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This Week in Games - If 'JRPG' is a Dirty Word, It's America's Fault

I'm talking about Japanese dismissing Western games, and Westerners dismissing JRPGs. Regardless if it's AAA or not, doesn't matter

Cardcaptor Takato wrote:

Maybe consider there's a difference between being critical of the flaws of the AAA gaming industry made by mostly privileged white devs versus American journalists dismissing RPG games solely because of the country they're from, particularly where most people in said country are BIPOC.

I mean, enurtsol is correct. If you need it worded different, then look at this way: How many people dismiss western cartoons, games, and comics for being 'woke'? The irony of using Japan being BIPOC is ironic since 1) Asians are generally not considered BIPOC and 2) people use Japanese media as an example of media free from 'woke' ideology aka black people and LGBT stuff. There's definately people who judge media made in Japan and the West based on principles alone. People call Japanese media sexist, racist, backwards, and dont like it as a result. Conversely, you have those who complain about American games having ugly characters, LGBT stuff, and other traits that get lumped onto western games.

So let's not act like people don't still do the whole 'weird, primitive Japan' take in 2023. It's just done under the guise of social justice now where we berate Japan for not having western sensibilities. Case in point: this very article "side-eying" YoshiP's comments about diversity. Do we need to bring up all the times people here have told Japan they need to 'get with the times'? Is that not a form of judging Japan with a blanket statement? We have the recipts to back it up, so hopefully people don't pull an Adam Sessler and try to double down rather than admitting to the fact they roll their eyes everytime a new Dragon Quest comes out and it makes a puff-puff joke or a Fire Emblem game sexualizes a 7000 dragon who looks like a 6 year old girl.

Although, hot take, I think that's completely fine to do that. If you dont like Japanese/American games for having basic traits, styles, and approaches you don't like thats your opinion and you're free to have it. People can hate American games for the ugly characters and focus on the shooter genre or cinematic style like Last of Us. People can hate Japanese games for the way they design female characters and the lack of diversity or the anime art style. Don't see a problem with that, personally.

I mean, enurtsol is correct. If you need it worded different, then look at this way: How many people dismiss western cartoons, games, and comics for being 'woke'? The irony of using Japan being BIPOC is ironic since 1) Asians are generally not considered BIPOC and 2) people use Japanese media as an example of media free from 'woke' ideology aka black people and LGBT stuff. There's definately people who judge media made in Japan and the West based on principles alone. People call Japanese media sexist, racist, backwards, and dont like it as a result. Conversely, you have those who complain about American games having ugly characters, LGBT stuff, and other traits that get lumped onto western games.

Western games being laid into for quality definitely feels like a textbook case of "whataboutism", especially when the contrast is years of X-Play being full-on racist to the point writers of the show are claiming Sessler ad-libbed the racist remarks.

I mean, enurtsol is correct. If you need it worded different, then look at this way: How many people dismiss western cartoons, games, and comics for being 'woke'? The irony of using Japan being BIPOC is ironic since 1) Asians are generally not considered BIPOC and 2) people use Japanese media as an example of media free from 'woke' ideology aka black people and LGBT stuff. There's definately people who judge media made in Japan and the West based on principles alone. People call Japanese media sexist, racist, backwards, and dont like it as a result. Conversely, you have those who complain about American games having ugly characters, LGBT stuff, and other traits that get lumped onto western games.

enurtsol wrote:

I'm talking about Japanese dismissing Western games, and Westerners dismissing JRPGs. Regardless if it's AAA or not, doesn't matter

This just sounds like you're doing a whataboutism to justify what exactly?

Cardcaptor Takato wrote:

enurtsol wrote: I'm talking about Japanese dismissing Western games, and Westerners dismissing JRPGs. Regardless if it's AAA or not, doesn't matter This just sounds like you're doing a whataboutism to justify what exactly?

That Naoki Yoshida is complaining about something that they've been doing for something even earlier?

It's ingrained on both sides now since there weren't people to change things when it started, so as language is alive, we're just gonna let play itself out

enurtsol wrote:

That Naoki Yoshida is complaining about something that they've been doing for something even earlier? It's ingrained on both sides now since there weren't people to change things when it started, so as language is alive, we're just gonna let play itself out

Missing the point as usual.

Ryuji-Dono wrote:

enurtsol wrote: That Naoki Yoshida is complaining about something that they've been doing for something even earlier? It's ingrained on both sides now since there weren't people to change things when it started, so as language is alive, we're just gonna let play itself out Missing the point as usual.

My point is pretty concise and clear. Maybe ya guys are making a point about something else?

enurtsol wrote:

My point is pretty concise and clear. Maybe ya guys are making a point about something else?

Yeah, that using whataboutism of this article is dumb.

If you're including non-humanoid races in that definition of diversity then maybe I could see that, but if we're talking strictly real world diversity then I don't think that's true at all.

That's realistically never gonna catch on because the number of people who play games not from Japan, but also from the eastern sphere is not that high.

This part of your post is actually a perfect example of my previous one about how this was actually an industry wide issue that many people spoke about but many forget to acknowledge. Do you really think Squeenix is the only one who had this problem? In a world where Capcom did this "shit, we need to pivot to the West NOW" push? In a time when studios skipped the PS360 consoles entirely? Where they actually spoke about the troubles of game development as a whole?

In fact do you remember why this mentality began to exist in the first place? There were two parts to it. Yes, there was the trouble with HD development but also at that same time, Western games and particularly Western RPGs began to actually sell well, games that were in many ways the opposite of Japanese ones. The combination of the two led to some serious downturn in the wider Japanese and even devs speaking in that time say they suffered an identity crisis because of it.

This whole topic is giving me vivid flashbacks to watching X-Play. Seeing some of the clips now, it's shocking how racist some of the stuff Sessler said was. Back in the day, I didn't even realize it...and apparently Sessler still thinks what he said was OK.