• ssjmarx [he/him]
    ·
    1 year ago

    Steph makes some good points, but the criticism of Japanese games at that time or the use of the JRPG as a moniker for "anime trash" didn't come from nowhere. A lot of Japanese games have gotten imported that really are just anime trash - I'm looking at games like Xenoblade Chronicles, where you've got baby brain plots, ridiculous weaboo bait character designs, and game content that feels like it's 90% filler. The most these kinds of games innovate is by making all of the RPG mechanics complex in a way that adds tedium but doesn't actually create strategic depth.

    I would agree that it's incredibly reductive to lump all Japanese-produced games into that box, and if the actual Japanese developers don't like it then we absolutely should stop using the term, but it doesn't help anyone to pretend that the sentiment didn't arise from a lot of Japanese shovelware being made with high production values and dominating the conversation.

    • berrytopylus [she/her,they/them]
      ·
      1 year ago

      Xenoblade Chronicles,

      I'd say that about XC2, but I don't think XC1 and 3 were that bad at all (well besides the alt costumes and DLC and stuff). Sharla 100% but Melia and Seven seem pretty fine to me for XC1 and XC3 characters weren't sexualized at all with their outfits, especially considering all of them are unisex and worn by both the male and female characters.

    • let_me_tank_her [he/him]
      ·
      1 year ago

      hey Xenoblade 3 is good take that back. :angery:

      It has 85% less anime trash than Xenoblade 2.

    • thoro [none/use name]
      ·
      1 year ago

      I need weebs to stop pretending Japanese culture = anime, and thus a distaste of anime tropes is some type of cultural insensitivity.

      It's like thinking Western culture is superhero comics and not just a pulp genre targeted at adolescents.

      • nohaybanda [he/him]
        ·
        1 year ago

        It’s like thinking Western culture is superhero comics

        :I-was-saying:

    • HumanBehaviorByBjork [any, undecided]
      ·
      1 year ago

      what does "weeaboo bait" even mean here? i feel like it's a fallacy to imagine that the target audience for "anime trash" is the anglophone international audience. sure maybe it's genre, it's low culture, but i think the more salient point is it's a different low culture from what we get domestically which results in a lot of undue denigration and exaltation.

      and frankly i'm not convinced a game must innovate in its mechanics to be artistically valuable. at its worst, this vision of innovation just results in gimmicks that provide the player with a novel experience at the expense of creating any particular meaning or more complex emotional response.