Jellyfish

The premise of "Obsession (2025)" directed by Curry Barker is already a topic that fits within the Eroge genre, a cursed object that grants a wish that forces someone to love you. Within the environment of Hollywood Horror, this is an unusual premise when usually the premise of such stories lends itself to requiring a direct "antagonist" role within its narrative. For this reason "Obsession" has had acclaim for it subverting the expectations of the audience by framing the wisher "Bear" (played by Michael Johnston) as the initially unaware antagonist by stripping "Nikki" (played by Inde Navarrette of her agency with the cursed object, and turning her into a projection of his desire and lust, stripping her of personhood and agency. One of the weaknesses of film as a medium is the lack of ability for it to explore the internal space of the characters, even from the space of showing the characters unreliability. The audience is required to rely on external cues, to show what has gone wrong with Nikki in order to facilitiate Bear's fantasy. An Eroge doesn't require an external cue, it is a medium that relies on the internal monologue of the characters and the unreliability of which in order to portray what the characters are like. The mechanism of a man who is in love with the fantasy of a woman that he desires, not for who she actually is and doesn't even have a strong insight into what kind of person she is. The format would live in Bears own idea of events, from the ideals of his fantasy with Nikki and how that deteriorates both his own view of the world and her as a person.

Within the space of the Eroge genre, the lack of Nikki's internal voice would also be much stronger. During the narrative of Obsession, there are clear glimpses of her awareness of the horror that Bear has subjected her to, stripping her of any interiority entirely would show, formally, what Bear has already turned her into. A doll for Bear to use and receive affection from, without the agency to have any say in how or what he uses her for. A text based format could deny the reader even that, with a clear gap in the internal view and keeping the metaphorical camera solely with Bear. Showing that Nikki has truly been turned into an object for Bear to use, and unable to lash out except in ways that fit with the fantasy of someone who "loves him more than anything in the world". This is close to what Shulamith Firestone wrote in her book "The Dialectic of Sex: The Case for Feminist Revolution". Firestone wrote that a man "… has let her in not because he genuinely loved her, but only because she played so well into his preconceived fantasies". Obsession as a text in the genre of a Hollywood horror film is required to let the viewer into the lense of Nikki, not because it has any real interest of showing her internal world, but because it is required in order to show clearly to every viewer that what Bear has done is horrible. To deny Nikki even that in the narrative, to show that Bear is simply interested in his "preconceived fantasies", not even affording Nikki space within the narrative of the work itself to be a character, will show the lack of empathy or even insight that Bear has to her plight, instead highlighting that he fits exactly within the mould of someone who is only interested in that fantasy of her.

Eroge as a medium has another weapon, a tool that can be used to make its point. The complicity of the reader and the medium to take the story at face value. The lack of need or requirements for the reader to engage with the horror of the situation until it is forced on them. It is a genre that is defined by extreme objectification of women and their bodies. Commodifying lust into cheap entertainment, and then shooting the cat to bring the reader's attention back. As Kate Millett argues in her book "Sexual Politics", "sexual dominion obtains nevertheless as perhaps the most pervasive ideology of our culture and provides its most fundamental concept of power". Eroge doesn't invent this dynamic, as so much as strips it away of its usual camouflage. Mainstream media disguises objectification as romance or comedy, while Eroge commodifies it outright, treating women's bodies as content to be consumed rather than people to be understood.