In an age where woman like Anna Sarkeesian are fighting for gender equality, and where they want woman to become less of a sex symbol, it’s certainly interesting to hear famed designer/writer/producer/director Hideo Kojima want the characters in Metal Gears Solid V: The Phantom’s Pain to be more “erotic”. His reason? Make them more cosplayable, if his Twitter feed is anything to go by.
I've been ordering to Yoji to make the character more erotic, and he did it well. Recently I've been making characters this way. (cont)
— HIDEO_KOJIMA (@HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN) September 4, 2013
Yoji refers to Yoji Shinkawa, the art director of Metal Gear Solid V.
I create the setting thoroughly, how he/she spent early life, name, style, favorite phrase, fashion, action to stand the character out.(cont
— HIDEO_KOJIMA (@HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN) September 4, 2013
The initial target is to make u want to do cosplay or its figurine to sell well.
— HIDEO_KOJIMA (@HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN) September 4, 2013
Kojima also revealed plans to provide more information on the bikini clad sniper, Quiet, who certainly stole some thunder from the E3 trailer, on Friday, September 6, 3:00 A.M. ET, for cosplay purposes. According to Kojima, this came from fans who requested more information about Quiet so they could cosplay as her from the Tokyo Game Show. However, he also expressed uncertainty, saying he didn’t know if the new model of Quiet was cosplayable and whether anyone would even want to cosplay as her.
The character I asked Yoji to make it more erotic, this one may not be cosplayable.
— HIDEO_KOJIMA (@HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN) September 4, 2013
What if no one would do Quiet cosplay at TGS even though giving the info…lol
— HIDEO_KOJIMA (@HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN) September 4, 2013
He also provided an image as an example of where he was going with this.
Dear Cosplayer friends, something like this for example. pic.twitter.com/SWkN3BSDFy
— HIDEO_KOJIMA (@HIDEO_KOJIMA_EN) September 4, 2013
However, that doesn’t mean that Hideo simply cares about looks. He also mused about characterization and how someone should be able to read a character by “observing his/her silhouette, and the way he/she walks”.