I don’t think every collector that owns a certain amount of “waifu” cards are guilty or mean it to be creepy. For instance, as someone who’s played every gen of video games, I like having mini sets of gym leaders and the elite 4 members (though not every gen has a card for each leader/e4 yet).
If it’s someone who hasn’t played the video games at all and only collects random side characters like Lisia and have no idea where she originated and are just attracted to the character, it would more likely be the latter of the argument.
Sexualizing women to the extreme is not great but sex is part of life and if people want to collect playboy magazines with consenting adults I wouldn’t judge that.
Sexualizing women in a trading card game designed for and marketed to children like Pokémon is troubling and odd but again - if they’re consenting adults - we’re on a border but still legal. Just keep it away from the kids. Japan is a bit of a sexually repressed culture so I at least understand it.
Sexualizing children is wrong. In every case, real or imagined, period. And that’s what Waifu - as far as I know about it - is. Does it mean you’re a horrible person? No. But if you’re an adult into the latter, you need to seek counseling plain and simple.
I’m gonna be honest, this whole “waifu” drama has made me really uncomfortable. Aside from the unnatural spike in prices, I just really dislike the huge pointing of fingers and assumptions that anyone who collects these cards is perverted or deserves to go to jail. Not saying there isn’t an issue at hand here, but considering this community openly accepts people that fetishize and roleplay BDSM fantasies as certain Pokemon, it’s a weird double standard.
You don’t have to accept “waifus”. You don’t have to agree with the practice of collecting “waifus”. If you think it’s creepy, fine. But let’s not turn E4 into a witch hunt, please.
In fact no Male trainer is on that list. Speaking of male, the defense of waifus is from a male perspective. How is a young girl supposed to understand and appreciate waifu cards? Its so obvious what is going on.
I personally don’t see a big problem. If anything, Pokemon sexualizes women/girls way less now than it did in 1997, and even then it wasn’t particularly bad.
I don’t doubt that certain people on the secondary market may have less-than-pure intentions when collecting these cards, but if you want to see a sexualized Lillie, you’re probably buying a doujin and not a full art trainer card. Obviously those who do sexualize video game children are not the best type of people, but I don’t really see how their actions have any bearing on what other collectors do.
For those who aren’t in patreon, the context is the recent spike in prices, and how waifu is it’s own collecting category that happens to be in pokemon. Pokemon is by far the most tame.
This is not intended to be a with hunt. But pretending the waifu category, especially outside of Pokémon isn’t sexualizing girls, is delusional.
Money spent on Waifus is money not spent on cards I buy and collect so I’m just getting better deals.
I find it hard to believe the values spent on these cards will hold years from now.
It’s easy to view this as WOTC boomers telling people what they should or shouldn’t like but that’s a complete cop out of the actual situation.
These are Japanese waifu styled cards that have made their way into Pokemon and are very different collectors to the rest of the Pokemon Cards. Even if there is cross over - the Pokemon market is just so big now that you have entirely different ecosystems of collecting. A lot of these waifu cards are probably going to other Japanese waifu card collectibles.
Having listened to the actual patreon rant, I don’t think Scott thinks Pokemon FA trainers specifically are inherently sexualized. It’s that the type of people who collect Weiss (which he thinks is gross) also happen to collect FA Pokemon trainers and that is where it is coming from. Scott can correct me if I am interpreting his opinion wrong.
It’s a complex topic. I think the “waifu culture” is more nuanced than an uninitiated person would think. There is a kawaii aesthetic that many people appreciate. It also plays on the same themes that creates pop culture idols.
That being said there is also an inextricable sexualized component to it, ex. where are the male trainer cards? And the age of most of these characters is also discomforting.
I don’t blame anyone for being extremely uncomfortable with this topic. The least generous and most degenerate interpretation for why people collect this is true for some people. But I also think the range of reasons is much broader than the least charitable view. Basically I don’t think it’s fair to paint all people that like these cards with the same brush.
Similar to what @pfm said, the term that could apply here is “moe,” which I think mostly originates from and pertains to Japanese media/culture.
moe: (in the context of Japanese popular culture) the quality in a fictional female character of being youthfully innocent and vulnerable in an idealized way, perceived as eliciting feelings of affection or protectiveness.
It depends on where you get your definition from, but I think most would not lump in sexual attraction with feelings of moe (although, of course, they can intersect). It also doesn’t necessarily only apply to females, but female characters are probably more prominently displayed with “moe” characteristics. This phrase also somewhat captures the feelings towards Japanese idols, which is a market/industry that I think Westerners mostly can’t comprehend.
Edit: I think Lillie’s appeal is pretty grounded in this “moe” phenomenon.
Yeah this is the other aspect to it. The thing is I think a lot of people who are less familiar with Japanese culture have a hard time grasping that the affection can, indeed, be innocent. Which it absolutely can be! It’s just that a number of unscrupulous individuals can unfortunately taint that perception.
Yeah it’s weird. Places in Japan like Akihabara creep me the hell out because underneath the “lol waifu. Lol maids. Ain’t Japan just the darnedest” there is some genuinely disturbing and uncomfortable social stuff at going on.
