Why women criticise sexualised character designs (READ OP)

esserius · Jun 2, 2018

Just, let's take it as an example. Gurazeni, fairly innocuous baseball anime right?

Well, sort of, but not really.

Having watched a few episodes of the show, the only position women are in (if they exist in the show at all) are in positions of servitude to men. They are cheerleaders, women hanging off men in bars or clubs, or cooking for men. Effectively, this is what women exist for in this universe, to be exploited by men. They are entirely an afterthought, and while it'd be understandable if they were mostly not included, their inclusion as simply being there for the purpose of being used in some way shows quite a bit of the author's intent.

And yet, I suspect most will only notice this subtly, since the majority of the show is still about the main male and his interactions while playing baseball. Nevertheless, when women are introduced, they are not presented as empowered, but for purposes of exploitation.

Is it less obvious? Certainly, but nevertheless, sexism and objectification of women is being played out here.

Rocketjay · Jun 2, 2018

SieteBlanco said:
Shounen manga such as One Piece doesn't really have the "it's by otaku for otaku" excuse; a lot of the designs for the female characters are more ridiculous than those on late-night anime and it's still a mainstream cartoon broadcasted on Sunday mornings.

This IS mainstream in Japan.

HAHAHA that looks ridiculous

Rocketjay · Jun 2, 2018

Opa-Pa said:
The series has a terrible habit of starring extremely young looking female characters in light clothing, and it becomes pretty clear what the intentions behind these desings are in official art like this

*Sees the top half first*
Ok, looks fine to me

*Looks to the bottom*
Nevermind

platypo · Jun 2, 2018

Redcrayon said:
But they do exist, and it is troubling, and the anime and games industry either tacitly support it or like to pretend it's not an issue. Why is that games seem to take so much from this rubbish side of it then if it makes up such a small example of anime as a whole? This thread is absolutely littered with examples of such trash that are obviously heavily inspired by sexualised anime designs, with the artists working across both. Almost the entire Japanese games industry continually doubles down on the worst aspects of it by infantilising female characters, sexualising child ones and (the reason this thread is so long) having a trend for questionable female character designs in general. The vast majority of the examples of terrible character design in this thread are from games either inspired by or using the same artists as anime. Even the biggest games publishers in Japan put out this shit, to the point where Xenoblade and Fire

esserius said:
You clearly haven't been watching much of this season if you think those are the only ones. Granted, I wouldn't blame you for not wanting to watch most of these shows, most of them are garbage. That said, particularly if you include leftovers, anime with blatant sexualization, objectification and exploitation of their female characters is included in roughly 70% of all shows.

I admit I only watch shows which seem interesting according to my tastes.

The point I am trying to make is equating anime, an artstyle, to sexualization of every woman ever is wrong.

I agree most of it is terrible and harmful because the sexualization is often used for humour.

The anime I've enjoyed have multi-dimensional women. Yes, a part of them is sexual because sexuality is often a theme in Japanese fiction, but it is purposeful.

For instance, at first glance the women in Ikuhara's works might feel sexualized, and they are, but these works have insightful commentary on gender identity and very strongly reject socially imposed gender roles.

If you look at some of Kyoto Animation's newer works in motion (which are immensely popular and important to the current trends in character design), especially the ones Naoko Yamada worked on, you will see a very honest and delicate representation of female youth that you would not see anywhere else.

Most of my favorite illustrators are Japanese women who you could say draw girls in the anime style. They are reclaiming their femininity through their art because gender dynamics in Japan are quite fucked up and chose the anime style to do so.

About JRPGS (which most are unplayable because of the overtly sexualized female characters); in Japan, erotic video games are an important part of video game history and development, many of them having elements derived from RPG games mechanics, which is why the two genres have for a long time included bishoujo in them. The genre is dying and nowadays these games are super niche. I think generalizing a whole artstyle because of them is wrong, especially when a tiny number of people actually play these games. I feel you when series like Valkyrie Profile turn to shit and have their character design ruined by sexualization.

The designs we actually need to target are those of sexualized women in mainstream games considered 'good' by the community. Those are harmful.

Laiza · Jun 2, 2018

platypo said:
Sigh, if you wanna play that game then...

Let's just take a look a the new airing anime of the season for example... http://anichart.net/spring-2018

I can see only four of them with blatantly sexualized female characters; 3d kanojo, high school dxd, cutie honey universe and the latest food wars season (all ecchi shows), and comic girls, mahou shoujo site and boku no hero academia to some extent.

They are in the minority.

Just based off of series that I'm actually watching this season (not very many) - Hinamatsuri has several notable instances of gratuitous onscreen child nudity (that are thankfully very brief); Hisone to Maso-tan is chock-full of depictions of sexist behavior that either go uncriticized or, worse still, are outright praised (in 2018!?); Persona 5 the Animation has inherited the exact same issues as the video game it adapts; and are we really excluding Horse Girls from this? Are we really? I mean... you sure about that?

Mind, we can go back a season or two and look at what's there, or even just look at the big-name stuff and note how ubiquitous the sexist design principles are even in that mainstream stuff (you already mentioned Hero Aca, but Fate has had two major TV anime adaptations in the preceding two seasons and they're both full of garbage female character designs). Frankly, if you want to be a part of the fandom it is extremely difficult to avoid the sexist bullshit. I mean, cripes, I'm knee-deep in the whole thing - you're not going to be able to convince me that it's something it's not. I see this stuff all the bloody time. I have to actively curate my own viewing lineup to avoid that stuff and even then I'll usually end up with at least one or two shows where I literally cannot avoid it because they stuff things in there that don't need to be there.

I get why you're doing this. It can be annoying to see the medium criticized when you see and experience its potential - I mean, hell, I understand that pretty well since I watch a ton of anime, but that's seriously unnecessary. Anyone who's interested in actively investigating the medium can do so on their own. You don't need to defend it for anyone. The content speaks for itself. This is not an anime recommendation thread and there is absolutely no danger of anime retreating to the niche it used to sit in (remember the days when same-day streaming wasn't a thing?). Anyone who's willing to write off the entire medium based on hearsay isn't worth your time to begin with.

And most importantly - you can criticize the things you love! I do it all the time. There are so many games that I play and enjoy and still criticize the stuffing out of, because there are just some things that need improvement. And when it comes to female representation, there is still TONS of room for improvement across the board. It'd be great to see that acknowledged more often, as it would at least indicate that people recognize that there's a problem. Too bad that, currently, more often than not, people still seem to be too stubborn to even recognize that there is a problem.

Rocketjay · Jun 2, 2018

Redcrayon said:
But they do exist, and it is troubling, and the anime and games industry either tacitly support it or like to pretend it's not an issue. Why is that games seem to take so much from this rubbish side of it then if it makes up such a small example of anime as a whole? This thread is absolutely littered with examples of such trash that are obviously heavily inspired by sexualised anime designs, with the artists working across both. Almost the entire Japanese games industry continually doubles down on the worst aspects of it by infantilising female characters, sexualising child ones and (the reason this thread is so long) having a trend for questionable female character designs in general. The vast majority of the examples of terrible character design in this thread are from games either inspired by or using the same artists as anime. Even the biggest games publishers in Japan put out this shit, to the point where Xenoblade and Fire Emblem are highly publicised mainstream Nintendo games with ratings that allow kids to play them but contain either designs of sexualised children, sexualised female character design as a template across a large cast of young women or both.

When both mainstream animated stuff like One Piece and the more heavily anime-inspired Nintendo games have got their young female characters wandering around in combat lingerie while selling to kids, how much worse can it get before admittance that there's a problem? It's easy to dismiss the pedo-bait stuff as an unfortunate niche while claiming it's the exception and everything else is fine, but that's the 'no true Scotsman' fallacy. The overarching industry atmosphere and tacit support displayed consistently in this thread, combined with unwillingness by even mainstream creators to draw a line in the sand, continually push the envelope and contribute to the problem. That is what gets rightfully criticised.

Fire Emblem and Xenoblade are teen rated games.

Pablo Mesa · Jun 2, 2018

Laiza said:
Just based off of series that I'm actually watching this season (not very many) - Hinamatsuri has several notable instances of gratuitous onscreen child nudity (that are thankfully very brief); Hisone to Maso-tan is chock-full of depictions of sexist behavior that either go uncriticized or, worse still, are outright praised (in 2018!?); Persona 5 the Animation has inherited the exact same issues as the video game it adapts; and are we really excluding Horse Girls from this? Are we really? I mean... you sure about that?

Mind, we can go back a season or two and look at what's there, or even just look at the big-name stuff and note how ubiquitous the sexist design principles are even in that mainstream stuff (you already mentioned Hero Aca, but Fate has had two major TV anime adaptations in the preceding two seasons and they're both full of garbage female character designs). Frankly, if you want to be a part of the fandom it is extremely difficult to avoid the sexist bullshit. I mean, cripes, I'm knee-deep in the whole thing - you're not going to be able to convince me that it's something it's not. I see this stuff all the bloody time. I have to actively curate my own viewing lineup to avoid that stuff and even then I'll usually end up with at least one or two shows where I literally cannot avoid it because they stuff things in there that don't need to be there.

I get why you're doing this. It can be annoying to see the medium criticized when you see and experience its potential - I mean, hell, I understand that pretty well since I watch a ton of anime, but that's seriously unnecessary. Anyone who's interested in actively investigating the medium can do so on their own. You don't need to defend it for anyone. The content speaks for itself. This is not an anime recommendation thread and there is absolutely no danger of anime retreating to the niche it used to sit in (remember the days when same-day streaming wasn't a thing?). Anyone who's willing to write off the entire medium based on hearsay isn't worth your time to begin with.

And most importantly - you can criticize the things you love! I do it all the time. There are so many games that I play and enjoy and still criticize the stuffing out of, because there are just some things that need improvement. And when it comes to female representation, there is still TONS of room for improvement across the board. It'd be great to see that acknowledged more often, as it would at least indicate that people recognize that there's a problem. Too bad that, currently, more often than not, people still seem to be too stubborn to even recognize that there is a problem.

2 questions:

1st when you mean representation you mean it as it Looks or Personality, or both?
2nd when you ask for representation, you want only more representation or removes those that doesnt do it?

Just to have a point of reference, what shows/ characters you consider do the representation right?

Redcrayon · Jun 2, 2018

Rocketjay8 said:
Fire Emblem and Xenoblade are teen rated games.

Maybe where you are. Both are rated '12' in Europe, and promoted amidst Nintendo's treehouse sections etc that are depicted as family-friendly. I don't think that's entirely wonderful for games that sexualise almost the entire young female cast (and even some children cast members) when they can be sold to kids that aren't even teenagers yet. There's a huge difference between a child that's 12 and a young adult in their late teens.

platypo · Jun 2, 2018

esserius said:
Just, let's take it as an example. Gurazeni, fairly innocuous baseball anime right?

Gurazeni sucks but I must say it's a good representation of the world of professional sports as a whole. They are incredibly male-centric (success being measured through quantitative performance and money). I know it's not intended.

Laiza said:
I get why you're doing this. It can be annoying to see the medium criticized when you see and experience its potential - I mean, hell, I understand that pretty well since I watch a ton of anime, but that's seriously unnecessary. Anyone who's interested in actively investigating the medium can do so on their own. You don't need to defend it for anyone. The content speaks for itself. This is not an anime recommendation thread and there is absolutely no danger of anime retreating to the niche it used to sit in (remember the days when same-day streaming wasn't a thing?). Anyone who's willing to write off the entire medium based on hearsay isn't worth your time to begin with.

And most importantly - you can criticize the things you love! I do it all the time. There are so many games that I play and enjoy and still criticize the stuffing out of, because there are just some things that need improvement. And when it comes to female representation, there is still TONS of room for improvement across the board. It'd be great to see that acknowledged more often, as it would at least indicate that people recognize that there's a problem. Too bad that, currently, more often than not, people still seem to be too stubborn to even recognize that there is a problem.

Thank you, I will stop posting about anime because as you said it Iove it very much and it's been integral to the way I perceive my own gender identity.

I am definitely not defending the whole of it and recognize its problems, I just don't think anime is critical in the discussion of the sexualization of female characters in modern video games.

Pablo Mesa · Jun 2, 2018

platypo said:
I just don't think anime is critical in the discussion of the sexualization of female characters in modern video games.

I dont think they are mutually exclusive tho, many games from Japan (and anime of games) work under the idea of "anime like" designs in both Character design and plot.

Redcrayon · Jun 2, 2018

platypo said:
I am definitely not defending the whole of it and recognize its problems, I just don't think anime is critical in the discussion of the sexualization of female characters in modern video games.

I think it is when most of this several-hundred-page thread focuses on Japanese game character designs made by artists with anime backgrounds, or working in an medium heavily influenced by it. The link between the quest arcs and character development of shonen anime and JRPGs is pretty strong, isn't it? Plenty of games are pretty much an anime series broken down into game form- see the episodic nature of the recent Persona games and how easily it translates from game to anime and back for example.

Xaszatm · Jun 2, 2018

Pablo Mesa said:
try Grand Line. since Miss Valentine or Arabasta Ms Doublefinger or Original Robin or Vivi

Like yeah, it's bad there too, but at least there were some other designs and character bodies. After the time skip, like EVERY woman was the exact same shape with the only difference being how fanservicey their clothes were up until Whole Cake Island.

Opa-Pa said:
Yeah it's a relief they've been (slowly) moving a way from creepy infantilized designs to more standard sexy ones... I guess. There's still ridiculous stuff like Seraphina's belt skirt, but at least she's a seductress instead of some woman that just so happened to dress in fetish wear. Plus there a lot of men showing skin too so it sticks out less (Disgaea has this fascination with exposing men's pelvic bones too that I find really curious).

Yeah, they tend to be more equal in sexualizing everyone (though women get the full brunt compared to the men).

Rocketjay8 said:
HAHAHA that looks ridiculous

It's weird because she has no reason to wear it. She is shown wearing normal clothing later so it's just like...why?

Pablo Mesa · Jun 2, 2018

Xaszatm said:
but at least there were some other designs and character bodies.

IIRC those body types were more as a matter of jokes like the mole women or the old lady doctor in Brum, some really small cases aside. most women in OP have the same body mold

Xaszatm · Jun 2, 2018

Pablo Mesa said:
IIRC those body types were more as a matter of jokes like the mole women or the old lady doctor in Brum, some really small cases aside. most women in OP have the same body mold

Well yeah, Oda has always been terrible at drawing women. Half of the Amazon Island arc was all about him learning to actually have different body types for women...which he tend promptly ignored until Whole Cake Island.

Miss Monday was pretty awesome though.

DVCY201 · Jun 2, 2018

Laiza said:
Just based off of series that I'm actually watching this season (not very many) - Hinamatsuri has several notable instances of gratuitous onscreen child nudity (that are thankfully very brief); Hisone to Maso-tan is chock-full of depictions of sexist behavior that either go uncriticized or, worse still, are outright praised (in 2018!?); Persona 5 the Animation has inherited the exact same issues as the video game it adapts; and are we really excluding Horse Girls from this? Are we really? I mean... you sure about that?

Mind, we can go back a season or two and look at what's there, or even just look at the big-name stuff and note how ubiquitous the sexist design principles are even in that mainstream stuff (you already mentioned Hero Aca, but Fate has had two major TV anime adaptations in the preceding two seasons and they're both full of garbage female character designs). Frankly, if you want to be a part of the fandom it is extremely difficult to avoid the sexist bullshit. I mean, cripes, I'm knee-deep in the whole thing - you're not going to be able to convince me that it's something it's not. I see this stuff all the bloody time. I have to actively curate my own viewing lineup to avoid that stuff and even then I'll usually end up with at least one or two shows where I literally cannot avoid it because they stuff things in there that don't need to be there.

I get why you're doing this. It can be annoying to see the medium criticized when you see and experience its potential - I mean, hell, I understand that pretty well since I watch a ton of anime, but that's seriously unnecessary. Anyone who's interested in actively investigating the medium can do so on their own. You don't need to defend it for anyone. The content speaks for itself. This is not an anime recommendation thread and there is absolutely no danger of anime retreating to the niche it used to sit in (remember the days when same-day streaming wasn't a thing?). Anyone who's willing to write off the entire medium based on hearsay isn't worth your time to begin with.

And most importantly - you can criticize the things you love! I do it all the time. There are so many games that I play and enjoy and still criticize the stuffing out of, because there are just some things that need improvement. And when it comes to female representation, there is still TONS of room for improvement across the board. It'd be great to see that acknowledged more often, as it would at least indicate that people recognize that there's a problem. Too bad that, currently, more often than not, people still seem to be too stubborn to even recognize that there is a problem.

I appreciate this post, and I do appreciate this type of discussion too. It is always good to hear how we can do things differently, do things better, and create a more inclusive environment with better characters. I love anime/manga, I've gotten some incredible series from it. I'm also quite critical of the more problematic content I've become aware of.

I think some of you should try Aggretsuko if you haven't already.

I will say that I think anime isn't solely to "blame". I think this is more systemic to the entertainment industry in Japan, like have you seen the stuff that Idols and VAs have to put up with? The culture in Japan can be sexist and misogynistic, they have a ways to go.

esserius · Jun 2, 2018

platypo said:
Gurazeni sucks but I must say it's a good representation of the world of professional sports as a whole. They are incredibly male-centric (success being measured through quantitative performance and money). I know it's not intended.

Not intended? Sure. But most of the audience isn't reading it that critically. To them that's just "real life", by which they mean the life (or more appropriately, fantasy) they want or expect. Intention pretty much always wheels back to the Thermian Argument. Which is to say, it doesn't matter how it got there (it's fiction), but what it represents is important from a political perspective and who it's for matters from a pedagogical one.

DVCY201 said:
I will say that I think anime isn't solely to "blame". I think this is more systemic to the entertainment industry in Japan, like have you seen the stuff that Idols and VAs have to put up with? The culture in Japan is very sexist and misogynistic, they have a ways to go.

I don't think most here are solely blaming anime. The intent is to point out that many of the designs seen, particularly in modern video games, are being inspired by what came before in similar or same pop cultures, particularly anime and other video games. The problem with that is that so much of these media are now toxic that if you are building or designing primarily from them as inspiration, the work that results is inherently going to carry that toxicity with it. It's why Miyazaki was so adamant about new animators looking outside of anime for inspiration, and why he lamented that so many who are in anime and video games can't tell stories because they aren't interested in people. And honestly? That's becoming more and more apparent as time goes on. It is causing real problems, and while there are always going to be diamonds in the rough, I think everyone has to admit that... well, things are a lot more rough than they used to be.

Also, just as a note. The only reason any of us criticize this stuff is basically because we love it to death. We want it to be better, and having this discussion helps hone our understanding of the problem as well as become aware of instances where things go right.

platypo · Jun 2, 2018

esserius said:
Intention pretty much always wheels back to the Thermian Argument. Which is to say, it doesn't matter how it got there (it's fiction), but what it represents is important from a political perspective and who it's for matters from a pedagogical one.

That's neat and it's important to keep that in mind when thinking critically about representation in fiction.

What I actually meant to say was that the creators didn't intend on portraying the rampant sexism in the world of professional sports, sorry. I'm actually trying trying to improve my English by posting on resetera.

Redcrayon · Jun 2, 2018

esserius said:
Also, just as a note. The only reason any of us criticize this stuff is basically because we love it to death. We want it to be better, and having this discussion helps hone our understanding of the problem as well as become aware of instances where things go right.

Absolutely. The things I've probably talked about the most in here are Fire Emblem, Ys, Trails, Valkyria Chronicles, Monster Hunter and RPG adventurers in general, which is pretty much a list of the games I spend the most time playing.

Even with regard to anime, I'm not averse to it as a medium, I really enjoyed the stuff I watched as a teenager. It's just that, as you say, the self-referential approach to sexualised design as it takes the last example and either repeats it (creating the zetta whatever template) or pushes it further (leading to costumes consisting of nipple cups and an arrow pointing to the crotch) is just visible, irritating and a massive influence on the Japanese games industry. When so many projects are multi-media now it's also harder to seperate the two.

It's also telling that this thread circles around to anime discussion from games character design on a regular basis, I think that alone proves that even in a thread that seems largely critical towards it, most people here enjoy at least some of it, or did in the past.

Twig · Jun 2, 2018

I like Gurazeni maybe YOU are the one who sucks

)))))):

RalchAC · Jun 2, 2018

Opa-Pa said:
I'm actually a fan myself, I love Disgaea but this is what I'm talking about

That's Etna, one of the leads from the first game and recurring character.

The series has a terrible habit of starring extremely young looking female characters in light clothing, and it becomes pretty clear what the intentions behind these desings are in official art like this

Yeah, ok. Wasn't aware of that.

Pablo Mesa said:
is this a joke? without even touching the Time Skip
Vivi, Nami, Robin, Ms Doublefinger, Ms Valentine, Kaya, Perona, Kalifa etc etc etc. they design got "better" as his art improved but they are not far from "Otaku Bait"

Design wise I'd say he has improved. But he has a really narrow range when it comes to drawing conventionally attractive characters.

Robin face got downgraded too with the time skip.

I'm not going to complain about same face problems because I feel they're inherent to the tight weekly magazine schedule.

Edit: Rebecca's is awful though.

Redcrayon said:
Maybe where you are. Both are rated '12' in Europe, and promoted amidst Nintendo's treehouse sections etc that are depicted as family-friendly. I don't think that's entirely wonderful for games that sexualise almost the entire young female cast (and even some children cast members) when they can be sold to kids that aren't even teenagers yet. There's a huge difference between a child that's 12 and a young adult in their late teens.

I'm playing FE Awakening and minor problems aside with the writing I was fine with everything until Nowi appeared. Does she magically grow up midway through the game or anything?

I find surprising that people complain about Tales characters when the ones in this games are as tropey as them and I don't find the unlockable Support conversations as entertaining.

Redcrayon · Jun 2, 2018

RalchAC said:
Yeah, ok. Wasn't aware of that.

Design wise I'd say he has improved. But he has a really narrow range when it comes to drawing conventionally attractive characters.

Robin face got downgraded too with the time skip.

I'm not going to complain about same face problems because I feel they're inherent to the tight weekly magazine schedule.

Edit: Rebecca's is awful though.

I'm playing FE Awakening and minor problems aside with the writing I was fine with everything until Nowi appeared. Does she magically grow up midway through the game or anything?

I find surprising that people complain about Tales characters when the ones in this games are as tropey as them and I don't find the unlockable Support conversations as entertaining.

FE does at least have the option for you to assign all awful/annoying characters to 'platoon permadeath' and send them out to die like the abominations they are. I like to clear the ranks of dead wood and questionable outfits. Maybe that's just me :D

cosmicblizzard · Jun 2, 2018

Too bad Nowi is one of the best characters in FEH. Got a 5 star lvl 40+10 of her.

Kinsei · Jun 2, 2018

RalchAC said:
I'm playing FE Awakening and minor problems aside with the writing I was fine with everything until Nowi appeared. Does she magically grow up midway through the game or anything?

Sadly no. Also if you want every unit you need to pair another unit up with her so that they have a kid together. FE:A is super skeevy.

y2kyle89 · Jun 2, 2018

Xaszatm said:
It's weird because she has no reason to wear it. She is shown wearing normal clothing later so it's just like...why?

IIRC, when she first appears she explains to ~~Luffy~~ Lucy that there is an armor weight limit for the tournament. I thought, with what she was wearing, this meant she was a death or glory kind of fighter. But no, she turns out to be a cry baby who doesn't beat anyone.

FallenGrace · Jun 2, 2018

esserius said:
Just, let's take it as an example. Gurazeni, fairly innocuous baseball anime right?

Well, sort of, but not really.

Having watched a few episodes of the show, the only position women are in (if they exist in the show at all) are in positions of servitude to men. They are cheerleaders, women hanging off men in bars or clubs, or cooking for men. Effectively, this is what women exist for in this universe, to be exploited by men. They are entirely an afterthought, and while it'd be understandable if they were mostly not included, their inclusion as simply being there for the purpose of being used in some way shows quite a bit of the author's intent.

And yet, I suspect most will only notice this subtly, since the majority of the show is still about the main male and his interactions while playing baseball. Nevertheless, when women are introduced, they are not presented as empowered, but for purposes of exploitation.

Is it less obvious? Certainly, but nevertheless, sexism and objectification of women is being played out here.

You know it's kind of sad, I don't think I'd have noticed that if id watched the show on self reflection. I just might have noticed no female lead characters but I suspect the rest of how women are only there for that purpose in the show may have passed me by. I wonder how many other series I've seen and not noticed something like that... :(

Bricks · Jun 2, 2018

For some reason, this popped up among my YT related videos...

It certainly shows some interesting trends. And at 4:55 I was just laughing my ass off.

Troublematic · Jun 2, 2018

The only reason any of us criticize this stuff is basically because we love it to death. We want it to be better, and having this discussion helps hone our understanding of the problem as well as become aware of instances where things go right.

By default heterosexual women and men are attracted to very different things, and they'll find each others sexual interests yawn-worthy or even off-putting. Anime and JRPGs combine a lot of common attractions for men and women, yet majority of it is catering to the male gaze women find off-putting, so it gets the most amount of flak since that's where they are exposed to it the most and it can be difficult to filter it. Since the medium is a sort of contact point between opposing interests, there's a lot of people defending their own side, be it with good arguments or not.

I see the sexualization in games and anime as a reflection of the sexual repression in these societies as a whole. Both US and Japan are highly sexually repressed going from childhood into adulthood and the subject matter is handled as taboo, but since it is one of the most integral parts of us as humans, it's not something that can be just tucked away neatly. The more repressed public society is, the more they make fetish stuff and use every trick in the book to subvert the unnatural repression over things we are consciously or subconsciously attracted to.

Of course there's reasons for why society has these taboos, immature sexuality being perhaps the biggest problem zone due to it being so vulnerable to abuse and trauma, yet it's something pretty much all of us share in one way or another, and perhaps due to the lack of handling it we never quite grow through it and find unhealthy ways of dealing with repressed feelings that aren't openly handled. I see a lot of the criticism in the west towards Japanese infantilization and sexual depictions of women more as a sign of how we cannot handle anything remotely tied to children being conflated to sexual desire, whereas in Japanese culture people aren't as fearful of seeing cute things or petite proportions as sexually attractive, and aren't conflating it to being a pedo. The problem is that it does blur the line and does allow some very questionable material that skirts any regulation.

I think there's a point to be made about how the fetishistic nature of Japanese portrayal of sexuality actually stems from US influence after WW2 and the importing of those morals, which created this weird amalgamation of culture where there's super weird fetish porn, but it's censored, and there's otherwise normal fantasy games, but the female characters are running in battle bikinis and it's rarely acknowledged. Perhaps it's a way of "filling up a quota" of what otherwise cannot be fulfilled by society at large, the same way the vast porn industry does in the US?

Sorry if that was a bit of and off-tangent ramble, but I'm more interested in the base human psychology and cultural cues behind what we see in this media and how people here react to it, than picking apart yet another skimpy dress and making generalizations of how the Japanese are so far behind us woke peeps here.

RalchAC · Jun 2, 2018

Redcrayon said:
FE does at least have the option for you to assign all awful/annoying characters to 'platoon permadeath' and send them out to die like the abominations they are. I like to clear the ranks of dead wood and questionable outfits. Maybe that's just me :D

I don't like the concept of permadeath and it's my first traditional SRPG so I went for Casual.

I'm still trying to not get my units killed and I've replayed a few areas, but I'd prefer something closer to Darkest Dungeon badly injured state or an increased money cost the more you resurrected units, I don't know, something among those lines.

In other news, I killed Tharja because I didn't know about that talk command.

Kinsei said:
Sadly no. Also if you want every unit you need to pair another unit up with her so that they have a kid together. FE:A is super skeevy.

I'm not planning to min max or anything, so I'll probably pass on that.

Syril · Jun 2, 2018

DVCY201 said:
I think some of you should try Aggretsuko if you haven't already.

No joke, Aggretsuko is the realest anime I've ever seen.

Squaresoft · Jun 2, 2018

esserius said:
Just, let's take it as an example. Gurazeni, fairly innocuous baseball anime right?

Well, sort of, but not really.

Having watched a few episodes of the show, the only position women are in (if they exist in the show at all) are in positions of servitude to men. They are cheerleaders, women hanging off men in bars or clubs, or cooking for men. Effectively, this is what women exist for in this universe, to be exploited by men. They are entirely an afterthought, and while it'd be understandable if they were mostly not included, their inclusion as simply being there for the purpose of being used in some way shows quite a bit of the author's intent.

And yet, I suspect most will only notice this subtly, since the majority of the show is still about the main male and his interactions while playing baseball. Nevertheless, when women are introduced, they are not presented as empowered, but for purposes of exploitation.

Is it less obvious? Certainly, but nevertheless, sexism and objectification of women is being played out here.

Thats not exploitation
Exploitation is completely something else

You mention cheerleaders, of which there are a lot in real life and they love it

Women in bars and clubs, which also happens a lot i do that too and i like going out and people like that and hook up with other people

And women cooking, of course that happens, I cook for men often and girlsfriends also do that and the other way around

Sorry but this is not exploitation

Its just a boys anime series with some cute girls in it
In a girls anime there are probably cute boys also

You are really overreaching it in this case

Deleted member 401 · Jun 2, 2018

RalchAC said:
I'm playing FE Awakening and minor problems aside with the writing I was fine with everything until Nowi appeared. Does she magically grow up midway through the game or anything?

Obligatory:

esserius · Jun 2, 2018

Troublematic said:
By default heterosexual women and men are attracted to very different things, and they'll find each others sexual interests yawn-worthy or even off-putting. Anime and JRPGs combine a lot of common attractions for men and women, yet majority of it is catering to the male gaze women find off-putting, so it gets the most amount of flak since that's where they are exposed to it the most and it can be difficult to filter it. Since the medium is a sort of contact point between opposing interests, there's a lot of people defending their own side, be it with good arguments or not.

I see the sexualization in games and anime as a reflection of the sexual repression in these societies as a whole. Both US and Japan are highly sexually repressed going from childhood into adulthood and the subject matter is handled as taboo, but since it is one of the most integral parts of us as humans, it's not something that can be just tucked away neatly. The more repressed public society is, the more they make fetish stuff and use every trick in the book to subvert the unnatural repression over things we are consciously or subconsciously attracted to.

Of course there's reasons for why society has these taboos, immature sexuality being perhaps the biggest problem zone due to it being so vulnerable to abuse and trauma, yet it's something pretty much all of us share in one way or another, and perhaps due to the lack of handling it we never quite grow through it and find unhealthy ways of dealing with repressed feelings that aren't openly handled. I see a lot of the criticism in the west towards Japanese infantilization and sexual depictions of women more as a sign of how we cannot handle anything remotely tied to children being conflated to sexual desire, whereas in Japanese culture people aren't as fearful of seeing cute things or petite proportions as sexually attractive, and aren't conflating it to being a pedo. The problem is that it does blur the line and does allow some very questionable material that skirts any regulation.

I think there's a point to be made about how the fetishistic nature of Japanese portrayal of sexuality actually stems from US influence after WW2 and the importing of those morals, which created this weird amalgamation of culture where there's super weird fetish porn, but it's censored, and there's otherwise normal fantasy games, but the female characters are running in battle bikinis and it's rarely acknowledged. Perhaps it's a way of "filling up a quota" of what otherwise cannot be fulfilled by society at large, the same way the vast porn industry does in the US?

Sorry if that was a bit of and off-tangent ramble, but I'm more interested in the base human psychology and cultural cues behind what we see in this media and how people here react to it, than picking apart yet another skimpy dress and making generalizations of how the Japanese are so far behind us woke peeps here.

So, a couple things.
a) the male gaze is objectifying by default, and it's a modern, if not post-modern creation. the result of which stems from huge collections of media, historical and otherwise, idealizing but also repressing women's sexual identity for the pleasure of men. the male gaze is not about attraction, but about power and subjugation, and it is not uniquely tied to any one culture.

b) the infantilization of women in Japanese society is fetishistic in nature and is a result, in large part, of fetishistic cultures, namely otaku culture, a marginal subculture whose raison d'etre is to consume goods related to those attractions. Japanese society largely rejecting those cultures is what initially made them marginal but has now made them mainstream after the culture crash in the 80s and 90s. they have become mainstream as a result of those marginal subcultures spending regardless of wealth or health, making them stable in a time of supreme economic instability, and effectively becoming an outlet for mainstream pop culture to offload necessary expenses to stay afloat. since that time, these marginal subcultures have become "mainstream" but they are still marginal in their values - spending excessively, and for fetishistic reasons, rather than simple attraction or interest. they are not infantilizing them because they are open about sexuality and cuteness - they are infantilizing them because that is part of how they identify sex. and in most cases, they know this is unhealthy, they perform such behavior anyway due to, again, their fetishistic interest in it.

c) as for US values, while fiscal conservatism due to the immediate introduction of capital into the market in a post-WW2 society is responsible for sexual repression, it's merely an extension of preexisting Japanese values. those values being ones in which the female was repressed to the extent that rape could be blamed on the woman, and this is a stigma that still exists today.

Squaresoft · Jun 2, 2018

esserius said:
So, a couple things.
a) the male gaze is objectifying by default, and it's a modern, if not post-modern creation. the result of which stems from huge collections of media, historical and otherwise, idealizing but also repressing women's sexual identity for the pleasure of men. the male gaze is not about attraction, but about power and subjugation, and it is not uniquely tied to any one culture.

Do you have any prove for this?

Please present the prove that its not about attraction but about power.

Also please present the prove that whatever you just stated is something "modern" or "post-modern".

When my little brother looks at girls no way he is thinking about power.
He is just attracted instinctively to girls. Its how nature makes sure our species still exists. We need all to feel attracted to each other to keep this whole human thing going. This happens for 100s of 1000s of years already and with animals already millions of years.

A.J. · Jun 2, 2018

Xaszatm said:
Well yeah, Oda has always been terrible at drawing women. Half of the Amazon Island arc was all about him learning to actually have different body types for women...which he tend promptly ignored until Whole Cake Island.

Miss Monday was pretty awesome though.

I always assumed him drawing different body types for women on Amazon island was because he wanted it to be some wacky exotic thing like most islands have.

Laiza · Jun 2, 2018

Pablo Mesa said:
2 questions:

1st when you mean representation you mean it as it Looks or Personality, or both?
2nd when you ask for representation, you want only more representation or removes those that doesnt do it?

Just to have a point of reference, what shows/ characters you consider do the representation right?

Looks and personality are inherently intertwined; they cannot be separated. When they are separated you lose any semblance of actual character; what you have instead is a caricature - a cartoon character with no depth or nuance.

The way real people function is that, well, they all put at least a modicum of thought into how they present themselves (unless they have a particular mental condition that makes it difficult or impossible for them to contemplate this - most anime characters do not fall under this classification). As such, it's very easy to analyze whether or not a particular outfit makes sense for the way a character comports their self. My major issue here is with characters that do not appear to have any of that agency reflected in their visual designs, usually done in such a fashion because the creator just wanted to titillate without actually putting any thought into anything other than titillation.

For positive examples - Aggretsuko is a great one. Michiko e Hatchin has a great example of a "sexy" female main character who is not idealized (she's kind of a terrible mother) or objectified. Kokkoku has a great female MC who exercises her agency quite well, though it has the caveat of the ending sequence being full of sexy fanservice (why tho?). While opinions on Attack on Titan may be mixed, I think it's a great example on the visual side as female characters are always dressed appropriately for the work they are doing (something that thankfully extends even to the video games based off of it). Of course, there's more, but I'd have to take time digging through my watched list for them. This should give you a good idea, at least.

Squaresoft said:
Do you have any prove for this?

Please present the prove that its not about attraction but about power.

There's no need for "proof" here. Semantically the "male gaze" refers to a concept that is explicitly about the power male creators have the ability to wield in presenting their media creations in a fashion that forces women into a specific mold (at our expense). It is not about how men are attracted to women as much as it is about how that attraction manifests in media and the effect it has on a societal level. When taken from that perspective it becomes obvious that this is most definitely a fairly modern creation as it comes along with the rise of movies and television, where the framing and casting of female characters really comes to the forefront.

RalchAC · Jun 2, 2018

Squaresoft said:
Do you have any prove for this?

Please present the prove that its not about attraction but about power.

Also please present the prove that whatever you just stated is something "modern" or "post-modern".

When my little brother looks at girls no way he is thinking about power.
He is just attracted instinctively to girls. Its how nature makes sure our species still exists. We need all to feel attracted to each other to keep this whole human thing going. This happens for 100s of 1000s of years already and with animals already millions of years.

Male gaze is a term that was created by a film critic that talked about how the potrayal of women in cinema was heavily influenced by how women are seen by the people behind the camera, which was largely white heterosexual men. As such, it's a term that's bound to those situations esserius explained, and since your little brother isn't a film director it has nothing to do with this.

You misused the term, that's all. You can read about it easily if you search it in Google.

rusty chrome · Jun 3, 2018

HotHamBoy said:
I didn't really know where else to post this.

So I'm playing Rise of the Tomb Raider and something I sort of realized early on - this super-woman with inhuman strength has zero muscle-tone. She's soft all over.

Is the idea that women with visible muscle tone is somehow unattractive? Because other games have no problem jacking dudes up.

It just seems comical given the whole point of her redesign.

Lara should have Nadine's body.

She looks great! And I believe her strength more.

Yep. Lara's design is pretty bad to me and her constant moaning is seriously embarrassing. Nadine became one of my favorite characters in Lost Legacy. No ones wants to fight her, and she even beat the shit out of Nathan Drake in Uncharted 4. It was pretty funny.

Spyware said:
Yes, that has been a big annoyance of mine for a while now, especially with Lara.

We need more women like Vanasha! (Aloy is fine too)

I think I might have fallen in love with Vanasha. She's just so ripped, so charming, and I love her design.

As much as I loved Aloy, I wish Vanasha had a bigger part in the story and definitely hope she comes back in a bigger way for Horizon 2.

AztecComplex · Jun 3, 2018

kikiribu said:
Yep. Lara's design is pretty bad to me and her constant moaning is seriously embarrassing. Nadine became one of my favorite characters in Lost Legacy. No ones wants to fight her, and she even beat the shit out of Nathan Drake in Uncharted 4. It was pretty funny.

To be fair they turned it down a lot for the sequel. In the original 2013 reboot it was downright embarrassing. You could replace Lara's moans from that game game and put them in porn and theyd be right at home.

Snormy · Jun 3, 2018

AztecComplex said:
To be fair they turned it down a lot for the sequel. In the original 2013 reboot it was downright embarrassing. You could replace Lara's moans from that game game and put them in porn and theyd be right at home.

Even without the moaning I found that Lara to be irritating. I disliked how she would comment on things and talk herself (and me) through puzzles or highlight things that I should be going to inspect myself at my own pace. It is just... Not the way I like my Tomb Raiding I guess. Oddly enough I found her little quips in the top down shooter games to be a lot more tolerable if not pleasant. That is not really Lara either though, this one is some crazy killing machine but damn if I don't enjoy those games sometimes.

petran79 · Jun 3, 2018

esserius said:
c) as for US values, while fiscal conservatism due to the immediate introduction of capital into the market in a post-WW2 society is responsible for sexual repression, it's merely an extension of preexisting Japanese values. those values being ones in which the female was repressed to the extent that rape could be blamed on the woman, and this is a stigma that still exists today.

I think it goes deeper than that. 19th century literature that is still celebrated today, while opening the horizons of adults, youth and children worldwide, it failed to address sexual liberation. Also the divide between children and adult literature, considering a lot of kids fairy tales were narrated for adults originally.

Gender and love relations of children, while a highly popular subject in psychology, is overall a taboo subject and very protectionist. Which makes the exploitation and commercialization of it a lot easier.

esserius · Jun 3, 2018

petran79 said:
I think it goes deeper than that. 19th century literature that is still celebrated today, while opening the horizons of adults, youth and children worldwide, it failed to address sexual liberation. Also the divide between children and adult literature, considering a lot of kids fairy tales were narrated for adults originally.

Gender and love relations of children, while a highly popular subject in psychology, is overall a taboo subject and very protectionist. Which makes the exploitation and commercialization of it a lot easier.

I agree. The historical reasons for the current situation are effectively as vast as you want to dig, and no response will completely summarize the current state of affairs. I mostly summarize probably due to my own laziness, since I've read at least some of those books, and while I would never claim to be an expert, I do think I have some idea of how pop culture became as normative as it is today, up to and including its unique brand of sexual repression in the US, Korea, China, and Japan. Beyond those my knowledge is admittedly much more limited and it's undoubtedly true that Europe is also involved in a lot of that and I pretty much completely skip over it since it's largely a blank space in my own knowledge pool (more familiar with Renaissance-era European history, much less well-versed in modern - and I say this as a fan of Laura Mulvey's work!).

Deleted member 5535 · Jun 4, 2018

esserius said:
You clearly haven't been watching much of this season if you think those are the only ones. Granted, I wouldn't blame you for not wanting to watch most of these shows, most of them are garbage. That said, particularly if you include leftovers, anime with blatant sexualization, objectification and exploitation of their female characters is included in roughly 70% of all shows. Not just a majority, but a super-majority at this point.

Unsurprisingly, most of the ones that don't include such things are for children, or targeted at young women or girls (Katry, Wotakoi, GGO). Many of them are also written or directed (or both) by women (shocker).

GGO isn't made by and for women but for men, same is true for Wotakoi. GGO is a spin-off of SAO published in Dengeki, for gods sake.

Also, about your points on women is totally false. Most of those are made by men, even the ones focused on girls including Precure, Aikatsu, Pripara, Sailor Moon, Cardcaptors Sakura and many others. Female directors are also extremaly rare.Look at the ones and see for yourself if they're made by men of women.

Even then, you have plenty of women doing series composition or being director in series that have those exact problems when they are in such positions. That without counting character designs for the anime. What you said is simply unreal and a blatant lie. Few are the ones who don't do it in such positions.

HotHamBoy · Jun 4, 2018

DVCY201 said:
I think some of you should try Aggretsuko if you haven't already.

I'm on episode 6. Might be the best show so far this year and I don't even usually like anime these days. It feels like a show that's actually written for adults but not in the crass, juvenile sense most "adult" animation is (Western included). It's really funny and really engaging.

esserius · Jun 4, 2018

Nemesis162 said:
GGO isn't made by and for women but for men, same is true for Wotakoi. GGO is a spin-off of SAO published in Dengeki, for gods sake.

Also, about your points on women is totally false. Most of those are made by men, even the ones focused on girls including Precure, Aikatsu, Pripara, Sailor Moon, Cardcaptors Sakura and many others. Female directors are also extremaly rare.Look at the ones and see for yourself if they're made by men of women.

Even then, you have plenty of women doing series composition or being director in series that have those exact problems when they are in such positions. That without counting character designs for the anime. What you said is simply unreal and a blatant lie. Few are the ones who don't do it in such positions.

Yep, you're right, and I'm wrong about that. My apologies for the misrepresentation. Seems like that means the situation is even bleaker than I presented. -_-

I actually can't seem to find an article that states anything about the author of Wotakoi's sex or age though. Just that the author started on pixiv and is named Fujita.

Morrigan · Jun 4, 2018

Can confirm that Aggretsuko is indeed amazing.

PROTEIN

Dick Justice · Jun 5, 2018

XCOM is pretty good when it comes to non-sexualized female designs. Enemy Unknown had boob armour, but they changed it with the Enemy Within expansion to look more practical. And it carried over to the sequel, which was nice.

cosmicblizzard · Jun 5, 2018

Nemesis162 said:
GGO isn't made by and for women but for men, same is true for Wotakoi. GGO is a spin-off of SAO published in Dengeki, for gods sake.

Also, about your points on women is totally false. Most of those are made by men, even the ones focused on girls including Precure, Aikatsu, Pripara, Sailor Moon, Cardcaptors Sakura and many others. Female directors are also extremaly rare.Look at the ones and see for yourself if they're made by men of women.

Even then, you have plenty of women doing series composition or being director in series that have those exact problems when they are in such positions. That without counting character designs for the anime. What you said is simply unreal and a blatant lie. Few are the ones who don't do it in such positions.

Wotakoi is josei though, so unless it's aiming for a periphery demographic, it's definitely meant to be consumed by women.

Laiza · Jun 5, 2018

esserius said:
Yep, you're right, and I'm wrong about that. My apologies for the misrepresentation. Seems like that means the situation is even bleaker than I presented. -_-

I actually can't seem to find an article that states anything about the author of Wotakoi's sex or age though. Just that the author started on pixiv and is named Fujita.

To be fair re: GGO, the author wrote Kino's Journey and consequently has a pretty strong history of being able to write female characters like people and not overdone caricatures, so it's easy to see how you got confused on that one. Regardless of the work's target audience, I'd venture anything written by Sigsawa has a pretty high chance of being good viewing for female viewers. The studio adapting it - 3Hz - also has an interesting history on that front (their previous works being Princess Principal and Flip Flappers - the latter being an interesting case of an anime that earnestly explores a queer relationship to the point of devoting an entire episode to criticizing a ubiquitous "yuri" genre trope). One could say that it was destiny that GGO would end up adapted by this studio in particular...

Redcrayon · Jun 5, 2018

Dick Justice said:
XCOM is pretty good when it comes to non-sexualized female designs. Enemy Unknown had boob armour, but they changed it with the Enemy Within expansion to look more practical. And it carried over to the sequel, which was nice.

That's cool, good to see. Presumably it's now very similar to the male armour like real military body armour designed to carry a section of plate with half a chance of absorbing a hit to the vitals rather than to show off the tits.

Budi · Jun 5, 2018

Dick Justice said:
XCOM is pretty good when it comes to non-sexualized female designs. Enemy Unknown had boob armour, but they changed it with the Enemy Within expansion to look more practical. And it carried over to the sequel, which was nice.

XCOM keeps winning! I've played (and loved) everything except the newest expansion, didn't actually notice this but it's nice. Highly recommended game to everyone. I think they also made female soldiers more common in the second game? I think it was something like 30% female and 70% male what soldiers you get in the first game, but now it's 50% gender split. Percentages could be off, but I remember reading something like this.

Why women criticise sexualised character designs (READ OP)

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