Excuse-O-Rama
- Thread starter The Wooster
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I can say I always saw Kamitani's explanation as refreshingly honest and believable. It always seems more sexist and offensive when you cook up some contrived bullshit to justify it.
This type of big-boob male gaze stuff is a lot easier even for dem evul censoring feminists to swallow when it's honest and part of a game/media uncompromising. It's the formulaic, "we have to put hot girl in game for males 14-25 demographic metrics computerized voice beep boop" that gets me the most, personally.
This type of big-boob male gaze stuff is a lot easier even for dem evul censoring feminists to swallow when it's honest and part of a game/media uncompromising. It's the formulaic, "we have to put hot girl in game for males 14-25 demographic metrics computerized voice beep boop" that gets me the most, personally.
And yet it was the very reactions to Kamitani's responses that caused the efforts for justification. Amusingly enough, if you put the media's reactions beside each of their comments they would all be largely interchangeable.
Let's face facts here, it's not the effort to justify it that's causing the negative reactions, it's the fact that the creator's responses aren't "we're sorry and deserve to be flogged for eternity."
Let's face facts here, it's not the effort to justify it that's causing the negative reactions, it's the fact that the creator's responses aren't "we're sorry and deserve to be flogged for eternity."
Please do this. The entire media. Not just Kotaku.LordLundar said:
I'd rather be told that than fed bullshit, to be honest. "We're largely looking for a male audience" isn't great PR, but it's honest. "WOMEN ARE HARD TO ANIMATE," is the kind of shit that genuinely makes people angry.hentropy said:
Power to Kamitani!
Although if you wanted to come up with a (bullshit? Academic?) explanation for big tits in his games, you'd notice that only one character per game has massive knockers, and it's always someone who deals strictly in necromancy (Queen Odette from Odin Sphere, Opalneria from Grim Grimoire, the Sorceress from Dragon's Crown).
I'm not saying they have to have big tits, but there's a conscious decision in Vanillaware Ltd. games to use them solely on female necromancers rather than every female character. Maybe it's a comment on the maternal/gaia-like powers of raising the dead, like a Primal Goddess sort of deal, where life is equated to feminity and the archaic representation of feminity augments female attributes, such as with the Venus of Willendorf.
Fuck if I know.
Although if you wanted to come up with a (bullshit? Academic?) explanation for big tits in his games, you'd notice that only one character per game has massive knockers, and it's always someone who deals strictly in necromancy (Queen Odette from Odin Sphere, Opalneria from Grim Grimoire, the Sorceress from Dragon's Crown).
I'm not saying they have to have big tits, but there's a conscious decision in Vanillaware Ltd. games to use them solely on female necromancers rather than every female character. Maybe it's a comment on the maternal/gaia-like powers of raising the dead, like a Primal Goddess sort of deal, where life is equated to feminity and the archaic representation of feminity augments female attributes, such as with the Venus of Willendorf.
Fuck if I know.
I suspect a lot of the in-universe reasons came about because before, it was never really necessary to defend the designs, as most people either didn't care, liked them or didn't vocalise it very much if they did.
With the near constant criticism of any sexualised female character design in gaming, for right or wrong people feel the need to justify why they create those designs because "just doing it" isn't widely considered to be okay.
That's not to say the reasons hold any weight, but I suspect if it was possible to create those designs for the sake of it without such a wide spread negative reaction, then more people probably would still be giving a "Kamitani response".
With the near constant criticism of any sexualised female character design in gaming, for right or wrong people feel the need to justify why they create those designs because "just doing it" isn't widely considered to be okay.
That's not to say the reasons hold any weight, but I suspect if it was possible to create those designs for the sake of it without such a wide spread negative reaction, then more people probably would still be giving a "Kamitani response".
Agreed.
It's unlikely to improve my opinion of the character designs, but I respect the honesty and find it refreshing.
Reminds me a bit of when Ken Levine was asked about the generic cover art for Bioshock Infinite. Dude was like, "We want it to appeal to frat boys. That's it. Surely you'd all prefer me to compromise on the cover art than the actual game content, right?" The cover is still dull, but I liked that he was so upfront about why.
It's unlikely to improve my opinion of the character designs, but I respect the honesty and find it refreshing.
Reminds me a bit of when Ken Levine was asked about the generic cover art for Bioshock Infinite. Dude was like, "We want it to appeal to frat boys. That's it. Surely you'd all prefer me to compromise on the cover art than the actual game content, right?" The cover is still dull, but I liked that he was so upfront about why.
That's what Kamitani himself has said anyway, that it is a visual representation of the parallel between their raising the dead and its' life giving nature. I still think it is horribly overdone and it repeatedly keeps me off Vanillware games, but at least it has some afterthought to it even if I think the result is more farcical than deep or profound.Johnny Novgorod said:
In all other respects I agree with The Wooster, it is the cheap excuses that get to me. If someone just says that they want male fanservice or that they are aiming at the teenage boy crowd that's fine or whatever, it is when they make bullshit excuses ("She breathes through her skin!", "Women are hard to animate!" etc.) that it just becomes insulting.
So today I learned that there should never be an in-universe justification for anything people may not like.
Gotcha.
This is the same logic as "It doesn't matter if the character's written like this, they were made by a writer, and therefor it's _____ist".
Gotcha.
This is the same logic as "It doesn't matter if the character's written like this, they were made by a writer, and therefor it's _____ist".
If a character is sexist, that's because the writing is sexist. I'm not seeing how that's a controversial statement.Areloch said:
I never read anything to that effect (except he apologized). I just picked up on the coincidence while I was playing Grim Grimoire, that the one boobalicious character in the game was also a Queen of the Dead of sorts. By the time they released the promotional images for Dragon's Crown and I saw the Sorceress I went "Well I know what her deal is".Gethsemani said:
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The weird thing about Cortana is that I never got a 'naked' feeling from her in Halo 1-3, it was only when I was seeing stuff for Halo 4 that it was like, yeah, shes naked and I think they made her tits bigger and bounce, that's weird and takes away from her character.
I think that was pretty much the explanation for the character design in Senran Kagura as well.
"Why do the characters have huge boobs?"
"Because we really like boobs. "
"Why do the characters have huge boobs?"
"Because we really like boobs. "
Surely you could have a sexist character in a work of fiction, without the entire book being sexist?The Wooster said:
Wait, I don't play the MGS games, but is the explanation for Quiet seriously supposed to be that she breathes through her skin? Was she created with amphibian DNA or something?
Yes. She does indeed breathe through her skin. Basically, she's the assassin who attacks Snake in the hospital at the beginning of the game and blah blah blah horribly burned blah blah blah parasite thing blah blah blah photosynthesis instead of eating.Ihateregistering1 said:
Seriously.
Having a pair of boobies, I appreciate Kamitani's honesty.
I mean, it's pretty creepy when guys who are totally interested in boobs pretend they're not just to get closer to the boobs (and whatever human is attached to them). Kamitani enjoys drawing characters with exaggerated bodies, and as long as he keeps his priorities straight (like, saving the super cheesecake characters for the fun, not very serious swords and sorcery game), I'm not going to complain. Besides, for every pudding sorceress there's a elven archer girl in comfy clothes, so it's not like there's no variety.
I mean, it's pretty creepy when guys who are totally interested in boobs pretend they're not just to get closer to the boobs (and whatever human is attached to them). Kamitani enjoys drawing characters with exaggerated bodies, and as long as he keeps his priorities straight (like, saving the super cheesecake characters for the fun, not very serious swords and sorcery game), I'm not going to complain. Besides, for every pudding sorceress there's a elven archer girl in comfy clothes, so it's not like there's no variety.