Instead of demanding more male characters in Reverse: 1999, I think that there should be more games that explore relationships between men with the same depth and grace that Reverse: 1999 does with women. Which you can find easily in your average Shonen manga, but there are a lot of valid reasons to dislike the genre as a whole and I say this as someone who enjoys Shonen manga. Not only because it get's annoying to see people being upset or disappointed about a game they are not the target demographic for not catering to them whenever new information drops, I also believe that Queer men deserve content that caters to them that isn't just softcore porn or Enstars.
This has always been a problem, but the release of Narcissus on the Chinese server has forced it into full transparency relative to previous instances. You may often see misogyny being addressed when a highly disliked female character is the topic. And disliking a female character is not misogynistic in and of itself but the claim that common reasons for them being disliked are tied to misogyny often is true, and whenever it gets addressed people on the receiving end are quick to get defensive, so it's a really difficult and often counterproductive discussion to be had most of the time. Narcissus however, is a unique instance of this phenomenon because most of the complaints about her I've seen so far are expressing disappointment in her not being a boy like in the original myth - compounded by her being visibly young just like the original Narcissus and apparently having a bad design...? I like it personally, but I'm delegating the matter to Wolfisor when she gets released on global.
Reimagining prominent male figures in classic folklore history, and literature as women isn't a new or novel concept. There are already examples of this in R1999 (Kakania = Cavaradossi, Flutterpage = Peter Pan) and there is popular media that utilizes this frequently (Touhou) or is even built upon this premise.
All of that is to say, this is the first instance (that I've witnessed) of people being fully transparent about a character's gender earning their ire. They usually try to dress it up with more neutral or personal language. But really, that brings me back to my original point that more male-oriented media taking inspiration from R1999's writing of dynamics (Friendships, brotherhood, Romance, ect) would be a good thing so people don't continue to look for things in the wrong places and then get mad when it's not, or rarely is there. And more importantly, stop being a nuisance to people who ARE in the right place. I think Eberpaul is a beautifully written relationship, and they raise the bar for media where they, or characters like them, would theoretically propel the narrative, but they're only in the limelight for one patch. Their general purpose is to foil Marsha & Marianne, and they do it very well.
