@Silvalance said in Can we not cut out anymore story scenes and stop it with censorship in general.:

The only communication we have is bot-generated responses in customer support with the usual copy/paste phrase :"You can rest assured that this will be forwarded to the developers for further consideration. Thank you for your continued support."

I wouldn't go that far. I feel calling the current responses bot-generated demeans the support team a bit. It definitely is by no means ideal or even good, but we do have to understand the position the support team is in. They essentially are unable to really give any other type of response and are basically are between and a hard place.

The blame for this is more properly directed at Sega of Japan for setting things up like this.

@Gamers-are-so-oppressed I mean, it took Tera a number of years before they removed Elin censorship. You never know. Defeatism never accomplished anything; as long as you keep trying there is always a chance.

I think it might be easier if I just requote the Legal Argument excerpt from the OP (really wish the OP would just be shown at the top of every page) as I have a feeling that some people aren't reading it:

Some people have suggested that it may be due to laws, such as the Child Pornography Prevention Act (or CPPA for short), against child pornography for some of these changes, some citing laws such as 18 U.S. Code § 1466A, but I personally have found this to be untrue, at least in regards to US law.

If we refer to the Supreme Court Case, Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, where it presented the question:

The Child Pornography Prevention Act of 1996 (CPPA), prohibits, inter alia, the shipment, distribution, receipt, reproduction, sale, or possession of any visual depiction that "appears to be[] of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct." 18 U.S.C. 2252A, 2256(8)(B) (Supp. V 1999). It also contains a similar prohibition concerning any visual depiction that is "advertised, promoted, presented, described, or distributed in such a manner that conveys the impression that the material is or contains a visual depiction of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct." 18 U.S.C. 2252A, 2256(8)(D) (Supp. V 1999). The question presented is whether those prohibitions violate the First Amendment to the Constitution.

In the Supreme Court's ruling, it stated:

The statute is aimed at hard core child pornography and does not apply to innocuous images of naked children. Nor does it reach drawings, cartoons, sculptures, or paintings depicting youthful persons in sexually explicit poses.

As we have discussed, there are several ways to disseminate educational, medical, or artistic works concerning a child's sexuality without violating the CPPA: The Act does not cover drawings, cartoons, sculptures, and paintings that depict youthful-looking persons in sexual poses; it supplies an affirmative defense to persons who disseminate visual depictions involving adults who may appear to be children, provided that the depictions are not promoted or presented as child pornography, 18 U.S.C. 2252A(c) (Supp. V 1999); and the Act does not apply to visual materials in which sexually explicit conduct by children is understood to be taking place, as long as the sexually explicit conduct is not itself visually depicted.

PSO2 would fall under the umbrella of "drawings, cartoons, sculptures, or paintings," and PSO2 does not promote or present itself as child pornography. Thus the legal precedent set by Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition, would mean the CPPA would not apply to PSO2.

Now 18 U.S. Code § 1466A does state:

Any person who, in a circumstance described in subsection (d), knowingly produces, distributes, receives, or possesses with intent to distribute, a visual depiction of any kind, including a drawing, cartoon, sculpture, or painting

So it does include "drawing[s], cartoon[s], sculpture[s], or paintingp[s]," but it also requires that the person(s) in question knowingly produce, receive, or possess with intent to distribute child pornography. The key words being knowingly and intent, as Sega would not be considered to be persons who knowingly or possess intent to distribute child pornography if this were to somehow be brought up in a court of law. Simply by having a policy against such depictions they would have a defense against such accusations as that is how it works with Symbol Arts. So there are no legal issues regarding short characters.

In regards to the cutscenes, if you actually watch the removed cutscene, the camera does not show Al's hand when he accidentally grabs Kohri's chest. Furthermore, the cutscene is in the game's files; that's where the dubbed voice lines came from. If there was an actual legal issue with the cutscenes, then they wouldn't be in the game's files. Any thing within a game's files constitutes as part of the game's content as far as rating boards and legal entities are concerned; an example of this would be Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas and its infamous Hot Coffee Mod where the sex scenes were found within the game's files; thus the game was re-rated in rating boards across the world and banned in countries where said content is inappropriate. Simply by having the content within the game files, even if inaccessible during normal gameplay, constitutes as distributing said content as it is downloaded with the game.

The removed cutscene is overall tame and there are far more erotic things. An example would be Kohri's outfit during the end of Chapter 4 of Episode 4 and throughout Chapter 5. It is designed in a manner to resemble a BDSM outfit and specifically draws attention to her chest and groin; the outfit is far more erotic than the bath towels that the girls wear in the removed cutscene. Also remember that the game is rated M and there are far more explicit M rated games; take Senran Kagura for example. Yes, Kohri and Hitsugi are only 16, and thus are under the age of majority in a number of countries (US included), but so are many characters in Senran Kagura, again as an example. Senran Kagura goes uncensored on every platform except for Sony's and is available in many countries. This, combined with the aforementioned reasons, makes it unlikely for there to be any legal issue for the game to go uncensored. The more likely culprit is western cancel culture.

So yeah, there really shouldn't be any legal issue with the game going uncensored.

@Fighter-Fairy But wait... Nanora is Himemori Luna's catch phrase.

@Lorient Yeah Hololive EN has taken off big time. They were all at 100k+ subs when they debuted and quickly reached 200k. Gura is approaching 400k.

@Laep The files for the bathscenes are in the game's files. That's how people learned the scenes were dubbed. If those were illegal, Sega would have already been sued for running afoul of the law. Anything within the game's files is considered part of the game's content, regardless of its accessibility in game or not, by legal entities and rating boards. This means the game's download from Sega counts as distributing the content. So if it was illegal, then Sega has already ran afoul of the law. If Sega has yet to be sued or taken down, the content is legal.

@ApollosAmour Other games and media do disprove the accusations of the changes being made due to legal reasons and show that PSO2 would not be endangered in anyway if it was uncensored.

@Redex I have not seen those ideas being used with negative associations/context outside of these forums for the past couple of years.

The closest are the FBI memes which are done as a joke with no serious implications.

@Laep And yet media content similar and ones that get even further are published in the west on a constant basis. All the anime and manga, games like Senran Kagura, and so on. Cancel Culture tried attacking animes like Shield Hero and Uzaki and they only got more popular for it. In no way is this pushing a pro-pedophilia agenda. I also covered the law argument in the opening post, I suggest you look at it. Games like Senran Kagura are also available in the countries PSO2 Global is in.

There are no legal issues with the game going uncensored, especially when the files for them are within the game's files. Legally, anything within the game's files is part of its content and the game's download would be distributing the content.

Also with the western popularity of anime and manga, where these types of scenes are commonplace, there shouldn't be any huge issue or worry of a public outcry.

@Gamers-are-so-oppressed said in If they lift the censorship and height restriction I will quit the game!:

@Michelle said in If they lift the censorship and height restriction I will quit the game!:

The term loli / shota is used exclusively to indicate characters of short stature, generally cute in appearance, and as Luna also said, also the voice. Generally a high-pitched cute voice can be considered a loli voice. I kindly ask those who purposely want to win the argument by alter the terminology to stop, because you only generate misinformation.

Why can no one just say child like? I guess cause it hurts the movement?

There has been several pages linked in this thread regarding the definition. Perhaps you can add some more that only refer to "short" "cute" "high pitched voice".

I'm all for people expressing their removal of censorship but seems like at this point we are just playing mental gymnastics trying to avoid what these terms mean and are generally associated with.

Let's use an example from @Archetype-Luna as they are "anti-censorship" as I guess we are calling it.

https://youtu.be/r4p2Z43_GW4 Here is the term loli in a non-sexual manner by a Japanese Vtuber. Shigure Ui calls the voice she uses when she is imitating a little girl her loli voice. She is using it to describe her little girl voice.

Here is a screen shot for those too lazy to click the youtube link.

Non-sexualized? In this instance, yes. Do they look and sound like a child? Oh yes.

Here's another one where someone asks Fubuki to talk in her "loli" voice, which she immediately knows it is in reference to how she is playing as a baby shark so her little girl voice is appropriate.

Luna uses the words "baby" and "little girl".

So to think that the use of "loli" and "shota" only refers to "Short/cute/high-pitched" is just hilarious.

So when censorship folks come along and people say they want to play as a loli or like watching lolis surely you can see how people might be slightly concerned.

Well, if it is shown that actual Japanese people use the words loli/shota in non-sexual contexts, then it kind of shows how the pro-censorahip people nitpicking at the anti-censorship usage of it is ridiculous. This mental gymnastics started when in another thread a group of pro-censorship people focused on the very usage of those terms as the crux of their argument to try and pin anti-censorahip people as pedophiles.

It shouldn't be concerning as they are commonly used as slang to refer to little girl/little boy type characters.

I would love it if the debate if their usage would end, but it is kept being brought up by the pro-censorship.

@Laep

believe it or not the majority of people wouldn't find it tasteful

Can you prove this? From the comments of the two videos I linkef in the OP, people seem to prefer that the game was uncensored. So there we have opposing information. We can't say for certainty which way the general population swings without asking the entire player base, as the player base is generally unaware of the censorship.

@Laep said in Can we not cut out anymore story scenes and stop it with censorship in general.:

@PrincessWind195 It's not really racism against Japanese people lmfao, the localization specialist / director of the western launches was from the JP team...

@MoldyAsp33874 said in Can we not cut out anymore story scenes and stop it with censorship in general.:

It's very stupid but so is changing a game just because of a very small group that yells and cries really loud who doesn't even play games in the first place.

Well I'm glad you're at least self aware, so we agree that the localization shouldn't be removed?

Pretty sure they are referring to cancel culture or the group that would complain if the game was censored, and that we are taking about censorship in particular not localization in general. The natural trend is that people prefer not to have any censorship. We can't say for sure, but from my experience that is the usual trend when people are aware of censorship.