Indeed. It's a hell of a lot of fun from start to finish.
Yeah, that's definitely fair. There's a lot of stuff I went back to that I didn't really get when I was younger - it requires a certain perspective and age I think.
-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
-
We have made minor adjustments to how the search bar works on ResetEra. You can read about the changes here.
Why women criticise sexualised character designs (READ OP)
- Thread starter Persephone
- Start date
- Status
It's a great anime but it is very much an 80's anime. And it can take a while for stuff to happen. Still, it's a great period piece and very wonderful to watch. And that's something that bugs me, there's very few Shoujo anime these days because of the extreme hyperfocus on the Otaku crowd (don't even mention Josei) and it removes a lot of the type of shows I watched. Not to mention anime's disturbing trend of turning things meant for girls/women (moe, magical girls, ganguro is we want to talk women's trends) and exploiting them for the male audience.
This is so frustratingly true I wish we could punch all the brains in anime with the message.
I also want more slice-of-life. I miss my slice of life (well, slice of life that doesn't happen in a high school). *sigh*
Additionally, where the hell did anime like xxxHolic go?
My sister and I watched Michiko and Hatchin awhile back. We got about half way through but we, her especially, just wasn't feeling it so we never finished it. Beautiful series though.
Or, when it does happen, it's hampered by the weights of the Otaku crowd. I really wanted to like Koboyashi Dragon Maid for instance, which, despite all the humanoid dragons, was about a slice of life story about an office worker. So of course, in this story we need a big breasted women sexually harassing a child because of course we do.
I've watched the first three episodes of The Rose of Versailles on Crunchyroll which has a female lead. It is interesting so far, and the animation is surprisingly good for 1979. It might be something to look into if you want an anime without moeblobs and panty shots, but again, I haven't watched the entire thing. I like how Lady Oscar wears mens' clothes and most of the characters who know she's a woman are fine with her acting like a man (based on the standards of 18th century France anyway).
I feel like older shows allowed women to shine more than today in certain respects. 1983's Golion killed off a dude just to give the main girl his giant robot, and she rocked it.
I feel like older shows allowed women to shine more than today in certain respects. 1983's Golion killed off a dude just to give the main girl his giant robot, and she rocked it.
It happens multiple times, and is performed by multiple characters. Because of course it does. I enjoy Kobayashi for how cute it can be at times but boy does it have some garbage tier stuff in it (the designs of the dragons vary from inoffensive to terrible, but none of them are all that great). Certainly can't recommend it (or even show it) to people who aren't already addicted to anime.
Maid Dragon is by a shotacon hentai artist. I don't know why people keep thinking it's safe to recommend to mainstream audiences.
This image is perfect. Yoinked!...You take that back!
Yeah boob socks are up there in the annoying obnoxious elements of sexualization along with bikini armour, zettai ryoki and high heels. Except unlike the last two, which are at least sometimes real clothing, boob socks are 100% stupid 100% of the time.
Classic:
I figured that out later when I thought "Is the manga this bad" a few minutes later "HOLY CRAP THIS IS WORSE!?!"
Keep in mind that one of the prominent characters is Marie Antoinette so don't expect a happy ending...like all Shoujo during that period come to think about it...
Just makes Xaszatm 's point all the more relevant.
It's pretty ridiculous, yeah.
I hear she gets ahead! (I'm terrible.)
Last edited:
250 year old spoilers y u do dis, some of us aren't caught up! :[
Sorry, I'll delete it if you want me to. But Marie Antoinette appears fairly early in the anime I thought.
It was a joke, she's episode 2 I think. It's like watching a show taking place during the American civil war and hoping that the south wins when you know it doesn't. I kinda expect a certain ending with this as well :P
Rose of Versailles doesn't really get going until Dezaki takes over as director. His first episode is incredible, though. You will know when you watch it.
I watched it while it aired on Toonami. Thought it was thoroughly underwhelming, even with the decent art direction. It just never clicked, having had poor pacing and execution, and no real payoff. It flopping was less the result of being an underappreciated gem so much as it not being particularly good or even interesting (being one of the last shows the studio behind it made before going under comes as no real surprise).
I'd highly recommend Sakura Quest if you haven't already seen that. Great cast of young, adult women out of high school helping to revive a dying country town. Nothing questionable (no "there's one character/scene that's questionable but..." NOTHING) Has to be one of my favorite complete series I've seen this year.
Already watched, but thanks. :)
It was alright. The OP and ED in particular were nice.
I can't even name more than five that's not set in a high school, lol. At least this decade.
Shirobako, Usagi Drop, Sakura Quest, Working!!, New Game! (these are just off the top of my head though)
Though I realize it's a rather scathing assessment, I also admit to feeling more strongly about it because I went in expecting to like it.
Uhhh, so are we still talking about video games or do we know actually talking about animes....?
The specific medium we're discussing at hand varies a lot if you hadn't noticed. Right now some people are indeed discussing anime!
OP
OP
If we want to talk more about video games can I drop in to bitch about how the Asari in Mass Effect is some of the most misogynistic nonsense ever, and is especially galling from the otherwise relatively progressive BioWare?
Sure. it just also consistently has the effect of making characters appear younger. Often intentionally.
Could you outline the problem to remind those of us who aren't too familiar with ME (and/or have terrible memories like me :D). They are the blue alien women, right?
Exclusively-female alien race that can breed with every other species of either gender. They all look like sexy Twi'leks (even the ones who are thousands of years old) and are known (in universe) for being sexually promiscuous.
Last edited:
Ah, yes, I see. Thanks for that. Presumably catering to the player's Captain Kirk fantasies of 'hot alien space girls are always up for a bit of inter-species action'? It does seem a bit weird coming from Bioware, I suppose they know they've got a huge crossover of rpg/Star Trek/Star Wars fans, and leaned into the fanservice without stopping to think about whether it undermined anything else about the series.
the Asari are gross, purely created for pandering to a particular male fantasy. Despite being progressive with certain things like LGBT representation, Bioware can still be problematic when it comes to the way they portray women in their games. Miranda's ass-cam and Edi's camel-toe are other examples of that.
I don't think they mean badly, but its a good example of how persuasive misogyny is in our culture when even people who are really trying very hard to get it right slip up like that.
Oh, I'd forgotten about Edi becoming a sexbot and Joker's attraction to her too. I thought it was a poor choice of a party slot considering that Legion was already covering the AI angle and there were loads of pretty people in the crew already. I was hoping that, if Edi did play a bigger part, they'd do something different.
More recently, Ann Leckie's awesome Ancillary Justice books, where an entity used to a metallic body like a spaceship AI has a very different view of humanity and the minor physical differences between individuals, is really interesting. The lead character can barely tell men and women apart, and society hundreds of years in the future is depicted as much more gender-fluid anyway.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancillary_Justice
I really recommend them if such themes interest anyone (maybe I'm preaching to the choir here!).
OP
OP
Let us not forget that they literally have "life stages" of "Maiden, Matron and Matriarch" which is just......
Oh FFS...
'We've created this alien race that looks and reproduces differently to humanity (although naturally they are all female and all hot). How do we describe their life cycle? How about a reference to a pagan triple goddess from old Earth? That makes total sense'
I honestly think they wanted to make a more diplomatic race but probably got told by marketing they had to do the sexy blue alien angle which meant you got that rubbish - for example the main characters who are assari that you come across even if they are in the Maiden lifestage don't act like they are supposed to, it's only really unimportant NPCs. They were some cool ideas with the Asari but the sexy blue chick undermined them, specially when they are some of the main times you actually see female aliens, as some races didn't get a female model til the third game and some even only in DLC (Turians, Krogan, Salarian) and others you don't see the women at all like the Hanar (maybe they don't have women? I don't know how pink floaty jellyfish work!), Elcor, Drell. People complain about Mass Effect Andromeda not having enough new aliens but they at least bothered to make both the male and female models of the species, which took so long in the trilogy.
You don't have to be someone's "enemy" to be a problem, and acknowledging that the end result does matter but continually citing authorial intent is still dismissive.
To put it another way - I am a freelance journalist. I sometimes write about games, but also other things. Whatever pays the bills. If I were to write an article for a newspaper attempting to create some thought provoking discussion about race relations, but in the process inadvertently offend, say, a large number of Asian people, it doesn't really matter what my *intent* was, as the author. What ultimately matters is the end result, which is that I offended a lot of people. I don't get to hid behind my ostensibly good intentions; instead I have to acknowledge the end result of my work and take responsibility for it.
It would be irresponsible, insensitive and yes, dismissive to say "Well that is not what I intended so don't be upset".
Women have every right to be upset about how they are represented in this medium, and authorial intent (assuming it's noble and not sexist and shitty, which is usually is) does not change, excuse or even mitigate that, so you really need to stop bringing it up. It is, at best, completely irrelevant.
When I met Cindy I thought of Kaylee from the TV series Firefly. The actress, Jewel, is a beautiful woman, but she isn't shown with her breasts spilling out of her jacket or wearing a bikini, or anything like that. She just wears regular clothes. The emphasis isn't that she's a beautiful, sexy, attractive woman. Or incessant boob camera close ups. Instead the focus is how she is a gifted mechanic. She's kind, trusting, compassionate. She is a person, not just a sexy woman. Cindy however, was a pair of lovingly rendered breasts, given a name and a backstory - these particular breasts like bouncing around near cars! Wow! End of character design. It feels demoralising in a way - the female character exists just to look pretty and make you want to have sex with her, while the male characters are busy saving the world. While both Cindy and Kaylee fulfil the similar role of 'female mechanic'; one comes across as just a shallow excuse to bounce some boobs around on screen, the other feels like an actual character with depth and purpose. That to me is the issue - not the look itself but that it is often all they are - a glorified piece of scenery to look sexy.
Don't get me wrong, I have zero issue with female characters being portrayed as sexy. I'm female, I like to dress up and feel attractive myself, but that's not my sole purpose. And I'm not walking round the store in nipples tassels and hot pants buying bread and milk! When it's so gratuitous it kind of sours the whole experience. Sure, have the characters look beautiful, even sexy, but at least also remember to give them a personality and a purpose other than to smile and giggle and bounce their boobs.
Don't get me wrong, I have zero issue with female characters being portrayed as sexy. I'm female, I like to dress up and feel attractive myself, but that's not my sole purpose. And I'm not walking round the store in nipples tassels and hot pants buying bread and milk! When it's so gratuitous it kind of sours the whole experience. Sure, have the characters look beautiful, even sexy, but at least also remember to give them a personality and a purpose other than to smile and giggle and bounce their boobs.
I didn't nearly enjoy this year's podcast as much as usual. I found most of Abby's opinions boiling down to "it's very good" and championing cuphead for like every topic
Jason was absent a lot, Jeff and Vinny seemed to have given up a bit towards end
But yeah that nier discussion. If you watch the video version you can see most of the cast sigh and roll their eyes when she brings that up and I was right there with them.
I can see the criticism, but the idea it would impact the game for the whole collective group enough to drop placement on the list? No way
Lovely comparison. I liked that episode of Firefly where there's a colonial planet and she wants to go and wear a ball gown at a dance, just once. It's really nice, the idea that a character might want to dabble with wearing something different, just for a while, to feel different for a while. You can apply that to much of the cast, that the clothes they wear most of the time are the ones they feel comfortable in, for any of practical reasons (Kaylee, also much of the crew), an attachment to faction identity (Mal), societal reasons (the doctor's comparatively smart getup that marks him out as wealthy/educated origins) etc. It's offering information about the character's 'default' mindset rather than designing them in a vacuum to fill a role of sex appeal.
Asari as in the whole race? Why? I thought pee bee (pb?) From Andromeda was great. I never played me 2 or 3 though and don't remember 1 that well. So I'm probably forgetting something
So the single woman on that team should just keep her mouth shut so they can appear diverse?
Did I say that?
She spoke her piece and everyone listened. I'm arguing that one person in a room having an issue with one aspect of a game would normally not be enough to affect it's placement on the goty list, and that seemed to apply here as well. I think nier was criticized fairly but still placed where it should in the end. Nier is a great game
I hate it when women have opinions, especially if they go against what the men think.
You said everyone rolled their eyes and you were right there with them. If that's not dismissive I don't know what is.
Also no-one here is saying Nier shouldn't be anyone's goty because it has issues with sexualisation.
/facepalm
It's not dismissive, it's acknowledging reality, that not all authors intend to offend anyone and that people have right to react according to their own ideas about work in question. If those two ideas can not co-exist in your mind, well, it's not my fault.
I have repeated this points several times and at this point, it seems, you are just trolling me, because, I do not understand how you can not figure this out after all this time.
If you can't even figure out what I am trying to say, after I have repeated this point several times, you are not the one to talk about what is "dismissive" or not.
If anything you are constantly dismissing my points, making faulty interpretations of my posts by latching onto one single point and repeating it ad nauseam.
Uthena was an enjoyable clusterfuck, not bad,but neither everyone's cup of tea, check Yuri Kuma then
This thread has been incredibly informative. Seeing like minded opinions have strengthened my desire for, and commitment to a better future.
My awareness on the problematic elements of so many games has grown significantly thanks to all the willingness to share it here. (We all can't know everything right?)
Thanks ever so much to the original poster and to all the positive voices here.
My awareness on the problematic elements of so many games has grown significantly thanks to all the willingness to share it here. (We all can't know everything right?)
Thanks ever so much to the original poster and to all the positive voices here.
Great example!
Kaylee is a great example of a sexy AND sexual character who isn't sexualized. The woman is very sex-positive, she's gorgeous, and yet... she's not an object, she isn't outfitted with a pandering costume, etc.
Shockingly, it can be done!
Actually now that I think of it, you can say the same thing about Zoë and Inarra. Gorgeous sex-positive women who aren't pandering objects. Hmmmm
A woman expressed her genuine heartfelt opinion on a gender issue and a whole bunch of dudes rolled their eyes at her?
Yeah, that sounds familiar all right.
If it impacted her enjoyment of the game, who are you to tell her otherwise?
Cheers!
Well, let's start over then.
I myself have not understood any of your points, except when you bring up strawmen that nobody here argues for.
What is your basic argument that adds to this discussion? Why are you here, in this particular topic? What are you even trying to say? If 100% of the people have "misunderstood" you, the problem must lie with you and not your audience. Your audience is reacting according to their own ideas.
Try again from the top.
- Status