Are Japanese Games Getting Too Lewd?

I like to imagine that there’s a person out there who reads the title of this post, screams “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” and then dives from the sky like a peregrine falcon to try and hit me with a flying cross chop at 200 miles per hour.  The keyword here is try, for obvious reasons.  I like my bones in working order, you see.

Now then.  Early on in my blogging career (sure, let’s call it that), I tended to use the phrase “improbably buxom” to describe -- well, you can probably guess.  I still use it, because I think it’s worth a chuckle.  But back then I used it a bit more because I went on about stuff like Dead or Alive.  It reached a point where I joked about spearheading a campaign to create Improbably Buxom: The Game, in which you play as a character out to make the women of the world -- you guessed it -- improbably buxom.  Then I found out that that game had already been made, more or less; the details aren’t intimate to me, but I’m willing to bet that it’s hentai.  Does that count in the grand scheme of things?  That’s a question worthy of debate. 

But imagine my surprise when a slew of recent Japanese games do their best to ape my glorious concept.  All with a straight face.  And it just leaves me wondering: are the games from the land of the rising sun becoming too lewd for their own good?

Is Senran Kagura Secretly Brilliant?

Hey, everybody, how’s it going?  Let’s talk about breasts.

A while back, I was on The Escapist sifting through the forums -- something I don’t do all that often, unless there’s an interesting topic listed on the front page.  But as internet-surfing tends to go, one thing led to another, and after a while somebody asked an interesting question: “If Alyx Vance had big breasts, would she be a worse character?”  I don’t know Half-Life well enough to comment, but I’ve heard of her before (semi-extensively, because she’s a top-tier female character).  And I know that her abject non-sexualization is part of her appeal.  “She’s wearing clothes!  She doesn’t have big boobs!  She’s not just eye candy!”  And so on. 

But would making her improbably buxom automatically hurt her appeal?  Her credibility?  Well, yes and no.  “Yes” in the sense that a bust boost threatens to head into seedy territory, and could be exploited.  “No” in the sense that just because a character is busty doesn’t make them a bad character.  (See: Lulu, Cortana, Juliet Starling, Bayonetta, Elizabeth Comstock, several Mass Effect characters, several Dragon Age characters, at least one character per Tales game, and virtually every female character in the Devil Survivor games.)  If a character only exists to be objectified, that’s a problem.  If a colossal chest -- for a variable definition of “colossal” -- is used to make a character visually distinct, and as a trait of a character than a defining characteristic, then it makes for more stable ground.

Which brings me to Senran Kagura -- the seediest of all seedy games.

Let's Get Beautiful

You know, I’ve been thinking.  (Cue the panicked shrieks of the masses as they run desperately for cover.)

So word on the street is that Senran Kagura is coming to the West.  That’s interesting, I suppose.  I can’t personally summon up too much interest in the game, but if it’s set to make plenty of gamers happy -- and of course let the devs offer up something to a wider audience -- then I’m glad this is something that’s happening.  Of course, I can’t help but get a little nervous about reactions to the game being released; the whole Dragon’s Crown brouhaha is still a sore point for a lot of people, and has opened up debates that have likely done nothing more than spin in circles at 8000 RPM. 

I’d argue that Senran Kagura has its own merits as a game and a series -- artistic merit, creative liberties, etc., etc. -- but even so it’s a bit harder to defend than Dragon’s Crown.  That game has more overt throwbacks to fantasy artists and games of the past, with its eyebrow-raising designs a consequence of applying the amped-up aesthetic and design philosophy to everything and everyone.  It’s very likely -- probable, even -- that Senran Kagura exists on the same axis (as an over-the-top parody of fanservice-laden elements, or if not that then winking tributes), but the line between playing it straight and playing it for laughs is…er…hazy.

So why is it that the more I hear about the game, the more I’m intrigued by it?