“The game isn’t glorifying racism, it’s depicting it, and not in a positive way” This is exactly how I feel. People get really mad about Zieks for his character, saying his character is awful because of his racism. His character is never justified in his racism, just because you know why he’s racist doesn’t mean it’s justifying it. A character can be racist and be more than that racism, Zieks is such a fascinating character for it, and it just gets boiled down to something disgustingly simplified as “The Racist Prosecutor”.
To me he didn't seem that racist more like "racist by accident " given the society he grew up in. It's not like he actively tried to be racist. He was as hostile to the protagonist as any prosecution in any game. In the end he even called ryunosuke his friend. (Also i forgot to mention van zieks' backstory regarding genshin asogi an his supposed betrayal towards the first which caused unavoidable though a bit farfetched hatred for all japanese).
@@freezegiannis There's even a part in DGS2-4 where they visit van Zieks and he greets them with a hostile "what do you Nipponese want?" before being inmediately called out and ashamed
yeah, I genuinely feel like I can't publicly post on my social media how I really enjoy his character, his backstory, and the emotional growth he went through as a character because people in this fandom will genuinely cancel you and tell all their friends to unfollow/block you for being a fan of his. A lot of artists in the fandom dropped off in popularity massively for openly enjoying him as a character. It's so stupid. Like, do you think you're some savior defending the Japanese here??? Fan favorite character rankings in Japan regularly have Barok in the top 3, if not the number 1 spot!!! Japanese fans LOVE him! So many people that are not effected by racism or at least Japanese racism in any way are so quick to act like they're heroes for outwardly being disgusted by "the racist prosecutor" when like...they're missing the whole point of his character. Am I not allowed to like Doctor Frankenstein, who is an inarguably more horrific character because he desecrated graves?? Wait, no, because you can openly praise Enoch Drebber as a character with zero shame. It's only the characters being racist towards Japanese people in a game written by a Japanese development team that are bad. Doesn't matter if you think their racism is inexusable, you just aren't allowed to like them.
@@LilChuunosuke pretty much the same crowd that blamed Ghost of Tsushima for not having been made in Japan and depicting japanese and mongols in a "racist" way. These people are the real racists who think they are the only ones who can save all the poor inferior people. If it was a century ago, the same people would be advocating for slavery because these poor black people are just incapable of thinking for themselves and need a kind white savior to guide them.
Trying to claim that natsume's stay in Britain was all sunshine and rainbows and every British person who met him treated him in high honour and completely respected him, would be so much more offensive, as it would completely undermine all the shit he and other Japanese, even now to an extent, have to go through living in a foreign country
@@TheWeapon33 Every Asian country did something to that extent. Singling one out but failing to point out the others shows your complete lack of knowledge on this matter. Be quiet.
it's stated that natsume soseki had a pretty shit time in britain, it would be outright wrong and disrespectful to make him all "ohh britain is fine and dandy and contains no racism!"
I'd argue Natsume's mental health issues are the main cause of his miserable stay. Though some jurors and witnesses did hold his ethnicity against him.
I love how stupid these people’s arguments are, it boils down to “but this racism made me uncomfortable :(“. yea, it’s RACISM. If seeing it doesn’t make you uneasy then that’s a problem.
@@ViddyOJames The fact that you call it baby bitchfit because others get uncomfortable at racist depictions they may face often in real shows that you don't have much empathy and that your mindset is a literal problem to the general public by downplaying it as a hissy fit. No. Don't tell me that you experience it a lot. We know it's bullshit. For those that do, have a greater understanding and a better terminology spoken about the topic. At least you can acknowledge that racism is bad, but you're also actively contributing to it when trivializing emotions just because you don't agree with how it's dealt with.
@@oveliaeinsberg9838 Actually, It doesn't show that I don't have much empathy. It shows that you've been raised to be absolute weaklings. Learn to be a better fucking human being for god's sake. You let trivial shit consume you and then cry when we won't "show empathy" because someone said a fucking WORD.
Yeah, the racism in this game made me pretty uncomfortable. But you know what would be even more uncomfortable? If a game set at the start of the 1900s pretended that people weren't largely racists.
I mean, Professor Layton is very relaxed in that regard, but that's a game made for children to enjoy as silly escapism. If a series is presenting itself as a timepiece drama with international politics as a central role in the story -- like with The Great Ace Attorney -- then yeah, they gotta hit on some difficult subjects by necessity.
People are surprised a game set in the late 1800s has depictions of racism? I'm only on Case 4 so far, but from what I've seen, most of the characters presented as racist are villains anyway and meant to be hated for their attitudes. The only real exception is van Zieks, but I imagine the game will do something with that attitude as it goes on.
A lot of people, even the witnesses and the jurors are racist. Idk if this is the case in the officially translated version but the racism in the orignal script is really common and transparent.
Van Zieks is the only one to have any reason for his hatred of 'Nipponese', but I won't spoil it, it's a major plot point. But even with his racism, it was clear to me from the beginning that he always seeks the truth.
@@Nnm26 from what I understand, when it was localised, it was simmered down a bit cause of the snowflakes. The fan translation had worse things to say apparently
I saw a Polygon article written criticizing the game for only talking about racism towards the Japanese. They said that they should have addressed the racism present in every colony throughout the empire. I think they fail to realize that this is a game solely focused on English-Japanese relations at the time. Shoehorning other areas of the empire and their issues would not have worked.
Its not true though Spoilers Case 2 and case 5 show a bit of racism towards Russia with the guy with the beard and the ballet dancer. In game 1 Game 2 at this point narahudo gets fed up along with Mr natsume and do take a bash at the British, but herlock is the one to say that the British are not more evil and that there is evil on both sides. There is a few other tiny bits of racism to other colonies such as to Germany a little bit with the recording, and you can definitely sense it in the science thing because it's made clear that each place wants to best each other and that they think their system and scientists are superior. So Polygon saying that makes absolutely no sense
It's because if you have racism in your game, you need to go all the way into making the game ALL about racism and how horrible it is. Having racism as a recurring theme isn't good enough, and god forbid you even think to utter the word "nuance".
@@329link Hii ik this comment is a month old but I'm a bit confused. This game talks about the racism the Japanese people faced, why should it have to go "all the way" why can't a Japanese game, written by Japanese people talk about the racism their people experienced? Why should they have to talk about the racism other races experienced when they clearly just want to talk about what their people experienced.
As a minority who's experienced discrimination, I actually sort of appreciate this game's depiction of racism. I think Fantasy stories not having depictions of racism is fine as that's pure escapism. However, if you're making a story based on “our world” and are centering it on a very racist period, it makes sense that there will be racism. Thankfully, I think most people grasp this concept. It's not too often that I see anger towards “period pieces” for depicting more unfortunate parts of human history.
Yea honestly it was refreshing to see somewhat realistic displays of discrimination and nothing was sugarcoated at all. Hopefully it’ll open people’s eyes to how deeply rooted racism is
@@agusinfinite2036 agreed. Racism still exists even in this day and age. Also, why are those people calling out the game when the Japanese developers make stories about racism towards the Japanese themselves?
There's also a meta element at play that a lot of people miss: this is clearly a story with a ton of love and respect for not just sherlock holmes, but a lot of classic detective stories. There's the obvious sherlock holmes references and characters, but there's some extremely deep cut stuff too. The second case contains a reference to an episode of an obscure 60s holmes radio drama that never actually made it to broadcast, but was included in a book compiling the scripts of the episodes, for instance. It's clear that the creators adore old british detective stories, but the creators are also Japanese. And you don't have to read a lot of old british detective stories to realize how steeped in racism against asians they are. 'the chinaman did it' is a massive cliche of those stories, and anytime asian culture is even vaguely brought up its often treated as mystical and strange. Even in storeis that are less overtly racist, like most of the earlier Holmes stuff, there's a definite dismissiveness. See Holmes explaining away some strange 'japanese wrestling' style as a martial arts he knows, with a made up name that refers to a martial art that isn't even Japanese or a wrestling-basede art. If Doyle had wanted to reference a japanese martial art, there's dozens he could have found out about with just a couple days of research, even at the time. The fact is, those stories have that dimissiveness and misunderstanding baked into their DNA. So a japanese dev studio making a detective/mystery game that explicitly has holmes it and also explicitly deals with the racism of the period, it feels a bit like the creators reconciling their own love of the stories of that era with the reality of them. In general, the way a few big sites reacted to the racism in GAA is extremely strange: its one thing to say its a bit heavyhanded, thats just an opinion, its another to act like the very idea of depicting it is flawed. people would flip if someone even implied something similar about, say, a south african dev studio depicting racism. it feels very american centric, like they get to set the tone of conversation and they feel uncomfortable that this is how a japanese dev team views their own history.
I don't mean to be that guy, but as you said, if a primarily black dev studio made a game that was horribly anti white, anti police etc. it would almost certainly be celebrated rather than condemned. First world problems :/
@@DustoVonSusto And even a studio doesn't have to be african-american in order to have it do something that's perceived as "anti-white". Netherrealm Studios was critized for Jax's (african-american character) ending in arcade mode which is basically "With the power to control the timelines I just had bestowed upon me, I made sure that african slavery by colonizers never happened and, after trying and failing many times, I managed to achieve equality and world peace"... with some having thought of it as "racist" and "promoting white genocide". And I'm pretty sure most of Netherrealm Studios' staff has a bunch of white people in it.
I mean- The game was made by Japanese people depicting people being racist against Japanese people. How can that be racist? Is a black person who writes a book about slavery a slave owner or something?
It’s really grasping at straws to say the Japanese discrimination in this game is blatantly offensive, especially considering it’s Japanese people that made it.
you're missing a point here that I felt I had to address - the racism is offensive, it should be offensive and that's the point. You're supposed to be offended by it on Ryunosuke's behalf, it's bad, but that doesn't mean that the game is racist. The point of the racism in the game is to make you uncomfortable, and that's a valuable experience - you see what it's like to be a foreigner in 1900s London.
How DAAAAAAAAAAARE Capcom show racism (towards their own people mind you) in their game to give an accurate representation of the time period and show that racism is a bad thing?
Yeah, I love historical fiction, especially stories that cover periods in history that I really don't know much about. That being said, I understand going into these stories that I'm going to see some values dissonance. Considering the time period, if I didn't see a single remark in these games that didn't come off as racist, sexist, classist, or homophobic, I'd have called bullshit.
Huh, I wasn’t even thinking that someone could think the depiction of racism in the game is bad. It’s always framed negatively, often to show Ryunosuke as an underdog and the villains as truly awful, and it’s also relevant to the times the game is set in. The racism is very important to the themes and plot of the game, and I would argue that it bends realism to make it more thematic. I mean Brett just outright saying she thinks the Japanese are savages paints her a clear villain but I don’t buy that anyone would be that brazen in real life.
Just wanna say...people are that brazen irl lmao. I'm black and when I was in middle school a group of senior-aged dudes followed me in a car yelling slurs at me as I walked home. It's gotten better but yeah...some people can be terrible.
You should read some of the newspaper articles, open letters, and diary entries from this period. Or some of the plays from that time. I forget the name, bit I remember a line where someone says that knitting is inferior to embroidery and crochet because "the way the arms are held so close to the body carries an air that is so I unappealingly Chinese." Knitting did not originate in China. It was probably originally from the Levant or Eqypt.
To be completely fair, Japan always conveniently forgets its own war crimes against Korea and China. Some criticism against Japan is very warranted and earned.
Thank you for making this video, I agree with your points. [major spoilers for the great ace attorney: resolve below] Some people have completely written off or dislike Barok van Zieks because of his hatred of Japanese people, and, I can respect that if it comes from the more emotional or traumatised part of a person. But the way van Zieks's racism is shown, compared to Jezaille Brett's, is very different. Van Zieks very clearly tries to understand and change in the second game. He does start to show more respect to Naruhodou in the first game, but it picks up in the second. He tries to understand where that hatred came from, and working towards viewing it differently. He realises Souseki Natsume was truly innocent, and asks how he is doing. He allows the man he hated so much to defend him in court, and calls him by his name. I find what Dai Gyakuten Saiban does well is showing that everyone has good and bad parts to them. When I replayed the fourth case, I couldn't help smiling seeing Judge Jigoku, despite knowing full well he was a MURDERER and GREGSON'S DEAD BODY was literally INSIDE HIS TRUNK (yeah that really freaked me out upon replaying). And Gregson did some awful things as part of his 'Reaper' duties, but was still a caring mentor towards Gina, and even Naruhodou and Susato. Asougi accepted to assassinate Gregson just for the chance to go to Britain, and even took his best friend with him. Yet he deeply cares for his friends and can't betray them. Even Gina was a pickpocket in the first game, and although she is at a bigger disadvantage than the people she steals from, it's still kinda immoral. But she makes a big turn in the second game, becoming an apprentice inspector. Yuujin Mikotoba is a loving father to Susato, and friend of Naruhodou, yet was missing, and regrets it, for the first 6 years of Susato's life, and withheld important information from them. Those last two examples show when a character regretted and learned from their mistakes, to grow into better people. Even Naruhodou himself idealises Asougi quite a lot during his disappearance, not doubting him for a second, which causes him to lose focus on himself. He barely considers that people in power could be corrupt before well into the course of the game. It's very realistic, in that sense. Not every person is purley good or evil. It can make you sad to think that someone you have good memories of has done awful things. That's what makes you care for them, and give you hope that they can be their best selves.
And I want to thank you for this comment, too! [spoilers for the Great Ace Attorney: Resolve] I agree with what you said, I thought the same while playing the second game. Particularly the truth about Gregson left me thinking a lot. Like Gina, I admire a person who made some mistakes that were hard to take for me. However, he is a great human being and he taught me many things. The truth is, people have more than one side, for better or worse.
yes! i completely agree! especially with the van zieks' racism. ive seen a lot of ppl just write him off as a guy who's really racist and says slurs every other sentence but he's nothing at all like jezaille brett who puts down japan and postures britain as being a flawless better country AND who straight up just called a japanese man a gorilla for daring to talk to her. van zieks is incredibly condescending but i dont recall him ever posturing that great britain is inherently better than japan save for looking down on ryunosuke's lack of knowledge of british law while practicing british law. he's been aware and has been battling his racist views since the end of the first game and he even acknowledges it was unjustified and irrational by the second. then he like, straight up stops being racist for the rest of the game. he even stops referring to them as "nipponese" (but i think he does once and then after that he doesn't do it anymore) like van zieks isnt the best "racism redemption" out there but people acting like the story justifies and therefore condones his racism is frustrating some people treat any and all forms of racism in stories as bad torture porn against poc (and honestly a lot of ones written by white writers really do feel like that) and it just sucks that apparently a japanese writing team isn't allowed to write racism the japanese faced in 1900 meiji era japan as if they wouldnt know how to write that
And Twitter folks would dismiss everything that was said here, just to try and cancel this game for things their small minds choose to never understand. Your comment makes absolute sense my man and I applaud it.
The idea of certain westerners wanting censure on DGS, has an ironic tint when you compare it to 1st case: where Great Britain pressured Japan to rush a verdict for an innocent.
as someone who has experienced bouts of racism and discrimination throughout their entire life, i've heard and can sympathize with the argument that video games are a form of escapism for many. especially given the recent resurgence of discrimination towards API people, i can understand why someone might be off put from playing a game that doesn't support, but does feature those elements. that said, your video raises some great points about how removing the discrimination faced by the protagonists would be a disservice to the story the game is trying to tell. i only recently got around to finishing adventures and resolve, and as jarring as it was to encounter something as serious as racism in one of my favorite, goofier franchises, i found myself more immersed because of it. the same feelings of helplessness and righteous anger that ryunosuke expresses multiple times at the brunt of discrimination are all things i've felt before as well, and as the story went on i felt more and more connected with his character and motivated to see things through. given how the game goes out of its way to paint racist characters as ignorant, or as villains, it was nice to feel in control for once, especially with how disconnected and weak i've felt in similar real life situations. the game doesn't set out on this lofty mission to "end racism" since simplifying such an issue like that would feel like a slap in the face, but those moments when ryunosuke pushes through, despite it seeming as though everyone and everything is against him are where the game shines through the most imo, and are why this might just be my favorite AA to date.
@@Dragonage2ftw it's definitely not the best thing to retreat into a fantasy world at the first sight of conflict, but it's also not entirely healthy if you experience a constant barrage of external stressors, and just leave yourself open to that. it's about finding a balance between escapism and grounding yourself, really, so i don't think brushing it off as just silly is fair
As someone who is a fellow API, fully in agreement. It just wouldn't be the same if we didn't hear the honest comments of the occasional uninformed members of the British public. None of the racism featured feels out of place or is shoehorned in some heavy-handed way. It's not just stereotypes about the Japanese either; there are also stereotypes about the British, the Italians, the Russians, etc. and they're given in ways that are funny or informative, or have some historical cause, or all of the above. And when it comes down to it, most of the British citizens who at first are openly racist come around to respect Ryu and Susato after seeing them fight so hard in court. Only the villains of the game double down with the racism, and even then, it's not like they rely on saying mean things as their only weapon. These are some of the most crafty, intelligent villains in the AA series, and that's coming after some of the more impressive villains of AA4 and AAI2. Besides, we have on the other side of the spectrum Herlock Sholmes, who is so non-conformist that he believes a Russian revolutionary is capable of "revolutionising" his face to look Japanese. He means no ill intent by it and even praises the results. Then he learns said guy actually is just Japanese and immediately forgets the conversation ever happened. "He's a little confused, but he got the spirit."
Despite everything, I always thought van Zeiks was always the best prosecutor, because despite everything, van Zeiks never insults the defense on a personal level, he is also a very fair prosecutor, who is straight to point, fires his ammo right away, waits for me to respond, then rebutts if needed. Then throw in some of his bigotry, and you have a very neatly flavored character who isn't insulting the the defense every three seconds. Playing this game made me realize how insufferable the main prosecutors were, even Edgeworth, but only in thr first game.
(I know I'm 8 months late but this is the Internet I can do whatever I want) (side note: spoilers for Spirit of Justice) This is why I hate Nahyuta Sadhmadhi on a personal level. Unlike other prosecutors he has no good reason for being sassy or petty. Take Godot for example; He has all the reasons he needs to hate Pheonix. Or how Franziska hates Pheonix for her kind-of-but-not-really brother. Now look at Nahyuta: He is comfortably atacking his own brother in court, acussing one of his friends, and all of it with a smile on his face. WHY?? Sure Ga'ran has him as her puppet but that doesn't mean he can comfortably insult defense attornies while his own father was one. At least make him show some uncomfort while doing so. His character dialogue makes no sense compared to his arc
@@kiwenmanisuno Exactly, man. His character development was obviously shoehorned in so he can parallel Edgeworth as the rival turned friend, but they never took into account the why's of Sahdmadhi would be sadistic to the defense even when there is no logical reason to do so. In fact, him being a puppet under Ga'ran and prosecuting in the States would evoke a crack in his stupidly overbearing style in court because this is the only time Ga'ran could not spy on him. Also, their backstories tied together also looks very forced in a vain attempt to also parallel Wright's backstory and even attempt to one-up said backstory. It really isn't the best part of Justice's arc, but the everything else was awesome.
One thing I love about this series is how it can shift tones with each scene. One moment, it's all fun and giggles. Another moment can be very serious to show you "hey this is important, we want you to get invested right now." This game has that perfect balance between genuine funny banter and serious moments.
People getting mad that japanese people created an accurate depiction of the racism they race went through in that time period just feels pretty fucking weird to me overall
Dude it’s like getting mad at history books for talking about racism, it’s history. It’s there permanently. You can’t do anything about it. It’s just how it is
I cannot TELL YOU how many brain cells I've lost seeing people get on Barok van Ziek's case for being racist and completely ignoring how it's implemented in the story and his character. Barok went through a traumatic loss of a family member at a decently young age, which he and EVERYONE IN LONDON (except the Reaper squad) thought was caused by a Japanese man. He even SAYS HIMSELF that he kept telling himself it was STUPID to hate all Japanese because of what one man did, but he was just so hurt and betrayed that it consumed him. Having a reason for this behavior doesn't justify it, and the game KNOWS this because in the last case, Barok starts ACTIVELY trying to remedy his behavior and treating Ryunosuke with respect as a fellow lawyer. Like you said, racism isn't glorified or justified in this game, AT ALL, in both a historical sense AND a character sense
I think it's telling that the majority of people complaining about the racism in TGAA are white, and I say that as a white person myself. It'd be completely understandable if Japanese players were uncomfortable with the way characters in the game spoke, but the fact is that the game was _made_ in Japan, _by_ Japanese people. The duology is incredibly well-loved in Japan. Hell, van Zieks is constantly at the top of popularity polls, and he's one of the most blatant racists in the game (initially, at least). So, the games come out in Japan, and players are largely okay with the depiction of racism, because they recognise that A) it's historically accurate, and B) it doesn't reflect the views of the creators. All is well. Then the games are localised and released to a Western audience, and people start complaining about the racism. But everyone complaining is from that Western audience. People who've experienced discrimination before might feel uncomfortable being faced with it in video games, which are generally supposed to be a form of escapism. That's completely fair. What's _not_ fair is white people seeing it and trying to speak _for_ minorities. The amount of people I've seen saying that the game's depiction of racism is bad, just because racism itself is bad, is ridiculous. Imagine a gay person writing a story with a homophobic character, then a bunch of straight people start saying the story is bad for being homophobic. And then there's the worrying group of white people saying that the racism makes _them_ uncomfortable. Why? It's hardly a taboo subject nowadays. It doesn't seriously affect _you._ Or does it just upset you when someone calls out your ancestors for being prejudiced? It _shouldn't;_ you're not your ancestor. No one's calling _you_ racist, but trying to ignore and/or erase the suffering of an entire race of people is questionable, to say the least.
This comment isn't directed to the point of your comment, just more so a question. Where is it that the duology is incredibly well loved in Japan? I thought in sales it did incredibly poorly. I'd love nothing more to be wrong though.
@@digitalnative5678 When the first game came out, it wasn't very well-received, mostly due to the cliffhanger and all the questions that were left unanswered. TGAA was originally meant to be just one massive game, and it was marketed as such before release, so when it was eventually split into two games instead, a lot of people felt cheated. Luckily, once the second game was released, people gave it a chance, and it ended up being one of the most popular Ace Attorney games, even winning a Famitsu award.
@@staying_silent wasnt it supposed to be cut into More than 2 games tho? I heard such info + while the pace of the first game felt while slow, is fairly well, the second one is Just rushing through the plot points to complete the story
It's less that they're White and more that they're American. This country has really turned into an odd place now where we'll cancel things without logical thought or we'll ignore threats or people without any logical thought. In other words America does things without thinking logically and have been doing it more and more as the years go by. Said country ignorantly looking at a game like GAA and automatically assuming it's just a racist game without any rational thought about the time period it takes place in, the reasons behind the racism from some of it's characters, the historical inaccuracies it would have if it were not acknowledged and the writers who wrote it in the first place, are absolute fools who pretend to be morality heroes when really, they are merely deluded in their own egotistically self-designed ignorance.
The ironic part about Kazuma wanting to reform the Japanese legal system is that even when Japan was being pressured to deliver a Not Guilty verdict for the English student in the first act, their legal system was still miles ahead of British and much more fair. Ik that's not how presenting evidence works in real life but in that case, even though they were pressured, whenver they got new evidence to turn the tide in the case, they pursued the truth, rather than rushing a verdict. Meanwhile in Great Britain, the jury could vote on a guilty verdict based on the first witness the opposition brings and you couldn't even get to the cross-examination part as a defendant before the emotional jury could charge the defendant as guilty just becuase the 6 jurors got convinced so easily.
Yeah I think that is kind of the whole point of the game, it's to show how in the Meiji Era Britian was being held up as a paragon of modern civilization only to juxtapose the reality where it's flawed and rotten to the core.
Am about to finish the first of the two games, so I peaced out when you warned of spoilers, though I did stick around for the discussion of the first case. I always interpreted Auchi's and the judge's reaction to Jezail as if they weren't necessarily impressed, but rather were trying to be as hospitable as possible in order to not spark another international incident.
That's more or less accurate. Auchi basically spends the whole trial kissing her ass and gets angry a few times at Naruhodo trying to defend himself by accusing him of wanting to rekindle international conflict.
@@TheAzulmagia The Judge is probably being nice, but Auchi is just straight simping, even if part of it is international peace protection. Not anything new for his heritage.
The funny thing is, how they treat Brett is barely any different from how Payne treated Dahlia in case 1 of game 3. Ignore the nationality and it's basically just how they treated Dahlia: a sweet, supposedly innocent, beautiful woman.
As Simon Whistler often says, "The past was the worst." And I have heard (very rarely, mind, but still) the argument that we shouldn't ever have perfectly accurate depictions of the past because "forcing people to endure that discomfort is immoral." This is Orwellian revisionism, changing the past to fit a present day narrative. And besides, it doesn't undo the pain the people who actually experience it go through. Racism was and still is an atrocity. It may never fully be eliminated. The best we can do is keep working towards improving the situation for everyone. That does not mean pretending it never happened.
Remind me a bit of all of that happened with "Gone with the wind" in another art form and a lot of other examples in books, films, games, etc. There are people who genuinely can't understand time and context it seems. Not everything was perfect in the past. Not everything was shitty either. What we should do is learn about what was good, what was bad and try to make our present and future a little bit better thanks to these informations. Racism exist. War exist. No nation has a gloriously clean history. These facts should be looked head on, not put behind "trigger warning" and banned from all medias just because "it makes us feel bad".
About the argument "How can you advocate for realism in a game where people can shoot fireballs?" I think people miss the point. This is not so much about realism than it is about credibility. When you make a game, create a world, write a book or what have you, you may imagine the craziest or most unrealistic world ever created, you still want to depict an atmosphere and draw tension so your story is interesting to follow. Those two things can't be achieved without credibility. Your world and your game have to be believable and if you make a game that takes place during the Meiji period, you can't be criticized just for creating a believable setup for your story, especially when said setup serves the plot moving forward.
It's also important to note that the xenophobia isn't just from GB to JP. Soseki basically gained a distain for the British and one Bohemian character thinks his language (German, I believe) is better than English. As you've said, the racism is just a part of the world at the time, like even Japanese players back in 2015, they weren't complaining about how much these Japanese devs hate Japanese people - that's just not true and even they understand it's just a relic of the time period. In my opinion, it's kinda lucky that this game was even able to come out and be translated as faithfully as it is because I swear games and fictional media just don't want to depict any kind of racism, ever. Or if they do, it's always the standard 'it's bad' kind of thing with zero nuance. It's funny too because I watch some LPers of the game be shocked and sorta horrified at the racism and stuff... and then basically adore the character in question for the other reasons. Character design. Anyway, good video.
I think this game's handling of it is a mixed bag. It's mostly good in my opinion, but one thing that bothers me is I don't like how Ryunosuke responds to Van Zieks being racist at him. It's almost like he doesn't even notice it, even in his internal monologue most of the time, and when he hears all of Van Ziek's backstory he's like "Oh, so that explains why he hates all Japanese people!" and it just feels kinda hollow. On the other hand, Soseki's story very much did, Soseki's cases were exaggerated but real examples of systemic bias against certain groups in the legal system, and Soseki feeling personally crushed by the weight of being a foreigner in this land was very well done imo.
@@iMasterchris Van zieks handling of it was actually pretty realistic. It was taken casually because.. Racism was pretty casual back then. It wasnt the best times.
@@iMasterchris about your complaint ryunosuke doesn’t seem to notice it because it was normal at the time it’s not something anyone in the 19th century would really question
@@hunbi1875 Agree. And even then, if Naruhodo was to retaliate at all, him, in a British courtroom surprisingly with British people, would get shanked instantly, and if he didn't, then it would prove van Zieks's point about what he thinks of the Japanese.
What I never understand with these types of discussions is why people single out racism as the ONE thing that's not okay to depict. Detective stories in particular also depict a lot of murder. But nobody ever goes "the creators must be okay with murder!" or "this is not okay!" on as large a scale. Now, I know there's different severities (I'd argue murder is more sever than verbal racism) but the principle of "the creators of a story does not necessarily endorse the things happening but uses them as tools to tell the story" should be easy to lift from one thing to the next. Or am I severely overestimating people here? Also - REEEE, you said offend instead of alienate
Racism appears to be one of the most unforgivable things now a days, it seems people cant see a person with racist tendencies as nothing else than an awful person, I agree it is a terrible mindset, but I think many of us had racist family members, probably a grandpa or something like that, that were loving fathers and workers but because they are racist people inmeadiately label it as a horrible person, even if they never took actions against such race, people are willing to be fans of a fictional character that commits murder/steals/is a corrupt polititian, but if it is racist it inmeadiately becomes the most hated and any other personality feature it may had its ignored
exactly! One comparison I've made to how ridiculous the hatred of Barok van Zieks is by drawing a parallel to Doctor Frankenstein. Am I not allowed to think that he's a cool character because he's a grave robber? But then I realized something absurd: this hatred does not extend towards Enoch Drebber. You are allowed to enjoy characters that are grave robbers and murderers and liars and cheaters. But a character that is racist against Japanese people, written by a team of Japanese game developers, and is deeply loved by their Japanese fanbase? If you do anything less than call him "the racist prosecutor" with a disgusted tone of voice, then you're immediately suspicious. Like, what??? Like if you can't handle games with racism in it for one reason or another, then fine, don't play it. But don't tell me that *I* am racist for recognizing and appreciating the full depth of a character as the developers intended me to because *you* are uncomfortable with some of the things he says towards the player in the first game. It's childish, really...
Should probably mention that the whole "REEEEEEE" thing is ablest against autistic people. Please don't use it (Unless you're trying to depict Ableism in a story, which, yeah, that would be fitting)
There's a situation in online discussion recently where people (predominantly on the far left) assume a depiction of a problematic element is somehow the same as condoning or supporting the problematic element. This happened recently with the game Boyfriend Dungeon, where the main villain is a bit of a creepy stalker. Despite the game being incredibly progressive, the VA for the character got literal death threats and the studio got a lot of reviews from people who were upset that this was put into a game. Despite the fact that the stalker was the villain and his actions were treated with nothing but contempt. I think some people in online discourse are far too adamant about taking a bullet for a perceived cause that they end up just jumping into situations that aren't anywhere near the level they claim it is.
As an incredibly far left person, I find that as in most cases, it's a vocal minority of confused (often young) people who say this kind of shit. Ignoring them when they are being patently absurd or trolling usually is for the best. Not to use a "no true Scotsman" fallacy, but I do hope more people start realizing that most people on the left aren't actually like this.
@@violabomb636 if you say your a far left person you probably engage in all that stuff the minority you say do too leave your extremist group before its too late.
@@mpo48 Why are you associating leftism with extremism? The only reason that "left" is extreme in the US nowadays is because our overton window is skewed so far to the right. Back in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s our government was pretty diverse ideologically. Liberals, Conservatives, Socialists, Labor, Capitalists, all participated and exchanged ideas creating the framework for the new deal and the greatest prosperity this country had ever seen. Your characterization is a pretty unfair characterization of what a person thinks. I'm a libertarian-socialist and I think the young woke-scold minority needs to get a fucking life. They are incredibly loud and increidbly dumb. These people are terminally online and don't think about anything critically hence their very dumb takes. Any person on the left who actually wants people to think about racism wants art that realistically depicts racism for what it really is, an evil act. Art is about the human condition both the good and the bad.
@@violabomb636it's the purity tester folks, it's easy to fall down to that regardless the politics they have, especially if they are terminally online.
Honestly, the game felt great to me, allowing people who never experienced racism (like i did) to see the shadow of an indication of what it must feel like. The games were great, and the racism of the period not being depicted would honestly have disapointed me as it was that very racism that caused many rise in tention throughout the world and in some rare cases, even war.
Oh this game was able to piss me off soooooo much with the racism towards poor Runo, im sure that was the point though. It fit the time period though. Plus it really made you sympathize with Runo more, with him facing so many odds against him in court. Plus Im Asian myself so it hit even more harder for me. This is a great video though!
Man im so lazy to go have a quick history lesson on Meiji Era in the wiki tbh so having an explanation really gives context to the almost everything in the game of how everyone just treats and speak to Ryuunosuke in general It really kinda feel a bit realistic to me imo
All you need to know is that it ended around 1912 I believe. If you know what America was like in 1912 regarding race relations, you can get an idea of what things were like in Britain.
@@espurrseyes42 are you implying Britain was worse than America? Because UK at least did not have segregation and abolished slavery before US did. Britain was racist in 1912 of course, basically all countries were. But do not try to imply that America was somehow better (of course, you clearly do recognize that it was bad in America as well).
@@gokbay3057 No. I'm saying America was pretty racist around that time period, and it wouldn't be a shock if other nations, namely Britain since this is where most of GAA Chronicles takes places, were having race issues too. Never implied one was worse than the other.
There was also a large and partly misplaced standing of "The British conquered the world, why not us?" that was spurred by western attitudes toward the east and later pushed people towards a lofty, misguided, and very complicated idea of unification of Asia to rival America and Europe both. obviously my statement is well understated and lacking. But you can surely see how a seed of woe and distaste can grow into a forest of sorrow and hate.
Bruh I thought the racism was very tame compared to the way people were describing it. The way people were saying that the game would never get localized because of the racism, had me thinking it would be way over the top.
holy shit, 12:30 That's.... That's so fucking true. I personally realized how accurate the game was historically when they told Susato to leave the Japanese courtroom. At that point, I fucking loved the game. Not because there was a sexist element, but because Takumi owned up to Japanese history and didn't try to pretend that's not how things once were.
I'm mixed, so I experience a lot of unique and outlandish racism myself based on the fact that my mother side is black and my fathers side is white. So when I see this in game not only does it ground it in the time period, it grounds it in reality for these characters and is relatable in a sense just how casual the racism is at times, and how direct it is at others. People truly just can't accept that racism can be depicted and mean something and isn't there just to be there. It's something people experience, no matter how outlandish anything else is in the plot.
I'm so sick of game articles projecting scandalous messages into random, unintentional and/or meaningless context. Also (in this case) when they make a deal about 'it is what it is' depictions
People claim that "realistic" racing games exist, but completely miss the fact that the game always starts every race with you on last place. Realism can and should very well be selective in videogames, it's perfectly acceptable and always should be.
In old PS1 Gran Turismo You race against the clock to determine starting position, but on the other hand the cars were not getting external damage on impact ;)
The actual trend when curating information is to react emotionally to how the information made them feel instead of analyzing what is being said. Any discomfort that is felt means that the cause for that negative feeling is surely immoral. These two points act in tandem, making that much more difficult to present a diversity of ideas and/or communicate with each other, as people stop seeing the forest of what is being said for the trees of sudden subjective reactions.
It is an important thing in this game, most of us in ex colonial third world countries would feel normal about it being in the game, but for westerners it is a way to experience through a story what racism was and is like and understand more of it.
What I find fascinating is how the game treats Susato, Susato is shown as a competent, intelligent, and observant person. In a few of the beginning chapters she’s even more competent that Naruhodo, but her intelligence and legal knowhow is downplayed by just about everyone but Naruhodo because she is both a woman, and Japanese. Like Auichi yells at her and threatens to throw her out, all the while he’s letting Ms. swanmcracism walk all over him and the Japanese culture. I haven’t gotten that deep into the game, I’m still on chapter 3, but I’m interested to see if the game comments on that further.
I really appreciate the moments in the first game where she's shot down by Van Zeiks, and Ryunosuke actually stops and says out loud that her counsel is invaluable to him, not even in a ham-fisted or slam dunk way. It felt very natural. If you've played case 1 of resolve, it's really vindicating to see. You can tell the people close and around her can see her potential.
This game one of the games you dont easily recommend to an American. I didnt even care about the racism the Brits showed at this game because I accepted that at this time this behavior is commonplace since the people (both Japanese and Brits) didnt know better about their foreign neighbors yet. Why is the topic of racism in history so hard to talk about in America? Its either denial, censorship or sugarcoating. The message Runo gave at the end of the final trial basically sums up to "Face the truth even if its hard to face" Why cant most people do that?
yeah, agreed. what i always liked about ace attorney as a series is that it didnt pull its punches, politically speaking. i suppose western audiences are reacting negatively to this because so far, they didnt realize ace attorney was social commentary all along - just about japanese courts and the japanese legal system and indeed how japanese society views criminals. i think this is why i really enjoy dgaa's depiction of racism in particular - because while it shows how unfairly the japanese were treated especially during this time, it also doesn't hesitate to criticize japan itself. without the open acknowledgement, esp in the first case, that the government is failing its people by trying to make a japanese man a scapegoat for a white woman's crime, i think the game would be much weaker. as it stands, i think its pretty intelligent commentary.
For some odd reason UA-cam only has “subscribe” and “like” available whenever i watch your vids……I m gonna need the alienation and offense to be turned up a notch 😂
Fascinating history. I like how the game writers also included some cultural tidbits which were fun and informative to learn. I would be interested watching more Ace Attorney videos from you. :D
Something else I think that article got wrong is they claim the racism was used for the sole purpose of "historical accuracy" and nothing else. But racism is really one of the primary themes of the game. The entire story being told is the story of the Japanese people being used as effectively scapegoats to facilitate Stronghart's "Ends justify the means" ideology. The game is about discrimination and exploitation of an entire culture, it's not just being used to world-build.
The moment you mentioned the problematic article in question was from Koutaku I didn't need to hear anymore. Those stooges are almost as bad as ScreenRant and IGN.
As an Ace Attorney series enthusiast who is not either British or Japanese, I find the racism within the DGS series just simply... Ironic, since Japan itself at the time was a one-to-one reflection of the United Kingdom during its empire era. Two island countries believing that their country is the purest and the strongest by invading other countries and be racist against them.
Nope,that's meji era.Even after Japanese started exploiting Korea. Casual westerners still look down easterners, the look down upon Japanese only ceased slowly after russo-japanese war. And Japanese racism toward other asian started more and more after first sino-japanese war and russo-japanese war.
With regard to the games use of racism and the quote from Kotaku, I think the article's author missed the point entirely. The racism isn't included to add to a sense of realism or immersion, it's there for the sake of the plot. Having all these characters (like Stronghart and van Zeiks) who act like they're paragons of justice while also looking down on the Japanese characters as lesser, is how the game hints at the double standards of the British justice system that bubble away below the surface. The writers at Capcom certainly didn't go "let's make the British characters super racist, that'll really immerse players in this cartoon, anime, fantasy world."
@ratatoskr, I would love to give your video views. The first 1/3 is perfect and I appreciate the spreading of Japanese history. Coming from someone who took classes on it during college I can assure others that you are regaling it accurately. Unfortunately I am still playing Ace Attorney 1-3 before this game and I have to avoid spoilers. I am sure the rest of the video is great, but I am finding myself alienated until I complete this game!
I agree with your conclusion, it would absolutely be screwy if we censored foreign cultural content just to appease the sensitivities of a western audience. You'd even say that would show blatant xenophobia that mirrors that of the past and the shame of it horrifies the modern xenophobe to such a degree they'd prefer to live in ignorance of their own prejudices and sensitivities. Meanwhile using current goings ons as a shield to justify why they should be allowed to censor foreign content to their liking. It's distasteful and harmful to the very causes they claim to champion as they redirect attention from those causes to their pettier problems with content censure. Such actions are disgusting.
I decided to watch this because i wanted to see what shit someone from twitter was saying about my favourite games now and i was like "Yeah i bet they don't realise it's not actually glorifying it..." Shit i aint too proud to admit when I'm wrong. Good Video Fam you got a sub from me.
Holy shit those were some real shots fired with that last commentary regarding Western criticism on Eastern media. Looks like I stumbled on an interesting channel.
On the subject of comparing the unrealism of the court system with the realism of the racism... this whole series' purpose is putting a satirized justice system that's specifically constructed for... what's the best way to put this? The ace attorney court system is designed in such a way that it serves its purpose, and not much else. In the real world, the court systems are integrated very deeply with the state and government, but here, the courts are much more removed than that. The courts are almost purely a "Justice" system. This series also emphasizes the importance of real-world laws, such as "Discovery," and puts on display what can be possible if we put too much trust in authority to handle the legal system, and how corruptible such a system would be. Taking this unrealistic court system and surrounding with a realistic setting is like having a magic system, then deciding whether you want to place it in a medieval or modern setting. Both possible settings for such a medium are different, and both are grounded in real world concepts. But at the medium's center is that piece of unrealism: The magic. In Ace Attorney's case, that's their court system. I really don't think putting the court system on par with the games' setting when talking about realism is a wise decision. It's illogical and doesn't compare very well.
I want to come back and watch your video once I have finished the duo. As of right now, I'm halfway thru the Speckled Band case of game 1, so I'll just have to watch this video at a later date to avoid spoilers now. That said, I completely agree with the point of your video, so I wanted to voice my support. There's nothing wrong with racist characters in fiction whose point is to illustrate how bad racism is/was. Especially in fiction set in the past where it is historically accurate to have racist characters. As long as the game/book/show/movie message is about how racism is wrong, then it's fine to use historically accurate examples to prove why racism is bad. Including showing former racist characters who are capable of growth and change to become better people.
All I wish to say is. Shu Takumi is an amazing writer and if he writes books I'd easily hold it in regards to the real like Natsume Soseki. I bought a few books of his just after finishing TGAA1.
…The ancient tale ends with the merchant at a loss for words, but it's in our nature to pursue matters to their conclusion... even if it results in something as ugly as this. - Miles Edgeworth, 2017
It would be interesting to see a discussion of the actual quality of GAA's depiction of racism! There have been talkson reddit about Van Zieks' character in particular and I find myself agreeing with parts of it. The interpretation the game mostly shoes you towards is that his racist behaviour in court is caused by trauma related to Genshin Asogi. I don't think his behaviour and treatment of the main cast is really given the weight it deserves though. There's an indication he always wanted to fight his internal bias from some lines in case 2-4, but the player is still supposed to sympathise which is hard for me to swallow since they're essentially asking I sympathise with a character scapegoating their trauma for their bad personal chocies. I think a good solution would've been to make Ryunosuke and Susato less ambivalent towards it, involving them more directly in the theme of racism like Soseki rather than being more passive and forgiving about it.
tbh yeah, i know conversations have to begin somewhere, but it’s so tiring when it starts and ends with fucking “is aa bad for depicting racism?” and i agree completely with barok. i think he’s one of the most scuffed dgs characters for this reason. making him racist, and then also trying to make him sympathetic, while simultaneously making it so that ryuu and susato don’t even criticize or acknowledge his racism is such a bizarre decision. i genuinely believe there’s a better way to make him outright hostile towards ryuu than racism. there’s one thing to fucking write a racist guy, but fuck you have to actually do something with it. it’s an incredible weighted aspect, and treating it flippantly… i just, it’s so weird to think about. you’d think the japanese devs and the japanese writers would have strong feelings about racism towards them, but i guess? not? and like, this extends to the rest of the game. throughout the game ryuu (so the player) is constantly barraged by micro-aggressions and that’s fine but ryuu doesn’t even react in his inner monologue. i just. i think dgs’ depiction of racism is decently interesting, but i truly don’t think it’s written with enough nuance. which is really unfortunate, because i think it does have interesting things to say about england, and japan’s, racism during that time, but it’s just buried beneath such bizarre decisions.
I dunno I really like Van Zieks, as a smart and competent prosecutor, and as a character. So, to play the Devil's Advocate: In the time period where almost everyone is casually racist, Barok is pretty much the only one with a reason other than "Uhhh, Dark Jinx, skin tone weird, backwater unimportant island, me no likey" Barok actually had great interactions and friendships with Japanese people meaning he's not inherintely racist, despite the society he grew up with. Other Londoners tend to be racist because they've never seen a Japanese, and only heard bad things about them. Meanwhile, Barok DID meet Japanese, but after tragic circumstances, he formed his own opinions on Japanese, rather than simply mindlessly agreeing with a crowd. Which is why his racism is more redeemable. Because literally, if it wasn't for Lord Strongheart's machinations, Barok wouldn't be racist at all. In fact Barok would have been one of the most open-minded aristocrats in Britan, having been great friends with Genshin Asogi. And another little thing... In 2-3, he has the Amnesiac Asogi as his apprentice. Now, of course, Barok doesn't know who his apprentice is. But, I'm sure he must have realised that his apprentice is asian... And yet, from what we know, Barok didn't make Asogi do any kind of labour, and he even got Asogi a Japanese-style low table for work. Barok is racist, sure, but he isn't racist to the point of it getting in the way of his work. Like, he didn't just accuse Soseki Natsume of two attempted murders simply because he's japanese. He accused Soseki because there was reeeeeally compelling evidence to do so, even Ryunosuke could agree that Soseki is really sus.
Well, if the main issue is how the main characters react, I think an argument to be made is that the main characters never talk about ethics or morals, despite it being a game about law. The one thing they mainly concern themselves with is their client and trusting in people. Their baseline moral standard is : don't pin your crimes on other people. Notice how they never comment on the ethics of the reaper, or even make an argument on why it may or may not be a good thing. They never even give a second thought to the main players under Stronghart: Sithe and Gregson. Not so much as a thought goes in to how Gregson was basically a government ordained police funded assassination strategist, and why and how that might be a bad thing, instead they cast him as a perpetual victim of Strongharts, even though he had agency in the whole plot. Also notice how despite the treatment Soseki gets, he never outright insults the British, or judges them on the whole out loud. The game clearly isn't trying to comment on the these issues, simply present them as a means to cast the characters as underdogs. Hell, Ryunosuke has nothing to say about Jezaille, apart from the fact that she's a liar. He should have some major issues from something like that, but he doesn't. They pretty much never pass judgement on anyone besides the real culprits, and I think that's a deliberate choice. As it is, I think it remains consistent with their characters as understanding and forgiving people and isnt too much of an issue, the reason why it's so jarring is because racism is such an easily identified problem. If you remove the characters reactions from the problem, then it simply becomes about whether or not it deserves to be presented, and we're back where we started.
As an addendum to my previous comment, I believe the way racism is presented in this game is in line with how previous prosecutor grudges are portrayed. No prosecutor is presented as justified in their treatment of Phoenix, and aside from some side comments, all the main characters have to say is that its a bit unfair or throw out the snarky internal dialogue, which is exactly what happens in this game too. The prosecutors aren't justified, they're just acting like that as a result of what happened to them and the lives they live, and Van Zieks is no different. Of course, racism cannot be seen in the same light as the other more personal grudges the other prosecutors had. Is it a bad way to handle racism as a theme? yeah, probably if you want to make a statement about said racism, but my previous comment covers that.
thanks for the video. the story telling has so much contrast when there is racism where it makes sense. its a part of human emotions and is required as part of van zeiks character to be racist but not without reason as we learn throughout the story
racism is a key aspect of barok van zieks's character development and i really don't think his character arc would work the same if van zieks didn't develop hatred for japanese people after genshin asogi killed his brother
That was 1 part I was a little disappointed by, since it went from "he's racist bc he generally grew up in a racist society" to "he's racist bc of this situation personally related to him that he was mislead by which gets solved"
Games, movies, book, and other entertainment mediums generally succeed or fail based on their ability to make you suspend disbelief; adding realistic elements to a medium with some fantastical ones helps to achieve that end.
When you mentioned kotaku I had an internal "Ugh" and kinda knew what you were going to read hahaha. For real, how can someone cry and almost want to censure the racism depicted in the game? Dear lord, what is next? Try to censure the cruelty of colonization in america? Oh wait...
Media picks a random regular game: " this game its bad its not realist" developer adds racism as a fact that is realist consensus problem and thing to live in a day to day basis. Media: "This game is bad , its racist." We just wanna play games, cammon.
WHY WHY WHY DOES THIS APPEAR (in my recommendations) NOW AND WHY NOT TO MORE PEOPLE??? probably bcs im new to ace attorney and YT picked it up but the 2nd part of the question?
I feel like I want to blame Disney influence in small brains for this, for making their best to erase racism in everything that ever existed to solve it by pretending it never was there, in any history period or work they made. Sounds stupid but I do think Disney has a huge influence with how some thought trends become popular and with how the media starts to copy from them. As much as I love it, I remember while playing this game that I thought many times "they are being nice, everything would have been more racist." Or "they are looking for a way to make the racist character no racist by trauma to justify him because they want him to have the empathy from the people with poor brains that will not be able to like him if they think he is racist. Even if it can be shown as a thing of the period. And even if he can learn or change, I wish they were more brave." But I guess the little racism the game shows was enough for this people...
You have a point with Disney. But to be fair Disney rarely has to tackle racism since all their period movies don't have many foreiners. (Discounting song of the south which they try so hard to bury) There are moments when they got it sort of right. Like with Hunchback of Notradam with the gypsies. But with Pocahontas everyone conveniently got along at the end of the movie despite the massive war they were gonna have. And in Princess and the Frog you really have to dispend your disbelief that the extemely rich white spoiled princess girl and her father is best friends with the struggling black waitress.
The only thing I have to argue about is the realism as a slider concept. There are absolutely cases where one aspect of unrealism can invalidate other aspects that adhere to historical accuracy. The best example is in "alt-history" setting with magic or open supernatural aspects ext. Often is such settings, women will face the same treatment as was seen in our history, even on a world where the existence of magic would make the physical advantages men have largely irrelevant, and therefore completely change how men and women's social relationships formed throughout history. I have seen many games, books, and films drastically change the reality of a setting, then go on to try to make a point about social issues from the same period in our past.
This reminds me of American schools no longer wanting to make kids read to kill a mockingbird because it “made people uncomfortable”. Like it wasn’t the point to show how messed up society was back then. It’s almost like you’re supposed to hate it and not want it to be normal.
From what I gather from a friend who had learned Japanese and played the original 3DS version, there was much more racism. Some characters even calling Ryunosuke a "Yellow Devil"
Why do people think that depicting something means you're "glorifying" it (they probably don't even know what that means anymore)? I always thought the racism in the games were to comment on the racism at the time.
“The game isn’t glorifying racism, it’s depicting it, and not in a positive way”
This is exactly how I feel. People get really mad about Zieks for his character, saying his character is awful because of his racism. His character is never justified in his racism, just because you know why he’s racist doesn’t mean it’s justifying it. A character can be racist and be more than that racism, Zieks is such a fascinating character for it, and it just gets boiled down to something disgustingly simplified as “The Racist Prosecutor”.
To me he didn't seem that racist more like "racist by accident " given the society he grew up in. It's not like he actively tried to be racist. He was as hostile to the protagonist as any prosecution in any game. In the end he even called ryunosuke his friend. (Also i forgot to mention van zieks' backstory regarding genshin asogi an his supposed betrayal towards the first which caused unavoidable though a bit farfetched hatred for all japanese).
Yup, Van Ziek himself says that he always knew it was illogical and when he's faced by Ryuno about that, the apologizes.
@@freezegiannis There's even a part in DGS2-4 where they visit van Zieks and he greets them with a hostile "what do you Nipponese want?" before being inmediately called out and ashamed
yeah, I genuinely feel like I can't publicly post on my social media how I really enjoy his character, his backstory, and the emotional growth he went through as a character because people in this fandom will genuinely cancel you and tell all their friends to unfollow/block you for being a fan of his.
A lot of artists in the fandom dropped off in popularity massively for openly enjoying him as a character.
It's so stupid. Like, do you think you're some savior defending the Japanese here??? Fan favorite character rankings in Japan regularly have Barok in the top 3, if not the number 1 spot!!! Japanese fans LOVE him!
So many people that are not effected by racism or at least Japanese racism in any way are so quick to act like they're heroes for outwardly being disgusted by "the racist prosecutor" when like...they're missing the whole point of his character.
Am I not allowed to like Doctor Frankenstein, who is an inarguably more horrific character because he desecrated graves??
Wait, no, because you can openly praise Enoch Drebber as a character with zero shame. It's only the characters being racist towards Japanese people in a game written by a Japanese development team that are bad. Doesn't matter if you think their racism is inexusable, you just aren't allowed to like them.
@@LilChuunosuke pretty much the same crowd that blamed Ghost of Tsushima for not having been made in Japan and depicting japanese and mongols in a "racist" way. These people are the real racists who think they are the only ones who can save all the poor inferior people. If it was a century ago, the same people would be advocating for slavery because these poor black people are just incapable of thinking for themselves and need a kind white savior to guide them.
Trying to claim that natsume's stay in Britain was all sunshine and rainbows and every British person who met him treated him in high honour and completely respected him, would be so much more offensive, as it would completely undermine all the shit he and other Japanese, even now to an extent, have to go through living in a foreign country
True!
@@TheWeapon33 Literally irrelevant
@@TheWeapon33 Every Asian country did something to that extent. Singling one out but failing to point out the others shows your complete lack of knowledge on this matter. Be quiet.
it's stated that natsume soseki had a pretty shit time in britain, it would be outright wrong and disrespectful to make him all "ohh britain is fine and dandy and contains no racism!"
I'd argue Natsume's mental health issues are the main cause of his miserable stay. Though some jurors and witnesses did hold his ethnicity against him.
I love how stupid these people’s arguments are, it boils down to “but this racism made me uncomfortable :(“.
yea, it’s RACISM. If seeing it doesn’t make you uneasy then that’s a problem.
Exactly. I get the idea of "Dammit I want a game that doesn't make me uncomfortable", but ffs, there's a lot more games out there for that.
It doesn't make me "uneasy" but I can still recognize it as a bad thing and don't have a baby bitchfit about it
@@ViddyOJames The fact that you call it baby bitchfit because others get uncomfortable at racist depictions they may face often in real shows that you don't have much empathy and that your mindset is a literal problem to the general public by downplaying it as a hissy fit. No. Don't tell me that you experience it a lot. We know it's bullshit. For those that do, have a greater understanding and a better terminology spoken about the topic.
At least you can acknowledge that racism is bad, but you're also actively contributing to it when trivializing emotions just because you don't agree with how it's dealt with.
@@oveliaeinsberg9838 Actually, It doesn't show that I don't have much empathy. It shows that you've been raised to be absolute weaklings. Learn to be a better fucking human being for god's sake. You let trivial shit consume you and then cry when we won't "show empathy" because someone said a fucking WORD.
@@migueeeelet Yeah, play animal crossing or something lol
Yeah, the racism in this game made me pretty uncomfortable. But you know what would be even more uncomfortable?
If a game set at the start of the 1900s pretended that people weren't largely racists.
I mean, Professor Layton is very relaxed in that regard, but that's a game made for children to enjoy as silly escapism.
If a series is presenting itself as a timepiece drama with international politics as a central role in the story -- like with The Great Ace Attorney -- then yeah, they gotta hit on some difficult subjects by necessity.
People are surprised a game set in the late 1800s has depictions of racism? I'm only on Case 4 so far, but from what I've seen, most of the characters presented as racist are villains anyway and meant to be hated for their attitudes. The only real exception is van Zieks, but I imagine the game will do something with that attitude as it goes on.
A lot of people, even the witnesses and the jurors are racist. Idk if this is the case in the officially translated version but the racism in the orignal script is really common and transparent.
Van Zieks is the only one to have any reason for his hatred of 'Nipponese', but I won't spoil it, it's a major plot point. But even with his racism, it was clear to me from the beginning that he always seeks the truth.
@@Nnm26 It is still a thing in the translated... maybe not as heavy, but it's still there.
@@Nnm26 from what I understand, when it was localised, it was simmered down a bit cause of the snowflakes. The fan translation had worse things to say apparently
@@_aballa_ yeah, I'm currently playing the fan translation version and it's a lot worse.
I saw a Polygon article written criticizing the game for only talking about racism towards the Japanese. They said that they should have addressed the racism present in every colony throughout the empire. I think they fail to realize that this is a game solely focused on English-Japanese relations at the time. Shoehorning other areas of the empire and their issues would not have worked.
Yeah that one annoyed me. I usually give Polygon more slack than most, but that one missed the mark.
Its not true though
Spoilers
Case 2 and case 5 show a bit of racism towards Russia with the guy with the beard and the ballet dancer. In game 1
Game 2 at this point narahudo gets fed up along with Mr natsume and do take a bash at the British, but herlock is the one to say that the British are not more evil and that there is evil on both sides.
There is a few other tiny bits of racism to other colonies such as to Germany a little bit with the recording, and you can definitely sense it in the science thing because it's made clear that each place wants to best each other and that they think their system and scientists are superior.
So Polygon saying that makes absolutely no sense
It's because if you have racism in your game, you need to go all the way into making the game ALL about racism and how horrible it is. Having racism as a recurring theme isn't good enough, and god forbid you even think to utter the word "nuance".
@@329link Hii ik this comment is a month old but I'm a bit confused. This game talks about the racism the Japanese people faced, why should it have to go "all the way" why can't a Japanese game, written by Japanese people talk about the racism their people experienced? Why should they have to talk about the racism other races experienced when they clearly just want to talk about what their people experienced.
@@Mia_Monika I was being sarcastic. I was describing how many idiots on twitter and such view the topic.
As a minority who's experienced discrimination, I actually sort of appreciate this game's depiction of racism. I think Fantasy stories not having depictions of racism is fine as that's pure escapism. However, if you're making a story based on “our world” and are centering it on a very racist period, it makes sense that there will be racism.
Thankfully, I think most people grasp this concept. It's not too often that I see anger towards “period pieces” for depicting more unfortunate parts of human history.
Yea honestly it was refreshing to see somewhat realistic displays of discrimination and nothing was sugarcoated at all. Hopefully it’ll open people’s eyes to how deeply rooted racism is
Racism could be used for a good story in this age also
@@agusinfinite2036 agreed. Racism still exists even in this day and age.
Also, why are those people calling out the game when the Japanese developers make stories about racism towards the Japanese themselves?
@@fanfanfan4373 because the people today didnt difference ficton to reality
@@agusinfinite2036 Sad but true.
Also, those people think they did justice when literally nobody ever asked for their help. Happened too many times.
"Art is meant to disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed."
There's also a meta element at play that a lot of people miss: this is clearly a story with a ton of love and respect for not just sherlock holmes, but a lot of classic detective stories. There's the obvious sherlock holmes references and characters, but there's some extremely deep cut stuff too. The second case contains a reference to an episode of an obscure 60s holmes radio drama that never actually made it to broadcast, but was included in a book compiling the scripts of the episodes, for instance. It's clear that the creators adore old british detective stories, but the creators are also Japanese. And you don't have to read a lot of old british detective stories to realize how steeped in racism against asians they are. 'the chinaman did it' is a massive cliche of those stories, and anytime asian culture is even vaguely brought up its often treated as mystical and strange.
Even in storeis that are less overtly racist, like most of the earlier Holmes stuff, there's a definite dismissiveness. See Holmes explaining away some strange 'japanese wrestling' style as a martial arts he knows, with a made up name that refers to a martial art that isn't even Japanese or a wrestling-basede art. If Doyle had wanted to reference a japanese martial art, there's dozens he could have found out about with just a couple days of research, even at the time. The fact is, those stories have that dimissiveness and misunderstanding baked into their DNA.
So a japanese dev studio making a detective/mystery game that explicitly has holmes it and also explicitly deals with the racism of the period, it feels a bit like the creators reconciling their own love of the stories of that era with the reality of them.
In general, the way a few big sites reacted to the racism in GAA is extremely strange: its one thing to say its a bit heavyhanded, thats just an opinion, its another to act like the very idea of depicting it is flawed. people would flip if someone even implied something similar about, say, a south african dev studio depicting racism. it feels very american centric, like they get to set the tone of conversation and they feel uncomfortable that this is how a japanese dev team views their own history.
I don't mean to be that guy, but as you said, if a primarily black dev studio made a game that was horribly anti white, anti police etc. it would almost certainly be celebrated rather than condemned. First world problems :/
@@DustoVonSusto And even a studio doesn't have to be african-american in order to have it do something that's perceived as "anti-white".
Netherrealm Studios was critized for Jax's (african-american character) ending in arcade mode which is basically "With the power to control the timelines I just had bestowed upon me, I made sure that african slavery by colonizers never happened and, after trying and failing many times, I managed to achieve equality and world peace"... with some having thought of it as "racist" and "promoting white genocide".
And I'm pretty sure most of Netherrealm Studios' staff has a bunch of white people in it.
Do you mean sholmes?
@UCU0e6pK5_sFvEtMBIkv-erQ nah fuck off with your bullshit talking points pol freak.
The bit about the obscure radio show is really interesting. Thanks for adding it, I'd definitely not have caught that on my own!
"Both defense and prosecution would be disbarred for their antics" AAAAAANNNND this kotaku dude hasn't played ace attorney at all, has he?
I mean- The game was made by Japanese people depicting people being racist against Japanese people.
How can that be racist? Is a black person who writes a book about slavery a slave owner or something?
Ugh.. I know. My head hurts reading the game's reviews. Lots of them are calling it out when there's nothing to be called out for.
@@tasya3771 I mean, weren't they trying to depict what they felt? How can a review completely miss that mark?
@@sonicplays8740 True.
True, word racism means "making fun or talking shit about different race"
@@Ecological_Disaster But if you're writing about how your own race was made fun of, then obviously it isn't racism like bruh.
It’s really grasping at straws to say the Japanese discrimination in this game is blatantly offensive, especially considering it’s Japanese people that made it.
Exactly.
I can't fathom calling Japanese racist for depicting Racism towards Japanese in a Japanese game.
Well it kinda of feels odd
, it basically feels like japan pointing it’s finger and going “look at how you treat us, you jerks”
@@aronestone100 at the same time still feels believable
@@aronestone100 Implying the people complaining are even smart enough to consider things on that level.
And yes, that's how it was.
you're missing a point here that I felt I had to address - the racism is offensive, it should be offensive and that's the point. You're supposed to be offended by it on Ryunosuke's behalf, it's bad, but that doesn't mean that the game is racist. The point of the racism in the game is to make you uncomfortable, and that's a valuable experience - you see what it's like to be a foreigner in 1900s London.
How DAAAAAAAAAAARE Capcom show racism (towards their own people mind you) in their game to give an accurate representation of the time period and show that racism is a bad thing?
Yeah, I love historical fiction, especially stories that cover periods in history that I really don't know much about. That being said, I understand going into these stories that I'm going to see some values dissonance.
Considering the time period, if I didn't see a single remark in these games that didn't come off as racist, sexist, classist, or homophobic, I'd have called bullshit.
Huh, I wasn’t even thinking that someone could think the depiction of racism in the game is bad. It’s always framed negatively, often to show Ryunosuke as an underdog and the villains as truly awful, and it’s also relevant to the times the game is set in.
The racism is very important to the themes and plot of the game, and I would argue that it bends realism to make it more thematic. I mean Brett just outright saying she thinks the Japanese are savages paints her a clear villain but I don’t buy that anyone would be that brazen in real life.
you're lucky to have never met irl bretts lmao
Just wanna say...people are that brazen irl lmao. I'm black and when I was in middle school a group of senior-aged dudes followed me in a car yelling slurs at me as I walked home.
It's gotten better but yeah...some people can be terrible.
You should read some of the newspaper articles, open letters, and diary entries from this period. Or some of the plays from that time. I forget the name, bit I remember a line where someone says that knitting is inferior to embroidery and crochet because "the way the arms are held so close to the body carries an air that is so I unappealingly Chinese." Knitting did not originate in China. It was probably originally from the Levant or Eqypt.
To be completely fair, Japan always conveniently forgets its own war crimes against Korea and China. Some criticism against Japan is very warranted and earned.
Some people are that brazen, especially if they're in a more privileged, powerful position.
Thank you for making this video, I agree with your points.
[major spoilers for the great ace attorney: resolve below]
Some people have completely written off or dislike Barok van Zieks because of his hatred of Japanese people, and, I can respect that if it comes from the more emotional or traumatised part of a person. But the way van Zieks's racism is shown, compared to Jezaille Brett's, is very different. Van Zieks very clearly tries to understand and change in the second game. He does start to show more respect to Naruhodou in the first game, but it picks up in the second. He tries to understand where that hatred came from, and working towards viewing it differently. He realises Souseki Natsume was truly innocent, and asks how he is doing. He allows the man he hated so much to defend him in court, and calls him by his name.
I find what Dai Gyakuten Saiban does well is showing that everyone has good and bad parts to them. When I replayed the fourth case, I couldn't help smiling seeing Judge Jigoku, despite knowing full well he was a MURDERER and GREGSON'S DEAD BODY was literally INSIDE HIS TRUNK (yeah that really freaked me out upon replaying). And Gregson did some awful things as part of his 'Reaper' duties, but was still a caring mentor towards Gina, and even Naruhodou and Susato. Asougi accepted to assassinate Gregson just for the chance to go to Britain, and even took his best friend with him. Yet he deeply cares for his friends and can't betray them.
Even Gina was a pickpocket in the first game, and although she is at a bigger disadvantage than the people she steals from, it's still kinda immoral. But she makes a big turn in the second game, becoming an apprentice inspector. Yuujin Mikotoba is a loving father to Susato, and friend of Naruhodou, yet was missing, and regrets it, for the first 6 years of Susato's life, and withheld important information from them. Those last two examples show when a character regretted and learned from their mistakes, to grow into better people.
Even Naruhodou himself idealises Asougi quite a lot during his disappearance, not doubting him for a second, which causes him to lose focus on himself. He barely considers that people in power could be corrupt before well into the course of the game.
It's very realistic, in that sense. Not every person is purley good or evil. It can make you sad to think that someone you have good memories of has done awful things. That's what makes you care for them, and give you hope that they can be their best selves.
And I want to thank you for this comment, too!
[spoilers for the Great Ace Attorney: Resolve]
I agree with what you said, I thought the same while playing the second game. Particularly the truth about Gregson left me thinking a lot. Like Gina, I admire a person who made some mistakes that were hard to take for me. However, he is a great human being and he taught me many things. The truth is, people have more than one side, for better or worse.
yes! i completely agree! especially with the van zieks' racism. ive seen a lot of ppl just write him off as a guy who's really racist and says slurs every other sentence but he's nothing at all like jezaille brett who puts down japan and postures britain as being a flawless better country AND who straight up just called a japanese man a gorilla for daring to talk to her.
van zieks is incredibly condescending but i dont recall him ever posturing that great britain is inherently better than japan save for looking down on ryunosuke's lack of knowledge of british law while practicing british law. he's been aware and has been battling his racist views since the end of the first game and he even acknowledges it was unjustified and irrational by the second. then he like, straight up stops being racist for the rest of the game. he even stops referring to them as "nipponese" (but i think he does once and then after that he doesn't do it anymore) like van zieks isnt the best "racism redemption" out there but people acting like the story justifies and therefore condones his racism is frustrating
some people treat any and all forms of racism in stories as bad torture porn against poc (and honestly a lot of ones written by white writers really do feel like that) and it just sucks that apparently a japanese writing team isn't allowed to write racism the japanese faced in 1900 meiji era japan as if they wouldnt know how to write that
And Twitter folks would dismiss everything that was said here, just to try and cancel this game for things their small minds choose to never understand.
Your comment makes absolute sense my man and I applaud it.
The characters are not one dimensional and they’re flawed with their own motivations and foibles. I honestly think this might be the best AA game.
shit man you spoil a lot
The idea of certain westerners wanting censure on DGS, has an ironic tint when you compare it to 1st case: where Great Britain pressured Japan to rush a verdict for an innocent.
as someone who has experienced bouts of racism and discrimination throughout their entire life, i've heard and can sympathize with the argument that video games are a form of escapism for many. especially given the recent resurgence of discrimination towards API people, i can understand why someone might be off put from playing a game that doesn't support, but does feature those elements.
that said, your video raises some great points about how removing the discrimination faced by the protagonists would be a disservice to the story the game is trying to tell. i only recently got around to finishing adventures and resolve, and as jarring as it was to encounter something as serious as racism in one of my favorite, goofier franchises, i found myself more immersed because of it. the same feelings of helplessness and righteous anger that ryunosuke expresses multiple times at the brunt of discrimination are all things i've felt before as well, and as the story went on i felt more and more connected with his character and motivated to see things through. given how the game goes out of its way to paint racist characters as ignorant, or as villains, it was nice to feel in control for once, especially with how disconnected and weak i've felt in similar real life situations. the game doesn't set out on this lofty mission to "end racism" since simplifying such an issue like that would feel like a slap in the face, but those moments when ryunosuke pushes through, despite it seeming as though everyone and everything is against him are where the game shines through the most imo, and are why this might just be my favorite AA to date.
Escapism is kinda silly.
@@Dragonage2ftw it's definitely not the best thing to retreat into a fantasy world at the first sight of conflict, but it's also not entirely healthy if you experience a constant barrage of external stressors, and just leave yourself open to that. it's about finding a balance between escapism and grounding yourself, really, so i don't think brushing it off as just silly is fair
As someone who is a fellow API, fully in agreement. It just wouldn't be the same if we didn't hear the honest comments of the occasional uninformed members of the British public. None of the racism featured feels out of place or is shoehorned in some heavy-handed way. It's not just stereotypes about the Japanese either; there are also stereotypes about the British, the Italians, the Russians, etc. and they're given in ways that are funny or informative, or have some historical cause, or all of the above. And when it comes down to it, most of the British citizens who at first are openly racist come around to respect Ryu and Susato after seeing them fight so hard in court. Only the villains of the game double down with the racism, and even then, it's not like they rely on saying mean things as their only weapon. These are some of the most crafty, intelligent villains in the AA series, and that's coming after some of the more impressive villains of AA4 and AAI2.
Besides, we have on the other side of the spectrum Herlock Sholmes, who is so non-conformist that he believes a Russian revolutionary is capable of "revolutionising" his face to look Japanese. He means no ill intent by it and even praises the results. Then he learns said guy actually is just Japanese and immediately forgets the conversation ever happened. "He's a little confused, but he got the spirit."
Beautiful comment, pat yourself on the back as hard as you can, friend. You've earned it.
Despite everything, I always thought van Zeiks was always the best prosecutor, because despite everything, van Zeiks never insults the defense on a personal level, he is also a very fair prosecutor, who is straight to point, fires his ammo right away, waits for me to respond, then rebutts if needed. Then throw in some of his bigotry, and you have a very neatly flavored character who isn't insulting the the defense every three seconds. Playing this game made me realize how insufferable the main prosecutors were, even Edgeworth, but only in thr first game.
(I know I'm 8 months late but this is the Internet I can do whatever I want)
(side note: spoilers for Spirit of Justice)
This is why I hate Nahyuta Sadhmadhi on a personal level. Unlike other prosecutors he has no good reason for being sassy or petty. Take Godot for example; He has all the reasons he needs to hate Pheonix. Or how Franziska hates Pheonix for her kind-of-but-not-really brother. Now look at Nahyuta: He is comfortably atacking his own brother in court, acussing one of his friends, and all of it with a smile on his face. WHY?? Sure Ga'ran has him as her puppet but that doesn't mean he can comfortably insult defense attornies while his own father was one. At least make him show some uncomfort while doing so. His character dialogue makes no sense compared to his arc
@@kiwenmanisuno Exactly, man. His character development was obviously shoehorned in so he can parallel Edgeworth as the rival turned friend, but they never took into account the why's of Sahdmadhi would be sadistic to the defense even when there is no logical reason to do so. In fact, him being a puppet under Ga'ran and prosecuting in the States would evoke a crack in his stupidly overbearing style in court because this is the only time Ga'ran could not spy on him. Also, their backstories tied together also looks very forced in a vain attempt to also parallel Wright's backstory and even attempt to one-up said backstory. It really isn't the best part of Justice's arc, but the everything else was awesome.
One thing I love about this series is how it can shift tones with each scene. One moment, it's all fun and giggles. Another moment can be very serious to show you "hey this is important, we want you to get invested right now." This game has that perfect balance between genuine funny banter and serious moments.
People getting mad that japanese people created an accurate depiction of the racism they race went through in that time period just feels pretty fucking weird to me overall
Game critics: Noooooo don't depict racism it's racist
CAPCOM:
Dude it’s like getting mad at history books for talking about racism, it’s history. It’s there permanently. You can’t do anything about it. It’s just how it is
I cannot TELL YOU how many brain cells I've lost seeing people get on Barok van Ziek's case for being racist and completely ignoring how it's implemented in the story and his character. Barok went through a traumatic loss of a family member at a decently young age, which he and EVERYONE IN LONDON (except the Reaper squad) thought was caused by a Japanese man. He even SAYS HIMSELF that he kept telling himself it was STUPID to hate all Japanese because of what one man did, but he was just so hurt and betrayed that it consumed him. Having a reason for this behavior doesn't justify it, and the game KNOWS this because in the last case, Barok starts ACTIVELY trying to remedy his behavior and treating Ryunosuke with respect as a fellow lawyer. Like you said, racism isn't glorified or justified in this game, AT ALL, in both a historical sense AND a character sense
I think it's telling that the majority of people complaining about the racism in TGAA are white, and I say that as a white person myself.
It'd be completely understandable if Japanese players were uncomfortable with the way characters in the game spoke, but the fact is that the game was _made_ in Japan, _by_ Japanese people. The duology is incredibly well-loved in Japan. Hell, van Zieks is constantly at the top of popularity polls, and he's one of the most blatant racists in the game (initially, at least).
So, the games come out in Japan, and players are largely okay with the depiction of racism, because they recognise that A) it's historically accurate, and B) it doesn't reflect the views of the creators. All is well. Then the games are localised and released to a Western audience, and people start complaining about the racism. But everyone complaining is from that Western audience.
People who've experienced discrimination before might feel uncomfortable being faced with it in video games, which are generally supposed to be a form of escapism. That's completely fair. What's _not_ fair is white people seeing it and trying to speak _for_ minorities. The amount of people I've seen saying that the game's depiction of racism is bad, just because racism itself is bad, is ridiculous. Imagine a gay person writing a story with a homophobic character, then a bunch of straight people start saying the story is bad for being homophobic.
And then there's the worrying group of white people saying that the racism makes _them_ uncomfortable. Why? It's hardly a taboo subject nowadays. It doesn't seriously affect _you._ Or does it just upset you when someone calls out your ancestors for being prejudiced? It _shouldn't;_ you're not your ancestor. No one's calling _you_ racist, but trying to ignore and/or erase the suffering of an entire race of people is questionable, to say the least.
This comment isn't directed to the point of your comment, just more so a question. Where is it that the duology is incredibly well loved in Japan? I thought in sales it did incredibly poorly. I'd love nothing more to be wrong though.
@@digitalnative5678 When the first game came out, it wasn't very well-received, mostly due to the cliffhanger and all the questions that were left unanswered. TGAA was originally meant to be just one massive game, and it was marketed as such before release, so when it was eventually split into two games instead, a lot of people felt cheated. Luckily, once the second game was released, people gave it a chance, and it ended up being one of the most popular Ace Attorney games, even winning a Famitsu award.
@@staying_silent I see. I'm very pleased to hear that.
@@staying_silent wasnt it supposed to be cut into More than 2 games tho? I heard such info + while the pace of the first game felt while slow, is fairly well, the second one is Just rushing through the plot points to complete the story
It's less that they're White and more that they're American. This country has really turned into an odd place now where we'll cancel things without logical thought or we'll ignore threats or people without any logical thought.
In other words America does things without thinking logically and have been doing it more and more as the years go by.
Said country ignorantly looking at a game like GAA and automatically assuming it's just a racist game without any rational thought about the time period it takes place in, the reasons behind the racism from some of it's characters, the historical inaccuracies it would have if it were not acknowledged and the writers who wrote it in the first place, are absolute fools who pretend to be morality heroes when really, they are merely deluded in their own egotistically self-designed ignorance.
The ironic part about Kazuma wanting to reform the Japanese legal system is that even when Japan was being pressured to deliver a Not Guilty verdict for the English student in the first act, their legal system was still miles ahead of British and much more fair. Ik that's not how presenting evidence works in real life but in that case, even though they were pressured, whenver they got new evidence to turn the tide in the case, they pursued the truth, rather than rushing a verdict.
Meanwhile in Great Britain, the jury could vote on a guilty verdict based on the first witness the opposition brings and you couldn't even get to the cross-examination part as a defendant before the emotional jury could charge the defendant as guilty just becuase the 6 jurors got convinced so easily.
Yeah I think that is kind of the whole point of the game, it's to show how in the Meiji Era Britian was being held up as a paragon of modern civilization only to juxtapose the reality where it's flawed and rotten to the core.
There is no guarantee that the other japanese judges would've been as impartial, fair and logical as Jiggoku was in the first case
Am about to finish the first of the two games, so I peaced out when you warned of spoilers, though I did stick around for the discussion of the first case.
I always interpreted Auchi's and the judge's reaction to Jezail as if they weren't necessarily impressed, but rather were trying to be as hospitable as possible in order to not spark another international incident.
That's more or less accurate. Auchi basically spends the whole trial kissing her ass and gets angry a few times at Naruhodo trying to defend himself by accusing him of wanting to rekindle international conflict.
With how over the top it was, it was definitely just trying to not piss her off as a visitor from England
@@TheAzulmagia
The Judge is probably being nice, but Auchi is just straight simping, even if part of it is international peace protection. Not anything new for his heritage.
The funny thing is, how they treat Brett is barely any different from how Payne treated Dahlia in case 1 of game 3. Ignore the nationality and it's basically just how they treated Dahlia: a sweet, supposedly innocent, beautiful woman.
Hearing Dahlia's name still give me conniption
As Simon Whistler often says, "The past was the worst." And I have heard (very rarely, mind, but still) the argument that we shouldn't ever have perfectly accurate depictions of the past because "forcing people to endure that discomfort is immoral." This is Orwellian revisionism, changing the past to fit a present day narrative. And besides, it doesn't undo the pain the people who actually experience it go through. Racism was and still is an atrocity. It may never fully be eliminated. The best we can do is keep working towards improving the situation for everyone. That does not mean pretending it never happened.
Remind me a bit of all of that happened with "Gone with the wind" in another art form and a lot of other examples in books, films, games, etc.
There are people who genuinely can't understand time and context it seems. Not everything was perfect in the past. Not everything was shitty either. What we should do is learn about what was good, what was bad and try to make our present and future a little bit better thanks to these informations.
Racism exist. War exist. No nation has a gloriously clean history. These facts should be looked head on, not put behind "trigger warning" and banned from all medias just because "it makes us feel bad".
About the argument "How can you advocate for realism in a game where people can shoot fireballs?"
I think people miss the point. This is not so much about realism than it is about credibility.
When you make a game, create a world, write a book or what have you, you may imagine the craziest or most unrealistic world ever created, you still want to depict an atmosphere and draw tension so your story is interesting to follow. Those two things can't be achieved without credibility. Your world and your game have to be believable and if you make a game that takes place during the Meiji period, you can't be criticized just for creating a believable setup for your story, especially when said setup serves the plot moving forward.
Consistency is also important when it comes to this. It's similar to credibility, in a sense.
It's also important to note that the xenophobia isn't just from GB to JP. Soseki basically gained a distain for the British and one Bohemian character thinks his language (German, I believe) is better than English.
As you've said, the racism is just a part of the world at the time, like even Japanese players back in 2015, they weren't complaining about how much these Japanese devs hate Japanese people - that's just not true and even they understand it's just a relic of the time period.
In my opinion, it's kinda lucky that this game was even able to come out and be translated as faithfully as it is because I swear games and fictional media just don't want to depict any kind of racism, ever. Or if they do, it's always the standard 'it's bad' kind of thing with zero nuance.
It's funny too because I watch some LPers of the game be shocked and sorta horrified at the racism and stuff... and then basically adore the character in question for the other reasons. Character design.
Anyway, good video.
I think this game's handling of it is a mixed bag. It's mostly good in my opinion, but one thing that bothers me is I don't like how Ryunosuke responds to Van Zieks being racist at him. It's almost like he doesn't even notice it, even in his internal monologue most of the time, and when he hears all of Van Ziek's backstory he's like "Oh, so that explains why he hates all Japanese people!" and it just feels kinda hollow.
On the other hand, Soseki's story very much did, Soseki's cases were exaggerated but real examples of systemic bias against certain groups in the legal system, and Soseki feeling personally crushed by the weight of being a foreigner in this land was very well done imo.
@UC61tOT9qEBWI7OY3kyTQS5w Really cool of you, nice
@@iMasterchris Van zieks handling of it was actually pretty realistic. It was taken casually because.. Racism was pretty casual back then. It wasnt the best times.
@@iMasterchris about your complaint ryunosuke doesn’t seem to notice it because it was normal at the time it’s not something anyone in the 19th century would really question
@@hunbi1875 Agree. And even then, if Naruhodo was to retaliate at all, him, in a British courtroom surprisingly with British people, would get shanked instantly, and if he didn't, then it would prove van Zieks's point about what he thinks of the Japanese.
What I never understand with these types of discussions is why people single out racism as the ONE thing that's not okay to depict. Detective stories in particular also depict a lot of murder. But nobody ever goes "the creators must be okay with murder!" or "this is not okay!" on as large a scale. Now, I know there's different severities (I'd argue murder is more sever than verbal racism) but the principle of "the creators of a story does not necessarily endorse the things happening but uses them as tools to tell the story" should be easy to lift from one thing to the next.
Or am I severely overestimating people here?
Also - REEEE, you said offend instead of alienate
Racism appears to be one of the most unforgivable things now a days, it seems people cant see a person with racist tendencies as nothing else than an awful person, I agree it is a terrible mindset, but I think many of us had racist family members, probably a grandpa or something like that, that were loving fathers and workers but because they are racist people inmeadiately label it as a horrible person, even if they never took actions against such race, people are willing to be fans of a fictional character that commits murder/steals/is a corrupt polititian, but if it is racist it inmeadiately becomes the most hated and any other personality feature it may had its ignored
exactly! One comparison I've made to how ridiculous the hatred of Barok van Zieks is by drawing a parallel to Doctor Frankenstein. Am I not allowed to think that he's a cool character because he's a grave robber?
But then I realized something absurd: this hatred does not extend towards Enoch Drebber.
You are allowed to enjoy characters that are grave robbers and murderers and liars and cheaters.
But a character that is racist against Japanese people, written by a team of Japanese game developers, and is deeply loved by their Japanese fanbase? If you do anything less than call him "the racist prosecutor" with a disgusted tone of voice, then you're immediately suspicious.
Like, what??? Like if you can't handle games with racism in it for one reason or another, then fine, don't play it. But don't tell me that *I* am racist for recognizing and appreciating the full depth of a character as the developers intended me to because *you* are uncomfortable with some of the things he says towards the player in the first game.
It's childish, really...
Should probably mention that the whole "REEEEEEE" thing is ablest against autistic people. Please don't use it (Unless you're trying to depict Ableism in a story, which, yeah, that would be fitting)
There's a situation in online discussion recently where people (predominantly on the far left) assume a depiction of a problematic element is somehow the same as condoning or supporting the problematic element. This happened recently with the game Boyfriend Dungeon, where the main villain is a bit of a creepy stalker. Despite the game being incredibly progressive, the VA for the character got literal death threats and the studio got a lot of reviews from people who were upset that this was put into a game. Despite the fact that the stalker was the villain and his actions were treated with nothing but contempt.
I think some people in online discourse are far too adamant about taking a bullet for a perceived cause that they end up just jumping into situations that aren't anywhere near the level they claim it is.
As an incredibly far left person, I find that as in most cases, it's a vocal minority of confused (often young) people who say this kind of shit. Ignoring them when they are being patently absurd or trolling usually is for the best. Not to use a "no true Scotsman" fallacy, but I do hope more people start realizing that most people on the left aren't actually like this.
@@violabomb636 if you say your a far left person you probably engage in all that stuff the minority you say do too leave your extremist group before its too late.
@@mpo48 Why are you associating leftism with extremism? The only reason that "left" is extreme in the US nowadays is because our overton window is skewed so far to the right. Back in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s our government was pretty diverse ideologically. Liberals, Conservatives, Socialists, Labor, Capitalists, all participated and exchanged ideas creating the framework for the new deal and the greatest prosperity this country had ever seen. Your characterization is a pretty unfair characterization of what a person thinks. I'm a libertarian-socialist and I think the young woke-scold minority needs to get a fucking life. They are incredibly loud and increidbly dumb. These people are terminally online and don't think about anything critically hence their very dumb takes. Any person on the left who actually wants people to think about racism wants art that realistically depicts racism for what it really is, an evil act. Art is about the human condition both the good and the bad.
@@violabomb636it's the purity tester folks, it's easy to fall down to that regardless the politics they have, especially if they are terminally online.
Honestly, the game felt great to me, allowing people who never experienced racism (like i did) to see the shadow of an indication of what it must feel like.
The games were great, and the racism of the period not being depicted would honestly have disapointed me as it was that very racism that caused many rise in tention throughout the world and in some rare cases, even war.
Oh this game was able to piss me off soooooo much with the racism towards poor Runo, im sure that was the point though. It fit the time period though. Plus it really made you sympathize with Runo more, with him facing so many odds against him in court. Plus Im Asian myself so it hit even more harder for me. This is a great video though!
0:55 "Open the country. Stop having it be closed."
Man im so lazy to go have a quick history lesson on Meiji Era in the wiki tbh so having an explanation really gives context to the almost everything in the game of how everyone just treats and speak to Ryuunosuke in general
It really kinda feel a bit realistic to me imo
All you need to know is that it ended around 1912 I believe. If you know what America was like in 1912 regarding race relations, you can get an idea of what things were like in Britain.
@@espurrseyes42 are you implying Britain was worse than America? Because UK at least did not have segregation and abolished slavery before US did.
Britain was racist in 1912 of course, basically all countries were. But do not try to imply that America was somehow better (of course, you clearly do recognize that it was bad in America as well).
@@gokbay3057
No. I'm saying America was pretty racist around that time period, and it wouldn't be a shock if other nations, namely Britain since this is where most of GAA Chronicles takes places, were having race issues too. Never implied one was worse than the other.
There was also a large and partly misplaced standing of "The British conquered the world, why not us?" that was spurred by western attitudes toward the east and later pushed people towards a lofty, misguided, and very complicated idea of unification of Asia to rival America and Europe both. obviously my statement is well understated and lacking. But you can surely see how a seed of woe and distaste can grow into a forest of sorrow and hate.
Bruh I thought the racism was very tame compared to the way people were describing it. The way people were saying that the game would never get localized because of the racism, had me thinking it would be way over the top.
holy shit, 12:30 That's.... That's so fucking true.
I personally realized how accurate the game was historically when they told Susato to leave the Japanese courtroom. At that point, I fucking loved the game. Not because there was a sexist element, but because Takumi owned up to Japanese history and didn't try to pretend that's not how things once were.
I'm mixed, so I experience a lot of unique and outlandish racism myself based on the fact that my mother side is black and my fathers side is white.
So when I see this in game not only does it ground it in the time period, it grounds it in reality for these characters and is relatable in a sense just how casual the racism is at times, and how direct it is at others. People truly just can't accept that racism can be depicted and mean something and isn't there just to be there. It's something people experience, no matter how outlandish anything else is in the plot.
I'm so sick of game articles projecting scandalous messages into random, unintentional and/or meaningless context. Also (in this case) when they make a deal about 'it is what it is' depictions
It's good to be uncomfortable sometimes, if it gets you to think differently or change.
People claim that "realistic" racing games exist, but completely miss the fact that the game always starts every race with you on last place.
Realism can and should very well be selective in videogames, it's perfectly acceptable and always should be.
In old PS1 Gran Turismo You race against the clock to determine starting position, but on the other hand the cars were not getting external damage on impact ;)
The actual trend when curating information is to react emotionally to how the information made them feel instead of analyzing what is being said.
Any discomfort that is felt means that the cause for that negative feeling is surely immoral.
These two points act in tandem, making that much more difficult to present a diversity of ideas and/or communicate with each other, as people stop seeing the forest of what is being said for the trees of sudden subjective reactions.
It is an important thing in this game, most of us in ex colonial third world countries would feel normal about it being in the game, but for westerners it is a way to experience through a story what racism was and is like and understand more of it.
What I find fascinating is how the game treats Susato, Susato is shown as a competent, intelligent, and observant person. In a few of the beginning chapters she’s even more competent that Naruhodo, but her intelligence and legal knowhow is downplayed by just about everyone but Naruhodo because she is both a woman, and Japanese. Like Auichi yells at her and threatens to throw her out, all the while he’s letting Ms. swanmcracism walk all over him and the Japanese culture.
I haven’t gotten that deep into the game, I’m still on chapter 3, but I’m interested to see if the game comments on that further.
I really appreciate the moments in the first game where she's shot down by Van Zeiks, and Ryunosuke actually stops and says out loud that her counsel is invaluable to him, not even in a ham-fisted or slam dunk way. It felt very natural.
If you've played case 1 of resolve, it's really vindicating to see. You can tell the people close and around her can see her potential.
@@danielsher5439 Ryunosuke drinks his respect women juice.
This game one of the games you dont easily recommend to an American. I didnt even care about the racism the Brits showed at this game because I accepted that at this time this behavior is commonplace since the people (both Japanese and Brits) didnt know better about their foreign neighbors yet.
Why is the topic of racism in history so hard to talk about in America? Its either denial, censorship or sugarcoating.
The message Runo gave at the end of the final trial basically sums up to "Face the truth even if its hard to face" Why cant most people do that?
yeah, agreed. what i always liked about ace attorney as a series is that it didnt pull its punches, politically speaking. i suppose western audiences are reacting negatively to this because so far, they didnt realize ace attorney was social commentary all along - just about japanese courts and the japanese legal system and indeed how japanese society views criminals.
i think this is why i really enjoy dgaa's depiction of racism in particular - because while it shows how unfairly the japanese were treated especially during this time, it also doesn't hesitate to criticize japan itself. without the open acknowledgement, esp in the first case, that the government is failing its people by trying to make a japanese man a scapegoat for a white woman's crime, i think the game would be much weaker. as it stands, i think its pretty intelligent commentary.
For some odd reason UA-cam only has “subscribe” and “like” available whenever i watch your vids……I m gonna need the alienation and offense to be turned up a notch 😂
sounds like a bug. too bad youtube (google) doesn't fix crap.
Sometimes the app is crap, if that’s what you’re using. I find just closing it out entirely and reloading it solves the problem
Glad to see you back! I played through MH4U while you were out and I'm excited to see what you think of the rest of the game
Fascinating history. I like how the game writers also included some cultural tidbits which were fun and informative to learn. I would be interested watching more Ace Attorney videos from you. :D
Something else I think that article got wrong is they claim the racism was used for the sole purpose of "historical accuracy" and nothing else. But racism is really one of the primary themes of the game. The entire story being told is the story of the Japanese people being used as effectively scapegoats to facilitate Stronghart's "Ends justify the means" ideology. The game is about discrimination and exploitation of an entire culture, it's not just being used to world-build.
The irony of that coming from Kotaku of all companies
The moment you mentioned the problematic article in question was from Koutaku I didn't need to hear anymore. Those stooges are almost as bad as ScreenRant and IGN.
As an Ace Attorney series enthusiast who is not either British or Japanese, I find the racism within the DGS series just simply... Ironic, since Japan itself at the time was a one-to-one reflection of the United Kingdom during its empire era. Two island countries believing that their country is the purest and the strongest by invading other countries and be racist against them.
Nope,that's meji era.Even after Japanese started exploiting Korea. Casual westerners still look down easterners, the look down upon Japanese only ceased slowly after russo-japanese war.
And Japanese racism toward other asian started more and more after first sino-japanese war and russo-japanese war.
Great video again man! I just beat the 2nd game today. The two combined are my favourite in the series to date!
With regard to the games use of racism and the quote from Kotaku, I think the article's author missed the point entirely. The racism isn't included to add to a sense of realism or immersion, it's there for the sake of the plot. Having all these characters (like Stronghart and van Zeiks) who act like they're paragons of justice while also looking down on the Japanese characters as lesser, is how the game hints at the double standards of the British justice system that bubble away below the surface. The writers at Capcom certainly didn't go "let's make the British characters super racist, that'll really immerse players in this cartoon, anime, fantasy world."
@ratatoskr, I would love to give your video views. The first 1/3 is perfect and I appreciate the spreading of Japanese history. Coming from someone who took classes on it during college I can assure others that you are regaling it accurately. Unfortunately I am still playing Ace Attorney 1-3 before this game and I have to avoid spoilers. I am sure the rest of the video is great, but I am finding myself alienated until I complete this game!
Kotaku is consistently the worst. There is my negative comment
Yeah, f kotaku
Who even gives kotaku / IGN their time of day
Great video. Looking forward to your next MH4U diary
11:30 i love it that in one Soseki’s animation pose is copied from this one famous photo of him.
i hope you make more DGS content!
I agree with your conclusion, it would absolutely be screwy if we censored foreign cultural content just to appease the sensitivities of a western audience. You'd even say that would show blatant xenophobia that mirrors that of the past and the shame of it horrifies the modern xenophobe to such a degree they'd prefer to live in ignorance of their own prejudices and sensitivities. Meanwhile using current goings ons as a shield to justify why they should be allowed to censor foreign content to their liking. It's distasteful and harmful to the very causes they claim to champion as they redirect attention from those causes to their pettier problems with content censure. Such actions are disgusting.
This video actually helped me, coincidentally, in understanding the history lesson that I was absent for. Thank you :)
Very well put, especially the argument about realism vs immersion.
Of course it’s kotaku that comes up with these dumb arguments…
Tbh the racism in these games is quite low tier, nothing too extreme.
You cant criticise racism without showing it. Well, you can, but the impact will be far lower than if you showed.
3:30 the guy riding the mini train is a my mood...
It's such an embarrassing statement about the current state of our culture that this even needs to be said.
I decided to watch this because i wanted to see what shit someone from twitter was saying about my favourite games now and i was like "Yeah i bet they don't realise it's not actually glorifying it..."
Shit i aint too proud to admit when I'm wrong. Good Video Fam you got a sub from me.
Holy shit those were some real shots fired with that last commentary regarding Western criticism on Eastern media. Looks like I stumbled on an interesting channel.
On the subject of comparing the unrealism of the court system with the realism of the racism... this whole series' purpose is putting a satirized justice system that's specifically constructed for... what's the best way to put this?
The ace attorney court system is designed in such a way that it serves its purpose, and not much else. In the real world, the court systems are integrated very deeply with the state and government, but here, the courts are much more removed than that. The courts are almost purely a "Justice" system. This series also emphasizes the importance of real-world laws, such as "Discovery," and puts on display what can be possible if we put too much trust in authority to handle the legal system, and how corruptible such a system would be.
Taking this unrealistic court system and surrounding with a realistic setting is like having a magic system, then deciding whether you want to place it in a medieval or modern setting. Both possible settings for such a medium are different, and both are grounded in real world concepts. But at the medium's center is that piece of unrealism: The magic. In Ace Attorney's case, that's their court system.
I really don't think putting the court system on par with the games' setting when talking about realism is a wise decision. It's illogical and doesn't compare very well.
I want to come back and watch your video once I have finished the duo. As of right now, I'm halfway thru the Speckled Band case of game 1, so I'll just have to watch this video at a later date to avoid spoilers now.
That said, I completely agree with the point of your video, so I wanted to voice my support. There's nothing wrong with racist characters in fiction whose point is to illustrate how bad racism is/was. Especially in fiction set in the past where it is historically accurate to have racist characters. As long as the game/book/show/movie message is about how racism is wrong, then it's fine to use historically accurate examples to prove why racism is bad. Including showing former racist characters who are capable of growth and change to become better people.
12:30 this, you hit the nail on the head my friend.
Amazing video. I just finished it a week ago and noticed the racism but didn't think about it this deeply.
All I wish to say is. Shu Takumi is an amazing writer and if he writes books I'd easily hold it in regards to the real like Natsume Soseki. I bought a few books of his just after finishing TGAA1.
…The ancient tale ends with the merchant at a loss for words, but it's in our nature to pursue matters to their conclusion... even if it results in something as ugly as this.
- Miles Edgeworth, 2017
It would be interesting to see a discussion of the actual quality of GAA's depiction of racism! There have been talkson reddit about Van Zieks' character in particular and I find myself agreeing with parts of it. The interpretation the game mostly shoes you towards is that his racist behaviour in court is caused by trauma related to Genshin Asogi. I don't think his behaviour and treatment of the main cast is really given the weight it deserves though. There's an indication he always wanted to fight his internal bias from some lines in case 2-4, but the player is still supposed to sympathise which is hard for me to swallow since they're essentially asking I sympathise with a character scapegoating their trauma for their bad personal chocies. I think a good solution would've been to make Ryunosuke and Susato less ambivalent towards it, involving them more directly in the theme of racism like Soseki rather than being more passive and forgiving about it.
tbh yeah, i know conversations have to begin somewhere, but it’s so tiring when it starts and ends with fucking “is aa bad for depicting racism?”
and i agree completely with barok. i think he’s one of the most scuffed dgs characters for this reason. making him racist, and then also trying to make him sympathetic, while simultaneously making it so that ryuu and susato don’t even criticize or acknowledge his racism is such a bizarre decision. i genuinely believe there’s a better way to make him outright hostile towards ryuu than racism. there’s one thing to fucking write a racist guy, but fuck you have to actually do something with it. it’s an incredible weighted aspect, and treating it flippantly… i just, it’s so weird to think about. you’d think the japanese devs and the japanese writers would have strong feelings about racism towards them, but i guess? not?
and like, this extends to the rest of the game. throughout the game ryuu (so the player) is constantly barraged by micro-aggressions and that’s fine but ryuu doesn’t even react in his inner monologue. i just. i think dgs’ depiction of racism is decently interesting, but i truly don’t think it’s written with enough nuance. which is really unfortunate, because i think it does have interesting things to say about england, and japan’s, racism during that time, but it’s just buried beneath such bizarre decisions.
I dunno I really like Van Zieks, as a smart and competent prosecutor, and as a character.
So, to play the Devil's Advocate:
In the time period where almost everyone is casually racist, Barok is pretty much the only one with a reason other than "Uhhh, Dark Jinx, skin tone weird, backwater unimportant island, me no likey"
Barok actually had great interactions and friendships with Japanese people meaning he's not inherintely racist, despite the society he grew up with.
Other Londoners tend to be racist because they've never seen a Japanese, and only heard bad things about them. Meanwhile, Barok DID meet Japanese, but after tragic circumstances, he formed his own opinions on Japanese, rather than simply mindlessly agreeing with a crowd. Which is why his racism is more redeemable. Because literally, if it wasn't for Lord Strongheart's machinations, Barok wouldn't be racist at all. In fact Barok would have been one of the most open-minded aristocrats in Britan, having been great friends with Genshin Asogi.
And another little thing... In 2-3, he has the Amnesiac Asogi as his apprentice. Now, of course, Barok doesn't know who his apprentice is. But, I'm sure he must have realised that his apprentice is asian... And yet, from what we know, Barok didn't make Asogi do any kind of labour, and he even got Asogi a Japanese-style low table for work.
Barok is racist, sure, but he isn't racist to the point of it getting in the way of his work.
Like, he didn't just accuse Soseki Natsume of two attempted murders simply because he's japanese. He accused Soseki because there was reeeeeally compelling evidence to do so, even Ryunosuke could agree that Soseki is really sus.
Well, if the main issue is how the main characters react, I think an argument to be made is that the main characters never talk about ethics or morals, despite it being a game about law. The one thing they mainly concern themselves with is their client and trusting in people. Their baseline moral standard is : don't pin your crimes on other people.
Notice how they never comment on the ethics of the reaper, or even make an argument on why it may or may not be a good thing. They never even give a second thought to the main players under Stronghart: Sithe and Gregson. Not so much as a thought goes in to how Gregson was basically a government ordained police funded assassination strategist, and why and how that might be a bad thing, instead they cast him as a perpetual victim of Strongharts, even though he had agency in the whole plot.
Also notice how despite the treatment Soseki gets, he never outright insults the British, or judges them on the whole out loud. The game clearly isn't trying to comment on the these issues, simply present them as a means to cast the characters as underdogs.
Hell, Ryunosuke has nothing to say about Jezaille, apart from the fact that she's a liar. He should have some major issues from something like that, but he doesn't.
They pretty much never pass judgement on anyone besides the real culprits, and I think that's a deliberate choice. As it is, I think it remains consistent with their characters as understanding and forgiving people and isnt too much of an issue, the reason why it's so jarring is because racism is such an easily identified problem.
If you remove the characters reactions from the problem, then it simply becomes about whether or not it deserves to be presented, and we're back where we started.
As an addendum to my previous comment, I believe the way racism is presented in this game is in line with how previous prosecutor grudges are portrayed. No prosecutor is presented as justified in their treatment of Phoenix, and aside from some side comments, all the main characters have to say is that its a bit unfair or throw out the snarky internal dialogue, which is exactly what happens in this game too. The prosecutors aren't justified, they're just acting like that as a result of what happened to them and the lives they live, and Van Zieks is no different. Of course, racism cannot be seen in the same light as the other more personal grudges the other prosecutors had. Is it a bad way to handle racism as a theme? yeah, probably if you want to make a statement about said racism, but my previous comment covers that.
thanks for the video. the story telling has so much contrast when there is racism where it makes sense. its a part of human emotions and is required as part of van zeiks character to be racist but not without reason as we learn throughout the story
could this port BE any more open?
I personally was really happy that Capcom didn’t hold back on this.
0:55 i am proud of myself for knowing who this guy is from watching Bill Wurtz's videos
What a refreshing attitude and tone for a video talking about games. Keep up the good work! I look forward to being offended in the future.
I see Gina - I click
Me reading the title: "Oh for the love of..."
Me reading the thumbnail: "Oh, thank God!"
As of this time, dislikes are still 0. I see how hard you're trying. But you just ain't alienating.
looks like jezaille and auchi already put a dislike
racism is a key aspect of barok van zieks's character development and i really don't think his character arc would work the same if van zieks didn't develop hatred for japanese people after genshin asogi killed his brother
and soseki natsume's - the irl natsume literally recounted his hatred of living in england
That was 1 part I was a little disappointed by, since it went from "he's racist bc he generally grew up in a racist society" to "he's racist bc of this situation personally related to him that he was mislead by which gets solved"
I think y'all don't need to say the man family's name. It spoil a lot
Games, movies, book, and other entertainment mediums generally succeed or fail based on their ability to make you suspend disbelief; adding realistic elements to a medium with some fantastical ones helps to achieve that end.
When you mentioned kotaku I had an internal "Ugh" and kinda knew what you were going to read hahaha.
For real, how can someone cry and almost want to censure the racism depicted in the game? Dear lord, what is next? Try to censure the cruelty of colonization in america? Oh wait...
What a great new video. Congrats for the new people, this channel will definitely go places xD
Media picks a random regular game:
" this game its bad its not realist"
developer adds racism as a fact that is realist consensus problem and thing to live in a day to day basis.
Media:
"This game is bad , its racist."
We just wanna play games, cammon.
“Take this quote here from Kotaku for example...” I think I found the problem! LMAO
WHY WHY WHY DOES THIS APPEAR (in my recommendations) NOW AND WHY NOT TO MORE PEOPLE???
probably bcs im new to ace attorney and YT picked it up but the 2nd part of the question?
Great video, I love this game and as a Brit I’m happy to see some of Britain’s history being shown up for what it is.
9:57 I think the word you're looking for is "spectrum"
I feel like I want to blame Disney influence in small brains for this, for making their best to erase racism in everything that ever existed to solve it by pretending it never was there, in any history period or work they made. Sounds stupid but I do think Disney has a huge influence with how some thought trends become popular and with how the media starts to copy from them. As much as I love it, I remember while playing this game that I thought many times "they are being nice, everything would have been more racist." Or "they are looking for a way to make the racist character no racist by trauma to justify him because they want him to have the empathy from the people with poor brains that will not be able to like him if they think he is racist. Even if it can be shown as a thing of the period. And even if he can learn or change, I wish they were more brave." But I guess the little racism the game shows was enough for this people...
You have a point with Disney. But to be fair Disney rarely has to tackle racism since all their period movies don't have many foreiners.
(Discounting song of the south which they try so hard to bury)
There are moments when they got it sort of right. Like with Hunchback of Notradam with the gypsies.
But with Pocahontas everyone conveniently got along at the end of the movie despite the massive war they were gonna have.
And in Princess and the Frog you really have to dispend your disbelief that the extemely rich white spoiled princess girl and her father is best friends with the struggling black waitress.
instructions unclear, liked and subscribed.
one quick correction the Japanese student was the defendant of the 4th case and the third trial
The only thing I have to argue about is the realism as a slider concept. There are absolutely cases where one aspect of unrealism can invalidate other aspects that adhere to historical accuracy. The best example is in "alt-history" setting with magic or open supernatural aspects ext. Often is such settings, women will face the same treatment as was seen in our history, even on a world where the existence of magic would make the physical advantages men have largely irrelevant, and therefore completely change how men and women's social relationships formed throughout history. I have seen many games, books, and films drastically change the reality of a setting, then go on to try to make a point about social issues from the same period in our past.
This reminds me of American schools no longer wanting to make kids read to kill a mockingbird because it “made people uncomfortable”. Like it wasn’t the point to show how messed up society was back then. It’s almost like you’re supposed to hate it and not want it to be normal.
I watched a UA-camr that screams:"stop being racist" every few seconds and Im like: "I think you dont get it".
From what I gather from a friend who had learned Japanese and played the original 3DS version, there was much more racism. Some characters even calling Ryunosuke a "Yellow Devil"
Why do people think that depicting something means you're "glorifying" it (they probably don't even know what that means anymore)? I always thought the racism in the games were to comment on the racism at the time.