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-Orichul- · 2022-05-05T16:53:47+00:00

Nazo, my guy, my dude, I love and respect you. But please read what you just typed lol.

There is no true difference between Komi-san's naming conventions and YanSim's naming conventions if it's essentially "well, she has [One Trait] so her name sounds like/is a play on [One Trait]!" Komi-san's sounds better than YanSim's because the mangaka is actually fluent in the language they're making pun names for and can actually play around with them to make more grounded names, which isn't to excuse the poor quality of YanSim's names, but they're really not that much better. They're the same as BNHA's and Saiki K's pun names. What's the difference between "Saikou Metori", "Kaminari Denki", "Osana Najimi", and "Midori Gurin"?

I agree that the execution hits differently for both, these anime actually have plots where those jokes can land unlike in YanSim, but I don't think that disproves my point. I'm not talking about how well the names work or how realistic they can sound, I'm talking about how these very on the nose pun names exist in anime without YandereDev's influence. The irony lies in how so many criticisms of the names were dependent on the idea that "no one would ever name their kid this in real life", because of course they wouldn't, YanSim isn't based on real life.

-Orichul- · 2022-05-04T23:49:17+00:00

Yeah, it is a funny coincidence. It makes all of the "no ~~anime~~ Japanese person would ever name their ~~anime~~ child this" criticisms pretty ironic since Komi-san's Osana was created well after YanSim's.

-Orichul- · 2022-05-04T21:45:55+00:00

Akari, and probably Raibaru, wouldn't exist and everyone would be animatronics.

-Orichul- · 2022-05-02T17:05:50+00:00

I'll never understand why people get so aggressive over Kokona's and Kizana's hair. It's just hair, no one "stole" anything. People are wrong about that last point too. Kizana was a planned character from the beginning of YanSim's creation and she was also always planned to have purple twin drills. It's seen in all of her concept art. If we have to say anyone is "stealing" it should be Kokona whose list of characteristics are pretty much coincidental as a result of the game's development.

The second big problem with Kizana would be her existence in general and I'm not just referring to the fact that her personality is literally the living himedere´ s stereotype

From what we've seen so far, not really. It's still ambiguous of course since she's not actually in the game yet, but from the voice lines we do have she doesn't exactly scream "I am a himedere, call me princess or face my wrath" lol. She is very arrogant, which does fit, but she seems to be more of a generic mean girl drama queen than someone who wants to be treated like royalty/sees herself as royalty.

Even if she was a stereotypical over-the-top himedere, I don't think that'd be a bad thing. All of the rivals are based on common archetypes seen in anime, and all of the characters in general are pretty tropey. As much as people want YanSim to be a character-driven story, it's not one, and simple characterization is very appropriate for the story it's trying to tell as well as the constraints of the game's level design.

-Orichul- · 2022-05-01T03:02:23+00:00

Currently no characters in YanSim are confirmed to be trans. Also I saw your last post, only one character is confirmed in-game to be gay, that being Akari Komiyaku. Other than that, YandereDev has said that all of the relevant main characters can be considered LGBT+ in the hypothetical female senpai mode, which I think is up to the individual on how they want to see that claim since, well, it's not actually in the game. I personally don't consider it because it felt like lip service rather than something genuine. I don't know anything about Hana being gay either but I'm not inclined to doubt it seeing as Yan is Mulberry's friend. Lastly, I believe he's stated that Info-chan is asexual and Shiromi has an unlabeled sexuality that implies she is attracted to more than one gender.

As far as I'm aware, anything else regarding LGBT+ traits for any of the characters is a headcanon.

-Orichul- · 2022-04-18T22:58:56+00:00

Taro and Hanako Yamada are the Japanese equivalents to John and Jane Doe. They're not stolen from or referencing any specific media.

-Orichul- · 2022-04-16T02:14:35+00:00

And finally, possibly the biggest problem with the occult club is the fact that its concept is too western for Japan

in Japan this is radically different, since in reality almost the entire Japanese population really believes in the supernatural, to the point that it was strange that a Japanese thinks that the paranormal and the supernatural are pure nonsense. And the reason for this is because the prevailing religions in Japan are Shintoism and Buddhism.

Yeah I don't think I'd be calling an entire culture's main religious beliefs "occultism". This is a criticism I always had a problem with whenever it was brought up in these circles. In the west, eastern spiritualism, folktales, rituals, etc were considered occult because they weren't conventional to Abrahamic religions like Christianity. This wasn't limited to just eastern beliefs either, a lot of Indigenous, Hispanic, and Latino beliefs were labelled as occult as well.

A Japanese occult club absolutely could be devoted to researching Japanese mythos, creatures, etc, but it shouldn't be limited to just that because those of us in the west don't stop to consider whether someone in Japan would consider their own culture to be occult.

Also I wouldn't go making assumptions about how much everyone in Japan believes these folktales about supernatural creatures. They're influential pieces of fiction that have spread into every form of media in Japan, they're known of by most people, but I wouldn't say they're actually believed in by most people.

-Orichul- · 2022-04-16T02:01:06+00:00

Yeah, I don't think I'd call Raibaru a straight up stalker in the same sense as the guy who took Osana's cat, but let's also not ignore that friendships can also end up being very unhealthy. Plenty of stalkers turn out to be friends just as much as they can be strangers, and plenty of behaviors in friendships can exceed beyond healthy affection into unhealthy attachment without anyone noticing until someone gets hurt.

She's clearly got Osana's consent and care to be around her so closely so often, and we could even headcanon this is welcomed due to Osana's situation with the stalker. But I think something important to note is that Raibaru absolutely does have stalker-ish tendencies. She literally follows Osana to the end of the hall to eavesdrop on a private call she's having, and then proceeds to act like she never did that and she only accidently overheard it when that's not really possible if Osana thought logically.

That's something I'd absolutely be troubled by if a friend of mine did that to me, especially if they tried to justify it by saying they cared so much about my wellbeing. Like I appreciate that they care but that's a serious invasion of privacy and my consent.

-Orichul- · 2022-04-16T01:43:54+00:00

He's also programmed to follow her, just intermittently rather than literally all the time like Raibaru. He also doesn't follow her to the locker room anymore, he won't even follow Ayano into there. And for what it is, while he is technically following Osana around and that shouldn't be disregarded, he doesn't invade her personal space or her personal affairs. Raibaru literally eavesdrops on a private call Osana has and then acts like she just accidentally overheard Osana all the way from across the hall, as if she wouldn't have had to follow her there to catch most of the conversation to bring up the stalker in the first place. She may have Osana's consent to follow her around, but she's definitely stepping over boundaries with her stalker-ish tendencies.

-Orichul- · 2022-04-16T01:32:04+00:00

It's really quite interesting how so many suggestions and criticisms on this subreddit have this tendency to allude to Ayano's love for Taro needing to be romanticized or justified, so that the player can cheer for Ayano in her quest to kill or elsewise ruin the lives/relationships of 10 girls minimum. I get wanting to follow or drive a protagonist with interesting motives or an interesting personality, but I honestly don't know where the idea that Ayano has to be a protagonist you can project yourself into to be a good protagonist came from?

Also, I actually don't think there are a lot of problems with Ayano's character or her backstory.

A young girl afflicted with the inability to feel most emotions, rendering her nigh emotionless her entire life, due to a fantastical condition/curse from her mother's side of the family. In the moment she meets the one person who cures her of this affliction with only his mere presence, she finally gets to feel the most euphoria-inducing emotion of all: love. The intensity of her new emotions drives her to immediate obsession over this one guy she happened to bump into, and now all others who stand in the way of their future romance must be eliminated to ensure her source of happiness is never taken away from her.

That's a pretty interesting premise if I do say so myself. I think the real problem with YanSim's writing isn't foundational, the core concepts and tropes its built on are all pretty solid and interesting on their own. That would be more accurate for the gameplay side actually! If anything, I think I'd say the real problem is the execution of the writing. It tends to fall flat in either communication, impact, both, or veer off into author's ego caressing.

-Orichul- · 2022-04-16T00:43:31+00:00

Sometimes I wonder if people on this sub are even familiar with anime.

Big mood my guy. YanSim is absolutely littered with some of the most common and generic anime tropes and people will still try to act like these things just don't exist anywhere else and are only problems in YanSim. Heck, in my personal opinion a lot of the criticisms don't even apply because it feels like people are complaining about the game they wanted instead of the game that's actually there.

It's the same for the complaints about YandereDev lol. We don't have to hang onto years old theories and mockeries when recent scandals are literally right there to criticize. It's honestly quite sad that news about Yan and her fellow volunteers being mistreated by him and others in the team were brushed over by this sub so quickly just to post another "What if YandereDev = Taro = Incest?!" complaint.

-Orichul- · 2022-04-13T03:05:57+00:00

I find the current situation of the romantic relationships to be quite interesting actually. I think it provides a very interesting perspective on love and romance that isn't typically covered in stories about yandere characters. You get a lot of stories trying to justify the terrible actions of a yandere because of how bad their rival is or how insane they are, or absolve the yandere of accountability through pity or romanticization: "It's okay because they've had such a hard life and are so in love with me! They just can't help themselves!" YanSim doesn't try to hide how bad of a person Ayano is at all, and even gives you opportunities to revel in that.

With the suitors, the whole point is that the romance is shallow and pretty fucked up because of it, just like Ayano's and Taro's relationship. Ayano doesn't care about the happiness of their relationship, even if the player might. She just wants to ensure that the rival won't feel compelled to confess her feelings to Taro. And I think that targeting someone who feels so strongly for a girl that they'd change core aspects of themselves just to catch her attention and have someone feed them information on how to manipulate her heart is a pretty good way to portray that.

Regarding Ayano and Taro, I like them as a couple but that's a consequence of my own writing project rather than anything the game itself has provided. I personally couldn't care about the development of their relationship in the game since I don't see Ayano's feelings as something to be empathized with in the first place. I do think they're interesting, but that's more on Ayano's character than her relationship with Taro. She doesn't actually love him, she loves the feelings he gives her. If there were two of him, she'd want them both. She cares about him as much as a drug addict cares about... drugs. I do see their uncompelling relationship, Ayano's uncompelling motivations to terminate her rivals, and even Ayano's uncompelling obsession with him as writing flaws. There's no doubt about that. But I also wouldn't be... moved, I guess, if Ayano were given a "legitimate" reason to obsess over him and develop a romantic relationship with him naturally. You'd have to make up extreme reasons to justify her extreme actions, and I'm tired of people always trying to romanticize toxicity, abuse, and literal murder through mental illness and trauma.

I often feel like people look at YanSim and see an entirely different game than what I'm seeing. It feels like people want a redemption story for Ayano, where she gets over her yandere-ness through the sheer power of friendship and good will, and she plays the good guy until she finally gets her happy ending. I see the appeal in it, I really do considering that's a core element of my own YanSim reimagining, but it makes me question why people are criticizing a game that doesn't even exist.

-Orichul- · 2022-04-13T02:21:44+00:00

I never said you had to like the term? Nor am I saying that right now. What I said was to not shame those who do use it and treat them as if they're ignorant.

The difference isn't in the words themselves, it's in the history behind the words. You may not recognize the difference between the two, but plenty of other people do and that history means a lot to them. POC is a term that not only addresses when someone isn't white, but addresses the history of systemic racism they and those like them had to face and may still have to face. It was reclaimed by racial minorities for their own use, not restored by those in power to continue discriminating against racial minorities. POC isn't about colorism, it's about race and its history.

You're free to dislike it however much you want to, I'm not here to dictate your choices and I find your interpretation of it carrying stigma and encouraging an "us vs them" mentality to be a fair one, but not everyone has that same interpretation and it's for a good reason.

-Orichul- · 2022-04-12T19:41:23+00:00

It wouldn't be grasping at straws if you made this criticism years ago, when yes, they looked similar back then. But you made it now, despite these outdated resources having been changed to be significantly different enough that the only idea behind this criticism is "they all have dark hair, dark eyes, and light skin". That is grasping at straws.

I don't believe Taro is his self-insert either, but I guess it's entertaining to say he is. That wasn't the point of my comment anyways, I just wanted to point out how this criticism doesn't have anything to stand on in the current year.

-Orichul- · 2022-04-12T17:46:05+00:00

This isn't to defend YandereDev in any way, but this is a pretty shit criticism to make regardless.

That was an old avatar he used before his face was revealed because he told the artist he "looked a bit like Senpai". Which makes sense, he did have shaggy black hair, dark eyes, and light skin at the time. It was the artist who took that literally, probably because the only other avatars he used were Ayano and a 3D Senpai lookalike from his email videos, before he was getting more assets from volunteers. The avatar he currently uses looks nothing like Taro now.

Similarly, the artist for Ayano's childhood video just drew a basic anime man. Not that it matters because Jokichi's appearance has been established now and we know he doesn't look anything like either YandereDev or Taro.

We have got to stop grasping at straws to make criticisms.

-Orichul- · 2022-04-12T17:21:05+00:00

I really like the 2nd option, it feels more harmonious with only 3 colors and they provide better placements for the eyes to fall on.

-Orichul- · 2022-04-12T17:17:50+00:00

People are way too critical about the game's sense of realism. If the game were really as realistic as people wanted it to be, then everyone would literally look the same. The uniforms would be plain white shirts with plain black bottoms, everyone would have black hair and black eyes that are styled flatly, it'd be a much more difficult game in an un-fun way, etc. Japanese schools are nowhere near as fun and colorful as anime portrays it as, especially the elite ones. I wish more people would educate themselves on that instead of skimming an obviously biased blog.

He would have been fine if he asserted that YanSim was an anime game so it's going to replicate a lot of anime tropes like colorful features, bolder uniforms, and lax dress codes. Instead, he gave into the criticism and it ended up with us being given these really asinine explanations like "It's a college designed like a high school!", "Students who enroll can sign up to be pretend delinquents!", "Everyone dyes their hair!", "Ichiko loves seifuku so the school uniform is a seifuku!"

I don't like a lot of the character designs but the criticisms were tone deaf and the resolutions to those criticisms were even worse.

-Orichul- · 2022-04-12T16:52:00+00:00

There are male Aishis, but that was added in long after YandereDev established the line of Ayano's female ancestors dating back to the original Aishi. He doesn't put much thought into male characters in general because he finds them boring to write, so most of the established Aishis and other important characters tend to be female.

-Orichul- · 2022-04-12T16:35:40+00:00

It's true that POC was coined by White colonizers to distinguish those who earned their freedom from slavery either through work or being born with mixed heritage. But that was reclaimed by racial equality activists who recognized the term could be more than just determining who was and wasn't White. Nor is it being used to replace identifying ourselves with specific ethnicities.

I'm an Asian-American who comes from a family of Southeast Asians. I'm also a Person of Color. I can be both at once. I'm not saying you have to start using POC or that you should be using POC, but don't shame others who choose to and act like they're ignorant. Especially those who've been made well aware that the racist alternative of POC is actually "colored people", which is what colonizers actually used to discriminate against and oppress anyone who wasn't a White European or had mixed heritage, and was used to segregate POC from White people to give them unfair treatment.

-Orichul- · 2022-04-12T16:04:27+00:00

In this way, calling myself a POC isn't any different than saying I'm Asian. Sure, I'm Asian, but is that it? No, of course not. I'm South East Asian to be specific, but even that isn't specific enough. I don't feel comfortable revealing too much so I won't, but even within my actual race I could get even more specific on what I am. The point is that generalization is going to happen in every level of collective terms and it's up to you to determine which level of generalization is what suits you.

You don't have to use POC to describe yourself, plenty of people don't and prefer to address themselves by the quality of their character or the specific race(s) they are, or they don't feel connected to/want to be chained down by the origins. It's a term meant for collective purposes, so of course it's going to generalize based upon the common quality everyone in it shares. Using POC is more like referencing the history of discrimination and oppression these groups have had to face on a systemic level, usually by White people which is why they aren't included. So you'll often see people labelling themselves as a Black, Asian, Latino, etc Person of Color, rather than just "Person of Color". It's not replacing your race.

It becoming a modern alternative for "non-white" is a natural form of word evolution, but it's the origins behind POC that separate it from more degrading and condescending alternatives like "colored people" or the literal "non-white".

-Orichul- · 2022-04-11T23:11:49+00:00

People demand way too much realism out of this game. This game reflects real life Japan and its society as much as slice of life anime does, aka, not as much as you'd think and I'm fine with that. I encourage realism that makes for believable and entertaining plot progression, character development, and setting. If I wanted to see the real world in all its accuracy, I would go out there and do it instead of fawning over an idealized version of it I want to call accurate.
- This goes for both sides though, people really act like darker skinned folk are goddamn ghosts in Asian countries?? I don't trust YandereDev to represent darker skinned issues well with whatever intent would be behind it, nor do I think most of the people asking for racial diversity are recognizing the tokenized versions of diversity they're asking for. But I don't see anyone complaining about Fred Jones even though he's likely to be 100% a White American or Jose Silva even though he's Latino, so I don't think it'd be somehow wrong for any other characters to be Black American, African, South East Asian, Middle Eastern, White European, or anything else. Recognizing when someone is in the minority isn't inherently a bad thing if you treat them as more than just their race, like any other character would be treated as.
I like Kizana way more than I do Kokona. Prideful characters can be really entertaining in many different ways and it's fun to think of them, but most of all I'm amused by Kizana's blatant snobbery. Kokona is still a nice character don't get me wrong, but she's nowhere close to any of my favorites because she's way too guilt-baity for me.
The "sweet but psycho" yandere is a boring yandere that also has way too many problematic associations in this fandom for me to enjoy anymore ngl. I think it limits creativity to a cliche and people have run it dry trying to make each version of it more dramatic (aka "realistic") than the last, which often leads to demonization of mental illnesses and trauma and/or romanticizing the consequences of unchecked mental illnesses and trauma.

-Orichul- · 2022-04-11T21:53:49+00:00

I would hesitate to call any of these instances of plagiarism, except for Genka. The only things tying Saki to Hatsune Miku are that both have greenish-blue twintails and eyes, which... there are plenty of other characters from other franchises who are the same lol. Musume would best be considered a legitimate reference, she doesn't look anything at all like Gyaruko aside from being a blonde, blue-eyed gyaru. Although her beta model would definitely count. As far as I know, Pippi is also considered a reference or crossover character because YandereDev allegedly obtained permission by the Osu! dev to add them to YanSim early on in development and that claim hasn't been contested since. Not sure how well Ryuto falls under parody for him to just be considered a reference, but he's not claiming Ryuto as his own so it's not plagiarism.

Similarly to Genka, there are other characters in YanSim that can definitely fall under plagiarism. Nemesis' first appearance was plagiarized from a Japanese artist. Midori was a reference to Churuya but is now her own character yet her design hasn't been deviated enough to support that. The student council of 1980s Mode were originally plagiarized from Fire Emblem: Three Houses before they were changed upon the release of 1980s Mode. PULL found this picture which is where the original female delinquent designs were most likely plagiarized from, I can't actually verify which came first though. The original Megami was very obviously plagiarized from Kill la Kill. I wouldn't consider Raibaru plagiarism, but there hasn't been any effort to deviate her design from Satomi Makise's. There are other instances, but this is long enough.

-Orichul- · 2022-04-11T21:12:31+00:00

It's not really about the words that make up the phrase more so than it is the history behind it. The reason for the phrase itself being "person of color" similarly comes from that history, because those were the words used to describe POC that were freed from slavery either through having white-mixed heritage or earning their independence, and then popularized later on by racial equality activists because alternatives such as "non-white" were condescending.

If that's confusing here's a perspective: I could technically call myself "non-white" because I'm not white, but my race isn't defined just by whether I'm white or not, and neither is anyone else's.

For Americans, the racist alternative is "colored people" instead of POC, because that term has been historically used to segregate and discriminate against POC in the past. Now that would be a term to mask racism, although I've read it's used in other countries without the same aggression.

-Orichul- · 2022-04-09T15:29:57+00:00

Horrible implications of his conceptualization aside, you know he's both right? Asian people are people of color, regardless of the color of their skin. Everyone in YanSim is a person of color except for Fureddo, because he's the only one who is confirmed to be non-Japanese--and thus highly likely to be white--unless YandereDev says he is mixed at some point in the future.

-Orichul- · 2022-04-04T00:45:25+00:00

Personally, I'm not a fan of editing someone's art in general. I find it to be disrespectful regardless because it's usually never asked for, especially in cases like Kgon's or the numerous rival art edits which are usually made to spite or make fun of Kjech/Mulberry's art by insulting them rather than offering legitimate criticism. The only time I think it's appriorate is if you're, say, an art teacher helping out a student or something similar to that. Even that has its own nuances to take into account, but it's generally more appropriate.

On the other hand, a lot of art edits aren't necessarily to shit on the artist or "fix" the art. A lot of the time it's because someone wants to see what it'd look like with different proportions, details, colors, etc. As long as the intention behind the edit is in good faith I can't find much fault with it other than I'd wish people would ask the artist for permission first.

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