Eye-Candy?

[Hirathien]

In a lot of games we see female AND male characters wearing weird clothing, Suikoden's own Jeane seems to be getting less and less clothes as the game passes by, should we expect her to wear pasties when Suikoden VI decides to tag along?

I'm just wondering, in all the games, in everything, why does producers feel the need to put a girl in a game, just to strip her of her clothing? TO some extent it's fine, like, if she'd be a rogue or something ofcourse she'd have tight clothing, don't get me wrong. But isn't there a point where it just gets weird and it's time to step back and ask "Ok, who thought Double D's on a highschool kind of girl was a good idea?"

Please, feel free to add your thoughts.

[gilgamesh31]

Its not just high school girls its actually every single girl in anime's, Its just completly unrealistic. Dead or Alive for example, all its girls have the exact same breast size and shape, wheres the variety? I dont mean for this to come across as offensive but why do Japanese people give all their girls A.different colored hair, B. huge boobs and C.massive eyes when in general Japanese people in reality dont have any of these traits. Fair enough hair dye can explain the ones set in modern times but how did they get hold of green hair dye back in the old days?

Also you briefly mentioned male characters, we usually get a scrawny teenage boy as our main character. I know that as i get older i get further away from being that teenager, which will defentely piss me off when im say 40 still trying to relate. As for guys wearing strange clothing in games, i cant think of anyone from Suikoden but Kuja from FF9's outfit looks a little...breezy.

[Oppenheimer]

Jeane may have her skimipests outfit yet in Suikoden V but she had a more reserved outfit in Suikoden III than Suikoden II. So she's not always getting skimpier.

[eldrasidar]

Partially it is too make people more interesting. In Suikoden, there are a lot of characters. Since you cannot possibly go into great detail about all of them through the main plot, designers need to use other methods to flesh out characters. Elements like the detectives, the comment box and others provide some of this, but ultimately, the best way to do it is through that character's image, including skin, hair, eyes, and clothing or lack thereof. I think characters dress in a diverse manner that aims to express details about their person. I don't think that Jeane getting a skimpy dress has done anything to really alter her character beyond it's usual mysteriousness and allure, and it's not like everyone is running around in bikini's and swim trunks.

[Nikisaur]

As a female gamer, this is something I get really frustrated about. I understand wanting to make characters look good and appeal to the audience. I want characters to be aesthetically pleasing also. Some people do have massive boobs, sure. But as an woman of an average height and average shape (I look like this -> ll) it bugs me when I turn on a fighting game and the female options are completely out of proportion, overly sexualised genetic freaks from T&A Laboratories. I know I'm not supposed to look like them, that'd be awful (Ivy looks like a drag queen in SCIV).

But yeah. Game genres have a target audience. Fighting games are not targeted at me, and they're not going to let me forget it. Quite the conundrum, as they are not the target maket, it is alright to alienate the fairer sex, but then it makes them less likely to buy into the genre.
I had an article about Soul Calibur in the other thread, I'll find it in a sec.

I think Suikoden has a decent mix of body types actually, as well as character types. Some people are sexy. Jeane is one of those people in the Suikoden world. Although I'm worried, as Hirathien pointed out, soon Jeane will be concealed but nothing more than a fine mist. Some fans will raise their hands to the sky, and praise the 27 True Runes for this 'development'. I will only raise mine far enough to cover my face.


EDIT: Here's the link http://www.indolents.com/news/2007/12/11 Also, man I say some random stuff

[eldrasidar]

I would point out that's a minority of games though that are guilty of that, primarily in the fighting game genre. adventure games and rpg's I think on a whole tend to be far more balanced in having female characters with a wide range of personalities and body types, although there are exceptions here and there, like Tomb Raider. I think however we are far more sensitive to when it happens because it is far more common phenomenon in tv and movies be they American or Japanese.

[Hirathien]

In the whole Eye-candy part I can think of several titles in a wide variety of games. It is true, it might not be that many in Suikoden, but there are a bit of them. Mainly Jeane though, as someone pointed out.

[eldrasidar]

if it's only 2 or 3 out of 108, then I'll call it diversity and be satisfied, particularly since most of the characters that probably fall into this category in Suikoden are regularly pointed out as being unusual, as opposed to say Soul Caliber, where the status quo is ludicrously shaped and dressed women. It's one thing to have Jeane as she is in suikoden 5, where they make a large point of letting you know she's dressed like a hussie. It would be another if she was dressed as she was, and nobody even batted an eye. One says this woman is exotic and alluring, and the other says this is what normal women are like. Suikoden has definitely gone for the former option.

[DoReMi_Vampire]

After studying at film-university I've learned that there are two types of visual pleasure (strictly regarding characters in this case).

1. You can relate to a character in a narcissistic way. The Suikoden series' main target-market are young boys which they succed at making good relatable protagonists for.
2. You can also enjoy watching a character in a voyeuristic way. Like others have said before me this game-series doesn't overuse fan-service, and the characters actually react to weird clothing rather than acting as if it's completly normal, which is great IMO.
As long as the series keeps a good balance I have no complaints.

In the case of other games like Street Fighter and Dead or Alive, they don't really focus on the story et.c. and I personally think women and men for the most part are equally goofy-looking in those.

[Silverberg]

:why do Japanese people give all their girls A.different colored hair, B. huge boobs and C.massive eyes when in general Japanese people in reality dont have any of these traits.

Huge boobs are for the fanboys, as much as most of us think it is unnecessary, sex still sells. The size of a character's eyes determines if they're good or bad. The bigger the eyes, the more innocent and sympathetic they are. Obviously the narrow slanted beady eyes are typically the bad guy. Add eye shadow to make them really evil, as well as narcisstic. I don't want to speculate on the hair color for fear of being wrong, but I think it's a way of emulating western culture.

[DoReMi_Vampire]

Usually big eyes are used to show that a person is young, that and the hair-color is just part of the art-style I think.

On the big-breast subject though I got one word for you: Moe!
Supposedly the Japanese are encouraged early on to generalize and make characters into stereotypes. I'm not sure of the source where I first heard this, but it doesn't seem that far from the truth. Not only do they generalize nationalities and such, but they also break personalities right down their smallest traits. This can allow you to experiment more easily by putting popular tags together in the character-design.

E.g "Does this girl look cute in glasses? Does she have the traits of a tsundere, a yandere, ahegao, pettanko?" Et.c.

It's an interesting method but it also makes any work of fiction feel very mechanical, which is why I've completly given up on every anime that has any resemblance to the harem-genre and prefer to keep to the ones that get better reviews.
But rather than thinking of it as a bad thing I personally believe you should just think of it as a culture-difference on how Easterners and Westerners view the art of cinema.

[eldrasidar]

keep in mind that there is a huge variation in anime/manga depending on what the target audience is. for example, if it's targeted for a mature audience, children will be the only characters with large eyes filled with bubbles, because eyes in this case have nothing to do with good or evil, and everything to do with innocence, which almost none of the adults have. Take cowboy bebop for example. Ed is the only one with large eyes, as she is the only one who's honestly innocent in that series. Meanwhile Vicious and Spike have basically the same eyes.

hair color usually doesn't mean anything in particular if it's black, blond or brown or gray. If it's an unnatural color(like pink, or neon blue, or silver) it denotes an extreme characteristic of the person, although I can't remember what colors specify what characteristics although Red head's generally are more sexual and flirtatious characters. In general though, since most characters start off as being unusual to begin with, their hair isn't going to really tell you anything you couldn't already figure out. it would be like looking at a guy dressed in a military uniform and saying they must be a soldier because they have a crew cut.

[Night Shadow]

To be quite blunt, and this is coming from a Japanese friend of mine, its already "engraved" in their pop culture to make the typical female character the way she is. Call it perverted, because I guess it is. I mean, you can walk into a normal bookstore in Japan, a bookstore where little kiddies can enter, and the first thing you see are pervy books filled with girls and guys used soley for things to seem visually appealing.

I guess thats what it comes down to. The Japanese just find stuff like that to be visually cool. I mean, they have a fetish for unusual things. Unusual clothes. Unusual hair color. Even unusual food. Ever tasted Tonkatsu-Sauce flavored Soda? Lovely.

[Jeremiah Ecks]

Yes, the series has 'eye-candy' in the form of Jeane. It also has Vicki. Who is certainly not eye-candy. Nor is Hellion. Or Josephine. Or Ameria. Or Isabel. Or Chisato. Or... well, you get the point. Basically for every Jeane, Kasumi, there is a Cordelia, Lelei.

To be fair, it's not like the women don't have eye-candy too. What about the bath scenes? How many women swooned over Blue Lightning Flik in the bath, I ask you?

I just think, it's fair to point at fiction as a whole and decry it's gratuitious sex use and portrayal of women - but Suikoden has always been more balanced on the subject, more than its many peers, and is one of the reasons I love it so. Yes, it does have Jeane. Yes, it does have your masculine stereotype in Helga.

But it also has Cleo - a fantastically written warrior woman who takes no crap but at the same time, maintains a very feminine and gentle stance. She's strong, but she's not masculine. Lucia, a woman who is characterised very much as a matronly and passionate woman, but also maintains a very strong warrior's edge. Don't get me started on Chris Lightfellow.

What about just gentler portrayals if that's a viable term? Yoshino Yamamoto springs to mind. She's very tender and soft and although she can fight, it's not her calling, nor is she downtrodden or useless.

I just don't think all of the women in Suikoden are stereotyped and / or eye-candy. And if they are, it equally goes for the men.

-Jeremiah Ecks,
who was sad Cleo wasn't playable in S2 or S3.

[Jeremiah Ecks]

I'd like to add, the characters in Suikoden are generally written to appeal to 'all' tastes. So you get the 'mysterious and dark' characters of Yuber, Pesmerga and Zerase to appeal to your more 'Gothicky' lovers. You get your Viktor's to appeal to those who love your Gambit style rogue. You get Flik to appeal to all those fangirls who love Cloud Strife and call him their 'pretty boy' (and yes, I know many of these IRL! ).

Same for the women. Cleo is there to provide a stable character and backbone. Lelei to be a disciple / learner, who can go on a character's journey. Your love interests, like Kasumi or Eilie. Your players, like Rina. Your annoyances like Nina. Your basic sluts, like Jeane.

I don't mind Jeane being slutty as long as all the characters alongside her remain diverse and interesting. My bigger concern is that her mystery will never be resolved and is now at a level of ridiculousless. They need to answer Jeane's mystery and Pesmerga's sooner rather than later.

-Jeremiah Ecks,
who is bored by the Jeane mystery.