Gayming Month- Cho Aniki

 This month of June we're celebrating Pride with what I like to call Gayming Month, where we will take a good look at the highs and lows of LGBT+ representation in gaming! And we're kicking it with that infamous shooter series, Cho Aniki!

This doesn't even qualify for the Top 10 Weirdest moments from the franchise

For those of you not in the know, Cho Aniki is a series of side scrolling shooters (plus one fighting game). Basically, imagine Darius, only instead of a space ship, you control a muscular dude who shoots beams of light from his head. In some games you can control a girl, too, but she's not important right now. Another element that sets the series apart is that everything is incredibly homoerotic.

The games place LOTS of emphasis on idealized male bodies, especially from the second game onwards. You will se lots, and lots, and LOTS of muscular male figures floating around, shooting beams of light to one another. And when I say muscular, I mean MUSCULAR!

Got a license for those guns, Frosty?

This style of presentation is known as Macho Camp, wherein everything has to be testosterone-filled and hyper masculine, but NONE of it is taken seriously. That's the key distinction there: the comedy. All these hyper muscular dudes flying around? They're being played for LAUGHS.

The first game, simply titled Cho Aniki, wasn't that Macho Camp at all. It was still WEIRD, mind you, but weird in that typical Japanese way, in which random things happened for inexplicable reasons. You fought bosses like a train with a face, a moon harp that played itself. It was weird, but fun, so of course the game warranted a sequel.

Ai Cho Aniki is when the series dialed the Macho Camp past the limit, bringing us such classic boss fights such as this one:

That is, indeed, a naked man on a moon tub.

And this one:

Yes, that is a muscular man on a clam shell.

The third game in the series, Cho Aniki Bakuretsu Rantouhen, kept the Macho Camp going. Even though the game was a fighter, it still brought the Macho Camp the series was getting known for with such classic images as a battle stage where the background is filled with hyper muscular, nearly nude fairy men.

Now I know what you're thinking: "This isn't that gay at all! It's all just super muscular men flexing all over and being weird!" To that, I respond with: THAT'S THE GAY STEREOTYPE OF JAPAN! In East Asia, Macho Camp is the big gay stereotype, in the same way that the well dressed, well groomed men are stereotyped as gay in the West. There's a bit of logic behind that stereotype: body builders do spend a lot of time in environments where they're in the company of other men, and often their lifestyle is conducive towards placing men in particular situations, such as showering together, and being in the nude with one another.

I'm not here to debate stereotypes or what not, just to shed a little light into the ways that homosexuals are presented in video games.

Now, the question: is the Cho Aniki series a POSITIVE representation of gay culture? Hard to say. On one hand, the games' camp factors are through the roof, and there's no denying that it's ALL played for laughs. This is a case of the audience laughing at, not with, the characters and the setting. We're laughing at a stereotype being played straight (I apologize for that pun). 

But on the other hand, there's no denying that the game doesn't deride homosexuality in any way or form. The series avoids the more damaging stereotypes that comes with Macho Camp, such as the hyper muscular gays who hit on straight men regardless of the latter's discomfort. Indeed, to my knowledge there are NO incidents in the series wherein any men are forced into relationships with other men. For the time the games were released (the 90's to early 2000's) this was progressive! 

So, IS the series a positive portrayal of homosexuality in gaming? I say: not entirely, but we've seen far worse. The Cho Aniki series is unique, quirky, funny, and it deserves to be played. Play it any way you can!

And happy Pride to all my fellow gamers!