SegaShiro: Pure SEGA HARDCORE!

Game guru, Hideki Kamiya, at Platinum Games has expressed his concern over the release of Bayonetta Doujinshi. For those not in the know – Doujinshi are fan fiction comics that tend to focus on “adult” themes of love and sexuality.

These can range from normal depictions of love to the perversion of hentai. Granted, anyone who has seen a trailer of Bayonetta knew that Doujinshi and pornographic art were coming. Why? Because we as a species are not very creative and very predictable. We also love sex.

However, Doujinshi is also a sign that the character is popular and Bayonetta with her hair attacks and love of dancing is fertile ground for devious and perverted minds (like my own).

Now, while the internet is laughing because Kamiya made an overtly sexual and female character and now seems shocked that “fans” would exploit his creation in a sexual manner, I think people are missing the point of the comment:

_{“It seems there’s pornographic doujinshi based off Bayonetta… There are fans who will resent that, and I hardly think those responsible [for the doujinshi] hold any love for the game…”}

Kamiya is only suggesting that the people creating hentai versions of his character aren’t staying true to the nature of her character and that there are fans who would resent it. I happen to be one of them and I will tell you why:

Despite Bayonetta being a fantastic action game all everyone seems to talk about is that she is sexualized. And what mystifies me is despite her getting her gear off during the battles which in the context of the game come from her own volition, there is no sex in the game. No sex act.

Uh..Wait...isn't the Dude supposed to be the aggressive one?

In fact, she makes fun of most of the male characters around her, who look inept and decidedly weak. This is in contrast to God of War. Kratos runs around in a loincloth with bulging muscles and screams at people. The women in that world are sexualized – used, dismissed, and forgotten by Kratos – and yet people do not have an issue with that depiction of sexuality.

Flip that situation, and suddenly Bayonetta is an affront to people’s morals? You know what I think? I think many gamers are a tad frightened by an overtly sexual woman.

At the SEGA booth at Fan Expo, I was shocked to see the amount of girl gamers that were excited to play as the character, but I shouldn’t have been. Think about the notions of sexuality that Bayonetta puts foward – she is tough as nails, she is smart (people who claim she is one dimensional haven’t played the entire game), and finally she is self-confident.

Her design is atypical to many other female character as she does not perpetuate the blonde, blue-eyed stereotype so often found elsewhere.

Sure, Bayonetta is not the greatest female role model in video games nor will she ever be, but in media form that has so few strong females to choose from she beats the pants off other characters (coincidentally by her willingness to part with her own). Sexuality is source of the character’s strength – that is not necessarily a bad thing.

The game toys with our view of women in general as the character often dresses up as nun despite her willingness to do strip teases. However, the game’s storyline is more about the relationship between Bayonetta and Cereza.

Sex sells. Sex sold Bayonetta. Sex will continue to sell. Great. Welcome to the modern media and marketplace…heck, you even look into condominium advertisements (here and here) and they try to sell you sex. Sex is also hilarious:

Sex is immensely important, as a biological and genetic mission, but there is so much more to life than just sex. When I think about some of my best relationships, sex might have gotten me there to start but it was never why I stuck around.

Such is the case with Bayonetta – sex may have gotten gamers to take a look but there is a lot more going on with the game and with the character than simply sex – that is why, I think Kamiya is expressing his disappointment, a sentiment I can understand.

That – or he just wanted everyone to talk about his game again and sell more copies! Yeah! MORE MONEYS!

_{[Source: Kotaku]}

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