Tired of Japandrogyny

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Sandoval

Spaceman
Ok, this is definitely off-topic, but I'm curious what you guys think. I am a pretty big fan of the RPG genre, and I've played the hell out of them since the original Final Fantasy and Dragon Warrior on the NES (both of which I still play in cartridge form from time to time). Fortunately, I never realized back then that those 8-bit sprites actually represented genderless emo-orphans wearing flamboyant renaissance masquerade costumes who are constantly plagued by visions and/or dreams of a vague and uninteresting past. This slowly became more evident as the presentation improved, until even Cloud and Sephiroth were revealed to be a bunch of leather-wearing nancy-boys who couldn't even sprout a five-o-clock shadow. Shock and betrayal! But by that point of course American game developers had demonstrated a variety of PC games proving RPG's don't necessarily have to contain emotional eunuchs, nihilistic megalomaniacs, magi-technology, or even impractical melee weapons. Now I can enjoy a variety of RPG series which welcome the ugly, brutish bearded guy, some even offering an assortment of scars and tattoos to choose from.

The reason I'm wondering about this is because I just popped in Lost Odyssey for Xbox (might as well be called Final Fantasy 360), and I noticed that the voices were particularly masculine for a Japanese RPG. Then I noticed that nothing else is, and my main character is wearing the steel equivalent of a belly shirt. So, can someone please tell me why they are so hooked on this character style over there? Considering manga and anime I guess it's obviously not just a video game thing, but does anyone know the reason or the origin? Does anyone have any good counterexamples to this trend? In short, wtf?
 
I remember playing FF6 and there were masculine guys in there, one was an old knight and a few old mages that were bearded or had some facial hair and then the fighter guy with the muscles.

I think Japanese are simply into androgeny or simply into simplicity, a lack of facial features which leads to androgeny or it's some kind of homogenous "manga look" that is mistaken for androgeny. I don't see where emo fits into a Japanese trend/cultural style, but if androgeny sells books, games, and movies then they will produce it. If you're looking at clothing styles, try the 60's and 70's and look at all the rockers wearing tight jeans and flamboyant clothes... styles come back though it wasn't called emo. I don't even know what to call emo, all I see are emaciated kids with lack of individuality. The games and manga also relfect a sort of lack of individuality, but then all this cloning will help set apart those games that choose to break from the norm, so that can be a good thing... untill they too are cloned.


I think back to what my art teacher said about early painting schools and how everyone learned to paint in a certain style... and thats just about all you saw in the art market, untill someone came along and started painting in a new style.

What it probably boils down to is that people are playing it safe... they see somthing is sucessful and they try to copy it, instead of taking a risk and making their own idea.
 
What I meant by "emo" was not a specific visual style but a character attitude portraying rejection, isolation, and sometimes resentment which has little do with the actual game conflict and is usually rooted in the character's vague and cliche past. It leaves me with the same feeling as somebody who obviously wants you to ask them what's wrong, but then when you do they tell you it's none of your business and to leave them alone. You probably hit the nail on the head when you said they see something successful and copy it, and no doubt that's common enough in the West too, but am I right in feeling like there's more vision and innovation here? Or are all these copycat Japanese titles really stagnating their industry. I hear lots about how a game has to be a sequel to a hit to get big Western studio bucks for developement, but almost everything we get from Japan are sequels (yes I know there are tons of games that don't get imported). I read an interesting article in this month's EGM about the Dragon Quest series which shed a little more light on the psychology of change in Japanese video gamers, though it didn't address character design directly. According to the article, Japanese gamers seem to have well-established ideas of what is and is not acceptable in their game series; the example given is that after the Square-Enix merger, the Final Fantasy games are considered to be the more experimental titles, receiving a sort of fan license to try new mechanics and combat systems, whereas the Dragon Quest series is expected to be very traditional and minimal both in mechanics and visuals, so much so that when a trailer for Dragon Quest 9 was unveiled showing a new enhanced combat system, outrage on Japanese message boards everywhere ("DraQue is dead to me!") forced Square-Enix to immediately release a new trailer showing the game had been reverted to the traditional system. More often these days I read about how many Japanese studios are re-thinking their approach to target Western audiences, so maybe the real question is are Japanese gamers too resistant to change, and could that attitude stagnate their game industry to the point of insignificance?

[edit] By the way, good counterexample, and I thought of my own while writing this: the Metal Gear series also features a masculine protagonist, usually sporting whiskers and a big gun.
 
could that attitude stagnate their game industry to the point of insignificance?
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To many American gamers I know, myself included, this is already a reality. I can enjoy a good platformer now and then, but I think that's more-so nostalgia getting the better of me than actual enjoyment.
 
It's rather simple really. You're not the target market for those characters. Girls are. A LOT of girls play Final Fantasy and RPGs are popular with both sexes over in Japan. Hence they make bishi guys for the female players to fawn over and they make scantily clad women for the male players to fawn over. Hence chars like Tifa and Yuna and guys like cloud and sephiroth. Speak to a girl about Final Fantasy, it's one of the few games a LOT of girls play. Chances are if you're in an Anime club every girl there will have played it. It's just an extension of why some girls will want to make you wear eyeliner. They think the emo look is hot.
 
I don't see where emo fits into a Japanese trend/cultural style, but if androgeny sells books, games, and movies then they will produce it. If you're looking at clothing styles, try the 60's and 70's and look at all the rockers wearing tight jeans and flamboyant clothes... styles come back though it wasn't called emo. I don't even know what to call emo, all I see are emaciated kids with lack of individuality
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This sounds familiar, but this is a situation of the fan copying the icon, and in your example the stage outfits, in an attempt to identify yourself with that idol to seperate you from the crowd. And the idol doesn't even do that himself, do you think the guys from slipknot go to the supermarket with their masks on, or that manowar crosses the atlantic to play in europe tied behind a speedboat in their stage outfits?

As for the characters look in the games, would you have your character be a skinny guy with glasses, zits on his face and stupid hair, or someone who looks like solid snake or duke nukem? Or just imagine a 250 pound lara croft?

Find these role models a piece of discussion, and are only asians effected, I've seen the american documentary "bigger, stronger, faster", the latter part is only about steroids, since that is the world of the director, but the intro goes on about idolizing heroes like Rocky, Rambo, He-man... Copying an idol is not something that was born yesterday(and if you think it is, then you were born yesterday ;) )
 
You're not the target market for those characters. Girls are. A LOT of girls play Final Fantasy and RPGs are popular with both sexes over in Japan.
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Female Japanese hermaphiles, then? I think the men in those game stand a better chance of being fawned over by guys, until they realize they're dudes and feel really embarassed.
 
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