It's probably been mentioned somewhere in this 8 page thread, but at least some of these characters were designed by Japanese people. Expecting Japanese developers to adhere to American body proportions is pretty damned ridiculous.
Female Game Characters Photoshopped to Average American Proportions
- Thread starter Conrad Zimmerman
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Expecting the Japanese to adhere to ANY rational body standards is absurd. Body standards to them are at best a non-factor, and all it takes is to look at any anime like Highschool of the Dead or Kill La Kill to know that the only hindrance the artists have is cup sizes and the constant strain a spine can be subjected to before it snaps.Scars Unseen said:
Hold on I have something for this.TheSniperFan said:Just wanted to tell you that you're rocking some nicely shaped shoulders there (not gay).Danny Dowling said:
Although I do have to admit that it seems like you're suffering from the same problem I do. You probably should think about putting more work into your back to get more of a V-shape.
This'll do:
...Are you serious? By that definition, a rather large portion of the human population would be "anorexic".erttheking said:
These women aren't obese. They're normal sized.erttheking said:
No, I'm quite certain that most women who look like and are proportioned like those in the photo-shop pictures that walk into a clinic would in fact receive a diagnosis of being overweight or obese. Now they may seem "normal sized" to you, but that just speaks to the fact that the general population in the US is getting too fat, which is a rather well-known fact.
Have you ever been outside the US? or traveled to places other than western Europe? Because you can really see the difference. I myself would be considered fairly average here in the US, yet these days I'm squarely in the overweight/obese category, with BMI of around 29-30%. Same thing for my sister - she's not model slim, but no one would think overweight when they see her. Yet when we go back to Taiwan to visit family? We became instant-fatties, simply because they don't have legions of obese people all over the place, unlike the US.
We simply have way too much trashy processed food and terrible dietary habits in the US, THAT's the main problem. While more active lifestyle and exercises certainly help, they can't do much if you're feeding your body junk all the time.
It's not just body frames, the dietary habits and type of food consumed can also be very different across countries/ethnicities.Eterna said:
To be fair, you need both - exercising burns calories, but they also strengthen your cardiovascular system and contributes substantially towards maintaining a healthy body. On the other hand, exercising cannot hope to compensate if you're eating badly - it takes a lot less time to stuff those few chocolate fudges than it takes to run those 600 calories away. When you combine both, the effect can be quite telling. I managed to drop over 40 pounds in 3 months once - in bootcamp. No lack of exercises there, and the DIs definitely don't give you the opportunity to eat too much(or at all, sometimes)
In Halo, AIs are allowed to pick their own avatars since they're semi-sentient ("Dumb AIs") or actually sentient (Smart AIs like Cortana).Caramel Frappe said:
They take lots of different shapes and forms, including abstract shapes and concepts. Most however take a humanoid form because they believe it helps facilitate communication with humans. Cortana picked her appearance based off of what her creator, Dr. Halsey looked like when she was a young woman, since Cortana noted that a pleasant female voice and appearance was calming for humans and made them more likely to listen to her instructions.
These body proportions are unrealistic considering the professions of the characters shown. And these unrealistic proportions are less plausible than the original proportions.
Did they use the average proportions of American women, or American women age ~20-30? I'm pretty sure those are different. And one of those is more applicable.
Did they use the average proportions of American women, or American women age ~20-30? I'm pretty sure those are different. And one of those is more applicable.
Here is my opinion on the original pictures, as I think all but one of the modified versions misrepresent the activities these women would be in. These women are mostly athletes of some kind or are involved in athleticism in their games. And athletes rarely have much body fat, and their muscles are both strong, toned, but not often bulging. Strength does not equal bulging muscles, but usually come with some muscular definition. Specifically to the originals:
Lara: Lara has never been realistic, but she should have some definition to her body, even with her trade-mark chest (implants?)
Impa: Actually Impa's original is probably the worst "offender" and her modified is most realistic, as she is modeled after a belly dancer. Belly dancers often do not have sculpted abs, as it's probably not seen as attractive for the sport - and that's where the visual attention is drawn. But this was Ocarina of Time, and the poly count was pretty low, leading to some interesting choices in proportions for artistic sake (see also Great Fairy).
Helena: Second worse offender. She isn't that "thin", but she has absolutely no definition, which isn't realistic for a fighter.
Jade: She's basically an MMA fighter. Maybe less boobs, but her body is generally appropriate otherwise.
Sonya: Just like Jade, although worse in the over-sized boobs department and her legs could be bigger, especially if leg strength is her specialty.
Christie: Kinda disproportionate. Tiny arms and legs, but rock-hard abs and huge boobs. Smaller boobs, larger, toned arms and legs and she'd be realistic. Ribs showing a little, in a pose like that, is fine for an athlete. It doesn't scream malnutrition.
Cortana: Not human. Not unhealthy either though. She at least has some curves. Seems to change the least in the altered pictures too.
Tifa: The characters of FFVII, especially the PS1 versions, were never that realistic proportionally. Tifa even has some muscle definition, although maybe her legs are a little on the small side for how much kick-boxing-ish moves she does. She has big boobs, but unlike some other games mentioned, she is the only one in FFVII. Aeris is practically flat.
GTAV Girl: Have you ever seen Kate Upton? If the GTAV Girl had bigger boobs, it would BE Kate Upton. And Kate Upton is not unhealthy.
Rikku: She's 15-17 years old in the games, and a swimmer. Maybe slightly more definition, but otherwise not unrealistic for her age and activities.
None of these women would be as plump as represented by bulimia.com (ok, maybe Impa). They just look like the pics were altered by BBW fetishists and nothing to do with "normal."
Just to be clear, anorexia and bulimia suck (although I also partially agree with George Carlin on the subject), but frankly it's the representation of real women, like in TV, movies and magazines, that fuck up girls' and women's heads into thinking being super thin is the only way to be happy. Video games are fantasy - and even in this list, there is a fair amount of body diversity. And even that is evolving to include more diversity - see Ellie from Borderlands as a prominent example.
Lara: Lara has never been realistic, but she should have some definition to her body, even with her trade-mark chest (implants?)
Impa: Actually Impa's original is probably the worst "offender" and her modified is most realistic, as she is modeled after a belly dancer. Belly dancers often do not have sculpted abs, as it's probably not seen as attractive for the sport - and that's where the visual attention is drawn. But this was Ocarina of Time, and the poly count was pretty low, leading to some interesting choices in proportions for artistic sake (see also Great Fairy).
Helena: Second worse offender. She isn't that "thin", but she has absolutely no definition, which isn't realistic for a fighter.
Jade: She's basically an MMA fighter. Maybe less boobs, but her body is generally appropriate otherwise.
Sonya: Just like Jade, although worse in the over-sized boobs department and her legs could be bigger, especially if leg strength is her specialty.
Christie: Kinda disproportionate. Tiny arms and legs, but rock-hard abs and huge boobs. Smaller boobs, larger, toned arms and legs and she'd be realistic. Ribs showing a little, in a pose like that, is fine for an athlete. It doesn't scream malnutrition.
Cortana: Not human. Not unhealthy either though. She at least has some curves. Seems to change the least in the altered pictures too.
Tifa: The characters of FFVII, especially the PS1 versions, were never that realistic proportionally. Tifa even has some muscle definition, although maybe her legs are a little on the small side for how much kick-boxing-ish moves she does. She has big boobs, but unlike some other games mentioned, she is the only one in FFVII. Aeris is practically flat.
GTAV Girl: Have you ever seen Kate Upton? If the GTAV Girl had bigger boobs, it would BE Kate Upton. And Kate Upton is not unhealthy.
Rikku: She's 15-17 years old in the games, and a swimmer. Maybe slightly more definition, but otherwise not unrealistic for her age and activities.
None of these women would be as plump as represented by bulimia.com (ok, maybe Impa). They just look like the pics were altered by BBW fetishists and nothing to do with "normal."
Just to be clear, anorexia and bulimia suck (although I also partially agree with George Carlin on the subject), but frankly it's the representation of real women, like in TV, movies and magazines, that fuck up girls' and women's heads into thinking being super thin is the only way to be happy. Video games are fantasy - and even in this list, there is a fair amount of body diversity. And even that is evolving to include more diversity - see Ellie from Borderlands as a prominent example.
you're missing the point, it's not that being fat is bad. It's that changing the appearance of a pre-established character to seem more "realistic" when the reality is that said character could very well have the body he/she was designed with given their role and fictional life. Tifa for example spend her whole life training in martial arts with Zangan so there is no way she would be a chubby girl given that when she's not committing terrorist acts or pretending to be a bartender she's most likely training her martial arts skills and there's a high probability that part of her training involves a strict and healthy dietFanghawk said:I find it fascinating how much we can trip over ourselves to say "Of course these female characters have athlete bodies".
Meanwhile: Gaming's greatest hero is an overweight Italian.
Why's everyone getting all worked up, yo?
This is a bulimia awareness group, yeah? I'd figure their point is: "This is what the average body actually looks like, you're not disgusting just because you're not a size zero. chill"
I don't see them arguing that the characters should look like this, or that the original is completely unobtainable (though that Gerudo bird has a smartie for a waist), or that men should be forced into finding morbidly obese women attractive or whatevs. Everybody has body issues, man, it's nice to point out every now and then that having this body type isn't the only standard of beauty to be striving for. I like the pear shaped ladies, myself.
Because, as a side note, these examples kind of illustrate how women in videogames all tend to be straight lines with tits - sometimes a thin straight line which curves into an even thinner waist. Which is a bit weird. I know these are all fantasy depictions, and men are often muscle bound hulks, but I can think of at least a handful of normal, schlubby, dudes out there off the top of my head. Shit, even ff7 has a little pretty boy Cloud, average looking Cid and beastly Barrett. Aeris, Yuffie and Tifa all have the exact same face and body but with an ascending breast size. Not that I'm trying to make some grand gender-wars point, tits and dicks are both getting a pretty uniform deal. It'd be nice if the ladies got a similarly stinking mound of shit as the gents though.
Even if it's just so I get to see the occasional pear-shaped lady.
This is a bulimia awareness group, yeah? I'd figure their point is: "This is what the average body actually looks like, you're not disgusting just because you're not a size zero. chill"
I don't see them arguing that the characters should look like this, or that the original is completely unobtainable (though that Gerudo bird has a smartie for a waist), or that men should be forced into finding morbidly obese women attractive or whatevs. Everybody has body issues, man, it's nice to point out every now and then that having this body type isn't the only standard of beauty to be striving for. I like the pear shaped ladies, myself.
Because, as a side note, these examples kind of illustrate how women in videogames all tend to be straight lines with tits - sometimes a thin straight line which curves into an even thinner waist. Which is a bit weird. I know these are all fantasy depictions, and men are often muscle bound hulks, but I can think of at least a handful of normal, schlubby, dudes out there off the top of my head. Shit, even ff7 has a little pretty boy Cloud, average looking Cid and beastly Barrett. Aeris, Yuffie and Tifa all have the exact same face and body but with an ascending breast size. Not that I'm trying to make some grand gender-wars point, tits and dicks are both getting a pretty uniform deal. It'd be nice if the ladies got a similarly stinking mound of shit as the gents though.
Even if it's just so I get to see the occasional pear-shaped lady.
Uh, only the first sentence was from me.kyp275 said:
And I'll rephrase myself. She looks twenty pounds lighter than a fighter her size should be.
What kind of stupidity is this? I disagree that these fat photoshops represent ?average? American women (I will say they probably represent the average American feminist, though), but even then: These characters are HEROINES! Heroines are not supposed to be ?average!? How daft can someone be to suggest that these fighting heroes should have the same body types as the average people that sit in an office all day working?
Because when you can jump 100 feet, cast magic, carry a sword twice their size, backflipp kick monsters mid air, fight demons or run miles without getting tired, you should look like the average American. Yup yup, makes sense.
It's fiction, not real, why do their bodies have to be when nothing else is?
Another thing is that the male body in games are usually not that much better, same thing, but you don't hear about that do you? You don't have masses of guys running around sad because they don't look like Kratos.
It's fiction, not real, why do their bodies have to be when nothing else is?
Another thing is that the male body in games are usually not that much better, same thing, but you don't hear about that do you? You don't have masses of guys running around sad because they don't look like Kratos.
You know Adam, there are points where your opinion can be wrong. I can say that it's my opinion that the sky is pink till the cows come home. Your opinion on eating disorders. Is. Objectively. Wrong. Commonly eating disorders are born from emotional turmoil, including depression. Christ, one of the causes of eating disorders listed is HISTORY OF SEXUAL ABUSE!Adam Jensen said:
https://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/factors-may-contribute-eating-disorders
It doesn't matter how much you say it's the result of stupidity, YOU'RE WRONG!
God if this is your view on eating disorders I'm terrified as to what your views on depression and autism are.
The point (as stated by Bulimia.com) was to start a conversation about real-life eating disorders, using the appearances of video game characters as common ground. It's a thought exercise relating to our world, not theirs. Having conversations about realism is a interesting concern, but a separate one.GZGoten said:you're missing the point, it's not that being fat is bad. It's that changing the appearance of a pre-established character to seem more "realistic" when the reality is that said character could very well have the body he/she was designed with given their role and fictional life. Tifa for example spend her whole life training in martial arts with Zangan so there is no way she would be a chubby girl given that when she's not committing terrorist acts or pretending to be a bartender she's most likely training her martial arts skills and there's a high probability that part of her training involves a strict and healthy dietFanghawk said:I find it fascinating how much we can trip over ourselves to say "Of course these female characters have athlete bodies".
Meanwhile: Gaming's greatest hero is an overweight Italian.
Every fictional universe is going to play fast and loose with realism one way or another. Even Batman's athlete body should've crapped out on him after about 10 years. Making this about athletics and realism misses a broader issue that warrants a discussion.
Yeah, point out where they actually said that.RetardedChimp said:
And while we're at it, point out the athletic character designs, I don't see any.
Yeah, there's dietry differences too, of course. Japanese meals consist of a lot of rice and fish and things, while fried food and cheap junk food is the norm here.kyp275 said:It's not just body frames, the dietary habits and type of food consumed can also be very different across countries/ethnicities.
To be fair, you need both - exercising burns calories, but they also strengthen your cardiovascular system and contributes substantially towards maintaining a healthy body. On the other hand, exercising cannot hope to compensate if you're eating badly - it takes a lot less time to stuff those few chocolate fudges than it takes to run those 600 calories away. When you combine both, the effect can be quite telling. I managed to drop over 40 pounds in 3 months once - in bootcamp. No lack of exercises there, and the DIs definitely don't give you the opportunity to eat too much(or at all, sometimes
Oh, and of course! I'm not saying you can have one without the other, but certainly too much focus is put on simply not eating as opposed to excercising appropriately. I don't know if it's the same everywhere, but excercising here is seen as something you either a: just don't do outside of the gym or b: only for people who want to get athletic. I dropped from dress size 22 to 14 within a year once I started excercising, but I didn't really adjust the way I ate (didn't have a choice at the time since it was my parents' lifestyle that caused it and I still lived at home), just stopped having sugary drinks and stuff.
On-topic, though, I don't really get why everyone wants complete realism in games, anyway...
Do I want to see an 'average' person in games? No, I'm stuck with average people all the time. and I don't really understand people always having to see themselves in stuff. I never even play as the same gender if I can help it.