The Circle of Hate in the Visual Novel Community: Eden’s Irony
Posted by Aorii in Visual Novels, tags: Eden, Minori, Rapelay, Translations, Visual Novel, Xenophobia
Bad social reputation is something the Visual Novel fan has learned to accept. But if you thought the whole Rapelay incident didn’t really hurt our interest that much, think again…
The recent edit war between Minori (Wind, Ef) and the translation group NNL may just lead to the complete scrapping of the Eden translation project, one that is highly anticipated by the visnov community and reviewed by Choux to be “one of the best” with Shinkai-Makoto-worthy artwork. But while an entire community vents against Minori for being xenophobic, Minori explains themselves in self-defense, which included:
“Each country has their own culture.… we realized that there are countries that punish mere possession of problematic forms of expression… Currently, The bill that allows to limiting the content to all EROGEs is being discussed in the Diet because intellectuals and politicians said ‘Japanese EROGE were being problematic and troubled with the foreign countries.’”
Picking my memories brings up that Minori started their xenophobic streak because of the Rapelay incident.
So basically the process goes like:
- Westerners attack Japan over eroge because of isolated extremities.
- Japan moves to censor eroge in order to defend itself.
- Japanese eroge community becomes angered by Imperialistic Westerners who think they have the right to judge and decide Japanese Culture; xenophobia increases.
- Minori attacks translation group in an preemptive strike to defend itself.
- English Visual Novel community attacks Minori over its xenophobia; return to step 3.
Congratulations mankind, we have once again succeeded in forming yet another Cycle of Hate. Will we cut the links somewhere? Or will we keep spinning out of control? Because in this particular incident, we all made some poor decisions (I’m regretting my own incensed tweet against Minori).
Don’t involve Sion into this >.<
What’s my stand on the Rapelay case? I think the ‘game’ is disgusting, but banning it is outright stupid. Laws are made to be objective, while morality is subjective in nature. There’s no more evidence that rape porn incites sexual assault any more than action movies inciting murder; wanna ban half of Hollywood over the chances? Besides, they learned since the printing press that the best way to make something popular is to ban it. Way to go British government, six centuries and not a lesson learned.
Is Minori being unnecessarily xenophobic? Definitely, especially with the whole ‘installing our products on a foreign computer is a crime’ argument. I understand their desire to use legality to defend themselves, and if this was because they’re localizing it then there wouldn’t be a war. But by attacking foreign fans and denying them altogether, they’ve antagonized their only fans in the West. Worst PR action ever.
What about the English Visual Novel community? Dear fans could at least try to understand Minori’s standpoint and negotiate in a proper manner, rather than screaming in all-caps rage like we have some kind of God-ordained right to piracy. You resolve xenophobia by being civil, not by being Imperialistic Westerners yourselves.
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Pretty ironic this is all happening over something called Eden isn’t it?
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In my opinion, minori didn’t have to go to the extent of blocking all foreign access, but if you think it in a company’s manner, there’s a need for them to protect themselves from further “damage”. The best way is to limit access to their own community of people. After all, minori’s latest products are often released in Japan first and I really doubt they would feel any hurt from disallowing foreigners to enter their site.
You have to feel of the poor guys over at minori too. Whether if you’re a game developer for a mainstream game or eroge, you would definitely want your product to be displayed in a positive light. By allowing the already-damaged English VN community to touch, much less translate, their product, they probably can’t help but to feel a little inclined to do something to take the translation project down. If the whole Raplelay incident didn’t happen… well, this might not have happened.
Best solution to this issue? I don’t know, there are always people out there who would cause trouble for others, even if the issue is not a big one.
.-= Netto´s last blog ..Project Diva – 2nd to be on sales at July 29th =-.
You’re exactly right, I’m definitely in the “companies have a right to take the easiest method of protecting themselves” camp. But attacking translators is going out of the way to attract hate… that’s been the known trend as far as publishers vs translation community goes. If they are actively bringing this to English, people could at least understand. But right now it just feels like being told “you gaijins no play our games for only fellow japanese”.
Frankly, they’re in a worse light by keeping things in the dark, since they actually HAVE a good product; having it be translated by VN community and getting good reviews for story/char-quality reasons would HELP their reputation.
Fix those and we’ll talk
1. blocking foreign IP
2. blocking foreign OS from playing their games
3. justify WTO for themselves when they’re violating it by not allowing foreigners to use the software
4. get in war with the fans
5. calling foreigners pirate
1 & 2: Companies have a right to target only specific customers; users do not have the right to use any site/product, that’s a privilege. Just like sites ban individuals for offensive behavior, they can ban groups. It’s not the right thing to do, but since they own it it’s their right to. If you can’t at least admit that, then you’re sinking to even lower than their level.
3: I don’t know enough about how WTO mixes with international copyright (which is a big mess to start with) to jump into that. I doubt most of the people in the argument either… they’re just holding onto whatever reason they find.
4. Already stated that’s a poor move on their part.
5. Well, it’s TRUE isn’t it? Yes, there are some who actually buy those games, but by and most the English VN community just pirates. Even most of the English VN fans on forums and bloggers ADMIT they pirate.
when you generalize a race of people, you’re a racist.
is that hard to understand?
by the way. the japanese pirate way more than us.
http://img190.imageshack.us/img190/6800/kiris.jpg
Just because they’re wrong doesn’t make you right. Also, racism is something the world will never rid of, so learn to handle it in a proper non-@#$! manner.
The thing is, what Minori is doing is perfectly legal. Like it or not, it’s true.
Also, my beef with the whole Rapelay drama is we don’t have a place to complain. We show movies featuring rape here in America. We market games full of violence. We don’t know if either of those incite those behaviors in reality, and I won’t go into that. I’m just saying we have no place to talk. And we target Japan? Yeah, real mature CNN.
.-= Janette´s last blog ..Aniblog Tourny Day 9 Predictions =-.
Oh definitely legal, never refuted that. But because they’re legal doesn’t mean they were huge @#$!s about it, which is the main issue =\
Cultural hypocrisy runs rampant still. People accuse each other of racism plenty, but culturism? Someone needs to stand up for the not-western countries.
I think the exact term in Nationalism. ^_^; Least, that’s what I’ve been told.
I don’t feel that the were jerks about this recent event, and that they’ve tried to improve their P.R. I think they have legit reasons to do what they are doing. http://www.sankakucomplex.com/2010/04/27/minori-come-to-japan-to-play-our-games-foreigners/
.-= Janette´s last blog ..Break of sorts =-.
Well, I guess nationalism’s superiority complex also moves into forcing it upon others; although what I’m more looking for is a word that transcends borders, since it’s more of a Western culture vs Nonwestern (Japanese) case here.
I definitely understand their reason but… heh, we’ll leave it at that o/
me handsome so me can own nukes, u not handsome so dame
me have muscle so me can spread porns, ye have not so just keep your porn for yerselves
minori is dumb, just pretend that they don’t know shit about translation or whatever and this wouldn’t had happened
Real life doesn’t quite work like that. Companies can’t necessarily get away from issues just by saying “we had no idea”.
“Laws are made to be objective, while morality is subjective in nature. ”
I would simply like to point out that this begs the question as to the nature of morality; plenty of people would argue that morals are plenty objective, and, in fact, pick out objective and real things. In a world filled with relativistic and anti-realistic viewpoints (particularly of morality) it’s easy to say that a defined set of morals can be wrong. However, I think that the people who argue that morality is objective are no more right than people who argue that it is subjective. Ultimately, the law is determined by who makes the more persuasive argument, and which commitment the people of that legislative body are willing to commit themselves to.
And I don’t think it’s a matter of the West vs. a non-western country. I think this problem is much deeply rooted in human behavior. Cognitive dissonance underlies the ignorance behind moralistic judgments, and, in my opinion, people are simply more willing to dehumanize and criticize an out-group than to reconsider their own values, no matter what the nature of morality truly is.
That being said, I do think that it’s wrong for the West to criticize Japan for a largely domestic issue, simply based on the principles behind the formation of nation-states and representation. But I also think that minori isn’t really helping the whole situation by bringing out their xenophobia. They are, essentially, doing the same thing to foreigners as the West has done to them. They shut off the West because there’s dissonance when to Japanese vs. Western notions of art and entertainment; and, instead of looking at themselves, they simply brush off foreign countries as being unable to understand Japan, all the while justifying their seclusion through bullshit rhetoric.
Both sides are doing the same thing. And the sad thing is, no one bothers to find a way out. Not that I blame minori though — there could be potential domestic issues in the near future. They’re free to practice whatever sort of business they want to save their hides, even if it’s only effective at pissing people off.
“Plenty of people would argue that morals are plenty objective“
I tell those people to read the History of Mankind and just how much our laws, and views, have changed our the centuries.
You can argue that there are ‘objective morality’ when there is concrete supporting evidence that it is harmful to others; in which case it is not the morality that proves the necessity of a law, it is the information. IMO, morality will remain a viewpoint based on circumstances. For example, we can accept murder and treason to be wrong, but once it’s applied to someone like Hitler it suddenly becomes ‘heroism’. Can laws do this? It is right to murder a murderer? Modern civilization already disputes the traditional eye-for-an-eye morality.
It IS deeply rooted in human behavior, but it seems to occur a lot today in Western vs. non-Western; on how Western govn’ts and groups claiming that certain local customs or laws or social expectations are wrong, backwards, or uncivil — who gave them the right to judge?
isn’t there a way to stop the skirmish between fans by just opening a U.S. Branch V.N. store somewhere where our translators can work in peace and still be able to provide us fans who buy the game at all (Y_Y)
since there are sites that are trying to do that as well getting games to us legally translated and approved by the makers themselves(Y_Y)