they pulled sales of a Japanese Hentai Game entitled Rapelay. Political pressure from the UK and outcry after various media reports caused Amazon to crack and stop the used sale from on of its affiliated sellers. This has brought about a huge debate of censorship against decency&values.

A brief overview of this game is due for those who are not familiar with this game, and I assume that is most of the readers. Rapelay is a game produced in Japan only, and is about a young man who was turned in by a young school girl after molesting a woman on a train. After he is released he decides to make her and her family suffer. Because the game is produced in japan, much of the intercourse is censored by mosaic.

As someone who has played this game, I will give my take on the controversy.  Many know that I am an avid fan of the hentai&eroge game genre, but I actually have to side with Amazon in the case of this game. Rapelay features one girl, the younger sister, and she is unmistakeably underage and her scene is particularly disturbing. Those lashing out at Amazon due to censorship and that they are hypocrites for allowing other adult products need to understand that this game breaks the laws of the countries for which Amazon has banned the sales. While this game is allowed to be sold in Japan, I can fully side with Amazon's decision in this instance.

As for those claiming this to be a rape simulator, or those now grouping all hentai games as one, they are completely out of line. That being said, they obviously use that terminology as it is a very easy way to grab headlines and people's attentions. The excuse that someone will use this as a stepping stone to commit rape is an easy cop out. Those people who would commit rape, would do so without the game acting as a catalyst. I just wish the media would stop playing off the fears of its audience.

Both sides of the debate have good arguments, but have deep flaws as the majority have never played the game nor seen anything other than the biased media reports. This wasn't about morals, censorship or even decency, this was about the legality of the product being sold in one of their sites outside of Japan.