Tag: japanese media

2277: That Girl's in Lesbians with That Other Girl

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Playing through Gust's latest game Nights of Azure, I was struck with how… explicit the romantic relationship between the two heroines is. I don't mean sexually explicit; I mean that the fact that the two of them even have a romantic relationship is acknowledged at all.

Yuri (lesbian) themes are frequently a part of Japanese popular media — an interesting fact to toss back at those who are keen to paint the nation as being somewhat less than progressive when it comes to attitudes towards gay people. Indeed, while "real world" Japanese society in general may not appear to look on homosexuality with as tolerant an eye as we like to think we have here in the West, it's clear that there's plenty of the old "public face, private face" going on, since there are a ton of creators who are obviously fascinated with the idea of same-sex relationships — both male-on-male and female-on-female.

The thing that struck me about Nights of Azure's depiction of its central relationship is the fact that, as I noted above, it's pretty up-front about it. This is noteworthy because although yuri themes often make an appearance in Japanese popular media, they're often more implied than explicit, with it often being left up to the audience (and fan artists) to explore these relationships further.

Take something like popular anime Love Live. Even the most casual viewer will notice the blossoming relationship between Maki and Nico by the end of the run, but the show never particularly draws attention to it; it's just sort of there. Likewise, the Senran Kagura series features a number of obviously romantic relationships between many of its all-female cast members, but it's rare for these to be acknowledged or not "laughed off" by the characters — though, interestingly, latest installment Estival Versus did feature a scene where one character specifically called out Asuka and Homura for being so obviously gay for each other, even if they'd never properly admit it. And the Neptunia series is riddled with yuri undertones, ranging from Nepgear and Uni's heartwarming relationship to Noire's obvious but perpetually unspoken interest in Neptune — and, in most recent installment Megadimension Neptunia V-II, K-Sha's obsession with Noire, though this particular instance was an explicit admission of lady-love.

Nights of Azure, though… it's right there from the beginning, and it develops over the course of the game. Several other characters comment on it. And, most tellingly, there are outright romantic scenes between protagonist Arnice and other leading lady Lilysse. The two share moments of intimacy with one another that, on reflection, are actually quite unusual to see so explicitly depicted in games: in one scene, Arnice comforts an upset Lilysse by draping her arms around her neck from behind and holding her close; in another, the two dance together, their devotion to one another immediately apparent from the way they look at each other. And after a particularly heartfelt make-up session after a dispute between the two, we see them waking up in bed together, having obviously slept facing one another holding hands. (There's no yuri sexytime, though; it's not that kind of game.)

As with other Japanese games that feature yuri themes, Nights of Azure treats its central relationship with the appropriate amount of respect: that is to say, it's just there, and no-one thinks it's anything unusual. A couple of male characters are introduced by hitting on Arnice, but once they see she and Lilysse are obviously involved with one another, they back off — not with an "oh, wow, you're gay" sentiment, but with a simple recognition of "oh, well, you're together" that would have been the same if either of the two ladies involved were the opposite gender.

This is the sort of progressiveness and diversity that is a very positive part of the modern games industry — however, sadly, given Nights of Azure's status as a niche title that a significant number of people probably haven't even heard of, it's a game that you likely won't hear many games writers from big sites talking about.

Consider this my small attempt to acknowledge and celebrate the good that this game is doing, then, and rest assured that Nights of Azure is very much worth your time as an action RPG as well as an interactive lesbian experience.

2077: Narrative Media

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Since I've become particularly interested in Japanese popular media, I've often found myself pondering which particular aspect is my favourite — in other words, what do I feel is the "best" means of enjoying a story that, in many cases, spreads its tendrils across a number of different forms of media with varying degrees of success?

There's not really an easy answer to that, but I feel my own personal attitude towards it is inclined towards whatever the original version of the work was composed in, where available. This isn't a hard and fast rule, by any means — on balance, I think I slightly prefer the anime of High School DxD to the manga, for example, and there are a number of interesting spin-off games that tell a completely different story to an anime or manga series, making them worthwhile in their own right — but I do tend to find myself preferring to experience a story as originally intended.

Part of the reason for this is enjoying a story in its original medium means that you don't "miss out" on anything. In theory, anyway; that theory runs that a creative work is composed for a specific medium, and then adapted to other media at a later date. The adaptation process often involves editing, changing and even cutting content from the original, usually as a means of ensuring that the important beats of the story fit into what may be a more restrictive format. Consider an indefinitely running manga series that is adapted into 20-minute anime episodes, for example; you're going to lose some detail, like it or not, unless you want the pace of the show to slow to a crawl. (Some long-running shows do indeed take this rather leisurely pace to their ongoing storyline, but for the most part, manga-to-anime adaptations tend to try and get through a significant amount of printed content over the course of 12-13 episodes.)

That said, different media are more or less appropriate for different ways of exploring material. Anime, as the most visually flexible of these media, allows you to outright depict things happening without having a narrator explain things (as in a visual novel, manga or light novel) and take a more subtle approach, implying things rather than making them explicit. At the other end of the spectrum, a novel relies almost entirely on the reader's imagination, perhaps stimulated a little by illustrations here and there. The nature of text means that the inner thoughts and feelings of characters can be explored in much more detail than in an anime, and even from multiple perspectives.

Visual novels, meanwhile, tend to unfold from a single first-person narrative perspective. This allows for in-depth exploration of a specific character and their responses, feelings and attitudes towards various situations — as if you "were" that character. It's not quite the same as a full-on game where you take full control of a character, mind; most visual novels give you relatively limited choices as to how they proceed, and the protagonist otherwise has a mind of their own: you're just along for the ride. Some visual novels do experiment with multiple perspectives — The Fruit of Grisaia's various routes each feature a sequence where the main heroine of that route narrates an important event in their lives, be it to the reader or to protagonist Yuuji; Deus Machina Demonbane, meanwhile, features a first-person protagonist narrator, but occasionally slips into third-person to depict things happening elsewhere when appropriate. For the most part, though, when you come to the end of a visual novel, the character you almost certainly understand the best is the protagonist.

Video game adaptations — i.e. those that aren't visual novels — present their own challenges by allowing the player to control iconic characters and perhaps make them behave in ways that aren't necessarily in keeping with their character as depicted in other media. This is partly a matter of attitude, though; someone who is already particularly engaged with a series and comes to a video game adaptation after reading the manga/visual novel/light novel or watching the anime may well find themselves "method acting" as the character they find themselves in full control of, even if the game mechanics do provide the opportunity for them to do unexpected and strange things.

In other words, I don't really have a concrete answer for the question. At the moment, I'm particularly enjoying reading The Fruit of Grisaia's visual novel, and after hearing how the anime adaptation packs the VN's many hours of narrative and interesting happenings into just a single season, I feel that the VN is probably the best means of experiencing this story in full detail. At the same time, I'm enjoying the video game of Sword Art Online, the manga of Monster Musume, the anime of Himouto! Umaru-chan — there really isn't a straightforward answer as to which one is "best".

It sometimes pays to explore a single work in different media, though; the unwritten rules that "the book is usually better than the film" and "video game adaptations are universally terrible" don't always apply!