Fully agree here. And yes I would basically agree that even at their most handsome character designing, Vanillaware is a male gaze factory. I should be clear, I’m not trying to argue that the sexualization of Vanillaware’s men is on par with the women. Indeed, the sliding scale here (Dwarf is less sexual than Amazon even though they’re both muscular to an obscene degree in large part because of posing and gender norms) is part of the point - what is or isn’t gooner shouldn’t be based on reception but instead the authorial/artistic intent. It’s clear Vanillaware’s artists are out to maximally sexualize their women and insert their men into very heteronormative gender roles (knight, pretty boy, hulking freak) that only get fully sexualized by fans (e.g. some fan artist going ham with Ingway and Onyx or something). Bayonetta is sexualized by the game (even as it tries to turn that into empowerment), 2B is incredibly sexualized and the game calls you out in the 9S storyline for it. However even calling out your own design’s horniness doesn’t absolve the author from the gaze. You might play/deconstruct it, but it’s still there.
I’m not saying there’s not an argument for the male gaze (or, in games with male characters, a “sexual” gaze - looking at the fans of pretty boys here) at play in Umamusume. Of course there is. But the same could be said of any media. Would we call Legend of Zelda gooner? The sexualization of Link by decades of fans is well documented. The thirst is real. But the most the game does is call attention to his femininity in the Gerudo towns. Maybe that’s a nod to the many horny fans of Link over the years, but it’s not “gooner”. The same might be said of (to use a game with a woman protagonist for a moment) Horizon. Aloy is a conventionally attractive woman, I’m sure there’s plenty of gooner shit about her (to the point we got the hilarious cringe tweets about her peach fuzz from actual gooners when Forbidden West came out). But the game isn’t explicitly horny about her even if you could easily go down the sexualization path with her.
To return then to the horse girl game - I can totally see how the combination of gacha+character design can feel a bit cringe. But “gooner”, for fanart that’s explicitly focusing on a cute relationship for a game that in the grand scheme of games is probably in the lower half of horniness - it feels a bit misguided comrade.
Edit: I should be totally clear that I’m very bad at figuring what either my cishet woman or gay male comrades are into. I know there are many types - burly, pretty, twink, etc. - but aside from a gay enby comrade telling me of how they think Link’s been twinkified over the years I’m really not equipped to say what is or isn’t to the gaze of the gay man or straight woman. All I’m saying is the character designers can be real clear when the game/character is gooner (again, Vanillaware’s entire output is what happens when horny guys create games. See also Gwyndolen in Dark Souls). Cygames in the horse game, so far, is not yet over the line. This isn’t to say it’s not free of sexualization, but I wouldn’t suggest the character designers are gooners in the way that I would levy that accusation against Vanillaware’s designers. Or hell, Kojima’s depiction of women is way more gooner than the cute horse game.
Fully agree here. And yes I would basically agree that even at their most handsome character designing, Vanillaware is a male gaze factory. I should be clear, I’m not trying to argue that the sexualization of Vanillaware’s men is on par with the women. Indeed, the sliding scale here (Dwarf is less sexual than Amazon even though they’re both muscular to an obscene degree in large part because of posing and gender norms) is part of the point - what is or isn’t gooner shouldn’t be based on reception but instead the authorial/artistic intent. It’s clear Vanillaware’s artists are out to maximally sexualize their women and insert their men into very heteronormative gender roles (knight, pretty boy, hulking freak) that only get fully sexualized by fans (e.g. some fan artist going ham with Ingway and Onyx or something). Bayonetta is sexualized by the game (even as it tries to turn that into empowerment), 2B is incredibly sexualized and the game calls you out in the 9S storyline for it. However even calling out your own design’s horniness doesn’t absolve the author from the gaze. You might play/deconstruct it, but it’s still there.
I’m not saying there’s not an argument for the male gaze (or, in games with male characters, a “sexual” gaze - looking at the fans of pretty boys here) at play in Umamusume. Of course there is. But the same could be said of any media. Would we call Legend of Zelda gooner? The sexualization of Link by decades of fans is well documented. The thirst is real. But the most the game does is call attention to his femininity in the Gerudo towns. Maybe that’s a nod to the many horny fans of Link over the years, but it’s not “gooner”. The same might be said of (to use a game with a woman protagonist for a moment) Horizon. Aloy is a conventionally attractive woman, I’m sure there’s plenty of gooner shit about her (to the point we got the hilarious cringe tweets about her peach fuzz from actual gooners when Forbidden West came out). But the game isn’t explicitly horny about her even if you could easily go down the sexualization path with her.
To return then to the horse girl game - I can totally see how the combination of gacha+character design can feel a bit cringe. But “gooner”, for fanart that’s explicitly focusing on a cute relationship for a game that in the grand scheme of games is probably in the lower half of horniness - it feels a bit misguided comrade.
Edit: I should be totally clear that I’m very bad at figuring what either my cishet woman or gay male comrades are into. I know there are many types - burly, pretty, twink, etc. - but aside from a gay enby comrade telling me of how they think Link’s been twinkified over the years I’m really not equipped to say what is or isn’t to the gaze of the gay man or straight woman. All I’m saying is the character designers can be real clear when the game/character is gooner (again, Vanillaware’s entire output is what happens when horny guys create games. See also Gwyndolen in Dark Souls). Cygames in the horse game, so far, is not yet over the line. This isn’t to say it’s not free of sexualization, but I wouldn’t suggest the character designers are gooners in the way that I would levy that accusation against Vanillaware’s designers. Or hell, Kojima
’s depiction of women is way more gooner than the cute horse game.