I have been feeling rather unhappy with Capcom for a while, but this takes the cake:

Resident Evil 5 producer Jun Takeuchi tells Kotaku that calls of racial insensitivity haven’t affected the game’s design. Takeuchi tells the site that the team didn’t “set out” to make a racist or political statement and he feels there was a misunderstanding about the initial trailer.

Takeuchi says there are Arab and Caucasian targets for Chris Redfield’s bullets in RE5 and insists they were always going to be included in the game — despite the initial trailer showing a less ethnically diverse group of zombies. We’ll have to take a “wait and see” approach on whether Japanese developers will continue to fuel the fires of black/white racial tensions across the ocean.

I know Japan is pretty racially ignorant (from my experiences, but here’s a wikipedia entry on the matter), but Capcom is an international company, serving an international audience. The fact that it seems that their research only involved going to the location (without, you know, spending like 5 seconds looking into the history of black/white relations in the US, where their protagonist is from) is bad enough. Takeuchi’s tactic of “it’s not racist because I didn’t mean it!” is infuriating, but expected. I am also not appeased by the inclusion of Arab and Caucasian zombies, because:

1. An American killing an Arab. UH, HELLO? How is that not problematic given the current anti-Muslim (which, to the average anti-Muslim American translates to “Arab”) climate in America? And, I mean, with the Afghanistan and then Iraq wars, which made international news, it’s not like Takeuchi has an excuse not to know about those tensions.
2. Adding a sprinkling of whities to get gunned down isn’t some magical panacea for racism. It doesn’t address the What These People Need Is a Honky problem, and it doesn’t change the way that the black people, even pre-infection, are portrayed as savages.

I have loved the Resident Evil series, even with all of its problems. I have done my best to play the games, even though I suck at survival horror (mostly because I spend most of the time thinking, “OH NOES TEH ZOMBIE IS GOING TO GET ME!!!111eleven”). I could tolerate stupid shit like Jill being sexualized and put in a dress for RE3, Ashley being completely useless in RE4, and the fact that they apparently thought there’s no difference between Mexican Spanish and Spanish Spanish. I didn’t even mind so much that all of the protagonists were dayglow white (after all, it isn’t like that’s unusual). The abominable trailer for RE5 wasn’t even enough to convince me to not buy the game.

But I can’t take it anymore. I feel like I have no other choice but to boycott Capcom because I simply cannot support what they’re doing.

Capcom/Takeuchi no longer have an excuse. They can’t claim ignorance, because they’ve been made aware of the issues and still chose to ignore it. They quite simply don’t care that their game is problematic from a racial angle. And I can’t support that. I can’t support people who willfully engage in racism even after the racism is pointed out to them by multiple people because they can’t fathom that, in their lack knowledge regarding racial tensions/issues, they could unintentionally create something racist.

I’m about to be twenty-six fucking years old. I’ve grown up. Is it so wrong for me to wish that the games I love would grow up with me?

When Jill linked to an article on “geisha guys” in a recent link roundup, I thought to myself, “I bet they’re talking about hosts. I mean, what would an article about Japan be without using Othering terminology to emphasize how Different! And! Exotic! it is.” And lo and behold, CNN’s Kyung Lah did not disappoint with the article, Japan’s ‘geisha guys’ the latest accessory.

Now, first off, hosts have been around for long enough that it’s just ridiculous to call them “the latest accessory”. What that really translates to is, “the latest thing that racist foreign media has picked up on to titillate their readership about that ‘wacky land of the rising sun’.”

Just in case you think that the “geisha guys” reference was an unfortunate choice of a copy-editor choosing a title or somesuch, observe this quote:

It’s a dizzying reversal of traditional gender roles in a country long known for geishas pampering male clients with conversation, singing and dancing. Now a new breed of entertainer has cropped up — think of them as male geishas.

Now, there are several things wrong in that one little quote that I don’t have the energy to get into. But to the assertion that we should “think of [hosts] as male geishas”, I say, “Let’s not.” Seriously. Hosts, like their hostess counterparts, are pretty much escorts. But I suppose that since escorts are available in most countries, using that comparison just doesn’t invoke the same “exotic Japanese sex worker” vibe that “geisha” does.

Whatever influences the sex work industry here may or may not have gotten from geisha culture doesn’t make it accurate, or a good idea, to conflate everything and anything under the header with geisha. It’s Othering. It’s fetishizing Japan. It’s racist. Full stop.

From Nintendo’s women gamers could transform market:

Japanese women have overtaken their male counterparts to become the biggest users of Nintendo’s Wii and DS machines in a seismic shift that the company said would “transform the video games industry”.

This is tekanji’s total lack of surprise.

I see more women playing with their DS on the train then men. The genres that are aimed at women aren’t confined to crappy “girl games” (which in America all too often equal “simple because teh wimmins brains can’t handle real games”). Women game here, and they are much more recognized for the thriving market that they are.

Anyway, the article is worth a read, even though it ventures into bingo territory a few times.

I was recently made aware of a report from the Institute for Global Health by Anthony S. DiStefano documenting violence involving sexual minorities in Japan in 2003-2004. The report, entitled Report on Violence Involving Sexual Minorities in Japan, is available in both English and Japanese.

This study aimed to determine whether lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex persons in Japan experience violence: 1) directed against them because of their sexual orientation or gender identity (i.e., bashing); 2) occurring within intimate partner dyads; 3) by or against family members; and 4) toward the self. Additional goals were to identify the perceived health impacts of such violence, describe how these issues are defined and understood within the Japanese context, characterize the socio-cultural environment that influences the occurrence of violence, and identify specific areas of inquiry that future studies can examine in further depth.

Via the feminist LJ.

As some of you may know, I’m currently attending language school in Japan. There is a student dorm, but most of the housing is apartments rented out to students. When I first got here, I was a bit surprised to see that there was no elevator, but outside of being annoyed that I couldn’t get my heavy stuff up the stairs easily, I didn’t think too much about it.

But something happened a little over a month ago: a guy who lives in my building got into a car accident and is now in a wheelchair. He was told that, due to fire regulations, he could no longer live in our apartment. You see, even the first floor apartments require going up one flight of stairs and in the event of a fire that just isn’t safe. These apartments, I would like to point out, were built just last year.

And then this caused me to realize that all of the kids in the school are able-bodied. Indeed, I have the sneaking suspicion that they would reject anyone who wasn’t because of “undue hassles” (they kicked out one student who was having frequent panic attacks, but wouldn’t/couldn’t take her to the hosptial because she didn’t have Japanese insurance). My building has an elevator and therefore should be accessible, but the building that’s used for the other program as well as private lessons not only has no elevator, but the easy access is a set of pretty dangerous outside stairs. It’s supposedly going under rennovation because of the influx of students, but I’d be surprised if they added an elevator.

On the one hand, I can sort of sympathize with the school: they are becoming increasingly popular and it’s been hard to deal with the influx of students because there isn’t enough space or teachers to accomodate everyone. I’ve also heard that, in terms of buildings, getting through the planning stages is ridiculously hard. But, on the other hand, I would be surprised if this was the first time a problem like this has occurred. My friend is not the first person who I’ve known has gotten into an accident during his stay at my school.

I just… I dunno. I like my school and sympathize with their plight, but at the same time I’m not altogether thrilled with the way they handle students who have specific health needs.

As all of you know, I was in Tokyo last weekend (it was a fun trip; thanks for asking!). There was an advertising campaign that I saw on the train whose tagline was “Japanese Beauty.”

The first time I saw this ad, it was in the form of a commercial being played on the screens in the train. It featured a clearly white woman — the same one as in the above image — in Japan doing traditionally Japanese things and wearing traditionally Japanese clothes. My feeling of WTFerry grew and grew until it culminated with a picture of the white woman with the words “Japanese Beauty” printed clearly in the corner. I sort of made an indignant noise, but none of my friends had been paying attention. Nor, if they had been, do I think they would have cared.

It brings to mind a line from Tanizaki’s essay, “In Praise of Shadows,” which focuses on the Westernization of Japan. In it, he has a sort of love/hate relationship with Westerners and Westernization in which he both argues for the merit in traditional Japanese culture while putting Westerners above the Japanese in terms of ideology, inherent qualities, and as for women, whites are more “pure” and more “white”:

The Japanese complexion, no matter how white, is tinged by a slight cloudiness… But the skin of Westerners, even those of a darker complexion, had a limpid glow. Nowhere were they tainted by this grey shadow… Thus it is that when one of us goes among a group of Westerners it is like a grimy stain on a sheet of white paper. The sight offends even our own eyes and leaves none too pleasant a feeling.

And, really, that’s the feeling I get from this ad: that it’s buying wholeheartedly into the fallacies that excuse cultural imperialism. To me, Japanese beauty is about Japan, not some white woman “being Japanese.”

I’m not sure what bothers me more about 行殺! Spirits (“Line-Kill Spirits”): the game itself or the response to it.

Let’s start with the game itself. It seems like a typical cutesy all-girl fighting game. The art style employed is one that is generally associated with pre-adolescence – it tends to be used in children’s manga and lolita porn. I’d put the girls at middle school at the latest, personally. Still, that sort of thing isn’t unusual; I’ve known plenty of fighting games that employ those marketing tactics.

What is unusual, however, is an added game element: picture taking. Not just any kind of picture taking, however, panty shot pictures. As anyone who has watched anime knows, there is a seemingly cultural fixation in Japan on women’s underwear. In particular, men and boys lifting up unwilling women’s skirts to look at their underwear. I can’t speak for how common it is in real life (not being a Japanese woman, nor living in Japan), but I do know that harassment is a part of women’s daily life there. One example of this is the women-only trains that companies began to run because of the unnervingly high instance of sexual assault (groping, mostly, but I’ve heard stories about men using women’s asses for masturbation aids).

To add fuel to the fire, it is not creepy old men taking these pictures (which would be bad enough), but the other girls themselves doing it. Showing women participating in their own objectification (ala. Levy’s “raunch culture”, girly kissing culture, etc) only serves to normalize the behaviour. After all, if the girls are willing to do it then it must be okay, right? While I wouldn’t think that anyone would confuse LKS with reality, having the girls do it to each other rather than a man doing it to a girl undoubtedly helps the players to rationalize the game as “harmless fun”.

Read the rest…

This has been in the works for a while, but apparently the cogs of bureaucracy have started moving:

The panel last week recommended revising Japanese law to give an emperor’s first-born child of either sex the right to head the world’s oldest hereditary monarchy.

The revision, if approved, is expected to make Crown Prince Naruhito and Crown Princess Masako’s only child Aiko — who celebrated her 4th birthday Thursday — second in line to the throne, behind her father.

[...]

Support for the change is high. A recent poll by the nationwide newspaper Asahi showed 78 percent of the respondents were in favor of a reigning empress.

[From Japan to Submit Female Succession Bill from Yahoo! News]

78% popular support doesn’t suck. It’s not the prime ministry, but the imperial family is a huge part of Japanese culture and, if nothing else, they serve as the cultural and spiritual leaders of the country. And, there’s something to be said of changing sexist laws, even if only because there doesn’t seem to be any other choice.

Via feminist.

So, I was over at Amptoons reading a thread entitled Even For Pro-Lifers, Banning Abortion Makes No Sense, in which Amp makes a bunch of points about reducing the number of abortions that I couldn’t agree more on. Read it, go, I command you. Anyway, I went through the comments and ended up writing a response. Due to my bombastic nature, I decided to cut out one part entirely ’cause it was off on a tangent that deserved more than the page it already had. Ergo, I’m posting it here for your viewing pleasure.

So, first of all, some stats.

Read the rest…