Lets not move the goalpost away from the general response here being to the post "Why is Japan afraid afraid of women that look past the age of 25".
Not, "why are anime characters always so young", which would have been a very different post.
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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
Lets not move the goalpost away from the general response here being to the post "Why is Japan afraid afraid of women that look past the age of 25".
Not, "why are anime characters always so young", which would have been a very different post.
And when they exist, they don't look older. Compare Geralt to any woman in The Witcher.
Tbh I hate calling everything people don't like "anime". Tekken is a fighting game, not an anime.
Yeah like, there's a huge difference, when saying "anime is pervy and sexist", between "this artistic expression of a wider medium has objectionable elements" and "I am declaring the entirety of Japan responsible for these tentacle porn cartoons."
The way I've seen anime fans here try and ascribe hating anime as xenophobic is absurd.
Yep. The problem is specifically how "Why is Japan afraid afraid of women that look past the age of 25." That is a condemnation of an entire country, not just a particular subset of its media.
I don't really remember how old the amazon actually looked, just that people complained, but I really hope the intent of this post was mostly just you wanting to share something you thought was cool and misreading the room a bit, and not an attempt to say there is no problem because you were able to name an exception.
No media has any problems with anything if the odd exception is enough to rule out the problem completely.
I meant thats another game people complained she doesnt look young and sexy anymore?
I'm in the middle of my first Witcher 3 playthrough and this bothers me immensely.
Like, there's all kind of male characters there, but women look either absurdly young for their age or downright old
But, well... That game has huge issues regarding its treatment of women
I'm not looking forward for Returnal to become a scapegoat on these discussions.
It is one game. There should be way more older female protagonists, but now everytime you'll talk about this issue, it will be followed by "bUt wHat aBouT rETurNal thO". And while her design is great, not everyone might be into the gameplay either.
It is one game. There should be way more older female protagonists, but now everytime you'll talk about this issue, it will be followed by "bUt wHat aBouT rETurNal thO". And while her design is great, not everyone might be into the gameplay either.
That originates from the novels. The sorceresses all make themselves appear young and beautiful regardless of age.
OP
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Witcher 3 is wild bc like. I love the female characters save for like... 3 of them (triss) but the way the game treats them (and every other female character except maybe Cerys) is??????? ew
Yennefer got shafted so hard that it still amazes me.
Of course the praise for the game in general amazed me and has continued to amaze me for six years, so there is that.
I haven't even reach the Skellige islands, but i'm starting to turn off half of my brain whenever i have to deal with a female character.
I'm in my late 30s, and never expected it to actually bother me, but here i am.
I like the general writing of the game, but... Damn
Hearing the Bloody Baron constantly being praised is what gets to me the most. It's like red flags to a bull. It's basically a quest that uses a womans pain to be dark and edgy while she gets no input and is constantly dehumanised. And now that I think about it , her design looks absurdly old for a woman that not that long ago was able to get pregnant? I'm trying to remember if there was an excuse why she looked that old? It's just another part of Witchers' 3 were the female characters were either young and over sexualised, or really really old
Nah, there wasn't an excuse, really. She was both able to give birth and looking really old.
What i liked about that sidequest is how Geralt actually confronted the baron about it, regardless the dialogue you chose he didn't pull any punches.
However, that quest
doesn't have a good ending for the wife. Either you reunite her with her abuser or you let her die and tge baron hangs himself. I remember doing the quest twice from a second savefile, but neither conclusion left me satisfied.
Cool. Yeah, sorry. Intent can be hard to read sometimes, my bad.
Since I'm the one who brought up returnal this time, I just wanted to post that I hope it was clear I was bringing it up for the opposite reasons. I was highlighting RE's bad response to the character as an example of a (largely) western forum reacting negatively with "how woman be old!?"
So the wife mentioned this to me as the newest scandal of Genshin Impact (Yeah, that again).
Huge problem with the community that they reduced the bust of this character. In reality, they're still big, but not as boobsocky as before. It sprouted the poll below:
www.hoyolab.com
Honestly I am surprised she still plays this game. She really enjoys it, but she says the treatment of the women in the game is so horrid she didn't have words to describe it.
Of course, I'm absolutely in lock step with her. There are very few women with pants as a bare minimum (and those who do it may as well just be painted on)
Just thought I'd share for anyone who may want to play this game and wanted to see what the community's priorities are.
If this isn't appropriate for this topic, I'll edit the post and apologize again.
Huge problem with the community that they reduced the bust of this character. In reality, they're still big, but not as boobsocky as before. It sprouted the poll below:
HoYoLAB - Official Community
HoYoLAB is the community forum for Genshin Impact and Honkai Impact 3rd, with official information about game events, perks, fan art, and other exciting content.
www.hoyolab.com
Honestly I am surprised she still plays this game. She really enjoys it, but she says the treatment of the women in the game is so horrid she didn't have words to describe it.
Of course, I'm absolutely in lock step with her. There are very few women with pants as a bare minimum (and those who do it may as well just be painted on)
Just thought I'd share for anyone who may want to play this game and wanted to see what the community's priorities are.
If this isn't appropriate for this topic, I'll edit the post and apologize again.
So the wife mentioned this to me as the newest scandal of Genshin Impact (Yeah, that again).
Huge problem with the community that they reduced the bust of this character. In reality, they're still big, but not as boobsocky as before. It sprouted the poll below:
That's my concern with something like Returnal. I'm not interested in the game (not that I can play it since no PS5). But if it does poorly, I feel like game makers will learn the wrong lessons. It's like if Hollywood released an all female action movie and it was terrible and it bombed. They would blame it on the casting. Not the actual quality of the movie. Women and minorities, whether they are real or fictional, don't have the privilege of failing. But a dozen pieces of media staring white dudes can fail and companies would still keep churning them out.
OP
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The game is rife with account security issues for PC and mobile users, the price tags for crystals are ridiculous, the resin sink costs for leylines and world bosses are atrocious, there's literally hardly any end-game content to keep players attached to the game besides grinding.
But, this....this is the main problem that the community wants to fix? I bet 90% of Genshin players are guys trying to supplement a real woman with a fake one and then they wonder why the real women want nothing to do with them after.
There's like....1/4 of a difference in size maybe, MAYBE.
I like the design of the new Tekken character. She's properly muscular and her loose fit pants are cool.
It's basically the Tifa situation all over again: where the character is as busty as ever but the fact that the design is updated to be less egregious results in all the sexists & incels to come out of the woodwork since they are losing a portion of control over a fictional character.So the wife mentioned this to me as the newest scandal of Genshin Impact (Yeah, that again).
Huge problem with the community that they reduced the bust of this character. In reality, they're still big, but not as boobsocky as before. It sprouted the poll below:
HoYoLAB - Official Community
HoYoLAB is the community forum for Genshin Impact and Honkai Impact 3rd, with official information about game events, perks, fan art, and other exciting content.
Honestly I am surprised she still plays this game. She really enjoys it, but she says the treatment of the women in the game is so horrid she didn't have words to describe it.
Of course, I'm absolutely in lock step with her. There are very few women with pants as a bare minimum (and those who do it may as well just be painted on)
Just thought I'd share for anyone who may want to play this game and wanted to see what the community's priorities are.
If this isn't appropriate for this topic, I'll edit the post and apologize again.
The series has never handled its female characters well, despite claims of "maturity" and rabid insistence to the contrary. The fact that TW3 does in fact do it best of the bunch does no favours.
But even just in general, I remember finishing the game in 2015 and thinking it was decent, only to go online and see people raving about what a masterpiece it was...which is something maintained to this day. I'm convinced the fact that most of the major releases in 2014/2015 were a tyre fire coloured its reception permanently. Because The TW3 I played then (and four times since) and the TW3 that's "revolutionary" and "some of the best storytelling in any medium" cannot be the same game.
Boobs are always the real issue. Just don't argue it's sexist towards women. They'll be quick to remind you they aren't real, so they can have whatever design they want. They being men.
That's actually what first came to mind to us. The amount of disingenuous shit posting about these boobs is on another level.
I think this kind of died down by now thankfully. Like there were clipping issues so they used an existing model for her final version that didn't have problems. I hope people aren't still complaining about it since we know the reason they changed it and it barely affects her look.
Ah, yes. I too remember the time where I was told that virtual female characters were not real women and so we shouldn't be treating them as such.
Meanwhile, what does that make virtual male characters then...? Sloppy Joe's with a self-awareness?
Lmao someone in that forum is actually claiming someone at Mihoyo is against big breasts which translates to body shaming, literally no one who complains about stuff like that gives a flying fuck about representation of body types
These are the same assholes who complain about LGBT characters being forced or how Abby in TLOU2 was "unnatural"
And if Mihoyo were to increase the bust size of someone they would all claim it was an "improvement"
These are the same assholes who complain about LGBT characters being forced or how Abby in TLOU2 was "unnatural"
And if Mihoyo were to increase the bust size of someone they would all claim it was an "improvement"
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I'm 100% sure the same people would call a non-skinny girl "pandering" and "an agenda".
You wouldn't get banned from quoting/linking to gamefaqs. That said, it's probably pointless because we can all assume what's been posted there.
Ah, I see, thank you for clarifying! The main take-a-away that I can see out of that trainwreck of a thread there, is that the guys being called perverts are the "real" victims here and that there's no such thing as gamers who are women facing verbal and mental backlash for having an opinion in a predominantly male industry, also that rape threats and death threats don't exist. The men being called perverts that are being bullied are far worst.
That's your TL:DR.
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I sure hope it does. Though it probably will prop up again the next time a "SJW" change is made.
This kind of argument is so ridiculous... it's basically a poor attempt at gaining the moral high ground in the conversation while justifying (mainly to themselves) that in the end it's OK to like and support sexist garbage. It's basically the same kind of fallacy as when some people claim we can't criticize anime as a medium because it's generalizing Japan and its people.
"You're the real (sexist,racist,etc)" is a very common argument from people defending terrible shit. This extends outside of media even. You see it in politics, people who support policies that actively hurt marginalized groups will often claim people against those policies are somehow the real racists or sexists.
Another argument that I see a lot of people use that always cracks me up with these types of faux outrages is something along the lines of "This is a real representation of a woman with these proportions and they're upset too about this!"
Women with large cup sizes and petite frames wouldn't give two shits about these things normally. And if they did care at all, it probably has something to do with the fact that you're objectifying them. What a concept that women don't like being viewed as nothing more than sexual tools.
Women with large cup sizes and petite frames wouldn't give two shits about these things normally. And if they did care at all, it probably has something to do with the fact that you're objectifying them. What a concept that women don't like being viewed as nothing more than sexual tools.
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Regarding generalizations of Japan and related issues, if someone has an idea for a good, well worded statement to put in the Thread Reply Banner hit me up.
I know that I'm a fairly new and "young" member of this community based on the amount of my posting as being next to nothing. So, I'll apologize in advance if I step on anyone's fingers, toes, and seniority...and I'll also apologize in advance if I repeat things that have been said prior as sometimes it is hard to keep up with these topics during working weekday hours.
But, here's my hot take on regarding the generalizations of Japan and predominantly the relatable issue with its games. Okay, are you ready?
First off, let's cut the cord and say that Japan as a country is not responsible for everything that you see wrong in either video games, anime, manga, advertising, etc. Let's just take the scissor tool and cut that shit right out of the picture. It's gone, it's in your trash bin on the desktop, permanently deleted, and never to be seen again. Japan, while it has its own share of political and cultural problems, is a wonderful and beautiful country in its own right. They are people with a diverse history and traditions that you would be hard-pressed to find anywhere else, maybe similarities with their festivals from one culture to another in various parts of the world, however, you get the idea. But, they are strong, independent people who have had to weather through some hard shit just like any other country.
Stop generalizing that Japan is against that or Japan as a whole is against this when it is the fault of any company's CEO that projects their vision and judgment on what they make. It is their product, but it is not Japan's product. Stop it. You wouldn't and shouldn't do this shit with European countries or America, so why are we doing it to Asian countries, specifically Japan.
Japan as a whole does not control the minds of every Japanese video game developer or animation producer. There are no set rules, no set guidelines, no secret marketing tactics that they all keep posted in a Google document for peer-to-peer review every year based on how they should market their games. It is not just a Japanese video game developer problem, but a global one. It is a global problem that stems from years and years of stigmas built up on top of each other in order to progress into what we know of today.
Let's start with an idea/example that maybe everyone is aware of for western media portrayal of women. I would hope that the majority of us all know about the show "I Love Lucy". Did you know that Lucille Ball was around 40 years old when the sitcom first aired its episode? Yes, she was 40 years old and way ahead of the age 25, but you wouldn't guess it from the way that she looked. This is the problem we started. Older women, even in the 50s, were not ideal actresses until we glorified them with copious amounts of make-up and skin creams instead of letting their natural beauty show. It wasn't believed that a 40-year-old woman could go on live television without looking, at least, in her early 30's.
Let's fast-track to today where the media states that unless we are objectifying women at a younger age than necessary, we're just not attractive, plain and simple. We somehow lose our attractiveness once we hit past a certain age milestone and by the "I Love Lucy" example, I feel has been ingrained in society at such an early age but you've got several younger generations who think it's only an issue now. As a woman, I'm still outright pressured by others that if I don't have children before I'm 40, I'm a reproductive failure because we've got a stigma that women should only be having children from their early to late 20's. That's another entire issue, so better leave that tangent rest for now. But, you get the point of how harmful stigmas cemented in the early periods of women and media can be harmful to what we have now.
If there is anyone to blame, it is the CEO of each respective gaming company that fosters and nurtures this over-sexualized mentality of women into their games and a lack of variation in portraying women at various ages. They have been convinced whether through media or by themselves, that the only way to market their products is to follow these sexist stereotypes that various misogynistic individuals have failed to let go of. And as the OP has said, they earnestly believe that sex sells above all when it doesn't always work that way either. Whenever you see a Japanese video game with a very young character with an over-sexualized body, just call it out for what it is, it's not "oh, this is all Japan's fault"...NO, this is the fault of some perverted asshole who felt like the world needed to indulge in his sexual fetish.
I've seen good games made by Japanese and non-Asian developers and I've seen some shit games made by both. One is not more exclusive than the other, but neither is 100% perfect either.
At least some companies are making further strides than others.
But, here's my hot take on regarding the generalizations of Japan and predominantly the relatable issue with its games. Okay, are you ready?
First off, let's cut the cord and say that Japan as a country is not responsible for everything that you see wrong in either video games, anime, manga, advertising, etc. Let's just take the scissor tool and cut that shit right out of the picture. It's gone, it's in your trash bin on the desktop, permanently deleted, and never to be seen again. Japan, while it has its own share of political and cultural problems, is a wonderful and beautiful country in its own right. They are people with a diverse history and traditions that you would be hard-pressed to find anywhere else, maybe similarities with their festivals from one culture to another in various parts of the world, however, you get the idea. But, they are strong, independent people who have had to weather through some hard shit just like any other country.
Stop generalizing that Japan is against that or Japan as a whole is against this when it is the fault of any company's CEO that projects their vision and judgment on what they make. It is their product, but it is not Japan's product. Stop it. You wouldn't and shouldn't do this shit with European countries or America, so why are we doing it to Asian countries, specifically Japan.
Japan as a whole does not control the minds of every Japanese video game developer or animation producer. There are no set rules, no set guidelines, no secret marketing tactics that they all keep posted in a Google document for peer-to-peer review every year based on how they should market their games. It is not just a Japanese video game developer problem, but a global one. It is a global problem that stems from years and years of stigmas built up on top of each other in order to progress into what we know of today.
Let's start with an idea/example that maybe everyone is aware of for western media portrayal of women. I would hope that the majority of us all know about the show "I Love Lucy". Did you know that Lucille Ball was around 40 years old when the sitcom first aired its episode? Yes, she was 40 years old and way ahead of the age 25, but you wouldn't guess it from the way that she looked. This is the problem we started. Older women, even in the 50s, were not ideal actresses until we glorified them with copious amounts of make-up and skin creams instead of letting their natural beauty show. It wasn't believed that a 40-year-old woman could go on live television without looking, at least, in her early 30's.
Let's fast-track to today where the media states that unless we are objectifying women at a younger age than necessary, we're just not attractive, plain and simple. We somehow lose our attractiveness once we hit past a certain age milestone and by the "I Love Lucy" example, I feel has been ingrained in society at such an early age but you've got several younger generations who think it's only an issue now. As a woman, I'm still outright pressured by others that if I don't have children before I'm 40, I'm a reproductive failure because we've got a stigma that women should only be having children from their early to late 20's. That's another entire issue, so better leave that tangent rest for now. But, you get the point of how harmful stigmas cemented in the early periods of women and media can be harmful to what we have now.
If there is anyone to blame, it is the CEO of each respective gaming company that fosters and nurtures this over-sexualized mentality of women into their games and a lack of variation in portraying women at various ages. They have been convinced whether through media or by themselves, that the only way to market their products is to follow these sexist stereotypes that various misogynistic individuals have failed to let go of. And as the OP has said, they earnestly believe that sex sells above all when it doesn't always work that way either. Whenever you see a Japanese video game with a very young character with an over-sexualized body, just call it out for what it is, it's not "oh, this is all Japan's fault"...NO, this is the fault of some perverted asshole who felt like the world needed to indulge in his sexual fetish.
I've seen good games made by Japanese and non-Asian developers and I've seen some shit games made by both. One is not more exclusive than the other, but neither is 100% perfect either.
At least some companies are making further strides than others.
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I feel like the two main controversies w/GI have always been the character designs and the high cost of resin combined with no gifted primogems which caused players to become super defensive as seen in threads and other places.
I feel like now it's been over 1 yr the players who have remained have stopped caring that Mihoyo just does not care about their problems and will continue to spend $1.2k for full C6 heroes.
I wholeheartedly agree with you. It is most definitely the people who will denounce these issues, but still pay them nearly $1.2 to have their favorite "waifus" fully geared and maxed out to be perfect despite maybe only using them one time in combat and then never again.
I play very lightly, but I would never consider dropping a car loan payment onto a gacha game in one sitting.
Great post. Agree with everything. Things are pretty much horrible everywhere... and developers and "gamers" all over the world seem pretty keen on keeping the ball in their court as much as possible. Can't wait for the first time I find a game I absolutely love for multiple reasons (story, characters, gameplay) that actually doesn't have anything I have to roll my eyes at or completely ignore just to enjoy it.
Thanks!
I completely get what you mean too. I do not think there's ever been a game where I can earnestly say that I've loved every part of it and that there was never a time at any given point that I didn't roll my eyes at something. The closest may have been Stardew Valley...? I know that Haley's archetype is the "valley girl" persona and it's probably not meant in an ill form whatsoever, but I can't help but roll my eyes that we're still using that stereotype. That would be something I'd consider the least offensive because the creator gives you all available options to wear whatever and marry whoever you want regardless of gender. Women are not entirely objectified that much. But, still...Stardew Valley is a bit of a low-bar considering its graphics meant to be the way that they are.
Absolutely love the Ar Tonelico Series (not 3, 3 can die in a fire). The music is so great.....but, I literally have to shut down my brain sometimes when playing it because of all the sexual cringe.
As another user said too, they don't want women to have too strong of a foothold with character designs because they know that we'd outright deny half of the crap that would be coming out. And that's not to say that women should be ashamed of their bodies, absolutely not. There is nothing to be ashamed of about ourselves. What's shameful is the industry insinuating that the only way your female characters will sell is if A) Are they young? If they're not, then fix it...B) Are they curvy? If they're not, make sure that we only represent a radically disproportionate body type that isn't even remotely realistic at achieving so young and older women who play video games can feel inadequate that they don't have the waistline of a stick post, meanwhile giving young men the wrong sort of ideal to hold about women that follows them into their older ages...C) How big is their chest size? If they're not big, well make them bigger because anything lower than a D is considered not feminine or unattractive enough...and finally, D) How much clothing are they wearing? If they're wearing a lot or even pants, well we can't have that. They're not confident women if they're not showing a whole lot of skin and anyone that thinks otherwise is just insecure with themselves.
The leaders of the gaming industry that could start to change these stigmas are mostly cowards and far too paralyzed with fear by what their stockholders would say or do to them instead of being paralyzed by what kinds of images and messages that they're sending their daughters into the future with.
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This is the biggest So You're A Woman Who Likes Videogames feeling.
Hey everyone, I want to apologies for a comment I made a month ago that dismissed the discussion on racism. It was never my intention to be dismissive but it was on me to just listen to the discussion than write something that didn't add to it. For now I'll be sure to read carefully at what being talked about and only comment when I'm sure I can write it out.
User Banned (2 Weeks): Concern Trolling, Mansplaing Over a Series of Posts; Account in Junior Phase
I'm going to stick my neck out a bit here. I've been tempted to post in here a few times but have honestly been a bit scared to do so. I'm mostly just reading along to better educate myself. Any time I've been tempted to disagree with something so far, I've tried to take it as a chance to reflect on my own biases and bad preconceptions.
On we go.
This point sticks out to me as a tangent (your word, not mine!) that really doesn't help your case too much. There are actual, legitimate medical reasons why you might not want to plan to have children past the age of 40. My wife was 36 when she got pregnant and, from what I remember, there was already an elevated risk of all sorts of things which meant extra scans and checks for her. If this risk was for the mother alone, maybe fair enough but the reality is that there's an increased risk to the unborn child as well. This is not to say "never have a child past X years old", more just to balance out the view you presented and to suggest that people should try and make an informed decision about such things.
While I'm here, I may as well add that I'm conflicted about the "don't label Japan as a whole" and "it's not the country's fault" argument. I agree with the idea that to discriminate against people for things out of their control (sex, gender, ethnicity, nationality, sexual orientation, age, disability, religion etc) [EDIT: I personally don't understand why religion in on this list, given that people can and do choose to change religion all the time, but it's on the list 🤷] is a really bad thing to do. What I don't think is reasonable is to therefore have whole groups that become immune from criticism as a result; criticism is not discrimination. It's reasonable to criticize Japan for lagging behind in criminalizing child abuse imagery and explicitly making exceptions for such depictions in anime and manga. If the UN can do it, why can't we? What is the law if not an explicit set of rules codifying what is and is not acceptable in a given society and the punishments you can expect for violating them? (My daughter actually asked me "what does 'law' mean" the other day 🤯)
If people can't accept that a government explicitly allowing a whole category of child sexualisation to continue unchecked and lagging behind in legislating against actual child abuse imagery is indicative of something about the country as a whole, then we are at a bit of a dead end. It doesn't take a genius to see how this is something you can directly link to artists who end up working on games in the Japanese gaming industry and the kind of art they think is acceptable. The vibe I'm getting here is almost "don't label the whole country because #NotAllJapanesePeople" . In contrast, I think anybody who came in here arguing back with a #NotAllMen comment saying they are offended by being lumped in with the rest of their gender would get, rightly, shot down.
What am I missing?
If you have to start a post with "I'm sticking my neck out here", it's usually a good sign that you already knew your post was bad. But to address your comments directly:
Criticizing the Japanese Government & its policies is fine. But to then stereotype the people of Japan based on those policies is frankly horrible. A lot of people in Japan also hate those policies & fight for progress. The same sentiment also applies to the generalization of Japan based on anime. In fact, the majority of Japanese citizens don't even watch anime as it is primarily viewed as a children's medium. So again, it is absurd to stereotype the entirety of Japan based on a single medium that has an exaggerated representation in the west. It's really not that hard to direct criticisms to a specific entity rather than blame an entire nation of people.
As for your comparison to "NotAllMen", that is also incredibly flawed. The reason no one posts NotAllMen excuses is not because it would receive backlash, but rather that it's pointless. This is a predominantly male forum that talks about a medium predominantly made by & played by men. It's widely understood that not all men are the problem. In fact, the objectification of women has way more to do with power dynamics than the gender of the culprits involved. Which is why your NotAllMen comparison is incredibly flawed. Japanese posters are a minority on this forum and therefore lack the power dynamics of a group as broad as "men". That's why stereotyping an entire nation based on limited media examples is so much more harmful than your NotAllMen scenario.
Finally, I'm not sure what your point is with the childbirth paragraph. The medical facts of childbirth doesn't change the stigma that exists for older women. Also, posting "your word, not mine", followed by mansplaining childbirth to a woman, isn't remotely helpful.