About the true process behind the uncensored cg

[Eai]

Hello.

I've been reading things on fuwanovel for some time, and i decided to create this topic to talk about one fact i know other people are wondering about.

Despite many games being released in "uncensored" state by some editors, seeing how badly some parts behind the mosaics looked, the idea emerged that they were redrawn by some companies licensing the games instead of being the original uncensored pictures (despite the western editors claims).

For some games in particular, it looks especially bad whereas it looked ok on some other ones. I noticed that this things happened on a lot of games released by the editor Mangagamer.

I know that one member of this forum (named Cryingwestern) who has done some work for mangagamer on titles like himawari and tokyo babel, has himself stated that the company was actually not using uncensored assets from the japanese developpers. They were redrawing everything themselves instead. It was on the G-Senjou no Maou: Fan TL vs Sekai TL topic.

To quote some of the statements he made:

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Not gonna go through much detail, but MangaGamer does do the genital drawings, but it depends on what the contract they have with the company says (Either the original artist will draw it, or one us will instead).

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You'll never see uncensored material from japan, unless it's officially done(western companies will redraw the footage), someone from the unknown will try to do one of their own, or the author takes a risk and uploads it but on a western site.

Regarding these informations, it could that the cg in "uncensored" state are actually not existing anyway.

If it is true, it is misleading the people expecting to play the "uncensored" games (the word implies it is the original artwork in untouched state). Because this process is just a modification of the state of the cg. The companies should not say they provide the uncensored cg but at least use the term decensored instead.

The thing is that i found other statements made by people from the staff of mangagamer which states the contrary: http://mangagamerstaff.tumblr.com/post/92988105564/can-i-ask-you-something-if-its-not-a-bad

So what is the true answer?

[Nosebleed]

Some are redrawn when the company can't obtain the original uncensored CGs, others are not, it depends on the game.

MG is notorious for redrawing a lot of the CGs though.

I agree it should be mentioned, though. I have no problem reading redrawn things if they look good, but honesty is always appreciated.

[Good_Haro]

31 minutes ago, Nosebleed said:

Some are redrawn when the company can't obtain the original uncensored CGs, others are not, it depends on the game.

MG is notorious for redrawing a lot of the CGs though.

No, this is untrue, CryingWestern is misinformed on this particular subject. We very rarely have had CGs redrawn. The only game in recent memory that we had to do this for was Cartagra because a handful of uncensored assets were lost (I believe it was less than 10% of the CGs). 

Generally if the uncensored CGs do not exist, the game is released with mosaics intact. I believe some of the confusion may be coming from the fact that we do some de-mosaicing in-house, but this simply involves reprocessing the original PSD files (namely, turning off the mosaic layer and re-generating all of the variations), not redrawing anything. Occasionally, our image editors will do some minor touch-ups (shifting some elements around so they line up correctly with the mosaic removed or adding a bit of shading if the underlying art was left flat or was miscolored) because quite frequently very little care is put into the art beneath the mosaics because it isn't meant to be seen in the first place. A few companies do put a lot of effort into what's beneath the mosaics (ClockUp for example), but many don't bother because the art was always intended to be censored.

[Decay]

#Decayisalwaysright

Always. 

For real, though, it's interesting to read about how things are really done behind the scenes. Thanks for sharing, good haro. 

[Nosebleed]

Thanks for sharing your in-house perspective, Good_haro. I guess there is some misinformation floating around because I've heard plenty of times (and by that I mean pretty much every time it comes up) MG often redrew their CGs. I guess it might stem from the fact you sometimes mention you have people editing CGs without specifying exactly what they're editing so some people might come to that conclusion. I am happy to know you put editors in charge of touching up the uncensored CGs though because Japanese companies often don't really care about that and it's a shame (sometimes, even with mosaics, some 2D penises look terrifying...).

[Dergonu]

32 minutes ago, Good_Haro said:

No, this is untrue, CryingWestern is misinformed on this particular subject. We very rarely have had CGs redrawn. The only game in recent memory that we had to do this for was Cartagra because a handful of uncensored assets were lost (I believe it was less than 10% of the CGs). 

Generally if the uncensored CGs do not exist, the game is released with mosaics intact. I believe some of the confusion may be coming from the fact that we do some de-mosaicing in-house, but this simply involves reprocessing the original PSD files (namely, turning off the mosaic layer and re-generating all of the variations), not redrawing anything. Occasionally, our image editors will do some minor touch-ups (shifting some elements around so they line up correctly with the mosaic removed or adding a bit of shading if the underlying art was left flat or was miscolored) because quite frequently very little care is put into the art beneath the mosaics because it isn't meant to be seen in the first place. A few companies do put a lot of effort into what's beneath the mosaics (ClockUp for example), but many don't bother because the art was always intended to be censored.

Ooooh! This is interesting, thanks.  

[DarkZedge]

7 hours ago, Good_Haro said:

No, this is untrue, CryingWestern is misinformed on this particular subject. We very rarely have had CGs redrawn. The only game in recent memory that we had to do this for was Cartagra because a handful of uncensored assets were lost (I believe it was less than 10% of the CGs). 

Generally if the uncensored CGs do not exist, the game is released with mosaics intact. I believe some of the confusion may be coming from the fact that we do some de-mosaicing in-house, but this simply involves reprocessing the original PSD files (namely, turning off the mosaic layer and re-generating all of the variations), not redrawing anything. Occasionally, our image editors will do some minor touch-ups (shifting some elements around so they line up correctly with the mosaic removed or adding a bit of shading if the underlying art was left flat or was miscolored) because quite frequently very little care is put into the art beneath the mosaics because it isn't meant to be seen in the first place. A few companies do put a lot of effort into what's beneath the mosaics (ClockUp for example), but many don't bother because the art was always intended to be censored.

Ah, i didn't know that but it's quite interesting

[Eai]

Thank you so much to share this insider perspective. It's very informative and helps dispelling the conceptions people have about it, it's something rarelly talked about because  it's behind the scenes.

I was really asking myself, sometimes it's not only very roughtly drawn, but there can be blatant anatomical errors. So it means that if for exemple, a game released by for exemple lilith has these problems it's only the artist fault? I am surprised of the differences between the companies because some big names have these problems and not some smaller ones. I may have thought the producers were not able to keep uncensored assets with them because it's against the law in Japan.

[Good_Haro]

Glad I could clear that up for you guys! (Funny story I've actually been trying to reg here for months but the forums didn't like any of my e-mail addresses...)

23 minutes ago, Eai said:

I was really asking myself, sometimes it's not only very roughtly drawn, but there can be blatant anatomical errors. So it means that if for exemple, a game released by for exemple lilith has these problems it's only the artist fault? I am surprised of the differences between the companies because some big names have these problems and not some smaller ones. I may have thought the producers were not able to keep uncensored assets with them because it's against the law in Japan.

Yeah, it basically comes down to the genga artist's preference/ability most of the time. Sometimes they don't even draw in any of the details for the genitals and leave it to the colorists to figure out. You have to remember that, for most of these companies, the idea of an uncensored western release is the furthest thing from their minds, so why spend the time drawing something that no one's ever going to see, right? There are also some coloring conventions used under mosaics specifically to give a certain look with the mosaic on (exaggerated colors or contours to give the illusion of detail through the censoring). Sometimes there are even silly things under the mosaics (iirc JAST had to have some of Demonbane's CGs retouched because a few of them had smiley faces drawn on the penises under the mosaics!).

There are some artists who are just really passionate about drawing porn and put a lot of detail in even if it might never be uncensored––one of ClockUp's artists, Hamashima Shigeo, says that she likes to put a lot of detail beneath the mosaics on the off chance that someone will get to see it. But not every eroge artist is particularly passionate about porn, so you end up with quite a variety of detail levels and whatnot. Imouto Paradise's animations, for example, were completely messed up beneath the mosaics (dicks clipping through legs and all sorts of weirdness).

[OriginalRen]

3 minutes ago, Good_Haro said:

Glad I could clear that up for you guys! (Funny story I've actually been trying to reg here for months but the forums didn't like any of my e-mail addresses...)

Blame Nosebleed and IPB 4.0. Mostly blame Nosebleed for breaking the forums.

In reply to your porn drawing comment, it actually kind of sucks for the artist community. There are like 7 million tutorials on how to properly draw a penis (circumcised or not), but little to no tutorials on how to properly draw vaginas; you either know how to do it and are good at it, or have no clue whatsoever. Interestingly enough, when I went to the Vagina Monologues in 2009 in Italy for a literature class of mine I was taking there, I found out that over 30% of women in the world haven't even seen their own vaginas. I don't think a lot of people are willing to take a mirror and check that sort of thing out.

[Eai]

9 hours ago, Good_Haro said:

(iirc JAST had to have some of Demonbane's CGs retouched because a few of them had smiley faces drawn on the penises under the mosaics!).

Lol, it's the funniest thing i've read about eroge today! So you mean jast had to redraw it themselves or ask the japanese studio to remove the smileys?

i don't see any purpose for that, i have already seen smiley used as censorship but didn't knew smiley covered by mosaics existed! it must be done for trolling people (like say, we can do anything because anyway nobody will be able to see it).

Also sorry to be maybe insisting, but since the title of lilith in question i thought of was Ikusa otome suvia, were you provided the original uncensored asset from the studio for this one in particular? sorry for my insistance, but i would like to know for this specific title , because it had been some kind of disappointement...it was the first time i saw such mistakes such as having some of the female parts completely misplaced ( turned upside down) on one specific cg.

Quote

There are some artists who are just really passionate about drawing porn and put a lot of detail in even if it might never be uncensored––one of ClockUp's artists, Hamashima Shigeo, says that she likes to put a lot of detail beneath the mosaics on the off chance that someone will get to see it. But not every eroge artist is particularly passionate about porn, so you end up with quite a variety of detail levels and whatnot. Imouto Paradise's animations, for example, were completely messed up beneath the mosaics (dicks clipping through legs and all sorts of weirdness).

It's such a waste for the artists. But i have seen cases when they try to circumvent the censor by releasing artbooks for the games and material throught the doujin market, with sometimes the censorship reduced (blacks bars instead of mosaics, or thin mosaics).

And i know it happens for hentai anime too...but this time there are generally no artbooks or such things released later.

By the way, i have a little off topic question, but do you know if Mangagamer is planing on licensing some hentai animes (i have seen an anime section in the site, but with nothing inside). Like for titles you released on eroge format? I think for exemple to some anime like Ikusa otome suvia which i already mentioned, because the company who did the adaptation is a branch of the eroge developper Lilith.

[Scorp]

19 hours ago, Good_Haro said:

No, this is untrue, CryingWestern is misinformed on this particular subject. We very rarely have had CGs redrawn. The only game in recent memory that we had to do this for was Cartagra because a handful of uncensored assets were lost (I believe it was less than 10% of the CGs). 

I compared Cartagra MG assets with IG assets in actual game and in MG version were deliberately thrown away some CG, which sometime resulted in ridiculous things (like cumshots even before this was actually happen in Rin route). I think there is no plans to release a patch for that (due to assets absense), too bad...

[Eai]

On 16/2/2016 at 8:27 AM, Scorp said:

I compared Cartagra MG assets with IG assets in actual game and in MG version were deliberately thrown away some CG, which sometime resulted in ridiculous things (like cumshots even before this was actually happen in Rin route). I think there is no plans to release a patch for that (due to assets absense), too bad...

Mmm...there is something i don't understand there. If the missing original cg were redrawn by Mangagamer, what was the reason there is still some ones which are not present in the release?

 

[Scorp]

6 minutes ago, Eai said:

Mmm...there is something i don't understand there. If the missing original cg were redrawn by Mangagamer, what was the reason there is still some ones which are not present in the release?

Seems was no time to redraw, or lost something or whatever. I do not know the real reason, so ask @Good_Haro for this. All I know is that output for these images was disabled in the game script and these image files were not present in MG release at all.

[Forgetful Frank]

This was a very interesting read, thanks very much, @Good_Haro!