A Dartmouth College associate professor of Japanese literature and culture became a narrative consultant for Ubisoft's game Assassin's Creed Shadow (which launched in March). Sachi Schmidt-Hori's job "involved researching historical customs and reviewing scripts, not creating characters," writes the Associated Press.
But when a trailer was released in May of 2024, some reacted to a game character named Yasuke who was a Black African samurai, according to the article, "with gamers criticizing his inclusion as 'wokeness' run amok". And they directed the blame at Schmidt-Hori:
Gamers quickly zeroed in Schmidt-Hori, attacking her in online forums, posting bogus reviews of her scholarly work and flooding her inbox with profanity. Many drew attention to her academic research into gender and sexuality. Some tracked down her husband's name and ridiculed him, too. [One Reddit user described Schmidt-Hori as a "sexual degenerate who hate humanity because no man want her," while another called her a "professional woke social-justice warrior" who confirmed "fake history for Ubisoft."] Learning Yasuke was based on a real person did little to assuage critics. Asian men in particular argued Schmidt-Hori was trying to erase them, even though her role involved researching historical customs and reviewing scripts, not creating characters.
Ubisoft told her to ignore the harassment, as did her friends. Instead, she drew inspiration from the late civil rights leader and congressman John Lewis. "I decided to cause 'good trouble,'" she said. "I refused to ignore." Schmidt-Hori began replying to some of the angry emails, asking the senders why they were mad at her and inviting them to speak face-to-face via Zoom. She wrote to an influencer who opposes diversity, equity and inclusion principles and had written about her, asking him if he intended to inspire the death threats she was getting. "If somebody said to your wife what people are saying to me, you wouldn't like it, would you?" she asked. The writer didn't reply, but he did take down the negative article about Schmidt-Hori.
Others apologized. "It truly destroyed me knowing that you had to suffer and cancel your class and received hate from horrible people," one man wrote. "I feel somehow that you are part of my family, and I regret it. I'm sorry from the bottom of my heart." Anik Talukder, a 28-year-old south Asian man living in the United Kingdom, said he apologized at least 10 times to Schmidt-Hori after accepting her Zoom invitation to discuss his Reddit post about her... He was shocked the professor reached out to him and hesitant to speak to her at first. But they ended up having a thoughtful conversation about the lack of Asian representation in Western media and have stayed in touch ever since. "I learned a massive lesson," he said. "I shouldn't have made this person a target for no reason whatsoever."
I'm surprised that Yasuke was the source of the problem. They had a Netflix show about him a few years ago, and before that there was Afro-Samurai which I believe was also somewhat based off of him. I can't imagine using the only black man in Japan at the time would lend itself to being stealthy (any race but Asian, specifically of Japanese decent, would have stood out back then), but I also haven't played the game so I don't know if stealth is even a mechanic in this franchise anymore.
I figured people would be mad about Ubisoft's business practices and watering down of the AC franchise in general. That's been a talking point for years.
That being said, this is the perfect response: take away the anonymity of keyboard warriors and get them to own their words. It's a lot harder to be mean when it's two people, face to face. The problem is, most people don't have time to confront everyone online.
As you showed with your examples, Yasuke isn't the (edit: only) problem. For the "Gamers", Ubisoft and especially that the professor was a woman played a much bigger part. I'm pretty convinced if Joe Rogan made a toxic masculinity-enriched game about Yasuke, they wouldn't have so much of a problem.
Nah. Him being black was definitely a problem. Let's not act like redditors/gamers can't be equally sexist and racist. Anti-DEI rhetoric is just a dog whistle for racism
The purist mentality of the Japanese culture still remains. This is often reflected in various recent anime releases.