I’m not sure if everyone has heard, but Steam has started up a greenlight project where fans can vote on what sorts of games they would like to see on Steam. Some of the games I’ve seen in the greenlight section include a few Japanese Visual Novels and unfortunately, browsing a few comments, I noticed a few people still held common misconceptions about these very misunderstood game/novel hybrids. As a fan of the genre, I feel like doing my little part here by addressing common misconceptions about Visual Novels that I personally have come across.
1. Japanese VNs are glorified porn games
This is probably the most common misconception I’ve seen people have against the genre and I’m sure anime fans are very much aware of this as well since it wasn’t so long ago that anime fans had to wrestle with the same sort of misconception. Just like with anime, there is a subsections of Visual Novels that are just porn. But, and this is what most people unfamiliar with the genre fail to understand, that doesn’t mean all Visual Novels are porn, just like not all anime is porn. This is especially frustrating because everyone should know that Steam does not allow any adult games onto the service, so any visual novel in the greenlight program has no pornographic scenes. Yet still people have called Go Go Nippon “this porn game” on it’s Steam greenlight page.
2. All VNs with sex scenes are porn games
This misconception I can understand more readily since a lot of people tend to call anything with sexual content pornographic. Heck, I’m not even saying that the images aren’t pornographic, but most adult VNs worth any salt in the story department aren’t just fap material. The Japanese actually have a distinction for the full out porn games and for VNs with sexual content. The former are called nukige and the latter eroge*. It is usually pretty easy to distinguish the former from the latter as nukige aren’t very subtle most of the time with titles like “Horny Bunnies” or “My Teacher is My Sex Slave”. That said, one’s best bet is to do research before hand because this isn’t a fool proof method. So what’s the difference? It’s pretty simple, nukiges are full out porn games with the core of the game revolving around sex scene after sex scene. Eroges, on the other hand, tend to have a few sex scenes that are usually featured at the end of a route (for dating sims) or whenever the story calls for it. The player will be spending the vast majority of the game actually reading the story. This is why I say eroges, while they do have sex scenes, are not porn games because you spend so much time just interacting with characters and reading versus the few minutes of sex scenes. And as someone who thinks sex is something that a medium shouldn’t shy away from portraying when warranted, I don’t find this a problem for eroges. That said, yes there are plenty of eroges with unnecessary sex scenes. Unfortunately, due to how niche the market is (even in Japan), developers often add in sex scenes as a hook for sales in the same way some game developers add fan service as a hook. It is unfortunate, but there are ways around it. Usually, the best bet for these eroges is to look for an all age release (KiraKira has one, for example), try to see if there is an ability to disable sex scenes, or buy the version released on a console. Pornographic imagery is not allowed on any console in Japan, so when an eroge gets ported to a console, the sex scenes get removed.
*thanks for awesomecurry for pointing this out: eroges are any and all VNs with sexual content regardless of what sort of content that is and nukiges are a subgenre of eroges. I realize my wording here makes it seem like nukiges aren’t considered eroges at all, but that’s not true.
3. VNs are sexist/misogynistic/etc.
I’m pretty new to the genre myself, so I can’t make broad generalizing strokes about the genre as a whole, but I will say that there are plenty of VNs that are not pornographic. There are VNs that cater to women and ones that are all ages, so at the very least, the whole genre shouldn’t be labelled as such. As for eroge dating sims, I haven’t played many of them (just two really and one of those being a demo) and while anime cliches do come on strong at times, I felt those two games were never really about sexual conquest or left the girls as shallow cliches (for the most part). They felt to me like choose your own romance in the vein of choose your own adventure books. There was a whole group of girls you could date, sure, but you couldn’t date them at the same time. It was more about picking the girl you liked out of the group and having a relationship with her and getting to know her. There was real emotional impact in this sort of interactive attempt at romance because you personally come to care for the character(s). Although, again, this will heavily depend on how good the writing is. Plus there are even some English language VNs out and about, like Analogue: A Hate Story, which deal with feminist topics, and still had date sim elements. So the genre itself isn’t the problem, it is the writing, which applies to anime and video games in general as well.
4. All Dating Sims are Eroges and aimed at males
Both points are not true and while dating sim without sex scenes are rare, especially on the PC, they are not unheard of. Key is very well known for having dating sims without any sexual content (well not so much anymore, I guess). As for all dating sim being aimed at males, I believe this misconception arises from the fact that most dating sims for girls are just called otome games. Still, that doesn’t change the fact that they are dating sims.
5. All VNs deal with romance or slice-of-life
I’m guessing this misconception arises from people being aware of dating sims and not much else, but again it just isn’t true. The genre has a lot of variety. The unfortunate thing is, most games are Japan-only. Still there are a few English (and all ages) releases like Higurashi that are horror , and 999: 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors *and Time Hollow which are science fiction/mystery. Yes, it is a small list, but it has more to do with the fact that Visual Novels are often overlooked because they don’t sell very well and that is most likely because of these very misconceptions.
*999 is sort of an odd beast, it has a very visual novel-esque story telling, yet has puzzles like an adventure game. Still since there is no real exploration, I personally call it a VN as my distinction between the two is: VN= no way for the player to explore the environment independent of the story pushing you into different places; versus adventure = the player exploring the environment and solving puzzles to proceed with the story. Examples of the latter are games like Hotel Dusk, Trace Memory, and Dear Esther.
There you have it. Those are the myths I’ve seen around the net about Visual Novels. That said, there definitely are problematic aspects in plenty of visual novels. Perhaps because the medium is so niche, there are a bit more exploitative works than in other mediums, so while I whole heartedly do love the genre, I do feel that anyone who wants to give it a try must approach it with this in mind. If a Visual Novel looks interesting, do a bit of research to see what sort of game it is and whether you are comfortable with said content. That way, you can avoid the exploitative works and still enjoy the strengths of the genre.
–SW
21/01/2013 at 3:42 pm
Very true, Soar. I have had the questionable pleasure of knowing people who had the “anime = tentacle porn” mentality, sweeping generalizations sure are fun huh?
Your last paragraph got me thinking, and this is speaking in general and not just about VNs, sometimes I don’t mind indulging in something blatantly exploitative. I mean at least you can get some entertainment out of such works, I dislike more when something comes out as look-how-smart-I-am levels of pretentiousness. Not that this is some cosmic rule of course.
22/01/2013 at 3:27 pm
Haha, yeah. My best friend asked about that one time too. Not in a judgmental way, but in a genuinely curious way since she doesn’t watch anime but knew about hentai. xD I never knew anyone personally, who held those beliefs seriously. I guess I’m pretty lucky. :3
Hm, well I don’t hate all works with elements of exploitation, but it definitely depends on degrees. I won’t mind fan service if the anime is good in other regards. And this is like a guilty pleasure of mine, but I actually enjoyed He is My Master because it was so ridiculous and I have a perverse sense of humour. xD But with VNs, there is a subsection that is pretty extreme and I’d rather warn people than pretend it doesn’t exist. For pretentious anime, I can’t really think of any I’ve hated. In general though, I’m a pretty easy to please person. It would have to be pretentious and wrong to get me on its case, I guess. xD There are certain things that bug me though and if I see those elements in an anime or manga, I will struggle with enjoying it and in severe cases, I will drop said series.
21/01/2013 at 9:04 pm
Good post. I’ve just finished watching ef: a tale of memories (adapted from a VN) and I suspect I bought into a couple of these myths beforehand.
So your timing is convenient and you should expect a ping back in the not too distant future. :)
22/01/2013 at 3:31 pm
Thank you. :) I’ve heard great things about ef myself and I definitely want to give it a try eventually too. :D
22/01/2013 at 3:54 am
I’ve actually wanted to pick up a VN game, but never had any easy access to any of them. I have heard of the common misconceptions you have listed in your post. I think people presume these things because they don’t dig deeper to see what something is about. They are quick to dismiss it before getting the whole picture. But these same misconceptions can be applied to anime anyway–if you aren’t familiar with anime that is.
22/01/2013 at 3:40 pm
Yeah, definitely true. It happens all the time with people often jumping to conclusions without digging deeper. Racial and religious stereotypes also come to mind. :(
Me too, I need to pick more up that look interesting. I have a few on my wish list that I haven’t gotten yet.
22/01/2013 at 11:50 am
[…] ef: a tale of memories is a stylish [1], occasionally surreal, series that I neither expected nor wanted to enjoy. My preconceptions were shaped by several myths about Japanese Visual Novels that Soaringwings has neatly debunked here. […]
23/01/2013 at 5:14 am
Thanks for writing that article. I must say that I’ve fallen for all those preconceptions, so it was good to be disabused of them.
23/01/2013 at 2:30 pm
I’m happy to hear my article was helpful. :)
28/01/2013 at 2:33 am
Good article, I can’t count how many people I’ve seen that fall into the first 3. I have to add that 3 is most definitely not true. The best visual novels I’ve played (Muv-Luv Alternative, Muramasa) had very good development of their female characters. The misogynist VNs that people are thinking of are nukige anyways.
Just to nitpick though, all software with R-18 scenes are called eroge in Japan. Nukige are a subgenre of eroge, like charage (character-focused) or nakige (tear jerkers).
28/01/2013 at 3:35 pm
Yes, the first three are definitely the most common misconceptions. Agreed, most of the misogynist stuff if definitely nukige. Most of the bad press also happens around nukiges too. D:
Ah, I see what you mean. My wording is sort of saying nukiges aren’t eroges. I guess I was trying to emphasize the difference too much. But that makes me curious, would any game that gets R-18 be automatically called an eroge even if it got that rating not due to sexual content but violent content?
28/01/2013 at 10:14 pm
Well, I haven’t really come across anything that got the R-18 rating due to violence, but I’d imagine not.
Eroge is short for erotic game, so it should only refer to things with sexual content. I guess I was a little unclear, since I usually end up using R-18 to refer to sexual content only, haha. But usually violent content is rated Cero D (17+), unless it includes sexual content as well. Cero Z is the general R-18 rating for video games in Japan, I believe.
28/01/2013 at 11:14 pm
Thanks for clearing that up. Yeah, I don’t think any game has gotten Cero Z for violence. At least I’m not aware of any. It was more a theoretical question. :3
01/02/2013 at 11:05 am
Great post. But, I think every people have different perception and expectation when they buy VNs. The eechi scene for me just for spice up VNs while more important it’s storyline.
I admit majority of VNs in US and Europe market are eroge genre, but there a lot nice VNs under radar which orientate for specific genre.
For example, Kara no Shoujo (mystery, gore), My forged Wedding (josei, slice of life), chaos head (shounen, gore), Deardrops (Music, shounen) etc.
01/02/2013 at 3:30 pm
Oh yeah, definitely, I wasn’t trying to suggest all VNs are eroges or date sims, but a lot of misconceptions about VNs are directly tied to these two genres, so the majority of my post focused on them. For me personally, I’m always looking for a good story. Everything else is secondary. My all time favourite VN is Virtue’s Last Reward and it was neither a date sim or an eroge (999 is a close second and the Zero Escape series overall is turning into one of my favourite franchises).