Upskirt Danger Caused Sex Change in Ico's The Last Guardian

[gigastrike]

Am I the only one who cares more about the fact that the big monster is named after a Pokemon than the implied sexism?

 

[Kije]

I don't see why a pair of shorts wouldn't hurt...
Besides, its just a kid right? Its not like Japan would-
...nvm.

 

[ForensicYOYO]

My thoughts on this are that its a good thing for two reasons.
1. Even though girls wear pants nowadays, considering the time line of when the game was set Im not sure girls wore pants back then.
2. The relationship between a boy and his pet seem to be more compelling to me then a girl. I know its more based on my opinion but think about the saying ( Mans best friend ) In know Trico is not a dog but I feel the rule applies.
3. Im going to go ahead and add a third option. But I also feel making him a boy also adds mystery as to who the guardian might be. Guys are know to be more of the protectors. However I believe A girl could do just as good of a job.

 

[Washboard]

problems not gone away if hes a scottish lad. Upkilt shots are just as bad as upskirt

 

[SinisterGehe]

Games need more female protagonists! I demand a lady in pants!
...Wow, I really just wrote that...

If you want help, that can be organized...
And getting testosterone is easy now days, it can be in form of a pill or a injection...
/bad joke intented...

And why couldn't she wear trousers? Even in ye olden times girls sometime wore breeches.

This is just sexist. It makes no sense to have the protagonist as a girl just because you think that she must wear a skirt.

I think it was a smart move, someone outside Japan might have been insulted...
According history, loads of women were punished for wearing pants in Europe at least. Good to know that we never were sexist brutes in this civilized world, eh?

I don't really mind what gender the main character is long as hes is not a douche, there will be bad deviantart porn of him anyway... Hold on... Yeah it would be better if he would be a girl... My god I can
see all the x-over animefantards+ico yaoi now.
Out the way I need to vomit...

(Not too cynical was it now?)

 

[Moriarty70]

Even with pants, you're talking about something out of Japan with percieved "sexualized" view of an underaged girl. Knee-jerks and two words created this fear. Those two words...R***-L**

 

[Senaro]

He's worried about the upskirts because he's trying to make an artistic statement with this game. Something to awe people and bring back a feeling like we got from Shadow of the Colossus. That would probably be detracted from if we had people giggling constantly as they tried to alter their cameras to get a look at a little girl's panties.

Even with pants, people are still going to be looking for shots of a girl's ass. Have you seen the stuff on the Halo Reach image sharing? Most of it is Kat's ass, and she's in full spartan getup.

 

[Lord Xtheth]

Games need more panty shots, they should have kept it with a girl

 

[Baldry]

Games need more female protagonists! I demand a lady in pants!
...Wow, I really just wrote that...

Ninja's...damn.

 

[theamazingbean]

Put the lead in capri pants. Next most feminine step from a skirt.

 

[icame]

Putting her in pants would have been easier, but that also wasn't the only reason so whatever. It doesn't matter anyway as i doubt he even talks.

 

[TaboriHK]

Didn't Nintendo pass this hurdle with Samus over twenty years ago? I know that was the space future though, maybe they thought that it was just a far out science fiction concept, to have women not wearing skirts and flowers in their hair.

By the way, and this may qualify as a cheap shot, but if it's easier to change the gender of your character than the attire, then you probably don't have much of a character, do you?

EDIT EDIT: And this is definitely a cheap shot but I would never have pegged a Japanese developer as a company to have a problem with this.

 

[boholikeu]

Women in Japan don't generally wear pants, and little girls especially don't. It's not a matter of chauvinism or anything, it's simply the way their culture is. It wouldn't even think to most Japanese people to question is, in their minds it's no different from men not wearing skirts.

See, this is a culture that understands something that the US frequently seems to miss: it's okay for genders to be DIFFERENT, and that doesn't automatically make them unequal in some way.

P.S. Thanks

As someone that lives in Japan, I'd like to let everyone know this is not true. Plenty of women here wear pants. Japan may have different expectations of each gender than the West, but this is not one of them

My apologies, I appear to have made a mistake. However, depending on the age and status of this character, a school uniform (read: skirt) would still have made more sense than pants, and certainly would have helped convey her femininity. But then, looking at what's been shown so far, I guess this isn't terribly relevant.

P.S. Thanks (special thanks for correcting me, I do not like being responsible for propagating myths)

NP, I'm just glad I didn't inadvertently start a flame war. =) You'd be surprised how adamant some people get about their perceptions of Japan.

 

[Eclectic Dreck]

Agreed with the putting her in pants idea, besides for climbing it seems a bit more practical to wear pants instead of a skirt when climbing things.

The obvious reason is it simply never occurred to the guy that adolescent girls might, on occasion, wear pants.

 

[Le_Lisra]

That's a tad silly.. but it's their decision, and the game looks nice enough with a boy.

 

[rembrandtqeinstein]

wear a skort!

 

[zehydra]

Games need more female protagonists! I demand a lady in pants!
...Wow, I really just wrote that...

lol was that sarcasm? Like, half the games now have female lead characters or at least the option to make your character female.