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Why good otome VNs are so rare


Clephas

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I've harped on this before, because I love stories with female protagonists, but the fact is most female-oriented VNs are downright terrible.  There are lots of reasons for this... most of which are in common with why there is no such thing as a good paranormal romance or romance novel in modern US literature.  Do I need to go over why that is so?

 

However, there is one thing that I just can't forgive in an otome-ge... DIDS (Damsel-in-Distress Syndrome).

 

This is actually something remarked upon by a lot of young women in Japan, as well as by people who like to try a little of everything, like me.  Some of it is that a lot of otome games are written by men (some under female pen-names), who have certain... ideas of what women's outlook on romance should be.  Another is that Japan still hasn't gotten past the 'women should be wives and mothers' stigma (ok we haven't either, but we can at least pretend we have).  Last of all is that this particularly nasty and sexist trope is endemic to all fiction, not just otaku fiction.  Feminists remark on it a lot, but I also remark on it, because I hate helpless or overly weak-spirited protagonists.  When I come across the rare otome-game that escapes this, I usually jump for joy, because a good female protagonist is just as much of a joy to me as a male one.  Asaki Yumemishi and Sanzen Sekai Yuugi both come to mind (though Asaki Yumemishi's protagonist is more of a 'tsuyoki' protagonist than a truly strong one) as examples of female protagonists that escape the stigma.  However, I want to find more... and I'm tired of hitting otomege after otomege where the protagonist turns out to be rape-bait, kidnap-bait, or prince-on-a-white-horse (knight in shining armor for Westerners) bait.

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It's mostly because there's not many women in the gaming industry. 

 

There's some pretty decent modern romance fiction being written also, however the critically acclaimed thinker's novels (like Jane Austin's stuff) aren't usually filed under romance, usually because the romance is only a part of what the story is about. Heh, I bet you wouldn't know that Nora Roberts writes some highly acclaimed futuristic police procedurals under a different pen-name, there's romance in those stories also but they're filed under "mystery".

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I completely agree with you Clephas. I wish to play as a female protagonist sometimes. I Don't know why but probably because I want something different. Do you know any decent/good translated VNs in this category? I have been searching myself but it is a though task.

 

Quick question, are you looking for otomes or VNs with female protagonists? Your post is a little unclear in this regard. If what you want is a good VN with a female protagonist, then you should definitely check out “Shikkoku no Sharnoth” which is fantastic. It’s a cracking good story, though you should get the Fullvoice Reborn edition - which makes the minigame optional (some people found it tedious.)

 

Hakuoki has a decent narrative, consistent and not over the top characters, and … hot pretty-boys you can romance :P. You’ll like it if you like all of those attributes. 

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Quick question, are you looking for otomes or VNs with female protagonists? Your post is a little unclear in this regard. If what you want is a good VN with a female protagonist, then you should definitely check out “Shikkoku no Sharnoth” which is fantastic. It’s a cracking good story, though you should get the Fullvoice Reborn edition - which makes the minigame optional (some people found it tedious.)

 

Hakuoki has a decent narrative, consistent and not over the top characters, and … hot pretty-boys you can romance :P. You’ll like it if you like all of those attributes. 

Mostly about female protagonists I think. Sorry for my rather poorly description. 

 

But if you can recommend good otomes too I don't mind it. But it has to be a female protagonist as the MC. I can't take yaoi. But isn't them both the same genre?

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 But isn't them both the same genre?

 

Not necessarily. Otome games are games with female protagonists that focus mostly on romance between her and the guys around her. They are aimed at a female audience, though other people (like me) sometimes play them as well.

 

But there are some games with female protagonists that are aimed at a male audience as well. They tend to either not focus too heavily on romance or... be even more sexist. I've seen a lot of Nukige in this area, but they aren't all.

 

Basically, if it has a female protagonist and is targeted toward women, it's an otome game. If it's not targeted at women, it's not.

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Not necessarily. Otome games are games with female protagonists that focus mostly on romance between her and the guys around her. They are aimed at a female audience, though other people (like me) sometimes play them as well.

 

But there are some games with female protagonists that are aimed at a male audience as well. They tend to either not focus too heavily on romance or... be even more sexist. I've seen a lot of Nukige in this area, but they aren't all.

 

Basically, if it has a female protagonist and is targeted toward women, it's an otome game. If it's not targeted at women, it's not.

Alright, thank you. I guess I like both types targeted to females and males. The Otome tag on vndb confused me.

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I completely agree with you Clephas. I wish to play as a female protagonist sometimes. I Don't know why but probably because I want something different. Do you know any decent/good translated VNs in this category? I have been searching myself but it is a though task.

From my experience, and in accordance with the point on feminism that Clephas mentioned, I believe The Second Reproduction might be a good choice. A noted plot point is that the protagonist, as a noble, doesn't fit in to the more sexist roles assigned to the other females, and that premise remains throughout the game. Also, don't pay much heed to the display pictures; it has no sexual content and anything suggestive appears only on occasion. Lastly, the translation quality is generally good from what I recall.

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I haven't played many Otome games... but I do see it in some that I've played.  It can get really annoying.

 

My biggest pet peeve.. I think I see it in all visual novels (that have hentai).. During hentai scenes, 

the girl always goes, "no, don't!" "noo." in the middle of some passionate love-making, and usually over and over even when it's consensual... its like, why would you say that? It almost ruins the mood cause sounds like rape or something. I don't know if other girls actually say that in real life even... cause if they did, I'd hope it'd get taken seriously xD and not as if it's enjoyable.

 I wonder if I'm the only one that feels that way about hentai scenes... and I almost wonder if it's written that way because it's the guys that enjoy that kind of dialogue.

 

Oh, and speaking of Otome games.. The reason I don't really play them as much because with Too many male chars there can be too much macho energy going on, and tend to be about the guy protecting the girl etc. like she can't take care of herself kind of stuff.  Which was why.. I got bored of Hakouki.

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I feel compelled to say that the damsel-in-distress syndrome and the rape-ish H-scenes are plaguing male-oriented eroge as well. And it's about as much annoying. The only way I can find genuine and sound romance boy-meets-girl stories these days is in kids-oriented fiction...

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I even see it in Yuri VNs I've read.. the consensual (rape-ish H-scenes) xD. They're everywhere~

 

It's annoying because.. I guess, it almost feels like the female characters are not allowed to admit they enjoy the act and they become passive instead.  

 

or maybe it's a Japanese thing like @Palas said.. I dunno.  

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Part of it is that the Japanese are essentially pragmatists at heart when it comes to rl sex.  The culture only recently got colored by Western values on this (relatively speaking, for a nation whose culture changes even more glacially than other Asian ones at its core), and previously same-sex relationships were fairly common amongst the upper class (up to the mid-nineteenth century).  'If you aren't willing to have kids, don't have sex, unless it is with a prostitute', is the attitude in most of modern Japan.  Most Japanese parents won't be exactly thrilled if their children are homosexual, but homosexuality generally isn't considered to be a permanent state there (though they also don't consider it a disease).  There is a stigma for it nowadays... but it is subtly different.  It is more of the generally conformist nature of Japanese society going 'eh, you like that?!'  They don't have the bugfuck insane religious prejudice you see in the West, because their religion doesn't really comment on it, except for a few legends of bisexual deities. 

 

Why yuri is like that is because most Japanese don't accept that there is a genetic basis for homosexuality.  Or rather, it is because Japanese cultural is fine with bisexualism but not so much so with just being homesexual, lol.

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When I said 'everywhere~' I meant more, I think I've encountered the "wait, stop, no." kind of H-talk in almost all the ones I've played so far that had hentai.  I didn't really mean it's everywhere, specifically in yuri.  But thanks for explaining :)  an interesting read.

 

Now, I'm wondering if BL is similar xD.. since it's both male characters, does one take on the more passive role and speak like how a heroine typically would, or are they both aggressive.  (I've never played any BL before).

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Part of it is that the Japanese are essentially pragmatists at heart when it comes to rl sex.  The culture only recently got colored by Western values on this (relatively speaking, for a nation whose culture changes even more glacially than other Asian ones at its core), and previously same-sex relationships were fairly common amongst the upper class (up to the mid-nineteenth century).  'If you aren't willing to have kids, don't have sex, unless it is with a prostitute', is the attitude in most of modern Japan.  Most Japanese parents won't be exactly thrilled if their children are homosexual, but homosexuality generally isn't considered to be a permanent state there (though they also don't consider it a disease).  There is a stigma for it nowadays... but it is subtly different.  It is more of the generally conformist nature of Japanese society going 'eh, you like that?!'  They don't have the bugfuck insane religious prejudice you see in the West, because their religion doesn't really comment on it, except for a few legends of bisexual deities. 

 

Actually I learned about some of this stuff in my Traditional Japanese theater class. I'm not sure about homosexuality between two men of the same age, but certainly homosexual relationships between younger men and older men was socially acceptable for a long time. For instance sexual relations between an apprentice and his master were quite common.  What I find even more interesting is that traditionally male actors playing female roles in Kabuki were prostituted after performances. Not sure how relevant all this is, but I had to read some boring ass plays to gain this trivia, lol.  

 

 

It's annoying because.. I guess, it almost feels like the female characters are not allowed to admit they enjoy the act and they become passive instead.  

 

Seeing as I've been reading VNs since I was 13, this probably explains why I had such unhealthy views of female sexuality when I was in my younger teens. I think the liberal education I received has fixed most of the damage though.  

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Poor Japanese people, so cruelly brainwashed and tainted by Western hipocrisy and conservative morals :( (haha)

 

 

Yeah right you know Greece did it all before it was cool.

Is it still cool? Jokes aside I'm pretty sure that the Japanese didn't get brainwashed by western people....they got brainwashed by their own kind...
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I was kidding. I don't really believe Japanese people got brainwashed or colonized - or that Western culture is hypocritical or conservative, by the way. Nor do I believe religion is the source of all evil. I don't even think it has any more to do with moral values than, say, agriculture or war. But it'd take like half an hour to explain my views so I chose bland sarcasm instead.

Similar situation. I guess in beliefs we are fairly similar.

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I was kidding. I don't really believe Japanese people got brainwashed or colonized - or that Western culture is hypocritical or conservative, by the way. Nor do I believe religion is the source of all evil. I don't even think it has any more to do with moral values than, say, agriculture or war. But it'd take like half an hour to explain my views so I chose bland sarcasm instead.

In this case though it's true.

 

There's two parts to this. One is straight up Japanese culture that values the judgement of others above all else. The others is the western powers that dragged Japan kicking and screaming onto the world stage.

 

In the late 19th century, Japan suddenly learned the eyes of the entire world was on them, not just other Japanese. They also learned what westerners thought as civilized.

And they thought (probably correctly) that in order to gain some respect on the world stage -hopefully leading to the renegotiation of the unfair treaties- that they would need to appear as civilized to westerners. So to appear as civilized to westerners, the Japanese decided to copy western civilization wholesale.

 

Well who was the height of civilization at the time? Victorian British Empire.

Yeah.

 

Sexual repression ahoy!

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First, the eyes of the world weren't on Japan. Europe was in the middle of the emergence of Prussia and reunification of Germany, which heavily altered the balance of power. It had been about ten years since the end of the Crimean War, that more or less expelled Russia from the European community and lefi it at the brink of collapse. This is important because it was then that Russia would turn its eyes to Japan, strengthening its military at Vladivostok to keep the territories further from Moscow safe from rebellions or invasions. Japan very naturally would take that as a threat.

You misunderstood me. I simply said that the actions of the Japanese would now be scrutinized by the rest of the world (or they thought so anyway), not it was the center of attention.

Also Russia wasn't on the brink until it lost the Russo-Japanese war. It strengthened its military at Vladivostok to moved into Manchuria and Korea because everyone else was doing it. China was the pie.

 

Second, the Japanese reforms under the Meiji rule came after a period of 200 years of isolation under the shogunate. The Europeans were more than once expelled from Japanese territory and Christian I am wasn't even legal, in fact many Christians were killed in the 17th century. Why not change when the eyes of the world actually considered Japan as some kind of final frontier? Can you explain this sudden change of heart using such vague, pervasive element as culture?

That's easy. When the Portuguese and Dutch showed up in the Sengoku, they couldn't force anything on the Japanese. They can only sell guns.

The Japanese were very happy to just buy the guns and then go "shoo, leave us alone".

This time the western powers were here to stay. And when some samurai tried to kick out foreigners, 5% of Kagoshima got burnt to the ground. The west weren't going to leave, and the Japanese were in no position to make them.

 

Common sense leads us to search for other explanations, and those would come from politics. So third, Japan's political conjecture made it so that the Emperor had to resort to foreign powers to legitimate its own. More than creating a modern European-styled state, what the first Emperor did was to seize power under his control, dissolving the feudal system so he would have no opposition from nobles. It helped that the new ruling class was more open, but he didn't abolish class restrictions for moral reasons - they were political ones.

Also remember Japan started officially sponsoring Shinto for the first time in a shitload of years (like 1000 or so), so there stands a point against the moral = religion equivalence. Trying to drive Buddhism away wasn't a choice to please the West, it was a choice to displease the old rule and bring back an even older one. So maybe the Meiji reform also had some nuance, unlike what everyone tries to say about it - labeling it as a West-loving frenzy?

Everything here is right (though power was in the hands of Satsuma-Tosa-Choshu and the Zaibatsu rather than the Emperor). That doesn't in anyway mean the trend in the Meiji wasn't "West-loving frenzy" because it was. Neither does it disprove the Japanese were trying to appear civilized in order to get their unequal treaties negotiated.

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Can you point any event in Japan, related to the West, that would have them think so? What changed between Perry's expedition, which grew not a West-loving but an anti-West sentiment, and Meiji? Also yes, Russia lost the Crimean war due to an economical crisis and losing the war only made it worse. They were already in shambles when they went against Japan.

The actual renegotiation of the unfair treaties for sure. Since you know, it was their aim.

And Japan is no alone in this. India, trying to prove themselves ready for home-rule, adopted woman's suffrage before Great Britain itself.

There's a lot of "changes" between Perry and Imperial. But the most important (besides the fall of the Shogunate and implementing the new centralized government) to Japanese relationship with the was Thomas Glover and Jardine Matheson supplying Satsuma-Choshu with the weapons to topple the Shogunate and helping arrange the travel-study of the Choshu Five, all of whom became important figures in the new government. And of course the later Anglo-Japanese friendship treaty, and actual alliance.

 

So I guess you can say the difference is that the new government was helped by the British (well, British merchants) a lot in the 1860s during its bid for power.

 

What happened to the cultural element then? Considering Britain and Russia had already engaged Japanese blockades in minor conflicts before Perry, why is it that Japan answered to military defeat with more reclusion?  Why is it that those who issued orders to expel foreigners after the ports were forcefully opened belonged to the Imperial faction, the same one that ended the shogunate and took the pro-West measures?

Eeer, Japan's answer to military defeat with more openness. Because that was part of the treaty obligation forced on them by the winning party.

The orders of sonno joui were issued by Joui/Anti-Shogunate faction because they saw the Shogunate as unable to stand up to westerners. The politics gets complicated, but until Meiji agreed to Satsuma request to use the Chrysanthemum Banner in the Boshin War, no one was Imperial. Choshu and Satsuma were anti-foreign, but Choshu was more strongly anti-Shogun. Satsuma on the other hand was happy to help the Shogun beat down Choshu when it suited them.

That is all until Tosa came in between them for a three-way alliance, with British (merchants) backing.

 

And of course it was a huge slap in their face when they found out the hard way that sonno joui doesn't work.

With the goal changed from joui to toppling the bakufu, and British help in actually doing so, and the reality that isolationism makes a crappy military and economy, sonno joui was replaced with fukoku kyohei ASAP.

 

As for the cultural element, not much to be said that wasn't already said: In order to appear civilized, for quite a long time the Japanese thought everything western was good.

Which in our case led to a ban on the depiction of genitals and Victorian sexual morals.

 

I'm not trying to disprove that pro-West measures were taken or that Japan wasn't trying to be more like a Western country. But it's wrong to think the West "dragged Japan kicking and screaming onto the world stage", because that wouldn't make sense for any Western country either. As if the first thing Japan did after getting their new toys wasn't attacking China. What I'm saying is, it wasn't so much a West-loving frenzy as much as it was a deeply nationalistic move, if anything an aversion to the West.

 

That is to say, it irks me when you imply Japan was some sort of pure maiden before the West took its hand by force.

There's no "pure maiden" at any point in world history.

That doesn't mean the west didn't force Japan onto the world stage against its own wishes or that Japan didn't struggle against it before realizing resistance is futile and the only way is to play the game.

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