Should the Next Disgaea game have a Female Lead?

[NiNekoNe]

Oh dear, this got grimy quickly. Although everyone's putting good points up, I do believe the original question was whether you want a female lead or not not what the perfect female lead is...both parties have very good comments but I do believe in the end that there is no "professional" or "correct" way to make a female lead character...all it comes down to is what NISA want to make her into. I've seen every possible form of female lead, from silent to spazzy, dead-set serious and unbelievable floozy. They all have people whom love and relate to them, and they all have people who'd personally throw them off the nearest cliff. If you say "A Female lead should have [X]." I guarantee you I can find at least five female leads whom do not have that quality. Success is what you make of it, the characters imperfections are, in fact, what makes them perfect! (like Etna's chest....*cough*)

All in all, please settle down people, you're scaring the children!

[vampko]

@laharlsvassal
Basically yep.

@Seventh
Of course it matters on how well NIS pulls off the main character, but I trust them

@NiNekoNe
It was relevant to the conversation. The thought was put up that it's 'stereotypical' if things are much different if NIS were to do a female lead in their next Disgaea. which is still relevant to the topic.

At least I think so? Topics get derailed so much here I'm just sorta used to it

[Good-for-nothing]

All in all, please settle down people, you're scaring the children!

Well, everyone's being rather civil in the discussion. Just because opinions are being exchanged doesn't mean an argument is being waged. Some interesting points are actually being brought up in all of this.

In the end, I don't think the pressure of having a female lead in Disgaea would be as in-depth as a more 'serious' game - including other titles by NIS which were more dramatic, and with a female lead, such as Phantom Brave. We have to remember that Disgaea characters tend to have extreme, and unrealistic, personalities and motivations. Not many of the characters act remotely like real humans would, so the whole 'balance' problem of a female lead wouldn't be as constricting as it would be in a more dramatic setting with a more serious tone. We are talking about a series where Etna vowed revenge on Laharl because he ate her pudding, after all.

[DL Zandorf Rahamasch]

Sounds like nice for me.

[NiNekoNe]

Well I hadn't meant that anyone was screaming at the other or ripping heads off, I just meant that it was getting a little less like female lead or no talk and more like who was right about what she should be like...I know it's relevant but it didn't look like a common ground was in sight (o~o); My apologies if anyone misunderstood me!

[LordLaharlsVassal]

Oh dear, this got grimy quickly. Although everyone's putting good points up, I do believe the original question was whether you want a female lead or not not what the perfect female lead is...both parties have very good comments but I do believe in the end that there is no "professional" or "correct" way to make a female lead character...all it comes down to is what NISA want to make her into. I've seen every possible form of female lead, from silent to spazzy, dead-set serious and unbelievable floozy. They all have people whom love and relate to them, and they all have people who'd personally throw them off the nearest cliff. If you say "A Female lead should have [X]." I guarantee you I can find at least five female leads whom do not have that quality. Success is what you make of it, the characters imperfections are, in fact, what makes them perfect! (like Etna's chest....*cough*)

All in all, please settle down people, you're scaring the children!

There are no such thing as "correct" character personality traits, motivations, internal conflicts etc., but there are good and bad ways to deal with the controversial topic of "how are men and women different" (by good ways I mean ways that leads to the least amount of people getting offended). It's NIS' product so they are free to leave such questions out of their games, but if they so chooses to address it though a female main character in the future, I suggested they would just be honest and do it in a way that is reflective of the real life struggles men and women have to deal with in regards to the subject. Real people have to deal with social gender pressures, so if these are applied to fictional characters it will be something a human could understand and perhaps relate to. But again, NIS is free to just ignore it.

And I apologize if I caused the topic to derail.

To answer the topic: I don't care if the next main character of Disgaea is a female or a male, I don't judge characters based on their gender and I will give any character of any sex a chance to prove themselves, and I trust NIS to make a good character either way.

[Pinkemon]

It'd be a nice change of pace, I think.

Though, it is indeed so that other NIS games already had female protags, but not demons, IIRC. (Well, I suppose one of them could count, but not from the start.)

[railar]

Alrighty. And humans aren't just differentiated from those couple aspects alone.

Of course not! Human psychology is way more complicated than that, but we were talking about what would be different if nixt Disgaea game had a femal lead, not all the things that makes characters and humans different from each other, that is a way bigger topic to cover.

I know right? xD I don't even want to go there x]

but it's not what makes them "feel human" that can be related to on a massive scale.

Well of course no writer can please everyone, it is impossible to do that. And "enjoy, love and relate to" are just a few examples I wrote up quickly (I should have added a etc., sorry), however a character was meant or intended to be perceived depends on what a writer wants and what use the character has in the narrative. If the writer wants the villain of the story to be hated by the audience as much as possible, then the villain will most likely be about as un-relatable as writer can manage to make them.

But we are talking about leads today, they are the once we follow thoughout the story, and the writer probably wants the target audience to be interested in the leading character, so that they will keep on playing/watching/reading etc.
There are many reasons why writers tends to make leads act human, one is relatability, because while not everyone can relate to the same character no one will (most likely) relate to a character that does not act human at all.
Making the lead character act human also allows the writer to explore the human condition, and teach the audience something about themselves and/or other people that the audience might not have thought of before.

And I completely agree. Like I said, I was just commenting on the whole "professional" deal. Like neko said, then your rebuttal, there are no "professional" ways to determine what the female lead "should" act like, just ways to improve it. That was my whole thing; Sorry if it took like 10214713847192 posts just for us to come across that point, it seems like me, or we, i'm not sure anymore xD, just mistook what meaning post for post and just went with it. You brung up some excellent points however, that I shall take into consideration in the future.

And I apologize if I caused the topic to derail.

I certainly don't mind; I rather enjoyed it. I think we were still talking in relevance to the topic anywho xD

[Budukai]

Oh my yes, that would be awesome and a good change of pace for NIS. Of course she would need some sort of red on her somewhere or it wont happen *looks at Asagi*

[TrueNeptune]

I'd like a female lead, as long as she's cool (:

[Usagi-Zakura]

I wouldn't mind either way. The Disgaea series isn't lacking in strong female characters, even if they aren't THE main character they still play a heavy role for instance:
Etna- Easily the second main character after Laharl. Strong and cool and a very typical demon.
Flonne- The girly girl to Etna's tomboy. But still lots of fun to watch. I personally don't play her much other than as a healer.
Rozalin- Starts out as a rather stereotypical princess until... In case someone hasn't beaten Disgaea 2 I will not be finishing this sentence.
Hanako- Okay she's 8 years old, yet she's braver than her older brother Taro.
Raspberyl- The delinquent who does good deeds mainly because it makes her seem like a bigger delinquent.
Sapphire- Just...Sapphire.

I'm female myself but I don't really get the obsession over "OMG this female character is too girly and so and so!" yet we don't hear complaints like that about male characters. Nobody seems to have huge complaints about the wimpy guys like Almaz (at times) and Taro. But if a female character shows weakness its stereotypical and mean. Girls aren't perfect either.

[Komrad]

I wouldn't mind a female lead, as long as she's interesting enough to stand out.

[Yoru]

MAybe the history of Asagi, as a prequel to Makai wars

[Majin Hanako]

It would be nice, but it's probably unlikely to happen.

[Pinkemon]

I'm female myself but I don't really get the obsession over "OMG this female character is too girly and so and so!" yet we don't hear complaints like that about male characters. Nobody seems to have huge complaints about the wimpy guys like Almaz (at times) and Taro. But if a female character shows weakness its stereotypical and mean. Girls aren't perfect either.

Yeah, I agree.

It seems like these days, some people think that all girls have to be tough tomboys in order to be good characters. I personally agree with the idea that is seen in the new MLP cartoon by Lauren Faust: There are many different ways to be a girl!