Quote Originally Posted by Theodric View Post
I'd also point out that many of the recent biggest releases outside of Japan have embraced masculine aesthetics to a significant degree. Aside from FFXIV doing just that outside of Othard/Hingashi, there's:

- Dragon Quest XI
- Monster Hunter World
- Resident Evil 2 Remake
- Devil May Cry 5
- Soul Calibur 6

Of those, two even had a crossover with a Western game. Geralt of Rivia showed up in Monster Hunter World and Soul Calibur 6. A number of upcoming Japanese titles are also set to follow a similar pattern. So it's a myth that there's very little appetite for such things over in Japan. They're not niche titles, either.
Yeah, uhm... DQXI has a bishonen protagonist, Erik can also qualify as bisonen, not to mention Sylvando is particularily feminine, and those are 3 of 4 playable males. RE2 prettyfied Leon, reviews of DMC5 have explicitly used the word "twinks" to refer to the main characters. SC6 keeps Siegfried of the flowing locks, Mitsurugi, and Maxi, but removed THE bara daddy of the series, Rock (at least his body hair is still in CC). So, I wouldn't say "embraced masculitnity", in fact, in most of those games, the masculinity was always there: RE (Chris, since forever), MH (male hunters since, again, forever), DMC, SC (Rock, Mitsurugi, Algol...).

I mean, I'd rather male Viera were tall and decently built, but c'mon, man, you are deliberately stirring the pot :P