What are some Japanese-Role Playing Games with Egregious LGBTQ representation?
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She's not made fun of, but her presenting as male/masculine still is played for laughs by other characters either straight up mistaking her for a man, or being outright shocked when they learn she is a woman.
I'd argue that this definitely could be considered an issue for LGBTQ+ people, as since it ridicules the concept of a woman dressing a man, it debases the genuine concerns of trans men and genderqueer people (and butch Lesbians as well).
Compared to shit like Persona or its ilk, it's comparably tame, but it still creates hard borders in regards to gender presentation which is harmful for people who don't conform to what is traditionally masculine/feminine.
There's a difference between examining representation as a whole and just problematic representation, though. If you go in with the approach of "I'm going to examine only the egregiously-bad portrayals", that completely leaves out the possibility that representation has gotten better as time has gone on; it's not addressing a pattern (as it would be if the approach was "examining LGBTQIA portrayals within Japanese RPGs and the proportion of discriminatory portrayals versus positive ones"), but going in with a preconceived notion. This is only compounded if you haven't done a lot of research into queerness in Japan, given that the issues queer people face there are in some ways different from what we do in the West.
I think it's also important to draw a distinction between explicit queerness and mentioned. For instance, Joshua in The World Ends With You repeatedly flirts with the protagonist Neku, but his sexuality isn't actually mentioned, and for plot reasons it's not clear if his flirting is legitimate or a smoke screen for his actual feelings. Beyond that, I hope that your paper is clear about the release dates of some of these games; barring remakes, Persona 5 is a lot more recent than Final Fantasy VII, after all.
Seconding this, but it's not a JRPG; it's a puzzle game/adventure game. Also, for what it's worth, ATLUS USA is going to try and mitigate the transphobia once the English release hits, and they've learned a lot from the initial release.
For instance, the USA staff simply had no idea deadnaming and such was as big an issue as it is. Once they were alerted to it, they immediately apologized and explained they only kept it in because that's how the original game did it in the credits (and in the artbook, though that might have been a typo considering Boss is also listed as female...????). I've seen talk that her friends' transphobia (other than the sex discussion itself) was more along the lines of ribbing a friend the way you would anyone else, so some people appreciated that she was treated like the group would treat any other character, but that's totally subjective to each player/viewer.
Hopefully, now that Hashino is no longer directing the Persona series, we'll get better representation of queer characters. It was really weird to see some great, positive aspects mixed in with the blatant grossness his games have used.
Not gonna lie, when I saw the first japanese trailer in a Nintendo Direct I also thought she was a man since there was clearly a male voice over when she showed up briefly.
May have been better to not put any reactions from NPCs to her in the game at all, but isn't it kinda normal to be surprised about reveals like this at first?
He's one of my favorite characters in that game. He's flamboyant but they never rubbed in or pointed out his sexual preference and his character arc is about his fear of whether or not his father who he is as a man and what he wants to do with his life.
P5 was such a massive disappointment after P4's mix of good gestures and face-palmy missteps.
IIRC Shadow Hearts (1) had an acupuncturist character whose only purpose was jokes about molesting the male characters.
I have a jovial nostalgic association with FFVII's honeybee inn content, but Mukki is pretty damn egregious, though I do find it... notable that reactions to stereotypical representation matter a lot. There's a big different between Cloud counting to 10 while getting fucked and then deciding it's not for him compared to Cloud having an "ewwww no thank you get away" reaction.
IIRC Shadow Hearts (1) had an acupuncturist character whose only purpose was jokes about molesting the male characters.
I have a jovial nostalgic association with FFVII's honeybee inn content, but Mukki is pretty damn egregious, though I do find it... notable that reactions to stereotypical representation matter a lot. There's a big different between Cloud counting to 10 while getting fucked and then deciding it's not for him compared to Cloud having an "ewwww no thank you get away" reaction.
I mean, sure, she specifically dresses like a man and presents as one, but I also think that the NPCs' reactions are pretty overblown (I remember Tora going all "A w-w-w-w-w-w-w-WOMAN?!!??!?!!?"
Man, that Final Fantasy VII Remake is gonna be really interesting. Especially since people want it to be extremely faithful to the source material.
At least Tora get's called out for his bullshit from the female party members frequently.
iirc the only character that confuses her is Tora that is from another species so he doesnt know how to differentiate humans outside their clothing
Wow, this really is the game that keeps giving. Disgusting.
Someone didn't read the OP and just read the title assuming things.
We can't exactly ignore the issues that still exist to this day (P5, Catherine). OP has the right idea.
Soleil explicitly says she's bisexual in at least one support conversation in the Japanese version; she even says she prefers girls. That's from the Forrest/Soleil support.
I've beaten the second game's ending in question, so if you really want to know:
I don't know what AMAB means, but Rin is an alien who disguises itself(?) as a male, so that's all kinds of confusing. Vincent at first freaks out. Rin reaches out for him, Vincent slaps his hand away, Rin gets upset and runs away.
Vincent makes up for it, and tells Rin he's been an ass(which he was), and they make up and eventually become a real couple. His friends are totally cool with it, and Vincent grows as a person.
Not defending how they treat Rin, just giving you the full context.
Vincent makes up for it, and tells Rin he's been an ass(which he was), and they make up and eventually become a real couple. His friends are totally cool with it, and Vincent grows as a person.
Not defending how they treat Rin, just giving you the full context.
You clearly haven't played Dragon Quest XI. Drop whatever you're doing and play that masterpiece.
Too bad buying the one JRPG which has a "progressive" LGBT character would also mean financially benefiting a conservative scum who mocks homosexuals on an internet talk show and puts out paid ads in American newspapers denying Japan's war crimes and downplaying the voices of victims.
It's like you can't win sometimes! Maybe a deep social problem?
I wish you all would stop accusing FFVII of homophobia or transphobic. The cross dressing section, especially for 1997, I'd argue was handled pretty well, if not with a little humor. Aeris actively encourages Cloud to do it as if it was nothing. Had Cloud have any semblance of toxic masculinity he wouldn't have gone through or worse. Sure there are some comedic moments inherently from a man who has never cross dressed before and the fact that he's a bad actor.
FFVII, for all its flaws, I don't think deserves flack for this scene.
FFVII, for all its flaws, I don't think deserves flack for this scene.
Cloud crossdressing is fine. The gag that gay dudes all just wanna rape him, not so much.
Whatever it is what it is. Donate money to a pro LGBT charity. The man is almost 90 years old, he won't be around for long. He's old news but the fact that Square didn't give a shit and still wrote in Sylvando has to count for something. That's the future. Sugiyama is the past.
You know as well as I do that that scene was not intended to be taken as "rape". It's a comedic moment that was never intended to be taken as an assault. Cloud doesn't express revulsion even, just surprise.
Sure that scene would probably not fly nowadays but we have to see it through the lens of 1997. That's 22 years ago! For the time this was practically being progressive, this entire cross dressing sequence. Cut it some slack.
Nah this is bullshit. Square Enix chooses to continue working with him, places importance on the legacy of DQ music over the toxic nature of the man he is today. Does it matter that he's 90 years old if he's still healthy, active, and very contributing negatively to society and using his fame to influence societal norms? The Prime Minister of Malaysia is also over 90, but when he condemns Jewish people and makes homophobic comments it still has a huge impact. Age is not an excuse. Sugiyama will be "the past" when Square Enix stops working with him. It doesn't matter what they put in the games when they continue to profit a man who is acting against the interests of actual LGBT people in Japan. Representation in escapism is worthless when you are put down in the real world.
Okay man, keep defending Square Enix if it makes you feel better. "See it through the lens of 1997" is more bullshit. Just because it's comedy doesn't mean it's not problematic.
I played Shadow Hearts 1 for the first time recently, and was pretty disappointed there is a running joke that Meiyuan the acupuncturist molests male characters. He can level up people's affinity with certain weapons, and the process is pretty straight forward when he performs this on female characters. On male ones though, the game has the male characters protest and freak out, the game's sanity bar appears on-screen, and quickly draining to the point where the male characters go berserk.
I agree that it was intended to be a joke, but there's no doubt in my mind it was a rape or molestation joke. It kinda sours me on the entire section of the game to be honest. Now it feels like all of it was intended to be an emasculating joke where we're supposed to laugh at Cloud.
Thankfully Sugiyama is not a prime minister.
The DQ music has an incalculable worth and is etched into the popular culture. Square will not risk setting off Sugiyama's wrath a few years before his death so he can lock the rights to his music in a chest and throw away the key.
Not saying this is the correct way to go but this is probably what they're doing. Square has publicly confronted Sugiyama's views before and we know the guy who's probably going to succeed him is not a piece of shit.
That's on Squate but my stance? A team of hundreds slaved away to create an amazing videogame which took years of their lives. Sugiyama is a piece of shi but I'm not letting one rotten apple make the whole apple tree go to waste. Especially when the game itself has such a positive attitude to a character like Sylvando and AFAIK no one in the rest of the team is a POS either.
I won't deny that if you analyze it through 2019 eyes that could be inferred but c'mon this is an old ass game from the previous century. You have to cut it some slack and try to analyze it through the lens of 1997.
I'd be amazed if this scene was left untouched in the remake. But they better let the cross dressing in though!
??????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????? Citation required lol. As far as I know Square Enix has never said anything negative about Sugiyama or "confronted" any of his views publicly or otherwise. Furthermore no one knows who could possibly replace Sugiyama, because it's not something anyone talks about while Sugiyama is still around.
Guess what? Every time anyone buys a copy of any Dragon Quest product with music in it, Sugiyama is one of 3 people who get direct royalties from it. Not any of those hundreds of people on the team. Think about that for a moment before making that argument.
It's okay to just say that you don't care enough that someone who is anti-LGBT and a war crime denier gets money from every DQ purchase. You don't have to care. But don't try to defend it like there's some logical "out" that can justify it.
My interpretation was that Lukako wanted to be a woman so that he could get Okabe, who is straight, to think of him romantically rather than a friend. The way it dances around the topic is still not great, but I don't think Lukako was intended as a trans character, especially if you read into the character's (family) backstory (briefly put: forced to dress effeminately). Lukako read as a closeted gay man to me. He sees gay relationships as "wrong" and therefore wishes he could change circumstances for his feelings to be justified. Okabe is conflicted because, as it turns out, he is attracted to Lukako, but he also just isn't gay. My issues with SG stemmed, among others, primarily with implied (and sometimes more explicit) homophobia. It's steeped in otaku culture so of course sexualization of non-binary traits also comes up, but at least it's coded negatively. It doesn't delve into the broader topic of social stigma and why Lukako came to think homosexuality as wrong, so we're left to wonder what the game is trying to say (which is ultimately nothing or at worst ambiguous -- it is sadly merely used as a plot device). The anime adaptation (or the English localization at least) somehow is even more abrasive.
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Square HAS done so. Go to the 17:30 mark on this video.
Also at 18:40 they discuss who's supposed to replace Sugiyama. He's called Hayato Matsuo.
And like I said, it is what it is and its been this way since 1986. The man is a piece of shit but as far as Im concerned the rest of the team isn't. And he won't be around for much longer and the company itself has distanced itself from his garbage opinions. So if you want to berate me because I paid money to buy and play a legal copy of DQXI then so be it.
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It's a cynical choice. Her being a woman makes it more palatable than if it were a male character. She's a vehicle for a certain kind of fanservice.
Forrest asks her about how she thinks about men romantically, and she just gives her usual talk about liking cute girls more while being really forward about how cute he is too. However, once it's clear that he's serious about it later in the conversation, her entire attitude changes and she gets really embarrassed, so she clearly didn't take him seriously in the beginning of that conversation when he asked about romance.
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Square Enix dropped your standard, limp 'the views of an individual do not reflect the views nor efforts of the entire company' stuff. Basically throwing up their hands and pretending that it's all just Sugiyama's business, and not their own. A meaningless sentiment, since Sugiyama's place in the Dragon Quest franchise makes his baggage impossible to remove from the series. As you said, supporting Dragon Quest unfortunately directly supports Sugiyama and his agenda, and no amount of rationalisations will change that. I'm not going to pull up my nose to anyone that still wish to support the games, but I think it's important that we don't deny the reality of the situation.
Nope. That's a very general statement to try and brush off inquiries to their PR. Please note that there is no mention of Sugiyama or any sort of confrontation as you claimed. The statement doesn't even reference any specific thing that Sugiyama has said. It's pure cowardice and there's nothing to celebrate there.
This is a fan video that speculates about who could replace him. It's speculation from one source which is far from "we know the guy who will probably replace him". It's not even a consensus that DQ fans share, nor has Square Enix spoken about the matter ever.
I don't know why you keep trying to defend Square Enix or excusing their terrible inaction here. Like I said, if you don't care about it, that's fine. But when people bring up legitimate issues with how they handle it, don't defend it like there's some sort of justification. There isn't. It's still okay to buy DQ and not care about a war crime denier making money off it. Most people do that. Most people also just consume their entertainment without feeling the need to defend it. Just don't pretend to care.
It's the same thing Persona 5 does. An attractive adult woman exhibiting qualities of a sexual predator is "okay" because "that's hot" and "he's so lucky" etc. Gross really.
Is there legitimately no other way to show that I care other than refusing to buy the games? Im honestly asking here. You're accusing me of pretending to care but not caring because I bought a fucking videogame made by a team of hundreds and because one (albeit prominent) terrible guy is getting compensation for it I dont care at all about this issue?
As for the other points I won't debate further. The replacement I didnt know how much of it was mere speculation and Square's answer was indeed weak but at least its something. And according to the video Square did apparently pressure Sugiyama to release a (half hearted) apology but I didnt look for it so I dunno.
I'm trying to remember how Valkyria Chronicles is; my memory is that it might be the best treatment I've seen from a Japanese title but still leans into stereotypes somewhat.
Edit: Yakuza's interesting in that - from what I've seen - it's got one example of truly horrible treatment of trans folk (the 'fleeing' sidequest) and one example of - if I recall correctly - quite good treatment (the barkeep at Earth Angel)
There is no way to show that you actually care about this matter when you constantly try to defend Square Enix and Sugiyama with excuses that don't check out at all. Have you noticed that I never once condemned anyone for buying DQ games? It doesn't bother me and I don't judge people for it. I am also okay with people who buy the games and say nothing about this matter because it isn't important to them. What I do have a problem is when people decide to want to defend Square Enix, and use recycled excuses to try to rationalize their actions or reduce their complicity in the matter. Don't do that because you're not Square Enix's PR team, you're not on their payroll, and if you want to do it for free that tells me that your investment in this debate is to tell people who complain that it's "not that bad" or that it "doesn't matter that much". Which shows how little you care about the hurt Sugiyama causes people.
My problem is not people buying DQ games. My problem is that when people point out that supporting DQ directly supports Sugiyama's pocket, some people feel the need to defend it. There is no defending it. Don't even bother trying because defending it in any way makes you look bad.
Surprisingly, I feel like things were better 15 years ago. The Jun romance in Persona 2, Romancing Sa.Ga 2 having a bad-ass genderqueer as the big boss giving zero fucks about the way people talk about them... Not a RPG, but Justice Gakuen dating sim allowed everyone to date everyone regardless of gender too.
Back on topic, it depends where OP draws the line. There is a lot of cliché, super effeminate gay macho characters in Japanese pop culture, but not all of them are shown in a bad light. For example, the rose brigade in Sakura Taisen 2 were 3 cliché gay guys (the effeminate one, the narcissist one, the macho one who puts on make up) but besides making some unrequited passes on the hero (it's a dating game after all), they are also shown as being part of the military organization and being very competent at their work. So the design was egregious, but the role and writing were not.
Fine, whatever. My stance is basically what Pete Davidson said in this segment of SNL (go to 2:20 for the specific part).
When I pay for DQ12 as I give the money to the Martian that will sell it to me (because this game is coming in 2099) I'll say "Robo Sugiyama is a war crime denying asshole" out loud because for my luck this bastard could very much outlive me.
I'm not sure, honestly. Outside of one scene, the one in the hot spring with Lucas, I feel they're mostly okay. They're treated with respect by those around them and aren't seen in a negative light. They're basically non-binary drag queens.
You have to mention Hard Gay Ramon
There is a TOMY pop-up toy/game with him and a hilarious video on how he and his team pushed the company CEO of TOMY (by going to his home) to develop it. (Of course that video is probably fake-ish)
There is a TOMY pop-up toy/game with him and a hilarious video on how he and his team pushed the company CEO of TOMY (by going to his home) to develop it. (Of course that video is probably fake-ish)
Honestly, I prefer that the localization made her explicitly bi, instead of the Class S view the Japanese version does. I mean, even ignoring the problematic implications of that view on sexuality, it doesn't have a Western equivalent, so localizing it is the right call.
Excellent post, and I commend you for it. I'm an academic researcher and can confirm that this caveat is ignored in a lot of the stuff I read, which hinders the conversation about how the be more inclusionary. Basically, people online react with traditionally western viewpoints on Japanese games, which doesn't often lead to change because the company that made the game doesn't understand what it did wrong because it isn't framed in a way they recognize.
Now, I would say that this shouldn't matter, because if a company wants to compete in a global marketplace they need to do an better job understanding global cultures, but that's a conversation for another time.