10th December 2015, 11:28 PM
Xenoblade X isn't the only recent Nintendo game with censored-out creepy fanservice, actually -- Nintendo also removed bikini outfits for the female characters (they were not available for the male ones, naturally) from the new Wii U Fatal Frame game, as well, in the Western release. The female characters in that game aren't quite as young as the one in Xenoblade X with the censored outfit, but it was still questionable stuff and removing it was probably the right move. They put in Zelda and Samus outfits instead, I believe. I don't like or agree with censorship most of the time, but in this case, they never should have had these outfits in the games in the first place.
So yeah, I agree with your basic assessment here -- that Nintendo should not have had this stuff in their game in the first place. It is kind of sad that Japan is so sexist, and that this kind of stuff has become more mainstream in Japanese videogames and anime; it's always existed, but creepy fanservice used to be much less popular and common than it now is. However, calling people who like that pedophiles really is inaccurate. First, the proper definition of 'pedophile' is someone interested in pre-pubescent children, and these characters, while young, are not pre-pubescent, and second, they are drawings/CG models, and not people -- that is a big difference. People can like something in media but not in the real world -- think of violence as an obvious example. Still, it is sad that Nintendo has decided to let their teams put super-fanservicey stuff in the games. This isn't entirely new -- Fire Emblem games have had "really a thousand years old but look twelve" dragon girl characters in more than a few games in the series -- but it does seem to be getting more prominent, with two major titles this holiday both having some pretty sketchy stuff censored out. It's not a good trend.
Basically, this kind of thing is an example of why Japan is in 100-somethingth place in the world in gender equality, while the major Western nations are much higher on the list. (But Japan does beat out South Korea, which is even lower down...)
So yeah, I agree with your basic assessment here -- that Nintendo should not have had this stuff in their game in the first place. It is kind of sad that Japan is so sexist, and that this kind of stuff has become more mainstream in Japanese videogames and anime; it's always existed, but creepy fanservice used to be much less popular and common than it now is. However, calling people who like that pedophiles really is inaccurate. First, the proper definition of 'pedophile' is someone interested in pre-pubescent children, and these characters, while young, are not pre-pubescent, and second, they are drawings/CG models, and not people -- that is a big difference. People can like something in media but not in the real world -- think of violence as an obvious example. Still, it is sad that Nintendo has decided to let their teams put super-fanservicey stuff in the games. This isn't entirely new -- Fire Emblem games have had "really a thousand years old but look twelve" dragon girl characters in more than a few games in the series -- but it does seem to be getting more prominent, with two major titles this holiday both having some pretty sketchy stuff censored out. It's not a good trend.
Basically, this kind of thing is an example of why Japan is in 100-somethingth place in the world in gender equality, while the major Western nations are much higher on the list. (But Japan does beat out South Korea, which is even lower down...)
Quote:The sad thing is, modern RPGs from Japan have developed some sort of list of "necessary archetypes",A lot of anime seems to be written by going down a list of stereotypes and making a minutely different story that uses a lot of the expected usual tropes and character types, and videogames are not different, unfortunately.