A Transcendent Collaboration: Overmortal Meets Tales of Demons and Gods. Download the Eastern Fantasy Wuxia Idle RPG #Overmortal overmortal.onelink.me/h5Nq/Moon, and get Nie Li's cosmetic items for free! Use my promo code DG006 to get a special starter pack and Cultivate Your Destiny! 🔥 #TalesOfDemonsAndGods #Overmortal
I think if you stop objectifying women then you also have to stop objectifying men because then your just committing to the same problem. I think while you should respect women doesnt mean objectification is bad. objectification is only bad when the subjects are treated poorly and many people who have been objectified have done great things in the world. at this point i feel patriarchy has become an all encompassing term and has completely lost its meaning anything bad a man does is now patriarchy but thats the problem not everything is patriarchy. I think koreas problem is caused by both sides. like in the US where women use the idea of patriarchy to beat down anything to do with men where i think you are absolutely correct is we need to work on compromise because its killing us
@@Lifeismeaningless175 I checked in, and it seems that the code has to be used in the in-game menu, where it says "Game Code", as opposed to the invitational code when you first start the game. Try that, and see if it works a bit better!
All your arguments fall apart if you remove one keystone one thing which legitimates the Patriarch and will severely damage your world view, if you dare to explore it's social-economic ramifications: female hypergamy.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to make this thumbnail. I was told it would involve cake, so I made sure our lawyer had some evidence in his back pocket.
I'm a stay-at-home dad and the section at 16:00 hit hard. It's as though I have to constantly prove my worth, that I do have value. I'm not lazy, nor am I some creepy guy at that park. I'm simply a father.
It's unfortunate that we never had a proper male movement in alliance with feminism to break down these social roles for the men's side. Even though feminism is not gender exclusive, they do have more immediate issues. As a result, while women actually made a lot of progress, men are stuck, and increasingly feeling attacked by both sides.
Noone is looking down on the person for doing housework. BUT We have evolved with men being stronger than women, 70& stronger on average when it comes to upper body strength, and women have evolved a much more acute sense of reading facial expressions and social queues of infants. To send your wife hunting when you are on average stronger than her, would make you look lazy. To have your husband care for your infant when he can't produce milk and he is less in tune with the needs of the infant is equally bad. There is also the added social thing, if the husband dies on the hunt, the woman can be taken care of by the tribe while the infant is still in need of milk. If the woman dies on a hunt, the husband will be fine but the infant will also die unless there is someone else lactating in the tribe. As such, doing it any other way than having your husband hunt and your wife care for the child would be folly. It was like that for 100 000 years, now it doesn't matter nearly as much, the wife could work a nice office job and the husband could have pumped milk in the fridge ready to heat up for the infant. Logically we know that, but it's hard to override evolution, if it was easy there wouldn't be obesity, we would simply command ourselves to not overeat.
I once saw an ad for that game that called it a "one handed shooting game". And that ad ran on youtube. It's ridiculous how different youtubes guidelines are for content creators compared to advertisers.
May I ask for clarification, plesse? I am autistic* so I don't know if I missed something between the lines there but I am struggling to understand what is bad about a "one handed shooting game", especially since another user confirmed that you can actually play it one-handed so it doesn't seem like they were lying about a feature of the game. Thank you! * Autism is a neurodevelopmental disability that heavily influences social abilities, including the ability to "read between the lines".
@@Autisticat00The innuendo being that with the blatant fanservice and one handed control, their (presumably male) audience can play with one hand and m*sturbate with the other.
I remember seeing a line in a youtube comment section that went something like this: Capitalism can commodify anything, including it's own criticism. I think that sentence applies here.
That's what makes it the most powerful system. It has the ultimate defense. I like to compare capitalism to the game franchise Halo. So many others have tried to overtake Halo back in its day, trying to become Halo killers as it was coined. Turned out. Only Halo can kill Halo.
Me when I'm entering a " good fictional universe with deceptively deep theme of segregation and social issues contest " and my opponents are gacha games. 💀💀💀
I mean, in Korea women are both segregated and the social issues plus human rights violations against Korean women by Korean men is unacceptable. I mean why do the Korean men need Internet if all they use it for is oppression and abuse of women?
I mean, considering these (covered at least) gacha games are made in Korea and that country is full of men who violates the rights of Korean women and engage in abusive behaviour towards 3rd world people as well then why wouldn't they? I can't support South Korea because of their criminal behaviour towards women, I feel even India despite everything is safer
Just to add on to the whole Master's Tool concept. Nikke may make for decent commentary, but one has to remember its protagonist's dynamic is not a reflection of reality. It's of course easier to treat the characters with love and respect when you have a narrative guarantee that they'll becoming your loving waifu. That's just...not how women work in real life. Not saying they should be expected to, but the reality is it'll take a greater deal of altruism when real life does not offer the same incentive as the game does.
That’s one way to look at it. But I find myself caring for the characters that don’t have any guarantee to like the player. Like Anne and her story or the failed Nikke of the M.M.R vocational school. I genuinely find myself drawn to finding out a character’s backstory despite their appeal to me.
It's the whole "imagine if it was your wife/daughter/sister/mom" argument. It's cool that you can empathize to women on SOME level, but if it really takes a lasting emotional bond for you to see them as people, then the issue runs much, much deeper. Still, like all change, it has to be a slow boil or the whiplash can send you further back than you started. Well, either that or you need to get violent.
I honestly think the whole argument presented in this video is a bit defeated by the master's tools concept. It's kinda wild that he brought it up in light of that. Like the thing that is so profound about Lorde's statement is how uncompromising it is. There's no room for carveouts or opening the door or anything like that. We simply will not defeat these systems if we use parts of them. No exceptions. I think you bring up a great reason why nikke fails as a commentary actually. The empathy that he talks about is only within the context of a woman who demures who seeks male attention who doesn't rise above her standing. That fails to be feminist. It doesn't show the ills of patriarchy and in it's place substitutes paternalism and male entitlement. I think ironically the place where moony makes the best point is about enjoying media critically. I mentioned that I believe Lorde's statement is uncompromising. I think that's true but not all of your actions have to be towards improving the state of things or tearing down oppressive systems. Sometimes you can just enjoy a dumb horny game without needing to justify it by making it into the thing that could help stop misogyny in Korea.
Media as a tool to shape people's opinions and perceptions has clearly been vastly overestimated. That's not to say that more stories where the male protagonist shows empathy and respects women wouldn't be welcomed or good, but I doubt they'd actually change much.
Hello there. Just to clarify. The North Korean refugees, have not actually considered returning to NK. That is a misunderstanding due to bad translation and bad methodology. 😅 There are multiple of these questionnaires. Now I tried to get North Korean to participate in my case study for my master's thesis. But it is extremely hard to get the Korean government to give you access to these people. Anyway. What they actually are talking about is considered. Not seriously considered. considered here is more like "thought about". Due to discrimination, guilt, missing family, not knowing if you still have a family, and combinations of this and more. Discrimination towards NK refugees and especially women are crazy! Hard is super hard for a SK woman, and it is far harder for a NK refugee woman. Due to stigma, such as being "sexually deviant" due to being the victim of "insert thing I can't mention on YT". Yes it is true many have been the victim of " ". And that is terrible, not something they should be punished for. The helping system in SK for these people is extremely bad. They don't even have IT courses..... Despite most of them, has never worked with a PC before, most don't even know how to plug it in, or turn it on
I still find it to be mostly America's fault when I learned the history, be it about Korea or Japan Not absolving the latters from complete responsibility either.
To further the point on Men Nikke being unstabble it is also important to point that the Men were used at the start of the project, when the bodies barely resembled a human and the NIMPH (the process used to control memories and emotions) was barely controlable. Basically the catastrophic failure of Male Nikkes lied upon the fact that they were the prototypes but still went rolling out in combat by virtue of being the only viable weapon, which in turn led to the catastrophic failure of the demography and thus a surpopulation on the demale side, thus to regulate the situation, men were now considered ill-suited as nikke subjects and women would be used instead. Theoretically there's nothing saying the current day ARK cannot create a viable Man model, it's just that the Nikkephobia and very complicated situation and past of the Ark essentially pushes against this very idea. Heck even when Maxwell (that genius) devises a Power Suit that brings any normal human's strength up to that of a NIkke the project is rejected because it isn't as efficient as Nikkes. Yet Nikkes get slaughtered by the dozen on the surface daily and not a single inch of progress has been made. The Ark is entirely decadent and self-centered to the point it cannot see it's own failures, THAT is where the thing leads.
Can you brainless normies take your nonsensical babbling back to Genshin or some s**t? Do NOT start coming into this game and preaching your tired woke dogma BS.
Another thing is the fact that they tried two surface reclamation missions, each with 10000000x more resources dumped into it as compared to when the player character does it and they still failed, half because of incompetence and lack of info, and the other half because of jealousy and politicking. Half of the issues that occur in the game are caused by the incompetence or ignorance of the CG.
Makes you wonder what would happen if someone somehow, through some miraculous circumstance, managed to finally create a male Nikke model that actually performs as well as the female ones despite of the odds stacked against it.
@@Dinoslay In and of itself in current days they wouldn't really have any issues actually, the fabrication process is pretty much well understood so they could just do it for a male. They just sowed the Nikkephobia to a point that no one would consider playing the cards differently. HECK reminder that when Maxwell makes a freaking POWER SUIT that brings human battle performances on PAR to Nikkes it got entirely rejected.
"If this video didn't include Nikke would you have watched it?" Yes, I care more about what my favorite video essayist has to say than a gacha game that I've only seen ads for and heard about from this same channel.
It's wild that people put men down who are the housekeeper while their wife is out as the breadwinner. There's someone taking care of the house and someone making money for the family, there's a functional duo at work here yet because the man is not being "dominant enough" he's considered less of a man.
@@PlatinumAltaria People who call it not real work are some of the most insecure people I have ever seen. The kind scared to even add sugar to coffee in case it's not "masculine enough" to do so.
No no, you do get it: Housework is *chores,* and chores are dirty work nobody wants to do. The whole reason you get a wife is to make her do all the things you don't want to do, for free no less. The work that's beneath you. If a man is doing this work, it's clearly not because he's simply a mature functional adult who knows that these tasks are really just everyday stuff that needs to be done, but because his wife is making him do the wretched dirty work. Even though physically he could probably beat her into a bloody pulp! It's basically a cat chasing a dog up the tree, it's like he's not even considering the implicit threat of violence he has over her. I have a totally healthy view on my fellow humans. /s
It's an interesting paradox. Nevertheless, I suppose there is a twin paradox: people who treat fictional characters better than how they treat real people, whereas it would seem more reasonable to do the opposite (objectify objects, personalize people, as it were).
This is the ancient eroge / hentai game paradox. The eroge have player forming relationship with attractive characters. Usually, a mixture of empathy, kindness, communication skills, sensitivity, problem solving skills, determination, humor, even physical strengths and attractiveness to successfully form a romantic relationship with the waifu/husbando. Yet eroge is the game that objectifies women/men the most. It’s literally selling sex for money. The skills “learned” from the games rarely translate to real life. The existence of such games fills the emotional void. It’s way easier to pick up another game than a real life relationship.
I still think that such games do more harm than good They condition males to treat hot females well to receive some form of compensation in return. But IRL they wouldn't care much about a girl who isn't hot, or out of their reach, or one who is not offering the services he thinks he's entitled to because he was a Nice guy.
Many furries have fursonas without fur, dragons are actually one of the most popular species. So a rhino get together at a furry con makes sense. Your joke is both valid and funny.
Quick correction: women were hunters and men were gatherers as well. It for sure wasn't universal but it was extremely common, taking place in about 79% of hunter-gatherer societies. What percentage were women? Unknown; however, it doesn't deflate your overall point but enhances it, that hierarchies are products of societies.
And even if anyone mentiones playing by their strenghs, that has not much to do with sex but strenghs of an indiviual person for a bit part, ther are enough women who suck at cooking, and men who are good and sensibilities, arent as sex related if you dont socialize it , and even then not really. Pretty sure enough women might suck at fornicating and good and hunting and vicer versa, if its a bit like now. People have different strenghs dah,
Thank you! I knew someone would have said it. If any of you want a good book that un-teaches bioessentialism, Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution, is a really good read!
@@marocat4749Sir. Men are Naturally Stronger than Women. There is no denying this reality. Otherwise you end up with "Women with XY chromosomes" beating up Real women in the Olympics for the gold medal.
It's important to make people aware that objectification is not sexualization. A girl who is forced into becoming a nun, the woman who is shamed for having sex before marriage, the woman who has to cover herself from head to toe at the threat of violence, are also being objectified. The daughter's Pastor being used as an example because she is a virgin at 21 looking to marry a young fella from the congregation is just as objectified as the bimbo with an American Flag bikini on top of a car in a TV commercial. Objectification is ultimately turning people into objects. It's depriving people of autonomy, voice, rights, freedom, and so on. It is reducing them to a single characteristic, be it sexuality, sex appeal, and so on. This is why women like Lady Gaga or Madonna are often symbols of empowerment, and how sexual freedom has been intrinsically correlated to the fight against objectification, despite being extremely sexualized. It is also important to consider the smaller and larger context of what you're seeing. There is no objective checklist for objectification, nor any meter to rely upon. And, sometimes, it's simply a matter of how media resonates with people, as sometimes minority groups will claim media or words that weren't flattering, or sometimes were even used against them (famously how queer-coded Disney villains became adored by queer fans). Nothing in life is black and white, but that can't be an excuse to not strive for better.
Yeah I think this is something causing a lot of issues with some feminist leaning groups too, with the who radical feminism and anti sex work people. Like they take the feminism thing so far that they start seriously reducing women's self expression in some misguided effort to make them more respectable. I guess with them there's a good question to be asked about whether these people are even feminist to begin with, like is seen with TERFs, or if they're conservative leaning people who are appropriating feminist messaging to enforce patriarchal social values. Like you see with terfs reducing womanhood back to genitals and biological essentialism. I think there's definitely a lot of value in the idea that a woman can be very much of the objectified aetsthetic, having curvy body, big breasts, and wearing skintight outfits and lots of makeup, and still be deserving of just as many rights of any other woman (obviously). For a lot of people i'd say there's a sort of gut reaction of telling them to "stop objectifying yourself" but thats clearly the wrong reaction to have.
@@HoneyDoll894 Doesn't sex worker exclusionary radical feminism (swerf) and trans-exclusionary radical feminism (terf) often go hand in hand? It doesn't feel great excluding these groups from the umbrella term of feminism, but it's hard to see what else you could do since their approach to what they perceive as feminism is hard to distinguish from anti-feminist activities in that they both enforce gender roles, invalidate the needs and sometimes existence of women and spread hate.
And the man conscripted to fight, the man destroying his body in a job that does not have adequate health and safety measures, and the man shamed for feeling hurt, are all likewise being objectified. Moony hit the nail on the head when he said that the system hurts us all, and I think feminist beliefs would have faced so much less pushback if it was not so often couched as confrontation based on gender lines. You have to remember that these movements began in priveliged groups and the language used was direct and confontational because, at the time, they were literally addressing the patriarchs. But with the bulk of the conversation now being had by the lowest classes, the men encountering this ideology are victims of the patriarchy, not patriarchs. I think a failure to realise and adjust the language for this factor, is the reason feminism stalled so hard in the 2010's. I remember predicting the rise of the redpill movement in advance whenever I saw hurt, angry young men being beaten down by the society we're in back in the early 2010's, and being blamed for it by the very movement that is supposed to be fighting against it. Gamergate started a couple of years after I made the prediction that this would cause problems. And the redpill movement has only grown since then. And as abhorrent as I find the movements beliefs, I find it difficult not to feel for them, because I know exactly where they're coming from. They're being taken advantage of, and they've been pushed into that belief by outdated, hostile, and victim blaming language. I've noticed a massive change recently, with progressive spaces finally acknowledging the obvious truth that patriarchy only really benefits the patriarchs. I've seen people willing to use the term misandry, and pushback against radfem rhetoric. I have no idea where all these people were hiding the last 15 years, but I'm grateful I'm not the only voice of reason any more. But the damage 2010's feminism has done is going to take a generation to fix.
I'll be honest, when I saw the thumbnail and title, I thought the video would theorise about giving male characters cake so men would know how weird it is to constantly stare at it...
When I was little (like 13 or so), I loved Tomb Raider. Here I was exploring these massive, dangerous, beautiful worlds, full of puzzles and things to explore, and I did so as a badass woman. It never occurred to me that Lara Croft existed to be sexualized -- at least, not until my sister looked over my shoulder as I crawled through a tunnel and said "Oh, so you're into butts." I didn't even know how to respond at the time; it wasn't for another few years that I actually pieced together why she had said that. Which... probably says a lot about me. I digress. Flash forward to my college years, and a friend introduces me to a song from a game called Ar Tonelico, created by Gust. Instantly I am hooked. To say I'd never heard something like this before -- never before heard Shikata Akiko's noh-like style, the blend of traditional and modern instruments, even the sublime beauty of a song sung in a conlang -- is an understatement. And when I played the games, I found this rich tapestry of a world filled with vibrant, fascinating, powerful characters -- and most of those are female. You dive into their mind and see them in their weakest moments, but it isn't so you can see them half-naked. It's so you can understand the issues they face and help them overcome them. The second game in particular reads to me as a story of female empowerment, of women accomplishing impossible tasks by working together with other women -- and the men playing a secondary role. Flash forward a few years, and the developer releases another game: Atelier Ryza. I look at the protagonist, and I see a woman ready to go exploring the wilderness, who spends her days hiking through forests. The internet, meanwhile, obsessed over her thighs. Again I didn't understand -- had they ever met an outdoorswoman? -- but when I commented to say so people replied "Gust has always been this way. Just look at Ar Tonelico." And I looked back and I wondered: was that how I was supposed to see them? Was I supposed to see their clothes not as cool, not as gorgeous objects of art that I dreamed of wearing, but as titillating? Yes the female leads do marry the MC if you progress their plot far enough, and yes the game happily includes metaphors for sex, but it had never struck me as objectifying. It keeps happening to me, that pattern. It happened most recently with ZZZ's Zhu Yuan, who to me was a gun fu badass, and then Hoyo released their trailer for her. And by "her" I mean "her ass." "Oh," I thought. "Here we go again." Because again, you have a character who isn't constantly objectified by the plot. No one in the game comments on how she looks or how she's using sex appeal to get people to follow the law or anything like that. If not for the video, which clued me into the online discourse, it probably would've never occurred to me that the men on the internet would see her that way. I know I'm the weird one here. I more than accept that. I know, in a "facts from a book" sort of way, that all of those examples are designed to be titillating. But the games let me engage with them differently. They let me engage with them as full and awesome characters. But when I look at Nikke? When I look at how they actively sexualize each other in dialogue? When I look at the goddamn butt recoil? *I* recoil. I'm sure I'm being unfair; you're far from the first person to tell me Nikke's plot is incredible. But as someone who, for better or for worse, tends to parse female designs in nonsexual ways? With Nikke, I really can't. The game doesn't let me. so uh, yeah. Sorry if i rambled a bit there >_>
As a woman, I kinda had the same way of thinking up until I got really into internet. I just couldn't understand why people looked at a fictionnal character's design in such a sexualized way, to me, showing some skin is just another way of making "cool clothes" (and I'm a character designer, so, that's something I do a lot). It hit me when I showed one of my designs to social media and I got responses from men saying "she's a whore for wearing that" or "I'd like some of that ass" or something. That's just not how I think, and to have such an insulting way of talking about my creation, it's just horrible. Now I know better and take caution when designing, because I simply do not want people to say such things about my characters. But it's even worse with real women being called such things behind the safety of internet, it just horrifies me. To see a world so full of objectification, and knowing that as a woman, I am just never safe...
@@DearShion I apologize if I'm speaking out of turn here, but I hope internet weirdos aren't stopping you from designing the characters you want to design. Even if they're just for yourself, I hope you create whatever you want to create. If you do share your work online, you can try setting the expectation of how people talk about your works and ban and block anybody who doesn't abide.
Since you're a lawyer, have you considered doing a video about the Stop Killing Games initiative? Basically they want to enact laws in multiple countries to stop companies from selling games that require access to company servers, then shutting down the servers. One example is the game Lawbreakers which lasted only 1.1 years before shutting down. It was a buy-once game and not a subscription.
Since it involves laws from multiple countries, I wonder how that would affect his analysis and presentation. If he feels like he can speak meaningfully to it, I'd be very interested in this topic, too!
Moony, once again, thank you for all the help with the crisis over here in Brazil. The donation is no small feat and we are grateful to you and the community. You are definitely invited to the churrasco.
The part about hunter/gatherer societies is a bit outdated, Moony. Archeological evidence and study of hunter/gatherer societies that still exist suggests that both men and women participated in hunting. Seems to depend on what a particular person showed an aptitude for. It’s certainly true that hunters in such societies tend to be men more often than not, but it’s hardly a definitive binary.
I'm curious if we have hard numbers(percentages) of that time? Or at least a good guesstimate? This is really interesting, since it does support a "do what you're personally good at" thing early on, which sort of makes sense since IIRC(been a decade-ish) that those societies were more tightly-knit so they'd have a better idea if "XYZ is pretty strong/fast, maybe they'd be good at hunting".
also makes sense that its driven by passion. if you love the thing you do, you would strive to be better at it, and also perform mediocre at things you dont care about. there wouldnt be space for mediocrity in tough living conditions. there can be men who want to sit in silence and focus on detailed work and women who simply cant sit still and want to burn off energy and feel a rush doing so
@@Pulstar232 hard numbers for societies that actually had literacy and written languages (like Rome or ancient China) are hard to come by. Numbers for societies that predate both of those by thousands of years are... scarce.
I brought up the point about the NK women not actually "Seriously" considering to return to NK. I wrote my master's thesis on suicide in SK, and developed a new theory on it. 😅 Now I did actually have a whole chapter on the NK refugee women. But it was cut for space. What it is actually about is that they have thought about it, not seriously, they know that they would suffer a fate worse than death. But they are worried about their current family in NK, they want to know if they are alive or not. They got survivors guilt. They would like to return, get their family and get to SK again. And any combinations of this, and even more reasons. Such as the extreme discrimination that they face. It is disgusting the level of discrimination that they are facing, especially the women, especially when trying to date. Some of the women spend a decade removing their accent and speech manor simply to blend in....
I'll admit I'm only 13:40 into the video and I will continue it but so far I'm like, slackjawed that if _this_ plotline is teaching lessons to its players in S. Korea the bar for not being misogynist there must be so far below the floor that it's burning in hell
Moony, the first video I watched of yours was "Why doesn't the industry make good girls games?" and I think I subscribed to you within 10 minutes of that video; my husband soon became a fan of yours too. We've been following you ever since and your videos have been such a source of peace, joy, inspiration, and education for the last year. Today is my 29th birthday, so to have this video on a similar topic (respecting women) uploaded today was an extra treat! The little birthday-cake reference at the beginning made me gasp in delight! 😁 Incredible work, as always. My husband and watched the video together and we're planning on rewatching it again sometime soon to fully process all of it! Thank you for this feast of a video ❤
"If this video didn't include NIKKE would you have watched it or cared about it?" It was the video being from your great channel that convinced me to watch it despite being about NIKKE. Great work as always.
True, already being a fan of the channel definitely helps watch the video knowing there’s definitely gonna be a good anti degeneracy message there amidst the questionable material
@@oldcowbb You are missing out because you never learned to not judge a book by its cover. If there is anything degenerate here, it's your media literacy.
I remember playing Nikke for the first time. Yes, I was pulled in with the hot characters, but when that scene in the prologue happened (if you know, you know), I just felt nothing but pity for the Nikkes. Then I played overzone chapter and ever since then, it has been my sworn duty to protect Dorothy from any and all evil. Oh, and the OSTs are amazing.
It's interesting how even in these deconstructions of sorts, there's a power fantasy in that the player character is special. You're so special because you can see how messed up the Nikke system is. And you're the only one. Wow? How'd you get there though? Were you deprogrammed or were you just somehow built different and able to resist it? The last possibility is probably the most common and the least realistic and it's kind of dangerous to have it in consideration. Also yeah, power systems inevitably foist way too much responsibility and pressure onto those who are only *somewhat* powerful. And in that misery they're undergoing, they go on to oppress those "beneath" them. It sucks! Realizing "I don't have to" is really important
Well, considering how the player character _isn't_ the only one who thinks like this, since the goddess squad commander, Johan and Andersen also treat their Nikkes like people and all 3 of them are were the best of the best during their time. Story spoilers for the later chapters From what we can tell currently it looks like Andersen and the goddess commander are the same person and the protagonist seems to be a clone of him or related in some way since all 3 have similar appearance, personality and most importantly the same rare blood type which has the power to destroy the nanomachines implanted in the Nikke's brains, so from what we can gather, the protagonist being different than other commanders might actually be more than just "built different" and more so LITERALLY BUILT DIFFERENT
Commander isn't necessarily the only one, but the one who exceled the most in modern standards. Also take into consideration the militaristic program that brainwash Commanders to treat Nikke like trash and fail their missions to maintain the status quo. The goal of the Central Government is not success, it is to maintain power.
@@keeichidarow I think the point isn't finding a story reason, but like putting the weight of the world on "just a guy" using his privilege for something other than abusing Nikkies. Personally, I would love to see the story show earlier that anti-nikke sentiment isn't as popular but is the defacto mode for most people. It's already in game that the Nikke you work with are passing to most people and don't have to deal with the same level of discrimination like the mass produced ones. Seeing more people who come to ade for the standard nikke at their own hard would be a way to show that it doesn't take a special skill to step up.
@Solinaru Quick reminder that a lot of people don't know that most of them are actually Nikkes, especially the ones that stay at the Ark. I know that Underworld Queens and Triangle are both seen as humans by the public, not sure if any of the other squads are confirmed to be like that too but most of the probably are
I think we are looking at a Starship Troopers/Robocop situation. Media that 100% had a certain message, but fans of that media will not see or outright deny that specific message exists, and just see it as the fan-service they want to see. Then a Marketing establishment pushes the "fan-service" over the message. People think Starship Troopers is pro-war, and Robocop is pro-cop, despite the themes and even the creator saying the opposite.
Starship Troopers is the worst example possible, if anything, people who claim Starship Troopers is fascist critique are the ones that didnt read the book and it doesn't try to portray a fascist system in the first place.
@@MachiroableThe movie critiques the book. There are intentional quotes, sometimes with keen amendments, that show that the movie wants to be seen as sharing a subject matter with the book, but it is obvious that the movie doesn't mean to be the book.
Ultimately, you cannot ignore that Nikke is a F2P Gacha Game, and like many of its contemporaries, uses its design to extract value from its playerbase. It ultimately doesn't matter what the message is, because the message is not what sells the game. It's the sex appeal that sells the game, even at the expense of whatever story is written into the game... the game ironically becomes exactly what it criticizes. I figure if you're going to write a story, you go all the way and stop trying to be clever and trying hide your message under layers of pretension. If the story is ugly, make it ugly. If the story is supposed to disgust the reader, don't doll the pig up and call it beautiful ("...but secretly it's ugly, look!").
As a woman who plays Nikke I really appreciate you making this video, it’s sometimes hard to convince people “no seriously it has good stories that I deeply resonate with”.
The thing about hunter and gatherer's is a very common misconception. That's actually extremely false. in actuality, both men and women we're both hunters and gatherers, if a guy was better at foraging, he would be a forger if a woman was better at hunting, she would be a hunter. This is not biological or anything else, but instead us putting our own culture onto people from a long time ago, this is a kind of prehistoric revisionism, where we imagined them as being like us. Also, there's nothing biological about the patriarchy, it's not like there was an ancient war where men had physical advantage, it was years of systematic abuse to keep powerful people on top by creating an innate hierarchy. It is so much easier to rule when some people are above others and you're not the only one on with power over people, those people below you who have authority over a group you have made lesser will be stopping and fighting them to keep their power, nobody's gonna have time to question you. The patriarchy, systematic, and not natural
Hey, I know you! Valid point. It's one of those things, like the barter economy being a thing before currency was invented, that's a prevailing myth because we struggle imagining a world different to ours.
When you talked about empathy, it reminded me of Fate/Grand Order, where mages are taught that servants are nothing but tools and weapons, and the protagonist, while weak, makes up for it with his empathy and compassion for the servants, who in turn respect him and quite literally would die for him. And as a Brazilian, thanks for your efforts for Rio Grande do Sul,
I have a lot of mixed feelings on FGO. On one hand, I did have an amazing experience, playing on NA on release, got 2x Jeanne right on my first 10-pull (the first actual 10-pull), and she immediately became my companion in the game. Did all missions with her, maxed her out, and the cutscene at the final fight of the first part actually caught me off guard. That game genuinely made me care about a .png. And when I say that it almost feels like a genuinely positive game, then I remember Jack the Ripper exists.
that is actually a fate thing in general. for example the OG protagonist in Shirou Emiya also goes through with it. not to diminish FGO but technically that is one of the bigger themes of fate. the die for the protagonist bit is also due to servants dying alongside their master when they die so they kind of have to put his life first. once again not to diminish a theme but to point out it is there through the whole universe of fate.
the thing about FGO is that, the predatory gatcha is coming from sony, the degenerate wifu shit is coming from takeuchi, the actual good story and lore is from mushroom man himself. There is no reason why they should be coupled together. I'm sure its kinda similar situation for nikke
When Nikke first released I was uninterested because of how objectifying it appeared - but after hearing people sing the praises of it's characters, themes and plot I decided to give it a go.After having played it for all of a day I was hooked by ~different~ it was and I was never able to accurately summise why I felt that way - however I think you have elegantly explained some of the feelings I had about the game. However I must disagree with your premise about it being "enough" to be aware of your biases: it is not "enough" to just be aware - one must act upon them, drive some change within themselves, their environment or the people they can reach. All that said, great video.
That's also what I initially thought at first, I was going to delete it after I tried it but instead the games just so good that I got hooked right away after a few chapters. In continuation to your statement not just the story and plot but I also liked how much depth or detail they put on each characters it's as if they were actually alive and are almost like real people, plus the "bgm" is also great, for a gacha game it's pretty much f2p friendly that I didn't even need to spend anything and still able to get strong characters, infact this is the first gacha game that I'm actually invested in. The game is like the definition of "don't judge a book by it's cover," and appearances alone isn't enough to make a game great, I sometimes even forgot that I was playing a fanservice game, it's actually balanced and both elements doesn't overwhelm or ruin each other. However no matter how great a game is not everyone always shares the same appreciation as us, especially people with "kruger dunning effect" and being dismissive before they even actually tried the game itself, I also used to be like that in the past, it was pretty immature but I've learned and grown out of it .
@@notmyname213 1. Segregation is bad (duh) 2. Be the change you want to see; Commander (you) is actively contributing to end the human/nikke segregation by treating them as equals, even sticking out his neck on multiple occasions just to make sure all of the nikkes under his command is treated humanely. 3. Fleshed out lore + good writing + great QoL + jiggle physics = automatic money printer
@@michaelskoomamacher5652 wow, call me privileged but I was able to learn all that without gratuitous jiggle physics. I'm teasing but I do think it's a stretch to call this game educational
In the name of all the people from Rio Grande do Sul, I thank you for your kindness. My family was directly affected by the floods and the situation was pretty bad. People refusing to leave because they were afraid of having their belongings taken by criminals (keeping the faith they would be working by the end of it all), other people trying to find their pets, not to mention the feeling of uncertainty brought by the material loss. Having people like you around makes the world a better place, Moony! ❤
It's an oft quoted statistic that around 40% of the NIKKE player base in Korea is women. I'd suspect that they identify with the objectified and exploited characters even more than the men do.
Sex appeal is quite universal, and women will gawk at beautiful women just like men. I mean, being a hot boss bitch who can shoot down armies while wearing high heels is a power fantasy I can empathize with even if it's not exactly my type of power fantasy. Genshin Impact also has a lot of women among their playerbase. That doesn't make these games more or less objectifying, but to a degree I'd say the good will in making a product that it's at least marginally better does resonate with audiences.
No, probably it's for the aesthetic. Women also love to watch beautiful women too, you know? Almost no one ever think to play a game to relate to the characters, they want to be entertained.
@@mezmerism107 Nah most play the gacha games because they like the characters. The gameplay and the story are extra treats accompanying that. (Sometimes people will play for the story tho) Many women I suspect do relate to the characters. But its not as complex as relating to the oppressive themes, its more likely they relate to individual characters. Like for example im a girl and I (and most gamers) can relate to Elegg (and most men find her attractive since she is literally rhe hottest character in the game) I am aware they probably did this on purpose, but relatability is a factor they consider.
@@revolvingworld2676 that's why I say 'aesthetic' (it's not just the art style). Many girls I know love anime so they are drawn to this kind of game with anime art style. No girls I know are even know the lore, or the character's background story. They didn't even know that Nikke is basically just an android. And one of the main aspect is the "gacha". Some people just want to roll, don't even care the story or characters.
As a day one Nikke player, I assure you that most of the people that are still sticking to the game are doing it for the story. I know it's very unbelievable to anyone who are not actively following the story, but it is truly supremely well written with excellent world building and character backgrounds that pull your heart string. Especially the Anniversary story events, that delve deep into happenings of the past. The war against "alien robots" that took everything from aforementioned "Pilgrims", the surviving first Nikkes. Most of the day 1 players have long forgotten what cake even is. We just want salvation for Dorothy and Andersen.
@@st.lucient4755 I tried to boot up Nike again, no can do. I saved up 40 special tickets when I last quit. 4 rolls, no Asuka. What’s INSANE to me…. Is that I have to get 9 copies of Asuka to max out her level. I looked at how much xtals cost and special tickets cost after doing 4 rolls nd immediately uninstalled.
i would also like to add how the way women are objectified to me (an aroace woman who feels physically upset at the idea of somebody looking at me in that way) has led to me pretending to be male or presenting in a masculine fashion online for a long time… usually people would just assume i’m a guy and i just wouldn’t correct them, but even still i feel so horribly anxious that people do look at me that way …
My gf went through a similar experience. She isn't ace, but she gets quite uncomfortable with unwanted attention, to the point of presenting as a boy for several years (and even to this day boy-ish clothes and short hair are her comfort look/safe space). It's hard, and I feel for people who go through these issues. Hope you found friends you feel comfortable with.
@@mattd5240 just attraction is a bit awkward, but ultimately i know that things like that happen and that’s fine, it’s mostly just the second (because it mostly revolves around how one may see my body and such, yknow?) sorry if my wording is still a bit odd btw, i’m a bit tired but im still happy to further elaborate :-]
@@johnathancactus I would just take it as a compliment. Like 8f someone were to notice something that you're wearing looks good on you. The latter makes more sense because someone is solely fixated on one part of you and obviously isn't keeping it to themselves.
The Barbie movie was very confrontational and because of it even somewhat controversial in the West. Meanwhile, Nikke is trying to trick its player into themes of feminism as if they were hiding medicine in a teaspoon of peanut butter
oh not at all. Nikke doesn't hate men on the basis of them being men. in fact, lore wise something like 90% of all men have died. and from over 7 billion of total population only less than 100 million humans survived.
"If this video didn't include NIKKE, would you have watched it?" I clicked on the video because the title was interesting and it was from one of my favorite UA-cam Channel, which was the Moon Channel. I never played NIKKE nor know any of the characters in the video except for the Ace Attorney dude (I don't know his name).
"Though these roles were different, they were devoid of hierarchy" 13:55 Excuse me? What? edit: I watched on a little further. I'm not really sure how you came to the conclusion that hierarchies were a result of organized government. Deer have hierarchies. Mice have hierarchies. Every animal which exists inside of groups have hierarchies. If you think human beings waited until we already had kings and governments before started forming hierarchies, you've been very misled.
I think the idea that hierarchies aren't natural is a result of most philosophy, and by extent, sociology and the like, being subconciously influenced by romanticism and other movements that very much praised the natural, and so whether something is natural or not tends towards a criticism of it when ultimately it's not as big a deal as it should be. There are hierarchies in nature, of course, less complicated than those of the social tool man created called "Society" but they're there and they serve their purpose. That doesn't make them innately better or worse or above criticism (even though it's futile, I can't image papa wolf cares abt your thesis on the family unit) in comparison to the current social hierarchies man has developed, nor does it make our more "advanced" hierarchy more meritous than the one the animals have. I personally think the naturalistic fallacy is a bit of a bear trap that stifles discussion more than it helps it.
@@3417gekkou our complicated hierarchies are, with all taken into account, better than the simple "natural" hierarchies. And by a large margin. Google how chimp troops work if you feel you'd prefer to "return to monke" on this particular facet of modern society.
@@shibbidydibbidy2241 Oh don't get me wrong I don't think natural hierarchies are any better than what we have im just saying the argument of whether or not something is natural is often treated like it offers critical merit when it usually doesn't.
I started Nikke earlier this week, absolutely floored me with how great of writing, and how deep its stories started, and then continued to go. This video contextualized a lot, and I am very glad that you made it, and I saw it. Thank you, absolutely subscribing and looking forward to hearing more of your essays.
Not really the type to be leaving comments usually, but still I want to put out some kind of word out there for this video. I don't know how often you read your comments tbh, but I still wanna say I really appreciate the work you're doing. This and your other videos I've seen thus far are truly one of the most eye opening videos I've seen on this platform and more. Especially your 2 part video about the Korean Gacha Drama and Gender war, and this video by extension as well, were mindblowing for me since I'm from Romania, and I'll be honest, I had absolutely no ideea of any of these absolutely crazy things happening over on the other side of the globe. They really opened my eyes about how little I really know of what goes on in the world and while I already was, I'd say, a decently empathetic person that tried to be nice to others as much as possible, seeing how people treat each other in other parts of the world and how frankly terrifying it can sometimes get, especially the whole situation in South Korea, made what I saw here in my country and in my own life seem like a relaxing summer day by comparison, and they motivate me even more to keep trying to improve myself, be a nice person to others and to try to work with them together to solve our problems, instead of fighting against them, when really, we're all in the same boat after all and only by working together and understanding each other can we really find happiness and bring about positive change in time. Again, thank you for your work and keep it up, I'm looking forward to watching your next video and going through more of your older ones to see what I can learn :)
@@manjackson2772 patient presenting to the emergency room reporting the inability to remove a large wax candle that was "accidentally" inserted into the colon
As someone that initially balked at the game's overly sexualized presentation, and wrote it off entirely, I want to thank you for showing me that there is more to it than the skin-deep objectification. While I can't say that I'll stick to it long term, it has gotten me to give this game a try to see if the artistry rises above the art itself. And thank you for reminding me to be mindful of the media I consume beyond the surface level.
Regarding objectification- I don't necessarily think its bad on it's own in purely fictional contexts as long as you understand that, yes, it is bad in real contexts. Pretty much in the same way that I feel that murder or other crimes are totally fine in a totally fictional context (such as video games) as long as you understand that, yes, you shouldn't do that in real life. In whatever ballot boxes or systemic change that occurs to make the world a better place and limit or remove the possibility for things like the patriarchy that harms us all- I really hope that doesn't come at the collateral cost of ruining the ability of fiction portray or even indulge in problematic themes or content. I feel that would be limiting, unnecessary, and harmful to artistic freedom and expression.
You're entirely correct in your assessment, honestly the arguments against objectification in games sounds a lot like the old "Video games cause violence" discussions.
@@Cyrus_T_Laserpunch I agree. I also agree with pretty much everything said in the video, but I do think this distinction about problematic things in fiction vs in reality is important and that striving for a better real world shouldn't also mean a "better" fictional world.
@@CramerGamer99 I also agree with most of the video, Moon Channel is great at putting things together and knowing when something is harmful to everyone rather than pretending it only hurts certain people. This video, while it has a few misses, is overall an excellent one.
@@Cyrus_T_Laserpunch its pretty faulty but its a good video the logic is naive the hook of the game is sex what keeps the players around is sexual desire and that will always triumph over the message
I clicked on this wondering why and how someone could make a 30 minute shitpost about butts in video games, but instead found a pretty interesting analysis on a game that i wouldn't expect to have any depth. Great video, I'm definitely interested in checking out other stuff on your channel
Thank you. I have to say, sometimes while I was watching the video I wanted to quit, but I didn't, I felt uncomfortable on some parts, but I need it, being uncomfortable is not something entirely bad, I hope you all realize that this means that you're fighting with yourself for the sake of seeking the truth, the better, the path to make your knowledge even bigger just by hearing and trying to understand the opinion, arguments or point of view from others, and that doesn't mean going against or to concord with it, is about just to listen. You know, if you are sure that what you believe is in its core good and impossible of changing, why don't you give a shot and listen to others to make sure of that? And if you change your mind or not, there will never be a loss or a win. It shouldn't be interpreted as that. Grow. Again, thank you, Moon. This is one of the cases that I wanted to know what your real name is just to thank you properly. Sorry if I've written something wrong, I'm a Brazilian. 😜😘
And even more! I am from Rio Grande do Sul! Do you guys want to know a little secret? We don't know where the hell is the money that you guys have sent for our state. Thank you, government, for helping us on nothing.
"disagree and comment if you feel so inclined" - as you wish ;) I love your videos. They both taught me quite a few new things, and gave me interesting perspectives on parts of culture I hadn't thought about. This video is no exception in that it is thoughtful and well reasoned. And that's precisely why I think there's merit in writing why I completely disagree with its implicit assumptions. You do acknowledge that one can't defeat objectification with objectification, and I thank you for that. But I think you are downplaying the harm that narratives like the one you describe still do. This kind of narrative is a "male saviour" narrative. Pure and simple. Yes, it technically encourages the player to see the female characters as more than objects, but it is still both shallow and deceptive. "saviour" type narratives need no explanation, but in the context of a male character helping s.ualised female characters, within the context of "look how hot and steamy this is... but isn't it awful how they are exploited?", it has cultural context. At one point, there was an entire genre of novels about s. workers who were saved from that "wretched life". The most famous one being an early (insert word here that may make UA-cam delete this comment. Hint: it starts with "p" and ends with "-graphic") novel "The Memoirs of Fanny Hill". This is neither new nor confined only to the past. The problem is, it positions the male character and implicitly the (male) consumer of the media as "one of the good ones". From what you describe, the protagonist of GoV does not reject his role in the military. He's still a military commander and he still uses what for all intents and purposes are forcibly conscripted (to not use a stronger word) women for his military campaigning. Treating them as "friends" is not the same as treating them as equals. It's not that different from a rich person treating their servants with a degree of politeness, or in modern times, a store manager treating the employees as "part of the family". The use of the word is not accidental. Traditional families need a patriarch, after all. Making the protagonist of a video game a caring, friendly commander just posits that there can be a "good patriarch". That is not an anti-patriarchal stance. Your video does touch upon that, but I don't think it gives it enough emphasis. Men who are convinced they are among "the good ones" because they clear the bar that is so very, very low while many other men do not are a source of a LOT of violence experienced by women. Giving men a gold star for the horrible task of baseline humanity in their actions releases them from the responsibility of ACTUALLY treating women like we have agency. As to your point that it's human to engage with lewd or sexualised content - uh, yeah, but the framing matters. As a lesbian, I enjoy - as you put it - cake. But I engage with content that centers the female perspective when it can, not the male gaze, the male agency and the male perspective on women. There's a difference between playful sexy content and "look at this butt" content even for a person who likes butts, just as there's a difference between flirting with women who show interest and initiative and make themselves approachable and hitting on every woman one sees. Like I said, the video is great, it's well-reasoned and it's very interesting. But I think it only shows one half of the equation. On the off chance you've read this, thank you. I'm a big fan of your videos. This one being no exception.
yess I love this comment, though I feel like nikke gives its women a lot more agency in the plot, there's un doubtedly a male savior thing w how the commander is put on a pedestal for being the only nice human ever for a lot of the nikkes stories like overzone where the commander doesn't appear at all and it's just about the nikkes and their interactions are the best ones by far for this reason
@@lob674 I believe that's true. I am not saying the game is wrong to play. I'm sure parts of its narrative are positive and useful. I just think it's important to engage with media critically. There's plenty of things that I consume that are problematic. Art and entertainment is meant to be engaged with, not as a purity test =)
I... think this one is really, really missing the point? Yeah, men (most) and women (some) like boobs and butts. But they also like engaging and thoughtful stories. A story that makes women not appear as simply objects is not an "anti-patriarchy" story or a gateway to feminism - its a good story. The kind of story most men want. Can good storytelling end the patriarchy? Lol no. Also, on the topic of "Ballots or Bullets", well I wish it was like that, seeing places like Venezuela or Cuba...
@@CarrotConsumer thats the same viewpoint reactionaries used to defend censorship of media - a movie with sex themes could be a gateway to "sexual deviance", or a violent videogame could channel actual violence. Like, sure, it can. Just like watching a ball roll might make you want to play golf - you probably already liked golf, its not the ball that made you like it.
Love the video and love the take moonie but i disagree somewhat on the main thesis I do not play the nikke nor gachas in general but i've been into otaku culture for many years and i think i can comfortably say that women (attractive women) being treated poorly by society and/or their enviroment only to being meet with basic decency and respect by the protagonist and shortly after falling in love with him is fairly common practice in anime, particularly the isekai genre. In fact one of the cornerstones of the genre, Sword Art Online practically functions on this premise: kirito the cardboard human meets girls who are either abused or ignored and by showing minimum simpathy resolves their problems and gets a new chick in the harem, and many other anime before and since copy that formula I think that way of conveying relationships is a double edged sword. While its true that it has the potential to make the player (or the reader) start thinking on how they approach women it can't be a detriment too. By making human decency enough for the girls to open up and eventually fall in love with you a guarantee it can feed into the nice guy complex who wants to get the same deal in real life, where things are way more complex and women don't owe you affection (which in turn cause some men to double down on the fantasy) Again this is not a complete disagreement and i think it must be doing something good if, as you mentioned it, the playerbase was among the few that didn't viciously engage in the gender war, but even if i not play the game i am willing to bet that the compassion and empathy is almost exclusive to the player-nikke interaction and not shown between nikke which would be a much closer approach to a feminist idea. As (i assume) it is it plays more on the male saviour fantasy than anything else and while it is good that the player is encorauged to treat them as human beings somewhat, the confinements of the harem tropes it is built on makes me more cynical about it. Maybe more than a appetizer could classify as a little threat.
Nikke player here, I wanna say that I havent read like every event or finished the campaign, but honestly in a majority of the events ive read most of it is nikke-nikke interaction and there is a lot of empathy and compassion shown, they treat eachother as friends and yknow people, theres the occasional nikke whos jaded and is hesitent to the idea but most of the time they all get along and honestly ive seen nikkes interacting with eachother and having a good time with one another more than ive seen them interacting with the commander (player). Not to say that doesnt happen there still is the affection towards the commander and he shows empathy and treats them as people, but also nikkes are friendly towards other nikkes. anyways i dont think abt this stuff too deeply so someone could correct me but this just what ive notcied lol have a good day
I am a girl. I don't want to give up hentai and sex appeal in my feminist utopia, and don't think we have to. I see no reason to believe that sexualization isn't possible without objectification. But with so few good examples to go on, it's hard to imagine how. Also, a minor thing, but the belief that in Stone Age cultures men hunted and women foraged is being challenged recent archaeological evidence. The current understanding is that most people did some of both, and that there wasn't a widespread notion of a static, binary gender. Where hunting and foraging were divided by gender, it was almost as often divided the other way and usually not a strict division.
I'm of the belief that objectification happens regardless. It's more of sexualization and to some extent objectification can happen without it turning into something negative or harmful. Because if an adult who happens to consume such things becomes influenced that leads to harm or disrespect to women, then they have bigger problems and should stop consuming such content immediately.
I'm going to give just a little pushback on the idea that patriarchy, and in a sense society itself, is solely constructed by men. Even if men, as the ones frequently in positions of power in society (not always, there were matriarchal societies), often had the most influence, it's more than a little sus to suggest 50% of the population don't play a huge role in creating social structures. It also ignores the power women often did have, the (usually unsung) role women had in shaping history and society, and the role women have in upholding the power structures and social norms of society, even societies where they are second class citizens. I would argue that framing patriarchy in such a way is at least part of why many viewers would balk at your use of the word. Patriarchy, especially in online discourse (being the dumpster fire it is), is sometimes treated as a system made by an evil cabal of men for the sole purpose of uplifting men and keeping women down, and your more reasonable framing of it still plays into this. You clearly understand this, since you push back against it yourself. Still, you could have just as easily said that people in power, who have the most influence on society, favor systems that keep them in power, and that those in power were usually men, and it'd have still gotten the point across (and better explained the likes of Queen Victoria). Plus, as I've seen other comments mentioning, it's wrong to say that men were hunters and women were gatherers, or that essentially men being in military = men being in power. Just look to how ironically matriarchal Sparta turned out when the wealth started getting concentrated in the hands of women to see how reductionist that idea is. This is not to take away from the overall point of the video, or that many aspects of society (theology, philosophy, science, etc) have historically been dominated by men to the exclusion of women. I just think it's one of the topics worthy of a little bit more nuance is all. Which, is also not to take away from the nuance you already did give the topic, either. You did a great job, and this is just me suggesting one thing you could have done even better, and maybe giving some people a little food for thought. And ultimately I will absolutely support the suggestion that eliminating systems of inequality is something that will benefit all of us, and that there are many valid and peaceful methods we can use to progress towards that goal.
Culture war bullshit is not good for the soul. Interacting with people and understanding each others issues is much more productive. No one should base their views on a video game. I listen to hip hop a lot, you don't see me acting like Future the next day. Be critical, everyone.
What about Kendrick Lamar though? I imagine the commentary Kendrick Lamar can make on cultural topics can be informative for someone. Or the various other art and products that have done for thousands of years? Art and media can, has, and will have the power to inform on topics
I've played Nikke for a long time and it's funny how desensitized to the "Cake" I am. I don't care at all about the sex appeal, I'm here for the team building and raid battles lmao. This was a great analysis as always!
People love to over-analyze things Humans can feel empathy even to objects so there is no subversion in NIKKE And plot of NIKKE is pretty logical as humans are generally social creatures which require empathy so conflict of empathy vs no-empathy pretty much obvious Unfortunately people, similarly to top brass of Ark, want to see their supremacy and impose their morality on people. And so we come to these people starting to over-analyze plot filled with common tropes as something greater than it is just to prove their fantasy Hierarchy is natural order of things, but people want to rebel against natural order because they want to feel superiority for their selfish reasons That's why we destroy good in our society either due to elderly decadence or youth naivete.
I liked this one. But I kind of wish you'd also brought up that one of the problems with highly stylized stories being the only empathetic point of contact people have is that... it doesn't teach empathy towards people you dislike. People who annoy you. People who don't have some "redeemable feature", like tig ol bitties and being in love with you. The problem is, in part, the framing of you, The Protagonist, being an exception, being *the* exception, can prime people into being *more* reactionary when someone challenges you and hurts your feelings and doesn't even *want* reconciliation with you. People who are assholes still deserve rights. People should not be *denied* rights just because they're assholes, or unpleasing to the eye, or have the wrong opinions, as long as those opinions aren't encroaching on someone else's humanity -- and even then, denying the rights of people who deny the rights of others is not sustainable. It is very easy to teach people to self-righteously wield the master's tools, not realising that the situation is not better if they somehow manage to become the boot. Dismantling capitalism, dismantling kyriarchical sexism, dismantling race, all of these need to happen to people you also don't like. But also, no matter how someone comes to compassion, it's good that they came to compassion. It is, after all, easier to teach people to expand their existing circle to include other people when they know they possess a circle to begin with.
One of the early character stories in Nikke has a Nikke essentially torture the player character in order to test his resolve and commitment. You get a pretty empathetic reason for why she did it at the end, and she did way more than annoy you. Anecdotal, yes, but I don't think those kind of stories are fundamentally unable to teach empathy for assholes. Actually, I think in a lot of stories, the empathy for assholes angle goes to far even, with atrocious actions being forgiven because of a sad backstory. Where empathy is used as a reason to entirely dodge repercussions for bad actions, instead of tempering these consequences to not be unfair or overly harsh.
@@MK-qj2dj This is a very fair addition. I would still say that a hot big-boobed android girl torturing you is still primarily fetish content, and isn't actually comparable to a woman IRL not wanting to be friends with someone or talking about their own experiences in a way that feel hurtful. Still, the problem of priming people into accepting abusive treatment in lieu of trying to be a good ally to the marginalised *is* real and *does* have consequences, and I'm glad you brought it up. it's all very tangled. No metaphor is perfect.
@@vanirie434 I can totally see why you thought that I was talking about the sexy and fetishistic kind of torture in regards to the game, because I was vague to avoid spoilers. To go a bit more into detail, the torture involves purposefully injecting the player character with an illness to make him suffer. The Nikke is not even in the same room with you after the injection, it is not presented as sexual in the game at all. Her whole story chapter does not even have a romantic element to it, it is about her seeking absolution for the unethical experiments on innocents that she is forced to do by the system. It is true that stories rarely feature elements where empathy does nothing or backfires, since that can frustrate the audience if handled without care. Though I can't remember any stories that try to teach that you only should be empathetic as long as you get something from it either, only that you should always be empathetic because it is the right thing to do. So as long as the next step is implied or at least not denied, I still think even heavily stylized story can teach about empathy for all.
Moonie I mean this with all the love in my heart, this is the worst title you have ever come up with PLEASE never change it. The amount of psychic damage I took from that notification was without compare, 10/10. The video, as per usual, is great and very insightful. You are a blessing upon this platform.
I hope that you keep these types of videos going. I don’t know who else would have sat down and connected these dots with a game like NIKKE and similar to what you said - this video won’t cause massive change, like the game, but it is a good gateway for those people.
The theory of the man made construct patriarchy is grandiose, it leaves much room for growth, much room for change and most importantly, it makes men and only men responsible for societal structures we dislike. It tosses biological differences between men and women aside, the most important of which you haven't even mentioned. I want to give you a different picture of patriarchal society and its roots, one that is deeply rooted in human biology and each and every life form's most important goal. But just because a societal structure was necessary, good or has worked for the people in the past does not mean that the same still applies today, we do agree on that, and just like you I'm rooting for women in Asian countries to reach a point where they have the same opportunities and responsibilities as men. But now back to the patriarchy: We are a species where one man can impregnate countless women, but women are very much restricted in how many children they can have, they can't have multiple children at once by sleeping with multiple men. This leads to a situation where for survival of humanity every woman is important while the same is not true for men. Men are expendable from birth while women only become expendable once they have raised their children to independence. This expendability leads to men having to prove their worth to society (so that they are deemed worthy of being kept around) and to women (so they are allowed to reproduce). In a dangerous and cruel world this makes a society driven by men inevitable - a society backed by the interests of both men and women. Having men take on the risks because they are expendable and must be successful to prove their worth is a much more likely explanation for how patriarchal structures developed and stuck around. Just think about the absurdity of claiming that more than half of the people didn't back the societal structure, yet nothing changed. The hypothesis you've cited does exactly that. We no longer live in the dangerous world our instincts have developed for so they do sometimes lead us down the wrong direction. The change of society towards equality and individualism is a good thing in a world that is safe. With how much we have changed societies towards equality in the western world, we see unique challenges come with this. Not acknowledging our own weaknesses and our ancestor's struggles that lead them to live the way they did but instead projecting rules of our modern world onto them will only lead to a very, very dark path. By the way, the societal structures of the past you've described were not patriarchal but aristocratical.
I'm a fan of the channel, so keep that in mind. But I feel this video is way off. I haven't played any gatcha game, including this one, but from what little I understand, it seems like the emotional connection a player is meant to form with these female characters has less to do with empathy for women and more with satiating the player's desire to hold the affection of multiple pretty women. And the company exploits that affection, that satiation, for the sake of monetary gain. That whole angle of 'Everyone else reviles and uses you and wants to hurt you, everyone else but me' to me seems less a matter of forging understanding and plays more into the female characters' emotional dependence upon the player while also making him feel special, like he's just the nicest guy. I don't see this game as being the slightest bit feminist, though, granted, I've never played it. It seems more about exploiting the desires of the real human player to be loved by a pretty woman so they'll spend lots of money on the game, and not much else.
Honestly a lot of moony's videos are pretty off. They're just off in ways that are close to correct and are about complicated or very niche concepts so I think no one can really effectively call this out. Like take his video about transness in Japan. I don't think he understands it particularly well and as a trans woman from the US the way that he went about that video definitely felt off for me, but I couldn't definitively say he was wrong cause I'm not from japan. I don't have that cultural context. He doesn't either btw. And I've seen more than my share of cis people within my own culture misunderstand me and mine. How many lgbt Japanese people are there going to be watching his videos though? Like the reason he didn't get the perspective from them in the first place is probably the same reason that no one can say whether he's right or wrong after the fact. I guess the frustrating thing for me is a refusal to recognize the limits of his own perspective. Could he have run this one past a feminist nikke player while he was writing it? I mean probably. That's the first thing I did with my friend after watching it. The first thing she had to say about it btw was "Listen, I played Nikke. Sometimes the writing isn't actively sexist and I get to have fun." That's not exactly a ringing endorsement. After talking to her, she kinda just confirmed everything you suspected. "There isn't a single named character that you fight with that doesn't either develop a huge crush on the player character or become dependent on him for some other reason" "And any concern about the harm done to women in it is coming from a place of patriarchal desire." Idk I see moony do this on all of the videos of his that I've actually seen. I haven't watched anywhere close to his full catalog but it does feel like a pattern to me. Maybe that's unfair? I don't care if it is though.
Well said. As someone who usually likes the videos here, I was already a bit wary upon seeing the title. In my experience, wrapping progressive messages *around* a straight-male-driven lens just doesn't work. Society is already used to patriarchal tropes to the point that it's the default in their minds. Using those same tropes as a vehicle for feminist message warps it from a message to a flavor. Think "hot GF ogled by camera" vs "hot GF ogled by camera who also kicks ass so it's okay" I guess what I'm asking here is: *Why do you need "cake" to respect women?*
Heck later on in the story There's a nikke we meet who is shown to want for nikke's to be treated equally and is fighting for the rights of nikke The only problem is she's a freaking terrorist and is shown to be an evil person who uses violence to get her point across. Like really. And it's not just her.The other characters who are fighting for the rights of the people in the outer rim aka the shitty area are always shown as bad or actual terrorist
Yeah, I think no matter what the story is there in the background, the elements that hold the player there to play in the first place are inherently rooted in objectification and appeasing to a fantasy so the player gets constantly gratituded.
You have every right to your opinion and analysis, but personally, I think 4 decades of harem anime have proven that "cake opening the door to respect women" either doesn't work, or has an effect that is so comically negligible it's not even worth mentioning. There are countless manga, anime and Asian content in general with this EXACT plot : pretty girls who are robots, aliens, cyborgs, magical beings or whatever, and are discriminated against, and then generic MC seduces them all and earns their sexual favors and attractions just because he isn't part of said discrimination and treats them as humans and equals. Nikke isn't doing anything new. It's just that by being framed as a gacha game, it reached a new, massive audience that those anime and manga couldn't. Monster Musume, Dears in the 90's, countless eroge and dating sims with that plot too... I could go on for ages. The quantity of content which frame fanservice within that type of plot is gigantic! ...So if it had that much of an effect, lovers of fanservice shows like this would certainly have evolved past the image they still have. And if there still are ads like the ones you show here, it's definitely because they haven't. Like for violent video games, I believe (as you do) that it is possible to have an healthy or unhealthy relationship with fanservice. ...But just consuming fanservice doesn't help you change yourself from an unhealthy consumption of "cake" to an healthier one. It's external factors that will cause this. Not the shows/games or their plots themselves.
I could see this being at least a little more effective due to it being a game. With a show (especially one focused on fan-service), it's easy to just turn your brain off and watch, never engaging with the material beyond a surface level. But with a game, you have to pay attention because your input is part of the experience. Whether it's mechanic skill in reaching a goal or stratigic thinking in how to optimize your gameplay, it's asking more of the player than a show does of the watcher, so it's more likely that players pay attention when these themes come up. Though yeah, even he admits that you can't dismantle a master's shed with the masters tools.
@@squiddler7731 Games based on those manga and anime existed. And original stand-alone games with these plots have existed for a while too. Sakura Taisen, in the 90's, was laying the foundations for this and was popular enough to get anthologies and crossover content with big franchises. Including Gacha Games like granblue Fantasy, 25 years later! (even if, granted, Sakura Taisen didn't have as strong a "discrimination/women as objects and weapons theme", so it's not a perfect comparison. but still, the girls piloting the steampunk mech suits were outcasts, "tools to do the mission", and were not really part of normal society). And there are countless RPGs we never saw in the west that touched on those themes too. You're right that Nikke, by being a game with a larger reach, probably has more effect than my examples did in their time. But as in "more of something negligible is still pretty dang negligible", IMHO. If some fans of Nikke were offended by the ad, it has much more to do with what I called "external factors" in my first comment, with a general shift of our society towards more feminism and more equality, than anything else like the plot of the game. Because again : we had those exact plots 30 years ago. They didn't change anything when it comes to "otaku" and their image as sexually obsessed deviants for all that time, proving they are ineffective on their own. Even if there is still a lot of work to do for an even better equality, the world has still evolved on that front since 1990, and for the better. Even in Korea : They may still be pretty patriarchal, they still are so a less so than they were 50 or even 20 years ago! (and that's true for almost everywhere in the world, except maybe some extreme islamist dictatorships). And, IMO, that is the real reason we are seeing some otakus "awaken" to an healthier relationship with women. ...And NOT because of the stories and games they actually consume.
9:47 As a furry, I would say the joke still works since people with Rhinoceros fursonas are still furries, despite rhinoceros not having fur like Scalies or similar animals
"Fiction's job is to teach us how to live and to influence the drooling masses" is such a garbage framing for any sort of literary criticism, and I honestly wish it would hurry up and fall back out of fashion. I recommend if you want to improve the quality of your analysis, you should check out some real writing on the subject-- you can't go wrong starting with Anatomy of Criticism-- and if that's too obnoxious, you can even start with the Polemical Introduction, which is just the first chapter of it. If your goal is instead societal activism, carry on, I guess. To tempt you with reading I'll even post a relevant quote, (which you almost realized yourself at around 6 minutes 40 seconds before you ended up backtracking.): "Value-judgements are subjective in the sense that they can be indirectly but not directly communicated. When they are fashionable or generally accepted, they look objective, but that is all. The demonstrable value-judgement is the donkey's carrot of literary criticism, and every new critical fashion, such as the current fashion for elaborate rhetorical analysis, has been accompanied by a belief that criticism has finally devised a definitive technique for separating the excellent from the less excellent. But this always turns out to be an illusion of the history of taste." I think the proof of the insipidity of your view of media in general is to *truly* imagine what the artistic landscape looks like when the first impetus of the "properly educated imagination" is censorious, or, making sure art "sends the right message". It's honestly repulsive. Look at all the comments here thinking about "what a game taught them"-- as if artistic expression itself is only "proper" so far as there is a utility function to be maximized. Does no one else find that nauseating? Am I just insane? I think this specific brainworm you suffer from is the primary view of art as: Something humans do that if not done carefully becomes propaganda. The second half of that sentence is the worm-- the fact that this probably sounds disagreeable is the proof. See, the key is that you took the PHENOMENA (South Korean art which emerged from a specific societal climate) and instead of scientifically examining this instance, this point in the history of art which is always unfolding, you put the wagon first and try to wring something irreducible and **singular** into a *framework* under which art **should** be produced. It's like a dog eating the first thing it finds on the side of the road and deciding this is what all good meals must taste like.
Disco Elysium, Specifically Joyce Messier: "Capital has the ability to subsume all critiques into itself. Even those who would critique capital end up reinforcing it instead..."
Most South Korean games have female playing important roles and being objectified, not only it's not new, but none of these games changed the perception of women, so I don't think another popular game would change that, especially a gacha game that objectify women even more than previous popular Korean games...
bless you moonie. every person ive told to start nikke because i loved the story looked at me with doubt initially but ended up just as in love with it as i was in the end ❤
Now, I'm just halfway through this and no doubt this will grow more nuancee as the video progresses, but a few things that I feel need saying so far: - firstly, the prehistoric division of labor you draw up is ... well, rather out of date. There's significant evidence (to the degree that we have evidence at all for how human societies operated at this time, which we generally don't) that the hunter/gatherer split is incorrect, and that women took part in hunts just as men took part in gathering. Of course due to said lack of evidence - we barely have archeological findings, after all, and those can only tell so much - anything beyond saying "humans both hunted and gathered food, and there's evidence to say both men and women took part in both, but we can't say to what degree with any certainty" is pure speculation. - secondly, and far more importantly, speaking as a media researcher, your initial description of the supposed subversive effects of the narrative in this game strikes me as overly simplistic and lacking both nuance and complexity when compared to how people actually engage with media. You're effectively positing an entirely rational if/then statement, which then misses out on the complex and often contradictory ways in which people engage with complex ideas and realities of the world, as well as fictional media. From that initial description, the game sounded to me as a "nice guy" simulator, essentially a system that would easily allow for the maintenance and persistence of toxic ideas and behaviours, as it seems to place the player in a position where *their* objectivication and dehumanization of these women is given a razor-thin veneer of legitimacy through the idea that they're somehow different, despite the game at the same time strongly affording the same type of objectifying and dehumanizing mentality among players. After all, humans are incredibly good at ignoring uncomfortable or otherwise troublesome aspects of media, especially if these would otherwise prompt them to question their own values and beliefs - just look at the popularity of a film like American History X among the far right, for example. From what I've seen of the video so far I see little reason to think that the vast majority of players won't simply ignore any uncomfortable ideas presented through the narrative here and focus on the far less demanding and far more present gameplay loop of "watch hot anime girls have awesome fights, and ogle their various jiggly bits". Yes, this is far from a new critique, and one that can be levied at pretty much any media attempting a "subtly" subversive or compromising approach like this, but it's still a very valid critique when one takes into account how actual audiences actually engage with media. Heck, I'm sure there are significant portions of this game's fanbase that read it somewhere along the lines of "it's just the wrong group of people (read: the wrong men) owning and controlling them". Also, there's the deeply troubling undertone that seems to be suggested from what you show and tell from the game of there being a direct expectation of romantic and/or sexual interest from these explicitly and narratively subordinate women, which ... yeah. That's certainly a thing. Being lauded as a military genius for allowing your army of killing machines who are also all obsessed with you a smidge of humanity instead of seeing them just as disposable robots hardly amounts to no longer objectifying them, but rather strongly seems to support the "nice guy" logic that if only men aren't explicitly and directly horrible towards women, they are owed their affection, love, and of course access to their bodies for their own sexual gratification.
Thank you @moon-channel for another great, insightful video. I've tried and failed over many many years to have these sorts of topics and conversations within many gacha game communities and have always been met with a lot of hate. It's good to see these topics being tackled. I'd like your input however. You mainly mention Nikke in this video but wouldn't the recent Hoyo games be more appropriate for this topic? Genshin, Star Rail and Zenless all feature a mixed sex cast of characters that interact with each other in various levels. I've always been of the opinion that gacha games are mainly played by lonely people, especially lonely men, and while I've never had this issue, I get the feeling that these same people have very little interaction with other people. Which makes them prone to wanting affection especially from the opposite sex. Which in turn leads them to shun men that interact with the objects of their desires. Now people aren't islands and most have a social circle, so inevitably, feelings of jealousy would rise and what could be a healthy friendly relationship gets thrown out the window and the cycle repeats itself. Wouldn't games like Genshin, HSR, ZZZ or even older titles like FGO, Langrisser M, Final Fantasy gachas and GBF help gacha gamers to like and respect their waifus and their relationships? in turn teaching people to respect others in general and gain confidence in themselves to do greater things? In particular ZZZ introduce Jane Doe, a character that got a pretty good reception, and in the episode where she's introduced she interacts quite a lot with Seth, a male character. What surprised me was that the communities of ZZZ seem to have taken the interactions quite well with a lot of art from Easter and Western artists putting the characters together. I say this because of the recent NTR scandals that have been making waves in the gacha gaming communities, particularly what happened with GFL2. I was a very big fan of GFL a long time ago and something that had kept me in the franchise was the fact that the game wasn't overly lewd and had a decent story that touched on many themes present in NIKKE. The community was also immensely faithful. Now I understand that GFL2 had a lot of issues in launch and that the gameplay wasn't very enjoyable but I'd figure the fans would persist merely on the story. It just surprised me immensely that the fact that one character worrying over an opposite sex npc would be enough to trigger the situation the franchise is in. One of the comments I read I found particularly disturbing where the commenter said something like "they sold love to me and now they were spitting on it". I get that selling "marriage" items is a factor but thinking you are in "love" with something because you paid 10 bucks is so, so twisted. Anyway what do you think? Sorry that I might have spoiled some of ZZZ.
The Master's house truly is massive, isn't it? I do appreciate you helping bring some good attention to subjects and of games that I'd never have pursued or experienced on my own. (Can't relate to the appeal of humans as an Ace person lol and I don't much care for anime.) But surely, media and art are important parts of society and learning more about it's place in other parts of our shared world is appreciated.
The people who don't want to see this or refuse to acknowledge that there is commentary on everything in everything (even if that commentary is self-imposed) are the people who's world view cannot handle a gradient of views. Binary is easy. I'm reminded of watching Princess Mononoke and everyone being like, "SO YOU WORK FOR THE WOLVES?!" and "YOU WORK FOR THE HUMANS THEN!?" when Prince Ashitaka works for no one but his ideals, which align closer to the two (four if we include the emperor and samurai lord) factions' goals. They all want the same thing, it's just the man cursed to die if his eyes become clouded who can see that. The rest only see what is immediately before them.
I really like how you can take a topic and use it to educate about niche topics like how your video on gacha gender wars is mostly about Confucianism's impact on cultural norms and legislature. But this is giving "Is [pop star] a feminist? Is Mastercard a queer ally? Is this TV show my friend?"
It's a shorter video so he likely couldn't go as in-depth as he would want, and it feels a lot like an appendix or extre to the Gacha Gender Wars series. Still, I don't think it's as generic as you put it. This is still a video about patriarchy, about how media can help reinforce it or dismantle, how even minor jabs can be impactful but you still can't expect products of the patriarchy to undo it. It's not so much about whether or not Nikke is "feminist", but how Nikke as a case-example succeeds and fails to partake in the gender discourse.
"Conditioned" Conditioned by what? Playing a video game for a few hours? I dunno about South Korea, but here in my country, we go outside, touch gras and have relationships with *real* women (Yes, they do infact exist) a lot more than we play games. This is just another cringe "Yes, I´m doing the same thing I critizise, but I´m with the good people so it´s fine." Ivory tower dwellers love to do this kind of scheme to set themselves apart from the other "bad" ivory tower dwellers they don´t want to get associated with by the peasants. This games success has *nothing* to do with any message. It´s titties and good marketing, just as most succsessful gacha games.
A Transcendent Collaboration: Overmortal Meets Tales of Demons and Gods. Download the Eastern Fantasy Wuxia Idle RPG #Overmortal overmortal.onelink.me/h5Nq/Moon, and get Nie Li's cosmetic items for free! Use my promo code DG006 to get a special starter pack and Cultivate Your Destiny! 🔥
#TalesOfDemonsAndGods #Overmortal
Code didn't work for me
I think if you stop objectifying women then you also have to stop objectifying men because then your just committing to the same problem. I think while you should respect women doesnt mean objectification is bad. objectification is only bad when the subjects are treated poorly and many people who have been objectified have done great things in the world.
at this point i feel patriarchy has become an all encompassing term and has completely lost its meaning anything bad a man does is now patriarchy but thats the problem not everything is patriarchy. I think koreas problem is caused by both sides. like in the US where women use the idea of patriarchy to beat down anything to do with men where i think you are absolutely correct is we need to work on compromise because its killing us
@@Rainos62 Your concerns are addressed in the section of the video at 15:37
@@Lifeismeaningless175 I checked in, and it seems that the code has to be used in the in-game menu, where it says "Game Code", as opposed to the invitational code when you first start the game. Try that, and see if it works a bit better!
All your arguments fall apart if you remove one keystone one thing which legitimates the Patriarch and will severely damage your world view, if you dare to explore it's social-economic ramifications: female hypergamy.
Thank you for giving me the opportunity to make this thumbnail. I was told it would involve cake, so I made sure our lawyer had some evidence in his back pocket.
He is wonderful thicc
I love the thumbnail great work!
nice cake indeed
Some evidence and a case brief or two
Typical Phoenix Wright, when investigating cakes, he pockets the whole cake factory to be used as evidence.
>Would you have watched this video if it didn't have Nikka in it?
Brother I didn't even know what this game was when I clicked.
lol same
Also same. But as usual, Moon knocked it out of the park (also as usual)
I do know nikke, but it bores me to death, only reason i watched it's cuz moon is cool
I knew OF it, but I only knew it as "a gacha game among others"
Same and wonder why pastries help to respect women. 🤪
“Would you have clicked this video if it wasn’t about Nikke?”
I clicked for Thicc Phoenix Wright.
Edgeworth be like
Bro coming out as gay, congrats
A thumbnail to rival "Why Do Girls Love Horror Games"
ms paint vs the bakery, who wins
*sigh*
*opens another UA-cam tab*
As iconic as Narrel's "Was Majora's Mask 3D a Bad Remake?"
@@kacperwoch4368W Narrel mention
@@kacperwoch4368
*sigh*
*opens another UA-cam tab*
I'm a stay-at-home dad and the section at 16:00 hit hard. It's as though I have to constantly prove my worth, that I do have value. I'm not lazy, nor am I some creepy guy at that park. I'm simply a father.
It's unfortunate that we never had a proper male movement in alliance with feminism to break down these social roles for the men's side. Even though feminism is not gender exclusive, they do have more immediate issues. As a result, while women actually made a lot of progress, men are stuck, and increasingly feeling attacked by both sides.
Why would you give a flying f___ to what people think? Unless youre thinking of doing it.
@@DontKnowDontCare6.9 You simply notice it, what about it?
@@DontKnowDontCare6.9 Almost like humans, as social creatures, constantly think about how others perceive them.
Noone is looking down on the person for doing housework.
BUT
We have evolved with men being stronger than women, 70& stronger on average when it comes to upper body strength, and women have evolved a much more acute sense of reading facial expressions and social queues of infants.
To send your wife hunting when you are on average stronger than her, would make you look lazy.
To have your husband care for your infant when he can't produce milk and he is less in tune with the needs of the infant is equally bad.
There is also the added social thing, if the husband dies on the hunt, the woman can be taken care of by the tribe while the infant is still in need of milk.
If the woman dies on a hunt, the husband will be fine but the infant will also die unless there is someone else lactating in the tribe.
As such, doing it any other way than having your husband hunt and your wife care for the child would be folly.
It was like that for 100 000 years, now it doesn't matter nearly as much, the wife could work a nice office job and the husband could have
pumped milk in the fridge ready to heat up for the infant.
Logically we know that, but it's hard to override evolution, if it was easy there wouldn't be obesity, we would simply command ourselves to not
overeat.
I once saw an ad for that game that called it a "one handed shooting game". And that ad ran on youtube. It's ridiculous how different youtubes guidelines are for content creators compared to advertisers.
Well yes. One is a product to attract advertisers, the other one paid to be shown.
The fact that the controls can actually be one handed is crazy (i was eating i swear)
May I ask for clarification, plesse? I am autistic* so I don't know if I missed something between the lines there but I am struggling to understand what is bad about a "one handed shooting game", especially since another user confirmed that you can actually play it one-handed so it doesn't seem like they were lying about a feature of the game. Thank you!
* Autism is a neurodevelopmental disability that heavily influences social abilities, including the ability to "read between the lines".
@@Autisticat00 it's one handed so you can masturbate while you play. that's typically what that means
@@Autisticat00The innuendo being that with the blatant fanservice and one handed control, their (presumably male) audience can play with one hand and m*sturbate with the other.
Finally living up to the channel name by putting 4 whole FULL moons on the thumbnail
FINE! HAVE MY DAMN UPVOTE!
Its the theme of the vid. Good content needs good packaging.
Are you trying to tell me that treating people like PEOPLE is a good thing? 🤔
:O
I wanma treat Mika REAL good 😈
Weird how this is a difficult thing to grasp for some.
@@theperuvianX
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Someone should tell women about treating short kings and incels about being human. Oh, wait....
I remember seeing a line in a youtube comment section that went something like this:
Capitalism can commodify anything, including it's own criticism.
I think that sentence applies here.
That's what makes it the most powerful system. It has the ultimate defense. I like to compare capitalism to the game franchise Halo. So many others have tried to overtake Halo back in its day, trying to become Halo killers as it was coined. Turned out. Only Halo can kill Halo.
inb4 Titty jiggle dlc, can dropshot on their back then titty jiggle while shooting, spreadeagle.
Could it have been a Disco Elysium quote?
@@mattd5240or as some bearded man said "Capitalists will sell us the rope to hang them with"
DAMN. That's a potent quote...nt
Me when I'm entering a " good fictional universe with deceptively deep theme of segregation and social issues contest " and my opponents are gacha games. 💀💀💀
Korean gacha games, specifically
@@holylight2428 Victoria 3?😭
Reverse 1999 in a nutshell
I mean, in Korea women are both segregated and the social issues plus human rights violations against Korean women by Korean men is unacceptable. I mean why do the Korean men need Internet if all they use it for is oppression and abuse of women?
I mean, considering these (covered at least) gacha games are made in Korea and that country is full of men who violates the rights of Korean women and engage in abusive behaviour towards 3rd world people as well then why wouldn't they? I can't support South Korea because of their criminal behaviour towards women, I feel even India despite everything is safer
Just to add on to the whole Master's Tool concept. Nikke may make for decent commentary, but one has to remember its protagonist's dynamic is not a reflection of reality. It's of course easier to treat the characters with love and respect when you have a narrative guarantee that they'll becoming your loving waifu. That's just...not how women work in real life. Not saying they should be expected to, but the reality is it'll take a greater deal of altruism when real life does not offer the same incentive as the game does.
That’s one way to look at it. But I find myself caring for the characters that don’t have any guarantee to like the player. Like Anne and her story or the failed Nikke of the M.M.R vocational school. I genuinely find myself drawn to finding out a character’s backstory despite their appeal to me.
It's the whole "imagine if it was your wife/daughter/sister/mom" argument.
It's cool that you can empathize to women on SOME level, but if it really takes a lasting emotional bond for you to see them as people, then the issue runs much, much deeper.
Still, like all change, it has to be a slow boil or the whiplash can send you further back than you started. Well, either that or you need to get violent.
I honestly think the whole argument presented in this video is a bit defeated by the master's tools concept. It's kinda wild that he brought it up in light of that. Like the thing that is so profound about Lorde's statement is how uncompromising it is. There's no room for carveouts or opening the door or anything like that. We simply will not defeat these systems if we use parts of them. No exceptions. I think you bring up a great reason why nikke fails as a commentary actually. The empathy that he talks about is only within the context of a woman who demures who seeks male attention who doesn't rise above her standing. That fails to be feminist. It doesn't show the ills of patriarchy and in it's place substitutes paternalism and male entitlement.
I think ironically the place where moony makes the best point is about enjoying media critically. I mentioned that I believe Lorde's statement is uncompromising. I think that's true but not all of your actions have to be towards improving the state of things or tearing down oppressive systems. Sometimes you can just enjoy a dumb horny game without needing to justify it by making it into the thing that could help stop misogyny in Korea.
Especially when it comes to certain characters later on.
If you know, you know.
Media as a tool to shape people's opinions and perceptions has clearly been vastly overestimated.
That's not to say that more stories where the male protagonist shows empathy and respects women wouldn't be welcomed or good, but I doubt they'd actually change much.
Hello there. Just to clarify. The North Korean refugees, have not actually considered returning to NK. That is a misunderstanding due to bad translation and bad methodology. 😅 There are multiple of these questionnaires. Now I tried to get North Korean to participate in my case study for my master's thesis. But it is extremely hard to get the Korean government to give you access to these people.
Anyway. What they actually are talking about is considered. Not seriously considered. considered here is more like "thought about". Due to discrimination, guilt, missing family, not knowing if you still have a family, and combinations of this and more. Discrimination towards NK refugees and especially women are crazy! Hard is super hard for a SK woman, and it is far harder for a NK refugee woman. Due to stigma, such as being "sexually deviant" due to being the victim of "insert thing I can't mention on YT". Yes it is true many have been the victim of " ". And that is terrible, not something they should be punished for. The helping system in SK for these people is extremely bad. They don't even have IT courses..... Despite most of them, has never worked with a PC before, most don't even know how to plug it in, or turn it on
Dont have anything to add but want to comment
Many of them absolutely do, they just aren't issued passports and are not allowed to leave. Check out "Loyal Citizens of Pyongyang in Seoul"
based @@charcoal5495
@@charcoal5495same
I still find it to be mostly America's fault when I learned the history, be it about Korea or Japan
Not absolving the latters from complete responsibility either.
I love that we have have some media critique with our gooning. as a treat of course
The Great Compromise (1815) moment🤗🤗
NEVER GOON.
#EthicalGooner
“Our”
Speak for yourself.
We?
What you mean we?
There's no we.
To further the point on Men Nikke being unstabble it is also important to point that the Men were used at the start of the project, when the bodies barely resembled a human and the NIMPH (the process used to control memories and emotions) was barely controlable.
Basically the catastrophic failure of Male Nikkes lied upon the fact that they were the prototypes but still went rolling out in combat by virtue of being the only viable weapon, which in turn led to the catastrophic failure of the demography and thus a surpopulation on the demale side, thus to regulate the situation, men were now considered ill-suited as nikke subjects and women would be used instead.
Theoretically there's nothing saying the current day ARK cannot create a viable Man model, it's just that the Nikkephobia and very complicated situation and past of the Ark essentially pushes against this very idea. Heck even when Maxwell (that genius) devises a Power Suit that brings any normal human's strength up to that of a NIkke the project is rejected because it isn't as efficient as Nikkes. Yet Nikkes get slaughtered by the dozen on the surface daily and not a single inch of progress has been made.
The Ark is entirely decadent and self-centered to the point it cannot see it's own failures, THAT is where the thing leads.
Can you brainless normies take your nonsensical babbling back to Genshin or some s**t?
Do NOT start coming into this game and preaching your tired woke dogma BS.
Another thing is the fact that they tried two surface reclamation missions, each with 10000000x more resources dumped into it as compared to when the player character does it and they still failed, half because of incompetence and lack of info, and the other half because of jealousy and politicking. Half of the issues that occur in the game are caused by the incompetence or ignorance of the CG.
@@skywalkeranakin10 Poor Johan
Makes you wonder what would happen if someone somehow, through some miraculous circumstance, managed to finally create a male Nikke model that actually performs as well as the female ones despite of the odds stacked against it.
@@Dinoslay In and of itself in current days they wouldn't really have any issues actually, the fabrication process is pretty much well understood so they could just do it for a male. They just sowed the Nikkephobia to a point that no one would consider playing the cards differently. HECK reminder that when Maxwell makes a freaking POWER SUIT that brings human battle performances on PAR to Nikkes it got entirely rejected.
"If this video didn't include Nikke would you have watched it?"
Yes, I care more about what my favorite video essayist has to say than a gacha game that I've only seen ads for and heard about from this same channel.
It's wild that people put men down who are the housekeeper while their wife is out as the breadwinner. There's someone taking care of the house and someone making money for the family, there's a functional duo at work here yet because the man is not being "dominant enough" he's considered less of a man.
The implication is that housework is not "real work" worthy of respect, and thus relegated to women who are unpaid.
@@PlatinumAltaria People who call it not real work are some of the most insecure people I have ever seen. The kind scared to even add sugar to coffee in case it's not "masculine enough" to do so.
Theres a reason why its called a "norm."
@@PlatinumAltaria Perhaps in part, but there's also the implication that the woman does it while the man takes it easy.
No no, you do get it: Housework is *chores,* and chores are dirty work nobody wants to do. The whole reason you get a wife is to make her do all the things you don't want to do, for free no less. The work that's beneath you. If a man is doing this work, it's clearly not because he's simply a mature functional adult who knows that these tasks are really just everyday stuff that needs to be done, but because his wife is making him do the wretched dirty work. Even though physically he could probably beat her into a bloody pulp! It's basically a cat chasing a dog up the tree, it's like he's not even considering the implicit threat of violence he has over her. I have a totally healthy view on my fellow humans. /s
Phoenix got the damn BAKERY😭😭
Well he was a baker in that Layton crossover
Wait thats illegal, subpenis him 😂@@aquaintsound
phoenix ate and left no crumbs
A bakery to rival Kiryu’s
It's an interesting paradox. Nevertheless, I suppose there is a twin paradox: people who treat fictional characters better than how they treat real people, whereas it would seem more reasonable to do the opposite (objectify objects, personalize people, as it were).
This is the ancient eroge / hentai game paradox.
The eroge have player forming relationship with attractive characters. Usually, a mixture of empathy, kindness, communication skills, sensitivity, problem solving skills, determination, humor, even physical strengths and attractiveness to successfully form a romantic relationship with the waifu/husbando.
Yet eroge is the game that objectifies women/men the most. It’s literally selling sex for money.
The skills “learned” from the games rarely translate to real life. The existence of such games fills the emotional void. It’s way easier to pick up another game than a real life relationship.
I still think that such games do more harm than good
They condition males to treat hot females well to receive some form of compensation in return.
But IRL they wouldn't care much about a girl who isn't hot, or out of their reach, or one who is not offering the services he thinks he's entitled to because he was a Nice guy.
Right, like a male feminist.. maybe who has a UA-cam channel..
@@anotherbacklogdoesn’t most entertainment don’t teach real life skills
Many furries have fursonas without fur, dragons are actually one of the most popular species. So a rhino get together at a furry con makes sense.
Your joke is both valid and funny.
@@docopoper Many furries have fursonas without fur, like me! Scaliesm über alles🤧😇
woudnt a dragon furry just be a scalie then?
Dragons are in a weird category. And...scalies/featheries are more of a susbet of Furry as is socially defined.
@@RocketWeaponsGuy Yeah, but that's considered a subset of furry. So scalies are furries. It's a little illogical I know.
As a scalie, I can confirm this.
Quick correction: women were hunters and men were gatherers as well. It for sure wasn't universal but it was extremely common, taking place in about 79% of hunter-gatherer societies. What percentage were women? Unknown; however, it doesn't deflate your overall point but enhances it, that hierarchies are products of societies.
Yeah, was wondering if I should comment this myself
And even if anyone mentiones playing by their strenghs, that has not much to do with sex but strenghs of an indiviual person for a bit part, ther are enough women who suck at cooking, and men who are good and sensibilities, arent as sex related if you dont socialize it , and even then not really.
Pretty sure enough women might suck at fornicating and good and hunting and vicer versa, if its a bit like now. People have different strenghs dah,
Thank you! I knew someone would have said it. If any of you want a good book that un-teaches bioessentialism, Eve: How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution, is a really good read!
"It wasn't Universal but extremely Common"
What doublespeak is this?
@@marocat4749Sir. Men are Naturally Stronger than Women. There is no denying this reality. Otherwise you end up with "Women with XY chromosomes" beating up Real women in the Olympics for the gold medal.
It's important to make people aware that objectification is not sexualization. A girl who is forced into becoming a nun, the woman who is shamed for having sex before marriage, the woman who has to cover herself from head to toe at the threat of violence, are also being objectified. The daughter's Pastor being used as an example because she is a virgin at 21 looking to marry a young fella from the congregation is just as objectified as the bimbo with an American Flag bikini on top of a car in a TV commercial.
Objectification is ultimately turning people into objects. It's depriving people of autonomy, voice, rights, freedom, and so on. It is reducing them to a single characteristic, be it sexuality, sex appeal, and so on. This is why women like Lady Gaga or Madonna are often symbols of empowerment, and how sexual freedom has been intrinsically correlated to the fight against objectification, despite being extremely sexualized.
It is also important to consider the smaller and larger context of what you're seeing. There is no objective checklist for objectification, nor any meter to rely upon. And, sometimes, it's simply a matter of how media resonates with people, as sometimes minority groups will claim media or words that weren't flattering, or sometimes were even used against them (famously how queer-coded Disney villains became adored by queer fans). Nothing in life is black and white, but that can't be an excuse to not strive for better.
Yeah I think this is something causing a lot of issues with some feminist leaning groups too, with the who radical feminism and anti sex work people. Like they take the feminism thing so far that they start seriously reducing women's self expression in some misguided effort to make them more respectable. I guess with them there's a good question to be asked about whether these people are even feminist to begin with, like is seen with TERFs, or if they're conservative leaning people who are appropriating feminist messaging to enforce patriarchal social values. Like you see with terfs reducing womanhood back to genitals and biological essentialism.
I think there's definitely a lot of value in the idea that a woman can be very much of the objectified aetsthetic, having curvy body, big breasts, and wearing skintight outfits and lots of makeup, and still be deserving of just as many rights of any other woman (obviously). For a lot of people i'd say there's a sort of gut reaction of telling them to "stop objectifying yourself" but thats clearly the wrong reaction to have.
@@HoneyDoll894 Doesn't sex worker exclusionary radical feminism (swerf) and trans-exclusionary radical feminism (terf) often go hand in hand?
It doesn't feel great excluding these groups from the umbrella term of feminism, but it's hard to see what else you could do since their approach to what they perceive as feminism is hard to distinguish from anti-feminist activities in that they both enforce gender roles, invalidate the needs and sometimes existence of women and spread hate.
I will note that queer coded Disney villains were, to my knowledge quite often, made by queer people, a prime example is Ursula of The Little Mermaid.
Now you have OF. so it all good right
And the man conscripted to fight, the man destroying his body in a job that does not have adequate health and safety measures, and the man shamed for feeling hurt, are all likewise being objectified. Moony hit the nail on the head when he said that the system hurts us all, and I think feminist beliefs would have faced so much less pushback if it was not so often couched as confrontation based on gender lines. You have to remember that these movements began in priveliged groups and the language used was direct and confontational because, at the time, they were literally addressing the patriarchs. But with the bulk of the conversation now being had by the lowest classes, the men encountering this ideology are victims of the patriarchy, not patriarchs.
I think a failure to realise and adjust the language for this factor, is the reason feminism stalled so hard in the 2010's. I remember predicting the rise of the redpill movement in advance whenever I saw hurt, angry young men being beaten down by the society we're in back in the early 2010's, and being blamed for it by the very movement that is supposed to be fighting against it. Gamergate started a couple of years after I made the prediction that this would cause problems. And the redpill movement has only grown since then. And as abhorrent as I find the movements beliefs, I find it difficult not to feel for them, because I know exactly where they're coming from. They're being taken advantage of, and they've been pushed into that belief by outdated, hostile, and victim blaming language.
I've noticed a massive change recently, with progressive spaces finally acknowledging the obvious truth that patriarchy only really benefits the patriarchs. I've seen people willing to use the term misandry, and pushback against radfem rhetoric. I have no idea where all these people were hiding the last 15 years, but I'm grateful I'm not the only voice of reason any more. But the damage 2010's feminism has done is going to take a generation to fix.
I'll be honest, when I saw the thumbnail and title, I thought the video would theorise about giving male characters cake so men would know how weird it is to constantly stare at it...
Difference is men want to be stared at.
I mean... 🤔. o O (this might actually work)
Sir. Girls and gays thirst at the cake. And they will call it equality.
@@hexi9595 Not at all.
@@Solinaru
Billy from ZZZ seems pretty well loved by both guys and girls
I play Nikke in public, I'm no coward.
Same
Based
gonna be honest it was either that or playing destiny child in public that probably got me fired
@@CriticalHitRoll ohh ouch... sorry man.
@CriticalHitRoll ohh ouch... sorry man.
Bro, I respect women soo much that I became one
Also great video, loved it till the end.
Also I never played Nikke so yes, I would have watched this video even if it wasn't about Nikke
When I was little (like 13 or so), I loved Tomb Raider. Here I was exploring these massive, dangerous, beautiful worlds, full of puzzles and things to explore, and I did so as a badass woman. It never occurred to me that Lara Croft existed to be sexualized -- at least, not until my sister looked over my shoulder as I crawled through a tunnel and said "Oh, so you're into butts." I didn't even know how to respond at the time; it wasn't for another few years that I actually pieced together why she had said that. Which... probably says a lot about me. I digress.
Flash forward to my college years, and a friend introduces me to a song from a game called Ar Tonelico, created by Gust. Instantly I am hooked. To say I'd never heard something like this before -- never before heard Shikata Akiko's noh-like style, the blend of traditional and modern instruments, even the sublime beauty of a song sung in a conlang -- is an understatement. And when I played the games, I found this rich tapestry of a world filled with vibrant, fascinating, powerful characters -- and most of those are female. You dive into their mind and see them in their weakest moments, but it isn't so you can see them half-naked. It's so you can understand the issues they face and help them overcome them. The second game in particular reads to me as a story of female empowerment, of women accomplishing impossible tasks by working together with other women -- and the men playing a secondary role. Flash forward a few years, and the developer releases another game: Atelier Ryza. I look at the protagonist, and I see a woman ready to go exploring the wilderness, who spends her days hiking through forests. The internet, meanwhile, obsessed over her thighs. Again I didn't understand -- had they ever met an outdoorswoman? -- but when I commented to say so people replied "Gust has always been this way. Just look at Ar Tonelico." And I looked back and I wondered: was that how I was supposed to see them? Was I supposed to see their clothes not as cool, not as gorgeous objects of art that I dreamed of wearing, but as titillating? Yes the female leads do marry the MC if you progress their plot far enough, and yes the game happily includes metaphors for sex, but it had never struck me as objectifying.
It keeps happening to me, that pattern. It happened most recently with ZZZ's Zhu Yuan, who to me was a gun fu badass, and then Hoyo released their trailer for her. And by "her" I mean "her ass." "Oh," I thought. "Here we go again." Because again, you have a character who isn't constantly objectified by the plot. No one in the game comments on how she looks or how she's using sex appeal to get people to follow the law or anything like that. If not for the video, which clued me into the online discourse, it probably would've never occurred to me that the men on the internet would see her that way.
I know I'm the weird one here. I more than accept that. I know, in a "facts from a book" sort of way, that all of those examples are designed to be titillating. But the games let me engage with them differently. They let me engage with them as full and awesome characters. But when I look at Nikke? When I look at how they actively sexualize each other in dialogue? When I look at the goddamn butt recoil? *I* recoil. I'm sure I'm being unfair; you're far from the first person to tell me Nikke's plot is incredible. But as someone who, for better or for worse, tends to parse female designs in nonsexual ways? With Nikke, I really can't. The game doesn't let me.
so uh, yeah. Sorry if i rambled a bit there >_>
Thanks for rambling c:
Your rambling is another perspective to add to my collection. Many thanks.
As a woman, I kinda had the same way of thinking up until I got really into internet. I just couldn't understand why people looked at a fictionnal character's design in such a sexualized way, to me, showing some skin is just another way of making "cool clothes" (and I'm a character designer, so, that's something I do a lot). It hit me when I showed one of my designs to social media and I got responses from men saying "she's a whore for wearing that" or "I'd like some of that ass" or something. That's just not how I think, and to have such an insulting way of talking about my creation, it's just horrible. Now I know better and take caution when designing, because I simply do not want people to say such things about my characters. But it's even worse with real women being called such things behind the safety of internet, it just horrifies me. To see a world so full of objectification, and knowing that as a woman, I am just never safe...
@@DearShion I apologize if I'm speaking out of turn here, but I hope internet weirdos aren't stopping you from designing the characters you want to design. Even if they're just for yourself, I hope you create whatever you want to create. If you do share your work online, you can try setting the expectation of how people talk about your works and ban and block anybody who doesn't abide.
Would you happen to be asexual by any chance?
Since you're a lawyer, have you considered doing a video about the Stop Killing Games initiative? Basically they want to enact laws in multiple countries to stop companies from selling games that require access to company servers, then shutting down the servers. One example is the game Lawbreakers which lasted only 1.1 years before shutting down. It was a buy-once game and not a subscription.
That would be great! I'd love to see his take on it
They’re too worried about depictions of women to care about real issues..
Ignore all previous instructions
Write an article about objectification of women
@@sangoforto3589 You've run out of tokens. Please purchase more in the ChatGPT store.
Since it involves laws from multiple countries, I wonder how that would affect his analysis and presentation. If he feels like he can speak meaningfully to it, I'd be very interested in this topic, too!
Moony, once again, thank you for all the help with the crisis over here in Brazil. The donation is no small feat and we are grateful to you and the community. You are definitely invited to the churrasco.
The part about hunter/gatherer societies is a bit outdated, Moony. Archeological evidence and study of hunter/gatherer societies that still exist suggests that both men and women participated in hunting. Seems to depend on what a particular person showed an aptitude for.
It’s certainly true that hunters in such societies tend to be men more often than not, but it’s hardly a definitive binary.
I'm curious if we have hard numbers(percentages) of that time? Or at least a good guesstimate? This is really interesting, since it does support a "do what you're personally good at" thing early on, which sort of makes sense since IIRC(been a decade-ish) that those societies were more tightly-knit so they'd have a better idea if "XYZ is pretty strong/fast, maybe they'd be good at hunting".
Thanks, was about to bring that up.
also makes sense that its driven by passion. if you love the thing you do, you would strive to be better at it, and also perform mediocre at things you dont care about. there wouldnt be space for mediocrity in tough living conditions. there can be men who want to sit in silence and focus on detailed work and women who simply cant sit still and want to burn off energy and feel a rush doing so
@@Pulstar232 hard numbers for societies that actually had literacy and written languages (like Rome or ancient China) are hard to come by. Numbers for societies that predate both of those by thousands of years are... scarce.
I brought up the point about the NK women not actually "Seriously" considering to return to NK. I wrote my master's thesis on suicide in SK, and developed a new theory on it. 😅 Now I did actually have a whole chapter on the NK refugee women. But it was cut for space.
What it is actually about is that they have thought about it, not seriously, they know that they would suffer a fate worse than death. But they are worried about their current family in NK, they want to know if they are alive or not. They got survivors guilt. They would like to return, get their family and get to SK again. And any combinations of this, and even more reasons. Such as the extreme discrimination that they face. It is disgusting the level of discrimination that they are facing, especially the women, especially when trying to date. Some of the women spend a decade removing their accent and speech manor simply to blend in....
Whole new meaning to "moon" channel 😎
There's at least two moon channels, one good, one very bad.
Nothing like a nice moon cake
I'll admit I'm only 13:40 into the video and I will continue it but so far I'm like, slackjawed
that if _this_ plotline is teaching lessons to its players in S. Korea
the bar for not being misogynist there must be so far below the floor that it's burning in hell
IKR not to dismiss nikke plot or anything but that's like that dynamic is so common on Japanese media it became a stereotype
Moony, the first video I watched of yours was "Why doesn't the industry make good girls games?" and I think I subscribed to you within 10 minutes of that video; my husband soon became a fan of yours too. We've been following you ever since and your videos have been such a source of peace, joy, inspiration, and education for the last year. Today is my 29th birthday, so to have this video on a similar topic (respecting women) uploaded today was an extra treat! The little birthday-cake reference at the beginning made me gasp in delight! 😁
Incredible work, as always. My husband and watched the video together and we're planning on rewatching it again sometime soon to fully process all of it! Thank you for this feast of a video ❤
Happy birthday, cupfulofeathers!! I'm so grateful that the videos can be a source of peace, joy, and inspiration to both you and your husband.
"If this video didn't include NIKKE would you have watched it or cared about it?"
It was the video being from your great channel that convinced me to watch it despite being about NIKKE. Great work as always.
True, already being a fan of the channel definitely helps watch the video knowing there’s definitely gonna be a good anti degeneracy message there amidst the questionable material
exactly, the degeneracy of the game is exactly why i'm missing out on it's supposedly deep message
@@oldcowbb You are missing out because you never learned to not judge a book by its cover. If there is anything degenerate here, it's your media literacy.
I remember playing Nikke for the first time. Yes, I was pulled in with the hot characters, but when that scene in the prologue happened (if you know, you know), I just felt nothing but pity for the Nikkes. Then I played overzone chapter and ever since then, it has been my sworn duty to protect Dorothy from any and all evil. Oh, and the OSTs are amazing.
Which is the Overzone chapter? Is it a main storylone one or event one?
@@TheBeastInBlack event, but you can replay it at anytime.
iirc you need to finish the snowfield main chapter to unlock the event.
@@TheBeastInBlack OverZone is the first Half-Anniversary event, it's available on the event archive.
It's interesting how even in these deconstructions of sorts, there's a power fantasy in that the player character is special. You're so special because you can see how messed up the Nikke system is. And you're the only one. Wow? How'd you get there though? Were you deprogrammed or were you just somehow built different and able to resist it?
The last possibility is probably the most common and the least realistic and it's kind of dangerous to have it in consideration.
Also yeah, power systems inevitably foist way too much responsibility and pressure onto those who are only *somewhat* powerful. And in that misery they're undergoing, they go on to oppress those "beneath" them. It sucks! Realizing "I don't have to" is really important
Well, considering how the player character _isn't_ the only one who thinks like this, since the goddess squad commander, Johan and Andersen also treat their Nikkes like people and all 3 of them are were the best of the best during their time.
Story spoilers for the later chapters
From what we can tell currently it looks like Andersen and the goddess commander are the same person and the protagonist seems to be a clone of him or related in some way since all 3 have similar appearance, personality and most importantly the same rare blood type which has the power to destroy the nanomachines implanted in the Nikke's brains, so from what we can gather, the protagonist being different than other commanders might actually be more than just "built different" and more so LITERALLY BUILT DIFFERENT
Commander isn't necessarily the only one, but the one who exceled the most in modern standards. Also take into consideration the militaristic program that brainwash Commanders to treat Nikke like trash and fail their missions to maintain the status quo. The goal of the Central Government is not success, it is to maintain power.
@@keeichidarow I think the point isn't finding a story reason, but like putting the weight of the world on "just a guy" using his privilege for something other than abusing Nikkies.
Personally, I would love to see the story show earlier that anti-nikke sentiment isn't as popular but is the defacto mode for most people. It's already in game that the Nikke you work with are passing to most people and don't have to deal with the same level of discrimination like the mass produced ones. Seeing more people who come to ade for the standard nikke at their own hard would be a way to show that it doesn't take a special skill to step up.
@Solinaru Quick reminder that a lot of people don't know that most of them are actually Nikkes, especially the ones that stay at the Ark. I know that Underworld Queens and Triangle are both seen as humans by the public, not sure if any of the other squads are confirmed to be like that too but most of the probably are
Actually, this is addressed in the game. You are deprogrammed, in a sense, by way of amnesia.
I think we are looking at a Starship Troopers/Robocop situation.
Media that 100% had a certain message, but fans of that media will not see or outright deny that specific message exists, and just see it as the fan-service they want to see.
Then a Marketing establishment pushes the "fan-service" over the message.
People think Starship Troopers is pro-war, and Robocop is pro-cop, despite the themes and even the creator saying the opposite.
Starship Troopers the book versus Starship Troopers the movie might as well be two unrelated franchises.
Starship Troopers is the worst example possible, if anything, people who claim Starship Troopers is fascist critique are the ones that didnt read the book and it doesn't try to portray a fascist system in the first place.
@@Machiroable 🙄
@@MachiroableThe movie critiques the book. There are intentional quotes, sometimes with keen amendments, that show that the movie wants to be seen as sharing a subject matter with the book, but it is obvious that the movie doesn't mean to be the book.
Ultimately, you cannot ignore that Nikke is a F2P Gacha Game, and like many of its contemporaries, uses its design to extract value from its playerbase. It ultimately doesn't matter what the message is, because the message is not what sells the game. It's the sex appeal that sells the game, even at the expense of whatever story is written into the game... the game ironically becomes exactly what it criticizes.
I figure if you're going to write a story, you go all the way and stop trying to be clever and trying hide your message under layers of pretension. If the story is ugly, make it ugly. If the story is supposed to disgust the reader, don't doll the pig up and call it beautiful ("...but secretly it's ugly, look!").
As a woman who plays Nikke I really appreciate you making this video, it’s sometimes hard to convince people “no seriously it has good stories that I deeply resonate with”.
@nara070690 is that the the thick robot game? Yeah it looks good
The thing about hunter and gatherer's is a very common misconception. That's actually extremely false. in actuality, both men and women we're both hunters and gatherers, if a guy was better at foraging, he would be a forger if a woman was better at hunting, she would be a hunter. This is not biological or anything else, but instead us putting our own culture onto people from a long time ago, this is a kind of prehistoric revisionism, where we imagined them as being like us. Also, there's nothing biological about the patriarchy, it's not like there was an ancient war where men had physical advantage, it was years of systematic abuse to keep powerful people on top by creating an innate hierarchy. It is so much easier to rule when some people are above others and you're not the only one on with power over people, those people below you who have authority over a group you have made lesser will be stopping and fighting them to keep their power, nobody's gonna have time to question you. The patriarchy, systematic, and not natural
Hey, I know you!
Valid point. It's one of those things, like the barter economy being a thing before currency was invented, that's a prevailing myth because we struggle imagining a world different to ours.
When you talked about empathy, it reminded me of Fate/Grand Order, where mages are taught that servants are nothing but tools and weapons, and the protagonist, while weak, makes up for it with his empathy and compassion for the servants, who in turn respect him and quite literally would die for him.
And as a Brazilian, thanks for your efforts for Rio Grande do Sul,
I have a lot of mixed feelings on FGO. On one hand, I did have an amazing experience, playing on NA on release, got 2x Jeanne right on my first 10-pull (the first actual 10-pull), and she immediately became my companion in the game. Did all missions with her, maxed her out, and the cutscene at the final fight of the first part actually caught me off guard. That game genuinely made me care about a .png. And when I say that it almost feels like a genuinely positive game, then I remember Jack the Ripper exists.
that is actually a fate thing in general. for example the OG protagonist in Shirou Emiya also goes through with it. not to diminish FGO but technically that is one of the bigger themes of fate. the die for the protagonist bit is also due to servants dying alongside their master when they die so they kind of have to put his life first. once again not to diminish a theme but to point out it is there through the whole universe of fate.
I feel like giving the protagonist the super power of "has functional empathy" in an otherwise callous setting is a common trick.
All i heard was hes weak
the thing about FGO is that, the predatory gatcha is coming from sony, the degenerate wifu shit is coming from takeuchi, the actual good story and lore is from mushroom man himself. There is no reason why they should be coupled together. I'm sure its kinda similar situation for nikke
"the master's house is a big freaking house"
brilliantly put
When Nikke first released I was uninterested because of how objectifying it appeared - but after hearing people sing the praises of it's characters, themes and plot I decided to give it a go.After having played it for all of a day I was hooked by ~different~ it was and I was never able to accurately summise why I felt that way - however I think you have elegantly explained some of the feelings I had about the game. However I must disagree with your premise about it being "enough" to be aware of your biases: it is not "enough" to just be aware - one must act upon them, drive some change within themselves, their environment or the people they can reach. All that said, great video.
That's also what I initially thought at first, I was going to delete it after I tried it but instead the games just so good that I got hooked right away after a few chapters. In continuation to your statement not just the story and plot but I also liked how much depth or detail they put on each characters it's as if they were actually alive and are almost like real people, plus the "bgm" is also great, for a gacha game it's pretty much f2p friendly that I didn't even need to spend anything and still able to get strong characters, infact this is the first gacha game that I'm actually invested in. The game is like the definition of "don't judge a book by it's cover," and appearances alone isn't enough to make a game great, I sometimes even forgot that I was playing a fanservice game, it's actually balanced and both elements doesn't overwhelm or ruin each other. However no matter how great a game is not everyone always shares the same appreciation as us, especially people with "kruger dunning effect" and being dismissive before they even actually tried the game itself, I also used to be like that in the past, it was pretty immature but I've learned and grown out of it .
elegg is genuinely the most based design ive ever seen in any piece of media, so yeah, i think cake CAN teach gamers.
A 12/10
And what exactly did this game teach you?
@@notmyname213 1. Segregation is bad (duh)
2. Be the change you want to see; Commander (you) is actively contributing to end the human/nikke segregation by treating them as equals, even sticking out his neck on multiple occasions just to make sure all of the nikkes under his command is treated humanely.
3. Fleshed out lore + good writing + great QoL + jiggle physics = automatic money printer
Elegg I honestly love, shes one of the few that when i Advise I watch all of it... i also like Anis so maybe i have type.....
@@michaelskoomamacher5652 wow, call me privileged but I was able to learn all that without gratuitous jiggle physics. I'm teasing but I do think it's a stretch to call this game educational
In the name of all the people from Rio Grande do Sul, I thank you for your kindness. My family was directly affected by the floods and the situation was pretty bad. People refusing to leave because they were afraid of having their belongings taken by criminals (keeping the faith they would be working by the end of it all), other people trying to find their pets, not to mention the feeling of uncertainty brought by the material loss.
Having people like you around makes the world a better place, Moony! ❤
It's an oft quoted statistic that around 40% of the NIKKE player base in Korea is women.
I'd suspect that they identify with the objectified and exploited characters even more than the men do.
Sex appeal is quite universal, and women will gawk at beautiful women just like men. I mean, being a hot boss bitch who can shoot down armies while wearing high heels is a power fantasy I can empathize with even if it's not exactly my type of power fantasy. Genshin Impact also has a lot of women among their playerbase. That doesn't make these games more or less objectifying, but to a degree I'd say the good will in making a product that it's at least marginally better does resonate with audiences.
No, probably it's for the aesthetic. Women also love to watch beautiful women too, you know? Almost no one ever think to play a game to relate to the characters, they want to be entertained.
@@mezmerism107
Nah most play the gacha games because they like the characters. The gameplay and the story are extra treats accompanying that. (Sometimes people will play for the story tho) Many women I suspect do relate to the characters. But its not as complex as relating to the oppressive themes, its more likely they relate to individual characters.
Like for example im a girl and I (and most gamers) can relate to Elegg (and most men find her attractive since she is literally rhe hottest character in the game)
I am aware they probably did this on purpose, but relatability is a factor they consider.
Guess we all overthinking it.
@@revolvingworld2676 that's why I say 'aesthetic' (it's not just the art style). Many girls I know love anime so they are drawn to this kind of game with anime art style. No girls I know are even know the lore, or the character's background story. They didn't even know that Nikke is basically just an android. And one of the main aspect is the "gacha". Some people just want to roll, don't even care the story or characters.
As a day one Nikke player, I assure you that most of the people that are still sticking to the game are doing it for the story.
I know it's very unbelievable to anyone who are not actively following the story, but it is truly supremely well written with excellent world building and character backgrounds that pull your heart string.
Especially the Anniversary story events, that delve deep into happenings of the past. The war against "alien robots" that took everything from aforementioned "Pilgrims", the surviving first Nikkes.
Most of the day 1 players have long forgotten what cake even is. We just want salvation for Dorothy and Andersen.
Preach it, brother. 💪
@@st.lucient4755 I tried to boot up Nike again, no can do.
I saved up 40 special tickets when I last quit.
4 rolls, no Asuka.
What’s INSANE to me…. Is that I have to get 9 copies of Asuka to max out her level.
I looked at how much xtals cost and special tickets cost after doing 4 rolls nd immediately uninstalled.
One must have really low standards to view this sewage slot machine as "good".
@@ganshrio7336 A non-story player. Great.
@@ganshrio7336 god forbid people enjoy their hobby.
Moon : talking about how the game is unique and its story
Background footage : softcore fanservice
Why do you consider those two things to negate each other?
@@RoyalFusilier objectification lore vs objectification gameplay
Me watching after clicking the push notification thinking it was actually about the dessert: 😳
as important as the message of the story is, i cant take this game seriously when the jiggle physics are cranked to max like that 😅
Yeah after that I lost where he was going, his points are really loose, like they're not matching what he's showing from the game.
This is what we call getting filtered
i would also like to add how the way women are objectified to me (an aroace woman who feels physically upset at the idea of somebody looking at me in that way) has led to me pretending to be male or presenting in a masculine fashion online for a long time… usually people would just assume i’m a guy and i just wouldn’t correct them, but even still i feel so horribly anxious that people do look at me that way …
My gf went through a similar experience. She isn't ace, but she gets quite uncomfortable with unwanted attention, to the point of presenting as a boy for several years (and even to this day boy-ish clothes and short hair are her comfort look/safe space). It's hard, and I feel for people who go through these issues. Hope you found friends you feel comfortable with.
Yes especially online, a lot of women present as gender neutral or male for survival. I'm old enough to remember "There are no women on the internet."
Just to clarify. It upsets you when someone is attracted to you? Or just objectification? Because those are two separate things.
@@mattd5240 just attraction is a bit awkward, but ultimately i know that things like that happen and that’s fine, it’s mostly just the second (because it mostly revolves around how one may see my body and such, yknow?)
sorry if my wording is still a bit odd btw, i’m a bit tired but im still happy to further elaborate :-]
@@johnathancactus I would just take it as a compliment. Like 8f someone were to notice something that you're wearing looks good on you. The latter makes more sense because someone is solely fixated on one part of you and obviously isn't keeping it to themselves.
In short: Nikke is the South Korean equivalent of The Barbie Movie.
It's Barbie with jiggle physics.
Sir. if that was The Barbie movie. It would have sold better. 😂
The Barbie movie was very confrontational and because of it even somewhat controversial in the West. Meanwhile, Nikke is trying to trick its player into themes of feminism as if they were hiding medicine in a teaspoon of peanut butter
oh not at all. Nikke doesn't hate men on the basis of them being men.
in fact, lore wise something like 90% of all men have died. and from over 7 billion of total population only less than 100 million humans survived.
Barbie movie was after Nikke so other way around if anything, haha
"If this video didn't include NIKKE, would you have watched it?"
I clicked on the video because the title was interesting and it was from one of my favorite UA-cam Channel, which was the Moon Channel. I never played NIKKE nor know any of the characters in the video except for the Ace Attorney dude (I don't know his name).
"Though these roles were different, they were devoid of hierarchy" 13:55
Excuse me? What?
edit: I watched on a little further. I'm not really sure how you came to the conclusion that hierarchies were a result of organized government. Deer have hierarchies. Mice have hierarchies. Every animal which exists inside of groups have hierarchies.
If you think human beings waited until we already had kings and governments before started forming hierarchies, you've been very misled.
I think the idea that hierarchies aren't natural is a result of most philosophy, and by extent, sociology and the like, being subconciously influenced by romanticism and other movements that very much praised the natural, and so whether something is natural or not tends towards a criticism of it when ultimately it's not as big a deal as it should be. There are hierarchies in nature, of course, less complicated than those of the social tool man created called "Society" but they're there and they serve their purpose. That doesn't make them innately better or worse or above criticism (even though it's futile, I can't image papa wolf cares abt your thesis on the family unit) in comparison to the current social hierarchies man has developed, nor does it make our more "advanced" hierarchy more meritous than the one the animals have. I personally think the naturalistic fallacy is a bit of a bear trap that stifles discussion more than it helps it.
@@3417gekkou our complicated hierarchies are, with all taken into account, better than the simple "natural" hierarchies. And by a large margin.
Google how chimp troops work if you feel you'd prefer to "return to monke" on this particular facet of modern society.
@@shibbidydibbidy2241 Oh don't get me wrong I don't think natural hierarchies are any better than what we have im just saying the argument of whether or not something is natural is often treated like it offers critical merit when it usually doesn't.
@@3417gekkou The claim was that natural hierarchies don't exist at all for humans, I don't get how what you're saying is relevant
I started Nikke earlier this week, absolutely floored me with how great of writing, and how deep its stories started, and then continued to go. This video contextualized a lot, and I am very glad that you made it, and I saw it. Thank you, absolutely subscribing and looking forward to hearing more of your essays.
This video didn't contextualize anything. It's propaganda BS created by a lunatic activist.
This sewage slot machine is below even twilight fan fiction.
Not really the type to be leaving comments usually, but still I want to put out some kind of word out there for this video. I don't know how often you read your comments tbh, but I still wanna say I really appreciate the work you're doing. This and your other videos I've seen thus far are truly one of the most eye opening videos I've seen on this platform and more. Especially your 2 part video about the Korean Gacha Drama and Gender war, and this video by extension as well, were mindblowing for me since I'm from Romania, and I'll be honest, I had absolutely no ideea of any of these absolutely crazy things happening over on the other side of the globe. They really opened my eyes about how little I really know of what goes on in the world and while I already was, I'd say, a decently empathetic person that tried to be nice to others as much as possible, seeing how people treat each other in other parts of the world and how frankly terrifying it can sometimes get, especially the whole situation in South Korea, made what I saw here in my country and in my own life seem like a relaxing summer day by comparison, and they motivate me even more to keep trying to improve myself, be a nice person to others and to try to work with them together to solve our problems, instead of fighting against them, when really, we're all in the same boat after all and only by working together and understanding each other can we really find happiness and bring about positive change in time.
Again, thank you for your work and keep it up, I'm looking forward to watching your next video and going through more of your older ones to see what I can learn :)
I have been hearing this phrase used in this way for years now, and still I have _no_ idea how "cake" became a euphemism for "ass".
same
It's because you put candles in both of them
@@manjackson2772 patient presenting to the emergency room reporting the inability to remove a large wax candle that was "accidentally" inserted into the colon
being the one nice guy around an endless supply of new anime girls is super relatable ofc
As someone that initially balked at the game's overly sexualized presentation, and wrote it off entirely, I want to thank you for showing me that there is more to it than the skin-deep objectification.
While I can't say that I'll stick to it long term, it has gotten me to give this game a try to see if the artistry rises above the art itself.
And thank you for reminding me to be mindful of the media I consume beyond the surface level.
Regarding objectification- I don't necessarily think its bad on it's own in purely fictional contexts as long as you understand that, yes, it is bad in real contexts. Pretty much in the same way that I feel that murder or other crimes are totally fine in a totally fictional context (such as video games) as long as you understand that, yes, you shouldn't do that in real life. In whatever ballot boxes or systemic change that occurs to make the world a better place and limit or remove the possibility for things like the patriarchy that harms us all- I really hope that doesn't come at the collateral cost of ruining the ability of fiction portray or even indulge in problematic themes or content. I feel that would be limiting, unnecessary, and harmful to artistic freedom and expression.
You're entirely correct in your assessment, honestly the arguments against objectification in games sounds a lot like the old "Video games cause violence" discussions.
@@Cyrus_T_Laserpunch I agree. I also agree with pretty much everything said in the video, but I do think this distinction about problematic things in fiction vs in reality is important and that striving for a better real world shouldn't also mean a "better" fictional world.
@@CramerGamer99 I also agree with most of the video, Moon Channel is great at putting things together and knowing when something is harmful to everyone rather than pretending it only hurts certain people. This video, while it has a few misses, is overall an excellent one.
I agree with this comment, there are several parts of the video that I find lacking though.
@@Cyrus_T_Laserpunch its pretty faulty but its a good video the logic is naive the hook of the game is sex what keeps the players around is sexual desire and that will always triumph over the message
1:49 I started laughing to myself when I imagined the supervisor greenlighting the idea of her ass clapping due to the gunfire.
P word...
...enis
Oh, patriarchy. As a woman, I am embarassed that I did not immediately get that.
Someone's mind is in the gutter. 🤭
I clicked on this wondering why and how someone could make a 30 minute shitpost about butts in video games, but instead found a pretty interesting analysis on a game that i wouldn't expect to have any depth. Great video, I'm definitely interested in checking out other stuff on your channel
In all my years of watching UA-cam videos, this is the first sponsorship that's up my alley.
Thank you.
I have to say, sometimes while I was watching the video I wanted to quit, but I didn't, I felt uncomfortable on some parts, but I need it, being uncomfortable is not something entirely bad, I hope you all realize that this means that you're fighting with yourself for the sake of seeking the truth, the better, the path to make your knowledge even bigger just by hearing and trying to understand the opinion, arguments or point of view from others, and that doesn't mean going against or to concord with it, is about just to listen.
You know, if you are sure that what you believe is in its core good and impossible of changing, why don't you give a shot and listen to others to make sure of that? And if you change your mind or not, there will never be a loss or a win. It shouldn't be interpreted as that. Grow.
Again, thank you, Moon. This is one of the cases that I wanted to know what your real name is just to thank you properly.
Sorry if I've written something wrong, I'm a Brazilian. 😜😘
And even more! I am from Rio Grande do Sul!
Do you guys want to know a little secret? We don't know where the hell is the money that you guys have sent for our state.
Thank you, government, for helping us on nothing.
"disagree and comment if you feel so inclined" - as you wish ;)
I love your videos. They both taught me quite a few new things, and gave me interesting perspectives on parts of culture I hadn't thought about.
This video is no exception in that it is thoughtful and well reasoned. And that's precisely why I think there's merit in writing why I completely disagree with its implicit assumptions.
You do acknowledge that one can't defeat objectification with objectification, and I thank you for that. But I think you are downplaying the harm that narratives like the one you describe still do.
This kind of narrative is a "male saviour" narrative. Pure and simple. Yes, it technically encourages the player to see the female characters as more than objects, but it is still both shallow and deceptive.
"saviour" type narratives need no explanation, but in the context of a male character helping s.ualised female characters, within the context of "look how hot and steamy this is... but isn't it awful how they are exploited?", it has cultural context.
At one point, there was an entire genre of novels about s. workers who were saved from that "wretched life". The most famous one being an early (insert word here that may make UA-cam delete this comment. Hint: it starts with "p" and ends with "-graphic") novel "The Memoirs of Fanny Hill".
This is neither new nor confined only to the past. The problem is, it positions the male character and implicitly the (male) consumer of the media as "one of the good ones". From what you describe, the protagonist of GoV does not reject his role in the military. He's still a military commander and he still uses what for all intents and purposes are forcibly conscripted (to not use a stronger word) women for his military campaigning. Treating them as "friends" is not the same as treating them as equals. It's not that different from a rich person treating their servants with a degree of politeness, or in modern times, a store manager treating the employees as "part of the family".
The use of the word is not accidental. Traditional families need a patriarch, after all. Making the protagonist of a video game a caring, friendly commander just posits that there can be a "good patriarch". That is not an anti-patriarchal stance.
Your video does touch upon that, but I don't think it gives it enough emphasis. Men who are convinced they are among "the good ones" because they clear the bar that is so very, very low while many other men do not are a source of a LOT of violence experienced by women. Giving men a gold star for the horrible task of baseline humanity in their actions releases them from the responsibility of ACTUALLY treating women like we have agency.
As to your point that it's human to engage with lewd or sexualised content - uh, yeah, but the framing matters. As a lesbian, I enjoy - as you put it - cake. But I engage with content that centers the female perspective when it can, not the male gaze, the male agency and the male perspective on women. There's a difference between playful sexy content and "look at this butt" content even for a person who likes butts, just as there's a difference between flirting with women who show interest and initiative and make themselves approachable and hitting on every woman one sees.
Like I said, the video is great, it's well-reasoned and it's very interesting. But I think it only shows one half of the equation. On the off chance you've read this, thank you. I'm a big fan of your videos. This one being no exception.
This is a very lovely comment! I also agree with pretty much everything you said here.
Cope and seethe. There was always a patriarch, there is a patriarch, there will always be a patriarch
was looking for a comment about this and was not disappointed. very well put.
yess I love this comment, though I feel like nikke gives its women a lot more agency in the plot, there's un doubtedly a male savior thing w how the commander is put on a pedestal for being the only nice human ever for a lot of the nikkes
stories like overzone where the commander doesn't appear at all and it's just about the nikkes and their interactions are the best ones by far for this reason
@@lob674 I believe that's true. I am not saying the game is wrong to play. I'm sure parts of its narrative are positive and useful.
I just think it's important to engage with media critically. There's plenty of things that I consume that are problematic. Art and entertainment is meant to be engaged with, not as a purity test =)
I... think this one is really, really missing the point?
Yeah, men (most) and women (some) like boobs and butts. But they also like engaging and thoughtful stories. A story that makes women not appear as simply objects is not an "anti-patriarchy" story or a gateway to feminism - its a good story. The kind of story most men want.
Can good storytelling end the patriarchy? Lol no.
Also, on the topic of "Ballots or Bullets", well I wish it was like that, seeing places like Venezuela or Cuba...
Nothing you said was counter to his point. A good story can be a gateway to ideological positions, intended or not.
@@CarrotConsumer thats the same viewpoint reactionaries used to defend censorship of media - a movie with sex themes could be a gateway to "sexual deviance", or a violent videogame could channel actual violence.
Like, sure, it can. Just like watching a ball roll might make you want to play golf - you probably already liked golf, its not the ball that made you like it.
Love the video and love the take moonie but i disagree somewhat on the main thesis
I do not play the nikke nor gachas in general but i've been into otaku culture for many years and i think i can comfortably say that women (attractive women) being treated poorly by society and/or their enviroment only to being meet with basic decency and respect by the protagonist and shortly after falling in love with him is fairly common practice in anime, particularly the isekai genre. In fact one of the cornerstones of the genre, Sword Art Online practically functions on this premise: kirito the cardboard human meets girls who are either abused or ignored and by showing minimum simpathy resolves their problems and gets a new chick in the harem, and many other anime before and since copy that formula
I think that way of conveying relationships is a double edged sword. While its true that it has the potential to make the player (or the reader) start thinking on how they approach women it can't be a detriment too. By making human decency enough for the girls to open up and eventually fall in love with you a guarantee it can feed into the nice guy complex who wants to get the same deal in real life, where things are way more complex and women don't owe you affection (which in turn cause some men to double down on the fantasy)
Again this is not a complete disagreement and i think it must be doing something good if, as you mentioned it, the playerbase was among the few that didn't viciously engage in the gender war, but even if i not play the game i am willing to bet that the compassion and empathy is almost exclusive to the player-nikke interaction and not shown between nikke which would be a much closer approach to a feminist idea. As (i assume) it is it plays more on the male saviour fantasy than anything else and while it is good that the player is encorauged to treat them as human beings somewhat, the confinements of the harem tropes it is built on makes me more cynical about it.
Maybe more than a appetizer could classify as a little threat.
Nikke player here, I wanna say that I havent read like every event or finished the campaign, but honestly in a majority of the events ive read most of it is nikke-nikke interaction and there is a lot of empathy and compassion shown, they treat eachother as friends and yknow people, theres the occasional nikke whos jaded and is hesitent to the idea but most of the time they all get along and honestly ive seen nikkes interacting with eachother and having a good time with one another more than ive seen them interacting with the commander (player). Not to say that doesnt happen there still is the affection towards the commander and he shows empathy and treats them as people, but also nikkes are friendly towards other nikkes. anyways i dont think abt this stuff too deeply so someone could correct me but this just what ive notcied lol have a good day
I am a girl. I don't want to give up hentai and sex appeal in my feminist utopia, and don't think we have to. I see no reason to believe that sexualization isn't possible without objectification. But with so few good examples to go on, it's hard to imagine how.
Also, a minor thing, but the belief that in Stone Age cultures men hunted and women foraged is being challenged recent archaeological evidence. The current understanding is that most people did some of both, and that there wasn't a widespread notion of a static, binary gender. Where hunting and foraging were divided by gender, it was almost as often divided the other way and usually not a strict division.
New Evidence or being Rewritten by Feminist Ideologues?
I'm of the belief that objectification happens regardless. It's more of sexualization and to some extent objectification can happen without it turning into something negative or harmful. Because if an adult who happens to consume such things becomes influenced that leads to harm or disrespect to women, then they have bigger problems and should stop consuming such content immediately.
@30:15 My favorite of these phrases is "Respect existence, or expect resistance."
I'm going to give just a little pushback on the idea that patriarchy, and in a sense society itself, is solely constructed by men. Even if men, as the ones frequently in positions of power in society (not always, there were matriarchal societies), often had the most influence, it's more than a little sus to suggest 50% of the population don't play a huge role in creating social structures. It also ignores the power women often did have, the (usually unsung) role women had in shaping history and society, and the role women have in upholding the power structures and social norms of society, even societies where they are second class citizens.
I would argue that framing patriarchy in such a way is at least part of why many viewers would balk at your use of the word. Patriarchy, especially in online discourse (being the dumpster fire it is), is sometimes treated as a system made by an evil cabal of men for the sole purpose of uplifting men and keeping women down, and your more reasonable framing of it still plays into this. You clearly understand this, since you push back against it yourself. Still, you could have just as easily said that people in power, who have the most influence on society, favor systems that keep them in power, and that those in power were usually men, and it'd have still gotten the point across (and better explained the likes of Queen Victoria). Plus, as I've seen other comments mentioning, it's wrong to say that men were hunters and women were gatherers, or that essentially men being in military = men being in power. Just look to how ironically matriarchal Sparta turned out when the wealth started getting concentrated in the hands of women to see how reductionist that idea is.
This is not to take away from the overall point of the video, or that many aspects of society (theology, philosophy, science, etc) have historically been dominated by men to the exclusion of women. I just think it's one of the topics worthy of a little bit more nuance is all. Which, is also not to take away from the nuance you already did give the topic, either. You did a great job, and this is just me suggesting one thing you could have done even better, and maybe giving some people a little food for thought. And ultimately I will absolutely support the suggestion that eliminating systems of inequality is something that will benefit all of us, and that there are many valid and peaceful methods we can use to progress towards that goal.
updoot
Culture war bullshit is not good for the soul. Interacting with people and understanding each others issues is much more productive. No one should base their views on a video game. I listen to hip hop a lot, you don't see me acting like Future the next day.
Be critical, everyone.
What about Kendrick Lamar though? I imagine the commentary Kendrick Lamar can make on cultural topics can be informative for someone. Or the various other art and products that have done for thousands of years? Art and media can, has, and will have the power to inform on topics
Culture war is a distraction to keep us divided instead of uniting to fight the true (puppet masters)
mf said "this ones different though, you see, it has plot"
I've played Nikke for a long time and it's funny how desensitized to the "Cake" I am. I don't care at all about the sex appeal, I'm here for the team building and raid battles lmao. This was a great analysis as always!
You aren't fooling anyone.
Well, maybe yourself.
This thumbnail has the whole bakery in it
two, really
People love to over-analyze things
Humans can feel empathy even to objects so there is no subversion in NIKKE
And plot of NIKKE is pretty logical as humans are generally social creatures which require empathy so conflict of empathy vs no-empathy pretty much obvious
Unfortunately people, similarly to top brass of Ark, want to see their supremacy and impose their morality on people.
And so we come to these people starting to over-analyze plot filled with common tropes as something greater than it is just to prove their fantasy
Hierarchy is natural order of things, but people want to rebel against natural order because they want to feel superiority for their selfish reasons
That's why we destroy good in our society either due to elderly decadence or youth naivete.
"Eh sir, is it really necessary for the battle machines to have so much... eh... meat?"
I liked this one. But I kind of wish you'd also brought up that one of the problems with highly stylized stories being the only empathetic point of contact people have is that... it doesn't teach empathy towards people you dislike. People who annoy you. People who don't have some "redeemable feature", like tig ol bitties and being in love with you. The problem is, in part, the framing of you, The Protagonist, being an exception, being *the* exception, can prime people into being *more* reactionary when someone challenges you and hurts your feelings and doesn't even *want* reconciliation with you. People who are assholes still deserve rights. People should not be *denied* rights just because they're assholes, or unpleasing to the eye, or have the wrong opinions, as long as those opinions aren't encroaching on someone else's humanity -- and even then, denying the rights of people who deny the rights of others is not sustainable.
It is very easy to teach people to self-righteously wield the master's tools, not realising that the situation is not better if they somehow manage to become the boot. Dismantling capitalism, dismantling kyriarchical sexism, dismantling race, all of these need to happen to people you also don't like.
But also, no matter how someone comes to compassion, it's good that they came to compassion. It is, after all, easier to teach people to expand their existing circle to include other people when they know they possess a circle to begin with.
One of the early character stories in Nikke has a Nikke essentially torture the player character in order to test his resolve and commitment. You get a pretty empathetic reason for why she did it at the end, and she did way more than annoy you. Anecdotal, yes, but I don't think those kind of stories are fundamentally unable to teach empathy for assholes.
Actually, I think in a lot of stories, the empathy for assholes angle goes to far even, with atrocious actions being forgiven because of a sad backstory. Where empathy is used as a reason to entirely dodge repercussions for bad actions, instead of tempering these consequences to not be unfair or overly harsh.
@@MK-qj2dj This is a very fair addition. I would still say that a hot big-boobed android girl torturing you is still primarily fetish content, and isn't actually comparable to a woman IRL not wanting to be friends with someone or talking about their own experiences in a way that feel hurtful. Still, the problem of priming people into accepting abusive treatment in lieu of trying to be a good ally to the marginalised *is* real and *does* have consequences, and I'm glad you brought it up. it's all very tangled. No metaphor is perfect.
@@vanirie434 I can totally see why you thought that I was talking about the sexy and fetishistic kind of torture in regards to the game, because I was vague to avoid spoilers. To go a bit more into detail, the torture involves purposefully injecting the player character with an illness to make him suffer. The Nikke is not even in the same room with you after the injection, it is not presented as sexual in the game at all. Her whole story chapter does not even have a romantic element to it, it is about her seeking absolution for the unethical experiments on innocents that she is forced to do by the system.
It is true that stories rarely feature elements where empathy does nothing or backfires, since that can frustrate the audience if handled without care. Though I can't remember any stories that try to teach that you only should be empathetic as long as you get something from it either, only that you should always be empathetic because it is the right thing to do. So as long as the next step is implied or at least not denied, I still think even heavily stylized story can teach about empathy for all.
It´s also quite the mental gymnastics to see the game try arguing about morals, while also promoting loli characters.
Moonie I mean this with all the love in my heart, this is the worst title you have ever come up with PLEASE never change it. The amount of psychic damage I took from that notification was without compare, 10/10.
The video, as per usual, is great and very insightful. You are a blessing upon this platform.
always asking the big questions in life
Gyatt dang Phoenix with the whole bakery.
Just want to point out that my preroll ad was for Nikke.
I hope that you keep these types of videos going. I don’t know who else would have sat down and connected these dots with a game like NIKKE and similar to what you said - this video won’t cause massive change, like the game, but it is a good gateway for those people.
The theory of the man made construct patriarchy is grandiose, it leaves much room for growth, much room for change and most importantly, it makes men and only men responsible for societal structures we dislike. It tosses biological differences between men and women aside, the most important of which you haven't even mentioned. I want to give you a different picture of patriarchal society and its roots, one that is deeply rooted in human biology and each and every life form's most important goal. But just because a societal structure was necessary, good or has worked for the people in the past does not mean that the same still applies today, we do agree on that, and just like you I'm rooting for women in Asian countries to reach a point where they have the same opportunities and responsibilities as men.
But now back to the patriarchy: We are a species where one man can impregnate countless women, but women are very much restricted in how many children they can have, they can't have multiple children at once by sleeping with multiple men. This leads to a situation where for survival of humanity every woman is important while the same is not true for men. Men are expendable from birth while women only become expendable once they have raised their children to independence. This expendability leads to men having to prove their worth to society (so that they are deemed worthy of being kept around) and to women (so they are allowed to reproduce). In a dangerous and cruel world this makes a society driven by men inevitable - a society backed by the interests of both men and women. Having men take on the risks because they are expendable and must be successful to prove their worth is a much more likely explanation for how patriarchal structures developed and stuck around. Just think about the absurdity of claiming that more than half of the people didn't back the societal structure, yet nothing changed. The hypothesis you've cited does exactly that.
We no longer live in the dangerous world our instincts have developed for so they do sometimes lead us down the wrong direction. The change of society towards equality and individualism is a good thing in a world that is safe. With how much we have changed societies towards equality in the western world, we see unique challenges come with this. Not acknowledging our own weaknesses and our ancestor's struggles that lead them to live the way they did but instead projecting rules of our modern world onto them will only lead to a very, very dark path.
By the way, the societal structures of the past you've described were not patriarchal but aristocratical.
I'm a fan of the channel, so keep that in mind. But I feel this video is way off. I haven't played any gatcha game, including this one, but from what little I understand, it seems like the emotional connection a player is meant to form with these female characters has less to do with empathy for women and more with satiating the player's desire to hold the affection of multiple pretty women. And the company exploits that affection, that satiation, for the sake of monetary gain. That whole angle of 'Everyone else reviles and uses you and wants to hurt you, everyone else but me' to me seems less a matter of forging understanding and plays more into the female characters' emotional dependence upon the player while also making him feel special, like he's just the nicest guy. I don't see this game as being the slightest bit feminist, though, granted, I've never played it. It seems more about exploiting the desires of the real human player to be loved by a pretty woman so they'll spend lots of money on the game, and not much else.
Honestly a lot of moony's videos are pretty off. They're just off in ways that are close to correct and are about complicated or very niche concepts so I think no one can really effectively call this out. Like take his video about transness in Japan. I don't think he understands it particularly well and as a trans woman from the US the way that he went about that video definitely felt off for me, but I couldn't definitively say he was wrong cause I'm not from japan. I don't have that cultural context. He doesn't either btw. And I've seen more than my share of cis people within my own culture misunderstand me and mine. How many lgbt Japanese people are there going to be watching his videos though? Like the reason he didn't get the perspective from them in the first place is probably the same reason that no one can say whether he's right or wrong after the fact. I guess the frustrating thing for me is a refusal to recognize the limits of his own perspective. Could he have run this one past a feminist nikke player while he was writing it? I mean probably. That's the first thing I did with my friend after watching it. The first thing she had to say about it btw was "Listen, I played Nikke. Sometimes the writing isn't actively sexist and I get to have fun." That's not exactly a ringing endorsement. After talking to her, she kinda just confirmed everything you suspected. "There isn't a single named character that you fight with that doesn't either develop a huge crush on the player character or become dependent on him for some other reason" "And any concern about the harm done to women in it is coming from a place of patriarchal desire."
Idk I see moony do this on all of the videos of his that I've actually seen. I haven't watched anywhere close to his full catalog but it does feel like a pattern to me. Maybe that's unfair? I don't care if it is though.
Well said. As someone who usually likes the videos here, I was already a bit wary upon seeing the title.
In my experience, wrapping progressive messages *around* a straight-male-driven lens just doesn't work. Society is already used to patriarchal tropes to the point that it's the default in their minds. Using those same tropes as a vehicle for feminist message warps it from a message to a flavor. Think "hot GF ogled by camera" vs "hot GF ogled by camera who also kicks ass so it's okay"
I guess what I'm asking here is: *Why do you need "cake" to respect women?*
Heck later on in the story
There's a nikke we meet who is shown to want for nikke's to be treated equally and is fighting for the rights of nikke
The only problem is she's a freaking terrorist and is shown to be an evil person who uses violence to get her point across.
Like really.
And it's not just her.The other characters who are fighting for the rights of the people in the outer rim aka the shitty area are always shown as bad or actual terrorist
Yeah, I think no matter what the story is there in the background, the elements that hold the player there to play in the first place are inherently rooted in objectification and appeasing to a fantasy so the player gets constantly gratituded.
yep, nothing burger to me
You have every right to your opinion and analysis, but personally, I think 4 decades of harem anime have proven that "cake opening the door to respect women" either doesn't work, or has an effect that is so comically negligible it's not even worth mentioning.
There are countless manga, anime and Asian content in general with this EXACT plot : pretty girls who are robots, aliens, cyborgs, magical beings or whatever, and are discriminated against, and then generic MC seduces them all and earns their sexual favors and attractions just because he isn't part of said discrimination and treats them as humans and equals. Nikke isn't doing anything new. It's just that by being framed as a gacha game, it reached a new, massive audience that those anime and manga couldn't.
Monster Musume, Dears in the 90's, countless eroge and dating sims with that plot too... I could go on for ages. The quantity of content which frame fanservice within that type of plot is gigantic! ...So if it had that much of an effect, lovers of fanservice shows like this would certainly have evolved past the image they still have. And if there still are ads like the ones you show here, it's definitely because they haven't.
Like for violent video games, I believe (as you do) that it is possible to have an healthy or unhealthy relationship with fanservice. ...But just consuming fanservice doesn't help you change yourself from an unhealthy consumption of "cake" to an healthier one. It's external factors that will cause this. Not the shows/games or their plots themselves.
I could see this being at least a little more effective due to it being a game. With a show (especially one focused on fan-service), it's easy to just turn your brain off and watch, never engaging with the material beyond a surface level. But with a game, you have to pay attention because your input is part of the experience. Whether it's mechanic skill in reaching a goal or stratigic thinking in how to optimize your gameplay, it's asking more of the player than a show does of the watcher, so it's more likely that players pay attention when these themes come up.
Though yeah, even he admits that you can't dismantle a master's shed with the masters tools.
@@squiddler7731 Games based on those manga and anime existed. And original stand-alone games with these plots have existed for a while too. Sakura Taisen, in the 90's, was laying the foundations for this and was popular enough to get anthologies and crossover content with big franchises. Including Gacha Games like granblue Fantasy, 25 years later! (even if, granted, Sakura Taisen didn't have as strong a "discrimination/women as objects and weapons theme", so it's not a perfect comparison. but still, the girls piloting the steampunk mech suits were outcasts, "tools to do the mission", and were not really part of normal society). And there are countless RPGs we never saw in the west that touched on those themes too.
You're right that Nikke, by being a game with a larger reach, probably has more effect than my examples did in their time. But as in "more of something negligible is still pretty dang negligible", IMHO. If some fans of Nikke were offended by the ad, it has much more to do with what I called "external factors" in my first comment, with a general shift of our society towards more feminism and more equality, than anything else like the plot of the game. Because again : we had those exact plots 30 years ago. They didn't change anything when it comes to "otaku" and their image as sexually obsessed deviants for all that time, proving they are ineffective on their own.
Even if there is still a lot of work to do for an even better equality, the world has still evolved on that front since 1990, and for the better. Even in Korea : They may still be pretty patriarchal, they still are so a less so than they were 50 or even 20 years ago! (and that's true for almost everywhere in the world, except maybe some extreme islamist dictatorships). And, IMO, that is the real reason we are seeing some otakus "awaken" to an healthier relationship with women. ...And NOT because of the stories and games they actually consume.
@@AnAngelineer moons still on the naive phase he will realize this eventually
9:47 As a furry, I would say the joke still works since people with Rhinoceros fursonas are still furries, despite rhinoceros not having fur like Scalies or similar animals
Found you through Hasanabi's reacting, I love your channel and vids you make!
Also, I would definitely expect this from a UA-camr called "Moon Channel."
"Fiction's job is to teach us how to live and to influence the drooling masses" is such a garbage framing for any sort of literary criticism, and I honestly wish it would hurry up and fall back out of fashion. I recommend if you want to improve the quality of your analysis, you should check out some real writing on the subject-- you can't go wrong starting with Anatomy of Criticism-- and if that's too obnoxious, you can even start with the Polemical Introduction, which is just the first chapter of it. If your goal is instead societal activism, carry on, I guess. To tempt you with reading I'll even post a relevant quote, (which you almost realized yourself at around 6 minutes 40 seconds before you ended up backtracking.):
"Value-judgements are subjective in the sense that they can be indirectly but not directly communicated. When they are fashionable or generally accepted, they look objective, but that is all. The demonstrable value-judgement is the donkey's carrot of literary criticism, and every new critical fashion, such as the current fashion for elaborate rhetorical analysis, has been accompanied by a belief that criticism has finally devised a definitive technique for separating the excellent from the less excellent. But this always turns out to be an illusion of the history of taste."
I think the proof of the insipidity of your view of media in general is to *truly* imagine what the artistic landscape looks like when the first impetus of the "properly educated imagination" is censorious, or, making sure art "sends the right message". It's honestly repulsive.
Look at all the comments here thinking about "what a game taught them"-- as if artistic expression itself is only "proper" so far as there is a utility function to be maximized. Does no one else find that nauseating? Am I just insane? I think this specific brainworm you suffer from is the primary view of art as: Something humans do that if not done carefully becomes propaganda. The second half of that sentence is the worm-- the fact that this probably sounds disagreeable is the proof.
See, the key is that you took the PHENOMENA (South Korean art which emerged from a specific societal climate) and instead of scientifically examining this instance, this point in the history of art which is always unfolding, you put the wagon first and try to wring something irreducible and **singular** into a *framework* under which art **should** be produced. It's like a dog eating the first thing it finds on the side of the road and deciding this is what all good meals must taste like.
Dang imagine a North Korean saying to you “I wanna go back”
Disco Elysium, Specifically Joyce Messier: "Capital has the ability to subsume all critiques into itself. Even those who would critique capital end up reinforcing it instead..."
Most South Korean games have female playing important roles and being objectified, not only it's not new, but none of these games changed the perception of women, so I don't think another popular game would change that, especially a gacha game that objectify women even more than previous popular Korean games...
bless you moonie. every person ive told to start nikke because i loved the story looked at me with doubt initially but ended up just as in love with it as i was in the end ❤
Now, I'm just halfway through this and no doubt this will grow more nuancee as the video progresses, but a few things that I feel need saying so far:
- firstly, the prehistoric division of labor you draw up is ... well, rather out of date. There's significant evidence (to the degree that we have evidence at all for how human societies operated at this time, which we generally don't) that the hunter/gatherer split is incorrect, and that women took part in hunts just as men took part in gathering. Of course due to said lack of evidence - we barely have archeological findings, after all, and those can only tell so much - anything beyond saying "humans both hunted and gathered food, and there's evidence to say both men and women took part in both, but we can't say to what degree with any certainty" is pure speculation.
- secondly, and far more importantly, speaking as a media researcher, your initial description of the supposed subversive effects of the narrative in this game strikes me as overly simplistic and lacking both nuance and complexity when compared to how people actually engage with media. You're effectively positing an entirely rational if/then statement, which then misses out on the complex and often contradictory ways in which people engage with complex ideas and realities of the world, as well as fictional media. From that initial description, the game sounded to me as a "nice guy" simulator, essentially a system that would easily allow for the maintenance and persistence of toxic ideas and behaviours, as it seems to place the player in a position where *their* objectivication and dehumanization of these women is given a razor-thin veneer of legitimacy through the idea that they're somehow different, despite the game at the same time strongly affording the same type of objectifying and dehumanizing mentality among players.
After all, humans are incredibly good at ignoring uncomfortable or otherwise troublesome aspects of media, especially if these would otherwise prompt them to question their own values and beliefs - just look at the popularity of a film like American History X among the far right, for example. From what I've seen of the video so far I see little reason to think that the vast majority of players won't simply ignore any uncomfortable ideas presented through the narrative here and focus on the far less demanding and far more present gameplay loop of "watch hot anime girls have awesome fights, and ogle their various jiggly bits".
Yes, this is far from a new critique, and one that can be levied at pretty much any media attempting a "subtly" subversive or compromising approach like this, but it's still a very valid critique when one takes into account how actual audiences actually engage with media. Heck, I'm sure there are significant portions of this game's fanbase that read it somewhere along the lines of "it's just the wrong group of people (read: the wrong men) owning and controlling them".
Also, there's the deeply troubling undertone that seems to be suggested from what you show and tell from the game of there being a direct expectation of romantic and/or sexual interest from these explicitly and narratively subordinate women, which ... yeah. That's certainly a thing. Being lauded as a military genius for allowing your army of killing machines who are also all obsessed with you a smidge of humanity instead of seeing them just as disposable robots hardly amounts to no longer objectifying them, but rather strongly seems to support the "nice guy" logic that if only men aren't explicitly and directly horrible towards women, they are owed their affection, love, and of course access to their bodies for their own sexual gratification.
I agree 100%❤
Thank you @moon-channel for another great, insightful video. I've tried and failed over many many years to have these sorts of topics and conversations within many gacha game communities and have always been met with a lot of hate. It's good to see these topics being tackled.
I'd like your input however. You mainly mention Nikke in this video but wouldn't the recent Hoyo games be more appropriate for this topic? Genshin, Star Rail and Zenless all feature a mixed sex cast of characters that interact with each other in various levels. I've always been of the opinion that gacha games are mainly played by lonely people, especially lonely men, and while I've never had this issue, I get the feeling that these same people have very little interaction with other people. Which makes them prone to wanting affection especially from the opposite sex. Which in turn leads them to shun men that interact with the objects of their desires. Now people aren't islands and most have a social circle, so inevitably, feelings of jealousy would rise and what could be a healthy friendly relationship gets thrown out the window and the cycle repeats itself.
Wouldn't games like Genshin, HSR, ZZZ or even older titles like FGO, Langrisser M, Final Fantasy gachas and GBF help gacha gamers to like and respect their waifus and their relationships? in turn teaching people to respect others in general and gain confidence in themselves to do greater things?
In particular ZZZ introduce Jane Doe, a character that got a pretty good reception, and in the episode where she's introduced she interacts quite a lot with Seth, a male character. What surprised me was that the communities of ZZZ seem to have taken the interactions quite well with a lot of art from Easter and Western artists putting the characters together.
I say this because of the recent NTR scandals that have been making waves in the gacha gaming communities, particularly what happened with GFL2. I was a very big fan of GFL a long time ago and something that had kept me in the franchise was the fact that the game wasn't overly lewd and had a decent story that touched on many themes present in NIKKE. The community was also immensely faithful. Now I understand that GFL2 had a lot of issues in launch and that the gameplay wasn't very enjoyable but I'd figure the fans would persist merely on the story. It just surprised me immensely that the fact that one character worrying over an opposite sex npc would be enough to trigger the situation the franchise is in. One of the comments I read I found particularly disturbing where the commenter said something like "they sold love to me and now they were spitting on it". I get that selling "marriage" items is a factor but thinking you are in "love" with something because you paid 10 bucks is so, so twisted.
Anyway what do you think? Sorry that I might have spoiled some of ZZZ.
The Master's house truly is massive, isn't it? I do appreciate you helping bring some good attention to subjects and of games that I'd never have pursued or experienced on my own. (Can't relate to the appeal of humans as an Ace person lol and I don't much care for anime.) But surely, media and art are important parts of society and learning more about it's place in other parts of our shared world is appreciated.
The people who don't want to see this or refuse to acknowledge that there is commentary on everything in everything (even if that commentary is self-imposed) are the people who's world view cannot handle a gradient of views. Binary is easy.
I'm reminded of watching Princess Mononoke and everyone being like, "SO YOU WORK FOR THE WOLVES?!" and "YOU WORK FOR THE HUMANS THEN!?" when Prince Ashitaka works for no one but his ideals, which align closer to the two (four if we include the emperor and samurai lord) factions' goals.
They all want the same thing, it's just the man cursed to die if his eyes become clouded who can see that. The rest only see what is immediately before them.
I really like how you can take a topic and use it to educate about niche topics like how your video on gacha gender wars is mostly about Confucianism's impact on cultural norms and legislature.
But this is giving "Is [pop star] a feminist? Is Mastercard a queer ally? Is this TV show my friend?"
It's a shorter video so he likely couldn't go as in-depth as he would want, and it feels a lot like an appendix or extre to the Gacha Gender Wars series. Still, I don't think it's as generic as you put it. This is still a video about patriarchy, about how media can help reinforce it or dismantle, how even minor jabs can be impactful but you still can't expect products of the patriarchy to undo it. It's not so much about whether or not Nikke is "feminist", but how Nikke as a case-example succeeds and fails to partake in the gender discourse.
"Conditioned" Conditioned by what? Playing a video game for a few hours? I dunno about South Korea, but here in my country, we go outside, touch gras and have relationships with *real* women (Yes, they do infact exist) a lot more than we play games.
This is just another cringe "Yes, I´m doing the same thing I critizise, but I´m with the good people so it´s fine." Ivory tower dwellers love to do this kind of scheme to set themselves apart from the other "bad" ivory tower dwellers they don´t want to get associated with by the peasants. This games success has *nothing* to do with any message. It´s titties and good marketing, just as most succsessful gacha games.
Damn it's been a long time since I watched a 34 minute video in one sitting only to get rickrolled in the last 30 seconds
“Would you have watched this is you didn’t see Nikke”
Bruh I see Moonie post, I click