Does it bother anybody else that Male!Kamui is getting much more coverage?

[Soapbar]

I don't consider it a problem (then again I am mostly unconcerned with gender issues these days and don't wish to touch them with a 2-mile long pole). I could understand some people getting a bit irked by it, but I just see as the trailer makers wanting to show off simple gameplay and not really giving a shit what Kamui is selected, especially considering most of the story bits they show are from other characters and not necessarily Kamui saying anything.

[Eveangaline]

It does, click on your username in the upper right corner to bring up the dropdown, then click "manage ignore prefs"

Why thank you!

[Florete]

Ok, a sincere question then: How is this topic's issue a matter of male dominance? There's also been presented possible answers as to why this happened, so no, it is not good to automatically jump to male dominance if it isn't the only answer to the issue.

It's not that I'm blind to women issues. I'm just warry of radical people, and they seem to be popping everywhere. And as I said before, isn't f!Kamui an actual sign of proper women representation? All I am seeing is that there is nothing wrong with f!Kamui or the way she's presented. I honestly can't see the issue. Can someone show me?

Male Kamui and female Kamui are supposed to be equal. That much I think we can agree on. The marketing for the game, however, is not treating it as such. Yes, F!Kamui existing is better than not, but in this day and age, that's getting to be expected rather than progressive in and of itself.

You've made a bigger deal out of this than anyone else has. No one is being "radical." I've already said (more than once, I think) that this isn't nearly the worst case in the industry of this sort of thing, but that doesn't excuse it. My stance on the whole is, "Yeah, it's kind of annoying, but w/e." It's kind of funny how it's the people who don't have a problem with the representation who blew the matter up to this point.

I can see issues when women are marginalized, or shown under an abusive image, or when female characters are represented as slutty Ms. Fanservices, or when women are abused in the industry for supposedly not doing "women things" (as questionable as this may be). However, I can not see an issue when there are more male characters than female characters, as long as these female characters are not too marginalized (as in a 10x3 gender ratio). Nor when a female character is less shown than a male character, taking in account said female character is shown in the cover, boxart and magazine pages.

Context. Something like a game having a majority male cast isn't inherently sexist. Having separate-gendered versions of a character that are supposed to be equal, and then to not treat them equally, is sexist, particularly because this isn't a one-off scenario, but is actually a long-lasting trend of the industry. This case is minor (due to, as in the cases you mentioned, how much she is shown around), which is why no one is blowing up over it, but it is what it is.

You see the obvious things. Good that you do, but you have a way to go yet.

Couldn't that be also a question to people who are annoyed about f!Kamui's less appearances.

This topic is about f!Kamui's less appearances. Some think it is bad. Some think it isn't much of an issue. I think there's not much reason to find it an issue. I might've slipped on my wording, but that's the essence. We're giving subjective opinions about an issue in a topic where we're supposed to give subjective opinions about the issue.

You're the one who came out with, "OMG don't take it so seriously."

I think the idea here is to practice what you preach.

[Rapier]

Having separate-gendered versions of a character that are supposed to be equal, and then to not treat them equally, is sexist

You do realize that in order to treat them equally, the ones in charge of the pictures would have to actually plan how to distribute pictures equally, which is something they don't do, or think about. It's just something that happened naturally.

Having separate-gendered versions of a character that are supposed to be equal, and then to not treat them equally, is sexist, particularly because this isn't a one-off scenario, but is actually a long-lasting trend of the industry.

I spoke about this earlier. You can't claim it is sexism as long as there are other answers to the problem.

Good that you do, but you have a way to go yet.

I lack a sixth sense, so I ask those who do for me.

Edited May 22, 2015 by Rapier

[IceBrand]

If Female Kamui were to be featured more in the Famistu pages, would that help ease the problem?

[HF Makalov Fanboy Kai]

If Female Kamui were to be featured more in the Famistu pages, would that help ease the problem?

i would think so, the hilarious part is that this is going to mean almost nothing in the grand scheme of how the game sells.

[Sardonic]

I'm not annoyed that most of the screenshot examples are of M!Kamui, but I can see why there are people upset by this because it all leads back to a larger issue.

Kamui and Aqua being inversions of one another (Hoshido-born, Nohr-raised vs. Nohr-born, Hoshido-raised) and Aqua being referred to as the heroine seem to imply that M!Kamui is the "canon" one, or that the story was written with M!Kamui in mind despite the choice of gender. Even in Awakening, it was kind of jarring to see that while M!Robin's supports with Chrom had substance and were relevant in the scope of Awakening's story and themes, F!Robin's supports with him were reduced to lol rehashed animu trope. It got some laughs out of me, sure, but they really dropped the ball on the C/B/A supports. M!Robin also ended up getting the snazzy reveal trailer in Smash and the amiibo.

The thing is, in games where there's a choice of gender for the PC, the implied canon is typically (if not always) the male. Adaptations of these games into other forms of media? Go with the male. In most cases, choice of gender in game is a purely aesthetic notion.

It's sort of disappointing, but it's pretty much expected in this industry. It's like when Pokemon started giving you the choice of being a boy or girl. It didn't really matter what gender you were since the story and gameplay are entirely the same. That's good. But it's always implied the guy was canon (Red being at the top of Mt. Silver for example, though one could argue that it's keeping with RGB, while Leaf is nowhere to be found in the main series of games outside of FRLG). P3P gave the choice of a female PC which changed social links among other things (so gender wasn't just purely aesthetic), but she's non-canonical; the male is canon. Granted, in these two cases, they implemented the gender choice much later in sequels/remakes, but the idea is the same. It's like the stories are written with the male as the base, but then they throw in the choice after it's written (as evidenced by funny dialogue when you choose a female character in some games).

I honestly have more of a problem with F!Kamui's lack of thigh armour. I mean, thigh holes? That's impractical. There's no reason for them at all, but I digress.

[Jagged Jagen]

If I can add a few words, I have a few theories as to why M!Kamui currently has the marketing slant.

1. A lot of the marketing has been focused on Aqua and the two families. When you take into account that each family has 2 males and 2 females, and that Aqua herself is female, then I feel that the marketing decision to promote Male Kamui is to equal the representation of both genders with 5 males and 5 females getting the spotlight so as to not show bias towards either gender.

2. MKamui appears on the box art for Hoshido while F!Kamui appears on the Nohr box art. As the majority of the pictures released thus far are from the Hoshido path, they may simply be trying to keep the marketing materials similar to the box art.

Again, I'm not fully certain and feel that F!Kamui was under represented in the trailer, and hope the potential E3 trailer can fix that. I also feel that with the addition of extra customization options for F!Kamui that they should have shown them more then they did. Honestly, I actually prefer F!Kamui, so I'm not inherently sure why they've omitted her, but I have my theories.

And to answer OP, I'm currently neutral, and would actually like to see more of custom Kamui across both genders, then the default one we've seen thus far.

EDIT: Messed up my idioms, never my strongest suit.

Edited May 22, 2015 by DeoGame

[BlueL]

First off, stop putting words in my mouth. I've never said it was sexist. You're simply jumping to conclusions.

And if it bothers you so much that I'm annoyed by something that isn't really a big deal, why not try to, you know, move on with your life?

Some of these posts in this thread are quite astonishing.

Not trying to troll you, but thought you might be pleased to know there's a pic of female Kamui (actual in-game footage) that I think is new from the Dengki scans: https://kantopia.files.wordpress.com/2015/05/characterpage1j.jpg

[Jacien]

I made a post earlier about it on my views on the whole thing. Quite frankly as long as the F Kamui remains playable in the same way the Male one is and the game is of good quality I don't really see an issue. But just my opinion.

I wasn't around the forums during the Awakening hype and I only got the game last fall which prompted me to join SF but I wonder if people had issues or brought this topic up with Robin/MU being introduced and used.

2013 was a good time. People didn't complain about being offended as much back then.

I miss the days when people just played video games. :(

[goodperson707]

2013 was a good time. People didn't complain about being offended as much back then.

I miss the days when people just played video games. :(

agreed i miss the days where friends of mine called me on the phone for video game advice and we talked for an hour about the game, and asked if i remember what level such and such Pokemon evolved at. Man those were the days, Now you just go on the internet. :(

Also we played the games cause we enjoyed them not because the internet said a game was good or bad.

Edited May 22, 2015 by goodperson707

[Thane]

P3P gave the choice of a female PC which changed social links among other things (so gender wasn't just purely aesthetic), but she's non-canonical; the male is canon. Granted, in these two cases, they implemented the gender choice much later in sequels/remakes, but the idea is the same. It's like the stories are written with the male as the base, but then they throw in the choice after it's written (as evidenced by funny dialogue when you choose a female character in some games).

Just because I'm a sucker for Persona, I should point out that in the fourth (and most likely in the highly-anticipated upcoming fifth) game, you can't choose gender at all, you have to play as an uncustomizable guy. If that's the developers' vision for the game, fine, I can't complain, but I just find it odd. The series' social aspect deals a lot with choices and themes of individuality, but you can't even play as a girl.

Also, goodperson, this has been discussed for many years, believe it or not. While a lot of people can get overzealous sometimes, no one on this thread has said anything unreasonable regarding female Kamui. We're annoyed that two characters that are supposed to be equal - or pretty much the same besides gender - aren't. We're still going to play this game, and I think most of us are looking forward to it, I know I am, but you can still criticize something you enjoy.

Edited May 22, 2015 by Thane

[BrightBow]

2013 was a good time. People didn't complain about being offended as much back then.

Yeah, I mean Mass Effect 3 was released 2012.

If you really hate that people are offended, you are barking at the wrong tree here. The only people here acting offended so far are those who attack the very idea that people talk about this topic at all...

Well, and of course me who is above all else offended by people being butthurt about other people harmlessly discussing a topic.

I miss the days when people just played video games. :(

There has never been a time were people completely uncritically consumed media that they paid like 50€ for, not counting all the related costs. And that's generally a good thing, given some of the bullshit that companies often pull. Like Sony installing actual malware on the PCs of their customers for example. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal

And remember what EA did with the most recent Sim City? Or Konami recently making P.T completely unavailable? Or the entire XBox One always online nonsense? Which actually was 2013, btw.

And man, If I think about all the problems I had with the Copy Protection systems of perfectly legally owned game copies, I could tell stories about that. Countless hours of my life wasted by companies who take their customers for granted. As if I lengthy installation procedures, hardware compatibility issues, CD-keys, software conflicts and expensive hardware among other things weren't enough to deal with already.

I do not long for the day were paying customers will just silently take everything that game companies do.

Edited May 22, 2015 by BrightBow

[Neoleo21]

I'm not as annoyed, Female Kamui's artwork is shown often enough so that it doesn't concern me, though I do wish there were more in game pictures of her.

[Kamui-of-Nohr]

I'm not as annoyed, Female Kamui's artwork is shown often enough so that it doesn't concern me, though I do wish there were more in game pictures of her.

Yeah, when her artwork is shown, it's always with Male!Kamui. She's never on her own.

Let's be honest here, Male!Kamui is being pushed the most. Female!Kamui just seems to be an afterthought. Especially with Aqua being called the "heroine" of the game. I'm only annoyed by this, nothing more.

You guys want to know what's actually rage-inducing to me? The blatant favouritism Male!Robin received. He gets the trailer, the default form, and even the damn amiibo, and a PLAYABLE appearance in Codename:Steam DESPITE the fact Female!Robin is more popular than him, both in the East and the West. Female Robin was the most popular female (After Lucina of course) in Japan while Male!Robin was less popular than Chrom and Owain. That is what I'm mad about people.

Male!Kamui getting more prominence in marketing and trailers is simply just annoyance. I'm not making a big deal out of this. The only way I would ever get mad about this is if Male!Kamui received the same bullshit favouritism as Male!Robin did.

[Neoleo21]

Yeah, when her artwork is shown, it's always with Male!Kamui. She's never on her own.

Let's be honest here, Male!Kamui is being pushed the most. Female!Kamui just seems to be an afterthought. Especially with Aqua being called the "heroine" of the game. I'm only annoyed by this, nothing more.

You guys want to know what's actually rage-inducing to me? The blatant favouritism Male!Robin received. He gets the trailer, the default form, and even the damn amiibo, and a PLAYABLE appearance in Codename:Steam DESPITE the fact Female!Robin is more popular than him, both in the East and the West. Female Robin was the most popular female (After Lucina of course) in Japan while Male!Robin was less popular than Chrom and Owain. That is what I'm mad about people.

Male!Kamui getting more prominence in marketing and trailers is simply just annoyance. I'm not making a big deal out of this. The only way I would ever get mad about this is if Male!Kamui received the same bullshit favouritism as Male!Robin did.

Yeah that one bothered me, I wish that Robin had both of them, like the art work did.

[Jagged Jagen]

Yeah, when her artwork is shown, it's always with Male!Kamui. She's never on her own.

Let's be honest here, Male!Kamui is being pushed the most. Female!Kamui just seems to be an afterthought. Especially with Aqua being called the "heroine" of the game. I'm only annoyed by this, nothing more.

You guys want to know what's actually rage-inducing to me? The blatant favouritism Male!Robin received. He gets the trailer, the default form, and even the damn amiibo, and a PLAYABLE appearance in Codename:Steam DESPITE the fact Female!Robin is more popular than him, both in the East and the West. Female Robin was the most popular female (After Lucina of course) in Japan while Male!Robin was less popular than Chrom and Owain. That is what I'm mad about people.

Male!Kamui getting more prominence in marketing and trailers is simply just annoyance. I'm not making a big deal out of this. The only way I would ever get mad about this is if Male!Kamui received the same bullshit favouritism as Male!Robin did.

As someone who's had a lot of insight with amiibo and consumer interests, I have no reason to suspect they won't release F!MU, Female Villager, Male WIi Fit Trainer, Etc. There is, as you mentioned, a real market for these characters, and I feel if Nintendo's smart with business (for once), they will release the other characters. Also, I would totally buy a Female Robin amiibo and a Male WFT.

Edited May 22, 2015 by DeoGame

[Jacien]

Yeah, I mean Mass Effect 3 was released 2012.

If you really hate that people are offended, you are barking at the wrong tree here. The only people here acting offended so far are those who attack the very idea that people talk about this topic at all...

Well, and of course me who is above all else offended by people being butthurt about other people harmlessly discussing a topic.

There has never been a time were people completely uncritically consumed media that they paid like 50€ for, not counting all the related costs. And that's generally a good thing, given some of the bullshit that companies often pull. Like Sony installing actual malware on the PCs of their customers for example. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony_BMG_copy_protection_rootkit_scandal

And remember what EA did with the most recent Sim City? Or Konami recently making P.T completely unavailable? Or the entire XBox One always online nonsense? Which actually was 2013, btw.

And man, If I think about all the problems I had with the Copy Protection systems of perfectly legally owned game copies, I could tell stories about that. Countless hours of my life wasted by companies who take their customers for granted. As if I lengthy installation procedures, hardware compatibility issues, CD-keys, software conflicts and expensive hardware among other things weren't enough to deal with already.

I do not long for the day were paying customers will just silently take everything that game companies do.

Lmao. Holy shit you took my post way too seriously and read way too deeply into it. But it is good to know Japan not advertising female avatar is comparable to a malware scandal or Konami being dickwads, I guess.

[Tamanoir]

Just because I'm a sucker for Persona, I should point out that in the fourth (and most likely in the highly-anticipated upcoming fifth) game, you can't choose gender at all, you have to play as an uncustomizable guy. If that's the developers' vision for the game, fine, I can't complain, but I just find it odd. The series' social aspect deals a lot with choices and themes of individuality, but you can't even play as a girl.

Also, goodperson, this has been discussed for many years, believe it or not. While a lot of people can get overzealous sometimes, no one on this thread has said anything unreasonable regarding female Kamui. We're annoyed that two characters that are supposed to be equal - or pretty much the same besides gender - aren't. We're still going to play this game, and I think most of us are looking forward to it, I know I am, but you can still criticize something you enjoy.

When they announced Persona 5 and that we have once again only a male option, I was severly disappointed (and P4/P4G indeed...)

It was one of the best addition to the game, and they decided to just completely forget it.

It was nearly enough to makes me lose all my interrest towrads the game. (Well... At least it was a downer. What a missed opportunity !)

The main problem with Kamui is the Nintendo Direct Trailer. (The only thing we had in US and EU).

Someone who's not a fan like us (or not a japanese gamer, I guess) will have not a single idea than a Female option exists.

This is... slightly annoying/disturbing.

They did a somewhat good job at representing both since then (Dengeki doing the best job so far).

Honnestly FE is far form the worst offender. They're generally doing better than most media.

It doesn't mean we shouldn't react, because there's still many efforts to do.

[Jagged Jagen]

The main problem with Kamui is the Nintendo Direct Trailer. (The only thing we had in US and EU).

Someone who's not a fan like us (or not a japanese gamer, I guess) will have not a single idea than a Female option exists.

This is... slightly annoying/disturbing.

They did a somewhat good job at representing both since then (Dengeki doing the best job so far).

I will admit that they need to show more of F!Kamui across the trailers, especially with the customization options. But wasn't she shown in the Nintendo Direct Conference and In the prior January DIrect? I'm not denying that M!Kamui has been seen far more often, but I wouldn't say those outside of the know are completely unaware. other then that, I will admit that's Nintendo done a rather poor job at Marketing this game in general.

To list:

1. Lack of any Kamui beyond Default M!Kamui given a substantial number of screenshots.

2. Lack of communication of the presence of a dual-titled release in North America and Europe.

3. Varying reports on Nohr whether it's hard for Veterans and those seeking a challenge or easy, but harder then the other 2 paths.

4. The logistics of the 3rd path in general.

5. The new weapons system has gotten very little in terms of info

I think, more than ever, that the big N needs to get their act together from a marketing standpoint, and these are a few cases of many that shows that Nintendo doesn't know how to market Fire Emblem in general. I wouldn't go to the level that I would call others unaware, but a certain effort needs to be done, especially when the marketing lands regionally as opposed to international trailers and Japanese info.

Edited May 22, 2015 by DeoGame

[Thane]

When they announced Persona 5 and that we have once again only a male option, I was severly disappointed (and P4/P4G indeed...)

It was one of the best addition to the game, and they decided to just completely forget it.

It was nearly enough to makes me lose all my interrest towrads the game. (Well... At least it was a downer. What a missed opportunity !)

The main problem with Kamui is the Nintendo Direct Trailer. (The only thing we had in US and EU).

Someone who's not a fan like us (or not a japanese gamer, I guess) will have not a single idea than a Female option exists.

This is... slightly annoying/disturbing.

They did a somewhat good job at representing both since then (Dengeki doing the best job so far).

Honnestly FE is far form the worst offender. They're generally doing better than most media.

It doesn't mean we shouldn't react, because there's still many efforts to do.

It's strange, since the female protagonist is much more popular than her male counterpart in Persona 3, and - barring the hermit - all of her social links are almost universally considered better. I mean, do you want your character driven game to revolve around the main cast or that guy in school whose personality is made up of being in love with his teacher?

My biggest fear regarding the Persona series is that they'll feel to same-y. Granted, the tone and themes have been radically different in each installment, but since it seems like the series began with the third installment and the Persona 1 and 2 have been forgotten by Atlus, you can see the pattern of going to your second year of high school and getting multiple girlfriends at once. And that's no small part of the game, either.

[BrightBow]

Lmao. Holy shit you took my post way too seriously and read way too deeply into it. But it is good to know Japan not advertising female avatar is comparable to a malware scandal or Konami being dickwads, I guess.

Well, I assumed you were genuine upset. I didn't consider the possibility that you were simply flaming. It would have been more obvious that it wasn't actual whining if Rapier didn't burst into here and spit on everyone. After that, everything seemed possible.

Edited May 22, 2015 by BrightBow

[Tamanoir]

I will admit that they need to show more of F!Kamui across the trailers, especially with the customization options. But wasn't she shown in the Nintendo Direct Conference and In the prior January DIrect? I'm not denying that M!Kamui has been seen far more often, but I wouldn't say those outside of the know are completely unaware. other then that, I will admit that's Nintendo done a rather poor job at Marketing this game in general.

To list:

1. Lack of any Kamui beyond Default M!Kamui given a substantial number of screenshots.

2. Lack of communication of the presence of a dual-titled release in North America and Europe.

3. Varying reports on Nohr whether it's hard for Veterans and those seeking a challenge or easy, but harder then the other 2 paths.

4. The logistics of the 3rd path in general.

5. The new weapons system has gotten very little in terms of info

I think, more than ever, that the big N needs to get their act together from a marketing standpoint, and these are a few cases of many that shows that Nintendo doesn't know how to market Fire Emblem in general. I wouldn't go to the level that I would call others unaware, but a certain effort needs to be done, especially when the marketing lands regionally as opposed to international trailers and Japanese info.

I can get 4. because they may prefer the game to be revealed first before giving any information (It is at least a bit spoilery.)

But it's true that they clearly want their cake and eat it.

Giving something to the ancient players, but attracting the largest numbers of newcommers as well, which leads to confusing information.

Even me is wondering how many time this will last before they are unable to continue standing between to chairs like that before falling because they lost everyone.

It's pretty worrying.

It's strange, since the female protagonist is much more popular than her male counterpart in Persona 3, and - barring the hermit - all of her social links are almost universally considered better. I mean, do you want your character driven game to revolve around the main cast or that guy in school whose personality is made up of being in love with his teacher?

My biggest fear regarding the Persona series is that they'll feel to same-y. Granted, the tone and themes have been radically different in each installment, but since it seems like the series began with the third installment and the Persona 1 and 2 have been forgotten by Atlus, you can see the pattern of going to your second year of high school and getting multiple girlfriends at once. And that's no small part of the game, either.

And we're not ever talking about the music here...

The female character is the reason I like Shinji this much, clearly.

This was a breath of fresh air to the formula, and that's sad they didn't continued.

I can get they don't want to put the extra efforts when the sales probably won't increases that much with this change, but that mentality is pretty saddening.

[Jaedrik]

To the OP, no, it doesn't bother me at all.

I am not disturbed by such things.

I know, beyond any reasonable doubt, that males and females are equal, yet essentially different.

Why should any action by another, which may or may not reflect a differing viewpoint, affect my peace?

As of now, it doesn't even seem that their portrayal or preference has such an intent or result.

[Viberum]

I actually didn't even pay attention to the amount of M!Kamui we've been seeing recently. I was kind of more focused on the more obvious information at the moment. i.e new characters and classes.