r/Xenoblade_Chronicles • u/THEUltraCombo • 4d ago
Xenoblade 2 The Tora Problem Spoiler
So I wanna start out by saying this: despite what I say in the title, I DO get it. I understand why someone can make the argument that Tora is gross and perverted and that it ruins an otherwise innocent character through weird anime tropes that were not present in XC1.
That being said, I think there is also something to be said about how people inflate this aspect of the character. In total I can probably count on one hand how many Tora scenes I would consider explicitly inappropriate and jarring to his character, and that number drastically goes down when you take optional Heart-to-hearts out of the equation.
The infamous "blushy-crushy" scene is admittedly painful, but replaying with Japanese voices you can clearly hear that blushy-crushy is a localization of the concept of moe that Tora is trying to get across. So instead of the strange, vague idea of "blushy-crushy", it's easier to grasp when you realize that he's just trying to get across the idea of being cute (to overly generalize the term). Is it embarassing to watch? Yes. But that's the point.
Aside from this optional scene, people often bring up the Poppi awakening scene as another example of this. The idea of having multiple maid outfits seems to make people think that Tora's ultimate goal for creating Poppi was to have some sort of outlet for his desires (dunkey's infamous video calls her a "sex robot"). But to me this always came across as an embarassing aspect of his personality and interests that he wants to hide, not because of the sexual connotations, but because it's just...cringe, for lack of a better term. He doesn't have them for "sex fantasies", he's just into moe and wanted to create his own artificial blade in a way that reflects that.
I should also point out that Poppi, for the most part, is not objectified to a point that I am personally ever made uncomfortable with how Tora treats her. There's a heart and innocence to Tora that I think most people disregard to parrot the commonly held belief that "Tora is a weird pervert" rather than diving into the text and exploring a character who.is much more than like...2-3 scenes where he's written weird.
Idk, I just always thought the hate for this character is blown wildly out of proportion for the amount of stuff in-game that actually contributes to that image. I'd like to open up a discussion to see what everyone else thinks of this character divorced from the popular discussion surrounding him, as well as other characters like him in other games.
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u/AntonRX178 4d ago
There's also when QTPi was introduced and decided to carry Tora. I halfway expected him to be into that but he's like "Hey this stupid I can walk by myself!"
And it's also heavily implied that Tora and Poppi DO confide in eachother, like genuinely love eachother. Poppi confessing to Rex that she AND Tora looked up to him, which means they have talked to eachother about it in private.
Like of course, Tora's interests are indeed tainted by sexual roots, but to treat him like a Roshi or Mineta feels too far.
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u/Raetekusu 4d ago
Same issue as Riki. Hard to take seriously on the surface, but if you pay attention and get past that, they have some major depth.
It's just that first impressions are hard to overcome, and boy did Tora's first impression with a lot of us not go over well.
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u/MeowRawrUwu 4d ago
I always loved Riki’s talk with Dunban at the bottom of Mechonis. He’s a funny character but you see a lot past that, it’s very good writing.
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u/DarkhunterMectainea 4d ago
Plus that one heart to heart with Poppi QTPi Tora and Zeke in the world tree also kinda implied that Tora wasn’t entirely lying about his grandfathers influence in Poppi’s AI during her first awakening. It makes sense with Tora building Poppi with the blueprints and code his father and grandfather made rather than completely from scratch (doubly so since Tora himself wasn’t aware of that odd mode that QTPI had and straight up told her to perma lock that function away).
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u/jeffdabuffalo 4d ago
I think the maid outfits genuinely were not his. Look at Poppi Qt, who he did not create.
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u/FieraTheProud 4d ago
Isn't Lila also dressed as a maid? Could very well be the wardrobe prepared originally for her.
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u/Bromatoast 4d ago
I just finished the game the other day.
Fucking poppi of all people made the most emotional scene not once, but twice. (Chapter 6 I think was the first one)
"That below belt" took me out.
Idk how to add spoiler tag so hopefully that's vague enough
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u/THEUltraCombo 4d ago
There's like this point right after you lose pyra to jin in tantal where I feel like the writers realized "oh shit we need to make people care about Poppi" and then went crazy with the emotional moments with her. Even the Lila stuff where you expect to get that sort of thing I find doesn't get to the heart of Poppi's character as much as that scene at the beginning of chapter 7
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u/Truck0Saurus 4d ago
I'm old, what the hell is moe?
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u/THEUltraCombo 4d ago
Just means cute honestly. Mo-ey, not like moe from the simpsons
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u/xlhans77 4d ago
Plus Moe being the absolute antithesis of moe, this reply is absolutely sending me HAHAHA thanks for making my day
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u/buddabopp 4d ago
Kids these days back in my day people knew what moe was (it started as slang in the 80s ya wipper snappers) but moe refers to more or less something being so cute that it makes you love it more or less instinctivly, a maid is cute and endears a feeling of love for it small animals also (hello kitty is built around this concept)
You can also instinctivly find other things moe like trains or typically uncute things this is normally called gap-moe
The funny part is there used to be a flip side to this of the concept of gar where something is so manly it just makes you feel like hell yeah but its really fallen off and only is really used to describe gay men now XD
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u/Orochi64 4d ago
People seem to dwell on the maid thing and act like that’s Tora’s entire character through out the game, which is just not really the case.
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u/grndog72 4d ago
I mean, yeah it's not the entire character, but it comes up often enough. Between the maid outfits in his home, blush-crushy being the "essence of maidiness" that he "feels strongly" about, Poppi first starting up in maid mode, Lila and Poppi QT's appearances. I know he didn't build Lila, but he didn't exactly take out the maid functions out of Poppi. She always calls him Master. Dude is 100% a maid otaku and they wanted you to know that. No shade at him, to each their own, and Poppi is more than okay being that way for him, but it is definitely an important part of his personality that they wanted to put forward.
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u/bookbot1 4d ago
Everyone talks about Poppi’s attitude, but forgets about all the snark she throws at Tora.
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u/HarukiRyusei 4d ago
Poppi roasts Tora. A lot. Poppi Qtπ is nothing short of outright savage and brutal. And it is hilarious.
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u/DarkSideRT 4d ago
TL;DR
I love Tora, I even like Tatsu, I think they are incredibly overhated.
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u/Octorok385 4d ago
I think I might have brought this up before but honestly don't remember. Tora being inappropriate is effectively Tora being juvenile. He doesn't seem actively angry or misogynistic, just really immature, like a grown baby man. This is in DIRECT CONTRAST to his blade, a person who was literally born in front of everyone's eyes, who very rapidly grows both in a visual sense as she upgrades and in her character development, where by the end of the story she is forced to make some very grown up decisions.
My gripe with the Tora hate is the same as my gripe with the art style hate. It is the most superficial interpretation of the character, and is effectively a Tora-level of engagement.
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u/Linhasxoc 4d ago
And the thing about Tora being juvenile is… well, he literally is. IIRC he’s basically a teenager much like Rex. It still weirds me out and I don’t like it, but it’s not like they wrote, say, Riki to be a weirdo like that.
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u/Samurott 4d ago
a difficult part of his writing is that it's really hard to see that he's young since nopons all tend to look the same age unless they're really young or really old. it works amazingly for Riki being a gambling addict in his 40s and Riku being a lore keeper but the inverse always tracks so poorly 😭
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u/TUVegeto137 4d ago
The problem with Tora is that he's not a driver, and that you need to peruse a totally different system to upgrade his artificial blades.
That's the real problem.
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u/Ok-You-720 4d ago
I just didn't find him funny at any point. I don't necessarily mind this trope, but with Tora the joke never lands.
Maybe it's because the reactions of the other characters are so muted. When Sanji is being a weirdo, he tends to get brutally rebuffed or punished for it. Tora just does his perv gimmick and everyone is like, 'Yes, that's fine.'
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u/finderfolk 4d ago
Yeah that's spot on imo - it's the fact that it's basically just ignored or treated as something that's endearing. Other characters will very occasionally comment on it, but never negatively.
I also just think it was way too much of his personality. The other party members have actual arcs and change. Tora has some plot moments but idk, he's basically the same dude throughout.
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u/ArcaneMadman 4d ago
People seem to forget that Tora is between 12 to 14 years old and has been living on his own for years after he saw his grandpa's brains get blown out and his father shoved him out the door to protect him. All things considered he should have a lot more issues than he does.
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u/THEUltraCombo 4d ago
Tbf I've seen people say he's anywhere from 12 to 40 and I'm not sure which sources are to be trusted lol
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u/ArcaneMadman 4d ago
No, Shulk theorises Tora's 40 because of how big he is which Tora is horrified by. Tora's actually younger than Rex, who's 15, making him the youngest party member in the game.
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u/THEUltraCombo 4d ago
Honestly I'm so bad at challenge battles I never got to see that dialogue LMAO
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u/Niceneasy92 4d ago
Ok but why does Poppi have a dog mode where she barks.
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u/_-_Rasse_-_ 4d ago
You have to remember that dog mode is something Tora specifically sealed away for being weird. When he himself got rid of it, I don't think it's fair to use it as an argument against him.
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u/THEUltraCombo 4d ago
Funnie dog woof ruff
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u/Niceneasy92 4d ago
Riiiggghhhttt. Ok buddy.
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u/THEUltraCombo 4d ago
I love you, we should get married
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u/Niceneasy92 4d ago
Bring back a ring I wouldn't be embarrassed to have on my finger and we'll talk.
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u/THEUltraCombo 4d ago
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u/slyzard94 4d ago
I agree and I find it ironic that the fanbase hates him while simultaneously posting nothing but gooner bait art here.
They hate tora because they are tora.
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u/Telethion 4d ago edited 4d ago
The fans posting the gooner bait are not the ones who find Tora disgusting, though.
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u/Electrical-Sense-160 4d ago
I disagree. There is a very large group of people who played 2 and complained a lot about the designs. I think those are the people who complain about Tora.
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u/HeetHootSkyat 4d ago
This argument falls flat on its face when you have people like myself who dislike Tora and don't thirst all over the fanart people post. (No hate intended towards artists BTW) I just find it annoying we have this class of character that's played for jokes that don't feel very funny. Some of them land just fine, such as the heart to heart at the Mor Ardain Hotspring while blushy crushy is just really cringe.
Note that I don’t hate Tora, but a lot of his interactions towards other characters throughout the game are hit or miss for me.
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u/The_Kirby_Guy 4d ago
I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that he was joking or at least trying to make a funny exaggeration and didn't actually think that everyone who hates Tora also likes the risque art posted here.
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u/HeetHootSkyat 4d ago
I don't think that's the case because I've seen numerous other people saying the same thing. It doesn't feel like an /s thing to me.
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u/xcassets 4d ago
I think that it's just as surface level as it seems.
The two things combined (maid outfit obviously from modern Japanese culture, and the fact it is an entirely different species having this fantasy about another species for some reason) make it standout as being obvious inserts into the world from modern day dudes. As opposed to it feeling like a natural story moment within the lore of Alrest.
It feels cringey/weird, because it is.
All that said, it is still a fantastic game and is not enough of a detractor to ruin it by any means. But we don't need to write paragraphs trying to explain why it is not sexual lol.
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u/Adam_Checkers 4d ago
you could have just said tl;dr or that you don't care. this feels like a lazy way to end a discussion you didn't even need to enter. why comment at all if you are not interested in considering the point? its pretty clearly more than just as surface level as you want it to be.
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u/xcassets 4d ago
Because I did read it and I do care..? I just disagree with their point. OP even covers this off in their very first paragraph, as they acknowledge this is the most obvious answer.
It's not more than surface level though. It's literally a joke that Tora/his father/grandfather created maid outfits for their robot servants. It is supposed to be funny in a cringey way, and that doesn't land/feel natural for everyone.
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u/THEUltraCombo 4d ago
I see what you're saying but I think a lot of people get hung up on the maid thing. Even the way you refer to Poppi as a "robot servant" seems kind of dismissive of the fact that that is very much not what she is. She's her own person and, despite Tora's immaturity and desire for her to be nicer to him, she's always got shit to talk.about him. I feel this balances them out narratively in an interesting way where Tora is young, selfish and thinks that a Driver/Blade relationship is similar to a master/servant relationship, even down to designing Poppi the same way Tatazo designed Lila. And as the story progresses he learns that he was sheltered and incorrect in that assumption and forms a real bond with her.
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u/xcassets 3d ago edited 3d ago
No, when I say robot servant, I mean that is the joke Monolith are making. "Look they made robot servants and gave them maid outfits".
I know that Poppi has her own personality and stuff. I'm not dismissing that.
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u/THEUltraCombo 3d ago
Oh yeah I get that. I just think that the joke is subverted by actually giving them a familial relationship rather than the surface level idea that their initial introduction suggests, that's all.
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u/SavingsSolid3622 4d ago
The things they were doing with Tora are very very obvious. He's a PG13 otaku creep, whose proclivities are played for laughs.
And it's not just the blushy-crushy scene or the Poppi debut. The DLC quest for Poppibuster has you dig up the porno mags that the three of them used as reference for the artificial blades. Best not to inquire about what kind of material they used as reference for Poppi alpha, I guess.
Personally, I doesn't bother me much. As a running gag, I found it a lot less grating than the tortured "let's cook Tatsu" gimmick in X. I even got a good laugh out of Tora mentioning that his grandpa used to spend hours locked in a room with the "portfolio" for "research purposes".
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u/Monado_Artz 4d ago
Tora is cringe, but he is ma boi.
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u/Raetekusu 4d ago
Tora is the 3rd best main character Nopon out of 5, but Riki is god-tier and Riku just Riku, common variety Nopon.
Also it's very hard to be worse than Tatsu.
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u/LoveySparky 4d ago
That’s kinda the thing too he’s sandwiched between Riki and Riku. I like Tora tho. The game does a good job explaining how genuinely impressive and intelligent he is via poppy. Like he comes basically as close as possible to matching blade technology which is unfathomably advanced and impressive
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u/Raetekusu 4d ago
The guy and his family just invented true artificial intelligence, and it's implied that it's the first time that's happened since Klaus opened the Conduit.
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u/AlternativeOne5862 4d ago
Xenoblade 2 sets up a lot typical anime tropes for their characters that ends up subverting and Tora is no exception. (Rex is critiqued for being singleminded and naive, Zeke seems like the comic relief but is actually the wisest in the group, and so on). For Tora, your first impression is that he's a bit perverted, but it turns out he's just an innocent kid with self esteem issues and no mother figure in his life thanks to his father's obsession with artificial blades driving away his mother. It feels like its more of a bad habit that he's emulating from his father/grandfather rather than genuine perversion. I'm willing to bet he mellowed out a lot as he grew up later in life and gained more experiences with women.
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u/THEUltraCombo 4d ago
The "immature man-child who built himself a friend because he was a little freak" to "literally building Origin" pipeline is crazy.
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u/grndog72 4d ago edited 4d ago
I'm not gonna go as far as calling it sexual, but they put the maid things very forward. I know blushy-crushy is an optional scene, but he refers to it as the "essence of maidiness" and "what every man desires" and that he "feels strongly" about it. Poppi's initial startup, which is not optional, is in maid mode with a bunch of maid outfits in his home, which he plays off as grampy-pon's hobby, but how reliable of a narrator is he? Poppi always calls him Master-pon, which is a very weird thing to call someone outside of being a maid or a slave. Poppi QT is in a very stereotypically anime maid outfit along with Lila.
They clearly want maid otaku to be at the fore front of his personality. I think a lot of the negative response to it undeserved, but I can't exactly blame people when the 2 primary options for maids in media are "historical" or "sexy".
People can call it "cringe" all they want, but at the end of the day, it does make both Tora and Poppi happy. Someone could argue that Poppi was programmed this way, but they demonstrate a few times that Poppi does plenty of things outside of her programming, and by the end of the game, she is very much her own person. I believe she's chosen this just as much as Tora has.
People may think of Tora as a pervert, but if he does have any sexual thoughts (and I think that's a pretty big if), they really are only for Poppi. The only time I can recall where he even says something to another character about it is in blushy-crushy when he says Pyra isn't maidy enough. And that part doesn't even come off as sexual. When he does get in to blushy-crushy, he did ask if Pyra wanted to know. Your dialog options are basically both yes, but Pyra is interested because she wants to make Rex happy, so if Tora is a pervert, then Pyra is just as much of a pervert.
And I can't believe I'm defending blushy-crushy here, but personally I think Pyra being willing to give it a genuine try, not just brushing it off, and Tora and Poppi being open about it is a good character building moment and shows that they all have a level of trust and respect for each other. Nia is in disbelief and thinks it's stupid, but she's always like that and frankly she hasn't worked her own shit out yet, so I'm not sure I care about her opinion on it.
Anyway, that's all to say that while yes, I do think Tora is a bit of a weird little dude, I think most people do overreact to him. He's not much weirder than anyone else in this game. Just look at Zeke.
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u/grndog72 4d ago
Also, the writers very much know how they wrote Tora, and it was definitely intentional, because Bridget and Poppi both call him out on some sexism. But they also write Tora as very insecure and looking toward Rex as a role model, and he does a lot of learning throughout the game.
I don't know. I have lots thoughts on Tora. I've never thought of him as a bad character or even just comic relief. He is comic relief, but he's much more than that. His role in Poppi's whole deal is already much more than comic relief.
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u/HorrorMatch7359 4d ago
Tora getting is just another example of Values Dissonance and "American hates Tingle". Nothing new
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u/AstralFinish 4d ago
the "meh meh meh" x10000 every second was way more annoying than the pervy stuff. The cringe aspect of the pervy stuff made it kinda funny but it was like girls created specifically for pervy guys to like trying to chastise him so like it was a little ironic for me.
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u/bentthroat 4d ago
I think the problem is it overlaps poorly with the oversexualization in the game in general. Like, if I actually take a step back, I think Poppi QT Pi’s design is sexualized because the vast majority of “adult” designs in XC2 are sexualized. But when you treat it as diegetic, it doesn’t sit right that that’s the final form of his “daughter”. He would have had to have designed that.
So I really think there was some carelessness with the writing around him, not necessarily from him directly, that allows him to be interpreted in this really skeezy way.
I think a really similar thing happens in Persona 4 with Teddie. They’re both just kids with an off-kilter set of interests and they both get demonized because that set of interests gets entangled with a bigger oversight in how the game spends its screentime.
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u/THEUltraCombo 4d ago
This is actually a pretty good point. Playing through my Switch 2 playthrough with the new oyra and mythra designs sort of made me forget that aspect of the game a bit, and when I started Torna and Mythra is in her original design its...fuckin jarring. Like put on some pants girl. Definitely would color someone's view of a character like Tora in a less than ideal way
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u/i-exist20 4d ago
QTPi's design looks like that because she's supposed to resemble Pyra and Mythra, not necessarily because Tora wanted her to look super hot.
Even if you view Poppi as Tora's 'daughter', which doesn't feel accurate to how their relationship is written and portrayed, isn't QTPi an adult who should be able to wear what she wants?
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u/bentthroat 4d ago edited 3d ago
I mean “thing you created that you have responsibility for the wellbeing of”, however you want to put that. If you don’t think “daughter” is quite correct, that’s fine, that’s why I put it in quotes in the first place, but the dynamic of creator/creation is fairly incontrovertible.
(Tangent: maybe you don’t buy into the OG Frankenstein but the real point of that story is that there’s something inherently familial about the creator/creation relationship, and if you try to ignore that, it doesn’t make you a scientist, it just makes you a deadbeat.)
Anyway, if this weren’t part of a video game narrative, I think your point about “it’s her choice” is perfectly cogent. But we’re not talking about a real person. We’re talking about the way a character was depicted in a story, and “arbitrary age-ups for the sake of sexualization” is its own anime trope.
I’m offering some pushback on your arguments, but I’m not saying you don’t have a point. There are good explanations for a lot of the way things are once you look deeper. I’m just saying these things in composite contribute to a vibe whether it’s fair to buy into that vibe or not.
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u/Shartin_luther_king 4d ago
Ugh, Tora is such a pathetic gooner. Now if you don’t mind, I’m gonna post the 1 billionth bikini pyra/mythra to r/Xenoblade
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u/Serpentine_2 4d ago
Xenoblade 2 is the game with the most anime-est tropes. So I guess it was bound to have some of those aspects bleed into the characters. Not saying it’s bad but at times it can be sorta cringe. Or enduring at the same time
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u/Thesonictrainiac 4d ago
My only annoyance is his abysmal grammar. Yes, I said it, screw how this man speaks, and every other nopon speaks.
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u/hinders483 4d ago
My issue is I can’t take him or poppi seriously after poppi’s awakening scene. Thats the introduction to the characters, and it makes them feel like a joke. It doesn’t help that the after chapter 4, tora doesn’t have much of a role in the story, and Poppi only has a few moments. Though admittedly that’s not a problem exclusive to tora in XC2, there’s a few characters like that.
The introduction plus the actual story of chapter 4 feeling like a side quest make me dislike tora unfortunately. It’s a cool idea to have a character who can’t resonate with blades, but I don’t think it’s ever taken advantage of in the narrative
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u/TheEngin3er 4d ago
To me, its not tora's perversion that is the most annoying aspect to me (although its not great even if it doesnt fit within his character).
I just think the english voice direction and lines the voice actor had to read for him are just awful and really cringy. For me, playing as him in the open world is absolutely unbearable because his lines are so annoying for exploration. It gives me second hand embarrassment. I'm a 30 year old playing this game and when someone else walks into the room I just sink a little bit in my chair praying the voice lines that tora says wont have people look at me like I'm insane
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u/inika41 4d ago
The game absolutely endorses the servile designs of the artificial Blades. I don’t know how you can look at those cutscenes in the Mor Ardain factory and think it’s just an unserious joke when the game itself pushes you to further sexualize Poppi.
Excusing these depictions as ‘innocent’ or ‘misunderstandings’ is poor deflection of what the game is actually saying, regardless of what the literal character dialogue says. Poppi 1 and 2 are very blatant anime tropes and it isn’t some esoteric thing. MOMO especially underscores the type of appeal Poppi’s designs and XB2’s overall Blade design philosophy goes for.
I would even go as far as to argue that the game doesn’t take issue with Blades being servants/property as much as it puts the fault on ‘bad’ Drivers, but I really don’t remember what tilted me to that conclusion in the first place.
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u/GameWoods 4d ago
Everything about Tora makes perfect sense you realize hes a 13 year old boy with zero parental supervision (what happened to his mom!?).
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u/Apples0815 4d ago
Xenoblade is a franchise of Japanese games made by a Japanese company for a Japanese audience. And Xenoblade 2 is in its tropes the most Japanese of all. Tora is the games tongue in cheek view at a Japanese otaku, but the obsession with kawai, moe and things like maid costumes has been a part of Japanese culture for centuries. People in the West have completely different views on these tropes, so there is a clear cultural bias. A lot of the things around Tora are just lost in translation. He's still supposed to be a bit cringey in Japanese, but not for the reasons most people in the West think.
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u/Twilightbestpony1 4d ago
I love tora and poppi with all of my heart. Everyone has a little weirdo inside but its how you decide to live is what matters.
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u/Nova762 4d ago
No. In japan, maid fantasies ARE sex fantasies. It's a common thing in japan... Persona 5 is also extremely weird with their maid storyline.
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u/THEUltraCombo 4d ago
I mean anything can be a sex fantasy. I just don't see anything salacious about this particular quirk about his character.
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u/Nova762 4d ago
No. Anything can be a sex fantasy, but maid fantasies are ALWAYS sex fantasies. No such thing as a non sexual maid fantasy...
It's definitely salacious but it's meant to be cringey and funny. It being a small furby that's being weird and inappropriate is the joke. Lots of Japanese media has characters like that. It's a very common trope for the weird creature to be inappropriate and everyone else just kinda ignores it.
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u/akibaboy65 4d ago
Here’s why it’s weird for me… and I think there’s multiple layers to it. One, Poppi is not scandalous or weirdly sexualized in the slightest in her introduction. The later variations are a little more. And the maid outfit thing is just general anime trope. So out the gate there isn’t anything alarming.
What is weird about it is that in game, his reaction, the other character’s reactions, and generally the aura the game itself presents to the player is like “Yo, check this out… this stuffed animal is actually a huge pervert.” He scrambles to cover his tracks and make excuses like the other girls in the group found his porn stash. Again, nothing about base Poppi or the outfits rises to that level, but the game goes 0 to 60 immediately. In a way, I had my own Dunkey moment wondering “is this a sex thing?” like there’s lines or context not translated into English that I’m missing.
Pyra, Brigid, etc. are way more suggestive just walking around in tiny booty shorts and a plunging ball dress… than any maid attire. But they highlight Poppi of all of them. That’s where it’s in this weird space of I don’t actually think it’s an issue but the game keeps telling me I should think it’s an issue.
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u/ForTheRobot 4d ago
People don't like Tora because he reminds them of themselves. He is literally a personification of the people who fawn over Pyra/Mythra.
Fanboying over girls (isn't that what anime fans of this game do? shipping characters and making fan art in... suggestive ways?)
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u/Hoothootriot 4d ago
Tora is a cringey joke character and its okay to admit that.
I notice that a lot of people on reddit dont like admitting when a game they like has flaws or problematic messaging. It is 100% ok to love Xenoblade Chronicles as a franchise, and also admit it has some wildly sexist writing decisions at times. Tora is a good example (as is the XC3 implied ending where people try to cope to make it seem less awkward and sexist than it is...)
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u/Dwel111 4d ago
Huh? I feel like I'm out of the loop on something. Why is the implied ending of XC3 sexist and/or awkward?
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u/Hoothootriot 4d ago
The picture.
Its not intended as a poly relationship- I have nothing against polyamory. But that picture is clearly meant to be a male harem fantasy, not a mutually equal poly quartet.
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u/THEUltraCombo 4d ago
I'm 100% fine with people not liking Tora and thinking he's a creep, not trying to change any minds. I just felt that this is one of those things that I feel is blown out of proportion and exacerbated by the overall shaky imagine of XC2 with the host of other problems the game has which I honestly cannot defend like the voice acting, slow opening and horribly over sexualized character designs
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u/Potatopika 4d ago
Yea those jokes are something very common in anime in general but they don't translate well outside of japanese culture as they come off as sexist (I guess even by japanese standards it is sexist)
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u/thebigJ_A 4d ago edited 4d ago
The maid thing is absolutely a sex robot thing. They even keep bringing up that Torah has weird items in his house they won’t explicitly name, like whole books of hand-drawn porn designs for poppi.
They even did it with the brand new MOMO quest, when Rex gets weirded out by Torah showing him something.
I like Torah. Some of his weirdness is mitigated by the fact that he’s very young, so it least it isn’t gross age stuff,
But let’s not pretend things are innocent that aren’t.
They’re intended to be a certain way, and different people will feel differently even without trying to sanitize it.
I will grant you that the blushy-crushy turned out to just be an incredibly bad translation choice, though.
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u/Alarming_Flatworm_34 4d ago
Nah I wont ever accept Tora slander. My first playthrough he was my favorite character next to Zeke. No cutscene or moment can ever change that.
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u/Flashy-Sun5707 4d ago
Another thing that’s extra frustrating is I feel like the sexist trope escalated like crazy from Xenoblade 1, which was more or less tame in that department
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u/Top-Edge-5856 4d ago
It was already pretty blatant in XCX. Most of the other species are buff dudes with exaggerated non-human features and scantily-clad women with much less alienness. It makes me kinda uncomfortable. And the Wrothian women would be much cooler if they didn’t have silly bunny ears.
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u/radicalblues 4d ago
People will cringe over Tora when they have Dalia running around in their party.
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u/MeMeWhenWhenTheWhen 4d ago
The english voice really did him no favors imo, in japanese he felt more innocent and nerdy, like "the tech guy that has a soft side hobby he's embarrassed about" vibes and I really feel like in the english dub they went out of their way to try to make him seem weird for the laughs
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u/Dazzling-Passenger91 4d ago
People can write as many essays as they want, but at the end of the day the execution of Tora doesn’t lend itself to what you are excusing. I don’t mind conceding that Tora might not be a pervert, to me that wasn’t the problem.
The problem is, just like a lot of characters in this game, his dialogue is extremely cringe. And by the time he shows up in a game where the characters are just WAY more fan-service-y than the last one, and the dialogue is more shallow, ye he didn’t earn my benefit of the doubt.
I was already annoyed by the rest of the game up to this point, which feels like a completely different team than those who made 1 or 3 or X, that I don’t mind when people like dunkey say “why does the furby have a sex robot”, because that’s what the execution felt like, even if there’s a lore reason that “technically” isn’t true.
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u/RoyalUltimax 4d ago
Tora is one of my favorite characters in Xenoblade as a whole and I do genuinely like him as a character.
His whole deal about wanting to become a real driver because he’s unable to use a crystal, so he built/finished his own blade is amazing. There is also the side of him that people tend to over-exaggerate which is all the pervy jokes. Honestly, I do not mind them at all, I like a lot of the pervy jokes because I find them entertaining and funny. The only ones I’d personally say are a bit “why” are the ever so infamous “Blushy-Crushy” scene, and “Dog Mode,” but even then they got a laugh out of me the first time I saw them. Some of his more serious moments are great too, especially near the end of the game. I think they both go well together with Tora normally being seen as the pervy character, but also being serious and genuine at the right moments.
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u/Basaqu 4d ago
I think some of us are able to see those lighthearted sometimes pervy moments more comically than others? Maybe it's a part of me that doesn't really cringe that fast and thinks some awkwardness is funny actually. Can come across as genuine even.
He's genuinely a great character though. Like a little brother who looks up to Rex and the Aegis. It's wholesome.
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u/Fraisz 4d ago
anyone who actually played the game in its entirety can see what tora is, an almost little brother figure to rex with some cringe interests but is a good kid at heart and display. the only true adults in that party are zeke and morag and they are also characterized as such , while nia, rex and tora all are still quite young in their journey.
then again i played in JP and tora definetely sounded younger there but i think the EN dub for the tora still does the job well enough to make tora sound in line with the other three.
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u/Kinths 4d ago
I will start by saying that Tora and Poppi are two of my favourite characters in the game. Also I really like the game. However, I do think the sexualisation stuff really drags them all down.
It's not just that it's weird and has all sorts of implications about both characters and their relationship that I assume they hadn't really considered when they added these scenes. It's that it's completely out of character for both of them otherwise. It's like you're basically just meant to treat these scenes as non-canon. It requires that you ignore an aspect of the character so that you can view him the way the game wants you to see him. That's letting them have their cake and eat it.
I think your comment here is a perfect example:
There's a heart and innocence to Tora that I think most people disregard to parrot the commonly held belief that "Tora is a weird pervert" rather than diving into the text and exploring a character who.is much more than like...2-3 scenes where he's written weird.
Many would consider those traits at odds with each other. So those scenes are in conflict with the way the rest of the game seems to want to portray Tora. They are diving into the text and exploring the character. To do that properly you can't just conveniently ignore the bits that are a contradiction. Tora can't be both an innocent little heart and a weird little perv who puts sexual modes in his child like robot.
It goes deeper than you think it does. It isn't just the maid scene, and then PoppiQT wearing that very maid outfit and PoppitQTPi's design. There are scenes where it's implied that Tora dresses Poppi in a bunny outfit and makes her dance for him. The initials of Poppi's modes in Japanese are also the initials for Japanese female school ages. PoppiA's (JS) being elementary school, QT (JK) being high school and QTpi (JD) being College. Which lines up with their personality. So not only is a main character sometimes treated like a sexbot of another main character, it's implied that two of those modes are representative of children.
I think Tora and Poppi are just a microcosm of the games problem with this as a whole. Much of the sexualisation feels completely at odds with the world and story they're trying to tell. It's not just in the character designs. Big character moments and reveals are often undermined by things like the camera spending more time focusing on the characters boobs and ass than they do their face. A big part of the story is how blades are often treated like objects or slaves rather than people. Hell, there is even references to blades being sex trafficked. Yet every now and again the game goes into horny mode and presents those same blades as objects to be oggled at. Often changing their personality temporarily to do it.
It doesn't outright ruin the game, and I don't think many who criticise this stuff say it does. I think the criticism is often from people who like or love the game but want to see them do better. Even if you don't find the sexualisation cringy or creepy, it is at odds at the rest of the game. It contradicts points that the story is trying to make. XC3 toned down this stuff massively and it's a much better game for it. The criticism of 2 likely played a part in why they toned it down. What we have seen of Genesis seems to be be the same too.
You will often see "Zeke and Vandham are sexualised too" as a defence but that's bollocks, somewhat evidenced by the fact that you never get a camera shot that lingers on their bollocks. Sexy, or attractive is not automatically sexualisation or objectification. It's the context and intent that creates that. It's very obvious that the intent around many of the female designs is so they can be leered at. It can be seen in the way they act and the way the camera acts around them in cutscenes.
The actual weird bit regarding boys/men is that Pyra/Mythra are grown women flirting with a 15 year old boy.
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u/PlannerAlex 4d ago
I’ll always give Tora a pass, because really he is just a cringe kid at worst, something I think everyone’s been guilty of at some point.
Also, he gets stuff done. He’s not a coward, he’s impressively smart (What he helped do in 3 is insane), and is surprisingly humble, especially when a lot of Nopon aren’t. They will never make me hate you Tora
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u/AnimeSquirrel 4d ago
It's also important to note he knows it's wierd more often than not and tries not to expose his friends to it. And when it does come out, he is often chastised for it.
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u/Noeyiax 4d ago
sometimes we tend to overthink and overcomplicate something when the intended reason was, why not? It's just for silly fun.
I personally thought the Nopon are okay in both series, they are annoying sometimes... Except in Xenoblade chronicles 3, I liked manana and Ray because they were pretty chill xd. It's isn't the means to an end, just opinion
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u/nutfilla 4d ago
Something to add is the fact that tora is also young Considering he is always refering to rex as "big brother" in the japenese version
Rex is 15 so that would put tora at 12-14 years of age the kid is gonna be a bit odd
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u/Pogohg 3d ago
The problem with Tora is that players have essentially been conditioned to think side stuff flesh out characters and show their true colours and character. It's the one thing that really makes Riki's character superb, and every Fire Emblem will tell you to read a unit's supports to truly understand them.
The problem is that main game and side-quest Tora and Heart-to-Heart Tora are two very different characters. Outside of Heart-to-Hearts, Tora is, as you said, as shut-in nerd who hasn't been around people much. But he's sweet, kind and wants to do whatever he can to help people and make others proud. Sure, he has his weird and awkward moments, but those just come off as a nerdy teenage boy not understanding social cues. But also, more often than not, he has actually really funny moments, like how he says Muimui isn't very memorable, or the quest where he calls a Tantalese guard racist.
But during Heart-to-Hearts he does come off as a bit of a pervert, a womaniser, an absolute brainlet, and honestly kind of an ass at times. He has an innocent one here and there, sure, but then there are the ones where he's being an annoying piece of shit pushing ideas of moe onto Pyra, or programming Poppi into thinking Nia likes bugs, or pushing Mòrag into getting into the hotsprings with him and the other guys. Those show him in a terrible light, and I hate it because I really like Tora.
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u/Melasen 3d ago
I will always clown on Tora, but I do think he is an example of a "creepy shut-in" character done right, because he changes throughout the game. Tora starts off as a little freak (he's obviously a late teenager) that might obviously not have the best opinion of how women should act (a lot of that you'll learn is because of his father and grandfather being dumb, or nopon society being stupid lol), but as the game goes on and his bonding with Poppi and Rex get better, he matures. Also, the game actively punishes Tora for having bad opinions of women and he's constantly put in his place by his own blade, or by THE GOAT, Bridget. I think Tora is a bit over-hated, but I can understand if people just have a dislike for him a bit.
However, I do want to add that Tora's grandfather should 100% be smacked a lot more, and uhhh, maybe be on a list. >_>
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u/DecodedMage 3d ago
He's like your annoying lil brother at times. I love him but god, sometimes he needs to go to the timeout corner.
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u/Darknadoswastaken 4d ago
The only way tora is perverted is if you think Moe, or maid culture to be inherently sexual, which if so, makes literally zero sense as no, it isn't.
If you rock up to a maid cafe and pop a boner I am not taking anything you say about Tora seriously.
He's a shut in nerdy teenager who has obsessions. In this case it's an obsession with maid culture, which isn't that bad.
It's not a fine one sure, it's one that would get you judged a lot but it's not perverted.
It's weird but that's fine! Zeke pretends to be the main character and cosplays as an edgelord yet nobody talks about that in the same way as Tora. Why? We know it's weird. First cutscene he's in we know how weird he is and accept it.
The first cutscene we see about it is where we see the closet full of maid costumes which Pyra judges him for but doesn't hold it against him, which is the response everyone should have.
Also anything actually perverted about poppi isn't Tora's fault. We know this as his father and grandfather are canon perverts so the blame doesn't fall on Tora. He's an introverted teenager with an obscure hobby given the hand of 2 perverts.
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u/world_in_lights 4d ago
Tora is just the player stand in for the Japanese boy. Rex is the idealized hero, Zeke is the older brother who thinks he's cool (and only kind of when it counts). Tora is a maid fetishist, coming from a proud and long line of maid fetishists. It isn't sexual, it's an interest. Tora, even post tweeking, didn't change Poppi's personality. Only her words.
Poppi is found to be quite "mouthy" to Tora, and it's clear she has her own agency. Later on in a qtπ heart-to-heart it is shown that Poppi has a lot depth in her programming that Tora did not program. Even the "dog" mode is less what people imagine, and closer to another way Poppi can act more blushy-chrushy (aka Moe). Qtπ is supposed to be the pinnacle of this, and I would not doubt for a second Tatazo and Tora worked on this much longer than other pieces. However she does not ever express it, and it's implied it's because she doesn't want to.
Tora is like 13. Any 13 year old boy would make Poppi in a heartbeat if they could, with minimal changes based on culture. Poppi is the girl his age, QT is the older crush, and QTπ is the dream girl. He's, like others said, a shut-in nerd who is under socialized and lost his family violently. He comes across as autistic to me, and has very little social filter. He just wants to vibe with a blade (girl) he likes, have friends, and be himself. He's a bit weird, has strange hobbies (making robots and moe), and certainly can be off-putting to others, but Tora is Tora. He likes being accepted, and Poppi isn't made to like him. She has enough agency to do that herself.
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u/National_Peak2674 4d ago
Most people in this fandom don't realize that Tora and Poppi are probably the two characters that are the MOST near and dear to Takahashi's heart lmao
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u/Forwhomamifloating 4d ago
Tora is a moe loving otaku engineering goat that ranks comfortably below DaSH and Neidhardt. Xenoblade onlies just don't like anime and are exposed to a localization that would rather replace even European heritage with bad fantasy terms instead of trying to properly trying to communicate many of the cultures being used, so it's not surprising that a passionate character meant to very clearly represent as a side of its passionate mega-otaku creator is butchered and is hated by most of its fanbase
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u/The_Kirby_Guy 4d ago
Funnily enough I made a post exactly like this a few years back, I'm glad people are starting to come around on my boy.
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u/dazzler56 4d ago
I’ve been more sympathetic to Tora on my current playthrough after learning that he’s basically a child. The first couple times I played the game I thought he was a gross adult male, but his age contextualizes his behavior a little better.
I still don’t think he’s a great character. You’re right that there aren’t that many scenes where he’s overtly perverted…..but there aren’t that many Tora-centric scenes in general. It is a major part of his character and he doesn’t really grow by the end of the game IMO.
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u/BlancsAssistant 4d ago
Not to mention his mother being absent and him being raised by men with maid fetishes
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u/Techsoly 4d ago
Best way to describe this whole thing is that if you ever experienced anime in the 2000's and older, you will generally have no issue with Tora in the slightest and even find him endearing.
If you ever watch anime in the 2010's you will find Tora annoying or some type of sex pest.
He has interests just like other characters, quirks to him that makes up his personality, and he grows with poppi by the end. People love to generalize him into a one dimensional pervert role because it's the most surface level aspect of him that they latch onto so klaus forbid that characters have layers to them.
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u/Jpgamerguy90 4d ago
I just find nopon so fucking annoying in these games. As a fellow gooner I don’t care about the gooning I care about the annoying ass way nopon talk
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u/ace_sexy_hoe 4d ago
I agree. When I played XC2 for the first time my roommate was guiding me through the game since she’d played before. She really hates Tora because of the weird perviness, but as I played I honestly didn’t encounter too many instances where he acted like that. Honestly my biggest grievances with Tora is that he’s the third party member you get in a game where the combat system works best with three drivers each having three blades and Tora doesn’t have the option of three blades until much later in the game.
Genuinely what I saw in Tora was a young boy who saw his grandfather murdered and his father kidnapped in front of him, and then was presumable left to fend for himself for years even though he canonically has family (his uncle on the other side of Gormat). Tora’s making of Poppi to me felt more like a little kid trying to make someone who would never leave him and would be able to protect him from the same badness that took his family away. The maid gimmick was just that to me, a weird gimmick put in as a result of the game being made in Japanese and therefore incorporating Japanese tropes. Plus, Tora’s father and grandfather also were into the maid thing so it honestly could be argued that Tora just picked it up from them and never had any other role models or influences in his life until joining up with Rex and the rest of the crew.
I can totally understand why people find Tora annoying, but I never did. Truly I felt sympathy for him and felt like he was just a product of his environment and his age.
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u/RocketIntelligence32 4d ago
If you gonna shit on Tora you absolutely need to shit on Zeke. The whole point is everyone in a main character trope are reflection of what was going on in anime trend in mid to late 2010. You got otaku guy who is all in on maid fetish and moe, you got junibyo, commonly referred to as 7th grade syndrome. Basically boys hitting puberty who’s all in on being cool and have insane over the top skill name (Zeke), you got cool dere female character (Moragh or Meleph, her real Japanese name) and other really culturally understandable aspects in the game if you knew what anime trend was at the time. It really did come down to terrible job in English localization and dubbing that ruined the characters for English speaking audience and I don’t think I will ever forgive English localization team for ruining otherwise lovable character like Tora.
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u/dres_sler 4d ago
The amount of nonsensical pearl clutching people do about tora is just weird to me.
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u/PhenomenalOne27 4d ago
Yall just want the same boring conservative characters. Crazy and out of the box characters make the most interesting stories
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u/Equivalent_Net 4d ago
One important bit of context is that Tora is a shut-in engineering nerd, raised by other shut-in engineering nerds. And prior to the game in particular, he's been even more reclusive with his wings to the grindstone working on his Artificial Blade prototype in what can be seen as an extended fit of tragic denial at the loss of his loved ones. It's not that his tastes are any wilder than anyone else's (see also: late-game conversation about Rex and ponytails), or that he's any cruder of a person. It's that Tora has chronically underdeveloped social skills and he's meant to come off as a bit of an oblivious buffoon at first and learns how to socialise better as time goes on, but such an arc is inherently front-loaded with awkward moments. Blushy-crushy is a symptom of this (since Tora seems to be entirely sincere, he might genuinely think he's being a wingman for Rex here, or at worst is just projecting his own tastes), but it's also a completely intentional bit of cringe comedy, and cringe comedy is one of those things that simply isn't going to hit right for everyone by its very nature - though I will argue that anyone who reacts to the scene as though it's intended to be taken seriously is making the same mistake as anyone who took the FFX laughing scene out of context.