What constitutes an "Otome Game"?

[Nier]

From the looks of it an Otome is when the main character is female, so then doesn't that mean that Sharnoth of the Deepest Black and Gahkthun of the Golden Lightning are Otome Games?

[Darklord Rooke]

A) MC is female

B) Story is about romancing dudes

If the VN doesn't have both, it's not otome.

[Okarin]

No, Otome games are directed to female players. As such, they'll tend to portray elements that tick with women, but as you can see, that's a very wide category.

Sono Hana games are starred by girls and they aren't otome at all. Having a female MC could mean some sort of male audience pandering. But it's most usual to just have a male MC, self-insert or not.

Edited November 25, 2016 by Okarin

[Decay]

You could say that the Steampunk series is at least partially aimed at women. 

Really though, the "otome game" label is for heavily romance-dominated stories aimed almost exclusively at women. 

[Okarin]

An example that comes to mind is Hakuoki. You have a ton of handsome men, but the story seemed interesting, as well as the Meiji period if you're keen on that. I didn't manage to play however.

[WinterfuryZX]

An otome game have a female MC and a male character based traditional route system. They are not necessairly romance heavy.

The steanpunk saga doesn't have any route so it isn't an otome saga.

Edited November 25, 2016 by WinterfuryZX

[Darklord Rooke]

1 minute ago, WinterfuryZX said:

An otome game have a female MC and a male character based traditional route system. They are not necessairly romance heavy.

But the point of the route system would be to 'get the guy'. So it's what the story is about.

[Nier]

13 minutes ago, Okarin said:

Sono Hana games are starred by girls and they aren't otome at all. Having a female MC could mean some sort of male audience pandering. But it's most usual to just have a male MC, self-insert or not.

Well yeah, but these are obviously Yuri and is aimed at straight men mostly who are into girl-on-girl stuff (though I guess lesbians would be interested in these titles as well).

 

5 minutes ago, WinterfuryZX said:

An otome game have a female MC and a male character based traditional route system. They are not necessairly romance heavy.

So then would Shanoth and Gahkthun somewhat fit in there? Of course they wouldn't get a 3.0 score on vndb, but they are taking place entirely from the female protagonists perspective.

Edited November 25, 2016 by Nier

[Okarin]

The gist of it is Otome = aimed at women, not starred by women.

[WinterfuryZX]

 

41 minutes ago, Darklord Rooke said:

But the point of the route system would be to 'get the guy'. So it's what the story is about.

Yeah, sure, but the story can also have a strong focus on other things.

 

37 minutes ago, Nier said:

So then would Shanoth and Gahkthun somewhat fit in there? Of course they wouldn't get a 3.0 score on vndb, but they are taking place entirely from the female protagonists perspective.

They have a female protagonist but there are no routes, so nope.

[Nier]

3 minutes ago, Okarin said:

The gist of it is Otome = aimed at women, not starred by women.

Konosora is an Otome Game?!!

*Self-insert 12-years old french girls joke.

[WinterfuryZX]

Enigma is aimed at Females but it's absolutely not an otomege.

[Okarin]

Quote

Konosora is an Otome Game?!!

They turned it into way worse than an Otome. 

Enigma is aimed at Females but it's absolutely not an otomege.

It can still be aimed at women but not be an Otome, I guess. But if it's an Otome, pretty much it's designed for a female audience.

Edited November 25, 2016 by Okarin

[Darklord Rooke]

5 minutes ago, Okarin said:

It can still be aimed at women but not be an Otome, I guess. But if it's an Otome, pretty much it's designed for a female audience.

You're gonna twist yourself into knots with this definition, you know xD. Mainly because it's too subjective to be of much real-world use. Because of this, people just treat otomes as a reverse of the galge genre, it's a much more useful definition that's fairly easy to apply and has some actual purpose  

[Okarin]

It's not that hard, I guess. You just have to put things in order and apply logic:

"Is aimed at women" -> may be an Otome, or not

"It's an Otome" -> is aimed at women

A Venn diagram would be in order.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venn_diagram

Edited November 25, 2016 by Okarin

[Nier]

8 minutes ago, WinterfuryZX said:

Enigma is aimed at Females but it's absolutely not an otomege.

 

8 minutes ago, Okarin said:

It can still be aimed at women but not be an Otome, I guess. But if it's an Otome, pretty much it's designed for a female audience.

I... see? So, hum what kind of game (genre) is it?

[Darklord Rooke]

1 minute ago, Okarin said:

It's not that hard, I guess. You just have to put things in order and apply logic:

"Is aimed at women" -> may be an Otome, or not

"It's an Otome" -> is aimed at women

And what type of stories are 'aimed at women'?

[yorikbad]

One of my favorites vns are Fault: milestone one and two. Most of the characters there are females, but it's not even close to otome genre. So, I think "otome" is just a title aimed at a female audience. It could be BL or yuri. The main factor is who can you romance and how you can do it.

[Okarin]

Just now, Darklord Rooke said:

And what type of stories are 'aimed at women'?

Well, that's the thorny thing... Decay said something about "heavy romance", that's one thing girls like. Another is good looking male characters, strong, and attractive love interests. The list goes on and on, depends on the particular writer.

I've just noticed the genre might be closer to bishounen, but it's not 100% it. But if CLAMP's stories would be turned into visual novels, they probably would be Otome (though I enjoyed Tokyo Babylon and X madly back in the day, and arguably most major CLAMP works have strong storylines apart from the romance, if there's any). Zetsu Ai too, but that's yaoi.

[WinterfuryZX]

BL are not otome.

It's extremely simple.

1) There's a female MC

2) There are routes

3) Said routes are somewhat tied to a specific male character.

If above conditions are met, the VN is an otomege.

Edited November 25, 2016 by WinterfuryZX

[Okarin]

3 minutes ago, WinterfuryZX said:

BL are not otome.

It's extremely simple.

1) There's a female MC

2) There are routes

3) Said routes are somewhat tied to a specific male character.

If those conditions are me, the VN is an otomege.

You may be right after all.

Going with that, it's just a datesim for women.

Another valid definition that goes well with what I was saying is that Otome is the equivalent to Shoujo Manga in VNs.

Edited November 25, 2016 by Okarin

[Darklord Rooke]

1 minute ago, Okarin said:

Well, that's the thorny thing... Decay said something about "heavy romance", that's one thing girls like. Another is good looking male characters, strong, and attractive love interests. The list goes on and on, depends on the particular writer.

The list gets confused when stuff like 'The Hunger Games', which has plenty of action, is revealed to have a very large female audience. And shows life 'Frozen', which is just about relationship between women, has very little focus on romance. It goes into character driven stories, which is another area female readers like, but not all character driven stories are for women.

So really, how confusing do you want the definition to be? Having genres in the hands of 'writers' has never been a good practice, because genres are there to help the customer and really writers tend to want to stick their books in weird places.

[Okarin]

7 minutes ago, Darklord Rooke said:

The list gets confused when stuff like 'The Hunger Games', which has plenty of action, is revealed to have a very large female audience. And shows life 'Frozen', which is just about relationship between women, has very little focus on romance. It goes into character driven stories, which is another area female readers like, but not all character driven stories are for women.

So really, how confusing do you want the definition to be? Having genres in the hands of 'writers' has never been a good practice, because genres are there to help the customer and really writers tend to want to stick their books in weird places.

Well, like I said... can you tell the difference between Shounen Manga and Shoujo Manga? Then you can differentiate between Otome and a regular Eroge or pornless VN.

And don't forget that the Japanese female audience isn't the same as the Western female audience. The Japanese works are aimed at Japanese people, they don't intend to specifically address people in the West (but, if those gaijin buy it, then all the better). So, bringing The Hunger Games into this is pretty outside our scope.

Edited November 25, 2016 by Okarin

[Lambda]

I feel like there can be linear otome games, though? Just not the What a Beautiful series, cause they're (sometimes very obviously) aimed at men. I feel like my definition's wishy-washy, but to me it's kinda like: if it inspires the same feelings in me as shoujo manga, it's an otome game. If it inspires the same feelings as a BL manga, it's a BL visual novel (obviously other conditions msut be met to be a BL visual novel, this is just an example).

Edited November 25, 2016 by Lambda

[Okarin]

Because the approach to story and characters is the same in manga, anime and VN, it's just the medium and the production that changes.