Kat from Gravity Rush is a particularly odd choice of protagonists to dress like this since her super power is messing with gravity and she can only use it when in contact with her familiar Dusty (who is, unsurprisingly – a cat).
She also has perhaps some of the most worrying and yet completely understandable trivia:
If you touch Kat during the game, she will feel uneasy.
Personally I think that outfit by itself should be enough to make her uneasy…
– wincenworks
Gamers’ sociopathy by LucidARTDVC
Speaking of demands for “realism”…
As we said the last time when we featured another rhetoric bingo-worthy piece by LucidARTDVC, this artist isn’t joking or being ironic. He genuinely grasps at straws* to excuse his softcore porn bikini armor babe drawings. Instead of, you know, admitting to himself that fanservice is a thing.
So, as ladyofpayne brought our attention to the above, um, piece of art, let’s maybe address the fairly popular “argument” that we’re supposedly some anti-escapism killjoys who demand fantasy stories to be exclusively realistic (and let’s maybe not address how it apparently makes us sociopaths, cause that’s some new level of ad hominem peppered with ableism).
On to the subject, though:
First, it should really go without saying, but neither we nor sites/communities with similar goals actually expect all fiction to be exclusively realistic/naturalistic. You can’t even quote someone demanding such thing, cause no-one says that.
Second, it’s not the issue of “realism” in the first place, but of willing suspension of disbelief and consistency in worldbuilding. Bikini armors are too silly to play them straight; plain and simple. Using them without awareness of their absurdity will break the audience’s immersion in the story. Especially if they’re featured next to male-exclusive full armors. Presence of some fantasy elements
in the established world
is not yet a reason every random implausibility, like skimpy “armors”, is allowed.
Third, fiction is not made in a vacuum. Nothing in writing happens by accident. And so, the creators should consider the message the used tropes send, rather than justify their questionable choices retroactively. That’s also why authors should not excuse anything they do with “rule of cool”. Cause that’s just a refusal to think critically of one’s creation.
*I’m still impressed (in the worst way possible) by that conveniently ripped out-of-context Art of War quote, as if Sun Tzu would so totally approve of chainmail bikinis, cause… speed bonus?!
~Ozzie
Pretty much. In an era where companies are spending millions to generate the most realistic looking water effects – I really don’t think it’s too much to ask that we reconsider the way we design women’s armor.
– wincenworks
Speaking of things randomly glued to the nipples…
Basia submitted:
I don’t know if you’ve seen it, there’s a pink-hair deadface girl dressed in one banana and two strawberries D:
May be of interest for your blog.
Onechanbara seems to be a franchise where they sort of do reverse brainstorming. They scribble down every idea that comes to their head, then they throw out the good ones and try to make the bad ones worse. I mean, those costumes look pretty terrible but they’re not much of a leap from the regular costumes.
In addition to the ridiculous fruit costumes, this latest installment seems to feature antagonist who appears to be black girl with a chain around her ankle… what could possibly go wrong?
– wincenworks
