Several Japanese government agencies responded to requests for input regarding apparent historical inaccuracies in Assassin’s Creed: Shadows. Basically, their responses don’t exactly form part of a large or heated debate, all they seem to do is refuse to comment, or offer their general responses when it comes to video games.
If you don’t know better, you’ll find that there’s a lot of discussion about potential historical inaccuracies in the game, and any legitimate concerns from the Japanese are drowned out by the outrage of some Western gamers over diversity in video games. The latter is mostly just a shout-out to whether Yasuke, the game’s black protagonist, is actually a real-life samurai, which doesn’t matter in the context of Shadow since, you know, it’s a work of fiction. As Ubisoft said yesterday This has been clearly marked as such, as mentioned in a statement.
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Well, now the whole thing has been referred to some authorities in Japan, according to a Sankei report (The Good Place, GamesRadar)
How did they respond? Well, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs simply said it was not a matter of concern to it, while the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry said it would not comment on individual games. The only other response came from the Ministry of Education, which responded that when it comes to video games and their potential impact on children: “Generally speaking, cautious action needs to be taken when content is suspected of violating public order and morals”.
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As Jeffrey J. Hall, a lecturer at Kanda University of International Studies who “specializes in Japanese politics/nationalist activism/historical controversies/popular culture,” points out, these responses are somewhat formal, especially because Japan The government is not inclined to censor works of historical fiction simply because of their historical inaccuracies. Hall sees “nudity or extreme violence” as the only content likely to be censored, so the Department of Education may mention this when acknowledging the game’s “procedures when it is deemed to violate public order.”
Another factor worth considering is that the Japanese politician who asked these ministries for his opinion on the game (or more generally the rhetoric around the game) was Satoshi Hamada of the NHK party, a party known for its opposition to TV licenses A right-wing organization founded on the issue of expenses. The party, which Hall called “a small party with almost zero actual political influence in Japan,” had its national party status revoked earlier this year and the Tokyo District Court launched bankruptcy proceedings against it in March.
So, yeah, it’s not a big deal.
