Play Online No.023 (May 2000)

5 hours ago, Areala said:

Hey! You! Stop slandering my waifu.

No no no, I wasn't casting aspersions in the inimitable Ms. Croft - it was simply a slip of the tongue referring to the way, during the late 90s and early 00s, mags with her on the cover spread like a burning sensation across the newsstands of the world outside of Japan.  ...dammit...wildfire.   Meant to say spread like wildfire.

Keep a lookout for her first (only?) full-sized Japanese cover appearance, coming soon.

I guess if your magazines are already remarkably horny compared to the west, Lara Croft wasn't that much of a novelty.

15 minutes ago, JimJam78 said:

I guess if your magazines are already remarkably horny compared to the west, Lara Croft wasn't that much of a novelty.

*(covers Areala's ears)*

They just don't find her character design attractive.  For the most part, Japan has a monogamous love of the anime style.  It's hard to get them interested in anything else, but one aesthetic they like in real life is something they call a "small face."  The entire point of Japanese girls flashing those peace signs where they hold their fingers right up to their face is that by obscuring part of their face, they make it appear smaller, and thus more attractive.

Classic design Lara has many things, but a small face is not one of them.  You're right about one thing, though.  In the West there seemed to be a lot of attention paid to parts of her body other than her face, but in Japan, that alone wouldn't be enough to make a game character stand out from the pack.

I'm not sure how well the games themselves were received, but as a pop culture icon, she was definitely a bit of a dud in Japan.