Gaming
I hate when gendered character Designs are like this
Like I usually choose the male protagonist in JRPGs As I am A dude But There is A Reason why its a joke that men chose the female option in video games and thats because the Male Character designs are So FUCKING BLAND and dont get me started on The Hair customisation options especially male hair choices like for example In Pokemon Sword And Shield
The Female Protagonist Has 38 hairstyle Choices
While the Male Has EIGHT ONLY 8
And In Pokemon X And Y THERE WERE ONLY FOUR And Also The Clothes Customisation Is Boring Like Its Shorts Trousers Shirts Jackets With Different Colour Variations And Maybe Like One Cool Option Like Im Happy Female Protagonist Have so Many Customisation Options but WHAT ABOUT US
Like At This Point Just Remove Gender Restrictions on Customisation and Allow Crossdressing because The Female Customisation Options Will Always Be Better
And The Hair Customisation for The Male Protagonist Is
-a Bowlcut
-One That Looks Like You work In a 9-5 Office Job
-A Cut That Looks Like The One Your Mom Makes You Do When you go to a fancy event
-One With A Terrible Fade
-The Naruto Cut In Boruto
Like the Only redeeming Quality is that the hats are usually cool so i can cover up the Godawful Hairstyle Choices
Project Moon's characters are something, no matter how obvious character gender may seem initially by design, somehow I manage to guess wrong more often than to guess right.
dont forget hair options, where they give you the 5 options that are the same hair, an afro for "inclusivity" and bald, if you want long hair you can go fuck yourself.
Aren't ScVi the first and only time they've given an afro as a customization option? And it was barely a fro. Most times it's either the most mid cornrows or a fade.
im not talking specifically pokemon, im talking games in general where they give an insanely stereotypical afro and thats the only "black hairstyle" they do, it comes accross as performative, and then they do a bunch of haircuts that can be described as "chad" "brad" and "dad".
In general it pisses me off when haircut options are different between men and women as if me being a guy prevents me from having long hair or vice versa for women
thank you, i bet you look great too, long hair on guys always looks peak(im not bias i swear) in my case in games i always have to settle to short curly or afro because there is NEVER an option for long curls.
I think for Pokemon, its mostly because Male protagonists don't have much media aside from Manga, and Games, you mostly see them as silent protagonists
Female characters like Dawn, May, Serena, are more popular online due to the Anime, so obviously they get more varied fanart, and designs
That makes me wonder now, if Ash wasn't the consistent series protagonist, would we have gotten more content of the male avatars in subsequent series post-Kanto?
Probably, we already sort of have them in the Manga, though they can't make an anime out of it, because it gets pretty brutal and dark, and Pokemon is pretty strict about not appearing like that
I mean, Its barely even brutal. If you are thinking of the arbok the arbok was fine because it had regenerative properties and it was shown again later on. The only Real deaths are the magmars that Giovanni kills and Archie and Maxie really. And the anime doesn't shy away from death either. We got Lysander getting absolutely obliterated by Zygarde and Hunter J and her crew kinda also died (atleast we assume)
Fr. I feel like girls always get the cutest hairstyles and outfits, while guys get the most plane Jane stuff. Wouldn’t be so bad if I could put them on my male character but then I guess people would be screaming “woke” and they’d have another problem.. -_-
That's because there really isn't any "male" clothing these days, it's all unisex. With that said, I hate when games focus entirely on skirts, dresses, and high heels without giving any t-shirts, jackets, or hoodies to the players who don't want a feminine look.
The Great Male Renunciation is a travesty, and men have been reduced to amorphous blobs of buttons downs and slacks since.
It isn't that I want to look pretty, or femme, or anything that fashion currently dictates as chic. I just want some goddamn color and style in my wardrobe that isn't just "cool pattern!...but it's on a button down"
I'm the same! A lot of times, a game will have dresses with really nice patterns or color schemes but they're unique to that dress specifically. Why can't they have that same pattern on a jacket or t-shirt?
But that's super easy to get around in most of these games since they're fantasy to some extent. Just bring back some historical male clothing. They've dressed like peacocks for most of human history.
Nothing screams masculine like a gigantic codpiece on top of your parade armor or whatever. Maybe not in Pokemon. But, like, traditional/historical British or French or Japanese or whatever clothing? They could do that.
I also love how distinct their personalities are. I know that's not exclusive to them, but it's what I always think about when they're brought up. Usually the opposite protag is just the same dialogue but with a different face or whatever.
That’s not really a counter-argument when it’s just one example out of nine. And the next generation is coming, and it looks like the same thing is going to happen all over again.
One example out of nine and not one of the examples with customization either. At least I felt like Scarlet/Violet made the girls as bland as the guys.
Don’t get me started on Pokémon games’ mcs…… I choose male every time but god do I wish they had the same fashion equality as their female counterpart. Begging for fucking crumbs every generation.
ZA let all the clothes be worn by any gender, so I say we’re moving in the right direction. Just crossing fingers that feature doesn’t get removed next gen considering pokemon games take two steps forward and one step back every gen
Pokémon has not only moved over to both men and women having the same catalogue of clothes since Arceus (sort of, but definitely SV onward), the entire catalogue of clothing has genuinely been pretty bad, where there was just nothing for either side of the spectrum.
The more masculine clothing Z-A, while can be worm by women, is definitely much better than the feminine equivalents. Sun and Moon had a really similar problem too, where none of the female clothing actually fit anywhere. Defaults are another discussion, and I feel as though we’re undermining how decent the male protagonist has looked in Pokémon games (genuinely speaking, its really only been DP’s, SV’s and the remakes’ male protags that look awful).
I get the issue you’re referring to, but I’m not sure the modern depiction of Pokémon really fits this. The female protagonists are usually better by a long shot, but I dont think this means the male protagonist has a bad design. By extension, let’s also remember that Dawn, May and Serena are in the anime so they’re just going to be more popular regardless.
In pokemon masters they did an event with darkrai and everyone got fresh fits called "signa suits", exept Lucas WHO GOT NOTHING despite being teamed up with the god of time dialga!
See, the workaround would be to make both protagonists have cool outfits, but by the time of Scarlet & Violet, they decided to go with the solution of making both protagonists completely sauceless in the clothes department.
Z-A fixed things for me and I do feel I made a character in Scarlet that made the uniform kinda work (the trick is Summer Uniform + dark tights, just like Nemona) but yeah Florian and Juliana look so plain if you don't do any customization - ESPECIALLY Florian, Juliana at least has a side braid adding a tiny bit of flair.
Like At This Point Just Remove Gender Restrictions on Customisation and Allow Crossdressing because The Female Customisation Options Will Always Be Better
They literally did just that in Z-A actually (and SV DLC IIRC since you could wear the female Team Star grunt outfit as a guy I think).
That says a lot about the situation. You want to make the male protagonists more feminine. In other words, even when playing as a man, you want to play as a woman.
I could not find it, but I rememeber seing a meme that went something like "This the best male customization you can make in Pokemon Z-A" and the picture was the male character as a Femboy xd
tbh I’ve always thought this complaint was stupid because Lucas’s outfit is completely fine. I’d argue it’s as interesting of an outfit as Dawn’s. They’re dressed like little kids, I dunno why people think the generic player character needs to be a fashion model.
i don't like this because it just reinforces that society values women for their appearance and men for their labor.
Notice all the people saying they wish they could make their character a femboy. Cause the only way a man can be seen as attractive is by looking like a woman. i.e. men are inherently seen as unattractive.
I feel that scarlett violet player trainer also looked a lik NPC like.
In the case of WiWa if I didn't know beforehand that was the player character design I would have assumed it was a new iteration of hiker/backpacker NPC.
Calem got done SO dirty in X and Y. Serena? One of the most popular protagonists of the games and anime, with an extremely popular ship along with having some of the best designs in the series. She gets 38 hairstyles along with tons of clothes. What does Calem get? What does Calem even have is the better question
This is why in most games i select woman, if the game allows it i always make a femboy, but if i cant i want the cooler fits the female characters get.
I dont like femboys because they look like women, I like women because they look like femboys.
Nah whoever decided male customisation options should be bland and have Like A Fifth of female customisation options should be FIRED https://giphy.com/gifs/3orif3HKCpt39D7Ww0
You’re mistaken. The first photo shows fan art, not an in-game sprite. Also, the Pokémon Scarlet and Violet games only feature three or four hairstyles for female characters, while the rest are male or unisex. I don’t see any issue with these designs, either, because I see the same thing in real life: attractive, well-groomed young women alongside ordinary-looking guys. After all, society doesn’t demand that men prioritize looking beautiful above all else; it allows them to simply live their lives and wear comfortable clothing rather than focusing on aesthetics.
Also, the female characters in Pokémon X and Y—the game you mentioned—only have five hairstyle options: very short, short, the standard style you start with, pigtails, and a single ponytail (which is a secret unlockable style). There were never as many options as you claim. If you’re so jealous that the female characters get to wear skirts, then just play as a female character.
is this not art imitating life? most men don’t/can’t do much w their fashion and tend to look pretty boring. most interesting fashion tends to lean on the feminine side
yeah i always choose female in RPGs just because they get more clothing options, more stylish clothing options and in some cases unlocked clothing options (like how males can't wear skirts in most games)
Honestly the only exceptions for the pokemon games are the gen 3, gen 5, and Legends ZA protags. Both protags in the game's mentioned are atleast equally cool looking imo
Customization started in gen 6 (I think) and it was the most one sided customization ever bro 😭. Legends ZA is the best we've gotten for the male characters and it's solely because they don't have gender restrictions on the clothes. I would've been so mad if I had to play though that game with only those fuckass skinny jeans they have the male character start off with.
Recent gachas have luckily solved this issue. Just look at games like Genshin and Wuwa, where the other gender is another character that looks pretty much like the other but slightly adapted, ZZZ where they are entirely different and equally distinctive, or Silver Palace, where they both look similar, but still stunning
Honestly for pokemon I like a lot of male mcs designs. Yeah they might be basic but I like them and never thought of choosing female over male just for the design
Early pokemon games had equally unique male and female MCs designs imo. Things started to get clumsy when customization was added, but that's a rather general problem, since male MCs tends to have less/more boring ustomization options than their female counterparts
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u/Wrench_gaming Sep 04 '26