Is anyone else surprised by how loosely the otome tag is used on itch.io?

[housan]

A part of this comes from people that don't know what otome means, I think. In a tiktok comment section I witnessed something that stuck with me. Someone asked what otome is, and basically all the comments said a dating sim where you can play as a girl. It's a loose definition that most (western) people go by. And if you correct them, they don't really think it's a big deal to change, because isn't it basically the same thing? If you say the difference is important, you'll end up in a discussion about how it's homophobic to not want a male mc, bl routes, ect. Ask me how I know. It's an endless battle, tbh, I don't see the misuse of otome ending in western spaces because people can't have a reasonable conversation about it.

 

[plipplopcountess]

BL isn't otome (unless it has a female protagonist option) and GL (except if there are male love interests as well) aren't otome. However:

Games where you can choose your protagonist and end up with both genders can be considered otome. This is a hell of a lot older than people think. See https://vndb.org/v49552 or https://vndb.org/v16496

Games where you can play as either a male or a female are otome games. (Looking at you, Prince of Tennis Sweat and Tears series / Girls be Gracious)

And uh... some are otome by definiton but hard to describe. Like when you play as a female character in her brother's body some of the days and in herself other times, which she likes a bit too much because she is a rabid yaoi fangirl. And then she ends up with these guys instead of her brother despite romancing them. It's an otome game, mainly a GxB game but a very weird one. No, this is not a joke, this is basically the plot of Daisy Chain's Double Reaction.

People think this is a more modern thing, but it is actually since the 2000's at the LATEST.

Thanks for coming to my TedTalk.

 

[ninnikuryona]

BL isn't otome (unless it has a female protagonist option) and GL (except if there are male love interests as well) aren't otome. However:

Games where you can choose your protagonist and end up with both genders can be considered otome. This is a hell of a lot older than people think. See https://vndb.org/v49552 or https://vndb.org/v16496

Games where you can play as either a male or a female are otome games. (Looking at you, Prince of Tennis Sweat and Tears series / Girls be Gracious)

these are joseimuke romance games. some games are incorrectly tagged as otome even on jp side (cough obeyme), and even more so on the western side, which is famous for hating anything female-oriented
even then, right now the definition is about having an exclusively female protagonist with exclusively male love interests. after all, no one seems to want to redefine boys love or girls love or even galge. so nah, these are not otome
(also lets not kid ourselves, none of the devs/players who push for otome to include bxb or erase female protagonists have ever played or even heard of the games youve listed. which is why its so important to establish the definitions)

 

[xerois]

Its Actual Hell , Its Been Mentioned On Other Social Media Sites On How Its A Pain ~
On Steam It Sucks More ! ! ! ! They Dont Have Tags For Bl Or GL , Just A General LGBTQ Tag ! ! ! ! Also Add Onto The Fact Theres No Amare Tag Which Makes Trying To Find Any Non Galge Games Hard ~

I Like And Hate The User Tag Thing Since Uninformed People Just Dump The Otome Tag On Obviously Non Otome , But It Can Lead To Some Mistagged Games Getting Properly Tagged ~

Vndb Is The Last Bastion Of Proper Western Tagging , But They Refuse To Add Amare . . . . .
I Dont Get Why People Refuse To Use Joseimuke ~
I Just Do Word Of Mouth Instead Of Tag Searching On Those Sites !

One Last Thing ! ! !
I Hate How Schizophrenic Bloodthirsty These Topics Become . . . . . . . .
I Feel Kinda Bad For The TS Devs Since They Accidentally Became The Star Of A Larger Problem That They Didnt Cause ; The Game Isnt For Me With The LixLi Shipping Thing , But It Shouldnt Be The Poster Child For Joseimuke Wars . . . . . . . . . .

i'm surprised this got out blown in twitter, but i guess their voice actor showcase got them more people to look at their project though not in the way they anticipated :/

 

[plipplopcountess]

these are joseimuke romance games. some games are incorrectly tagged as otome even on jp side (cough obeyme), and even more so on the western side, which is famous for hating anything female-oriented
even then, right now the definition is about having an exclusively female protagonist with exclusively male love interests. after all, no one seems to want to redefine boys love or girls love or even galge. so nah, these are not otome
(also lets not kid ourselves, none of the devs/players who push for otome to include bxb or erase female protagonists have ever played or even heard of the games youve listed. which is why its so important to establish the definitions)

I concede you make a fair point on stuff like Obey me, but i am just curious what you think of Sumire no Tsubomi or Toiro Komachi ~Kurenai ni Somaru Sono Toki made~ which are universally considered otome games but have a singular female love interest?

Other than that, let's agree to disagree. I respect your opinion and understand it is complicated and rather difficult of a topic.

 

[ninnikuryona]

I concede you make a fair point on stuff like Obey me, but i am just curious what you think of Sumire no Tsubomi or Toiro Komachi ~Kurenai ni Somaru Sono Toki made~ which are universally considered otome games but have a singular female love interest?

Other than that, let's agree to disagree. I respect your opinion and understand it is complicated and rather difficult of a topic.

yuri routes are still within the definition, because it still involves the heroine aka the female protagonist. there are other games with a singular yuri route too, like chou no doku (arguably the most popular one, and its not that old either), gekka ryouran romance, and the upcoming hyakume no hananie. no one is saying theyre not otome aside from people who are like, genuine raging homophobes (and unfortunately there are people like that LOL), but its also true that otome games are primarily/exclusively about female protagonists and male love interests
*of course, games with a skewed ratio like 2:1 m:f shouldnt be called otome either. theyre joseimuke romance games, and thats fine!

 

[plipplopcountess]

yuri routes are still within the definition, because it still involves the heroine aka the female protagonist. there are other games with a singular yuri route too, like chou no doku (arguably the most popular one, and its not that old either), gekka ryouran romance, and the upcoming hyakume no hananie. no one is saying theyre not otome aside from people who are like, genuine raging homophobes (and unfortunately there are people like that LOL), but its also true that otome games are primarily/exclusively about female protagonists and male love interests
*of course, games with a skewed ratio like 2:1 m:f shouldnt be called otome either. theyre joseimuke romance games, and thats fine!

Fair enough, that is a nuanced take. This was an enlightening discussion, thanks for your time.

 

[Towaトワ]

Itch.io and Steam both have the same problem with the otome tag, there are groups focused on reporting games that do not fit the tag on Steam though, there's a lot of hentai games that are not otome using the otome tag, if I'm not mistaken tho, Steam uses a user tagging system rather than a developer one, which is why it can get so messy.

For me post pandemic made otome loose a lot of meaning, people started slapping otome in any game, and although I am someone that plays every single type of visual novel there is (yaoi, Yuri, hentai), otome for me will always be the meaning it first has which is a game where you play as a female mc with routes with male love interests, a game where you can choose your gender for me is not Otome itself, I've seen a lot of people calling touchstarved Otome but for me it's not tbf. I love games that you can choose your gender and pronouns but Otome is Otome, you play as a female protagonist and that's it. The others are just dating sims for me and there are a lot of good dating sims that you can choose your gender out there, I've played a lot of them but if I want to play an Otome I expect it to fit the tag.

idk why people want to rewrite the term, I've seen people arguing LADS should have a male protagonist but there are other yaoi gachas out there if you want to play a yaoi yk, there is space for everyone in the game world, you don't need to change something to your taste just because it doesn't fit you, maybe I have this opinion because I don't self insert but like, asking the other way around it weird too (specially because yaoi games are not that many)

 

[kotohabaki]

A part of this comes from people that don't know what otome means, I think. In a tiktok comment section I witnessed something that stuck with me. Someone asked what otome is, and basically all the comments said a dating sim where you can play as a girl. It's a loose definition that most (western) people go by. And if you correct them, they don't really think it's a big deal to change, because isn't it basically the same thing? If you say the difference is important, you'll end up in a discussion about how it's homophobic to not want a male mc, bl routes, ect. Ask me how I know. It's an endless battle, tbh, I don't see the misuse of otome ending in western spaces because people can't have a reasonable conversation about it.

Absolutely agree with this. People are so averse to being educated these days, especially on websites like tiktok.

Many weeb circles suffer from this issue too... It's a losing battle in that we would absolutely lose our minds from trying to argue with these people.

 

[anibroco]

I mean, isn't it obvious?... Ugh, it always makes me mad when that happens. For example, it happens to me a lot when they're presenting their otome game project... but then they say, "You can choose the genre."

 

[pyontai]

Hi! if I may put my two cents in here, as a queer guy who developed VNs on itch.io, loves otomes (working on my own rn but it'd be years before it'll ever be made!), BL, and don't care for/don't really like LIshipping.

I personally think Steam and itch.io's tagging systems are very flawed since it's mostly user-defined. There are plenty of developers who don't want to be lumped with otome games, and there are those who are also unaware of what the word "otome" even means.

I think it's unproductive to send hate to the devs since all they want is to just make games at the end of the day. But, I wish things were more conversational like it was back in the old days when you can correct people and they'd be like "Oh, okay I didn't know that! Thanks!" instead of... Well... Getting an army of white knights spamming your account.

I think parasocialism has become a huge factor in how people act in fandom these days. :(

I'm sorry if I misunderstood, but aren't itch.io tags added by the developers themselves? I think that if you're tagging your own game, the least you can do is research what those tags actually mean.

I also think criticizing developers and sending them hate are two completely different things. Pointing out that a game doesn't fit the otome genre and asking the developers to change its tags isn't hate. It's just criticism. But, like you said, these days, it seems like you can't say anything without people interpreting it as a personal attack on them or their community.

 

[failedwebsite]

Vndb Is The Last Bastion Of Proper Western Tagging , But They Refuse To Add Amare . . . . .

They do it for a reason. That tag is pretty vague and is covered by the existing tags (just combine Both Male and Female Love Interests with either Female Protagonist or Male Protagonist or Protagonist Gender Choice in the search section), so adding it would bring more harm than good (as in, it would invite the unwanted spam of tagging everything under the sun 'amare' whether it's appropriate or not). I can trust the VNDB staff to remain the tagging purity police I expect them to be.

 

[rita2sexy]

Honestly i remember using otome tag on site 9/10 game would be bl which is totally fine but don't understand why bl game would be under otome?

 

[801_9ma]

Okay, reading this thread I gotta say that I got massive laughs from the people who mentioned seeing DMMd being dubbed an "otome game", god the bar truly seems to be in hell now

Anyway, the more I'm reading about this issue, the more I'm convinced that it's more a matter of English-speaking gamers being generally uneducated on the term, grabbing it and running with it because "thing, Japan" than being willing to learn, leading to situations like these where you're pretty much walking on eggshells. Kind of like how people these days just grabbed the term yume and now we're seeing insane situations with people treating their yume stuff like a popularity contest and developing high school mean girl mentality from it when it's supposed to be something just for yourself LMAO

At that point I also think it's a losing battle, especially when the current online climate when you politely try to tell people about something is to jump through logic hoops to make the most baseless accusations. "I like pancakes." "SO YOU HATE WAFFLES?" kind of deal, I suppose?

Also doesn't sit well with me that some people really love to toot about how "progressive" they are while in the same breath being rancid towards people because they assumed that oh you must be a homophobe for X or Y or whatever (remember kids, on the Online Playground, you can be a rabid misogynist if you think the woman you're disagreeing with is a Stupid Homophobic Bitch Cunt!), or being borderline xenophobic towards Japanese people with some comments regarding genre definitions.

I don't know man, I'm gonna sound a bit foolish here but I wish people would just accept that sometimes they can be wrong about things and be open-minded and willing to learn, while also accepting that pointing out they're wrong about something isn't a personal attack. I also wish gaming platforms had much better tagging systems to avoid confusion in the first place. I'll probably be an old man with grandchildren when either of those happen though LMAO

At that point I'm so annoyed by how inaccurate tags on gaming platforms can be that I don't even pay attention to the genre tags anymore on there, I simply limit myself to reading the game descs and looking at the characters and seeing if I'll enjoy the game or not from that.

 

[crisalt]

yes and I'm not a fan of people blurring the lines of otome genre to include literally anything else. They probably do it so more people see their game, but it makes it really difficult to browse when all works use the same tags.

 

[Blastofus]

Okay, reading this thread I gotta say that I got massive laughs from the people who mentioned seeing DMMd being dubbed an "otome game", god the bar truly seems to be in hell now

Anyway, the more I'm reading about this issue, the more I'm convinced that it's more a matter of English-speaking gamers being generally uneducated on the term, grabbing it and running with it because "thing, Japan" than being willing to learn, leading to situations like these where you're pretty much walking on eggshells. Kind of like how people these days just grabbed the term yume and now we're seeing insane situations with people treating their yume stuff like a popularity contest and developing high school mean girl mentality from it when it's supposed to be something just for yourself LMAO

At that point I also think it's a losing battle, especially when the current online climate when you politely try to tell people about something is to jump through logic hoops to make the most baseless accusations. "I like pancakes." "SO YOU HATE WAFFLES?" kind of deal, I suppose?

Also doesn't sit well with me that some people really love to toot about how "progressive" they are while in the same breath being rancid towards people because they assumed that oh you must be a homophobe for X or Y or whatever (remember kids, on the Online Playground, you can be a rabid misogynist if you think the woman you're disagreeing with is a Stupid Homophobic Bitch Cunt!), or being borderline xenophobic towards Japanese people with some comments regarding genre definitions.

I don't know man, I'm gonna sound a bit foolish here but I wish people would just accept that sometimes they can be wrong about things and be open-minded and willing to learn, while also accepting that pointing out they're wrong about something isn't a personal attack. I also wish gaming platforms had much better tagging systems to avoid confusion in the first place. I'll probably be an old man with grandchildren when either of those happen though LMAO

At that point I'm so annoyed by how inaccurate tags on gaming platforms can be that I don't even pay attention to the genre tags anymore on there, I simply limit myself to reading the game descs and looking at the characters and seeing if I'll enjoy the game or not from that.

It's the same wavelenght of "we changed the words christmas because that offends some people and we should respect them", implying people are okay with erasing some cultures in favor of others.
But nothing can ever be as dumb as that one time companies were forced to change the salad emoji because it had in it and that offended vegans (yes this is real look it up).

 

[30-END]

I mean people don't seem to use tag seriously nowadays in my opinion. It likes they try to cast a net as wide as possible to capture every theme can be in game.
Looking at a gay tag, for example, it becomes a warning that there is a male-to-male sex in game. Even though that content in game is tiny bit of all story, like 5 - 10% or having one femboy/trap in group of love interests, they will tag it. I mean it isn't wrong to use the 'gay' tag there. But, you know what I mean.
So, I'm not surprised that a 'Otome' tag will be misused in any sense at all.

 

[selinee]

idk why people want to rewrite the term, I've seen people arguing LADS should have a male protagonist but there are other yaoi gachas out there if you want to play a yaoi yk, there is space for everyone in the game world, you don't need to change something to your taste just because it doesn't fit you, maybe I have this opinion because I don't self insert but like, asking the other way around it weird too (specially because yaoi games are not that many)

Imo it simply comes from people who think the universe revolves around them.
Self-inserts have existed in otome long before the genre's boom in the West, back then, at the very least I feel we didn't have many so-called "progressive activists" groups asking for everything to match their preferences. Unlike now.

I really don't get why so many are obsessed with LADS. From the very beginning they have established that the game has a female MC, she has a backstory and dynamics with the male characters. What more do those people need to know, to understand that this game was not made for them and will never change for them...
I would've sympathized if they actually petition companies to make NEW 3D dating sims with male MC x male love interests (aka BL), but no, those stubborn people would rather keep shoving their foot into a glass slipper that was clearly not made for them, then whine about it - instead of trying to get a new one that fits.
But it's hard to tell what they want from LADS to be exact. The BL? Like if it's just that go play actual BL games ffs.

Honestly I wouldn't mind if the fandom fights get so bad that they just implode from within, everyone gets bored then otome becomes niche again. Those people can go invent their new genre of dating sims if they want. (this would be bad for anyone who only speaks English surely... but I'm comfortable learning Japanese just to get away from the English fandom)

 

[selinee]

not really. since they refuse to add an amare tag, any game with sexless mc is tagged as otome, which means that some games can combine otome, bl, and gl tags, which is obviously impossible. and if you try to remove the wrong tags, they act like YOU are in the wrong lol

I just saw this and yeah VNDB - despite all its greatness in the VN community - is still controlled by one group of people. This means the system will be stuck heading in one direction unless the admin/mods wake up one morning and decide to change their mind.

Personally I'm still salty they removed GNOSIA from the site. The decision makes zero sense to me, especially when you browse their database and find other games with gameplay elements...

https://twitter.com/x/status/1688825672762802176

And I don't have evidence now, but I think they removed 1931: Scheherazade at the Library of Pergamum too. I vaguely remember that game being listed there before, and it was popular enough back then (when there were few English otome games) that somebody must've added it before, but now it's just gone.

Like this stays but 1931 did not? Wtf.

Calling themselves a database while blatantly erasing the classics is questionable.

-- Edit: I somewhat have evidence. A blog post from 2016 did mention that the otome 1931 was removed from VNDB at the time. So I didn't hallucinate it...

 

[ninnikuryona]

I just saw this and yeah VNDB - despite all its greatness in the VN community - is still controlled by one group of people. This means the system will be stuck heading in one direction unless the admin/mods wake up one morning and decide to change their mind.

Personally I'm still salty they removed GNOSIA from the site. The decision makes zero sense to me, especially when you browse their database and find other games with gameplay elements...

https://twitter.com/x/status/1688825672762802176

And I don't have evidence now, but I think they removed 1931: Scheherazade at the Library of Pergamum too. I vaguely remember that game being listed there before, and it was popular enough back then (when there were few English otome games) that somebody must've added it before, but now it's just gone.

Like this stays but 1931 did not? Wtf.

Calling themselves a database while blatantly erasing the classics is questionable.

-- Edit: I somewhat have evidence. A blog post from 2016 did mention that the otome 1931 was removed from VNDB at the time. So I didn't hallucinate it...

wait what the hell.. 1931 looks like a normal vn with simulator elements? theres an entire tag for simulation games.. is this targeted? lol wouldnt surprise me, considering how just two months ago, i saw a dude saying that no one on vndb gives a shit about otome with high scores because theyre not even proper vns anyway, so they shouldnt count when talking about high-rated vns. isnt that gross?

vndb also removed hbr, which is as vn as it gets. one of maeda jun's best works too. after THREE (or four) YEARS of existing on the website! after people poured so much time and resources into keeping its page up to date! i dont get them at all
also, i vividly remember how they had fucking GUILTY GEAR in their database. guilty gear????? a game thats at least 60% fighting????????? and people had to fight for it to get removed????????????
and thats not to mention how alicesoft games all have in-depth gameplay that takes up a good chunk of your "reading" time. i met a dude who was softlocked in rance because he couldnt beat a certain fight. is this not considered to be "too much gameplay" or?

and also, mods themselves are highly unprofessional, sometimes vandalizing vns'/creators' pages for fun. they do tend to correct themselves later on, but still.. the way they allow themselves to be so snarky when removing someone's comment or deleting an entry or a tag etc does not feel good either. like, one of the people asked why his voting ability got removed, and a mod just said "dont ask, you know what you did. youll stay banned btw". in what world is this considered a proper moderating? i dunno

vndb is an extremely useful database with a great hardworking community and stuff, but holy shit do they drop the ball sometimes. oftentimes even. but alternatives are worse (backloggd censors shit, egs hates filthy foreigners, that one vibecoded garbage that was announced right after yorhel's death, koilog is okay but tons of titles are mistagged there as well), so we are just stuck with it...

 

[hib]

They do it for a reason. That tag is pretty vague and is covered by the existing tags (just combine Both Male and Female Love Interests with either Female Protagonist or Male Protagonist or Protagonist Gender Choice in the search section), so adding it would bring more harm than good (as in, it would invite the unwanted spam of tagging everything under the sun 'amare' whether it's appropriate or not). I can trust the VNDB staff to remain the tagging purity police I expect them to be.

Yeah , You Are Right ! ! ! Thank You For Informing Me And Thanks For Redirecting Me To The Tags ~

Honestly Amare Feels More Like An Umbrella Tag Then Something Spefic Like Otome / GL / BL / Galge ; Amare Goes Into The " Muke " Area , But Its Queermuke ? ? ?
Yumejin / Selfship Works Better As Tags For Gender Ambiguous Protag Romance VNs , But I Dont Know A Easy Catchy Term For LIxLI Aside From Well . . . LIxLI ~

 

[acaffeinecrisis]

Oh man, this is both discourse I find very interesting and very painful... So I'll be a masochist I guess and add my $0.02.

I'm someone who enjoys otome games, BL and GL... And I simultaneously feel like people are either way too lackadaisical about the definition of "otome" or way too rigid about it. Like I don't feel super strongly about games where you can choose the protagonist's gender being tagged otome or not, but I don't love it either. Most of the games I've played that allow this end up coming off like instead of committing to writing a good otome game or a good BL game, the dev decided to try and capture both audiences by half assing both lol

On the other end of things, I do find the idea that an otome game is strictly a female protagonist with male love interests to be overly rigid, as are definitions that dictate that male LIs have to be the majority of the LIs to "count" (this is a r/OtomeGames rule iirc). There's nuance to this of course, I get that the subreddit for example has to draw a line somewhere for example.

With all of that said though: I super hate that people seem to forget that otome games are games aimed at women. They're female gaze media! This doesn't mean you have to be a woman to enjoy them, but the moment a developer's target audience isn't specifically women, I don't think you can call your game an otome game anymore.

Ultimately, I define "otome game" as "a female gaze, romance focused, visual novel, with a female protagonist and multiple love interests."

Regarding amare: every time I remember the term exists, I'm mad lol

It could have been The Thing to give the more queer leaning romance games a home, rather than everyone trying to over expand the definition of otome... But it's defined as games about ANY kind of love whether it's platonic or romantic?? That's useless!

Ugh. Maybe one day we'll achieve a middle ground most people are happy with on this whole topic... (and maybe my dream of a yuri game that feels like an otomate otome game will come into existence lololol)

 

[failedwebsite]

Yeah , You Are Right ! ! ! Thank You For Informing Me And Thanks For Redirecting Me To The Tags ~

Honestly Amare Feels More Like An Umbrella Tag Then Something Spefic Like Otome / GL / BL / Galge ; Amare Goes Into The " Muke " Area , But Its Queermuke ? ? ?
Yumejin / Selfship Works Better As Tags For Gender Ambiguous Protag Romance VNs , But I Dont Know A Easy Catchy Term For LIxLI Aside From Well . . . LIxLI ~

You're welcome!
VNDB has a tag for Romance between love interests, but it's still awaiting approval... There is also the Polyamory one.

But nothing can ever be as dumb as that one time companies were forced to change the salad emoji because it had in it and that offended vegans (yes this is real look it up).

I really thought you were joking, but it's real...
Dare I say it was one hell of a bad egg? It's all on THIS CREATURE!

Eat your salad before it eats YOU!

Anyway, the more I'm reading about this issue, the more I'm convinced that it's more a matter of English-speaking gamers being generally uneducated on the term, grabbing it and running with it because "thing, Japan" than being willing to learn, leading to situations like these where you're pretty much walking on eggshells. Kind of like how people these days just grabbed the term yume and now we're seeing insane situations with people treating their yume stuff like a popularity contest and developing high school mean girl mentality from it when it's supposed to be something just for yourself LMAO

Yep, it isn't even the first Japanese term to be bastardised when transplanted onto the English-speaking Internet. The same thing happened with 'yaoi', which tourists some people still use to refer to any BL story, whether explicit or showing nothing more than chaste hand-holding. In the end, there are too many folks out there who don't even bother consulting Wikipedia or online dictionaries and simply use foreign words in the way that suits them. I believe this is how the 'commit sudoku' meme was born - to mock such people who culturally appropriate Japanese, and generally foreign, words and use them incorrectly, because they are too lazy and too ignorant.