Maiden Love Revolution

That heroine doesn't have black hair, so she's apparently not Asian. Maybe the archetype in this game doesn't represent Japanese society, but their interpretation of American society. Just a thought.

Not all asians wear black hair, and many characters in Japanese animation do NOT have black hair. Having said that, there are some really bizarre games and cartoons out there that come from Japan, some of them rather.. uninteresting, in my opinion. All I'm saying is keep in mind that this game is coming from a society that has a cartoon that features Hamsters that fight crime by using their oversized testicles.

What bothers me the most is the concept that you are "forcing" a presumably-adult human being to do anything - whether it is ostensibly "for her good" or not.  (Especially the fact that it's a FEMALE being forced. Ugh.) I fully expect there will be some in the American media who will laud this game and suggest it be brought here, and perhaps even enacted real-life, to "teach those fatties a lesson." Ugh.  

It bothers me that they are essentially teaching kids how to abuse women. This is wrong on so many levels.

I keep seeing comments about kids on here.  What on earth makes any of you think this game is for kids?  It's one of many Japanese dating sim games.  Those games are not for kids.  That's like saying that the Playboy mansion game teaches kids that pornography is good.Believe it or not, there are adult gamers.  In fact, we outnumber the kids.  And there are plenty of games on the market that are aimed for adults.  In Japan, there are a large number of games that are rated Adult Only.  I wouldn't be surprised if this game was a Hentai game, in which case you should all be just as upset that video games are teaching children to have sex with siblings; trust me, there are a lot of things in Japanese Hentai that Americans would have a heart attack over. 

I find the blatant sexism of this game--as it is described here, at any rate--to be the most disturbing element of it: "Be 'good,' women; be 'perfect,' and earn a man."

Lizzy, I agree with you whole heartedly. There is a game from I think Korea, called Boonga Boonga where the point is to virtually stick a finger up someone's backside to make them scream. I mean, talk about weird, but obviously the game isn't targeted to kids. Frankly this is pretty tame compared to most Hentai, which usually features underaged girls who they "claim" are 18 in sexual situations. It's like assuming that normal people are obsessed with stuff like sadomastichistic domination of their partner. For the most part, these games target serious weirdos. Adult weirdos mind you. America is one of the few cultures that actually is against adult aimed entertainment. We try so hard to keep our society kid-safe, in most other countries it's just not like that.

Doesn't matter if it is for kids or not. It's not right to abuse women.

Another poster in the forum found a sort of American equivilent to this disgusting Maiden Love "game". It's called Escape from Obeez City. I checked out their website (talk about marketing!) and well... sad and infuriating pretty much sum up my feelings about it. It's a whole series and there's this one guy they have to save by making him lose 300 pounds to save his life, and make the Olympic judo team in 2008! They're gonna tour too and make the guy exercise in every city they go to. Funny they choose to use the word "make" instead of "force", I guess it sounds more friendly in a ghastly sort of way. These types of "games" are replusive and somewhat frightening to me. I feel they're dangerous in a way because, too often than not, hate speech and propaganda turn into atrocious behavior and action against the "targets" represented in these types of "games". And yeah.. there's a lot of hentai and manga that are beyond disgusting in it's violence against women. But I feel the same about a lot of the use and portrayal of women in the fashion industry, film, "for men" porn, etc, but that's a whole other topic unto itself.

"Lizzy, I agree with you whole heartedly. There is a game from I think Korea, called Boonga Boonga where the point is to virtually stick a finger up someone's backside to make them scream. I mean, talk about weird, but obviously the game isn't targeted to kids." I'm not sure if it is a coincidence or not, but that is a real game that Japanese school children play, in real life.  They do it to fellow classmates and even teachers.  I have found that the Japanese society can be extremely sexual and focused on teenagers (in some places your life is essentially over once you hit 21)- Ive never met so many people trying to look like they are 13- especially the whole schoolgirl uniform thing, and find things like that commonplace.  Sometimes it is hard for me to wrap my American brain around those ideas, even though I am sure there are things I do that I think are common and someone else would find weird.  Nevertheless, this videogame is disturbing. 

After thinking about this for a while, I decided that what we need is a video game in which dieting people learn to stop dieting and start feeling good about themselves. They would be able to shoot down/vanquish/dematerialize the people who try to make them feel inadequate or unwelcome by harping on weight or food restrictions. We could call it "The Revenge of Happy (and) Fat Fanny."

"What bothers me the most is the concept that you are "forcing" a presumably-adult human being to do anything - whether it is ostensibly "for her good" or not. (Especially the fact that it's a FEMALE being forced. Ugh.)" Just as a note, in the game "you" are not forcing anyone else to do anything. "You" are the female who is overweight and "needs" to lose weight to be valuable to society. This game doesn't feed on the need to control others, IMO, as much as it feeds one's desire to easily become perfect in a fantasy world, when it's almost impossible to live up to the same standards in modern society. Fatthought, I love that idea. Self esteem ratings that vary based on outside influences and your chosen responses to them, with the goal being to reach stability in esteem issues, daily diet, and activity. You read an article in Newsweek that says obesity will be responsible for deaths of thousands of children by the year 2010. Do you: a) Write the letter of the editor, complaining of the obvious bias by the author of the article and the bad science used to come to said conclusion? (+2 self esteem points) b) Toss the magazine in the trash and grab a vanilla smoothie on the way to yoga class (+1 self esteem points) c) Immediately feel guilty about your influence on America's next generations, and vow to restart your diet next week? (-2 self esteem points)

Self-esteem building is good, indeed. But video games thrive on being able to kill/vanquish/shoot down/dispose of enemies in various ways. Who/What could we provide for angry ex-dieters to shoot down? Hmm..how about the head of the American Anti-Obesity Association? (Gets evil grin on face..)

Not all video games thrive on violence. If that were true, the object of the subject video game would have to commit violence against the foods she's trying to stay away from in order to get thin. Games like Harvest Moon would require that you conquer local villages instead of just going about daily farmer's duties. There is a select subset of video games that can be very popular that specialize in replicating certain lifestyles in a semi-realistic manner.

Totally off topic... but Harvest Moon rocks. ^^

"many characters in Japanese animation do NOT have black hair." It's interesting how people's perceptions can differ. I'm actually somewhat familiar with Japanese anime and Hentai. And I've often thought that the characters that didn't look Asian weren't intended to be. That could be the result of my own ignorance and prejudice, or it could be a manifestation of "western envy" in the genre, I'm thinking. Or I could be completely wrong...LOL But it seems to me that Asian animation would sometimes portray non-Asian characters, just as American animation portrays non-caucasian (sometimes Asian) characters. Just more thoughts...:)

The status of women in Japanese society has improved over the years but they are still often in traditional carer roles. It's not uncommon for a woman to resign from her job when she get married. Women are expected to be polite, reserved and cute. They are under great pressure to look good and wear the latest designer goods and accessories. Japanese woman are usually slim and worry a great deal about weight gain. A fat woman stands out in Japan. There are many Japanese games that westerners would find shocking, featuring borderline paedophilia for instance. While I find this particular game disgusting, I can't say I'm that surprised it exists.