Dear Toriyama,

Totally lol. I think that one is DLC. She should wield one of those radioactive pink vomit swords, makes everything better.

 

Ashe IS the main character of Final Fantasy XII
Hiroshi Minegawa confirmed that Vaan and Panelo were added in late into the development of the game by request from Square because it's easier to sell a game in Japan when the main playable characters are teenagers, hence why Vaan and Panelo are there.

 

To be clear I meant player character when I said main character. I'm shocked nobody brought up FFX, Tidus is important but Yuna is definitely the main character. And as I said the FF series has previously had some awesome ladies, but never one billed as the main character as prominently as Lightning.

 

I brought up FFX
I guess nobody has been billed as prominently as Lightning, but it stands that FF6 does have not one but TWO female leads

 

Ooh I stand corrected then, I knew Terra was in FF6 but I didn't know much beyond it.

 

Remember topless Sora in Atlantica ? Well, more like naked Sora really, proudly swinging his fish parts around. *shivers*

 

And Mickey Mouse wears tonnes of outfits. It's freaking DISNEY guys, stop sexualizing it

Aw what, you haven't played FF6? It's the best one!

 

I've heard so many good things about FF6. I need to pick that up.

 

After FFIX.

 

I recommend the GBA version. FF6 is severely lacking in remakes, so that's so far the definitive version

To get the most out of FF9 you need to play the earlier games though, it's basically a celebration of the first eight FFs

 

Well the main character of FFVI is really left up to interpretation for a lot of people. Some consider Locke being the main character, some consider Terra, and others consider Celes.
I would go more into detail but I wouldn't want to spoil some of the big story elements of FFVI.
Still though I will say that both Terra and Celes could be considered the most important characters in the game. It's why it's my favorite <3

also yeah FFIX is awesome everyone should play it no question.

 

Officially, Terra is the main character. To the point where if she's not in your party when you reach the final boss, she shows up anyways. The largest plot points revolve around her
, and the resolution of the plot is primarily centred on her. Celes picks up the slack in the middle though, and has, quite frankly, two of the most memorable scenes in FF history

 

Yeah exactly. It's why both characters can be considered strong female leads (and MCs)

that one scene is forever ingrained in my mind
you know which one I'm talking about.
**** saving Cid though. I didn't even realize I could do until years after I finished it for like the 3rd time.

 

That was the first, and few scenes in a video game where I've actually gotten teary eyed.
Saving Cid is insanely obscure, yeah

 

I am going to be talking a lot about Japanese sexuality, treatment of women in the media and society along with the fetishes prevalent in Japan and the negative connotations of it. I may not have link or proof for everything, but please don't dismiss everything. If you really want to learn more you have the entire internet at your finger tips, the age of information, you can use it instead of me.

I put some effort into this, would be nice if people read, cheers.

You both play games, Japanese ones as well, probably more than me. And watch anime or manga I presume from the avatars. I assume you honestly see a constant trend in Japanese depictions of female sexualised stereotypes from Japan right, right? Street Fighter, King of Fighters? Dead or Alive is basically softcore porn. Eroge games, such a popular subsidary of games that it needed its own genre.

Here are some distributed pictures in games media from a few JP games that i'm talking about, all from popular enough series that I actually know them (which isn't many)

Spoiler: possibly not safe for work, I warned you

Soul Calibur


Sengoku Basara

Ninja Gaiden


Dragon Crown

Bayonetta

Metal Gear Solid


FF XIII-2 which is basically Serah


Back to Lightning all over again.

I'm generalising one country, yes. I don't disagree that games in the west do the same, but these days it's not as prominent as it use to be and at a less prominent level form what i've seen.

This article brings up the issue pretty much completely in games form around the world:
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2424173,00.asp
Note, two western female characters were mentioned compared to the other eight from Japanese games.

But they fail at being cool. What does it even mean? What's the point in using one liners if their generic attempts at cool? They're generally incredibly clichéd, and sometimes they work out of absurdity or impactfulness, but when 'Destiny is destiny' comes up, I'm left going 'wtf' not 'that's a cool one liner'. I think I've already slated the writing which on the whole seems ok-ish, but it comes with stuff like this and I can't see how it even characterises her.

People on KHV called back to the 'good ol days' but I hated them. IT's all nostalgia, where people want to be kids again and live in their memories of better times, but i rather we move forward and search for the next best thing. Two decades ago and today are nothing like they use to be in the video game industry, hell no. Gaming journalism has moved almost entirely online with videos and articles alike, girl gamers are now almost equal in the number of multiplayer gamers and games are now an industry to rival film, tv and book sales. With this greater audience our games need to have wider appeal. Segregating female players to think they're only role models are big titted love interests, is stupid.

I'm no prude. I watch porn, some taboo stuff even. But porn is not respectable, it's just accepted in society, and I'm kinda fine with that perspective. Same with prostitution.
A lot of media these days add relationships and sex scenes because it will sell. Sex sells is the old cliché. It's cheap to use, much like excessive violence is. Most of the time it doesn't add to the plot, character progression or anything that actually makes it deep. I'm up for fun slashers with a crap plot, but if i want sex I have porn not a game centred around it. I'd feel ripped off paying for porn in video games.

By the third game, she's been reduced to wearing sexualised outfits. Skin doesn't equal instant sexual appeal, I never said that and a lot of people seem to think that's all it comes down to. Wearing a constricting bodysuit is extremely sexual even if every single part of the skin is covered. Again, if she was characterised better, i'd be more willing to let it slide, but she's not, she's flat and dull and akin to a mannequin in personality. So the only thing left is her visually. Effectively she is a model then.

Aqua was made to 'cover up' in the western releases over concerns of skin. I thought it was stupid. But a lot of Square games had outfit changes for Final fantasy characters or just straight smaller tits. Look at how much Tifa was clothed. There is a different aim of both those games when it comes to sexualisation of characters.

It was an exaggeration to be fair.
Without going into details on this site... No, porn is not about being naked. Otherwise all Greek statues are porn. It's about sexually arousing you. Softcore porn is still as such porn, even if a large amount of it has clothed women, costumes and such.

Japan has a lot of weird fetishes, and a lot of the popular ones are male orientated.

• Possession of child pornography is legal. The national legal age of consent is 13 there, so that means 12s and under porn is acceptable to own.
• Lolicon, centred around sexual activity with underage girls by men age 20+, is a popular sub genre of hentai.
• Idols. Basically they're young girls wearing outfits, such as bikinis and other tight or revealing clothes.
• Rape and sexual assault is another popular fetish, which according to some studies has raised the amount of rape against women since its VHS inception in the 70s ( http://www.socialcostsofpornography.com/Layden_Pornography_and_Violence.pdf )
• Tentacles. Self explanatory.

Japan's birth rates are below the death rates, ergo, their population is actually receding back. Many sociologists, health professionals and other scholars have wondered why this is happening.
Well, another article could help argue why:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/20/young-people-japan-stopped-having-sex
To summarise it though, the interest in sex for Japanese young has begun to turn. Things such as video games, anime and other assorted mediums have influenced many Japanese youths. Around a million youths have a 'celibacy syndrome' which basically is the aversion to sexual activity. With the difficulties of an economical stand point and the increasing availbility of relationship games and porn, many find real relationships too tough to deal with and accept their lives as is.

It's one of the reasons I believe Japanese games have such a prevalence in sexualised female characters, because over the last 40 years with the rise of home porn, the hentai industry and now the internet, the male population feel like they have enough fapping material and products to not have to worry about the real thing.
You could argue otherwise, but from the amount of experience i've had with japanese media, there is little denying the obsession with giant tits, weird fantasies and sexy outfits.

BUt yeah, woemn are not represented well, Lightning is another nail in the coffin from a Japanese developed game, and until I see some real women coming out of there, Japan will seem the immature sex obsessed patriarchy their appear to be. I'm no feminist, but even I can not doubt that Japanese society is a big patriarchal society.

Have a good day, that's my hour gone.

 

Fundamentally, what I'm getting from this is that you're put off by the games fitting into the social standards of another culture. And that is a valdi criticism, I'm looking forward to Gaijin Goombah's video on the subject.

But let's get down to the depth with this

Just as America has its uncomfortable gun fetish thing, or Europe has its alcohol thing. We put up with the uglier parts of our culture that shine through because of the other positive sides

Well, it's a pretty big cultural difference first of all. In Japan, boobs are far less of a taboo, and nudity is symbolic of purity. I don't really want to talk about each image individual, I'm not familiar, but it seems like you picked the absolute most extreme options

Lightning has some range. Two of those costume accentuate her breasts, two of them aren't even kinda revealing and jsut look practical, and the one on the elft is somewhere inbetween

Sex mini game in God of War? Lara Croft? Grand Theft Auto? Thoguh honestly I'd say the bigger issue is that there are less objectification of women in westerng games not because it's less common, but because a woman APPEARING in a game in any capacity is rare in itself. Sure, Yuna wears a more revealing costume in FFX-2, but at least it's a decently characterized protagonist in a major video game.

Fail to you maybe, I'm sure some people thought it was badass because it made it into the game in the first place. Destiny is Destiny, the meaning seems pretty obvious. "Destiny is what it is, it's inevitable, and can't be fought" this compleely flies in the face of what she said in the first game, but I also haven't actually seen this line ingame

That's a dangerously absolutist view. There's plenty to be learned from the past. You're looking a bit far into the future with video games, I'm afraid. Gaming journalism may be digital, but it's all still fundamentally the same, just updated more quickly. Women in gaming is becoming a major thing faster than any other genre, sure, but the fact that Frozen is being priased for the mere fact that a girl doesn't get the guy at the end, and movies have come further than games have in that regard, similarly, outside of a few specific examples games are nowhere near as profitable as movies. If you want a game that appeals to different audiences, that's what indie games are for, major games are going to go with the tried and true dominant demographic. That's why every western protagonist has a shaved head and brooding countenance, why Japanese games have sexualized women and yaoi undertones. They know thier audience, or at least what sells.
I'd say more female characters from Final Fantasy games make better role models than most of what coems from western devs.

Well I mean
you could just play Lightning Returns for the story, gameplay, world, quests, music, or any of the many other things that have absolutely nothing to do with what pieces of frabric she's wearing

I find Lightnign boring, but she's not devoid of characteristics. She's aggressive, but shy about certain things, hates showing weakness, is easily annoyed, a huge skeptic, and that's just what I can recall off the top of my head. Nothing groundbreaking, but she's hardly an empty shell.

Interesting you bring up Tifa because she's one of the msot popular FF females in the west.

I guess at that point it's just art imitating reality then, because 9/10 women I run into when I go out are dressed provocatively to some degree. I don't really get what you're trying to get at this point though. Japan has weird fetishes? Everywhere does, especially in this information age we live in that transcends the boundaries of the old world.

I guess now would be a good time to note that most of my information has been coming from the few Gaijin Goombah videos I've seen, and according to him, boobs are a punchline in Japan
Lightning is a nail in the coffin because of the clothes she wears, not because of her characterstics or something? Now THAT sounds like the sexist thing to me

Eugh, I'm not sure I covered everything, or if I covered it well... this has crashed/deleted too many time for me to spend any more time on it ._.

 

Yeah, Olga was reaaaally sexy with her unshaved armpits. Can' t help thinking about all the gay stuff going on in PeaceWalker.
"Oh Sssnake ! <3"
Snake, get it ?

Men are systematically perceived as cool but women are systematically perceived as sexy ? How does that even work ? I' ll tell you how : the guy who wrote this is hetero, that' s how. That kind of comment gives us more insight about his psyche than about anything else. Reminds me of the "Frozen turns people gay" bullshit.

Chun Li' s just a pair of thighs but Zangief' s cool ? Ever heard of the gay bear community ?

Male teenagers get a boner from watching the linoleum. Trust me, they don' t need any training to sexualize people.

 

Damnit I thought this thread was referring to DBZ for some reason..

 

Look, some feminists complain that there' s a double standard when it comes to being topless in public, amongst other things. But showing some cleavage just trains men to think of women as mere objects ? Which one is it, make up your damn mind. I' ll stick with the former.

 

DAMMIT SPOILERS
CMON MAN