Xenoblade Chronicles 2 and Sexualisation: A Case Study 

Yo have you seen Appabend's video responding to this video

lmao yes like 3 years ago, not sure he fully got what i was trying to say

This is an extremely high quality video. It takes a lot for me to watch a video this long, and I watched this whole thing with interest. You made great points and stayed as objective as you possible could have. Just wanted to tell you that.

@@gabrielkrows488 >Appabend >Good quality Pick one.

I don't really know anything about xenoblade, but I did find this to be a really compelling watch, and I had a thing or two to say in support of some of your points, particularly in regards to what qualifies as a sexualized character design, how female characters are subjected to this in ways that male characters aren't, and how that can actually have significant far-reaching effects on how the characters are perceived based on gender. first of all, I think a main area where a design can show whether it is sexualized or not, is in how heavily it implies something tactile about the character's body. a lot of the women in this game have designs that invite not just the male gaze, but sexual fantasy. literally, this type of fantasizing is how these character designs were made... and I don't want to get "gatcha'd" about how a woman actually designed some character or another, that doesn't matter. the point is this: how readily and vividly does the design of a character let you imagine what they would look like naked, or what it would feel like to touch them. it's a bit of a subjective question, and one that a lot of people who "benefit" from these types of character designs don't want to admit is a factor, but to me... that's what makes a design sexualized. and women get hit with this a lot... it's why a lot of these outfits have parts just fully missing so you can see a lot of skin, or weird little cutouts and windows to show you breasts, and hips, and thighs. it's why boob jiggle and soft body physics are on display in full force for a lot of the women's designs, while they might not be relevant at all for the men. and it's why even some outfits that technically give a woman full clothing coverage can still be read as sexualized, if the fabric clearly clings in all the places it needs to, in order to reveal her form. and credit where credit is due, rendering all this is pretty impressive from a technical standpoint... I don't want to sound like I'm devaluing the work it takes to bring this kind of vision to life. that being said... in theory, all of these are value-neutral design techniques that could just as easily be applied to male bodies. and I think it's worth it, as sort of like, a thought experiment? to imagine what true, actual male sexualization and objectification would look like. it's the quickest proof I can think of to make the point that male sexualization doesn't actually exist in the game as it is currently presented. so... let's talk about that. first of all, the primary body type of men in jrpgs exists in a state of like... neutral attractiveness. their body types are definitely still idealized, like, a lot of men could consider this body type to be an unattainable standard of attractiveness, if we're treating it as a standard... but it's a body type that can be presented with true neutrality, without question. think Link at the very beginning of Breath of the Wild, when he's just running around in his underwear. he's... generic. and there really isn't a "mundane, generic base form" for women that can be viewed with that much neutrality. and I think this is especially true given the way that an averagely proportioned man is rendered, vs. an averagely proportioned woman. a lot of men are rendered with hard body physics as a standard... their muscles don't really have any flexibility to them, it feels like they're very rigid, even though that extent of rigidity isn't even reflective of real life in most cases. if there's anything soft about them in any of the areas that one might usually look to when trying to emphasize the sexual attractiveness of a character, that's not something that's usually exposed, focused on with shot composition, or emphasized with the rendering. if a man were treated with the same design sensibilities as the sexualized female designs in the game, you might expect him to wear an outfit that reveals his body in some way or another... whether he's minimally clothed, or has an outfit with a lot of strategic cutouts around the chest, hips, abs, butt, and thighs... or maybe the outfit is skin tight, or clings to his figure in ways that leave little to the imagination. you could also expect his body to be rendered in a more softened shading style, or with more softened forms, and for him to be more lithely toned in general. like the difference between a muscular man who would be on the cover of a men's health magazine, vs. a guy who might model underwear, or feature in "adult entertainment" which is literally made for the sole purpose of being sexually gratifying. there are male characters in the game that have a pretty face, and could be considered attractive... but they aren't styled in a sexualized manner with the rest of their design. and if what I'm describing sounds very over the top, or awkwardly lewd, just remember that the sexualization of women is just like that all the time. if one is uncomfortable while the other is normal to you, that's literally normalization. and I've kind of been dancing around this point a little bit, but this all ties back into like... the sex/violence dichotomy that so often defines how masculinity and femininity exist as stereotypes. within this dichotomy, women's presence in media is often leveraged for the sex half of the equation... and this is part of what proves the presence of the male gaze, because the sexualization of men is much less of a market trend, even though one would assume the level of interest in sexualizing men vs. women would be split about 50/50. if the kind of sexualized design choices I outlined above feels atypical to see applied to men, then it's safe to say that this isn't evenly distributed. meanwhile men tend to make up the "violence" half of the equation, though sometimes "violence" is worded more as "power fantasy" or simply "action/adventure genre protagonist" because all fulfill the same function for what I'm getting at. basically... this is also male gaze. and intuitively, it makes sense. the most indulgent thing that media for men can do, is give them an idealized protagonist to project onto, who does stuff that he wants to do. and if you're assuming your audience is men who are attracted to women, then putting sexualized women in the story is really an accessory to that goal. but given that this is the framework... what place would a sexualized man have in a story like this? ostensibly he could exist neutrally to the target audience, perhaps as a comic relief character or something. but more often than not, that kind of character would be uncomfortable for a heterosexual male audience to see. because like... when a character is portrayed as being sexually inviting or available, that kind of runs counter to the idea of a power fantasy. being sexualized is viewed as a type of vulnerability, and to men who see that in a character that they have their gender in common with, it feels demeaning, or threatening... like a form of degradation. so, what might this then say about the female characters who literally cannot escape sexualization in their designs? like yeah, she may be technically powerful, and capable of doing destructive things, but at the end of the day she's still something to leer at. whatever power she may have been given is constantly undercut by the fact that she's pulling double duty as the subject of the male audience's sexual fantasy. ideally, there should be nothing inherently demeaning about sex, but the way it is implemented in cases like these is weird, because it runs counter to the character's intentions for themselves. if a female character is trying to be powerful and imposing, but the male audience of the media she's in still has to find her attractive, then sacrifices are being made when it comes to her ability to appear threatening. her perception as being sexually inviting with her design, by passively leaving the male audience with a lot to look at, undercuts her ability to feel threatening in that power fantasy kind of way. and it literally can break a female character's characterization if she's constantly upset or surprised by men in the story expressing sexual attraction to her, when she is dressed in an almost comically provocative outfit. or if she's walking around in said outfit and doesn't seem to have any particular reasoning for it or feelings about it at all.

Lol

Shaman Xeed what....?

@@DefinitelyNotFort im guessing there was a deleted comment

@Shaman X What are you talking about?

@@jeremyrandolph8337 pretty sure there was a deleted comment

I couldn't agree more. I've had a lot of difficulty learning to love this series because of the these issues but the way you handled discussing them was such a wonderful breath of fresh air. Thank you for being so mature and empathetic.

@Shaman Xeed shut up lol this comment was made years ago

@Shin Shaman Why are you so offended lol

@Shin Shaman cringe

Nice

@mrcristofer 2013 like for real, the game's actually good It's not some dumb fanservice here and there that's gonna make it bad

Could you elaborate on this thought? What would you call a correct representation of both genders? Also, could you explain your reasoning behind how sexualizing both genders equally would lessen the problem?

Nah, this was made for weebs, why would they alienate their target audience?

@@jamesbarker438 if it’s going to be fan service, it would be preferable if both genders had characters that are sexualized, though this should be balanced by more non sexualized characters. A few sexualized characters wouldn’t be problematic, but an entire game full of them would be.

@@cartoonkenj2209 Okay. That makes sense to me, and yeah, I would agree. It's not the sexualization if characters I have a problem with personally, it's the sheer amount of sexualization - usually of women - that I feel is problematic.

Exactly. The underlying argument against this sort of trope bs is usually aimed at the inequality of how much it happens but a certain demographic feels entitled to abundance of fan-service to arguably more important qualities in media, like writing.

Yeah framing is vital, since it can establish mood in regards to character. It can be used to make someone look heroic and also to villify then, As well of both showing dominance or being eye gazing.

Yes. It's pretty clear when looking at games which ones are more sexist and which aren't. Take Xenoblade 2 and Code Vein, two games I think sexualize women, and compare them to Xenoblade 1 and Ys 8, which aren't bad. There are still skimpy females in Xenoblade 1 and Ys 8, BUT there are also males who are skimpy / have skimpy armor and the females don't all have massively unrealistic breasts (various body types!) plus the camera doesn't zoom in on their boobs. Big difference. (Not saying there isn't any in Ys 8 / XBC1, but it's a lot less common) Tomb Raider 1996 and Tomb Raider 2018 are also clearly different in terms of sexualization. 1996 makes Lara Croft out to be some big boobed sex object that lonely straight guys can jerk off to, while 2018 Lara Croft is an attractive but powerful and interesting female protagonist. Yes she's still hot, but so are the male counterparts to her (Nathan Drake, for instance). Anyone saying XBC2 isn't sexualized is either in denial or possibly sexist. The devs were catering to a specific type of lonely, horny young male audience who would buy the game because of that, which shows that sexism is still prevalent in certain demographics. I'm noticing JRPGs are starting to become more sexualized while Western games (from pretty much any western country) are going the opposite direction.

Wft32540 it really bogged down xb2 for me

@@Wft-bu5zc As a guy who watched lots of Animes and across all genres and had played both games. Xb1 and Xb2.. Seeing it as "Game Devs are really doing fan service and catering to thirsty man that want big boobies" are the worst thing to look. This game never flaunt the big boobies. There's a couple of scene when they jokingly tease the girls but it's part of the presentation of the scene and no malicious intent there.. Nor they intentionally or suggestively make you think they want you to look at them errotically.. It's just the general design of the artists and such. If you're new to anime you'll find the boobs quite weird but if you're immersed in the culture then it's nothing to be sweat about.. I've been thru games that really flaunt their boobies and assets and this game is far from it. Maybe with the rise of graphics and 3d modelling becoming more and more realistic and immersive that people get so carried away by such things as Boobies and clothing designs in a Fantasy Game.. Where there are alot of games out there that delibirately asks for criticism.

Wft32540 The games are made for people that enjoy anime... 99% of JRPGs are for people that enjoy anime. If you never watched an anime and played XC2 I can understand the shock. While if you have watched anime it’s nothing new, really.

this is the funniest comment i have ever received hahaha it is uncanny

i spent a good 4 minutes laughing at this comment lmaoo

Ableists

There is nothing remotely attractive about that thing. The fact someone can get called an SJW for pointing out bad character design is mind boggling. She looks freakish, the very opposite of attractive. Personally i have no problem with attractiveness in games, but there is such a thing as going overboard.

Less tongue more frost And 100% more booba

True

Like with Wonder Woman, showing skin but still powerful and not sexualized

Bayonetta is a great example

@@kiriikitten8467 not 100% agreed on that. I love Bayo's design, and think it suits her. Having said that however, the constant shots of her crotch do seem to only exist for male gaze reasons.

@@kiriikitten8467 Bayonetta is the best example along with Lara Croft!

Good video tho

The architect is a true man of culture

The Symbol of Peace no

When Klaus and Zanza split into two, Klaus clearly kept about 80% of their knowledge on anime.

Shulk seeing hentai, are you jocking me, he was allways fighting with monado, i doubt he had time for that

He’s a walking JoJo reference what do you expect

I'm not gay but I'd go gay for Zeke

@@Alex-fj1ss he is a JoJo character, his Stand is Pandoria

XC1: Ryen, Dunban, Shulk all hella hot. XB2: Zeke, the aussie who dies in act 1, and the lil kid main character. yea no

@@amburprice8479 what about gorg? He's a water blade and he's pretty much fanservice for the ladies

Well it is harder. The problem there is that that doesn't mean it's impossible...

I can confirm that....somewhere I KNOW (don't ask how or why) it exists a doujin of the kid bird blade.

Rule34 definitely suggests it is not difficult at all.

To be fair, “harder to sexualize” does not mean hard to sexualize. It could just mean that a female blade is obviously sexy but an animalistic takes trivial but non-zero work to become sexy.

@@lucavalente6620not Finch! 😔

"It's okay, mom, that's actually a squid wearing hotpants"

something bad would happen

Just don’t play xenoblade when she is home lol

Imagine being this insecure over a video game. lmao

I bet you're so secure you watch porn out in public with the volume up.

Over 30? In popular games? We all know the true video game waifu: Impa

Heeeeeck yeah! Old granny da best!

@@HappyRogue1202 you joke but Skyward Sword Impa had a fantastic design and was legitimately a great character!

@@yoso378 Did it come off as a joke? Because it wasnt meant to. deadass

I felt the most uncompfortable when Poppi was telling Pyra relative early on in the game how to please her master by being submissive and insecure. The looks of the characters I can accept as some kind of funny cultural thing (only exception being Dhalia who looks like an abomination tbh) - similar to the mostly relatively flat characters: in most conversations that you have in order to get a new sidequest, your party members nearly always use the same sentences. Tora accepts the quests and cheers himself, Rex needs to know more before being able to decide if he will take the mission (which he of course always does), Poppi is being sarcastic about Tora, etc.. But this way in which one women "teaches" another to purposefully play helpless in order to be attractive is not only a cringefest and the most sexist thing I have seen in a game for a long time, but also destroying some of the cute moments that happen for you as a spectator. Cuteness that is on purpose looses its charm imho.

Lol I thought so too 🤣 just funny

The one eyed monster

I mean its Zeke who wouldn't want him XD

"Touching a man's turtle"

@@aidendavid2680 That was actually a joke in the Japanese version and was trasnlated over extremley well. Both jokes at the time were talking about turtles and eye patches and somehow in both languages both also refered to a penis. Really good on the translation team for that one.

holy shit i just saw that

T H A N O S

I don't see an exposed back as really being sexual, personally. Doesn't excuse that they put her in futuristic lingerie when she's supposed to be a living weapon though.

It's like when DC tried to give a reason for Power Girl's massive boob window and what they came up with was that she wanted to put a symbol there like Superman but couldn't think of anything.

She's like the Silence! The authors wanted to make her design titillating and also maybe do something symbolic too, as an afterthought.

Well, Pyra is also one of the first people you meet, and if you take out literal parts of her body at the beginning, it's shocking, especially since you're still getting immersed into the world as a player. Also a naked back, male or female, generally symbolizes vulnerability. A lot of stories will include literal symbolism, including the saying "turning your back to me" or showing a back full of scars. In Pyra's case, its a lack of completeness, and yes, maybe it is sexual still, but generally when you think sexy, people don't immediately think, ooo bare backs . But like others have said, that doesn't excuse her booty shorts or her massive badonkers which the camera constantly pans to.

@@roosterboots4684 also Kojima's "She breathes through her skin"

Morag is best girl

Note; Morag herself hates being compared to men she actively gets upset when it happens

@Shin Shaman the Guy isnt crying dude, what are you on?

Different people have different preferences; liking more modest characters doesn’t make you better.

I just wish people would actually understand women who enjoy masculine clothing exist and that doesn't necessarily mean they're unhappy for it. I'd personally be a lot unhappier if I were forced to dress femininely for one.

You didn't "think" it "was" a very well made video essay. It IS a very well made video essay and while I loved the game two years ago, I couldn't help but notice all the little details he mentioned throughout the video

I doubt half of the dislikes watched the whole video

It is well thought out and well written, but I guess the main part about it not being as liked overall is because of the core audience of the game, and the core audience planned for the game was without a doubt, straight males.For example, you could tell me all about your inclusion of feminine realism etc. but i'll still opt for hot anime babes. Yes, it is pretty selfish as the GAMER GIRL consumer base is on the rise (though not enough for the companies behind big g4m3s to see their fantasy/realism be ideally represented). As the core audience people sees this is a redundant (they don't care about the fem market lulz), they'll disregard the well-backed arguments made here and dislike the vid. It's not a question of being right or wrong really.

And then again there's this "trade-off" I guess where to make the GAMER GIRL audience grow, you'll need to have more inclusion toward that sweet sweet rounded audience. So yea more girls doing the gaming ---> more inclusion--> more gurls doing the the epic gaming ritual. (Maybe toning off the archaic values (thought partially ingrained by our biology) like "sexy woman = the goal of man" could help too?? idk maybe people are more ok with sexy woman existing in general)

@dd nava and @man this is one of my favorite video essays on RU-vid tbh. I’ve watched through it a couple times and he really has some great points sprinkled throughout in a well-organized manner. If anything, I’d attribute the sexualization of the female characters in XC2 to Japan’s different culture (but, as he details, that’s not all of it). They’re more sensitive to violence in media while we in the west are more sensitive to sex in media. Not to say that we (and them) don’t have those at all, just that we see them in different lights. This video lends itself to both sides of the argument (“Gamers” vs “SJW’s”, if you will) and is both reasonable and meaningful. It deserves more attention imo. Hope he makes more content like this in the future.

Same. Poor Smash kid players...they'll grow up so fast.

lol good A healthy reminder, amidst the usual wave of *“new BEST CHARACTER in Ultimate CONFIRMED???”* videos, that the game these newcomers are from is a muddled mess. Anyone considering buying Xenoblade 2 should just pick up the Xenoblade 1: Definitive Edition re-release and play that instead. It’s got all of what Xenoblade 2 has going for it and then some, as far as story or music go. But with the benefit of looking better, forgoing the isekai-inspired weeb pandering for more natural, artistic character designs, reminiscent of classic JRPGs. Damn shame this game was Xenoblade 2 and Xenoblade X wasn’t. A numbered sequel, yet it doesn’t stand anywhere near the two games that came before in terms of polish and quality, imo. X is the real Xenoblade 2, hand to god. Now if only it’d get the re-release it deserves; as of now it’s trapped on the Wii U exclusively...

@@zeromythosver. Just beat xbde. Hope xbc2 isnt underwhelming like you said...

@@noahpokeemon6503 xbc2 is fun too dont worry just skip the cutscenes :)

@@PurpYoshii but then how do you even know what happens in the story?

I agree with this lol🤣

me, a lesbian: guess I'm a Man now

Seems legit

Laughs in _homosexual™_

Completely sexist too lol. Dude's basically saying women are lesser for their opinion on the sexualization. My god the majority of men on that thread need to talk to real women if they feel such a strong need to defend their anime booba

@Shin Shaman get a hobby

Seriously i was thinking of clicking off halfway through but it somehow keeps ringing me in XD

@Shin Shaman usually I wouldn't use "virgin" as an insult but man you give off turbo virgin energy

@@neksnek2032 some people like being called that, so let's go with sad loner

He is always dreaming of the Poppi-sized tasty sausages

oh god i was in a stream watching one of my most liked twitch streamers play this game, we all had a good laugh first time hearing tora say that :P

Nah man, it's in Rex, the camera zooms in onto his crotch occasionally when he executes Mythra's level 4 special.

Rex is basically the "Straight Shota" in Xenoblade Chronicles 2 for people who like Shotacon. Which is (arguably) fairly creepy.

"whoops gotta switch my maid robot out of dog walking mode"

There's an interesting conversation to be had about how androgyny is viewed in a Male Centric Ecosystem, especially in the context of the Japanese Gender Ecosystem. Her being one of very few prominent female characters to not present with two massive watermelons hanging onto whats left of their shirts suggests something the developers feel about the roles of women and how they "Should" present by using her lack of Skin as a joke about what these characters expect of women. All of this while simultaneously showering male players with images of exactly what they want to see. While it could have been a Lot Worse, it's still a little jarring to me.

doesn't the game call her masculine, or something along those lines?

@@Kernando yo hum…. did you skip the part of the video where there's footage of Tora mistaking her for a man? If the game pokes fun at how masculine her design is then there is no doubt she was intentionally masculinized. The way Newt is design should also show how little this game cares about military standardization. Interesting counter but i think the point in the vid stands 1000%.

@@gravitymonkey9300 I've never played the game. But let me ask you this: If I were to show a picture of an ant, would you be able to tell if it's male or female? It is surmised that all worker ants we see in plain sight are female, so it is safe to assume that the ant in the picture is female. This is no different as to how Tora assumed that Morag was a male, which most soldiers are(?), because Tora is not human; he wouldn't be able to distinguish the gender of Morag at first glance like how you can't be certain that the shown ant is female or male, unless it's explicitly said that the ant shown is a worker ant or otherwise. Then again, I've never played the game, so there may be other underlying indications contradicting what I just said. I am just commenting based on the context given in the video.

@@azorailke6057 I'll start by saying that I'm in the same boat! I haven't played the game and am only working with the context of the video. The thing about soldier generalisation is fair! I have some problems with it tho. 1- Even if there's an explanation for Tora making assumption, it's still an example of the game poking fun at the fact that Morag looks like a man. This shows that there is an intention to make her at the very least androgynous and not "properly female" 2- The design doesn't exist in a vacuum. Even an androgynous design looks "manly" compared to the vast feminine/sexualized female cast. My example was Newt, who is ALSO a soldier. However, I don't think Tora would ever mistake her for a man. There is a clear dichotomy between the two of them, between a character treated as female and another one as male.

Her original Japanese voice is specifically intended to sound androgynous. She's written and designed to be masculine.

@NefalezI agree, I always thought Morag was just supposed to be at most pretty androgynous, I never thought her uniform was anything more than that - just a uniform. It also helps that I have a high opinion of her because she's my favourite character but whatever. That being said, I don't really understand the heart to heart between Pandy and Morag because I feel it's pretty much implied that she loves Brighid and vice versa

Thank you for your part on Mòrag, it’s basically exactly what I wanted to comment but you’ve done it for me. Although I do disagree that Nia sexualized, I’m glad someone else seemed to have the same views as me on his portion about Mòrag.

For me Morag's design have the reason behind it. If you look through her back story, you will see that when she was young, she was formed to be "empress" of the empire that had never have female leader since forever. But since her brother was born, she was no longer in the succession line but with all of the military training she had, she became the special inquisitor so that's why she always act "masculine". I think she just want to do "girly thing" but just don't know how because if you look to the Heart-to-Heart with Pandoria, you will see that Morag also take good care of her hands/skin and she took example from Brigid, the most feminine individual closest to her.

Then you unlock her swimsuit outfit 😜

Fr, I dont even mind a little bit like Sharla is a sexualized character but she still just looks like a pretty realistic woman and fits in with everything. In xbc2 it was just so excessive and unrealistic that it got really annoying to me. After the unique but realistic xeno 1 designs, seeing the more generic oversexualized designs of xbc2 was really disappointing. Even ignoring the femenist critiques of oversexualized characters, it certainly made the game less immersive and interesting to me.

I have the same problem with Bayonetta, I personally don't mind it but it does get amoying when you're just trying to play and they are showing a close up of the prot ass every 5 minutes.

@@seorwhite3333 I get where you are coming from but at the same time its part of her character and personality to act like that you know? She intends to look sexy and has a lot of dirty talk in his games, which gives her somewhat of a pass for me

@@carlosoramasramos8911 I honestly think it's hilarious too.

I’ll give xc3 a chance but if they follow the designs of xc2 I’m out idc how good the story is

I think it comes down to quite a simple but crucial difference - which is that in Bayonetta the sexualisation is the point. It's supposed to be ridiculous and over the top and it's clearly self-aware about it. In Xenoblade 2 it's just kind of tacked-on, with it not serving any point towards the game's main goals (whereas in Bayo - it IS one of the main goals).

Bayonetta feels in control of her sexuality and sexualization. She doesn't pander to the men in the story either. If anything, she will humiliate people with her sexuality before she objectifies herself.

This is so obvious but many people overlook it, why doesn't Pyra use clothes? What about her personality shows that she should dress like that? Mai Shiranui is a character I like a lot, her clothing makes sense, she's a ninja and uses her body to distract her opponent, wich makes sense, but does Pyra do that? No, she's calm, closed, mother-like sometimes, caring, why does she show all her body all the time then?

I think one of the worst instances of pandering in Bayonetta is when Jeanne's soul gets dragged into hell. Portraying the scene like that really wasn't necessary, because usually the games do a good job with keeping the sex appeal out of serious scenes.

@@herebejamz This. Her sex appeal funnily enough is usually used towards the enemies, "Do you want to touch me?", and to tease Luka. lol She doesn't use it towards Rodin or Enzo I think was his name.

Honestly for me as a female the guy being fit as hell is actually a huge fantasy aspect and a wet dream since usually irl dudes be sporting that dad bod so you can't really stop and enjoy the view at all. And rip if his face is unenjoyable as well XD

Same because I have a sexy buff vampire man who wear's thigh high boots and the tightest ass you'll ever see. But now I know I need to have some ass shots tity shots when he's swinging his weapon.

You should really check out NU carnival

what is literally every fight scene in the game?

@@KrillWhisperer You can literally see that with any fighting anime and/or martial arts movie that isn't also comedy, though. Shirtless fit guys (with or without the clinging pants/tight jeans) are literally everywhere the second you seek it out. _Slutty_ men are a much harder find, the best example of that one is Dante from Devil May Cry, who was written specifically as erotic (and seeing how lovingly they animated his mouth and tongue in DMC3's intro when he looks like he's about to do something absolutely filthy to his slice of pizza I'd say: I would appreciate more of THAT and less boring fit guys being merely fit. Like damn, from a pan dude, raise your standards, demand the wet dream buffet material you deserve, don't settle for bare minimum martial arts eye candy aisles. (but no seriously, go look up the intro cutscene to Devil May Cry 3, and tell me that wasn't weirdly detailed for a PS2 game and weirdly sexual for a way to eat pizza. It even has bonus chiseled buff man fresh out of the shower in only leather pants, if you needed to be made more curious.)

what a lovely comment! thank you so much, i really appreciate that and i'm so glad that what i said resonated and rang true for you :)

this!! i’m a female gamer as well, it’s really nice to see these videos because a lot of men fail to understand what it’s like to be a woman and constantly seeing sexualization in female characters

If you are affected by sexualization in video games than the problem is yours not them, stop blaming others for your lack of selfstem, because that depends solely on you

What about the sexualization of men in video games? How about a 6 ft muscle bound beefcake of a man. I’m the complete opposite of those characters, and would wish to look like that. But no, I’m 5 ft 7 in man who only weighs 180 lbs. So how do I feel about seeing these men? Honestly I feel nothing wrong, but actually feel like a heroic badass who is there to fight some monster. And what about media in general? What about the sexiest man alive stuff that Hollywood and newspapers shove down men’s throats? Well as a male in a mostly male family, has mostly male friends, and even doing some reflecting on the matter. We don’t care. It’s that simple. We watch it go by, and if it’s in our face, we’re proud to know that us men can look like that. So should I feel upset when I see a man who is considered sexy or handsome? No, because we did this to ourselves and only us can be the blame for what we hate the most. I know not all people are alike, and some people are also a bit more sensitive to something like this, but we need to think about how us, as an individual can change what happens. For example I haven’t had a girlfriend since elementary, I’m in high school. Do I as a person blame others out of self pity? Or do I fix the problem by eating more protein, and working out? So know I ask, how do you as a human being talking to another human feel about how sexualized both genders are? Should we end it, or keep it. Because for me if I lost the muscle bound characters that are in games, and saw a character that looks like me. I wouldn’t play because of how depressing it is to know that they think what I look like is what others should strive for. Ps. Don’t get me started on how movies, tv shows, and games try to make men look like complete morons and sex driven maniacs.

@@ThatDude000 Don't want to simply say Whataboutism, but woman here, and I *don't* find beefy characters attractive and neither do most women. The way most of them are drawn isn't to appeal to women or the female gaze, but to provide escapist fantasies for the guys playing them. Which is what you just described when you say "playing a heroic badass". Women just love to do that, too. Without having to be reminded that your breasts are your most important feature every other minute. On terms of sexualization, if anything, then Rhex' butt in his diver outfit could lean towards sexy, but he's a kid so... Just look at the characters girls fawn about, especially in JRPGs or Manga/Anime. Like, recent example, FF7R: Cloud, Sephiroth, Rufus, Reno. They are undeniably attractive, yet not sexualized at all.

I call that the Sengoku Basara approach.

I'd argue the reason it doesn't come up a lot. Is the same reason this video is so long. It usually just falls off the deep end into ultimately opinion. The reality is woman exist in all shapes and sizes. An these people that dislike it usually end up taking on a form of body shaming girls that are shaped like that. Trying to tell them what is acceptable to wear. At the end pf it all i hope Japanese devs continue to design exactly how theyliked. Lord knows the landscape would be bland if all we had were games American devs make. Thank God for world culture and may it ever stay separate and do different things. So we can all continue to enjoy the things we like and didn't know we loked.

@@TheRealEnate I kinda agree but for diffrent reasons. I do think that the gross oversexualization is something that is an inherent part of many things and getting rid of them would be getting rid of an inherent part of its personality, and that discussion of these things often do turn into blatant harassment. But at the same time, to let the same culture that makes loli content run free would be irresponsible. I offer no solution that well preserves the culture and as well as morality, only the dilemma.

Except this approach literally does work; the male leads of Pheonix Wright were designed by a BL artist and it has a huge and varied fanbase

@@WalkInMyPawsteps wasn't the BL in PW games way better when they weren't doing it on purposes for the most part and just happened to make some great BL tease? After that I feel like it was kinda forced and didn't work as well. Nitpicking aside your point stands and I agree.

Same here

Same as well. It makes me unable to watch some of the more "traditional" anime for example but I'm not usually missing out much...

Same. I love this game, but it definitely has some moments that just make me instinctively cringe. :P

That Zeke scene... Holy hell... Even though Pandoria, Nia, Poppi and Móraq are amazing characters ( Both in design and story ) in my view, there's no way I'd buy a game with that kind of scene. At least Mythras scene was somehow watchable.

@@Dog.This_Identifier_Is_Shit. Tbf (If you're talking about the scene I think you are), I think it's moreso him just fucking with Morag, but yeah, out of context, it just sounds bad (Even in context it doesn't sound great). Honestly, it feels a bit out of character for Zeke (Or at least what I remember of his character).

Considering the sexual assault rates in Japan are way lower than several Western countries, too low to be chalked up to under reporting, I don’t think it’s a big deal or impacts reality much. It’s also lame to say that only butthurt fanboys hated the video (angry fans are a vocal minority of any fandom).

Agreed. A lot of thoughts and work was clearly put into that video, it's a shame people just went "meh, another SJW" It isn't a surprise though

About those dislikes...

@@diamondminer5459 It's the same country that has women-only metro wagons during rush hour.

I listened to the whole video while drawing, in the end, I don't care about any of these points.

to be fair, I think that's more to do with Japan's continued sterotype of males and females. boys and men are probably seem as the main audience of video games, so they sexualize lots of girls because they assume mostly boys and men will be playing these certain types of video games rather then girls. girls and women seem to like other things and seem to only like games with hot men mostly in them (not saying all girls do, just think its a big sterotype in japan)

@@connorradcliffe1769 This just makes it worse. It basically assumes the worst of their base and completely ignores women as consumers of anime products and games

I generally don't get bothered by limited amounts of sexualization in games, but some of them take it way too far. I wasn't really concerned with it until I played XBC2 and Code Vein. It was just so ridiculous that it reduced my enjoyment / appreciation for both games. If Dahlia were the only giant boobed character, no problem. But good lord, when the VAST majority of female characters are like that... It's cringy and worrisome.

@Shaman X Lmao nobody said the world revolves around a certain type of people. We just want equity, that's all we ask.

@@sir8513 he does have a point though. Most females that play video games tend to play puzzle games, and mobile games. While I agree it's wrong to exclude audience, you can't blame then for seeing that the majority of their customers are male.

this video is the worse thing I ever watch can't believe I wasted 53 minutes of my life watching it, also of his awful points was presented in the first 3 minutes

Because no one cares about this discussion, who cares? Does the game offer a great experience in terms of story, gameplay, and character development? Thats what is important, not whether or not a character is sexualized. These snowflakes are the reason why gaming and entertainment sucks, while Japan and other Asian countries are giving the fans what they want and profiting.

@@JordiumZ Okay xenomid liker

They removed the dislike so you don’t have to worry about that 😅

@@JordiumZyet you don't have any arguments either

i cant imagine that they never thought of the concept that such designs, women in full armor, women having muscles, scars etc is miles sexier than giving them big boobs and whatnot. truly a shame

I'm a gay man and Morag makes me feel things i shouldn't feel 😔

Straight guy coming in with some input too. Yeah Morag is the sexiest character in the game by a country mile

@@tildecorrera7697 I mean, the Kinsey Scale says that there are people out there who are homosexual with some instances of heterosexual feelings. I’d imagine that there are a lot of self-professed straight dudes that would eventually admit to being a little gay if you pressed them hard enough. I wouldn’t bother sweating over being attracted to a woman, because honestly, I don’t believe there is a purely gay man or a purely straight man out there...

The only female actually dressed for her job and her uniform actually fits her, it isn't even a male uniform, but because she doesn't have giant HHH boobs hanging out she's a man... It's honestly cringe beyond words.

It so funny that alot of this media can't make it go both ways , for fear that enough men out there won't be comfortable enough with their sexuality to be ok with it. Not that I think overtly sexualized characters should be common place by any means, but if you're gonna dip into that realm then why not dip on both sides? People who enjoy males will appreciate it.

@DarthYuYevon lol.

DarthYuYevon Lmao ok

@DarthYuYevon what THE FUCK

@DarthYuYevon oh yeah? How so?

From what i can piece and put together, it seems more rational than you think. There are plenty of times when male characters are put in undesirable or devalued positions like property to be used in games and all shapes of media- and nobody really makes an out cry about it. People either laugh at it like intended or just dont care to even notice it. So when the roles are reversed and it's a female put in a similar position- thats when war starts and people wanna make a big fuss about something thats been done before which had no backlash but now due to gender its apparently bad. I can understand a sane man responding to this as "whats the big deal?" It seems as a society/culture we care more about the devaluation of women than men. Which also isnt good

@@AK46supr ... it's because historically and factually women were/are mistreated a lot more often than men. This is also why men's rights activism is historically younger than women's rights activism. Mistreatment of humans is unfortunately a common thing. But mistreatment of women just for being women has a larger number and deeper history than mistreatment of men just for being men.

Alex Ko um..historically everyone had it shitty... Men were sent off to die for battles they didn't want to fight..because they were men. Further back it was common to put little boys on battlefields to be experienced in the art of "battle" and be traumatized at early ages. In fact it was *way* more common to kill the men and boys than it was for women and girls in many situations like war or a pillage. In fact they would emasculate them by cutting off certain body parts. Back then even now male abuse isnt taken as seriously as males can never be seen as victims. Back then it was even harsher for a guy to express emotions let alone weakness as he would be treated as a weak male from men and *women* and that still trends today as we speak. Also men who were of lower class due to money or status were and are still treated as butts of the society, and the fact that alot of men cant get help for this is why males have the highest suicide rates to date. Also guys who were seen as "the bread winners" back then had to work tough and dangerous jobs for crazy hours to get by and to support their families since women didn't work and since gold digging isnt a new term for modern ppl- men would sacrifice for partners that may not have cared for them to begin with. Its sad Theres many more i could go about "factually" but this comments long enough. The reason why mens right activists existence is more recent is because men didn't and couldn't have a voice to complain because when they did they were shamed and belittled and punished for speaking out which *still* happens today. Its because times have changed and more people are becoming vocal about issues thats existed for a LONG time and the advancement of the internet. I dont hate you but *please* dont give me that feminism bs *edit:* also even if you still want side with bad female history and ignore everything else- that still doesn't excuse being ok with devaluing men in media. I just don't get that. Im a minority and even i hate it when ppl belittle white people and act as if they're the only ones capable of racism. The logic doesn't add up

Alex Ko that escalated quickly... interesting how a comment about a game turned into a history lesson. No one said men don’t experience issues due to gender, they absolutely do. Also, if people think feminism is all about women’s rights, how women are treated unfairly and so on, they really don’t know what feminism is all about. Most likely, because of the word itself. It’s about gender equality, which is a better term in my opinion, for both men and women... going back to the game though, which is the actual topic. I believe more women would enjoy the games if the female characters were slightly more relatable and were able to be strong without being over the top sexualized or lovesick puppies. I don’t really understand why that’s such a big issue... I have to ask, would you turn the game off and never play it again if the female characters were less sexualized. I’m not saying we should make them ugly, I’m just saying ease down on the jiggle physics and drop some of the sexualizing dialogues. It’s not necessary for the game’s story plot or the overall gameplay, but it would make it more attractive to more players. Including the males who have also commented in the video that they thought it went a little overboard with the portrayal of women.

himode I’m not able to tell you about America, as I am not American, I am on the other side of the Atlantic... but what we frequently see, is for instance if a couple divorce, the mother is likely to get the custody of the children, and father’ get visitation rights. Why not 50/50 responsibility right away, unless there are clear reasons to do it differently? I believe there are many fathers out there who would like to have the same right to their children as the children’s mother.

Proceeds to ignore the male characters past part 3 that are legit sexy without the overly muscular build.

@@ill_hex8103 If anything, Jojo treats the male characters exactly the same as OP says female characters are treated. There's no reason why any character needs to be super shredded in a world where magic does all the fighting for them.

​@@grinko1222 tbh is not like hamond and stands are common knolege. allso have you see the damage thier body take. they are putting thier musle to good use

It is extremely hilarious when humans of a certain ethnicity tense their vocal chords and release air, causing vibrations in the atmosphere, causing a sound that has the properties that some may identify as the word "thicc"

Nino Brown and you assumed I was white?

It's so funny when someone assumes the race of another person when they can't even see their face.

Comments like these make me realize that the internet is truly something to behold.

Pyra's design became a lot less grating when I understood that blades rarely ever actually fight themselves. Her design doesn't bother me as much as other blades, such as Dahlia or Kora. The deliberate camera angles and the sexual anime jokes _were_ annoying, though.

Isnt video games also a media? Or do i just misunderstand what a media is,

So pretty much sexy girls can't be sweet and companionate? Because if they have big breasts then they must only be sexy props and only act all seductive, right? Also, where the suspension of disbelief ends for you? When people are living in ginormous beings where civilization thrives in their backs but when a humanoid looking bunny girl have big breasts that sure is a inch too far.

@@monkey_blu If almost every single woman has massive chests, it kind of breaks some of the immersion. It doesn't help when the majority of them wear almost nothing. What if Zeke wore barely anything more than a thong?

I find this tough cause it almost appears to me as a sort of metaphor for accepting her sexualization, and despite that, being true to herself because it is how she naturally is; that is to say if she is a skimpily clad girl with a cold but fun personality that for some reason really had to confess her affections for the male lead and still become his tool after being rejected... Edit: it makes me especially uncomfortable because this is a lot like how I’ve dealt with myself. I have a very conventionally attractive body, and I find it decent so I like to wear modest stuff that accentuates that, but I always feel that wherever I go my body is the focus of who I interact with, no matter if it’s a tshirt and jeans worn normally. So I’ve coped over my life by accepting it as it is, but no matter what I do I feel a deep pain like it is all I’ll ever be known for, and it’s hard not to think that way when you’re reminded of it almost daily.

noot this hits the real core of the problem, the emotional cost. It’s invisible, but insidious, and the worst part from my male perspective is I know I’ve inflicted it upon others without meaning to.

himode it’s almost like there’s more than one woman in the world and differences in culture and upbringing can provide differences in wants and desires. Same goes for men. Same goes for literally everything.

himode and some men also do the same. Some people also realize how manipulative the fashion and weight loss industries are and how much money they’ve poured into making people think they have too look a certain way. Some people realize how important realistic and diverse representation is and fight for it, and some people want nothing to change because they’ve never had to experience extreme prejudice and are so lacking in empathy that they’re unable to realize that someone else might be feeling discriminated against. For a recent example, some people are so wrapped up in themselves that it takes someone dying from a police officer’s knee on his neck for them to realize that maybe racism isn’t as ‘solved’ as they thought. Empathy is important. Whenever you see someone angry or complaining, take a second to at least try to understand where they might be coming from. I don’t know what happened to you for you to think the way you do, but please, try to take a step back and consider if what you’re seeing is really just an entitled individual, or if they’re a it’s someone speaking out against an unjust system or culture.

@himode the comparison is fair here, because constantly oversexualising women in media and society in general leads to a WHOLE MESS of rapes and murders. I mean, look at Latin America- here we have so many killings because women reject men trying to treat them as sex objects that we had to invent a term for it ("femicide"). It's not like this is some sensitivity issue that has to do with people's "feelings" in an abstract way, it has results. Even in the USA, incels have been shooting women for it too. There is a body count.

I’d say the problem isn’t in the *ahem* proportions but, instead the lack of diverse body types. Those…sizes… are much rarer than anime and Japanese made games like to portray.

@@Hewasnumber1 Doesn't sound like a problem to me. It's a universe where people turn into weapons and vice versa, I couldn't give a damn about "diverse body types". It's a game ffs, what truly matters in the end is gameplay and writing. Maybe instead of what's on their chests, people should focus more on the writing of Xenoblade 2, which wasn't the best.

@@jase276 Isnt this the problem tho? The game clearly focuses on the sexualization-

@@jase276 nah man, swords are for gameplay, boobs are for weird weebs that are horni on main, no matter the monologue you get if half your character is "shipping" with the bland isekai protagonist and (.)(.) jokes

@@jase276 diverse body types is one of the many tools to achieve varied and iconic character designs - if every female is slender, long legged, big boobed, and scantily clad, it only allows so much variety before designs blur together - and design in videogames is part of the interface: designs should as much as possible reflect the gameplay attributes of a character. Just the same way too similar menu icons are confusing and reduce enjoyment, too similar character designs reduce the usability and enjoyment of characters in a game.

The minors thing always has to do with Japan. Don't think that's really acceptable or desirable artistically in the west.

@@SilverSlayer23 It's still wrong though because it's Japenese doesn't mean that the western market doesn't consume it and even so them being Japanese and not western doesn't excuse it.

@@zazagermond4111 No shit it's still wrong. Those who accept it in the west are minorities... and wrong. And no shit it's consumed/accepted by the super minority in the west... and is still wrong. It being a Japanese thing doesn't excuse it. That was **never** a position made. It's just a weird fucking phenomenon from Japan. That's it.

​@@zazagermond4111 And it's still wrong. Not to say shows can't explore themes of sexual discovery as that does indeed happen during the teen years. That's not as uncommon in the west as we also use animated media as a tool to help teach kids about life challenges. Where it crosses the thin line is when that content is steered to sexually excite the audience... Which is wrong. Even more wrong is sexualizing adolescence and or adolescence' bodies for the enjoyment of the audience. Which is never done in western media and is super unacceptable.

@himode dude, seriously, i saw you in EVERY comment who tend to discuss the problem of double standard and how the ladies are often sexualised, take a deap breath and relax, "hunting" all the comment isn't good for the mind !

I agree. I feel that its fine if female characters and blades have slightly sexual outfits that match their personality and character, because then you can see them being the type of person to wear that outfit. but giving sexual outfits to characters or blades that come off as too serious or shy don't really match. for example, why would a shy girl wear a outfit that showed off lots of skin and was bound to draw attention? why would a female soldier that's serious about war wear a skimpy outfit that made people not take them seriously?

@@connorradcliffe1769 I know this is a week old But I agree with you.

@@connorradcliffe1769 yes this is the best take from this whole hell of a comment section. A level headed opinion that doesn't personally attack either side of the argument.

Ironic

The reason it becomes a problem is when people go out of their way to make it a problem. Gamers are not thinking about sex while they are gaming unless they are literally playing a hentai game.

Hot women aren’t that bad, designs can be either bad or good.

@Shin Shaman literally no one said anything. is everything going ok at home kiddo?

I agree. To make it equal, there should be male characters where the camera zooms in on their bulges as they wear skimpy tongs like male strippers do. As well as just caress their abs and stuff.

@@joemusashi7774 Xenoblade 1 had Reyn. The big bulky... You get the idea.

@@joemusashi7774 Or, we could stop putting deliberately sexualised characters of all genders in games rated suitable for thirteen year olds.

I agree with this 💯👍

This and Japanese characters in general being sexualized is undeniable and obvious. The ludicrous thing here is the fact someone saw fit to make a 54-minute dissertation demonstrating it. He might as well as made the video to prove water is wet and the sky is blue.

I think in the Japanese dub they actually say that she was raised as a boy in order to take the throne, until Niall was born.

the oversexualization of female characters in xc2 is so obnoxious to me. Maybe thats why my favorite character is Morag simply because of her design, and personality of course. Thank god xc3 is somewhat of an improvement in terms of female character designs

My opinion is: Boobah good

@@tomasavendanozacarias5205 I think boobah neutral. It ain't good or bad inherently. It's more that, from a design and viewer perspective, I think it's boring. It's relatively easy to make a mediocre character design more appealing by exposing boobah, but it's more interesting and more difficult to make an appealing character design without extreme boobah, you know?

Sales records might beg to differ

@@MegaDeathRay10 Most "consumers" themselves are boring, so while it does satisfy them, I'd like my video games to be a little more hipster and not pumped-out CoDS, half-baked Battlefields, and far too sexual RPGs.

Nice pfp

I think only Zeke has that Mr. Krabs walking effe- wait nvm mythra has it too.

its more on the directing. They're fine at voice acting but its so obvious that they don't know what's actually happening in the scene

I liked the voice acting. It's genuinely terrible, but I love it.

Yo, I absolutely love Nia’s heavy accent

As a guy, I'm no fan of 'sexy' characters, live action or cartoon. I want to focus on the story and not let superficial things such as looks influence me (looking at the guy that makes every villain wear black)

I started playing PSO2 and I'm having a similar struggle. I really enjoy it and playing with my friends, but it's oftentimes uncomfortably oversexualized and not just the other players because of course they're making their "waifus" but the actual story characters. I have no personal problems with sex or sexualized characters but there's sexy (i.e. a character meant to have sex appeal as part of their character) and then there's just straight up objectification (i.e. a character intended to be innocent or normal who looks like a pornstar).

I was kind of surprised to see that no one even mentioned Tora's behavior towards Poppy. I don't want to be the typical "omg cancel him" but I do have to admite that that specific aspect of him made me uncomfortable while playing.

@@ncampana6588 yeah it's just cuz in Japan the "funny perv" trope is very commonly used in all forms of media :/

I don't think Tora should be attacked for his perversions. As you said it's only a way the game has to make comedy, and comedy is subjective, so there is a number of people who actually enjoy that aspect of him, me included.

No one in the fgc gives a damn about the character design... we are too busy trying not to lose to pay attention to things like jiggle physics.

I'd disagree with Street Fighter, as there's no real thin pretty boys. There's buff boys, pretty boys, and thin boys, but no pretty thin boys.

@@shelbyherring92 KoF would be a much better example. Hot guys and gals everywhere you look, without running into SF's big limbs and muscles problem.

Ok...weird brag

I don't think it's that well written. There's so much rambling I'm bored most of the time because he spends minutes saying something he could've done in a matter of seconds. And even with the insane length of the video there's still quite a few important things not even mentioned.

@@thenonexistinghero such as....? Not trying to start a war, just curious what other topics could've been discussed. I thought this video was okay, especially since it opens a platform to discuss this topic on XC2

@@LegamSSF Camera angles, the focus on specific areas that sexualize the women more, many of their personalities and how they compare to weeb tropes, etc.

This is what I kinda dislike about a lot of Xenoblade 2 conversations. So many people are just „this character looks so bad!“ but they never acknowledge how they are written. Pyra and Mythra are probably the best written characters in the Xenoblade series but they are disliked by many because of they‘re designs.

@@boredgoddesstori6635 I wouldn’t say Pyra/Mythra are the “best” written characters, but they certainly aren’t the worst. It’s a shame they don’t get a little more respect… in many ways.

@@boredgoddesstori6635 Well, the sexualization certainly is somewhat of a detriment. As someone who has played XC1, I know that the series is generally able to go quite deep with their characters. And as the video showed, there are at least some genuinely well written characters in XC2 as well. But for the love of me I just can't seem to get my teeth deep enough into it to play it for long enough with this amount of sexualization thrown around like it's candy on Halloween. I've tried it three different times now but each time the game ended up collecting dust again after two gaming sessions. That said, on a final meme: Riki > Tora

@@yetanotherkeyblader3572 I actually agree with your last point (I still enjoyed some stuff about Tora though). Also it‘s sad to see that designs can prevent so many people from enjoying some actually very good character writing (heard of many people not getting into the game because of the designs). I even think that 2 has more interesting characters than 1 but oh well. Not everyone is going to like everything.

@@boredgoddesstori6635 design is just as important as writing is for a character. you have to convey who they are through design. for example, a shy character wouldn't wear bold or revealing clothing or try wild/experimental hairstyles. a flirty/confident character probably would though. if Pyra was supposed to be a protector/mother figure for rex why doesn't she have more armor? maybe a robe/long cape (one that isn't cut into two pieces, mind you)? shield? her design makes no sense in contrast with her character. same with mythra. that's why it throws so many people off and makes them not wanna play the game. not every person who plays anime games is exposed to sexualization or things like hentai on a daily basis. some people just want to play a good game with good characters, of course this would put them off especially if they're XC1 fans which didn't have as many sexualized characters in it. just because a character is written well doesn't mean they're DESIGNED well.

I mean, come on, Electra is literally just a loli. That's it.

@DarthYuYevon That's just straight up untrue.

@DarthYuYevon I think you have never seen sexualized art from lesbians and just want to say that because it would be convenient in writing off the criticism in this video as "triggered hypocritical feminists"

@DarthYuYevon if that's true, name one lesbian feminist who makes sexualized art and hasnt been criticized for it.

@DarthYuYevon I've seen plenty of people criticize sexual and pornographic art wholesale and argue that porn as a whole is evil, and women participating in its creation are bad. I'm unsure of sakimichan's orientation, but she is very regularly criticized for making art where its sexual nature actively makes the art worse (bad proportions to make it sexier, same faces, etc.). I am not sure of her actual orientation, but the point is that the criticism is there. It's also worth noting the difference in context - xenoblade two is criticized very frequently for its sexualization because it's often very out of place and takes away from the rest of the game. Why can't Newt be both sexy and muscular without having grotesque extra arms? Why does Electra need her entire stomach exposed, that actively takes away from her insecure, demure personality. The artists you mentioned actively put effort into making the sexual nature of their work fit into their pieces.

It's very sad the amount of negative and mocking comments on this..

@himode it's interesting how you've totally twisted her words and completely diminished her valid points down to nothing. Because it's just plain wrong. Sexualisation of women in media is a FAR larger problem than "anime titties", it spans over all forms of media and has been prevalent since probably around the 60s. Movie franchises like James Bond being some of the biggest culprits and making the practice a lot more mainstream. The issue doesnt come from "big tiddie anime gf" the issue stems from the inherent sexism in making "being sexualised" the entire personality of a female character, or diminishing a female character down to sexualisation and favouring that in terms of development all for the audiences pleasure. Denoting an issue that has been around for decades and decades to something as trivial as "yOu trIgGerEd oVeR aNimE tItTieS" is ignorant, utterly ridiculous and objectively wrong.

@@checkm8964 This guy (himode) has been going around the entire comment section trying to justify his sexual addiction to big-chested twelve year-old anime girls. The guy is an absolute neckbeard loser who has nothing better to do with his time, since no real girl wants to go out with him.

@@albedougnut yep, his argument is always 'this game is made for straight men get over it'. He has highjacked lots of comments to rant about how he thinks underaged anime girls are sexy. Not only that he consistently says men are just as sexualized but when asked he refuses to provide proof and just changes the topic. Hes even calling out women who think this game is over sexualized and calling them down. Just your typical sexist loser.

@@albedougnut yeah I just stopped paying attention to him from the moment he said "women chose to be sexualised. It's one of their jobs" obviously either a troll, or a very lonely incel. Either way he's 🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢🤢

Are you comparing sexualizing with difficulty

@@theanomaly4444 all i am saying is not everything has to be for everyone. And just because someone doesn't like something that doesn't immediately qualify it's removal.

@@Ray3D Maybe you just worded it poor. I can agree with this statement in a general sense, but there are some cases in which this statement seems inappropiate, let alone weird. Especially in the case of oversexualizing characters. Example: Dark souls perfected difficulty. It is part of the experience to overcome it. Dark souls wouldnt be the same without it. Removal isnt justified. What justifies oversexualizing Characters in such ways? Would it change the intended experiences if this wouldnt be a thing? Removing clothing in a sense of "Characterization" seems weird in this context (the part of the video where he's talking about pyra) and like a cheap excuse to simply oversexualize. Again, Im not intending to attack you.

Nothing wrong with sexualization, apart from the scientifically-proven facts that show how engaging with sexualized material actually changes people with regards to Rape Myth Acceptance and gender relations.

@@abelabel3664 Thats quite a big "but"

They are also the same guys who throw tantrums any time an LGBT character is ever introduced to a video game. Also the same guys who throw tantrums when a video game is released overseas, and to lower the rating, the company adds a couple of pieces of cloth to a character's outfit to make it more marketable to younger audiences. Also the same guys who complain when a character's redesign in a remake gives her short shorts instead of a short skirt.

@himode Or they are just taking advantage of the neckbeards with anime-girl addictions who spend all of their time doing nothing but jacking off to underage girls (with some of-age girls mixed in).

@himode Yeah, because I have dealt with harassment from those types of people. It is no surprise that I know about them, when they literally stalked me to my car and waited for me outside of the restroom on a daily basis. Or when they continued to flirt with me after I turned them down multiple times already, on the grounds of being asexual and a man with no interest in romantic relationships with anyone (much less straight men who do not even acknowledge me as a man because of my apperance). Also, they take advantage of the willing by juicing their wallets for their desperation. And I never said that guys liking anime girls is hurting anyone. However, when the entire industry sets a blaring double standard and even normalizes female sexual harassment in anime and video games, then it brings perverted individuals into these communities. That does hurt people, since it exposes women in the community to predators, and it creates an environment where those types of people think they are welcome and/or accepted. There is a difference between there being sexualized female characters and having nearly every single female character sexualized, and then proceeding to make light of them being sexually harassed or assaulted by other characters in the game.

@himode Mate, video games with gun violence do not sit there and normalize it by integrating it into everyday discussions and character development. Also, I am talking about an industry which lures in predators and perverted individuals by promoting this kind of behavior as normal and acceptable, regardless of whether or not it is intentional. By comparison, Japan itself has a massive problem with sexual assault and other predatory actions, including sexual advances on young school girls. Generally speaking, sexual predators tend to be pretty insidious, and proving that someone is a predator tends to be much, much more difficult than say an investigation proving that someone is a murderer or a shooter. So you really have it backwards. This is not about video games causing people to be sexual predators. It is about sexual predators being lured into communities surrounding video games which promote this type of behavior as acceptable. And you know why these men are desperate? Because they use anime girls as a replacement for real women. They are not guys who simply like anime girls. They are guys who cannot find a girl who actually wants them, so they turn to anime instead, since anime is the one thing in the universe that does want them around. The type of guy who treats women like garbage, sees them as nothing more than sexual objects, and usually proclaims his "superiority" over women. And in response to your last comment, I am literally talking about guys who developed an obsession with me because I was wearing anime merchandise -- a jacket or a pin of a character I like. They would literally stalk me, some guys would straight-up talk about incredibly lewd and inappropriate topics without being asked. That is how I know. Believe, the last thing I _want_ to know is what goes on in their bedroom, except when all they talk about is hypersexualized anime women, it is kind of hard not to get the point.

@himode You seem to think that everything is about you and that the world ought to revolve exclusively around your interests. So far, no one has suggested that people cannot like anime girls or that girls in anime cannot be sexualized, like I have said many times already. The problem here is, you keep going around in this comment section promoting your obession with anime girls by vilifying genuine criticisms that people have towards Japanese developers. People here are explaining why it is a problem, why it drives female fans away, why it brings unwanted people into the community, and why it makes many men and women alike very uncomfortable. The fact of the matter is, people want to be able to play their favorite games without half of the screen time being about a woman's breasts. You can introduce female characters who are sexually attractive without making all but one or two female characters in a game hypersexualized. Xenoblade 1 did an amazing job at this, and it even had arguably equal representation between the male and female characters. Some of the female characters in the first game, like Sharla, Vanea, and even Fiora to an extent had clothing that was more revealing, but the characters themselves were not sexualized. The game did not constantly talk about their bodies, objectify them as women, nor did it put the PoV in stupid lewd angles for literally no reason other than fan service. Characters did not make remarks towards them, as it was not part of the characters' personalities. The male and female characters in the game still had swimsuit models for any players who wanted to see a lot of skin, but that was not the focus of the game.

Yeah, I feel like a lot of what he said is right but a lot of it is also culture shock. Japan is much more lax on this than America. That's why the idea of "lolis" is weird over here but over in Japan...well, I feel like it's still weird, just less so.

I must be fucking weird then because I've also watched a ton of anime and play a whole bunch of jrpgs and the mindless fan service still gets to me. Though I don't really mind it in XC2 because there is way worse examples.

@@professionalfangster1510 But isn’t the fact that things like loli’s are more normalized in Japan kind of unsettling in of itself? Something being more accepted somewhere does not excuse it

@@PLTgamer no? Because won't hurt anybody. Even then, from Japanese fellows, loli content is looked down upon there as well. I wouldn't call it "normalized" more "tolerated"

@@captainmega6310 You can't deny that it is normalized in anime culture though. Also, you're telling me that it doesn't matter what we put in the media we consume as long as it doesn't directly hurt anybody? Seems like a dangerous point of view. The media we consume ends up shaping a large part of our identities, Things like this do end up affecting how we look at the world around us and I don't think the effect is positive in this case

I would argue Xenoblade 1 had some on these tropes, mainly talking about Meyneth, her vessel, Vanea, even Sharla is sexualised, it is nowhere near Xenoblade 2 but I think it’s important to point out

Xeno 1 had some and i didn't like it but when i played xeno 2 oh Boy i wasn't expecting that many

@@fieldkaiju But the two first are not even recurrent characters, and Sharla still look feminine without going to extremes like Mythra and others. The point is it's not sexualized in the same amount. Xenoblade 1 is much more reasonable.

@@fieldkaiju To be fair, in the case of Sharla, it is more that her outfit is revealing. I would not say that she is overtly sexualized, as the game does not place any actual emphasis on her body or appearance. It really makes no mention at all of what she wears, nor does the game try to give inappropriate angles. In fact, aside from outfits which are more form-fitting or reveal more skin, I would argue that the characters in Xenoblade 1 are not really sexualized in general. And at least when it comes to revealing outfits, both the males and females are given the option for more exposure.

@Orga777 It is the fact that those absurdly designed characters are hypersexualized for no reason other than fan service, and it is almost always exclusively the female characters who receive this treatment. The complaints are justified.

Yeah! I find it really cool and it shows this really cool military exagerration in a special way

Her design gives me Guilty Gear vibes.

@@CrazyHand7894 Even Skullgirls a little

big companies think you are bothered. because SJWs are loud and clear about it.

thank you for your opinion, woman. We are glad that the only woman in the world isn't bothered. Cancel feminist critique, guys! The WOMAN isn't bothered

@@TooFatTooFurious Nevermind that she in her own comment said "guess it's just me". Also it's very ignorant of you to assume that she's the only woman ok with the design.

I'm glad I played the game after they patched in the Aux Chip for Mythra. The tights and breastplate made her less sexualized. Plus, the black on white color combo looked way cooler.

That’s genuinely pathetic....

Swagruto Uzumaki why that I DONT like every character design to look as much at home in the game as in a hentai? Shut the hell up.

@@GobaGNon that your skin is so thin that you are embarrassed by the character designs on a Japanese video game. You can dislike the character designs I dislike some myself but I'm not embarrassed to say I played the game. THAT is pathetic. Also as a side note you clearly haven't consumed very much hentai. If you said an ecchi anime I'd agree but hentai? Lol nah mate. The designs in hentai get much much worse than what's in XC2

Swagruto Uzumaki this game is embarrassing tho

it's usually the two combined for me

I prefer "woke". It's much easier to put that term in positive connotations.

And? Before them it was bible thumpers.

Answering this question can also be used as a justification for these design decisions. You have a primary audience in mind, you consider what they want to see and then do it. It's not like it harms anyone.

It wasn't made for me :(

@@NekuraRei then find a product that was made for you and give THAT your money.

@@dudejo Xeno2 got kicked out of my list after seeing how much they push the fanservice. It's too bad because the game looks fun if we make abstraction of that aspect. Sadly, I simply can't overlook that amount of tasteless exposition, it ruins the whole experience for me. Obviously I do buy other games that appeals to me and want to encourage their developpers. To each their own :)

Horny weebs and Japanese people. This game was made in Japan.

Regadless of u being a man or a woman, you shoudn't feel uncomfortable by the exposiotion of the human body, erotism and sex are part of human culture and should be embraced. The real thing you should be advocating for is for an equal amount of males being sexualized as well, unfortunately thats totally up for the artist, as man, i felt uncomfrotable as playing as Vaan back when XII released, but as time passed and i matured, i came to understand how ridiculous is to feel insecure about something as naturaland beautiful as the human body.

jorge montiel the thing is that I shouldn’t be uncomfortable in front of a REAL HUMAN not a video game character.

@@Dragerdeifrit You can't honestly believe these female characters are even remotely accurate representations of "the human body." I'm an artist myself, man. These character designs are honestly atrocious.

Fern Cano it has a cartoony erotic style. There’s no expectation of them being realistic representations.

himode no i’m just not a pervert.

Same, include butt and chest too lol Will be a good laugh for people who are tired of female fanservice and good to make people uncomfortable who think this oversaturation of female fanservice is okay/ not obnoxious

I WILL 100% FUND THIS IF I HAVE TOO

let's start a kickstarter

As much as I generally dislike sexual stuff in games, this would only be fair. Lol. (I would still probably not be a big fan despite being gay tho. Lmao)

@@unionfire you realize no one would give a fuck right?

finally somebody with a brain lol, Pyra is a motherly type, so it makes no sense for her to dress like this. It's like if Mai in Overwatch wore the same clothes that Widowmaker wears

Did you played the XC1? There are armors that are just a bikini. I played the entire game with Sharla basically nude.

@@itsasecrettoeverybody thats says a lot more about you than me. also the fan service between the XC1 and XC2 and not even comparable. XC1 provides SOME fan service in pretty excusable ways (e.g. an actual swimsuit) but XC2 shoves it down your face. (e.g. pyra’s “armour” is supposed to be battle ready god level armour)

@@Karaamjeet but it is in the game anyway. Why are you guys so puritan? I really don't get it, westerns are weird.

@@Karaamjeet all those complains and the game was censored in the west. Imagine if it wasn't.

It actually takes way more work to put those in in the first place so this is a stupid argument

While you have a point about it probably being a waste of CPU resources, some games put too much "wobble" on the female breasts, which is absurd

If she knew anything about games she would know that no breast physics is the standard and adding breast physics is always intentional. Has nothing to do with implants or something lol

I agree with everything but you do understand that breast are like hair or articles of clothing, they have real life physics and move during action. If a character was falling and there was no moment to their hair, breasts, or scarfs that would be called out on for breaking immersion. Its not the fact putting breast physics is intentional it is a required addition to create immersion, just some devs make it too sexual. Example Perun was ruined for me she was a cool blade but her jiggle physics are insane, its like one bag of jelly instead of two sets of meat that move slightly.

Aurn Knight At this point I’m pretty sure Perun‘s breast jiggle is an accident because it’s way too ridiculous. But yeah body and clothes physics are great for immersion but they are really hard to pull off convincingly so many dev with less experience or resources just leave them out completely

@mrcristofer 2013 You're cringe. Quit trying to ruin entertainment

fuck you shakespeare, being interesting is gay

What do you mean?

That's what you get when you cross thoughtful discussion with anime fans, I'm afraid

Sounds like a neat video. You know when you will release it?

@@albedougnut I'm still new to making videos and I've never made a longer form video like this, so it's gonna be a while. But it's definitely something I want to discuss.

My take away add more fanservicy dudes... (what that looks like still is a mystery to me...)

I don't care either way but why aren't they fine? I think people on both sides of this topic can be part of the problem. The people who don't see the issue with female characters only being sex objects and the people who don't see that their "progressive" ideas are the same ideals 1950 America held. I mean demonizing female sexuality and wanting all female characters to act very neutral has lead to less diversity in female characters. We've basically made a lateral move when it comes to female characters. Which is kind of sad because so many think this has solved the problem.

@@CC-of5xl The problem is, no one here is demonizing female sexuality, nor are we suggesting that female characters cannot be sexualized. We just want games to not sexualize basically every single female character in the game, and we want less double standards between male and female characters.

having sexy characters isnt a bad thing. having 95% of the women in your game look like a sex doll is a problem

@@evamartins2819 Okay, why is having 95% of your women looking like a sex doll a bad thing?

@@Gam3rSheep Because jealousy? I don't know the game, nor have I watched the video yet, but if the women characters act all frail and stuff just to ego boost the men characters, the problem those people have is understandable. Even though, the best course of action for the people who complain about that would be to make a good game with their ideal characters. That would change things in a more effective way than trying to modify an existing franchise. Fight art with art.

@@whatdown5291 I don't think those people problem is understandable. People complaining about this seem to have no justification. But yeah, it likely comes from a place of jealousy.

@@Gam3rSheep Some people just like to complain I guess...

That would have been cool to go full campy glam cowgirl with her design! Seeing the clips, I feel like her design doesn't communicate her personality AT ALL. I don't play this game and when i saw her design i thought she would be more ethereal with a gentle but cold personality-- like an ice princess type Now I'm wondering what accent she must have had in Japanese lol

Pretty sure Dahlia is a reference to Dolly Parton in the English dub only. Her Japanese name is Tsuki and I don’t know if she spoke in the Kansai dialect, which is pretty much the Japanese equivalent to the American southern/country accent.

I think that more or less says something more about society then the game.

@@MrTalithan That could very well be true, I think for me the randomness with which it is applied makes it more awkward. If there was a scene that was explicitly dealing with romance in a serious way it would be fine. It just seems to be peppered throughout the game without much thought or reason.

meh, the fact that you trying to hide it while playing on public is simply due to society pressure/norm, you simply cannot handle that and that all on you, dont try to ask game developer to cater you by your standard

I just remember I played this game in front of my parents lol

@@maxinehell1394 huh, what nonsense. good god

@himode buddy, yes i know they exist, but i'm literally not forcing anyone to find diverse girls in games attractive? man all i'm saying is there needs to be more diversity in design like how male characters are designed in games. breh.

@himode ???? that's not the point of my comment????? i own most of the games with great girl character designs??? but why do i have to search for them????? just say "i like my big tiddy girl designs" and go man lmfao

Yes agreed! And I don't want to seen any pretty bois in my games either! I'm tired of those K-pop singers wielding swords around and being all hairdressed like it's their wedding day...

@himode dude, tf r u on lmfao pack up ya shit and go home man, you're unhinged as all hell and i actually feel bad for you.

@@albedougnut HAHA you fell into my trap! Now I release my trump card: FIRE EMBLEM! Where 100% of the males are K-pop singers with wonderful haircuts and ONLY 50% of the girls are over sexualised!....No sorry I was just joking BUT my point is that I think your opinion is just biased from the start. You are not even seeing that male characters are glamorised in RPGs, take xenoblade chronicles 2 the ONLY character that is not a pretty boi is Vandam, I have nothing against pretty boi but it's as unrealistic as a double D girl. Don't get me wrong I think XC2 is awful but not for the same reasons. I just think the oversexualisation is a consequence of the bad writing and not the cause. And the JRPG industry is not plagued by "Male gaze" or whatever. BAD JRPGs are, because they are bad...

i looked up praxis and my jaw dropped 😭 boobs don't work like that how is her design possible

Just wanted to comment cause I think you missed the entire point of discussing Morag in relation to gender performativity. As I see it Ludiscere's main point is that 'Gender performativity is seeping into games and limiting the way that strong female characters can be written'. Morag is taken as an example of this and Ludiscere says that 'It's a shame that in order for Morag to be seen as a powerful and professional soldier she's masculinized in both character and design'. In regards to your points. Morag's gender performativity, imo, is only seen as a bad thing in so far as that she needs to be masculine in order to be seen as a 'powerful and professional soldier' (gender performativity limiting the way female characters can be written). And there is no point made that it's unique, quite on the contrary. The point isn't that a masculine women must look down upon feminitity (as is not even the case). Just that some women are written masculine to be seen as more professional and/or strong. I honestly don't get where you got the idea from that 'only a perfect mix of feminity and masculinity is not sexualized'. Morag is not a perfect mix of feminity and masculinity and is not sexualized (and there are many more examples in the video). Lastly I don't think Ludiscere was saying Morag being so masculinized made her a badly written character. Just as he would probably say that being sexualized doesn't make a character badly written, just you know sexualized.

@@mauriceraat2781 Yeah but I wouldn't say that morag is even masculine to begin with. I would say she dresses very formally, she is not wearing traditionally masculine clothes she's wearing a very formal military uniform, it's just that most of the times we see someone wearing a full army uniform he's a man. I think it's different from the skirt because although a skirt in a vacuum is neither masculine or feminine in a cultural context the skirt itself is feminine, while the uniform is neutral, it's just that the people that wear it are mostly men And regarding her character and personality, from what i have seen in the video I wouldn't say she has adopted masculine traits either, in the clips she's just formal and professional. Unless someone is willing to argue that being formal and professional is a male character trait I can't see how they can say that morag is more masculine in her behaviour. Although I must admit, I have not played the game I'm only speaking about what I've seen in this video

@@decoyoficial6011 i think it's more that the game treats her as though her attire makes her "unfeminine"; ergo, characters believing her to be a man (when she's obviously a woman), the aforementioned-comment ab her being attractive close-up (implying that she's only seen as feminine when her attire is removed from the equation) and her being played by a male (and given a very masculine voice) in the japanese-version

@@mauriceraat2781 My comment has some confusing wording but I think you aren’t getting my point either (though I think our interpretations can both work in different contexts). I don’t think Morag is masculine (in design), which why I think the point in the video is a bit off. I realize that she was intended to be in the Japanese version, but in the Western release (imo) she isn’t. An important point in the video is someone who is used to an over abundance of oversexualized female characters as is common in anime sees them as normal, but to the average Westerner the designs are really off-putting. Similarly, cultural context outside of Japan views Morag differently, as many other commenters agree with. Of course this brings up the argument of artistic intent vs. perception. I did get off-topic in the 2nd paragraph and worded it badly, but I never meant to imply that Morag is sexualized. I also think it’s incorrect to say gender performativity is seeping into video games as a point because it always has been a part of video games as a reflection of the real world. Chronicles seems to take femininity as synonymous with sexualization in terms of character design, so it seems odd to say this game only associates masculinity with power when most of the blades are sexualized women. I do agree though that there are many limitations on what a ‘strong female character’ is and that gender performativity limits what one can look and act like. I won’t make any comments on the quality of Morag’s character because I don’t have the background knowledge to have an opinion.

​@@No-sw4xr Ah yes I misunderstood what you meant with "gender performativity as bad or unique thing'. I get now that that was just your way of saying that Morag wasn't dressing or behaving as a male to you. Though I'd still agree with Ludiscere that Morag was designed with more male gender performativity in mind.

haha, i somehow never noticed that!

Glad to hear that you've given the other side a chance! I like your takeaway that it's about wanting more of them to be a real character. Not only is sexy character is okay, but also that characters CAN dress up sexy without it having feeling like devs wanting to pander to certain audiences. But it's just off-putting that female characters whose characterizations don't even remotely fit the entire mostly naked designs are being put in them. When a shy and anxious female character, for example, is dressed up in skimpy clothing and is constantly being self-aware and ashamed of it, I just feel like shit; and this is me talking as someone who likes women more than men. When the character is also constantly put in cutscenes/shots where their breasts jiggling is more on the frame or the focus it's even worse; the developers ARE TELEGRAPHING what you should focus on about them: their bodies, not the words they're saying. And the fact that what they're saying (ie. part of their characterization) is somehow overshadowed by the camera's hyperfixation on tits really should tell you about what was really considered as important.

@himode How is a woman wearing clothes hurting anyone?

@himode sexualization is indeed a part of life, but it can be presented in both healthy and unhealthy ways. Unhealthy female sexualization can reinforce sexual objectification of women, can diminish women being seen as more than their physical traits, and can reinforce outdated concepts that womens role is primarily to titillate and be subservient to men. A world in which we perpetuate these attitudes is evidentially worse for all. Consider this. The most successful way to control overpopulation, build economic stability, and reduce poverty is to provide education opportunity to women. Sexualization is not going anywhere, but perhaps we should look to inspire by also prioritizing intellectualization of our fictional female characters too?

The first part of your comment is literally what happened to Sarah Ryder in Mass Effect Andromeda. SJWs on the dev team changed the original model because they didn’t like how attractive she was... And before you say, “Well, that’s just one time”, it doesn’t matter. It shouldn’t happen at all, and the last thing any of us want is to allow it to happen more

Thank you! And hearing this really gives me hope! Most of us don't want to do away with fanservice completely, but we want balance and respect.

Sypha Belnades comes to mind...

gonna be real with you champ, i didn't read most of this. but have you played any of the other xeno games? they weren't sexualized this way, so them being Japanese isn't an excuse

Charlotte Stewart I've played the other two Xenoblades to story completion and about a couple hours of Xenosaga 1 (got it as part of a huge PS2 roundup last year so didn't have much time). I still don't care about it regardless of it not being as prevalent, especially when it's not as prominent in their actual characters as is being assumed here (read: Mythra). Although we can just plain strip our party in Xenoblade 1, some with actually useful stats on naked "equipment" which can be in cutscenes later during very serious moments, so I'd argue there's more potential whiplash in 1 than 2. Hell, Dunban in XB1 has a SKILL from one of his skill trees that heavily increases aggro pull if he's naked. The game encourages you to strip a character to experiment with actual game mechanics, meanwhile nobody changes how they look in 2 besides a few key story points and the weapons of blades that aren't the required story ones. That's part of why I don't get why it being more seen in cutscenes is any issue at all when its been in places besides story before in this franchise and in my opinion potentially more (hilarious to me) distracting when it's during normal gameplay. Heck I only make that small note because I use nothing but Shirtless Shulk in Smash. They clearly threw that in there for semi-sexualized laughs, so I use it just for kicks.

@@UltimaKeyMaster he disproved a lot of what you accused him of and youre just wearing a tin foil hat at this point

This video is about the problems with over sexualization. Not really about feminism.

@@michaelplaysbass8311 the oversexualization of female characters in xc2 is so obnoxious to me. Maybe thats why my favorite character is Morag simply because of her design, and personality of course. Thank god xc3 is somewhat of an improvement in terms of female character designs

@@HienPham-ow5ky brooo you got great taste. Mòrag is amazing but I gotta say Pyra and nia are my favorite personality wise. Design wise my favorite is probably wulfric, Harald and oddly enough Azami

Yeah and the Teams always had 1 male and 1 female blade. So woke. Jokes aside I liked the DLC a lot. I could only imagine how much more I'd like the main game's story if it didn't have as much distracting fanservice as it did.

@@GamerLord821 honeslty even without the fanservice i liked the story of the dlc more. Plotholes aside mythra's character arc was one of the saddest and best things i've seen in a videogame especially when milton died like holy shit i almost cried and that's saying a lot considering i usually don't do that

@Frog24 There was quite a bit of "sexualization" is Torna the golden country; don't know what you mean by, "there wasn't any."

@@MrMoises621 he literally said "except for the design of mythra and brighid" lmao

@@samuelbacon2756 My response is meant to imply that I took that part of the comment into consideration. Frog24 states that aside from Mythra and Brighid's designs, there was no sexualization in the game, meaning they're implying that besides those two characters existing, the game makes an improvement with not sexualizing females. First off, sexualization goes beyond just how characters look or how many they are: the gaze of the camera and how the people being sexualized are treated by others plays a huge role in the act. Secondly, passing of the statement "except for the design of Mythra and Brighid" as an argumentative clause for how Torna is an improvement in the sexualization department is a very lacking statement. That's like me giving a criticism on the stench of someone's defecation and being like: "except for the fact that i want to gag every time I inhale, there's nothing wrong about your shit's smell." Taking away the elements of the argument that determine what something is in the first place and then following it up with an inverse argument, is not conducive to a strong, comprehensive observation; hence my initial response. Point is, the golden country still has sexualization in it; there's just less characters to do it to because of 1. the characters the DLC chooses to focus on 2. No blade awakening mechanic to give the character designers an excuse to design even more sexy female blades

I agree with you tbh😅

Maybe I'm just numb to it at this point 😅 if you can look past all the unnecessary sex appeal, XC2 is a rather great game, can definitely tell they took some kinda turn away from the 1st game tho ( the 1st game didn't have the waifu overload the 2nd game had )

i am not american

It's not just americans but westerners in general.

haha

For his neutral weapon he wields a gun

Not to mention looking at the smash community also pedophiles, sexual assaulters, rapists, and groomers.

I do find it weird that when Final Fantasy Mobius gave a more sexualized outfit to it's male main character (there was a window to his side ass), they were forced to change it by the JP community(?) because it looked "too gay", as opposed to it being assumed for women, who like that type of design. Ironically, gay men have a huge audience for the big buff or thick guys lol, which is my perspective. Been playing through Lost Ark, and am mildly frustrated that as Sorcerers level up (gender locked female), they gradually wear less clothing, but I get close to zero parity for my gender locked male warriors. So far, my search yields a premium skin that reveals the upper torso.

@@exultantblade50 i agree with this lol🤣

Thank you for pointing this out! It all boils down to the male gaze vs female gaze.

@@MetalFrenchFries the oversexualization of female characters in xc2 is so obnoxious to me. Maybe thats why my favorite character is Morag simply because of her design, and personality of course. Thank god xc3 is somewhat of an improvement in terms of female character designs

@@exultantblade50 To be fair, that guy having an ass opening didn't even make sense for his character. This very video is against that gratuitous sexualization.

You are a virgin loser

Censoring the artists original vision is never an answer. But the influence people like this guy have in the industry scares developers from truly designing things how they want, in fear that they will offend some sect in the over-offended culture we live in. Sexualization ,whether for men or women .should be allowed without having "controversy" or hour long "this is problematic" videos always be the result.

@@galadriel5570 Sexy =/= sexualized.

You are not censoring art actually. You are censoring corporate business. Videogames are both things and sometimes you need to think in them as one or the other.

weeb

@@gonzazalazar well duh, ofc we’re weebs

@mrcristofer 2013 Why? who did you want, we know sora wont be happening

Nah

@@Cool-go2lh the oversexualization of female characters in xc2 is so obnoxious to me. Maybe thats why my favorite character is Morag simply because of her design, and personality of course. Thank god xc3 is somewhat of an improvement in terms of female character designs

If youre talking about xenoblade chronicles 2 specifically, the characters still aren't sexualized, and just because a male character is drawn as conventionally attractive doesn't mean it's sexualized or women aren't into him. To better explain, playboy tried making a female variant of it's playboy magazine: playgirl magazine, which tried to get pictures of men they thought women were into (tall, muscular, etc. Exactly how you are descriving) However, because there was a lack of female input, women weren't really into it, and the primary consumers of playgirl were actually gay men, which makes sense because the whole thing was what guys thought would be attractive traits in men. (Basically, what's attractive to men is different than what's attractive to women, regardless of sexuality. Straight men and lesbians tend to like different things, and the same applies to gay men and straight women) Sexualization isn't just "being conventionally attractive", it's the framing, the emphasis on attractive traits, both through camera and dialouge, etc. You can actually see this type of sexualization towards men for women in things like otome games and occasionally BL, but those instances are relatively niche and only are present in romance/porn for women, while sexualization of women for men is far more common and appears in a larger number of genres that have nothing to do with romance, ecchi, or porn. I hope that makes sense.

VoxelFusion Exactly. Don't listen to changes from people who don't support the media.

Completely agree with you.

People who are not accustomed to anime.