Tech Gian Issue 022 (August 1998)

5 hours ago, Areala said:

<Simpsonsvoice>Stupid, sexy Tech Gian...</SimpsonsVoice>

It's funny how few downloads these get when I first post them, but if you look at them after they've been up for a while, they eventually get just as many total downloads as any other Japanese mags I upload.  I guess people wait until they get knocked off the front page and download them when they think no one is looking, because, I don't know, I suppose it's the American puritanical shame over anything related to sex.

Not that this compares at all to the stuff in Tech Gian, but I was thinking about this difference in cultures the other day when a first grader was reading a picture book in the school library and found it hilarious to point out to me a drawing of a boy standing akimbo sans clothing, proudly showing the full monty to the world.  This sort of thing isn't unusual here, but I couldn't help but think that the book (written for young children) would probably be banned if published in America.  Oh geez, did I say probably?  Kirk Cameron himself would probably burn all the copies.

Although, there still is a Puritanical perspective on sex and nudity here, I don't know if that might be the reason why there are delayed downloads. Some people might just be late and/or that grabs their attention.

RANT:
I hate how anytime a small majority complains with their views on it, it affects gaming.

Don't like nudity, here we'll cover it up. God forbid women can't show off their sex appeal.
Don't like hitting any other than men, here we'll change the character to a different person. You still okay the overall murder and violence though?

Those are just a few examples and it still pisses me off they had to do PR for it to please the shrieking ones. As long as it something like a video game and not actual people hurting anyone, if you don't like it, leave it be. They have to ruin it for everyone.

Japan is pretty tolerant of sex in games - their PC market is practically nothing but.  But even here there are going to be stricter rules with consoles, which are seen as primarily geared towards an underage crowd.  It's true that you can find "sexy" games on consoles that would definitely be considered adult material in the US (the number of console/handheld games where groping and rubbing the female form is a gameplay feature is kind of absurd), but in Japan that sort of thing is pretty much aimed squarely at horny teenagers, not adults.  All sorts of x-rated PC games get ported to consoles, but in every instance, the adult material is removed.

I haven't looked into researching it because I honestly don't care that much, but when uploading ads from some of my scans last week I ran across some ads for some Saturn games that revolved around gameplay that rewarded the player for success with live-action videos of girls stripping.  The ads apologized to the public, saying they were being forced to cease production of adults-only games on consoles due to the influence of some sort of outside efforts to clean up the image of the video game industry.  So it would appear that even in Japan, the foray into x-rated console games was pretty brief.

It's funny, when I first started teaching in Japan 16 years ago, some kids (jr. high school aged) asked me if I played PC games.  I told them I did, and indeed, at the time, the ONLY games I played were on the PC.  They found it hilarious that I had admitted this to them, and only later did I find out that they thought I was admitting to playing adult games, since from their point of view, those are the only games anyone plays on a PC, as the market for "normal" PC games was long dead in Japan by that point.

4 hours ago, kitsunebi said:

It's funny how few downloads these get when I first post them, but if you look at them after they've been up for a while, they eventually get just as many total downloads as any other Japanese mags I upload.  I guess people wait until they get knocked off the front page and download them when they think no one is looking, because, I don't know, I suppose it's the American puritanical shame over anything related to sex.

Not that this compares at all to the stuff in Tech Gian, but I was thinking about this difference in cultures the other day when a first grader was reading a picture book in the school library and found it hilarious to point out to me a drawing of a boy standing akimbo sans clothing, proudly showing the full monty to the world.  This sort of thing isn't unusual here, but I couldn't help but think that the book (written for young children) would probably be banned if published in America.  Oh geez, did I say probably?  Kirk Cameron himself would probably burn all the copies.

I still find these type of magazine weird, but as you mentioned if that related to a difference in culture.  Who am I to say right or wrong.  I did download it, no shame about it even though it’s not my kind of stuff.  

Trust me, learning Japanese lead me down some rabbit holes to say the least lol. When I went to Japan last year for the first time, I wasn't surprised by all the 18+ games and stuff in electronic areas like Akiba, etc because I expected it. I don't really think it is a big deal honestly though there probably are no doubt plenty of pearl clutchers.

1 minute ago, dablais said:

I still find these type of magazine weird, but as you mentioned if that related to a difference in culture.  Who am I to say right or wrong.

Yeah, America currently publishes...what?  Game Informer and Wal-Mart Game Center?  Pretty sure that's it so far as print mags that aren't just some crowd-funded flash in the pan (PC Gamer USA is digital-only now, I believe).  Meanwhile Japan currently publishes THREE monthly mags devoted exclusively to adult games (in addition to lots of other gaming mags).  It's definitely a significant market.

That’s impressive!  Funny you are mentioning PC Gamer.  Yesterday, I was in an Indigo Store looking at the magazines shelves and I was still surprised to see that PC Gamer is still published physically, but that was the only gaming magazine available…. So long the time were you stood in front on that without knowing which magazines to purchased…

I'd say that's good news about PC Gamer USA still being published, but considering at this point it's just an anemic reprint of the UK edition, I'm honestly not convinced it deserves to be.  Of course, personally, I feel PC Gamer USA was a phenomenal mag in the 90s, but suffered a huge dip in quality when Future took over publication in the early 2000s, so it's been a long time since I really cared about it.