I simply love the relic knight miniature line and soon to be game and SDE, Soda Pop miniatures has done a great job taking anime and old school rpg an making them into miniatures games. However, when I saw the poster of TB in Gama pictures something didn't seem right and the kickstarter page put me off the game completely. Here is my reasonning.

The genre that TB gets it's inspiration from is tentacle porn. This is a form of hentai where one or more tentacle monsters have sex, often forcefuly thought rape, with underage girls (which the depiction is illegal is some countries) or adult woman. This makes tentacle monsters in essence mostly a bunch of rapists. SPM even hints at it on there webpage.


We can also read that the game is a cheeky satire look at the genre. This game is very bold, but I don't see how this is satire. It seems more as SPM has put the genre, in a sweety, cute and innocent packaging.


Furthermore, the essence of the genre and the goal of the game are the same : for the tentacle monster to snatch as many girls as he can and ( SPM lets you imagination do the rest). Since the genre mostly depict tentacle monsters as rapist, would the game be as cute and liked if players were human rapist trying to snatch schoolgirls?

The mechanics of the game seem good, bringing you a light game to play with friends, but the inclusion of tentacle porn genre is what turns me off of the game and unfortunatly the compagny too .

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One other point is that my first impression of Takoashi University was that it is a high school with underage girls. I got this impression from the fact that it's a girl only school that have uniforms and I only know that from high school not university. Also all the student art shows very youth looking girls that barely look 18. I am sure I am not the only one with that impression, an impression that can have a very large impact on public perception of the game and SPM.

I am of the understanding that Takoashi University was stated as being a woman's only college. I am assuming the art style is reflected of the moe craze that has been going in anime since the mid 2000s which may be why the girls look that young. I personally would have liked the girls to look a little older but that may take away from the moe style that Soda Pop Minatures seems to be going for. Anyway I find games like God of War, Warhammer, and it's related ilk to be far more sadistic and distasteful in my eyes than Tentacle Bento. There is no point anymore in arguing about this game, as people have already have there minds clearly set on where they stand. The internet seems to believe that if you hate the game than you are the "white knight" defending woman's rights and fighting against villiany and where if you like the game than you are considered the scum of the earth who should be purged. Oh well, like the Billy Joel song, "I would rather laugh with the sinners than cry with the saints".

Just to add i'm not 100% on this as the source was a foreword intro to the la blue girl returns dvds when they were released here but there are colleges that are preparation schools for university and some still have a uniform and uniforms in their own.right are huge.fashion followingbon japan which is why various ones appear in animes of all sorts most iconically being the school uniform generally the age groups have very distinctive variations with the sailor suits being close to what americans call grade sxhool and either are dress and shirt with tie or blazer and skirt for high school and higher

i admit fully this does sound like a skittish excuse to tack on to the film to justify their usage without creating a moral uproar when we know the age of consent.variea by a five year gap from america to japan again i may be wrong with this but from what i remember of ttheir laws sex is legal from the age of 13 but it isn't like the lolita complex is exclusive to japan either america has been sexualising the youngfor decades whether it be middle aged women fawning over the boys in the twilight movies of stanley kubri k (yep us brits are as much to blame) with the original lolita the french with leon the whole debacle.of britney speqrs fresh from the disney club in a school uniform begging people to hit her one more time as she chants baby to them or even the degenerates that set up a website counting down until the olsej twins were "legal"

It is a morally questionable area i was certainly sickened by the overly sexualised drawn out soft focus close up scenes of the two underage girls in bed with each other in the film hannah personally though i see no problems with a ccatoon imagery i can quite easily distinguish the differences between reality and fiction i ak in no way sexually aroused by cartoon imagery so for me it is fine i tend to watch these things for the humour aspectrather than any sexualised violence la blue girl stuff especially yep there is that ambiguity where it could be called rape definately violentnsex that is for sure but with pubic shuriken and a chronic masturbating midget ninja thatbalways finds himself in the wrong situations there is definately a level of satire that isn't going to be to everyone's tastes


i've yet to see the latest urotsukidoji saga (the sixth which is really a retelling of tthe firsr) there was a lotnlesss humour to these and although i have watched most i find myself unsure ahout watching the latest when even hardcore fans of tthe series are drawing a line saying that it was needlessly violent and they had gone overboard when they really didn't need to.far be it for me to.condemn it without having seen.it though but it certainly gives me hope that those that do see this style of qnime as entertainment aren't all sick degenerates paedophilea and rapists if thwy are twlling the creators when they believe thwy hqve gone to far

i do hope that one game wouldn't sour your experiences with the whole company it is not as though they have suggested that thia ia the way that all thwir product lines are going to go it's aj ezperiment.in new water for a company that has done amazing things for the hobby it has jimped into in the few years it has been around i mean it seems a bit silly to give up on aspects of the company you love becquse of one thing you don't i can assume.you watch anime and probably read manga too right? When it ia often the case that the same distributors who release your favourite manga and anime will release hentai products to it is definately the case in the uk with the majority of titles either being backed by adv or manga entertainment regardless of sub genre through my childhood there was no escape from seeing vhs copies of urotsukidoji and crying freeman right next to oh my goddess! Guyver and fist of the north star it's how we came to find these products in atleast my case anyway (that and late night channel four programmes covering the bbfc ban lists back when they had a huge love for all things film related)

I respect you for openly giving your reasons for not wanting to.play the game here it takes guts considering it would be all to easy for everyone to react tthe same way that has happened in other forums and i have no intention.of trying to.make you change your mind about playing the game it's your call but please don' give up on sod pop over one game it seems senseless to give up something you love when you don't have to

!SODA! i only intended for that to be a couple of lines long...oh well

Within otaku culture, tentacles have long been a running joke. Certainly over the years that I've been attending Anime Boston, it's not at all unusual to see people with various bits of tentacles as cosplay props. And this is very much an all-ages con with lots of tweeners and teenagers. The tentacles aren't a safety hazard or social threat, they really are a fun running joke.

When I run large tabletop games with 4" Godzilla and other kaiju stomping over a giant model of Greater Boston, the Dogora figure is a very popular one in the game -- a giant flying jelly fish from outer space. Needles to say, this always generates plenty of tentacle humour around the gaming table, but it always stays pretty PG,. I've often had teenagers and their parents in the game at the time, and without any problems or even mild awkwardness. [Edit: photos over here: viewtopic.php?f=9&t=297]

Equating any use of tentacles as promoting rape is much like when all anime was equaled with naughty tentacles. This trope sums up that part of our cultural history pretty well: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/M ... yTentacles

There are a lot of those tropes on that sight that raise intereating points in regards to story telling and not just isolate to works of hentai the one that led off from there on the glorified rape bit that exagerates on the stokholm syndrome aspect which is found not just in large portions of yaoi but many western trwshy romance novels similar to the works of the mills and boon line since it is often commonly thought of not just by men but more commonly women as a sexual fantasy and not neccesarily an invitation that they want that in real life

disturbing sentiments but one that is commonly present through all forms of media take this trope for example http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/M ... SafeWithUs most people at present are watching game of thrones a series which is heavily guilty of this trope to show the innocencw of some characters.in contrast to other in the first series the dalthrak race wereultimately all savages claiming their spoils after a battle except their leader was never shown doing this as he wouldn't be considered the venerable warrior in the audiences eyes even. Though hisory has taught us the most savage of warriors wold have had first choosing from the "spoils of war" in fact the wedding night of the khal and daenaerys targarian depicts the glorified rape scene she was un willing in tears and still he took her she did what she must for her land. As she believed by her brother's words and it saw her fall for a rapist

not a tentacle monster in sight but in western media we hav had a rapist thrown on us as a hero that the audience men and women alike idolised the second series gets worse with it getting edgier of such scenes coming away from the savages to those closer to common people with greater atrocities that the girl that is subject to this is readily depicted as underage and soon to engaged to an utter piece of scum that gets off on the suffering of others


makes you wonder why people can call for a game that has little to no referrence of depraved acts banned but no one has a problem with seeing it thrust in their face on a weekly basis on television where the borders are far more indstinct as it is real people acting out and tivialising it by barely showing any of the consequences rather than a bunch of cartoon characters doing similarly in an impossible fantasy context...maybe if the dragons started raping the girls they would feel differently?

Ya, I agree with you. Alas, this game is separate from SDE or relic knights, so I am going to leave it separate. If you don't like a game, don't support it. pretty simple really

^^^^^this person is full of the awesome

I'm quite happy this discussion is staying so civil. After having read so many threads ans comments and articles about the big TB debate my brain was honestly starting to hurt.

I respect your well thought out arguments and oppinions about Tb, even if I disagree with them myself.

I think the biggest issue that had been bothering me was the whole 'satire' thing, because not only has SPM been insistant on it but I completely agree with it and couldn't understand why other people didn't seem to. It sorta dawned on me then. Parodies are supposed to be cheesy and funny, but The Tentacle anime genre itself is so cheesecake to begin with that I can see why it's hard for people unfamiliar with it to see the difference. As others have said above the whole 'lol anime is tentacle sex' is a huge stereotype/joke that we're all used to. Where as someone not accustomed to the gente just sees a stereotype being perpetuated. The fact that TB IS so happy, cutesy, ambiguous, etc. is the reason why I feel that it pulls off the spoof well. For gosh sakes the school is called Octopus Leg University people! What do you expect?!

I dunno, I'm probably just over thinking things and venting. Don't mind me.

I'm finding hard to believe people get bothered by this, the game art looks childish for someone who's not into anime and from what I understand it doesn't depict any rape and you can simply ignore the fact that the aliens sought to rape the girls and instead think of it as a capture/kidnap situation.

Anyway, you know what they say, there's no such thing as bad publicity since the post on Kotaku made the kickstarter known to me who led me here and now I'm pondering to pledge.

I just think it is hilarious that almost every article I've read thinks that the word rape always follows alien seduction. For all we know they want to harvest the brains or eat the girls or implant them with eggs of their dying race... well that last is kind of rape. I think that the thing that makes this game so controversial is the fact that the victims are women, if they were men would the media be so up in arms about this game? Probably not, and lets face it that's sexist.

So, I've been following the Tentacle Bento thing over the past few days and created an account here specifically to talk about it. As other people on this thread have said though, the battle lines have been drawn up and no one is really going to change their opinion at this point in the discussion. Also, I'm sure everyone has heard this all before from various other sources, so I'll keep my comments short and to the point. The reason I find Tentacle Bento offensive is as follows:

1. It continues the objectification of women. The whole point of Tentacle Bento is to "get your slimy tentacles on as many of the student body before time runs out". Collecting women is the expressly stated goal, which I find creepy. Is TB the first or only game to do this? No, but Soda Pop Games is only helping to continue the "women as objects not people" mentality found in gaming culture. The four "suites" of girls doesn't help this in the least either. Nor does their recruitment of Soda Pop Girls to be eye candy for their booths.

2. The age of the girls. The vast majority of universities in Japan don't have their students wear uniforms at all, let alone those of the style shown on the TB cards. However the vast majority of Japanese high schools do have their students wear similar uniforms. So despite Soda Pop telling us that the setting is a women's university, the images they are showing us are very suggestive of high school age girls. You could argue that no high school aged girl would have breasts as big as the girls on the cards, but this just reinforces my first point.

3. The language used both in the game pitch text on Kick Starter and by Mr. Cadice in the video interviews I've seen of him strongly imply that the girls do not want the attention the you are giving them, and that the attention is sexual in nature. Words like "catch", "capture", "quarry", "sneaky snatch action" and "these girls are able to hold their own" (implying that they can fight off your advances) and the double entendre of "cram session" to draw attention to just a few. Yes, there is nothing that actually depicts rape shown on any of the cards themselves. But seeing as how the result of tentacle monsters snatching school girls in anime is usually tentacle rape, Soda Pop should have gone out of their way to show us that the monsters are not planning to rape these girls. They didn't, and as stated above, the language used makes it very difficult to argue that the monsters have other intentions.

4. As the OP said, I wouldn't call this game a satire but rather a simulation or an imitation. Tentacle rape may be an inside joke to the anime community, but that doesn't automatically make a game about it satirical. If you have to keep telling people that something is a satire, then you probably didn't make it ridiculous enough. If Soda Pop really wanted to do a satire of the genre, why not turn conventions on their ear and have female monsters invading an all boys school? Or how about "evil" school girls kidnapping poor, defenseless tentacle monsters? There are lots of ways they could have parodied the tentacle rape genre without making a game that appears to simply emulate it.

So, that's it. I was incredibly psyched when I heard the news about a 2nd print run of Super Dungeon Explore, since the game and minis look awesome. Now, sadly, I will not be purchasing it or any other Soda Pop products simply because of how much Tentacle Bento has turned me off. And that's a shame.

I do not understand how you can stop supporting a company based on a game. Sure, you may not like, or agree with this game, in which I totally agree with you, but does that mean that you should stop supporting it at all? Let's look at the rest of life. Walmart, a multi-billion dollar company, makes contracts with smaller companies for their products so that they can really only keep up to supply to Walmarts demands, leaving them no other sellers. This is good, until Walmart decides that they want to lower prices and asks for more product for less pay, leaving the company with no money and forced to shut down due to no other sellers. Should I stop going to Walmart to buy things?

Or how about 90% of the clothes people wear? Or toys people use, most of which are created in China where they use child labour. So I shouldn't buy clothes either.

Food? I should stop eating at every major fast food chain, just look at the treatment of animals that they use to supply the amount of food that they give out every year.

As for the whole objectifying woman, although yes I agree with you on this point. Look at any make-up commercial. "If you want to be beautiful or sexy wear this" "If you want a man to love you, you need this", even commercials designed for the male audience "Use this hair dye, you will get girl more often" "Use this deodorant, young, attractive, teenagers will coming running over to you"

All I'm trying to say here is that sex sells. Sure, I don't agree with the game or wether or not people feel it objectifies woman, but, if I were to stop supporting a company based on a single product, or product advertisement, I wouldn't be able to shop or eat anywhere. I understand you don't like TB, so don't support it. Don't stop supporting the other products just because there's something about the company you don't like. Stop supporting it if they start crossing it over.

And you're idea about evil girls kidnapping innocent tentacle monsters was absolutely amazing

Maybe that might be the next expansion for the game. It is also reminds me of the movie "Species". But than again, I believe people will still find fault with the game for whatever reasons that offends them no matter what Soda Pop may try to do.

If you think TB as it is is wrong and that a version with reversed genders is acceptable you're a hypocrit.

You said it: 'usually'. That means 'not always'.
There is no rape in this game, only if you want it to be.
None of my friends (male and female) saw rape in this game. They all thougt it looked fun and the art looks great.

When I play the game the Aliens will not rape the girls, they will get me points to win the game.


All my female friends think the art looks cool. And like the rape issue, no one sees this as objectification of women. It's Anime, it's not realisctic. You don't have to like it, that is your right, but a lot of people contribute too many real problems from real life to this game

Wow is the age of a fictional character in a non sexaul scenario that big a deal? I mean it's been.established that there isn't rape or sex in this game unlees your mind percieves it that way but the whole thing on the ages gets me yep it was a very lose explaination for the translation of la blue girl in america that the main character switched from high school to college when it went to america and no longer was she 16 but 18 because of the differences in the laws between the two countries the same thing happened with sailor moon. Yep good old sweet innocent sailor moon in the japanese anime was 14 and tuxedo mask was 19 shock horror considering they were love interesta in the story thqt just doesn't sit right with the american public so it changed sailor moon suddenly became 16 although in the manga i believe she was still 14 but tuxedo mask was a couple of years younger at 16-17

So does age only matter if it is tentacle monsters? Has anyone asked the age of these tentacle monsters? Or even.considered for just one moment that if these are college girls of 18+ and the tentacle monsters are similar i ageing cycles to say the xenomorphs out of alien then if anything remotely sexual happened the girls would be guilty of statutory rape?

Can we drop the rape and paedophilia stuff please these are fictional characters no crime is being commited nor is it going to encourage one to.be commited

You are, of course, free to boycott a company as you see fit, however, I hope you understand that the position you're taking will not be interpreted financially as a denouncement of Tentacle Bento, but rather a lack of interest in Super Dungeon Explore. By boycotting Soda Pop, you're essentially 1) depriving yourself of a product you would potentially enjoy, and 2) starving a niche industry.

You bring up an excellent observation that everyone seems to miss. The people who are giving the most grieving with Tentacle Bento are video game journalist. You see video games have to leave little to the imagination in order to get their point across as a storytelling or immersion element. The player is not required to use their imagination because it is shown in front of them. What those video game journalists (who have no concepts about traditional games) fail to see is that board/tabletop/traditional RPG games are different from video games in that you have to use the player's imagination in order to tell their story. For example if you are playing D&D and you win a successful roll killing an orc, your imagination will dictate how violent the encounter will be, it can be as violent and gory as your imagination will allow or it can be as clean cut and cartoonish as you can imagine. The same applies to Tentacle Bento, it is as perverted or as clean as your imagination will allow. Personally, I will believe the reason why the tentacle monster is abducting the women is so it can steal some money. Feeding a 24-limbed creature requires a lot of food that is of good quality and quality food is not cheap.

^and that comes from someone with possibly the most well known graphically violent tentacle rape anime as anavatar so if they can be well adjusted enough to do something like that surely those that find such crass entertainment abhorrent could do similarly?