Western vs Eastern Game Characters: Muscles vs Moe
- Categories: Games, News
- Date: May 19, 2009 07:04 JST
- Tags: Character Design, Comparison, Marketing, Nintendo, Pokemon, USA
The CEO of Nintendo has recently made some interesting comments to the effect that he is glad his predecessor dared to defy the advice of his American advisors and not turn Pokémon into muscle-bound monstrosities, because “Monsters can’t be cute.”
Of course, we all know how well Pokémon turned out, but what about games where the wisdom of American marketing prevailed and the characters were redesigned to meet the exacting standards of Western tastes? You can see some examples below…
Via Hachimaki.
This continues even to this day, with at times disturbing results…
| 
Dimension W More Abusive Than Ever
Hitomi Tanaka Wins AVN’s Most “Colossal T*ts”
Wonder Festival 2016 Cool As Ice
Koukaku no Pandora “Where Are The Nipples!?”
“History of Japan” Trending Hard
Project Diva X Trailer Rocks Out
Gensou no Grimgar BD “Delivering Shameless Bathing!”
VirtuaDolls VR Eroge Controller Thrusted onto Indiegogo
GumKare Event Rotten To The Core
Sacrifice Maze Titillatingly Treacherous
Atelier Shallie Plus Trailer Talks Incessantly
Boukoku no Akito Final Digest Revealed
Prius! Impossible Girls Net Vocaloid MV
Tenshi Figure Highly Angelic
Dagashi Kashi A Barrage of Tasty Trivia
Gate Monstrously Chaotic
Tekken 7: Fated Retribution Trailer A Total Knock Out
Valkyria Chronicles Remaster Gunplay PV
Sankaku App 1.6: Intents & Users
Top 20 Winter 2016 Anime You’ll Keep Watching
Gokou Ruri Maid Cosplay Truly Extravagant
Alluring Achellia Cosplay by Tasha
Carnivore Taiga Cosplay Too Cute For Words
Alluring Ahri Cosplay Magically Charming
Tsukihi Araragi BDSM Ero-Cosplay by Komugi Platinum Sexy
Goddess of Twitter “Pink & Perky!”
Serene Horo Cosplay Pure Gold
Iona Ero-Cosplay by Komugi Taking on Water
Cute Kashima Cosplay Full of Elegance
Umaru Ero-Cosplay by Asami Hamsterific
American have bad taste in art and moe..
As usual, america fails.... hard!
Hahaha, the american Rockman and the Breath of Fire's 'Conan the Barbarian' clone expressions are priceless.
http://i687.photobucket.com/albums/vv240/Strife91/Other/4460411_33.png
lol nice edit
Athena is also a good example. Check HG101 for arcade flyers.
http://hg101.classicgaming.gamespy.com/athena/athena.htm
Yea.., 40yo Athena impostors on steroids..
that's one of the times when I'd say muscle worked out better than moe, even though it ignores the iconic look of a classic character. I'd love to have owned that box art as a kid... heheh
moe all the way~
There was an articale on Sankaku regarding character design of Gears of War vs. Final Fantasy
So let's see, the eastern characters are cute, beautiful, and strong.
The western characters are also strong, but, well, ugly.
Japanese characters often don't LOOK strong, though. By that I mean the stereotypical moe/bishi ones. Yet they often still have powers equal to superman.
the stereotype is supposed to be:
America - ugly and strong looking
Japan - pretty and weak looking
but both can level buildings
this is because american culture and japanese culture are different.
Just like a in conversational exchange, americans (or western cultures in general) send and receive most of the messages in the form words; whereas japanese (or eastern cultures in general) send and receive a majority of the messages in the form of non-verbal movements.
West = more direct (generally)
East = more indirect (generally)
E.g: A salesperson is selling a piece of crap to an American (or person from western cultures) and a Japanese (of person from eastern culture). Neither of them want it. When the salesperson asks whether the American want to buy it, he will tell the salesperson no in a very direct way. But if the salesperson asks the Japanese if he wants it, he will most likely say something like "Uh, I'll think about it. Thank you."
In the example, the Japanese doesn't reject the offer directly because he wants to save face for the salesperson. And there's no such thing as saving face for others for the American.
This tells Japaneses are more rounded and soft; and Americans are rigid and hard.
Hey musclekun meet moechan
9 month later came out
GHOST IN THE CRADLE
MOE for president!!!!!!!!!
Suikoden (PSX) boxart makes me want to puke :)
The new worst boxart of all time is definitely the one for the US version of Super Robot Taisen OG Saga: Mugen no Frontier. THe Mega Man boxart was far less of an atrocity in comparison.
I'd play that US bomberman over bomberman act zero
Like, eww. Interesting comparison, though... and a good warning to Japanese companies: Don't sell out!
moe > all
ICO looks like shit in the American cover version.
Too bad, since that game was great.
Ok here's a test.
Which to you is "Gayer"
1 a) A Dating sim where you try to win the hearts of 5 different types of Bishoujo.
1 b) A game where you play a musclebound he man from a planet of musclebound hemen thrusting your giant sword into other musclebound he men...and not a woman in sight.
2 a) A volleyball sports game with women in bikinis
2 b) A game where 10 sweaty men pile onto each other trying to grab balls
Inspirited by this article I made this thread on ASSEMblergames.com:
http://www.assemblergames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=23337
Of course, there are a lot of ppl there who prefered the american covers that the japanese ones but...you can't blame them for their bad taste. :P
The EU version of Ico has the original cover.
Fuck American box art. Fuck them taking away the Japanese voices. Fuck them ruining Japanese games in the American releases period. Fuck them for making region codes, making updates which disable region unlocking, and making stores not carry imports, modded consoles, or freeloaders. Fuck them for not making enough copies of the games they make.
Fuck them for making us beg and plead and bend over backwards just to let us enjoy the games we want to play and the way we want to play them.
If both american and japanese both gets profit from each other, it doesn't really matter. it's all about the money.
Yeah... I'm reminded of a very awful Megaman box art which may very well have been a redesign. At least today they don't do that (for the most part).
Both of those ICO boxes look cool to me.
thus explaining our higher birthrate
the megaman one is epic xD
lol at the "minna no golf" image!
i can imagine those older games being westernized but when i saw that it was made for the ps3 i just had my when will they learn moment..
After the first Hot Shots Golf game I lost ALL my interest in the series BECAUSE of the box art... I thought the entire game looked like that. It was only when the PSP version was released and I actually looked at the game in action that I noticed...
THE BOX ART IS A LIE, THE GAME IS STILL AS CUTE/MOE AS EVER!
Gah, when will people learn...
it's okay to be stupid... stupidity is a genetic sickness(muscle n gay loving included), everyone will forgive you...
The Japanese box art is way better...
...WHY DO I LIVE IN AMERICA??!!!! WHY???!!!!
Because its your home!!!! in reality most countries wouldnt want you in their country so be grateful you have one : /
NICE MUSCLE XD
Moe moe kyun?
And god, I didn't knew about the BoF 2 one...
sorry, my moe loving brethren... but I have to go with the BOF2 american artwork *instantly gets transformed into a troll*. I don't know maybe it's just nostalgia from seeing that box so much on the rental racks and being such a fan of the conan the barbarian cartoon (I think I even made that connection the first time I saw the box as a kid). C'mon is there really no one here who actually owned that box back then? Instead I'm finding people who had "no idea". Did you first play the game in rom form? You're making me feel old.
Personally, I'm a fan of more muscular anime characters, like those from Street Fighter. And Richter Belmont was the best looking Castlevania character before that bishi artist got to him too, but I'd even take the NES works over some of the characters it has today. Characters in anime that are too moe, especially in the wrong context, come off as "market research" for me.
But I'm still against publishers changing someone's work just because of the belief that it'll make the title sell better in their territory. It's like censorship. That's what's really wrong with this.
I'll take moe any day over those froggish hypermasculine freaks.
Yeah.. The packaging on that dungeon game is one MAJOR reason why I didn't pick it up.
If they'd kept the original box, I would have, though.
Also, I am utterly distraught at how they swapped out the ico box art. Fuck you america. Fuck you.
I would say thay sure not every one don´t buy game only for the box cover but I think that many are like me. When you walk in a game store to buy games, you some time happen to buy a game becuse the box cover appeald to u in some way when u where there and looked for a new game even if u never heard if the game you got atracted to it by the box cover.
If only there was a middle ground. Something between roid rage, vein popping western art, and frighteningly androgynous, feminine manboy eastern art.
You mean your mom?
That's not even a viable insult.
Yeah, that's what she said.
anon fight! anon fight!
Why not have both?!
Use reversable covers. Then, gals can have their bishie pretty-boys, and guys can have their tightly-packed, overmuscled, throbbing-veined, .... (hmmm, I just realized that description kinda sounded pornographic and/or gay) .... 1950s-science-fiction-cover-art-styled super Action HEROES!
I liked the reversable covers which came with the Mahoromatic DVDs. On one side, a reasonably PG-ish cover which wouldn't raise parental eyebrows, and on the other side, an ecchified version.
Those two golf games aren't even the same game. WTF?
I'm amused that even though Mega Man has an arm cannon built in, he somehow ends up with a gun.
Wow! When I first saw Mystery Dungeon cover I thought the game was an american one.
Ha, ha, ha. Look at Mystery Dungeon. They even tried to make the weasel look manly.
When you have a moment, go look up the American cover for Pocky & Rocky. It is horrible enough to warrant mention.
I hate the second ICO cover, I have the first one (UK here) and I think it looks much better, personally. I don't like musclebound heros/heroines much. Cute and moe please!
Yeah, the first Ico cover is what we got in PAL-land...
Aye, we get our releases years later but at least most of the covers are right. Oh wait... >:(