According to multiple sources, Nintendo of Europe will not be releasing Dead or Alive Dimensions in Sweden and potentially Norway and Denmark. The reason? The newest release from the property is believed to run afoul of child pornography laws in these countries.

Eurogamer has run a small story about the decision made by video game distributor Bergsala to capitulate before the fact and pulled the game from the shelves. “Nintendo of Europe have decided not to release the game in Sweden, for various reasons. However, they do not want to list any details regarding their decision,” said Nintendo and Bergsala in a joint statement to Eurogamer Sweden.

“We are sorry for how this impacts the Swedish fans of Dead or Alive. Thankfully, it’s extremely unusual that these things happen.”

The case stems from a forum poster who noticed that three Dead or Alive: Dimensions characters – Kasumi, Koroke and Ayane – violated Swedish law by being under 18 and in a pornographic situation. The pornographic situation in this case being the Figure Mode, where the posing girls can be photographed from every angle.

The author of the report had no intention of outlawing the game. The aim instead was to highlight why the child pornography law should be changed. The author took his report evidence to the police who dismissed it as “lacking” in evidence. Underage girls in thongs, the police concluded, do not equate to porn.

For the sake of a reality check, the girls in question are virtual characters and not actual underage girls. They are however depictions of what could be imagined to be underage girls and while the in-game Figure Mode does involve viewing them in swimsuits and thongs, it’s not all that different from child beauty contests and photo shoots. The characters in question are never nude, there’s are no erotic poses, there is no suggestion of sex…

However, the Swedish law according to an article on GamePolitics, “says that if someone is picturing a girl under the age of eighteen, fictional or not, in a pornographic situation, that accounts for being child pornography.” The pull from the shelves by the distributor comes amid fears of reigniting a nation-wide firestorm that occurred earlier when a manga translator (Japanese comics) was charged with possession of child pornography.

Many people have noted that while certainly Kasumi’s bio says she’s 17, she was introduced in 1996, which—were she a real person—she’d be in her 30s by now. Fictional and video game characters have the unlikely capability of being immortally young as they don’t age and are produced not by using an actual human models, but through artistic impressions and pixels.

All this from the franchise Dead or Alive who are best known for taking their one-on-one fighter game property and released Dead or Alive Xtreme Beach Volleyball. While 2003 video game released in the franchise was labeled a “sports” game, it was more or less an excuse to release a video game with the female characters from the video game series wearing extremely revealing bikinis, playing a game that involves a great deal of bouncing.

Jokes aside about how modern games continue to drive graphics card capabilities through a Red Queen’s race between GPU processing capability and breast motion physics, Dead or Alive is well known for playing the Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition angle to pad their profit margin. They probably didn’t expect this the direction their franchise to end up in and it certainly doesn’t underlie their intent.