When I heard that VICE Gaming was rebranding to Waypoint, my reaction was a hearty “shrug and move on”. In the past, VICE Gaming has been responsible for some truly terrible articles about games many of my friends and I are interested in, most notably the Senran Kagura series. I won’t bring them up here, but suffice to say, I’ve written many angry words in the past on the subject.
Consequently, when I happened to see this tweet earlier, my immediate reaction was to predict yet another ill-informed, overly judgemental article about the prevalence of boobs in the game, without exploring any of the things that actually make it an interesting series. (Yes, yes, gratuitous plug for my own work there, but I’ve written a lot about Senran Kagura.)
Out of curiosity — or perhaps partly to vindicate what I will freely admit was prejudice — I clicked through to the article when someone else shared it and took a look.
My goodness me.
I was genuinely surprised to read not the usual screed about how it’s a piece of misogynist filth that everyone should feel ashamed of the mere existence of, but instead a good interview with series creator Kenichiro Takaki about his philosophy towards character design, sexualised content and all manner of other things. Even more notably, the article acknowledges that Senran Kagura games are actually damn fine brawlers in their own right, and far from being simple ecchi delivery vehicles.
I have to give some kudos to Waypoint for publishing this article, and to Patrick Klepek for writing it in the first place. I’ve had my differences of opinion with how Klepek covers things in the industry in recent years — like many other full-time games journos, he has often shown a significant lean towards the oft-irrational “social justice” side of the spectrum — but in this instance, he’s done what he was once known for back in what many regard as “the good old days”. It’s a solid piece of reporting with some interesting questions and no moral high-horsing. Klepek acknowledges that Senran Kagura’s sexualisation is not the sort of thing that generally appeals to him, but doesn’t put it down for that; moreover, he even says that he’s enjoyed playing the games after a few hours.
The article is just plain nice to read; a breath of fresh air in the current climate. Every interview I’ve read with Takaki in the past has shown him to be an incredibly enthusiastic creator with a clear vision; he’s someone who’s passionate about his work and utterly in love with the characters he and his team have created, and this absolutely comes across in Waypoint’s piece. It makes me happy. It makes me really happy to see this.
And when I’m happy to read something, I absolutely don’t mind sharing it with other people. You’ll notice that I’ve added a direct link to the article in this piece rather than using archive.is to deprive the site of ad impressions, and this is because I firmly believe that this is the sort of thing we need to see a lot more of in the future.
I’ve grown very tired of writing the same article about the shitty deal Japanese games get when it comes to the Western games press, and yet every time I see another ill-informed rant on anime girls, I feel I have to say something, because not enough other people are. I’m sure you can understand and appreciate how absolutely wonderful it is to be able to share a piece of writing about the games I enjoy so much that doesn’t tear them to shreds, that doesn’t brand anyone who enjoys them as some sort of sexual deviant, and that does allow a creator to celebrate both the success and popularity of their work while acknowledging that it may not be to everyone’s liking.
While VICE Gaming’s past misdeeds mean that Waypoint has a lot of work to do in order to gain my trust, this article is very much a step in the right direction, and I think everyone — particularly those who have been angry about poor coverage of Japanese games in the past — should acknowledge that; hell, celebrate it, even.
Let’s see more of this in the future, please, and less of the moral crusading. Games are fun; games are thing that people get great joy from; games cater to diverse interests and tastes. The games press of recent years seems to have forgotten that somewhat, despite regularly spouting buzzwords like “diversity” (when what they actually mean in most cases is “people who aren’t white” rather than true all-encompassing diversity). But seeing articles like this gives me a glimmer of hope that we might have turned a corner.
Now we just need to see other sites follow suit — and Waypoint to continue in this manner.
[EDIT: It did not. How naive I was.]