A Discussion of sexualised design of male/female characters

[KasumiLover]

I think DOAX3 has been talked about quite a lot so it's getting exhausting lol. And the game is getting to the point it's like... ugh, done, washing my hands of this game.

What the hell was Nyotengu doing with that volleyball grinding it into her taint? What is that? And the social implications of Honoka washing that statue of Zack (I'm sure she didn't ignore the crotch area) are gross in western society. It implies she's subservient to and worships him which is I guess what a lot of japanese guys like.

I kinda found that cute, especially the little panting noises she made while cleaning it

What I don't understand is why the girls don't just ask the guy to step out when they are changing into different swimwear. I wouldn't peek, but still that's strange letting a guy who's possibly twice as old as you are (assuming the age of the player) basically stand there as you get dressed, with them "closing their eyes" being the main restriction...

 

[Tyaren]

I kinda found that cute, especially the little panting noises she made while cleaning it

What I don't understand is why the girls don't just ask the guy to step out when they are changing into different swimwear. I wouldn't peek, but still that's strange letting a guy who's possibly twice as old as you are (assuming the age of the player) basically stand there as you get dressed, with them "closing their eyes" being the main restriction...

Regarding the age difference: Yes, that has become kinda creepy too. When I first got into DOA all the girls were older than me...now I'm way older than all of them (except Nyotengu obviously) and I at times feel like a dirty ole creeper.

 

[Jadeinchains]

So many of the problems with this game would be solved just by the men being playable. Not to mention it would double its fanbase if the amount of yaoi fangirls is anything to go on.

 

[Chapstick]

These seem really random like they didn't know what to do for gravures anymore. Here are some ideas TN

Spoiler

 

[Russian-chiropractic19]

i feel like a lot of the flak comes from how TN is using the characters. this type of thing directly reflects back on the characters because its made by the actual creators

even really cool and badass characters get reduced to practically nothing when they appear DOAX



edit:

i saw a recent article talking about women making more video games i gotta say i got straight up pissed at certain paragraphs.

"Halo 5: Guardians," "Assassin's Creed Syndicate" and "Fallout 4," among others, gave prominent roles to women. And today, Lara Croft has been remade into a believable character, one who just so happens to dress the part of an archaeological adventurer.

"That's a change that shouldn't be underestimated, Edwards says."

"They took what was basically the primary example of sexist imagery in the game industry in Lara Croft and now, with the latest two games, they have transformed this iconic sexist character into a great example of how you portray a woman in a game," Edwards says. "Her emotions are real. Her physicality is normal."

you want to have touchy feely characters then thats fine, but shitting on your history is not alright. Laura was made to appeal to males, but she was by no means sexist she explored, she fought, she was not the damsel in distress,she paved the way for females in action games, and hell she even passes the that infamous Bechdal test. saying she's sexist just because shes sexy is straight up ignorance.

 

[Xhominid The Demon Within]

I think DOAX3 has been talked about quite a lot so it's getting exhausting lol. And the game is getting to the point it's like... ugh, done, washing my hands of this game.

What the hell was Nyotengu doing with that volleyball grinding it into her taint? What is that? And the social implications of Honoka washing that statue of Zack (I'm sure she didn't ignore the crotch area) are gross in western society. It implies she's subservient to and worships him which is I guess what a lot of japanese guys like.

I wouldn't honestly go that far...
I understand that the Queens Match in Rumble Roses 2 was seen as messed up to the West because of the humiliation and oogling aspect is too much. If Honoka is just cleaning the statue without atleast the humiliation part, then it won't be as bad and just leave the oogling which let's be frank, people pretty much do it at times.

Nyo grinding the volleyball...is pretty in-character for her to do. She's pretty much an attention whore.

 

[Argentus]

It's more of a Japanese thing, TV tropes said something about how westerners "hate tingle", and so it's relatively taboo over here, at least in my high school. I have been told once that I should be a cross dresser once, since this girl thought I had the body and face for it. XD

My highschool had Cross dressing day lol.

Didn't mean anything for the girls since they wear all styles anyway but all the guys had a blast lol. All the guys went full red light district with the tied off tops booty shorts high heels etc lol. Its not even about sexuality, its just fun goofing around.

Like back in school I was in the the music department specifically the extracurricular touring choir, and I had to dance around in a tutu right alongside the girls lol. And not just at the school Christmas concert, we did performances at very high end hotels and resorts and ski lodges too lol.

FYI I now hate Dance of the sugarplum fairies lol.

My little revenge for you guys killing off my serious DOAX3 discussion and fanboying about yaoi. u__U

By the way what's it about Japanese and always referring to men over maybe 30 as "old men". It's a fairly often used trope in JRPG also.

Same deal with women over 20 being considered old.

Notice how most anime heroes referred to as men are actually 14-17?

My personal theory is that considering his Asians are in general a very petite people to begin with, so there's less of a real difference between teens and adults so teens are considered adults more than they are in western societies. And the earlier you are an adult, the earlier you count as old.

 

[Keylay]

i feel like a lot of the flak comes from how TN is using the characters. this type of thing directly reflects back on the characters because its made by the actual creators

even really cool and badass characters get reduced to practically nothing when they appear DOAX



edit:

i saw a recent article talking about women making more video games i gotta say i got straight up pissed at certain paragraphs.





you want to have touchy feely characters then thats fine, but shitting on your history is not alright. Laura was made to appeal to males, but she was by no means sexist she explored, she fought, she was not the damsel in distress,she paved the way for females in action games, and hell she even passes the that infamous Bechdal test. saying she's sexist just because shes sexy is straight up ignorance.

Like you said though, Lara Croft was made for male gamers and that's why it's sexist. They didn't take into consideration what females wanted. There is sexism in so many things though. It's impossible to satisfy everyone but it seems easier to do in video games. They did it in Assassin's Creed as they mentioned in article you quoted. You would pretty much need to be able to choose between a male or female character in every game and they would have to be represented in the same manner.

 

[Argentus]

Like you said though, Lara Croft was made for male gamers and that's why it's sexist. They didn't take into consideration what females wanted. There is sexism in so many things though. It's impossible to satisfy everyone but it seems easier to do in video games. They did it in Assassin's Creed as they mentioned in article you quoted. You would pretty much need to be able to choose between a male or female character in every game and they would have to be represented in the same manner.

Well that's bullshit.

I'm concepting a fan game where you can pick male or female, leading to two different experiences because the male is like a bar brawler while the female is short and curvy motherly type (not enough short curvy girls in media :3)

As a preemptive measure, id also conceptes EQUALITY MODE where the character models are swapped to show how stupid that idea is, showing the little reserved girl going all brave heart on people, which the tough looking muscular dude plays mother hen.

Granted it would be HILARIOUS, but still

 

[Xhominid The Demon Within]

Guys it's Social Justice Warriors, they completely lack common sense and basic thinking skills.

 

[Russian-chiropractic19]

Like you said though, Lara Croft was made for male gamers and that's why it's sexist. They didn't take into consideration what females wanted. There is sexism in so many things though. It's impossible to satisfy everyone but it seems easier to do in video games. They did it in Assassin's Creed as they mentioned in article you quoted. You would pretty much need to be able to choose between a male or female character in every game and they would have to be represented in the same manner.

sexism would be saying they cant play the game not that the game wasn't designed for them. by that logic you would be calling BET racist.

 

[Keylay]

sexism would be saying they cant play the game not that the game wasn't designed for them. by that logic you would be calling BET racist.

I didn't mean what women wanted but how women felt about the game. The portrayal of Lara Croft. Lara was one of the few video game heroines. She was attractive but (some) people saw it as a female character had to be beautiful with big boobs and a tiny waist to be a popular video game character. Lara was smart and strong but that was overshadowed with how they marketed her (bikinis, naked in a bed, etc). It's about how they treated a female character as opposed to a male character.

 

[Argentus]

I didn't mean what women wanted but how women felt about the game. The portrayal of Lara Croft. Lara was one of the few video game heroines. She was attractive but (some) people saw it as a female character had to be beautiful with big boobs and a tiny waist to be a popular video game character. Lara was smart and strong but that was overshadowed with how they marketed her (bikinis, naked in a bed, etc). It's about how they treated a female character as opposed to a male character.

The problem with those kinds of complaints is....have you ever been to a gym or club lol? A lot of Ladies present themselves like that anyway.

So trying to complain about Lara croft happening to be hot and posing in promotional materials kinda falls flat

 

[Chapstick]

I didn't mean what women wanted but how women felt about the game. The portrayal of Lara Croft. Lara was one of the few video game heroines. She was attractive but (some) people saw it as a female character had to be beautiful with big boobs and a tiny waist to be a popular video game character. Lara was smart and strong but that was overshadowed with how they marketed her (bikinis, naked in a bed, etc). It's about how they treated a female character as opposed to a male character.

The large boobs were actually originally a program error but they decided to keep them.

 

[Keylay]

The problem with those kinds of complaints is....have you ever been to a gym or club lol? A lot of Ladies present themselves like that anyway.

So trying to complain about Lara croft happening to be hot and posing in promotional materials kinda falls flat

Those aren't the type of women that are complaining. Think of women more like Anita Sarkeesian hehehe. I doubt that they wanted to offend anyone but some people take it that way. I just saw an article about sexist shows and it said Modern Family is one of the them because the women are stay at home moms and only the men have good professions. I don't take it that way but some people do.

The large boobs were actually originally a program error but they decided to keep them.

I believe they were very limited on polygons back then and were just trying to make the female form. But it was the CG renders that they released outside of the game that showed her in very little clothing.

 

[Tyaren]

So many of the problems with this game would be solved just by the men being playable. Not to mention it would double its fanbase if the amount of yaoi fangirls is anything to go on.

I'm not so sure about that... It would very likely scare away many of the male players who are right now the biggest fans of the game. You know, the ones I talked about in the other thread, spamming those lecherous gifs and really getting off on Nyotengu grinding that volleyball and nearly swallowing it whole. They are typically the ones that would be the most offended when male characters would show just the slightest sign of sex appeal.

By the way, I thought this female artist did a fantastic job translating DOAX into an all male cast game. These have that sex appeal and do look super cool at the same time:

Link to the full gallery here: http://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=manga&illust_id=51642715

Who knew that even male swimsuits could be so varied and colorful. O:

 

[Russian-chiropractic19]

Whether or not somebody was offended is a horrible metric for these types of thing since I've noticed 90% of the time those types of words have been used interchangeably with no regard to their actual meaning

 

[Tyaren]

Whether or not somebody was offended is a horrible metric for these types of thing since I've noticed 90% of the time those types of words have been used interchangeably with no regard to their actual meaning

In this case offended=feeling attacked in their insecure masculinity

 

[grap3fruitman]

Whether or not somebody was offended is a horrible metric for these types of thing since I've noticed 90% of the time those types of words have been used interchangeably with no regard to their actual meaning

??

 

[Keylay]

I'm not so sure about that... It would very likely scare away many of the male players who are right now the biggest fans of the game. You know, the ones I talked about in the other thread, spamming those lecherous gifs and really getting off on Nyotengu grinding that volleyball and nearly swallowing it whole. They are typically the ones that would be the most offended when male characters would show just the slightest sign of sex appeal.

By the way, I thought this female artist did a fantastic job translating DOAX into an all male cast game. These have that sex appeal and do look super cool at the same time:

Link to the full gallery here: http://www.pixiv.net/member_illust.php?mode=manga&illust_id=51642715

Who knew that even male swimsuits could be so varied and colorful. O:

I doubt it would scare away guys since the women are still there. It's like how porn has men and women in it. There's more focus on the women but the men are still there. Pretty much like DOA5, where the women get all the attention haha.