Kojima with a peek at Quiet 's new erotic design in the background.
Last week, Hideo Kojima, the video game designer for Metal Gear Solid V , had some negative feedback regarding his design process of Quiet , one of the new female characters. In short, he basically ordered his character designer to make her "more erotic" with the intention to get females out there to cosplay more erotic sexy characters so that the merchandise/figurines would sell better
Seriously? Sure sometimes characters are designed with sex appeal in mind, but to openly announce this as a reason to sell your figurines... that's a bit much.
"@Hideo_Kojima_EN: The initial target is to make u want to do cosplay or its figurine to sell well."
Then he went as far as releasing images of Quiet in all angles so that cosplayers can get a head start on this. I really hope some cosplayers out there don't support this, but it won't be surprising if there will be cosplayers out there that will pursue this.
His response?
"I know there's people concerning about "Quiet" but don't worry. I created her character as an antithesis to the women characters appeared in the past fighting game who are excessively exposed. "Quiet" who doesn't have a word will be teased in the story as well. But once you recognize the secret reason for her exposure, you will feel ashamed of your words & deeds."
Sex does sell, whether we want it in our culture or not. Maybe there was something lost in translation? I don't know, but this will throw Cosplay /= Consent the opposite direction if we see women supporting his statements. The problem is, this isn't about the art of cosplay anymore if he said it the way he did.
Sorry, Kojima. I won't support your motives. This shouldn't be what "cosplay" is these days. We cosplay because we love to, and we get in character because it's fun. If we "cosplay" for the sole purpose of standing there looking like sex, then the direction we are heading as a cosplay community is really sad... We need to steer away from this path!
images via Nerd Reactor
