In mid June, we reported about a trailer of an upcoming video game that prides itself on taking place during historical moments.
Ubisoft, the developer of the video game series Assassin’s Creed has staged games in ancient Greece, Ptolemaic Egypt, the Crusades, and even the American Revolution.
There latest game was highly anticipated until the trailer came out which caused their stock to crash.
We previously reported, The latest game is taking place in the Edo period of Japan. The two main characters are a Japanese woman and a black man.
The black character’s name is “Yasuke,” a real-life figure who served under the warlord Nobunaga.
At face value a historical black figure living during that period as the main character isn’t a big deal but the Japapanese people are not happy.
Japanese gamers (and there are a lot of them) are upset they finally get an Assassin’s Creed game in their country and the main character isn’t one of them.
From Redstate:
as Japanese people pointed out, they finally get an Assassin’s Creed game set in their country and the main character isn’t one of them. Again, if the roles were reversed, and it took place in Africa and your character was a white or Asian man, then there would be an outcry about representation and endless accusations of racism toward the developers.
Japanese gamers are pointing out where Ubisoft has gone very wrong with everything, and not just the main character.
Let’s see how well-received the latest stunning and brave Assassin’s Creed Shadows is in Japan. I’m sure things are going to be fin… omg 🫨 😆 pic.twitter.com/bJVZziuKxw
— LearningTheLaw (@Mangalawyer) May 15, 2024
Well, things have gone from bad to worse.
A considerable number of Japanese gamers are displeased that Yasuke, who was a retainer in reality, is depicted as a full-fledged samurai in the game. Japanese people are so upset that an online petition was launched on June 19th, urging Ubisoft, the game’s developer, to cancel Assassin’s Creed Shadows.
In a nutshell, woke American censors thought that it would be a good idea to put a black person as a hero for another country, which by default altered their history.
What could possibly go wrong?
The initiator of the petition, Shimizu Toru, articulates his apprehensions in a very persuasive manner. He notes that Ubisoft appears to have a skewed understanding of the role and status of Samurai in Japanese history. Toru worries that this could potentially fuel Asian racism and urges Ubisoft to demonstrate more reverence for Japanese culture and history. The petition has already gathered more than 29,000 signatures with a goal of 35,000.
It’s important to mention that the majority of these signatories are Japanese. A top-rated comment from a supporter reads, “If it is fiction, I can forgive it. But, we absolutely cannot tolerate claims of ‘faithful to historical facts’ and ‘Yasuke was a great black samurai.'”
Below was one of the comments that was written in Japanese and we used a translation tool to put it into English:
Fiction can be forgiven. However, it is absolutely unacceptable to spread blatant lies such as “faithful to historical facts” or “Yasuke was a great Black samurai.” If this is left unchecked and people come to believe it as historical fact, it will inevitably lead to the narrative that “Japanese people ‘hid’ the fact that a Black person was such a great samurai” and that “Japanese people are discriminating against Black people.” In fact, the overseas internet community is already starting to take on this perspective. This is a distortion of Japanese history, an insult to Japanese people, and a clear form of discrimination against Japanese people.
Assassin’s Creed Shadows is scheduled to be released on November 15th, 2024. But the game is already marred.
Imagine the audacity of these woke censors in the USA who thought they could alter another country’s proud history in the name of equity.
