Senran Kagura, a video game series and franchise with both manga and anime adaptations, sees no sign of slowing down. With a story revolving around a group of busty female ninjas, the games are famous for being heavy on fan service. The formula seems to be working, since the games in the series had already surpassed over 1.65 million copies in worldwide sales as of August 2017.

Therefore, it comes as no surprise that their most recent installment, Senran Kagura Peach Ball for the Nintendo Switch, expected to go on sale in December 2018, is currently anticipated very highly by fans.

In what seems to be a genre-hopping trend for the series, with previous games exploring cooking and Splatoon-ing, this game dives into the pinball game genre with the additional twist that the girls have been turned into half-girl / half-beast anthro versions of themselves. As for how the girls are objectified--ahem--featured during game play, you can see how it all works here in this video from a special release event held by game maker Marvelous and Honey Parade Games yesterday:

However, what did take fans by surprise was what happened half way through the event. The live YouTube broadcast was suddenly interrupted and in its place, a message appeared from YouTube:

Translation: "This video has been removed as a violation of YouTube's policy on nudity or sexual content"

As it turns out, it wasn't the footage of the game play which, as apparent from the video above, has not run afoul of YouTube's censors, but rather something that took place during the release event which pushed the borders too far. They asked one of the guests, gravure idol and TV personality Airi Shimizu, to step behind a giant version of a vintage pinball machine decorated with a cardboard panel of the character Yumi in order to "demonstrate" some of the game's features. That's when YouTube apparently pulled the plug. Thus, Marvelous now has the dubious distinction of being the first Japanese game maker to have a live broadcast of an official release event deleted by YouTube midstream.

Although the fans avidly watching the broadcast from the comfort of their homes or net cafes all over Japan were undoubtedly angered by the sudden turn of events, comments on Japanese social media after the event seem to indicate that the dubious distinction may turn out to be a badge of honor.

---"As far as this game is concerned, it's actually effective as publicity..."

---"It's rather a sweet turn of events! It boosted their publicity, don't you think? It probably had a positive impact on fans of erotic content but it might alienate the others... Well, I guess narrowing your focus on your target is important. Which way will you go, Marvelous?!"

---"A new legend is born."

Whichever way Marvelous goes, it seems that they can at least rest easy knowing that public interest in Senran Kagura Peach Ball will continue to balloon throughout the summer. If you have a Nico Nico Douga account and can't contain your curiosity about what happened, you can, for the time being, view the broadcast of the event here at Nico Nico Douga.