Touhou

I'd call Neptunia the complete opposite, honestly.

Evil twin at best.

edited 29th Sep '13 6:10:53 PM by Clarste

Is Neptunia good? I'd been meaning to look into it.

It was on my list of "stuff to maybe probably check out if I can find a way to" list.

edited 29th Sep '13 6:17:35 PM by TheMike

Nope.

Ah, thanks!

With this list being the length it is, opinions from others do greatly help in deciding which things I should actually make an effort to check out.

I'd say that ZUN's choice of an all-girl cast is a combination of Author Appeal and the freedom to write the characters without any restrictions on their behavior because he can use the excuse of their gender making their mindset impenetrable - as the stereotype goes.

He uses youkai as an excuse for that. The human characters tend to be motivated by extremely basic and universal desires.

edited 29th Sep '13 6:25:12 PM by Clarste

Which, at the game's face-value, at least helps with the whole "oversexualized female characters in video games" thing.

Not that fanworks contribute, but fanworks hardly ever contribute to such things, so irrelevance.

edited 29th Sep '13 6:25:55 PM by TheMike

Sort of? There's plenty of male villains and NPCs in the games. The anime cut out all of the male NPCs and most of the male villains, but is still much closer to an even gender balance than Touhou, at least in terms of screen-time

...Also, if the Neptune games are feminist it's probably by accident

edited 29th Sep '13 6:26:37 PM by Hylarn

ZUN said it himself, "having boys would just interrupt the balance". Or something along those lines.

...Balance.

edited 29th Sep '13 6:28:53 PM by TheMike

All anime feminism is by accident. The combination of sexual fanservice and action fanservice has the bizarre side effect of making superficially strong female characters. And then once you remove the vestigial self-insert male characters who play no particular role, you also end up with strong female characters whose lives don't revolve around men.

I'd call it convergent evolution.

edited 29th Sep '13 6:30:12 PM by Clarste

The first game is pretty much objectively terrible. I hear the sequels improve a lot, but there's conflicting reports if it's enough for them to be called good. The anime is decent enough, but there's better things to spent your time watching

That's kind of the thing Valve tried to avert with Chell, right? Making her an intentionally average-looking character, with no dialogue, etc. etc.?

Thanks for the input, man!

edited 29th Sep '13 6:32:06 PM by TheMike

'All' is an overstatement. There are Japanese authors out there that are legitimate feminists

I actually just watched the anime, then I realized I couldn't understand a thing without having played the games, as you saw in the review, but I better stay quiet on this issue. But Clarste is right, I guess the phenomena could be called "false matriarchy".

edited 29th Sep '13 6:47:30 PM by RN452

I hear the anime is not in continuity with the games...but continuity in Neptunia is weird and kinda bad. The games are technically not in continuity with each other (the second game is a reboot that ignores the first, and while the prolouge of the third follows the second, the bulk takes place in an alternate universe, and thus has no ties to the second one's plot), but each game seems to assume that you've played the ones before it (though the third one isn't too bad with this, since it's kinda a thing that most of the cast have no idea who Neptune is or what she is going on about, because alternate universe), and from what I can gather, the anime does likewise.

I got into a ramble, sorry. I only just started the third btw, the rest is just hearsay.

I...I watched the anime. Enjoyed it. Will find a let's play/walkthrough soon.^note Because I don't have a PS 3. And because the games are not available in my location. And I'm iffy about online shopping...x3

Kyoukers is 106 miles from Gensokyo, she's got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark... and she's wearing sunglasses.

I had this crazy idea about the Tsukumo sister's as the Blues Brothers, or Sister's in this case.

They're on a mission from god. Which in this case is an out-of-context statement from Raiko, because tsukumogami are technically gods. Maybe it's their own mission, because they're tsukumogami too.

Hilarity Ensues.

EDIT: Wait, what? My spell check recognizes the first tsukumogami, but not the second. It doesn't recognize the one in the last sentence either. How does it make its decisions?

edited 29th Sep '13 8:46:14 PM by Horselesshorseman

And then they show up at a bar that's expecting the Prismrivers?

Seems about right.

NOOOOO! I missed the Neptunia conversation!

But it's like the others have said. If you really want to check the game out, you may want to start with either Neptunia mk2 or Victory, Victory preferably. The first I've heard as universally awful because of bad pacing in dungeons. Victory is an almost-but-not-quite game that is really good at core values (one of the best voice acting I've heard, even English tracks are great) but fails at the limited audience appeal and maybe the battle system. It also forces you to go to hell in grinding.

edited 29th Sep '13 9:50:40 PM by totlmstr

I wouldn't blame you for bringing up a conversation in order to add to it. I've certainly done the same in the past.

I think I'll put aside Neptunia for now, considering in all likelihood it's one of the things I'd have to buy.

edited 29th Sep '13 9:52:16 PM by TheMike

Reposting this Leo thing once more because all five pages are up.

I swear, I mentally read that line as "Catch you later, Inquisinator."

Glad to see that Leo is still doing stuff, even if its not Touhou at times. I always liked his art style.