Fuss over Japanese Culture in AC Shadows feels like a Double Standard

[***]

I have my own reasons for not liking this game, and personally, I don’t see the point in buying it. That said, I’d like to ask why people keep harping on about respecting Japanese culture as if it’s the biggest issue with AC: Shadows. This argument is ridiculous because AC has been veering into hardcore historical fiction for ages, and no one cares. Getting offended on behalf of or as the Japanese is just laughable. Have you ever watched anime? Played games made by Japanese developers? For over twenty years, they’ve been doing whatever they want with Western culture, and nobody seems to get upset about it. Can someone explain this hypocrisy to me?

[That Dodogama]

The issue with ubisoft being disrespectful to Japanese culture is that they repeatedly talked about how respectful they were going to be to japanese culture.
The issues are dishonesty, laziness, hypocrisy, and the disrespect shown by how they doubled down on every problem as they came to light.

[Mizu]

Originally posted by Lucifer Verone:

Originally posted by ***:

This is where I have to stop treating you seriously. It seems to me that you either haven’t played Japanese games or watched anime, or you’re deliberately ignoring the facts. The idea that only the West disrespects other cultures or religions is nonsense. Take the Fate series—it’s full of this: King Arthur is turned into a genderbent woman, Artoria Pendragon, rewriting a cornerstone of Western legend for the sake of a romantic subplot. Even worse, Jeanne d’Arc, a revered historical and Christian figure, is portrayed as an antagonist in Fate/Grand Order—a vengeful, twisted version called Jeanne Alter, far from the pious martyr of history. Then there’s Hellsing, where the Catholic Church’s Iscariot Organization is a fanatical, bloodthirsty sect clashing with everyone else. Shin Megami Tensei goes further, making the Christian God, YHVH, a tyrannical villain you fight against. Japanese media does this all the time—reinterpreting Western history, religion, and figures however they please. It’s not just the West rewriting culture for games; it’s a two-way street, and pretending otherwise is either ignorance or a lie.

Wow and now we go to lies? Cool so you dont understand the outrage that is clear. Imagine coming over here and putting out points like "King Arthur is turned into a genderbent woman" or " Catholic Church’s Iscariot Organization,bloodthirsty sect clashing with everyone else" in what universe do you live in? Tell me how is this insulting? I want a clear answer justifying this. Because if that is insulting then we have another conversation to go through. The difference between that and this is that they purposefully turn Yasuke into something he is not, this is bad for 1 of 2 reasons, they are rewriting the history of the Japanese people on purpose and presenting it as historical, the legacy and story of both the actual historical figure and the country, and they are putting him out to be something more, running around desecrating shrines. All this would have been different if they didnt make a MC an actual historical figure and changed his history. Just look at the forms here, complete uninformed people constantly saying the same thing 'Yasuke was samurai" ohh really? and you know this how? They completely changed the actual history and went completely one side. What you have mentioned in no way or from goes for historical accuracy, neither is it outright insulting and claiming to be true. Both cases are completely different the only reason you brought it up is because you want to be disingenuous in your arguments. Yasuke being a samurai is the lease of the insults UBI has done. Nothing about what you mention's even goes anywhere near the territory of "This is how it actually was, and this our historical representation of these characters".

Did you just seriously ask what was offensive about Hellsing having the Catholic church be more interested in running around murdering civilians then they were in fighting Nazi vampires?

[Riktor87]

Originally posted by AP0THICx:

I honestly dont get why they decided to not do that this time around.

Thing is there is a choice actually. You can play the game with choices on and make whatever choice you want, or you can play canon mode, where all player choice in the outcome of the story is scripted A-B and no romance options period. As I don't care about the culture war and all that jive, I'd been playing it in canon mode.

[Gabby]

Originally posted by AP0THICx:

Originally posted by Gabby:

My honest opinion is that Yasuke was chosen specifically to distract people from the fact that the game is actually about Naoe. It's the first time a mainline AC game has specifically follows the story of a female protagonist.

Yasuke is there taking bullets for her.

I mean if you had to ask me, we have had a protagonist that has a gender choice for a good decade now.

I honestly dont get why they decided to not do that this time around.

I'm 30 hours in and if I had to give a full reason, it's because the story of this one is a very personal one that needed a set character much like Ezio was needed to be himself. Having a male and female protag was always better than a gender option because each character got to be unique and have more of a hands on approach, but in this one I think that the story wouldn't have worked the same if Naoe could be gender swapped.

[Gabby]

Originally posted by That Dodogama:

The issue with ubisoft being disrespectful to Japanese culture is that they repeatedly talked about how respectful they were going to be to japanese culture.
The issues are dishonesty, laziness, hypocrisy, and the disrespect shown by how they doubled down on every problem as they came to light.

My dude, I have literally had to pray to about 52 shrines so far in order to progress through the game, learn how to properly take part in a tea ceremony (and pass a test based on REMEMEBERING that knowledge) as well has gotten a deep cut on lessons in honor among the Samurai class.

I'm seriously looking for the actual disrespect instead of people combing through promo material looking for the lamest possible things, almost everything of which was deeply considered on feedback and fixed or responded to as things happened. No greater respect comes than from listening and reacting to offenses by actually owning up and fixing them. And Ubisoft gets flying colors on that one.

[KnightofRoyalty]

Originally posted by The Former:

Originally posted by TheTrueFinalBoss:

Japanese Parliement and their prime minister talked about how disrespectful this game is to Japan

"Japanese Pariament" did not. One Diet member raised it in a session, and the Prime Minister responded. Their concern was patched out of the game, by the way.

Japan has put Yasuke in enough games, and have had kunoichi in enough games, that I honestly doubt the soul of the nation is offended by Shadows.

Also said concern was about the game incidentally leading to increased tourist vandalism. The Prime Minister's response was like "yeah we need to do something about the IRL vandalism," he wasn't even talking about confronting Ubi over their game.

And even if he did mentioned Ubisoft, is a really dumb point. This is the japanese equivalent when politicians were whining that GTA was advocating to commit violence and crime

[Riktor87]

Originally posted by Gabby:

I'm seriously looking for the actual disrespect instead of people combing through promo material looking for the lamest possible things, almost everything of which was deeply considered on feedback and fixed or responded to as things happened. No greater respect comes than from listening and reacting to offenses by actually owning up and fixing them. And Ubisoft gets flying colors on that one.

Smh, this is the problem, no one can just let go, even if a side admits it's faults so it's a moot point. Like the concept artist for that one preorder mini figure, they clearly said uhhh oops, hang on we need to fix this, and did. People didn't like the ideology/agenda in it, they made it all optional, removed the shrine destruction and such, apologized about the screw up with the dragon artwork. It's almost as if these types expect them to completely remake the game from the ground up or simply burn. The dichotomy is kind of astounding.
Then again there are those that just want to watch the world burn so who knows.

[HorzaEdeo]

Originally posted by Gabby:

My dude, I have literally had to pray to about 52 shrines so far in order to progress through the game, learn how to properly take part in a tea ceremony (and pass a test based on REMEMEBERING that knowledge) as well has gotten a deep cut on lessons in honor among the Samurai class.

I'm seriously looking for the actual disrespect instead of people combing through promo material looking for the lamest possible things, almost everything of which was deeply considered on feedback and fixed or responded to as things happened. No greater respect comes than from listening and reacting to offenses by actually owning up and fixing them. And Ubisoft gets flying colors on that one.

also, the guy you quoted has barely any japanese games in his inventory. 99% chance he's got no knowledge of it and is just here to hoot and holler because someone random told him "this is woke!!!"

[Riktor87]

Originally posted by KnightofRoyalty:

And even if he did mentioned Ubisoft, is a really dumb point. This is the japanese equivalent when politicians were whining that GTA was advocating to commit violence and crime

I think that's a big take away, is how many were around when the anti-gun / anti-game controversy started kicking off.

[Riktor87]

My biggest problem is if it was actual outrage, why wasn't there an uproar like with helldivers? I mean that got sony to turn around.... There is to take away all the bridges ubi's burned with older fans, some swearing off a long time ago, and just as many that don't care about the franchises they offer, but even so. That literally started as a meme about people not wanting to link to a network, evolved into how many people that wouldn't be able to play, but at least when one of the quota's got met everything settled down. Granted there was some false valor with the whole people accessing the game deal, but still, can't disagree that the voice was heard.

[pope henry viii]

It's only a double standard if people overlook the same sorts of misbehaviour in works dealing with other countries or cultures. My experience is that they do not, and it's not hard to find examples of people objecting on essentially the same grounds in relation to all sorts of works, not just those relating to Japan.

[helba1]

Originally posted by Blackguard:

Originally posted by Gabby:

Authenticity doesn't actually mean factual or historical accuracy, it means how much it feels like it's real.

Granted this is a game series where you have magical eyes, super hero like resilence, magical items that control minds, aliens, a magic weilding pope and you fight Odin and a Minotaur.

Accuracy was never the concern.

Authentic
- of undisputed origin and not a copy; genuine.

Hm, undisputed origin, and not a copy, the genuine thing.

It's gotta be accurate to perfection to be 'authentic' my dude. Saying otherwise is just cope tbh.

Can you please quote all the other definitions of authentic as well?

Then there's stuff like this.

"Accuracy denotes the extent to which a text’s representation is consistent with available evidence. It is concerned with historical veracity and whether specific aspects of an historical fiction can be considered factual. Authenticity, however, refers to an impression of accuracy and the extent to which readers believe that a representation captures the past."

"Such perceptions might be informed by historical research, yet they are not necessarily so. Authentic representations need not be accurate."


https://acuresearchbank.acu.edu.au/item/8xwyy/a-true-story-defining-accuracy-and-authenticity-in-historical-fiction

[Gabby]

Dude you literally just inserted a new word to use that wasn't in the definition to move your goal post. Stop. No one other than you social rejects actually buys your attempts.

Also you went and listed the 4th (least used) meaning of "faithful" to try and make your point and took two out. And even then you left out "to a standard", which is one of the three options there. The standard doesn't have to meet empirical fact. Which is extra ironic as faith in general is something you only apply to belief in something when you lack evidence. XD

I get one of you clowns every year in my linguistics courses and you always wonder why you fail or drop out after I'm done laughing at these completely faithless (see the irony here?) arguments.

[TheTrueFinalBoss]

Originally posted by Gabby:

Originally posted by That Dodogama:

The issue with ubisoft being disrespectful to Japanese culture is that they repeatedly talked about how respectful they were going to be to japanese culture.
The issues are dishonesty, laziness, hypocrisy, and the disrespect shown by how they doubled down on every problem as they came to light.

My dude, I have literally had to pray to about 52 shrines so far in order to progress through the game, learn how to properly take part in a tea ceremony (and pass a test based on REMEMEBERING that knowledge) as well has gotten a deep cut on lessons in honor among the Samurai class.

I'm seriously looking for the actual disrespect instead of people combing through promo material looking for the lamest possible things, almost everything of which was deeply considered on feedback and fixed or responded to as things happened. No greater respect comes than from listening and reacting to offenses by actually owning up and fixing them. And Ubisoft gets flying colors on that one.

Destroying the Japanese Shrine. That one was bad enough to be patched out because they talked about it in Japanese parliment.

Cutting down Civilians without the game over that Assassin's Creed normally gives you for that. Also its not framed as bad.

Mixing Chinese architecture in.

Yasuke wasn't a Samurai, he was in Japan for a year. The insult is saying this is historically accurate, much the same as someone revising your own history. That's just enough time to become competent in the language, let alone fluent.

Having a romance option with Nobunaga's Sister who was notoriously faithful and ancestor to the Japanese Imperial family, with children that were each famous in their own right. Imagine telling people that in this 'historically accurate game', she shacked up with some foreigner servant that was only in the country for a year.

It all starts of course with the claim that this game is at all historically accurate and citing Thomas Lockley, someone who wrote fanfiction about Yasuke, as their source.

[Weltall8000]

Originally posted by TheTrueFinalBoss:

Originally posted by Gabby:

My dude, I have literally had to pray to about 52 shrines so far in order to progress through the game, learn how to properly take part in a tea ceremony (and pass a test based on REMEMEBERING that knowledge) as well has gotten a deep cut on lessons in honor among the Samurai class.

I'm seriously looking for the actual disrespect instead of people combing through promo material looking for the lamest possible things, almost everything of which was deeply considered on feedback and fixed or responded to as things happened. No greater respect comes than from listening and reacting to offenses by actually owning up and fixing them. And Ubisoft gets flying colors on that one.

Destroying the Japanese Shrine. That one was bad enough to be patched out because they talked about it in Japanese parliment.

Cutting down Civilians without the game over that Assassin's Creed normally gives you for that. Also its not framed as bad.

Mixing Chinese architecture in.

Yasuke wasn't a Samurai, he was in Japan for a year. The insult is saying this is historically accurate, much the same as someone revising your own history. That's just enough time to become competent in the language, let alone fluent.

Having a romance option with Nobunaga's Sister who was notoriously faithful and ancestor to the Japanese Imperial family, with children that were each famous in their own right. Imagine telling people that in this 'historically accurate game', she shacked up with some foreigner servant that was only in the country for a year.

It all starts of course with the claim that this game is at all historically accurate and citing Thomas Lockley, someone who wrote fanfiction about Yasuke, as their source.

The ability to optionally damage a shrine? Boohoo, we raided monasteries and fought the pope.

Not true. While Odyssey did not include a desync for killing civilians, Shadows does, like most of the series. There are on screen warnings not to kill civilians, to boot.

Oh noes! They got some details wrong. ...like they did with other entries in the series.

Wrong. Yasuke was a samurai, and saying he was is not disrespectful to the nation or culture of Japan.

A historical figure treated like a character in their historical fiction. Kinda makes me think of several other ACs. Liked the bit about Washington being a crazy tyrant. But, if you want to specifically go with the "historically accurate" argument, which is already dubious, not in Canon mode. So, toss that one out.