If you've been following the development of the upcoming Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake, then you'll be aware that the late Akira Toriyama's artwork has been updated for this new release, with female characters generally showing less skin than before.
The character that has been impacted the most is the female Warrior, who now wears clothing underneath her (admittedly revealing) armoured bikini.
Speaking at the recent Tokyo Game Show, series creator Yuji Horii and former Shonen Jump editor Kazuhiko Torishima (a key figure in the inception of the first game) touched upon the delicate topic of censorship in a surprisingly candid exchange.
The conversion has been translated by Valute News, and sees Horii admit that he is confused as to why the changes have been made before adding that "if there’s too much exposure, the age rating goes up. It means we won’t be able to sell it as an all-ages product."
Torishima then wades in with his own take on the notion of toning down content to reach the desired age rating, and seems to point the finger at overseas markets, rather than Japan's own CERO rating system:
It's like an absolute god. An evil disguised as good. There's no such thing as content which that doesn't make everyone uncomfortable. Because beauty and ugliness, good and evil, are different for everyone...
There’s a religious concept from the West, especially in America, that influences their approach to sex education, right? Their approach to compliance is really narrow-minded. When selling manga in America, everything had to be categorised by age groups. Because there’s a risk of lawsuits, the company also has to get insurance.
Doing business with such a ridiculous country is really frustrating. Because of that, Japan also gets negatively influenced.
Horii adds that the character selector in the game has changed from "male" and "female" to "Type A" and Type B" before saying, "I really wonder who’s even complaining about this?” This appears to be a reference to the drive by Western developers to be more gender-inclusive with their games.
Age ratings have clearly come a long way since the original Dragon Quest III was released in 1988, and serve an important role in protecting younger players from imagery and content that isn't suitable for them. Given their advanced ages, it's understandable that Horii and Torishima might yearn for a past when such matters were considered a little more trivial, at least in Japan.
However, given that the majority of people who will play the upcoming Dragon Quest remake are arguably going to be adults and not children, it's easy to see why the changes made to the game have caused such confusion and annoyance – doubly so when you consider that Toriyama is sadly no longer with us.