Guilty Gear Strive

[mudwogg]

I haven't seen this posted, but here's an article in Japanese on Bridget and otonoko culture in which the writer explains the cultural history of otonokos as it pertains to Japan, and why Bridget isn't trans. The full piece is behind a paywall, but it looks like the general consensus in Japan is that Bridget is just a cross dresser.

I suggest using DeepL to read it if you can't understand moonrunes.

https://note.com/wakari_te/n/n3522e245a9a1 Archive

DeepL Translator


TL;DR of article: localisers are doing it again, disregard Western nonsense.

Westerners, most notably Americans, aren't able to "get" anime. What are actually long-time fictional tropes that have little or no connection to reality, or equivalents. hence tropes limited to fiction writing, whether there's a slight real world influence or not, are being appropriated and forcefully tied to whatever politics they're into. That's also why there are psychos so obsessed with allegories like comparing the mutants in X-Men to real world minorities in America.

When Marvel introduced their mangaverse in the early 2000's, it was trying to be anime/manga in the most cringe ways possible. What is anime/manga to them is limited to aesthetics and other surface level silliness.

The French, compared to the Americunts, are able to "get" the appealing aspects of anime and manga. Hence their existing "French manga" industry which are mainly indies, like their pre-existing local entries, since there isn't a Marvel or DC equivalent entity in their country. Radiant, which was already adapted into a 2-season anime, being an example. I've seen numerous that have very appealing art styles. Although I've never read many myself, a friend who lives there vouches they are really good stuff.

The Castlevania series, despite being set in Europe, has plenty of Eastern undertones, mainly Buddhist, in its narrative, most notably the Samsara. Netflix Castlevania, at best is just a popcorn flick that's barely respectful of the IP it's adapted. That in terms of lore/world-building and the historical context of the series. Instead it resorting to the typical tropes of Hollywood shit flicks, one of them portraying the church of the middle ages, with the sins of the puritan movement (founded in the early modern period) and the BS of the churches found in American soil.

The reason why American adaptations of foreign IP's always fail is because they don't "get" them, especially in the cultural aspects. They are more concerned about their own ideas, just like when the fake fan, Adi Shankar, bragged that his Castlevania would be the "best damn adaptation ever", then started bringing up Game of Thrones and Lord of the Rings, not even once talking about the series lore to at least inform the normies.

 

[kokokrunch123]

Despite his crossdressing gimmick, Bridget is heterosexual. He spends most of his story arc in XX looking for I-no just to ask her out.

Oof. Axl got to I-no first. Sorry, bridget.

 

[Da Grim Reaper]

Bridget is a fat Muslim woman of color who's also a Black Eurasian Latino pansexual-otherkin, and neurodivergent.
What, you want proof?
There's no such thing in the Japanese version, only in the American release, so it's totally canonical and not some bullshit made by American translators who love to rewrite history to satisfy a certain audience.

Fuck, it's like we're back to the 4kids days, but extremely autistic.

 

[Gravemind]

Doesn't Bridget literally call himself a "girl" in the Japanese version though?

I understand the ridiculousness of Twitter, Tumblr, and wherever else trying to claim Bridget is now their tranny icon and just generally being tourists to the Guilty Gear franchise for the time being until they move on to harp about something else, but let's not exaggerate the issue here.

 

[Book Thief]

Doesn't Bridget literally call himself a "girl" in the Japanese version though?

I understand the ridiculousness of Twitter, Tumblr, and wherever else trying to claim Bridget is now their tranny icon and just generally being tourists to the Guilty Gear franchise for the time being until they move on to harp about something else, but let's not exaggerate the issue here.

Yes. Looking at the screenshots in this post by @El Iluminado, I can tell that Bridget is saying that being called "Young lady" (ojou-chan, お嬢ちゃん) is "okay" (ii desu, いいです) "because I'm a girl" (on'na no ko desu kara, 女の子ですから). So it's definitely in the Japanese version.

 

[The Lawgiver]

Fuck, it's like we're back to the 4kids days, but extremely autistic.

4kids mainly just cut out scenes for time shit, skipped episodes of one piece to catch up tot the japan one faster, edited weapons into pointing fingers or some fucked up contraption, and despite all the weird censor shit they added more sexual innuendos and wordplay

Like, even with the weird changes 4kids did most of the time they got the actual original message through People's main complaints were censorship of violence, weird removal of reference to murder, and the weapon censoring shit on top of the skipping thing. This? this is a different beast than 4kids. Everything 4kids would normally fuck with is still there instead of altered, but the original message and context of scenes are completely destroyed to push twitter and reddit clout. It's some kinda fucked up bizarro world situation where it still ruins shit but for the complete opposite reason.

 

[Lil Miku]

4kids mainly just cut out scenes for time shit, skipped episodes of one piece to catch up tot the japan one faster, edited weapons into pointing fingers or some fucked up contraption, and despite all the weird censor shit they added more sexual innuendos and wordplay

Like, even with the weird changes 4kids did most of the time they got the actual original message through People's main complaints were censorship of violence, weird removal of reference to murder, and the weapon censoring shit on top of the skipping thing. This? this is a different beast than 4kids. Everything 4kids would normally fuck with is still there instead of altered, but the original message and context of scenes are completely destroyed to push twitter and reddit clout. It's some kinda fucked up bizarro world situation where it still ruins shit but for the complete opposite reason.

Reminder that 4Kids actually made Mint from Tokyo Mew Mee/Mew Mew Power even gayer in the dub for some reason

 

[mudwogg]

Daisuke Ishiwatari, the IP's creator, had been the director for most of the titles since the first game. However, in Strive, He was only in-charge of game and character design, I think the director for Strive, might have been pandering to the American FGC. In a sense, its not surprising, given that some Japanese companies, especially Capcom, have been doing so.

 

[The Lawgiver]

Daisuke Ishiwatari, the IP's creator, had been the director for most of the titles since the first game. However, in Strive, He was only in-charge of game and character design, I think the director for Strive, might have been pandering to the American FGC. In a sense, its not surprising, given that some Japanese companies, especially Capcom, have been doing so.

Was it capcomor a different Japanese company that's conference papers and footage leaked citing shit like life is strange and last of us part II as the kind of game they should strive to make their games more like going forward? I can't remember and I'm too lazy to check right now.

 

[mudwogg]

Was it capcomor a different Japanese company that's conference papers and footage leaked citing shit like life is strange and last of us part II as the kind of game they should strive to make their games more like going forward? I can't remember and I'm too lazy to check right now.

Yes it was Capcom. That aside, American companies remaking Japanese IP's are quite the thing right now. The Demon's Souls remake (by blue point) had a deluge of niggers (to an immersion-killing degree) among other things, including the foreign character Satsuki, who was supposed to appear as Jomon Japanese in the original version, but was then designed as a Southern Chinese (largest demographic stock of Chinese living in the United States) with a Fu Manchu mustache. Can't get more stereotypical than that.

Streets of Rage 4's new playable cast were clearly designed to appeal to the starbucks demographic. I'm also scared of the possibility of Blue Point touching the MGS series.

 

[Celebrate Nite]

Streets of Rage 4's new playable cast were clearly designed to appeal to the starbucks demographic.

Part of the reason why I haven't touched it. Other reason being the way the fights are so simplified with everyone bouncing off of the walls, which makes the action boring if you can easily just corner some punks and fuck their shit up for days.

SOR Remake, IMO, will always be the definitive SOR game to play.

 

[Akumaten]

Part of the reason why I haven't touched it. Other reason being the way the fights are so simplified with everyone bouncing off of the walls, which makes the action boring if you can easily just corner some punks and fuck their shit up for days.

SOR Remake, IMO, will always be the definitive SOR game to play.

I tried it for a couple of minutes before getting my money back. The TMNT Shedder's Revenge is a better game.

 

[Becomemysoulreaver]

Well, played for myself Bridgets arcade mode just to see how I read the story, I dont see any suggestion that he is a girl other than the non flawless ending.
In the non flawless ending it comes to me like he just accepting that people see him as a girl and continue with this look, the dialogue even seem to convey that he is afraid to change and wants to stay as stuff are because he is afraid of how people will react, while in the flawless ending he is convinced that he should be who he truly is no matter what people will think of him.

 

[Ghost of Ted Kaczynski]

Well, played for myself Bridgets arcade mode just to see how I read the story, I dont see any suggestion that he is a girl other than the non flawless ending.
In the non flawless ending it comes to me like he just accepting that people see him as a girl and continue with this look, the dialogue even seem to convey that he is afraid to change and wants to stay as stuff are because he is afraid of how people will react, while in the flawless ending he is convinced that he should be who he truly is no matter what people will think of him.

Man, I know it's a contrarian opinion, but I think that's just cope. There is no arcade ending in strive that seems to suggest one is canon while the other isn't on ANY character, but people make this excuse for Bridgets, ONLY. I know, historically, that is not the case, but Strive is Guilty Gear in name and likeness only so historically does not matter.
It will remain intentionally vague unless someone get's asked directly, and it will be answered in a similar vagueness as Testament was, and even if the above interpretation is correct, then Arcsys/Daisuke would never admit that and will instead roll with the tranny narrative because that's bad optics.

The better cope would be to forget everything after XX, and to pretend that the gear is still guilty.

 

[Becomemysoulreaver]

Man, I know it's a contrarian opinion, but I think that's just cope. There is no arcade ending in strive that seems to suggest one is canon while the other isn't on ANY character, but people make this excuse for Bridgets, ONLY. I know, historically, that is not the case, but Strive is Guilty Gear in name and likeness only so historically does not matter.
It will remain intentionally vague unless someone get's asked directly, and it will be answered in a similar vagueness as Testament was, and even if the above interpretation is correct, then Arcsys/Daisuke would never admit that and will instead roll with the tranny narrative because that's bad optics.

The better cope would be to forget everything after XX, and to pretend that the gear is still guilty.

Never said anything about one being canon and one not being canon, just called them flawless, as in you need to win flawlessly every match, and non flawless, but the way I read the story with any ending doest suggest in any way that he is accepting being a girl, why would he be afraid to change and come out as a girl if people already see him as one?

 

[Hammr2]

Daisuke Ishiwatari, the IP's creator, had been the director for most of the titles since the first game. However, in Strive, He was only in-charge of game and character design, I think the director for Strive, might have been pandering to the American FGC. In a sense, its not surprising, given that some Japanese companies, especially Capcom, have been doing so.

Google on Strive director, Akira Katano, there isn't much infos about him, beside a couple dev talks from him and Daisuke during close beta. The first dev talk (1st June 2020) included that most request characters poll and I find one small part quite humoring considering how wiki/twatters/reddit jannies latch on pronoun quite hard.


Mind you, JP text just said 2013 poll also had Bridget being no.1 choice, not "he".

It's definitely Arc System really going for this vagueness in JP side, while EN side is more conforming to globohomo later on.

 

[Uranus Pink]

Well, played for myself Bridgets arcade mode just to see how I read the story, I dont see any suggestion that he is a girl other than the non flawless ending.
In the non flawless ending it comes to me like he just accepting that people see him as a girl and continue with this look, the dialogue even seem to convey that he is afraid to change and wants to stay as stuff are because he is afraid of how people will react, while in the flawless ending he is convinced that he should be who he truly is no matter what people will think of him.

It isn't just the dialogue of the endings but also how the voice actors spoke them. Which to me seem like the voice actors read and spoke the lines as if they're still in the nineties or aughts not the troon infested tens and twenties. Cause I seen variations of this discussion done before back then and they did not involved chopping off own body parts.

 

[Übertroon]

As I see it this is a result of culture clash.
The japanese think effeminate boys crossdressing and calling themselves girls is funny and cute.

American troons thinks it validates chopping off their penis and looking like a basement dwelling transvestite

 

[BananaSplit]

I'm fuckin behind holy shit I need to catchup on learning japanese
jesbus

Forcing yourself to consume media directly in japanese will lead you to improve your proficiency. Mangas that contain furigana (aka kanji pronunciation) are good references to expand the vocabulary in an intuitive way: anything published by Jump Comics (SpyxFamily, Rookies, Jojo, One Piece, Hokuto no Ken, etc.), Young Jump mangas (albeit the furigana is only present for N3+ kanji vocab due of aiming for a slightly older public), Yotsubato, City Hunter, Dusk Maiden of Amnesia, Nagatoro, etc.

Assuming you need to review your knowledge in grammar, consider Tae Kim, Genki and imabi.net. Kanjidamage to understand things a bit better about kanji, and jisho.org as an online dictionary.

Mind you, JP text just said 2013 poll also had Bridget being no.1 choice, not "he".
It's definitely Arc System really going for this vagueness in JP side, while EN side is more conforming to globohomo later on.

In the japanese language, and its culture, you are supposed to address someone else by his/her name or title anyway. Third-person pronouns, 彼 (kare) & 彼女 (kanojo), are frequently more used to refer as boyfriend and girlfriend respectively in a casual conversations rather than "he/she". あいつ (aitsu), こいつ (koitsu) and そいつ (soitsu) are also more common in a familiar/derogatory speech pattern to nominate someone in the third-person without revealing the gender as such: all three words mean "that guy/girl" (the sole difference being the distance that separates between the person and the speaker). There is also 奴 (やつ / yatsu) but it's definitely more vulgar and humiliating.

But the most important thing about second and third person pronouns you should know is when not to use them, which is exactly most of the time. Second person (namely あなた/anata, きみ/kimi, おまえ/omae) is particularly avoided as they can be otherwise seen as rude (or even carry an accusatory tone if overused). Hence why the focus to address someone by name or title instead.

Instead, "gendered" pronouns exist in japanese when referring to oneself as "I", in the first person, and there is no equivalent in English and latin/german languages. But to be more exact, first-person pronouns should been seen as "clothing" in a similar fashion you present yourself during a job interview, between friends and else. Some of them are formal, others are not. They can say a lot about a person, from carrying manliness (ore - おれ), femininity (atashi - あたし) or flamboyant attitude (atashi but used by males) for instance.



From the few japanese gameplay video of Strive I've seen, Bridget uses うち (uchi) which is a mostly feminine pronoun and often seen in Kansei-dialect japanese. It can be used by both sexes when talking about things or persons from the household such as うちのちち (my dad) or うちのぬいぐるみ (my teddy bear/plushie).


It should also be remembered that Japanese in itself is a pro-drop language: it can easily drop such pronouns unless there is an actual need to emphasize the info these pronouns give.

As I see it this is a result of culture clash.
The japanese think effeminate boys crossdressing and calling themselves girls is funny and cute.

American troons thinks it validates chopping off their penis and looking like a basement dwelling transvestite

It's more that it's a problem specifically in the West, America in particular but it has slowly been exporting elsewhere as well. We're getting mind-fucked into believing that guys and girls are only supposed to act a single way and if you step outside of that paradigm, you are considered "broken" and need transitioning. Which makes things worse in the long run because it means simply denying the other half of yourself. It's kinda funny those tranny psychopaths are incredibly sexist and push gender roles the hardest.

In Japan, they seem to have a much more realistic grasp on things. And a good example of this is in the comments for this vocaloid song about norms:

Spoiler

The JP comments are generally talking about the actual meaning of the song: struggling between the kind of person what you are expected to be and the kind of person you are (in the context of feminine guys and masculine girls). But most of the english comments present there are instead attributing everything to genderfluid and tranny shit.

Apologies for not really contributing to discussing the game itself the sole GG game I've merely touched was Xrd Sign on PC because I liked the artstyle

 

[Scavenger]

Forcing yourself to consume media directly in japanese will lead you to improve your proficiency. Mangas that contain furigana (aka kanji pronunciation) are good references to expand the vocabulary in an intuitive way: anything published by Jump Comics (SpyxFamily, Rookies, Jojo, One Piece, Hokuto no Ken, etc.), Young Jump mangas (albeit the furigana is only present for N3+ kanji vocab due of aiming for a slightly older public), Yotsubato, City Hunter, Dusk Maiden of Amnesia, Nagatoro, etc.

Assuming you need to review your knowledge in grammar, consider Tae Kim, Genki and imabi.net. Kanjidamage to understand things a bit better about kanji, and jisho.org as an online dictionary.


In the japanese language, and its culture, you are supposed to address someone else by his/her name or title anyway. Third-person pronouns, 彼 (kare) & 彼女 (kanojo), are frequently more used to refer as boyfriend and girlfriend respectively in a casual conversations rather than "he/she". あいつ (aitsu), こいつ (koitsu) and そいつ (soitsu) are also more common in a familiar/derogatory speech pattern to nominate someone in the third-person without revealing the gender as such: all three words mean "that guy/girl" (the sole difference being the distance that separates between the person and the speaker). There is also 奴 (やつ / yatsu) but it's definitely more vulgar and humiliating.

But the most important thing about second and third person pronouns you should know is when not to use them, which is exactly most of the time. Second person (namely あなた/anata, きみ/kimi, おまえ/omae) is particularly avoided as they can be otherwise seen as rude (or even carry an accusatory tone if overused). Hence why the focus to address someone by name or title instead.

Instead, "gendered" pronouns exist in japanese when referring to oneself as "I", in the first person, and there is no equivalent in English and latin/german languages. But to be more exact, first-person pronouns should been seen as "clothing" in a similar fashion you present yourself during a job interview, between friends and else. Some of them are formal, others are not. They can say a lot about a person, from carrying manliness (ore - おれ), femininity (atashi - あたし) or flamboyant attitude (atashi but used by males) for instance.

View attachment 3602383

From the few japanese gameplay video of Strive I've seen, Bridget uses うち (uchi) which is a mostly feminine pronoun and often seen in Kansei-dialect japanese. It can be used by both sexes when talking about things or persons from the household such as うちのちち (my dad) or うちのぬいぐるみ (my teddy bear/plushie).
View attachment 3602426View attachment 3602430

It should also be remembered that Japanese in itself is a pro-drop language: it can easily drop such pronouns unless there is an actual need to emphasize the info these pronouns give.


It's more that it's a problem specifically in the West, America in particular but it has slowly been exporting elsewhere as well. We're getting mind-fucked into believing that guys and girls are only supposed to act a single way and if you step outside of that paradigm, you are considered "broken" and need transitioning. Which makes things worse in the long run because it means simply denying the other half of yourself. It's kinda funny those tranny psychopaths are incredibly sexist and push gender roles the hardest.

In Japan, they seem to have a much more realistic grasp on things. And a good example of this is in the comments for this vocaloid song about norms:

Spoiler

The JP comments are generally talking about the actual meaning of the song: struggling between the kind of person what you are expected to be and the kind of person you are (in the context of feminine guys and masculine girls). But most of the english comments present there are instead attributing everything to genderfluid and tranny shit.

Apologies for not really contributing to discussing the game itself the sole GG game I've merely touched was Xrd Sign on PC because I liked the artstyle

Thank you btw
and yeah I know japanese culture seems to like the idea of men who dont conform to the traditional gender norm
and 10 years ago people in the west WERE able to accept that effeminite men meant you WERE an effeminite men and nothing else