General Japanese Culture Thread

Do you mean microtransactions or loot boxes?

Because Japanese games are notoriously loaded with $5 to $10 little outfit packs and other things in the game.

lootboxes (and gacha specifically), mainly. But that does bring up the fine line between microtransactiosn and non-expansion-pack DLC.

A doc on the Johatsu/蒸発.

I note how there's a distinct difference: when men go missing, the Japanese data protection act is Kami-sama of the Stymie. They willingly chose to go, so... <shrugs>

When women go poof... somehow, tracking them is quite a bit easier.

Wonder why?

Edited by Euodiachloris on Sep 24th 2019 at 10:31:04 AM

Interesting documentary. I'll save it so I can finish it later.

They legally cant, Sony paid for MHW like, they footed the bill under the condition that it was never allowed to be released on ANY Nintendo console.

Every one else was fine, Xbox isn't important enough in the native market to mater, but Nintendo was a no-go, which is why MH jumped from Playstation originaly, to Nintendo, to back to not Nintendo.

Its also why another Monster hunter was made for switch after, but world hasn't gotten ported.

Thats.... very incredibly wrong.

Seriously, even in main line titles its fucking 200-500yen to play a single roll for the cosmetics you want, We started the lootboxes in mainline games, its just the ones that have them never reach the west because most of them rely on licensed content.... and they cant get the licensees for overseas.

It is FAR from limited to mobile games, and way worse then the west could ever dream of.

Edit: Sorry for being a week late, this thread droped off my watchlist.

Edited by Imca on Sep 26th 2019 at 2:49:51 AM

Bugs?

BTW why does the Xbone undersells in Japan so much?

I know the PC market had crash it never quite recovered from there, but I don't see why that woupd affect Microsoft's other gaming products.

x2 Sounds like a veritable cavalcade of f*ck ups, Christ.

One wonders if Microsoft even bothered with market research.

Edited by HailMuffins on Sep 26th 2019 at 7:52:33 AM

From what I hear, brand loyalty plays a huge role in it. On top of that, Sony and Nintendo are more well-known for creating or backing projects on stuff with which the Japanese culturally identify better. Never underestimate Japan's cultural insularity.

PC is going okayish, much better then xbox ever would or will, and there is a large amount of whys to that... in no particular order.

• Product nationalism is a potent market force, and Microsoft is foriegn.
• Xbox was never really marketed properly, so it never got the ball rolling.
• Even then, the Japanese market was neglected, mulling out the idea of picking up sales later, xbox one for instance had large chunks of features that didnt work in region, and the kinect when it was a thing required more room then available
• They pissed off all the native developers by trying to apply amercian standards of doing buisness to them, creating hostile atmosphere.
• The console sounded, and still sounds like a jet engine trying to take off, and it launched with a controller that was way to big for our hands.
• The halo port was dumbed down, with a worse controller scheme and easier gameplay.... so xbox lost the title that was its foot in the door everywhere else.

And the list goes on, Japanese Xbox is nothing but a cascade of failures to the point that I was able to get mine for the low low cost of free... and the pc market has very little to do with it.

Curious question: what does Japan think of Africans and African-Japanese people?

As strange as any other foreigner, though kind of on the much rarer end of the spectrum....

As like a confession, even living in Tokyo I did not see any one who was black until I was 16... sooo like.....

Very much a novelty.

Edited by Imca on Oct 2nd 2019 at 3:48:58 AM

When I traveled to Japan on a two-week college course, my African-American professor literally ran across a whole block in Osaka because he wanted to talk with the "first black man I've seen in more than 7 days".

It legit looked like something out out of The Boondocks. Some of the Japanese students attached to our class actually had to ask afterwards about "why is that black people who don't even known each other treat each other as if they were family members?".

I know this a tricky subject to get into but considering how insular Japan is, it shouldn't be too surprising.

Edited by GAP on Oct 2nd 2019 at 7:01:34 AM

The limited gist I get of from my experiences with anime and Japanese-made media is that they see African-descended people as strange and exotic, but are not necessarily conditioned to view them as inherently threatening the way the US and other countries with an actual black population of note do. Though Scary Black Man is definitely a trope that extends even to anime, I get the feeling that unless you're dealing talking to one of the far-right nationalists they're not likely to assume the typical black person walking down their street would shank them or anything. The impression I get is more curiousness (albeit to inappropriate levels) than fear.

I know that more than a few popular anime/manga series including Jojo, which started in the 80s, have dealt with the subject of anti-black racism in the West. So while there is a lot of Values Dissonance regarding nuances beyond that, there does seem to be a general understanding that overt xenophobia against black people is wrong. Though of course Imca would be a more reliable source on that.

Edited by AlleyOop on Oct 2nd 2019 at 9:31:15 AM

It at least doesn't seem to be as bad as mainland China's attitudes towards black people, where it apparently isn't unusual to refer to black people as monkeys.

This attitude has rather understandably made China's attempts to expand relations in Africa a bit unpleasant.

I feel that tho, that rush to see a familiar face especially if you feel cut off just due to the nature of where you are now

I’m used to being a minority of my ethnicity wherever I am so it always does feel nice to run into others who share that trait even if it’s only skin deep. For this, also feels like when expats congregate lol

I think any foreigner would react the same way, or at least in a similar manner.

You spend a lot of time in a different country with a different culture where everyone looks different than you, I'd imagine it feels a bit like spending the entire afternoon cooking beneath the sun only for a cool breeze to hit you.

@M84: Color me curious, why is China so hostile against black people?

@Alley Oop: Now don't quote me on that, but as far as media goes, I think a lot of the problems come from Cross Cultural Kerfuffle, where a lot of old Western media with racial stereotypes were sent over to Japan, and no one bothered to tell them those thing weren't okay, so a lot of which ended up being reproduced there with the understanding that it was a more-or-less accurate portrayal of black American cultura was like, and it just kind of stuck around.

That's the explanation I'm familiar with, in any case.

Edited by HailMuffins on Oct 2nd 2019 at 10:58:21 AM

It's not even particularly hostile in tone most of the time, which arguably makes it worse. There's just a not insignificant number of Chinese people who think there's nothing weird about calling black people monkeys or something.

It doesn't help that the CCP doesn't even recognize racial discrimination as a concept. They call it a "Western" problem.

Edited by M84 on Oct 2nd 2019 at 10:17:04 PM

Which is of course ridiculous considering the CCP's own policies of Han supremacy and the concentration camps they're shuffling all the Uyghurs into.

The CCP have always been hypocritical shits.

We need not go this far. I mean, we have Japan's issues with the Ainu and the people of Ryukyuan descent (e.g.: Okinawans).

I guess the more a group sees itself as homogenous (regardless of its actual diversity), the more alien the concept of racism or discrimination might sound to them.

Oda Nobunaga famously treated the Black slave who would later be known as Yasuke far better then people usually did at the time.

He made him a legit Samurai and saved him from his fate as a slave, and Yasuke defended him from Akechi Mitsuhide's rebellion at Honnouji Temple to the bitter end.

Edited by Demongodofchaos2 on Oct 2nd 2019 at 11:09:55 AM

Yasuke even shows up in Nioh, working alongside Edward Kelley in the hopes of reviving Nobunaga. Though after he is defeated, he wonders if Nobunaga even wants to be revived. He doesn't.

Hey guys.

I mentioned the Glen Wood case a few pages ago. I remember "liking" a page regarding his court case and I was a network connection just today in Linked In.

Pretty funny and cool (?) I guess.

Edited by Ominae on Oct 3rd 2019 at 11:28:27 AM

The new Emperor/Empress is going through rehearsals for the ceremony:

NHK is reporting it.