ChestRockwell

Once I enter Kojima's magical realm I'm pretty sure I'll make time for it

Kenny klipz continues to get away with it

Been doing balatro and umamusume, loving rogue like summertime.

However death stranding 2 arrives today so likely I'll be starting that this week

Turns out male gaze is a thing.

Fully agree here. And yes I would basically agree that even at their most handsome character designing, Vanillaware is a male gaze factory. I should be clear, I'm not trying to argue that the sexualization of Vanillaware's men is on par with the women. Indeed, the sliding scale here (Dwarf is less sexual than Amazon even though they're both muscular to an obscene degree in large part because of posing and gender norms) is part of the point - what is or isn't gooner shouldn't be based on reception but instead the authorial/artistic intent. It's clear Vanillaware's artists are out to maximally sexualize their women and insert their men into very heteronormative gender roles (knight, pretty boy, hulking freak) that only get fully sexualized by fans (e.g. some fan artist going ham with Ingway and Onyx or something). Bayonetta is sexualized by the game (even as it tries to turn that into empowerment), 2B is incredibly sexualized and the game calls you out in the 9S storyline for it. However even calling out your own design's horniness doesn't absolve the author from the gaze. You might play/deconstruct it, but it's still there.

I'm not saying there's not an argument for the male gaze (or, in games with male characters, a "sexual" gaze - looking at the fans of pretty boys here) at play in Umamusume. Of course there is. But the same could be said of any media. Would we call Legend of Zelda gooner? The sexualization of Link by decades of fans is well documented. The thirst is real. But the most the game does is call attention to his femininity in the Gerudo towns. Maybe that's a nod to the many horny fans of Link over the years, but it's not "gooner". The same might be said of (to use a game with a woman protagonist for a moment) Horizon. Aloy is a conventionally attractive woman, I'm sure there's plenty of gooner shit about her (to the point we got the hilarious cringe tweets about her peach fuzz from actual gooners when Forbidden West came out). But the game isn't explicitly horny about her even if you could easily go down the sexualization path with her.

To return then to the horse girl game - I can totally see how the combination of gacha+character design can feel a bit cringe. But "gooner", for fanart that's explicitly focusing on a cute relationship for a game that in the grand scheme of games is probably in the lower half of horniness - it feels a bit misguided comrade.

Edit: I should be totally clear that I'm very bad at figuring what either my cishet woman or gay male comrades are into. I know there are many types - burly, pretty, twink, etc. - but aside from a gay enby comrade telling me of how they think Link's been twinkified over the years I'm really not equipped to say what is or isn't to the gaze of the gay man or straight woman. All I'm saying is the character designers can be real clear when the game/character is gooner (again, Vanillaware's entire output is what happens when horny guys create games. See also Gwyndolen in Dark Souls). Cygames in the horse game, so far, is not yet over the line. This isn't to say it's not free of sexualization, but I wouldn't suggest the character designers are gooners in the way that I would levy that accusation against Vanillaware's designers. Or hell, Kojima's depiction of women is way more gooner than the cute horse game.

I just picked the dwarf because he literally has a 12 pack and yes, he's probably a power fantasy for dudes but is showing as much skin as the girls. And then literally every character in 13 sentinels being naked. But yeah I could find other examples from vanillaware for every taste. Btw Cornelius is probably the least lewd here, bad example, but I couldn't include Velvet without her husband, felt bad, their love story was so good.

What I'm saying is that saying a character design that accentuates busts but literally shows 0 skin is somehow "gooner" seems like you're setting the bar pretty fucking high. And that's why I'm saying "projection" because you're doing a lot of work to make it "gooner" - especially when there's other games that do the work for you. What's the line? I feel like to just take any character design that's remotely sexual and call it gooner is pretty bad faith.

Edit, just to be totally clear. I'm not saying some anime design can't devolve into very horny shit that's uncomfortable. It totally can. But I feel like the horse girl game, as it is right now, is of the lowest priority in the war against gross stuff. We shouldn't throw "gooner" around carelessly - not because gooners aren't deserving of contempt (they are!) but because to paint this with two broad a brush just tends to align with reactionary positions on sex. We should always call out bullshit like 10000year old dragons or the male gaze at work in Bayonetta, Nier, or Vanillaware's ourve (and btw I'd argue all of those attempt to deconstruct the gaze to varying degrees of success). But using "gooner" at the slightest whiff of sexualization in a character design just feels like a losing battle.

I don't see what the offense is in the first place aside from you projecting

CW: actual gooner character designs in links.

Wait what the hell is wrong with Gold Ship's design? She's got a bust? I mean is the mere existence of boobs gooner?

I don't want to say that there's not some horniness in some of the character designs - indeed, I'm sure one could find something fetishistic about nearly any anime character design. But Cygames is pretty good about avoiding the full-on gooner design.

I should say, I am Vanillaware's biggest defender on this site. I love their games full stop. But if you think Cygames is creating gooner shit here clearly you haven't played Dragon's Crown or Thirteen Sentinels.

Those are gooner character designs. They are designed to explicitly accentuate sexuality (guy and girl btw). The studio is fucking horny. Compared to them, the small things in Umamusume are stuff that you're probably projecting on. Could you argue there's some designs that might be a bit horny? Sure. But it's not designed in a way to appeal to the gooner. You have to do the work to take the design and bring out any lewdness, rather than it being inherent like in Vanillaware's work.

And on the point of collection, yes the fact it's only horse girls is maybe just worthy of a little scrutiny. I played Dragalia Lost and Granblue Re:link and those games had guys and girls. However does this really mean that it's gooner? I'd say Vanillaware's mixed gender casts are way more horny and way more gooner than the all girls horse game

Yeah I really don't know where this poster is coming from.

Still reading Hyakkano and we get a new Kanojo this coming week. With 34 we will have officially moved into the second third.

Finished up Apothecary Diaries - shit was solid.

Watching Dan da Dan season 2. Good so far.

I'll report for self-crit for this one, but I am watching the New Panty and Stocking with Garterbelt. It has the spirit of the original - for good and bad.

McQueen is so eleganto, I feel like her with golshi is better because it's the opposites combo: brain rot and refinement(snacks).

But I'm opened to being pilled on this other ship.

Also this content is not , no clue why someone would post something otherwise.

100%. vs

I mean ranked choice is kind of nerd shit (it doesn't necessarily fix everything magically) but the fact it makes freaks like this mad is funny