Eizoken looks good from what I've seen, a nice change in direction for Masaaki Yuasa after the misogynistic Devilman Crybaby. (I know he did some film before returning to TV work.)
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Why women criticise sexualised character designs |OT2| I have no pants and I must scream (READ OP)
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He did a whole lot besides Devilman Crybaby (which, honestly, I still feel defensive of, and I would hope the rest of Yuasa's work would prove it out). Ping Pong, Tatami Galaxy, The Night is Short Walk on Girl, and amongst a bunch of other stuff, yeah, Eizoken. A whole lot of this is absolutely fantastic.
I think a lot of it has to do with the animator Mari Motohashi who also directed episode 1:
While I'm not sure doing this "gender neutral" is 100% the way to go, given how...sexualized anything involving woman are in animation, it did probably contribute to how good the characters are since they are allowed to be animated to describe their character rather than being animated to sate a fetish.
Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! Episode 1 Director Discusses Making of the Episode
Says main characters are animated as if they are 'gender neutral'
The rest of his works have no bearing on whether Devilman Crybaby is misogynistic. Whether he has unfortunate views on women, particularly queer women, is a different conversation. (I assume I'm correctly interpreting what you are getting at.)
I was just hoping that the generally broad misanthropy of Devilman would be fitting of the work and not be misconstrued because, like I said, the rest of Yuasa's work wouldn't prove out a misogynistic streak and thus allow it to go dark in various ways without it hanging over his work in general.
That said, if you have specifics to show, I'm more than open to hearing them.
When it comes to the otaku stuff, from what I've heard most normal Japanese people aren't even aware of it. We're probably just putting a microscope on something that's smaller than it initially seems from the point of view of someone consuming games and anime from outside that country.
From what I've seen for instance, manga hasn't really been taken over by otaku bait at all because of how broad it is.
From what I've seen for instance, manga hasn't really been taken over by otaku bait at all because of how broad it is.
Western publishers often license the fanservice games too, targeting the the western "otaku" market. In the early 90s those games would only released on computers, sometimes edited too. Eg ero games like Knights of Xentar, Metal and Lace or the cancelled Princess Maker 2 release.
Now they license and import a lot more video games, anime, manga and LN from Japan, though it is still a tiny fraction.
On the one hand western developers don't do such games anymore, relegating them to Patreon or fund raising, mainly because of Steam accepting them, on the other hand publishers make up for it by licensing Japanese games.
Even Switch recently got a Chinese ero game that was offered for free in China to keep people at their homes so as to not get infected. Without the ero scenes of course.
It is a double standard really.
Now they license and import a lot more video games, anime, manga and LN from Japan, though it is still a tiny fraction.
On the one hand western developers don't do such games anymore, relegating them to Patreon or fund raising, mainly because of Steam accepting them, on the other hand publishers make up for it by licensing Japanese games.
Even Switch recently got a Chinese ero game that was offered for free in China to keep people at their homes so as to not get infected. Without the ero scenes of course.
It is a double standard really.
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It's a real mixed bag, honestly. So much manga is single author with maybe an editor to rein things in every now and then (though oftentimes they might just push for more pandering instead) so you basically get the entire breadth of Japanese production, from bog-standard formulaic battle shounen shlock to genuine explorations of queer and neuroatypical experiences.
The sheer volume of production is so mind-bogglingly-huge that it's almost impossible to keep track of all the stuff coming out over there - and consequently, just as difficult for new authors to make a splash and get eyes. A lot of the good stuff is exactly the sort of thing that falls between the cracks, and you may end up having to go looking for it specifically.
It's not that much different in the indie gaming scene, either. Which, honestly, says a lot about how different things are when monetary concern is not your number one priority. When creative folks are just creating out of passion they tend not to be so dreadfully formulaic in their output, and that goes for pretty much any medium.
Still, it's sad that, for example, Star Wars still feels rather less inclusive (especially if you're queer like me) than a From Software game, so I'm not going to stop pushing AAA stuff for more and better representation any time soon. It just seems to me that, if rep is a priority for you, you'll just generally be better served looking at the small stuff first.
Went on a bit of a tangent there, I apologize for that. Your statement just got me thinking about how these things work generally. It's definitely true that it's not as hopeless as things might seem just looking at the more visible output, and I think it's important to recognize that, lest we be overcome by dread and despair.
"Big chest ahead" never gets old...
Fun fact: Blacksmith Andre is famous for being one of the very few characters, whose mouth moves.
Indeed. In a sea of shit, something not mired in it is some respite.
You know how everyone likes to laugh (or be disgusted) at Xenoblade 2 character design? Hope you didn't watch the superbowl half time show, this could almost be DLC for the game. Everything has to keep getting racier and racier I guess (don't forget the twerk off). At least she has human proportions I suppose, unlike Xenoblade 2.
I think it certainly doesn't help the situation imo when one of the most watched television shows does something like that. I'm sure people look at that and use it as a bar in some way as what's acceptable. But it's not just the superbowl, you see that kind of in a lot of prime time media, especially anything to do with modern concerts.
Perhaps the setting matters more than I'm giving it credit for too. Having a random playable character looking like that going in to battle is a million times worse than having someone who's putting on a show do it, maybe it's not even really an issue in a performance and I'm reading too much in to it? It's certainly more cringeworthy in a game setting than in that concert, the concert seems more acceptable.
I think it certainly doesn't help the situation imo when one of the most watched television shows does something like that. I'm sure people look at that and use it as a bar in some way as what's acceptable. But it's not just the superbowl, you see that kind of in a lot of prime time media, especially anything to do with modern concerts.
Perhaps the setting matters more than I'm giving it credit for too. Having a random playable character looking like that going in to battle is a million times worse than having someone who's putting on a show do it, maybe it's not even really an issue in a performance and I'm reading too much in to it? It's certainly more cringeworthy in a game setting than in that concert, the concert seems more acceptable.
Miki was nothing of character in original Devilman, her role was magnitudely amplified in Crybaby they also adding more women charactee.
People who want to complain about SNK ... there are the Metal Slug mobile designs ...
basically nsfw most of the stuff because i mean ...
This but drawn in realistic proportions
That was the turning point for me when I was like "ok give 90's SNK back"
I couldn't help looking at your link and wtf:
Sexy costumes ≠ bad.
As you've figured it out. Context is key.
The problem is when every costume a women wears has to be sexy regardless of logic. For example in MK11 Sindel's design still carries over many of the sexualized tropes found in previous MK games. But people don't complain about it because her being sexy fits her character of being a seductive witch who controls people through her voice. Whereas a character like Sonya Blade, has ditched her fetish outfits for something more fitting for a middle aged sergeant in the military. In past MK games, especially 9 every female character was as sexy as Sindel.
So the problem wasn't the existence of sexy designs but the fact sexy designs were forced on all women.
Ive been playing Dark Souls Remastered for the first time and all women character designs have been excellent so far except for Gwynevere.
I thought this design was purposefully done for story spoiler reasons?
She's an
illusion, as well as pretty much the entirety of what you see of Anor Lando when you first come across it. The real goddess had abandoned the realm long ago, and only her brother remains behind to keep up the facade in order to facilitate perpetuating the age of fire to continue by luring in wayward hollows and humans. She was supposed to be a comforting reminder that the gods had not abandoned them. However if you shoot an arrow, the illusion dispels and all the enemies and the sunlight dissapear from the kingdom. Leaving only Gwyndolin and the firekeeper to hunt you down for breaking the illusion.
Her design sticks out like a sore thumb and doesn't correlate with anyone or anything else in the entire game(most likely on purpose). Her entire room(including her) is the game is screaming at you that
she is not real and that this is all an illusion. You're supposed to kill her to find out the truth.
this being doesn't belong in the game
I'm sorry but I personally don't count this because it was actually really well done by the devs.
Also IIRC about that specific character. I remember there being a story about her design being created by a guy and the guy was so adamant about it , they kinda just put it in the game. That kinda explains why it seems so off aside from story reasons. Its literally made by some dude who couldn't take no so they just threw it in the game.
No, that designer looked so satisfied with the design that miyazaki decided to just go with it. Im pretty sure if miyazaki wanted him to change it the designer would have.
I think it's genius. In an entire land of hollows, the dead, armored knights, and beasts, you have this one character who looks like she belongs in an entirely different game, in order to raise a red flag for the player and/or trick them into thinking there is actually a moment of sunshine and happiness in an entirely desolate place.
I'm going to be real with you, I can't remember anything of that nature except that Miki is markedly less assholish than she is in the manga, and then there was Miki Kuroda, who was a mess. The only other female character that even comes to mind is the mother who gets eaten and that one female demon (Siren? Selene?) who Akira rapes. Which. Well.
I'm just personally not convinced that making a character more prominent makes them better written.
I don't see how her
being an illusion
She's nowhere near as egregious as any other examples, but both calling her design some genius master stroke (or even sensible in-universe) and a narrative signal to the player is gigantic reach.
Because in most other media, western and eastern, that deal with the fantasy/DnD themes Dark Souls deals with(especially in the 80s, 90s, and 00s), that busty maiden/princess with skin showing at the end of a long journey in a room full of gold and sunshine would always be considered a 'prize' at the end of a game like that. Dark Souls turns this old and tried concept on its head and decides to use it as a ruse. It teaches a harsh lesson that there is no prize, no princess/maiden, no gold. You aren't the knight in shining armor there to save the day. It throws all of those concepts out of the window in that one moment letting you know that this isn't that type of game. There's nothing at the end of that tunnel but the pain of ending the charade and putting out the flame that started all of this mess.
I would agree with you if they did this multiple times in each of their games. But it's done only once to prove a point. From then on, the tone is set for the rest of that series.
I wouldn't call it a masterstroke either, but you can make an argument that her sexual appeal was meant to add to charm of the illusion. Like, on top of being non-hostile, on top of having a comforting motherly presence, the trigger the sex drive, so everything about her is meant to provoke as many positive feelings as possible so that the player wouldn't attack her.
I will caveat this with the assertion that they didn't need to make her sexually appealing to justify this or they could have framed her sexual appeal in a less objectifying way, so if you want to say you are bothered by this and wish they had done it differently, I'm not gonna argue that.
All I will say is that this is a relatively rare example of a diegetic argument that can work. In-universe explanations are thrown around to justify stupid sexual objectification like "she breathes through her skin" are awful arguments when the justification is that comically absurd and reaching and very obviously just an excuse for the sexual objectification. So a lot of similar arguments are dismissed out of hand. But I would say that if you create a situation where sexual appeal is a probable or useful way of characters either advancing a plot or providing character insight, then that's situation where sexualization might make sense to include. Someone wanted to distract whoever was passing by from disturbing the illusion. A sexual appeal on top of all the other things that Gwynevere provokes can be useful to dissuading passersby. And that's not because of some contrived in-universe bullshit like nanomachines, it's because sexiness can actually distract real life people. It's an authentic human reaction. Hell, since the chosen undead you play has no character but you choose to project, how many gamers themselves were the ones themselves who ignored Gwynevere because they just giggled at the massive boobs and assume it was the game being funny and giving them a quick break/reward before going back to the 'you must die' aspects of it.
The obvious flaw in this is that this would only apply to those attracted to women, so you have this as fanservice for the presumed male-straight audience both in universe and out of universe. The sex appeal would not work on straight women or gay men, but it seems they are largely discounted, and if anything, I'd say that's the actual problem with the depiction of this illusion, it's limited to just the the typical assumed gaming audience. But the raw idea of using sex appeal as a distraction has some merit to it.
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What do you think about Princess Fluffy tail? .....I mean Crossbreed Priscilla?
She unfortunately has a rather fatal case of the pigeon toes.
I hit down too many times, only saw the bottom half and for a sec thought it was Yorda from ICO fanart!
I knew it was a big influence on Miyazaki to make games, but not knowing much about DS I didn't know it manifested so blatantly. I generally like whimsical ethereal fantasy designs, the pigeon toes can feel out of place if a character's supposed to be fearsome, which I assume Priscilla is? It doesn't bother me with Yorda since she still is a child after all and in no way a warrior.
...And you could also argue it was only done once because it wasn't necessary to begin with and wasn't even a decision with any particular intention -- not even subversion.
I'm not even sure what we're arguing -- or if we're arguing -- here. Yes, you can justify it, I was never saying you can't, but it is an ad hoc justification. My point was that if they made her a rollerskating magical girl with treasure chests of humanity falling out of her pockets, it would be an equally (or even more) ill-fitting design that could be rationalised in the exact same manner. That wouldn't make it good. There are an infinite number of ways they could have communicated the same idea (emphasis on the maternal and all), so the question would become, "why this way in particular?"
Personally, I have never associated the feeling of reward or catharsis with hypersexualisation/objectification of female characters (or experienced anything but annoyance with women as narrative reward), so any alleged "subversive" delivery was completely lost on me (and really, I imagine most of the audience; in the end a not-strictly-necessary big tiddy design is a not-strictly-necessary big tiddy design). The only thing I thought both before and after the lights of Anor Londo went out was, "How did this stupid design get in the game."
If your intended meaning is lost on a chunk of your audience, is it really effective messaging? Is it the best way, or even good? It's kind of in the same vein of satire in that it's useless if it's functionally indistinguishable from the object of parody.
Exactly.
I mean, I'm a bisexual woman, but sexualised character design does nothing for me 99% of the time, and after ~21 years of gaming, it'd also be a lie to say it makes me "uncomfortable" beyond a passing eye roll (this case in particular, which I never gave much thought to). But if we have to entertain the idea that the design is a worthwhile tradeoff for narrative effect, then the contention is whether or not trying to convey a general idea (to a general audience) via very narrow parameters is narratively effective at all. Even if we say DkS is making a statement there, it's not a statement about sexist character design.
...All this knowing it was really just including at the behest of one random horny artist.
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She's a 15 foot tall teenage-esque looking crossbreed daughter of the Woman in the previous pictures (Goddess Gywinverre: AKA Booby Lady) and Seath the scaleless ( A horrific blind tentacle dragon) who lives in a painting of a frozen dead wastland for her own protection. When you encounter she tells you to leave and shows you the exit, if you choose to fight her she cries out asking why you would do this, there is nothing to gain and that you're a monster.
Why are we talking about Crossbreed Priscilla in this thread?
Kinda like how I can accept Quelaag's appearance as a typical jorogumo-type monster, but the cut scene that zooms in and focuses on her chest was still a bit cringy and completely unnecessary.
Like, these are tame examples by this thread's standards, yes, but Souls games can (and have) done better. ^^
Yeah. Let's stop kidding ourselves, lol. I don't mind Gwynevere that much because she does fit the context a bit more than some random bikini armour idiot, but she's obviously still just some artist going "yay boobs".
Kinda like how I can accept Quelaag's appearance as a typical jorogumo-type monster, but the cut scene that zooms in and focuses on her chest was still a bit cringy and completely unnecessary.
Like, these are tame examples by this thread's standards, yes, but Souls games can (and have) done better. ^^
It is? If so, it's probably because it lets you skip Lost Izalith tbh :P
What's really sad is when I read the words "Spider Wifu" my first thought was what they did to Shelob in Shadow of War. That was a fun sexualization of an actual giant spider I had happily forgotten.
Not only sexualized, but made her a secret good person because...she felt slighted by Sauron. God who the hell thought this was a good idea?
Yeah I do that covenant every time I play for that reason lol
It doesn't even fit in the lore.
Seeing the developer and fans twisting her backstory to justify giving her shapeshifting powers was ridiculous.
It was crazy. I can only think they wanted to give the player some kind of Femme Fatale ally, and just picked Shelob's name out of a hat. So we wind up with a generic sexy woman who also happens to be a giant spider...because magic. It was a gross attempt to jam in a sexy character in a game that didn't need it, and a creepy revision to an old character. That she was reduced to another "Woman Scorned" archetype is just the cherry on top.
As someone who never played Mordor series, that series of games never really felt like Lords of the Rings to me.
It always seemed like some edgelord AAA videogame about a power fantasy man, smoldering with generic rage, running around desolated wastelands and killing orcs for generic vengeance.
Looking at it from a distance, it didn't seem to have any of the LotR magic to it.
Do femme fatale sexy Shelob wasn't all that surprising to me.
I...kind of explained 'why this way in particular?' in the previous paragraph from what you quoted. They took an old fantasy trope and subverted it. Making her a rollerskating magical girl defeats the purpose and doesn't convey the point, because then it doesn't connect with that type of old DnD esque-fantasy in which Dark Souls connects to. There can't have been an infinite number of ways to communicate it because it was going by the parameters of that type of fantasy and following those sets of rules in order to subvert expectations. It's not random for the sake of randomness. This specific character wouldn't have worked in Bloodborne or Sekiro and would have been completely out of place. If they had put her in either of those games then I'd be more critical of the developers choices.
I understand what you're saying and yes, the concept will be lost on a section of the audience. Unfortunately there will exist some media that is not easily digestible by everyone, or easily pointed out to be immediately understood for that matter. Dark Souls just happens to be one of those pieces of media that has been created that way. It's hard for me to punish it for being the way that it is and saying other forms of great media out there are okay to do the exact same thing. Because this is the case, I still consider it effective messaging, just not to a broad or general audience. Those who are even the slight bit curious about the plot of Dark Souls will look further into it and see the genius of what they were doing. However, just like DnD, there are loads of lore and concepts out there that will be lost on most audiences, that will then(years from now) be watered down to a point where it becomes straightforward concepts for mass audiences. Some day, someone out there might water down what Dark Souls attempted to do, both in lore and concepts, and will make plot points like the one we are discussing more straightforward for general audiences.
I'm not gonna post the pro zd anime fan video for the billionth time, but there has never been a clearer case of a fan assigning enlightened intent when there is a first hand interview of the director saying she looks the way she does because the artist wanted it that way posted just a couple screens away. Gwynevere isn't a direct reference to dnd art, which suspiciously echoes the dragon's crown rationale, miyazaki just asked the art team to make him a 20 foot tall princess that players would be the least inclined to attack with maybe some extra direction about making her 'saintly' or 'matronly' or whatever, and one guy brought back chungas chest gwynerear and said 'this is my waifu and no one would ever harm her' and miyazaki said 'that's weird but okay, approved.' Like the rest of the game's art direction she is inspired from western art sources, specifically she looks more like a greek oracle or something, but the boob window in her dress is not an allusion to the breast feeding scene in the grapes of wrath.
So what? To me, that's basically the same as Yoko Taro saying "I like girls" as justification for 2B in Nier Automata.
Certainly, that doesn't make her design any less deserving of criticism.
Just to add to what the others have said, in my opinion it would be something different if every bad character in Xenoblade 2 was accompanied
by 30 shirtless buff guys.
Hello, don't post here often, mostly because I feel I can't add much to the discussion. However yesterday, me and a friend were discussing Smash and what happened to Mai Shiranui being shafted from making an appearance because her design was to sexualised despite her importance to Fatal Fury, KOF and SNK in general and the dangers of how sexualization that devs indulge in can then ultimately limit the roles and appearances of women in the public and outside the immediate fandom because of it.
Their was something I wondered about as well, Juri Han from Street Fighter, I've said before that Juri I find interesting because she's a character who despite showing more skin in SF4 then in SFV, the SFV costume comes across more sexualised thanks to posing, camera focus, tweaks to her body proportions and costume's tightness:
The reason Juri was brought up was because I noticed Juri WAS in Smash Ultimate as a spirit (in fact she's the only non 90s/Post-SF3 character in the game) with that SF4 image sans the background which I was curious about that was allowed by the Japanese rating system but Mai wasn't given they are both revealing and wondered if the way sexualisation is presented affected the choices.
Their was something I wondered about as well, Juri Han from Street Fighter, I've said before that Juri I find interesting because she's a character who despite showing more skin in SF4 then in SFV, the SFV costume comes across more sexualised thanks to posing, camera focus, tweaks to her body proportions and costume's tightness:
The reason Juri was brought up was because I noticed Juri WAS in Smash Ultimate as a spirit (in fact she's the only non 90s/Post-SF3 character in the game) with that SF4 image sans the background which I was curious about that was allowed by the Japanese rating system but Mai wasn't given they are both revealing and wondered if the way sexualisation is presented affected the choices.
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