Fan Service

[Jasmine You]

Alright please try to be a little mature in this thread, just a little?
Anyways...I have been seeing some of the newest FF's and this is driving me crazy and at the same time it's making me just plain sad. The fan service. (Sex-appeal or w/e you wanna call it)
I think that...factors like this are ruining characters really...it makes me sad to have to go through pictures of my favorite characters and seeing pictures that I personally find ugly.
Tifa being my favorite character is one of THE most fan serviced characters in FF history. Makes me sad when people just look at her for her figure and don't even bother to look past the figure and the face and such. This character has more then a body she was given a personality.
The same goes to Lulu, when I first saw her the first thing that stood out for me is her elegance. She's a fine and sophisticated woman; sad to see what shots have been taken from her because of her breasts.
Fran, and even the entire Viera race. The provocative clothing just simply takes away from their wise roots and skillful beings. Truly does sadden me. Specially because it's encouraged among the fans.
Yuna, she looked so lovely in X and everything about her was simply humble and such but then when X-2 came out...look at her. I don't even consider that thing as Yuna anymore. Short clothing, tight? The Yuna we met in X wouldn't even think of wearing things like that, you know? =/
Rikku, in X her clothing was fine and even then she was fan serviced enough but when when X-2 came out, look at her! If that's not for the fan service then I don't know for what it's for. Most people don't even recognize Rikku for her character personality, to them it's just the girls with the yello bikini. That's just plain sad to me.

I'm sorry to make such a fuzz but...it simply makes me sad that today's market has to use so much fan service to attract it's costumers.
Big breasts, little clothing and pretty faces won't cut it in terms of storyline, game play and battle systems. A game can have all the naked girls it wants but without a good story and game play it loses me as a costumer.

Thoughts?

~Tifa~

 

[The_Oathkeeper]

The problem with fanservice isn't really the fanservice itself, though. It's only an issue when the fanservice gets in the way of the character's personality or development of a character. I'll use Tifa as an example. She has tremendous sex appeal, but as you yourself have admitted, she also has an actual personality and character development. She isn't a 2-Dimensional Barbie Doll used for the explicit purpose of attracting the 13-18 year old male demographic. In these cases, it really isn't an issue at all, because the fanservice doesn't prevent the character in-question from actually having a character. It's just an added bonus for those who are interested in it. If a person wants to focus solely on Tifa's physical characteristics instead of appreciating her character, that's their problem. It's not the fault of the character designer, though. What separates Tifa, for example, from the average fanservice character is that actual effort was put into her character's identity that extends beyond her assets. It's not like her breasts take away from her personality. The fact that she's attractive doesn't make her history with Cloud any less emotional, so it's a non-issue.

Even so, the same holds true for male characters. How is it any different than, say, the legions of fangirls who squeal and giggle at how "Bishounen" Cloud is? A lot of them simply ignore the deep, tragic personality behind his pretty face and unbelievably massive......sword. *cough* That aside, my point remains valid. You'd be hard-pressed to find a main male character in an RPG or anime who wasn't also designed with sex appeal in mind, so it's certainly not just limited to female characters, especially when they're half of a popular yaoi ship. The fact remains, though, that the fanservice itself isn't a problem, even in this case, because, despite the squealing plebs who only focus on how attractive he is, Cloud Strife is still a well-constructed character all the same. The same can be said for Alucard from Hellsing, Light Yagami from DeathNote, or pretty much any character who happens to be both good-looking as well as developed.

But yeah, fanservice can certainly be a problem when overdone. Final Fantasy X-2 is probably the perfect example of this in an RPG. It's fine if they want to have the characters change the way they dress; after all, in Final Fantasy X, Yuna was a priestess. She had no choice but to dress modestly because...well, that's how priestesses dress. In X-2, though, she had been freed of those constraints, so she could wear whatever she wanted. Still, that was pretty much the entire selling point of the game: girls in skimpy outfits singing foofy J-Pop. In this case, I completely agree with you that the fanservice was totally abused and the characters ruined because of it. They took it way too far here. I'd understand if they put Yuna in somewhat-revealing clothes, but she might as well hang a sign around her neck that says "Please Put Me in a Compromising Position"...Then again, that sign would actually cover up more of her body than her actual clothing did in the game, so I don't know if Square would've done that.

In any case, you'll typically find that bad games or anime will use fanservice to "pad" themselves in the hopes that people will fail to realize the plot sucks due to all the smexy Bishounen and girls in skimpy outfits. However, fanservice isn't a problem in a work that actually has quality otherwise. My favorite example is probably Yoko from Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. She easily provides more fanservice than all the Final Fantasy girls put together (perhaps including the ones from FFX-2), but because her character (and the anime itself) is so awesome even without taking into consideration her overall lack of clothing, it simply doesn't matter. The fact is that most of the FF girls you listed still have interesting characters, so a bit of fanservice is acceptable.

Anyway, if by "pictures", you mean "fanart", and by "ugly" you mean "erotic", then I'm afraid there's really nothing you can do about that. Rule 34, my friend. If it exists, then there's porn of it somewhere on the internet. That's not the character designer's fault or anything, it's just how the internet works.

 

[strifehart]

i see it as a business decision. shameful, it's true. but a business decision nonetheless. i've begun to see square as more of a business (especially in the past year or so) instead of the gods who developed my favorite videogame series. lets face it. sex sells. on both fronts. attractive male and female characters bring in more customers. as far as bringing down a character to extent that they are purely defined by their physical appearance, square has never done that. (at least with their main characters). all the main characters have not only sex appeal but deep personas as well.

i will say that the change of outfits from FFX to FFX-2 was excessive. i mean, i understand they're trying to rope in the male market but for heaven's sake. some of that stuff was ridiculous.

 

[Contra Fates]

Unfortunately, fan service is a key marketing tool employed by a lot of Japanese entertainment companies. Most animes are a prime example of just how much they love to use fan-service. I can't recall too many animes without female characters who had over-sized chests. I can only think of a few of the story-driven anime movies and mini-series.

And, that's my main concern with the use of fan-service in Final Fantasy. It seems that fan-service, for the most part, was over-used in their games with the least amount of story-quality. FFX-2 and FFXII are the two main examples of this. Both of them, in my opinion, did not have stories that were all-too compelling, and the characters who were scantily-clad were not all that interesting either.

I believe Square Enix utilizes fan-service as a fail-safe for their games. If the story is lacking, they hope that their loyal male buyers will still purchase the games for the 'babes.' Games like Dead or Alive illustrate just how effective fan-service can be, so I'm sure Square Enix has been trying to take a page from that lesson.

 

[Jasmine You]

Thanks guys all great posts <3

But it really is a sad case to see the FF series hide behind fan service. I suppose that's one of the reasons that the games have been lacking in so much. Even sadder is that it works; I find it sad that people will go and buy a game that has nothing in it but fan service. Today's society is sure a sad one.
But oh well, maybe there's hope; maybe people will soon come to realize that games with excessive fan service are usually hollow ones....psht, yeah right.

~Tifa~

 

[aqua_knight]

well things happen everyones favorite things are fanserviced and it sucks but you really jus gotta move on and deal with it

 

[Ang]

It really does annoy me..... especially when they change the characters e.g. Rikku but yeah, as you say, It's all business but it's still dispicable that they would do such things, women (it's nearly always women) have personalities, not just their figures. Hmph...

 

[V_Translanka]

Uh...didn't they actually kind of tone down Tifa's certain 'fan service' aspects with AC though...? I think this supposed heightened sexuality is more or less imaginary...graphics now allow us to perceive such more clearly, I think, but I don't think there's been a real insurgence or anything in the series.