JRPG producer says people prefer their anime girls to have thick thighs when the economy's in the tank, and he's not even joking a little bit

Atelier producer Junzo Hosoi says you can thank the Japan recession for the series' recent embrace of thick anime girls - and no, neither I nor he is joking.

For some context, the titular protagonist in the Atelier Ryza trilogy apparently made the bold decision to eat enough food to have a healthy amount of body fat, and everyone got all worked up about it.

Talking to 4Gamer (translation courtesy Automaton), Hosoi drew a seemingly tenuous connection to Ryza's thick thighs and the Japanese economy.

"This is just my perception, but I think that the economy has an influence on what kind of designs become popular," Hosoi said. "There are certain types of characters that are needed in times of recession, and there are types of characters that are embraced only when the economy is booming." In a machine-translated snippet, Hosoi cited "trends like a plump figure and motherhood" as examples of popular designs during economic recession.

I'm not sure where I stand on this. You could make the anthropological argument that a fuller figure represents financial stability and that might be more attractive during times of economic hardship, but I dunno, I think humans are always primed to have an instinctual attraction to other humans who look healthy because they're more likely to be suitable to bear and care for children, and that's probably true regardless of the economy. But who am I to say? I'm certainly not any more qualified than Hosoi to speak on this. For what it's worth, PC Gamer dug up an old study from the British Psychological Society that asserts "hungry men prefer bigger women," so there's that.

Regardless, Hosoi went on to confirm that Ryza's design was influenced by this belief and seemed to suggest that the protagonist in the upcoming Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land won't be as curvy because "the team opted to incorporate global trends" instead of Japan-specific ones.

Atelier Yumia: The Alchemist of Memories & the Envisioned Land, the first mainline entry in the series since the Ryza trilogy, launches on Nintendo Switch, PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X, Xbox One, and PC on March 20.

In the meantime, here are the best JRPGs to play today.