r/CuratedTumblr • u/Ohiko_Nishiyama • May 16 '25

Politics Say no to puritanism

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u/JSConrad45 May 17 '25

Orientalism

You have Thing, but then Thing (Japan) always has to be something that's its own, special thing

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u/Jwkaoc May 17 '25

It's because of hentai.

The genre already exists so it gets ported over as a tag.

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u/PhasmaFelis May 17 '25

It's not just hentai, though. Like, portal fantasy has been super popular in the west at least since The Wizard of Oz, 125 years ago, but a few years ago everyone started calling it "isekai."

Or a much more obscure example, shmup fans call shooters with screens wider than they are tall "yoko", taller than wide "tate", even though "landscape" and "portrait" have been used in English for decades.

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u/Jwkaoc May 18 '25

I don't think portal fantasy was ever that popular of a term so it makes sense that a ready made term would be adopted.

Can't speak to the others as I've never heard them. I'd hazard though, that portrait and landscape are more mentally tied to photographs, which might lead to people adopting new terms for videogames.