Specifically, we asked whether there would be any effect on their current titles and whether this will have an effect on future titles, since he had hinted that there would be some “dark titles” coming up in the lineup at last year’s Anime Expo. Here is what he had to say on the matter:

Just saw that. I think that we will be okay as we have no connection with Sof-Rin [abbreviation referring to the EOCS] and no obligation to follow their rules. It should be noted that we have avoided games that are heavy in this genre, and don’t have anything that is as shocking as the titles they were carrying. Of course we’ve never sold games like Rapelay, whether in English or in Japanese or whatever. The new games we’ll be announcing will be awesome, and will be quite far from the current controversy.

The EOCS (Ethics Organization of Computer Software), often referred to as sofurin in Japan, mandates a set of guidelines that all member companies must follow. EOCS and CSA are the two main organizations that dictate guidelines for adult software in Japan. In the past, the EOCS has enforced guidelines regarding incest and sexual activity with unambiguously underaged characters. This recent set of regulations restricting the use of rape in adult games came in response to mounting pressure from the government and human rights organizations regarding sexual violence in eroge.

What sparked this recent set of events was the availability of a rape simulation game on Amazon’s UK site, prompting female rights group Equality Now to act to prohibit the sale of such games. ILLUSION, the game company behind the rape simulator, eventually removed the product from its website. However, this controversy has caused people both in Japan and outside Japan to take a closer look at sexual violence in eroge and put pressure on the game makers.

MangaGamer’s apparent response to the new EOCS regulations (which are not clear at the moment, as they are not public yet) was to remove two of its titles. Suck my dick or die!’s Japanese title has the word “rape” in it, and My sex slave is a classmate involves “training” girls as if they were pets, and this topic has supposedly been declared taboo by the EOCS according to some reports on the Japanese message board 2ch. Both of these games were published in Japan under the brand Liquid, which is one of NEXTON’s software brands. MangaGamer, although not a Japanese company, is controlled mainly by Japanese eroge companies, one of which may be NEXTON, due to the large quantity of their titles in MangaGamer’s lineup. The head of NEXTON also happens to be the current head of the EOCS.

UPDATE: MangaGamer has now issued an official statement on their site regarding the pulled titles, but there is no official word yet on continued availability to customers who have already purchased the games:

04 Jun 2009
We are sorry to announce that the following two titles will be put off from the site due to a request from the copyright holder.
“My Sex Slave is a Classmate”
“Suck My Dick or Die”
We sincerely apologize for the inconvinience this might have caused.