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Deleted member 9317

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 26, 2017
9,451
New York
What's ur agenda, communicate how you like ur prime rib plz.
Toss that shit up in BBQ sauce, with steak sauce on the side, and loads of veggies. Medium well is good, but I am not picky about prime ribs. No preference in the animal.

My agenda is to trigger folks who tell me I shouldn't eat pork ribs. Pour me a drink. Merry Christmas! :)
 

Core

Member
Oct 30, 2017
131
I always felt Dee Jay was a little problematic as a character, he was a caribbean stereotype even though he is supposed to be jamaican, but that's another can of worms, representing him as a monkey should be self explanatory on why it's bad.

Mr. Sand Man is a powerful boxer, he has powerful punches, you know who also has powerful punches? Little mac, someone from his own series, I don't know if it's against the rules but hell you could even use Bowser or any other heavy, but you go with donkey kong? That's just bad.

And Villager has a ton of skins, like a ton, why would the dark skinned one when thievery is involved.

In the end I feel like I didn't add a lot to the conversation it's just hurtful to me. Not only gaming is full of "heated moments" and stuff like twitch chat's racist copypastas and spams, having a major dev on a famous and fun game doing this is kind of alienating.
 

Danstanster

Member
Oct 25, 2017
469
Toss that shit up in BBQ sauce, with steak sauce on the side, and loads of veggies. Medium well is good, but I am not picky about prime ribs. No preference in the animal.

My agenda is to trigger folks who tell me I shouldn't eat pork ribs. Pour me a drink. Merry Christmas! :)
I asked for doneness not dissonance
 
Nov 1, 2017
194
Tac having Villager as a spirit is due to Villager's pocket ability. The skin chosen wasn't always black so that was an oversight.

Mr. Sandman has powerful punches and DK's main special is a giant punch. Deejay has a lot of kicking attacks and the Diddy fight makes him use his side special a ton, which is a kicking attack.

None of this was the team being racist.

I hadn't seen the Tac spirit yet and the choice of Villager's skin colour here is unacceptable. I hope this is corrected soon.

As for the other two:

Donkey Kong for Mr. Sandman made perfect sense to me the moment I saw it. DK's charge punch as you mentioned and the fact he was also a (secret) final boss in a Punch-Out!! game.

Diddy though...I actually just saw this within the last hour or so. As soon as I saw it I felt as just about everyone else did, believing this to be an overtly racist choice. But as soon as the fight started and Diddy was spamming his side special to kick the shit out of me, I went 'Ah, got it.' But as someone mentioned, earlier, they could have used Ryu and avoided all of this.
 

brochiller

The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
2,195
If this was just the DK one in a vacuum I could excuse it as just choosing the big puncher. The entirety of this is pretty bad though. Very tone deaf at the least.
 

Deleted member 5127

user requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
3,584
Interesting how a lot of people are eager to dismiss this as naivity on the part of innocent Japanese devs, as if anti-black racist sentiment isn't a thing in Japan (it is).

I'm not sure whether it's due to ignorance about Japan or general naivity, but lot of gamers like to think of Japan as some sort of other planet of innocent wacky people, but get real people, when a Japanese dev makes something that puts two black characters alongside the Kongs, they are well aware of the implications of that and so is every Japanese person who sees it before it hits the shelves.

Because looking at their games and what they stand for as a whole, there isn't any precedent to think that Nintendo is anti-black.
 
Oct 27, 2017
6,776
I'm here with an incredibly diverse group of friends, and we're not seeing it. If you're correlating a black man with a chimpanzee, you may be the problem. To think of that immediately is kind of racist itself.
Thank you for checking in with the black people sitting next to you and not listening to black people in this thread. Thx!
 

brochiller

The Fallen
Oct 25, 2017
2,195
Thank you for checking in with the black people sitting next to you and not listening to black people in this thread. Thx!

Not sure what you're getting at here as he doesn't say he's not listening to anyone. Are you saying there's something wrong with getting people's opinions IRL? Or are you saying he should take online forum opinions as gospel?
 

Danstanster

Member
Oct 25, 2017
469
Because looking at their games and what they stand for as a whole, there isn't any precedent to think that Nintendo is anti-black.
Pro-skub Anti-skub

Comedians aren't innocent of making bad jokes that's why you can say they aren't funny or boo a racist one. Spirits are references. They made a few in the game that are problematic, racist, and ignorant.

Anti-black is dumb come on. Their argument was (anyone) cannot defend innocence because of ignorance.
 

Deleted member 4093

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
7,671
Here's to this thread exposing the Diet Racists excusing or outright defending these inclusions getting called out.

dietracistlowsizeg5fvk.gif
LOL
 

Zoid

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,335
Little Mac is a main fighter in two Smash games now, he should not be used as a Spirit in WoL battles, they stuck with secondary and obscure characters for that. That's not to say there aren't other characters that could have worked but just because Diddy was paired with a black character doesn't make it automatically racist. C'mon people, let outrage culture die already.
 

Scoey

Member
Oct 27, 2017
230
Because looking at their games and what they stand for as a whole, there isn't any precedent to think that Nintendo is anti-black.

I can't read minds so I can't say whether their motivations were malice or trying to be funny when choosing those character pairs (I suspect the latter) but I'm familiar enough with Japan to know that they understood the implications of how it looks just as much as any western dev would and should be held to the same standards.
There are a lot of people who want to pretend that Japanese devs are just pure and unaware of anti-black racism (as if it doesn't exist in Japan and east Asia) which is just completely laughable if you have any experience with Japan.

Laughing at foreign/fat/bald people's appearance/height/stereotypes and clothes etc is still a fairly common form of comedy in Japan.

People here want to give Nintendo a pass that they wouldn't give to EA etc, as if Nintendo/Japanese people are a bunch of innocent children. They aren't.
 

Kewlmyc

Avenger
Oct 25, 2017
26,784
Like it's fine if you don't see it as a problem, but don't dismiss other people's concerns.
 
Oct 25, 2017
26,560
Little Mac is a main fighter in two Smash games now, he should not be used as a Spirit in WoL battles, they stuck with secondary and obscure characters for that. That's not to say there aren't other characters that could have worked but just because Diddy was paired with a black character doesn't make it automatically racist. C'mon people, let outrage culture die already.
Saying nothing was also an option.

They fucked up, they have a chance to fix it. Plain and simple. This isn't "outrage culture".
 

TripaSeca

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,768
São Paulo
Nintendo should indeed be called out for Diddy. For DK, there's reasonable justification, even though it'd be better not to do it. The Game & Watch was removed on the first patch, and I believe the spirit will be next.
So, ok to call this out.
As for the assumptions that Nintendo did this in bad faith, we'd need more data. Like, out of all the black Spirits, how many receive a treatment that resembles racism? Do they do it with other physical characteristics? Then we could argue whether or not they are racist or if this was a bad attempt at humor or even something that a racist employee did and was not noticed by management.
 
Sep 12, 2018
217
eek

bc japan is such an insular, homogenous country and this is a japanese game i want to believe its ignorance and not malicious but still :/
 

nib95

Contains No Misinformation on Philly Cheesesteaks
Banned
Oct 28, 2017
18,498
To be fair, for years now a lack of prominent black characters in Nintendo games has been brought up as a complaint or potential issue. There is a definite under representation in Nintendo games that exceeds that of Microsoft and Sony, so examples such those in the OP only further exasperate things.
 

TripaSeca

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,768
São Paulo
eek

bc japan is such an insular, homogenous country and this is a japanese game i want to believe its ignorance and not malicious but still :/

Wikipedia say Japan's population is 98.5% of japanese ethnicity. After chinese and korean all ethnicities fall under the 0.6% referred to as "other". I mean, that they are not "trump" is remarkable considering this homogeneity. If we consider a country like mine, where the MAJORITY of the pop is black and racism is RAMPANT, I'd cut Nintendo some slack. Not to say I'd be quiet about it, I'd just not be absolutely mad and all that...
 

Scoey

Member
Oct 27, 2017
230
eek

bc japan is such an insular, homogenous country and this is a japanese game i want to believe its ignorance and not malicious but still :/

This type of comment... Japan is "insular and homogenous" so you don't want to believe they might be racist or xenophobic, as if those things are unrelated.

Wikipedia say Japan's population is 98.5% of japanese ethnicity. After chinese and korean all ethnicities fall under the 0.6% referred to as "other". I mean, that they are not "trump" is remarkable considering this homogeneity. If we consider a country like mine, where the MAJORITY of the pop is black and racism is RAMPANT, I'd cut Nintendo some slack. Not to say I'd be quiet about it, I'd just not be absolutely mad and all that...

...

Seriously, a lot of people need to get real about Japan.
There's a reason Japan is 98.5 percent Japanese ethnicity.

But I guess if you can't see that you would also have trouble seeing why linking the Kongs to black characters is a problem.

Do some research about what you're saying people.
 
Last edited:

Gundam

Banned
Oct 25, 2017
12,801
Kept thinking, "I don't see what's so wrong about this, or at least more wrong than those character are originally" until I noticed the use of the Kongs.

Holy fuck.
 

Neoxon

Spotlighting Black Excellence - Diversity Analyst
Member
Oct 25, 2017
85,676
Houston, TX
To be fair, for years now a lack of prominent black characters in Nintendo games has been brought up as a complaint or potential issue. There is a definite under representation in Nintendo games that exceeds that of Microsoft and Sony, so examples such those in the OP only further exasperate things.
The lack of representation is still a problem now, just less so. But despite their progress, there still needs to be more PoC main characters. And stuff like this doesn't look good regarding their progress elsewhere.
 

ZeoVGM

Member
Oct 25, 2017
76,257
Providence, RI
I'm here with an incredibly diverse group of friends, and we're not seeing it. If you're correlating a black man with a chimpanzee, you may be the problem. To think of that immediately is kind of racist itself.

I just left a hipster coffee shop in downtown LA. It was packed with liberals, including numerous African American women, whispering amongst each other about how the Spirits in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate were definitely not racist.
 

Hikari

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
23,741
Elysium
Honestly man.... this seems petty and a little childish to get mad over. I'm sure Sakurai didn't deliberately put this in to insult people. Come on do you really think he had plans to put racist material in a game that's obviously aimed at everyone?
 

Danstanster

Member
Oct 25, 2017
469
eek

bc japan is such an insular, homogenous country and this is a japanese game i want to believe its ignorance and not malicious but still :/
Ignorance isn't innocence tho. I mean it's 2018 and you are selling an international game with tons of money spent catering to international languages. I think the point of the thread should be "none the less yikes" do you think they will try to use HR at Sora/Nintendo to stop this in the future or put it on translation to catch it because they aren't gonna stop
 

Scoey

Member
Oct 27, 2017
230
Honestly man.... this seems petty and a little childish to get mad over. I'm sure Sakurai didn't deliberately put this in to insult people. Come on do you really think he had plans to put racist material in a game that's obviously aimed at everyone?

How is pointing out obviously racist imagery in a game petty or childish and why do we have to accept that it wasn't inserted knowingly(when it quite clearly was)?
 

Danstanster

Member
Oct 25, 2017
469
As someone who doesn't know how Dee Jay fights in SF, seeing him repped by Diddy certainly raised an eyebrow from me when I first got to that spirit
Yeah like out of the hundreds of spirit fighters, if you don't get a reference you piece it together in your head. And this one screams yikes and not good. Other people saying using Diddy and DK is deeper than race is going right by making 3 lefts.
 

ClickyCal'

Member
Oct 25, 2017
59,918
I hadn't seen the Tac spirit yet and the choice of Villager's skin colour here is unacceptable. I hope this is corrected soon.

As for the other two:

Donkey Kong for Mr. Sandman made perfect sense to me the moment I saw it. DK's charge punch as you mentioned and the fact he was also a (secret) final boss in a Punch-Out!! game.

Diddy though...I actually just saw this within the last hour or so. As soon as I saw it I felt as just about everyone else did, believing this to be an overtly racist choice. But as soon as the fight started and Diddy was spamming his side special to kick the shit out of me, I went 'Ah, got it.' But as someone mentioned, earlier, they could have used Ryu and avoided all of this.
They didn't choose the dark skin color. The dark skin was added pretty late, after e3. They made the spirit when the black and purple shirt alt was light skin.
 

Hikari

One Winged Slayer
Member
Oct 25, 2017
23,741
Elysium
How is pointing out obviously racist imagery in a game petty or childish and why do we have to accept that it wasn't inserted knowingly(when it quite clearly was)?

I honestly dont think the black people are apes thing was the meaning of the spirits or black people steal. It seems to me like it's just references. For example, Tac has Villager's pocket ability and diddy kong has similar moves to deejay. As for the mr sandman one donkey kong is in punch out as a secret foe. Until Nintendo actually confirms they were mistaken and these images are in fact deemed racist then I dont think I'm going to cause an uproar over it. Like I said... it's game references to me more than anything.
 

Senki Dala

Banned
Nov 26, 2017
218
I lived more than a year in Japan, made a dozens of Japanese friends and for some reason it's one of my favorite place in the world, I love it so much. But it IS a racist country, basicaly. I mean to sell Samsung Galaxy phones they need to remove the "Samsung" branding because nobody wanna buy a Korean device... All on 10 friends I had in Japan, 8 of them hated Korea to death, wanted it to be destroyed and sees Koreans (or African people btw) as animals...

And the "but they live on an island" thing, come on. It's not the only country based on an island (well, islands)...
 

ClickyCal'

Member
Oct 25, 2017
59,918
Yeah like out of the hundreds of spirit fighters, if you don't get a reference you piece it together in your head. And this one screams yikes and not good. Other people saying using Diddy and DK is deeper than race is going right by making 3 lefts.
Dk being in punchout wii isn't really an obscure reference at all though, and it's referenced in smash a lot. It still ends up not good with dk as sandman, but it's an obvious reference....but tonedeaf.
 

Danstanster

Member
Oct 25, 2017
469
Honestly man.... this seems petty and a little childish to get mad over. I'm sure Sakurai didn't deliberately put this in to insult people. Come on do you really think he had plans to put racist material in a game that's obviously aimed at everyone?
Nobody should assume the Director of a game would craft every Spirit fight. It's wrong to assume Sakurai has anything to do with this. The issue is this happened and due to ignorance or management wasn't even caught, or addressed with Smash's 1st racist patch.
 

Scoey

Member
Oct 27, 2017
230
I honestly dont think the black people are apes thing was the meaning of the spirits or black people steal. It seems to me like it's just references. For example, Tac has Villager's pocket ability and diddy kong has similar moves to deejay. As for the mr sandman one donkey kong is in punch out as a secret foe. Until Nintendo actually confirms they were mistaken and these images are in fact deemed racist then I dont think I'm going to cause an uproar over it. Like I said... it's game references to me more than anything.

Would you be as generous if it was a western dev?
 

ZeoVGM

Member
Oct 25, 2017
76,257
Providence, RI
How is pointing out obviously racist imagery in a game petty or childish and why do we have to accept that it wasn't inserted knowingly(when it quite clearly was)?

It's definitely not childish or petty to point it out because this should have been caught by someone. But I'm not sure it's "quite clear" that it was purposeful either.
 

Nintenkun

Banned
Nov 20, 2018
85
User Banned (1 Week): Dismissing concerns about harmful stereotypes
why some people always see everything as racist, this is so dumb
 

MrPanic

Member
Oct 25, 2017
945
DK as Sandman seems like a cool reference, Diddy spamming side b seems like a very accurate representation of Deejay's gameplay, the feather has been removed afaik. Only Tac seems pretty unfortunate to me, though I can see that pick being made because that shirt was the closest recolor they had to Tac's outfit and them adding black Villagers later on after the backlash of there being none in the direct.
 

Deleted member 5535

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
13,656
It's amazing that this thread which is about racism in a product turned into racism into asians in some contents. lol How ironic.
 

Gotdatmoney

Member
Oct 28, 2017
14,572
Honestly man.... this seems petty and a little childish to get mad over. I'm sure Sakurai didn't deliberately put this in to insult people. Come on do you really think he had plans to put racist material in a game that's obviously aimed at everyone?

Do you know what the words childish and petty mean?