PdotMichael
Banned
It's funny that the African Gundam gets called out so often even if it wasdesigned with a Zulu warrior in mind while all the other Gundams are jokes.
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Rumor: Bravely Second's "Tomahawk" class changed to a cowboy one (+ costume edit)
- Thread starter Eolz
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Ragnorok64
Member
Is anyone actually offended by G Gundam?
This is sort of begging the question though. They weren't required to make a class with a bunch of abilities named after missiles. And "tomahawk" doesn't "happen" to be the name of a missile, it's the name of a missile on purpose.
There's a giant fish Gundam, a windmill Gundam, a Sailor Scout Gundam, a bull Gundam, a boxer Gundam, a horse Gundam, lumber jack Gundam, Pharaoh Gundam. Even one that looks like Napoleon.
I find it hard to be offended by it when it's so bad it's hilarious.
Ragnorok64
Member
You misspelled "glorious."
Native Americans have, to my knowledge, been more sensitive about use of symbols originating in from their culture, particularly because they can have a religious/prestigious nature to them. Headdresses are one of the bigger ones and what likely could stir up controversy. It's also the case that such symbols have been entwined with race even if they aren't specifically, there's a history of racism here. In my mind I contrast this with something like Buddhist monk or a Miko which have similar cultural implication but are almost never problematic symbols even if used by western imagination.
It is one of my favorites
I still laugh at neo-America being afraid of clowns and how he got pumped up for the fight was his team mates singing the national anthem. And backstory is that his mother used to sing that to him as a lullaby to calm him down.
Nah.
Eternal Gamer
Member
Man I just looked some images of G Gundam, is so hilarious that I need to watch this series.
Palculator
Unconfirmed Member
More like a jewish character that looks like a caricature and then gets replaced by a German.
Man I just looked some images of G Gundam, is so hilarious that I need to watch this series.
Is that a Dutch Gundam?
PdotMichael
Banned
That aren't even exclusive things.
Palculator
Unconfirmed Member
Yeah, it's a bad comparison to begin with. Just pointing out the "cowboy" was missing in the original Jew analogy.
ArchedThunder
Banned
As a Native American I see nothing overtly racist about the original other than the name. Sure it's a little too sexed up, but she's not wearing anything like a chief's headdress. I would have rathered they just change the name and made it less sexy.
It would have been some cool representation, which doesn't happen often, but intead they threw it in the trash.
It would have been some cool representation, which doesn't happen often, but intead they threw it in the trash.
Eternal Gamer
Member
Palculator
Unconfirmed Member
10/10
Harken Raiser
Banned
Dice//
Banned
Man I just looked some images of G Gundam, is so hilarious that I need to watch this series.
omg....
I think it's generally scummy to have a culture/race just be a job class, especially when it's representing what are many cultures/races, but I'm getting the feeling that this might be a case of non-Native Americans making a deal out of nothing. It reminds me of the whole RE5 deal. I wasn't that into games at the time, but the first time I'd heard of the controversey, I google searched the city I was born in and saw pictures nearly identicle to that in game. My only criticism was the lack of young men in polos.
To my understanding, everybody just assumed that because it had elements related to (american) racist depictions blacks and africans, that it was racist, and dnobody idn't bothered to do any research. Maybe I'm wrong and just uninformed in this case, but I can see the outfit being relatively inofensive (and also horribly offensive). The only people who can really decide that are those who know the culture and heritage.
Tye The Czar
Member
The U.S. government committed genocide against Indigenous Peoples(aka Native Americans). Kind of like Germany and the Holocaust, only Germany learned their lesson. Now picture modern German culture doing the same thing with Jewish people.
While things have become better, many of us Americans consciously and unconsciously trivialize, make fun of and fetishize the same people our ancestors attempted to wipe out.
While I'm fully against government censorship and unreasonable private censorship(see: SNES censorship), changing this outfit will hardly hurt the game's quality.
Of course GG are chosing this as a hill to die on.
I can't help but think most people don't get how this game works. When you beat a boss you earn their job class and costume. So the boss as a native american might not be a problem (not really my place to say), but the all white cast donning a feather head-dress when using the class? It's very well established that is no longer cool (not that it ever was, but it's been made very clear now).
I can't help but think most people don't get how this game works. When you beat a boss you earn their job class and costume. So the boss as a native american might not be a problem (not really my place to say), but the all white cast donning a feather head-dress when using the class? It's very well established that is no longer cool (not that it ever was, but it's been made very clear now).
HeadphoneSlave
Neo Member
I'm kind of torn on this. Ultimately I understand the decision to change this job costume, and can kind of understand why it looks tasteless, and why Native Americans or anyone who supports positive representation of them or whatever would appreciate the change or attempt to fix it. But I like that costume as dumb as it is. I don't know how to explain it, but I guess I just think it looks kind of cool on both Tiz and the girl. The cowboy one looks fine to me, but I prefer the first one. Whatever, assuming this costume is confirmed for the western/NA release I won't lose sleep over it.
I think it's more often called out for the pilot being a white guy in a zebra costume.
(Assuming this rumor is true)
I'm mixed on the class change, though the fact that it was changed is certainly a step in the right direction. It's hard to see the class as anything more than a blatant stereotype of an indigenous individual right down to the name (i.e. tomahawk) pulled out of any 50s western film so the fact that they edited that from the localized version is a change for the better. However...changing the class into the group of people responsible for their genocide in the United States was probably not the best edit they could have made for Bravely Second.
I'm mixed on the class change, though the fact that it was changed is certainly a step in the right direction. It's hard to see the class as anything more than a blatant stereotype of an indigenous individual right down to the name (i.e. tomahawk) pulled out of any 50s western film so the fact that they edited that from the localized version is a change for the better. However...changing the class into the group of people responsible for their genocide in the United States was probably not the best edit they could have made for Bravely Second.
Dice//
Banned
I like the design too in the realm of fantasy. And I'm sure that if the history between the White-USA and Native-USA wasn't so....murder-y and trivialized, it'd be "less bad" a costume in some aspects.
I'm surprised 'a posh new hat' was the way around it (and some clever name changes). x)
Joyful
Member
g gundam is amazing, prepare yourself
Tye The Czar
Member
And you have every right to.
Heck, most pornography in general is demeaning to women by nature, yet I still take pleasure from it. I'm of the belief that it's okay to understand the implications but still enjoy it for what it is.
Wanted to quote this as I think it's a great post; thanks for your insight Platinumstorm. There's a lot of hypersensivity online to the point where any use of culture in any way is deemed appropriation, such as your shirt example. It really is important to distinguish true, offensive, and malicious portrayal and use of a culture from sharing or partaking in it in a non-offensive way. Without that distinction, as you said, we get no representation of diverse culture at all and instead people become ignorant of its existence.
This is how Tiz looks like, by the way (quoted for the new page):
I think this one is much fairer then the female version. The biggest problems I see are "sexiness" of the female outfit, and perhaps partially in the name itself.
It seems like they just took the most famous American Aborigine word that they knew, Tomahawk, gave it the most famous American Aborigine outfit they knew (headdress, leather, paint), and dialed up the female version sexy as is typical for Bravely Default and many Japanese games. Not a researched theory, but mostly based on Rockman's Tomahawk Man and Street Fighter's T-Hawk (Tomahawk?) existence I can partially assume Japan is familiar with these. And the obvious fact of Bravely Default and sexy outfits for the females.
This article previously linked is definitely accurate to Halloween costumes with headdresses:
http://www.mtv.com/news/1837578/why-you-should-not-wear-headdresses/
It's (partially) ironic to bring it up in the case of Bravely Default which has a Bishop hat though:
But, chiefly, there's not much sexiness going on in that outfit. Exceptions for some very strict cultures which would find even that too revealing.
But the above article also doesn't apply to a video game. The culture of the boss that originally wore it is separate from reality. There's no "earning the right to wear" in a fictionalized world where maybe the boss did earn the right. It's a loosely based reference. Heck, maybe the boss earned it through spiritual and warrior accolades both. Maybe the boss is just an asshole who dresses that way. I haven't played the game, but isn't it a one-time character? I'd save the outrage for a game where there is a culture that dresses like that, has an actual tribe name (Tomahawk is just a word for a tool), and is mostly portrayed in a negative light. It matters when random Joe or Jane wears a headdress for Halloween but not when a disconnected video game character wears the headdress or the pope hat in a world wear these cultures actually don't exist.
But to come back to my second sentence, I'd prefer if they just increased the female version clothes by 200% and dropped the name for an even more generic word. Then it wouldn't be much of an issue for nearly as many folks I'd imagine. But if they wanted to change it more radically (as they are doing in reality). changing it to a Cowboy doesn't seem the right answer either, as others have mentioned. Whether partially true or mostly exaggerated, there's the impression of "Cowboys vs Indians" violence that makes this change sort of seems inappropriate. It could have been handled better.
I'm not really sure that changing a thirteen-year-old character's revealing swimsuit in Xenoblade and the skimpy Tomahawk outfit in BD2 count as a bit of an alarming precedent in the dozens of games released every year on Nintendo platforms for me. It seems like an awareness of potential issues in localisation and goes back decades, see the changes made to Christian imagery for the church in Dragon Quest etc.
Considering that character names, items, spells and the whole script are adjusted in localisation too in an effort to maintain the general thrust of each point, if not a direct translation, I don't see how changes to a single costume in RPGs where they have a large number of other revealing outfits is that problematic. It's obviously done on a case-by-case basis rather than a blanket ban on this, that or the other.
The problem for me isn't in deciding to either include it or change it, it's that they replaced it with a cowboy, which is just bonkers if your initial reason for changing it during the localisation process was potential local sensitivity amongst some customers.
As much as I find the chainmail bikinis and modern lingerie for female adventurers in RPGs to be just utterly tedious, I think the general skimpiness of female vs male outfits is really a separate issue here.
Elaugaufein
Member
Them returning to that thinking is something of an alarming precedent after years spent getting them to stop doing that. Those "localisation changes" of the 80s and 90s caused some terrible translations and occasionally produced stories that had nothing to do with the original games. It's not exactly a thing I want to encourage them to return too in general. I'm kind of saddened that people seem to be greabout it with applause again.
Even if I do think this instance makes sense since the abilities would confuse the hell out of anyone expecting a class that does what it's name says and its a rather early game class.
BeatnikGunsoo
Member
as a black guy I thought shaman king did a wonderful job of portraying native americans well.
Only the chief had a headdress iirc
and
I mean none of them have a name like fucking Chocolove McDonell [who was my second favorite character]
I mean it's out of context but still lol
Time to read shaman king again
Only the chief had a headdress iirc
and
I mean none of them have a name like fucking Chocolove McDonell [who was my second favorite character]
I mean it's out of context but still lol
Time to read shaman king again
P5 protag name acquired
toastyToast
Member
Holy fuck the whole comment section is just people saying they didn't learn anything and they're not gonna stop wearing headdresses
Yoshi
Headmaster of Console Warrior Jugendstrafanstalt
I don't know if this character class does anything offensive (it could very well be a derogative stereotypical character, so I do not want to say with certainty I'm fine with it as it was in the Japanese original), but in this thread I first read a new word, cultural appropriation, a word that does not seem to have a German equivalent (or at least Wiki does not know about it). I have read the Wikipedia article on it, but I'm not sure I really get it. Neither what it is, nor why it is a problem. Could someone help me understand this? As I understood the text on Wiki, I would describe it as the usage of any cultural (or religious, I like to differentiate this) aspect of one culture (or religion) even though you do not belong to that culture (or religion), so for instance the following things would fall under cultural appropriation:
1. Wearing feathers like an Indian
2. Waering a headscarf like a muslim woman
3. Wearing the attire of a nun / monk
4. Using words from a different language in your own language
5. Celebrating another religion's festive days
If I understand this correctly, I cannot understand where the problem might even arise, since as far as I know, this is how modern society came up and this is how mutual communication works. Adaption of the word "kindergarten" from German to English (and countless examples in the other direction, like "computer" from English to German), latin influences on English, christmas and easter adapted by christians from old mythical religions in Europe and now again celebrated by atheists, too, without any religious meaning.
And to conclude with a small personal story: As a child in elementary school I was a fan of Karl May's Winnetou books and in particular admired the (clichéy) idea of an indian in his books, especially the connectedness to nature and animals, so when carnival was celebrated, I dressed up as an Indian including a feather on the head. I am certain there was no malicious intent in that, and if in turn I was the father of a child who wanted to wear such a costume for carnival, I wouldn't have any good reason to tell the child it's unjust and should not be done. This might indeed be something that might happen some time down the road, so if there indeed is a good reason to forbid such a costume, I would like to understand it.
1. Wearing feathers like an Indian
2. Waering a headscarf like a muslim woman
3. Wearing the attire of a nun / monk
4. Using words from a different language in your own language
5. Celebrating another religion's festive days
If I understand this correctly, I cannot understand where the problem might even arise, since as far as I know, this is how modern society came up and this is how mutual communication works. Adaption of the word "kindergarten" from German to English (and countless examples in the other direction, like "computer" from English to German), latin influences on English, christmas and easter adapted by christians from old mythical religions in Europe and now again celebrated by atheists, too, without any religious meaning.
And to conclude with a small personal story: As a child in elementary school I was a fan of Karl May's Winnetou books and in particular admired the (clichéy) idea of an indian in his books, especially the connectedness to nature and animals, so when carnival was celebrated, I dressed up as an Indian including a feather on the head. I am certain there was no malicious intent in that, and if in turn I was the father of a child who wanted to wear such a costume for carnival, I wouldn't have any good reason to tell the child it's unjust and should not be done. This might indeed be something that might happen some time down the road, so if there indeed is a good reason to forbid such a costume, I would like to understand it.
Elaugaufein
Member
They do have A rank with Axes but it really takes its inspiration from FF Gunner classes judging by the abilities (and the S rank with Guns and teaching the S rank Gun passive). The Native American overlay seems to have been grafted on as an afterthought or as a result of a visual design process for the Asterisk Bearer.
Fantastapotamus
Wrong about commas, wrong about everything
No, I mean why the change is a problem for some people.
Bravely Default's costumes were kind of ridiculous and gaudy on purpose. Many of them have cultural influences for sure. You run the gamut from...
Chinese monks
European knights
Victorian era aristocrats
Aladdin-esque Arabian fantasy
Spanish dancers
Goofy American pop
Japanese ninjas
Whatever the hell this is
There is also a vampire class. All these costumes are pretty stereotypical, but it's mostly poking fun at the characters and not at these cultures (which don't actually exist in this fantasy world). I do think it's a bit hypocritical of Nintendo considering they released Codename STEAM this year which has Tiger Lily, a stereotypical Native American.
Yes, I know she is originally from Peter Pan, but that character has been chided for years as being a crude stereotype of Native Americans.
I do think a cowboy class would be pretty sweet though, but there is a lot of irony of a cowboy class erasing a Native American class.
Chinese monks
European knights
Victorian era aristocrats
Aladdin-esque Arabian fantasy
Spanish dancers
Goofy American pop
Japanese ninjas
Whatever the hell this is
There is also a vampire class. All these costumes are pretty stereotypical, but it's mostly poking fun at the characters and not at these cultures (which don't actually exist in this fantasy world). I do think it's a bit hypocritical of Nintendo considering they released Codename STEAM this year which has Tiger Lily, a stereotypical Native American.
Yes, I know she is originally from Peter Pan, but that character has been chided for years as being a crude stereotype of Native Americans.
I do think a cowboy class would be pretty sweet though, but there is a lot of irony of a cowboy class erasing a Native American class.
Correction: there is a "Gundam inside of a giant fish costume" Gundam. This makes a world of difference in the level of comedy that seeing it in action instills.
G Gundam is the best.
Elaugaufein
Member
Looks like a riff on the Final Fantasy Berserker appearance (which is a bit off since that's the Bravely Default Ranger class) so a very very loose take on Norse warrior basically.
DiipuSurotu
Banned
Most people don't know or care about G Gundam at all.
NinjaCoachZ
Member
Taking stuff from other cultures as long as you understand it is fine. If you watch anime, that's fine. If you celebrate Halloween, that's okay. If you want to learn a new language, awesome.
Cultural "appropriation" isn't inherently bad.
A better name for the stuff people are upset by is "cultural exploitation". When people from outside of a culture take elements of it and exploit them for their own benefit without understanding them in context, and often using them in a hurtful or insulting way.
This costume is an example of exploitation. It takes a culture (Native Americans / First Nations people) who have historically been oppressed and reduces them to nothing more than a costume, trivializing them and diminishing their status as real, living people whose problems are still ongoing even today. If there was a full-fledged character in the game who was Native American and portrayed well in a positive, non-stereotypical light, that would be awesome and a great instance of representation. But this isn't representation. It's not a character at all -- it's a costume, making the pre-existing characters dress up as another ethnicity for no real reason, perpetuating the harmful stereotypes and beliefs many have about Native Americans. That's why this costume is upsetting.
Even the name "tomahawk" is an issue, as it is a misuse of the concept -- a tomahawk is basically an axe, while this class uses a crossbow. This shows that the developers weren't entirely educated on Native culture and issues. When designing the costume, it wouldn't be surprising if they just drew from pre-existing stereotypical depictions of Native people rather than properly doing the research.
Replacing them with cowboys is kinda problematic in itself since cowboys are historically the people who performed this oppression, from what I know, but regardless I think nixing the costume was the thing to do.
LegendofLex
Member
This is kind of a weird scenario.
On the one hand, you have white people cosplaying as Native Americans in a video game, exploiting elements of a culture that was historically horrifically stereotyped and exoticized while being systematically (and literally) marginalized and reducing them to mere icons and tropes. This is often done with other non-Western cultures in video games, but by and large those cultures weren't actually very nearly wiped out by white people.
On the other hand, the change now literally replaces a representation of Native Americans with a period icon of white expansionism and specifically anti-Native American violence. It symbolically reenacts the genocide committed against those tribes by the white settlers who took their land, killed them off and/or assimilated them, and replaced them.
On the one hand, you have white people cosplaying as Native Americans in a video game, exploiting elements of a culture that was historically horrifically stereotyped and exoticized while being systematically (and literally) marginalized and reducing them to mere icons and tropes. This is often done with other non-Western cultures in video games, but by and large those cultures weren't actually very nearly wiped out by white people.
On the other hand, the change now literally replaces a representation of Native Americans with a period icon of white expansionism and specifically anti-Native American violence. It symbolically reenacts the genocide committed against those tribes by the white settlers who took their land, killed them off and/or assimilated them, and replaced them.
Ragnorok64
Member
Mihos
Gold Member
Pretty much everything offends someone.
They are free to be offended, and we are free to not care that they are offended.
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