Granted Gamefreak didn't allow you to play as a female character until Crystal there are some pretty strong female leads in the game. 3 out of of the Five Gym leaders are women in the majority of the Gamefreak games. Its a Children's game but the women don't are drawn in various forms so they don't all look like they could apply for Pent house.
Is pokemon ever brought when talking about Gender Issues in Gaming
- Thread starter kilenem
- Start date
Recommended Videos
It doesn't really matter much to me. Pokemon were genderless until Gen II and they only brought gender up for the purposes of breeding eggs. And "characters"... come on, they're hardly "characters". You get one dumb opening line, you battle, you get one dumb closing line, and that's it. They're characterized by the Pokemon they use, tops. Worst case scenario you get some sprites that are flirty or sexualized, like the beauty pageants you fight now and then. But when everyone behaves exactly the same, what's the difference?
The fact that we're saying gender identity doesn't matter is actually a really strong sign that the Pokemon games could qualify as feminist. I haven't played the more recent ones where you're allowed to play as a girl, though. By any chance, is there ever a female version of Prof. Oak, or is your rival ever female? As Johnny points out, the Gym leaders really aren't a big part of the game aside from the "boss" fights they set up (or at least they weren't in earlier games). Having some major support characters be female would certainly be a step in the right direction (and wouldn't have to change the game at all).
Except for Nidoran!Johnny Novgorod said:
I think it actually does a decent job of having a pretty vast range of characters, especially in more recent versions. They moved away from a persistant male professor, people can chose between male and female, multiple supporting characters both male and female.
Now if we could discuss the implications regarding it's promotion of animal cruelty and cock fighting....
I'm kidding.
But seriously, Pokemon is kinda fucked up.
I'm kidding.
But seriously, Pokemon is kinda fucked up.
From memory Pokemon Black has a female professor juniper; in some games your rival is just the kid next door, and that depends purely on which sex you pick at the start, so the rival will be female if you play as a male.Noetherian said:
OT: Pokemon is pretty damn good at gender representation, the only worrying thing is the first time you see a female wabuffet.
In the 4th generation as well as in the GS remakes both times I picked the girl character simply cause her design looked a hell of a lot better. It seems they take more care to make the female characters interesting while the boys look generic and dull.
Same applies with the new upcomming games, I'm pretty sure I'll be using the girl again.
Same applies with the new upcomming games, I'm pretty sure I'll be using the girl again.
Black and White took the biggest steps in this regard. The professor, Juniper, is a woman (the first ever female professor in a main game). More interesting though were the rivals. You had Cheren, a male. He was the standard wants to be strong and be champion rival. But there is also Bianca, a female rival. And as far as Pokemon goes she is quite interesting and complex. She wants to travel the region with Pokemon. However, for a while, she isn't sure what path she wants to take. She doesn't know whether to try and be strong or do something else with her Pokemon. She travels to discover herself. She also faces other dilemas in that her father doesn't want her travelling. Even with Pokemon by her he doesn't think she should be out and travelling by herself. She travels anyway and keeps ahead of him for a time, but he catches up with her. Here she has to confront both her father and herself about what she truly wants.Noetherian said:
For a Pokemon game, this is some complex character development because, let's face it, Pokemon isn't best known for strong stories. She ends up deciding to become the assistant of Professor Juniper, and gives you your starter Pokemon in the sequel. She's the first fully characterized female rival in the series really, and I honestly think they did a good job with her. There's going to be a female rival in the new games X and Y called Serena, so it will be interesting to see if Gamefreak can follow up with another good female character.
The biggest problem I ever had with Pokemon as far as gender is the fact that when genders were first introduced to Pokemon, the females were slightly weaker than the males. As far as I know that's something they've fixed, but otherwise I'll agree with you that after Crystal they did a very good job with gender equality, and they did more than the "minimum" as well. And as far as I know, nobody lost their shit when females were introduced, like they do now when they're introduced into FPS's and such. The only emotion I remember among my friends and other players I knew was excitement.kilenem said:
But as far as why it's never brought up in the debate, I imagine it's because it's one of those "choose your gender" games, which while they are equal, they aren't exactly breaking the trend of games that, when they have to choose a single protagonist, choose a male one by default. That's the biggest problem with gender equality in games in a nutshell: the default protagonist is male, and even though it's 2013 it is still a big fucking deal when that is changed.
Pretty sure the only difference between genders in Pokemon these days is who needs to be on what end for breeding in terms of what pokemon will come out of the relationship and what moves can be transferred to the next generation.Lilani said:
OT: Hasn't the Elite Four pretty much always had two female trainers and two males? I know they did in the first gen and i'm pretty sure they did in 4th and 5th gen as well (can't remember for the other two). It shows people who might've thought otherwise that girls can kick your ass at Pokemon as well. As for players characters i'm afraid i can't say much, i've never actually played a female character in a pokemon game before...
I would say there is little need for discussion. Pokemon does a pretty good job of making female characters who are just that. In the Pokemon world it does not matter what your gender is, you can become champion of a region Cynthia and Iris prove that, as well as choosing a female character at the start. It helps that you are rarely treated different whether or not you decide to be male or female, with a few exceptions.
Pokemon has no real stories or characters, neither does it try to make a statement about anything. (Not like the animes doing the "Fighting is bad" or "No compassion makes you suck" statements.) Female characters are pretty bland and replaceable because every character is pretty bland and replaceable. The only people with more than five one-sentence lines are your rival or mob leaders, and they still are fundamentally weak characters.
You can also argue the game isn't really about the people, it's about the Pokemon.
You can also argue the game isn't really about the people, it's about the Pokemon.
Yeah but even then characters have always felt a bit.... "puppety", not sure how to put it. You know how videogames are "art" and art is any given "personal freestyle representantion of life"? It always felt Pokemon was a representation of a representation of a representation.... times eight... of whatever we were supposed to be experiencing. Like we're stuck inside a chibi dramatization of whatever we're experiencing. I've never felt very engaged or interested in anyone, and character and gender are one of those things they just throw in as part of the whole emulation thing. This is obviously the case with EVERY game, but here it feels so much more crude and obvious.Zachary Amaranth said:
I don't find their recent entries to be particularly different from most of the medium. Most RPG characters, especially Eastern RPG characters, feel about this way to me. As such, I don't consider this much different in terms of discussion than Final Fantasy characters or uhhhhhh....I'm not up to date on my JRPGs.Johnny Novgorod said:
Actually, I could say the same for a lot of genres. Action, fighting, most (but not all) tactical titles.
Have you played a recent Pokémon title? I'm just curious because you do have plot-important characters with real justifications and characterisations. They may still be shallow, but it's a video game. 90% of the medium is shallow when it comes to character.TheYellowCellPhone said:
I really think gender isn't a issue because the characters you play as has nothing to say, and it's not a dialog heavy series. I mean they don't make a big deal about if someone is girl or guy, because you could honestly swap someone's gender and it really won't change much (Hell Pokemon Pitch Black did just that).
Pokemon's been fairly gender neutral from the beginning (especially in NPC numbers; the only imbalance was in Champions, with no females until Cynthia), I'd hazard to guess because it was always intended to have a gender-neutral target audience. That aspect has generally kept pace as the writing itself improved with each generation.
Until Black and White, at least. Then the friends undergo character development, the rival is fleshed out with a comprehensible motivation, the gym leaders start showing more of their in-world cultural importance, and the villain group's plan revolves around peacefully initiating cultural change by playing up the animal cruelty aspect of keeping pokemon (while hiding its criminal activities with a plausibly deniable PETA-like fringe).TheYellowCellPhone said: