Geek Rant Topic 11: The Fairer Geek

When All Else Fails, you call Mousa the 14, that one ranting geek.

Ever notice the geeky activity (i.e. video games, card games, role playing, anime, cartoons, etc) you're most likely to see a high number of women in is anime and manga? Not an objective fact necessarily (though it might be and I just don't know), just an observation. In fact I may see more girls into anime and manga than I go guys. I've been to quite a few anime conventions and the stereotype of fat sweaty guys in sailor moon cosplay (costume play to those not in the loop) is like 1 to 200. Most of the slack is picked up by hordes and hordes of women. They're the male characters, the female characters, the animal characters, The furries(I've only ever seen male fursuiters so far.) everything! The artist's alley tables is filled largely with women, The anime club I ran in high school was primarily female/potentially primarily female (Even though there were more male regulars in the club, there were more girls in the school in general that were anime fans. It was a small school so I could gauge this easily.), and the anime club at the college I'm attending now is primarily female, and my the demographic of my anime-related videos on youtube is primarily female (Assuming they're telling the truth of their sex.).

Anecdotal evidence: it's right and wrong.

Anyhow, I thought this was fascinating because you always hear about how there are less girls in gaming (at least we used to) and there are all these articles on sexism in game, why the games that try to draw in girls are stupid, etc, etc. My dorm is filled to the brim with Magic: The Gathering geeks but not a single one is a girl. This is the same with the anime clubs I've been in. And When I'm in bookstores I see more ladies (though people in general) perusing the manga rather than the section where the Bone and Tintin compilations are. Tabletop RPGs are a different monster, there are definitely ladies in that area. In fact I think the ladies are drawn more towards JRPGs, not sure why, just a thought.

Anyhow, let's assume my observations have a modicum of truth, why are things the way they are? I can think of a few good reasons:

1) Marketing demographics
2) Most geeky activities have always had a "boy's club" exclusionary feel to them. 3) Handsome Men
4) Variety

1) Marketing demographics.
What's the difference between American comic books (Yes, Europe, I see The Beano, Tintin, and Asterix and I love those, but I need to go with what I know here.) and Japanese comic books? Well besides the fact when I say American comics you immediately think Superhero comics, you're more likely to find comic books in Japan that appeal to everyone and every interest. American comics used to do this until the comic code fiasco occurred and effectively purging the comic book scene of almost everything but surreal superhero comics. Nowadays you have tons of superhero comics that overshadow your occasional very good independently made comic. But in Japan, while the shounen (term for young boys) demographic is large, it doesn't necessarily overshadow everything else. I mean, I own a manga that teaches you statistics! There isn't exactly a limit to what is made there (due mostly to cheap production values).

This means there is a larger percentage of stuff, manga and their anime counterparts, geared primarily towards the ladies. In video games their attempts towards getting more girls involved have been a little... sexist. Not all of them are bad shovelware, but most of them are pretty bad stereotypical pink shovelware. That is not how you do it, game industry. You make things more gender neutral or gender inclusive in your games, that's how you draw the ladies in. I mean come on, who in the world is kidding themselves, The Spartans in Halo or the protagonist in any and all first person shooter is a dude. Or games like God of War where, what's this? A male protagonist? Why couldn't the god of war be a chick? Chicks too flimsy? What's that I hear? There's sex scenes and naked ladies in your game? What's wrong with doing a complete reversal? I'm not asking for people to just switch the sex around for all the popular game, I'm saying try to get into what a girl may like in a game without always going stereotype or... doing a cop-out like in pokemon where you just choose "Are you a boy protagonist or a girl protagonist" and the game be exactly identical, men and women experience things differently.

Card games I'm not involved in enough to figure out why it's a sausage fest. But superhero comics. Oh superhero comics... Obviously they're big fat teeanged boy power fantasies, look no further than nerdy loser Peter Parker becoming awesome yet nerdy when he becomes Spider-man and gets all the ladies. You get your muscular manly men and women that look like supermodels with more tracts of land. Gee, such respectful depictions of our fair ladies, I wonder why girls aren't interested. True, some are dressed more modestly and well characterized but really they're more likely to be the male power fantasy's object of desire than a female power fantasy.

2) Most geeky activities have always had a "boy's club" exclusionary feel to them.
Most geeky activities are fairly 'boys only" clubs. For some reason most of the stuff is advertised towards boys while the girls get dolls, fashion, pink, baby care, etc. Totally equal. So obviously for years, women have not been growing up with geeky things geared towards them due to sexist standards that never end.

Most of this is covered in section 1 but additionally, not only have these things been geared towards boys for years, they're hard to get into for people with casual interest, i.e. girls who mostly haven't been given a reason to be interested in thee things to begin with. Video games aren't hard to get into that's more of covered in section one. Everything else has years of continuity and rules. Superhero comic books have years of annoying continuity I'll explain next essay, tabletop RPGs have editions and edition wars, Magic the Gathering have different editions and rules and card types and card colors and for some insane reason people are able to memorize a bazillion of these, and different entry levels for different interests. Like my sister finds even the most basic and self contained fantasy or sci-fi to be "too complex" and I can see each different one as their own thing, but I think she sees it all as a single conglomerate she has to get attempt to understand all of. I mean Elves, orcs, vulcans, dwarves, wookies; to the casual viewer it's all the same to them and if it's not their cup of tea it makes even less sense.

But manga and anime are just single stories, every thing is right there for you like a book and since they're done by a single person (with their assistants) you have consistency unless the author says so. As as stories they have a beginning and an end, simple as that but with all the complexity you need in a story. No easy exclusion.

3) Handsome Men
This was partly a joke, but seriously, our space marines and superheroes are usually rugged male power fantasies, they're not there to look good for the ladies, guys don't know what attract ladies, that's why we suck so much and try so hard. But since it appears some manga writers/artists are women so they know exactly what they're doing and doing it right.

There's just something about the anime and manga art style, specifically of pretty boy that seem to draw girls in. I'd like to see say God of War's Kratos right next to Kyo Kara Maoh's Gwendal in an attractiveness poll and I'm almost willing to bet real money that Gwendal would win by a landslide.

And you know what else is abundant with beautiful men? The Video game equivalent of an Anime: BOOM! Japanese Role Playing Games. Final Fantasy, The Tales series, Even Kingdom Hearts.

So Is this silly? Yes. But does it have merit? Potentially. I suggest a study should be done; handsome men bringing in the ladies into geek oriented things. It's a stupid idea but I'm just spit balling like I always do.

4) Variety
So most card games are rooted in fantasy or sci-fi, same with video games because video games can be outlandish (they have things like dating sims, racing games, some first person shooter, etc, of course, it's the principle of the matter.), superhero comics, the books geeks tend to read and the movies they tend to watch.

Anime and Manga are like every other sort of book only with picture which tells you a lot about it's variety, like the aforementioned one that teaches you statistics. Which means whatever you could be interested in is potentially in that format. Cooking, action, adventure, mystery, romance, magical realism, historic fantasy, it's going to be there, trust me. There are some limitations due to Japan being sort of isolated but it's still a lot of stuff.

So in conclusion, yeah, just something to think about, check around your organizations involving geeky activities, and measure out the guy to girl ratio and get back to me, I'm rather curious about this and this is something you can take a look into too. Obviously things have diversified over the years, that's just the way things go, but these things go slowly so my observations might still be sound.

-Good Bye, Good Luck, and Imagination is Your Greatest Power
Mousa the 14

Geek Rant Topic 06: JRPGs

When All Else Fails, you call Mousa the 14, that one ranting geek.

So uh, yeah, Guess I didn't get the memo. When did JRPGs (Japanese Role Playing Games, for the non-geek visitors.) become a laughingstock in North America? Too busy playing manly army games and 90's comic throwbacks to care about something that uses primary colors with characters that have personalities؟

That was the Irony mark by the way. And was I being mean? Indeed. I'm still seething from my overview of Faux Hardcore gamers.

Now, the list of Faux hardcore gamer requirements are basically why JRPGs are considered a joke, but once upon a time these were the types of video games were loved. In a time before I was born of course, but that's not the point. If I were to bring up a game like Earthbound, Chrono Trigger, Secret of Mana, and the Pre-Final Fantasy 7 Final Fantasy games, I would've thought they were talking about a completely different genre of games because a good majority of gamers seem to love those games for their compelling story lines, interesting characters, fun world to explore, gameplay, and whatnot.

Bring up anything post Final Fantasy 7 you're likely to get bombarded with a vitriol matched only by the Tea Party. But why is that? I seriously doubt JRPGs killed their dogs, and if they did we have bigger things to worry about, like finding out where the Allspark is or how to stop Skynet from killing us.

Well first of wall what do we have t compare them to? If there's a "J" in front of the RPG then J is obviously a qualifier to point out this is similar to but not likea set standard. Here's a poorly researched history lesson for you:

Video Game RPGs are mostly based around the Dungeons and Dragons. The DnD style of game was a complex story telling adventure that featured you and yoru friends exploring a new world as a different person as they fought monsters, explored towns, saved princesses all while upgrading their skills and weapons and maintaining an inventory as well as your health. Video Game RPGs are simplified versions of these because Video Games by definition are limited and therefore cannot provide much the depth, creativity, or numerous elements involved in your standard Dungeons and Dragons game or it's numerous counterparts.

Sacrifices had to be made and one can easily see what sort of Video Game RPG you're playing based on which sacrifices were made.

JRPGs are heavy on story and characters and because of that the decisions you make have little impact on how the story plays out except for a few changes in character development or a different ending when you beat the game. This meant a lot of gameplay was marginalized. You are basically watching an anime and a movie and your job is to move characters from A to B, make sure they don't die in non-plot related things, occasionally do some side quests that involve talking to certain people or delivering things, and fight on a usually non-necessary basis. A majority of JRPGs would make solid TV series or Movies rather than actual games where interactivity and decision making is key. In terms of actual figthing JRPGs basically are numbers game where you have to equio your characters with high ranking weapons and have them use high powered attacks, and maintain their health bar over 75%. All this in turn-based combat.

The numbers from the origin RPGs are there but the fun of actually being a person in the story is not. It's more like you're following some guy and his friends.

In Breif, and I quote someone else: "An angsty teenager with god awful hair struggling with groundless and poorly defined emotional problems through chapters of text boxes. "

Contrast with the common Western RPGs which take a more free-range open sandbox sort of style and has more emphasis on free range combat stuff a la Legend of Zelda or Assassin's Creed. but you tend to get a simpler story and you have a bigger opportunity to do far more sidequests. You can actually choose what class of character you want to be and what skills you can upgrade. Games with karma meters or dialogue selections allow for there to be slightly more effects on what you do, though usually not as much as people would like. The kicker is that usually the main story is nothing to look at and you find yourself eventually getting bored once the exploration becomes repetitive and you realize what you do doesn't have as much of an impact as you like.

In breif, and I quote someone else: "three hours of beating wolves to death in the rain in order to grab a handful of low-grade magical crap that you'll only sell a few minutes later. "

The false dichotomy here is basically choosing between more story and more choice. And more obviously the non-anime fan western audience want more choice.

However that's far deeper than what people actually complain about in terms of JRPG flaws.

Ignoring all the failings that involve appeal ling to the Faux Hardcore gamer, allow me to enumerate a lot of the commonly mentioned "problems" with JRPGs.

1) The Main protagonist is usually same broody emotional and emo or stereotypical energetic and excitable male anime protagonist.
1a) That is usually portrayed in an overly handsome/cutesy anime style
1b) And he wields a sword 99.99% of the time
1c) and has an annoying voice
2) The combat is turn based which is boring and lacks innovation.
3) Nothing you do actually matters
4) The art is 99.99% of the time going to be done in the typical Japanese animation style or as many call it, an anime style.
5) They lack replay value
6) The plots are usually cliche
7) No customization for anything.
9) Numbers are imperative in order to beat enemies rather than skills.
9a) Level grinding is imperative so you Can be stronger than the next boss
9b) No skill needed, just buy the next strongest weapons and armour
10) And It's not really roleplaying if you're going through someone else's story, limited to their personal skills with no variation, and it's their personality that drives the plot and not yours.

If there's more I remember, I'll add them but that's the basic outline ad they are frankly valid arguments. But it's hard to see why JRPGs were liked once upon a time.

Chrono Trigger still had the skill limitations and numbers crunching and you were playing as a set of established characters. But then The protagonist had a blank slate personality, what decisions you made in the game affected a great deal of the story, and the combat style was more of a faux-turn based one.

Earthbound has many of the similar failings Chrono Trigger had but it was open world, the writing was clever and the story was well done, and you had a lot of freedom in what you could do.

So JRPGs aren't necessarily a problem, it's that as games become bigger and more expensive to make it becomes more difficult to combine the best of both wolds to create something fun and interesting.

There is another factor I didn't mention that could be a cause of all this: Following the Leader. You see, Final Fantasy 7 introduced something new for it's time with a complex and fascinating protagonist with a deep and interesting plot even though it was wrought with all the things on the list many claim to hate about JRPGs. Well guess what, after the super success of FF7, many tired to follow in suit and thus nigh every JRPG we see these days is what one might call a rehash of Final Fantasy 7. Everything was starting too like trite and cliche after the original and now what we have left is a big ball of rage.

What can be done? Not sure, it seems like it's hard to break trends when you have budgets. We can only hope something new and creative comes our way like Okami, The World Ends With You, or the Tales of Symphonia/Phantasia battle system used for more RPGs.

Wait...

-Good Bye, Good Luck, and Imagination Is Your Greatest Power.
Mousa the 14