I think h-scenes ruin VNs. Especially h-scenes in Key VNs are horrible in my opinion. Yeah, sure, they might be drawn good or even be funny, but they feel awkward in a Key VN, they ruin the atmosphere.
Unless we’re talking about a meaningless, pointless fapgame, I don’t think VNs that has a solid story should contain h-scenes. Though, h-scenes might be mandatory in some dark, gory and more serious titles (Kara no Shoujo for ex.), or in funny VNs that somehow can’t do without them (Edelweiss Eiden Fantasia for ex.), I respect that.
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I remember seeing a couple from Kanon and Tomoyo After in the past, and… Eh… I don’t really like H-scenes on principle, but I feel like the ones that end up in Key Visual Novels tend to be fetishized to the point it’s creepy. If there’s an all-ages version of a visual novel, THAT’S the one I’d buy.
Although, I have discovered that the ones in Katawa Shoujo were well-written (though, I have a feeling that’s the exception and not the rule…)
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I feel like they are completely unnecessary, since they don’t serve any real purpose except for turning you on.
Well that is both generalising and incorrect, as said in this topic multiple times by now, there are plenty of games that use sex as a plot device. Saya no Uta usually being the prime example. It demonstrates the forbidden intimacy between Saya and Fuminori, and most of the text during these scenes is what is going through Fuminori’s head as he spirals deeper in to madness, and as such is not just needless pornography used to turn you on.
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Porn is to turn people on. Whether or not they decide to make the porn important is another thing.
They could easily include that development in another scene without the unnecessary screaming.
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Been a while since I looked here, so I’ll go over some older stuff.
You forgot to mention that one is largely text based, while the other is unassumingly visual. I’ve never seen GoT, but I’m guessing they are at least somewhat tasteful in their portrayal of sex and nudity, unlike a large percentage of VNs that are just… Slow, badly written, overly explicit and lazily timed.
I think that depends on the company you have. I wouldn’t talk about it to strangers or in a professional environment that isn’t expecting of those topics, but around friends and family it’s the same as any other topic imo. People (at least where I live) are pretty open about it so long as it’s not personal experience discussions. Maybe the countries with a stronger religious presence work differently.
No, it really isn’t. It may be an answer, a very generic one, but you’d have to ignore a lot of other stuff. Narrowing sex down to just “life” is neither realistic or productive. You could respond to anything with “Life.” Assuming you are focusing on the ability to create life, then you have an answer… But would you also narrow down all reason and motivation to work down to “money” and nothing else? There’s generally more than one contributing factor to why something is the way it is.
Do you watch/read romance stuff? The whole creating a new life, having some form of legacy idea is pretty common there… You know, when the intention is to create a life. You’re less likely to see it in media set during certain time periods, or in certain parts of the world, but that’s because there’s more than one way to depict sex. It could be something romantic or entertaining or harsh. It could be a responsibility, or artistry, or a greed or a goal. The intention isn’t always to have a child… Why do you think contraception exists?
Intention matters little to me when compared to presentation. The majority of the H-scenes I’ve seen in VNs have been presented in an immature way, hence people seeing them as immature. There are exceptions where sex is presented in a much more eloquent and understanding fashion. If the intention was to just cram in a H-scene, that doesn’t necessarily make the scene bad. If the intention was to present a romantic moment, or a moment of progression, that doesn’t necessarily make the scene good. Hell, there’s a surprising amount of ecchi manga with an overdone plot-line, dumb protags, and basic less than run-of-the-mill characters, that actually amount to something above average due to their use of fanservice. You also get the pointless “so unrealistically clumsy, suddenly fanservice!” rubbish, sometimes in the exact same manga, but it gives a good contrast.
To be fair, it didn’t even have the name “television” at the start of the 20th century, and there was a minuscule amount of public broadcasts until like… The 30’s, and they had that whole WW2 thing to deal with for a while.
Oh, they could… But the companies likely to do that could just sell a second version.
For Kanon, it doesn’t really matter. For Air however, the original version is probably the “most canon.” The scenes are forced, but some of them make sense with the lore going on. You could just use my patch 
Keeps most of the worthwhile content that showed up in the H-scenes in, while removing the explicit content. After, you can just deleted the files or move them elsewhere and you’ll have the entire scenes back.
A world where people can’t hear Sunohara’s dumb yells is a sad world.
That depends who you ask. I rarely watch modern film unless it’s made by someone special, and a large reason for that is because there’s a lot of wasted time. It’s boring. That’s not the popular way to take in entertainment of course, just look at DC and Marvel films… Incredibly popular, but with ~7 good films collectively in the past 16 years. If I watch something, and it spends time on something that isn’t substantial, it’s a fault. To go to a popular example, Star Wars 7, I think that most of the stuff with the returning cast members should’ve been cut. I understand it’s there for marketing reasons, but in my opinion it hurts the “movie” part of the movie. It was already pretty long, it didn’t need to spend so much time on such unimportant things. It doesn’t help that the actors suuuucked. Gimme some Kubrick where I feel like every scene is there for a reason.
The walk of shame was the best little detail! Burst out laughing when I first saw that. Rare anime things.
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I suppose I should have been more clear, my point wasn’t that the scene was not pornographic nor was I saying the intention was not to turn you on, my emphasis was on the “not just”. They used these scenes as a way to progress the story and further understand the characters. So yes, it is porn. But this is where I don’t see the issue. Just because something is pornographic, why does it immediately have to lower the credibility of the story? If the scene is not needlessly drawn out and moves the plot forward, I don’t see why it being pornographic is a negative thing. What exactly does showing intimacy between two characters who are madly infatuated with each other do to hinder the plot or atmosphere.
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Quoted for emphasis. It probably has to do with our society looking down on pornography in general as a dirty thing. Thus when people claim something as “porn” it immediately cheapens the value of said item.
I guess it doesn’t help that most pornography being produced these days is of questionable narrative quality, thus pushing even further the stigma. Kind of like how people think that “everything made in china sucks” they would think that “porn is just meaningless sex” because of the representative of the majority of products in that category.
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Very much my sentiment on h-scenes in general.
As far as Saya no Uta specifically is concerned, I’m not really sure just what exactly you could substitute in for the h-scenes that would carry the same narrative value as the h-scenes themselves. It kinda helps that I think the squick factor in those particular h-scenes greatly outweighs how erotic they are, but regardless - I don’t really think you could make a “clean” (as in no pornographic content) Saya no Uta and have it carry the same weight.
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And that’s exactly when something like Saya no Uta comes around and uses sex in an meaningful and interesting way we should actively acknowledge it and realise that it is utilising the content in question properly. If we ignore the fact that pornography has a negative stigma because most pornography is horribly written, and then attack anything with that stigma even if it IS will written, we are missing out on what could potentially be a very intimate and powerful story tool.
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For me there are just so many factors and things to think about when it comes to this. When you boil it down, H-scenes for the most part is fan service. Let us put aside if it is well used or not for now. So if you don’t like sex cause it wasn’t tasteful? okay lets ban all r-18 content did it fix the problem? nope still pointless lude parts, not as lude but still pointless. okay ban that? ban ban ban. Oh look you will still have it, things like maid outfits cough rewrite is having a cg of a girl just looking cute could be considered pointless, it doesn’t add anything.
So this is the first factor, how intense the given scene is, h or not. This is a big factor, it varies from person to person. If the given works goes pass that point you are comfortable with chances are you will be against it for the most part, you may make exceptions, but there is a point you draw a line. Laws come into play sometimes with this factor as well.
The second factor is frequency. This one is way more important to me, even if I am okay with a certain level, the story can be plagued by too much of any level, if they just focus on the lude/fan service everyone knows it can hurt the story bad.
The third factor is… the reverse side. What I mean by that is even though it can hurt the story, people exist that enjoy it. People like maids all the way up to straight up sex, however it becomes super blurred, its hard to find a line, unless it is a easy to see one, like is it r-18 or not? so r-18 is a very good place to stop. So if you stop, that is the limit. For example if the most you can handle is nudity without sex, that is your limit. The scary thing for me, is past 18+ there is no more limit. They can put as little or as much whatever they want, (assuming it doesn’t surpasses laws limits) in it. That is a bit scary imo. I really have to research how bad/much there is before wanting to read it.
Now going back to is it well used or not, completely irrelevant. Why? Because you don’t need it, but at the same time there isn’t really a reason not to have it. So it ends up more about wanting it or not. I mean if you are a good writer you will write it in well, and if you suck at writing it will suck…
There is also the factor that bad writers will lean on easy sell with sex more, so that makes them worse overall. There is also the fact that the seal is off. Crossing the line to 18+ would be a waste if all you had was one small extremely well done part, so they feel obligated to put one in for each character or whatever. So they will force it more because hey they crossed the line anyways.
I still have mixed feeling about the whole thing myself though. Most of the time it is neutral (not much is used) or negative (too much). This is pretty how I think about the whole thing, my view seems to be changing a lot lately though.
I fail to understand what you mean by this… whether or not a plot device is used well is incredibly important. If you include an element in a story and utilise poorly, it hurts the overall story. That aside, what does “not needing it” have to do with it not being utilised properly? To me that sounds like saying “whether or not the chicken in my soup is good is completely irrelevant, because there doesn’t need to be chicken in it.”
So because it doesn’t need to be there it can be of abhorrent quality? And in the end what NEEDS to be in a story? What matters is that whatever the writer put in was handled with care. Saya no Uta would not be the same story without it’s sexual content, so to tell the same story it NEEDS to have these scenes.
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I completely understand what you’re saying, and, to a certain extent, agree with you. However, I think you also might have misunderstood? I wasnt saying, “look, sex can/should be treated differently in media/society because life”.
Im saying, fundamentally, there is no arguing that any sentiment surrounding sex today ultimately streams from the need to procreate.
I am also simultaneously pointing out, “Hmmm, isnt this interesting that the idea of sex has evolved in the way it has in self-conscious beings?”
I know thats probably not what @Pepe had in mind when he created this topic, but thats what the biggest question is for me: “Media is a reflection of the culture and society in which it was created. In most cases, H-scenes reflect how in an age where instinct, religion, and reason merged and coexist, an act so integral to life itself has taken on an altered meaning and implications. Are we/can we be/should we be OK with that?”
And to take it even further, with what @Glenn_Irish has been saying, regardless of our individual opinions on whether or not it is OK, can we accept it as meaningful, and having a narrative or commentary purpose? Even, perhaps, if it is the most obvious of cheaply executed pandering?
Maybe it doesnt. Maybe: https://puu.sh/qu730/10b10292c3.mp3. But like you said, there are always multiple reasons for things.
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Sorry for not explaining it very well I ran out of time… I probably should of just waited to post but I didn’t.
Why does it have to be a plot device? Is the yoshino song a plot device? You are passing judgement on something that doesn’t have to do anything with it. Plot is not really relevant to the yoshino song… yes? It is cause you want the eroge to be tied into the plot, some people don’t care. What I am saying is there is a balance between want and quality. Do you think key when they made little busters EX they were thinking, oh boy lets put quality hcg into our game to enhance the story… no they were thinking give the people what they want. Quality wasn’t probably even on their checklist. They knew if they threw fish the seals would come. Oh you don’t like the eroge in little busters buy one of the other versions.
Lets say eroge is like mcdonalds generally speaking mcdonalds isn’t very good in certain ways but it gives people what they want. You can say mcdonalds is a shit place to eat, but obviously they aren’t giving quality they are giving what people want… People want cheap and fast too, and thats what they get no problems. You don’t need mcdonalds you want it.
I just don’t agree with needs, Okay saya no uta has eroge tied in with plot, great, good job you are making something good. So take the visual away in that part and it turns to garbage? probably not… make it a little less erotic? maybe? maybe not? It’s hard to say what exactly is needed rather than just wanted sometimes. Basically from person to person it boils down to the rest of the points I said. I haven’t read saya no uta and probably won’t read it. It can be as high quality as it wants to be, but I feel like there is going to be a lot of stuff I don’t really want to read about… It’s probably going to be too heavy for me. I am disregarding quality, everyone does to a degree. That is just the way I think, it won’t make sense to everyone but makes sense to me, hopefully that explains it better.
See, again you are blindly attaching a stigma to something and then assuming all eroge use sex as “fast food”, which in every post I’ve made I’ve been attempting to disprove. Yes, most eroge suck, but most visual novels suck, should I then assumed air is a bad game?
Isn’t this true about any visual novel with CGs? Does fate/stay night need it’s action CGs to tell the story? No it could do so with text. Could chaos;head tell the same story without showing the gory bodies of the victims? Again, yes it could with text. So why does sexual content be the only content censored? Why is action and gore acceptable, when sex is a wonderful thing and death is a terrible thing. In both instances they are used to help you visualize the scene with art, and I see no problem with this.
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You don’t need action cgs or gore cgs ect, Maybe you don’t like gore, so why would you want gore cgs? it is something you want or don’t.For example, one of the vns I’ve played is grisaia no kajitsu both version, well skimmed the steam version. Lets just say, there was a really good r-18 part, woops sorry I don’t want that… so that is why I like the other version better. It does’t bother me that much but I would rather not have it. OH you are giving me something I don’t want. now if you want eroge scenes good for you. My logic is as simple as that. Quality does not matter to me at all, it is always I would rather not have this. My tolerance for it is pretty high, however after awhile it is just too much, get me outta here. If you gave me a choice I would always pick all ages. But if it isn’t available I would just bear with the 18+
It could be a perfect story telling method, but I still don’t like it. Thats just how my brain works. Just 3 years ago I didn’t even consider any 18+ then I played air and was like, well that was cool but I probably should of just went with the AA version. If it really bothers me I just start skipping the parts no biggy if you ask me. It’s like I explained if it crosses a certain frequency or intensity, it takes my enjoyment because I don’t want that stuff.
This is a question that has bugged me for, like, forever. But I think I finally come to some semblence of an answer, to an extent.
Why do people watch/read fiction? Because it a space where things that haven’t happened, do happen. And that space is a safe space.
So think about it this way: People do not want violence to happen to themselves. And yet, it is something that we fear, that intrigues us, for the very reason that it hasnt happened to us. I dont have any evidence for this, but I bet if you asked someone who has been the victim of violence, they dont especially enjoy watching/reading the same fate befall someone else.
Sex, on the other hand, is the exact opposite. Everyone wants to have sex, because, duh, procreation thing. People dont have the desire to just watch/read about sex… unless they are tricking our brains into believing they are actually the ones having sex, and then bingo, youre consuming it as porn instead of as a representational act of love.
So, that sex taboo continues to perpetuate itself. Every movie has violence; there’s constant exposure. Sex, meanwhile, is still hidden away. Is it for good reason? Or would more exposure actually allow us to have a more open and constructive discourse?
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Actually doesn’t gore get censored on tv anime all the time? Pretty sure there was parts of jojo like that… Gore is the same as sex for the most part, so that is a difference between the way we think. I just kind of have a limit, same factors in fact, how much, how intense ect. It is hard to say how balanced/bias I am between the two though, some of it probably has to do with culture. I don’t think gore really adds or subtracts any. So there are more people who enjoy gore? hmmm maybe it is just culture.
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I personally think H-scenes are there just to sell a couple of extra units and don’t really add anything besides fan service. If it’s there for “story” reasons then couldn’t they have just wrote in something else or even imply it? I’m not too bothered by these kinds of scenes as long as the base story is good enough I’ll read anything I suppose.
How many times is this point going to be rehashed? I feel like I’m in some kind of time loop
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