"Death smiles at everyone, lolis smile back."

[Noelle Suplex]

Isn't that what the back of the xbox 360 box said? Weird to say but that line kept me from buying this game when it came out on the 360 because it made me think this game was more weird than it looked.

After looking at the trailer and screenshots I see that it's a pretty good looking bullet hell but I have to ask. Is there loli-based content in this game? Underage girls being sexualized and whatnot or was the back of the box just a poor choice of words?

[Noelle Suplex]

Originally posted by Melancholic:

OP seriously believed there would be adult content in an Xbox 360 game.

Never said that. I asked if the characters were sexulized little girls. I never believed the game would feature any adult content. I just didn't want little girls whom were under 18 years old presented in a sexual manor.

As simple as that really. Most times when I've encountered the word "Loli" it's been used for sexual purposes.

[cyxceven]

It's damn good bullet porn.

Bullets are sexy.

[Red]

Originally posted by ❤Prom💔:

Most times when I've encountered the word "Loli" it's been used for sexual purposes.

That's going to change once you stop going to exhentai.org

[Mr. Wonderful]

Originally posted by clippa:

When it comes to sexualised cartoon children, there's always the argument that it's pacifying the types of people who have those sorts of urges and appetites, but I disagree with that, I think it's normalizing the behaviour and encouraging it.

I'm sorry to hear that. I strongly disagree. 1) Compare Japanese and American sexual assault statistics for a very clear picture of the results of making sexually deviant materials available as opposed to legally suppressing them. 2) Your argument is nothing more than a rewording of the one used by critics against violent video games in the past, and their version has long been thoroughly debunked.

Originally posted by clippa:

Your average nonce isn't likely to be satiated by a couple of drawings and it's a slippery slope from there.

Your average psychopath isn't likely to be satisfied by a couple of Call of Duty killing sprees and it's a slippery slope from there.

Consider the SAW movies. They are for all intents and purposes fictional snuff films. Did their success result in an increased demand for real snuff films? No, because people understand the suffering in those is real and this knowledge fundamentally ruins their experience (and likely makes them sick to their stomach). The relationship between lolicons and child pornography is exactly the same. A switch has to be flipped in your brain before you can enjoy something that caused real suffering, and I promise you no amount of "normalizing" fiction will do that to a sane person who can tell the difference between fiction and reality.

Originally posted by clippa:

The characters in this game are children and designed to titillate, I don't think anyone can argue with that.
Cave were selling bottles of tea that they said were bottles of the characters pee at certain promotional events. If that's not aimed at perverts, I don't know what is :D

Well, they're teenagers. Other than that, sure. I would only call Rosa particularly sexualized, though, and this makes perfect sense for her dominatrix theme (if you were to need an excuse, which I don't). I suppose Follett has that cleavage (which make her entirely unconvincing as a 14 year old anyway) but I feel that's pushing it. I cannot find anything offensive in Casper, Windia or Sakura, unless you really have a problem with exposed thighs/legs.

Originally posted by clippa:

There's a certain type of otaku in Japan that lap this sort of stuff up and cave were aiming the characters in this game squarely at that market.
To a sheltered westerner, it's going to be a bit of a culture shock.

To a sheltered westerner this whole genre is a culture shock, and they're probably very lost when they come here. I guess I'm glad more people are discovering CAVE games thanks to Steam, but I'll be damned if I let their delicate sensibilities get in the way of my experience.

Originally posted by ❤Prom💔:

Never said that. I asked if the characters were sexulized little girls. I never believed the game would feature any adult content. I just didn't want little girls whom were under 18 years old presented in a sexual manor.

A sexual manor? Like brothel housed in an estate?

Anyway, for future reference: the things you worry about would never be allowed by Microsoft, Sony or Nintendo on any of their platforms. Unless you are exceptionally prudish, anything officially licensed you can buy on a console is safe.

[Slurp Dog CDXX]

Ok seriously guys, I meant it when I said this isn't the place to get into this. We're trying to grow the popularity of Cave games on Steam, the last thing we need is for curious potential customers to come to the forum and see a debate about whether or not loli = pedo. I'm sure everyone wants to get their 2c in, I get it, but seriously guys, not here.

At the end of the day, Deathsmiles is not a pervy game, and that's the main takeaway.

[clippa]

Originally posted by Melancholic:

Compare Japanese and American sexual assault statistics for a very clear picture of the results of making sexually deviant materials available as opposed to legally suppressing them.

You can only compare "reported" sexual assault. Japan is a very different culture. See here - https://www.quora.com/Why-are-the-rape-statistics-for-Japan-so-low

Japan is both a "shame" culture and a patriarchal society, and women do often blame themselves (or told to blame themselves) for having put themselves in a situation that they become exploited. In a bid not to bring disgrace to their families, they suffer the consequences silently.

Of course some courageous women do report about date rapes, but the success rate of winning such suits is so low (again, women's conducts come into serious scrutinization) that many more women learn to keep quiet.

Perhaps it is also this "what can we do about it?" attitude that has indirectly encouraged some of the so-called 'chikan' or perverts, to go on molesting young women on trains and even view it as a sport. One guy I read in the newspaper (in the late 90s) claimed that he had groped some two, three thousand women on the train and later, went on to write a book about it. He clearly was proud of his wrongdoings. That the book was even allowed to get published goes to show how much the society has indirectly "permitted" such crimes to go on.

Anyway, F2FStyle is right, let's park this and get back to shooting munsters :D

[cptquint]

Originally posted by clippa:

Originally posted by Melancholic:

Compare Japanese and American sexual assault statistics for a very clear picture of the results of making sexually deviant materials available as opposed to legally suppressing them.

You can only compare "reported" sexual assault. Japan is a very different culture. See here - https://www.quora.com/Why-are-the-rape-statistics-for-Japan-so-low

Japan is both a "shame" culture and a patriarchal society, and women do often blame themselves (or told to blame themselves) for having put themselves in a situation that they become exploited. In a bid not to bring disgrace to their families, they suffer the consequences silently.

Of course some courageous women do report about date rapes, but the success rate of winning such suits is so low (again, women's conducts come into serious scrutinization) that many more women learn to keep quiet.

Perhaps it is also this "what can we do about it?" attitude that has indirectly encouraged some of the so-called 'chikan' or perverts, to go on molesting young women on trains and even view it as a sport. One guy I read in the newspaper (in the late 90s) claimed that he had groped some two, three thousand women on the train and later, went on to write a book about it. He clearly was proud of his wrongdoings. That the book was even allowed to get published goes to show how much the society has indirectly "permitted" such crimes to go on.

Anyway, F2FStyle is right, let's park this and get back to shooting munsters :D

"Anyway, F2FStyle is right, let's park this and get back to shooting munsters" . . . really?
Right after a you post the above, right? Hmm
After you bring the CAVE "tea" nonsense, into a forum on a general gaming site?

It is obvious to a number of posters in this thread, that op is after a "particular" response and you happily obliged. Why?

[clippa]

I gave him the benefit of the doubt. I still don't think he's trolling.
If I wasn't into shmups, didn't know about cave and saw the boxart in a shop, I'd just assume that it was one of those paedo-baiting dating sims or a visual novel or something and would have given it a wide-birth accordingly.
I certainly wouldn't have paid for it at the till for fear of the cashier following me out of the shop and giving me a thorough nonce-bashing in the alleyway outside.

Call me sensitive but I did find it shocking back when I first played it. It's fine during gameplay but those suggestive semi-realistic slides in between stages, the menu picture and boxart are all a tad icky.

Nowadays, since steam has opened the floodgates, you see this sort of thing all the time, but back then, it was certainly a culture shock. I've never been into comics or anything so my only experience of Japanese culture back then was films and games.

I think F2Fstyle is right, this is probably a big debate that warrants a lot of chin stroking, here probably isn't the best place to have it and it's not a subject I want to spend too much time thinking about.
I think the OP has his answer.

[Noelle Suplex]

I got my answer after The first 3 or 4 posts gave me the "all clear" so you'd think people would've saw that and left it alone.

[clippa]

b-b-but my answer was betterer than the first 4 :(

Anyway, here's a review we can all get angry about :D - http://www.gamepeople.co.uk/tired_360_deathsmiles.htm