-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
Why women criticise sexualised character designs | OT3 | "make her look more...corpulent, more stuffed where the eyes can't escape."
- Thread starter Persephone
- Start date
- OT
That is totally the Conan O'Brien string dance. I wonder if he knows?
yeah no I've been here since the beginning and this OT has had a racism problem since day 1. Justifications like this trying to pretty it up pretending it's all constructive doesn't help. There's rarely been a discussion in these topics that actually necessitated even mentioning a game/dev is Japanese in order to highlight issues with character designs and/or gameplay. If you're not Japanese it's not your place to talk about what needs fixing with the culture, end of* (edit: if you're late to this, finish reading the full comment before responding.) The Asian meeting report happened less than 1 year ago, and nothing changed in response. Someone asked a broad neutral question recently "are things in games getting better or worse?" and was met immediately with west good Japan bad.
if you lot still aren't getting it, here's a sample of sweeping generalisations and Asians are backwards rhetoric from only the last month or so
I had a whole response about how different JP discussion of that Aerith photoshop actually was versus how it was framed by those that spread it into EN fandom via clickbait youtube videos. It was one guy on twitter who got ratio'd by people mostly dunking on him saying she looks great and he's crazy. But one dude = all Japan now
"the east" ........
in a year when anti-Asian sentiment and hate crimes are rising everywhere, coming to a thread that's supposed to be welcoming and still having to see dehumanising shit like this makes me sick. and I say all this knowing I'll also be met with dismissal over it.
EDIT: *this has predictably been used as an excuse to dismiss my concerns. I won't edit it out in the interest of preserving the original discussion, however I will add my followup for latecomers. If you were thinking of making false equivalences or being dismissive of the overall issue based on that sentence don't fucking bother thanks
Making outside observations about trends in Japanese products (which I have no problem with) whilst not using those observations as a basis for stereotypical judgments about Japanese people is the bare minimum. More specificity = better accountability. It will reduce the hurt generalisations can cause to members of AsianERA and also benefit the aims of these discussions and the quality of discourse.
Last edited:
Why did you cut out my sentence and not put in the context of replying about a gacha/mmo game. Where again you could bet money and win it safely that most Eastern Gacha games/MMOs have problematic issues with them. I mean we could pull up 5 games from China/South Korea/Japan (each) and probably at random and you'd find it.
Also your " If you're not Japanese it's not your place to talk about what needs fixing with the culture, end of " is absolute bullshit. You can 100% criticize another culture. That's like saying if you're not white its not your place to tell us how we're racists... because its bullshit and anyone can and should call out bullshit.
Also your " If you're not Japanese it's not your place to talk about what needs fixing with the culture, end of " is absolute bullshit. You can 100% criticize another culture. That's like saying if you're not white its not your place to tell us how we're racists... because its bullshit and anyone can and should call out bullshit.
So if you dont belong to a culture you cant criticize aspects of it?
That's absolute nonsense.
That's absolute nonsense.
Sweeping generalizations are wrong indeed, and you could argue that some western fans complained about MKX and MK11 giving female characters clothes.
But there's absolutely nothing problematic about pointing out that Japanese games tend to be more "fanservice-y" than western games. Japan IS indeed going through change regarding its views on gender, just look at what happened with the Tokyo Olympics chief recently. And it's of course ridiculous to think that only people from culture A can criticize culture A, no one really gets that privilege, certainly not Latin American culture, or Arab culture, or African culture.
But there's absolutely nothing problematic about pointing out that Japanese games tend to be more "fanservice-y" than western games. Japan IS indeed going through change regarding its views on gender, just look at what happened with the Tokyo Olympics chief recently. And it's of course ridiculous to think that only people from culture A can criticize culture A, no one really gets that privilege, certainly not Latin American culture, or Arab culture, or African culture.
There's anti-Asian sentiment, and then there's Japan that's put on a pedestal around here.
Come on now, there's a reason why people generalize Japanese media, we've been through this too many times. People generalize because the media they see and consume is all they've got, and those media tend to be presented in such a way that led to said generalization, especially regarding fanservice. You can't expect people to visit and/or live in Japan to voice their opinion from what their own experience from Japanese media. Just think of a Japanese franchise that tend to not have bigoted content on it, versus the opposite. The ratio says it all.
I say this as a big Japanese media fan. I consume everything from games, anime, drama, toys, etc. But I totally dislike the dismissive and defeatist attitude of people who are on the same group as me. You can like Japanese media, but you can also be critical of them. Nothing will change if you keep dismissing the issue, even in 10, 20 years later.
Come on now, there's a reason why people generalize Japanese media, we've been through this too many times. People generalize because the media they see and consume is all they've got, and those media tend to be presented in such a way that led to said generalization, especially regarding fanservice. You can't expect people to visit and/or live in Japan to voice their opinion from what their own experience from Japanese media. Just think of a Japanese franchise that tend to not have bigoted content on it, versus the opposite. The ratio says it all.
I say this as a big Japanese media fan. I consume everything from games, anime, drama, toys, etc. But I totally dislike the dismissive and defeatist attitude of people who are on the same group as me. You can like Japanese media, but you can also be critical of them. Nothing will change if you keep dismissing the issue, even in 10, 20 years later.
People shouldn't be saying Japan when they mean the Japanese gaming industry, that's true.
But criticising the trends in japanese game development is not racist. It's no more racist than a European criticising the popularity of military shooters in the US.
But criticising the trends in japanese game development is not racist. It's no more racist than a European criticising the popularity of military shooters in the US.
I've decided to dive back in Genshin, haven't really played it since October maybe? Feels like I missed a lot.
Anyway, enough has been said about the outfits and how they range from ok to good to oh god why, but one thing I do like is some of the hair styles. Particularly Ningguang's, which is just elegant and gorgeous
Anyway, enough has been said about the outfits and how they range from ok to good to oh god why, but one thing I do like is some of the hair styles. Particularly Ningguang's, which is just elegant and gorgeous
The ratio says that... Japanese content is really good actually? I don't know if your post is really trying to say that generalizing is good, it's a little confusing honestly. I think people are right to criticize things that deserve criticizing but you should treat everything as an individual work and try to avoid making statements about all Japan or all of a kind of media.
It helps I think to draw a distinction between "Japanese games" and "anime games". Because if you look at a lot of the Japanese video games that are not anime or clearly heavily anime inspired, the ratio of quality of representation immediately shoots up significantly. I think someone said this earlier in the thread but judging all of Japanese media by anime games is like judging all of American media by comic books.
Somewhere out there there's a Japanese forum talking about how bad American media is and posting a bunch of Rob Leifield drawings as proof.
Edit: It should be clear but I'll type it anyway. There are still good anime games and there are still good comic books.
Somewhere out there there's a Japanese forum talking about how bad American media is and posting a bunch of Rob Leifield drawings as proof.
Edit: It should be clear but I'll type it anyway. There are still good anime games and there are still good comic books.
Last edited:
English is my 3rd language so there's probably some misused words/sentences in my post. But I didn't mean to say that generalization is good. I'm just saying that people see Japanese content (especially games in the current context) as fanservice-y because that's all they're exposed to.
This is probably not entirely accurate, but from my understanding, sexualization is an integral part of the Japanese culture since you can sell and buy hentai content in public. There's also the whole doujinshi thing so that everyone can make money from producing short content, mostly erotic. I have a feeling that it has something to do with it.
Yea and there are some anime style games made in the west that have some of the same issues too. Like Shantae definitely does, or at least some of those. One of the games has a bunch of creepy bkikini fanservice shots and stuff. So it's moreso "types of games" and should be less Japanese, and even just saying every anime game.
The topic was about how much fanservice is in a Chinese developed title. To make an aside about 'the east' and games developed in Japan like they're interchangable isn't the kind of context that is doing you any favours. You could have just left it at yeah there is some fanservice such as xyz, and that's appropriate rather than alienating.
like clockwork. The aspect in question - sexism - is universal, so tell me more about posts saying Japanese people are uncritical of it until the west showed them the way are completely good faith and making a real difference actually. If you are going to criticise aspects of a culture, you need to come from a place of honestly assessing and highlighting those same shortcomings in your own culture and not using the other as a means to prop your own as superior or an example of 'doing it better.'
A westerner criticising western media, totally same thing... incredible good work wow
Last edited:
I agree with kaebie many times as I read the thread, I felt uncomfortable due to the causal anti - Asian sentiments, in other words passive racism disguised as "game critiques", from calling a whole country or even Asia as a whole "backwards" to making it seem like the west is what drives feminism there.
"b-but but some Asian devs take notes from the west and western devs lean to inclusivity!" yeah that's just an assumption, and even if some did that doesn't mean that every one of them did it cause the west dragged them to do it, maybe take time to read about the feminist movement in Asia, they did more to Asian women than the west ever did, its honestly so disheartening to see such wild disregard and gross generalization with zero support be made just causally in this thread.
so many fanservice games were made for a specific audience, the otakus
and as I said before the same thing goes for comics that are made for nerds, which is why misogyny and fanservicey designs are common there, yet I would never see gross generalization like " the west doesn't understand that this kind of design is wrong"
fucking hell the most misogynistic game I have played was GTA5, in which women were mocked and slut shamed constantly, and that games is one, if not THE most popular games in the west.
why can't this thread critique games without talking down to 3 billion people, it's not hard to talk about a dev or a studio and holding them accountable by themselves.
hell I'm going to do it, damn I hate XC2 designs, they're oversexualized and do not fit the character's personality at all, made me not want to buy the game, Nintendo should not allow these kind of designs in their games again.
I'll say thanks for the callout and I will try to be more specific in the future. Video games are not a holistic presentation of a culture, but a microcosm, and I certainly didn't mean to imply they were more than this. And while there's a much wider cultural discussion to be had about the oppression of marginalized groups and capitalism in general, at least here, I'll try to focus on specific aspects of that culture (and its associated game culture) rather than generalizing and making blanket statements which I have no way to realistically defend. The games industry as it is tends to be sick with a particular oppression of marginalized groups, and calling out those oppressors and their designs and culture is far more productive and certainly merits more than a few words.
The sexism of the game industry is not a singular thing, and it exists in a number of ways in design, in framing, in the culture of presentation of women that is based on an oppressive and misanthropic view of women. There are particular ways it exists in Japanese game culture, in Korean game culture, and in Chinese game culture, but these presentations are not created equally, and it is by far those with a lot of power in the game industry who are simultaneously single entities (e.g., Persona 5's director) and the corporations who support them (e.g., Atlus / Sega) that make and sell these ideas. And they, as organizations and people, are the ones contributing, in large part, to these problems, and they seek, continually, to normalize them by continuing to create and sell them. Collective action will be necessary to eventually root this out, and here is but a staging ground to discuss those wider issues. I will try to abide by this mindset in the future, and apologize for any offense or injustice I have perpetrated on the people here. It serves no one to speak with hatred and I will try to be better in the future about writing in such generalizations.
Last edited:
Let's take a look at the most popular mobile games, then. I will talk about the ones from China. I am ignoring PUBG mobile because it is a port of a Korean game.
Top 5 Chinese mobile games
First place is Knives Out (荒野行动). You've probably never heard of it because it is a Fortnite-like game that draws most of its revenue from Japan. If you search for images of its costumes, you will find a lot of impractical and fetish outfits for women. But the costumes and hairstyles are gender neutral, so you can put a buff dude in a maid costume and twintails, or put everyone in street clothes.
Second place is Honor of Kings (皇者荣耀). You've probably never heard of it either because it was completely localized--character designs and all--as Arena of Valor outside of China. This is its character roster. It's very much like League of Legends in design philosophy, but the women's faces have more of a pretty CG women out of an Asian game look.
Third place is Speed Drifters (QQ飞车). It's a racing game that sells car parts and clothes for the driver avatar. The vast majority of those are modern street clothes.
(Fourth place is technically Tiao Yi Tao, but that's a stick figure + geometric shapes game, so I am not including it in the ranked list)
Fourth place is Junior Three Kingdoms (少年三国志). It's the first one on the list that has exploitative female character designs everywhere.
Fifth place is Love Nikki-Dress UP Queen (奇迹暖暖). Someone please fire the NA/EU localizer and replace them with the SEA localizer that named it Miracle Nikki. It is a costume crafting game. This is the first one on the list whose art style is distinctly patterned after Japanese animation. Its western fanbase is somewhere around 89% female and 6% nonbinary. The Chinese fanbase is about 74% female.
Top 3 Chinese retail RPGs
Here are the female protagonists of the 3 most popular retail RPGs from China, so we are not working with the Chinese = mobage/MMO stereotype.
This is a game that sold 1.36 million copies, basically in China alone, though it is available in English on Steam.
Last edited:
I have nothing against Asians or Japanese in particular, I'd give you anedoctal stuff but I doubt it would do any good. I might have phrased that badly, but I was specifically speaking about Japanese developers, not Japan as a country or the whole Japanese people.
I've been consuming Japanese media my whole life, and I can assure you (you can believe it or not) that I'm not a racist person, against anyone.
What I was trying to say is that many Japanese developers/designers might not even see what's wrong in those designs, and that's not a nice thought.
I know that where there's problematic stuff, there's also many perfectly fine stuff like most Falcom games, for example. In manga there's so much stuff that doesn't have an inch of objectification or sexism. But we can't hide the fact that the majority of the big name stuff suffers from this kind of problem, I was just pointing out that maybe due to cultural reasons they don't even know what's wrong with that.
I hope I explained my point better, and if I offended you in the previous post (or even in this one) please accept my sincerest apologies. Also, if you can, please point out in what way what I wrote was offensive, so that I can avoid the same mistake in the future.
Do you think people here in Japan don't criticize western games? Do you think people here just say "well, it's not our culture so we can't criticize western media :)"?. This is such a weirdly extreme stance to have.
dude, no one said "don't criticize"
we said don't say stuff like "Asians are backwards" or " Japan don't understand" because it's generalization, and has nothing to do with the game, please read what we said, we are criticizing the thread itself
When you're saying "Japanese developers", it's not clear whether you're saying all of them, some of them, or referring to specific creators you're thinking of. The most generous reading is that you're not expressing yourself clearly, but frankly it appears you're generalizing all Japanese developers. Instead, you could call out the specific creators, and not paint entire groups of people with one broad stroke.
Who exactly is disagreeing with not calling Asians backwards? Just who? My post was related to this:
"It's no more racist than a European criticising the popularity of military shooters in the US."
" A westerner criticising western media, totally same thing... incredible good work wow "
So that poster believes a Japanese person criticizing Western media is not the same thing as a Western person criticizing it. I disagree with that.
Now, generalizing sucks, but we all have the right to say "American games are plagued with militaristic propaganda", and literally no one would think I'm talking about every single video game coming from the US. In the same way, we all have the right to say "Japanese games are plagued with otaku pandering designs", which is honestly not an inaccurate statement.
" no one disagrees " then why do we keep seeing these kind of statements in this thread? read the examples quoted by kaebie
and no, white people criticizing white people is not racist??? do you understand what racism means?
besides we aren't talking about a British dude mocking the popularity of COD in the US on twitter or whatever
we are talking about this thread making blatant generalization and anti - Asian statements causally like how do you see statements like this and can't see the problem?
cause calling a whole nation of people "rotten" because a group in some website hated the design is definitely not xenophobic or racist
I sure as heck don't disagree, so I don't like this issue being brought up when addressing my only point, which is rather straightforward.
I pinpointed for you was I was trying to say. Again, you're throwing this "making blatant generalizations" argument on my face when all I'm saying is that - no, you don't need to be part of a culture to be able to criticize it. Especially when we're talking about commercial products that are, indeed, intended to be bought by people from all around the world.
As for your quoted post, I actually agree with you that the wording is needlessly harsh. But again, if I say "European RPGs sure attract white supremacists" or "America is rotten when it comes to militaristic propaganda in games", I'm guessing people wouldn't think I'm talking about every single game made in those territories, let alone the entire population or race.
And I guess I disagree if you think there aren't some very clear design philosophies in Japanese games that are rather... not okay, and that can absolutely be improved.
I'm not saying there's no racism/bigotry in this thread or that no one has said that west is dragging Japan towards more progressive attitudes. More pointing out how the situation actually seems to be: less "west dragging" and more "worldwide trends forcing big publishers everywhere to adjust how they treat representation in their big budget games that need to do well outside their domestic marketplace too". Like, didn't the Capcom leak basically say the exact same thing, how they are making an effort to represent women better because that's where things are going in the world of big publishers & big games worldwide? I wouldn't even credit this to western influence alone, but different demographics everywhere being vocal enough of bad representation that big publishers are starting to realize that gaming is a worldwide business and they can do better business all over if they don't go from controversy to controversy when depicting different demographics, countries & their cultures/histories. That's not to say anyone is doing it perfect. Muslims still get the short end of the stick in western games(/media altogether) much of the time.
But I AM calling BS on your claim that no one can criticize some culture except those who are from it. Japan's gender inequality being on a different level (vs. at least some countries in the west) to this day is well documented. I'm not painting every Japanese person as a misogynist or anything, just that Japanese culture on average is still very conservative when it comes to women's place in society. There are people fighting that & doing good work, but they just haven't quite tipped the scale to the point where larger societal change has happened.
That also doesn't mean I'm blind to the situation in the west. Racism & sexism are still big issues and there are significant portions of any country who are bigoted, misogynistic pieces of shit + even the rest still have work to do (see: racism & TERFism in feminist/leftist circles). I'd just say that a big enough portion of the west is noticeably further in at least some of these things, enough so that women are actually in positions of power in noticeable numbers & saying stuff like "I guess we can have women in the boardroom, so long as they don't talk" just generally doesn't happen (so brazenly publicly) anymore (because women are already in those boardrooms, many even in leading positions), and I don't even remember what would have been the last western game to have sexualized underaged girls while they are a dime a dozen even in well-respected publishers' like Nintendo's games (not to say they are never sexualized in the west, i.e. child modelling can get pretty gross). There's just been some large scale progress in regards to things like those that still needs to happen in Japan.
Gotcha, I understand.
It doesn't help English is not my first language, so even if I try to be as thorough as I can while explaining myself, sometimes it's not easy.
I was referring to both big names and smaller SHs: Square Enix is still a big offender, even though Tifa's FF7R design is an improvement over the original. But then again, there's Cindy in FFXV which is basically Rikku 2.0. Then there's Nier, for example. A huge amount of small-medium developers do this too, to the point where a lot of female designs we see are big breasted, scantily clad 14 year old looking girls. I love visual novels, but even those that are not eroge usually feature designs like that: even Ace Attorney of all things, in the sequences where Maya channeled Mia for example, even worse when Pearl was channeling Mia. That's what I meant in my previous post, that the issue is so widespread that it makes me think many developers simply don't understand what's wrong with it. Not because they're stupid, obviously, but most likely because gamers didn't start questioning their practices until fairly recently.
Do we need to talk about the rampant homophobia in Persona games?
I've named them a few times already, but Falcom with the Trails series is a fairly good example of great female characters design. I'm still playing the Crossbell arc, and I've heard the Cold Steel series has some issues, but so far so good.
The point is: I don't think it's unfair to say that Japan still has some cultural problems in regards to women's role in the society, and I think it's showing in a lot of games coming from Japan. This is not to say Japanese are bad, this is to say that the wave of protest in Europe and America against mysoginy, racism, homophobia, transphobia and all that's wrong in our society probably still hasn't seen a counterpart in Japan to raise awareness towards what we know recognize as fundamental issues in our society.
I hope I explained myself better, I've been writing and editing this post for what seems like forever now.
User banned (1 month): hostility, dismissing concerns around racism
criticising video games is now racism
hahahahaha
This is beyond pathetic
Nobody in this thread has said anything racist. you people have to get educated what it actually means before typing so much non sense out.
I stand to all I wrote. Never did I say something about "all Japanese people" but about Japanese game developers (and otaku/hardcore Japanes fans when it came the FF7R thing). I can't believe I have to clarify this.
hahahahaha
This is beyond pathetic
Nobody in this thread has said anything racist. you people have to get educated what it actually means before typing so much non sense out.
I stand to all I wrote. Never did I say something about "all Japanese people" but about Japanese game developers (and otaku/hardcore Japanes fans when it came the FF7R thing). I can't believe I have to clarify this.
Fully stand behind you, kaebie & Trucy Wright. I may have only ever lurked in these OTs as I've barely got the time to be here anyway, but also noticed how it's not rare for people to be generalizing or outright diet/casually racist whenever it comes to media that isn't made by western devs. Nobody's saying people aren't allowed to criticize designs, because it's obviously much needed, but please think about how you word shit before hitting the post button?
You know what's actually pathetic? Doubling down & going the "haha i'm not racist, you're just uneducated" route when you could've used your head & think about how a lot of (valid & needed!) criticism of Japanese (& other Asian) media goes hand-in-hand with diet/casual racism at the very least.
It's not much different to how men need to still be fucking careful in how they word their criticism about misogyny in media, because pretty often they just end up sounding misogynistic themselves or talk over women.
You know what's actually pathetic? Doubling down & going the "haha i'm not racist, you're just uneducated" route when you could've used your head & think about how a lot of (valid & needed!) criticism of Japanese (& other Asian) media goes hand-in-hand with diet/casual racism at the very least.
It's not much different to how men need to still be fucking careful in how they word their criticism about misogyny in media, because pretty often they just end up sounding misogynistic themselves or talk over women.
User banned (3 weeks): Dismissive commentary and inflammatory accusations
I definitely believe the language can be improved, but I also don't entirely believe Kaebie is presenting an argument in 100% "good faith." By that, I just mean that if the language was improved to "Japanese anime inspired games media" I believe they poster would still have an issue with it.
This person tackles some of the stuff mentioned by Kaebie through her Twitter posts and articles written at unseenjapan.com, I recommend we all follow it since we care about games. Overall I think their takes are geninuely good, but I haven't read them too closely in the past few month so it might have changed.
This person tackles some of the stuff mentioned by Kaebie through her Twitter posts and articles written at unseenjapan.com, I recommend we all follow it since we care about games. Overall I think their takes are geninuely good, but I haven't read them too closely in the past few month so it might have changed.
Just so I can make this clear, when I posted "the east " what I meant was in terms of game development as such the discussion was about. I don't mean the entirety of different peoples and different cultures. Just in terms of gaming. It's like when people here say "X is a mistake" they don't mean every single one (except cops for that specific phrase)
I am sorry if it came off as offensive towards an entire people which I did not intend.
I won't however not retract that Japan should get rid of pandering anime designs and that other countries shouldn't copy them because they are bad in general.
That's a literal don't criticize, since to criticize something means to: indicate the faults of (someone or something) in a disapproving way.
I am sorry if it came off as offensive towards an entire people which I did not intend.
I won't however not retract that Japan should get rid of pandering anime designs and that other countries shouldn't copy them because they are bad in general.
" If you're not Japanese it's not your place to talk about what needs fixing with the culture, end of."
That's a literal don't criticize, since to criticize something means to: indicate the faults of (someone or something) in a disapproving way.
Last edited:
So much this.
I might not post often, but I always lurk in this thread. For the most part it is clearly understood that there is a difference with the way Japanese/Asian games are designed, what the flaws are and how Japanese developers are slow or stubborn to feedback for their games. It is not an attack on Japanese people or how all of them are the same. Western made games have their own flaws that are also heavily criticised. And I say this as a huge Jrpg fan (getting less with the way things are though). I read the Asian thread and how terrible it went down there. But I truly feel that things are getting mixed and is treated as racism, or disproportionately aggressive. I accept that we could be more mindful with our words. We can always be better just to make sure we don't offend anyone. But this take by kaebie feels like tone policing and that we are forbidden to criticise unless we are Japanese ourselves (I'm an Arabic Dutch citizen for the record).
Last edited:
Getting back into anime in your later years is really weird. The fact that Japan is still not moving forward as fast as other countries is really uncomfortable and distracting, especially when there's some incredibly good stories. But those stories devolving into loli jokes get a little awkward and I just can't wait for them to move forward.
Oh my god I would need like ten save files for this. I love the more mature approach. I need another SDV but with a better map and interaction. Even as a mostly straight guy, I can see three dudes I'd romance.
Oh my god I would need like ten save files for this. I love the more mature approach. I need another SDV but with a better map and interaction. Even as a mostly straight guy, I can see three dudes I'd romance.
You're wrong, do not misrepresent what I'm saying. I didn't mention a single instance of people talking about the genre of 'anime games' or 'anime inspired games' was bothersome. I've been a participant in this topic since OT1 and I am not here for people implying I pretended to care for 4 fucking years until an anime game was targeted.
Nice, I knew as soon as I said that incomplete thought in frustration that people would laser-focus on it as an excuse to ignore literally everything else in my post but it was 5am and I failed to give a shit anymore. Making outside observations about trends in Japanese products (which I have no problem with) whilst not using those observations as a basis for stereotypical judgments about Japanese people is the bare minimum.
I appreciate the people that took the time to follow up and expand on their own thoughts and endeavour to be more specific in future. More specificity = better accountability. It will reduce the hurt generalisations can cause to members of AsianERA and also benefit the aims of these discussions and the quality of discourse.
So different countries are allowed to criticize each other's art, but different hemispheres are not? What? Why the arbitrary distinction?
This isn't an arbitrary distinction at all, there's a huge difference, given the historical weight of xenophobia and era wanting to listen to minority viewpoints, between a comparison of UK to US and 'the west' to Asia. There is no subtext of historical prejudice between the UK/US criticising each other.
Last edited:
Kaebi also never suggested that westerners weren't allowed to critique any eastern media. What Kaebi expressed discomfort with was a bunch of westerners making blanket statements and generalizations about all eastern media and sometimes even just entire countries.
There's a big difference between say, someone posting "Look how gross the sexualization in this gacha game is" and someone posting "Look at this gross gacha game, japan is so backwards"
There's a big difference between say, someone posting "Look how gross the sexualization in this gacha game is" and someone posting "Look at this gross gacha game, japan is so backwards"
User banned (1 month): dismissing concerns around racism
Someone trying to undermine proper discussion with accusation of xenophobe.
Come on, I think asking if we can be careful about generalization isn't that much to ask.
Intersectionality is a tough cookie for some to crack, eh. I get kaebie's concerns about specificity, as a fellow Asian who's been through Muslim and South Asian generalisations. It's just good practice to check ourselves before we wreck ourselves! She's cognisant that some things were said in frustration, I've done the same, but cherry-picking is missing the forest for the trees.
How do people feel it's best to talk about issues in different cultures? I can understand that there are bad faith comments about whole cultures. More, I can understand that Asian-Americans have been dealing with discrimination for a while.
Should we avoid discussing games from Japan, or? What's the outcome here?
I understand that dealing with different issues in different cultures is very difficult, especially coming from outside of your culture. Would it be better to just talk about Western games?
I'm not sure if that's the best solution, but I'm wondering what the good outcome is, here.
Should we avoid discussing games from Japan, or? What's the outcome here?
I understand that dealing with different issues in different cultures is very difficult, especially coming from outside of your culture. Would it be better to just talk about Western games?
I'm not sure if that's the best solution, but I'm wondering what the good outcome is, here.
Be specific, for example so and so dev, artist name and dont generalize like all of x country is this or that.
Similoar to how us politic is talked abiut, when you focus on specific politician or institution instead of just a country
One of the issues with discussing cultural memes is that it's very easy to assume that a cultural meme is the culture in question rather than something borne out of that culture.
Speaking as someone who's eaten a ban before for making unfair generalizations, I think the easiest solution is just to basically be careful with the way you express yourself. Calling out specific issues or specific failures in representation ("Quiet is a personification of the male gaze") is different than making blanket statements about a culture you aren't a part of ("Japan has problems!").
Even if it might seem innocuous, generalizing about other cultures has effects you might not immediately see. You might hurt people who don't even respond to you, and just because someone doesn't call you out directly doesn't mean you didn't hurt their feelings or offend them.
Call out specific examples and cite why you think they're a problem - going for the wide-reaching generalization is often cheap and lazy and hurtful.
Speaking as someone who's eaten a ban before for making unfair generalizations, I think the easiest solution is just to basically be careful with the way you express yourself. Calling out specific issues or specific failures in representation ("Quiet is a personification of the male gaze") is different than making blanket statements about a culture you aren't a part of ("Japan has problems!").
Even if it might seem innocuous, generalizing about other cultures has effects you might not immediately see. You might hurt people who don't even respond to you, and just because someone doesn't call you out directly doesn't mean you didn't hurt their feelings or offend them.
Call out specific examples and cite why you think they're a problem - going for the wide-reaching generalization is often cheap and lazy and hurtful.
I know that's not what you're suggesting. I can only give an answer how it would feel to me. It would be hugely limiting and ruin the whole point of this thread. It has been an outlet to vent about our frustrations and venting about our favourite games.
I'm honestly also surprised about this discussion, how suddenly it came out of nowhere and how the tone feels like being attacked. It's as if we are being put against each other. It just doesn't feel comfortable at the moment.
Pretty much. So like when talking about Xenoblade, specifically point out that Monolift just makes a lot of bad misogynistic designs. Or say Yoko Taro specifically with the Nier games, Blizzard with Overwatch, etc.
These are some real mental gymnastics on display here.