romantic on side

I agree with you about not liking that some people write off all MCs as bad if they’re passive. I’m what you’d probably call “passive” and would act nothing like Western IkeSen MC if I were in her shoes.

On the other hand, for context, the Reddit discussion that prompted mine was started by someone playing IkeSen on the PS Vita, which doesn’t have the mobile’s localized MC, and this person was under the impression that the MC’s personality had been changed for the Vita version because they thought Western MC's personality was her original one in the Japanese mobile game. So it wasn’t “I hate the Japanese version MC because she’s boring and passive,” they were just confused and found that particular version of the character less interesting.

And I understand that because passive MCs aren’t bad on their own, but otome MCs as a whole tend to be written on the passive side and (I saw another post explain this better) that’s kind of a problem because as a pattern, it gets stale and boring. It’s not so much a Japanese vs. Western thing as an otome game thing, I think? There are lots of characters like Western IkeSen MC in other Japanese media who get romance plots, so I doubt it’s mostly “Japanese culture” that prevents them from existing in otome games as well. It’s reluctance to try anything new. Localizers have more freedom to change the MC’s personality a little because they didn’t write the game and if it's received badly, they can translate their next MC more closely to the original.

I knew that the English version added a lot of funny lines to her dialogue that weren’t originally there, but I assumed she was still outspoken, proactive, etc. This is the first I’ve heard anything about her having a “typical passive MC” personality originally.

I found the purest letter 😭