03.19.07
Inafune: Japanese developers are cowardly
At GDC, Keiji Inafune had a little talk session, that revealed the stupidity of the Japanese game industries… actually, the naivety of the Japanese people as a whole. I’m fairly sure that most Japanese people who’d read this would be offended mightily and tell me that I’m a 非国民 (’hikokumin’: ancient term from back during WW2 about people who aren’t patriotic), but finally, Inafune (of Capcom) has pretty much made the same point. Japanese game developers are cowards. Anything that ‘hasn’t been done before’ is sure to fail. Really? But seriously, that kind of thinking itself hinders possible progresses that could be made by this one cultural industry.
As a good example of ’something that hasn’t been done before’, there’s Okami. Non-Japanese people may have no idea why it’s such a big step for us perhaps, but seriously, the characters in that game is familiar to most Japanese kids from a very early age. The realms of our folk/fairy tales had come alive in a non-anime format for the first time – how cool is that? I just wish that when the game appeared on shelves over here, they’d kept the characters’ names in Japanese. (As Inafune puts it however, Clover Studio collapsed because they had Okami down as an ‘art’, not a ‘product’.)
Most of you would love to play those weird and wonderful Japanese games, but they never come over here… or so I’ve been told. I suppose the Japanese cowardly nature tells us why. They think like this because it’s partly cultural, but partly due to their own bloody fault for being run rough shod over for the ‘wrongs we did back during the war’. Yeah sure, the Japs did some bad stuff back then, but so did everyone else – that’s what wars are. Get over it, teach the kids about the era between 1868 and 1945 properly (rather than glossing over facts) and move on from there! Can you now understand why I left Japan? I just couldn’t live in a place that was haunted by the past.
Talking of games that’ll never see the light of day over here, another manners game is coming out 26th April for approx. £20, titled これで恥をかかない明日つかえるDSビジネスマナー (translating roughly to: No more embarrassments, Use for tomorrow DS Business Manners). Obviously no use to people outside of Japan, it strictly tells you what to do in work situations. I did notice however, that although it covered business manners for Japanese working men inside Japan, it failed to even touch on manners with foreigners (like not bowing all the time like some idiot pigeon). You’re on your own there, dad, good luck :p