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Birthright Corrin/Kaze is an achingly beautiful love story if you just free yourself from the thought that it’s cringe to enjoy Birthright’s story.
#my genuine hot take is that birthright is not actually all that poorly written#like does it have flaws? yeah.#is it high brow? no.#but is it trying to be? does it have to be?#and sure I’m never going to recommend it to anyone based on its story#and I’ll never recommend it to anyone for gameplay either if we’re being honest#there are better fire emblems in every manner#but does it have to be a contest?#does everything need to be a comparison or ranked on a tier list?#is it not enough to have enjoyed the game?#I enjoyed it once and I will enjoy it again and I will cry about Corrin and Kaze’s beautiful love story#and I will feel no shame#but I might perhaps pity the people who snub their nose at simple joys in search of high brow enjoyment#I think you will find that if you let go of standards that don’t really matter you may find joy in life a simpler thing#and let’s be real y’all we are fire emblem fans#player phase.txt
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Allen’s Ramblings XIV: Allen’s Limits (Fanservice Edition)
Well, I just finished another go-over for my fanfic (which I’ll hopefully be updating tomorrow), so I’m in a writing mood today. Before I head home I think I’ll do a rambling real quick.
So I made a post here saying that I can’t watch the anime Valkyrie Drive Mermaid because it hits “my limit” in terms of fanservice and what I’m willing to tolerate, but I’ve never really discussed what my limits were in terms of fanservice.
Let me just be frank about my (trash) tastes real quick. I love and will defend Senran Kagura as a game with not only good gameplay, but a good story to my grave (unless we’re talking about the timeline/multiverse split, then this game deserves all the flack it gets on that end). I enjoy anime like Ikkitousen/Battle Vixens (the first season anyway), Wanna Be the Strongest in the World (though I will never recommend that to anyone. Ever.), Kill la Kill, Keijo, Koihime (wow, a lot of K’s there), and so on. I love playing games like Dead or Alive (I even buy the DLC sometimes), Rumble Roses, Onechanbara, Blazblue (its female designs are really fanservice-y, let’s be honest here), Nitro Busters, and I’m willing to try almost any MMO with cute female character designs for a bit. Needless to say, I like me some fanservice, or at least I can tolerate a hell of a lot of it.
You will never hear me say “this anime/game is good if you can get over the fanservice” because I refuse to believe an anime or game should have a gap like that for people to over to enjoy it. Unless gap is a video game and it’s a skill-based gap, there shouldn’t be a one in the first place (that said Senran Kagura: Deep Crimson is actually kind of hard unless you grind a bit, so... fair warning). You might have noticed I say things like “if you can’t handle the fanservice that’s fine, but try to make it past episode 1 at least.” That’s because I feel you at least need a minimum amount of context before making a call on a show or game just being fanservice trash. Seeing a few gif sets or screen shots isn’t context, not to me anyway. With shows like Keijo and games like Senran Kagura, there’s a good anime and game there, and a lot of the judgement come from the premise and people just ignore the context. Many of the people that try the games out or watch the shows usually say something “yeah, this is a good game/anime, and it has potential, but the fanservice kills it for me.” That’s a 100% okay thing to say. I just get mad when people call it trash without even looking into it. To say Senran Kagura is a trash game that only panders to male audience is just... not only wrong, but shows ignorance to me. To say Keijo and Kill la Kill are fanservice-y shows that just attract a male audience just... kills my soul a little when I know for a fact that it’s got other things going for it than just the fanservice.
However, with all that said I still have my limits. There are shows and games that even I can’t get intodue to some of the content in it. I won’t say these games and shows are bad, but sometimes I will say I can’t finish, watch, or play them because the content in them turns me off, or at the very least I will advice people to skip certain parts because that’s how bad they turned me off.
But anyway, let’s get on with what limits Allen has in terms of Fanservice:
Bare Breast Being Shown
Christ, this is the main reason I can’t get through Valkyrie Drive Mermaid.
Look, I’m a guy. I’m a straight guy. I think I can comfortably say I like breasts. As an anime fan with trash taste I can say that, yes, I like anime tiddies. However, flashing bare breasts on the screen just... turns me off a little. Like, I get it, sometimes that’s just how the show is. Clothes and underwear come off, so it just makes sense, but I just... don’t enjoy. This is mostly because when I watch fanservice-y anime I’m watching the simulcast version where the boobs and nipples are censored in a way that it’s either in a way that’s comedic (like in Daimao), stylistic (like in Samurai Girls), or by editing shots (like in... most anime nowadays). So, when the blurays come out the anime tiddies are shown in full, uncensored view it feels more distracting than tantalizing. Like, you’ve already hooks me with the story, comedy, or action dude, why are you showing me the anime tiddies when I didn’t care for them three months ago? That’s just how I feel anyway, I think I’m the only one that thinks like this.
Sex Scenes
This is in the same vein as bare breast. I usually watch these fanservice-y shows for either it’s action, comedy, or actual plot (what little one exists anyway), so even if the sex scene makes sense in context, unless it’s playing some comedic gag like someone walking in on the characters and kills the mood or it’s an implied sex scene where the joke is that it’s some innocent I just... don’t want to watch it. A good video game example might be the sex mini game(s) in the God of War series. Yeah, they’re short and aren’t important to the game, but... I didn’t buy the game for that reason, that’s not the point of the game, and it feels like it was put in their for stupid reasons.
Taking the Plot Too Seriously/Flimsy Justification for Fanservice
This is the main reason I can’t get into Queen’s Blade, but some online friends have tempted me into giving it another shot. This is also the main reason I can’t recommend Ikkitousen past season 1. When shows and games try to make their plot out to be something more serious than it actually is it just... makes me wonder why. Like when I was talking about Keijo in my anime updates, it’s main draw was the ridiculousness and action, not the fanservice. If that show tried to play Nozumi’s poverty seriously and had her involved in Keijo out of desperation to make money I would had dropped it immediately.
To clarify, the manga made it clear that Nozumi knew she could make a killing as an Olympic Gymnast, but as a Keijo player she knew she’d have a bigger payout, longer career life, and (arguably) less risks to her body. Becoming a Keijo player was just systematically better for her and that’s why she did it. No more, no less. I would had stopped watching almost immediately if they had made Keijo out to be some vile sport forcing girls to battle for a wild crowd like an underground cock fight and Nozumi was desperate enough to quick being a gymnast to make money in that sport.
Again, this is what killed my interest in Ikkitousen. I was watching that show to see cute girls punch each other with decent fight scenes and animations, not for some Three Kingdoms drama about defying fate. I’ll play Dynasty Warriors if I wanted that.
Playing to a Fetish I Don’t Have/Care About
This one’s pretty simple, so I won’t get too ramble-y here. If the show or game’s trying to sell me on something I’m not into, I won’t care to play or watch it anymore. I’m not about to start spilling my virgin-ass sexual interests on the internet, so that’s all I’m gonna’ say on that.
Underage Sex Scenes/Underage Sexualization
No. No just. This is a bad thing and it’s why I can’t and won’t recommend Fate/kaleid liner Prisma Illya past the first season, and why I will recommend people read Negima at Omnibus Volume 3 instead of at the beginning.
Now, when I say “underage sexualization” I mean “below high school age.” Why do I let high school get a free pass? Well, because I’m pretty sure a good majority of us lost our virginity in high school, and high schoolers having sex is a plot in nearly every live action high school drama ever, so... yeah. High School and sex is just a real life thing, so any complaining about it just seems hypocritical to me unless the sexy is stuff is about the point below. Anything under that high school age is just... no.
Also, the show/game sexualizing things and the fandom sexualizing things are two completely different things to me. I don’t like it when fans do it either, but those are the fans getting horny at the wrong things, not the creators endorsing that behavior... unless they do, but that’s a whole other conversation.
Glorifying Rape/Brutality (Especially Against Minors)
Again, a thing that is just... no. However, this one’s a bit more... eh, complicated?
For me, rape and brutality shown in media isn’t a turn off point. I mean, it is, but if I’m being super-hyper-mega-ultra-willing to, I can deal with it. That is, so long as the characters involve react in a realistic/believable way. Do people in the story justify the act? Do they rebuke the one who did it? Is that person punished in a way that is either karmic, or proper given the laws of the world of that story? Is that person called out on their behavior?
Look, I’m not going to start defending rape and the like in media, I’m just saying if it’s done to make a point and not playing at some ultra-violent fetish then there’s some room for discussion. It still turns me off, it still hits my limit, but yeah.
So yeah, there are a few others for me, but those are the big ones. Anyway, that’s it for this rambling. Feel free to ask me stuff and whatnot. I’m heading home now and I’ll probably be taking a third look at my fanfic, so... yeah.
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