Discussion: Venti (Genshin Impact) being tagged as otoko_no_ko

venti_(genshin_impact) has only 47 posts right now which is meager for starting a tag discussion, but his associated copyright is growing rapidly and Venti's tag likely will too (though not as fast as the most popular female characters,) so let's nip this in the bud, and maybe set a precedent for other Genshin Impact characters since it has a number of male character designs similar to Venti's (e.g. the three other characters in post #4155426.)

Quite a few, though not all, of Venti's pictures are currently tagged as otoko no ko. Some obviously should be, like post #4152083. Others are just Venti in his default in-game outfit, like post #4136210. And others are ambiguous, like Venti in his other in-game outfit in post #4155423 and post #4155410 (I'm not sure this outfit can be considered either masculine or feminine, especially in the context of the game's setting, where it's his divine raiment as a god who has existed for millenia.)

Stepping back from Venti himself, I guess my question is: is there some factor other than crossdressing or an unambiguously feminine appearance/behavior marker that qualifies a character as an otoko_no_ko and justifies applying the tag to pictures of them? The otoko_no_ko wiki says this:

If you can correctly tell the gender with complete certainty from the thumbnail alone without looking at the genitalia, it's not this.

In the case of Venti I think this mostly depends on art style and the thumbnails usually make me go "weeelll looks more like a boy but could be a boyish girl" with less-than-complete certainty. The braids are certainly something that would make me think "definitely not a boy" if it were a real person or Western art, but in anime-style art I'd just chalk it up to unusual hairstyles for males being far more common. So I'm not sure what to do here, though my gut feeling is that Venti ought not to be tagged otoko_no_ko in most pictures. When we're not talking thumbnails or non-canon outfits, he's just a boy who looks like a boy.

(Also, it's largely irrelevant due to "tag what you see," but some story context about Venti and his appearance is here - this was a teaser trailer that came out shortly before Genshin Impact's official release, so YMMV about whether it's a spoiler. TL;DW: Even though Venti could be considered genderless, his appearance was always masculine, being modeled after a young boy.)

Otoko no ko is meant for "traps" and femboys, so not only boys that look completely like a girl but feminine boys in general gets tagged as otoko no ko. Now for post #4155423 and post #4155410, the outfit is quite feminine so I can see why it's tagged as Otoko no ko, alternatively, they could be tagged as androgynous too. For example, posts like post #4155434, post #4154350, post #4154136 don't depict the character as feminine so they don't get tagged as Otoko no ko. Some uploaders may have copied the tags from other posts of the character and forgot to revise the tags.

mongirlfan said:

Otoko no ko is meant for "traps" and femboys, so not only boys that look completely like a girl but feminine boys in general gets tagged as otoko no ko.

Then the otoko_no_ko wiki page needs to be updated, because it specifically states this usage is "mistaken." (Unless you mean "people are doing this, mistakenly" rather than "people should do this and it's correct")

Anyway, I would not object to the ambiguous posts being tagged androgynous or something like bishounen. I wouldn't even argue too hard about the otoko_no_ko tag staying on Venti's skimpy alt outfit. I'm just curious where the line should be drawn and whether we have more helpful advice for that written down anywhere.

You make a good point that the mistagging may be due to copying tags from other posts, rather than being a deliberate action.

7HS said:

Then the otoko_no_ko wiki page needs to be updated, because it specifically states this usage is "mistaken." (Unless you mean "people are doing this, mistakenly" rather than "people should do this and it's correct")

Anyway, I would not object to the ambiguous posts being tagged androgynous or something like bishounen. I wouldn't even argue too hard about the otoko_no_ko tag staying on Venti's skimpy alt outfit. I'm just curious where the line should be drawn and whether we have more helpful advice for that written down anywhere.

You make a good point that the mistagging may be due to copying tags from other posts, rather than being a deliberate action.

I see what you mean, I've interpreted like this because femboy is aliased to Otoko no ko, and the therm "femboy" was also the translation for the 男の娘 (Otoko no ko) on pixiv until recently; in other words, Otokonoko would be the japanese equivalent to femboys. The therm "trap" is closer to the meaning of "boys that look completely like girls", however this therm is currently seen as offensive so the therm femboy is more used instead, which simply means feminine-looking boys, with feminine traits and clothing. Nowadays, Otokono/femboys seems to be more used for feminine-looking boys in general.
Androgynous apply to both males and females, and in male's case, it seems like in-between a normal looking male and a femboy, which Venti would probably fit better. Bishounen would be a male that is very beautiful and/or cute, and that shouldn't be feminine-looking (because he would fall into androgynous/otoko no ko). That is of course how I interpret those tags/therms today as most (if not all) of these tags are quite subjective in their nature.

I'm with OP. In the same manner I've deliberately not tagged otoko no ko on certain Astolfo pictures (only for it to be tagged by third-parties later anyway), or removed it from such pictures, because the character was very clearly androgynous/or even slightly masculine in said pictures.

Otoko no ko should only be tagged when it's actually applicable to the picture but it seems like some people use it as a blanket tag for "well this character is usually otoko no ko". Cute boys aren't automatically otoko no ko and in many cases androgynous would be a better tag, or even bishounen in extreme cases.

Astolfo said:

In the same manner I've deliberately not tagged otoko no ko on certain Astolfo pictures (only for it to be tagged by third-parties later anyway), or removed it from such pictures, because the character was very clearly androgynous/or even slightly masculine in said pictures.

FWIW, I agree. I wish it were a bit easier to search for "slightly more masculine" Astolfo images. Androgynous should also work to narrow it down but it sometimes feels like it's used a bit too much on images which are a mostly feminine appearance. It can be subjective where the line is drawn, though, so it's something that is hard to go about tag gardening. On a side note, I think that tag is also similarly overused on Chevalier d'Eon due to their canon status of gender ambiguity, even on images of them where they are absolutely feminine and not really androgynous.

I would like bump this forum topic because Venti is still tagged as Otoko no ko in A LOT of posts where the tag doesn't apply, and of course I'm taking out the tag from said posts. People are using the tag without making sure Venti is feminine looking in those posts.

mongirlfan said:

I would like bump this forum topic because Venti is still tagged as Otoko no ko in A LOT of posts where the tag doesn't apply, and of course I'm taking out the tag from said posts. People are using the tag without making sure Venti is feminine looking in those posts.

Only thing you can do in this case is contact whoever added the tag and ask them to check the posts better. If they still keep adding it en masse to posts that don't deserve it after that you should contact a mod.