Random Thoughts...or...What's on Your Mind?

[JirinPanthosa]

I don't watch a lot of anime lately but I play a lot of Japanese video games in the style of anime. Why do I like them? The same reason I like things like Star Trek, Star Wars, Marvel, etc. They're basically the same stories, the only difference is aesthetics.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

The whole waifu thing is something more often used as semi-self deprecating humor than seriously.

The way love interests work in animes aren’t really any different than the way they work in American entertainment. But they’re low hanging fruit for people who are looking for ways to mock it and belittle people for liking Japanese entertainment that’s really no less mature or more pervy than things like Marvel and Star Wars or any other entertainment originally aimed at teenagers.

It’s a big double standard. When James Bond has multiple love interests it’s just male wish fulfillment, but when an anime character does it’s a ‘Harem’ of ‘Waifus’.

Yeah it's that whole double standard I never got, mind you never got the whole waifu thing anyway and why make your anime women so lusty to look at if that isn't the reaction you were going for? Still it's not something I ever got into, the only animates show I liked was Legends Of Korra.

 

[Worf factor9]

One of the grocery store chains in my area has a sale on a half gallon container of Lucerne milk for 99 cents. There are two rows per type (nonfat, 1%, 2% and so forth), but the sale sign is only under one row per type. That row is picked clean, the other row is full. For every type! Do people not know how to read?

That's how they git cha'.

 

[Oddish]

It's really fascinating to play some of those games, like the Star Ocean series, because they are written from a very Japanese perspective. It gives me the beginnings of understanding how their culture differs from ours.

Emphasis on "beginnings of", so don't call me out on believing that playing a video game can give me total cultural awareness. I believe that if I were to relocate to Japan, I would still have much to learn.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

It's really fascinating to play some of those games, like the Star Ocean series, because they are written from a very Japanese perspective. It gives me the beginnings of understanding how their culture differs from ours.

Emphasis on "beginnings of", so don't call me out on believing that playing a video game can give me total cultural awareness. I believe that if I were to relocate to Japan, I would still have much to learn.

I guess but then you get the other end of the spectrum with "games" like rapeplay which is only sold in Japan or maybe has since been banned I'm not sure that's the only place I have heard of that game being sold everywhere else in the world it was banned for obvious reasons.

 

[Oddish]

Yeah, I'm familiar with that one, though I didn't play it. But our industry has also produced some nasty games, despite their unprofitable nature (Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony all forbid AO games on their platforms).

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Yeah it's that whole double standard I never got, mind you never got the whole waifu thing anyway and why make your anime women so lusty to look at if that isn't the reaction you were going for? Still it's not something I ever got into, the only animates show I liked was Legends Of Korra.

I agree they sometimes go overboard with that stuff and juvenile humor. I just don't think at least mainstream anime does it any worse than Western equivalents. Mass Effect invented a species of single gendered aliens who look like busty blue skinned women and reproduce with men and women of all other alien races. Their intent there is not exactly subtle. And women dressing for combat in Western entertainment don't exactly dress pragmatically.

If anything, the Western equivalents are better at denying that's what they're doing, and the Japanese version is just more honest about their intent.

I'm not a fan of the stuff considered shonen, but I like stuff like Noir, Berserk, Monster, etc that's aimed at a slightly older audience.

@Oddish

Which Star Ocean did you play? All are drastically different from each other. The Persona series is good for giving some small insights into culture. But of course any video game is coming from a perspective of entertainment, so elements of deference toward authority are played way down.

 

[Oddish]

My first was "Till the End of Time", then "the Last Hope", and more recently "Integrity and Faithlessness". Got hung up in the latter because I entered a hard area with my characters' levels too low.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Yeah, I'm familiar with that one, though I didn't play it. But our industry has also produced some nasty games, despite their unprofitable nature (Nintendo, Microsoft, and Sony all forbid AO games on their platforms).

Yeah that one sticks in my memory because I can't fathom the thought process that says "Yeah this is a great idea for a game let's do this"

 

[JirinPanthosa]

My first was "Till the End of Time", then "the Last Hope", and more recently "Integrity and Faithlessness". Got hung up in the latter because I entered a hard area with my characters' levels too low.

Ahh, the ones I like are Second Story and Till The End Of Time.

 

[Oddish]

Yeah that one sticks in my memory because I can't fathom the thought process that says "Yeah this is a great idea for a game let's do this"

Maybe it's good that you can't fathom something so disgusting.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Maybe it's good that you can't fathom something so disgusting.

Yep I quite agree. If I understood the mindset behind that well I'd be a rotten person

 

[Oddish]

Unfortunately, the desire for empowerment, and to exert that power at the expense of another, is tragically common. And really, that's what rape generally is.

 

[Captain pl1ngpl0ng]

in Misomer there have been 395 murders, a very violent place...

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[oberth]

in Misomer there have been 395 murders, a very violent place...

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yep, it needs to be rather depopulated

 

[Oddish]

Well that's one way to do it, I guess.

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

in Misomer there have been 395 murders, a very violent place...

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Yet watching the series the town never ran out of people or, not that many people noticed the high murder rate.

 

[oberth]

Yet watching the series the town never ran out of people or, not that many people noticed the high murder rate.

395 murders in 21 years sounds high for europe - the us however ...

it's not a town but a county - stiffer upperlip and all that

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

395 murders in 21 years sounds high for europe - the us however ...

it's not a town but a county - stiffer upperlip and all that

haha that wacky British attitude

 

[Oddish]

Just look at Jessica Fletcher in "Murder She Wrote"... death followed that woman around like Pig Pen's dust cloud. Even if she never killed anyone, she should have been locked up as a public nuisance or something.