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I still think that some of the furor about Kaim Argonar there has to do with the fact that he does not look completely white. If you look at his eyes, and his complexion, Kaim is pretty obviously of Asian descent as well as Euro (or the equivalents in that world). Asian guys are disgustingly stereotyped in this culture to the point where the people who made Romeo Must Die DELETED a kiss scene between Aaliyah and Jet Li because audiences were duuuhhh. Asian guys are stereotyped as sexless or effeminate or eununchs.
So people see Kaim looking like he’s got Asian background and the whimpering about ‘girliness’ starts.
He and Vaan also have clothing that’s constructed like – well, usually you would see a female character with a bare midriff and back (Seth Balmore’s back is bared, BUT she wears shorts under her dress, heh heh). So that may be fuelling the fleabrained furor. I still think Vaan is silly for eschewing a shirt, but I can give Kaim a pass since he’s not exactly MORTAL and stabbing him in the spine will only annoy him.
Lost Odyssey did go for universal appeal. I’m not surprised seeing as it’s Hironobu Sakaguchi up in there, but anyhow. Looking at the character designs, they really did try to put in somthing for everyone. Sarah’s a ‘glasses girl’ (but oh is she ever NOT LIKE SHION); Ming has no pants (I love you, Ming, but you need pants); Jansen wears eyeliner. Cooke’s design irritated me at first because I thought ‘oh god no lolicon’. Lolicon annoys me to death, but she’s presented in the game as the wanting to be a grown-up sort. She probably wears that because that’s what the girl in magazines wear. She’s not sexualized in the game, thank the lord. She acts like a twelve year old girl, which she is.
Moving right along – Tolten is your bishounen guy, et cetera. They were trying to put in universal gamer appeal. Unfortunately this culture’s got something of a machismo fixation. Homophobia and sexism have a fucktonne in common. Gay guys are seen as feminine and feminine is bad and lesser. Transfolks get the worst of both worlds. D:
If people cannot think of a critique beyond wahwahgirly they are not bright at all and have no business presenting themselves as savvy.
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I completely agree, it’s usual to read in forums and other websites the comments of people ranting about that while there might be more relevant shortcomings to point out, but no one cares because the main character is a girly man or a voluptuous woman.
What you say about the plots is true, when a guy in a videogame falls in love of a girl is totally normal but when the main character is a girl then it is just because is a woman and women always have fall in love.An example that comes to my mind right now is Castlevania, everyone complains so much about the designs of the characters since Symphony of the Night, that the guys are girly and about the plots being always the same etc., etc.
Also Valkyrie Profile, many say the girl was a great main character until she falls in love and is labeled as the typical female point of view romance.
I don’t share that opinion at all.I’ve played many great games with females or males protagonists and I think I’m in position to say that the gender or look of the main character is secondary to the plot and development of the game.
In that aspect as long as the story is good and the character has charisma I’m happy. -
Here’s where I turn into a big geek on you both!
Castlevania’s art has a lot to do with pre-Raphaelite, Baroque, and Art Nouveau work – as much as it has to do with the beautiful-man (biseinen, or bishounen if it’s a younger guy) aesthetic in Japan. It’s the latter thing that a lot of intolerant Western fans get their drawers in a bunch and pitch tantrums about. Why? well, it’s called the colonialist mindset. There’s this expectation that ‘they’ should accommodate ‘us’ in such a mindset. That ‘they’ must endeavour to act like ‘us’ because ‘our’ way is the best and right way. This is very evident in the antics of the small group of Castlevania fanboys who had a big old fit because the horrible Wii game was “obviously marketed mostly toward Japanese players”. I started to laugh uproariously at this – why should KONAMI, a JAPANESE COMPANY, not market to FANS IN JAPAN, who overall BUY MORE GAMES? Japan for all its baggage (not like western culture is free of it of course) HAS figured out that video games, like comics, are not just ‘for boys’ and will market to men and women alike. See the DMC3 team, who specifically designed Vergil Sparda’s coat-less mode “to give our female users total nosebleeds”.
As an aside I wonder if this ‘sob sob whine whine JRPGs’ business isn’t an extension of the gender-essentialist idea that romantic plots are ‘for women’ and inferior. I know most of it has to do with ‘Yahtzee’ Croshaw not liking them, and a bunch of dingaling types jumping on that bandwagon (and annoying him by constantly yammering about it – I don’t like the man’s style much but he doesn’t deserve capslocking screamer fans in his nose every day). But some of it may come down to the gender essentialism crap again.
I digress – in the end, the Wii game sold AWFULLY in Japan, and the general angry-fan consensus over there? “This blew because they were marketing to the stupid subgroup of NA fans who never played these games and don’t know their ass from their elbow!” So, yeah, the snitty fans over here have their analogues in Japan. All in all it was an awful game, design included, but the entitled attitude of some gamers over here was what I was on about. Blizzard (of Warcraft fame) unfortunately spoils their yelly fans, and these yelly fans will go on to scream and whine at everyone to try to get the same result everywhere.
I’d have more respect for people unfond of Kojima Ayumi’s work fi they’d critique like grownu-ups and not sexist mouth-breathing fools. “BAW IT SUX THEIR GEY” is a mouth-breathing dip’s comment. “I’m not totally crazy about the style/the aesthetic” or something like that is understandable. The second someone starts sobbing brokenly about the mean old Asian lady’s art screwing with their precious, precious gender ideals, my sympathy spirals down the commode and I start to want to harass them by spamming them pictures of Renaissance and Greek marble sculptures.
In closing: liking art of pretty men has nothing to do with those men being ‘safer’. Monou Fuuma is pretty as all get-out, and a homicidal maniac. There is no CLAMP fan who would deny that. it has nothing to do with ‘safety’; it has everything to do with what the viewer likes to look at.
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Well, you have a point, and i agree with that, but there is the other side of the coin.
Even if people tend to have silly excuses for why they don’t like a character, there a other reasons to cause dislike.
As some people can see through the evolution of the Final Fantasy and it’s influence over the RPG genre, you can see a sort of tendence that had grown out of proportion.
In some pieces of work comming from japan you can see that the “girly” type is a very common thing, but knowing that it’s heavily related to the way the art style work, you can understand why this is needed. Sailor Moon had “girly” characters without being anoying, Yuyu Hakusho had manly characters and girly characters that had a complete backstory related to their appearences. Kurama is girly because of the Kitsune mitos, while Kuwabara is manly because of his need to pass respect only by sight to be able to prevent gang fights. Those are really well done example of types of characters that work.
But the problem whit Vaan come from the other side of the spectrum, and this is a problem i have with most of the Enterteinment Industrie.
Vaan is a character with no need or background that call for this sort of design, not even the art style of the game relate to that, and in comparision, the game Children of Mana have a very “girly” protagonist, and the design work, but because it is heavily related to the art style. And it become very obvious when you discover the original idea didn’t even include Vaan at all, he was slaped as a last minute excuse and that’s why he don’t work.
Until Metroid Fusion, Samus went as a very strong female character, without the need to show of herself other then action. Most games today take the straight to the point approach making lots of females with highly exposed bodies and sluty proportions.
This is VERY problematic when you again look at FF12, as the rabbit womans of the game follow this trend. This is used to sort of balance out Vaan, but here is the real reason: They are fast icons, they are elements used do rapidly pull attention into the design, making you buy the game and distracting from the the same.
This is a trend that become more and more common as the grafics get better. And this is not exclusive from japan, western developers are gilt of the other side of the spectrum also. They are simple Image over Substance.
This is why i don’t like most of the girly characters, not because of the girly aspect, but because of this loose aspect of trying too hard to distrat us from the game. Thanks for the post.
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