the screen or otherwise, and he might not even be voiced. Sometimes the only male appearance in sex scenes is reduced to a penis entering from the side of the screen, with no other visible parts. Distribution The genre is extremely popular in Japan. It was estimated as late as 2005 that bishōjo game sales totaled a quarter of all software produced in Japan. It is estimated that an average 50 new titles are released each month or about 500 annually. Bishōjo games for personal computers are usually sold in special stores or sections reserved for clients more than 18 years old. Nevertheless, console bishōjo games, which are generally less explicit, are sold next to other video games. At the present time, dozens of bishōjo games are released every month, and practically all the video game stores in Japan maintain a sizable stock of these. The games are initially relatively expensive compared to the Western market of videogames, fluctuating between 8,000 and 10,000 yen (approximately $75–95) each, although soon they can be bought more cheaply second-hand. Influence in the West While bishōjo games are produced in Japan for console market, that is largely not the case in the West, where enthusiasm for the subgenre is lukewarm. What success these games have had has historically been dependent on the related industries of anime and manga. The common visual novel format that make up the majority of translations has been criticized as boring and not actually games. In addition, the genre has been associated exclusively with poorly written eroge. The popular discussion of bishōjo games is widely plagued by disagreement and disapproval of pornography. The debate tends to be remarkably divided: on one hand, critics condemn the genre as totally pornographic, while on the other hand, enthusiasts deny this generalization. This question does not cause as much controversy in Japan. The attempts to massively trade bishōjo games in the West have caused a certain degree of public controversy. An example of this is the attempt to release the PC game Princess Maker 2 in the United States. Though it was never officially released, a few newspapers critically accused the game of sexism. Adding to the uproar was a pre-release screen-capture containing nudity. However, the game is not pornographic; there was some nudity which was already censored by American localizer SoftEgg, and the only way to see any real nudity is through an