Q:I'm an English teacher working in Japan and when I asked some of students what they thought about GZ, they said they hated the stuff that happened with Paz. When I asked why they hated it, the response given was something I did not expect. They felt they were victims of "寝取られ" (Kinda means cuckold) and that the "used goods" deserved what she got. I'm still kinda amazed at the dichotomy of reactions between the two cultures. Also your daily Spelunky and BoI streams have been a great joy.
Uh.
This really doesn’t say anything beyond what it literally states if we take the anonymous poster to be who they claim to be: a handful of random people out in Japan apparently didn’t have a problem with the scenes in question. Considering the state of feminist dialogue in Japan, this doesn’t come to me as a particularly big surprise and that lack of feminism as an ubiquitous topic in mainstream Japanese sociopolitical discussions is probably what the original poster was trying to point out, but to extrapolate that sort of reaction as one belonging to an entire culture is unrealistic and robs this sort of discussion the nuance that it so desperately needs. Based on the reblogs and whatnot I’m seeing here, it saddens me to see people just seemingly throwing their hands up in their air and declaring “WELP, JAPAN! YOU DID IT AGAIN!” as though everyone there is, of course, part of an intellectual hivemind and would inherently agree with those students and that they, implicitly, are inherently more advanced and enlightened thinkers philosophically by virtue of not living there. If that’s not true for any routinely stereotyped Western country where almost certainly those sorts of generalized responses are coming from, you can bet your ass Japan is in that same boat, too.
I don’t have the time or energy to translate the material, but I will say this: there is such a thing as feminist movements in Japan —I’ve written about them myself on here before, in fact!— and there are totally people over there who are not at all comfortable with how Paz is portrayed in the game. Quickly looking up in Japanese on Google terms such as “メタルギア5 パス 強姦“ or ”メタルギア5 パス レイプ“ and restricting search results to be for postings after Ground Zero’s release will give you a variety of blog posts and forum threads debating the merits and overall necessity of those scenes. For quick reference, here and here are two forum threads that recently ran on 2chan about this subject. There’s some healthy debating on the matter, but more importantly, there’s no universal consensus on the matter and the people who are really uncomfortable about it make themselves heard. Furthermore, Kojima even mentions in Japanese in an interview with a Belgian fansite that “everyone” on the development was opposed to the idea of producing those scenes, a sentiment I’ve confirmed with my own interpretation of the source video’s Japanese responses. Obviously he managed to convince people to push through with it eventually, but when I look at all of this, I don’t particularly see “Japan” as a population of people universally agreeing or disagreeing about the justification of those scenes. I see what you see everywhere else: some people horrified, some people nonchalant, and a lot of people somewhere in-between.
Am I particularly surprised to see people jump on that bandwagon and just go “lol japan, you so crazy”? No, definitely not. It profoundly disappoints me that more thought isn’t put into how and why some trends are what they are or why certain line of thoughts can seem to be widely accepted over there, but to say that I’m used to seeing that sort of dismissiveness is perhaps underselling how routinely I see it. I realize that anybody reading this who doesn’t speak Japanese is going to have to take me at my word about there being actual debates on those scenes, but since people are already willing to do that with the original poster, I feel I’m entitled to interject with what I have to say on the matter as well. To be certain, from what I can see overseas, it doesn’t seem like it’s as contentious of a topic inside Japanese discussion circles as it is outside of them, but there’s a huge difference between a topic being more rarely discussed and there being actual widespread consensus on a matter. You have to read between the lines in these matters, especially with Japanese language and culture where so much is left deliberately unexpressed when the assumption is already present that the people talking are all up to speed on the basics of any given topic.
Just my two cents on the matter as a Japanese translator and feminist myself.
Fascinating. ^^
As native Japanese, I often tired with westerners "lol Japan, you so crazy” kind of attitude. Well, Westerner and Easterner may be even with each other because we Japanese also have some “lol Gaijin” kind of prejudice in Westerner. Thank you.
157 Notes/ Hide
- seasonsmcgreasons liked this
- sorrybaldessorry liked this
- thebuntoo liked this
- juna42kela liked this
- discord-inc reblogged this from kaorei-endgame
- s-e-m-p liked this
- discord-inc liked this
- wiggybam liked this
- phytophthora liked this
- firstchurchofchristspaceman liked this
- firstchurchofchristspaceman reblogged this from heroine-problem-blog
- nemesis-and-tykhe reblogged this from patrickklepek
- nilvoid liked this
- lordub3r liked this
- apiercey liked this
- imperial-nuisance-rudje liked this
- mudron liked this
- notrachell liked this
- allwillbeone reblogged this from e46archive-blog and added:
As native Japanese, I often tired with westerners "lol Japan, you so crazy” kind of attitude. Well, Westerner and...
- ryebot liked this
- e46archive-blog reblogged this from heroine-problem-blog
- saltyhotwing liked this
- jeffgirthmann liked this
- beltsquid reblogged this from pbdigital
- mayuzane reblogged this from patrickklepek
- mayuzane liked this
- flufflogic liked this
- nictitropy liked this
- mrjubes reblogged this from patrickklepek
- mooseymcman liked this
- abayarts liked this
- pbdigital reblogged this from flatluigi
- mercuriousness liked this
- husyourdaddy-blog liked this
- gbjoker369 liked this
- feministbug liked this
- thepilgrums liked this
- ink-redulous liked this
- tr6queenly reblogged this from vvvarinn
- silkwyrm liked this
- piteousgate liked this
- patrickklepek posted this
- Show more notes