of Russia and deceitfully convinced her that I can't seriously consider her offer of marriage until we know each other better. This despite having opened the game being (rightly) accused of sexual harassment by a random Snow House staff member.

The main character is, what with the brainwashing-not-working thing, the only one who finds it odd that Japan (actually Niipon, 新本) is now ruled by a President from a not-subtle-at-all copy of the White House.

Further updates as events warrant.

~J

Yes please, keep with the updates. It's a real shame we don't get some of the more "interesting" games over here.


Ehhh, still feel kinda iffy on that point. But it's a minor point.

well there is always the question if it reinforces the idea or takes away the drive to do the real thing...

but then thats one of the areas you can really research without pissing of maybe half the planet...

Well, there's certainly rape-themed porn from the US. ZOMG THE WHOLE US IS EVIL.

Also, I'm uncomfortable with the idea that if someone makes a game of something, it means the people who play the game must take on some burden of guilt. Does that mean I'm a mass murderer for playing Soldier of Fortune II? If someone plays Fallout 3 and does the slaver missions does that mean they are now philosophically guilty of slavery on some level?

Once I saw a kid playing the X Box version of Rainbow Six 3 and he executed the terrorists who were trying to surrender. Oh my god he's a little war criminal!

This is the kind of logic that had dumbasses claim that Doom caused Columbine, etc.

Well, the old Catholic Church would have said yes, for the thought anyway, but you could get absolved of the sin through confession. Don't know the dogma these days. It does hinge on the basic question: To what degree can one enjoy an activity without taking on the taint of that activity?

Life is too short to torment yourself with guilt for purely abstract reasons. I don't think anything "counts" unless you actually do it.

Likewise if you sit around with good intentions but you don't actually go out and do anything that doesn't count either.

So after a failed attempt at lecherousness with the president of Russia, I tried to start a getting-to-know-you chat with her.

Her first question is what my plans are with regard to humanitarian aid in East Asia.

Now I've offended her by talking about Borscht.

No! The brainwashing didn't work on her! She knows I'm a fake! IT'S ALL OVER FOR ME!

Edit: speaking of it being all over for me, the alien called the president of Russia "cow-tits" ("udder-tits"? "cow-breasts"? However that's best translated). I can't see this ending well.

~J

I take it back. The alien used the excuse of examining the president of Russia to take compromising pictures of her. This is ending very well indeed

~J

"Don't worry. Even I only have a little of the courage needed to sexually harass a VIP."

"A little?"

Some stats: I've played for a few hours now (keeping in mind that my Japanese reading speed is painfully slow) and have made one decision. This decision got me killed, though the game kept on going.

~J

Okay, I watched the video and didn't think the series looked very promising. But now I'm understanding this is a game? Not an anime? And, dare I ask (I dare not google search it), what is an eroge? Is it what it sounds like?

It is a game, yes, and it is indeed what it sounds like—the underlying goal of the game is to engage in graphically-depicted nookie with the female leads (and sometimes second-tier characters). There are different kinds of eroge, but this is of the Visual Novel variety, meaning that it's a strange hybrid of a romance novel, a choose-your-own-adventure book, and porn.

~J

Nezumi:

A good way to understand what an eroge is like is to find the anime Excel Saga and watch the fourth or fifth episode (the school yard episode). It'll give you the basics.

I mean, I can't reccomend him Air or anything, don't want the boy to murder himself.

To bad he's not posting more on what he is doing. I'm lucky on that front tho I see he has yet to post about the food cook off and the exploding food but I'm sure he well get around to doing that soon.

"Eat up!"

"…What is that?"

"Just rolled omlette (tamagoyaki)."

"…Why does it have a censor mosaic?"

~J

heh, 4th wall, what 4th wall?

In addition to the fourth-wall-breaking, they have ambiguous-not-quite-fourth-wall-breaking because there's a secondary male character who advises the main character, but who is depicted as constantly playing (other) eroge and viewing the world and consequently giving advice from the perspective of someone in an eroge.

It is thus far unclear to what degree his advice actually applies (for example, in the eroge the secondary character is playing, he mentions that he has to get his relationship meter with all of the girls up to at least a certain point to be able to get funky with any of them; it's not clear yet if that's intended to hint something, or just a red herring).

~J

Apparently if you want sexing with females you must stand before them and freakishly recite details of everything they ever told you about themselves. If you get enough details right you do it and if you mix up a few details they shoot you.

Tell me again how this is so different from how wimen in the real world act?

In the real world, you don't get a list to choose from.

~J

From my academic research into the subject, with actual physical women you must have appropriate body language, mannerisms, and appropriate odors. If you stand in front of them in your underwear and smell like armpit they may shun you even if you repeat everything they said a week ago verbatim like you've been memorizing it.

Tell us more! Journal articles?

Considering this, I have to wonder if there's also any justification for selling handcuffs/bondage for 'recreational purposes', since handcuffs imply non-consent. Should we say there is no reason for married couples to play bondage together because it is so similar to non-consensual sex, and therefore they shouldn't?

Peer reviewed forum posts from internet masters of erotic romance.

Your understanding of the issue conflates the conception of arrest (which is most often non-consensual) with the tools that are used to implement it. People can, and do, have themselves bound consensually, and the consent to being bound has no impact on consent to further acts.

You can do non-consensual things whilst someone is consensually bound, but that doesn't change the fact that you can also do consensual things whilst someone is consensually bound. Now, if you want to claim that we shouldn't permit the sale of handcuffs for recreational purposes because they more easily permit the performance of non-consensual acts then you and I are going to have to just disagree.

You see, I see marriage in a similar light to handcuffs.