What's the deal with the blue "robins" in gacha games? | Hacker News Reader

What's the deal with the blue "robins" in gacha games?

jgeekstudies.org

31 pointszdw11 comments

Like Chinoiserie in the 18th century, with this cultural borrowing — in this case, of a bird found across most of Europe — the designers using these symbols are not engaged in, or particularly renowned for, presenting an accurate portrayal. These design elements are used to invoke a certain otherness (in this case Englishness, presumably) for an audience comprised of only a tiny minority of ornithologists. That is, the mostly Japanese audience likes the striking blue bird and the word 'robin', and wouldn't know a European robin if it landed right in front of them — the only reason I do, as someone who knows nothing of most birds, is that they visit my garden in Europe.

The illustrator likely just found that the blue bird just looked better in their sketches.

I would reckon most people in Europe could recognize a robin based on Christmas cards alone.

There are multiple levels of cultural borrowing here, as Honkai is a Chinese game heavily borrowing Japanese ACG aesthetics (so the target audience is mostly not Japanese, but rather Chinese and other foreigners who like that look).

And just like the blue robin, the name "Honkai" is not exactly Japanese: 崩壊 would be transliterated "houkai"; the "n" might be an attempt to make it more similar to the Chinese pronunciation "bēnghuài".

Ah indeed. I thought both games mentioned where Japanese; only the latter example (Fate/Grand Order) is.

I was going to argue that you don't need to be an ornithologist to know a robin, at least in the US where they seem to be 1 out if every 3 birds you see here. But I just asked 3 people around me what a robin looks like and no one knew... I guess even if you're surrounded by something you still have to have the curiosity to look up what it's called.

Being in Southern Ontario, thinking back as to why I know what a robin is, it's as a child talking with my mother while she's pulling out of the driveway & I'm wondering about the birds that hop everywhere. If my parents didn't know some bird types I wouldn't've picked it up

Meanwhile I wasn't so confident about sparrows, they're less distinctive so weren't discussed. & similarly I didn't show interest in flowers so the other day I wasn't able to name hydragenias

I wonder if there could be different cultural associations at play with the FGO robin. I associate Robin Hood with woodsiness and therefore with colors like browns and greens. So a bright blue bird looks out of place to me while a mostly brown robin would not. Perhaps there is something cultural that blue might seem like less of an odd choice to someone from Japanese culture?

There is actually a blue/green language quirk in Japanese and they even have blue traffic lights because of this

(UK here) Several native UK birds - e.g. Blue Tits - have blue elements but I don't think we have any wholly blue birds, so yes, an entirely blue bird to me immediately seems exotic, and definitely not a robin. Because we have juvenile Robins in our garden I am quite used to seeing Robins that don't have the classic red breast (they acquire this permanently in their first main moult) and I can now recognise Robins from their behaviours as well as their colouration.

I agree with you that Robin Hood would have 'woodsiness' colours but until I read your comment I wouldn't have thought of comparing Robin (the bird) with Robin Hood (medieval outlaw).

For some context, FGO Robin Hood (he actually hails from Fate/Extra) is not actually the Robin Hood. He's actually "a" Robin Hood, a random bloke out of many more "honorable thieves".

FGO is good civilization.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com