The Impractical Fashion of JRPGs

 

One of my first articles in this blog talked about Persona 5 and the fashion design in that game. Well today, I would like to put emphasis on the fashion in JRPGs as a whole. JRPGs are my favorite genre of video games and their character designs are very Japanese and have a reputation for being absurd. Most JRPGs tend to go for the fantastical in their character designs with spiky hair, unnatural hair colors, and sometimes supernatural elements. The part most will notice first however, is their clothes.

JRPGs or well actually, video games in general have a lot of impractical clothing and it's just a part of the medium now. While things have improved over the years this impracticality is still a part of these Japanese bred role playing games. As a huge Square Enix fan the first thing that comes to mind is Tetsuya Nomura. Nomura has been a character designer for the Final Fantasy games since the seventh entry and he has a couple of particular signatures in his character design. Nomura loves zippers and belts. You can find them on a lot of characters such as the famous Besaid witch Lulu. Lulu dons a long black gothic dress that drags on the floor with a lace trim on the sleeves and bottom, a fur collar, and three bead necklaces. The front side of the dress is open and acting as the fill for that part is about twenty something belts. I'm not sure how this is even made, but I have seen accurate and detailed cosplays of Lulu's dress so I guess it is actually possible. It doesn't look comfortable however. I imagine the belt parts are much hotter than the rest of the dress and probably breezes push through the gaps. The belts don't cover the entire front area either as there's an open patch on the top left revealing Lulu's thigh which is partially covered by a black stocking adding some sexiness to the outfit.

Almost the whole cast of X have belts in their design and you can find a bit of them in Kingdom Hearts as well, though Nomura really emphasized more on putting zippers in impractical places in that series like KH 1's Sora's shoes.

Luso Clemens may be the worst dressed JRPG character.

In other JRPGs with medieval or renaissance fantasy settings like the Tales of, Fire Emblem, and Granblue Fantasy series characters wear the garments are reminiscent of the clothing from that time period, but with some shall I say "stylized" components. In RPGs like these the fashion would usually involve a lot of sharp angles and triangles in the garments usually in the collars, on the boots, and the ends of dresses and extra coat tails. It's also common to see skin exposed for various characters who are fighters who should be covered up for protection like the characters in Xenoblade Chronicles 2 like Pyrrah who has her thighs and hips exposed. You tend to see this more for female characters, but male characters get this too sometimes, but for them it's mostly being shirtless. Perhaps the king of the most overly designed or impractical design goes to Luso Clemens from Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 2.

Rihanna uncannily like a Pokemon Trainer.

While there are arguments about how imbalanced and sexualized female character designs are there also those who say that since it is a video game you can suspend your sense of disbelief for these designs and some find some of the more risque and impractical female designs to be empowering or fulfilling a fantasy. Everything in JRPGs isn't so impractical however, Persona as I talked about before has a real world influence in its fashion design. The World Ends with You, Mother, and Pokemon also pull from modern fashion while also making their fashion unique. Just a few years ago when Rihanna was coming from an airport gamers jokingly said she looked like a Pokemon Trainer.

JRPGs have been around since the 80s and many changes have gone through since then while simultaneously keeping things traditional. We now have western countries making games in the JRPG style like Child of Light and Cosmic Star Heroine. With this western influence who knows how the fashion will change in these coming years.

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