Of All Trades
Member
I'm saying that her status was extremely poorly indicated, and IMO requires a massive and unreasonable leap by the player to assume that a character in the game described in Other terms isn't simply infected by the (somewhat abandoned in the 2nd half of A and almost entirely by the end of B) concept virus.RE: Of All Trades
I don't think Yoko Taro "caved in" in any respect on his vision, he simply elected to pare away all uneccessary exposition so as not to make the story more confusing than necessary. Very admirable in my opinion. Ultimately as a story element Kaine's hermaphroditism is merely serves the central motif of "what you see, may be deceptive".
I know appeals to middle ground aren't a lot of fun but there's a huge range between being given almost no information/being required to read dev interviews to figure out what the intention was and Kojima-esque exposition-dumps. And given how largely uninteresting, pointless and repetitive most of the side quests are I'm not sure I'd call the decision to leave out a single line of massively character-defining dialogue as admirable.
Except the game was released in an environment where Japanese games (or games somewhat emulating Japanese games) are somewhat frequently released with characters who aren't really soft or sexy or have any real traits to speak of are depicted in ridiculous costumes, and again, Neir had costume DLC for Kaine to make her even more ridiculous. Which would (possibly) be fine if the game actually put much effort into trope subversion but by barely doing so in-game the end result is that the subversion fails.Her "otherness" is dealt with separately from her possession in the long text section at the start of scenario B in a fairly subtle and sympathetic way, so I can't say I agree with your argument that her dress style is just another piece of Japanese sexism, its just another example of the game playfully subverting familiar genre tropes and expectations. She's hardly a character that acts in the least bit soft or sexy at any point in the story.
Anyway, the point is that Neir, while unfortunately not getting all the attention it deserves, is not being ignored out of cultural imperialism. It didn't get attention largely because it had little advertising, the marketing (in a way much like spec ops) highlighted the negative (yet another shooter, pervert fantasy game), and it requires a massive time sink to get the final in-game content. I also don't think it's nearly as subversive as it's heavier supporters claim, again largely due to the time sink.