NIS America Censors Preview For ‘Disgaea 7: Vows Of The Virtueless’ Reverse Cover Art, Claims “The Final Printed Material Will Be The Original, Uncensored Version”
Spencer Baculi
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As the battle between Japanese creators and censorious Western localizers continues to rage on, Nippon Ichi Software has declared that they will supposedly be playing both sides of the debate in regards to the cover art for their upcoming Disgaea 7: Vows of the Virtueless.
Fuji (Kaiso Ishikawa) gets tricked by a Prinny in Disgaea 7: The Vows of the Virtueless (2023), Nippon Ichi Software
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In promotion of the latest entry in their popular tactical RPG series, the American branch of NIS launched a poll in April wherein fans could vote for their favorite of four artworks – to be printed as a reversible cover for each of the game’s English-language PlayStation 4, PlayStation 4, and Nintendo Switch physical editions.
These artworks included a solitary shot of protagonist Fuji wielding his katana, a collection of the main cast’s character profiles, a group shot featuring a number of Fuji’s further allies, and a cleaner version of the standard cover sans retail labeling.
The available voting options in NIS America’s ‘Disgaea 7: The Vows of the Virtueless’ reversible cover contest
But upon opening the poll, fans discovered that the three artworks featuring female characters presented by NIS America had been censored by the now infamous ‘beam of light’ technique, which was applied to each female character who showed even the slightest bit of cleavage – particularly the busty, red-haired swordswoman Higan Zesshousai.
Hoping to head off any premature outrage, the publisher explicitly asked on their website for players to “please note that some artwork has been slightly modified for marketing purposes only. The artwork used in the final product will be the original, unedited version.”
NIS America explains that the winning artwork will not be censored in the final release of ‘Digsaea 7: The Vows of the Virtueless’
However, despite this preemptive clarification, NIS America would only further muddy the waters by using the censored version of the winning artwork in their official announcement of its polling victory.
Sharing the light-beam-heavy version of the winning ‘group shot’ cover on May 3rd, the developer revealed that “Survey says…Reverse cover 2 sweeps the competition on every platform!”
Archive Link NIS America via Twitter
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Thanks to this graphical miss-match, NIS America faced a wave of backlash from players who were tired of having their entertainment modified in deference to puritanical sensibilities.
“The original artwork is not even revealing at all, so weird that it needed to be edited like this,” wrote Twitter user @rockstei. “These beams kinda make it look MORE fanservicey that it even really is.”
Archive Link @rockstei via Twitter
Likewise, @nobleMan_92 criticized, “This a terrible way to promote a game.”
“Been a fan of disgaea since 2, but i’m not interested if this the direction localizers want to go,” they added. “There is zero point in censoring cleavage”.
Archive Link @nobleMan_92 via Twitter
“Putting light beams over cleavage is f–king stupid and lame,” decried @caitsylph. “Why even bother having characters with big tits if you’re just going to cover them in such an ugly way? Also kinda f–king weird to censor big boobs as if they’re *always* meant to be found sexual, too, c’mon now”.
Archive Link @caitslyph via Twitter
In response to this outpouring of criticism against the cover, NIS America returned to the topic on May 5th, informing players, “Regarding the Disgaea 7 cover artwork on on our reverse cover contest site: The artwork used in the final printed material will be the original, uncensored version.”
“The images shown on the website as preview are censored for general audiences,” they concluded.
Archive Link NIS America via Twitter
Whether or not NIS America makes good on their promise will be discovered when Disgaea 7: Vows of the Virtueless hits shelves on November 30th.
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