Why cute girls as characters in Touhou-style shmups?

[gs68]

As someone who is studying Japanese proper (instead of attempting to learn Japanese through subbed anime, which IMO should be a felony), I've come to dislike the word "kawaii".

"Baka" is another pet peeve Japanese word of mine's, but it gets less on my nerves in a context that shall not be mentioned here.

[RoninBuddha]

fuck moe

[ShmupSamurai]

fuck moe

[Domino]

Fuck anime nowadays.

[Dragoforce]

Fuck women?

[cj iwakura]

Coming from someone who's played all the Touhou games, none of the official art is perverse at all.

You can blame the fans for that. Whether or not ZUN can draw(hint: he can't), at least he keeps the official artwork professional.


CAVE on the other hand...

Hell, just look at the covers for Deathsmiles. It's borderline creepy.

[Ixranin]

"Cuteness" is a highly desirable trait, with its manifestions appearing in pretty much everything you can think of. It is a part of Japan's national identity, and they've been successful in exporting it.

There was an ad in the bus advertising for people to learn about Asia. (Might've been about travel, I didn't read the smaller text.) Different Asian countries had pictures of landmarks... except for Japan, who had a huge-eyed anime girl representing them, heh.

[Exarion]

"Cuteness" is a highly desirable trait, with its manifestions appearing in pretty much everything you can think of. It is a part of Japan's national identity, and they've been successful in exporting it.

There was an ad in the bus advertising for people to learn about Asia. (Might've been about travel, I didn't read the smaller text.) Different Asian countries had pictures of landmarks... except for Japan, who had a huge-eyed anime girl representing them, heh.

Japan has recently started using the "home of anime" in their tourism ads. Given how much the average american knows about Japan/anime, this most likely won't actually help them receive more tourists.

As for the loli characters, its because Touhou used them, and everyone is just copying that, much to the annoyance of most westerners. I'm surprised that there's only one fangame that attacks lolis, and only mildly. Can someone make a game where you play as a plane/spacefighter/helicopter and have to shoot down hordes of annoying lolis?

[EPS21]

"Cuteness" is a highly desirable trait, with its manifestions appearing in pretty much everything you can think of. It is a part of Japan's national identity, and they've been successful in exporting it.

There was an ad in the bus advertising for people to learn about Asia. (Might've been about travel, I didn't read the smaller text.) Different Asian countries had pictures of landmarks... except for Japan, who had a huge-eyed anime girl representing them, heh.

Not many (original) landmarks left after America nuked the shit outta them. The anime has more than made up for that when one associates anything about Japan, I guess.

[Ixranin]

Not many (original) landmarks left after America nuked the shit outta them. The anime has more than made up for that when one associates anything about Japan, I guess.

Himeji Castle and Itsukushima Shrine are pretty easy to recognize though.

[Domino]

Not many (original) landmarks left after America nuked the shit outta them. The anime has more than made up for that when one associates anything about Japan, I guess.

Himeji Castle and Itsukushima Shrine are pretty easy to recognize though.

What are those?

[Mortificator]

Some castle and some shrine.

[silkworm944]

Can someone make a game where you play as a plane/spacefighter/helicopter and have to shoot down hordes of annoying lolis?

Haha! I can just imagine the Suika out of Patriot Dark blasting a heap of lolis off the screen!

Also, has been interesting reading the posts here about Japanese culture being partly the reason for these lolis in games... I knew it probably had to have something to do with it.

[Yoten]

While I don't think someone who only picks beefy male characters or tanks/helicopters because they're "manly" is any better than someone who only picks women or lolis or whatever, there's no denying that "moe" is the leading fad. I don't care what my character looks like, I just want there to be a good variety (not necessarily within a single game, but overall) rather than nothing but X or Y.

Also, cul, your avatar is awesome.

[Obiwanshinobi]

"Cuteness" is a highly desirable trait, with its manifestions appearing in pretty much everything you can think of. It is a part of Japan's national identity, and they've been successful in exporting it.

There was an ad in the bus advertising for people to learn about Asia. (Might've been about travel, I didn't read the smaller text.) Different Asian countries had pictures of landmarks... except for Japan, who had a huge-eyed anime girl representing them, heh.

Not many (original) landmarks left after America nuked the shit outta them. The anime has more than made up for that when one associates anything about Japan, I guess.

Is this post real?
According to Alex Kerr, who - being an American - is easy to look down on, but seems to possess fair piece of knowledge about Japan, Japanese themselves methodically devastated their landscapes AFTER the world war II, to make the country look "modern". He was there while they were doing it, you know. Apparently these days, when you see a landscape without an electric traction, it can't be Japan.

[ncp]

Not many (original) landmarks left after America nuked the shit outta them.

lol

I don't think nukes are quite as big as you think they are.

[Marurun]

Not many (original) landmarks left after America nuked the shit outta them. The anime has more than made up for that when one associates anything about Japan, I guess.

The places that were nuked could sorta be considered historical landmarks, in a way?

[moozooh]

It's the slow speed of the bullets and the sheer volume which makes them fun to play.

Slow speed, well you'd be surprised (yeah, this is what the game starts with). To tell you the truth I'm more consistent at reaching DOJ's stage 1-4 (and Death Label's 1-5) on a crummy PS2 controller compared to reaching stage 4 on TH11's Lunatic. This video is also an example of a renowned world-class player at work, although TH11 probably isn't the most graphic example due to abundance of safespots and bomb-grazing.

And this is stage 3 of TH12, it's even worse. DeathSmiles is slow, this isn't. I'd say the late Touhou games reach DOJ's 1-4 level of difficulty somewhere around stage 4 and keep this through until the end. I swear one of these days I'll buckle up, capture these Lunatic runs and upload to Super-Play.

[ncp]

For the most part though, Touhou DOES have slow bullets, and even the faster sections are not SUPER fast (the same can be said about most CAVE games, by the way...). That said, though, UFO lunatic gets really brutal at times, with really high speeds AND bullet density coming together to make your life very painful (like Dangun Feveron or DOJ).

[moozooh]

Well, of course they aren't super fast, not even Psikyo level. But lately the trend seems to consist of keeping up with an average Cave (one that isn't Dangun Feveron or Futari BL Original) game in terms of speed. That guy from the first video is a Korean superplayer with ridiculous reaction times; he tried to get 3 billion in Lunatic mode of UFO but eventually got pissed at the game for stupid deaths at around stage 3. For the record, reaching 2.9+ billion requires no-miss (and nearly no-bomb) play a-la Garegga or Batrider, where all lives are treated solely as a scoring resource that must be spent at predetermined locations and time.

[Obiwanshinobi]

Moe, moe...

[evil_ash_xero]

Everyone says that Cave uses the lolis because Touhou does.

Why would a professional company that is basically the face of shmups today copy some freeware on PC?


I don't mean that in a detrimental way...I just don't understand it.

[moozooh]

Commercialware, actually. :P Besides, Touhou's fan base is most likely much larger. It's a cultural phenomenon after all.

But the notion is fallacious because they aren't even doing it the same way.

[AraraSPAMWitch]

Everyone says that Cave uses the lolis because Touhou does.

Everyone who says that is fucking stupid and should consider a lobotomy.

Touhou is not the father of the lolicon genre -- believe it or not lolicon and cute young female characters have been popular with animefags and otaku for a long time, and Touhou became popular because it appealed to that, not the other way around.

Why would a professional company that is basically the face of shmups today copy some freeware on PC?

I don't mean that in a detrimental way...I just don't understand it.

You don't understand it because you aren't thinking of it in the right way. They aren't "copying some freeware" game, they are just tapping into the same genre or whatever, which existed long before touhou became massively popular.

[TrevHead (TVR)]

Even if Cave are tapping into the loli market with many of their shmups been character shmups, They have been very inventive and theres a wide variety from one game to the next. And with DDP and ketsui they havnt totally abandoned the mech shmup type.

Still i wish i had a crytal ball just to see if cave brings out any more shmups in the future that is mech and not character based (apart from the DDP series that is)

[lgb]

Touhou itself isn't even massively popular, it's just that most fans have mini-hard-ons for the characters every 5 seconds. Also the name is a joke, it has been made into a joke.

[Domino]

...yawns......

[gs68]

Touhou itself isn't even massively popular, it's just that most fans have mini-hard-ons for the characters every 5 seconds. Also the name is a joke, it has been made into a joke.

SPACE MEGAFORCE: Presented by Touhou.

[lgb]

seeeeee skykid gets it

[PC Engine Fan X!]

Not many (original) landmarks left after America nuked the shit outta them. The anime has more than made up for that when one associates anything about Japan, I guess.

The places that were nuked could sorta be considered historical landmarks, in a way?

Even today in Hiroshima & Nagasaki, the ground water has to be specially filtered by heavy duty water filters. A visit to the Hiroshima War Memorial Museum is a gut wrenching & visceral experience not to be missed about the horrors of the atomic bomb and it's devastating aftermath. It was either drop them or the U.S. Army invade Japan -- would've been an absolute bloodbath if the ground-based invasion did happen. It's a known fact that the U.S. Army was in the process of starting the actual invasion when the two atomic bombs were dropped.

PC Engine Fan X! ^_~