In eroge, characters are supposed to be attractive, moe and likeable. Because that's the entire point.
Fictional (anime) Characters 101: All moe traits seem to be characteristics that in a real girl would be negative... but for some reason in fictional characters they evoke sympathy, tender feelings and attraction. Audience empathizes with the weaknesses in characters, rather than their strengths. KS girls are moe not because they are awesome at school, running, bureaucracy or bench pressing. They are moe (if they are) because they are weak and they suck. However, overdo this and we get Toradora. I've seen lots of anger on boards and discussions spent on the main cast, who all seem to suck way too much, somehow. Ryuuji is Taiga's Extreme Doormat Forever, Taiga herself is an aggressive, selfish bitch, Minori is an unpredictable devious bitch who doubles for an overdone cloudcuckoolander, Ami is an aloof, snobby and bullying bitch etc. Too much negative with little saving grace. Keeping the deconstructing flag high, I've lately been wondering about the balance of different characteristics, negative and positive ones, and how our characters would scale.
Speaking of Toradora, it's my new funny thing to talk about, but I tend to get a bit of rolling of eyes when I bring up Toradora and KS in the same context without mocking Toradora. Because it's shit, right? Yes... but Toradora is a really good product. I have no idea if I'm hitting anywhere close to the home, but Toradora has the feel of a professional work all over it, despite the shittiness. The people doing it seem to know what the target audience wants (shit) and are not afraid to produce it, with scientific precision. It kinda reminds me of Ken Akamatsu's claimed method of creating the characters of Negima (basically, randomly assigning a combination of moe/other characteristics to each because it wasn't important to make sense, he knew he'd rake in the yens anyway).
We are not pros, we don't even have a well defined target audience, so KS and its characters are quite a bit more... freeform. Constructing good characters is still the most important thing though, and this returns me to the first point. How much it matters if a character is a "bad eroge character", even if he/she would be decent character otherwise and who decides that? KS doesn't have to sell because it's free and I guess in a cynical sense it doesn't even matter if nobody likes it (this is bullshit though). So we kinda can do whatever we want right? Well, we are also clumsily aware of many of the laws of design and writing/art, of the expected expectations in the genre/audience/subculture and such, as I demonstrate above. So I guess we are somewhere in the middle, doing for the most part whatever we want because we are not pro enough to do otherwise, while at the same time worrying that taking the reader into consideration, even mild pandering, could be a healthier approach (have you read The Answer today yet?). This dichotomy can be painful at times.
I mean, one of the writers is somewhat frequently getting paranoid/neurotic panic attacks about his heroine possibly not being likeable enough.
WHAT IF THEY HATE HER? WHAT IF THEY HATE HER?
8 comments:
As long as you don't fuck up Shizune, I really don't care what you do. :D
However many people dislike a character, a few more people will find her Moe.
And how could KS not be moe? Hanako sounds like she's riddled with flaws and the other girls obviously have to have problems, otherwise they wouldn't have much of a route, would they? If Emi's good at running, that means she has weakness somewhere else.
And whoever's panicking should shut up. Everyone likes Hanako, but I sure don't. Different tastes.
KS SHOULD be different. You guys aren't Japanese eroge scenario writers and I think the worst thing you can do is try to copy their form, especially given that it's already heavily stagnant and grossly trite. It seems that you're actually worrying about being TOO original. I for one would not like to see "shit".
That being said, I'm a firm believer in that if you like and are having fun in what you're writing, your readers will have fun and like it as well. There's really no use in trying to pander or appease: think back to the Nagi "incident". I'm sure most of it was just trolls trolling trolls but I can't help but think that at least some it was real.
Why are you trying so hard to make "eroge characters" rather than just well developed, believable characters with strong individual traits? I know the obvious answer is 'Because we're making an eroge' but frankly that excuse would be bullshit.
It doesn't matter in the slightest whether or not a character is likable all the time or even most of the time. No, characters shouldn't be perfect, if you want them to be believable then they should be anything but perfect. I'm not saying that they should be horrible people but they should have personality flaws to a certain degree. It's worth pointing out further than these personality flaws shouldn't necessarily stem from their various disabilities.
tl;dr Your assumption that characters in any eroge must be likable, attractive and moe is wrong.
I kinda tried to say that I think our characters are not very eroge-like, and a few of them don't even fit at all into general anime archetypes, instead they loosely follow western ones or act like a fusion of the two. The dilemma is, whether they should be more engineered, since the issue has spontaneously brought up a few times in discussions.
Also, personality flaws are what makes characters likable (to some degree).
How you view your own work can have a great effect on how it is made. I believe that the writer(s) that are being doubtful of their work are currently viewing it like, as you said, a "product." To ensure the success of the product, the safest way is to put a slightly different spin on what's already been done successfully before; i.e. such-and-such personality trait elicits such-and-such reaction. Rather than "construct" the characters in this way, the writes ought to stay true to their original vision.
I think that the development team already has a number of unique facets to work with in creating the characters. One of these is the pair dynamic, where it seems less likely for Hisao to encounter the main girls alone. Don't lose faith in your work, guys, and don't forget the freedom you have.
>>>The dilemma is, whether they should be more engineered
As in more generic? Why would you want to do that?
Something I've noticed is that depite character flaws, all the main heroines have good strengths to make up for it.
Emi is cheerful and accepting.
Hanako is shy (ℳℴℯ~♡) and I love scars (personal fetish).
Lilly is very kind and mature.
Rin is the resident "cloudcuckoolander", and it's hilarious. (Can YOU talk to trees?)
Misha's a lesbian, and that's awesome.
Shizune... I'm not a tsundere-lover, so I dont really like Shizune. Personal preference.
But the more diverse the characters, the more there's something for everyone.
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