Bad Design or Cultural Gap: Varesa Controversy

Summary

In this video, RealSuke discusses the complex cultural dynamics surrounding character design in gaming, focusing on the controversy around Genshin Impact's character Varesa. He explores the reasons behind the backlash Varesa received in the West, noting that such reactions often come from a disconnect in cultural expectations and design preferences between Western and Asian audiences. RealSuke argues that much of the criticism is rooted in cultural gaps and the vast differences in entertainment standards and tastes across regions. He uses this controversy to highlight broader discussions on anime aesthetics, cultural representation, and the commercial motivations driving design choices.

Highlights

• RealSuke draws parallels between iconic quotes and the Varesa controversy. 🎬
• Varesa's design impacted community perceptions, sparking debates on cultural sensitivity. 🔥
• Japanese community largely supported Varesa, while Western players voiced concerns. ⚖️
• Character design in games often involves balancing cultural representation and appeal. 🎡
• The popularity of characters in specific regions can reflect deeper cultural attachments. 🎭

Key Takeaways

• Cultural differences can heavily influence how character designs are received globally. 🌍
• Varesa's design brought up discussions about cultural representation and oversexualization in gaming. 🎮
• The divide between Eastern and Western aesthetics leads to diverse reactions from players in different regions. 🚀
• Financial motivations drive design choices in global games to cater to their largest markets. 💵
• Community perceptions can often be skewed by vocal critics on social media. 📣

Overview

RealSuke dives into the cultural controversies surrounding Genshin Impact’s character, Varesa. This uproar highlights the broader issue of how different cultures perceive character designs in gaming. While some Western audiences found the design controversial, it resonated well with the Japanese community, underlining a significant cultural divide.

In dissecting these controversies, RealSuke draws comparisons with other characters like Mizuki, pointing out patterns where initial Western criticism is met with Eastern popularity. He argues that many criticisms are often masked under cultural sensitivity but stem from discomfort with certain design choices such as character attire or thematic elements.

Furthermore, RealSuke delves into the financial underpinnings of character design choices, emphasizing that significant revenue from Asian markets justifies a focus on aesthetics appealing to those regions. The video also touches upon the nature of online communities, how criticism spreads, and how companies navigate this complex landscape to maximize their global reach.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction: Famous Quotes and Genin Community Dynamics The chapter begins with a notable quote from Uncle Ben to Peter Parker: 'With great power comes great responsibility.' This sentiment is expanded upon with the notion that 'with great skin impacts comes great drama,' suggesting a parallel between power dynamics and social interactions within the community of genin (novice ninjas). The idea is that the relationship between genin and drama is so inherent and unavoidable it could be deemed a natural law, mirroring or even surpassing the inevitability of Newton's Laws. The essence of the chapter appears to delve into the complexities of genin community dynamics, emphasizing how closely intertwined power and drama are in their world.
• 00:30 - 01:30: Character Controversy: Vessa and Mizuki The chapter delves into the controversy surrounding new characters, Vessa and Mizuki, within the genin community. The author notes that complaints about new characters are a common occurrence. They draw a parallel to a previous instance where similar complaints arose regarding the character Mizuki before her release.
• 01:30 - 03:00: Cultural Perceptions and Market Success in Japan The chapter discusses how cultural perceptions can influence market success in Japan, using a specific example related to clothing design. There was a controversy regarding an outfit deemed offensive to Japanese culture. However, feedback from Japanese consumers, such as a provocative comment, indicated differing perceptions. This highlights the disconnect between how cultures perceive actions and the importance of direct consumer feedback. The concluding thoughts suggest that the controversy might have been due to the amount of skin shown in the outfit.
• 03:00 - 05:00: Design Elements and Cultural References of Vera The chapter discusses the cultural criticism faced by the character Vera due to her sexualization. The criticism is not only about her portrayal but also about how it may be offensive to Japanese culture. It highlights a broader issue where characters are criticized for their cultural insensitivity or thematic inconsistency, like having a witch with a non-traditional element such as a pillar. These criticisms are seen as more justified reasons beyond just accusing the character of being overly sexualized.
• 05:00 - 06:30: Revenue Generation and Market Strategy The chapter 'Revenue Generation and Market Strategy' discusses unconventional marketing and character designs in a specific market context. It highlights a Japanese brand's marketing strategy that leverages unique and eye-catching characters like a DJ Catgirl and a fire archon with a motorbike to capture attention. Notably, a cowgirl character who diverges from the traditional wrestler image by eating tacos has gained massive popularity on social platforms in Japan, evidenced by her social media post receiving 15 million views and 174k likes. This phenomenon underscores the brand's success in resonating with Japanese audiences through distinctive character portrayals, contributing significantly to revenue generation through high engagement and market traction.
• 06:30 - 09:30: Cultural Gap and Audience Reaction The chapter explores the cultural differences in audience reception, using the character Mizuki as an example. While not particularly popular in the West, Mizuki enjoys considerable fame in Japan, highlighted by successful collaborations and tremendous crowd turnout for events and merchandise sales. The disparity in popularity showcases how cultural contexts can significantly influence character reception and popularity.

Bad Design or Cultural Gap: Varesa Controversy Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 there's a quote from an old movies that has been resonate with me up to this day it's a quote from Uncle Ben to Peter Parker with great power comes with great responsibility and with skin impacts comes with great drama at this point the core relationship between genin and drama are so tightly bonded that it should be considered as the law of nature even more so than the Newton's Law [Music]
• 00:30 - 01:00 so apparently genin Community has issue with these new characters vessa yeah right genin communities complain about new characters it's nothing new at all in fact I have made the videos on the similar topics on Mizuki Mizuki before she was released it the tldr version is people were complaining about her Kim
• 01:00 - 01:30 dress is not traditional and is offending Japanese culture just to have a single Japanese comment that would destroy all the disrespect Japanese culture allegation the comment said I'm going to masturbate to this and that's the reality checks that people on the other side of the world they don't sing the same way as you do and Japanese were apparently satisfied with the design you could see all of that from just scrolling through the comment and what I think actually happens is that she was showing too much skin off her side but
• 01:30 - 02:00 instead of saying the characters is too sexualized it is more justifiable to say that it is offending the Japanese culture and I see in Vera's case it's actually the same she's to sexualized for these people but they going to find a more justifiable reason to criticize these characters and the one that has been highly criticized about the inconsistency of the theme and the character's design like why would we have a witch with a pillar like why
• 02:00 - 02:30 would we have a DJ Catgirl with a skate a fire archon with motorbike a cowgirl literally riding on a flying gun and now an actual cowgirl who's supposed to be a wrestler doesn't dress like a wrestler and she even dare to eat tacos but apparently Japanese love the [ __ ] out of that so if we take a look at the JP side of her post she got 15 million views and 174k of likes it is insane and do you
• 02:30 - 03:00 know who else is well received it you may Mizuki Mizuki the previous characters that get the most heat Mizuki may not be very popular in the west and her banners aren't selling very well but she's doing quite well in Japan they love her so much so genshin collaborated with an onen in Japan and wow it was a huge success just look at this crowd lining up to bathe and buy merchandise from this collaboration I actually do see these kind of posts on Japanese Twitter that the line is just so crazy it tookes them hours to get into into
• 03:00 - 03:30 the Onsen I'm not the most knowledgeable about yum Mizuki but I heard that she's an off meta characters and Japanese definitely pull her for the Wu aspects of it and if we take a look at her post with the highest like it's 135,000 and 7.4 million views so I think we could anticipate that Vera is going to be more successful than Mizuki in the JP side because from what I could gather she would probably be one of those meta characters and as a Taiwanese I wasn't raised in the US after never been to
• 03:30 - 04:00 this land of the free home of the brave I would love to do that if I have that opportunity and I've never been to any Western countries so some of the ideologies in the west is pretty much nonexistent here well with all that said I think her design is probably the best that they have ever came out or at least it's the boldest design they have ever came out because of the color pallet the color pallet is very colorful and if you take a look at any other GHIN characters their color palette is not as colorful as veresta and the more you add the
• 04:00 - 04:30 color to the characters the harder the design is going to be because it's so easy to mess up with the color coordination and I think they actually nail the color palette here and by and by both I also mean that she's the sickest characters in the game and if we take a closer look at her design of course she got the horn but why would she has a bade on her horn I think it actually give her some personalities a green aoke in the middle I mean the middle part of her hair with pink base and purple eyes and instead of making
• 04:30 - 05:00 Bell as her necklace which most of the cows do stereotypically they put it on the ear and I could say it in the first site that she's actually wearing as a high schooler uniform with some wrestler alement the only part that belong to the wrestler is the middle part as you can see the Japanese wrestler uniform are kind of looking like that the choice of her sleeve and the middle part of the clothes that covers the wrestler uniform is actually based off a really common jacket that Japanese high schooler are
• 05:00 - 05:30 wearing and of course high schooler would wear a skirt even though it's really short but I guess genshin would put a pan under it just like any other characters and of course her tail and this one siiz stocking with the AL of leoi is actually a science in Japan I guess and another band-aid and speaking of Band-Aid I really like the Band-Aid on her fingers they basically make this functional tools into a decoration and of course the tacos indicate that she eats a lot a characters who eats a lot
• 05:30 - 06:00 is almost part of the equation of pretty much any Japanese anime and also they try to blend in this alent of Mexico into it the choice of her socks is actually pretty common in Japanese anime with a lots of decoration on it and I think she probably got the coolest sneakers in the entire game and cowg girl in anime culture is definitely not a nich's archetype at all I actually covers about the nich's design on the yanaki about the office lady the office
• 06:00 - 06:30 lady is actually quite huge in Asia so much so that we would see those on the subway and I think the same could apply with Vera cowgirl is definitely not nich's design in the JP side especially in the anime culture it's been there for like decade and if we takes a look at genin's Revenue China has 38.5 in totals followed by Japan 21.5% then us 5.8 from South Korea and 2.5 from Taiwan so they got over 70% of
• 06:30 - 07:00 Revenue coming from Asia so of course they got to design the characters around this region sadly but that's the truth so they're incentivized to design the characters around the Western Aesthetics I will put the sources in the description what is surprise a multi-billion dollar company in China making the decision based off the region that makes the most money for them and not the ethical standard in the west I'm not trying to finger pointing anyone that you got are wrong or anything but I
• 07:00 - 07:30 do think that this is the nature of the informational Gap and the cultural Gap that they would came out with the design that is not favorable to the Western audience and I think there's one opinion that I disagree with that has been tossing around in the genin community that why genin got so many lashback and why other games like s Zone zero or even Nik doesn't get that much lashback and it's because the way they Market themselves the way that genin marketings does look like a game for the kid and teenager Maj while some of the other
• 07:30 - 08:00 gacha game are blatantly sexualized but I actually disagree with that I think it's mainly because the community is so large that the small portion of the toxic parts of the community is huge enough to be legitimized by the amounts of the voice and it's large enough to form an echo chamber on the internet because from my observation any successful game or any big game out there unless the game is designed around people being nice with each other like Destiny 2 they are all generally toxic
• 08:00 - 08:30 or at least they were really big at some point and any smaller game are wholesome because not a lot of people are playing it and the toxic part of the community wouldn't be big enough to form an opinion and in my own opinion this is what happen even though the real issue that they have with these characters is simply because she's showing her belly button and showing too much skin of her side and there are only two kind of person that would complain about sexualizing a characters that is not
• 08:30 - 09:00 actually that sexualized it because they haven't played a girl front line too and yeah Nik I think one is confus teenager because teachers says sexualizing stuff is bad just to find out that their teachers is doing only fan I don't really see content creator there to talks about this but I think the second types of people is female gin player who is terminally online and when they see an attractive characters that doesn't fit their definition of beauty and that's somehow trigger them at the
• 09:00 - 09:30 Instinct levels that they got to put her down because they recognize her as a threat and unconsciously think that the Vera existent what makes them less desirable like if he talks about this at The evolutionary standpoint it actually makes sense you're got to guess like other people into thinking that the attractive one are not actually that attractive so that would becomes more desirable right and a skinny girl getting a criticism like that on the Instagram is not unheard of but instead of doing that on the Instagram they're
• 09:30 - 10:00 doing that to the fictional characters I think it's exactly the same mindset when men criticize K-pop for doing mixup and getting delicate hairstyle and being fashionable they don't align with the male standard of attractiveness and I do think a lots of males including myself do think that an attractive male should be looking like Henry caval and not doing Mak up and pop dance and the ultimate definition of male attractiveness amongst male is that you're going to build like a Space
• 10:00 - 10:30 Marine but the reality is they like men that is clean and stylish and it's especially true for the younger woman at least in an entertaining perspective but the differences is male doesn't walk into woman space and tell them to stop watching k-pops stop watching magic mic 50 shade of gray and stop playing love and deep space the most we would do we would be like oh this is what woman likes okay fine I don't think majority of the Gen female player do this but I
• 10:30 - 11:00 do find that criticizing her for over sexualizing covers with other more justifiable reason is condescending is manipulative and hypocritic and I think the other reason they're doing this is because it is easier to bully guys who play genin even though this is not necessarily factual but this is probably what inside their brain it is just so much easier to call a guy who play genin a loser than calling a girl who play Love and deep space guner as long as
• 11:00 - 11:30 it's consensual and there's no miners get involved I think playing this kind of game are perfectly fine because in the end it's still fiction and it's not even that explicit in this case yeah I guess that's about it see you guys