It’s not, but tapping a stylus on your face is.

It’s no question that the rumors surrounding the removal of skinship had the fanbase in an uproar; both those for and against the change. Look no further than the 70+ comments on our previous article regarding the matter, if you’d like to get an idea of how much people cared to debate the subject. Kotaku was the first to raise questions about the feature via a quote without very much context, which then led to even more ambiguous “confirmations” that the “petting” feature was removed. At this point, everyone knew something was changed, but didn’t know how or if there was a replacement of sorts. Thanks to Polygon, we finally have video confirmation and the full context of the localization changes regarding Skinship.

The video can be seen below:

So, there you have it. The only bit about Skinship that was removed was the tactile effect of tapping the screen. The Live2D character model animations that occur after tapping the screen in the Japanese version of the game are still present, blushing and all. More importantly, the support bonuses you receive from the feature are still there as well. If you’re interested in seeing more early English gameplay, you can check out Polygon’s video archive of over 2 hours of footage from the very start of the game.