The recently aired 3rd episode of Himouto Umaru-chan‘s 2nd season has attracted the attention of visual novel developer Palette Qualia (known for creating “Otome Domain”) due to it apparently “stealing” their eroge’s UI, with the concept of parody apparently being lost on the aggravated developer.
The UI from Otome Domain:
The visual novel scene from Himouto Umaru-chan’s 2nd season:
The official Twitter account for Palette Qualia released a tweet on the matter:
“A game UI screen has recently made an appearance in a currently airing anime work and we have received an inquiry that the game UI of our work “Otome Domain” bears an extreme resemblance to the one in the anime; currently, we are trying to verify the situation with the associated company and the matter is currently under investigation.”
Despite the grim circumstances, many are suspecting nothing to happen considering the series has been making numerous parodies ever since its first season…
Those online are naturally on both sides of the fence:
“Ehh, I see where they’re coming from, but I don’t think they’re in the right here. Pretty sure this is in the clear.”
“Its clearly a parody, I doubt they can do much about it since I would assume parodying something is legal in Japan.”
“The material is far too similar for this to be parody.”
“It seems Umaru is ruined now huh?”
“It’s a parody.”
“I thought I saw this somewhere before. As expected, this is plagiarism.”
“The person who stole this is evil!”
“It really does look similar.”
“It looks similar, or should I say, they’re identical!”
“Umaru-chan ripped it off. How sad.”
Wait, are parodies really illegal in Japan or are copyright holders just annoying about them?
Is that why Gintama characters are always fearing a process?
In Japan you can use the characters, the designs, etc and they really cannot do s♥♥t. But, you cannot use the copyrighted names without risk of being sued. Thus why you can have tons of stories with similar characters, but the branded products used in those shows always have the names changed. ROSE=BOSE, PONY=SONY, etc
I see.
And as for the last part (brand names), isn’t it the same in the US? xD
Also logos. lol
And I thought that LN was a parody of Girl Friend Beta due to the title (which I forgot what it was lol). lol
It could be a parody in name only, like OreOmo, which is obviously a parody of OreImo but doesn’t seem to have anything else to do with it besides name (it seems a bit similar to Outbreak Company from what I do know about that series, but I never watched it).
OreHomo
I think therefore Ore
Doubt anything will happened. Developer probably just want some free advertisement.
Remember when you put Overflow’s eroge in oreimo and they got upset at minors playing it.
Wouldn’t this just be a free ad? Like hello? We’re watching a closeted anime otaku in japan, why wouldn’t there be similar popular things in it???
On a side note, if they actually release the VN from the anime with that art and all, I’d totally buy it.
Sorry.