Cultural accuracy and Lang's 'Rising Sun'

CMON's 'Rising Sun' went on Kickstarter yesterday. It has already amassed 1 billion dollars, or something.
My gaming group has enjoyed 'Chaos in the Old World,' and 'Blood Rage.' This title was high on our theoretical wish list, especially for our South Korean member who is a big scholar of Japanese history.

Well, he's pissed.

His comments to the gaming group:
"I pledged the $100 for the game. While I'm sure the game design will be le awesome, the designs of the figures to me are disappointing. They're really more based on Chinese mythology and history than Japanese. And the video was fucking annoying cause the narrator mispronounced every single Japanese word used like a typical American barbarian.
It seems to be both and as the stretch goals get released, I'm feeling less and less enthused about this game. Did I expect a pinpoint historically accurate game about Japanese feudal conflicts? No. I understand we are really playing a game with giant monsters and sorcery. However, it would have been nice if there had been SOME consideration toward keeping influences mainly Japanese. And I can say they are not. They are mostly Chinese. One of the stretch goals was a fucking kung fu Panda for god's sake. Another is a witch with a Gandalf pointy hat on. At this point, just change the name of the game to Chaos in the Old Oriental World. Pretty fucking disheartening as an Asian American who likes board games."

And then in true internet fashion, my friend went full-on FLAME WAR in the KS comment section. Admittedly, any KS comment page quickly boils into a cesspool. After some back and forth with CMON/Lang fanboys, he wrote this:
"A troll? Or just another Asian American tired of seeing the different Asian cultures mishmashed into some whitewashed stereotype yet again for the consumption of entertainment? I ask YOU."

So I don't know. I'm pretty conflicted between game design and cultural ignorance. In the end, I suspect we'll pass on 'Rising Sun' and keep playing Lang's other (derivative) stuff: Midgard > Chaos in the Old World > Blood Rage. *

* Actually, it'll probably just be Blood Rage and Cthulhu Wars...

AND we'll probably grab a copy of Ikusa somewhere.

If he was that concerned about the cultural inaccuracies, why did he plonk down $100 ?

I did see a lot of chest pounding on TOS regarding this topic. Seems like perhaps it would have been smarter to not label this as Japan, and instead set it in a fictional world inspired by Asian mythology.

I don't know Eric Lang personally, but he is definitely not the type to willfully offend people. Granted, once the contract is signed, he pretty much gets no say, most likely.

I mentioned on BGG somewhere that I think the game is redolent with half-baked orientalism, and that I basically expect as much from CMON.

oh man, i really want to go and troll it now. "I'm not putting any money on this cuz everyone's eyes look funny"

JEM wrote: half-baked orientalism, .

Cultural crudo ?

Lang should troll him back by including the "shadow people" expansion, which is nothing more than walls with blast-etching and shadows burnt into them. Authentic enough?

Msample - at this point I'm sure he'll yank the $100 and put it into a copy of Ikusa.

Please don't play Ikusa - nobody deserves that kind of punishment.

Scott!
I honestly can't remember. Was Shogun / Samurai Swords / Ikusa horrible?

Ikusa was top 5 worst game experiences for me. 4 players we spent 5-6 hours and the game wasn't finished. I wanted to quit after an hour. Everywhere on the map is just a slow war of attrition over territories and awkward treaties and chucking a ton of dice and not wanting to push hard or the other players will take advantage. I really hated it; first and only game was about 3 years ago. Maybe other people like it. For background Cthulhu Wars and Chaos in the Old World are top 10 games for me, Ikusa/Terra Mystica/Agricola probably bottom 3 of what I've played.

Did any Viking Americans feel the same way about Blood Rage?

My very first internet argument was regarding the cultural inaccuracies of the Legend of the Five Rings ccg, with historian Anthony J. Bryant. He was upset because the game did not accurately reflect the culture of the samurai era in Japan. I said that was the equivalent of complaining that Tolkien's Middle-Earth failed to accurately depict medieval Europe. As the game continued to publish expansions and eventually an rpg, it became more and more clear that the Rokugan setting was a mixture of Tokugawa era Japan with ancient China, including a mixture of the supernatural folklore of both places, plus hordes of monsters standing in for Mongolians. BTW, I looked Bryant up on Wikipedia just now and am slightly saddened to see that he died on Christmas Day a few years ago.

Anyway, I can see why your pal is disappointed, but as I read the Kickstarter description, it leads with "Clans must use politics, strength and honor to rule the land in this board game with amazing miniatures set in legendary feudal Japan." (Emphasis mine.) If anything, he should be worried that this game appears to be too similar to various other modern DoaM games, and is overpriced unless you love the minis.

BGG is a pool of people looking for stuff to be offended by:

boardgamegeek.com/thread/1741362/using-term-pimping-offensive

They're fucking GAMES people.

FAT is a pool of people looking for people looking for stuff to be offended by.

If you go looking for dog shit on the beach, you're going to find it.