Although he'll continue to finish up titles still in development, Senran Kagura producer Kenichiro Takaki has left Japanese developer Marvelous. Takai was a veteran at the company, with his career there lasting a lengthy 13 years. However, Takai didn't just quit because he fancied a crack at something else -- he was apparently growing increasingly frustrated with the restrictions that are being placed on sexual content in video games.
If you've been keeping up with the recent furore, then you'll probably already know that companies like Sony are coming down harder on games with sexualised characters or themes. For Takai, this was becoming a problem. As translated by Gematsu, he told Famitsu magazine in an interview that "a thread had snapped" within him. Takai reckons that games with sexual content add variety, and that's good for the industry. What's more, Takai says that restrictions will have a negative effect on game development overall.
Takai's taking his talents to Cygames, where he'll work on various console titles. He wants to show people that even the "oppai producer" can make something "amazing". Gotta love that attitude.
"I’m a game fan at heart; I tell dirty jokes and make irresponsible comments (laughs), but I’ll work my hardest to make games," he said.
What do you make of this? Can you sympathise with Takai at all, or do you think games like Senran Kagura are destined to wither away? Keep your opinions clean in the comments section below.
[source gematsu.com, via nintendolife.com]
Comments 59
Why not release his games on other systems, Playstation is not the only system out there.
Let the customer decides are this type of games is still relevant, let msrb decides the games rating.
@AlejandroMora I've wondered that, too. Switch-era Nintendo is VERY open to risque content, after all, and there are a number of us who have wanted to play new SK games on a handheld system, since that's where the series started.
Also, despite some uneven moderation, Steam is also a much safer platform for risque content. Re;Newal released uncensored on there.
I guess he had one too many eggs in the Sony basket.
Should have made a game about shooting people or ripping off heads. That's totally fine...
Why didn't he just make a different type of game?
Watch people blame Sony (again) but people want to look around, companies are been very careful with sexual content these days. Japanese companies even more so cos of the Olympics coming up.
@Ralizah i mean he already released 2 exclusive SK games on Switch. They must sell better on ps4 for some reason.
Make a game full of semi naked burly dudes and the censors won't bat an eyelid.
@get2sammyb why would he change what he likes to do just because other people want to censor him?
"that companies like Sony are coming down harder on games with sexualised characters or themes"
companies like sony? no. ONLY sony.
@Splat Why not have sexy girls getting shot and decapitated? Best of both worlds!
Throw in dudes too, like @ApostateMage suggests. Gotta have equality.
Exactly. It’s ONLY Sony. And the official explanation was pathetic. So... It is not okay for children to look at some anime boobs, but ripping heads apart is totally fine? Okay, Sony, thanks for that educational note. Can’t wait to teach my children how to rip off hearts and eat them. Only if the body isn’t female and wears lots of clothes though! Nudity is bad!
@manu0 He was so married to the idea that his games had to depict children with large breasts that he quit his job! It's a bit extreme, don't you think?
@Lando_ Violence has been a part of human culture for centries all the way back to Roman times, It's far more accepted. Sex has always been a bit of a taboo subject so I don't think it's a fair comparison.
@Lando_ @manu0 Game censorship has existed before even PlayStation has. Sexual content has been clamped down before Sony made this policy.
Look, I think it's fair to critique Sony for it (Many other companies get stick for it, so why should Sony avoid it?), but acting they're the only company doing it is silly.
@manu0 Steam are still not allowing certain visual novels on the store.Rape day was denied release. And Epic have already said they won't allow such games either so yeah "it's only Sony"
@AlejandroMora It's the publishers choice on which platform to release on. He has no say over what platform the Senran Kagura series can release on.
@Lando_ If that is your best thing in making games its kinda sad. They know kids and sex are a big no no in the West why not make it with adults.
Then again groping women is a little weird i would not like to be seen playing. Especially towards younger girls/women it shows the wrong message.
Before you get mad that is what i think. And to be fair there where a few games that made feel ashamed if i would play it. Rubbing stuff between female characters boobs to make them bigger. 😑
And one thing if you use the girl excuse lets see what happens if you release a game where you feel up underage boys lets see what happens.
Come at me with the SJW excuse.
@malbhet then i guess is not just Sony.
@AlejandroMora Doubtful. Reflexions sold quite well, but it was also a cheap spin-off. The pinball game seems a bit more involved, but it's still unlike other games in the series. For some reason, Marvelous really wanted to stick with Playstation tech for the mainline games (first the Vita, and then PS4 once the Vita proved to be too weak for the games they were trying to make). I've noticed that, despite Nintendo ruling the roost sales-wise, a lot of Japanese publishers venerate the Playstation brand.
I don't think Re;Newal sold particularly well, unfortunately.
@get2sammyb I mean, I’m not into what he wants to make, and regardless of how I or anyone else feels, if he felt stifled making his boob games where he was, then yeah, it makes sense that he wants to move on to a place that’ll let him keep making the boob games.
The whole censorship thing is unfortunate, and honestly, I do think this stuff is gonna start either withering away or switching to Nintendo. Maybe a bit of both.
I stopped playing when they took the "balloons" out of Estival Verses.
For those not in the know you can add on bits and bobs to costumes. This attachment was for balloons that came in two colors:
Flesh peach
And
Nipple Pink
These could be rotated, resized, and attached to any body part.
Meaning I could give all my ninjas big beautiful boobs.
Yo be fair I only gave the boobs to the characters that looked like adults, didn't have any interest in giving a visually 13 year old girl naked tatas, but plenty of people did, and put their naked warriors in provacative poses
They took the balloons out and with it my interest in the game
Lol, to heck with Sony's censorship. I'm an adult and I want to see some boobs and butt darn it!
@get2sammyb Because that's not what he wanted to make. Censorship is bad. Saying, "oh just make sonething else" defeats the purpose of free speech and makes you part of the problem.
@Outlaw_Overlord Low brow Adults may want to see naked video game characters. But I think it's absolutely pathetic.
Just what has happened to you man to want that?
I think censorship can be used for good. We wouldn't want games like Fred and Rose West or Jimmy Savilles trips to the Orphanage. EA going all in on reality with Barry Bennells stint at Crewe. We need to reevaluate what is and isn't in good taste.
@Outlaw_Overlord I'm not trying to start an argument here, this is a genuine question: why are you turning to video games to get your boob and butt fix? Why not just look at the near infinite amount of pornography on the internet?
Again, genuine question, not trying to undermine anyone, I just find it a fascinating perspective.
@themcnoisy
@ShogunRok
What happened? I like to see naked women. I have for quite a while. You can call it pathetic, I would call you a prude.
Yes I've got the internet with unlimited viewing of the nakedz, but why shouldn't I be able to have that in a video game too?
I certainly don't need video games to get my fix, but I don't see why nudity and lewd content should be banned from a specific media form.
I think that games can be transformative experience, it doesn't always have to be about stats and gameplay, it can tell a story, share some art, etc. To that end I feel that if someone wanted to make a compelling adult experience on console then it should be up to market forces and esrb to decide if it's a successful venture.
As it comes to me playing naked ninjas. I didn't ever "get my rocks off" so to speak, but I just enjoyed my characters running around with their jiggly bits exposed 🤷♂️ the game is OKAY outside of that, it's about on the level of Dynasty Warriors, but if I'm going to be spending hours mindlessly mashing the square button I'd rather put my money to those games with scantily clad women.
*As a side note I think that of course anything involving children is highly in appropriate and I think it's fair to ban that type of content as that is getting into child safety issues.
**The DMC censorship was also rediculous.
*** I can't believe we can show XRay images of people disembowling other kombatants, bones snapping, eyes being gouged out, heads being ripped off, hearts being crushed in hand, but an exposed butt or nipple is too much.
If people want to see boobs that bad there's a place called Pornhub, you lot might want to look into it.
If the characters are adults, I don’t see the problem, but underage characters? That’s really, really weird.
I would be really pissed if a game like Yakuza gets censored though, the models of the game are adults.
@ApostateMage
You mean make a new Jojo game?
@AdamNovice
@ShogunRok
Okay okay, obviously people are supportive of censoring adult content and feel that those that enjoy it are "lowbrow" or just perverts that should just go online.
Where is the line on all this? Devil May Cry censored a butt on PS4. Still scored an M rating. Solaris showed George Clooney's butt and got an R rating.
What level of cleavage is fine? What about provacativity?
Should Sony also ban movies with adult content in them from being distributed on their platform?
What about videos streamed on their platform?
As soon as my controller is being used for anything other than menu navigation then is that where adult content becomes unacceptable?
@AdamNovice didn't steam recently create a special store section for porn games? or did they pull that back?
@get2sammyb i guess so lol...but to each their own...
There is absolutely room in the world for all types of games. People are all different. We have different tastes in music, enjoy different foods, watch different movies. Variety is indeed the spice of life, and even though the Senran Kagura games aren't my particular cup of tea, I would never wish them away because I have friends who really enjoy the games.
Heck, I'm guilty of enjoying adult themed games too. It just depends on the person.
I think the biggest thing to take away from this is that the company he worked for was taking away his creative freedom and snuffing out his passion. The gaming industry needs more passionate developers, and I hope this new studio at the very least lets him become passionate about game development again.
Being a big anime fan I can argue that on Japan this is normal and apart of their culture and laws. In nearly every anime there is fan service and belong to a category all on their own known as "ecchi", so for him he must be gutted not to be making games off the genre he loves.
Also these girls ain't real, I'd even go as far to say that real underage girls dress just as inappropriately as these
@Xaessya That's exactly what I meant. What's Jojo?
@Ralizah "I've noticed that, despite Nintendo ruling the roost sales-wise, a lot of Japanese publishers venerate the Playstation brand."
That's completely the opposite to how it s actually is.
@RainbowGazelle when that "free speech" sexualizes minors then F them!
@Outlaw_Overlord As per community rules
Do not use profanity; Use of unsavoury language including profanity and swearing is not acceptable, please remember that this website has users of all ages.
So let's watch the language please.
Thanks for understanding
Times have changed. Anyone remember ‘party games’ on the Amiga? Lol
@viciousarcanum You do realise they're not real people, right?
@themcnoisy
We don't need to do anything. You should worry about yourself mate. The ideal that we all belong to this collective mindset and we should come together to decide what's right for everyone is utterly and completely asinine.
Your examples don't change anything either, let who ever wants to make them make those things and suffer the consequences (as is happening here), but to compare real life pedophilia to anime girls is so blatantly dissengenuos it borders on irresponsible. Sony should be called out for this too, because different people have different values and interests. Most people are individualists, and detest collectivism.
Just have your life in your hands, how hard is that?
Sheesh.
@Tasuki
Oopsie, thought I cleaned up all the cuss words out of my message. Sorry Tasuki
@themcnoisy Really, Sony’s done nothing that actually actually bothered me so far. Some things in incredibly poor taste have been removed. A developer shouldn’t be this upset about not being able to have groping underage girls that tell you to stop. Developers evolve all the time because of publishers and whatnot. It’s not like his games can’t have fanservice at all, but it seems he does value his games on that above all else.
@AlejandroMora Sony is responsible for the insane censorship on their platform. I'm saying this dev probably would love to release it on other platforms but he can't because that choice is up to the publisher which is the CEO of Marvelous.
The Senran Kagura games have released on the 3ds but for some idiotic reason Marvelous prefer Playstation and PC with Nintendo being an afterthought later down the line.
Marvelous must have some exclusive deal with Sony which would explain his frustration with being censored and leaving the company. I won't be surprised if he decides to make a similarly erotic beat 'em up style game that isn't a Senran game for another company as a multiplat, we'll see.
@Flaming_Kaiser I must agree no grown man in the US would be caught dead playing these games in public, especially if the character look like hyper sexualized school kids. These type of games will get you killed in public, or at the very least labeled as a pedo and beat down by many where I'm from.
Imo I honestly thought these games were made for high school teens ages 17-19. I don't think there would have been much trouble if the dev made them look older and not some middle to high school kids, but what do I know, I don't play these type of games anyway.
@Flaming_Kaiser @AdamNovice Those who think its only Sony Forgot about Twitter Banning Loli And Shota Content
@get2sammyb
Yeah, God forbid there's any sexual content in games...
So friggin' sick of that attitude. I wasn't a fan of the SK series but I respect somebody for walking away if they feel they can't do their job the way they want. He'll be working on different kind of games now, from what I understand, so I'll be interested to see what he does. The SK games had a lot of style but not substance and that is a problem. Sexual content is fine but the games also need to be good. Can't say the SK series was good.
@Flaming_Kaiser
Even if you make a game with grown a** women, if you're a Japanese dev you get censored these days. Look at the stupidity that happened with 3 seconds of rear nudity (not even full front or topless) in DMC 5. It's stupid the way Sony has handled the whole thing considering some of the stuff Western devs are still allowed to do. I don't care if people don't like sexual content but this outright banning of it (and people cheering it on) like its anymore of a problem than violence is completely idiotic.
@Constable_What Seriously what are you going on about. The comment I replied to was saying he liked painting nipples on his characters and now that's been taken away he won't buy the game. Which is fricking ridiculous and apparently as an adult extremely worrying.
Honestly listening to this mumbo jumbo censorship mentalness is frying my swede. I gave a few examples of games no one should ever think about making like Jimmy Savilles trip to the Orphanage and you think that's OK?
It's not OK. How is it okay? How? What are we even talking about anymore when someone can make Jimmy Savilles trip to the Orphanage?
It's all free speech. It's art. Blah blah blah. No it's not, it's some dirty perv painting fake nipples on to computer game characters. That's what I was replying too. I'm not part if some collective idealist movement who has a bone to pick. Apart from the guy who paints nipples on his computer game characters and boasts about it.
Sheesh.
@Gamer83 Its terrible for you but you want my honest opinion. I cant help it and even if some things are nonsense i have bigger things to worry about. I probably would not even thought about it if nobody told me.
I said what i think about certain things and i stand by that.
@Ralizah Because Steam sales are not as good as PS4, Those two Senran Kagura games on the Switch are garbage, LUL
@Flaming_Kaiser
I've got no problem with your opinion on the content. Some people don't like sexual content, I think in fantasy games there's nothing wrong with some scantily clad ladies but even I'm not a fan of all this kind of content (stuff you mentioned like groping characters women or underage girls, doesn't matter, is wrong, simple as that) which is I why I don't play certain games even if its related to series I like. For example, I enjoy the DoA fighting games but have never bothered with the volleyball games.
My main issue is with publishers and the double standards on display at certain places. Sony gets to decide what does or doesn't fly on its console, but I'd like to see some consistency. Seems Western devs can do whatever they want, Japanese devs, even if the material isn't half as bad as what Western devs put out there (which is the case with DMC 5), get held to a different standard. It's a bit silly.
@themcnoisy Jimmy Savile's trip to the Orphanage is not even a real thing, and you're comparing it to something that does exist in an attempt to juxtapose a moral outrage onto something that one person likes to do in with their time. Taking a REAL life instance of pedophilia while making up some form of "art" that, and I repeat, DOES NOT EXIST and comparing it to a work of fiction depicting anime girls that can't even be remotely mistaken for real girls is dumb. It's a strawman arguement, and it's irresponsible to say something so stupid.
The fact that I have to explain that is baffling, and that's what u had issue with. It isn't the same thing, unless you can prove otherwise
It IS free speech. Art is in the eye of the beholder. Do I think Senran Kagura is art? No. Not at all, I'm not a fan of those games. But do some people? Sure. You can't account for taste, but that doesn't mean something like this shouldn't be restricted when there is no evidence that it has caused any harm. At all. Point me to something. You can't. There isn't any evidence.
Is Jimmy Savile's trip to Orphanage OK? I don't know. It doesn't exist except for inside your head, and I can't speak to that. I don't have opinions on things that don't exist save for a hypothetical basis.
Is Senran Kagura OK? It actually kind of sucks. It's a mediocre hack and slash game that subsists itself on ecchi visuals. There isn't anything like it though, I will admit, and that fact that people like it is something that's OK.
Is Sony censoring it? Not directly, but they have enough influence to ensure it is censored or removed. I want to call that out.
Is Sony censoring other games? Again, not directly, but they have enough influence to ensure it is censored or removed. I will call that out too.
Give examples by all means, but make sure they exist. Jimmy Savile's trip to the Orphanage exists only in your head, and that's far more troubling than Senran Kagura.... Just my opinion.
@Constable_What I should rise to this but my original comment wasn't aimed at you. It was aimed at the guy who paints nipples onto game characters. Read his comment number 22. He clearly gets a kick out of that stuff and I seriously do have a problem with that comment.
The examples I gave were games which could be made if there was no censorship. Like the rape simulation game which was banned on steam. Games that should never be made let alone seen on the PS store.
You've made a lot out of my original comment. It should have been better written and made more coherent. I don't agree with most censorship, however kids should never be sexualised or put in provocative poses with paint on nipples for a grown man to get off on.
@Gamer83 The DOA Extreme games are boring i wish they had some better volleyball in there. I was really dissapointed with DOA Extreme 3 because i liked the volleyball. I had a game on the gamecube i loved it some much girls volleyball and fun gameplay yes the girls where a nice extra. And why they add 2 kids instead of Tina i will never understand. 😆
@Gamer83 I dont have a problem with a butt or boobs for that matter if it functional.
If i look at DMC 4 it somewhat annoyed me. The fanservice with Lady and Trish was so stupid. Did you see how Lady looks in DMC3 cool but somewhat sexy.
Now there she was yeah it took away from her cool personality and gave me a fanservice girl same with Trish its so over the top it made Bayonetta look subtle still talking about DMC4.
And you are right a butt is not a problem and you should look at them the same Japanese or Western. Have not started the new Devil May Cry yet backlog. I rather see Trish or Lady in a kickass fighting scene then naked anyway.
And for all the people comparing trailers if you have 1 second of butt less get over it. If they change it up without using stupid ways who cares. Thats my idea. 😁
@malbhet You are right but they didnt and the feelings up stuff is somewhat nasty dont you agree?
@Flaming_Kaiser I don't play these games myself, isn't this a beat 'em up with breast physics?
I don't know what "feeling up stuff" is referring to.
@malbhet Look it up i know you how to use the internet. That how i found out whats taken away. 😁
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