“Why Are JRPG Heroes All Emo Teenagers?”
- Categories: News
- Date: Nov 10, 2010 20:07 JST
- Tags: Character Design, Hideo Kojima, Konami, Marketing, Metal Gear, RPG, Shonen
One of the writers with Kojima Productions has written a politely scathing piece in which he decries the JRPG’s single-minded obsession with having overwrought teenage boys as their protagonists, suggesting that is tied to a wider lack of heroic adult male archetypes in contemporary Japanese culture.
The writer in question is Etsu Temari, a man credited with work on the Metal Gear series, and he writes the following short piece on the Kojima Productions Blog:
What is the ideal hero?
“Why are JRPG heroes always teenage boys worried about why they are fighting?”
I’ve been considering this, and I really think it’s because in today’s Japan there is no ideal of a “cool adult man.”
In works based on a shonen [boy] protagonist it’s fine to use them if they are done well, but in both reality and in fiction the “cool man” has mostly disappeared. The generations reared without ever seeing them can’t envision these men either.
I get the impression this vicious circle has indeed become something of a problem.
As a scenario writer myself, I’d like to do what I can to change this by creating new images of heroes.
Japanese discussion of his words tends to identify “because old guys don’t sell in Japan” as a key reason for this lack.
However, this rather validates Temari’s point that the lack of any marketable adult hero image in Japan prevents their usage in games and creates a vicious circle of over-reliance on shonen, even to the point that Japanese developers can now only crudely ape the manly heroes they see as critical to international success.
Having lately been criticised for always having children as heroes, not having macho enough heroes, being stagnant and staid, having ridiculous character designs, and even for not being RPGs, it seems the JRPG genre is long overdue a revolution – one which sadly is nowhere in sight, with most JRPG developers intent on milking the same tired franchises.
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Emo is the new manly.
Nobody beats my Kamina in being manly though...
sure beats the hell out of muscle bound half-wit american protagonists and correct me if I'm wrong sparkling gay vampires (I still say they really aren't vampires but fairies who like to suck)
so yeah, I'll be good with the jap heroes atleast they develop as the the story goes and eventually become better
The quiet, well dressed and well presented adult sometimes old men they have in some animes are always pretty cool IMHO. The ones who know everything, talk properly and deeply. I dont mean the crazy ones who get nosebleeds at upskirt shots either. They always seem to play very minor rolls in the animes I have seen however, giving way to the young passive boys and many varying types of girls.
They do know how to make cool people, they just dont use them often enough in my opinion.
Emo traps are the new Schwarzeneggers.
Cuz an average man saving the world with a smile doesn't cut it.
You need to someone who knows the world's problems, carries immense responsibilities and worries about their uncertain future, only to save the world with a frown;
A teenager.
An emo-teenager sissy, desperately in need of help from a professional shrink because of his/her mental problems of sort "why me? why I am fighting?" and so on..
.. or an American botox-pumped mountain of muscles..
Both cases are extremes of one and the same essence, and both look silly and boring.
Solid Snake is a lie.
Twilight and maybe 1 or 2 vampires are a low blow. They arent even protagonists since THEY AREN'T FIGHTING ANYONE OR ANYTHING. They only rape minors.
So we can make fun of them by purposefully dying and make the other characters made by purposefully choosing the wrong conversation choice and act like a d*ck while we're at it... simple as that
I love the sparkling anemic teenage comparison. Afterall, everyone can write that kind of crap if they are confident enough.
>Implying JRPG heroes actually develop with their game's story and that their somehow better than typical fictional American heroes and while you're at it, Twilight vampires for some reason, because they are the face of western fiction, right?
Considering the sparkly gay vampires you're talking about, are from books that have been made into movies, their completely irrelavent to the topic.
Hell, their not even in games in any form what so ever.
Pretty sure you can find a game containing them.
And I think there'd be an official game of it if someone was able to buy the legal rights to do so.
"in today’s Japan there is no ideal of a “cool adult man.”
i'd like to see a japanese salaryman as the main character in a JRPG XD
I like how the musclebound thing is still being said considering (When looking at half the games on that Square Enix post) weren't all that buff, if at all they were fit, but definitely not your gears of war character.
@Public
That is only a matter of time before some company wants to get all those tweeny vampire wannabe girls to play their games and make a shit load of money.
That will be a very, very sad day.
Well, there was Cid Highwind, he was cool and old ; S
They could aswell use Toshiro Mifune or Tatsuya Nakadai as source for old characters
So,
the biggest problem with the western games industry = gay space marines
the biggest problem with the japanese games industry= emo teens?
i think this is a case of the grass is always greener on the other side. in american culture, we like to make rational decisions and have proof of experience like battle scars, a strong body, and an education because they are out of school.
japan is different but not inferior. they like the fantastic adventure and the glory of youth. they don't care that things don't add up when designing a history for a character, and they don't care if their attire is form completely over function, because their values are different from a westerner's.
naturally when one side or the other stales, they look over the fence to see what the competition is doing. they can pick the things they like and make note of the thing they don't like. doing so brings us together and promotes tolerance of the other culture. when the finally bind, americans will want to play neir as the strapping young lad that he was supposed to be, and japanese will feel giddy when they get to be max payne shooting buckshot into another man's face.
time will melt the world together. and we all will appreciate one another.
@23:49 10/11/2010
Rock from Black Lagoon?
Ok, so he's an ex-salary man these days and more of a smuggler/pirate/courier/accountant/merc sort of job thingy. Still looks like a salary man though.
I think it makes sense to put a teenager as a RPG hero, mostly because it relates to them. They're discovering the world, going about it alone away from parents, finding their own identity, going from puny to strong (growing up), making friends and enemies... all essential things in traditional RPGs. They don't need to be emo though, I kind of agree with that.
Now on the other hand, if you were to put a grown up man that story-wise already had the experience, body and strength from the get go (a veteran) then what's the point of starting the adventure and exploration (besides story drive)?
Auron from FFX would be considered the old man type (wiki says he was 35 yrs old), not to mention he looks cool and badass while wielding that large sword around. Not to mention he was fairly wise.
To decide if he should keep looking at world half full or half empty and acting accordingly to it. The Karma/Paragon/Renegade meter shows that, when face with a difficult journey, would you rise above it or fall into the abyss
I'd rather play with an emo teenager, as stale as it is, than a musclebound freak or old man, to be completely honest. This coming from someone growing more and more disenchanted with the current JRPG scene.
I think the term emo is being thrown around too loosely on this article. I dont see wristcutting people, but to what they're saying, I don't really see where adults can be badass. There's only few...
when I was in Highschool, i used to like playing a teen heroine, but now that im 25 y.o playing an emo-teen heroine is not that appealing to me because most of them dont make any sense. like for example most of them do a better job than an experienced grown man. which in reality dont makes any sense at all :/.
Anyone who says that Japan can't come up with an awesome adult male protagonist, only has too look at Guts.
Then again, I see no Berserk game...
Uh.. what about the DC Berserk game that was positioned a few chapters little bit after the eclipse events or the PS2 hack&slash game that was the complete events (minus trolls raping women) from vol 18 to 22, from the village that got infested with trolls till he got the berserk armor and fought the crystal dragon.
since when JRPG become emo stuff???
WTF, only GA see emo in JRPG
since when JRPG become emo stuff???
WTF, only GAY see emo in JRPG
@anon 11:17
Sir, I do not know what you have just said.
turks in ff VII are pretty cool..
ok just compare this then:
squall > harry potter
cloud > those twinks in twilight
ciel > blade (good grief did you see how overly muscular those guys were?!)
loli > simpsons
even anime
Vampire Knight > or twinklight, I mean twilight
which would you go by?
If they ever make a game out of Twilight I'll never buy a US made game again.
I'm really tired of hearing these stupid articles, technically if everyone tried to copy Western games, then there's nothing really unique about RPGs anymore. All of them would be nothing but muscle bound airheads with a simplistic and cliched storyline.
It's not even that accurate of a stereotype. There are some notable examples, but there are easily as many chipper, energetic male protagonists. As for why they're always younger, I imagine that's the target demographic. Maybe just a lack of creativity, who knows.
Except pretty much the entire getter team, even the womans
*cough*Guts
Guts is not in a JRPG. But really, it depends on the game series too.
Tales series are flled with emo teenager protag faggots bubbling crap about dreams. It is nature of the series.
Most of the final Fantasy are. All Kingdom Hearts are.
Seriously man, Guts is created by Kentaro Miura. Berserk has games but it is nowhere near the JRPG territory so do not jump from one place to another lest I can also include Thor and the motherfucking Batman.
And back to topic ladies and gentlemen, special report, JRPG is gay!!
In Japan the target audience for games as well as anime and manga is mostly young and likes coming of age stories. It's not true that Japan can't create cool adult characters, though. Not true at all.
You can find them in games as well as anime and manga, but almost exclusively as supporting characters. It's not that Japan is unable to create them, they only have to realize their potential.
I doubt such "adult productions" would bomb in Japan as long as the quality is high. If they fear superannuation of the characters, having adult mains doesn't mean there can't be younger ones as well.
Japan can do it, they just have to really want it.
Yep, i think its Japans problem to think games/anime/manga are only meant for kiddos.
In the west all kind of people play games.
I met ppl up to the age of 80 playing mmorpgs; doctors, pilots and so on among them.
Even whole families playing.
The thinking adult shouldnt have fun with these kinds of hobbies is just stupid. But as we know stupidity is worldwide, it only differs in its ways. Japan is no exception.
Cid from FFVII is proof of what you say.
Nier wasnt exactly your typical emo teenager, he went great lenghts (before the time lapse) to survive taking care of his sister, while doing oddjobs and even working as a male prostitute and after time lapse he was literaly consumed by rage for about 5 years after you regain control of him, not exactly emo.
Same goes for the main character of drag-on dragoon (drakengard 1), teenager faced with the destruction and death of his kingdom, didnt exactly went emo, he just pursued rescuing his litle sister/incest relationship while not caring for a single thing in the world, screw being good, he just had one track mind and it was destruction.
THEN again both this stories are written by the same person so figures.
Then we also have Lost Oddisey main character not exactly teenager being an inmortal of about 1000 years or more looking eternally in early 30s, with barely any expression at all due to memory erase, but alot of substance in the written stories inside the game.
Nier worked as a male prostitute? That certainly didn't make it into the western release, although given how ugly the Gestalt Nier was, I don't think there'd be much demand for him in that industry.
It was in the Grimoire Nier, an artbook released a bit afterwards than the game with short stories of missing stuff that didnt make it to the game due to several reasons.
The story about the shota male prostite is Red and black.
https://docs.google.com/View?id=dgvmkf89_228fxgghgg3#Red_and_Black_2709297297635132
That's the whole Artbook-guide translated, there's also a nifty story about how Weiss turned into a book and a story that pretty much shows what exactly's Kayne.
Thanks, I didn't know this existed.
Isn't it that bad JRPGs just don't wanna think so they follow the system thats already there. I mean no one cares if the main character is a teenager or what as long as production values are high and the games well made. Don't compare count bad JRPGs only.(most are bad though)
Watch a better anime.
You know, except the even more manly Saeko.
Bruce Willis' character in the "Die Hard" movie series was an average guy who won because of his tenacity. No super powers, no angst, he knew who he cared about, and he took care of his (and other peoples') shit.
Seems like a good older 'hero' figure.
I see Twilight being brought up several times. Twilight may be highly prevelent in the media now but it is also highly focused on a single demographic (adolecent girls), saying that Twilight is the face of what the west wants in there heros would be like saying yaoi is the face of what Japan wants.
Kamina, Archer and Chuck Norris is my hero
Gun beats katana all day!
solid snake does.
Simple i think the idea of average emo man versus the freaking buff ass man from the military man from the western games!!
i would pick emo teenager !!
at least i knw that this common emo teen resembles me more that a well muscle toned body builder !
strange to me, I never thought of characters like squall as emo. Don't know if that was just me or w/e. Maybe just me
I know I didn't even know of the word ten years ago at the game's release, apart from genre. Maybe if there were character animations of him cutting his wrists with his gunblade, I'd be more convinced... Otherwise I've met people that didn't give a shit, simply cause - and don't fit the "clique".
Maybe if there were character animations of him cutting his wrists with his gunblade
---
The mental image to this made me lol.
muscle toned body builder big turn off.
I'm not interested in male protagonist to any degree. Touhou just does fine without any males (aside from that one hardly mentioned dude) and is also probably one of my favorite things to come out of Japan.
Mannosuke? That guy lives in a man's paradise.
Which kind of man's paradise? The one where he'd be surrounded by men, or the one where he'd be surrounded by LOTS of females from the wide spectrum of variety?
The former sounds more like hell to me.
The former called JAIL. Latter called HAREM.
Renzo is now more manly after seeing Squall carrying gunblade :3
Renzo lvl up Manliness +1.
The same could be said for Western Games with gorilla-like male protagonists bulging with muscles to hide their pain...
Really...
There's no difference...
Gorilla or Emo...They always have sh*t in the past that haunts them...
As Japan will continue to follow this cycle, so will America...
Emos and Gorillas may be complete opposites, but both of them continue to bring in the bacon for their countries...
Considering we're talking RPGs here. How many actuall Western RPGs are there where the hereos are Muscle Bound Steroid Junkies such as you find in Gears of War.
Sorry...
I should have said western FPS and action games...
Even if you go into FPSs you can still find just as many 'normal' mains as their are 'macho' ones.
You've got CoD, Battlefield, the new Medal of Honor vs Gears of War, Killzone, Halo.
Sam Fisher. Protagonist of Splinter Cell. Find four cooler protagonists than that guy, and I'll eat my hat.
Yes and in every single damn JPRG the protagonist is emo right? Because every damn JRPG is fucking Final Fantasy? Because going into a mass scale-war situation with large consequences should you fail should not elicit emotional trauma at all? BULLSHIT, if the west wants to bitch about "realism" and "they're not all meatheads" then they need to have the GODDAMN courtesy to do the same, instead of making BROAD MASSIVE GENERALIZATIONS from characters in games released around 6-YEARS AGO maybe you should actually PLAY THE DAMN GAMES instead feeding your own damn egos saying stuff like "Oh, I'm so glad I avoided playing that game" like being an ignorant asshole is any better, if you want us to stop judging you based of Gears then maybe the west needs to shut it's damn pompous ass mouth.
In your stupid world, maybe,
Because girls love emo teenagers?
“Why Are JRPG Heroes All Emo Teenagers?”
Yuri Lowell's an emo teenager?
lol i used to bully emo kids. New definition of manly : crying every time you are pushed or slapped , and getting your head stuffed into toilet .
Japan needs more Berserk and Guts.
Every part of the world have emo characters, Japan, America, etc. Even Batman and Spider-Man were emo characters. Batman's an emo adult because he devoted his entire life to taking revenge against anyone for his parent's deaths, which is even more worse. Spider-Man always complain about his relationship problems, and his black suit is a visual representation of his even more emo periods.
Sadly, anime and game teenagers seem to be adopting the emo philosophy nowadays: be a pussy rather than fight for it. Lack of attitude, lack of manliness... And wow, the new teenage boys are EXACTLY like that in reality... wtf, poor girls...