Why women criticise sexualised character designs (READ OP)

Modal Soul · Apr 19, 2018

CrazyHal said:
Forget about anime. Older Manga's is where it's at. I like to read Berserk, Blame!, Akira, Vagabond, Fist of the North star and Monster. They're all fantastic and don't have any of the bullshit that we see nowadays.

Uhhh...about Berserk...

Rape is heavy in the manga. In one of the later chapters, a troll rapes a woman in front of the townspeople. There's also Schierke who is basically like 12 years old "accidentally" falling on an injured Guts naked after she attempts to bathe Casca.

Laughing Banana · Apr 19, 2018

Xaszatm said:
Relationships helping sure, but there is this weird subset of people determined to say that it was waifus that was the single most important thing and not like, it being the most newcomer friendly FE out there.

Probably not the "single most important thing" but I would wager it's an "important" thing nonetheless.

Xaszatm · Apr 19, 2018

Laughing Banana said:
Probably not the "single most important thing" but I would wager it's an "important" thing nonetheless.

And I point blank disagree and hate that this is the lesson people want IS to learn. Fates is mocked often because the waifus thing went a bridge too far and yet people want FE Switch to go even farther than face petting.

Laughing Banana · Apr 19, 2018

Xaszatm said:
And I point blank disagree and hate that this is the lesson people want IS to learn. Fates is mocked often because the waifus thing went a bridge too far and yet people want FE Switch to go even farther than face petting.

Not so much that that is the point people want IS to learn but rather it's a point that IS even acknowledges itself and even try to incorporate to their FE post Awakening, if Fates and Heroes are any indication.

War3333 · Apr 19, 2018

Patapuf said:
It was definetly planned in the way that people like shipping characters they care about. And raising their kids.

The support conversations and character achetypes are written in a way to serve that, especially the male-female ones. (with some exeptions).

lastly, the self-insert is much more involved than in previous titles where you were mostly a non-descript "tactitian" if the game adressed you at all.

The game itself being more accessible is also a big factor obviously, but i genuinley think that the expanded relationship aspects (as part of expanded RPG aspects in general) helped it's appeal among new (and some old) players.

The series could easily keep doing that without the worst aspects of "waifu/husbando" crap. If it was competently done it could be fun to engage with instead of being actively annoying.

Nope, for me it's not planned. They needed a child mechanics so people that love each other and make them.
As a consequence they hired a writer for this. A really bad one. it's not pandering on waifu culture at all in any way.

They are a Japanese developer of culture so they used Japanese stereotypes when writing but from the quality of the writing (and the plot itself) that wasn't important at all.

On Fates IS became aware of this and made a game around the waifu culture, on awakening not at all.

Patapuf · Apr 19, 2018

War3333 said:
Nope, for me it's not planned. They needed a child mechanics so people that love each other and make them.
As a consequence they hired a writer for this. A really bad one. it's not pandering on waifu culture at all in any way.

They are a Japanese developer of culture so they used Japanese stereotypes when writing but from the quality of the writing (and the plot itself) that wasn't important at all.

On Fates IS became aware of this and made a game around the waifu culture, on awakening not at all.

I'm not going to insist i'm right but i don't see the design elements in awakenings as accidental. They didn't need a child mechanic out of nowhere and support conversations (including romances) are a staple of the series. They were just expanded for awakening .And again for Fates.

"waifu" is a shitty term for the systems anyway. Not all relationship / romance systems are inherently bad. It's mostly the fanbase that can make them insufferable.

War3333 · Apr 19, 2018

Patapuf said:
I'm not going to insist i'm right but i don't see the design elements in awakenings as accidental. They didn't need a child mechanic out of nowhere and support conversations (including romances) are a staple of the series. They were just expanded for awakening .And again for Fates.

"waifu" is a shitty term for the systems anyway. Not all relationship / romance systems are inherently bad. It's mostly the fanbase that can make them insufferable.

not going to insist either, but the bolded sums up quite well my reasoning around what happened to awakening.

Jucksalbe · Apr 19, 2018

It certainly helped by generating more and longer lasting discussion about the game. But from what I remember Awakening already got a lot of attention when the demo released, which I don't think had any of that.

Tfritz · Apr 19, 2018

The Waifu aspect would probably be less noticeable if it weren't, like, "The player avatar can marry basically everyone, including the children of his comrades

who only knew the player avatar as the Anti-Christ what destroyed the future

"

Morrigan · Apr 19, 2018

Laiza said:
I need to go play more Dark Souls now

This is my solution to everything, as well. :)

ara said:
Tough luck. I agree with the mods' take on the situation - nobody stopped you from talking about any of those things. I personally thought the incessant whining about people complaining about the designs was infinitely more annoying.

Not to mention, when there was finally a thread dedicated to that very topic, it was filled with trolling, mockery, thread whining, and dismissive drive-bys. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Disclaimer · Apr 19, 2018

Awakening's marriage and children mechanics weren't marketed whatsoever, so comparing the amount of sales they garnered versus its unprecedented marketing blitz, the approachability Casual Mode offered to the masses, or the improved graphics (including marketed cutscenes) / streamlined UI... would be slightly dishonest.

Fates' inclusion of those mechanics made its already woeful story/writing even worse. Someone could go through Awakening or Fates without ever realizing there were children paralogues if they didn't effectively utilize the games' pair-up system, which I think is bad from a storytelling perspective, so I'd rather not see such mechanics return unless they're going for a generation-spanning narrative in the future. (And some IS developers have said they aren't staples just because they've been in two consecutive games.)

Further, they just needlessly stifle their creative options with regard to characterization, LGBT inclusion (it's no surprise our first decent one came from Echoes, which featured neither system), platonic supoprts, character endings, etc. I just want them to go back to a system where characters have a smaller, pre-determined amount of supports and romantic options—not necessarily ending in impromptu marriages—that made sense for the partners' characterization. Seems more satisfying from a matchmaking perspective, too.

Dary · Apr 19, 2018

One of the things I'm enjoying about my replay of Wild Arms 3 is that not only does the game star a female protagonist who isn't remotely sexualised, it also doesn't force a relationship on her.

I'm, like, who wrote this game and what alternative dimension did they come from?

Twig · Apr 19, 2018

Amiibola said:
Even if the designs are garbage, this is something to avoid, for the sake of having a nice discussion

I'll quote myself

As someone who loved XC and XCX, and wanted to talk about and get information of XC2 here in era, it was a goddamn nightmare.

Too bad?

If that's what the game makes people want to talk about, that's the developers' faults, not the people doing the talking.

Interestingly enough, even when someone makes a thread SPECIFICALLY to appease people whining about "thread hijacking" by moving the conversation elsewhere...

Those same people come into these new COMPLETELY SEPARATE THREADS to whine and moan about how it's not a problem.

So, you know.

Too. Bad.

Syril · Apr 19, 2018

Dary said:
One of the things I'm enjoying about my replay of Wild Arms 3 is that not only does the game star a female protagonist who isn't remotely sexualised, it also doesn't force a relationship on her.

I'm, like, who wrote this game and what alternative dimension did they come from?

Scenario credit was Wild Arms' creator Akifumi Kaneko. After Wild Arms XF he left and started his own studio, Witchcraft. Probably why XF was the last Wild Arms game.

Dary · Apr 19, 2018

Syril said:
Scenario credit was Wild Arms' creator Akifumi Kaneko. After Wild Arms XF he left and started his own studio, Witchcraft. Probably why XF was the last Wild Arms game.

He isn't credited as a writer for Wild Arms 5. That explains a lot.

Morrigan · Apr 19, 2018

Dary said:
One of the things I'm enjoying about my replay of Wild Arms 3 is that not only does the game star a female protagonist who isn't remotely sexualised, it also doesn't force a relationship on her.

I'm, like, who wrote this game and what alternative dimension did they come from?

Have you played the original Wild ARMs? I only ever rented WA3 (enjoyed it, but never finished it), but I played the shit out of WA1 in the PS1 era.

In WA1, not a single female character (not even villains) are sexualized. None of them are damselled, none of them are love interests*. They are each unique characters with their own agency, thoughts and desires (that aren't about a man or pining for one). The lead antagonist is female.

* There's a hint that one female NPC has a crush on one of the male party members, and there's a hint that one of the female villains is the former lover of the other male party member, but that's tangential/back story, not core character traits, and I'm fine with female characters having had relationships or crushes or whatnot anyway. It's when their entire reason for existing is about a man that it gets obnoxious.

I loved that game and basically overplayed it, but at the time, the fact that it's basically a feminist-as-fuck game never even registered. But today, the difference between that game and modern JRPGs are jarring. And, of course, the PS2 remake of the game slightly sexualized some of the female NPCs, though it's literally nothing compared to what you see today (mild cleavage on a non-combatant, whatever).

Wild ARMs is over 20 years old.

Xaszatm · Apr 19, 2018

Morrigan said:
Have you played the original Wild ARMs? I only ever rented WA3 (enjoyed it, but never finished it), but I played the shit out of WA1 in the PS1 era.

In WA1, not a single female character (not even villains) are sexualized. None of them are damselled, none of them are love interests*. They are each unique characters with their own agency, thoughts and desires (that aren't about a man or pining for one). The lead antagonist is female.

* There's a hint that one female NPC has a crush on one of the male party members, and there's a hint that one of the female villains is the former lover of the other male party member, but that's tangential/back story, not core character traits, and I'm fine with female characters having had relationships or crushes or whatnot anyway. It's when their entire reason for existing is about a man that it gets obnoxious.

I loved that game and basically overplayed it, but at the time, the fact that it's basically a feminist-as-fuck game never even registered. But today, the difference between that game and modern JRPGs are jarring. And, of course, the PS2 remake of the game slightly sexualized some of the female NPCs, though it's literally nothing compared to what you see today (mild cleavage on a non-combatant, whatever).

Wild ARMs is over 20 years old.

Wow...Wild Arms, Shining Force. We really do have the same favorite JRPGs....

Dary · Apr 19, 2018

Morrigan said:
Have you played the original Wild ARMs? I only ever rented WA3 (enjoyed it, but never finished it), but I played the shit out of WA1 in the PS1 era.

In WA1, not a single female character (not even villains) are sexualized. None of them are damselled, none of them are love interests*. They are each unique characters with their own agency, thoughts and desires (that aren't about a man or pining for one). The lead antagonist is female.

* There's a hint that one female NPC has a crush on one of the male party members, and there's a hint that one of the female villains is the former lover of the other male party member, but that's tangential/back story, not core character traits, and I'm fine with female characters having had relationships or crushes or whatnot anyway. It's when their entire reason for existing is about a man that it gets obnoxious.

I loved that game and basically overplayed it, but at the time, the fact that it's basically a feminist-as-fuck game never even registered. But today, the difference between that game and modern JRPGs are jarring. And, of course, the PS2 remake of the game slightly sexualized some of the female NPCs, though it's literally nothing compared to what you see today (mild cleavage on a non-combatant, whatever).

Wild ARMs is over 20 years old.

I've only played a little of the original (back in those pre-internet shopping days it was difficult to get a hold of anything remotely niche where I lived), and 2/4 didn't release over here, period, so my experiences are limited to 3 (which sounds a lot like 1) and 5, which basically did a Xenoblade 2. Like, literally. The exact same plot and everything.

JRPGs really did just fall off a cliff into a bog of shounen cliches and terrible designs around the mid-late PS2 era, didn't they?

Morrigan · Apr 19, 2018

Xaszatm said:
Wow...Wild Arms, Shining Force. We really do have the same favorite JRPGs....

Almost as if we share the same mind!

Hidden content

Edit:

Dary said:
JRPGs really did just fall off a cliff into a bog of shounen cliches and terrible designs around the mid-late PS2 era, didn't they?

Coincidentally, around the time I started losing interest in them... (thinkingemoji.gif)

Redcrayon · Apr 19, 2018

I must play Wild Arms. I went through a phase a couple of years ago of going through all the PSOne games I missed, and made it though Suikoden I-II, Arc the Lad I-III and Alundra before becoming distracted by something more recent. WA and Grandia are the two most-recommended ones I've got left to play from what's available on PSN here.

RpgN · Apr 19, 2018

I've played WA1 on PSN years ago, just did the early part. It was a really enjoyable game but I don't remember much of the story. I would love to get back to it someday.

In terms FE Awakening and the new FE games in general. I'm currently playing FE Awakening and played a fair bit of Fates. I have a soft spot for the new FE games. I started with the GBA games and really love them. They have class, amazing animation & style and a lovable old school vibe. If I had to pick between old style and new style, I would go for the old style. But the new style is just different and hard to compare. The whole waifu/husbando aspect is amusing and an equal opportunity since you can date guys etc. The tone of these games feel so different. Funnier and less serious. I think they became popular not because of the waifu aspect but because the presentation improved and it was far more accessible in terms of user friendliness. Those reasons coupled with being released on the 3DS was just a great timing. The waifu/husbando might have been discovered after playing the games, not deciding to buy the games because of them. It's unfortunate that IS took the wrong lessons. Hopefully they won't double down on the waifu/husbando aspect to the point of not being funny anymore.

rras1994 · Apr 19, 2018

This is quite a good article https://kotaku.com/in-south-korea-gamers-stage-an-inquisition-against-fem-1825398846
I think it's quite a good example of how employees don't get to just do their vision and actually have to be very careful about their own beliefs/point of view.

Cryptosporidium · Apr 19, 2018

Saw some FE discussion and as Im playing Echoes i kinda wanna talk about

Now I havent played Fates and put maybe 3hrs into heroes

So this is centered on Awakening, beyond that awful lolicon dragon, who was poorly sexualized that badly in it? I recall it being decent in that regard

I also enjoyed the marriage system however, but the kid system is meh.

Laiza · Apr 19, 2018

rras1994 said:
This is quite a good article https://kotaku.com/in-south-korea-gamers-stage-an-inquisition-against-fem-1825398846
I think it's quite a good example of how employees don't get to just do their vision and actually have to be very careful about their own beliefs/point of view.

Wow, that's straight up terrifying. Also not terribly surprising considering the content they put out. This:

Nonprofits and human rights organizations have long noted South Korean women's struggle for equality. The World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap index ranks Korea 118th on a list of 144 countries (the United States ranked 49th). Of 38 nations surveyed by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Korea has the largest wage gap between men and women. Women who receive abortions in Korea can be sent to prison or fined over a thousand dollars.

is certainly quite an eye-opener. I knew things were pretty fucked over there, but just how fucked it is is still pretty astonishing.

All I can do is shake my head at all... damn.

Disclaimer · Apr 19, 2018

Cryptosporidium said:
Saw some FE discussion and as Im playing Echoes i kinda wanna talk about

Now I havent played Fates and put maybe 3hrs into heroes

So this is centered on Awakening, beyond that awful lolicon dragon, who was poorly sexualized that badly in it? I recall it being decent in that regard

I also enjoyed the marriage system however, but the kid system is meh.

It's often less visible in characters' in-game portraits or models, rather than their full official art, but:

Nowi (a child), Tharja, Olivia, arguably Cherche, Aversa.

There are also various exploitative in-game model designs that aren't occupationally sensible, such as female cavaliers wearing panties, which allows us to include Sully as well, even though her art hides her underwear outside of battle animations.

Awakening isn't quite as bad as Fates, but it began the greater trend, since they share the same art director (Kusakihara) and character artist (Kozaki).

Echoes' only exploitative moment is a still shot of Mathilda posing pornographically, which was really bad, but otherwise the characters are more tastefully drawn (by Hidari, a different artist)—although Kusakihara's scenario direction for Echoes is not kind to its female protagonist, and it has a bad problem with damselization in general.

Cryptosporidium · Apr 19, 2018

Disclaimer said:
It's often less visible in characters' in-game portraits or models, rather than their full official art, but:

Nowi (a child), Tharja, Olivia, arguably Cherche, Aversa.

There are also various exploitative in-game model designs that aren't occupationally sensible, such as female cavaliers wearing panties, which allows us to include Sully as well, even though her art hides her underwear outside of battle animations.

Awakening isn't quite as bad as Fates, but it began the greater trend, since they share the same art director (Kusakihara) and character artist (Kozaki).

Echoes' only exploitative moment is a still shot of Mathilda posing pornographically, which was really bad, but otherwise the characters are more tastefully drawn (by Hidari, a different artist)—although Kusakihara's scenario direction for Echoes is not kind to its female protagonist, and it has a bad problem with damselization in general.

ah, thanks for that. Besides tharja i forgot about the rest.

Deleted member 12009 · Apr 19, 2018

rras1994 said:
This is quite a good article https://kotaku.com/in-south-korea-gamers-stage-an-inquisition-against-fem-1825398846
I think it's quite a good example of how employees don't get to just do their vision and actually have to be very careful about their own beliefs/point of view.

What a frustrating situation. I truly feel for those artists who are under constant attack from those anti-feminist groups. Seems that if you work in geek culture, and video gaming especially, you really can't have a public facing social media account without fear of being targeted. Maybe I'm paranoid, but that (and the anger my 'Facebook friends' constantly whipped me into) is ultimately what led to me deleting my own Facebook page. This industry can be absolutely brutal and I'd rather not have a permanent record hovering over my head.

Laughing Banana · Apr 19, 2018

Disclaimer said:
Awakening's marriage and children mechanics weren't marketed whatsoever, so comparing the amount of sales they garnered versus its unprecedented marketing blitz, the approachability Casual Mode offered to the masses, or the improved graphics (including marketed cutscenes) / streamlined UI... would be slightly dishonest.
.

But boy do they marketed the "waifu" angle so much.

I am actually having a hard time to understand people's unwillingness to seemingly acknowledge that IS pandered to the waifu angle so much in their recent Fire Emblems, and thus even they acknowledge the potential of how that kind of thing can do for their games. It's all over the place, from their marketing to how they handle their DLCs... it's really really blatant.

WrenchNinja · Apr 19, 2018

The game wasn't released for almost a year in the west, the fact that you could fuck everyone was definitely word of mouth that spread.

Snormy · Apr 19, 2018

Every time someone argues that FE isn't pushing more into the crazy waifu recently I show them the silly bunny and bride costumes in heroes. "Oh but that is just the mobile-"
Camilla.gif

It isn't accidental. It's not subtle. I'd say they have half a heart to still have some characters be somewhat normal and keep older fans happy but I won't be surprised if they slowly learn more in favour of the ecchi flavour.

Oddish1 · Apr 19, 2018

Laughing Banana said:
But boy do they marketed the "waifu" angle so much.

I am actually having a hard time to understand people's unwillingness to seemingly acknowledge that IS pandered to the waifu angle so much in their recent Fire Emblems, and thus even they acknowledge the potential of how that kind of thing can do for their games. It's all over the place, from their marketing to how they handle their DLCs... it's really really blatant.

Was this how it was marketed in Japan? In the US Awakening was definitely marketed to newer audiences with how your units could die and every choice you make matters. The pair up mechanic was advertised heavily and they got their money's worth with the in-game cutscenes. Fates was definitely advertised more with its "you can choose a path, your decision matters!" I genuinely don't know where you're getting that they marketed a "waifu angle". Fire Emblem Warriors and Fire Emblem Heroes, sure. They're fanservice games that are trying to sell themselves on the most popular Fire Emblem characters. But I don't see how the mainline Fire Emblem series has ever marketed itself on "waifus".

Disclaimer · Apr 19, 2018

No one would argue that it's either accidental or subtle, but it is demonstrably the influence of 2-3 developers within IS who were in pivotal roles for Awakening, Fates, and Heroes' design/artistic direction, and were opposed by other long-standing developers, whose distaste led to Fates' My Castle touching being majorly toned down (and removed in the localization).

Historically, those job positions have had a great degree of variance in Fire Emblem/IS, especially between hardware generations, so it's not improbable that Fire Emblem Switch could have a different tone. Maeda, one of those developers, is now tied up directing Heroes, while Kusakihara was directing Echoes when FE Switch began development, indicating that he isn't leading it—or at least wasn't to begin with.

Also, no, neither Awakening nor Fates had any "waifu" marketing at all in the West, outside of a second or two of Camilla's cutscene.

Laughing Banana · Apr 19, 2018

Oddish1 said:
Was this how it was marketed in Japan? In the US Awakening was definitely marketed to newer audiences with how your units could die and every choice you make matters. The pair up mechanic was advertised heavily and they got their money's worth with the in-game cutscenes. Fates was definitely advertised more with its "you can choose a path, your decision matters!" I genuinely don't know where you're getting that they marketed a "waifu angle". Fire Emblem Warriors and Fire Emblem Heroes, sure. They're fanservice games that are trying to sell themselves on the most popular Fire Emblem characters. But I don't see how the mainline Fire Emblem series has ever marketed itself on "waifus".

Dude, these are official stuff:

Deleted member 5535 · Apr 19, 2018

Laughing Banana said:
Dude, these are official stuff:

Well, in the case of the figure, those existed way before Awakening for Fire Emblem characters.

RpgN · Apr 19, 2018

And I believe the second picture is definitely a DLC, the first one might be too.

I'm still of the believe that Awakening was not marketed as a waifu bait in the West. Fates had more mechanics centerd around that, but the marketing was still not focused on it. They only showed boob lady when they were marketing picking a side and the type of gameplay (hardcore old style, new style user friendly Awakening type).

atomsk eater · Apr 19, 2018

rras1994 said:
This is quite a good article https://kotaku.com/in-south-korea-gamers-stage-an-inquisition-against-fem-1825398846
I think it's quite a good example of how employees don't get to just do their vision and actually have to be very careful about their own beliefs/point of view.

Wow, that article is nuts. No idea it was that bad in Korea, where apparently having opinions about sexual education in schools, abortion, or even something like being against hidden camera porn(?!?!?!?) can lead to people calling for you to be fired. Supremely fucked.

Deleted member 5535 · Apr 20, 2018

So, Shueisha launched their demographic stats for their magazines and I thought it might be a bit relevant for here since the subject always appears here.

In the case of Shounen Jump, it's like that for this year
Répartition par âge : 9 ans et moins (3,2%), 10-12 ans (9,6%), 13-15 (16,4%), 16-18 (17,6%), 19-24 (25,8%), 25 ans ou plus (27,4%)

There's much more details in the link below with age, local, employment and diverse other things. It's in french but google translate helps
http://www.mangamag.fr/actualite/ac...pre-publication-de-manga-de-shueisha-en-2018/

A Strong Latte · Apr 20, 2018

SO I'm due to grow out of WSJ and start reading young jump and grand this year

Oddish1 · Apr 20, 2018

Laughing Banana said:
Dude, these are official stuff:

Pretty sure those were not used to market the game. Those are extraneous things to sell to people who have already bought the game.

esserius · Apr 20, 2018

Nemesis162 said:
So, Shueisha launched their demographic stats for their magazines and I thought it might be a bit relevant for here since the subject always appears here.

In the case of Shounen Jump, it's like that for this year
Répartition par âge : 9 ans et moins (3,2%), 10-12 ans (9,6%), 13-15 (16,4%), 16-18 (17,6%), 19-24 (25,8%), 25 ans ou plus (27,4%)

There's much more details in the link below with age, local, employment and diverse other things. It's in french but google translate helps
http://www.mangamag.fr/actualite/ac...pre-publication-de-manga-de-shueisha-en-2018/

Unsure what this demographic data is intended to tell us... most of what I've seen looks pretty expected (based on the covers after googling).

Deleted member 5535 · Apr 20, 2018

esserius said:
Unsure what this demographic data is intended to tell us... most of what I've seen looks pretty expected (based on the covers after googling).

Just what the public is for the magazines. Age, employment, scholarship and everything in data for the people that buy them in the case of Shueisha. I thought that could be interesting for both the female and male intended ones and how are the people that consumes them in those details.

esserius · Apr 20, 2018

I guess the thing that surprises me most is the circulation and number of publications.

American and UK magazines for specialized interests have seemingly disappeared in the interim, and the ones that do manage to stay alive typically never get above 500,000 - (though interestingly, the game magazine with the largest circulation I found was the Official XBox magazine at 425,000).

RalchAC · Apr 20, 2018

Oddish1 said:
Was this how it was marketed in Japan? In the US Awakening was definitely marketed to newer audiences with how your units could die and every choice you make matters. The pair up mechanic was advertised heavily and they got their money's worth with the in-game cutscenes. Fates was definitely advertised more with its "you can choose a path, your decision matters!" I genuinely don't know where you're getting that they marketed a "waifu angle". Fire Emblem Warriors and Fire Emblem Heroes, sure. They're fanservice games that are trying to sell themselves on the most popular Fire Emblem characters. But I don't see how the mainline Fire Emblem series has ever marketed itself on "waifus".

They didn't really need to push the waifu angle in the West because, in all honesty, the kind of people that would be into it were already informed thanks to the internet. So they chased a broader audience while WoM was sending the memo to that niche.

esserius said:
I guess the thing that surprises me most is the circulation and number of publications.

American and UK magazines for specialized interests have seemingly disappeared in the interim, and the ones that do manage to stay alive typically never get above 500,000 - (though interestingly, the game magazine with the largest circulation I found was the Official XBox magazine at 425,000).

Shonen Jump in its heyday was moving like 6 million copies weekly. It's been declining in the last 10 years quite a bit and I'm sure it'll decline further once One Piece ends, if it ever does. I dunno if digital has been picking up the slack, however.

esserius · Apr 20, 2018

RalchAC said:
Shonen Jump in its heyday was moving like 6 million copies weekly. It's been declining in the last 10 years quite a bit and I'm sure it'll decline further once One Piece ends, if it ever does. I dunno if digital has been picking up the slack, however.

Yeah, this is the thing I continue to wonder. Is there a digital plan that they've implemented or are they simply dooming themselves slowly? Non-digital print has just completely tanked and there's still no real method for recovering from that. Even books now are frequently selling more digitally than they do physical copies.

Choppasmith · Apr 20, 2018

Just saw the cover of the recently announced Mega Man X Anniversary Soundtrack and I forgot all about Alia's dumb "upgrade" (well let's face it, she got a boob job)

To

It definitely reminds me of the "But how will the player know she's female" phrase that keeps being said in this thread. Disappointed they're sticking with the latter design.

Deleted member 5535 · Apr 20, 2018

RalchAC said:
They didn't really need to push the waifu angle in the West because, in all honesty, the kind of people that would be into it were already informed thanks to the internet. So they chased a broader audience while WoM was sending the memo to that niche.

Shonen Jump in its heyday was moving like 6 million copies weekly. It's been declining in the last 10 years quite a bit and I'm sure it'll decline further once One Piece ends, if it ever does. I dunno if digital has been picking up the slack, however.

esserius said:
Yeah, this is the thing I continue to wonder. Is there a digital plan that they've implemented or are they simply dooming themselves slowly? Non-digital print has just completely tanked and there's still no real method for recovering from that. Even books now are frequently selling more digitally than they do physical copies.

Hm, almost every magazine these days has a digital version, just like digital volume. And from last year we know that for the first time the digital sales of manga were bigger than the print volume sales, which is already really big.

Today we also had the information that Shonen Jump+ has 8 million of subscribers. It's the web magazine of shounen jump with original titles along the titles of the retail magazine.

LightEntite · Apr 20, 2018

Fire Emblem has changed

esserius · Apr 20, 2018

Nemesis162 said:
Today we also had the information that Shonen Jump+ has 8 million of subscribers. It's the web magazine of shounen jump with original titles along the titles of the retail magazine.

Hopefully part of a larger trend. It's going to sound weird but honestly my real concern has more to do with environmental impacts of the amount of paper needed to make millions of magazines. I'm aware tech obviously has concerning environmental impacts as well, but I suppose about the best I can say is they're different - probably worse in some ways, better in others.

petran79 · Apr 20, 2018

Nemesis162 said:
Ehhhhh, that's not true. Such things existed for decades. Cutie Honey, Ranma 1/2, Urusei Yatsura, Harenchi Gakuen (the manga of Nagai that invented ecchi and popularized romcom), I"s and plenty of ecchi manga or romcom were there, be it in any demography. Just like many manga without these components had some scenes here or another or the same problem that we have today in treatment of women. And that without count manga like Dr Slump with racism, Dragon Ball with plenty of scenes sexualizing women (and Roshi), Devilman Lady with rape in every chapter for it's first 30 chapters and so many things that I saw while reading manga of the 70s, 80s and 90s. It's really not so different than what we have today.

And I'm surprised to see you using Hokuto no Ken as an example considering how women are treated in the manga.

The opinion about old anime stems from the experience viewers had in public TV channels, that even today differ in policy compared to PayTV, DVD video and comics. The people responsible for bringing those series had to follow some standards and even be subject to reactions, both from within the stations, the public and broadcasting authorities too.
Whereas now you have streaming sites from anime fans who can stream whatever they like, not worrying or even knowing about any standard.

Redcrayon · Apr 20, 2018

The latest Bloodstained Kickstarter update (fair play, they are good at keeping backers updated) has a survey on which alternate costumes players would like to see for the lead character, Miriam, who has a fairly gothic/maid inspired design to start with. Descriptions in brackets are theirs.

Your options are:

Valkyrie (armoured)
Angel
Demon

At this point, it's a supernatural game, this all sounds interesting. Then we have:

Succubus (provocative)
Vampire (elegant)
Nun

Well, OK, they are common enough ideas for the whole gothic monster hunter canon. Then we have

Maid
Corrupted (overtaken by the curse)
Bikini/beachwear.
Other.

What is it with bloody beachwear? At this point, it doesn't matter if your protagonists are fighting demons in a post-apocalyptic ruin (SMTIV:A), hunting monsters in a 19th century castle or fighting on a fantasy medieval battlefield (Fire Emblem), the availability of beachwear is guaranteed. I don't know why this cliched crap is amongst the default suggestions when the devs are creative enough to make hundreds of enemies for the games- why not suggest something a bit more esoteric and characterful and then see if your customers all write back with 'nah we want teh titties'? Otherwise it's just starting at the lowest common denominator rather than using comms to inspire people about the setting, few are going to suggest 'other' when they can see that others will just choose amongst the cliches on offer here.

Why women criticise sexualised character designs (READ OP)

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