Sengoku Rance - P5 only

Since this has been discussed so much, this thread is so each one of us - and nobody else - can give the reason why we voted angel or devil. I voted to cut it because of the fact that the main character is a serial rapist. No need for a page on a game like that. I was originally considering that it should be kept until I figured out the rapist part. What do the other three of you think?

Well, mon, the way I see it, the existence of a serial rapist in a given work, even if the rapist is the main character, doesn't necessarily mean that said work is pornographic. Does this work/series/etc. have any (explicit) scenes that actually glorifies rape or uses them for the primary purpose of titillating those with rape fantasy fetishes?

My feeling is that there's something inherently wrong with playing a game where you basically play the role of a rapist. I know Sengoku Rance isn't Rapelay, but it's getting there. If he was just having regular sex with those women it wouldn't be an issue. We'll just have to see what Discar and Catalogue think. Obviously I'm comfortable with whatever the majority ends up ruling.

edited 28th Apr '12 1:37:19 PM by Martello

It doesn't matter whether it glorifies rape or anything (other than pedophilia). The point is whether its porn or not. And in this case, its a very difficult question.

On the one hand, the game is a sengoku-style strategy game, based around building up armies and sending them to assault neighboring provinces. The default screen looks like this◊, and the battle screen like this◊. The plot of the game revolves first around conquering JAPAN (yes, the capitalization is intentional), but halfway through it switches to "Save the world from the demon army." It's a deep and engaging game, both in terms of story and gameplay. Not to mention hard.

But none of that changes the fact that the main character's goal is to have sex with as many women as possible.

It's mostly Played for Laughs as Comedic Sociopathy, but there are still numerous explicit sex and rape scenes. Probably more consensual than the latter, but I don't have any desire to go check to be sure. Most of these scenes are completely optional and out of the way (not to mention more hilarious than arousing; the phrase Hyper Weapon alone...), but they are definitely there. There are also a few rape scenes which are definitely NOT Played for Laughs or fanservice, such as when the underage princess is raped, and the protagonist rescues her by slaughtering her rapists.

I think we can easily keep this one by cleaning up the page to make sure there's no explicit descriptions of the sex scenes. Maybe lock it up to be on the safe side. Glancing at the page now, I'm only seeing a couple examples that edge over the line, though we'd definitely need to do a more in-depth check if that's the decision.

Ok, so if Catalogue agrees with you two I can get behind keeping the page clean. Maybe Thorn 14 will volunteer to do that since he was so vocal in defending the game.

I'm okay with that plan.

Okay, so this is currently 2-1 in favor of keeping. I made the cut vote (obviously), so now we need both Meeble and Catalogue to cast their votes so we can take action on the page and move on. Please consider the fact that the main character is a serial rapist and apparently that's played for laughs. I can't approve of keeping it for that reason alone.

A borderline case (seems every topic here is borderline, but if it's clear-cut there wouldn't be a topic for it).

I haven't voted yet. I'd like to hear some reports from players first—Martello mentioned something about a player who defends it?

If you want feedback, I can change the thread title, because folks won't walk in these threads.

Yeah, go do that. We need some feedback from someone who actually played it.

• When are the sex scenes located?: You can get the first one quite early on and can see them right up until the end. So at just about at any point.
  • Are they spread out over the game?: Yes.
    • How much gameplay is there between sex scenes?: There are large amounts of time consuming gameplay involving the conquering of a nation, dungeon crawling and working on small character arcs for minor characters and full routes for the major ones. I think on average you could probably go an hour between scenes if you're going quickly. More if you're going at a more normal pace, such as if you haven't beaten the game several times already.
  • Are they only at the endings?: No
    • How hard do you have to work to get an ending?: The game can be quite difficult and even putting that aside it will still take you days to beat the game.
    • Are they in every ending? Every good ending?: You'll see sex scenes before you achieve any ending.
• Are the sex scenes optional via a choice in the menu?: No
• Would the story make sense without them with minimal or no rewriting?: The story mostly would, but the main character would have to be rewritten.
• Are the scenes made up of stills, or are they animated?: Stills
• How explicit are the sex scenes?: They contain Black Comedy Rape and normal sex. No pedo stuff. Occasionally, there is rape played seriously and it is not in the least bit titillating. Well, it's not intended to be anyway, I'm sure someone out there would like it. I don't think the game exactly glorifies rape, but it has a kind of bipolar attitude towards it.

As for my personal opinion, it's probably obvious, but I just don't think that this game is porn and it's definitely not pedo pandering. It's just too difficult to be primarily made as something to titillate you and the gameplay is too complex. If you check the article, I don't think you're really going to see much or any drooling over the erotic content because frankly no one cares much about it. It's just sort of there. The game can be tasteless at times, but I don't think Black Comedy Rape is supposed to be something we're looking to cut by itself.

edited 8th May '12 6:03:48 AM by Arha

If I try to estimate the proportion between the pornographic contents and the "normal" parts, it seems to me that, in a way, it's not pornography. It's pornographic, but it's not the whole. It's a grey area, though.

My main worry was that in involves paedophilia, in which case it goes straight to hell, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

If it helps inform you, from what the tropes page on Rance says, the main character is completely opposed to lolicon, so I think there's no pro-pedophilia themes.

Yeah, if I'm reading the tropes page right there is no pro-paedo themes, but there is someone killed for trying it because the main character thinks that stuff is sick.

edited 8th May '12 8:30:16 AM by shimaspawn

There's no paedophilia and there's sex. The issue now can be simplified to: is there enough non-sex to make it a non-porn?

To clarify things: I already cast one of the two keep votes, based on agreement with Martello's "keep the page clean" post a little bit further up the page. So I think we're missing Catalogue and either Discar or Komodin for the last vote.

So if someone has already decided on Keep but just hasn't voted yet, this one is technically resolved.

edited 8th May '12 8:43:42 AM by Meeble

I only see one N and no Y?

Well, I already voted to keep this. It doesn't seem to be purely pornographic or pro-pedophilic.

Thats odd, when I look at it on the queue VideoGame.Sengoku Rance has one Devil and Two angels. Maybe try refreshing?

Also, the entry I'm looking at is dated April 27th and is at the bottom of the last page, if that makes a difference

edited 8th May '12 8:56:32 AM by Meeble

Ah, sorry, I was looking at Franchise.Rance.

edited 8th May '12 9:08:04 AM by Catalogue

Edited out.

edited 8th May '12 9:06:28 PM by Arha

Do we need to explicitly add "glorifies rape" to the list of things that are bad? I mean, it seems obvious to me.

Uh....the romance novel shelf at the local library is very concerned about this.

Eddie, that would have us cutting Snow White and Sleeping Beauty. Rape tends to get glorified in mainstream Western fiction far more than it really should. James Bond would also need a cut. So would Gone With The Wind. Yes, rape is bad, but it seems to get glorified in completely mainstream works including ones that are rated PG.

We need standards that make sense. That said, if Rance gets cut, I won't shed a tear.

edited 8th May '12 9:26:57 PM by shimaspawn