FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

EARLY 2010 SUMMER SALE AT MANGAGAMER.COM
Limited Time Sale starting from May 15th

May 7, 2010 MangaGamer.com is pleased to announce an Early Summer Sale!
The following titles, perfect to play during the hot summer season will go on sale starting May 15!

————————————————
Early Summer Sale Date & Time　
5/15　10:00（CET）～ 5/25　10:00（CET）

“Suika A.S+”
49.95 Euros -> 24.95 Euros (Approximately US$32)

“Suck my Dick or Die!”
29.95 Euros -> 19.95 Euros (Approximately US$25)

“Shera, My Witch”
36.95 Euros -> 19.95 Euros
————————————————

======================
Title: Suika A.S+
Manufacturer: CIRCUS
Genre: Adventure
OS: Windows XP(32bit), Windows Vista(32bit)
Text Language: English
Voice Language: Japanese
Age Rating: 18 and over

STORY:
In a place surrounded by mountains and the ocean lies Tokiwa Village, the “unchanging” village. Yet summer still comes, even to this “unchanging” village. Then one day, a nameless girl ran through the village, ringing the little bells that hung from her hat, and the red strings of fate became entangled……

======================
Title: Suck my Dick or Die!
Manufacturer: Liquid
Genre: Adventure
OS: Windows XP(32bit), Windows Vista(32bit)
Text Language: English
Voice Language: Japanese
Age Rating: 18 and over

STORY:
The anti-government guerrillas were fighting agaist the government in the country which was politically unrest.
There was an incident that a little girl was raped and murdered by the guerrillas in a small village.
Mr. Prosper, who is the commander of the military, advanced his men to this small village to hunt the guerrillas.

======================

Title: Shera, My Witch
Manufacturer: SCORE
Genre: Adventure
OS: Windows XP(32bit), Windows Vista(32bit)
Text Language: English
Voice Language: Japanese
Age Rating: 18 and over

STORY:
One day, a sexy witch, Shera, showed up in the life of a desperate horny high-school boy, Satoru.
Thanks to her sex appetite, Satoru’s luck has turned around!
“Look out girls!!”
======================

ABOUT MANGAGAMER.COM
MangaGamer.com is the world’s first online download site of English translated bishojo games that opened in July 2008. Since its launch, it has offered services where fans can download and enjoy popular bishojo games such as CIRCUS’s “Da Capo” and OVERDRIVE’s “Kira Kira” right from their home.

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.

This game requires activation, as usual, but it appears they are using a different activation system — Alpha Activation, from SETTEC. Amongst the game files is a PDF file that contains translation notes, which includes various terms and how various puns were handled, as well as cultural notes on things like Valentine’s Day. Another small change is that the executable now has a proper icon, one of Archimedes. It also appears that MangaGamer is still using the Buriko General Interpreter engine for the game and thus must have ported it from the original Japanese release.

The opening movie is just the Japanese opening, with no translations. The actual script translation reads fairly well, with no glaring mistakes upon a cursory glance and only a few places where the text felt funny, such as “Said that” as a sentence right after some spoken words. All in all, the quality of the text seems to be somewhat higher compared to MangaGamer’s release of Da Capo.

The menu system is fully translated, although there is an oddity. When one clicks Intermission in the main title menu, one is led to several choices. In the Japanese game, this submenu allowed the player to either browse CG, listen to the music or replay certain scenes, as well as play several extra scenarios. In the English menu, one can see the options for “Supplement”, “Summer Vacation” and “Draw the Curtain” in addition to the CG, Music and Replay options. These three options roughly correspond to translations of the extra scenario titles. What was odd was that “Summer Vacation” was enabled when first playing the game, and simply played the opening movie.

Suika was originally released by CIRCUS in 2001 and featured a four-part story, each taking place in roughly the same rustic setting, but with different protagonists and characters. The game received an all-ages adaptation with added scenarios in the form of a Dreamcast and PlayStation release (2002), which was backported to the PC in both all-ages (2003) and adult (2004) versions. The 2004 version, Suika A.S+, had added content and was also ported to the PlayStation2 as an all-ages release. MangaGamer is releasing a translation of the 2004 PC version.

The Suika franchise also received numerous spinoffs and adaptations. CIRCUS’s amusement disc, What Archimedes Forgot(アルキメデスのわすれもの), was named after a certain character in Suika and featured a prologue scenario for Suika as well as a scenario previewing Da Capo. Furthermore, CIRCUS also released a full-length prequel to Suika, titled AR ~The Forgotten Summer~(AR 〜忘れられた夏〜). Lastly, Suika also received a radio drama CD series, novelisations, vocal albums as well as an animated adult OVA adaptation, which was released in North America by Kitty Media as Wet Summer Days.