I can see it but a big part of it is personality and body size (the amazon trope Void mentioned is quite intentional). If the faces were any more petite it wouldn't reflect their age and they would be more like teens, but that wouldnt match this story and universe. So I think I can answer this (even though im still not Void
) as a result of a bunch of intentional things, representing strenght and competence as the type of girls we are attracted to, maturity as an element for difference in status between MC and the LIs. Many of them are physical laborers too, altough that doesnt stop Jenna from being an absolute goddess of beauty. But still they dont realistically spend their days in beauty salons and I love that about them, but I agree that this is in some sense less feminine and more masculine.
I think we can find great variety in this but this varying degrees of petiteness in faces will mostly be combined with a lot of thiccness and muscle as mentioned before. More teen looking characters like Jonna (half gobbo) who are more around MC age also feature but will be uncommon from what we've seen so far. I know you didnt ask specifically about age but this feature 'neutony' (youthfulness) is a component of femininity.
So, I agree with you about age, which is why I mentioned "younger" characters and "non-MILFs". I should've been more clear, so thanks for pointing that out.
However, I disagree regarding body types. A character with Jenna's body type and appearance could easily be made very feminine. Other than a bit of extra muscle on her biceps, there's nothing masculine about her body. Even her height isn't particularly masculine; there are tons of professional models in that range.
Similarly, most characters in Tales of Androgyny are larger than the MC and some of them are quite large, yet most of them have more feminine hairstyles, wear more feminine clothes, present themselves in more feminine ways (dialogue, personality), use more feminine colors, etc.
Keep in mind that in this image, the two on the right are very much "amazon" characters, and the knight in the middle is one of the main antagonists -- and very dom in bed. Yet she has long hair worn in a feminine style, purple highlights, a very feminine, youthful face, purple lips, makeup on her eyes that accentuates their feminine shape, purple accents on her armor. Even her stance is somewhat feminine.
Ironically, the futas in ToA are not really androgynous at all, on a whole, other than their dicks.
Now, I did take into account what you're saying about the roles/jobs of the characters, but I would counter with two points:
1. There are tons of competent, even tough, female characters in other cyberpunk media, in other games, etc. that are still not masculine nor tomboys.
Just as an example, here's Rita from Cyberpunk 2077, in her role as a bouncer in her gang's bar. She has many tomboyish masculine elements -- but this is balanced out by many feminine elements (hair, colors, makeup, etc.) This is absolutely not a prissy girl who hangs out in beauty salons, she doesn't even have a traditional style... but she's still noticeably feminine in her own way.
But it's not just appearance, as you touched on, it's personality.
And there's simply nothing about being, say, an engineer that dictates that a character has to talk and act like a tomboy. Iris, Tess, Niflix, etc. do not talk in a masculine way, despite having rough backgrounds and many years on the Periphery.
There's nothing that says Lise has to be listening to heavy metal instead of, I don't know, salsa. Maybe to blow off steam after work she puts on a dress and goes dancing, or she runs a bubble bath and reads cheesy futa on femboy romance novels. We even see a similar idea in her use of very feminine-smelling shampoo.
To be clear, I like Lise, but there is nothing saying that she
has to be such a tomboy.
There's nothing about being the head of security that says Amira has to take steroids and have the physique of a female bodybuilder. The game could've put more emphasis on her tactical mind, marksmanship, etc. if it wanted to. She could've been an expert in judo who uses leverage to overpower opponents rather than sheer strength.
Again, Amira is cool. But it is not necessary for her to be written exactly in the way she is.
Lastly, you can always simply create more "roles", whether it's on the ship or off. What if Iris has a young assistant, instead of or in addition to her new robot? What if the mine had a young secretary who handled administrative tasks instead of the MC?
2. Realism and worldbuilding is great and all, and I've praised VP's efforts at worldbuilding. I love the world, PSX, the Despina, the Periphery, etc. However, at the end of the day, it's still a porn game.
He can obviously make whatever game he wants, and as I said I have no expectation that all or even the majority of characters are going to be exactly to my taste.
But if you're purposely:
- Making characters less conventionally attractive
- Making inherently feminine characters more masculine
...in a porn game... for the sake of realism... it just seems a bit self-defeating to me.
For reference, here's Gemma, the blacksmith character in the upcoming Monster Hunter: Wilds game.
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Is she a realistic-looking blacksmith? I don't know, but I know that she's hot -- and much of the internet seems to agree.
To be clear, I'm not telling VP "hey copy all of these other characters from other games" or even telling him to create specific types of characters. I don't care if there are a generous number of tomboys in the game.
I just want to know if there are plans to add more feminine characters. Because while strength, competence, maturity, etc. are cool as character traits, I want to bang (or get banged by, in this case) characters because they're
hot. Lise is attractive because she's got a big, perfect butt with beautiful little dimples in her lower back, not because she can fix robots.
By the way, check out the two models in the middle of the main menu screen, the brunette in the foreground and blonde in the background (with the femboy); check out the character with the pink hair at Ginny's bar; check out the brunette (with the femboy) on the second floor of the market.
Would you not agree that those models are have a somewhat more youthful, feminine look and style? We know that there are different types of characters on the PSX because the game shows us there are.
