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sundin13 on 02 December 2017
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spemanig said:
Cerebralbore101 said:

I attended a presentation by a middle aged woman married to a Japanese man. She specifically went over this type of thing. Japan is almost 100% Japanese, so racial issues are almost never brought up or discussed over there. Most Japanese people don't really care what foreigners think of them. False stereotypes from other countries are looked at mostly as jokes, and not seen as offensive over there. 

I've read about three or four negative reviews on the game so far, and three positive reviews. The only review that generalizes is the Stevivor review, but that guy only wrote for a half a page. Could you find and point out these negative generalizations from  one of the negative reviews? 

I'm not pointing at specific reviews as I don't read or watch reviews before playing games I know I'm going to play. They are filled with spoilers. I'm mostly talking about comments being used here in this thread, and the implication that they've been used in reviews. I'm not going to point those out for obvious reasons.

Just to jump into this conversation, I think one of the main differences between comparing "Japanese" and "Black" is that one is an intercultural comparison and the other is an intracultural comparison.

See, "Japanese" culture, like you've said, is different than American culture in many ways and they often have different sets of values and norms to go along with that. This intercultural divide extends right into the fundamentals of storytelling and how certain things are portrayed. Often, when recommending anime to people, I try to recommend anime that is more in line with Western cultural expectations, norms and storytelling than Japanese, because it can often be difficult for people to adapt to and accept these differences. Some Japanese productions build up a bit of a wall between what the Japanese tend to appreciate and what Western audiences tend to appreciate. You see this in many Japanese movies which have a tendency to be very slow, focusing on different aspects than Hollywood, which can often ostracize western audiences. To say something is "too Japanese" is generally a fairly poor way of stating that certain aspects are designed to appeal more to Japanese audiences which may leave western audiences behind (however, a good reviewer would spell this out instead of saying something as broad stroke and unintuitive as "too Japanese")

With complaints that something is too "black", you start bringing intracultural comparisons into things which creates a distinct separation where one may not exist. I am, for example, aware of fundamental differences between Bollywood, Japanese and Hollywood film making, but the difference between "black" and "white" film making at a core level isn't really as clear. While a film like Get Out obviously utilizes the experiences and world views of a black individual, at a technical or fundamental level it doesn't utilize a distinct tool set from "white" films. I believe this is largely due to them both being American cinema and thus sharing the same film making language, even if they are using it to say different things.

To say that something is "too black" wouldn't often be taking issue at things that are "lost in translation" as is often seen in things that are "too Japanese", but often instead taking issue with what is being said, which often takes on more racist undertones.