![]() Let's take a conspicuous example: The Hyperdimension Neptunia games are not just filled with unpleasant jokes and sexualized, one-dimensional characters, and art that panders to an aesthetic beloved by a narrow target audience - they're also poorly made, behind the curve creatively and technically. The more specific the audience it chases, the tighter these constraints get. Why am I down on this? Why can't I let these guys have their fun? When a form starts pandering to a specific audience, it loses freedom of creative expression and it also loses its wider potential audience. RPGs, as we called them back then - no need for the J! - didn't need to pander to anybody to get noticed. They're defining a very specific audience and going after it with guns blazing, because that's one reasonably reliable tactic in a very difficult market.īut that change pisses me off, because as a fan of Japanese RPGs stretching back to the late 1980s, when the genre came to game consoles, I remember what they used to be like. ![]() And I fall for moe elements of certain characters from certain shows (I love the yandere Yuno from Mirai Nikki, for example, despite being well aware how ridiculous the character is and how her personality is a type designed to push my buttons.) Japanese creators also tend to put in elements that confound Western analyses - moe stuff usually brushes up against topics you'd consider "deep," and is usually much more likely to pass the Bechdel Test than your average Hollywood movie.īut we can all agree when things have gone overboard, I think - and that's where a lot of Japanese game publishers and developers are. ![]() I'm not just okay with Etna, from the Disgaea series - I like her a lot. And one's appreciation for it is obviously subjective. It's not true that moe is a black-and-white issue, because it's creeped into most Japanese productions. By 2014, we've reached a point we're seeing most of the RPGs being made for portable platforms designed to appeal to an audience of geeks who either require - or at best, turn a blind eye to - this new status quo. There became a set of conventions to follow. These casts usually cover a variety of traits (both physical and not) designed to appeal to the geeky target audiences of these works, which (as with most cultural movements) became self-reinforcing as the tactic gained success. What you need to know is this: The rise of "moe" has meant the ascendance of anime, manga, and games with large casts of female characters designed to catch their audiences both by the heart and by the balls. I got into a definition of "moe" here but then cut it - it's not really salient to this piece. The concept has been around much longer, but at some point, it took on a life of its own it became an end, rather than a means to an end.
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