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Japanese devs' obsession with child/child-like characters trope and how problematic it is
- Thread starter Kaivan
- Start date
Not that there is a problem with Veronica specifically, but this excuse is exactly in the same vein as "thousand year old dragon".
Not taking sides here, just dumping info:
Futaba is 15-16
MC is 16-17
Also most of these games are extremely niche not only in the west, but also in Japan. The big franchises: FF, DQ, Mario, Zelda, which aim for a bigger audience, tend to rely less on teenagers.
It's only in place like Era where we feel like Xenoblade or Tales are some major franchises.
It's only in place like Era where we feel like Xenoblade or Tales are some major franchises.
Nothing really. Ann is the one that is sexualized.
Yeah, he's only a year older than her. The only one of legal age by the time the game is over is Makoto. Futaba is also less sexualized than Ann/Makoto, no wet shirt scenes for her like those two.
I didn't even make it to the part where you meet Futaba but the way the game treated Ann was fucking disgusting
Teenagers are fine, but not with excessive fan service.
In my example I asked for Persona in college.
Joker, Futaba, Makoto, etc being 17-20 wouldn't change too much, but would make things less unsettling
I mean that is true especially in stuff like pop music and beauty pageants, but that's not really what we're talking about here.
From what I understand (correct me if I'm wrong), that's the age of consent nationally, but prefectures have their own consent laws and almost all of them have it at 18.
In a vacuum, no, but there's something to be said about how widespread it is, especially with the tendency to fetishise youth and childishness.
Within the game's world, she is referred to multiple times as looking like a child. At one point, a security guard/police officer refers to her as a little girl and asks if she needs assistance the way one would ask a child, and then much later in the game there's a sequence where the girls in the party need to flirt with a guy and they get one for Futaba too, noting that the dude is probably a huge creep who's into "that"
So it's just kind of weird and off-putting for the game to be all "Yeah people in game see her and think of her as a child, but also you can hook up with her!"
(Nowi is in a similar boat - her daughter is literally all "Welp guess my dad was a big ol' pedo!")
It's a real problem and it's becoming harder and harder to just ignore and overlook as elements of it are present almost everywhere. Japanese media has a real obsession with youth in general, which leads to 30 y/o being depicted as old people, but the prevalence of little girls is hard to ignore. Media in general across all cultures have major issues with youth and sexualization but JP games stand out for a reason in these discussions, particularly because so many of these elements are extremely common and widespread throughout all their media.
Especially with the fact that Veronica is emotionally/intellectually an adult while having the body of a child. A setup that is often used to downplay pedophelic aspects of said child characters, such as the 1000 year old dragon tropes. They think it's OK and not wrong to have a character physically appear to be a child and be sexualized to one degree or another because emotionally/intellectually they're adults circumventing the main moral issue of children being unable to understand or make sound decisions when it comes to sexual matters. Meanwhile the opposite also exists in abundance where physically adult characters will have the mental maturity of a child and they're often sexualized even more so. Whole thing is fucked.
It's potentially problematic because it's part of a larger trend that often does sexualize said younger characters, so while you could argue it's an improvement by not doing so, it's still kind of normalizing that overall depiction in media of these childlike characters as a common place and acceptable occurrence, which aids those sexualized depictions. If the practice wasn't so wide spread and common it wouldn't be a real issues, but this isn't a vacuum, it's influenced and seen within the context of the larger culture which has a real problem with these kinds of characters.
Especially with the fact that Veronica is emotionally/intellectually an adult while having the body of a child. A setup that is often used to downplay pedophelic aspects of said child characters, such as the 1000 year old dragon tropes. They think it's OK and not wrong to have a character physically appear to be a child and be sexualized to one degree or another because emotionally/intellectually they're adults circumventing the main moral issue of children being unable to understand or make sound decisions when it comes to sexual matters. Meanwhile the opposite also exists in abundance where physically adult characters will have the mental maturity of a child and they're often sexualized even more so. Whole thing is fucked.
From that image I only know Riku, Futaba and Veronica and I don't understand how they are problematic in the slightest. Futaba and Veronica in particular were among my favorite characters in their respective games.
Can't remember Riku too well, but that image is from FFX-2 and I don't think she was particulary young there? (as in underage, I don't know the "official" ages but her and Yuna/Paine strike me as a 20-25 year old adult)
Edit: just checked and all of them are below 20 actually (Riku 17, Paine 18, Yuna 19)... lol
Can't remember Riku too well, but that image is from FFX-2 and I don't think she was particulary young there? (as in underage, I don't know the "official" ages but her and Yuna/Paine strike me as a 20-25 year old adult)
Edit: just checked and all of them are below 20 actually (Riku 17, Paine 18, Yuna 19)... lol
Even when I was a teenager, I wanted adults in my RPGs instead.
Team Ninja established Marie Rose's as 18, but it's not like it made anyone who didn't want her in DoA to begin with inclined to believe them (and that awful face smash zoom-in mechanic in DoA6 that nobody asked for exempting her, Honoka, and NiCO while not doing so for other teenagers like Kasumi and Ayane was only viewed as undermining what they established).
Most prefectures have laws that override that to raise it to 18.
Haru and Makoto, pretty sure anyway, since both were in line to graduate.
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She is.
Well even in real life people with really youthful faces often get called out for looking really young. Don't see this as a problem still but I guess depends on your perspective
I think the only safe route at this point is to just stop including child characters in video games full stop.
"Why there are so many revealing clothes and male-gazey camera in Japanese game" and "why there are so many teenagers" are two completely different questions.
For the first question, yeah it's a problem. All female characters in Japanese games are at risk of fan service, so there's no reason to pick out one portion of it.
For the second question, the answer is let them do what they want. I didn't complain why western games have so many gritty white men. They are not made for me, and I just ignore them.
As Asian I can confirm this. It's always me that have to show my ID before entering movie theater, all other people at my age just go through.
Exploitation of minors in popculture is a-ok, but doing drugs? Burn that motherfucker. Japan oh Japan.
Sure, but you're not Japanese I assume. Teen/young adult characters are really under-represented in western games in general compared to Japan. Sexualized ones are the problem, but just including them at all is not a bad thing.
I agree with your general point, but I'm a bit confused about including Rikku. Isn't she an adult in X-2?
Rikku is underage in both games. She's 15 in the first and 17 in the second.
It's a trope in the same way having an older character in their late twenties and early thirties who's treated like a geriatric, they do it to provide contrast to the core older teenager group I presume. It's mostly innocent enough in the case of Final Fantasy, Tales or Persona but there's a very clear distinction between those and someone like Nowi in Fire Emblem who is quite obviously a sexualised child targeted at the otaku pedo audience, along with most of the "works" from the likes of Compile Heart who appear to have those people are their primary audience.
That is a damn good point.
Something like Attack on Titan is not a problem, but the fact that it is among the few that forgo sexualization of their young cast speaks volumes about the industry.
So it's good that they canceled the Harry Potter game?
Yeah I went to check and edited my post. I didn't have that impression but it's been a long time since I played that game.
Of age in Japan in both games lol. This could basically be broken down to Japan's age of consent laws, which are obviously on the younger end.
Speaking only personally, a big part of the reason that Persona resonated to me was playing it while I was around the age of 16. RPGs predominantly revolving around adult characters like Final Fantasy tend to be the norm, so having a cool high school setting with nightmare terrors was a really novel concept that appealed to me, and I reckon a lot of others, especially due to how much of a focus the social aspect had in everything. Even now that I'm in my 20s there's still something nostalgic about playing the games.
Yep but it's another example of why the age devs put is irrelevant. They even blocked her on fatal blow displays for a reason, let alone she acting like a kid (and some of her dlc outfits being really child-like).
If we are talking about making stories about younger people then its fine and I'll agree, but If we are talking about the sexualization of minors, no culture is excuse for that.
Right? The first thing she does is make fun of him for being a kid.
Was surprised when Lora said she was 27 in Torna. You can never tell age in anime.
To be fair they aren't far off, 30 is where dreams die lol
Understandable. While not an RPG, I suppose Skool Daze resonated with me at the time partly because I was a kid.
I'm 27 and my back hurts already. I'm feeling things that I didn't feel at 22.
I don't necessarily agree with all the characters you posted as being examples of the trope. I think Futaba, Nia and Rikku are perfectly fine as they are. But yes, there are a ton of really fucked up characters in Japanese videogames.
Nowi's probably the biggest offender, it's so bad that she even became the new face of the "I'm actually a 1000 year old dragon/demon/angel" meme.
Nowi's probably the biggest offender, it's so bad that she even became the new face of the "I'm actually a 1000 year old dragon/demon/angel" meme.
Hey man, I know it's rough but accept it, only us adults matter, no kids allowed lol
The sexualization of underage characters is a huge problem in Japanese media, but thinking that all child characters need to be wiped from Japanese games because of the trope is a ridiculously extreme stance.
A lot of games use child characters because they are marketed to children and teenagers, such as the Zelda, Pokemon, and Splatoon series which are filled with child characters. I think it's weird to say Veronica is bad and part of the problem when DQ is also marketed to that same demographic. (Not to absolve DQXI, the treatment of Jade is poor)
A lot of games use child characters because they are marketed to children and teenagers, such as the Zelda, Pokemon, and Splatoon series which are filled with child characters. I think it's weird to say Veronica is bad and part of the problem when DQ is also marketed to that same demographic. (Not to absolve DQXI, the treatment of Jade is poor)
She's not sexualized tho. She's not in some bikini.
She's actually one of the more sober depictions of a child character.
But yes, I agree that the sexualized outfits in child characters is abhorrent. That should not be a controversial statement.
Thats because its bullshit, and borderline insulting to japanese people trying to pretend that pedophilia is part of their culture.
How ScruffyTurtles writes his Persona 5 ACAU is the correct way to go about it, he makes the characters in the AU 18 years old and in their 3rd year of high school. Some main characters in his AU like younger Takemi are college students too.
The problem with this thread is that it outright implies it's a problem limited to one region, not a global problem.
Try vist r/gaming (or any gaming site) then turn off your adblock and browse the web. You'll be inundated with western versions of the exact same thing og says is a Japanese dev obsession.
Try vist r/gaming (or any gaming site) then turn off your adblock and browse the web. You'll be inundated with western versions of the exact same thing og says is a Japanese dev obsession.
