Would YOU touch this with a 10-foot pole?
Ok, here goes. I’ll say it, even though I’m fully aware that I’m putting my burgeoning reputation at stake: I am a bit of a pervert. No, not the kind that has to go door to door of every house with a prepared statement when he moves to a new neighborhood. More like the kind who makes inappropriate jokes at inappropriate times, and sometimes goes way too far out of his way to set up a “that’s what she said” moment. Is it any surprise, then, that I want the same from my games?
Bear with me, this does have a relevance to the Asian community. There really aren’t any perverted games in America. GTA may have prostitutes, but the game doesn’t revolve around them. This is in stark contrast to Japan, where a game seems almost abnormal if it doesn’t have schoolgirls with amazingly disproportionate cleavage and silly gimmicks that are just excuses for touching them in places that would land you in jail in real life.
Case in point: Doki Doki Majo Shinpan!, an immensely popular Japanese game on DS in which you play a junior high schooler who uses the stylus to poke and prod the bodies of the girls around school to determine which of them are “witches.” I would be amiss if I didn’t point out that the girls in the game are all supposed to be 12-15 years old. I would also point out that this is the best-selling preorder game from amazon.com in Japan, even more popular than the latest Zelda. Don’t believe that there’s nothing else to the game besides the poking? Do a simple youtube search to find out.
Now don’t get me wrong; I’m not lobbying to have this game released here. Admittedly Doki Doki takes things a step too far, and I’d just as soon let Japan keep it. But it’s a perfect example of the wide gap in what our countries are willing to accept. Imagine, for a moment, the kind of uproar that a game like that would cause if it were released in the US. You thought the Hot Coffee incident was bad? How about a game, marketed in kid-friendly anime no less, that is essentially child pornography?
Despite our long history, the US is still governed by many of the Puritanical Christian morals upon which it was founded. We have lawsuits flung around every now and then, and self-righteous politicians who call down fire and brimstone on games that they claim are destroying America’s youth (and you can bet that none of them have ever gone near any of the games they condemn).
But sex sells, as it always does, and the gates can’t be held back forever. Japan is not the only place where perverts exist - it is merely a place where they are freely acknowledged, appreciated even. But we still lack the complete freedom of expression here to readily admit what we’ve all known all along: we enjoy the occasional perverted entertainment, and there’s no escaping that.
Perhaps not in the near future, but someday down the road, I imagine there will be more open-minded games produced by western companies that capitalize on that fact. The forces of social change move slowly, but inevitably. And when that day comes, it won’t be shameful for someone to say, Yes - I like perverted games.”