Japanese gamers are furious with the incredibly disrespectful black-washing of Japanese culture in Ubisoft’s new Assassin’s Creed Shadows. They are furious that Ubisoft made Yasuke, in real life, a servant, a main protagonist, and a samurai in a game set in Japan.
LearningTheLaw posted the first reactions of Japanese gamers on X: “Japanese Reception from Ubisoft’s latest videogame, Assassin’s Creed Shadows. One Japanese user says: “For the first time, I understood what cultural Appropriation was” Very diverse neo-colonialist we have here”
X user and gamer Zintyo expressed his disappointment with Ubisoft’s deviation from the tradition that Assassin’s Creed main characters comes from the locality where the game is set in. But not so with Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ Yasuke: “Up until now, the main characters have been the original local races and ethnic groups, but do they become different when they become different races when they come to Japan?”
Tamu7626 knows his history and Japanese tradition: “Yasuke, who is supposed to be a sword holder, enters the battlefield without permission, so Nobunaga-sama ends up holding a sword himself, which is ridicoulous.” EzpZg added: “Everyone has a simple question. Why did they use black people in Japanese culture?”
X user takechihanpaeta notes: “This probably won’t sell well in Japan.” He’s right; Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed Shadows’ with its a-historic and out-of-place black samurai Yasuke, won’t sell well in one of gaming’s largest markets. The Japanese notoriously don’t like their history to be messed with.
Gamer tarouyamada1468 understands woke culture all too well and hits them with their own stick: “For the first time I understood what cultural Appropriation was.” The question is will the woke mainstream media call out this blatant black-washing and cultural appropriation by Ubisoft in Assassin’s Creed Shadows with its black samurai Yasuke killing Japanese people? Of course not. IGN and Kotaku is already spreading fake news and disinformation claiming that Yasuke was a real life black samurai.
The access media instead went full-simp for the game. IGN wrote that: “AC Shadows is Ubisoft’s ambitious new Assassin’s Creed game set in an open world Japan. Learn about all the new AC Shadows details, including how every move is affected by weather, season, and lighting systems, all while controlling two protagonists: Naoe, the Ninja/Shinobi, and Yasuke, also known as the ‘African Samurai’.”
Sleaze rag Kotaku also spread the disinformation to control their narrative: “Other clues were teased in a mini-marketing ARG that had fans deciphering images for numerical clues that eventually led them to the number “1579,” the year Yasuke, the first Black samurai, is believed to have arrived in Japan.”
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X user galeo77 noted further historical blunders and disrespect for Japanese culture in Ubisoft’s Assassin’s Creed Shadows, apart from the fact that Yasuke was never a samurai: “I don’t think there are any Japanese people supervising the architecture. Its Chinese filled with with lanterns, torii gates and paper lanterns, so it doesn’t feel like this.”
Gamer fun nyako pointed hammered home the point of Ubisoft being incredibly disrespectful: “A game where black people massacre Japanese people in the Sengoku period is a perfect example of UBI. Is this what happens when political correctness is taken to the extreme?”
In the comments, let us know what you think about Ubisoft’s attempt to blackwash Japanese history and culture with Yasuke in Assassin’s Creed Shadows.
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Let’s see how high the cost of DIE will be for Ubisoft.
Gamers applying the *cut infernal*
“I think there is a resurgence of anti-Ubisoft sentiment, because at this point in time Japan has not yet learned how to be multicultural. And I think we are going to be part of the throes of that transformation, which must take place. Japan is not going to be the monolithic society they once were in the last century. Ubisoft is going to be at the centre of that. It’s a huge transformation for Japan to make. They are now going into a multicultural mode and Ubisoft will be resented because of their leading role. But without that leading role and without that transformation, Japan will not survive.” – Barbara Lerner Spectre
While there was a possibility Yasuke was a samurai of sorts (he became Oda’s novelty freakshow bodyguard at a time where the term “samurai” was not widely used, and was given the same land grant and stipend later associated with the class), the nature of his role would have made him a lousy AC character, as he would have never left Oda’s side. So this Yasuke is unrecognizable from the historic Yasuke. The real Yasuke would have made more sense as an NPC or secondary boss if Oda is the big bad.