The Scrappy Cleanup

For TheScrappy.FireEmblem:

Nowi doesn't qualify as a scrappy. She made it into the Top 20 Heroines in the Fire Emblem Heroes Choose Your Hero poll, which is far from being universally hated. Also the part about her contradicting Tiki's status as the last manakete is irrelevant because again, Awakening caused a huge Newbie Boom, which means many players wouldn't care about that.

Off the topic of Fire Emblem, on TheScrappy.VisualNovels there are two examples under Ace Attorney which I find to be quite objectionable:

Not to mention Wendy Oldbag, although even in canon she's supposed to be repulsive. Although Oldbag IS surprisingly popular in Japan.

Not only is this a Zero Context Example, Oldbag is a popular character in Japan and if I'm not mistaken, Americans Hate Tingle and The Scrappy are mutually exclusive.

The above also applies to Larry Butz which is amusing because he and Oldbag have shown up together twice. Even Phoenix and Edgeworth — his childhood friends — try to avoid him, but he's constantly popping up in nearly every game. Similar to Lotta, he usually supplies some incomprehensible sketch which raises more questions than it answers.

I don't think Larry qualifies because he does have fans. Hell, a good number of the moments on the Funny pages for Ace Attorney involve Oldbag and Larry's antics, so I believe they have too many fans to qualify

Cut Grima, Nowi, Eliwood, Zealot (he is not even Tier Induced Scrappy), Ninian.

edited 3rd Feb '17 6:19:00 PM by RAlexa21th

Yeah, Larry seems to be a definite cut. Him being treated like a nuisance in-universe doesn't mean that he isn't popular with players.

For the Oldbag entry, yeah, that last bit definitely disqualifies her from being the Scrappy. If she's popular enough in her game's home country, she's not a Scrappy.

EDIT: Found a Famitsu popularity poll where Oldbag ranked #3 on non-Lawyer characters and Larry ranked #5. I think it's safe to say their entries can be cut.

edited 3rd Feb '17 6:40:02 PM by dragonfire5000

Larry Butz is popular here too.

Old Bag is Americans Hate Tingle.

edited 3rd Feb '17 8:34:14 PM by Monsund

If they ranked that high it is a case of Americans Hate Tingle then?

edited 3rd Feb '17 8:34:29 PM by Memers

Seems like it. In any case, I'm giving a to cutting them out.

Wendy and Sophia in Binding Blade scored well on the popularity poll as well.

I was the person who added/edited Yukimura's entry. While I would consider him a scrappy I also think the problem is that he's so...bland. Not sure if that helps.

I saw Rose brought up again and I stand by my belief that she's a scrappy. However she's really odd in that she's like a weird inversion of Americans Hate Tingle. From what I've gathered she's not super popular in the states but I cant speak for everyone.

I know that Yukimura placed last in a Japanese popularity contest, but the thing about popularity contests is that while they're useful for determining how many people like a character, they're not very good at determining how many people dislike a character. After all, a person whose favorite character is Takumi could also like Yukimura second-best.

Is there any indication that Yukimura is actually hated? It's important to remember that bland =/= hated.

Rose as in Tales Of Zestiria Rose?

I would say she is a scrappy. She is disliked everywhere just Japan hates her so much more than everywhere else. She was also shilled to no end till the Tales Festival after the game's release when fans called them out on it.

They distracted the fanbase from it by announcing the next game when literally all they had was a character design for the main character.

I thought we already decided that Rose was not a Scrappy.

I agree with cutting Oldbag and Larry. They're meant to be goofy and kind of annoying, and apparently Oldbag is popular in Japan.

Is there a source for this?

Going back to Fire Emblem, I think this needs to be cut:

The Taguel as a whole cannot be the Scrappy, since groups cannot be The Scrappy. Even without the whole "popularity poll doesn't really measure how hated a character is," I'd like to point out that:

• Panne's place in the poll is tied with Anna (both are at 18th place).
• The example is a bit poorly worded; for example, who was already controversial with the Japanese? The Taguel or the Laguz? Also would like to see a source on that.
• "While they are somewhat less hated outside of Japan, they are still considered poorly conceived." sounds a bit too much like "Yeah, they have their fans, but they were still bad, trust me."

My suggestions: either ax the entry, or rewrite it to make it clear that it's talking about those particular characters and that the sources they cite for "poor reception" is concrete. Either way, at the very least, the first part about the Taguel must go.

edited 4th Feb '17 12:12:57 PM by dragonfire5000

Rose is a Scrappy. Her home country, Japan, hates her. I've posted plenty of sources to support this in the thread before. (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=13598973560A64980100&page=34#839) In the West she's a Base-Breaking Character. Some people like her, a lot of people hate her, there are very few people neutral on her.

edited 7th Feb '17 10:16:12 AM by PhiSat

Agreeing to cut .

I don't know, I don't think the links you provided concretely prove that a majority of the fanbase hates Rose. The links provided make it clear that the game had a less-than-stellar reception and that Rose was divisive, but nothing that really cements that she was hated by most Japanese fans.

As for Amazon reviews...yeah, no, I wouldn't count those as a credible source, and one could still make the argument that those are just a very vocal minority.

Are there any articles that specifically talk about and examine Rose's reception in Japan? Those articles might be better at determining whether Rose is a Scrappy or not than an article that just talks about how the game was poorly received by people, apparently for more reasons than just Rose.

I think 2000 reviews out of 2764 is a little more than a Vocal Minority.

There's an entire Japanese wiki on Tales of Zestiria's shortcomings, and a whole subsection on Rose. Rose's page is here: https://www52.atwiki.jp/tozsougiwiki/pages/24.html However it's all in Japanese, so I'm not sure how much that helps.

A tl;dr of the page is that along with the Alisha vs Rose issues she's essentially a blatant Mary Sue. So even without the game treating a well-loved character badly to prop up Rose I don't think she'd be all that well liked in Japan.

edited 7th Feb '17 11:36:09 AM by PhiSat

While I still don't think Amazon reviews are a reliable source, I would also like to point out that while 2,000 may seem like a huge number, consider that the game's initial sale was around 340,000. Assuming that means at least 340,000 people bought the game, 2,000/340,000 is still only 1/170; that's not even 1%.

One must also consider that not everyone feels compelled to go onto Amazon to leave a review; hell, I've never left an Amazon review for a video game I like.

One must also remember that a wiki can be edited by anyone, and that the person who added the section may also be a part of the vocal minority. That's why I feel like we need something a bit more concrete to ensure that Rose doesn't qualify as a Base-Breaking Character even in Japan.

Well since my Japanese Google Fu is pretty poor I don't know what else to show you. People in the Tales fandom are all very familiar with how much Japan hates Rose though, enough for several threads asking 'why do people hate Rose so much?' to appear in places like Gamefaqs.

The last time I read that Japanese wiki (keep in mind I do speak the language), it was mostly bullcrap.

On the actual matter, however, the Rose situation went like this: a couple of months before the game's release in Japan, she appeared in magazines and promotional material and was confirmed to be playable. This was very sudden, as all the playable characters had been revealed months earlier and the fanbase was rather confused as to why they busted out a playable character so late.

When the game came out in Japan a few months later, there was a riot. One of the characters used most prominently in the marketing turned out to be a temporary character. Reviews started pouring in like crazy. "Why isn't Alicia fully playable!" "She's best girl and the game is mean to her!" "The characters badmouth her!" "It's the producer's fault!"

Long story short, there was an outcry and a lot of silly Fan Dumb spreading false rumours, like that Rose's character took over the story and the other character was written out because the producer liked her actress. This one is bollocks since there is no actual evidence to support it. Other rumours spoke of disconnect between what the marketing team had in mind, and what the actual developers had in mind. Other rumours spoke of contracts gone wrong during the production. One thing we do know (by Word of God) is that, initially, they did not plan to show any promotional materials with Rose and keep her a secret until the game released.

One section of the Japanese fanbase was extremely vocal of their hate for sure. One-star Amazon reviews were the mild thing. Rose's character designer (the game had multiple designers) had to take an official break from Twitter due to harassment by crazy otaku, even though all the poor guy did was design the girl. Her voice actress was forced to perform a public Japanese apology (the sit-on-your-knees-and-bend-your-head-like-you-did-something-terrible kind) in a fan event.

I don't know what happened with the English fanbase, I didn't pay attention. It is worth noting that they will be conducting a popularity poll this year, after 3 whole years, in the Tales Festival.

Sooooo...I hope this helps?

Based on that, still looks like Base-Breaking Character is a possibility, since nothing suggests that the vocal portion is representative of a significant majority.

My opinion on what to do: consider Rose a Base-Breaking Character unless something conclusively proves that a vast majority of the fanbase hates her, and not just a vocal minority.

Also, it looks like a lot of the hate is because Namco Bandai botched the marketing rather than anything actually wrong with the character herself. (I do remember fans getting pissed off when they found out Alisha wasn't a main character the way early promotional materials made it seem.)

I removed this entry from TheScrappy.Visual Novels:

• Korekiyo Shinguuji is easily the most despised member of the games cast (and may very well be the most hated character among the main games period) thanks to murdering two students (one of whom being much beloved Tenko Chabashira) over an intensely disturbing incestuous relationship with his sister. While some argue him to be a Hate Sink, most still despise him for being equal parts repulsive and unlikable.

I believe for a Hate Sink to qualify, it must be explained why they are hated to an unintentional degree. Right?

Right. And Examples Are Not Arguable. If some argue he's a Hate Sink, he probably is. Especially considering it's using the Hate Sink argument as an alternative option, and that the description indicates a Hate Sink.

Some characters were designed to be disliked, good guy or not.

Or take Scrappy. He wasn't created to be hated. He was created to add life to the series. He was created to be cool and funny. And because he was such a frickin' prick (catch-all term), nobody liked him. It's not even up for discussion. Nobody likes him.

Thus my theory is that if something is a Scrappy, it isn't up for discussion. There's Broken Base and Alternative Character Interpretation for when if it's up for debate.

I'm nervous, Scrappy Index's thread in trope repair shop hits the dead line in two hours a decision hasn't been reached...