Japan makes cooler characters than everyone else...
- Thread starter Sean Hollyman
- Start date
Recommended Videos
ChildofGallifrey said:
For anyone with an open mind, this should more or less signal the end of the thread.Matthew94 said:
This thread is just full of dumb generalizations.
No, not all Western characters are gruff-voiced, gun-toting bodybuilders.
No, not all Japanese characters are over-the-top, whiny, spiky-haired teenagers.
Japan does make some cool things, but there are other things that Japan makes that make you go "wtf!?!"
watch the video in the link for some examples
http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/teamt/nash/wtfiwwy/29529-land-of-the-rising-dumb
watch the video in the link for some examples
http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/teamt/nash/wtfiwwy/29529-land-of-the-rising-dumb
*begins slow clap*ElNeroDiablo said:
Seriously, I think I love you.
OT: I have to say I prefer, on the whole, Eastern characters over Western ones. I'll happily take Bayonetta, Cloud and the like over Marcus Fenix or Master Chief.
Granted, I do love like, half of Marvel's cast of characters. Let me change that then, I'm split 50/50.
Well, I think I have to agree that Japan has made more interesting game characters than America.
At least, when we talk about current trend big budget titles.
I blame America's hard-on for military stuff.
Battlefield, Call of Duty, Medal of Honor, Operation Flashpoint, Gears of War and whatnot.
No more Spyro, Crash, Jak, Vexx, Gerdy, Scaler, Kay, etc. No room for originality, surrealism and experimentation.
I don't know what's worse though: the endless stream of blandness - or the fact that there's an audience for it.
Not that ALL Japanese characters are better, oh hell no. But they did give us Bayonetta, Auron, Vivi Ornitier, Freya Crescent, Dante, Yuri Hyuga, Travis Touchdown, Amaterasu, Viewtiful Joe, etc. All the while America brought us... uhm... Kratos? Garrus Vakarian? Only characters I can remember at the moment... (Says something about the impact they leave, doesn't it?)
At least, when we talk about current trend big budget titles.
I blame America's hard-on for military stuff.
Battlefield, Call of Duty, Medal of Honor, Operation Flashpoint, Gears of War and whatnot.
No more Spyro, Crash, Jak, Vexx, Gerdy, Scaler, Kay, etc. No room for originality, surrealism and experimentation.
I don't know what's worse though: the endless stream of blandness - or the fact that there's an audience for it.
Not that ALL Japanese characters are better, oh hell no. But they did give us Bayonetta, Auron, Vivi Ornitier, Freya Crescent, Dante, Yuri Hyuga, Travis Touchdown, Amaterasu, Viewtiful Joe, etc. All the while America brought us... uhm... Kratos? Garrus Vakarian? Only characters I can remember at the moment... (Says something about the impact they leave, doesn't it?)
BAM!ChildofGallifrey said:
Nor did Japan come up with this gem:
Japan and the other countries have different IP goldmines. No one is better than another in my opinion.
But hey, argue away...
I'm not falling for that "see how weird Japan is weird" trap again. I still need some brain bleach from the last time...BoredDragon said:Japan does make some cool things, but there are other things that Japan makes that make you go "wtf!?!"
watch the video in the link for some examples
http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/teamt/nash/wtfiwwy/29529-land-of-the-rising-dumb
Thank you, and I have only two things to say:kyosai7 said:
"ONORE DIKEADO!" and "Ten no michi o Iki, Subete o Tsukasadoru otoko."
*snrk* That the best attack you can come up with?Turigamot said:
Excuse me whilst I crack up laughing.
well then clearly the only way to settle this is someone needs to make a fighting game pitting a list of american characters vs a list of japanese characters, hold a massive tournament, and whoever can beat the shit out of everyone else using which ever character from the side of their choosing takes the victory in this damn overplayed argument
IMO, Japanese game characters (and I want to be clear, I'm only talking about games here) generally don't go below their one trait and the clothes they wear. Cathrine would be a great antithesis to this, but i digress.
For instance, look in the manual of a JRPG. What do you see under character descriptions? You see a picture of them, their blood type, body weight, favorite food, other bullshit; this is not character. This is a list of attributes that you're applying to what is otherwise a tabula rasa. Beyond that they just fall into the "emo hero" or "annoying, whiny sidekick" personality traits that are never explained, never resolved and never compounded upon. To me, these aren't characters.
Characters have to have story arcs, they have to be fully developed. I have to believe they are (or at least, could be) a real person. Despite much criticism of the game, Alan Wake did a pretty good job of this. Bioware generally sets up fairly simplistic arcs, but at least every character has one.
For instance, look in the manual of a JRPG. What do you see under character descriptions? You see a picture of them, their blood type, body weight, favorite food, other bullshit; this is not character. This is a list of attributes that you're applying to what is otherwise a tabula rasa. Beyond that they just fall into the "emo hero" or "annoying, whiny sidekick" personality traits that are never explained, never resolved and never compounded upon. To me, these aren't characters.
Characters have to have story arcs, they have to be fully developed. I have to believe they are (or at least, could be) a real person. Despite much criticism of the game, Alan Wake did a pretty good job of this. Bioware generally sets up fairly simplistic arcs, but at least every character has one.
Y'kno, y'coulda quoted him rather than leave it open to interpretation as to whom you were speaking. Little things like that do help.Turigamot said:
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, oh boy that was good joke.
Insomniac, Blizzard, Valve, Obsidian, Bethesda. Look them up sometime and see what games they make.
It of course an opinion as to what type of characters you find more appealing and thus what country you feel makes the better characters but don't say that America only makes guys with guns, that's basically reducing the America game industry to what Epic does. There is a wealth of characters on both side and I'm sure you can find someone you like made int he US if you look hard enough.
Insomniac, Blizzard, Valve, Obsidian, Bethesda. Look them up sometime and see what games they make.
It of course an opinion as to what type of characters you find more appealing and thus what country you feel makes the better characters but don't say that America only makes guys with guns, that's basically reducing the America game industry to what Epic does. There is a wealth of characters on both side and I'm sure you can find someone you like made int he US if you look hard enough.
I disagree in general. If you look at the notable characters from Japan, we come up with a fairly short list of things they make. The first is mascot style characters - that is characters mostly known for their appearance rather than anything else. Samus, Mario, Kirby - all of these characters are in a wide variety of games, from pure puzzle to action. The characters themselves tell us nothing about the sort of game we will get and with rare exception have very little in the way of actual characterization. These characters are remembered and well regarded because they have a history of being in excellent games rather than because they are good characters.
The second sort of the pure archetypal character, which would include Solid Snake, any character I can recall from a main series Final Fantasy and so forth. These are characters that follow a predictable and known character arc. What's more, these characters all tend to look similar to other examples of the same archetype. There is thus little to distinguish one from the next. These characters are often best remembered because of the story in which they existed rather than for any particular traits they themselves possessed.
The last common set is the stereotypical character. This is similar to the archetype except it serves the purpose of illustrating some social or political ideology. The villains in Resident Evil, Frank West and a host of others fill this role. These characters are not notable for anything more than the archetypal characters.
In the west, you'll generally find a lack of the mascot characters. While there are many possible explanations for this, perhaps the most important one is simply that most of the mascot characters from Japan simply have several decades on anything notable from the west. The west however if fond of both stereotypical and archetypal characters and uses them regularly.
The key difference I think has little to do with substance of character but rather style of presentation, and even here it would be impossible to say that one does better than the other. Sure, everyone in the Halo universe is dressed in an uninteresting way but then they are also dressed in a very pragmatic way. Their garb is not stylized; it is functional. Perhaps the best example of a distinction between the two comes from various giant robot games. The western interpretation tells us that the giant military robot is simply a bipedal tank with tremendous firepower but rather limited agility. By contrast, the japanese interpretation says that such a vehicle is essentially an incredibly large and super powered human with incredible mobility and agility. Where the western interpretation is grounded in realism and pragmatism, the Japanese interpretation is governed almost entirely by the rule of cool.
In the end, given that the difference is one of style, there is no "better"; there is only "different".
The second sort of the pure archetypal character, which would include Solid Snake, any character I can recall from a main series Final Fantasy and so forth. These are characters that follow a predictable and known character arc. What's more, these characters all tend to look similar to other examples of the same archetype. There is thus little to distinguish one from the next. These characters are often best remembered because of the story in which they existed rather than for any particular traits they themselves possessed.
The last common set is the stereotypical character. This is similar to the archetype except it serves the purpose of illustrating some social or political ideology. The villains in Resident Evil, Frank West and a host of others fill this role. These characters are not notable for anything more than the archetypal characters.
In the west, you'll generally find a lack of the mascot characters. While there are many possible explanations for this, perhaps the most important one is simply that most of the mascot characters from Japan simply have several decades on anything notable from the west. The west however if fond of both stereotypical and archetypal characters and uses them regularly.
The key difference I think has little to do with substance of character but rather style of presentation, and even here it would be impossible to say that one does better than the other. Sure, everyone in the Halo universe is dressed in an uninteresting way but then they are also dressed in a very pragmatic way. Their garb is not stylized; it is functional. Perhaps the best example of a distinction between the two comes from various giant robot games. The western interpretation tells us that the giant military robot is simply a bipedal tank with tremendous firepower but rather limited agility. By contrast, the japanese interpretation says that such a vehicle is essentially an incredibly large and super powered human with incredible mobility and agility. Where the western interpretation is grounded in realism and pragmatism, the Japanese interpretation is governed almost entirely by the rule of cool.
In the end, given that the difference is one of style, there is no "better"; there is only "different".
I'm too lazy to quote. But in reference to earlier conversation...
Battletech > Gundam.
Its stupid to compare them against each other, Just as stupid as most crossovers really are.
When I evaluate them individually I have to give the edge to Battletech. The designs are better, the "realism" (i understand giant robots are not exactly realistic, but battletech at least makes an effort to explain how it might work) is better, and the overall cannon is better. Gundumb robots do not look like machines of war. Battlemechs do.
Battletech > Gundam.
Its stupid to compare them against each other, Just as stupid as most crossovers really are.
When I evaluate them individually I have to give the edge to Battletech. The designs are better, the "realism" (i understand giant robots are not exactly realistic, but battletech at least makes an effort to explain how it might work) is better, and the overall cannon is better. Gundumb robots do not look like machines of war. Battlemechs do.
you do realize that every single character that appears in "anime" "videogames" "manga" and other stuff like that are stereotypes?Sean Hollyman said:
seriously, the silent strong man, the beautiful brawler, the smart with glasses girl, etc etc etc
and those "guys with guns" actually have a back-story that at least is a little bit plausible, relate able and/or interesting
i do love anime and their stories are amazing, but its hard to think the "Characters" are "cooler" than the other characters because they all come from the same spreadsheet just to try and appease as many people by giving them what they want, "stereotyping" the characters, reaching more audience.
show me one anime and i can tell you what the personality is of every character by looking at least one episode where that character appears... the things that are "Cooler" are the stories because they contain very very Japanese customs and values that we are not used to see and can relate to.