How many Japanese-made games from this gen can you name that don't include fanservice

I'd argue that Alyx in Half-Life 2 fame is a form of fan-service too, with her gushing of "OOOH GORDON YOU'RE AWESOME!" *blush* "OOOH GORDON YOU'RE INCREDIBLE!" *blush* *blush* "HUGS!" *blush* *blush* *blush*

The way she acts is borderline pandering to me.
 
Laughing Banana said:
I'd argue that Alyx in Half-Life 2 fame is a form of fan-service too, with her gushing of "OOOH GORDON YOU'RE AWESOME!" *blush* "OOOH GORDON YOU'RE INCREDIBLE!" *blush* *blush* "HUGS!" *blush* *blush* *blush*

The way she acts is borderline pandering to me.
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But Gordon Freeman IS awesome! C'mon man.. have you seen the stuff he does? I'd be acting like a complete groupie too if I were in Alyx's shoes.
 
wyrdwad said:
I'm sure it does. If you play through Corpse Party and then play Book of Shadows chapter 1, however, I think you'll see that it's quite a lot more than that. It's a brilliant fusion of Japanese cultural norms and taboos with genuine psychology to create one of the most realistic and heartbreaking portrayals of teenage homosexuality that I've ever seen in any creative medium. That scene, when combined with another later in the chapter, is absolutely crucial to establishing Seiko's character and making the player sympathize with her, despite her flaws and failings, and is a perfect example of Corpse Party writing at its best.

If you go into it expecting to be offended, though, then of course you will be.

Well, culturally... it's kinda not! Skinship really is a thing, and is a totally accepted part of modern Japanese society. You may disagree with it, but that doesn't make it any less real or less acceptable within its own cultural context.

Though to be fair, the scene in question definitely treads away from skinship and into sexual harassment territory, with Naomi even specifically identifying it as sexual harassment... but that's part of why it has the impact it does. It shows how Seiko takes advantage of Japanese cultural mores to go a bit farther than she should with Naomi, awkwardly testing to see what kind of reaction she gets... and it shows that Naomi, despite being "harassed," is tolerant of it and even thinks fondly of it in retrospect. These aren't good qualities, and they're not things that the game advocates everyone share... but they are qualities that help define both characters as flawed yet apologetically relatable individuals.

...You really just need to see it, in context and with full awareness of the previous game's developments as well. It's something that will always sound awful when described, but fits so snugly into Corpse Party canon that it's clearly meant to do much more than simply titillate the audience.

-Tom
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I don't know, it sounds like Corpse Party reinforces some lesbian/gay stereotypes even if it means well.
 
wyrdwad said:
Hardly ALL of them, though. If anything, that's in the minority -- fanservice in Japanese games usually implies breasts more than anything, and generally big ones, which is not something any game that's pandering to lolicon fetishists would feature. Among the biggest fanservice games out there, for example, are Bayonetta and the Suda51 titles, and those games certainly aren't playing on lolicon fetishes in the slightest.
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cyTuwr5.png


2ZQYCd7.jpg


I'd disagree on that.
 
Dang0 said:
Margaretmoonlight4.png


shinobu_2.jpg


I'd disagree on that.
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Both of those women are clearly adult in physique, though. There's a pretty distinct difference between lolicon and gothic lolita fashion. One is the sexualization of minors, whereas the other is... basically making doll-like clothing seem provocative and sexy on adults. The latter really isn't much different than men who like women in leather, or in sexy negligee. It's just a harmless fetish.

I don't know, it sounds like Corpse Party reinforces some lesbian/gay stereotypes even if it means well.
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Ehhh... again, you need to see/play it in context. If anything, it serves as a sort of social commentary on mainstream Japan's "pretend it doesn't exist" mentality when it comes to homosexuality, showing how that affects the younger generation as they begin to become aware of their own sexuality.

-Tom
 
wyrdwad said:
Both of those women are clearly adult in physique, though. There's a pretty distinct difference between lolicon and gothic lolita fashion. One is the sexualization of minors, whereas the other is... basically making doll-like clothing seem provocative and sexy on adults. The latter really isn't much different than men who like women in leather, or in sexy negligee. It's just a harmless fetish.
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I guess I can see your point, though I still consider it on the fringe of lolita. I don't think its a coincedence that Shinobu is just over legal age, its basically putting in a young girl without creeping out western audiences. Even Travis lampshades this when Shinobu tries to seduce him, saying he'd feel like a creepy teacher if he accepted.
 
wyrdwad said:
Both of those women are clearly adult in physique, though. There's a pretty distinct difference between lolicon and gothic lolita fashion. One is the sexualization of minors, whereas the other is... basically making doll-like clothing seem provocative and sexy on adults. The latter really isn't much different than men who like women in leather, or in sexy negligee. It's just a harmless fetish.



Ehhh... again, you need to see/play it in context. If anything, it serves as a sort of social commentary on mainstream Japan's "pretend it doesn't exist" mentality when it comes to homosexuality, showing how that affects the younger generation as they begin to become aware of their own sexuality.

-Tom
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I had zero interest in Corpse Party but now I'm half way tempted to get it just to see how this plays out and both characters react to it.
 
Much as I love Japan and japanese games (heck, my top three games of all time are Japanese), it's true (and I'm quite a bit tired of it) that fanservice seems to be ingrained into their game design. I personally dislike fanservice because it's cheap and immature, and I feel slightly insulted as the game's audience.

That said, not all suggestive or sexual content in a game is fanservice, and least of all any hint of the female form. Although it ultimately boils down to personal interpretation, the OP's Dark Souls example doesn't feel like fanservice to me, at all, in the context of the game (although I can understand the screenshot will seem otherwise to one that hasn't played it).

Shinta said:
I can't think of any Japanese games that have sex scenes, or even kissing.
How many western games had sex scenes this gen?
Click to expand...

The fact that there is almost never sex or even kissing in Japanese games is even more of a sign of immaturity in my opinion, as it remains an important part of adult characters that's always off limits and taboo. I was quite pleasantly surprised by Xenogear's romantic scene, for example, both because they dared to unambiguously imply the characters had sex, and because it was so tastefully done; for a 1998 game it was certainly unexpected.

However, showing as much nudity as possible without actually showing character relationships of this kind has become a staple for a very large percentage of anime, manga, and videogames, with very few exceptions to the rule. Indeed, in these cases nudity is used almost exclusively as fanservice.

But indeed, western games aren't without recurrent, questionable devices either. What percentage of AAA western games there are in which you don't kill scores of human beings?
 
wyrdwad said:
Both of those women are clearly adult in physique, though. There's a pretty distinct difference between lolicon and gothic lolita fashion. One is the sexualization of minors, whereas the other is... basically making doll-like clothing seem provocative and sexy on adults. The latter really isn't much different than men who like women in leather, or in sexy negligee. It's just a harmless fetish.
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Oh god, I can't believe I forgot about THIS!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRx8SgHxgyg

Its kind of a parody, but still..
 
Femmeworth said:
Faye Lee is definitely sexed up, now whether that's fanservice is debatable.
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I see fan service as a sexual moment that holds no purpose whatsoever to the characters or plot. I recall the scene that you are referring to. I would argue that is not fan service. That one scene I felt was needed to establish some later moments. And it wasn't "HERE ARE SOME SEXUAL TEASES!"
 
Dang0 said:
I guess I can see your point, though I still consider it on the fringe of lolita. I don't think its a coincedence that Shinobu is just over legal age, its basically putting in a young girl without creeping out western audiences. Even Travis lampshades this when Shinobu tries to seduce him, saying he'd feel like a creepy teacher if he accepted.
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Is everything a Japanese developer does that deviates from the stereotype that Japanese men are ephebophilic perverts done just to appease western audiences?

Americans are so fucking ethnocentric.
 
Kageshinzo said:
Xenogears for sex. Final Fantasy X for kissing. And in CG to boot.
Click to expand...

SMT and related have a lot of risqué stuff. Catherine had a number of sex scenes.
 
odd_morsel said:
Is everything a Japanese developer does that deviates from the stereotype that Japanese men are ephebophilic perverts done just to appease western audiences?

Americans are so fucking ethnocentric.
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Not at all, but the fact is that is that Shinobu is an 18 year old high school student. And while NMH doesnt overly sexualise Shinobu, NMH2 definately does. Heres the save screen from her sections in NMH2.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_HVMm_sBfk

I feel Grasshopper wanted NMH to appeal to western audiences. I feel that if she had been one or two years younger, it could have caused controversy or limited the games appeal, not just in the US but in other western countries too. I'm a New Zealander, by the way.

I also feel that making her a teen instead of an adult was a deliberate choice as well, mostly from a story perspective, since
they wanted to show Travis as more then a merciless killer and they needed a reason to get Travis to spare her without making Shinobu seem weak.
But, I also feel they wanted her to be a teen in the interest on sex appeal as well, especially since Sylvia already fulfilled the older woman angle.

Having said all that, I have no problem with Shinobu, either as a character or a sex symbol. I was merely pointing out that Suda isn't above going after people who like teenage girls.
 
 
I was merely pointing out that Suda isn't above going after people who like teenage girls.
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Er... sure. But she's 18, so she's totally legal. I don't really see any issue with that. Especially considering that the whole point of her character was to lampoon the very thing this topic is about. Fanservice is sexualization without purpose... but here, the purpose is very clear: it's satirizing the sexualization of moe. It's basically satirizing fanservice! She even says "What's moe?" in that clip! It couldn't really be a whole lot clearer as to its intent.

(Though ironically -- and perhaps purposefully so -- her character is NOT actually moe. Rather, her character represents the modern Japanese media's corruption of the moe ideal. But that's another topic altogether...)

-Tom
 
wyrdwad said:
Er... sure. But she's 18, so she's totally legal. I don't really see any issue with that. Especially considering that the whole point of her character was to lampoon the very thing this topic is about. Fanservice is sexualization without purpose... but here, the purpose is very clear: it's satirizing the sexualization of moe. It's basically satirizing fanservice! She even says "What's moe?" in that clip! It couldn't really be a whole lot clearer as to its intent.

(Though ironically -- and perhaps purposefully so -- her character is NOT actually moe. Rather, her character represents the modern Japanese media's corruption of the moe ideal. But that's another topic altogether...)

-Tom
Click to expand...

I don't know if i'd consider her to be a parody of moe, I think she fits more as a sexy badass teen character. That line was more likely her trying to figure out Travis the otaku.

Although that makes me wonder, could she count as a loli if shes more sexy then cute or moe? Did I just disprove my own arguement?

Oh well :p
 
I didn't find the lady in Dark Souls that sexual. The world of Dark Souls is so horrible and harsh, that when you come across that room it's almost a little too surreal. Unfamiliar comfort in a hateful world.
 
The current moe trend has definitely made some of the Japanese pop culture offputting. Lolita complex is nothing new, but the girls seem to be getting even younger, or feel younger. Even if the characters are supposed to be older teenagers, they look like little kids, especially since K-On popularized chubby cheeks and tiny baby hands and feet. Not only the characters look younger than they are supposed to be, they usually also behave and talk like they were ten years younger.
 
Raggie said:
The current moe trend has definitely made some of the Japanese pop culture offputting. Lolita complex is nothing new, but the girls seem to be getting even younger, or feel younger. Even if the characters are supposed to be older teenagers, they look like little kids, especially since K-On popularized chubby cheeks and tiny baby hands and feet. Not only the characters look younger than they are supposed to be, they usually also behave and talk like they were ten years younger.
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I dunno, I think they're starting to look older than ever, personally. I mean, have you seen what typical 80s anime looks like?

persia-anime.jpg


Compared to that, modern anime girls look like they're 40. ;)

(Consequently, I find it interesting that that's literally the first thing that came up when I image-searched "80s anime girl," since I've actually seen 4 episodes of the show she's from, "Magical Fairy Persia," and always assumed that show was SUPER-obscure. I guess... it's not? It's a pretty good show, though, if you like magical girl titles. It's about a girl who was raised by lions in Africa, then transplanted into modern-day Japan and given the power to transform into an older woman by a couple stray kappa. It's about as dumb and ridiculous as it sounds, but that also makes it quite entertaining to watch!)

-Tom
 
Romars202129 said:
I'm not sure what you're point is, but I think it's pretty obvious scantilly clad women aren't in those games just because a younger audience might be playing them.
And yeah, maybe scantilly clad women aren't in place because they'd be out of place in those games, but think about it, are they ever not out of place? Be honest, do you think there's something like the beauty and the beast squad anywhere in the real world, other than some S&M joint?
That's the point I'm making, they'll jam the stuff in anywhere. It is weird. Even if personally, I do like it, I can still see that.
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You do understand that when a Western dev wants to add a female character, most of the time it's going to be scantily clad too eh? Or at least pandering to a fetish.
 
Raggie said:
The current moe trend has definitely made some of the Japanese pop culture offputting. Lolita complex is nothing new, but the girls seem to be getting even younger, or feel younger. Even if the characters are supposed to be older teenagers, they look like little kids, especially since K-On popularized chubby cheeks and tiny baby hands and feet. Not only the characters look younger than they are supposed to be, they usually also behave and talk like they were ten years younger.
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K-On characters don't look or act any younger Kyo-ani characters looked back when they were doing Key adaptations. It's weird that you bring up K-On because if anything that was the start of Kyo-ani's recent trend to drop fan service and aim for a more mainstream audience.
 
wyrdwad said:
I dunno, I think they're starting to look OLDER, personally. I mean, have you seen what typical 80s anime looks like?

persia-anime.jpg


Compared to that, modern anime girls look like they're 40. ;)

-Tom
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Well, searching for that indicates she's 11, whereas we have something like Lucky Star with a main character that looks like she's 8 but is implied to be 18 from what I've heard. Though we also have Bleach where most of the teenage cast looks like they're in their early 20s relative to almost every other anime/JRPG out there. Going off the top of my head I think they skewed a bit older then, but it's not as if there's as extreme of a change as usually assumed, at best you can see it for sure within certain bodies of work (original Dirty Pair versus Dirty Pair Flash for instance).
wyrdwad said:
(Consequently, I find it interesting that that's literally the first thing that came up when I image-searched "80s anime girl," since I've actually seen 4 episodes of the show she's from, "Magical Fairy Persia," and always assumed that show was SUPER-obscure. I guess... it's not? It's a pretty good show, though, if you like magical girl titles. It's about a girl who was raised by lions in Africa, then transplanted into modern-day Japan and given the power to transform into an older woman by a couple stray kappa. It's about as dumb and ridiculous as it sounds, but that also makes it quite entertaining to watch!)
Click to expand...
I'm kind of amazed Lum wasn't the first result there... or one of the first results period: I saw Ataru before Lum actually, and that was after rows of pictures.
 
wyrdwad said:
I dunno, I think they're starting to look older than ever, personally. I mean, have you seen what typical 80s anime looks like?

persia-anime.jpg


Compared to that, modern anime girls look like they're 40. ;)

(Consequently, I find it interesting that that's literally the first thing that came up when I image-searched "80s anime girl," since I've actually seen 4 episodes of the show she's from, "Magical Fairy Persia," and always assumed that show was SUPER-obscure. I guess... it's not? It's a pretty good show, though, if you like magical girl titles. It's about a girl who was raised by lions in Africa, then transplanted into modern-day Japan and given the power to transform into an older woman by a couple stray kappa. It's about as dumb and ridiculous as it sounds, but that also makes it quite entertaining to watch!)

-Tom
Click to expand...

lol what? I so got to watch this.
 
Raggie said:
The current moe trend has definitely made some of the Japanese pop culture offputting. Lolita complex is nothing new, but the girls seem to be getting even younger, or feel younger. Even if the characters are supposed to be older teenagers, they look like little kids, especially since K-On popularized chubby cheeks and tiny baby hands and feet. Not only the characters look younger than they are supposed to be, they usually also behave and talk like they were ten years younger.
Click to expand...

K-On would be a lot less boring if it had any fanservice at all.
 
Esura said:
lol what? I so got to watch this.
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The best part is her punishment if anyone ever sees her transform. The two guys who are taking care of her BECOME WOMEN. ;)

Well, searching for that indicates she's 11, whereas we have something like Lucky Star with a main character that looks like she's 8 but is implied to be 18 from what I've heard.
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Wow. I was going to say "she's not 18!"... but I looked it up, and sure enough, she's ages 17-18 during the course of the manga and anime.

I'll grant you that she looks a lot younger, but to be fair, I've known people IRL who look like they're about 12 clean into their 20s. And in Japan, that seems to be even more common -- I can't tell you how many times I overshot by a good 10 years when trying to guess someone's age over there. ;)

-Tom
 
Romars202129 said:
If people would stop being defensive, I think the op does have a point. While it's true plenty of Western games are very fanservicey.
But, think COD, Battlefield, Valve games, some of the biggest series are without.
But, with Japanese, no series is completely above it. Unless it's aimed at children, and sometimes even then, there's fan service.
And not just any fanservice, but animish fanservice more often than not. Which is weird.
Think about it, true, the western world invented Furry dom, which is a much weirder thing but, nobody is really pandering to those freaks here. Where as anime freaks' needs are front and center in Japanland.
It's weird, it shows a weakness in their 'art' on the most basic level. Which is a shame, because their art is so strong otherwise.
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I think it's the underage moe that weirds some people out, not just the sexualized nature of costumes or whatever. Yeah, ME3 & Halo has some pretty blatant fanservice, but they all looked like women. Much of Japan fanservice is uncomfortable.

art-002_zps25a5a56a.jpg
 
wyrdwad said:
The best part is her punishment if anyone ever sees her transform. The two guys who are taking care of her BECOME WOMEN. ;)
Click to expand...

Holy cow, you sir has now sold me on some retro stuff. :P

Untalkative_Bunny said:
I think it's the underage moe that weirds some people out, not just the sexualized nature of costumes or whatever. Yeah, ME3 & Halo has some pretty blatant fanservice, but they all looked like women. Much of Japan fanservice is uncomfortable.

art-002_zps25a5a56a.jpg
Click to expand...

Uni is so adorable!
 
I think it's the underage moe that weirds some people out, not just the sexualized nature of costumes or whatever. Yeah, ME3 & Halo has some pretty blatant fanservice, but they all looked like women. Much of Japan fanservice is uncomfortable.
Click to expand...

See, I'm not convinced that image is a particularly good example, actually. To be rather blunt... how old would you say she'd look if you were to give her boobs? I'd say if she had boobs, she'd look at least 18, if not in her 20s -- especially given the youthful facial features and small statures commonly found in modern Japanese women.

So essentially, her design isn't particularly young-looking, it's just the flat chest that makes people assume she's young. But... erm... flat chests aren't exactly that uncommon in Japan either, to be blunt once more. ;)

Maybe I've just been conditioned by years upon years of watching anime and playing Japanese games, but if I were asked to guess an age for that character, I absolutely would not go anywhere below 18. She doesn't look very young, and I really think it's the flat chest, and ONLY the flat chest, that makes people assume otherwise.

But ironically, depicting a character with a flat chest may actually be more realistic and less sexist than depicting a character with a huge chest in order to guarantee she looks to be "of age."

-Tom
 
johnsmith said:
jVBAGdvLJPNUX.jpg
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Hot damn just look at dat washboard chest.

In all seriousness, I can at least more or less tolerate normal fanservice whenever it rears its ugly head. The creepy Moe stuff though I can't deal with. I don't understand why and how sexualized Moe became such a big trend. Not trying to insult anyone, but I would have thought their target audience would have just felt patronized instead since they're just being blatantly pandered to.
 
wyrdwad said:
See, I'm not convinced that image is a particularly good example, actually. To be rather blunt... how old would you say she'd look if you were to give her boobs? I'd say if she had boobs, she'd look at least 18, if not in her 20s -- especially given the youthful facial features and small statures commonly found in modern Japanese women.

So essentially, her design isn't particularly young-looking, it's just the flat chest that makes people assume she's young. But... erm... flat chests aren't exactly that uncommon in Japan either, to be blunt once more. ;)

Maybe I've just been conditioned by years upon years of watching anime and playing Japanese games, but if I were asked to guess an age for that character, I absolutely would not go anywhere below 18. She doesn't look very young, and I really think it's the flat chest, and ONLY the flat chest, that makes people assume otherwise.

But ironically, depicting a character with a flat chest may actually be more realistic and less sexist than depicting a character with a huge chest in order to guarantee she looks to be "of age."

-Tom
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Fair enough, maybe it's just cultural bias on my part. I haven't played Hyperdimension Neptunia mk1 or 2, so I really don't know what the character is supposed to be.

edit: after reading the wiki page, she based on the Playstation Portable. She is a goddess, and in the mythology the breast size relates to power (?) not age or ethnicity.

Hyperdimension Neptunia is a game series developed by Idea Factory and distributed by Sega, Idea Factory, and Tecmo Koei. This series is currently an exclusive for the PS3. The events are based on the seventh gen console wars between Nintendo's Wii, Sony's Playstation 3, and Microsoft's Xbox 360 as well as the never-released Sega Neptune. Each console is represented by a Goddess whom rules over their individual realms of Lowee, Lastation, Leanbox, and Planeptune.
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I think I'm going to have to play this game.
 
All Sonic games (Maybe Sonic 2006 doesn't count because furry-fans might be happy about the
Sonic-Princess-romance
), all Monkey Ball games with the exception of the japanese version of Banana Splitz, all Mario games (including Kart, Party, Sports), all Zelda, Yoshi, Wario (inclduing the Ware games), Luigi, games, F-Zero, F-Zero X, all three GBA F-Zeros (not GX though: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b30Jp9R5qXg ), all the Wii... games, Crazy Taxi 1 & 2, all the Star Fox games (some might fantasize about Krystal, but.. I don't think she looks all sexed up or anything ;)), all Japanese-made Donkey Kong games, the Klonoa games, all the Pokémon games, Okami and Okamiden, Viewtiful Joe series, NiGHTS into Dreams (the second one, too, but that's mainly Sonic Team USA), Ivy the Kiwi, PES, I'm sure I could still go on, but you get the point: A whole lot of games.
 
wyrdwad said:
I dunno, I think they're starting to look older than ever, personally. I mean, have you seen what typical 80s anime looks like?

persia-anime.jpg


Compared to that, modern anime girls look like they're 40. ;)
Click to expand...

Admittedly I haven't seen this anime, but I'm guessing it's aimed towards young girls and not otaku.

That's just the thing. In the 80's you could have shojo manga/anime characters that hadn't been fetishied for otaku. Nowadays it's hard to find a series starring girls that don't have the compulsory and formulaic episodes for the kimono/maid outfit/towel at hot springs/whatever the current fetish is with the otaku.
 
Admittedly I haven't seen this anime, but I'm guessing it's aimed towards young girls and not otaku.
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No... no, it was aimed at both. I distinctly recall a disproportionate number of unnecessary panty shots -- something that was actually pretty common with all shoujo titles in the 80s and 90s (even Miyazaki titles), and has only recently begun happening LESS often as producers opt for the far less creepy swimsuit or towel-in-a-hot-spring trope (which may still be included for the sake of appeasing the fetishes of older fans, but is nonetheless far easier to justify as innocent than the constant upskirt shots of yesteryear).

-Tom
 
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