Do many Westerners really dislike Japanese games for such shallow reasons as "anime"?

[Daystar Clarion]

Weeaboos will cause the Great Bear Rebellions.

It's understandable why people wouldn't like Japanese aesthetic.

What is it with you and bears today? And I thought it was established they would only catch otaku or something...

Read over the rest of that other thread

 

[Atmos Duality]

Personally, my problem with "anime-style" Japanese games in general, is that the style far too often leans heavily towards "trying too hard to be original" or "cliche anime stock characters". It isn't just the visuals that annoy me; The style stems from the visuals all the way down to the character's behavior.

So I either get "Crazy for the sake of crazy." Or "bland marketable characters" (at least in Japan) that I've seen over and over again.
How many "Boy-wonders", "Pervert Klutzes", "Sword-masters" or "Magical Girls" have I seen over the years?

Well, about as many Gravely-Voiced badasses, Tough-Girl Lingerie Models, Big Black Dudes With Big Guns, and Well-Trained Mid-30s White Guys...and space marines.

Yeah, I'm just tired of stock characters in general.

 

[Kahunaburger]

Remember for example that the Japanese pretty much slaughtered the entire Samurai aristocricy for being a bunch of oppressive douchebags, all of thise "we worship our honorable Samurai forefathers" stuff is kind of insane when you look at the actual facts.

See also: most fantasies in a pseudo medieval setting anywhere. Hardly unique to Japan.

To be entirely fair, the vast majority of Western medieval fantasy portrays the aristocracy as colossal dicks and/or oppressive fuckwads.

There's not a whole lot of respect for them going around, while from what I understand the Japanese have come to romanticize Samurai and the daimyo, to the point where there's actual cultural nostalgia for pre-Meiji style government.

I think modern medieval fantasy often does that, but the ones more directly inspired by Arthurian legends or LoTR tend to be all sunshine and rainbows about the "rightful king." The reason we see a lot of fantasy that has a different perspective nowadays is because people spent decades calling this trope out, frequently and at length. I don't know enough about modern fiction in Japan featuring Samurai to compare that, but I can say that it would be difficult to make a case that, for instance, Seven Samurai is nostalgic.

 

[Cowabungaa]

If you refuse to play a game because of manga aesthetics, you're being as shallow about video games as it is possible to be, and Japanese developers do not need to cater to you.

And why, exactly, is this a bad thing? We're talking about entertainment here and why exactly is not liking certain games for their aesthetic direction not a perfectly valid and fine reason to not play them? Why is that shallow, or even if it is shallow, why does it matter that it is? Visuals are a pretty big part of the videogame experience, after all. It's not like aesthetic preferences are anything new or strange.

And of course Japanese developers don't have to cater to them, but that ain't bad either now is it? Different strokes for different folks, live and let live, that sort of thing. I ain't seeing the big deal, or why you're being so defensive.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going back to FF13, or watch some Sengoku Basara. Bloody hell that shit is awesome.

 

[kennripper]

I do play my share of JRPG's and the like (Lost Odyssey, Star Ocean, Valkyrie Chronicles, Xenoblade Chronicles) along with my western fare (Mass Effect, KoA, Skyrim) and I wager that a major reason western gamers may have problems could be that it can be hard to relate to some male character characteristics and personae that are trends of anime/manga, and subsequently tend to bleed into Japanese games. My biggest peeve with some Japanese games is how hard it is to relate to Male characters at times, which can really shell shock the narrative.

It's probably just a cultural thing most of the time. If the Japanese developers create a narrative from their paradigm, then its can be hard to relate to for a westerner unfamiliar with their literary/pop cultural trends, and usually if they attempt to emulate our western sensibilities, they come off as dreadfully fake.

Obviously their is also the issue of gameplay quality, but unless the games are absolutely dreadful to play, its usually not a problem. I get railroaded hardest when I have trouble relating to a character in narrative contexts.

 

[illas]

I wouldn't say I "dislike" Japanese games because of their Anime aesthetics. My issue is with the (frequently) implicit tonal consequence: namely larger-than-life, zany, mercurial characters which seem detached from the real world. This, when combined with the lazily-dubbed dialogue does very little to engage me in the narrative.

This ambivalence combined with the staid, generic gameplay present in many (but not all) Japanese titles gives me little reason to buy them.

Killer 7 would be a solid exception, I feel, since it is both in the Anime style and is among the most overtly-adult, character-centric games I have played. The visuals (while anime-like) have been modified to support the narrative tone rather than just used in the generic manner - resulting in a unique experience (even though the gameplay was terrible).

Finally: outside of turn-based, cell-shaded anime, Japan produces the occasional gem of a game, like the recent Xenoblade: Chronicles and particularly Dark Souls, which is possibly my favourite game ever, regardless of genre or country of origin.

 

[Agayek]

I think modern medieval fantasy often does that, but the ones more directly inspired by Arthurian legends or LoTR tend to be all sunshine and rainbows about the "rightful king." The reason we see a lot of fantasy that has a different perspective nowadays is because people spent decades calling this trope out, frequently and at length. I don't know enough about modern fiction in Japan featuring Samurai to compare that, but I can say that it would be difficult to make a case that, for instance, Seven Samurai is nostalgic.

True, there's definitely some negative treatments of the Samurai in Japanese culture, but it's basically a reversal of how the West views our old aristocracy. Over here, the older stuff bangs on about the importance of tradition, the value of the nobility, etc etc, while the newer stuff is a more negative (if not necessarily more grounded) depiction of what the nobility actually does.

Modern Japanese culture (from what I have seen, which is admittedly far less than a native, though I have been exposed to quite a bit more than most Westerners are) seems to be the reverse. The older stuff tends to show the aristocracy as they really were, while the more modern stuff has incorporated the Western appreciation for the fantasy of what they represented.

Post-WWII, the Japanese were struggling to find their own cultural identity as a consequence of the war. Their culture had been basically shredded by the treaties and damage done by the war. In response, they began to grab whatever they could, and a big part of that was the Western romanticizing of aspects of their culture (samurai, ninja, etc). As most cultural changes do though, it took a generation or two to really take effect, which is where we're at now.

 

[theSteamSupported]

I am still waiting for someone to blend the Japanese aesthetic with the Western one.

 

[Torrasque]

The TL;DR version of teh OP is this:

If you dislike something for being too X, that is the same as disliking something for not being enough Y. No matter what the values of X and Y are, disliking something solely based on the fact that it has those X or Y values at all, is stupid.

-or-

If you dislike a game because the characters wield ridiculously huge weapons, then that is the same as disliking a game because the characters do not wield ridiculously huge weapons. Disliking the game based solely on the fact that there are or are not ridiculously huge weapons, takes away from the other aspects of the game, and is childish.

So yeah, I agree with the OP. I like good games that are good, and beside my xbox right now are: Space Marine, Okami, Gears of War 3, Desert Punk, Wind Waker, with my 3DS on top.

 

[Agayek]

News to me. Sources?

The male body generates testosterone when exercising. It's part of the muscle building process. And testosterone influences your features, to a rather surprising degree. Even androgynous people tend towards masculine features if they exercise regularly.

I don't necessarily agree with the guy you quoted that such a thing needs to be burned with fire (though I do find it rather disturbing), but he is correct in that line you quoted.

 

[Kahunaburger]

But aren't there similarly kinda feminine-looking dudes IRL, and aren't most civilized societies okay with that?

I don't know if you're playing the devil's advocate here or what.

It is physically impossible to have overtly feminine facial features if you work out to the degree necessary to attain such a physique. Without some sort of plastic surgery, anyway.

And we're not even talking feminine here, this is a fucking child's face. If I have to point out just how deeply fucked up absurd this looks, I don't know why we're having this conversation.

Okay, so you're mad because they didn't cross-reference physique with possible character faces? (Because a video game has never portrayed a human with impossible facial features before.)