Kamitani responds to Kotaku criticism of the characters.

@sergio said:

Well you said it yourself, he may have drawn it that way because he thought it looked cool. He may himself not want to be that dude himself, but he respects that look. That's a completely different approach/mindset than the way he drew the sorceress which is a more objectified desirable way.

You're right it's also true that you will have plenty of creators tailoring their style to the whims of their target audience. Some female creators will draw in a way that fits the western male power fantasy style, and some men will draw in way to appeal to women's tastes. For whatever reason, monetary, personal artist taste etc. But that kind of proves my point. These burly men from this game were very likely not intended to appeal to heterosexual Women in a sexual way. That's what is different about them than the Sorceress. If they were intended to be as such, chances are they would look a whole heck of a lot different.

I do personally think it's unrealistic to think artists are immune from their own desires, expressing it this way may be a main motivating factor for many to get into the field. But I certainly can't blame female gamers if they don't feel like female characters like the sorceress represent them well and aren't what they want to see, because female characters like this obviously were never intended to represent their wants.

@snail: What exactly do you mean by frail? She looks like she's designed to look like an attractive woman who isn't extremely muscular or in armor. Considering her frail based on her looks implies that an attractive woman can't be powerful or knowledgable. It seems like she is extremely powerful because she doesn't need that amount of armor to protect herself, or to be as brawny as either the dwarf or amazon, since she has the power of sorcery. If a book makes the wizard look knowledgable, why doesn't the orb make her look like a wise oracle? Is it because she's an attractive, young woman and not a crone?

You say she doesn't match a stereotypical appearance. Sorceresses aren't supposed to be clad in armor or muscular. She actually does look like a stereotypical sorceress when they aren't wielding magic. Do a Google image search, and the only difference is that there are sorceresses out there that are wearing even less than her.

It's not like he saw that article then suddenly thought, uh oh, better draw something with homosexual undertones! He was just pulling a silly picture he had on hand (ostensibly from the same game being criticized) that fell on the complete opposite side of the spectrum. It's comedy through juxtaposition.

WHY DON'T PEOPLE UNDERSTAND THIS? (this sentence was not directed at you specifically)

I was under the impression that was what had happened. Guess I wasn't paying enough attention. My bad!

@snail said:

Your original assertion was that it wasn't "artistically expressive" which, frankly, was a load of shit. Now you're saying the design is bad because it's stupid and doesn't fit the rest of the game, which is a completely different criticism and also totally fine. As I've said, I don't like her giant breasts either.

So your argument is that it's fine because it's "actual art" (as opposed to fake art, I suppose, whatever the hell that's supposed to be), because the bodies are more realistic, because it also features unattractive characters (which the game certainly does, by the way) and because it's "generally bad ass". Ok.

Well if you're looking for exceptions, you'll find them easily. No group of humanity is homogeneous in wants and behaviors. People are dynamic creatures and labels don't work very well on an individual level let alone a population level. But it's hard to talk about systemic issues without using labels for conversational convenience.

I don't think the art is intentionally sexist, I just figure the dude drew what he liked. I doubt he put any more thought into it than that. But I wouldn't say his depiction of the Sorceress is one that will be well received by most women.

And no one game is the source of the issue. It's a market failure to deliver adequate gender portrayal variety and societal problem caused by the subtle training as a result of being bombarded with these gender depictions over and over for decades.

I do disagree completely about the popularity of the look, the bulk of the existing male consumer market really likes this look whether they know it or not. Sex sells, it really really does. It's often the easiest, laziest, most cost effective marketing panacea for a mediocre product.

Anyone who tells you differently has no practical experience in marketing. You say you personally find this very exaggerated look grotesque, while that may be true for you, I don't think it's true for a meaningfully large number of men. At least on a subconscious level. In my experience virtually any product sells significantly better when accompanied by a picture of an attractive young woman interacting with the item, from septic tanks to cars to assault rifles.

@grantheaslip said:.

I'll admit part of me does really relate to this look. I've played a lot of team sports, used to be a heavy lifter too. Maybe that's a difference between our perspectives, I get the mentality behind this worldview pretty well. It was all around me growing up.

as for the rest, I think we covered that last time. I get where you are coming from. I still don't think that they are talking about "you" though, more the cumulative effect of all this art being put out there by men. It's question of control. Men undeniably have almost all of it in the industry and women have very little. Frustrations are bound to happen for those who don't have control when there is that kind of disparity and to be vented at who is perceived to have it.

That's a good counterpoint. If anything JRPGs sometimes seem like either the best or the worst of both worlds depending on your POV. Especially post Playstation One era, the protagonists tend to be noticeably heavily over designed to various different target demos.The male characters are often tailored to women's wants (perceived anyway), and the females towards men's. That's where the girly men and such complaints come in. Still I'd say of the 50+ I've played they still generally are geared more to a teen boy's World View than a girl's. Usually the male lead is designed to be relatable to young male teen's world view (typical boy goes out in the world coming of age story), while sometimes having a look a female player might appreciate.

@icemael: My point is actual art is created to be art, not to pander to a bunch of horny teens.

She is made of tits and thighs. Explain to me how that is somehow art just because someone drew it. I can draw my cock on a napkin, it's not art no matter how much I call it "satire," or whatever other excuse.

Maybe it is art, but it's shitty art. It's generic, and has absolutely nothing of value, worth, or interest beyond it's sexual appeal. I have seen characters that look almost EXACTLY the same. And surprise surprise, they are all made by the same culture for the same stupid reason. It's annoying to see nothing but the same three freakin' archetypes coming out of game characters.

The characters are awesome examples of lazy character design. There are no interesting details, no effort put into making a unique character. It's all focusing on tits and legs. You can't deny that because that's just the fact of the matter.

Take a look at a character like Alyx, from Half Life 2. While you could just say "well that's not fair, that's just a realistic female!"

But that's not entirely true. For one, Alyx exists within a somewhat stylized world. But mostly, there's just a lot more to her than being a mostly realistic female. There are little details all over her model. Patches on her clothes, a necklace, and even indications of the trials she goes through in the course of the story. She has breasts and legs, but they are not the focus of the character. As a result, even though the things that make her "unique" visually are subtle, they still add up to mean a lot. And as a result, if you saw any part of her model, you'd probably recognize it. If you showed me the focal points of the character shown above, I'd have no fucking clue which of the millions of chun-li jerkoff characters it belonged to.

It ultimately doesn't really matter WHY the character design sucks. It just does. It's not about the visual style (ie, Japanese animation) or the gender or whatever else. It's just a lazy design with absolutely nothing to offer but making me want to barf at the way her tits and... thighs jiggle around.

I'm fine with ATTRACTIVE women in games. But for me, attractive is fairly subdued. I don't like a girl with a shit ton of eyeliner and big tits and a short skirt. Certainly not any more than I like the Cole shaped dudes out there. I think Alyx is way more appealing to me than creepy-tit-monster up there.

If you want to honestly make the argument that a classic painting depicting struggles between life and death, with wreaths of darkness and decay around brows and writhing corpses is less a piece of art than the generic tits and ass lady, go right ahead. That's just crazy.

You don't get to complain about the lack of variety in the industry, on any level, and then turn around and say that a typically pandering character design is "art." That's just bullshit and we all know it.

There is no denying that this, a product meant to be sold, is not pandering to an audience to get a quick click purchase rather than an educated purchase. Sadly, it's how our minds work. We see shit like that, and we want to click. And when we click, we want to buy, so we do it.

Also, I'm not just having a personal conversation with you, so if something I say is something that you didn't make an argument against, it's probably because this is a forum and not a private message.

I also didn't say it didn't fit the game. And it's not bullshit that it's not expressive, because it's not. It's pandering. You don't get to just say that something is art and suddenly it's art. It's not up to who's LOOKING at the damn thing. It being art has far more to do with the true intention of the creators. And lets be fuckin' honest, we all know the motivations involved here. Otherwise, I wouldn't be looking at a hentai character. Open your eyes. Just because you're used to being drowned in typical, boring, grossly exaggerated and pandering characters doesn't mean it's good design. If you have a problem with the "whine whine, strong white males, whine whine" shit, or anything remotely the same as that, you have no argument at all, because you're just making it clear that the pandering part of the character is working in full effect.

Eh, I'm kind of with Jason on this. The hyper titty look is silly, overplayed in this industry and a little embarrassing. Calling them out on it = you like buff, naked dudes?

@mordeaniischaos: Weren't you just arguing the other day about how games can't be art because they're entertainment?

@hailinel: Yeah, go back and read how I spoke that I believe games are made up of but are not in and of themselves actually art. So while I would consider things like character models or what have you to be "art" in one way or another I don't believe the entire thing is one big art. Generally, anyway. Not literally every asset is a piece of art.

I think the points are all made in this, so let me just chime in with this:

It's not good art that is bad because it's sexist, it's sexist art that is bad because it's not well designed.

Seriously, it is easily the worst art design in a Vanillaware ever, even if you skip the characters that are right out of some hentai book. It's all so... uninspired, it shows the same amount of imagination that Golden Axe had decades ago, it works poorly with their animation style, it's hard to read and it drives the eye everywhere except the parts that are important for gameplay.

It's bad art.

But I admit I'm avoiding the game (despite loving Vanillaware's early games HD Odin Sphere is a thing I want very, very hard) mostly because I don't want to have to look over my shoulder while I'm playing to make sure nobody's seeing me.

Yeah, you know what? I think your argument about games not being art from that debate is faulty enough that I have a hard time agreeing with you here.

So a guy decides to write a blog criticizing a game for having half-naked women with ridiculous proportions as being sexist, and as usual, the people who didn't like reading it couldn't just disagree and move on with their lives. Of course they had to link it on every video game forum in existence and get everyone to bring out their torches and pitchforks, like they always do whenever someone uses the words "sexism" and "video games" in the same paragraph. Then, one of the designers of the game in question comes in and is like, "Step aside everyone. I got this under control. *ahem* Hey man, here's some big hairy naked dudes for your queer ass." And all the people who normally mock religious fundamentalists for their bigotry towards homosexuality all cheer and talk about what a sick burn that was. A decade ago I wouldn't have thought we would reach the point where the people who discuss video games on the Internet would become less progressive than the general public, but here we are.

Wrong...

For once do you know what would have really sold in Japan right know? Small breasted loli characters. That is what sells games right now in Japan. Also maybe you should take a look at this. This guy actually thinks about his characters and design. Unlike many many other artists.

http://art-eater.com/2013/03/from-mickey-mouse-to-jesus-the-latest-dragons-crown-trailer-is-full-of-epic-homages/

You do not like it. Sure I do not like it either. But I at least can accept that this guy like to draw his characters like that and I can respect that. Stop calling every over oversexualized design a money maker. Maybe people just like this kind of design. He was certainly not forced to use this style at all. That is what he loves so let him do it.

If you think it is offensive do not buy it if you think it will hurt the industry try to create a game with better non offensive design. And good luck with that because in this stupid western world every thing can be offensive for someone here....

Oh man this video game world was soo much more fun when nobody gave a shit about this kind of stuff.....

This thread is the most depressing. Yes, we should continue having the discussion about sexism in the games industry, but not about some harmless cheesecake character design. If we wanted to get angry, there have been a thousand far more egregious examples over the past 15+ years.

Mostly men arguing with mostly other men over whether or not tits are okay to have in a video game, which is maybe the most absurd thing I've ever seen. Meanwhile, the majority of women are not giving a shit and are rightfully more concerned about things like being paid equally and not having legislative bodies draft laws that dictate what they can and cannot do with their bodies. Even within the games industry, the initial push against sexism was supposed to be about the mistreatment female employees ran into while in the industry.

However, it has long since been hijacked about whether or not fictional depictions of attractive women in video games (and only video games for some strange reason) are damaging to feminism or something equally ridiculous. I haven't seen a single major story about women in the gaming industry in months, only dumb shit like this and directly gender swapping Link and Zelda. So good job Proud Internet Warriors, you have gladly followed Kotaku into a war over what people are allowed to enjoy in their free time. I hope you enjoy bashing your head against a wall.

Well, that's just about the grossest mis-assessment of the situation you could possibly have reached. Bravo.

EDIT: To clarify - a writer on Kotaku who doesn't like the art direction of Dragon's Crown decides to voice his opinion by calling the art director a 14-year-old in an article. As internet denizens, I think we can all agree that from a western gamer, that's a fairly damning insult and completely unprofessional. The art director then replies with art from the exact same game that is a complete juxtaposition of the work that was deemed to be offensive in the first place. @icemael and others come to this thread to chuckle about this witticism. Of course, it flies directly over the heads of everyone else and they instead interpret it as a "ur gay" caliber retort.

Someone brings up misogyny and sexism and the entire thread instantly dissolves into an insipid mess.

Typical misogynistic response from a well-known woman hater. When will your hatred come to an end?

So, I just went to Kotaku to read that article myself and their big news headline atm is
This Is Just a Middle-Aged Man Dressed as a Japanese Schoolgirl
So, it's good to see Kotaku is still exactly the same as I remember it.

Still, Schreier HAS a point. The design of the sorceress is pretty atrocious. That's even beyond DoA.

Oh my god! Is that really Vanillaware?

Those have to be the ugliest character designs I've ever seen in my life. I'm with Kotaku on this one.

ha. To be fair, that's a pretty cute article about a rather famous fellow. Plus, it's late at night in the US; so, Kotaku always puts in more stuff from Bashcraft who loves sharing such things. It's easy enough to just look past it if you want. I mean, there's an article right near it mentioning how Satoru Iwata has become the Global President of Nintendo and head of Nintendo America.

Yeah, I know I just had to laugh out loud when I saw this. It has been a while since I visited Kotaku and thought "Well, it can't be as bad as I remember it". So it was really funny to me that the first thing I saw was this.

I'm not going to go look for my original post, but I'm pretty certain I made mention of this point ever since the beginning. You merely chose to vehemently oppose one particular point of my arguments.

That's not to say I won't stand by that. If you do think her design has a lot of depth to it though, then that's your own opinion. I don't see it. It is completely unnecessary for her to be that busty - it adds nothing to the game and it serves the same purpose as porn/hentai.

If you think that nearly deliberately revealing one's thigh while casting even the mightiest of spells is assertively warrior-like behavior, if you think that the inability to express an angry demeanor even during the fiercest of battles does not paint a meek caricature, then fine. I think she looks frail in comparison to every single one of her allies in that picture and in the trailer.

Moreover the crystal ball is hardly noticeable, and, more tellingly, definitely not the focus of the picture.

A bunch of people have taken my 'sick burn' comment in completely the wrong way, but whatever. If people wanna jump to conclusions about what that meant, just like they are jumping to conclusions about what Kamitani was implying with his response, then I'm glad I could facilitate any form of offense you seem so desperate to find.

@darji: If you think that the character's "hyper-sexualization" ends at "big boobs" then sure, that's you're opinion, and I think you're completely wrong. When she is at her mightiest, casting a powerful spell, she becomes almost naked. Her boobs do not seem to ever stop wiggling. It's effing distracting, they are huge and constantly going up and down nearly covering her face.

It's not just a detail of character design, it's an actively distracting implementation of boob physics. The "hentai" or "porn" comparison was a hyperbolic, though I think entirely justifiable one.

Your real-life comparison is both ridiculous and unnecessary. If in real life a woman's large breasts were to constantly wiggle up and down in an angle of 30º simply due to her breathing, I would respectfully do my best to ignore it based on the assumption that she had a tragic medical condition.

I also did not talk about any of this being "game changing" or even affecting the gameplay. I have not played this game and have no interest in playing it for reasons other than this character in particular. So I don't get that final paragraph.

It's a game! It's no essay on gender equality. If people don't like it don't buy it. Vote with your wallet. That I will vote with mine too.

Funny thing though is that I will probably won't buy the game. Not because of the artstyle, but because my previous experience with Odin Sphere and the general consensus with their next game Muramasa: The Demon Blade were that they were too repetitive. I like their artstyle, but I'm not a fan of Vanillaware's gameplay of choice.

It's a comically over exaggerated look of old school fantasy art and I think it's awesome. I have no desire to play the game however because I don't like that genre, but purely from an art point of view it's amazing.

There's so much fan art out there that it's hard to tell some of it apart from the official stuff, but a lot of the at work I see of the ladies in this game portray them as being on the plus side and it's a nice change of pace from the usual supermodel anorexic look a lot of stuff has. The character is designed to be a lady that utilizes her sexuality as part of who she is. I work with several girls that dress in ways similar to that character who walk around with their tits hanging half out and their ass on prominent display so anyone saying that only a guy would dress a lady like that is bsing themselves, Just because a guy designed the characters to dress like that doesn't make it some evil male only thing in my eyes, it's just a character choice. Yes they could have drawn her flat chested and wearing a turtleneck but that's not what the character is supposed to be. All characters of both genders get equally over sexualized charactures of their respective stereotype and to single out the ladies because their bouncy bits are more bouncy just seems silly to me.

We live in a time where calling anything showing more skin than ankle hyper sexualized so it doesn't surprises me to see that group banging the wardrum against this game.

I suppose it shouldn't shock me that folks who are into geeky pursuits are those who are most uncomfortable with any depiction of sexuality. And that's what this is, you can say 'hypersexualized' but that's really no different than 'hyperviolent' or 'hyperfunny'. The difference is the immediate rush to get it out because It Doesn't Belong In Games. And the deliberate misconstruction of sexuality as being sexist, combined with the rather gendernormative view that men are interested in sex and women aren't. According to this topic, representations of sexualty only appeal to men, and 'disempower' women. It's not too hard to see the underlying message that if you're not into sex, you're not a good man, and if you are into sex, you're not a good woman.

I wonder, if the characters in this game were all in BDSM getups, Amazon was a Dominatrix and the Dwarf was a Master and the Sorceress and Knight were subs... Well that's hypersexualized so get it out of video games, right? Can't have that viewable by the public. What if it was sexuality that 'only appealed to women'. You guys have been rather kind to men, telling them exactly what things 'only appeal to men', maybe you'd like to take a shot at doing that for women? Oh, but that would be generalizing an entire gender. _Wouldn't want to do that_. But try it anyway, what kind of sexual representation only appeals to women? A man doing the dishes har dee har har?

You know that game MUGEN Souls? From what I could tell its a game entirely about a fascination with young girls having baths. So obviously it's for pedophile men, the dirty bastards. Except the only people I know who were like 'yeah let's play that'... are women. I suppose they paid the money they had worked to earn to buy it because their patriarchal overlords forced them to, not because they chose to.

Just so disappointed in this topic. People who think they're being progressive because their emotions tell them they are, even if their behaviour doesn't qualify. It's one thing to go "I don't like that, that's not for me" and another to tell other people "I don't like this, and this is why"... And it's entirely beyond the pale to say "I don't like this, and therefore no one else should either." The only thing more disappointing than that is Schreier trying to pin real world assaults on pictures of anime ladies in an unreleased video game.

From now on, all video games should have a Burka Mode. That way nobody could be offended by the depiction of women.

I think this is the first time anybody has taken Kotaku seriously.

@razielcuts said:

Make no sense or does this game shows her crotch like this?

@razielcuts: @darji:

I think that the only problem with that strip, other than the awkward wording, is that we all know that people would absolutely play as a warrior with a space-hopper-sized genital pouch because it would probably be hilarious and uniquely awesome.

It's not warrior-like behavior, but it is sorceress-like behavior. That's probably because she's not a warrior, but a sorceress. Why should she express an angry demeanor? I've seen representations of magic-wielders with stony expressions until their powers are truly taxed, otherwise they have the same cool, calm, and collected expression. That's not meek.

Fucking video games, you guys.

Holy shit. I go to bed and this is still going on in the morning.

Wait, what?

Oh god, I can't believe some how seriously some of you guys are taking a pair of cartoon boobs.

Y'all are hilarious.

Like I said, even when her powers are "fully taxed", all she does is become more nude. And, like I said, the focus of her design is always her cleavage. That's not necessarily sorceress-like, in my opinion.

Well, maybe it's Sorceress-like for the Dragon's Crown universe.

I can't believe you're still hung up on this.

As a static illustration I think it's whatever but man the way those boobs shake around ingame is kinda out there.

Rush Limbaugh coined it in the early 90s. Smugness for the win!

MORE LIKE WHORE-LIKE IS MORE LIKE IT HUEHUEHUE. I know that you can't be suggesting that a woman with big breasts or visible cleavage is a prostitute by default so I don't understand why you'd say something so silly.

Snail, you don't find it to be extremely commonplace that magical women in both fantasy and anime traditions are presented as being attractive and overtly sexual? You have not encountered that before?

She does not become more nude. She is wearing the same amount of clothing the whole time. There's a slit in her skirt where yes, she does show more leg when she stands at a certain angle. Are we so puritanical that we can't handle bare legs now? Her midriff isn't exposed, her buttocks isn't exposed, and her boobs don't pop out of her top. We see this kind of thing on the red carpet of awards shows all the time, where the celebrity sticks out her leg from the slit of her skirt.

Sorceresses are often depicted as seductive. Heck, that's one of the definitions of sorceress. Look up the artwork of Frank Frazetta. He's clearly the inspiration of a lot of this game's art style, including the sorceress.

If anything it's actually that exposed leg that does anything remotely sexually gratifying for me as a straight man. When the leg comes out its like 'hey it's an exposed leg..!' Her boobs just kind of make her look like she tied balloons to her belt. Then again, I'm not really a tit-man.

I'll agree that the Amazon's head being so tiny is super off-putting. It just looks like the artist fucked up his foreshortening.

To maybe make this post a little more worthwhile, it's worth noting the difference between male and female spellcasters. Male casters are usually old men who derive their power from years of difficult study and almost hermetic existence. Lady spellcasters are more often young and seductive, their powers seeming more mysterious rather than mathematic. I think this has more to do with how we view sex, it's this forbidden, secret thing that is immediately available but not permitted. Look at the way puritans saw magic; warlocks were men of letters and contracts, they knew more than you, you signed in blood for their knowledge and became their slave... Witches on the other hand, how did they corrupt you? By dancing naked in the woods. Male secrets are kept in diabolical ledgers, female secrets were kept in sex and the female body. These are the tropes that lead to mysterious seductive enchantress characters, and wizened ancient wizard characters.

The Kotaku article is right. The character design is idiotic.

I think someone already posted a link to art-eater's first analysis of Dragon's Crown artwork. I saw this repost of one of his comments where he later talks about the sorceress. Sorry, it's on Kotaku also.

I can't even begin to explain how disappointed this thread makes me.

that through-line the poster draws between tits, fertility gods, necromancy, the artist and sorceress is the biggest pseudo-intellectual reach i've seen in a long time. if tits are representative of necromancy and 'nurturing the dead,' then why does the amazon have quadruple Ds (which makes zero anatomical sense for someone with such a low body-fat %, but that's neither-here-nor-there), and why is the sorceress' ass so prominently projected as if she's presenting? you can argue references to fertility gods until you're blue in the face (and congrats, that's not too difficult...turns out humans have been into tits for awhile)- but where poster tries to make a referencing-culture-and-history argument, i simply see two examples of exaggerated sexual features for very different purposes. fertility gods might help explain why humans are so generally into breasts (representative of good health, child-rearing, whatever you choose to subscribe to, etc.), but i don't think the devs decided to hand-draw and animate the sorceress' breasts out of a sense of obligation to history.