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Post by Noxluxe on Mar 18, 2019 22:44:38 GMT
You get a like for being a Miyazaki fan. A like for not being a blind and deaf and unfeeling philistine? I'm against participation trophies, you know.
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Post by Gwydden on Mar 18, 2019 22:51:12 GMT
Pfff, there's anime and then there's art. Bad art is still art. Good anime is still anime Truth be told, I despised anime until I realized that while shonen stuff (which I can't stand) might be the most popular it was far from all there was. And I like hand-drawn animation generally, even in video games. I got Ori and the Blind Forest pretty much entirely because of how it looked, and nowadays I'm enjoying the hell out of Hollow Knight. Speaking of Hollow Knight, while that game has a very simple plot, every fantasy game ever could learn a thing or two from it in regards to tone, atmosphere, and sheer creativity. It's a bit like Sunless Sea in that sense, except actually fun to play.
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Post by opuspace on Mar 18, 2019 23:05:47 GMT
You get a like for being a Miyazaki fan. A like for not being a blind and deaf and unfeeling philistine? I'm against participation trophies, you know. Given how many don't even know about Miyazaki films, I'd say anyone who does know is in select company.
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Post by pessimistpanda on Mar 19, 2019 1:14:55 GMT
A like for not being a blind and deaf and unfeeling philistine? I'm against participation trophies, you know. Given how many don't even know about Miyazaki films, I'd say anyone who does know is in select company. The select company of the Japanophiles I hung out with in high school cause nobody else would talk to me, and would wet themselves over any reference to FF7, despite never having played it, lol.
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Post by Noxluxe on Mar 19, 2019 1:24:08 GMT
Given how many don't even know about Miyazaki films, I'd say anyone who does know is in select company. The select company of the Japanophiles I hung out with in high school cause nobody else would talk to me, and would wet themselves over any reference to FF7, despite never having played it, lol. Let's not get carried away. Just because I enjoy a few specific and highly acclaimed anime movies and think modern western entertainment has something to learn from them doesn't mean I'm not hugely judgmental of JRPGs or anime in general. Don't feel safe throwing out those FF7 references quite yet.
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Post by pessimistpanda on Mar 19, 2019 1:29:49 GMT
The select company of the Japanophiles I hung out with in high school cause nobody else would talk to me, and would wet themselves over any reference to FF7, despite never having played it, lol. Let's not get carried away. Just because I enjoy a few specific and highly acclaimed anime movies and think modern western entertainment has something to learn from them doesn't mean I'm not hugely judgmental of JRPGs or anime in general. Don't feel safe throwing out those FF7 references quite yet. JRPGs can be amazing or shit, just like any other type of game. The tendency of Western gamers to dismiss the entire genre out of hand is just racism, pure and simple. Dark Souls and Dragon's Dogma are also JRPGs, after all, according to the strict dictionary definition. I was merely pointing out that liking Miyazaki films (which I very much do), doesn't necessarily indicate good taste in other areas. I wasn't saying anyone in here was like the friends I had in high school, who, in retrospect, closely resembled the caricatures in SNL's J-Pop America Fun-Time Now skits, in their tendency to fetishise literally anything and everything that came out of Japan.
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Post by Noxluxe on Mar 19, 2019 1:39:51 GMT
JRPGs can be amazing or shit, just like any other type of game. The tendency of Western gamers to dismiss the entire genre out of hand is just racism, pure and simple. Dark Souls and Dragon's Dogma are also JRPGs, after all, according to the strict dictionary definition. I was merely pointing out that liking Miyazaki films (which I very much do), doesn't necessarily indicate good taste in other areas. I wasn't saying anyone in here was like the friends I had in high school, who, in retrospect, closely resembled the caricatures in SNL's J-Pop America Fun-Time Now skits, in their tendency to fetishise literally anything and everything that came out of Japan. Hehe, you really do enjoy labeling things as racism, don't you? Video games aren't people, dismissing something in general and dismissing it in its entirety are two different things, and taste tendencies are carried through cultures as well. At the very worst it's mildly culturally snobbish, and if one is open to playing those brilliant gems when they do come along I don't see the harm.
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Post by pessimistpanda on Mar 19, 2019 1:47:04 GMT
JRPGs can be amazing or shit, just like any other type of game. The tendency of Western gamers to dismiss the entire genre out of hand is just racism, pure and simple. Dark Souls and Dragon's Dogma are also JRPGs, after all, according to the strict dictionary definition. I was merely pointing out that liking Miyazaki films (which I very much do), doesn't necessarily indicate good taste in other areas. I wasn't saying anyone in here was like the friends I had in high school, who, in retrospect, closely resembled the caricatures in SNL's J-Pop America Fun-Time Now skits, in their tendency to fetishise literally anything and everything that came out of Japan. Hehe, you really do enjoy labeling things as racism, don't you? Video games aren't people, dismissing something in general and dismissing it in its entirety are two different things, and taste tendencies are carried through cultures as well. At the very worst it's mildly culturally snobbish, and if one is open to playing those brilliant gems when they do come along I don't see the harm. I enjoy labelling things accurately. I keep a special label printer just for that purpose.
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Post by Noxluxe on Mar 19, 2019 2:00:24 GMT
I enjoy labelling things accurately. I keep a special label printer just for that purpose. Clearly. You're not at all worried that personally inventing definitions for such a loaded word and using it on the fly to try and score rhetorical points on totally insignificant issues might be hurting a wider and rather more delicate negotiation currently going on around the subject that actually affects people's lives? Aside from making you sound like a zealot who flies off the handle at the slightest provocation, making people less rather than more likely to take your points seriously.
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Post by opuspace on Mar 19, 2019 2:16:14 GMT
Given how many don't even know about Miyazaki films, I'd say anyone who does know is in select company. The select company of the Japanophiles I hung out with in high school cause nobody else would talk to me, and would wet themselves over any reference to FF7, despite never having played it, lol. Now are we saying that's good company or bad?
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Post by river82 on Mar 19, 2019 2:31:06 GMT
About 7 years ago large JRPGs were dead, and there were reasons they were dead. The past couple of years there's been a huge JRPG resurgence, which is nice. However, for the longest time there was no innovation and so they died *shrugs*.
Japanese studios, more so than Western studios, don't have the money the latest console gens require of devs to fully utilise their capabilities, so they've been heading handheld or mobile. For quite a while I thought the future of JRPGs would be on the smaller devices, I'm glad the past few years proved me wrong.
There are valid reasons to criticise the genre as a whole, though. Very valid reasons. Zeschuk commented on the reasons the JRPG was dying back in 2009. And this is acknowledging that "JRPG" is a brand these days just like "anime" is a brand. When people think of anime they increasingly think of a specific style, which is why some western and Chinese cartoons are called anime and some Japanese cartoons "so aren't anime, dude". Also this is ignoring that "anime" literally just means "animation" so how everything isn't "anime" does my head in.
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Post by river82 on Mar 19, 2019 2:36:08 GMT
Pfff, there's anime and then there's art. Truth be told, I despised anime until I realized that while shonen stuff (which I can't stand) might be the most popular it was far from all there was. I'm into seinen and slice of life stuff these days. So whenever I see what the anime community is hyped about, almost nothing interests me, and so I'll have to really dig into the season myself to see what shows I'd like. For example, The Great Passage (based off the novel) was viewed as boring by much of the community but I really, REALLY liked it.
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Post by pessimistpanda on Mar 19, 2019 6:50:48 GMT
About 7 years ago large JRPGs were dead, and there were reasons they were dead. The past couple of years there's been a huge JRPG resurgence, which is nice. However, for the longest time there was no innovation and so they died *shrugs*. Japanese studios, more so than Western studios, don't have the money the latest console gens require of devs to fully utilise their capabilities, so they've been heading handheld or mobile. For quite a while I thought the future of JRPGs would be on the smaller devices, I'm glad the past few years proved me wrong. There are valid reasons to criticise the genre as a whole, though. Very valid reasons. Zeschuk commented on the reasons the JRPG was dying back in 2009. And this is acknowledging that "JRPG" is a brand these days just like "anime" is a brand. When people think of anime they increasingly think of a specific style, which is why some western and Chinese cartoons are called anime and some Japanese cartoons "so aren't anime, dude". Also this is ignoring that "anime" literally just means "animation" so how everything isn't "anime" does my head in. As if to imply that games in the West were so very innovative by comparison, or that there are no valid reasons to criticise other whole entire genres?
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Post by river82 on Mar 19, 2019 7:30:12 GMT
About 7 years ago large JRPGs were dead, and there were reasons they were dead. The past couple of years there's been a huge JRPG resurgence, which is nice. However, for the longest time there was no innovation and so they died *shrugs*. Japanese studios, more so than Western studios, don't have the money the latest console gens require of devs to fully utilise their capabilities, so they've been heading handheld or mobile. For quite a while I thought the future of JRPGs would be on the smaller devices, I'm glad the past few years proved me wrong. There are valid reasons to criticise the genre as a whole, though. Very valid reasons. Zeschuk commented on the reasons the JRPG was dying back in 2009. And this is acknowledging that "JRPG" is a brand these days just like "anime" is a brand. When people think of anime they increasingly think of a specific style, which is why some western and Chinese cartoons are called anime and some Japanese cartoons "so aren't anime, dude". Also this is ignoring that "anime" literally just means "animation" so how everything isn't "anime" does my head in. As if to imply that games in the West were so very innovative by comparison, or that there are no valid reasons to criticise other whole entire genres? I feel a large part of that criticism was a snub at turn-based combat and JRPGs troubles updating their combat systems (still love turn based combat myself, when FF tried to go away from turn based in FFXII it was a mess, then 13 and ...). You know how the west is all about the gameplay/combat. Also the graphics weren't really advancing outside of a few very big name titles. Even Dragonquest, a huge JRPG in Japan, looks really light on graphics (although much better than 90s stuff). Then a developer at Bioware took a swing at JRPGs in 2013 (not Zeschuk this time) when they said they weren't RPGs, they were more adventure games, because no choices and you don't create your own character. Which is funny because I feel JRPGs have their roots in adv style visual novels of the late 80s early 90s, and are much more focused on delivering an adventure style linear story with their evolution of RPGs, which I don't find anything wrong with. I find this more funny today with, you know, Anthem ... So you had some parts of the community feeling like the combat system was outdated and the graphics were eh, and you had hardcore RPG fans going around saying JRPGs weren't really RPGs because of a lack of control over the character. Meanwhile the west have gone through much innovation with their RPGs, but I feel their innovation is headed in a way I don't agree with. So for me, the most fun RPG I had last year was Persona 5, and that has a VERY outdated combat system.
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Post by pessimistpanda on Mar 19, 2019 8:12:40 GMT
"Outdated" as if to imply that because a mechanic is old, everyone should stop using it. Yet nobody gets on POE or X-COM or D:OS for using "outdated mechanics". There's nothing wrong with turn-based battles, it's a perfectly valid system.
This whole "it's different and therefore I hate it" attitude is exactly what I mean when I use the word "racist". Japanese developers and audiences have different priorities, but just because a game doesn't assume a white male audience by default doesn't make it bad.
And yes, most JRPGs don't allow you to create original characters and make choices for them, and that's always been the case. The term was never meant to suggest anything about gameplay, it was a reference to the grand, sweeping fantasy narratives that are typical of the tabletop RPGS from which early developers of the genre drew their inspiration.
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Noxluxe
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Games: Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, KOTOR, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda, SWTOR
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Post by Noxluxe on Mar 19, 2019 8:16:40 GMT
I feel a large part of that criticism was a snub at turn-based combat and JRPGs troubles updating their combat systems (still love turn based combat myself, when FF tried to go away from turn based in FFXII it was a mess, then 13 and ...). You know how the west is all about the gameplay/combat. Also the graphics weren't really advancing outside of a few very big name titles. Even Dragonquest, a huge JRPG in Japan, looks really light on graphics (although much better than 90s stuff). Then a developer at Bioware took a swing at JRPGs in 2013 (not Zeschuk this time) when they said they weren't RPGs, they were more adventure games, because no choices and you don't create your own character. Which is funny because I feel JRPGs have their roots in adv style visual novels of the late 80s early 90s, and are much more focused on delivering an adventure style linear story with their evolution of RPGs, which I don't find anything wrong with. I find this more funny today with, you know, Anthem ... So you had some parts of the community feeling like the combat system was outdated and the graphics were eh, and you had hardcore RPG fans going around saying JRPGs weren't really RPGs because of a lack of control over the character. Meanwhile the west have gone through much innovation with their RPGs, but I feel their innovation is headed in a way I don't agree with. So for me, the most fun RPG I had last year was Persona 5, and that has a VERY outdated combat system. Interesting. My own main reservation about anime, and manga and JRPGS by extension, and really any work of entertainment not originally written in a language I understand, is that they're usually written first in Japanese and then translated into English, and the translators tend to do a rather shoddy job of capturing any nuance or philosophical earnestness that I hope to God the Japanese version at least has some of the time. Resulting in potentially beautiful art with clunky dialogue and story complexity that don't do it justice, and every sentence sounding strangely vague and unimaginative and grandstanding. Exactly like western movies or shows or games(*cough*) when you just feel like a writer must have been running on autopilot for this scene or that, because nothing original or surprising or remotely subtle is being said by anyone, making it all feel like a waste of time. At least, that's what I think the problem is, based on my experience having read a bunch of English literature translated into my native language as a child before I learned English and cut out the middleman, and realized the treasure trove of poetic and captivating wording and framing that you only get the benefit of when a professional writer gets to dictate the exact minutia of his or her own dialogue. I obviously don't read or understand Japanese to be able to make a direct comparison to make sure though. "Outdated" as if to imply that because a mechanic is old, everyone should stop using it. Yet nobody gets on POE or X-COM or D:OS for using "outdated mechanics". There's nothing wrong with turn-based battles, it's a perfectly valid system. This whole "it's different and therefore I hate it" attitude is exactly what I mean when I use the word "racist". Japanese developers and audiences have different priorities, but just because a game doesn't assume a white male audience by default doesn't make it bad. And yes, most JRPGs don't allow you to create original characters and make choices for them, and that's always been the case. The term was never meant to suggest anything about gameplay, it was a reference to the grand, sweeping fantasy narratives that are typical of the tabletop RPGS from which early developers of the genre drew their inspiration. Stop being silly. We're just discussing taste and tendencies and reception, a bit of generalization and unfavorable comparison goes along with that, and not calling anything "bad" or arguing that it shouldn't be produced. People do occasionally enjoy some things more than others because that's just what people do. Your heterosexual male white supremacists are in another tower.
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Post by river82 on Mar 19, 2019 9:25:08 GMT
My own main reservation about anime, and manga and JRPGS by extension, and really any work of entertainment not originally written in a language I understand, is that they're usually written first in Japanese and then translated into English, and the translators tend to do a rather shoddy job of capturing any nuance or philosophical earnestness that I hope to God the Japanese version at least has some of the time. If you want a JRPG with an excellent translation, you should check out Trails in the Sky. Really, REALLY well done. I feel like translators are getting better all the time, although people complained about Valkyria Chronicles ... and the first Ace Attorney was localised to a hilarious degree. Actually some of the worst translated stuff right now are when Chinese companies get the rights and localise into Chinese while throwing out what looks to be a machine translated English version (SakuraGame are literally the devil). While there are a few pieces of work that are written really complexly that often don't translate well and are sometimes almost impossible to translate, I've been told by translators that a lot of VNs, anime, manga, and LNs, are written in a pretty basic fashion. There are some really heavy and complex stuff though. Dies Irae is one notorious example, Muramasa another. But to be honest, many anime are based on light novels which are aimed at young readers, web novels which don't have the best writing, moege visual novels (cute girls doing cute things and that's it ... but still less cringey than eroge anime conversions *looks at Koihime Musou*) and so forth. Manga doesn't really have a ton of room for great writing, a lot of original anime are just tropey fun. They're really not too deep or nuanced. There are some very bad fan translations, mostly in the light novel scene at the moment, but overall I don't think I would worry too much about losing complexity in most anime, manga you watch. Especially officially translated stuff which I feel is getting better all the time. EDIT: Forgot about how there were a lot of complaints regarding Persona 5's translation. I don't think you lose too much though, but I remember it getting slammed when released.
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Post by river82 on Mar 19, 2019 9:27:56 GMT
Seeing as XCOM has come up, and its combat system, I'm just going to take the opportunity to post my favourite XCOM2 meme
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Post by river82 on Mar 19, 2019 9:41:36 GMT
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Post by Ieldra on Mar 19, 2019 10:48:54 GMT
"Outdated" as if to imply that because a mechanic is old, everyone should stop using it. Yet nobody gets on POE or X-COM or D:OS for using "outdated mechanics". There's nothing wrong with turn-based battles, it's a perfectly valid system. This whole "it's different and therefore I hate it" attitude is exactly what I mean when I use the word "racist". Japanese developers and audiences have different priorities, but just because a game doesn't assume a white male audience by default doesn't make it bad. And yes, most JRPGs don't allow you to create original characters and make choices for them, and that's always been the case. The term was never meant to suggest anything about gameplay, it was a reference to the grand, sweeping fantasy narratives that are typical of the tabletop RPGS from which early developers of the genre drew their inspiration. Actually, those "grand, sweeping fantasy narratives" were much more typical of the early (and later) western CRPGs themselves than of your typical tabletop fantasy RPG campaign, for the simple reason that the perseverance and long-term commitment they required from GMs and players alike was (and still is) relatively rare.
And if I may make an observation at the side, things like your decidedly inventive use of the term "racism" are responsible for the fact that an increasing number of people doesn't take it seriously any more (which does quite a bit of damage to the cause of people suffering from the real thing). To get back to games and movies, it is perfectly legitimate to dislike a whole art style regardless of the merit of the stories it is used to illustrate, and you know, the assumption that, because a large number of detractors happen to share certain ethnic characteristics, it must be an issue of ethnicity, that attitude actually *is* racist according to a much narrower definition of the term, especially considering that you don't know whether the group is really so homogenous. It's a textbook example of racial and gender-based prejudice.
Personally, the first Japanese anime work I watched was "Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind", another Miyazaki work as I realized only just now, more than 30 years later. I liked it very much, it was a really well-told story, but I had issues with the art style in spite of that. Not so much because it was animated as such, rather than because it came across to me as being made for children, and that impression clashed with its mature themes. This *is* a cultural issue since - or so I suspect - we don't have anything comparable to kawaii culture in the West. It is therefore not at all surprising that many Japanese anime works come across as strange to a predominantly western audience. In spite of my appreciation of films like "Princess Mononoke", and in spite of the art style having matured somewhat since 1984, that fundamental impression of alienation never went away completely.
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Post by pessimistpanda on Mar 19, 2019 11:13:10 GMT
"Outdated" as if to imply that because a mechanic is old, everyone should stop using it. Yet nobody gets on POE or X-COM or D:OS for using "outdated mechanics". There's nothing wrong with turn-based battles, it's a perfectly valid system. This whole "it's different and therefore I hate it" attitude is exactly what I mean when I use the word "racist". Japanese developers and audiences have different priorities, but just because a game doesn't assume a white male audience by default doesn't make it bad. And yes, most JRPGs don't allow you to create original characters and make choices for them, and that's always been the case. The term was never meant to suggest anything about gameplay, it was a reference to the grand, sweeping fantasy narratives that are typical of the tabletop RPGS from which early developers of the genre drew their inspiration. Actually, those "grand, sweeping fantasy narratives" were much more typical of the early (and later) western CRPGs themselves than of your typical tabletop fantasy RPG campaign, for the simple reason that the perseverance and long-term commitment they required from GMs and players alike was (and still is) relatively rare.
And if I may make an observation at the side, things like your decidedly inventive use of the term "racism" are responsible for the fact that an increasing number of people doesn't take it seriously any more (which does quite a bit of damage to the cause of people suffering from the real thing). To get back to games and movies, it is perfectly legitimate to dislike a whole art style regardless of the merit of the stories it is used to illustrate, and you know, the assumption that, because a large number of detractors happen to share certain ethnic characteristics, it must be an issue of ethnicity, that attitude actually *is* racist according to a much narrower definition of the term, especially considering that you actually don't know whether the group is really so homogenous. It's a textbook example of racial and gender-based prejudice.
Personally, the first Japanese anime work I watched was "Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind", another Miyazaki work as I realized only just now, 30 years later. I liked it very much, it was a really well-told story, but I had issues with the art style in spite of that. Not so much because it was animated as such, rather than because it came across to me as being made for children, and that impression clashed with its mature themes. This *is* a cultural issue since - or so I suspect - we don't have anything comparable to kawaii culture in the West. It is therefore not at all surprising that many Japanese anime works come across as strange to a predominantly western audience. In spite of my appreciation of films like "Princess Mononoke", and in spite of the art style having matured somewhat since 1984, that fundamental impression of alienation never went away completely.
Racism that doesn't kill people is still racism, don't be dense. What other term would you use for assuming that a particular cultural product is automatically terrible, purely by virtue of coming from a certain country? It has nothing to do with the ethnicity of the detractors at all. And I'm not sure what you mean by 'mature themes' exactly, but lots of the media sold to children, books in particular, features similar content to Nausicaä.
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Post by Ieldra on Mar 19, 2019 11:52:32 GMT
Actually, those "grand, sweeping fantasy narratives" were much more typical of the early (and later) western CRPGs themselves than of your typical tabletop fantasy RPG campaign, for the simple reason that the perseverance and long-term commitment they required from GMs and players alike was (and still is) relatively rare.
And if I may make an observation at the side, things like your decidedly inventive use of the term "racism" are responsible for the fact that an increasing number of people doesn't take it seriously any more (which does quite a bit of damage to the cause of people suffering from the real thing). To get back to games and movies, it is perfectly legitimate to dislike a whole art style regardless of the merit of the stories it is used to illustrate, and you know, the assumption that, because a large number of detractors happen to share certain ethnic characteristics, it must be an issue of ethnicity, that attitude actually *is* racist according to a much narrower definition of the term, especially considering that you actually don't know whether the group is really so homogenous. It's a textbook example of racial and gender-based prejudice.
Personally, the first Japanese anime work I watched was "Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind", another Miyazaki work as I realized only just now, 30 years later. I liked it very much, it was a really well-told story, but I had issues with the art style in spite of that. Not so much because it was animated as such, rather than because it came across to me as being made for children, and that impression clashed with its mature themes. This *is* a cultural issue since - or so I suspect - we don't have anything comparable to kawaii culture in the West. It is therefore not at all surprising that many Japanese anime works come across as strange to a predominantly western audience. In spite of my appreciation of films like "Princess Mononoke", and in spite of the art style having matured somewhat since 1984, that fundamental impression of alienation never went away completely.
Racism that doesn't kill people is still racism, don't be dense. What other term would you use for assuming that a particular cultural product is automatically terrible, purely by virtue of coming from a certain country? It has nothing to do with the ethnicity of the detractors at all. The density does not lie with me. Racism and cultural prejudice are different things (unless you assume ethnicity and culture are intrinsically linked, an attitude which I would call racist). And a general dislike of anime isn't even that. "I dislike anime" is a statement about an art style, not necessarily different from "I dislike art deco" or "I dislike Bauhaus", and in no way indicative of disliking Japanese culture in general. May I also point out that "X is automatically bad" is a different statement from "I generally dislike X", that feeling alienated by an art style is different from refusing to see any merit in it, and in a more general sense, that refusing to believe all cultures are equal on basis of observable evidence is different from cultural prejudice. That there are different statistical distributions of attitudes (to art, among other things) in different cultures is a fact, and no amount of ideological posturing will be able to make that go away because it's the very point of there being cultural differences in the first place. And if there are differences in the distribution of attitudes, then it can be quite reasonable to assume things about products of a certain culture in advance, and make value judgments about general cultural trends. For instance, while it will of course not always be true, I can reasonably expect a mainstream American production to avoid showing nudity to the point of paranoia. It's a cultural tendency I very much dislike. I'm certain you can extrapolate from that on your own.
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Noxluxe
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Games: Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, KOTOR, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda, SWTOR
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Post by Noxluxe on Mar 19, 2019 12:06:06 GMT
Actually, those "grand, sweeping fantasy narratives" were much more typical of the early (and later) western CRPGs themselves than of your typical tabletop fantasy RPG campaign, for the simple reason that the perseverance and long-term commitment they required from GMs and players alike was (and still is) relatively rare. Personally, the first Japanese anime work I watched was "Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind", another Miyazaki work as I realized only just now, 30 years later. I liked it very much, it was a really well-told story, but I had issues with the art style in spite of that. Not so much because it was animated as such, rather than because it came across to me as being made for children, and that impression clashed with its mature themes. This *is* a cultural issue since - or so I suspect - we don't have anything comparable to kawaii culture in the West. It is therefore not at all surprising that many Japanese anime works come across as strange to a predominantly western audience. In spite of my appreciation of films like "Princess Mononoke", and in spite of the art style having matured somewhat since 1984, that fundamental impression of alienation never went away completely.
Hmm. That makes a lot of sense. My own first brush with the movies was watching Spirited Away with my little sister in the early 00s, and I remember just marveling at how packed it was with impressions and life and details compared to what we otherwise had on offer, and then going back through some of the earlier works as we got our hands on them. Including Nausicaä, which my sister adored. Made her really interested in beetles for a while. We never got our hands on Grave of the Fireflies, which I'm not sure whether to be thankful for or regretful over. Scandinavia has a bit of a tradition with peppering everything written down and put on screen with social realism and morbid humor, even early grade school stuff, and our mother was a passionate English teacher and weaned me on Stephen King since I was six or seven, so I didn't feel as much of a disconnect at the themes as you're describing. And having rewatched those few of them recently, I imagine I'll be viewing them with my children at around the same age my sister was. They really are gorgeous and chock-full of great values, presented elegantly rather than sugar-coated and patronizing. And yup, I can attest that long-winded epic tales is a bit more than most tabletop gamers bargain for. Youth groups tend to lack the interest and attention span, and older gamers are usually just out to relax and mess around with each other rather than write a novel. And may or may not be hungover.
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leadintea
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Games: Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquistion, Baldur's Gate
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Post by leadintea on Mar 19, 2019 18:02:44 GMT
I'm personally somewhere in the middle of this RPG debate. In general, I like all types of RPGs and, if anything, I feel as though both WRPGs and JRPGs can learn quite a bit from each other. In regards to anime, though, I tend to not be a fan of most I've seen, with some of my problems being the egregious amount of fanservice, the reliance on many overused tropes, and the annoying amount of moe characters and 'cute girls doing cute thing' shows. I was never the biggest fan of anime, and shows in recent times have done nothing to improve my views on it. I'm usually able to catch a few shows each year that I enjoy, but most never really pique my interest. I'm hoping that with Netflix publishing it's own anime, we'll get to see more interesting, non-standard stuff in the medium (still hoping for a good bara anime to be made sometime during my life).
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Post by river82 on Mar 20, 2019 6:45:49 GMT
Do not watch the following video if you don't want to be spoiled on FFXIV ... stuff
But in all seriousness, I'm waiting for a Western RPG team to produce something epic like this:
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