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Oct 25, 2017
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I liked the tweet too


Pretty much my relationship with the game up to release (don't read the replies).


It's quite interesting how quite a few of the more extreme and out-there hentai artists in Japan happen to be women. I'm getting the feeling a lot of people will assume this design was created by some horny guy, when it's by a famous female character designer who's done plenty of porn.
 

Snormy

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Oct 25, 2017
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Morizora's Forest
Holy shit that character is horrible to look at. My friend just made a comment saying "Give Halo a few more entries and Cortana would probably look similar". I think I just died a little inside.
 

Damian Mahadevan

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It's quite interesting how quite a few of the more extreme and out-there hentai artists in Japan happen to be women. I'm getting the feeling a lot of people will assume this design was created by some horny guy, when it's by a famous female character designer who's done plenty of porn.

Women hentai artists have the more misogynistic stories in manga, stuff like young ugly boy blackmails and makes sex slaves of older women and make them cheat and forget about their nice lovers, I dont understand why it is the case.
 

Kinsei

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
21,262
Oh really, this seemed to be the worst one yet.
That ice one is bad but at least she's not a child like this one.

DOQZZLtU8AAEzqq_thumb.jpg
 
Oct 25, 2017
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Women hentai artists have the more misogynistic stories in manga, stuff like young ugly boy blackmails and makes sex slaves of older women and make them cheat and forget about their nice lovers, I dont understand why it is the case.

It's just fantasy. I don't think there needs to be any more meaning in it than that.

Edit: Or money, that's always a good motivator too.
 

Oddish1

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Oct 25, 2017
2,904
That ice one is bad but at least she's not a child like this one.

DOQZZLtU8AAEzqq_thumb.jpg
I hate the bunny girl one more because this I at least know what it's going for. There are even parts of it the outfit that are kind of sleek. I genuinely do not know if the bunny girl is meant to be sexy or grotesque. It very much grosses me out.
 

norealmx

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Oct 27, 2017
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I honestly don't get bothered by these designs. Maybe growing up in Mexico during the 90's and the first years of the new millennium contribute to that.

Now, in the context of the game, I find those designs fitting: these creatures are monsters, beings born after an individual touched a magical stone, and that exists only to provide means to fight and kill. Therefore, that some people find some of these characters horrifying, makes me think the artist got the desired effect.

Or, I could be completely wrong, and the artist just draw a big busted woman on a lingerie-like garment and posed her on a "sexy" (?) position.
 

Nav

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Oct 27, 2017
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I remember someone in the XB2 thread pointed out her design as something that's much better, unlike Pyra. I scratched my head so hard.

I really like Brighid's design. I feel like it's more tasteful and elegant than Pyra's, especially when paired with Morag (hallowed be her name).

The sheer panel down the front of the dress feels like something I would see at Cannes.
 
Oct 25, 2017
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I think marginalizing an artists work as "only for money", particularly in the intensely personal doujin scene, does a huge disservice to the artist creative autonomy.
Yeah, I'm always disappointed when people automatically assume if an erotic artist is female that she's being forced to do it, or that it's for the money. Just look at Kinuko from the Lab Zero team - she likes drawing erotic gore and pinup girls all the time in her free time, too. She's not being forced to do it or anything.

Of course, I'm not going to assume the opposite of Ebata Risa's situation. I don't know enough about her as a person to know if she was browbeat or pressured into becoming a porn artist in some way.

All I know is that it's frankly patronizing to assume all women who draw porn or extremely sexual character designs are doing so unwillingly.
 
Oct 25, 2017
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I think marginalizing an artists work as "only for money", particularly in the intensely personal doujin scene, does a huge disservice to the artist creative autonomy.

Oh I agree with you 100%. I said that could be a motivator, not that it's the motivator. I'm more than familiar enough with that scene to know that a lot of erotic artists do it out of passion and not money, and that obviously includes the women. Hell, I've met Wamusato Haru and she's DEFINITELY not doing it for the money.
 

Turin

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Oct 27, 2017
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My first thought was that some of those women artists might be taking the piss but I don't know industry or the culture.
 

fundogmo

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Oct 25, 2017
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Oh I agree with you 100%. I said that could be a motivator, not that it's the motivator. I'm more than familiar enough with that scene to know that a lot of erotic artists do it out of passion and not money, and that obviously includes the women. Hell, I've met Wamusato Haru and she's DEFINITELY not doing it for the money.
Oh yeah yeah yeah! To clarify - I didn't think you were fully making that assertion after the first part of your post, I just see that sentiment a lot, particularly in the video game sphere, and it genuinely bothers me how dehumanizing that projection is.
 
Oct 25, 2017
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Yeah, I'm always disappointed when people automatically assume if an erotic artist is female that she's being forced to do it, or that it's for the money. Just look at Kinuko from the Lab Zero team - she likes drawing erotic gore and pinup girls all the time in her free time, too. She's not being forced to do it or anything.

Of course, I'm not going to assume the opposite of Ebata Risa's situation. I don't know enough about her as a person to know if she was browbeat or pressured into becoming a porn artist in some way.

All I know is that it's frankly patronizing to assume all women who draw porn or extremely sexual character designs are doing so unwillingly.

Yeah, Kinuko's another passionate one. Never played Skull Girls, but I love her art. Very talented.

I obviously don't know what goes on in Ebata Risa's head, but she's been drawing porn since the 90s, so at the very least I'd assume she doesn't hate it. I don't know what her exact position was, but she was pretty much THE driving force behind Sogna (famous for the iconic Viper series) before they went bankrupt.
 

Fairy Godmother

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There is a reason hentai is not mainstream. It's like with adult videos, you cannot bring some of its more problematic aspect to mainstream media and normalise it. Also women can experience internalised misogyny, even if a design was made by a woman doesn't mean it is free from sexism.

Why did Xenoblade get to this point? It's becoming Valkyria, just trashy design for the hell of it. It's a drastic change.
 

Pablo Mesa

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Nov 23, 2017
6,878
how that is supposed to be attractive...
is not...???

proportions are all over the place, back is too bent (also furrie)

surprising is teh same artist that did
DPs5lUkUMAAngOg.jpg

Also women can experience internalised misogyny
so, when/if a woman goes out on the street dressed however she wants its acceptable, she is not being an slut, or "asking for it", they are free to live their life however they please

But if the same women were to get home a design a sexual character then is not freedom nor she being herself but internalized misogyny???
 

Fairy Godmother

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so, when/if a woman goes out on the street dressed however she wants its acceptable, she is not being an slut, or "asking for it", they are free to live their life however they please

But if the same women were to get home a design a sexual character then is not freedom nor she being herself but internalized misogyny???
I was speaking generally when people would name female designers to get away with calling a design misogynistic.

Like the example above me with female artists drawing younger boys seducing married women to cheat on their husbands, or what I notice while reading certain manga (BL) where the female artists portray women badly to highlight their male characters.
 
Oct 25, 2017
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Yeah, I'm not seeing how the face is in any way "cute". Unless seductive = cute these days.

By anime standards, that face is definitely somewhere in the range between "cute" and "cool beauty". I could see any given person immersed in that culture leaning one way or the other. Personally, it's just a neutral whatever face to me.
 

Pablo Mesa

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Nov 23, 2017
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I was speaking generally when people would name female designers to get away with calling a design misogynistic.
the point is brought up cause in almost any occasion that a design is "problematic", the 1st idea that will jump to mind that it was likely made by a horny male. and anything depicting a woman done by a men is instantly wrong in most scenarios.

So a women designer will remove most of that stigma, You might still not like the design for persona aesthetics, but it being done by a woman on its on will, removes many of the plausible conflicts of views about the design
 

Damian Mahadevan

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Also women can experience internalised misogyny, even if a design was made by a woman doesn't mean it is free from sexism.

I dont know if I can see women having internalized misogyny in Japan or at least to the extent that this kind of thing happens so often, they dont get told AFAIK that they are the cause of all the problems in the world like white males in western societies. I think it is more a response to how conservative their society is despite how much porn they have there. Women cannot dressy sexy at all without being disrespected there nor have the freedom to really flirt to the extent that women can in western countries. ie it is more of a response to their sexuality being shut down by their society. That said all old Japanese men are perverts.
 

incogneato

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I was speaking generally when people would name female designers to get away with calling a design misogynistic.

Like the example above me with female artists drawing younger boys seducing married women to cheat on their husbands, or what I notice while reading certain manga (BL) where the female artists portray women badly to highlight their male characters.
It's porn. Considering it's from a woman's mind, it's more often than not a projection of her sexual fantasies. Women can also objectify women as well, many risqué designs from Japan originate from women. We can agree that oversexualization for women is bad when female designs are typically sexualized and that body diversity/less sexualized versions should be more plentiful, but we should also understand that an oversexualized design is not inherently misogynistic.
 

SolidSnakex

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Oct 25, 2017
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But is Fire Emblem's success solely based on the otaku pandering crowd? Because sales of games that pander to that crowd, that aren't mobile gacha games, don't sell those high numbers. I feel like we are placing far too much success on the more pandering aspects of that game and not enough on the QoL changes that made it easier for the casual market to break into the game.

Similarly, do we contribute Xenoblade Chronicles 2 success (given what we have seen so far, I think we can label that game a success at this stage) on the pandering Rare Blades who don't even feature in the game? Or to we contribute that to the old school PS2 JRPG styled gameplay and world that hasn't been really seen for a long time?

It's impossible to say that it's the reason why those games suddenly became popular. The point I was responding to was you saying that they were catering to their local audience and missing out on global success. Because in those two cases you have games catering to a local audience but then rest of the world wants it as well. Persona is a series that was just a hardcore JRPG fans game for like a decade. No one outside of that group really discussed it on a regular basis. And it was routinely ignored by the major gaming press. But since that pandering happened, that's no longer the case. P5 debuted at #2 on the NPD charts. It sold 5x's as much as the previous best debut for the franchise. And P5 is in regular discussion for a number of major awards this year, from best art, soundtrack to best overall game. And that's off of where P3/4 started. Those were released so late in the PS2's lifespan that it ultimately hurt their sales. In the case of Fire Emblem, you have a franchise that was nearly dead. Nintendo had told Intelligent Systems that if the next game didn't do better then it would likely be the final entry. That next game turned out to be Awakening. Aside from revitalizing the series in Japan, it finally put it on the map in the west. Fates was an even bigger success with it selling 300k units in its opening weekend alone in the US.

As I said in my first reply, JRPG's are really at a point where they're at their most visible since the PS2 era. This is interesting because of what Square's new president has said. He acknowledged that he felt that at least Square had lost its way last gen. He said that over the past generation he felt that Square began to develop games for a worldwide audience and ended up losing their focus, which lead to games that ultimately weren't suited for their Japanese audience or a global audience. He then pointed toward Bravely Default as an example of a different design philosophy. Because with that the developers (Silicon Studio) didn't take into account the western market. They didn't even expect it to be released outside of Japan. It was made strictly with the tastes of Japanese gamers in mind. Yet, it ended up being a worldwide success. This is something that had been discussed a lot last gen. Which was many people having the belief that the reason Japan struggled so much was because they were attempting to appeal to what they viewed as western tastes instead of just making the same types of games that sold so well for them in the past.

So while it's not possible to say one way or another on whether the pandering is what caused those games to take off, what does seem to be clear is that it doesn't really hurt them anywhere in the world. At least not in a way that it's very noticeable.
 

Dark_Castle

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Oct 27, 2017
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Women hentai artists have the more misogynistic stories in manga, stuff like young ugly boy blackmails and makes sex slaves of older women and make them cheat and forget about their nice lovers, I dont understand why it is the case.
I felt disgusted for knowing who you're talking about. Those kind of fucked up shit should stay as niche and far away as possible from mainstream entertainment.
 

Lyng

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Oct 27, 2017
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Imagine if Nathan Drake was designed too look like a little boy, except he was only wearing a pair of panties and they had a huge jiggling bulge...
I highly doubt people would defend that with: "Give the artist freedom! Maybe they just like that design!!"
There are two issues with Xenoblade. The sexualized loli designs shouldnt exist in the first place. And even the less problematic skimpy outfit Russ Meyer-esque designs just feel way out of place.
With how the rest of the characters are designed and with the well designed Blades, they stick out as a sore thumb.
And this coming from someone for whom the game is my GOTY, but the over sexualized Blades where a big minus.
 

Deleted member 7130

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I dont know if I can see women having internalized misogyny in Japan or at least to the extent that this kind of thing happens so often, they dont get told AFAIK that they are the cause of all the problems in the world like white males in western societies. I think it is more a response to how conservative their society is despite how much porn they have there. Women cannot dressy sexy at all without being disrespected there nor have the freedom to really flirt to the extent that women can in western countries. ie it is more of a response to their sexuality being shut down by their society. That said all old Japanese men are perverts.
Wait, what? That's a whole other can of worms, but no. Just no. Statement has white nationalist talking point BS smell to it.
 

Hat22

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Oct 28, 2017
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Can't speak for everybody but I've been one of the more active posters in the thread for quite a while and I love trashy stuff when I actively seek it out and know exactly what I'm getting into. I'm on the record in this thread several times over noting that I love me some boobs, too. They're pretty great.

Don't much want trashy pandering it in everything I consume, or for it to pop out of nowhere and punch me in the face and I hate that it's as pervasive as it is in some genres of games to the point where it's driving segments of long-term fanbases away from them. I'd rather share the things I like with more people if being trashy isn't an absolute core part of what they are than get a quick dose of pandering I could just as easily get somewhere more appropriate.

Hell, I'd love to see more sex in media, for that matter. But handled properly with the intent of furthering a character or relationship arc and with actual emotional meaning behind it, not just for the sake of tossing it in there.

I agree with you that there is a lot of out of place objectification and sexualization and I know you don't believe this but recent posts definitely highlight a hostility towards games that from what I understand are meant to be through and through perverted experiences.
 

esserius

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Oct 26, 2017
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So while it's not possible to say one way or another on whether the pandering is what caused those games to take off, what does seem to be clear is that it doesn't really hurt them anywhere in the world. At least not in a way that it's very noticeable.
It's pretty much a fact that the pandering hurt their marketability. Only being able to market to otaku tastes has limited their market to an extremely small subculture within Japan. I don't think most game devs would be thrilled about having to market to such a small audience. It means your market is extremely limited domestically, and that you can only really hope for success by metrics that don't depend on the Japanese market, because the Japanese market is completely stagnant. It's not that a company like Square doesn't want to expand, but they can't expand the otaku market. As a result, Japanese games have to go abroad if they want to expand their games market. The Japanese games market basically buried themselves by deciding to appeal to that small subculture domestically, and it's now a hole so deep that it's difficult to escape the stigma they've spent decades building up.

The alternative would be to take an extreme risk and attempt to expand the market again, but given how risk averse everything is right now, it seems far more likely that the market will go belly up before then. There's quite a bit of past precedence for this sort of behavior too, unfortunately. Cyclical crashes will necessitate a need to look elsewhere, unless the Japanese games market collectively decides to look towards a broader audience.
 
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Nov 9, 2017
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Réunion
Most of the time, when I look at a JPRG, I use to think of it as a "shounen game". And a simple glance at the main character is usually enough to understand if it's true or not. If it's a young boy, I know what to expect. That doesn't really excuse what you can find, but it can explain a whole lot of thing. Take a look at a generic shounen manga, and you will find the kind of character design that you can find in XC2 for example (and I'm not kidding, girls with humongous breasts are common there).

So, I think that the japanese developers must think of their games as a product aimed mostly at a teenage male audience.
 
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