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VG247: Valkyria Chronicles 4’s sexual harassment problem is unacceptable in 2018 (READ OP)
- Thread starter Bundy
- Start date
People enjoying this fuckery, get some sense and grow up. Or get even help, you are disturbed.
I don't remember the first game being like this, I could be wrong. But holy shit, it's juvenile, stupid and it's harmful.
"Hahah, she disqualified herself because she felt she was going to be raped! Rape jokes are so funny, right guys?"
*vomits three weeks' worth of meals*
Extra points for the "women who have sex before marriage are tainted, undesirable for marriage, and therefore worthless" trope.
Fucking hell that's scene is dumb with Roshi pretty much going into victim blaming territory. Also fuck the uploader for thinking terrifying a woman by threatening to rape her is "funny."
You are right but I don't think japanese creators give a shit about just ~1000 people who complain about sexism and sexual harassment,
Can we maybe not turn this thread into the "lookee here at all the sex-harassment-related things in Japanese media" art gallery?
This game being a cesspool of sexism has been know since before release. Indeed, the reason I've never considered getting it.
It may not have been in the first game, but it was still there quite a bit. "Skinship" in Japanese media as an excuse for fanservice isn't at all out of the ordinary. Especially considering how in real life, bathing with other people is super common in Japan.
Calling it "sex-related things" isn't really what it's about. But you are right that the thread is about VC and there's plenty of material there already.
Haven't seen the review, but I'm glad to hear they mentioned it. I would assume it was Damiani, but I'll check the review.
To be fair, not everyone looks at every thread about a game before buying. If this thread had been made before release, though, yeah. :/
User Banned (Permanent): Downplaying sexism and then influence and impact of hate movements. Junior account.
I can at least commend someone actually doing the logical thing of not buying a game because something that they don't like. I see a lot of people say that something is wrong, despite buying said product anyways, and it's always off-puttingMr-Joker said:
Well, considering that Sega has gotten a lot of flack in the past for editing or removing content from their games (Especially with Yakuza 3), I wouldn't doubt that they would have a large sum of backlash, just because they edited something out. I personally think that the best in-between would be to offer a free restoration patch of sorts for those who are absolute purists, while offering an option for those who could be offended by such things. Granted, that takes more effort and time, but do keep in mind that they would be making the edits in the first place.Mr-Joker said:
Mr-Joker said:
I mean, I can understand why some people don't like hackjob writing (like Detroit Become Human), and already deal with enough shitflinging shitshows regarding politics in media and online, but there's a good difference between something that is rather subtle with it's political undertones (like The Division or Metal Gear Solid, although MGS is a bit more apparent), and something that is preachy (like the game equivalents of movies like Birdemic, such as Detroit Become Human). Not a lot of people like to be nagged at. I do however think that a lot of people who say "GET POLITICS OUT OF MEDIA EXCEPT MY OWN WWRRRYYYY" can become rather apparent on both sides of the argument. That aside, I'm pretty sure GamerGate died years ago, so I really gotta laugh at anyone who tries to bring it back from the dead.
I see a lot of people defining that scene as "sexual harassment", which makes it sound a bit lightweight. Groping is sexual assault and it's better to use that term for what it is. This game is making light of sexual assault.
BTW I looked up "groping" on Wikipedia and the first image in the article is a Japanese sign in a bicycle parking area that translates as, "Beware of groping".
BTW I looked up "groping" on Wikipedia and the first image in the article is a Japanese sign in a bicycle parking area that translates as, "Beware of groping".
I see your point better now. It's just that putting everything on otaku is just minimizing a larger problem that they aren't really the actual cause of this. It's because of this that I don't find this blame to be good when it's an country problem.
And I agree with your overall point. I also think that many aspects of japanese culture are beautiful and great but those are the positive ones, while I also think that seeing the entire japan as one of the worst things when Asia have the same problem and our society on the west also have many of those problems is quite idiotic (hell, my country which is Brazil is almost putting a worse trump on power). In the end I understand that Japan is focused because it's a large producer of entertainment, even more in games but at the same time we can't act like many of those things are unique. Anyway, I hope that I was able to say my point.
What the fuck? Have you been living under a rock or are you being purposefully disingenuous?
Japan is a huge soft power exporter as you say. That's why they get a lot more scrutiny, but its obvious that in many countries these types of attitudes persist where there is not a strong female social movement around to actually say "hey, that's kinda fucked." There are women in Japan who see the issues, but a lot of the time they are shouted down by the peanut gallery.
At the very least, these blatant showings of normalized sexual harassment should be put into proper context in media. Raz may "just be a man joking around with his female comrade childhood friend", but its still the wrong image to show.
I just finished the demo and thought it was good but things like this...I wanted this game goddammit!
The execution was pretty bad. I can see what they were going for, but I don't see how you do this without having women come off as second class citizens.
Just all around a pretty corny scene.
But I do believe you can properly depict something like this with proper execution, and good reason.
Having depictions like this in Japanese media especially is really harmful, as indeed puplic groping is a huge issue in real life too. To the extent of having women-only passanger cars to keep them safe from it. So this really needs to be called out and I really dont' care about "cultural differences" or whatever bullshit people sometimes try to peddle. Sexual harassment and assault isn't a "culture" worth respecting. Not to say it wouldn't be a problem everywhere, it is. And not having this in games would be beneficial to everyone.I see a lot of people defining that scene as "sexual harassment", which makes it sound a bit lightweight. Groping is sexual assault and it's better to use that term for what it is. This game is making light of sexual assault.
BTW I looked up "groping" on Wikipedia and the first image in the article is a Japanese sign in a bicycle parking area that translates as, "Beware of groping".
Oh yeah, I'm real glad we're passed women being aggressively harassed on the internet. We can put that grave right next to 'racism' in things that are totally over and in no way are real problems anymore. Inclusive efforts are now met with open arms now that those things are out of the way.
...Oh, wait, shit. Nevermind.
Also lol at the Division or MGS being in any way subtle.
I actually thought there was a thread about it, but I was wrong. Not like that would guarantee they'd know about it indeed; I didn't mean to imply intentional ignorance on their part, and I apologize if it sounded like it.
Just realized.
Only 5 posts after registering over 6 months ago.
We have a burner, folks.
I just don't see getting punched in face and mocked as a positive reinforcement to sexual harassment. There are other factors that could have been handled better, but the overall message was pretty damn clear.
I feel like this thread is more of a condemnation of all Japanese tropes, fan service, and the countries views on women than the scene itself.
There's more people saying they won't buy the game than there are people in the OT. It's your choice feel how you feel, but there is a positive message to takeaway from said scene.
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You are pretty tragically misinformed. I don't know what metric you're using (if any), but GamerGate is alive, and arguably stronger than ever. You really have to be very disconnected from gaming news to think anything of the sort.
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Bah, I bit hook, line and sinker :( . Report and move on, folks.
You are free to make your own decisions. But do you think this game and its creators are actively promoting sexual assault against women or they trotted out a tired anime gag that landed with a thud? Can you play a video game and separate that its not actually real and that sexual assault as well as the blowing up and headshots against humans is not permitted in real life?
By trotting out a scene like this and the way they are deliberately exploiting their female characters, at best, they're saying "Yeaahhhh, it's wrong... but it sure is fun!"
I already addressed this in another thread a month or two ago, but yeah, the scene in question basically snuffed any possibility of me getting VC4. I can't tolerate bullshit like this any longer. It's one thing if it was handled maturely and there were meaningful consequences to Raz acting like that, but from my understanding, it's played out like a humorous anime gag.
I could go on, but I'll stop myself there and repeat what I said in the previous thread: fuck this game.
I could go on, but I'll stop myself there and repeat what I said in the previous thread: fuck this game.
Because trolls are getting better at concern trolling (natural selection at work) and we don't always check everyone's post count before replying.
Things get real bad with Crimeria later on. This combined with the quality of writing got me to put down the game before completing it, despite the gameplay being better than the last two games.
I don't remember some of original Japanese dialogue being quite as bad as the quotes in the OP.
I don't remember some of original Japanese dialogue being quite as bad as the quotes in the OP.
You're right. I just got into the habit of checking it when certain rhetoric shows up.
It is my understanding that this is not pervasive throughout the whole game. This would be a very different discussion if it were (and maybe it is). This would be a very different piece of entertainment if it were.
To me, its an individual choice. I think all this is cringey as fuck and have NEVER liked the anime tropes like this. However, I can also separate fiction from reality and can look at the whole game and decide as a whole of whether its worthy of time and money.
Why is that a bad thing? How is a thread about a sexist scene in a Japanese game "not the place" for the condemnation of institutionalized sexism in Japanese games?
About the character?
That he is an asshole and I will probably let him die on the battlefield.
There is a lot of people like this in the real world so I'm not shocked to see a character like that in a game, and like in the real world, I will hate the guy and shit on him.
About VC4?
I don't know about those scenes because I can't play the game right now.
I will wait to play it to really judge the game by myself, if those scenes are really not made to make you react to them, to show you a real problem, then yeah, it's probably worse than I thought.
It's a healthy habit, don't get me wrong. Some just slip throught the cracks.
There's still absolutely no reason to defend the addition of needless, overused tropes of women being sexually assaulted/harassed (for laughs or not), especially when handled so poorly and with little actual meaningful consequence and poor context.
As has been said, this is a strong incident in this game (and a lowlight,) but it's not an isolated incident in the game. It's a recurring theme and issue. With a lot of things, for example the trans character in the game, the localization team did a pretty good job massaging the text - but they didn't remove anything, for better and in this case worse.
Working in this industry, I know a couple of teams from different Japanese studios that made a game and were basically told by marketing and higher ups that they had to go back into their games and edit things to be more demeaning/more sexualized towards underage characters/grosser overall. One example, which I can't specify because it was from within the last 5 years, had some of the sexuality and grossness removed for the West and while people complained about "censorship," the person I knew on the original development team said the team felt relief at being able to ship what they actually wanted to outside of Japan.
Why do Japanese higher ups and marketing feel these things are necessary for a domestic market? I don't have the answer beyond a generic "culture(?)" answer. It's gross, but hope my insight is worth something.
Working in this industry, I know a couple of teams from different Japanese studios that made a game and were basically told by marketing and higher ups that they had to go back into their games and edit things to be more demeaning/more sexualized towards underage characters/grosser overall. One example, which I can't specify because it was from within the last 5 years, had some of the sexuality and grossness removed for the West and while people complained about "censorship," the person I knew on the original development team said the team felt relief at being able to ship what they actually wanted to outside of Japan.
Why do Japanese higher ups and marketing feel these things are necessary for a domestic market? I don't have the answer beyond a generic "culture(?)" answer. It's gross, but hope my insight is worth something.
Thank god the manga skipped that part.
1 point for the shitty manga version.
... Jesus Christ, I thought people were, I dunno, even slightly exaggerating about that bit with Roshi.
It's Roshi threatening to rape a young woman. In a kids show.
Games don't just pop out of the ether. They chose to create this scene, they thought it was worth putting in there.
This isn't a "separate fiction from reality" problem. And it doesn't matter if this is one scene or one of two dozen. Someone along that production chain thought this was worthwhile to put in there, and played it off as a fucking joke.
These attitudes ain't a light fantasy - this is shit real people deal with, and this game just chooses to continue to normalize it. Fuck that.
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Hard to take the argument "the game is actually condemning that sort of behavior" seriously since the game has a accidental upskirt scene not 5 minutes after as well as a nude hot springs and fanservice beach scene.
Like the game is going "yeah that perverted creep got what he deserved" and then proceeding to oogle women throughout the rest of the story.
Like the game is going "yeah that perverted creep got what he deserved" and then proceeding to oogle women throughout the rest of the story.
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I mean you have normal people fighitng the army on that game, I lost any interest after that and more after this
This is part of what I am not sure about. The opening article focuses on the harassment and sexualization angle but makes other claims without much detail at all. People have already discussed the groping scene and to a lesser extent another one of the sequences that has been reposted in this thread, but I imagine that there should be a lot more to say, whether positive or negative, about the rest of the game in terms of related subjects.
For instance, I recall Austin from Waypoint has talked about the trans character and he was conflicted about that localization choice (massaging the text without removing what the Japanese creators chose to reveal) yet ultimately leaned towards the positive about how the game presented that person in other ways.
I just moved to Japan in August to teach English in their public schools. The work culture is completely different here. For example, in work meetings I was asked if I prefer American women or Japanese women. I was then asked to show the comparison on an air scale with my hands. Highly inappropriate stuff and would never fly in America. I honestly felt uncomfortable, but they don't even realize it's an issue.
It's another world, truly.
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There no scenes like that in Xenoblade 2 but some cutcenes are absolutely absurd to watch.
I usually try to don't give a damn to those scenes in Japanese games but.... it is starting to make me feel uncomfortable.
I don't know if this is something about their culture but it should not be "exported" or get a pass in the gaming industry.
It needs to stop if it's just free sexual harassment being shown. If there's a contextual event like The Last of Us I do like to see and discuss after the end.
I usually try to don't give a damn to those scenes in Japanese games but.... it is starting to make me feel uncomfortable.
I don't know if this is something about their culture but it should not be "exported" or get a pass in the gaming industry.
It needs to stop if it's just free sexual harassment being shown. If there's a contextual event like The Last of Us I do like to see and discuss after the end.