A fundraising effort seeking to restore the railway system in disaster-stricken Kumamoto has been shut down due to its mascot’s resemblance to an eroge character, a rather childish reason to prevent suffering citizens from getting the help they very much need.
Kumagawa Railways sought to gather funds for the reconstruction of the Kumamoto railway by selling special sets of tickets emblazoned with their cute anime girl mascots, though they were forced to cease operation as it was revealed that one of the girls resembled a character from an eroge by Lose – a not wholly surprising outcome as they themselves had designed the fundraiser’s mascots.
Images of the fundraiser and its mascot girls:
The eroge girl that resembles one of the mascots:
Despite the fact that the similar-looking characters have no relation to each other whatsoever other than appearance, critics still raised concerns that the poor, poor children may somehow end up happening upon the eroge as a result – which should a great consolation to these poor children as they wait for their trains this winter.
Who cares. When are people going to accept that humans bang each other and then pump out babies who grow into adults and do the same thing?
At the rate things are going, in a few more years, nobody will remember what sex is. “How do we make babies again?” “Don’t think about it, it’s bad!” Then the Political Correctness cops assassinate them.
The caramelldansen phenomenon hinged on a tiny loop of a random floppy-ear dance gif, pulled from the Popotan OP. An eroge. Even has l♥♥i. I think the booru has the OP as an .swf
Everyone was doing that s♥♥t. WoW modeled it into a dance animation. The booru has a sizable tag, https://chan.sankakucomplex.com/?tags=caramelldansen
Around the world you had people doing the dance from an eroge opening. And they had no idea. No. Idea.
So f♥♥k off with your SJW helicopter s♥♥t. Your posturing, self-deluding sanctimony is being used on a charity ffs. Go solve (sorry, tweet) real problems.
Can’t they just change the hair color, add specs and be done with it?
Well if they contract the eroge maker for the characters, how could they not expect the same style. Especially if that company’s product already has train mascot characters, and no doubt that was the reason they could offer to provide them quickly and cheaply (or for free).
Anyway, Lose gets their publicity now, and the few tickets already circulated will become valuable rare items!
From the linked source:
“The team collaborated with a visual novel company named “Lose” to create the characters, but they were too similar to “Lose”‘s own characters, which are featured in “Adult Only” games.
While they might look similar, the two characters are not associated with each other, leading people to criticize the overreaction of concerned individuals, who claim children could be introduced to the hentai game.”
In other words, the “ordinary mortals” started a fuss – no copyright claims, no self-guilt (“aww, this character looks like that one from an adult game – we mustnt sink that low”) from the company or anything. Simply ordinary Japanese worried about their children (to the level of what I call “Child Worship”).