Hideki Kamiya thinks Japan should be proud of ‘JRPG’ and wants to use ‘J-Action’ | VGC
www.videogameschronicle.com
external-link
The PlatinumGames exec addresses recent criticism of the term, which has been accused of being discriminatory…

He added: “So when it comes to the term ‘JRPG’, this is something that ties into this – these are RPG games that, in a sense, only Japanese creators can make with their unique sensitivity when it comes to creating these experiences. “I think it’s certainly something that should be celebrated moving forward, and someone should actually aim to make a ‘king of JRPGs’ game to express that. As Japanese game creators, we’re very proud of the actual term JRPG.”

We asked Kamiya if he’d be offended if people started using the term ‘J-Action’ to describe games like Bayonetta. “On the contrary, I’d be very proud if you used that term,” he replied. “It’s more focused than the broad genre of action, and it highlights the unique elements that only Japanese developers can make. So yeah, if you wanted to do that, go for it, we’d be proud more than anything else.”

Adding J- prefix to Japanese pop culture is not a new thing, we already have endearing terms like

  • Jpop (Japanese pop music)
  • Jrock (Japanese rock)
  • JAV (Japanese Audio Visual collective)
  • Jdorama (Japanese TV drama)
  • Jmetal (Japanese metal music)

I would definitely welcome Kamiya calling his games J-Action.

I think it’s generally agreed that pretty much all our genre naming conventions are bad and alternatives exist. https://youtu.be/uepAJ-rqJKA has a pretty good description of an alternative, where you describe games by their core reason for play as opposed to mechanics or camera perspective

🎧MutatedBass🖱️
link
fedilink
English
21Y

Interesting watch, thanks for sharing.

Lots of hobbies or industries have terms that are a bit off but accepted by everyone in the know as institutional knowledge. It’s no surprise gaming is the same and it’s unlikely to change 50 odd years in.

Create a post

From video gaming to card games and stuff in between, if it’s gaming you can probably discuss it here!

Please Note: Gaming memes are permitted to be posted on Meme Mondays, but will otherwise be removed in an effort to allow other discussions to take place.

See also Gaming’s sister community Tabletop Gaming.


This community’s icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

  • 1 user online
  • 47 users / day
  • 149 users / week
  • 530 users / month
  • 1.72K users / 6 months
  • 1 subscriber
  • 2.65K Posts
  • 42.6K Comments
  • Modlog