How do you feel about the objectification of women and the sexualisation of minors in East Asian games?

[gossi the dog]

38 minutes ago, Jamie John said:

 

Yes, this is true - it's all very well to just say 'If you don't like it, don't play the games', but, quite often, we're talking about the creepy shit only taking up 1% of the game's overall content, but it still sticks out like a sore thumb nonetheless. It's especially frustrating when it appears in an otherwise great game, as it would be so easy to omit.

 

Case in point, I'm currently playing Phoenix Wright: Trials and Tribulations as part of the Ace Attorney Trilogy on Switch. I'm having a great time with it: it's funny, well-written and looks beautiful on the OLED. The only issue I have with it is its presentation of Mia Fey, your dead mentor who very occasionally appears in ghost form to give you advice, and her comedy anime knockers:

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

There's no reason for the game to present her in this way beyond pure titillation (no pun intended). It just seems so arbitrary and grubby, as if a game about solving murders and standing up for defendants in court is too dry, so you apparently *need* a well-endowed female character with a low neckline (or no neckline at all, as the case may be) to sex the game up. I think it's a bit pathetic, to be honest.

That doesn’t seem bad. I’m playing One Piece Odyssey at the moment and during cutscenes you have Nami’s breasts lightly jiggle as she breaths. Which I guess you can do with the power of current consoles, but seems wrong to me. It doesn’t happen to Nico Robin but she’s wearing more clothes. 

[Jamie John]

12 minutes ago, gossi the dog said:

That doesn’t seem bad. I’m playing One Piece Odyssey at the moment and during cutscenes you have Nami’s breasts lightly jiggle as she breaths. Which I guess you can do with the power of current consoles, but seems wrong to me. It doesn’t happen to Nico Robin but she’s wearing more clothes. 

 

Well, I'm not about to lose sleep over it or anything, but it's just very obvious from the way that she crosses her arms beneath her breasts and her necklace drawing your eye that she's designed to be looked at as a sex object. This is made more apparent by some of the art for the game, particularly when the male lawyers all wear suits and ties (or suit and cravat, in Edgeworth's case):

 

Spoiler

 

Her presentation is also juxtaposed with her sister, Maya Fey, who wears a similar outfit but which is nowhere near as revealing (in the game, Mia's ghost talks to you through Maya - it's complicated...):

 

 

Spoiler

 

 

If you look at the two outfits side by side you can see that Mia's has been modified compared with Maya's to expose more cleavage.

 

I don't want to sound like I'm trying to body shame Mia's character for having comparatively big breasts, but, as I say, in context it's very obvious why she has been designed in this way and it's just a bit 🙄 when you're playing the game.

 

This is far from the most egregious example of what I'm talking about, but the fact that it's there in the first instance, in a 12-rated, otherwise pretty inoffensive game that's strongly associated with family-friendly Nintendo, makes it seem particularly out of place.

[Rex Grossman]

My daughter likes the Phoenix Wright games and moans about the way Mia looks. She is 11 and it bothers her seeing women drawn in such a way.

[ScouserInExile]

17 hours ago, Gabe said:

There's definitely no need for them to bring their kids to the fights, no.

 

 

[SeanR]

I’m currently randomly working my way through my Saturn collection, but dare not spin up DOA, because of its questionable content.

 

Linking player age to the amount of breast jiggle should have been a warning there. (Or was that introduced in DOA2?)

[Qazimod]

12 hours ago, Jamie John said:

Mia Fey, your dead mentor who very occasionally appears in ghost form to give you advice, and her comedy anime knockers:

I believe the forum-approved term is “cringe knockers”  

 

As an aside, Mia was deceased from case two of the first game; a case which also introduced April May:

 

Yeah. She does have a flirtatious personality and tries to use this to her advantage:

 

May: “April May! At your service! *wink*”

Judge: “Order! An introduction should not require any reaction from the crowd! The witness will refrain from wonton winking!”

 

…but my point is that an attractive witness/suspect trying to charm a court feels a little more “justified” than Mia’s boobage? I mean, if the whole idea is that Mia is being channelled by others, then the people doing the channelling could just dress more formally for their court attendance.  

 

E: Mia not Mai, ffs

[Rex Grossman]

4 minutes ago, Qazimod said:

I believe the forum-approved term is “cringe knockers”  

 

As an aside, Mia was deceased from case two of the first game; a case which also introduced April May:

 

Yeah. She does have a flirtatious personality and tries to use this to her advantage:

 

May: “April May! At your service! *wink*”

Judge: “Order! An introduction should not require any reaction from the crowd! The witness will refrain from wonton winking!”

 

…but my point is that an attractive witness/suspect trying to charm a court feels a little more “justified” than Mai’s boobage? I mean, if the whole idea is that Mai is being channeled by others, then the people doing the channeling could just dress more formally for their court attendance.  

 

Yes. Agreed. Mia is your character’s mentor. She’s never discussed in a sexualised manner. She just happens to be an incredible successful and influential lawyer who also happens to have her boobs on display in work the whole time. It’s awful.

[therearerules]

Visual Novels (and games adjacent to them) are terrible for this. I think Phoenix Wright gets better as it gets popular in the West- I can't think of anything as egregious post the first trilogy in that series. I played Death Mark on the Nintendo Switch over lockdown. A daft little spooky horror VN with a fun twist, suprisingly enjoyable, apart from one thing. In the first case your introduced to a schoolgirl character Moe who is your sidekick:

And then later on, out of nowhere, you see her like this (just linking to it here, but that link is very much NSFW) https://death-mark.fandom.com/wiki/Moe_Watanabe?file=Death_Mark_-_Moe_Seized_by_Roses.jpg

 

Just completely explicitly sexualising your schoolgirl sidekick to the point of ridiculousness.  To anybody who thinks this is comparable to modern Western culture I'm going to ask how? What western videogames are you consuming in which something like this would be presented to you without comment or incident? Because this doesn't even register as background noise in terms of dodgy scenes in Japanese games released in the West. It's just incredibly tiresome to have to put up with this to play games which are otherwise a good play (and forget about recommending them to others).

[Sixkiller]

https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/whats-on/food-drink-news/afflecks-japanese-maid-caf-hits-26110975

 

Saw this article and thought it was an interesting issue, feels like an adjacent argument to those on this thread, and encapsulates how this is really to do with a culture clash that extends way beyond just videogames, but one where videogames are central to said culture.

[Jamie John]

2 hours ago, Sixkiller said:

https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/whats-on/food-drink-news/afflecks-japanese-maid-caf-hits-26110975

 

Saw this article and thought it was an interesting issue, feels like an adjacent argument to those on this thread, and encapsulates how this is really to do with a culture clash that extends way beyond just videogames, but one where videogames are central to said culture.

 

I scrolled half-way down the page and saw this ad:

 

 

(Excuse the HDR.)

 

I'm not sure what point I'm making, but there's something to be said that when it's Japanese it's 'disgusting', but when it's (seemingly) British or American it's 'cheeky'...

[Nick R]

9 minutes ago, Jamie John said:

I scrolled half-way down the page and saw this ad:

 

 

 

[Vespa Alex]

10 minutes ago, Jamie John said:

 

I scrolled half-way down the page and saw this ad:

 

 

(Excuse the HDR.)

 

I'm not sure what point I'm making, but there's something to be said that when it's Japanese it's 'disgusting', but when it's (seemingly) British or American it's 'cheeky'...

Cheeky isn’t the right word for that kind of question but they are very obviously adult women instead of young teenagers. 

[Gabe]

56 minutes ago, Jamie John said:

 

I scrolled half-way down the page and saw this ad:

 

 

(Excuse the HDR.)

 

I'm not sure what point I'm making, but there's something to be said that when it's Japanese it's 'disgusting', but when it's (seemingly) British or American it's 'cheeky'...

What is the Japanese example where it is labelled 'disgusting'?

[Jamie John]

21 minutes ago, Gabe said:

What is the Japanese example where it is labelled 'disgusting'?

 

First paragraph:

 

Quote

The owners of a café in Afflecks Palace have hit back after a Labour councillor branded it ‘disgusting’. Urmston councillor Joanne Harding said that Animaid Café made her ‘fresh crawl [sic]’ in a tweet.

 

[therearerules]

12 minutes ago, Jamie John said:

 

First paragraph:

 

 

TBF I've no idea about her politics, but I'd be suprised if she didn't think Hooters is disgusting as well.  Also crikey at this list of rules

[Bobbi Champagne Jr]

On 29/01/2023 at 08:58, Rex Grossman said:

 

Yes. Agreed. Mia is your character’s mentor. She’s never discussed in a sexualised manner. She just happens to be an incredible successful and influential lawyer who also happens to have her boobs on display in work the whole time. It’s awful.

I don’t think find Mia to be an issue because she’s presented as a grown woman. What IS an issue is when she’s communicating with you through her 17 year old sister, who for some reason takes on her physical attributes. That’s gross. 

[Gabe]

1 hour ago, Jamie John said:

 

First paragraph:

 

 

Oops, sorry, I apologise - my mind saw the Daily Star under the Hooters picture and my brain broke and didn't want to click on a Daily Star link, even though it wasn't one - so I didn't read it (I have now) and lost track of what I was even thinking. A bit like this post too.

[Haribokart]

3 hours ago, therearerules said:

 

That unfortunately placed reflection...

 

 

Anybody who has worked in games retail knows that most of these rules would not be out of place listed in that environment too. Not experienced regularly in any of my other roles dealing with the public but aside from the first two (which did happen just very rarely) everything listed there would be very common behaviour among the SeRiOuS GaMeR crowd. Can't begin to imagine how much worse it is for girls in a place like this.

[ScouserInExile]

8 hours ago, Jamie John said:

 

I scrolled half-way down the page and saw this ad:

 

 

(Excuse the HDR.)

 

I'm not sure what point I'm making, but there's something to be said that when it's Japanese it's 'disgusting', but when it's (seemingly) British or American it's 'cheeky'...

People have been objecting to Hooters for decades. To the point where the first time I had heard of such places was from watching an episode of Rosanne in the 80s that was pointing out how unacceptable they are. They seem to be coming to the UK now and I've seen plenty of objections to them.

 

Plus, I'm reading that MEN article as very much "this person who called it disgusting is wrong". They give a lot more column inches to why it's not weird and disgusting than to them saying it is.

[Qazimod]

You didn't think this from the second game was worse @Bobbi Champagne Jr?  

 

8 hours ago, Bobbi Champagne Jr said:

What IS an issue is when she’s communicating with you through her 8 year old cousin, who for some reason takes on her physical attributes. That’s gross. 

 

[Rex Grossman]

8 hours ago, Bobbi Champagne Jr said:

I don’t think find Mia to be an issue because she’s presented as a grown woman. What IS an issue is when she’s communicating with you through her 17 year old sister, who for some reason takes on her physical attributes. That’s gross. 

Fair point on when she partly takes Maya’s form (agreed: gross) but at all times she is presented visually as being more cleavage than person. Which is a pretty awful message to send considering she’s an incredibly successful professional.

[Dig Dug]

Then in the one game you do play as her they tone all those attributes down because it’s a younger rookie lawyer version of her who the player needs to identify with.

[Bobbi Champagne Jr]

2 hours ago, Qazimod said:

You didn't think this from the second game was worse @Bobbi Champagne Jr?  

 

 

Holy shit, SERIOUSLY??? I bought the collection on Steam Deck recently but I haven't got to the second game yet.