Damn, I wish I had Twitter. Someone pop on for my sake willya?
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[Major Spoilers] One of the endings in Catherine: Full Body gets extremely transphobic... moreso than that original (OP Updated Feb. 17)
- Thread starter HylianSeven
- Start date
Damn, I wish I had Twitter. Someone pop on for my sake willya?
I know they didn't mean it that way, but i'm really annoyed that tomahawk's post is now being taken as the gospel for the trash gamers who love to harp about "outrage culture" and such. Someone people actually think the outrage is based on a lie, instead of it being pretty valid.
Text for the post the voice actress for Erica retweeted
RT for Erica being perfect as a trans woman
Like for Erica being perfect as a trans woman
Fuck you Atlus
I mean, that tweet in the OP says Catherine went back in time to make everyone's life better. That's the claim. There's no reasonable evidence for that claim in the actual ending.
HylianSeven can update the OP anytime, but is choosing not to.
I mean, even outside the Erika stuff. I don't know how people didn't react negatively to literally this game's first trailer ending with the "trap" trope.
I think I even posted something like that in the reveal thread, but most people didn't seem to mind.
BTW Dualshockers has an article and its Not Great
https://www.dualshockers.com/cather...oversy/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
https://www.dualshockers.com/cather...oversy/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
I definitely remember some backlash to it, though obviously not quite as much as this. Atlus didn't do a damn thing to change it in response, and it turns out it wasn't even the tip of the iceberg. Fuck them.
I tried looking up if the trans flag has any prevalence in the Japanese LGBT community, but I got nothing. I wonder if Syrenne could shed some light on it for us; she seems to be more familiar with the situation (and knows Japanese!)
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How about "She wanted to date Vincent under different circumstances and this involved changing everyone's lives for the 'better', including Erica never transitioning."
It's still transphobic.
This fiasco has made it clear that we (cis people) just don't care about this sort of thing unless it's extremely egregious. And that's super depressing to think about.
God, they couldn't even get Rin right.
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Is there a particularly good summary post to thread mark on the Rin thing?
Yeah 男の娘 is definitely an interesting cultural movement. You can search for it and it's other spelling variants on Twitter and see a lot of people posting their art or pictures of themselves as 男の娘 (even some from overseas). I feel like it generally has less of a negative or "taboo" perception than traditional drag queen stuff. Another distinction is that it also often has nothing to do with the person's sexuality. Like, you'll see totally straight male "otokonoko" and many people even fetishisize that (probably an extension of BL culture).
The "changing lives for the better" part is 100% editorial.
Do you not think that focusing on a subjective and questionable interpretation of the ending instead of the more objectively problematic aspects is hurting the discussion about the game?
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Fair, but I still feel like it's semantics. It's "different circumstances" and those involve changing everyone's lives including making Erica never transition and the butt of a "joke" because of that. I'd like trans-ERA to chime in on that, but that still sounds really transphobic to me.
Syrene's post is a good start. Rin's character plays pretty hard into trans panic.
It has pretty much been entirely summarized, but to give some more insight, I'll go over it really quickly.
The game frames Rin's existence as
as an extremely on the nose metaphor for othered sexual minorities. Vincent joining Rin and "Reconciling their differences" is portrayed as him
Johnny hooking up with one of them is also played as a gag.
The names of Rin's endings are
This is far from a complete analysis, as I've just been watching videos posted online, so I don't have all the incidental text and I may have missed some things, but this is effectively how it develops.
I would love to hear Syrenne's perspective on this, as I'm just a gay dude with a Japanese degree who lived in Japan 5 years ago and as such my perspective is largely irrelevant.
Vincent meets Rin, as has been described. Vincent discovers Rin has a penis and shuns them, which leads to Rin running away.
The large brunt of the game is trying to track down Rin, ultimately discovering that Rin is an alien (referred to, interestingly enough, as "angels" -- which also colors the terminology Erica and Toby use in the Time Travel ending). It's revealed that all religious miracles stem from Rin's race and that they had originally planned to eliminate the human race per standard end times myths, but then decided not to. There is a time skip forward where it's revealed that Rin takes Vincent and the others to space where Vincent and Rin get married and Rin is famous. The bad ending involves Rin deciding that their "differences" are too much, then leaves Vincent after thanking him for "Saving" them.
Here's a link to the ending itself. It is worth noting that Erica has transitioned in this ending, while in space. I'll post a translation when I get it written.
The large brunt of the game is trying to track down Rin, ultimately discovering that Rin is an alien (referred to, interestingly enough, as "angels" -- which also colors the terminology Erica and Toby use in the Time Travel ending). It's revealed that all religious miracles stem from Rin's race and that they had originally planned to eliminate the human race per standard end times myths, but then decided not to. There is a time skip forward where it's revealed that Rin takes Vincent and the others to space where Vincent and Rin get married and Rin is famous. The bad ending involves Rin deciding that their "differences" are too much, then leaves Vincent after thanking him for "Saving" them.
Here's a link to the ending itself. It is worth noting that Erica has transitioned in this ending, while in space. I'll post a translation when I get it written.
The game frames Rin's existence as
a completely inhuman alien
joining said othered group, who have decided to leave earth.
The names of Rin's endings are
"Until next time", "My own way", and "The world is for us both." Worth noting that the "Good" ending (My Own Way) mirrors the words on Erica's shirt in the true ending, which says "my own rules" in her colors.
This is far from a complete analysis, as I've just been watching videos posted online, so I don't have all the incidental text and I may have missed some things, but this is effectively how it develops.
I would love to hear Syrenne's perspective on this, as I'm just a gay dude with a Japanese degree who lived in Japan 5 years ago and as such my perspective is largely irrelevant.
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I have removed that bit (but not the tweet screenshot as I am on mobile), but I think it's still telling not having her transition in this timeline.
She still inadvertently makes everyone's lives better, with Katherine having a partner that better suits her, that one dude not dying, everyone being happy, etc. It's never explicitly stated but the tone very much conveys the fact that Catherine went back and "made things better, somehow" (which is why people came to that conclusion in the first place)
Man I remember people dogpiling on me when I said that they are totally making Rin having a penis as a gag.
And going to great lengths to talking about how it's more likely they have no genitalia.
And going to great lengths to talking about how it's more likely they have no genitalia.
This is what i was trying to explain to you all last night, but you weren't having any of it.
That's Persona games in general.
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To be fair with the angel stuff, it did seem likely she would have none and most expected it to be a fake out. We were wrong about that.
I feel like the symbology and typical animeness made it seem pretty likely that's what they were going for.
I'm noting the specificity of mentioning just the localization team.
Well, yeah. They can't defend the original writing, but I'm guessing the localization team had to know about this (and I do somewhat wonder if it's part of the reason for the longer than usual localization).
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The main issue is that Atlus generally doesn't have that many resources to edit their games usually. #FE was the most edited, and that was most likely involving Nintendo.
In particular, the biggest issue is Erica being in pre-transition in an animated cutscene.
There's only so much they can do with the source material. I'm sure there are folks at Atlus USA that would love to scrub this shit out, though. Atlus JP's never gonna listen to them.
There was definitely some unease and worry about how they would handle Rin after she was introduced.
But dialog can change the context of those images.
Someone should ask her what her opinion is of Atlus' other portrayals of LGBT characters. Catherine I/II is not the only problematic title in Atlus' catalog. Is the only reason she supports this company because of her paycheck? Would she work for them again, now knowing their history? To me, it reads as: "Please buy the game I worked on, then get mad if you must."
Kind of feel like they have to do something to try and save the US version from this fiasco. I'm interested to see what they do, but I don't have high hopes, and I certainly don't blame anyone for not buying the US version. I have no plans to, because of how transphobic the japanese version is, but I'm curious to see what they did for the US version that they think makes it better.
Here's to hoping this means that the localization team is aware the sludge that's oozed out of Atlus Japan is unacceptable.
Sorry but just handwaving things away as "it is only in the Japanese version!" doesn't help shit.
Atlus Japan needs to learn that it is not okay in the first place.
Atlus Japan needs to learn that it is not okay in the first place.
Also the original catherine was problematic in that regard already even in the localised version and she's probably fine with it so uh, I'm taking that with a grain of salt.
Yup.
I hope they do fix it for the NA version, but I still ain't buying shit from Atlus until we get a formal apology and this shit doesn't happen going forward.
"But once you recognize the secret reason for the transphobia, you will feel ashamed of your words & deeds."
You are referring to Erin, though. She wouldn't be defending it for the sake of it.
I can agree with the sentiment to wait for the localization version and to see if there will be any significant changes.
That doesn't change shitting on Atlus JP. Keep going at it, they suck for various reasons. But Atlus USA might be able to actually do something about it this time.
That doesn't change shitting on Atlus JP. Keep going at it, they suck for various reasons. But Atlus USA might be able to actually do something about it this time.
That's not what it is at all. Just look at this thread and how many twists there have been due to different reports or interpretations. All she's asking for is that people play the game and see for themselves how it plays out instead of getting second hand reports on it from people. That seems entirely fair.
No, I'm not giving this game a red cent, and no one else here should either.
We can find out on YouTube when it comes out.
That's fine as well since then you'll at least be seeing what occurred as opposed to another persons report on it. That again is what she's asking for people to wait for.
It still does not excuse what is in the Japanese version, and that no statement has been issued by Atlus NA or Japan, let alone an apology.
We do have people who have played the Japanese version on here.
There's only so much that they can change with a respectful localization, and I'm not happy with the idea of this emboldening people who want to cast doubt on any criticism. Like it's better than nothing if the localization improves on it, but what does it matter if it doesn't actually stop them from doing it again in another game? It's worth criticizing Catherine (Japanese) even if Catherine (English) isn't quite as bad, y'know?
(EDIT: I basically said it was worth criticizing the JP game still if we want things to change in future games in a reply on Twitter and she replied "true", so... there's... that?)
I can say that on Twitter, people reacted very negatively to the announcement of Rin, and it did receive coverage on some sites along those lines as well. Some people here were willing to excuse it - and even in the past few weeks people were trying to deny the trailer/marketing was intentionally making such implications about Rin - but it definitely did not go without criticism by the wider community.
(EDIT: I basically said it was worth criticizing the JP game still if we want things to change in future games in a reply on Twitter and she replied "true", so... there's... that?)
I can say that on Twitter, people reacted very negatively to the announcement of Rin, and it did receive coverage on some sites along those lines as well. Some people here were willing to excuse it - and even in the past few weeks people were trying to deny the trailer/marketing was intentionally making such implications about Rin - but it definitely did not go without criticism by the wider community.
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It doesn't matter why she defending it, she still is and It's a bad look. We have had people who have played this game tell us how fucked it is so for her to come out and say "Well wait till the game comes out in English" is ignoring that the game is out and causing harm and makes her look like she's deflating legit criticism about how the game handles LGBT+ issues.