se.kirara Withdrawn Due To Concerns Of Plagiarism

Earlier this year, we highlighted se.kirara, a visual novel by Japanese firm Max Factory, owners of the popular Figma brand of figurines. The reason the game caught our interest was because Max Factory had planned to distribute it for free, with a limited edition DVD + Figma bundle being priced at 2,800 yen.

True to their word, Max Factory did indeed begin distributing the game for free over NicoNico Douga, but later withdrew it due to concerns over unauthorized use of copyrighted material. The publisher discovered that some of the backgrounds in the game were from real life photographs published on the Internet, as depicted in a comparison shot below.

Expect se.kirara to go back up once these complications have been dealt with, at which point the official site will be updated with details. Although, by now, the original un-edited version of the game has probably achieved collector’s item status.