I got mail...

Apparently someone read my early (in this blog's beginning) posts about Popotan. I didn't doubt the that the Hentai game existed, I just thought the series may have actually come first.
Well someone emailed me with nine screenshots where only one of them could have even possibly been from either version of the series. The rest are quite plainly from the game.
From my reply:

Uhh, thanks, I guess.
I never doubted the game's existence, just whether the series actually came first.
NO, I'm NOT going to post any of those. Nor will I keep them or pass them on.
I really wasn't even interested in seeing them. AND PLEASE DON'T SEND ME ANY MORE...

For the curious here are some Q & A about them:
Q: Are you sure they're from Popotan? A: Character design and art style match exactly. There's no doubting it.
Q: Are you sure they're from the game? A: With one exception (Ai, nude and without glasses, surrounded by steam. Could have been from one of the many bathing scenes) ABSOLUTELY SURE. They are Hentai pics, not merely eechi.
Q: Is the 'avatar' character in any of the pics? A: Yes, and there is no character in the series that matches him. A few resemble him, (Keith and the older character from the 'prequel' sequence) but no exact match.
Q: So is the object of the game is to do ALL of them? A: YES.
Q: Including? A: YES, and they made her 'bi' as well. Mii seems to be, shall we say, the 'busiest' character in the game.
Q: Did seeing those screenshots change your mind as to what was created first (direct question from the emailer)? A: Yes. It explains Mii's fascination with breasts in the series. It also explains what I can only call ''the cow scene'' in Episode 1. THAT scene DID creep me out, and if you ask me it could have AND SHOULD HAVE been deleted. Now I realize that they were subtle references to the game that spawned the series.
Q: So, could you show us what you are talking about? A: NO WAY. I forwarded it to Yahoo as ''abusive'' before I replied to it without the attachments . Then I flushed Win XP with CrapCleaner. They're gone, I DON'T WANT TO SEE THEM AGAIN!
Q: Where did it come from? A: ''eric20779'' (possibly MD)...

I understand...

I used the time codes in this NOT SAFE FOR WORK page as a suggestion only! I played through each scene from 1-2 minutes prior to 1-2 minutes after. THAT'S how I made my comparisons. Yikes!
That did not work after 1:04:13 on disc 3. The scene at 1:23:19 does not appear at all! No possible match whatsoever. Not even a foul tip, a complete swing and a miss.
''Bob says he's going to be talking to someone at Geneon soon (for other reasons), and will ask about this when he does, so I guess we'll get the official word on it all in a week or so.''.
We're not talking about JetBlue here folks, Geneon is not going to confess that they released something that may or may not be legal in America and could run into legal problems in most of the world. As in Oregon, it's legal. Take it to Vancouver, Canada maybe not.
I can see a Canadian saying: ''But Your Honor, I bought it online from an American distributor!'' and the Canadian Judge saying ''That does not matter, it violates Canadian Law: Guilty''. Guess who else would be facing charges under Canadian Laws!
The idea of facing prison time would be enough incentive for me 'to fix it' alone. As Steven said in his review: ''Complaints: I guess the best way to put it is this: if this series had been filmed with live actors, owning it would be a felony.''. In Canada (and many other countries) it IS a felony. The fact that it's a cartoon changes nothing.
In America I can only say that legally it's in a grey area. It could be legal or not depending on how American Law is interpreted in a particular case.
If I ran Geneon I would err on the side of caution. And I sure would not admit to this mistake. Sweep it under the rug and walk away hoping I don't get caught later.
I will talk about my Employer in this regard (This is way too close to Rule #1 for comfort, but I can document what I'm saying. And I have plenty of witnessess). A reporter asked The Company Spokesman if there would be layoffs at The Company. The Company Spokesman confirmed it to the reporter. The reporter did his job and published the story. It got transmitted to newspapers everywhere. A local paper to me picked up the story and because it involved a local employer, went to print with it.
The Vice President of The Company had to fly to the closest major airport and drive to My Employer's facilities, gather a mandatory meeting of all Employees to say ''What you saw in the paper this morning is not true''. But it was true. The Company Spokesman issued the press release, and it was filed as a report. What was reported was accurate. That's all I am going to say of this subject.
Note: NO, I will not name my Employer, A.K.A. ''The Company''. It is my current Employer, therefore it cannot be named. That's ''Rule #1; Don't bite the hand that feeds you''. I made the details of that story vauge for a reason. I can document what I say, but will not at this time.
UPDATE: This is the first time I've had to remove an already published UPDATE:
But it was nessessary due to the controversial issues at hand. I now understand how those Danish cartoonists feel. It is speech, but it's not nessessarily free. Not even in America...

The next day...

Let me put it this way; I'm not interested in watching Popotan again anytime soon!!!
While it was enjoyable sleuthing out the question ''ARE there two versions''? (see below, the answer is YES). It was also work, it was draining on me to go through 3 DVDs comparing screenshot to screenshot.
That said, I find myself in the classic ''Which came first the chicken or the egg?'' dilemma. My opinion is the series came first with the hentai game being a sequel to it. I don't discount the possiblity that it's the other way around. Which would make the series a prequel to the game.
Anime HAS been spun off of games before (perfect example: Pokemon). And the series hints at that possiblity in doing an execellent job of suggesting a possible prequel for itself. With Mea having the same role and casting a 20-something man in Ai's role (the origin of Keith perhaps?) and a boy of about 10 in the role(s) of Mai/Mii. With a tragic ending of the house burning down and perhaps one or both dying in the fire or being abandoned to a (pre-WWII) point in time.
BTW, I'm not convinced that each ''jump'' is 5 years. That was only explictly stated when Mea and Mai missed returning to the house to ''jump'' and the house teleports to the same spot 5 years into the future. I tend to think that location and time shift are a pair of varibles that are random until fixed as constants. As in Daichi finding the house as a boy and later as an adult. Purely a roll of the dice. It was clearly unintentional that the aliens would have allowed that to happen. Because Keith tried to kill the adult Daichi to preserve the secret of ''The Quest''. If there were any planning involved, Daichi would have only come across the house at only ONE location and point in time.
That's what I base my reasoning of the future Popotan on. The aliens did not know what they were teleporting into until they did it. Unlike Star Trek where exact coordinates are set before teleportation is initiated. And location is scanned to determine where a safe place is to teleport to.
In other words, the aliens have no ''crystal ball'' sight into the future. They pick a time and place at the spur of the moment, lock it in, and go. Not having any idea what they are going to find when they get there. With location being a random spot in Japan and time point also being of random length. Think ''Near Osaka, 3 years into the future'' as locations in time and space, lock those into the teleporter, and click on ''yes'' when the computer displays ''Are you sure? (Y/N)''...