The strategy of 'being loved by everyone, one person at a time' in HaruToki (and economic reality)

I refer to this thoughtful blog post from neojaponisme.com, which compares the appeal of the fashion magazines JJ and CanCam. I would like to discuss in relation to otome games:

CanCam’s concept is being “super attractive.” Not just “attractive,” but “super attractive.” The originality is all in the adverb “super.” In contrast to JJ’s fashion strategy of “having the man of your dreams fall in love with you,” CanCam’s goal is “to be loved by everybody.” Ms. M-mura writes, “The target for female ‘attractiveness’ is not just limited to possible marriage partners. For example, female TV announcers all wear CanCam-style ’super attractive’ fashion because they want to be broadly embraced by everyone from kids to the elderly.”

Globalization over-allocates social resources to the “winners” of competition, and that means that “strong individuals” will be the only ones to enjoy a self-sustainable urban life.

There are not very many ways for the weak to survive. Logic leads us to only two possible strategies. The first strategy is to live under the protection of the strong. This is the so-called Aiming for a Wealthy Husband Strategy. But women are beginning to notice the surprisingly low reliability of those wealthy men they hope to marry. As soon as they realized the high risk of the “Marrying Up” strategy, women rejected JJ and embraced CanCam. The second strategy is to be loved by all those around you, one person at a time. Thus they have chosen the “super attractive” CanCam strategy: to be a “lovely” girl, loved by everyone. Young people have chosen this direction as the most advantageous option in the world they face. Of course, there are still a lot of young people who behave egotistically or arrogantly and think only of “I do what I want because I want to.” But when it comes to resource allocation and risk hedging through a mutual support network, they are already way too late. Before too long, they will be pulled to the lowest strata of society.

My knee-jerk reaction in hearing the strategy of being loved by everyone, one person at a time is -

Why, isn't this The Strategy for otome games all along?

Granted, I have only played HaruToki 1 once before out of curiosity. (I got bored of it very quickly and gave up, though I hear that HaruToki 3 is more interesting.) The idea in the game is that you are a messiah called Miko who must fight against evil, but as Miko you don't really fight in the actual physical combats - you make your warriors called Hachiyo to fight on your behalf. To succeed, you must -

• Raise the morale of Hachiyo

The premise is that the more they like you, the better they will fight for you. In actual battles, this means you have to select the rights words to cheer them up, because depending on their individual personalities, words that are nectar to one may be poison to another.

• Make sure that each Hachiyo does not get jealous of another because of you

The premise is that you may have one Hachiyo who is your honmei or your Special One. But if you get too friendly with another Hachiyo, they will fight each other. That results in unproductive loss when they should both be battling evil. 

In other words, it's HR management. Your job is to manage the emotional lives of your warriors. The ideal is that you are loved by each of them, one person at a time.

When I was first introduced to this game, I was puzzled by the values it seems to instill into the minds of young women. Now I think I can see the logic behind it. HaruToki is a videogame about pleasing other people. Miko derives her power through the use of words – in other words her ability to choose the right words to please each Hachiyo, who in turn will become stronger because of her pleasing words.

So the player is essentially doing the same thing she must do if she is to survive in this dog-eat-dog world. In that sense, HaruToki s probably less escapist than you think. It is a training ground for “people skills”.

Comments

[Ori]

I think the fun part for these games is that you can always start over if you screw up. Where as in life...

[Wabi Sabi]

I think in HaruToki 3, it is built into the system that you have to do certain things in the first part of the game in order to restart to proceed to the second part of the game. You have to go back in time, in other words.

But I forgot exactly how it works.

Yuya/Bangin - if you are reading this, please explain.

(He is the expert. I think he may well be the first Japanese man in the whole of history to admit in English that he likes shoujo and otome stuff.)

[Neohybrid_kai]

Oh, I see. The same excitement as mine when talking about the commu system Persona 3.
Well, I think its not a secret that conversation is one of the crucial point in relationship or when solving a problem. One thing that should be considered is that anime or game always divides character into archetypes while real people has more complex personality.
That, and the undo thing just like Ori said ^^

[Wabi Sabi]

I am not familiar with Persona 3.

I think the fun about these games is that if you spend enough time with that person and do all the things he likes, he will return your feelings. It's like school where you just turn up for attendance and you do your best in your homework and tests.

Whereas in real life...

[Yuya]

Oh no, I didn't notice this, sorry about the late response.

In Haru toki 3, Miko has to go through the bad conclusion in a first go. Whatever you do, Miko and Hachiyo shall be beaten by evil. But on the verge of defeat, she shall get a small item which enables her to leap through time. Just like Toki wo kakeru shoujo. So she could get back to where she has been, and she decides to do a time leap again in order to save her honmei. Players already know some factors why the fighting didn't go well. So Miko shall use all the information she has, and save whoever she wants to pursue. But in Haru toki 3, the number of Hachiyo players can pursue is only one, so you can't pursue more than two persons. If you fail to save your hachiyo, you can go back to the certain point and try again. But you have to find where it is by yourself.

I hope there are some more otomens like me somewhere in this world.

[Wabisabi]

Thanks for the clarification. You are the expert on this.