Well, half of his classmates could do without certain aspects of him.
Actually all of them could do without those parts.
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Why women criticise sexualised character designs (READ OP)
- Thread starter Persephone
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Well, half of his classmates could do without certain aspects of him.
Actually all of them could do without those parts.
This is the problem that I genuinely think XB2 runs into with Tora. I don't think that his dynamic with Poppi is meant to be taken exclusively as a joke given the game's immensely heavy focus on the exploration of unequal and unhealthy relationship dynamics, but the fact that it tries to roast him for the stuff that he does but plays it almost entirely for comedy winds up making the entire thing run completely counter to the game's message alongside the fact that the devs themselves are guilty of the same shit that he is.
It gets extremely muddled and messy.
Xenoblade 2 is, perhaps, the most striking example of visual design detracting from the ultimate message of a work of fiction I've ever actually seen. I'm pretty sure I could write a paper longer than my graduate thesis on it. I might actually do that eventually, long down the line.
So you have no evidence besides anecdotal outtakes for your claims, and no experience running experiments or writing academic literature?
Why do you continue to post as if you are any kind of an authority on this matter?
I get what you mean, but my point was the show just laughs it off like it's nothing.
But yeah other people already covered this. :P
I think Xenoblade 2 's themes would have been amazingly done if the hypersexualization of its female characters was properly intertwined with the narrative and if Tora was never implemented to make light of sexual objectification. I have not finished the game yet, but I think if given the extra time to erase the objectifying angles and clichéd set pieces where Pyra's breasts or thighs were the focal points in the frame, then it would have served and hammered in the narrative much better. The contrast is odd, I agree. And, it was a severely missed opportunity to introduce a proper dialogue on the sexualization of the female body.
Yeah, this is incredibly common.
Even in games with otherwise pretty decent representation, like Kiseki games, it's there. In Trails in the Sky, a bisexual character (who is otherwise very popular and a real cool character and legitimately funny) kinda creeps on... well, a lot of characters, including 16-year old ones. And he's called out on it, but it's still presented as funny rather than legitimately problematic.
A far worst example is in a later series, Trails of Cold Steel. You got this old dude (he's the grandfather of a female party member) who constantly makes really creepy comments about pretty girls (who are once again underage). Is that character portrayed as bad or problematic? No, he's a kindly old man and a brilliant engineer and very respected. The only one upset by his creeping on teens is his granddaughter, who goes "GRANDPA! STOP!" and we're meant to be sympathetic with her, except... like you said, there are no consequences, no one else really call him out, and his creepiness is mostly playable for laughs.
Another example from Cold Steel is from a gay woman who constantly creeps on the other girls (again, including underage ones). Other characters do act a bit miffed at that, but it's still played humorously. And like the bisexual man in the first example, the gay woman is another really likeable, "cool" character.
So you got two problems: presenting LGBT characters as being promiscuous or predatory... which I don't think they even intended to do, because other than those, er, "quirks", those characters are legitimately cool, likeable, and popular. So I think it's not so much a bad portrayal of LGBT characters, as much as a "sexual harassment is wrong but still kinda funny harmless stuff, lol". And when you consider that the targets of that harassment are frequently underage teenagers, well... yeesh.
Yep, I'm actually thinking about making a thread later down the line to talk about how the costumes in the game actively hurt the game's story. Though only reason why I haven't done it yet is because I would be going deep into the game's spoilers and want to wait at least three weeks before delving into such spoilerific territory. It's just that fascinating the dissonance in certain directions the game made that I keep coming back to this game repeatedly because of it.
The heart to heart about bikini armor sounds pretty bad... I mean it sounds great and funny, but in this game in particular is bizarre. Having your cake and eating it indeed lol, it specifically reminds me of Danganronpa AE UDG which I also find puzzlingly bad in its attempts to parody and/or criticize pervy stuff in games, but that ones far more offensive.
Anyway, I was wondering, is Tora's age ever implied? I always assumed he was a teenager probably the same age as Rex, but I've seen a couple or people call him "pedophile" so I wonder if they read him wrong or it's shown later in the game. I already see him as an annoying perv of course but him being older would definitely make it worse. Honestly I've had fun with XC2 so far, made it to chapter 5 yesterday, but it's mostly been in spite of its story and cast because so far it's been a relatively run of the mill shonen anime with a couple of good moments (in chapter 3) and the only character I like so far is Nia, though Morag looks promising.
I'm reading comments about how the game does indeed have a deeper message though so now I'm a bit more interested in progressing in the story.
Anyway, I was wondering, is Tora's age ever implied? I always assumed he was a teenager probably the same age as Rex, but I've seen a couple or people call him "pedophile" so I wonder if they read him wrong or it's shown later in the game. I already see him as an annoying perv of course but him being older would definitely make it worse. Honestly I've had fun with XC2 so far, made it to chapter 5 yesterday, but it's mostly been in spite of its story and cast because so far it's been a relatively run of the mill shonen anime with a couple of good moments (in chapter 3) and the only character I like so far is Nia, though Morag looks promising.
I'm reading comments about how the game does indeed have a deeper message though so now I'm a bit more interested in progressing in the story.
Though Japanese games do intentionally present LGBT as predatory.
Persona 5's depiction of men who like men is... dehumanising, to say the least.
And yeah, it's so hard to find a bi character in any media that isn't defined by how they want to fuck everything.
Tora's an adolescent, and generally implied to be the youngest person in the party. He acts like it and is treated like it. I'd put him somewhere around 13 based on his behavior, but it can be difficult to ballpark this stuff.
Ages are not directly stated, but given that the tragic events in Tora's life happened only a year ago, it's kind of implied that Tora is a teenager. Similarly, it's implied that Rex is a teenager reaching adulthood, which is why relationships are so important in this game. If I were to guess, and not knowing if ages work the same way for nopons, I'd peg Tora as 14 and Rex as 16, maybe subtract 2 years for each character later on but around that age.
Reminds me of Niles from Fire Emblem: Fates. Horny bisexual who literally hits on everyone, including underage girls.
At this point I simply think that Japanese devs (and quite possibly Japanese society at large) just don't know any better. I know the "different values" argument has been made ad nauseam, but in this case I think it's just that: they mean well, but have been brought up in environments where these kinds of things don't even ping their radars. As they are exposed, in a progressively more interconnected world, to other values, especially feminism, they identify with them and want to represent them in a positive way, but their own defaults and customs subconsciously trip them up when they're not paying attention. Persona 5 does this a lot too.
The upside is that as they are exposed more and more to these values (also, as the young people now growing up in an interconnected world grow up and become creators themselves) this problem is (hopefully) bound to resolve itself.
Yeah, gay/bisexual = predatory is another Japanese trope that's absolutely and completely everywhere; it's so normalized that other characters assume and excuse it as a matter of fact.
The upside is that as they are exposed more and more to these values (also, as the young people now growing up in an interconnected world grow up and become creators themselves) this problem is (hopefully) bound to resolve itself.
Yeah, gay/bisexual = predatory is another Japanese trope that's absolutely and completely everywhere; it's so normalized that other characters assume and excuse it as a matter of fact.
That's a good point. I think it's also interesting and intentional that the dancers are just npc's that help give context to the town setting. They're about the most exciting thing in some of these towns.
The espers and other naked enemies, I think I was always blind to, or maybe that's just my nostalgia goggles. I like to think I view them like renaissance or classical era paintings, naked, but stoic and befitting of their setting. With the goggles off, you are probably totally right about Square. Great games though... I should play them again... where did I put those goggles
Thing is that there are absolutely Japanese Devs and Japanese authors who do know how to treat and write non-binary characters, but seeing something as big as persona 5 handle that subject like they did is disconcerting. Especially with the message that gave us trying to tell.
I mean, Persona could probably help itself by letting Satomi Tadashi write the games again. He didn't hit everything perfectly, but he certainly did a better job almost twenty years ago now than they manage now with a lot of the same damned subject matter. Hell, nearly Persona 5's entire central cast was stocked with off-brand knockoffs of Persona 2's who handled their character arcs uniformly worse.
I dropped it way beyond where the anime ended. Bakugo's prevalence and his seemingly inability to grow or be portrayed by the paneling as anything other than this badass that doesn't play by anyone's rules but his own rubbed me the wrong way for way too long. It all culminated and a certain exchange between him and Deku I think around chapter 120 that made me wholesale drop the whole series. If he ever gets better later on I'll pick it back up, but until then he's a distraction that I can do without. My manga backlog is already 200+ series high, so one less weekly one to keep up with is nothing.
I dropped the entire series during the Fourth Shinobi World War saga.
Oh no, I'm talking about Bakugou specifically. I remember when everyone thought he was another Sasuke, but no, thankfully that didn't happen.
Sasuke was an arrogant popular kid in the beginning. Dude was a jerk, but mostly kept to himself. Bakugou is actively malicious and in a far more familiar setting than a ninja school, what with it taking place in modern Japan and everything where bullying is a MAJOR problem. People just straight up ignore it because Deku is quirkless, which is another potentially fascinating plotline about the quirkless being a persecuted minority but it gets dropped in favor of the protagonist getting the power with the best potential ever right away.
Bakugou is more like Vegeta, but in a setting that seems to be making more profound statements than what Dragonball ultimately did. You can't have it both ways if you want the character to stand on its own when the shounen fun gets stripped away unless the shounen fun is all the product is about.
Well, I mean in the sense that it's not viewed as a positive and a few times he even gets what's coming to him. Mostly just ignored rather than indulged.
On a side note he initially didn't come off as bad as he wound up being. Not sure where the manga is but at the end of the amine he turned up the creep factor.
amen to that, exactly what i thought when playing P5
Well, can we agree that Midnight is a creepy teacher who flirts with her students?
Alright cool, yeah I guessed he was a teenager but got confused after reading some comments. Thanks guys.
This was so blatant, especially with Ann, that I thought they were gonna take cues to better their writing but clearly that didn't happen, ugh. Honestly I see Hashino and other key people leaving to make that fantasy project as a blessing in disguise. Persona 6 would be awesome with Tadashi back, but if that's not a possibility then literally anyone else besides Hashino and co could end up doing a better job in the writing department, so I'm (kinda) hopeful.
Where have I presented myself as any sort of authority? Where I have experience, I have been explicit and detailed about what that experience is. Heck, in the post you quote, I literally say that I'm not in academia, but a critic of it and then the rest of that paragraph is me explaining precisely what I mean by that using several examples. The only authority I have claimed is that as a creator myself, I feel comfortable sharing a point of view from a creator towards the nature of how criticism can affect creation.
There's been multiple attempts to discredit me in this thread without addressing my comments directly. There's even some really weird ones like people complaining about the number and length of the words I write, I guess suspecting that I'm trying to confuse and bewilder them with my fancy collegeboy talk. I realize that I'm loquacious, but come on. Appeals to stupidity is a new one for me, but I guess it does make sense that in a thread where that kind of attitude is preferred, one would see my posts as presenting authoritative. Consider me the one eyed king.
(btw, "loquacious" means talks a lot)
Also related to the Dunning-Kruger effect is that people of high ability tend to underestimate the skill required for tasks at which they are proficient in - and apparently, I'm greatly underestimating the skill required for reading comprehension. When I see people complaining about the length of a four paragraph post, I can't help but wonder if maybe they haven't really read the material they are quoting in support of their position. And if they haven't read it, much less understood it, maybe the conclusions they are drawing from it are in fact fallacious, if not outright erroneous. I can't help but think that this discussion, when it veers from moral grandstanding to actual debate, is based on little more than skimming a few summaries on Rational Wiki. There's your god damned Dunning-Kruger effect.
If it weren't for the other stuff you've disclosed about yourself, I'd swear you were a Dyack alt account.
You actively belittle fields of scientific endeavor because you personally find it without merit, with no supporting evidence aside from a couple of anecdotes.
I'm done with you now.
I know, it's mostly for other observers in the thread, one can hope for some small inkling of enlightenment.
But men are not objectified. They are idealized. I suggest you watch this video by Jim Sterling to better understand it.
Yep, it's...pretty bad.
But the end of the chapter you finally get the main character Morag so that's actually a fair prize. What do you mean the main character's Rex? No, it's clearly Morag. :P
Yes, that is exactly what is going on here.
I wonder if you'll revisit this thread in a few years' time, when you've matured a bit, perhaps developed any semblance of self-awareness and reflection, and promptly die of embarrassment. Until then, I'm also done with you.
Um there's 148 pages. This is more than just a thread!. Or something.......
Shower thought: isn't it funny that the otaku who defend that objectification in anime and games because "there's nothing wrong with female sexuality!!!!!1" are part of the same community that will destroy an idol's career if she's caught with a boyfriend?
"the otaku" that you describe. Do you know any of them personally?
Well.
I like the design they made for Lissa, she looks cute, her design is perfectly fine.
Tharja... I'm not surprised or shocked at all. It fits the character, I suppose. They know their audience.
But what's wrong with her face tho, she looks younger, it bothers me lol.
I like the design they made for Lissa, she looks cute, her design is perfectly fine.
Tharja... I'm not surprised or shocked at all. It fits the character, I suppose. They know their audience.
But what's wrong with her face tho, she looks younger, it bothers me lol.
I did finding it amusing that Tharja is apparently a heavy armour unit. Those panties must have a plate insert! For anyone who doesn't play FEH the icons to the right of their name indicate weapon type and unit type, with armour being the slowest.So what do people think of this?
The weapon being a candela'bra' considering her outfit is either an unfortunate pun or playing to the audience.
Robin's Christmas Tree lance made me laugh, although his costume looks just his regular one recoloured as a red and white cloak rather than a black one. Chrom and Lissa look pretty cool.
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Nothing says Christmas like a bikini.
Well, I guess it does if you live in the southern hemisphere...
Well, I guess it does if you live in the southern hemisphere...
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