Stellar Blade and the Provocative Female Form
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- čas přidán 14. 06. 2024
- Stellar Blade and the Provocative Female Form. The internet is on fire and the Sony marketing team are happy clams at the bottom of the ocean. From the day that Stellar Blade was revealed to the world, as Project Eve at first, this game has been making headlines and generating conversation. Now the content of the internet conversation, whether or not its morally acceptable to depict a provocative female form, has been rehashed for about a decade now. I think most of us are tired of hearing the constant back and forth about it. However, why i felt compelled to make this video and discuss the topic is because in terms of art critique, the depiction of the female form is a pursuit that is timeless and important. No matter who you ask and what their cultural stance is, you will find that they do feel that some depictions in art are more effective than others. Why this is, though, that these types will explain, is because some depictions are morally correct and others are not -- which is overly simplistic and not reflective of how art really works. I think there is an entire deep and aesthetic conversation to be had around provocative and arousing imagery, but right now that conversation is being completely bludgeoned by political and cultural warfare.
For the past decade the age of the average gamer has been rising, we Millennials are getting old. And as we get older, we are naturally going to become more sensitive towards provocative imagery than we were when we were hot-blooded teenagers. This is why, I think, we are seeing a lot of series like God of War and Devil May Cry aging their protagonists. Not only because the devs themselves are aging, but also the target customer base. I bring this up because I suspect, though it will be interesting to see, if Stellar Blade might be one of the first AAA published games in a long while that is not primary aimed at the married millennial, but rather the Gen Z demographic. And it will also be interesting to see how the sales of this game turn out (though they seem to already be doing well pre-release) and how the sales of this game may influence other developers in the AAA space. Best case scenario, in my mind, is that the sales of Stellar Blade help push Team Ninja to rediscover their mojo and return to making games like Dead or Alive or Ninja Gaiden, but we'll see.
This topic video was made before the release of Stellar Blade. But if you are interested in the game it looks like it will be a Playstation 5 (PS5), exclusive for the forseeable future. Maybe, if it actually plays well, it can be this console generation's Bloodborne for Sony. The Rise of Ronin has already attempted to be the PS5's Elden Ring and I don't think that turned out as hoped.
Fantastic thumbnail, as usual, created by the master @boghogSTG
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00:00 Sexuality (or the Lack of It) is a Fundamental Aspect of Character Design.
04:30 A Character Understanding Her Own Sexuality, and Its Effects, Creates Depth
07:00 Provocative Character Design Can Be Used To Create Aesthetics Beyond Fan service.
08:10 Aging Millennials Are Naturally Becoming More and Sensitive to Erotic Character Design.
09:40 Sexy Characters are A Risk When Developing AAA For Mass Audiences.
11:15 The Origins of Stellar Blade Studio, The Power of Gacha is Increasing
13:00 The Alcohol Analogy - Sensitivity to Sexual Content is Individual and Crosses All Demographics
16:20 Final Thoughts - Humor is Refreshing, Moralistic Warfare is Boring.
#stellarblade, #stellarbladereview, #ign - Hry
the female form does indeed inspire me provocatively
Ha yes I feel inspired as well.
💯
Strange, i get inspired by the female form when its nice like this, in many ways including must keep up and hit the gym and build my own body up🤔
Based
Yes. But people who make their whole personality “I’m honey and unabashed” are just as obnoxious as overly woke zealots.
Them: i’m buying it because boobas
Them: i’m not buying it because boobas
Me: i fought the chainsaw demon 30 times and i honestly could have kept going
Oh yeah I'm really looking forward to talking about the gameplay when the game comes out. I thought I'd get the aesthetic discussion completed beforehand, since I know it would be such a dominant topic in the gameplay review.
seriously the gameplay is phenominal, and needs to be talked about more. this game takes nier, sekiro, and lies of p and blends them nearly perfectly, IN THE FUCKING DEMO. this is gonna be a generational game that people will remember for A LONG TIME. mark my words.
If you’re afraid of playing something like Bayonetta or even a standard JRPG from a decade ago in front of certain people, maybe you shouldn’t be playing Doom Eternal or Bloodborne in front of them, either.
Yeah that's such a funny mentality in our culture, where we are so much more comfortable with violent imagery than even provocative imagery. Though maybe this is because we project our internal embarrassment more readily when it comes to provocative content.
This is what we call strawmanning.
You don't play Doom Eternal in front of a toddler, and you don't play big titty anime game in front of your girlfriend.
This is called context, the coomer mind cannot comprehend.
Aren't (Wasp) Americans just weird like that? They think extreme gore is wholesome but will get weirded out by something as tame as Dead or Alive. I'm mostly weirded out by the whole 'wholesome' transgender thing. I don't get why it's being marketed to children so much.
What about Sam fox's strip poker on the spectrum?
@@chuddyduddy See, that makes more sense.
Wow, probably the most mature and level headed video about this damn topic that honestly didn't need to blow up at all.
I'm glad to hear that! :-)
That's because it's hard to be tolerant with moralists, since their whole worldview is predicated on being intolerant and wanting to impose their view on the whole society.
I am an atheist, but I'm cool with religious people, unless they are fundamentalists that want to impose their religion on society, it's kind of the same mechanism.
I've been so desensitized by things like Onechanbara, DoA, Senran Kagura, etc. that Stellar Blade barely even registers as provocative in my brain.
Bayonetta is tamer than those games and Stellar Blade is even tamer than Bayonetta. It says a lot about peoples' mindset now that it's even generating controversy.
Im pretty sure its a loud minority that has a disproportionate amount of influence on this matter
@@dj_koen1265 thats a perfect way to put it. I am very interested in how it is they obtained that much influence.
@@dj_koen1265ironic considering most people with your mindset cry about trad women not existing anymore and then show women when men want is emotionless robots dressed like cyber strippers
Just say you disagree and be honest. Trying to wrap and obscure your motive of im horny and want satisfaction now” with “I’m being oppressed because i can’t take 5 and wank off before playing” are two different things. Very hedonistic mentality
@@ErwinHadanIronWillFear and anger in order to gain control. Narcissism and power.
As I get older I become more fickle and accepted that I'll only really stick to games that have fun gameplay AND fan service lmao
I have a wholistic approach, it needs to have fun but complex gameplay, HUGE PLOT (aka Fan Service lol), and excessive gore. We were eating good back in the 2000s. Ninja Gaiden was all 3
@HereticHydra with stuff like DIE and BRIDGE around we will likely need to make the change we wanna see. It's infecting japan too so I hope fans pick up the skills to carry the slack. Unreal engine's free, there's visual scripting, and you can learn articy for free to make sure you don't overreach or have a mess (iirc you can easily transfer your game design in articy into unreal). Godot is free and the blender of engines but they just now revived their visual scripting. Be wary of payment processors, the final bosses
Ha yeah the aesthetic quality of games is really important. I talked about this in the rise of ronin review but aggressive blandness is actually a design choice and in some ways is more unsettling than some casual sexuality. Like our minds are geared towards a base level of sexual appeal, just based on real life existence, so when games intentionally strip this element from their visual design, it feels off. Stellar Blade is clearly going extra ha, but the reason why it feels real EXTRA is because of the current bland context of other AAA games.
I have more respect for myself and women since I have sisters so my main thing is, is a good game?
Secondly, will it hurt or damage the image my sisters and mothers have if they see me playing it?
For all these men crying about muh trad women, remember that if your sister or any other girl who looked up to you - ever saw you engaging with and praising that sort of stuff,
You have subconsciously put in her head that’s what men want and look for.
@@TheElectricUndergroundthe reason it feels extra is because it is unnecessarily excessive. That’s not bad by default , but people also need to understand that stuff like this genuinely CAN make people uncomfortable. Does that mean it shouldn’t exist? No. But can it be criticized? Yeah sure. I think it’s totally in line to find this a bit much say for a - concerned parent, religious person or someone who has a specific belief system
I go outside daily and see women wearing the tightest pants imaginable (not complaining here!). I don't remember this being common in the early 2000s when Western devs still made sexy characters. American society is so full of contradictions that it's hard to take anything seriously, especially related to gender/sex.
In the 2000s, girls wore short shorts with the thongs visible. Thongs in general were viewed as much more acceptable back in the 1980s. 90s & 2000s. I think what changed is that USA used to have a hardcore Physical Fitness culture, as opposed to this Pro Fat acceptance garbage that we have now.
@@HereticHydra Fat acceptance is huge. In the late 00s, I went out to lunch with a girl I hadn't seen in a year and she gained 50 lbs in that time. I ran into old classmates and was really embarrassed in a way that I wouldn't be now. It's mostly just female obesity that is more accepted now. I see many more pairings of large women and average or fit guys.
@@edmaibatsu8625
Yeah I have noticed fat men are still subject to riducule.
@@pkkingcrimsonrequiem1332 While people should be encouraged to exercise and keep fit, I don't think they should be ridiculed. Wasn't that the whole point of the fat-phobia thing? To be nice to fat people too?
@@blufudgecrispyrice8528 actually if you dive deeper into the body positivity movement you'll see it's pretty much exclusive to women and "women adjacent people." Because a lot of them still view men as predatory and abusive. So it's not about body positivity it's more just another way to divide among identarians.
Me, personally, there's no greater (physical) feeling like going to the gym regularly and lifting weights heavier than myself.
We’ve got to the point where a hot female character is some point of controversy. Back in the day the only complaints I remember were about Team Ninja characters. Every other hot character; Not a care in the world.
Yeah I wonder if this uptight mentality is coming to an end. I think it is, because if you look at other parts of media right now, like pop music, things are getting wild lol. As usual I think games are a few years behind everything else.
@@TheElectricUnderground American pop culture has always been gratuitously sexy since the 70s. Video games used to reflect that but they've been sanitizing themselves since the 2010s & now they even have Jap games doing it now. It's just video games though. Even in Japan, their actual tv shows, film & movies made for Japanese people are still just as edgy as it was back in the 70s. The video games in Japan are sanitized for Western consumption. I'm not sure why that is, at least not without getting into discussions of the 2030 agenda & social engineering.
No we didn't lol it's always been like this and today's culture, which btw are just an evolution and growth of the wars of yesteryear, are just making things worse.
These DEi people never try to change the male characters, but they always end up crying about the female ones being too sexy
I think there was also an element of genre bias there. Like, these guys made action hack-and-slash and fighting games - games where plot and story are basically irrelevant, so the sexy designs were perceived as gratuitous and/or exploitative absent that story context. The problem now is that this type of criticism seems to apply to any form of female sexiness, regardless of context. Stellar Blade is throwing biblical themes in your face right from the get-go and some people will not even give that any benefit of the doubt. It might actually be one of the rare games where this stuff ends up mattering to the story and characters, like Eve (the first woman, etc. etc.) actually discovering her sexuality and not just being born sexy yesterday. I find this especially exciting given Yoko Taro's recent comments on Stellar Blade; as someone with some real storytelling chops, I really hope he's not talking out of his ass!
the point about these protagonists being ultra hot but at the same time totally devoid of any sexuality is very worthy of exploring
Well her name is Eve so it’s probably some edgy Christian interpretation from the East and the reference being she is unaware because she is without knowledge, but it also be just Japan saying “cool Christian themes in my game that go nowhere in the plot”
I don’t think it’s as spectacular or needed as you’re saying, what aspect of this would you want to be explored exactly?
@@Humdeeheyyahawikiahaye I wasn't talking about Eve in particular, but about, as the video says, how videogames (like also Resident Evil, also cited in the video) have all these super hot protagonists who never show any sign of sexuality (maybe except the Ada/Leon romance)
IMHO it could be because these are characters that are designed to be fantasized about so that even if a girl such as Eve would be unapproachable by the average player, videogame Eve (or videogame Sheva or videogame Jill) is a super hot girl who is completely unaware of her hotness so that even you, the player, could go and talk to her and maybe who knows!
昔はアニメや漫画やゲームに触れると『空想と現実の区別が付かなくなる』って言われたけど
実際はそういった物に疎い人ほど実在しない物に人権がどうこう言ったり
空間と現実の区別がついてない人が目立つようになったよね
そして彼等のクレームに応じて修正しても、彼等は金なんて出さない
-- sioagisoluto
What a sad reality.
I cannot read Japanese but I did machine translate the text so hopefully my response makes sense to what's written ha. The difference between fantasy and reality is a really interesting subject right now because of the advancements of AI and how photo-realistic media, like Stellar Blade, is becoming. However, what I am finding is that the more realistic art starts to look, like Stellar Blade, the less immersive it becomes the human mind and eye is extremely sensitive to the uncanny valley effect, so I think what we are going to find in the coming years is that games like stellar blade and so forth are actually going to have to become less realistic and have a slight layer of abstraction to be considered artistic in player's eyes. We're not there yet, but I think once true photo realism is achieved, we're not going to like it.
This is actually where I disagree with Mark. The majority of gamers are still men, so I don't think it's a niche thing to have sexy women in your game. Companies have spent the last 10 years trying to not piss off people who won't buy the games anyway, so I think there will be a return to earlier form.
I honestly don't know if this was originally in another language translated by some tool into japanese. I can read at a decent level of japanese and yet I could not understand what was written here at all until I pressed the translate to english button.
@@Phisherman10you do realize that a lot of us actually play video games for the game part right? Like some of us have sisters bro, and great relationships with them, have seen men try to mistreat them based on this warp “chad” mindset
Except that you do not speak for all men, and that your “loud minority” is just as bad as the other, there needs to be a compromise and better good faith arguments on both sides
I gave thought to the alcohol analogy. As I had a family member under alcohol addiction what I can say is:
In blunt honesty it's easier to say "alcohol is bad" that "people are bad" for most. If the same person never had alcoholism the underlying bad personality trait would still persist, 1000% certain...
So I think, in extension, ppl who NEED control over sex have and underlying problem.
Yeah the alcohol analogy doesn't line up 1 to 1, but I think it does hopefully illustrate that there are certain constants to human behavior that are complicated and not easily sorted into a general demographic viewpoint. Why I really liked using alchohol as an analogy is because there are so many individual factors that a person can have with their relationship to it that is a mix of circumstances, rather than just one blanket factor. I think a person's relationship to sexually provocative content is similar in this regard. One person's medicine is another person's poison basically.
Alcohol literally impairs your judgement so bad call. Incidentally, lust is one of the STRONGEST forces of leading men to ruin - food for thought
the last of us sells well because it's a high budget movie game with a lot of advertising. the very idea that good looking/sexualized characters damage sales sounds ridiculous to me, but narratives often come from the loudest crowd, not the biggest one
Haven't watched the whole video yet, but a HUGE reason why Stellar Blade is selling well is that many people believe that if the game sells well it will show other console devs that there is STILL a market for this ( sexy women in action games). And the idea in supporting this game is that other devs will start making more games like this again, since sexy women in games ( primarily in the west and in some cases in the East have been in a decline). That's the beauty of capitalism ( free markets) is that they don't lie, and the truth is that the numbers based on pre orders alone is INSANE , with stellar blade topping MULTIPLE charts. And the game is already predicted by an analysts to sell over a million units, which if true, is impressive for a brand NEW IP in 2024 , especially considering how expensive video games are to make now. And MANY people were dead set in supporting this game BEFORE the demo came out. So you can't just chuck it up to gameplay of the game either. Since while It helped the game,it isn't the MAIN selling point, just look at the discourse on twitter and youtube for further proof.
Additionally, this idea that Stellar blade is only going to appeal to straight men as I read in an article is stupid, as I've seen PLENTY of women talking about how they like Eve's design, whether it's straight women saying how fashionable her outfit is. Or lesbian women talking about how hot she is. And I'm already seen females cosplay the character for fun. Yes, there will be groups of people who don't like the sexy portrayal of the character ( whether that be feminists on the left) . BUT SO WHAT? The reality is NOT EVERY GAME HAS TO APPEAL TO EVERYONE. Heck, there are TONS of works that I like in anime and gaming that is not mainstream. And I'm cool with that. WHY? BECAUSE I ENJOYED it, and who cares if the vast majority didn't, my only concerns is if the work is profitable enough to get a sequel. Not whether billions of people look at a character of a movie or an anime in the same way as I do. If you need something to be mainstream to feel confident about a product you like. Then you are someone that needs to be validated by others. Which is pathetic IMO and definitely not healthy. Just thought I share my thoughts on this controversy, even though it REALLY SHOULDN'T be one in the first place.
"Not every game has to appeal to everyone" makes me think of the game Cookie Cutter from late 2023.
The lead dev of the game has stated in interviews something to the effect of wanting to make a game that is very, very much inspired by his own experiences in life. From Italian punk/rave scene to 80's and 90's sci-fi and music to all manner of music artists.
The design of the main character, Cherry's has had a *lot* of nasty comments her way for the way she looks, for reasons that I will not get into but there's a steam forum thread that is all too telling ( _ )
But yet again, despite the toll it had on him about five months ago, he has stated that he loves provoking people (punk rock music background) and has found it entertaining to look at what narratives and stories people will spin around their own reasons for not liking something. And meanwhile, Cookie Cutter is a beautifully animated colorful 2D brainchild that he hopes to keep substantially supporting for a long time to come, both as a game and a world.
And it very, very much has its fans.
I'm with you too in hoping that a work is profitable enough for a sequel or to support creators for a new project-- or at least, that's what i want to learn to focus on, instead of getting hung up on people not liking or looking at something the way i do.
Give attention to aforementioned Cookie Cutter, as well as stuff like Soulstice (another character action game that came out in 2022, which has shades of Devil May Cry 5, Bayonetta, Darksiders, ,and some panoramic sights á la Greek God of War), Clash: Artifacts of Chaos, the upcoming Blud, Genokids, Tiny Terry's Turbo Trip, Harold Halibut, My Familiair, Loco Motive, Resistor, and many more: It's much more worth one's time to give attention to promising newcomers that you *do* like.
And of course, maintain a level head in listening to, talking about, and discussing stuff between what people like. Easier said than done.
Not much else of substance i can give in this comment to add onto what you said. I mainly hope that the titles here have proven to be of interest to anyone who reads about them, to be honest.
Women don't have to be "sexy"
If boobs are bad then we are doomed
The love for boobs will persist!!!!!!
If liking boobs is your whole personality than you’re also doomed
Indeed it's crazy Soul Calibur doesn't have the sexualized reputation Dead or Alive does. As an early teen, I wouldn't have been allowed to play the DoA games. Because "boob physics" was practically its marketing material. So I got Soul Calibur instead and ... unlocked all the character art for Sophitia, Tira, Taki, and uh ... yeah. Stayed on good terms with my parents. xD
What about Voldo?
That’s not provocative. That’s attractive.
I cannot get over how good this channel is and how good this video is. I agree with your conclusions but I'm impressed with your ability to frame the issue as well. Your voice is massively welcome in my opinion, in light of how incredibly divisive and absurd the discourse over this subject has become.
I agree.
im so sorry
@@gurg9090 is it schizophrenia?
With Bayonetta, it's memory holed now, but I distinctly remember when it came out it was branded as a sexist or problematic game. Only after it became a hit(especially after Nintendo breathed second life into it) and gamers still liked it despite the critics, was the narrative about those games turned upside down. Seeing what people, especially progressives, say about Bayo now makes me feel like a crazy person as if the past never even happened, and I don't see much acknowledgement of this either. In a similar vein, I think with Stellar Blade if it does well enough, it won't be as big a deal anymore on all sides. All this discourse on the effect of sexualization or even the implications of how games can handle it, it's all unimportant because let's be real, for those who like it, it's mainly just base titillation(nothing wrong with that, I like it too) rather than anything profound about the female form, or doesn't guarantee the gameplay/story will be good. And for those who dislike it, well even they'd have to admit eventually there's bigger social justice topics to worry about than pixel boobs. Ultimately, it's a harmless addition and if the game is successful enough, everyone will have to confront that fact.
First they tried the Bayonetta is problematic angle but it didnt work.
Then they tried to appropriate her as homosexual icon.
Then Bayo 3 came out signaling strongly against that and they have not recovered since.
One of the few good things about that game.
Don't forget that Bayonetta was designed by a woman, that sure made a lot of Sarkeesian cultists shut up.
I agree with the statement about their being bigger social justice topics. I think any sexist discourse around video games and how women are presented or not presented in them, is a more a symptom of a sexist society rather than the cause, even tho I do think video games can contribute to the problem depending on the presentation.
But again it just comes back to their being much much bigger topics and contributing factors.
I think something that really highlights the sexism in today's society is the outrage that many gamers have when women aren't presented in a "sexy" way.
I think sometimes this can be a justified frustration if the sexuality of women or a particular character was important to the game connecting with its audience etc. but I also see people complain unfairly to the point that it feels like they think women should always look good for their own pleasure. As if women aren't allowed to look "average" in video games, and that if they do, it's the "woke agenda and feminists" ruining video games.
Stop ignoring the elephant in the room. The rise of incels didn’t come out of nowhere
You’re not ENTITLED to get horny every time you want and you can always just open a tab to pornhub
What I don’t like is a lot of sexuality charged people don’t want to confront that not everyone lives in constant horniness or wants to hear about their constant horniness
Juggle that with the fact that the openly very “Christian” conservative right tend to identify with this mindet despite the fact that it contradicts their “religious beliefs”
Being horny is not a personality trait, nor is being a hypocritical hedonist. The real argument here is, do you really believe that or is it just the criteria for your “political side”
I am apolitical btw
@@Senumunu "they" were LGBT gamers who liked Bayo, those are pro sex people and not the same "they" as the first line.
I was going to get this game because of how unapologetically fun and stylish it looks. But now, I'm also getting this to spite the mainstream "journalists" (like IGN) who started a war on beauty and called us, the gamers and paying customers, a bunch of "virgins" just for liking what we saw. We need more level-headed and honest reviewers like you who don't sellout. I'm done giving validation to the "moral superiors" who hate me and stopped supporting their inner group events like the game awards. All I wanted as a gamer was fun games, but they forced me into a culture war.
Have you ever made a video covering a Dead or Alive game? I thought that you had, but when I look now I only see videos covering Tekken or Virtua Fighter.
I’m generally turned off by most AAA games these days because all the characters look like they were hit in the face with a shovel. If I don’t like the look of the characters the game is starting from a deficit and has to do something else to draw my attention and $70 priced games with massive micro transactions isn’t that.
That is quite a dramatisation here. There are very few games with a protagonist who looks like "they were hit in the face with a shovel". There's a huge gap between hot and ugly, but it's like people forget that common looking is a thing, and that's where most of the recent characters that were criticized for being "ugly" fall under. Aloy from Horizon, Abby from TLOU2 (just talking about the face, not the muscles), they're not ugly, they're just common looking. Oh and nobody is bothered by unattractive male protagonists, Duke Nukem or Kratos aren't exactly hot. When games were 2D 240p most of the time we couldn't tell if the main character was hot or not, it didn't bother anyone nor did stop us from playing. Now I'm not criticizing the way you choose the games you buy, if you want games with hot girls I don't have a problem with it though just like getting offended because a character is "too" sexy can be off the mark, complaining because they aren't attractive enough is just as shallow.
I'm the same. Call me shallow, but I grew up with anime, aesthetics is important to me.
@@DioBrando-qr6ye I have no problem with that, it only gets anoying when people start complaining about games that don't look the way they want and try to frame it as censorship.
Clown you're lying
@@kathleendelcourt8136 Duke Nukem and Kratos aren't hot*
What? Male masculine protagonists with big jaw and great physicue aren't hot? Your counter argument hinges on false premise and oh course people don't bothered because no one is making male character uglier on purpose and they will go shirtless in games like MK, no dev will try to fix it because of muh realism. And yes, people don't play games and watch movies to watch common people for the most part. And please speak for yourself and not use terms like we or us.
This has to be the only genuinely well thought out video I've seen on this topic that actually discusses videogames within the context of them being an artistic medium. Great video!
i really like the alcohol analogy. it fits the topic well.
I'm glad you appreciate it!! I thought it would be a fun way to explain the idea in a new framing.
The same people that are complaining are the same ones that will not only buy the game but also look up rule34 of Eve as well.
Reminds me of a guy I knew in high school. He would tell me Beavis and Butthead is immature and has terrible animation after we got to talking and I expressed how much I loved the show...yet asked me to help him remove malware from his computer because he watched too much content that *stimulates the limbic system*.
Games used to be for fans of the medium, now they're corporatized schlock appealing to one of two sides of the culture wars. Everything touched by corporatism and the likes of political weaponization is ruined.
One interesting tidbit about the alcohol analogy is that some cultures straight up censor it in film. You'll see little blurs imposed over glasses of wine and such. So your analogy to alcohol is even more accurate when looking at it from an international scale.
As I get older, my admiration of the female form, if anything, grows stronger. I'm a 63 year old straight male and have pre-ordered my copy of Stellar Blade.
Embarrassing. If you had a daughter or sisters or maybe any respect for your Mother you’d know there’s a time for this behind closed doors. Being as old as you ate and advertising your libido is nothing to be proud of.
It’s also suspect but telling you appear not to have a partner (?) by your dialog
08:45 I'm a millennial (born 1983) and my taste definitely ain't shifting!
Just found this channel from the Streets of Rage 4 review and I'm loving this content so far!
Interesting video!
Stellar Blade is a provocation to contemporary feminist western values, that's why this game is not that welcomed among certain gaming journalists. But here there's something interesting:
Western market is shrinking and Asian market is huge when you not only look to Japan. The more chinese or korean companies start developing for consoles and PC, the more games we will see with anime aesthetics. After all both China and Korea imported moe culture and it's somethings that shows in their mobile games.
So I think we will start to see this trend in next years where more and more chinese and korean games come to consoles and then companies like Sony will have to appeal to that market if they want to sell consoles there. And that also could mean western companies will have to cater to that market that doesn't like current focus in hyperrealism that much.
The girls I've seen from Nikke and Destiny Child were WILD. lmao
And yeah, you're right about Shift Up. If you just go back and see Hyung-Tae Kim's library in general over the last 25 years, he's basically Korea's Shigatake of VanillaWare fame. WAAAAY back to Magna Carta and then Blade and Soul. It always kills me how new people are to things when they come in complaining about it just because it finally hit *their* radar.
Hey Mark, what's the music theme around 18:30? It rings a bell...
There's nothing inherently wrong with standard sexy ladies, but I'm annoyed that it seems to be the default for most female character designs, it often limits how interesting they can be. Be unafraid to have conventional sexualized character designs, but also be unafraid to go outside of that.
Well, at least DF has come around on the game, and at least a couple of the guys are very excited about it.
Ha yeah DF seem like pretty cool dudes , the hyper proportion thing just really made me laugh.
I wouldn't call this provocative. The notion of this game causing wide outrage is frankly overblown out of proportion.
Where the hell were you dudes when some sects of feminism were campaigning for "free the nipple" years ago?
It's causing outrage amongst the gaming community, also modern day feminists have always been hypocrites when it comes to irl issues
Excellent analysis as always. I feel a lot of these criticisms of attractive female characters often comes from men who have little interaction with women and women who don’t get much male attention.
Something I’ve noticed is that my 8-year-daughter will complain about the generic normal character options in a lot of modern games and tends to favour the more attractive characters.
By trying to appeal to everybod, you appeal to nobody. It's actually less risky to aim at a niche. There's less competition, and the goal is more opaque. The character action genre has basically no competition at the moment, so DMC5 and Bayonetta 3 get easy money.
Good luck with your plans on going full time !
I don't mind people not being fans of these types of games ( they are still wrong and have poor tastes ) but what irks me is they don't want it to exist, it's from a "bygone era" you mean the era when it was fun? I can't stand it, let the developers make what they want and let the players enjoy it.
The topic of shifting demographics reminded me of something that's been floating in the back of my mind for a while. And that is whether or not corporations are the ones destroying video games.
Obviously corporations are corrupt but at the end of the day they're just following the money. It's like music, one day The Beatles are the hot new thing, then the next day it's Nirvana. It's the same with game design choices, visual aesthetics, and overall sensibilities.
Even most indie games usually don't go for the over the top sexy aesthetic outside of literal hentai VNs. Either due to the devs own personal sensibilities or because they want that coveted "Overwhelmingly Positive" rating on Steam and don't want to risk making something that could potentially cause a Twitter controversy.
Remember mortal kombat?
It's less about people growing up and more on how they want to control your sexual preference. Look at characters like Alcina Dimitrescu from Resident Evil 8, she is this huge monster lady that is very old, yet people have no problem expressing sexual desires about her because she's not the typical cute young girl that wears revealing clothing, but you can't do the same to someone younger like Eve. There is obviously an agenda by people where they are essentially saying that "it's okay for you to be horny over this specific type of character, but don't you dare be horny for this other type!", and this initially happened with characters like 2B because journalists and people like them were mad about her and called her misogynistic, but then they started to act quiet once the game became successful and beloved by everyone. Hell, even Bayonetta in her early days was like this before everyone started to claim she's a lesbian icon (which they changed their tune once she turns out to be canonically straight in the 3rd game and now a certain group hates her again). The same thing is happening to Eve and if the game turned out to be successful, you'll see in real time how people 180'd their opinions, but people like me will remember how disingenuous they are.
I think Mark's own comment about mainstream pop music videos overrides the "gamers grew up"/"it's just about money" explanation; there's far more all-encompassing outrage over this stuff in nerd circles. Some of the loudest, most dedicated nerd voices are *exceptionally* insecure about sexualization and being seen as "gross manchildren who are disgusting to women" (or, and this is very relevant to the point you're making, *dangerous* to women) in a way that hardly correlates to general mainstream opinions. And that tends to be the subset of nerds that mainstream AAA game developers appeal to the most. My super-liberal mom in her 60s liked "objectified" characters in browser games as did her boomer Facebook friends. For every legitimate example of a parent angry about the sexual content of manga or anime, you have literally dozens of thousands of extremely insecure hyper-dedicated anime fans making sure to distance themselves from fanservice as a whole while making bizarre excuses for the fanservice-filled anime they do like.
Lady Dimitrescu is an excellent example because the hyper-sexual femdom fantasies people shared about her, with their real names & faces attached (often people critical of designs like Eve) are hardly an example of nerds being "normal, proper & grown up". Not to mention someone *consistently* bothered by sexualization wouldn't make an exception for her. A lot of this is nerds trying to keep their sexuality in check, failing and now shifting to being uncomfortably sexually graphic about *very specific* video game women in a way that they hope will make them look less threatening or more open-minded. There's a giant essay-sized tweet-thread from a male ex-Ratchet & Clank dev (one who took pride in criticizing the sexualization of the female lead in the newest Ratchet game & playing a part in the toning down of her design) about how Dimitrescu's size, age and femdom vibe make her an exceptionally progressive video game waifu.
Sorry but I just can't see this as anything but a very specifically nerdy & confused approach to "growing up"
Bro no one’s stopping you from opening pornhub in a new tab.
People have the right to not want to be bombarded with hedonistic hyper sexuality
@@RaymondoPersonthat’s disingenuous. The “perpetually horny” community is very obnoxious. Very in your face about wanting to talk about their sexual fantasies with their waifus and you having to be okay with it.
Very possessive (again waifu haves) often times very racist (people don’t want to talk about it, but racist whites have for many years and still try desperately to keep the h-community white to the point of threatening and dozing artists who dare draw their Japanese waifu having sex with a non white person) and just a lot of general selfish, possessive and entitled tendencies.
So yeah, growing up IS distancing yourself from people like that. The problem is the anime community has become split between people who are always horny and people who are trying to separate themselves but wind up becoming socially controlling zealots with no chill.
Combine that with the fact that once the right and left meld into any debate between people - as they do, and you invite racism, wokism and everything else associated with political drones with it
Bayonetta isn't a cute young girl though, she's a 7 foot woman like lady D. I don't quite get your thesis here. But I might say some people don't like it when the characters look underaged, I don't, I'm not woke I just find animated CP and characters who look like that creepy.
@@JewTube001 dude c'mon there's a big difference between a grown adult with a neotenous face (for example virtually every k-pop woman or man; Korea does it in real life too) and actual lolicon/shotacon.
I disagree that no-one cares about males in games, I think that's down to most games not being played be girls and that's partly down to most games being designed by guys. I think the artform still has a long way to go in that regard,
Great video Mark and stellar job threading the needle:)
The third rail is addressing the top-down nature of the ‘controversy’ and the bottom-up blowback. Better to keep your head up and above it. I hope people find this video and add some nuance and perspective to their thinking.
Thanks so much Spiders! Yes this is the most precise video I've ever done writing wising ha, that's for sure. And yes what I wanted to do with the vid is to demonstrate that this type of topic cannot be simplified down to simple political rhetoric and that art critique needs to be much more nuanced otherwise a lot of the conclusions and analysis just will not make much sense or translate beyond people who already agree with an established perspective.
9:05 yeah haha.. about that.. haha.
Never get bored of your perspective on things, great video again!
Kratos was a dad with the family in the last God of war he had a daughter.
I don't much like eves design, but i do like the rest of the cast a lot. I'm hoping i find another outfit for eve that looks great. Maybe eventually a Yorha uniform or two for crossover ;) this was a great video by the by! Very well thought out. I largely agree!
When a character is very sexy and is disingenuous about it; is called "oblivious to beauty" trope.
P.s. i made mistake, by confusing with "born sexy yesterday".
Oh that's a cool term! Yeah that's really common in gaming ha, where a lot of the characters are extremely attractive and yet totally unaware of their ... assets ha.
It is not. BSY characters have fully formed adult body with mental capacity of a child, not just unaware of their sex appeal. While character being unaware of their sexiness might be a trope and a bit silly, BSY is more to the creepy side
@@vlad7275 I heard about this trope in a random youtube video, and just presumed that's what the trope is supposed to be.
@@TheElectricUnderground I did a little research on the topic, and the real trope name is "oblivious to beauty"; and "born sexy yesterday" means something completely different.
I understand this is a serious topic but the way those ladies was licking the ice cream 4:01 what’s the name of that music video?
Sabrina Carpenter - Espresso
Me discovering blazblue characters for the first time....I've been missing out. I thought Kasumi and Bayonetta had it but Blazblue? Now those are some characters.
Growing up, all the prudes were on the right.
Now most of them are on the left;
which I think is mostly a result of of envy.
If this cultural feeling could speak, it would say: "You got to wield your influence, now it's time (for our superior sensitivities and motives)!"
As this pendulum swings back and forth, it only exposes that all along it has been about power and who is to exercise it.
Perhaps one day, instead of gathering into identity-comforting collectives, each person will gather the courage to smash the pendulum itself.
People we don't like are always on the opposite side. The people don't change, but we can't have people we hate agreeing with us.
Yah super hyped for your full review of the game 😊
I hope you will still remain the same if you ever make youtube a full time job. This video aired during my birthday, what a coincidence.
14:27- i'm French, and just for you to know, IGN (France), here, is nothing, barely in the top 10 gaming websites; TBF, i had even forgotten about a "French" section of the site. So, to rebound on what you're saying, i'm not sure the message by the "French journalist" was meant to be seen by the French public since barely anyone reads them. Was it a message by IGN US but they wanted it to remain confidential and not trigger a massive backlash ? or was it the journalist willing to ponder to certain people in a specific goal ? because here, no one speaks about the cultural war on sexy characters, especially in the terms used which are very US centric and don't sound like what we would say; it reminds me of the 3 activists crying about Police brutality against black people in France when there is 1 white guy being shot by the Police every 2 years; it doesn't fit our reality but they use it because they are used to seeing that, in the US, it triggers mass hysteria (and money ensues). Don't forget that France (and Latin European countries) are places where women can wear no top at the beach and it's no big deal, so this fake article, with the terms used, is very fishy here.
Cool topic and discussion. I'm really looking forward to the game and the gameplay review.
Ninja Scroll? Man of culture.
And great point on money talks. Glad you have observed that too.
Me: *Sees Karens crying over beautiful women*
Also me: *Draws anime booty bigger*
Fr, though, I feel like there's too much shame surrounding preferences and sexuality. Nobody should have to feel bad about finding conventionally attractive features appealing, or any features, for that matter. It's not hurting anybody.
Actually hadn’t heard of this.
You are definitely right that Soul Calibur is every bit as provocative as DOA.
The game I had to go to battle for that got flak for its character designs was Dragon’s Crown. The game certainly had extreme character dimensions, but they were consistent with the games art design and world.
Refreshingly thoughtful. Thank you.
Great video as always Mark! Keep it up!
I never really had a problem with female character designs either way. On one hand, i like boobs, on the other, i'm in it to play the game. Sometimes provocativeness goes way overboard fir sure. I think there is a healthy balance in the middle that is tasteful and appealing. You can always have a variety of sub characters with all shapes & sizes.
My wife walked into my game room at the exact moment I found out how to "change Eve's armor" so that was... cool.
Just an old man, undressing my warrior cyborg babe, nothing to see here.
There is sexism in censorship. Street fighter has had male fighters in g strings and nobody really cared. It's all just pixels put together to create cartoons. People take the art far too seriously.
Ehhh, buff dudes are a power fantasy for men. They aren’t there to appeal to women.
Most video game characters can be divided between guys want to be him, or guys want to have sex with her.
There is no "censorship" , putin supporter
I hate this dumb argument so much. Men have never cared about being depicted and find that like that funny and don’t take offense to it
Women are different, always have been. Have been sexually and physically oppressed by men since the dawn of time, and modern science has proven they’re vastly different from us in how they think and feel emotions
The sexism is that you think that the female form is something you can enjoy whenever you want at any moment anyway, and when a society gets filled with so much of that you get men who think they’re entitled to free cereal because they’re used to seeing naked women
The truth no one wants t sit down and admit is, men aren’t comfortable with the fact that the world kinda IS slowly moving toward equality and there needs to be an open discussion on why men see women this way (subservient to them) among other things, like racial and cultural differences, etc
Cause look, think of it this way. The other end of the spectrum is the Middle East where regular woman have to walk around in burkas all day
Be happy bro go outside, plenty of beautiful women to look at
Her face is very young. Which isn't surprising considering the people who designed her. Very typical of that region of the world.
You know what... hell yeah this was a great video I think you have the only truly great video on this topic and that's pretty surprising considering your focus on arcade-y gameplay and with how personally annoyed I was with how you criticized my love V in DMC 5 but yeah amazing vid.
i wonder how many different kdramas mark has seen. because as a person who's only watched kdramas in the past two years, if the devs have them go the entire game with sexy characters to only have one kiss at the end it wouldn't surprise me at all. it would be the exact same as a kdrama having sexy af actors who only kiss at the very last episode and kdramas have a big culture effects with even the koreans i know who grew up here in Canada
7:20 thats a great point there. Also Ninja Scroll should be watched by anyone even remotely interested in japanese animation films, still one of the best animes ever made.
Edit: On a sidenote it made me kinda flabbergasted how Netherrealm Studios continues to cover up their female cast even more after MK9, some of the worst offenders being Jade turned into something akin of a middle eastern woman but apparently its a-ok for the majority of the male cast to be basically half naked. If that isnt a depiction of the "ideal and athletic" male form then i dont know what is. The notion of sexualisation doesnt just encompass the female figure and if revealing clothing implies oversexualisation the same should be applied to basically half naked, bare chested muscular men aswell Edit 2 : obviously ESL here but i hope i could get my point across.
Also regarding your point on taste and age, i somewhat disagree personally. Hit 40 last year and been playing games since the late 80s and i still prefer a beautiful female character, even more so given the trend of recent character designs in games that tend to border into the realm of females with predominately male associated body traits like massive jaw, huge neck and shoulders etc.
Even my fiancee, an avid gamer herself (who loves 2B or the main character of Stellar Blade) and many other woman out there are basically fed up with those masculine and frankly unattractive female characters aswell. Back in the early 2000s, many girls were huge fans of Lara Croft, Samus etc. and now they are getting told that this is harmful for them. Imho this is a somewhat directed effort to change art in general and its creating a mental barricade for many artists, especially in the western online art communities, to design attractive female characters or face a hypocritical online mob that names and shames them if they dare to go against this trend.
Lastly, many people tend to forget a character like Bayonetta was designed by a woman. Same for the Stellar Blade protagonist, designed by the wife of shift ups leader. Or that character being "hypersexualised" while actually being based on a body-scan of a korean model.
Woah straight edge mentioned!
What is the sexiest part of dodonpachi?
Are you going to review this game?
Interesting video. The profit motive stifles creativity and nuanced conversations about attractiveness in favour of making money though? Colour me surprised.
I'll wait for your review to see if Stellar Blade is any good though.
A lot of western media these days is designed with a specific asexuality in mind. That's why this stuff hits such a nerve today even though it's much tamer than things we've had in the past. These same twitter people are basically trying to be asexual or claim to be asexual as some level of moral standing, but I think it's just people trying to mask their own frustrations within their own mind.
But there are always teenagers. In my experience, as a teenager, you're shy about your sexuality, especially as a boy, and it's once you get older that you're more confident expressing it or not hiding it.
10/10 thumbnail refrence
Thanks for talking like an adult about this and not like 'the discourse' around it. One of the most intensly annoying aspects of videogames is the simultaneous ask of players to have them seen as a new media and thus an art form...and then those same people flying off the handle when actual art critique about, say, sexualization of characters is done...the. suddenly it's 'leave our videogames alone!'
I've been watching this back and forth now for about 3 decades off and on and it's just like the gun debate in america: it just stays in the same place for eternity.
The way i see it is as follows- the "loud and proud" activists want strong woman leads until said woman leads *don't* look like them.
Mega LOL @ French writers thinking their stuff in French is password-protected 🤣🤣
hope you having fun with stellar blade
I just want to see this conversation extend to character design in general. Obviously you can be bored with more unconventionally attractive appearances for women, I am, but for a game like the last of us or that new star wars game where the humans are modeled after real people, yeah they're gonna look as plain as real people would. For fictional and exaggerated characters I love seeing them go all out in making them hot and strong looking, but I want to see that extend in the opposite direction as well. A lot of people complain about women's character models and how they look ugly in context to real women they'd personally find unattractive, but I want to see more models of women that are ugly on purpose. In the same way that you can make a handsome guy like Ken or an ugly freak like Blanka in street fighter, that principle should extend to women as well. It's the exaggeration that adds to a character's personality to me. Show me more freaks, show me fat women, show me real slim and slender, show me women with abs more compact than a brick wall at the same rate we see women with nice sized chests and waists. And show me more overtly gay character designs too, I want sexually charged men to be in the same character design conversations as sexually charged women. Just get crazy with designs!
Street Fighter 6 does all that you want and character designs are lame af.
@@magicjohnson3121 eh, I disagree. I like a lot of the designs in the game, especially with the extra costumes. I mean a big part of design to me is clothing as well so seeing them actually wear nice fits got me on board for a lot of the characters.
Boy howdy have I got a game for Y O U !
Look up Clash: Artifacts of Chaos, prequel to the Zeno Clash games. Has the least amount of human characters out of all games in the series, and the main character looks like an orange gnarled-up mandrake root with a sore, nail-less grumpy wrinkled thumb for a face, yellow eyes with green irises and star-shaped pupils, some random thick hairs sticking out of him, limbs that are a bit too long, and checkerboard pattern body paint.
Plus a neck that looks like it has two throats.
His name is Pseudo and i *love* him for how ugly he is, while being a skilled martial artist, seemingly around the late 40s or in his 50s (for human standards), having a good balance of sass, threat, kindness and wisdom to him, and living in a world F U L L of horrid freaks, monsters and chimeras with humans being rare.
Cookie Cutter had a main character in Cherry who isn't nearly as extreme as Pseudo, she just has some more chub and very thick legs. Her choice in attire isn't her own, though. Not much in the way of clothing after being beaten and mangled within an inch of your life and your only safe haven is an old abandoned diner.
As for overtly sexually charged designs, Kings of Hell may be your speed. All main characters seem to be wearing thongs.
Oh, and Clive Barker's Abarat books have beautifully strange and weird designs as well. Same with whatever Moonhood Studios is cooking up (previously creators of stuff like Lost in Random, Stick it to the Man and Flipping Death).
@@jurtheorc8117 love all these games and they’re exactly what I’m talking about! These games all have fantastic character design and take pride in their exaggeration and animated influences. Glad someone else agrees that seeing more types of bodies and designs is equally as satisfying as seeing traditionally sexy anime influenced women and average well toned looking guys.
Appearances go a long way in informing characterization, and what the (almost exclusively) Western critics of so-called hyper-sexualization fail to realize is that style and substance are one. This is something that Japanese devs have always understood, which is why they haven't toned down anything in their character designs, because over the top is where games live.
The push back against "attractive" character designs seems to focus entirely on the presumed objectification of female characters and the over emphasis on the "male gaze," but notice no one talks about how Dante or Kratos are stylized in their hyper-masculine forms. Kratos being pretty one-note aside, someone like Dante is actually designed to subvert the norms of "toxic masculinity" rather than to re-enforce them. He's got the appearance and abilities of a superhero, the stylization of the effortless badass, but through his actions he also holds the title of fortune's fool, a sort of every-man character that does not take himself so seriously (because he knows he is a video game character, and so do we). The critics should get this fact through their heads as well. Playfulness and perversion are two different extremes here.
Take Bayonetta for example, who uses her graceful femininity as a metaphor for the fluidity of motion in the gameplay. To the extent she is made to be alluring, she is also made to look and feel empowering, as the game facilitates this feeling for the player through the utility of combat. Bayonetta is always in control along with the player. She is not a victim of any kind, not to the whims of the developers or as our eye-candy; there is no exploitation because she demands the spotlight and earns it. Because Bayonetta has a well-defined personality, her looks being part of her free-wheeling characterization, her sexuality is substance rather than for the purpose of titilation that a lesser character with no dimensions might become trapped in.
Meanwhile, you get Western characters being toned-down not only in physical proportions but also in the writing department, with stiff characterization and mechanics to match. The developers of Stellar Blade certainly understood what they were doing in marketing Eve, and they may not reach the heights of character design to match that, but there is a hyperfixation and paranoia surrounding this facet of design that misses the big picture: characters should look as good as they feel to play, because video games are about personality, the kind we can't get anywhere else. If they aren't realistic, it's because they aren't supposed to be, or else we'd be watching documentaries instead of playing action games.
Japan also has low birth rates and a class of men that never go outside. High suicide rates, a society that is incredibly sexist and demeaning to women to the point where a group of Yakuza can grape a girl for weeks and put her body in a concrete oil drum.
If you see women as second class citizens that’s you, and hyper sexuality does encourage that mind set.
I have lots of sisters so I grew up very aware of the problems women face. And these class of men aggressively holding onto the idea that women exist for their pleasure are missing that not all of us do this for “virtue signaling”
Like no offense, you’re the type of guy whom I would - based on your mentality, never let near any female in my family. You’d treat them like an object or lesser, like a fetish or novelty. Nothing manly about that, just ignorant
Thank you Stellar Blade for making gaming great again!
The game looks amazing, both for the sex appeal and the combat. Unfortunately I only have an xbox, but Im happy for PS5 gamers. I get the impression you will need a high degree of skill to beat its toughest fights.
I literally said the “read it for the articles” out loud as you said it hahaha. Big difference is the writing in Playboy then stomps what passes for commentary now (probably did then too), much like a straightforward action game might appeal to players today despite the eye candy, such is the sad state of AAA and high profile titles.
Bayonetta 3? Pretty sure they stopped after the first one AND THAT'S FINAL. ahrum excuse me.
There is an interesting point made here that now you put it into words it is quite strange that most games characters are extremely lacking in sexual self awareness.
I have an interesting relationship with people being attracted to me shaped by my experience being trans and heavily dysphoric. To make a long story short I started taking hrt and I hardly ever left the house for months and months, I started taking care of myself totally across the board, all I'd do is work out and eat healthy and read philosophy... I lost over 87 lbs now and I stepped out into the world when I moved to a population center still feeling like a fat ugly man but looking like a pretty woman. Interestingly you do learn quite quick if you're attractive in this world, its impossible not to.
The female curves are there to be appreciated, just like you appreciate the beauty of a car. Beauty exists to make life in this world more enjoyable.
There's beauty in a beautiful woman, and there's beauty in the artistry of video game graphics. Sometimes they're both combined in something special.
Best take on the subject! No doubt !
How detrimental is controversy? Years back it was all the hubbub about Mass Effect that got me to try it. I had never played a BioWare game, so the pedigree was lost on me. Maybe it hurts in some areas but can be boosted overall due to the increased visibility?
Can you review ffxv?
Does anyone know Muv-Luv?
Yes
6:30 women being aware of their sexuality in reality is composed 99% of trying to get something out of it more than a playful romantic way men would want in their imagination
@ 4:35 , why can you count the poly edges around her shoulder lool
we like it and we want it, there’s no shame on that nor it’s wrong. if you don’t like it, i don’t give a fuck what you think.
10 seconds into this video I knew it was going to be great.
I really like these "opinion piece" style videos.
@7:25 EXACTLY!!! 627TH🫡📘✈️💯🏃🏿♂️🎮🤨
Why can't games be like movies? If something is too much for your delicate eyes, don't play it. It's rated mature, after all. I don't play "My Little Pony", but I don't complain about it either. Let artists do what they want, and if it's too much for you, step aside. (By you, I mean the people getting feverish about Stellar Blade, not you, the maker of this video.) Good vid. Enjoyed it.
Good discussion, as long as this is understood as sexualization in games/art it's ok. The issue I have with people these days is the abstraction of sexualization, as of it was not they at all and any discussion around it is seen as a proposal to get rid of it (had that in a recent video). Until we have an understanding that yes, v this is sexualization and that sells, it'll be hard to move to the not broad topic, which is why a profit driven industry put emphasis on sexuality to gather only to a specific public
Nobody talks about sexy male characters. They're sort of just allowed, which I mean I don't mind ;)
I'd argue there's more perversion in desexualising characters.
Desexualising adults makes them less human. But there's no angry mob screaming this so... Who cares?