Hideo Kojima isn’t letting the designs of Metal Gear Solid characters happen willy-nilly, you know. There is purpose behind the character designs… and that purpose is to be, um, erotic? Erotic is good for cosplay and sells figurines, apparently.
Straight from the man’s Twitter feed — note that “Yoji” refers to Metal Gear Solid V’s art director, Yoji Shinkawa.
I’ve been ordering to Yoji to make the character more erotic, and he did it well. Recently I’ve been making characters this way. (cont)
— HIDEO_KOJIMA (@HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN) September 4, 2013
I create the setting thoroughly, how he/she spent early life, name, style, favourite phrase, fashion, action to stand the character out.(cont
— HIDEO_KOJIMA (@HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN) September 4, 2013
The initial target is to make u want to do cosplay or its figurine to sell well.
— HIDEO_KOJIMA (@HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN) September 4, 2013
The character I asked Yoji to make it more erotic, this one may not be cosplayable.
— HIDEO_KOJIMA (@HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN) September 4, 2013
Dear Cosplayer friends, something like this for example. pic.twitter.com/SWkN3BSDFy
— HIDEO_KOJIMA (@HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN) September 4, 2013
Kojima went on to muse over memorable characters, noting one should be able to read a character by “observing his/hear silhouette, and the way he/she walks” — if the character is good, that is. So, he’s obviously thinking a lot about character design, even if some of his goals with said designs raise some eyebrows.
Now to see if Metal Gear Solid succeeds on this front/what kind of context we’ll be seeing sexy characters in… and later, of course, whether or not any cosplayers brave Metal Gear Solid V characters.
Comments
10 responses to “Don’t Be Surprised If Metal Gear Solid V Seems More, Uh, Erotic”
I can’t see why this is a problem – seriously.
I don’t think it was necessarily framed in the article as being a problem.
Personally, I love more erotic. Eroticism is awesome! There is absolutely nothing wrong with sexing up games. Generally I think there has been a distinct lack of nipples in games, more nipples please.
There’s a difference between “erotic” and “sexual” in the eye of a designer.. they’re talking about curves and lines being in all the “right” places so-to-speak, not about making sexy-sex characters.
Hideo is turning into a dirty old man.
It’s just a man who get’s old, his desires and attractions haven’t changed as he aged – the same sentiments in a 20 year old wouldn’t seem out of place… it just feels a bit creepy when an old dude does it. Just one of those quirks of evolution I guess, since until quite recently we never really lived much past 40.
I doubt I will be visually attracted to other 70 year olds when I hit 70, so I fully expect to become a “dirty old man” as I age, though I’ll probably have the decency to keep it to myself, and not ask my nurses for a sponge bath the way my geriatric father did in hospital. 😀
Interesting. Creating a characters appearance to suit the cosplay and marketing department further – rather than using it to flesh out the story.
I think Kojima is going a bit too crazy now. If figurines and cosplay are the main concern with the development of your characters, you may have lost sight of the drive and integrity that those characters should be presenting.
The only thing that’s funny to me is that if she is that naked all the time as a sniper then rolling around in the dirt would not be a pleasant experience. Of course there’s no need to bring that logic into a MGS game.
I just hope its a translation problem. I don’t want ‘erotic’ female characters. I want ‘Badass’ female characters – like Sniper Wolf.
Sexing up female characters is fine, so long it’s appropriate for the context. This instance, is just not right IMO. It’s just comes off juvenile rather than tasteful.
The EVA scenes in MGS3 were erotic in the sense that she was a sexy woman trying to manipulate Snake into doing what she wanted by whatever means necessary. Those scenes popped because the context was appropriate.
Quiet looks more appropriate for a SAINT’S ROW game than MGS.