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Why women criticise sexualised character designs (READ OP)
- Thread starter Persephone
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Hey remember when that series was a mostly respectable Japanese take on the European front of WWII?
Yeah me neither.
That's a surprising amount of detail for a shot of a dude copping a feel. Imagining a worker stressing over the finger placement, the framing of the shot, and how her body reacted upon impact is wild to me.
When did the Valkyria Chronicles series get so messy?
When did the Valkyria Chronicles series get so messy?
When Japanese anime-ish exports moved from the 00's to the 10's.
Damn it. Why do you use a freaking mini skirt in a war?
All hope is lost, anime won.
I skipped about 200 pages of this thread because I wanted to catch up before I died, so forgive me if this has been brought up, but I think part of the problem with discussions like these is that guys assume mild sexualization of men is equivalent to extreme sexualization of women, when if you DO focus the camera on a dude like women get treated, it almost invariably comes across as... comic. ridiculous. weird and silly.
I saw someone link a clip from Magic Mike in the first ten or so pages and, like, I've never seen the movie, but... I've seen more sexually FILMED performances of classical ballet will ballerinas in long tutus. He might have been shaking his junk for the ladies, but the camera was pulled back, showing his entire body, he never contorted unnaturally, the lights obscured his form... the closest thing I've seen to the same male gaze applied to men as is is to women in a video is probably the Girl In A Country Song music video.
And you know what? It's comedy when it's aimed at men. Even in an equal costume, it's comedy, because what looks absurd on a guy is normal for a woman in fiction.
I think a lot of guys don't realize this, because they never see men filmed as sexy sexy meat to lust after, so they assume something that looks vaguely similar must be the equivalent. But there's really not an equivalent, because the closest thing is read entirely differently 99% of the time.
I saw someone link a clip from Magic Mike in the first ten or so pages and, like, I've never seen the movie, but... I've seen more sexually FILMED performances of classical ballet will ballerinas in long tutus. He might have been shaking his junk for the ladies, but the camera was pulled back, showing his entire body, he never contorted unnaturally, the lights obscured his form... the closest thing I've seen to the same male gaze applied to men as is is to women in a video is probably the Girl In A Country Song music video.
sexualized men said:
And you know what? It's comedy when it's aimed at men. Even in an equal costume, it's comedy, because what looks absurd on a guy is normal for a woman in fiction.
I think a lot of guys don't realize this, because they never see men filmed as sexy sexy meat to lust after, so they assume something that looks vaguely similar must be the equivalent. But there's really not an equivalent, because the closest thing is read entirely differently 99% of the time.
The other 1% of the time is Sengo in Touken Ranbu, who actually does managed the hot anime babe outfit without looking any more completely ridiculous than a woman would, at least to my eye.
But, like... one guy who's actually a sword in one game that's not translated to english doesn't negate the hundreds or thousands of scantily clad video game babes we've been fed for years.
But, like... one guy who's actually a sword in one game that's not translated to english doesn't negate the hundreds or thousands of scantily clad video game babes we've been fed for years.
Those skirts have been proper military attire since the first game outside of maybe Lancers IIRC.
It's more denial than anything else. If they admit they're exploiting women they have to take both ownership and responsibility for that. Much easier to just pretend it's not a problem or not happening (or "happening less", as if frequency was the only issue, frequently attempting to redirect discussions about its normalization), in spite of the extreme cognitive dissonance.
...
Lol right. I thought they used a skirt + pants combination, but it seems that it was a skirt + whatever it's called that cover their hips to shoes.
I guess the cutscene direction is all that matters here.
I feel like that armor is pretty close to being decent though. Like I did this quick mock up by just swapping some colors:
If you made the "chest plate" thing fully cover the upper chest, and didn't make the butt a separate color, it would go a long way.
I actually like this better. I mean while the original isn't terrible, I can't help but see it as a metal boob ribbon to emphasize the breasts and the color change helps rectify that looking more like an armor breastplate .
Huh. Can't unsee that now.
I'm not sure I get all the "OMG! Welp! Preorder cancelled" replies. I mean I get the whole pervy dude trying to cop a feel only to be whacked by the girl and for it to happen again and again is a really REALLY tired trope in Anime. I just don't get how a single scene can ruin the whole thing but then maybe it's because I'm not familiar with the franchise. Is the lady a main character and the perpetrating male just a one-off NPC? How else would you depict a guy like that?
Also, just thought I'd drop recently revealed Najd trailer. This was the previously reported character design done by a woman from Saudi Arabia. They changed her fair skin/black hair design to a white hair/dark skin design that I don't think was necessary, other wise she's great.
Fanboy bias aside, I just think it's really cool they had a character design contest and hope we can get more of this kind of thing in fighters (and not just pervy "guest" designs from Manga artists).
Casual sexism and groping (which is a crime) is awful, and in fictional armyland, entirely unnecessary. Even worse is playing it off as if this criminal is just some prankster. Its only purpose is to normalize the objectification of the female cast, and it has succeeded, given your own response.
This shit has to stop. It is not ok. And even worse is that this stuff happens multiple times throughout the game.
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Man, my post looks really awful and insensitive now, I'm so sorry. Regarding the bolded, I had no idea that was the case. My whole line of thinking was how it might've just been a throwaway scene. Guy think he's top dog and can do whatever he wants, gets pounded by a woman who doesn't take lightly to that, then never hear from guy again. I really didn't think that through. Hell, even my line that constant sexual harassment as a tired trope in a anime sounds horrible because it's a REAL problem women face. Like you said, the normalization got me, and I didn't realize it. Damn.
Fire Emblem Warriors, Awakening DLC.
Olivia showing off a classic spine-busting 'let's focus on arse and tits and thighs' pose/costume, now with added 'clothes disintegrate when unit takes damage' effect too. They really need to make their battle outfits from sturdier materials in FE realms.
Olivia showing off a classic spine-busting 'let's focus on arse and tits and thighs' pose/costume, now with added 'clothes disintegrate when unit takes damage' effect too. They really need to make their battle outfits from sturdier materials in FE realms.
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The ass grab scene wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't the only real cutscene in a sea of boxes.
Man, I really hope the game is selling well to prove the other Japanese devs that you don't need pandering to sell your games.
Same. Which means it probably isn't. Especially when it comes to The Merch...
I'm curious to see if it inspires the same sort of hyperbolic fanaticism as Xenoblade 2...
Wait, they haven't pushed this shitty "mechanic" beyond the mobile game, have they?
Sounds like it from this thread:
https://www.resetera.com/threads/fire-emblem-warriors-awakening-dlc-to-release-22th-march.31100/
It's an equippable skill that allows you to break opponents armor for defense and resistance reductions, but it also makes you vulenerable to armor break. Iirc the declothing is an optional feature if it's any consolation.
At least there's an option to turn it off, though I think that actually bothers me more? It's like the developers saying "we know this is problematic, but we're going to include it anyway".
I just started Vanquish and in 30 seconds during the opening scene they managed to have like five different shots of the mission support lady focusing squarely on her butt. It's like, I'm not going into a game like this expecting anything in terms of representation, and I'm still kinda impressed how shameless it is.
The majority of those works feature female protagonists or co-protagonists.
The problem with the "fridged" or "damselled" trope is when it just relegates a female figure (usually wife or SO, but sometimes mothers) to a background note to motivate the angsty male character, and, like all tropes, when it comes a common gendered cliché (in a vacuum the trope would be fine, right now it's a specifically gendered cliché).
In the case of those Ghibli movies, it doesn't apply because it's not happening to motivate a male character, and doesn't happen exclusively to female parents (e.g. Spirited Away).
You can argue that Ghibli may rely on parent-less young characters a bit too much, making up more-or-less believable reasons for excluding the parental figures just so that the youthful protagonist gets their own adventure, and that it's a bit of a cliché, but it's very much not a sexist or gendered cliché at all in this case and much more so of a typical "JRPG" trope featuring young independent adventurers, so I don't know why that would "worry" you that much, especially in the context of this thread which is about irritating and/or harmful sexist stereotypes. To each their own, but as far as JRPG clichés go, I find this one to be pretty damn harmless, to be honest.
I see. Not quite the "feminist" take I was expecting. Not your fault and it's more an indictment of the current state of JRPGs, but it's depressing that "treating its female characters like normal people" is what it takes for a JRPG to be "feminist". :(
Is it? I'd argue that, when they're putting that sort of thing out without comment (and the option to turn it off) they're saying "there no problem with this".
Because the first game's entire plot revolves around a fridged woman and the second game seemingly has one fridged within the first ten minutes, in both cases to drive and grow the male characters of the games.
I agree, the whole "missing parents" thing is mild. I was trying to make some kind of point about how it becomes the classic sexist trope when you apply an everyday "harmless anime cliché" to their video games, because their video games have male protagonists.
Fridging and Damseling are pretty gross sexist tropes and extremely common and harmful in my opinion, but everyone has different ideas of what needs to be done away with first. I'd prefer "all of it".
Anyway, I'm dropping it since I don't want to potentially derail.
I really appreciate all the replies on my thoughts, everyone.
(And I totally agree about that review being disappointing. It is the lowest bar that a lot of games still manage to trip over and mess up, constantly! Ni no Kuni 2 was an excellent chance to have a female main character and they threw it away.)
I mean, aren't they? Seems like a "some people like this, some people don't" rather than a "some people find this offensive and some people don't".
I thought the blond girl with cat ears was the main character, judging the marketing material. Am I wrong?
Not that this has anything to do with anything but looking back at the pictures I posted of the Xenoblade X skell armor, I just figured out why it's a body suit with just the shoulders and back encased in hard armor. It's a pressure suit. Skells were originally used in space. The body suits are space suits designed to operate in a zero g vacuum and the shoulder and back parts of the gear are a solid frame for attachments like oxygen tanks and whatever else. I just re-watched the game's opening movie and the reason for the design dawned on me.
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That's Evan, the King of Ding Dong Dell and one of the main protagonists. I believe the game genders him as male, but I've been dodging and skimming a lot of the coverage to avoid any major story spoilers.
This is hugely disappointing. I really liked the first game and was hoping 4 was going to be closer to that. Still interested in it but my hype is stilled a little..
With it's poor marketing and the fact that it's Level-5, it's probably very difficult to even reach 1 million in global sales. 2 million like Persona 5 or Nier Automata did seems extremely difficult to me too.
Ha yeah perhaps I got your hopes up too much. It really is true though, depressing as it may be, that for a JRPG to do the bare minimum (maybe a bit more than the bare minimum), it really stands out. I honestly can't think of any other Japanese game that is completely devoid of so many of the cliches and problems we've discussed in this thread.
This thread, which it's existance I love, and love how it's been going strong since day one, has really put one thing into focus for me:
We (as a culture, not Resetera) can make progress and change the narrative in America when it comes to misogyny and sexism in America (and maybe other areas such as Europe and Australia), we are doing this right now as a culture (maybe too slowly for our liking, but it's happening).
However japan is a totally different beast. Sure, we can point out the ridiculous shit in games from Japan, but what's that going to do to this thread in the long run? You can find examples of this crap in practically every single game, movie, and tv show in Japan. They are decades behind us when it comes to this topic (and that feesl like I'm being generous with the time frame).
So do we just become an echo chamber complaining about a mono-culture we can't influence, or should we stick to discussing games coming English speaking sources where we as a shared cultural-social group can make strides and influence the way the conversation goes in a real way?
I love watching These games get torn apart, but I'm sitting here thinking, oh, this will never end will it? Would the conversation continue longer on Resetera if we focus on western games that can feel the actual backlash?
For the record, I am in no way saying to give Japanese developers a pass (or mainly anime based ones), and I don't want to seem defeatist, but could More of a focus help the larger conversation?
We (as a culture, not Resetera) can make progress and change the narrative in America when it comes to misogyny and sexism in America (and maybe other areas such as Europe and Australia), we are doing this right now as a culture (maybe too slowly for our liking, but it's happening).
However japan is a totally different beast. Sure, we can point out the ridiculous shit in games from Japan, but what's that going to do to this thread in the long run? You can find examples of this crap in practically every single game, movie, and tv show in Japan. They are decades behind us when it comes to this topic (and that feesl like I'm being generous with the time frame).
So do we just become an echo chamber complaining about a mono-culture we can't influence, or should we stick to discussing games coming English speaking sources where we as a shared cultural-social group can make strides and influence the way the conversation goes in a real way?
I love watching These games get torn apart, but I'm sitting here thinking, oh, this will never end will it? Would the conversation continue longer on Resetera if we focus on western games that can feel the actual backlash?
For the record, I am in no way saying to give Japanese developers a pass (or mainly anime based ones), and I don't want to seem defeatist, but could More of a focus help the larger conversation?
Studio ghibli, both their movies and games, seems to be the one shining example of decency in a sea of tits and ass.
More and more Japanese developers are paying attention to their western audiences, games like Nier: Automata and Yakuza 0 have put the spotlight on entire franchises that people in the west didn't really know about.
I don't think that it's a conversation that should stop, especially when the conversations on Japanese games in this thread are often started by someone (presumably not Japanese) coming in to defend these ridiculously sexualised games/characters.
I feel that while it's true that we probably won't have any influence in how those japanese games are made (and even then, I think there's a silver of hope that we could in some cases, depending on the circumstances), discussion on these things can spark other more immediate changes too. Like you say, we as a culture have a problem with female objectification and misogyny in general, and a more direct impact that these conversations can have is changing the perspective or """"educating"""" fans of these games that may not realize that the stuff they consume has harmful elements to them, and IMO even just opening the eyes of a handful of people with these is more than worth the effort.
I mean I too was once an ignorant teenager who didn't give a damn about these things and thought feminists were overreactive people with nothing better to do, but by meeting new people and hearing their thoughts on the matter is that I realized how reductive my views were and how I was indirectly helping maintain the status quo.
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But that option atleast gives you the choice of not having it forced on you, and those that enjoy it can consume
I mean I can kinda see where your coming from but I would think options to make the game cater to multiple groups is always the best
Nah Dary is right. "Turn this off if you don't like it, but we're still gonna objectify the hell out of you for creepos to wank to" is still a fucking shitty message.
And the impression that Taro and his team got was that people loved 2B's fat butt.
I mean I loved Quiet in MGSV, a lot didn't
I thought a perfect compromise was to have her default costume be the xof suit you can unlock, then bikini be the unlockable optional outfit
all the scenes people had issues with could have been hidden scenes or something
Like the helicopter stuff with her didn't happen until bond was at max
I just think there are probably solutions in between "too bad, get over the sexualization" and "too bad, sexualization has no place in games"
I think as long as your honest there's no problem with enjoying content as such, even if problematic
Also "creepos to wank off too" seems a little hyperbolic. I'm assuming your not speaking literally
I think there's a huge gap between that and someone enjoying an objectified character because they find it visually appealing
Uh, your example of Nier is weird when the game and franchise does these things too and had a success regardless of it. They didn't changed it to appeal to western audiences.. the game is extremely japanese with a bunch of sexualized designs with 2B and A2 being the big examples.
Not to mention that Yoko Taro valorized the fact that people were making fanservice arts of 2B with her butt lol
The bases for those games even in the west are pretty okay with sexualized characters. Yoko Taro was pretty much praised for asking for zip files of 2B hentai. And Nier A's success is also partially based on Platinum's pedigree, with their most iconic franchise being about a dominatrix witch.
Large swathes of the western gaming audience has made it pretty clear to both niche and mid tier Japanese developers that they're totally into hyper anime-related stuff and despise significant changes to it. You can take a look at some lewd VN sales on Steamspy to see what Japan is doing right now can be pretty lucrative.
I sure as hell don't remember the first Valkyria Chronicles being like that. There's no way that i can take a game about war and soldiers seriously when it has scenes and character design like that. That's like if the girls in the second season of Attack on Titan wore mini skirts instead of pants. Wouldn't that change the whole feel of the show?
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