I appreciate that artists are starting to not give a fuck about the no lewding rule.
I do not, however, appreciate the consequences that we might have some girls get 'cancelled' because the horseowners can (and will) rescind their consent of having their horses in the series.
While these won't (ever) stop lewders from lewding, these kind of art might affect the release of future umamusumes and the future of the series as a whole. This is the very rare occasion where you have a personified versions of still-living characters, after all.
I do not, however, appreciate the consequences that we might have some girls get 'cancelled' because the horseowners can (and will) rescind their consent of having their horses in the series.
While these won't (ever) stop lewders from lewding, these kind of art might affect the release of future umamusumes and the future of the series as a whole. This is the very rare occasion where you have a personified versions of still-living characters, after all.
All, I hope is the r34 artists take it slow. if they oversaturate the entire game might get cancelled.
I do not, however, appreciate the consequences that we might have some girls get 'cancelled' because the horseowners can (and will) rescind their consent of having their horses in the series.
While these won't (ever) stop lewders from lewding, these kind of art might affect the release of future umamusumes and the future of the series as a whole. This is the very rare occasion where you have a personified versions of still-living characters, after all.
And yet neither gun manufacturers (regarding GFL gunmusus) nor curators/admins of museum ships (regarding AL/KC shipgirls) aren't batting an eyelash when their personified properties receive the r34 treatment. We keep churning out more of these lewds yet we haven't heard H&K or the IWM HMS Belfast museum complain out loud (and note: IWM is considered the owner of Belfast).
As far as we can tell, the artists are indeed taking it slow with the umamusume lewds as a show of courtesy.
And yet neither gun manufacturers (regarding GFL gunmusus) nor curators/admins of museum ships (regarding AL/KC shipgirls) aren't batting an eyelash when their personified properties receive the r34 treatment. We keep churning out more of these lewds yet we haven't heard H&K or the IWM HMS Belfast museum complain out loud.
As far as we can tell, the artists are indeed taking it slow with the umamusume lewds as a show of courtesy.
Gun manufacturers and militaries don't complain (usually).
Unless the horse owners realized that it is pointless and decided to let it be.
Well, the point isn't that the horse owners can stop R18 fanart, because they can't. Rather, the concern is that they will rescind their permission for Cygames to use their horses' names and likeness. Already a few planned Umamusume when the game was first announced had been unable to be put into the actual game because their horse owners didn't like the character design (like say, King Kamehameha being way too fanservicey).
We already had Seiun Sky's owner throw a Twitter tantrum over lewd fanart of the character Seiun Sky, we don't want any more horse owners doing the same.
And remember, despite their waning influence nowadays, horse race bets are still influenced the Yakuza, and you know what they do, what they COULD do (i kid you not - there is story about local gang representative in my country who tried to extort money from Japanese-based company, only to nod and walk after meeting with their company's 'Head of Security') . If they don't like it, they'd probably add the headache to the Cygames.
And remember, despite their waning influence nowadays, horse race bets are still influenced the Yakuza, and you know what they do, what they COULD do (i kid you not - there is story about local gang representative in my country who tried to extort money from Japanese-based company, only to nod and walk after meeting with their company's 'Head of Security') . If they don't like it, they'd probably add the headache to the Cygames.
I doubt that.
Horse racing is operated by the government in Japan. The big city races are managed by the Ministry of Agriculture (and Forestry and Fisheries), through the Japan Racing Association. The local regional ones are managed directly by local regional governments. These present a hefty source of revenue for the government.
You DO NOT want to get between the government and their money. Not even if you're Yakuza. Influencing horse racing betting results would be exactly that. It would be like if Capone decided to rig Powerball numbers.
What Yakuza are involved in are stuff like (illegal) underground betting on sporting events (that aren't supposed to be gambled on, legally) like sumo wrestling and basketball. Those they can rig, and they were multiple confirmed cases of such happening being reported in media. The Yakuza also run stuff like illegal underground casinos and 'grey area' gambling stuff like pachinko and mahjong parlors (you see this in fictional depictions like Kaiji and Akagi too).
Now, there are quite a few horse owners who purportedly have shady ties to the Yakuza (like the real-life versions of the Kaiji/Akagi/Zero villains), and some Yakuza leaders are also horse owners themselves, so people do joke about horse owners sending Yakuza blacksuits to beat up or "disappear" people who draw lewds... but those are just exaggerated jokes.
The Yakuza's bottom line isn't going to be affected by Umamusume lewds. They don't care, mostly. If they care, it's their kumicho or something throwing a fit about his own horse being lewded, though it's highly unlikely he will send goons to break people's legs. He will just do what every other unhappy horse owner does—ask Cygames to tone costume designs down/forward requests to fans not to draw lewds, maybe withdraw permission if he's still unsatisfied, and maybe pitch a fit on Twitter if trolls decide to provoke him.
...Not that it doesn't make for a funny meme though.
And remember, despite their waning influence nowadays, horse race bets are still influenced the Yakuza, and you know what they do, what they COULD do (i kid you not - there is story about local gang representative in my country who tried to extort money from Japanese-based company, only to nod and walk after meeting with their company's 'Head of Security') . If they don't like it, they'd probably add the headache to the Cygames.
Man, this trope still exists. Not even Western horse races are controlled by the mafia anymore.
We already had Seiun Sky's owner throw a Twitter tantrum over lewd fanart of the character Seiun Sky, we don't want any more horse owners doing the same.
So... I checked around the Japanese interwebs to figure out what went on. It was a bit hard, because a lot of the stuff was already deleted (some banned), so I had to rely on things like 3rd-party sources and screenshots (and a clarification from the owner himself), but the overall sequence of events seems to be...
Wall of Text, feel free to ignore and read the TL;DR below
Someone mentioned that the Umamusume Seiun Sky And Nishino Flower are cute and asked for permission to "let us use them".
Owner replied, "Sure, you can freely use the names of my horses. It is a happy thing for Seiun Sky and Nishino Flower to be remembered that way.
Someone else went, "What about lewd stuff in derivative works?" (literally "...this and that and blah blah blah in secondary works", but the owner seems to understand it means "lewd", from his later comments and blog posts.)
Owner went, "Please feel free to use them."
Then Twitter went into frenzy with people commenting and retweeting, "Yay, Nishiyama Owner gave permission to use them in porn games (eroge)!", "Nishiyama Owner has allowed use of Nishino Flower in porn games", "Woooohoooo! Horse lewds ban has been lifted!", "Starting with 2 characters first, huh", "Think they're all allowed now", etc. etc.
Owner went, "Please don't use them nilly-willy. Please get proper permission first."
"But you just said we could!"
Bunch of back-and-forth comments with the owner clarifying his position and people attacking him. And a lot of people just needling that particular bit about "Seiun Sky/Nishino Flower" porn games.
Owner uses an analogy about a real-life event about him treating a group of people to food at a Chinese restaurant in celebration of a win, saying "eat as much as you want", and one of them racking up a bill more than 10 times the others. Basically, "Yes, I said you can do what you want, but you have to be reasonable."
Other people attacking that analogy and saying the Owner is the "weird one", and that he's "unmanly" for going back on his words.
More back-and-forth attacks, with Owner snapping and going, "If you are going to nitpick my words then I am refusing permission for their use in (all) derivative works."
More back-and-forths, pleading, some comments in defense of the owner, owner relents a bit, then someone mentions that Umamusume doesn't allow lewds either, that they may be other potential legal issues with JRA and other horse owners (especially in light of earlier comments of some people taking it as a green light for drawing lewds of all uma girls, not just Seiun Sky and Nishino Flower).
Owner settled on a final position of "Feel free to use them for derivative works that aren't age-restricted. Permission is not granted for R-(Restricted) works. And please follow the Umamusume rules.
Lots of grumbling about the Owner "going back on his words", though things pretty much end here because the Owner is no longer actively participating in the discussion.
Somewhere in the middle of all the above (can't quite place the sequence of events, only have screenshots to go with), there is someone asking "He gave us permission to treat them like toys!! ...So eroguro stuff is okay too, eh?" and the Owner replying, "I'm completely OK with it. Just them being the topic makes me happy."
I suspect he knew it was porn, but probably wasn't quite aware of what "guro" entails...
Also somewhere in the middle it is alleged that the Owner made a statement about "lewds being generally okay because it also helps promotes horse racing and helps the names of his horses live on." Though this is paraphrasing by others so that could have been taken out of context.
Owner later on mused (on his blog) that he should have checked what the word "derivative" means. The Japanese word literally means "secondary work", and he thought that some parts (of the license) that Cygames are involved in are "tertiary", so he didn't realize he was accidentally giving implicit permission for stuff that he wasn't legally privileged to give. Owner also mused he should have just mentioned "Don't use Nishino Flower and Seiun Sky in porn games" early on and saved himself some trouble.
So, gist of things:
Owner was initially okay with lewds. A reasonable amount of lewds, which he thought was implicit and didn't need clarifying.
People started needling him about Seiun Sky and Nishino Flower hentai games (eroge), which is the one part he really dislikes (he didn't really respond so negatively to comments about OTHER lewds, and some of them he even okayed).
Some people also started interpreting it as a green light for Umamusume lewds in general.
Owner 'backtracked', initially just doesn't want "hentai games", and also implying that proper permission should be obtained for other horses (for lewds), but people kept attacking him for "going back on his words". A few people also mentioned some potential legality problems because of Cygames' "official" stance on this matter, so in the end, Owner went with "Fanart is allowed but not lewds."
...and that's why we can't have nice things. Seiun Sky/Nishino Flower's is one of the more open-minded* horse owners, but nope, trolls decided to take a huge steaming dump on his good will.
*Yeah, I originally thought otherwise before looking into this deeper.
The Owner is still supportive of the Umamusume franchise and Umamusume fans; the graves of Seiun Sky and Nishino Flower (couples grave too!) are on private ground and closed off to the public but he has a standing offer to let fans see them; all they need to do is to call his office in Hokkaido and book a day.
So what you're telling me is some Umamusume NTR starring the owners would unleash some real fucking chaos?
My initial gut response is to say yes but since NTR is a mainstream fetish in Japan I'm downgrading it to "maybe".
(Though they do take "defamation" pretty seriously there, so explicit art depicting named real-life people will really set off a firestorm, umamusume involved or no. But cheeky 'blink-or-miss-it' references, likely no.)