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Japanese devs' obsession with child/child-like characters trope and how problematic it is
- Thread starter Kaivan
- Start date
"Lolicon" is short for "Lolita complex", a term that spawned by that famous novel written by Vladimir Nobokov.
"Lolita" is also a western word used to describe sexualized girls. The Japanese didn't create those terms, they just shortened them because Japanese hate very long words. It's like how "anime" is just a shortened word that comes from "animation".
Just saying.
User Banned (Permanent): Inflammatory False Equivalence in a Thread on Sexualization of Minors; History of Severe Infractions
Well, the question is what is more creepy, sexualized content with teenage characters meant for teenage consumers or
said content being consumed by people way too old for it. I mean, who over 22 is still "reading" Teen VOGUE, right?
said content being consumed by people way too old for it. I mean, who over 22 is still "reading" Teen VOGUE, right?
I agree wholeheartedly
Instances of this, whenever it pops up in any kind of japanese anime, always makes me feel sick
Really wish they didn't do this
Not saying all the examples posted are open and shut cases. I played some of Dragon Quest XI and I don't think Veronica has been sexualized (at least not from what I played), but I wish japanese content creators would stop pandering to this shit
Instances of this, whenever it pops up in any kind of japanese anime, always makes me feel sick
Really wish they didn't do this
Not saying all the examples posted are open and shut cases. I played some of Dragon Quest XI and I don't think Veronica has been sexualized (at least not from what I played), but I wish japanese content creators would stop pandering to this shit
Tiki did it way before and is a great character in comparison.
Hentai is excluded from the 2014 law which prohibited possession of child pornography. Production of such was outlawed in 1999. So child like characters in hentai is still legal in Japan.
I see you actually doubled down on your hilarious idea that all videogames should full stop just never have child characters, huh?
And you couldn't possibly choose a worse example for your ridiculous idea because Ellie being the age she is was actually fundamental to the story. You couldn't have told the same story if she was 18 or older. Never.
Also there's the simple matter that Ellie is never sexualized in TLoU. Not even one tiny bit. You could've chose a tons of other better examples. Want one that is actually creepy with sexualization of minors that could've been better if they were older? All the fucking Danganrompa games. Just have it set in a college instead of a damn high school!
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I mean even if it's primarily marketed at teenagers, at the end of the day a large part of the revenue for this content comes from outside of that age range
I doubt that holds up for teen VOGUE (that so much of the revenue comes from people beyond teenage years)
The difference is that they don't pretend that Tiki isn't a child
This is a problem we in the west won't solve anytime soon. Japan and other asian markets have to change on their own to really make a difference.
Even a big publisher like sony only changed recently and the change came from their western offices. And the japanese branch imo had to listen because sonys bread and butter isn't japan anymore. Nintendo on the other hand, with its gigantic handheld fanbase in japan, won't stop with this anytime soon.
And even if even Nintendo would change and every western customer boycotted such releases (mangas, games, animes, etc.) many japanese developers/creators would just pull back from the worldwide market and sell only to their local customers (as they've done for years). Even today many creators in japan see the western sales only as additional revenue and nothing they have to cater to as hard.
Additionally videogames, mangas and animes are often made for kids, teenagers and young adults. That's also the reason most j-rpgs and animes have teenagers as heroes or schoolkids saving the world with friendship. The teenage years are the golden years in japan. The time for adventure and fun before you're a grown up and have to work all day.
So having teenage girls as party members isn't anything unusual. Also many teenagers are going through puberty and the boys want ways to look at "pretty, girls their age". Also this whole trend started way before it was as easy as today to just google "naked ladies" so for years games, anies, mangas were the easiest way to get this stuff.
Then we have the whole ugly beast of being legally allowed to date 14 year olds and until a few years ago it was not illegal to own child pornography.
Surely every nation has its own problems but japan has abig problem with underage kids being sexualised and more. This won't change until they change from the inside. But it makes them money and if some stop creating this stuff others simply take their place. The consumer want more of this and this industry will supply it to anyone who's buying. In most cases they don't break any laws so there isn't even anything legally we can do against it.
Speak up and let others know that you're not supporting this bullshit. Try to educate more people and hope it'll get smaler over the years. It won't ever go away but maybe there#ll be atime we don't see tuff like this in nintendogames anymore.
18 year olds have an underdeveloped brain and are severely inexperienced and immature but apparently then it's ok? How bout it's never okay.
But why does childhood romance need to be sexy? Why can't they use slightly older characters and models (late teens/early adults). I still don't understand why sexualized pre-pubescent models are neccisary for this demographic
So if Ellie were 20, she'd be completely unable to fight against clickers? You're basically sentencing her to die in the tutorial.
She wouldn't be a stand-in for Joel's dead daughter anymore. Please stop this completely insane and idiotic argument that children should be removed entirely from all games.
I don't buy that "13-16 year-old age of consent" bullshit. They are still juveniles and should not be sexualized in games.
Stop arguing this. You're not only saying all videogames should not have people under 18 but you're actually argumenting against one of the best female character we've ever seen in videogames. I don't even know what you're saying to me here. Ellie needed to be 14 to tell that story, end of story.
She's not even sexualized at all, i honestly don't know what your beef is here!
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The issue is older people don't really look like children in real life. Even if someone is shorter or something, I've never said "oh, you're 35? I thought you were 11!"
It's fetishizing a young, undeveloped body type and childlike personality. If someone takes that fetish to the real world, they'll be targeting children.
Seriously, you seem to misunderstand what the word "sexualized" means in this context. "Sexualized situations" that consist entirely of dialogue is not what the thread is about.
It's not just dialogue though - you can literally go see characters with half their clothes on writhing around in what is directly referred to as an orgy in multiple scenes of multiple episodes. Characters that are explicitly supposed to be teenagers. I'm not just referring to flirty dialogue.
I honestly can no longer tell if this is all a big joke or not.
I didn't bring up TLOU first, you guys did a few posts back. Era really thinks of it as the best game ever made, so that doesn't surprise me.
Alright, you guys win. Games are perfect as they are. Sorry for trying to stop pedophilia in video games.
Nope. They say she is 18 but her, Honoko and Nico have special moves censored on them in DOA6 because of there young aesthetic. If they were "truly" 18 these moves would not be censored to avoid showing a minor being harmed.
Your solution for stopping pedophilia in games is the same as all of those EtcEra threads where people joke about burning down houses to kill a single spider.
You're not going to stop pedophilia by removing amazing characters like Ellie, for fucks sakes!!!! The hell is this?
Altus wants persona to be a world wide brand, college or all seniors/18+ like Makoto would help making it easier to stomach WW.
I agree that "no children in games at all" is a weird take, but-
While colleges are very different in Japan, they're making fantasy games so it wouldn't be too hard to work in. Or have it set place in another country, or perhaps young adults in an office.
Profiting from whales is largely all KT have now that they've locked themselves into it with DoA6, as the only option for most consumers is to buy the season pass or entire costume bundles. Unless someone has the Xbox or JP/HK PS4 versions, there is no buying costumes only for one's favorites thanks to removing the ability to buy them individually for every other platform (and by cosmetic DLC standards, the individual costumes are still cheap, much like they were in 5:LR).
Huh. So weird that that's where the series went with season 2, considering how good it was in terms of representation, having a genderfluid person and a black girl becoming disabled among its main cast. :/
You can argue against minors being sexualized in videogames and agreeing that is disgusting without banning any children from appearing on games. That's just dumb.
Playing the "I'm the only one trying to stop pedophilia" card after making such a monumentally stupid argument as "Ellie should have been an adult".
I mean, holy fucking shit. Could you please stop making those of us arguing against sexualization look batshit insane by association?
No one said that. Your idea is just utterly ridiculous. Should we address concerns about how minorities are represented by removing them from games as well? Fuck no.
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You stop pedophilia by making Ellie look as realistic as possible to a real girl. She looks too stylized and "anime" in the first game. Stop making her look cute and make her look more brutal and a "monster". I think her TLOU2 look is much improved.
It's the only card I can play because Era really loves the game. That's like going into a Pittsburgh Steelers stadium and saying "Steelers suck" expecting not to be killed afterwards.
Given that Persona makes a whole lot of money off of merchandising in Japan, I don't suspect they'll do any sea changes just for an arbitrary WW boost when the recent entry is already doing over 2M WW. Atlus isn't some giant so I don't think they're about to give up that stronghold anytime soon. Shin Megami Tensei is the franchise that leans more mature, and it's never quite been as popular as Persona. The jury's out on whether SMTV will be a bigger splash.
Perfect analogy, your physical integrity is in such jeopardy right now. We might, uh, post snarky gifs until you bleed. You were totally justified in saying that everyone who thinks "Ellie being a surrogate daughter for Joel is an important part of TLOU" is actually OK with pedophilia, it was the only way you could get out alive.
That's pretty much the issue IMO, that she's a character that can be romanced to begin with :3
User banned (permanent): trolling, defending content that sexualizes minors; account in junior phase
You do know that you don't have to play these games? If they are al the rage in Japan and perfectly legal there who are you to say that they should be banned or changed. Now if an English port breaks your local laws you are in your rights to take any action you see fit to get it of the shelves but who are you to decide what is appropriate for another culture. If their society has problems it's for them to work it out.
In the mean time don't buy the ported games. Maybe buy a wholesome western RPG with females in bikini armor that are well above the age of consent. Nothing wrong with that right? Or maybe a shooter or open world game that lets you murder countless people because we are quite comfortable with that. I think as gamers we can agree that shooters don't turn us into mass murderers. What are the chances that these JRPGs will turn us into child molesters?
In the mean time don't buy the ported games. Maybe buy a wholesome western RPG with females in bikini armor that are well above the age of consent. Nothing wrong with that right? Or maybe a shooter or open world game that lets you murder countless people because we are quite comfortable with that. I think as gamers we can agree that shooters don't turn us into mass murderers. What are the chances that these JRPGs will turn us into child molesters?
or maybe, as consumers of these products, we can have a debate on the merits of their troublesome aspects
The first game is a PS3 game, there's a limit to how realistic they can make characters. And obviously, she's grown up in TLOU2.
I mean, I don't even much like TLOU (never got around to finishing it, quit halfway through and just streamed the story), but including Ellie in a conversation about pedophilia is surreal and almost feels like a false flag operation.
Frankly, there's no easy way to say this, but thinking Ellie is sexualized is... probably not on the game.
Break Blows, basically violent supers, and they censor in the way the final hit is striked.
The close ups where people get their faces bashed in have less blood for the female characters and they don't get shown at all for the young-looking characters. These:
Marie, Honkers, and NiCO don't get them at all. It's pretty much the dev team acknowledging how young they look (obviously, they are aware even if they didn't do that) and not wanting violence like that depicted against them.
Bonus: Funnily enough, Eliot's close-up is censored like the women's.
Wait you WERE serious? This is the first time I've ever heard someone call Ellie in TLoU "anime".
This thread quickly went downhill, shit!
She is definitely not sexualized in the game, but the internet doesn't give a fuck it seems.
Well she doesn't look realistic to me, she is definitely animeish. Though you are free to prove me wrong and show me a real 14 year old girl that looks like Ellie.