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INTEREST: Guilty Gear Strive Developer: Bridget Identifies as a Woman


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Kusakabe



Joined: 22 Jan 2018
Posts: 111
PostPosted: Wed Sep 14, 2022 12:59 pm Reply with quote
The representation Bridget is bringing is amazing and so important, but as someone who LOVED having a male character who's femme and cutesy - maybe her twin brother can be introduced to fill that role and embrace their own gender non-conformity - based on Bridget's bravery in smashing their towns superstitions surrounding gender. I'm all for Guilty Gear just going all in with its queerness.
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Ishida_Akira(fake)



Joined: 23 Apr 2022
Posts: 113
PostPosted: Wed Sep 14, 2022 1:33 pm Reply with quote
OK, so if I'm getting this right, Bridget was born male, but raised female. Because of this, after living as a male (whatever that means) and ending the superstition, she decided that since she was raised female, she identifies more as female. Right? So.... how exactly is this different from the previous games? I thought this was always like this.
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JoelBurger





PostPosted: Wed Sep 14, 2022 1:41 pm Reply with quote
Ishida_Akira(fake) wrote:
OK, so if I'm getting this right, Bridget was born male, but raised female. Because of this, after living as a male (whatever that means) and ending the superstition, she decided that since she was raised female, she identifies more as female. Right? So.... how exactly is this different from the previous games? I thought this was always like this.


It's just a continuation of the story. Bridget successfully ended her village's superstition, and thus was able to live however she pleases. For a time she tried to continue identifying as male, but it didn't feel right. And her arcade story is her coming to an understanding with that and finally deciding she identifies as a woman.
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MagicPolly



Joined: 26 Nov 2020
Posts: 1625
PostPosted: Wed Sep 14, 2022 1:44 pm Reply with quote
While it's amazing that he finally came out and confirmed it, unfortunately I feel like the narrative is just gonna switch from the previous excuses to "The people who care about social justice held Ishiwatari at gunpoint and forced him to canonize it"

Oh well, nothing would ever satisfy them I suppose.
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Kusakabe



Joined: 22 Jan 2018
Posts: 111
PostPosted: Wed Sep 14, 2022 1:46 pm Reply with quote
Ishida_Akira(fake) wrote:
OK, so if I'm getting this right, Bridget was born male, but raised female. Because of this, after living as a male (whatever that means) and ending the superstition, she decided that since she was raised female, she identifies more as female. Right? So.... how exactly is this different from the previous games? I thought this was always like this.

I think it was more or less this way, the previous games were more or less Bridget breaking down the gender roles being pressured upon them and giving them the freedom to explore their identity without the stigma of their towns superstition. This felt more like the epilogue of what she came to understand about herself.
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Fedora-san



Joined: 12 Aug 2014
Posts: 464
PostPosted: Wed Sep 14, 2022 2:18 pm Reply with quote
Ishida_Akira(fake) wrote:
OK, so if I'm getting this right, Bridget was born male, but raised female. Because of this, after living as a male (whatever that means) and ending the superstition, she decided that since she was raised female, she identifies more as female. Right? So.... how exactly is this different from the previous games? I thought this was always like this.


Strive is the first game Bridget identifies as female. Up until then, she's always been male. The initial concept for the character was Daisuke literally saying "I wanted to make a cute character, but making them a girl is boring so I made them a boy".

MagicPolly wrote:
While it's amazing that he finally came out and confirmed it, unfortunately I feel like the narrative is just gonna switch from the previous excuses to "The people who care about social justice held Ishiwatari at gunpoint and forced him to canonize it


I don't know the motivation behind Ishiwatari's choice, but I think most peoples concern was the difference between localizations in many official and unofficial releases causing confusion. One instance I remember was an art showcase on Pixiv where the EN version of the article has a couple paragraphs about Bridget being trans and importance on acceptance while the JP version never calls them a girl, trans, or mentions anything related to gender. People were concerned it was yet another case of localization changing things, especially coming not too longer after the Seen Sea's mess-up of Koisuru "Otome" no Tsukurikata

Of course I think people are justified in just simply not liking this new advancement of the character after decades of liking the character, but either way it's nice to have confirmation finally, even if they did appear to wait until the initial spike in sales in Japan subsided before saying anything. I wonder how Japanese otokonoko fans will take the news given the character was the most requested DLC pick.
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SHD



Joined: 05 Apr 2015
Posts: 1759
PostPosted: Wed Sep 14, 2022 2:29 pm Reply with quote
By the way, if anyone is trying to be all "omg it's just for the English release the True Japanese Version unsullied by woke Western propaganda is different" - the Japanese article is crystal clear. The relevant section: https://i.imgur.com/IpJCP4x.png

Also, I kind of love how people who claim to be all about "triggering the libs" or whatever are so obviously triggered by this, and coming up with excuses about how the company has betrayed fans and whatnot, without any reasonable explanation as to how "this character identifies as a woman, regardless of what may or may not be between her legs" equals "betrayal of fans, company is now shit".
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Lizuka



Joined: 27 Jul 2018
Posts: 280
PostPosted: Wed Sep 14, 2022 2:36 pm Reply with quote
I think it's a good way to play things. It makes sense as a logical extension of her established story and it nicely helps sidestep the fact that the original concept of Bridget is heavily dated and kind of carries a lot of messy baggage in regards to stereotypes at this point. It's a good way to flesh the character out into being more than just offensive, "It's a trap!" memes.
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Top Gun



Joined: 28 Sep 2007
Posts: 4807
PostPosted: Wed Sep 14, 2022 2:48 pm Reply with quote
On one hand, it's great that they're declaring this for all the world to see. On the other, it sucks that they felt like they had to state it blatantly, because of all of the disgusting knuckle-dragging troglodytes who were tying themselves into knots in an attempt to ignore what was blatantly obvious already.
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Guile



Joined: 18 Jun 2013
Posts: 595
PostPosted: Wed Sep 14, 2022 3:02 pm Reply with quote
Top Gun wrote:
On one hand, it's great that they're declaring this for all the world to see. On the other, it sucks that they felt like they had to state it blatantly, because of all of the disgusting knuckle-dragging troglodytes who were tying themselves into knots in an attempt to ignore what was blatantly obvious already.


Uh, be very careful when you say things like "it's blatantly obvious", because we had plenty of cases like characters in Wonder Egg Priority literally turning to the camera to point out Momoe had no Adam's Apple to prove she must be a girl and yet people still head-canoned that into the characters just being nice and pretending to not notice to justify their belief that Momoe was trans. We still see grossly racist comments (including in the last Bridget thread) about how Japan is just ignorant of LGBT issues and creators are misgendering their own characters like Yamato or Naoto. Just because the "crossdressing characters are actually trans" crowd were actually right this time about Bridget's new portrayal doesn't change that 99% of the other times they're incorrect. I'm sure the next time Kuroboshi draws pin-up art of Kino we'll get people complaining how she's not female or the next time Yamato is grouped up with the rest of the female characters in One Piece people will call Oda a hack like they did with the Vivre Card biography.
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JoelBurger





PostPosted: Wed Sep 14, 2022 3:04 pm Reply with quote
Guile wrote:
Top Gun wrote:
On one hand, it's great that they're declaring this for all the world to see. On the other, it sucks that they felt like they had to state it blatantly, because of all of the disgusting knuckle-dragging troglodytes who were tying themselves into knots in an attempt to ignore what was blatantly obvious already.


Uh, be very careful when you say things like "it's blatantly obvious", because we had plenty of cases like characters in Wonder Egg Priority literally turning to the camera to point out Momoe had no Adam's Apple to prove she must be a girl and yet people still head-canoned that into the characters just being nice and pretending to not notice to justify their belief that Momoe was trans. We still see grossly racist comments (including in the last Bridget thread) about how Japan is just ignorant of LGBT issues and creators are misgendering their own characters like Yamato or Naoto. Just because the "crossdressing characters are actually trans" crowd were actually right this time about Bridget's new portrayal doesn't change that 99% of the other times they're incorrect. I'm sure the next time Kuroboshi draws pin-up art of Kino we'll get people complaining how she's not female or the next time Yamato is grouped up with the rest of the female characters in One Piece people will call Oda a hack.


The character literally says to call her a cowgirl because she's a girl. You're bending yourself into pretzels over a situation that was blatantly obvious to everyone other than those looking for an excuse to be transphobic.

Also, love that you bring Yamato up as an example, and proceed to bring up a hypothetical that's the exact opposite from what Oda actually did (which was group Yamato with the men, to tell people like you as explicitly as he could what the reality is). Also real rich to bring up the Vivre Cards, the things not written by Oda and have contained multiple mistakes in the past. But I guess they supplant the actual manga so long as they fit the narrative in your head.


Last edited by JoelBurger on Wed Sep 14, 2022 3:13 pm; edited 2 times in total
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Ishida_Akira(fake)



Joined: 23 Apr 2022
Posts: 113
PostPosted: Wed Sep 14, 2022 3:07 pm Reply with quote
Guile wrote:
characters in Wonder Egg Priority literally turning to the camera to point out Momoe had no Adam's Apple to prove she must be a girl and yet people still head-canoned that into the characters just being nice and pretending to not notice to justify their belief that Momoe was trans.


I actually remember that. The amount of copium inhaled that day cannot have been safe. And yeah, Momoe is a girl. But this "argument" happened on 4chan and twitter... so you can't actually take it into account, since those two places are as toxic as could be.


And now I remember Wonder Egg Priority, and am once again pissed of about how it ended. This is why people don't trust anime originals anymore.
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chudmaru



Joined: 25 Apr 2022
Posts: 55
PostPosted: Wed Sep 14, 2022 3:17 pm Reply with quote
Huge L for otokonoko fans today, but at least we still have Astolfo.
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Top Gun



Joined: 28 Sep 2007
Posts: 4807
PostPosted: Wed Sep 14, 2022 3:25 pm Reply with quote
JoelBurger wrote:

The character literally says to call her a cowgirl because she's a girl. You're bending yourself into pretzels over a situation that was blatantly obvious to everyone other than those looking for an excuse to be transphobic.

Seriously. I have zero interest in fighting games in general but even I stumbled across the scene pointing it out. There was no ambiguity there.
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Wyvern



Joined: 01 Sep 2004
Posts: 1599
PostPosted: Wed Sep 14, 2022 3:26 pm Reply with quote
Bridget: I'm a girl.

Ky: She's a girl.

Goldlewis: She's a girl.

In-game text: She's a girl.

The people who created the game: She's a girl.

The internet: What are they trying to tell us? It's so vague!
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