notnato

"The Japanese" aren't doing crap about this. His gym is nominally punishing him for flipping the dude off and the gym homepage apologizes for Aoki's poor sportsmanship "after the match". It's all just "face" though, and it's only in response to the modest international uproar.
No one at all thinks the arm break was a bad move.

I'm gonna say this is a miss.

Not because it's insensitive... though it certainly is.

I think where this movie misses the mark is failing to reckon how strong the message in the film was. The clip doesn't really parody the film directly, and so it fails to overwhelm the message. What happens for me, and a lot of other viewers is that the message still shines right through, and we think of real people who did a seriously hard, seriously good thing.

It's some dipsh-t brits who seem to think of the clip as just another memorable violent scene from a movie. Nathan Barley got a job at Funny or Die.

Yikes. Fortunately, he seems to have his head on super straight, so he's obviously gonna be a good judge of who deserves to be taught a lesson. More so when he's had a couple.

He should be more worried about getting shot or stabbed than a run in with the fuzz.

I'm just talking to myself here, but...

Do you think game companies face a lot of potential flack for "racist portrayals of whites"? Rhetorical. Answer is "No, they do not".

How about the potential fallout from casting a black/asian/latino character in the lead? That company had better learn some top notch eggshell walking techniques, because everything that character does and says will be interpreted through the lens of race. That's not to say that game studios needn't bother.

Just that it's a lot easier because a white guy character can do ANYTHING without the slightest risk of an embarrassing race-related cable-news blowup.

Perhaps it's already been said, but virtually every "white" game character in Japanese video games is seen as Japanese by Japanese consumers. Blond-haired blue-eyed Japanese. The same is true for anime and manga.

Unless of course a specific foreign origin is explained, an overt national theme is present or the character has an obviously foreign name. It's a separate can of worms as to just why Japanese manga/anime/game characters so frequently look white, but Japanese-produced games probably show an equally large skew toward "Japanese".

Yay, my first blanked out downvote.

Stand by my point though. I've owned and consequently sold the game, in spite of (more likely due to) the fact that I speak Japanese.

Check out all the "positive" import reviews citing how fun it is to "play darts and pool" or how awesome it is that you can actually play UFO catchers. Do y'all not remember how much everyone hated exactly those features in GTA4? Or how you can pick up background objects to hit your enemy. When you start reaching so hard for "innovative" features that you make Final Fight sound like a deep and unique gaming experience, you know you don't have much game to go on.

As to the graphics, remember that that photo at the top of this post is a cutscene... an ugly unnatural cutscene. The actual gameplay is considerably worse looking and poorly animated.

The Shinjuku backgrounds get high marks from me though, and the brand name tie ups are fun. The thing is that those two points, and a few others where the game deserves some praise are going to go totally over the heads of American gamers... at least those who haven't spent considerable time in Tokyo. Like I said before though, you should never underestimate the power that the least cool parts of Japan exert on the least cool of Americans.

Umm, the game is frankly awful. Graphics worse than GTA3 (yeah 3), genuinely terrible fight mechanics and a whole pile of BS minigames. Still, if you belong to the Japan = cool set, you might be able to accomplish the messiah-like forgiveness it will take to look past the innumerable faults. If you belong to that set, you probably manage it every day.

You know, Japan isn't really full of JRPG players. For the most part, JRPG go to the hardest of hardcore. This group has fairly significant numbers, but has also already bought an Xbox 360... because frankly that's where ALL the JRPGs are this generation. That's also where the "otaku-focused" games "Dream Club" and "Idolmaster" are.

The non-hardcore audience is huge in comparison, and prefers either casual games (Nintendo) or having Blu-Ray. (Non PS3 Blu-Ray players are expensive and don't sell well here.)

BTW, it's naive/ stupid to believe that Japanese have no idea which console is best for them. Naive if you're under 15, stupid if you're over.

Ya said: We all know it's cool to dislike anything made after 1995, especially anything originating in the south these days.

I say: Being stuck in the early 90's is the freaking uncoolest thing on the planet. It's like being all about lynyrd skynyrd.

Is there some reverse double irony here? Notorious BIG = Major Rap Star. T.I. and Jeezy = Major Rap Stars... probably the biggest two aside from Kanye and Lil Wayne in the last few years.

Pete Rock & CL Smooth's "T.R.O.Y." = Who now?

I'm getting a really strong feeling that Joystiq does not "get" rap in the least. That wouldn't normally mean I have to totally disregard Joystiq's opinion here, but since the only substantial fact in this post is that Joystiq isn't familiar with T.I. and Young Jeezy, I'm pretty inclined to call that opinion worthless.

Now, I'm not inclined to assume that it's good just because Joystiq is 100% out of their element, but perhaps this game is intended for rap fans. Yeah, anyway, thanks for the hard-hitting reportage.