#oneaday Day 953: Like A Dragon

I beat Yakuza 3 tonight, which is why I’m up so late.

The Yakuza series is excellent for many reasons, chief among which is protagonist Kazuma Kiryu, who is just so effortlessly badass throughout that you can’t help but admire him. And yet he somehow manages to be this way without falling into the testosterone-fuelled arsehole trap, which is good. One could argue that it’s further evidence that the Japanese are actually rather good at writing strong, interesting, deep and flawed characters, while the West is often stuck in Tropesville. (This is a gross generalisation, of course, but Yakuza does provide good ammunition against anyone who says Eastern games are just about big-eyed anime girls and floppy-haired teenage protagonists.)

However, one thing was at the back of my mind while I was playing, and it relates to this (rather ranty) Eurogamer opinion piece from a week or two back, during the “girlfriend mode” scandal, also known as “Game Developer Says Something Stupid, Episode 357”. The article had a point — people should speak up when misogyny and sexism rear their ugly heads — but the fact that the article specifically called out Yakuza for being sexist really bothered me.

It raised an interesting question, you see. Yakuza certainly features depictions of a particular breed of sexism and misogyny endemic to Japanese big-city life, but does that make the game, in itself, inherently sexist? Does the fact that the game allows its protagonist to visit “hostess bars” and attempt to romance the women within mean it is a sexist work? Does the fact that the game allows the protagonist to visit a poledancing club mean that it is misogynistic?

You could argue the case for “yes”, clearly, but the perspective from which I approach the Yakuza series is that it provides a (mostly) realistic depiction of another culture that is relatively alien to my own. Part of that culture is sexist, and to deny that it exists causes the depiction of that culture to no longer be accurate or realistic, putting the developers in something of a quandary. Sure, we could probably do without the lengthy cutscenes depicting poledancers doing their thing just before there’s a big manly fight, but for the most part, the Yakuza games depict sexism rather than actually being outright sexist. (As a matter of fact, the incidental female characters in the “hostess bars” are considerably more well-developed than any number of T&A-toting heroines from Western games in recent years. The game also passes the Bechdel Test with flying colours.)

Should we decry Yakuza as a bad thing for showing it like it is and not attempting to make a positive change in society? No, no we shouldn’t. Because not all art is there to make life better. Not all art is there to make a positive change. Not all art is there to create a utopian vision of What Life Should Be Like. Some art is there to depict How Life Is, and Yakuza succeeds in that admirably.

While I do believe it is important to call out sexism and misogyny in the industry when it comes up, I don’t believe the Yakuza series is the biggest problem. I don’t believe it’s a particular problem at all, to be honest. The writers of Yakuza create female characters who are real, interesting people rather than sex objects, and the protagonist interacts with them accordingly. Any sexism present in the game is a result of accurately depicting a sexist society — with the possible exception of the aforementioned poledancing cutscene, but one could argue that was there to establish ambience and atmosphere. And it’s not as if Kazuma goes around beating or raping women, either — every antagonist in the game is male, and Kaz himself treats all the women he comes across with nothing but respect, save for the odd option to give a cheeky, innuendo-filled response to a hostess.

Were the Yakuza series to be sanitised and watered down, with anything deemed to be sexist or misogynistic stripped out, a big part of the game’s authentic-feeling Japanese atmosphere would be gone. As much as we would like to believe we live in a world where there is true equality, the fact is we do not — and in many places around Japan, this is particularly obvious. To deny that this happens by whitewashing your content — particularly in a game that is aimed at adults — would just be short-sighted, and I’d argue that it’s more helpful to acknowledge that all this goes on without being hysterical or sensationalist about it.

But anyway. Yakuza 3 is pretty great. You should play it.

#oneaday Day 780: Nihon

It’s a big ol’ stereotype for someone who is “into” video games to have an interest in Japan — at least it was, anyway. As popular, mainstream titles have shifted far more towards Western studios with this current console generation, Japan and all things related seem to have been relegated to something of a niche. And that’s absolutely fine, I think, because it means that people like me can explore things like the country’s culture without feeling like they’re jumping on some sort of bandwagon.

I say “explore”. Most of my knowledge of Japanese culture comes from, you guessed it, video games. (That and following J-List on Facebook.) But before dismissing that out of hand, it’s worth noting that many Japanese games do explore and celebrate Japanese culture and traditions in a way that you hardly ever see in Western titles.

I can remember the first game I played in which I was conscious of this: Shenmue on the Dreamcast. I found it interesting that the main character removed his shoes every time he entered his house. Not only was this a pleasing attention to detail, I discovered that this is traditional behaviour. And given that Shenmue was based very much on the idea of creating a realistic, small-scale game world in which to “live” as much as pursue the game’s story, this was just one of many things which initially jarred but started to make sense the more time I spent with them.

The Persona series are notable for this, too. To date, I’ve only played Persona 3 and 4 (and have recently started the first game in the series) but I feel I got a good sense of what it’s like to be a high school kid in Japan — or at least, as close an interpretation as the media will ever give you. I do wonder if the depiction of Japanese schoolkids in anime and video games is akin to the depiction of American “highschoolers” in TV shows and movies like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Clueless.

From these games and numerous others (including Katawa Shoujo which, interestingly, was actually developed by Westerners who clearly had a good understanding of Japanese culture) I’ve picked up all sorts of useless facts (mostly centring around schools) which may come in handy should I ever find myself in Nihon-koku. I know that schools have big shoe racks inside their front doors. I know that kids are expected to join clubs as well as attend classes. I know that traditional festivals with fireworks are A Big Deal, and that boys supposedly go crazy for girls in yukata. Boys also go crazy for girls in hot springs. I know that udon and soba are types of noodles, and that takoyaki is both made from octopus and regarded as a kind of fast food. (I also know that your stats have to be high enough to finish a big beef bowl, but the same could be said for a big-ass steak in the West.) Moving into more esoteric territory, I know that popular supernatural mythology suggests that restless spirits often hold grudges and can do very unpleasant things to people who piss them off.

It strikes me every time I play one of these Japan-centric games (the most recent being Persona and Corpse Party) that it’s rare to see an analogous “learning experience” in Western games. Or is it? Perhaps I’m just too immersed in Western culture on a daily basis to notice; or perhaps Western culture has lost a lot of its traditions over the years, leaving most people free to behave in a manner of their own choosing. Consider what you did when you walked into your house today: did you take your shoes off? The answer is “maybe”, because it wasn’t expected (unless you have a self-decided “shoes off household”) so it was up to you.

We still have plenty of strange traditions of our own, though, mostly, like Japan, surrounding significant festivals. Look at Christmas: we have carol singers, German markets in city centres, mulled wine, mince pies, midnight mass, christingles and all manner of other things. We have very specific rituals in place to celebrate things like birthdays. We cheer when waiting staff drop trays of drinks (though I really wish we wouldn’t), and we have songs for all occasions.

As I think about it further, it’s becoming clearer to me why there’s something of a tendency to see comparatively less traditional culture in Western video games than we do in Japanese ones. It’s to do with subject matter and setting: Japan is very fond of mixing the mundane and the uncanny for dramatic and unexpected effect, whereas in the West we’re rather fond of “hero”-type characters who focus on getting the job done, not pissing around building up his Social Links. This is a generalisation, of course — there are plenty of games that involve a lot of sitting around talking, though even then they tend to be through a self-deprecating lens rather than taking a genuine pride in traditional culture. When was the last time you saw an English character (i.e. someone from England, and not just a character with an English accent) who was not either 1) evil or 2) posh — or sometimes both?

Perhaps there’s no place for traditional culture or ritual in Western video games — or no traditional culture or ritual left in our modern society to even incorporate into a game. That’s fine, of course, though I think it rather sad, in that case, that we have the opportunity to learn a great deal about Japanese culture from their creative output, while any Japanese players exploring the Western body of work will arguably take little from it save “nice architecture”.

Am I wrong? If so, please feel free to share some of your favourite examples of video games that exemplify Western culture, tradition and ritual in the comments — I’d be curious to hear what people think, or even, if they don’t think it’s relevant, why they don’t care.

#oneaday, Day 241: The Gogglebox

Television is generally a good indication of what to expect from a country’s culture. Of course, it’s not the be-all and end-all of their cultural output. Thank God. But it does give some indication of the values of that country, the things they find entertaining and their general outlook on life.

Tonight I happened to catch a little bit of possibly the most uninspiring quiz show I’ve ever seen. It takes the very essence of England and Englishness—grey boringness; small talk about grey, boring things; reluctance to show any sort of enthusiasm whatsoever—and turns it into a spectacular example of how to get what is a pretty well-established format amazingly wrong.

The show is Eggheads. It appears to pit a team of clever people against a team of “Ha! They’re from the public! They must smell awful!” people. Presumably it’s intended to be some sort of triumphant David and Goliath situation, with, at some point, the team of great unwashed defeating the people with two brain cells to rub together.

There’s one very simple thing this programme gets wrong. Tension. Quiz shows are made by their tension. It can be created in many ways, and for many, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? is perhaps the best example, as it uses all of them. Music. Audience reactions. A host who milks the situation for all it’s worth. None of these are things that require lots of money and flashy effects to produce. They simply require a bit of personality. And, crucially, an audience.

Eggheads doesn’t have an audience. This means that even the most spectacular victory scored by the hoi-polloi is greeted by absolute, complete and utter stony silence. And this means the participants have no energy whatsoever. If they won, they’d probably just nod their head sagely and go “oh, thank you.” It’s the televisual equivalent of when you find yourself sitting outside the headmaster’s office and all you can hear is the ticking of a grandfather clock. Assuming you went to the kind of school that had grandfather clocks in it.

Contrast this with even the most cheap and nasty of American game shows and you’ll see a very different side of things. You’ll see participants whooping, hollering, cheering, jumping around and generally acting like they’re happy to be there. Of course, you have to be in the right mood to find this entertaining, as overzealous enthusiasm can be just as grating as stark boringness if you’re in the wrong frame of mind. But it somehow seems rather more appropriate for the game show format than what I witnessed tonight.

As for Japanese game shows? They do stuff like this. Kind of like The Generation Game. But, you know, good.