More and more information about Idolm@ster Dearly Stars is being released as Bandai Namco readies the game for release on the 17th of September.

The character profile for the character in the middle, 13 year old Hidaka Ai, is that her mother Hidaka Mai used to be a top idol, and Ai wants to be an idol too, but she keeps failing the tests at the various agencies.

And then we have the character profile for her mother, Hidaka Mai, currently 29 years old. She was a rank S super idol who was only active for 3 years, but had an uncountable number of hit songs. She was apparently so famous that her name would be mentioned in Japanese history.

With the numbers 13 and 29 we can deduce the circumstances that made Hidaka Mai one of the most famous idols in the history of Japan!

Via: THEIDOLM@STERｱｲﾄﾞﾙﾏｽﾀｰ家庭用1710週目

Vanguard Princess is a freeware 2D fighting game made in 2D fighting game maker by Sugeno Tomoaki, a video of the game in action can be viewed here (youtube)

This sure came out of nowhere! The game art style is modern moe style but the actual game system is closer to old fighting game style instead of the easy-combo game style that these kinds of games have become associated with. This game is way too good in all aspects for a freeware game.

There doesn’t seem to be a full list of credits listed aside from the creator Sugeno Tomoaki, who is supposedly an ex-capcom employee as according to what people have managed to dug up about him.

The official site is here and the game can be downloaded here.

A new fax from the EOCS has been sent out and as with previous faxes companies are still not allowed to release any of the information for some reason. But the same guy that leaked info on the previous fax had appeared in 2ch again with some of the new details.

Via: エロゲ表現規制対策本部 104

Eroge programmer Kenji Kakera also mentions on his blog that they received the fax too. He can’t release any of the information in the fax, but he wonders what is the point of the EOCS existing anyway, and comments that this is all so stupid that it’s meaningless to even think about it.

Also it was mentioned a few times in the comments, but that certain Japanese site getting a lot of attention right now has too many Japanese comments in that post that is bashing a certain site that I don’t want to mention and don’t want to get involved with, so I’m not going to make a post about it.

Edit: * The date for the new restrictions are written in the fax, but the actual date to stop sale of all older rape games was not detailed, so it’s assumed the stop of sale not going to happen yet

The story is about 9 people who have been kidnapped and trapped somewhere on a ship, and they have bangles on their arms numbered from 1 to 9. In order to open a door, the total sum of the numbers on each person passing through has to be equal to the number written on the door, and only 3 to 5 people can pass through the door.

After getting through a numbered door, they will be in a sealed room which players have to figure out how to get out from to proceed (something like crimson room). There are several numbered doors so the other people that did not go through a door will try a different door, and the separate groups may still get to meet up again later and reshuffle the members.

Scans: 1, 2, 3
Bonus: 428 is being ported to the PS3 and PSP by Spike

“Aren’t you… going to get a real job?”

The two additional characters for Dream C Club were earlier revealed in magazines and have now also been revealed on the official website. One is a jyakigan* woman named Mari and the other is a robot girl named Airi. Apparently they keep the tradition of asking the toughest questions to the protagonist who does all sorts of part-time jobs and gambling just to pay for his cabaret addiction!

Also the game has been voted on Gemaga magazine as the #1 most wanted upcoming game. Gemaga readers traditionally like galge a lot so it’s not surprising, but it’s still funny to see it beat DQ9 and FF13.

However they’re only entertaining the customers because it’s their job and sometimes they accidentally let their true feelings appear on in their expressions while singing.

I still haven’t figured out what the extra C stands for in Dream C Club.

*I don’t know how to explain what jyakigan is so I just translated Mari’s profile instead

I am currently the vocalist in the indies band that I’m in with my elder brother. Music gives me my soul and gives me a place to release it. But… it’s hard to get used to staying alive.

I hope to meet somebody with the kind of sensibility that can scoop my soul out and snatch it away.

Via: オレ的ゲーム速報＠刃 and 【Xbox360】ﾄﾞﾘｰﾑｸﾗﾌﾞDREAMCCLUB18指名目

Following the lead of minori and yuzusoft, the VisualArts Visual Antena website has also blocked foreign IPs, displaying the message “PLEASE PLAY THE GAME OF YOUR COUNTRY IF YOU PRAY FOR THE WORLD PEACE!:-)」” to foreign visitors.

As of writing, only Visual Antena seems to be blocking foreign IPs and the websites for brands under VisualArts are still accessible.

It seems it is definitely the new trend to block off all foreigners!

Also minori has apparently been using their block to urge foreign visitors to write to the Japanese government through the government website. I hope polite informed comments were being sent instead of emotional mail centering around kill and rape.

For a moment I thought the art was photoshopped on top of the keyboard in the photo. Costs 10,000 yen (US$100) for one though.

Reading too much about eroge and politics makes me forget about “normal” stuff! Also Rorona seems to be pretty well received, I should go get it already…

Tears to Tiara gaiden - Avalon no nazo - announced for PS3
I was thinking “they should return Nakamura to ero and stop producing console games”, but I remembered that Nakamura’s ero art isn’t that good anyway, and I was glad. Then I remembered that Kawata is doing White Album for the PS3 and I cried.

Railgun staff announced, 2
Director Nagai Tasuyuki (Toradora) and series structure by Minakami Seishi (Birdy DECODE 02). Also Kuroko’s head seems to be too big in the image

Fairy Tale TV anime announced for Autumn
By A-1 and Satelight.

Translation of the summary of the conference held on the 26th of June as from this blog here.

In all it actually did not go too bad because Edano and Hosaka have done a really good job arguing against the changes proposed by the LDP and Komeito which was obviously overdoing it.

Edano and Hosaka have become the new heroes, with people on 2ch repeatedly speaking of sending monetary contributions to the two of them to show their support.

Also Hanashi Yasuhiro has just made enemies with all the Johnny’s fans. Apparently he does not understand the meaning of fear.

Statements by Hanashi Yasuhiro (Liberal Democratic Party):

Statements by Maruya Kaori (New Komeito party):

Statements by Edano Yukio (The Democratic Party of Japan):

Statements by Hosaka Nobuto (Social Democratic Party):

—Statements by professionals asked to speak as reference—

Statements by Maeda Masahide (Tokyo Metropolitan University Professor in Criminal Law) :

Statements by Ichiba Yoriko (Attorney)

Statements by Agnes Chan (Japan Unisef ambassador)

Statements by Tajima Yasuhiko (Sophia University Professor who specializes in constitution and information media)

Main point of answer by the Director-General of the Criminal Affairs Bureau, Ministry of Justice:

[1] Santa Fe, published in 1991, is the best selling photo collection book to ever have been released in Japan, with over 1.5 million copies sold. The book was released at the peak of Miyasawa’s popularity and featured nude shots. She was 18 by the time the books hit the stores, but at the time of the photo shoot she was only 17 years and 10 months old.

[2] More info about the Ashikaga case here

[3] Then again the argument that anime and games may be decreasing sex crimes was really only made as a counter argument because they started saying that anime and games are encouraging sex crimes

[4] The Japanese are in the minority for child sex offenders arrested in 2007 and 2008 according to child wise (PDF)

[5] The survey was done on 3000 people but only 1827 answers were considered valid, out of the 1827, over 1000 of them were over the age of 50. A different survey conducted which leaned more towards males in their 20s had results showing 95% were against the law

[6] The child porn available in convenience stores were nude shots and gravure books, the term child porn generally gives an impression that it’s referring to material depicting children undergoing sexual abuse, so this can be a little misleading

[7] It is not known where she as gotten this number from, but in comparison to her number, the number of victims to child porn in Japan is between 300 to 400 a year

Edit: added two more footer notes I accidently left out

Game director, scenario writer, and AV director Toriyama Jin reports on his blog that:

1) On the 23rd of June, police have done a search on the Akihabara branch of Tachibana shoten. The shop owner is arrested. It is not known exactly the reason he was put under arrest for, but it is likely for distribution of indecent material.

2) Many of the products that were taken as evidence were of the loli genre. The exact titles are not known, but it is likely that they are games by either brand R or brand M.

3) The most likely reason why the police have tried to charge tachibana shoten for distribution of indecent material is because they wanted to have a scenario where somebody was arrested, in time for the meeting on the 26th of June where the Liberal Democratic Party, Komeito, and Democratic Party of Japan are meeting to discuss changing the existing child porn laws. However as tachibana shoten was quite thorough in keeping in line with the law. One likely theory is that they were unable to charge tachibana shoten under child porn laws, and instead are trying to use distribution of indecent material so they would still have a case where somebody has been arrested.

Toriyama Jin says he had already known that the police were stepping up before the meeting on the 26th as there have been an increase in arrests related to the child porn laws over the last week, but did not expect a bookstore would become a victim and that they would use distribution of indecent material to make a case as child porn laws did not cover pseudo-loli.

On top of that, the place where they did a house search was in Akihabara, no matter how you look at it, the police is obviously trying to assist the LDP and the Komeito. When this gets reported, Toriyama suspects there’s a high chance that it will probably be used to mislead viewers that there is a need for stronger child porn laws.

The stuff above contains a little speculation, but Toriyama writes that he has confirmed the information from two different sources, so the main points should be true.

Also the 2ch thread for eroge industry people to post in has become quite depressing over the past days with posts where industry people talk about how they had their projects canceled or a writer who specializes in rape and sexual violence stories wondering how he can possibly find a new job now, and even one report from somebody who claims his friend at a small eroge development house had commited suicide as they were already doing pretty bad and now had to give up their next game project which meant the company had no chance of survival (info cannot be confirmed).

Update: Toriyama has updated his post clarifying that it was the owner of “Energy” in Akihabara, which belongs to the Tachibanashoten group, it was not the actual main Tachibanashoten store in Akiba. That particular shop “Energy” actually deals mainly in photos and goods involving real people, so it probably has nothing to do with eroge or art.