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Nintendo Says Mario's Toads Are Genderless
On The Pokémon Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire Demo’s Quiet Misogyny
by Chalkey Horenstein
|
Monday, November 17th 2014 at 8:00 pm
.As a gamer, I know all about hype – and how, in retrospect, sometimes we overreact to small things. And one of the silliest overreactions I’ve seen recently was the sheer demand for the
Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire
demos. That’s right: not the game, the demo. It’s easy to forget considering the game comes out in just a few days, but back when they were first released it, the demand was so high that those trying to get a download code from Pokémon.com’s
monthly newsletter sometimes got emails stating it could take up to a week for them to generate all the codes for everyone. Of course, if you’ve ever played the original Ruby
and Sapphire
versions, it would be easy to sympathize with the hype.
But at the end of the day, it’s still just a demo, and much of the game was left out. You basically pick a starter Pokémon one level away from evolving to its final form, and learn about how the new Mega Evolutions work. You can keep replaying for additional small missions, but each one is no more than a few easy battles here or there. The majority of the joy gained from the experience derives from the revamped music that is now iconic of the Pokémon series, as well as experiencing a few new aesthetic and small mechanic upgrades.
It initially seems greedy to expect too much more of what isn’t even the full game, and is explicitly advertised as such; but several of my friends and I couldn’t help but notice that the demo gives a lot more exposure to the male protagonist, Orlando, than the female protagonist, Anna. For those who don’t know, Pokémon games have allowed you to pick your gender since 2000, when Japan released
Pokémon Crystal, and while this is the very first demo they’ve ever released before a full game, this is also the first time since
Crystal
that this feature was left out in the main handheld series. Not only are you forced to play as the male protagonist, but the female protagonist is depicted as weak and in need of the male protagonist’s help. Anna is first introduced when Team Aqua is going to attack; and rather than using double battles to take them on together (a feature made common by the very games they are remaking with ORAS), Orlando takes them on single-handedly, one at a time.
Anna clearly wants to take them on collaboratively, and Orlando waits for his moment to shine. Alone.
Anna’s primary purpose in that scene is to heal your Pokémon. She then sits by while higher-ups from Team Magma and Aqua attack Orlando at once – and at this point, the player might think, “Oh, I guess they didn’t program double battles into the demo. I guess it makes sense that Anna would sit on the sidelines so the player could win single-handedly and experience more.” But then Steven, a famous character from the original version of Ruby and Sapphire and the functional tour guide of the demo, comes out of nowhere and agrees to take on the battle together. So that theory is shot down pretty quickly.
Part of the reason this small detail is such a big deal is that Pokémon prides itself on customization, allowing it to be very much the personal player’s experience. Between getting to choose between what is now over 700 Pokémon for your team, and most recently (in
X
and Y) being able to choose your race and attire as well, representation in the game has met a steadily-increasing standard throughout the series. The demo lets you choose your starter, nickname the Mega Pokémon that you capture and send to your full game, and even customize the order of your action icons (despite the demo only having two of them), all of which point to the customization being a priority even
here. So when gender representation just happens to be left out, and when one gender is
obviously
doing the harder battles, it feels very much like a step back.
Feel free to let the other protagonist tag in any time now…
When discussing this with less feminist-inclined friends, I hear all sorts of defenses. These include:
“It’s just a demo. They couldn’t possibly put every little thing in.
Hackers have proven this to be false. Within a week or so of the demo’s release, those far better at coding than I am were able to crack open the game and check what data was there. They found that the demo contained all sorts of unnecessary data, including the names, levels, and Pokémon of various trainers one may encounter in
ORAS.
The
ORAS
demo also contains a saving feature that allows you to continue where you left off and transfer some Pokémon and items obtained to the real ORAS
game when it comes out, further implying spatial adequacy.
“It’s more complex to have a full sprite character swap though. That’s something that would be harder to do.
Admittedly my knowledge of coding can’t argue too strongly here, but I can’t help but notice that Steven will interchangably switch between riding on the back of Latios or Latias when taking you places, and when the game randomly generates repeats of missions the trainers you face will still be swapped out for other ones. If Steven’s Pokémon can change genders, why can’t we?
“It’s really not that big of a deal. They’ll have the female protagonist as playable in the real game. They were probably just rushing to get the demo out, and didn’t think people would care. Don’t take it personally.
Okay, now we’re getting to something worth discussing.
In some ways, this kind of statement is absurd. It took me years to finally understand this, but the mere phrase “don’t take it personally” can be one of the most useless phrases in the English language. For one thing, it is seldom that anyone will ever hear that phrase and instantly feel better, thinking “You’re right, I’m making this all about me. I should just relax. Okay, everything’s great now.” Most of the time when someone is at the point where something is being taken personally, it’s because on a
personal level
there’s something that’s bothering them – and to tell someone that it is wrong
to feel that way doesn’t make either party all that happy.
Admittedly, there’s likely a kernel of truth to this statement: that The Pokémon Company International probably wasn’t making a malicious statement that women are weak or not worth putting in the demo in the same light as the male hero, but rather just flat out didn’t think about how that omission would represent – and consequently affect – the women who play this game. Sure, ignorance isn’t an excuse, and this kind of institutionalized misogyny does real harm, especially in the gaming community; but ignorance and malicious behavior are often resolved in different ways.
And one thing that is true of all people – man or woman, adult or child, – is that the moment something becomes personal is the moment people stop wanting to cooperate or compromise. Many interpret my critique of the demo as one of a few things: they either see me attacking a demo that the whole world is hyped about, or they interpret claims that people can be sexist as a claim that they
personally
are sexist, and that something is inherently wrong with them. And naturally, they’ll get defensive about that – because, much like the programmers who made this mistake – they are not necessarily intentionally being malicious or misogynist, but they probably don’t see things the way a feminist would. Someone from their perspective doesn’t want to have to face the fact that that way society has taught them to behave is sometimes not okay, because it is far too easy to assume that if a person is
doing
something sexist then he or she has failed as a compassionate human being. One almost wants to tell them
to not take it so personally.
An issue like the
ORAS
demo’s failure to adequately represent women is not one that will be solved with fire and pitchforks; it will be solved with education. The same mind that didn’t think it was that big of a deal is the same mind that will defend their logic with statements like the ones above. Because, at the end of the day, no one who is genuinely trying to be a good person wants to feel like they missed something so obvious. Don’t get me wrong, there are no doubt some maliciously sexist people who genuinely believe these things are the way they should be, but most of the time I find resistance to feminism to be just a combination of fragile ego and preconceived notions that are flawed.
You can only assume it was accidental for so long in scenes like this.
Pokémon as a series has improved in so many ways over the years; each generation brings smoother processing, more balances to the metagame, and all sorts of new and neat Pokémon. These improvements came about because developers were willing to consider that the way they were doing things wasn’t the best it could be. Without that open mind to change, and the willingness to look for places where things aren’t quite right, the games we get so hyped about wouldn’t be worth playing, even in a demo. We don’t want to settle for that in our video games, so why settle for it in the way we look at society?
I said at the beginning of this article that I felt the hype for the
ORAS
demo was probably an overreaction given how little there was to it. But when it comes to getting hyped for others – or myself – better understanding feminism, I don’t quite feel the same way. So if you’re someone who doesn’t identify as a feminist, or someone who gets moderately uncomfortable when you read about the urgency expressed in this or other feminist articles, don’t get defensive – get hyped. We feminist gamers are not monsters when we’re angry at sexism, and we’re not nit-picky when we find little details and call them sexist.
We’re just a generation who has experienced feminism in its demo version, and can’t possibly be more psyched for the full release.
Chalkey Horenstein is a contributor for The Mary Sue. You can also view his writing at
Retroware TV, where he has two columns: “The Cultural Gamer,” using games as discussion starters, and “Late To The Game,” where he visits overlooked retro games for the first time and shares his experiences. He does part-time work for
Team Magma, has previously been on staff of
Artful Dodge and
Spare Change News, has previously also been published by pop culture publications such as Overthinking It, Day Old Stubble, and The Good Men Project. When not writing, he enjoys cross country running, hamburgers, and copious amounts of
Pokémon
and Ace Attorney.
.
Filed Under | contributors
• gaming
• Pokémon
• Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire
• women in gaming
• women in video games
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E S M • 7 hours ago It's still possible that Orlando is equally useless when you play as Anna, though I guess we'll see when the full game comes out-
Delta > E S M • 6 hours ago OH MY GOD, SOMEONE WHO UNDERSTANDS HOW POKEMON GAMES WORK.Yeah, in the latest Pokemon games where your character and the opposite sex are both 'in' the game, you basically just flip the sprite and some pronouns and off you go. There personalities may be slightly different and they may say slightly different things, but they are very nearly carbon copies of each other that stand in as a rival/friend/whatever.In all the games where the other character is in the game (the original RSE, Black and White, X and Y) Nintendo has done this. For them to change the precedent now, ESPECIALLY since this is a remake of a game and not a new entry, would be absurd.It's also absurd, and I don't care how many ~~extra Pokemon names~~ are found by ~~hackers~~, but it's a DEMO. Is it unfortunate that it was very obvious that Nintendo would of course go with Brendan/Orlando as the PC instead of May/Anna because 1) 'Male' is 'default' and 2) boys are seen as the largest part of the audience (probably true) and they wouldn't want to play as a girl (not necessarily true at all)? Yes, that's shitty. But if Nintendo didn't have time to put the customization option in (i.e. have a ton of the parts of the demo with the double option of having sprite, dialogue, pronouns, etc look different), then it's not entirely their fault they went with the boy. Numbers are number, and if the marketing team tells them something stupid, they'll go with it.People have been clamouring for RSE reboots ever since they rebooted the originals, essentially. It's beloved, so a) I doubt Nintendo is stupid enough to change a whole lot, and b) They wanted to shove this demo out ASAP to generate publicity ahead of the launch. Should "it will take longer than we have" an acceptable answer for not having a female character in a FULL video game? NO, because you can kick marketing in the head sometimes and get them to push a release date back a bit. But is it ok in a DEMO for a game that WILL HAVE A FEMALE CHARACTER? No, of course it doesn't matter. You are not looking at a whole game. It's a tiny piece Nintendo is giving us to get people excited. Hell, they probably wanted the Demo file to be as small as possible so it wouldn't be a pain for people to download, and adding it a double modifier to a bunch of stuff would make it thick. Acceptable for a full game? NOPE. Acceptable for a demo? Yes.-
lmd84 > Delta • 6 hours ago Where in BW is the other player character presented in the manner shown in the article?In that game at least, the 'rival as inferior' role gets given to NPCs: Bianca (well-meaning but apparently a bit daft) and Cheren (ambitious but overly serious) in different ways, but *not* the player's alternate choice. Or at least not that I can remember.If your examples are wrong...I can't really agree with you on the 'precedent' argument. But then, it may have been the case in RSE and XY... So, I'd be interested to know if I've missed something here.-
Delta > lmd84 • 5 hours ago Oooh. Right. BW didn't do that.But RSE still did. And XY still did. So, yes. There still is a precedent.
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Lapis > E S M • 4 hours ago I totally agree with you. In every single pokemon game, whatever gender you play as is always the strongest trainer in the game. This is how pokemon has always been. -
Lauren Detherage > E S M • 3 hours ago I'm 90% sure that's how it'll work, but I don't know if that really makes it better. Either way, your opposite-sex partner is an idiot, and boys playing as a boy see a really weak female sidekick. I've heard a lot of people who played Pokemon X/Y as a male say they liked Serena as their partner, because she was more knowledgeable capable than the usual sidekick, and didn't feel like she was holding them back. I realize these are remakes as opposed to the new story and characters in X and Y, but even little dialogue tweaks could make this so much less damsel in distress.
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locuas • 6 hours ago for what i recall, usually the rival has around the same dialogue regardless of gender. That "weak and in need of the protagonist" is usually how things go, no matter the gender. It's more like "everyone who is not the protagonist is useless". In that regard, i do think it is A LITTLE of an overreaction to call this misogyny. I say a little because they should allow you to play female EVEN if it was a demo.-
Adam Blackhat > locuas • 5 hours ago Yeah, this. I notice that a lot of the male contributors tend to find more things offensive than the female contributors, or find more minor things offensive. For some reason it reminds me of the disguise expert in Attack of the Killer Tomatoes eating people around a campfire with the tomatoes, then asking for ketchup. -
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Sophinara • 6 hours ago The writer of this article has clearly not played the original Ruby and Sapphire, or even the new releases, X and Y. When you pick the female trainer, the male trainer has the EXACT SAME dialogue. The game is literally always the same with the exception of the character model and a few pronouns. It gets me pretty irritated when feminists start ripping on Pokémon, a series that pretty much has the most realistic and fair representation of women out of many mainstream video game franchises.As for the demo? It's just that, a demo. It's designed to throw you into the game play as fast as possible without you having to faff about choosing and naming your trainer.-
JellyBabe02 > Sophinara • 2 hours ago No, there are differences. Not significant ones, but the dialogue isn't exactly the same.
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lmd84 • 6 hours ago I wonder whether those demo bonuses will apply only if a male character is chosen in the main game. Because you can't "continue where you left off" if you can't play as your preferred character to begin with.That would add a practical difficulty (however minor, I haven't played the demo) to the already inappproriate carelessness of not thinking about the consequences of excluding the female player characterReally...the 'you can win where I/we cannot' may be standard NPC talk in Pokemon (or RPGs, period), but there is no excuse for applying this to *one of the protagonists*.Whether intentionally or not, doing so immediately diminishes *that* one for not being the *other* one. I'm just going to sit here and think of the awesome female characters (players included...I have head-canon) in the Pokemon games I've played.-
locuas > lmd84 • 6 hours ago there is no need, just read the manga Pokemon Special. in the Gold, silver and crystal arc, Blue captures the three legendary birds and shares them with Green and Red so they can fight mind-controlled Ho-oh and Lugia-
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Tony Velez > lmd84 • 6 hours ago Blue is a girl in this iteration, for the record. Also, Yellow (another girl) becomes the de facto protagonist in the Yellow arc (duh,) Crystal actually completes the Pokedex, and Sapphire and Platina become two of the only three trainers in the manga to actually complete the Gym Leader challenge (the third is male character Red.)-
locuas > Tony Velez • 6 hours ago well done revealing the yellow twist :P
Also, you forgot to mention jus thow awesome Sapphire actually is :P-
Tony Velez > locuas • 6 hours ago Well, you revealed the Blue twist, so I figured I was allowed some.And yes, Sapphire is awesome. Though my personal favorite character will always be Crys.-
locuas > Tony Velez • 6 hours ago Blue is not really a twist as much as a surprise. Yellow, on the other hand...
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Anna Sophia May > locuas • 6 hours ago Yellow was a twist? I saw it coming pretty much instantly.-
locuas > Anna Sophia May • 5 hours ago she IS an OC created for the manga (so there is no game counterpart to tell you this sooner) that people think is a boy and she does not try to contradict. So even if you could tell immediatly, the manga did not expect you to.
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PowerSerg > Tony Velez • 6 hours ago Yah seriously Pokemon Special is amazing. I need to stop slacking and read the ruby and sapphire arc since I stopped with GSC.
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Sophinara > lmd84 • 6 hours ago You can name the character in the main game... does that mean you can't transfer the bonuses if you're not called Orlando? -
Ceaen > lmd84 • 6 hours ago You don't actually "continue where you left off" since the demo doesn't start you at the beginning of the actual game. It randomly throws you into a town that you don't reach until the 7th gym I believe. Then it takes you to a small island that most likely doesn't exist in the final game. The only thing(s) you bring over to the actually game are your mega-evolving Pokemon and any items you earn from replaying the demo.-
lmd84 > Ceaen • 6 hours ago Ah, ok. If it is down to just the items/pokemon then presumably it won't be an issue from a gameplay point of view.
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Tony Velez • 6 hours ago As an avid, and I do mean AVID, Pokemon fan, I can tell you that there is indeed a level of internalized misogyny in the games and there has always been, but it tends to be so subtle that it's hard to argue without being called a nitpicker.-For instance, Anna's design is considerably more waify than May's (the original female PC for ORAS) and while there is nothing wrong with wearing a frilly pink dress during your adventure, I have seen many women who are upset that the Pokemon Company assumes that that's what they identify with.-In the second Generation, Pokemon were finally divided by genders. Because of the way the mechanics worked, female Pokemon could never maximize their Attack stat, which was a stark contrast to their male counterparts.-Did you know that Game Freak actually designed a female PC for the original Red/Green games? You can see her in some of the promotional material here:
http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-...-She was unfortunately cut from the final product because of the lack of space in the cartridge. Although she would later come back as the female PC in FireRed and LeafGreen, and was introduced as a character in the Pokemon Special manga, one has to wonder why they didn't remove something else. It's not as though the games didn't have enough fat to trim.-In addition, her lack of presence in the original games meant that their sequels, Pokemon Gold, Silver, and Crystal, would use the canon PC, Red, as the final 'secret boss.' In the remakes of Generation II, this resulted in the Female PC (dubbed Leaf by the fans) to be retconned out of existence. HeartGold and SoulSilver were direct remakes of a game that didn't include her. Never mind the fact that FireRed and LeafGreen had made her canon.-Another subtle case of sexism is that the original mascot of the franchise was to be Clefairy, but was changed to Pikachu when the latter proved more popular with test audiences (presumably because it was more gender-neutral, though it should be noted that most of the 'main' Pikachu in media, such as Ash's in the anime and Red's in both the manga and the games, have been male.)-Equally subtle is the gym leader and Elite Four roster. It not only took four generations before we got a female champion (forcing us to sit through personality-lacking drones like Steven and Wallace) but there has never been a single region in the game where the female Gym Leaders/Elites outnumber the men. Either there are more men than women, or they are equal in number.-Jumping off from that point, there has never been an evil team spearheaded by a woman. If there is a high ranking official, she is always subordinate to a male character, even in Generation II, where we got Rocket Admin Arianna, who claimed to be the head of Team Rocket. In the end, the final battle ends up being a male Admin called Archer who hadn't even been hinted at existing until that point.-Also, there's only one female regional professor, and she's the only professor to have a father on-screen. And he is...another regional professor. What. And while we're at it, the only canonical female rivals the player has (Serena and May don't count as they are interchangeable with their male counterparts) both pick the Starter that is 'weak' to yours (cementing them as a pseudo rival.) In Bianca's case, her whole storyline revolves around coming to terms with the fact that she's weak. In Shauna's case, she kind of just exists to be...there, and doesn't really do much of anything.So yeah, super long post, but what I'm basically trying to say is that, although Pokemon is arguably one of the more progressive video game franchises we currently have, there are still many things that are problematic about the franchise and it certainly has a lot of room to grow when it comes to equal representation.-
Ceaen > Tony Velez • 6 hours ago Speaking of the Pikachus though…did you notice that all of the promotional art and gameplay screenshots of Cosplay Pikachu for ORAS is a female Pikachu? Even the badass Luchadore and Rockstar Pikachu. Though admittedly that might be because they thought it'd be weird to have a male Pikachu in fancy dress and frilly pop-star outfit :/Also, in terms of May verses Anna's design (Anna appears taller/slimmer), I think a lot of that has to do with Ken Sugamori's style changing over the years. His designs for trainers, male and female, all appear to have been sort of stretched out and given smoother curves with more tapering of the limbs. (I'm still annoyed though that you can't actually change your clothing in this game like XY though. I really would much rather give my character full-length pants instead of shorts)-
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Tony Velez > Ceaen • 5 hours ago I've always had a problem with the idea of contests because it seemed to me like it's Game Freak's answer to 'battling...for girls!' This is further exemplified in the anime as the two female companions Ash encounters in Hoenn and Sinnoh are more interested in becoming 'coordinators' than trainers. The Special manga subverted it, but was incredibly heavy-handed about it in a way that just confirms my suspicions. I can imagine the female contest Pikachu is an extension of the idea that contests are meant to appeal to women (plus, you know, the frilly dress. :/)Actually, while I'm talking about the anime, the fact that the token female companion gets replaced in every region when Brock (who severely lacks a personality) traveled with Ash from Kanto to Sinnoh with only the Orange Islands filler arc as a break is a little problematic to me.Oh, and since I'm ranting, I may as well get this off my chest. It upsets me that all the Starters (and Eevee) have a 7:1 male to female ratio, even the more obviously feminine ones like Chikorita or Fennekin. Why can't they have a 1:1 ratio?-
PowerSerg > Tony Velez • 5 hours ago I totally hate that female to male ratio, it's so dumb. It makes no sense ether.-
Tony Velez > PowerSerg • 5 hours ago It's really annoying because I tend to prefer my Starters to be female, so I usually have to end up soft resetting multiple times. I actually recently spent three days trying to get a female Chikorita in HeartGold.-
PowerSerg > Tony Velez • 5 hours ago I give up and let my starters be male even though I prefer them female. I just breed them later for my competitive versions and use the female for competitive play.-
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PowerSerg > Tony Velez • 5 hours ago Lol, I get that, i'm just to impatient for soft resets.
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Ceaen > Tony Velez • 5 hours ago Yeah, it does bug me that the contests (particularly in the anime itself) come off as "battling for girls". Actually, in RSE your dad is a gym leader, then in BW your mom is a former contest star (yeah, two different games, but still). And I say this despite absolutely LOVING the Pokemon contests in RSE because it was fun learning perfect combos of moves and timing your moves to get huge bonuses (BW unfortunately removed quite a bit of the strategy and relied more on luck).Also, I think the gender ratio's for the starters are set up that way to make it harder to breed the starters since the baby will be the same species as the mother. Though having a Ditto does circumvent that, but I do believe that was the initial reason for the crazy skewed ratio. But since getting Dittos (and starters for that matter) is so easy these days with online trading and Pokemon Bank/Transfer they might as well set the ratio to 1:1-
Tony Velez > Ceaen • 5 hours ago I do believe you're correct in that they had breeding in mind when they set the gender ratio.It's still stupid and I don't understand why they don't just retcon it already. -
LittleCaptainMinnow > Ceaen • 5 hours ago I was going to say the same thing about the ratio being an attempt to limit proliferation of starters.Also, I just want to share with everybody that my brother's first Pokémon ever was a shiny female mudkip in Sapphire. Being very new to video games and without much internet access, we didn't know what shiny Pokémon were and thought all female mudkip were purple.
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Tam Browning > Tony Velez • 4 hours ago The reason for the changing females in the anime is basically because the anime writer said that boys need a new bit of eye candy every once in a while. Their words.-
Tony Velez > Tam Browning • 3 hours ago Not really helping those sexism accusations, I see.
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PowerSerg > Tony Velez • 5 hours ago Clefairy not being the mascot isn't sexist in any way. Pikachu has two genders, pikachu is popular with both sexes. They wanted someone who brought in both groups together.I think the professor thing is a bad thing. I don't think having equal amounts of female gym leaders is bad and a lot of the really stand out gym leaders have been female. I would like to see a generation where we have more female then male gym leaders but I think that can be treated as a subtle oversight. I HATE the female evil leader thing, they are really slacking with that. Next gen totally needs a bad ass female villain.-
Ceaen > PowerSerg • 5 hours ago I think the reason getting rid of Clefairy as the mascot is considered sexist is because Clefairy is pink, a "girly" color that marketers thought would scare away the boys (whether that was the actual reasoning, I don't know. If that was the reasoning, then yeah, totally sexist).Also, at the time all Pokémon where technically genderless except for Nidoran M/F, Nidorino/Nidorina, Nidoking/Nidoqueen-
PowerSerg > Ceaen • 5 hours ago I think it be just as annoying to have "here you go girls here is the pink pokemon we all love clefairy." Pikachu is yellow and is the most popular Pokemon regardless of sex. -
locuas > Ceaen • 5 hours ago I think Pikachu makes more sense as the mascot than Clefairy, to be honest.-
Ceaen > locuas • 5 hours ago I never really cared for Clefairy myself, but that's because Jigglypuff is clearly superior XD You don't see Clefairy as a fighter in Smash BrosEither way, both Clefairy and Pikachu just seem like "let's randomly pick one of the cute ones" since neither is particularly important to the story of the game.
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lmd84 > Tony Velez • 5 hours ago That...is a very true point about Bianca. :(Now that you mention it, even when she does choose to study pokemon, isn't it presented as her doing that because she's not 'good enough' to follow the sorts of goals the protagonist and Cheren have?
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Scarlet Sasquatch • 6 hours ago Yeah, bit of an overreaction. The story will be the exact same way with the female protagonist, useless rival and all. Probably. I actually have zero interest in ORAS. I'm just assuming because every single fucking game follows the same basic story and the different protagonists really only effect pronouns and that's it.Call me when they bring back trainer customization.-
Kryptoknight > Scarlet Sasquatch • 5 hours ago Wait, when was there ever trainer customization?-
Scarlet Sasquatch > Kryptoknight • 5 hours ago X and Y. It was awesome. Being able to have your own style was a complete game changer as far as immersion goes and I can't imagine ever going back.
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Dan Abrams, Founder
Dan Abrams, Founder