Talks about otome games, drama cds, and occasionally provides advice? Running away endlessly from my backlog of hobbies.

Ilinox

RIP Shiei no Sona-Nyl, which gets mistaken precisely because of its art style. I fully agree with you though and this reminds me of the discourse around otome games and how people want them to be more inclusive blah blah, but it just comes down to those people wanting the companionship aspect and style of writing in THEIR genre of games, in which case go ahead and take those and use it in your genre! Leave the otome game genre alone though!

On a tangential note, I feel like people are either getting lazier these days or the amount of information someone processes in a day is really screwing them over because it fosters an incredible use of shortcut thinking and that's why people associate art style with genre or audience, that way they can look at something and come to a conclusion in one second instead of having to spend time looking into it. Humans are pattern recognition monsters after all and if something is true 90% of the time then it's "good enough" for the brain.

RIP Shiei no Sona-Nyl, which gets mistaken precisely because of its art style. I fully agree with you though and this reminds me of the discourse around otome games and how people want them to be more inclusive blah blah, but it just comes down to those people wanting the companionship aspect and style of writing in THEIR genre of games, in which case go ahead and take those and use it in your genre! Leave the otome game genre alone though!

On a tangential note, I feel like people are either getting lazier these days or the amount of information someone processes in a day is really screwing them over because it fosters an incredible use of shortcut thinking and that's why people associate art style with genre or audience, that way they can look at something and come to a conclusion in one second instead of having to spend time looking into it. Humans are pattern recognition monsters after all and if something is true 90% of the time then it's "good enough" for the brain.

Something you could say I notice is that too many people would mistake a specific art style and think "oh it's for X group" ???? Uh, no. Atelier Ryza looks to have an art style and atmosphere commonly found in shoujo manga/anime, but you can clearly tell it's not made with women in mind. (Unless you're the type who doesn't mind female fanservice ofc). If a galge had the art style and character designs from your average otomate game, it's still not gonna be a female orientated game because it's still a GALGE. 

Ilinox

art style =/= genre or audience