Forum - View topicINTEREST: Animate Apologizes for 'Inappropriate' April Fool's Joke for Unlimited Mates Dating 'Game'
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FinalVentCard
ANN Reviewer
 Posts: 921 |
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See, this is why April Fool's sucks: a studio will hit upon a genuinely amazing idea then not only will they not make it, they'll apologize for even bringing it up.
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Emerje
 Posts: 7548 Location: Maine |
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Not really sure what the insensitive part was. Did Japanese Catholics complaint about seducing gay male angels or something? If so that's rather strange with the number of stories involving female angels in various relationship types that come out of Japan.
Seems harmless. Emerje |
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L'Imperatore
 Posts: 1082 |
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I don't get it either. I thought the apology was supposed to be the punchline.
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malvarez1
Posts: 2993 |
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I don’t see anything close to being offensive here, but I’m assuming there is some missing context.
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LinkTSwordmaster
 Posts: 814 Location: PA / USA |
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Strange, Date Everything! already exists on Steam, it's even on sale right now. I wonder what happened....
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The_Outsider
Posts: 135 |
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I googled for this controversy and came upon an r/otomegames thread (it's locked now), and it seems it wasn't religious or political but rather backlash from otome fans over the mention of "BL elements" (it seems like BL is some kind of landmine with otome fans). Also they mentioned some kind of controversy with something called "Garumani" (?), which seems to have also fueled this particular backlash. Another user also mentioned that otome and BL should not be mixed.
Maybe someone could provide some more details on this, as I have no knowledge on either demographic to really make anything out of this. |
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Doubleclouder
 Posts: 162 |
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Basically otome is meant to be a genre where girls can self-insert and date boys. Making it about BL completely goes against the genre that a lot of fans already claim doesn't get a lot of support or recognition. Whether that's 'offensive' or not is up to you but I guess otome fans didn't like being the butt of a joke. |
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SinisterOracle
 SubscriberPosts: 854 |
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fudge the people who complained about this and who led to Animate apologizing for what was a fantastic idea for a joke (and a real game!). I’d love to play something like this.
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Amuro1X
Posts: 278 |
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I guess it would be like saying "We've made a Yuri game where you can date all kinds of girls, even boys!"
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Joe Mello
 Posts: 2559 Location: Online Terminal |
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Garumani might be Girls Maniax, which is a DLsite sublabel that has separate feeds for BL and otome. Anything else I would want a localizer and an expert to explain. That being said, while I get that Japanese culture is all about group dynamics and who's associated with who, this gives me the vibes of something very stupid (like how ota and wota don't like each other) and that people may need to grow up a little. We're all losers here, so we may as well all be friends. |
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anpansparking
Posts: 47 |
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I can provide some context about why people got so worked up over this. From my understanding Garumani released a sequel to a drama cd. The original had been between the heroine and male love interests, so people weren't happy that the sequel included intimate scenese between two of the love interests.
As a result, the otome fandom is currently pretty sensitive to the inclusion of bl elements right now. They also tend to be particular about the proper labeling of things. Otome is specifically supposed to be about romance between the heroine and her male love interests, so if Animate had labeled this a joseimuke instead of otome, I imagine the controversy could have been avoided. The comment about "everything otome players enjoy" also did not help matters, I'm sure, as there are definitely some who resent the "female otaku = fujoshi" association. I do kind of understand why they're so protective over boundaries, as there's a feeling that if they aren't, the heroine is at risk of being slowly forgotten in favor of interaction between two guys, as seen in the Uta no Prince-sama anime, where Haruka gradually became less and less relevant. While that sort of media has its place, people generally don't want it in otome. |
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maximilianjenus
Posts: 3110 |
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Just adding that these group dynamics are not exclusive to Japan and arwmpwemeating to the west, I have already seen them in reddit.
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justsomeaccount
 Posts: 534 |
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Personally I'd find more annoying or offensive the fact that always doing otomes or dating sims as an April Fools joke turns them into the punching bag (I remember when The Murder of Sonic the Hedgehog came out that the creators talked about that in regards to the "VN April Fools joke" that makes the genre's fans into a punchline, and how that game avoided that by releasing it and be polished and earnest enough) than the very specific BL part of the joke, but anyway.
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Hellsoldier
 Posts: 1149 Location: Porto,Portugal,Europe,Earth,Sol |
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I think the biggest offense is not that there were (supposedly) BL options. It's that there was no yuri option (c'mon, the prince-type is a staple in shoujo).
Other than that, it's a nice concept... albeit one that would probably take Terabytes of HDD space, and indeed, 29 years of more to make. |
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OtomeGay
 Posts: 259 |
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Otome game player here (I guess there's not many of us on ANN), and while I personally have no issue with the game, people are correct in it being the "BL elements." There was just a very messy, locked thread on the Otome Games subreddit about this, where many otome game players discussed how they do not want otome (female protagonist dating majority male cast) to overlap with BL. It's most offensive to Japanese players, but I saw a lot of English-speaking folks take offense as well.
The "Garumani" incident is apparently voyuerism of a BL couple in an otome drama CD, based on what little I could gather from the thread. This has been a whole thing in the otome community for ages, with the subreddit formerly being strict on BL fanart of LIs, and the creation of "amare" games in the Western fandom sphere to include games with LGBTQIA+ themes. It hasn't caught on much though, which leads to a lot of "what is and isn't otome." Edit: Didn't see @anpansparking's post, I believe they explained it better than I could! |
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