16. 17. HENTAI GAMES. FOR GIRLS. They do exist. Believe it. CAT BANDIT
explores the hidden world of H-games for girls with Japanese cultural expert. DR.
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HENTAI GAMES FOR GIRLS They do exist. Believe it. CAT BANDIT explores the hidden world of H-games for girls with Japanese cultural expert DR. SUMIKO IIDA.
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t’s an anecdotal factoid (spurious fact) that if something exists, so does its complete opposite – even things like all those rapey hentai visual novels you play on the sly. Oh don’t be coy, you know the ones. They feature a rotisserie of unusually willing and varied anime girl-types with funky hair to pursue. You click, click, click through to the next manganese portrait of ever-building sexual malignancy until you must choose to rape or not to rape. Choosing ‘DON’T RAPE’ usually results in rape anyway, and maybe even sometimes the appearance of an excited tentacle beast. Wild surprise: These ‘eroge’ games have their fairer sex dopplegängers, but they’re very far from what you might be thinking. Dr. Sumiko Iida of the University of New South Wales has specialised in exactly that: Hentai games for girls. ‘Otome,’ to the Japanese. “This game genre is referred to as ‘Josei-muke
ren-ai’ (‘love adventure games for women’), or more commonly as ‘otome games’ (‘maidens/ girls’ games’),” she nods. “The English translation of ‘otome’ is a bit tricky. When I worked on this topic for a conference presentation back in 2011, I searched the term and found ‘male harem games’ on the internet. However, searching the word now, I find its translation as ‘reverse harem games’ on a number of sites. Considering the original meaning of ‘harem,’ perhaps this term is more suitable to describe this game genre. So let’s call these ‘reverse harem games’ in English.” The incendiary question: How do these reverse harem games differ in form and function from the typically lewd if not flat-out sexually deviant likes of Bible Black and Kana: Little Sister? And stop arguing about the emotive merits of the latter. You were having sex with your terminally ill sister, you monster.
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ANATOMY OF A REVERSE HAREM
OMG SO KAWAII ^_^;;;
Sumiko details the bits and pieces that make up an otome game. 1. There are more than a few male characters (4-8 or even more). Each character has unique attributes including physical appearance, personality and even birthday and blood type. 2. Majority of the games proceeds with the player selecting the protagonist’s action in the story. A few games include combat, where the player controls the protagonist’s move and action. Where there is a battle, the player only selects either what to do from a select menu, or even does nothing while the story simply goes on as male characters fight against the villain.
“To be honest, I have never played any hentai games or love-adventure games targeted at male players,” Sumiko blushes. “I believe their structure is probably similar. There seem to be sub-genres of the one for boys, for example gyarugame (dressing up), hentai (tentacles and forced intercourse), and bishoujo (dangerously underage girls). In my understanding, perhaps so-called gyaru games are the closest to otome in general. However, I must say that otome games also vary in regards to the inclusion of sexual images and scenes, hence there is always censorship and age restrictions such as 12 yrs+, 15 yrs,+ , and 18 yrs+. I also need to mention that this genre also accounts for BL (‘Boys’ Love,’ also known as yaoi, which depicts homosexual relationships between males aimed at the female market). I also assume that any sexual games for boys, as in comics, focus on females only. The ones for girls present both males and females in the game. One might say the ones for boys focus only on sexual scenes and disregard the storyline, whilst girls are not just interested in these actions 18
but in the story of romance itself. The basic nature of them is that the player controls the protagonist – always female – and aims to achieve a fulfilling love with one of the multiple male characters whilst following the main story. I understand that the game industry had targeted males (‘boys’ may be more suitable) only as potential game players since the appearance of Family Computer in 1983, for about ten years,” Sumiko adds.
2011,” Sumiko recalls. “When I began playing the second version of Harukanaru naru Toki no Naka de (Within the Expanse of a Distant Time), I was very much intrigued by not just the male characters, but also its storyline. I was amazed how each character was created in detail from height, to birthday, favourite flower, favourite place and even blood type! I could imagine girls referring to these attributes when selecting the
BOYS FOCUS ONLY ON SEXUAL SCENES AND DISREGARD THE STORYLINE “Koei, one of the major game software makers in Japan, had its eyes on it and began the project of creating a game for girls. The project began in 1992 when they formed a project team called Ruby Party, a female employees-only team within Koei. In 1994, Angelique was the very first otome game to appear on the market. It was for the Super Famicom.” VOICE OF A PENETRATION >> That’s not where Sumiko herself first truly experienced the allure of otome, though. “My first real experience playing an otome game was in
target character and basking in a sweet dream of love with the character. I can clearly see how Koei must have carefully investigated the types of boys ordinary Japanese girls and women fall in love with. What I am even more amazed by,” Sumiko adds, “is this game series is partly based on historical facts, and some characters and places in the game actually existed (but needless to say are fantasised as a fiction). The creators of the game must have done more research than necessary into history to create it. This might motivate some players
3. Story is relatively short compared with ordinary RPGs. The player can complete the game by achieving love with one male character at a time. In order to achieve love with every single male character, the player has to repeat the game as many times as there are male characters. However, after several common chapters, depending on the target male character, chapters branch off to lead the player to a different story and ending. 4. Most games prepare a happy ending as well as a tragic ending for each male character. 5. There are rewards for seeing a particular scene or clearing the game. They are mostly still images of a male character or voice or extracts of the climactic scene, which the player can keep and access at anytime without starting over. In order to collect all of the rewards, the player has to repeat the games for a number of times and complete it thoroughly. In this sense it is a kind of yarikomi (‘play for additional challenge’). Many games therefore come with a skip function with which the player can fastforward through scenes she has already viewed. 6. The characters in many games in this genre are fully voiced (except the protagonist, needless to say). Consumers of these games are big fans of a particular seiy (or ‘voice actor’), and they tend to choose games to buy depending on which seiy is involved in the game. 7. Popular game titles appear in a different forms of media (such as drama CD, fan disc, books, comics, and magazines) or related goods where the game itself continues as a series. 8. The majority of the games are PSP software. Few of them are for PC, because players want to carry them around and play wherever they go and whenever they want. Why not DS then? I think it is because the graphics of these games are very important. PSP shows these images much better than DS. Some are also available on mobile devices such as phones and tablets.
to learn history as well.” Less (if any) explicit sex, and an emphasis on romance and possibly education. According to otome, Japanese girls want love sans lust and they want to see boys kiss. Harem and reverse harem games definitely disagree on what’s hot, and if either are indicative of the psyches of the sexes in Japan, it’s no wonder there are separate carriages on the Tokyo transit system for women reading Takagi Nobuko novels and men with grabby little hands. There’s one more thing about otome that’s been integral to the genre’s evolution since day one, and it may shock and discredit you. “Koei’s Angelique is notable for its release as a first otome title. Together with Koei’s follow-up Haruka series and Corda D’or, these are referred to as the ‘Neo Romance Series.’ The Hakuou-ki series, Hi-iro no Kakera by Otomate,
and Broccoli’s Uta no Princesama series are very popular. Konami’s Tokimeki Memorial was for boys, but it was also popular among girl players, so this Tokimeki Memorial Girl’s Side was made too. Tokyo Yamanote Boys and Starry Sky are also often focused on in otome game magazines. There are many, many more titles released every month. What makes a game become a big hit are its storyline and story theme,” Sumiko explains. “This can be anything from Japanese history, fantasy (including time travel), school, and comedy. More than that, the core is graphic presentation and the voices of the male characters. The voices in particular play an essential role in making the game successful or not. Girl players seem to love to hear sweet and sexy utterances and discourse from the character played by their favourite seiy, or voice actor. Thus, a seiy’s contribution to this game genre is enormous. The developers often hold events where seiyūof the male characters entertain the audience (female fans of the games and the seiy) by performing a part of the game’s scenes by singing, dancing and talking. Thus, the 19
money is not just made by the game sales but also the sales of these products and events.” Just like Kana, you didn’t see that one coming. By now and because everybody, regardless of anything, loves the sound of a chiseled Japanese visual kei idol whispering sweet foreign nothings in their ears, you might be wondering where you can go to buy up a whole reverse harem of otome games to enjoy. “I have not heard any of these games being exported from Japan,” Sumiko says. “Koei’s other products sell well overseas, yet they seem to have no plans to export their otome games. I know there are overseas fans of this particular genre, but as you can tell, it is really culturally oriented and is not likely to make a big hit outside of Japan. Can you imagine whether Australian girls and women would love the boy of that sort in these games? Actually,” Sumiko muses, “otome is popular in Japan, but in regards to the sales, it is far from the top sales titles such as Pokémon and Mario. In fact according to data by Famitsu, as of November 30th last year, the most sold otome game was Uta no Prince sama – but it was only ranked 109th
with 68,000 sales compared to the most sold game, Pokémon Black and White 2, with 2.86 million sales. This is partly due to a relatively small population of the gamers of otome, which is largely teenage girls to women in their mid-thirties. Nevertheless, the number of released titles in this genre in the same data was as many as 42, which was third behind Action and RPG amongst 400 listed titles. Thus, the sales strategy seems to be to produce as many titles as possible per year. Indeed, there are a few monthly magazines dedicated to otome games (two of which I subscribe to), and they introduce so many titles every month. We also should not forget the products surrounding these games, like drama CDs, DVDs, novels, manga, stationery, and posters.”
OTOME ON TOP
There are untold thousands of them, but these are the biggest commercial hits. Angelique The first otome game, released in ’94. An endlessly remade and ongoing series. It’s about a queen who rules the universe or something. Import demand is high, and Koei are actually considering Western localisation.
Harukanaru Toki no Naka de Another series from Koei’s Ruby Party team, originally debuting on the PS1 in 2000. You are a teenage girl and you are whisked away to the Heian Period where eight fabulously handsome (and single!) men protect you from demons.
MERCHANDISING! >> As Mel Brooks/Yogurt in Spaceballs would say: “Merchandising, merchandising, where the real money from the movie is made!” Otome the t-shirt, otome the colouring book,
Tokimeki Memorial Girl’s Side Released by Konami for the PS2 in 2002, this is the otome answer to Tokimeki Memorial, where you had to date as many girls as possible without any of them getting mad. Here you can go shopping. No playground polygamy is allowed.
Uta no Prince-sama One for the PSP by a dev called Broccoli. You are Haruka and you want to be an idol so you go to a performing arts school. Naturally there are loads of ‘princes of song’ there who are good-looking and good at music too.
Starry Sky A four-game series made by Honeybee. The first came out in 2009 for PC, PSP, and even the 3DS. Interestingly, all of the protagonist’s love interests have personalities defined by star signs (there are 12). Don’t date a Pisces, they lie.
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Clasping her hands in his delicate yet manly grip, he leaned in close and whispered hotly, "Press X to continue."
otome the lunch box, otome the breakfast cereal, otome the flame thrower. Far from being male eroge’s well-adjusted and subsequently ignored little sister (run, little sister! You’ve seen what big brother does!) otome has enshrined itself along the walkways of Tokyo’s Toshima entertainment district, Ikebukuro. “These games can be purchased at ordinary game software shops, but these shops do not really hold much
Sumiko points out. “These online shops hold the majority of the titles in stock, and one can also access second-hand products. Consumers probably feel better about purchasing 18+ titles online than physically visiting shops. PSP is the main platform. Games with 18+ (adult themes, BL) are for mainly Windows. Some are on mobile phone and tablets.” Otome is very much mobilefriendly, and that is indicative of the fact it is a relatively
otome games grab the heart of not just teens buT ADULTS TOO stock of this genre,” Sumiko explains. “Ikebukuro has become the mecca of otome products in recent years. There is a street nicknamed ‘Otome Road’ in the area, where there are a number of shops that sell otome products, including shitsji-café. There are bookshops that sell BL comics and doujinshi (selfpublished perviness) as well. Animate’s head store is also located in Ikebukuro, where you can get these game titles, related media products, and even cosplay goods. However, it is handier to purchase games online, like amazon.co.jp,”
progressive genre of gaming. The cynical might say the motive underpinning otome’s advent was a little like the reason Gillette came up with a razor for women and their apparently goddess-less hairy legs: Women have money to spend too. Contrarily, the optimistic might say the more games for girls the better. Otome are, after all, the end product of carefully examined samples of Japanese ladies. “The most notable contribution of this genre to the Japanese game industry is that it invites girls and women to access videogames,” Sumiko
agrees. “Studies of videogames have internationally argued from time to time that they are mainly for boys, because of ‘girls not being keen on technology.’ These studies also problematised the fact the protagonist of the majority of games is often a male, to whom a girl player finds hard to transfer self to the character. Female characters appearing in videogames are few and they tend to be treated as a reward for a male protagonist after winning the combat against the last boss. Games for girls are mostly for children, like Barbie and so on. I read a number of scholarly journal articles and books that discuss these issues, and realise that the otome games are made very carefully in consideration of exactly what these studies argue. It is the taste of Japanese females that have led to the success of this genre. Though it may not attract as many game players as Pokémon or Mario does, the otome games grab the heart of not just teenage girls but women in their twenties, thirties, or even above (like me). These mature-aged fans may be the consumer key to this genre’s survival.”
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