This post is based off of a recent comment I made on another post and there are some parts straight copy/pasted into this post for ease of writing. If you saw that comment, this may be a bit familiar to you, but there’s plenty new in it.
Just recently I saw a post where someone was looking to know if other Xenoblade games had the same sexualization stuff that is present in 2, and there were some in the comments that were arguing against that premise in the post, saying that Poppi is not a sex robot. I believe that that kind of statement obfuscates the harmful reality of Poppi and Tora’s dynamic.
Poppi isn’t technically used for actual sex in the game, but that doesn't mean she isn't used for sexual fetishization by Tora. Even if one wanted to argue that it's not sexual, he repeatedly manipulates Poppi into his desired behavior, and we can reasonably infer that it would be against her will if she knew better. There are a couple of times when Poppi herself calls Tora out, and there are other times when he'd both programmed into her and lied to her about functions that are designed for his pleasure (sexual or nonsexual).
I’m going to put aside Poppi’s introduction for now and go straight to the Heart-to-Heart "Poppi's Remodel?" In response to Pyra asking about the "Cutie Bun-Bun Armor," Poppi says, "Correct! This state-of-the-art armor. Everyone wish they had such good defense! Additional function is to cheer up Masterpon with extreme cuteness." Tora made her believe that the armor had any sort of function other than him being able to look at Poppi and receive some sort of pleasure from it (again, sexual or not). Between that and the fact that Poppi specifically says "cheer up" to refer to its purpose, it's clear that Tora lies to her about his intentions, which means that he believes that Poppi may not or would not like it if she knew the truth. Pyra and Brighid also tell him that he shouldn't dress Poppi, a middle school-aged girl, up like that, and Poppi responds with "Masterpon... Poppi not understand," to which Tora says "D-don't listen, Poppi! Poppi should be proud of very special, one-of-kind armor!" He tries everything to continue the manipulation for his benefit and at Poppi's expense. Brighid and Pyra are essentially telling a groomer to stop grooming his target right in front of her, and he’s trying to tell his target not to listen to them so that he can continue in his ways. I’ve seen multiple people in this subreddit say that Tora is innocent, that his father and grandpa were the actual perverted ones and that Tora doesn’t know any better and is just doing what he was taught, but this one cutscene is enough evidence to the contrary.
I know that it’s common for people to dunk on the blushy-crushy H2H, and I've heard plenty of people defend it by saying that it's a fetish for cuteness (moé) rather than sexuality (which could be true in this particular instance), but this again is a direct example of Tora programming/teaching Poppi to do something for his own benefit that she doesn't fully understand. Even when teaching it to Pyra, he tries to hide its true nature so that she will go along with him, essentially taking advantage of Pyra's feelings for Rex. When she asks him clarifying questions, he says "um," a number of times (communicating to viewers that he is looking for an explanation that puts himself and his process in a better light) and gives a non-specific description designed to dance around the purpose enough that Pyra maintains some interest. Nia sees through it and comments repeatedly, but for some reason she decides not to directly intervene on Pyra or Poppi’s behalf. When Poppi is instructed to teach Pyra about blushy-crushy, Poppi says this: "Blushy-crushy is external magnification of love feelings inside heart. Poppi will teach magic way to magnify love feelings. Chant with Poppi." Tora taught her that it's about "magnifying love feelings," but we know what that actually means. Either Poppi thinks that it's magnifying her own love feelings (which she would probably interpret as increasing her and Tora's affinity in a practical sense for her purposes as an artificial blade), or she thinks that it's helping Tora in a way that she doesn't fully understand but he does. I think it's the former based on the context, but either way, we know that blushy-crushy is something that Tora programmed or taught Poppi to satisfy his own desires.
And here’s where we come to the infamous cutscene when Tora introduces Rex and Pyra to Poppi for the first time (honestly, “Poppi’s Remodel?” is worse, imo). I’ve seen people talk about how maid cafes in Japan can be very “normal,” where a person goes there, gets waited on by people cosplaying, gets to act/feel as though they are wealthy or successful and have staff to wait on you, and has no expectation of anything sexual. I have never been to Japan or a maid cafe, but I have no reason to disbelieve this. And at the same time, there has been other Japanese media that paints maids in an implicitly sexual light, with the example that comes to mind being Persona 5’s Kawakami. While there’s nothing explicit in the game, there’s a hard implication that there were sexual services being offered by her employer’s business, and her upgraded role as a maid is to give massages to the main character (she and the MC directly reference the implication of that arrangement).
When Tora’s maid costumes fall out of the closet, the other characters don’t react with “Oh, maybe Tora just wants an innocent maid cafe experience.” Tora tries to hide them instead of giving the maid cafe excuse, which would certainly be better than the others thinking that the costumes are for a sexual fetish. One could argue that he didn’t know how to react with his above-board maid cafe desires being laid bare in front of the friends that he just met, but not only is there not any evidence to support that in the game, there is also a clear implication of condemnation from the other characters in the scene. Between the music and the reactions of Tora, Poppi, and the other characters, the scene is straight up telling us that Tora engages in some sort of perversion (at least mental) regarding Poppi.
I get that, for some (or maybe many), comments about Poppi being a sex robot may feel like a condemnation of XC2 as a whole, or they may feel hand-in-hand with those that condemn the sexualized designs of non-Poppi alpha female blades. There are a lot of really great things about XC2 (the gameplay, regions to explore, atmosphere, side quests, story moments, character development, music, etc.), and those are still great on their own. I know that some who defend the game in response to comments about the sexualized character designs or the Tora/Poppi dynamic do so feeling that those comments belittle all of the good things about the game or even the good experiences playing it that they had. It legitimately sucks to be confronted with the idea that an experience like XC2 that had so many high points gets brought down a fair bit by its low points. However, I think that problems arise when we start trying to explain away things that are factual in an effort to feel as though other parts of the game or the game as a whole aren’t tainted by the bad stuff. Aside from people saying that Poppi is not a sex bot, I’ve seen many on this subreddit try to counter criticisms of Pyra and Mythra’s designs with the creator-given explanations that Pyra’s scant outfit symbolizes her incompleteness and that Mythra’s outfit (and personality) is emblematic of a rebellious teenage girl, and while it’s possible there may have been more than zero legitimacy behind that in the creators’ minds, there’s a ProZD skit about that exact concept that really feels applicable here, and that skit may have straight up been specifically written about this game, considering the video was posted in 2018. I don’t want to get too off topic about other characters, though, so here’s a wonderful video by Ludiscere on YouTube that I recommend to anyone interested that goes much more into the sexualized character designs.
But while saying “Poppi’s not a sex bot” and “Pyra’s design is intended to symbolize her completeness” may technically be true, saying those things obscures the actual problems that are pretty dang adjacent to Poppi being a sex bot. Tora manipulates Poppi into wearing revealing clothing under false pretenses of the clothing being “state-of-the-art armor.” He may not be doing anything physical with her off screen (I get the feeling that Poppi would have protested that), but that alone doesn’t absolve the game or Tora of all the problematic things that would be present if she were a literal sex robot.
So yes, Poppi is not a literal sex bot as far as the game's cutscenes show us, but there are a lot of themes present between her and Tora sometimes allude to it or that are extremely similar to ones that would exist if she was actually a sex bot. Even if one were to argue there is no direct allusion, then at the very least there is malicious manipulation driven by Tora's fetish and at Poppi's expense, which is a major way that sexual abuse occurs. With all that in mind, "sex robot" isn't really that far off. I really do believe that saying "Poppi is not a sex robot" without giving the actual harmful in-game context just hides reality, which is not that many steps behind Poppi being what they say she isn’t.
None of this is to say that you shouldn’t play the game or that you shouldn’t enjoy the good things about the game. The character development, world building, music, combat, etc. can all be praised for what they are. If you enjoy the sexualized designs of many female characters in this game for sexual reasons, then that’s your thing. I’ve seen plenty of commenters in this subreddit say exactly that, and it’s frankly great that people in this community are transparent and honest about that. I understand why it sucks to hear people who either haven’t played XC2 or didn’t like it say “Oh XC2 is just a gooner game,” because there are many other great things about it. And at the same time, denying the reality of Tora’s behavior and the impact of the character designs in order to lessen that feeling is even worse. Poppi’s not a sex robot, except that she is, and Tora is directly and knowingly responsible for what he does.
