Pretty Boys Who Look Like Girls

[DTWolfwood]

interesting read. Nothing i don't already know XD

but to be fair there are actual men that look like Vaan, where as i've yet to meet a man the size of Marcus Fenix. not even muscle builders have tree trunks for arms and legs.

 

[Inkidu]

Yes, but you see, your article is inherently flawed: It's based on one of the worst games in the world. Vaan is an inept toad, constantly overshadowed by other more interesting and complex (but still somehow shallow) characters like the guy with the evil twin or the airship pirate (it's been a long time since I played it). Hell, he's overshadowed by his childhood friend and she's basically a really dumb brick in terms of personality.

 

[MammothBlade]

The dude in Persona 3 needs to get a damned hair cut.

Seriously just look at the box art for Persona 2:

Spoiler: Which one is the woman?

There's nothing wrong with his haircut.

The expectation upon guys to have short haircuts projects a narrow-minded ideal of how males should look.

However, Vaan was inexplicably annoying. I'm going to post a pic of the best guy in Final Fantasy XII:

Damn, I shall have to play FFXII again.

 

[Dogstile]

Ugh, hell no. It is not between the two extremes. Manly men can be manly without being an emotionless void. Fashion conscious men can do so while not looking like girls.

Someone get me Sean Connery.

 

[Arina Love]

Surprise.

I have to ask though what is this articles aim? It just seems to finish without really asking anything or discussing anything.

on topic :
i just tired of stereotype macho men majority of games now populated with, i much rather play as "girly" men or better still as a woman.

 

[Paradoxrifts]

If you watch enough popular media from Japan, you will eventually come across a horrible stereotype of a big, burly and very gay Japanese muscleman. I have no idea whether the stereotype has a basis in reality on any level, but I would say that it has probably got something to do with Japanese women preferring dudes with an effeminate and girlish appearance.

A man who bucks the accepted wisdom by deliberately building muscle mass in such a society probably opens themselves up to all sorts of innuendo.

 

[Flight]

Actually, I read somewhere that in Japan, men who are pretty are considered to be masculine. Would anyone happen to know if this is true? Furthermore, I personally find the "pretty boy" archetype refreshing after seeing so many "macho men" in gaming. However, I would prefer there to be a happy medium on the subject; I don't think we need to go to either extreme in order to have a good game.

 

[Lord Beautiful]

You failed to mention Dante Classic.

Your article is invalid.

 

[FEichinger]

Alright, I'm gonna be honest here ... Every single Exploding Barrel I've read over the past month seems to escape me, point-wise. It always reads like a cluster of thoughts, scrambled together, rather than an article or a column. No point, no discussion value - except for "I've presented one way to look at it, now talk about it!" - nothing.

 

[Scow2]

For me both extremes are not realistic.

One one side we have men who command entire armies... of hairdressers to tend to their hair.

On the other whe have men who saying that they have the emotional range of a spoon would be insulting to spoons.

You say emotional range like it's a good thing.

Anyway: This series seems to be justifications and reconstructions of tropes used in video games that frequently get complained about, but their absence would do more harm than good. More specifically, it gives "rule-of-thumb" justifications of things that tend not to make sense in the narrative context of games but are important to actual gameplay (Such as the eponymous Exploding Barrels) or, in this case, desired art direction.

 

[TechTim]

wait.. the blond one's a dude? aaww man....