| pokoko said: I don't really care either way, to be honest. The way people analyze and rationalize games into sexist/not-sexist sometimes annoys me. Why does a damsel in distress have to MEAN something? Can't she just be someone who needs saving? Can't it just be a plot device for the goddamn story? Beyond that, I think western people trying to pigeonhole Japanese games to meet western ideals are fooling themselves a bit. It's a different culture and I see people misunderstanding certain elements a lot. Bayonetta definitely represents a male Japanese fetish. If people want to call that feminist, fine, but it feels a bit silly. It's like trying to argue that football is a finesse game, not a power game, when anyone with eyes can see that it's both. Sometimes the need to group and sort and then argue about what you've grouped and sorted creates a false dichotomy. |
It's actualy quite a valid point. Kamiya could have been trying to play to a stereotype, and yet subvert it by making Bayonetta competent and efficacious without qualification, or he could even have just been going for "teh sexy" without trying anything else, and yet created a competent, efficacious woman in the process.
It's an interesting side-effect you see of the need to moe or ecchi-up anime and manga, they end being forced to add more women who get more screentime, or make casts that are either exclusively female or have females be the only characters who matter (for an ecchi example: Queen's Blade, for a moe: Girls und Panzer). In both cases the simple need to create a diverse cast of characters with a worthwhile story, and the side-need to have them be all or mostly girls and women, they then end up having to make girls and women who are diverse and independent.
Monster Hunter: pissing me off since 2010.
