papillon wrote:I still wish whoever it was that complained about Magical Diary being "liberal propaganda" had gone to the effort of explaining exactly which bit of the game was causing that reaction.
Judging by which line tends to set people off in Let's Plays, it's probably the one bit that actually wasn't intentionally political.
Well, I loved Magical Diary...and I'm a liberal propagandist (well...actually I'm a college professor...but some people see that as the same thing)...I have a pretty good idea about what a person who uses the phrase "liberal propaganda" seriously would have found upsetting in the VN:
1) There is discussion about homosexuality being okay, which is thought of as liberal propaganda.
2) There is some discussion about nature that could be read as being environmentally conscious...which is read as liberal propaganda.
Yeah, basically, anything that Professor Potsdam has to say would probably upset the more vigorous right wingers.
I think it is great, and one of the reasons I liked the VN so much...well that and the romance with Demian...because it does a great job of showing that what we are often told are signs of "romance" in so many different media are actually red flags for abusive people.
As for the tirades against JRPG or indie VN gamedevs...
I have heard tirades against JRPGs (though no death or rape threats)...but this is usually in the context of message boards for mainstream console games...and in those threads both sides are equally represented and both sides are equally reductive. It is all:
WRPG Fan: JRPGs are all linear and therefore boring!
JRPG Fan: WRPGs have no depth of story and are therefore boring!
I just sort of ignore those debates entirely.
As for attacks on indie VN gamedevs. My relationship to VN comes from some articles on rock, paper, shotgun in the context of art games...or from border house in the context of games that are progressive and then lemmasoft. I haven't seen much attacking of VNs at all in the places I've come from. But I suppose I don't hang out in those corners of the internet.
On the other hand, I have seen a lot of death and rape threats made against *female* gamedevs regardless of genre. The misogyny is sickening and astounding. So, when I read some attacks on Christine Love's Analogue it was because she is a woman, not because Analogue is a VN. I have also seen ire thrown and games that seem feminist or female freindly even if the devs were male.
Doing some searching I see that some people when explaining VNs to Western audiences frame them as Japanese choose your own adventure romance novels for women. Considering it is very popular in the to denigrate and dismiss genres of art associated with female audiences, the attacks on VNs could be just an extension of the general misogyny in our society.
And just in case it has to be said: I in no way endorse misogyny or death or rape threats. Those things are vile and have no place in civil discourse. In my opinion.