Japanese Politician and New Song Highlight Unease Over Assassin’s Creed Shadows

Video Games

The people of Japan are really pissed about Assassin’s Creed Shadows, and I don’t just mean the gamers. We’ve seen backlash since the trailer was released, with plenty of Japanese comments online criticizing the game for its portrayal of Yasuke, a historical black man who was a vassal for Nobunaga but is portrayed as a samurai and is one of the two playable characters in Assassin’s Creed Shadows. They also don’t appreciate the inaccurate architecture, which is Chinese as opposed to Japanese (and which Ubisoft has admitted to and promised to correct before the game is released), and a Japanese reenactment group discovered that their flag – which did not exist in feudal Japan, the period during which Assassin’s Creed Shadows takes place – was used in the game without their permission (another thing Ubisoft recently admitted to). This all led to a Japanese petition to cancel the game. It’s been getting harder for the shill media to write off the reaction to Assassin’s Creed Shadows as a bunch of white American racists, and now, a fork should officially be stuck in that bogus narrative.

So let me get this straight. “Ashually Historical Figure, Yasuke” in Assassin’s Creed Shadows:

– Battles to rap music
– Walks through villages beating asians up
– Uses excessive non-honorable violence (crushing heads of defeated enemies)
– Makes all villagers bow to him… pic.twitter.com/uTWYnkPv05

— Grummz (@Grummz) June 12, 2024

Satoshi Hamada is a member of the House of Councillors, the “upper house” of Japan’s national legislature, which is called the “National Diet.” Today, he posted on X about Assassin’s Creed Shadows, saying he and other legislators have received “a consultation” about the game and its historical inaccuracies, and he shared another post that runs down the problems with the game. This is a screenshot of Hamada’s post translated into English:

This is the post he quoted, also translated into English:

Hamada then revealed that someone else contacted him about Assassin’s Creed Shadows, specifically concerning “cultural appropriation and cultural invasion” in relation to Yasuke, “a black man who served Oda Nobunaga.” You can see a screenshot of that below, again translated into English:

I don’t know what can come of this. That Park Place believes Hamada may take it up with the National Diet, but even if he does, I doubt they’re going to ban the game or anything. But that an elected government official is discussing it is significant because it suggests a serious issue the public has with Assassin’s Creed Shadows. Ubisoft seems to be going out of its way to make it look like they have it in for Japanese culture, and having the Japanese legislature issue some sort of condemnation (which I assume is the most they can do, but don’t quote me on that) would be a huge mark of shame on their first Japan-set Assassin’s Creed game.

Additionally, a Japanese YouTuber called Cabbage Games uploaded a song about Assassin’s Creed Shadows on July 6 called “Why Yasuke?” that unleashes fury on Ubisoft and their game (click “cc” to see English subtitles):

“For the time being, make him gay and do with Nobunaga, Japan’s pride.” That’s legit funny. As of this writing, the “Why Yasuke?” video has 923,000 views; people are not happy with this game, least of all Japanese people, and it’s easy to see why. Ubisoft must be sweating bullets in the run-up to its release.