Theme of armor lifts in the culture of the East and the West

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Минуточку внимания. Эта статья содержит много изображений, в том числе довольно больших. Не ленитесь заглядывать в спойлеры - там интересно.

The phenomenon of "armored vehicles" has been around for quite some time. There are several versions of the names, often still used "armored vehicles", but the meaning does not change. An armored vehicle is an armor that is designed for anything other than, in fact, the protection of strategic vulnerabilities.

Such armor is terribly inconvenient, it rubs and guarantees a cold person in a region with an average climate and a huge number of insect bites in regions with a warm climate. And of course, all piercing-cutting objects that fly in you reach the goal.

Nevertheless, heroes and heroines are often depicted almost naked, surrounded by enemies or conquering the summit of some mountain, or in a battle with a huge creature, or ... many options. Almost all of them are contrary to the laws of logic and sanity, but despite this armor does not lose popularity around the world.

To begin, I would like to make a small clarification. Modern igroprom is now literally divided into two camps - "East" and "West." The East usually refers to Japan, a little less often China or Korea, whose history and cultures have interacted and intertwined for centuries. The West is, in fact, all the countries of modern Europe (almost everybody has been in a colony or had colonies, which promoted cultural exchange).

What does this have to armor?

The gaming industry is now also divided into eastern and western. If you choose any Japanese or Korean game and any European one, and then ask a person to guess which one, then the absolute majority will guess the first time. TES series and Metal Gear Solid series. World of Warcraft and, for example, Perfect World or the more modern Black Desert, Lara Croft and Bayonetta.

Literally everything is different. From game mechanics to the "standard" length of the legs of the characters. But today we’ll talk about the graphic part, or rather about the design of the characters and their clothes.
How to portray female characters in European and Oriental games?

• In European games, body proportions are usually close to real, albeit idealized. Legs are longer, breasts are bigger and lips are more swollen - that’s all the changes. Individuals are usually modeled in the style of realism, albeit to varying degrees.
• In eastern games, body proportions have little in common with real ones. The ideal of a female character for the same Japanese is a tall, slim (to an unnatural leanness) girl with childish features, huge eyes and a small mouth, 3-4 size breasts and legs of such length that they make up half of her height. Well, or loli which looks like 10-12 years old, but she has quite an adult chest. Or not.

Accordingly, the design of clothes and armor is also different .

• In European games, clothing or armor is usually depicted at least a chu-duck close to reality. It may look like real specimens or was invented by a designer, but looking at it the character does not want to give a towel so that he covers himself. Yes, the neckline may well be too provocative or the skirt is too short, but everything is within the framework of if not decency, then logic.
• If we see a beautiful young girl in shorts and a bra in the middle of the Siberian taiga, then this is definitely “east”. There are, of course, adequate designers who in such a situation will give the character at least a jacket (but not necessarily a hat), but they are a minority.

What can explain such a strong discrepancy? Historically, fashion in both east and west does not involve exposing most of the body. Both here and there, people walked more or less clothed, so seeing a naked non-wife for a Japanese person or a Chinese person was just as memorable an event as for a European. However, some rules still differed.

• In Europe, comparatively recently, it was permissible for a woman to bare her shoulders and décolleté, but it is highly undesirable to show her legs.
• In the same China, the chest must be literally closed to the neck, but the skirt can be as short as possible. There are suggestions that this is due to the cut of a traditional qipao dress - a closed chest and a stand-up collar, but cuts on the hips make it possible to see the legs almost completely.

art

In the East, there are anime, manga, manhwa and many other formats of "comics" as we used to call drawn stories. In Europe, too, has its own comics, the most famous comic book models are Marvel and DC. However, the well-known superheroes are either dressed in armor or wearing tight suits, that is, technically they are dressed. An exception can be called such heroes as Supergirl, Wonder Woman or the Scarlet Witch in the original design, but they are also relatively dressed - no combat bikini.

Fact: The costumes of comic book characters are constantly changing. And some costumes, especially women, initially looked completely different ... More on this below.

The desire of the Japanese to portray the heroines as half-naked and with perfect bodies can be explained by the fact that they “completely disappeared into virtual reality, they don’t see the light of white, and women even less” (c). Not quite a correct statement, but there is some truth in it. The same Japan is considered almost the most technically developed country in the world, everything is done with the help of cards, smartphones, and chats. People work a lot, there is little to communicate with real interlocutors.

In addition, in the second half of the 1990s, such a social problem began to manifest itself as the hikikomori (retreat) of the younger generation. Currently, the problem of the older generation of hikikomori, those over forty, which is badly reflected in statistical data, has acquired a deeper character.

Short summary:

• In modern games created in Europe, designers usually prefer “modified realism”, creating characters that are slightly embellished with respect to reality, but still claim to be realistic. Yes, many players (especially male) comment on such games as “the theme of boobs is not disclosed,” but they still play.

  
  

• In the East, designers come off in full. Heavy metal armor that covers only the head and chest but leaves everything else vulnerable? You are welcome! Fifteen centimeter studs on the boots from the “Jungle Researcher?” Kit. No question! Hair to toe in a warrior character, not fixed or braided? Yes, do not care that she gets confused in them and suffocated to the delight of the enemies, beautifully!

  
  

All cultures have a certain line when what is permitted turns into a taboo. East and West have different borders. What will be perceived normally in the East, in the West criticized. Because it's all nice and cool, but ...

In the game Metal Gear Solid Phantom Pain (to which the famous Hideo Kojima had a hand) there is a character Quiet. Her nudity is even explained by Laura:

It would seem that everything is simple and clear - in the East there is a tradition to strip characters, in the West there is a tradition to wear them. The question is closed? And no!

In Europe, a few decades ago, there was its own tradition of “bronebikini,” moreover, the mentioned Japanese were worse than many times in this article.

Let's go back to Marvel and DC. Over the years of the existence of both companies, the design of almost all the characters has changed many times, so everyone has already forgotten about the initial versions. But there were a lot of interesting costumes. There were frankly provocative, but most of them were frankly ridiculous (we recall the famous underpants on top of Superman’s suit).

In addition to comics about superheroes, fantasy books and comics were very popular. Conan the barbarian was especially fond of everyone, Red Sonja was a little less well known. Their covers would make modern fighters to protect children from dangerous information to swoon, one and all. And then such publications were read by children of the medium school age and teenagers quite calmly. And everything was normal, no one perturbed pervert grew up. Well ... most.

Fire and ice were spinning on the screens (Ice and Flame in some translations) - a full-length animated film released in 1983. Contains elements of erotica, as reported by Wikipedia. And I will add that there are not just elements of eroticism, there is eroticism on erotica and erotica chases. Drawing looks good even for our time, the plot is also ... present. I advise you to see if someone has not seen.

Not spared this fashion and animated series. The people of those years were trudging along the Lighters, Hi-Men and Shi-Re.
The Thundercats series was released in 1985. Chi-Men and the lords of the universe went from 1983 to 1985, and his faithful companion, Invincible Princess Shi-Ra, was also created in 1985.
Gromokot and Khi-men universes are very different, but some things do not change . What exactly unites them? Armored swimwear! And the almost complete absence of pants from the population.

I, frankly, am guessing where this love of costumes with open legs came from. Maybe this was due to the fitness mode of the time?

It has been several years since I first saw the old version of the Lion-O costume from Gromokoshek, but the cut-out on the stomach for the demonstration of the press cubes still makes me very happy.

These animated series are also very revealing because they have remakes . New Hee-Man and the Lords of the Universe already in 2002 and the new Loud-Catdies in 2011. They also seem to be going to make a new Shi-Roux.

The main characters of all the TV shows were originally quite adult not entirely human, but in the remakes they were replaced by teenagers ... but this is a topic for another article.

Look at their costumes. How they ... got dressed. In the literal sense, the clothes on the heroes have increased dramatically. And the development of science and technology in their worlds has reached such a point that they invented pants there!

Also, the trend of dressing characters appears in games, mostly European. About Lara Croft, I have already mentioned above:

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In the penultimate global update of World of Warcraft, designers also swung at the "holy", one of the symbols of the entire WoW - Silvana Windrunner's armorbikini. Fans even began to jokingly guess if this was not an attempt to hide the pregnancy. But the Queen Banshee - the undead, and this is the last thing that threatens her.

Conclusion

Our world is very diverse. Even within the framework of one species and one planet, people manage to be as dissimilar from one another as possible in principle. And the matter is not in appearance and habits, but in the very vision of the world. For someone, something is good, but for someone it is bad.

As we can see, East and West are very different types of cultures, I would even say the opposite. And for us, as representatives of Western culture, the East seems even more strange and incomprehensible.

And in this, seemingly not very significant, topic like the design of models in games, our vision of the beautiful also diverges. And the farther away, the greater the differences. In the East, characters are stripped, in the West they are dressed. And one could say that such a trend in Western games, films and cartoons arose under the influence of various feminist movements, but in fact the first motions began long before feminism became so popular (see the remakes of Hi-Men and Gromovkoshek).