I should clarify that I don't think it's because it's because Japan is amazingly progressive about gender. (After all, this is the game where he gets groped by :biden-troll: who exclaims "You're... a man?!)

It's just that Japanese character designers can go "I think the dudes can and should be pretty too"

  • Dirt_Owl [comrade/them, they/them]
    ·
    2 years ago

    [sexism/homophobia]

    I remember when Japanese stuff was first getting popular in the west in the 90s. So many people (mostly boomers) laughing at the designs of some characters "HE LOOKS LIKE A GIRL!"

    I knew someone who wouldn't play Final Fantasy 7 because "Cloud looked gay"

    • doublepepperoni [none/use name]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Every RPG protagonist must be Geraldo

      To be fair, I don't really care for the modern Square Enix house style. Everyone just looks like this weird uncanny valley doll person, though that's mostly due to the odd sort of unreal photorealism they go for

    • zifnab25 [he/him, any]
      ·
      2 years ago

      What if Cloud and Zack kissed under the super-heated steam of a Mako reactor?