With all the buzz over the upcoming LocoRoco, it's hard to find many faults. It has a quirky Japanese culture theme a la the Katamari Damacy series, along with simple gameplay mechanics that even mom and dad could pick up on. Throw in colorful and vibrant Samurai Jack/Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends esque graphics for the game's cast and a killer original soundtrack and you have an amazing recipe for success. Seemingly, the only thing that could ruin this game is poor execution in game design, which anyone who has played the demo or previewed the game can tell you, is not the case. For a game that 1up.com's Sam Kennedy claims is the "happiest game ever made", and one that could easily be aligned with Nintendo's Touch Generations, what could possibly be wrong?
I want to say this game is going to be perfect. I want the game industry to see that this is just one of many examples of how to make an original game that people are naturally going to want to play and love instead of using some business model of making games that only need to be marketed to sell.
But alas, there's one thing that sticks out about this game that's too hard to simply overlook. Likewise, if this example is ignored now, where does the buck stop? And what the hell could I possibly be talking about?
Why Racism, of course.
First, let's make a couple things clear before we go on. For those of you who think that racism is simply not liking someone because of the color of their skin, you've simply just heard of the rabbit hole. For those of you who would go so far as to label me as a racist for making an issue of this? 1) see the point I just made and 2) we're talking about issues of race that have been so deeply set in our minds from the things around us (TV, media, print, news, role models, crime, EVERYTHING) that for many people it is extremely difficult to call these things out. This is racism to the point where it's so disguised and not addressed that as a society we tend to think it's ok when in reality it detrimentally affects the way we and others think about ourselves and each other.
How does all of this relate to LocoRoco? First examine exhibit A. These are the Moja Corps, the main antagonist of the LocoRocos. From Sony's official LocoRoco game page: "The peaceful world of the LocoRoco are under attack by the not-so-nice Moja Corps! These evil outer space creatures have come to take the LocoRoco from their land of blowing flowers, lively creatures and pastel scenery."
Exhibit A: "Shake Them Dreads"
http://img230.imageshack.us/img230/6...parison7gb.jpg
Seems harmless enough.
However, consider exhibit B. Here we have an image taken from wikipedia.org's entry for blackface.
Exhibit B: Golliwogg the doll
http://img230.imageshack.us/img230/5...liwogg19nl.jpg
Need I say more? (and i'm not trying to point out copyright infringement)
In short, the blackface originates from traveling minstrel shows in early 20th century America that mainly involved white individuals who would paint their faces Black and act out common negative stereotypes of Black people, creating a racist caricature. In response to a significant Black population in the US, these images were later deemed taboo and for the most part, these days, rarely appear in popular culture unless as a satire or critque of racism and race relations. Today in virutally any public sphere in the US, a depiction of a blackface character is not met without much murmurings and harsh criticism.
In comparison, some countries such as Japan (where LocoRoco was developed) do not have significant Black populations and so Blackface images can come about without any criticsm. The images are also then okay to be labeled as the enemy or even serve as representations of Black characters in general, despite the racist images they perpetuate. That and I hear that Japan is just a very racist culture. Otakus please open your minds for a bit.
Furthermore, one could also equate the "invasion" of the Moja and the fleeing of the LocoRoco's to Black slaves being brought to America and the very common practice of today of white flight; but we're not even going to go there.
I'm not accusing the developers of being racist, nor am I accusing LocoRoco of being a racist game. I simply hope believe that this is a product of unchecked institutionalized racism that need's calling out.
A perfect example of this scenario can be seen with Capcom's recent PSP update of the original Mega Man, Mega Man Powered Up.
Consider exhibit C and D. In exhibit C we have the original Japanese version of the tar-baby boss Oilman which fits a very simillar description to our Moja Troop. Exhibit D is the altered American version where the black skin has been changed to blue, and the red lips are now a non-offensive yellow.
*note, C & D were blown up from smaller pictures, hence the poor quality and the fading of the colors.
Exhibits C and D: No muss, no fuss
http://img230.imageshack.us/img230/5...1bigger2ww.jpghttp://img232.imageshack.us/img232/5...2bigger0xo.jpg
Exhibit C-2: "Zip-a-dee-doo-dah, zip-a-dee-ay"
http://img232.imageshack.us/img232/8...manshot6ta.jpg
To bring this all back to LocoRoco, I propose a simillar color pallete change (dosen't have to be the same colors) to the Moja troop. Never would I dream of having Sony not release this amazing, original product stateside, but I do feel these racist undertones, whether intentional or not, would stop me as well as others from fully enjoying this game. Almost every article on this game praises the bejeebus out of it, but does no one notice what i've pointed out?
http://img232.imageshack.us/img232/7...enshot15bn.jpg
When interviewed by 1up.com, creator Tsutomu Kouno said that he "really focused on creating a happy game because there's too many 3D shooting games, killing people and stuff." I very much so want to believe in this man's philosophy behind his game but why is it that this "feeling comfortable game" makes me feel so edgy?
