Is Upcoming PSP Game Racist?

Soon-to-be-released PSP game LocoRoco has been labeled by at least one critic as the "happiest game ever made."

Not so fast.

It seems that bit of a controversy has sprung up over the PSP title LocoRoco, due to appear in North America on September 5th.

The dust-up is courtesy of the blogosphere, where 1Up.com blogger Alejandro Quan-Madrid writes about his perception of institutionalized racism in Japanese media, using LocoRoco as a prime example. While not directly accusing publisher Sony of racism, Quan-Madrid postulates that others may be offended by the game's graphics.

At issue is the look of characters known as the Moja Corps. Comprised of black blobs with tentacles (he calls them 'dreads'), Alejandro points out the similarities between the Moja and the blackface minstrels that promoted negative racial stereotypes in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries, usually as part of a vaudeville routine.

Blackface became a symbol of racism, and is rarely seen in continental North America these days. Alejandro suggests that cultural ignorance of racial issues in other countries, a lack of a significant black population, and a racist Japanese culture (CM: Isn't that cultural racism?), the blackface look has continued to appear in popular Japanese media.

Alejandro compares LocoRoco to other Japanese games containing blackface characters, such as MegaMan Powered Up, in which the U.S. version had Oilman's look was altered so that "black skin has been changed to blue, and the red lips are now a non-offensive yellow". Presumably it's the black skin at issue here, since the Moja Corps already have yellow lips.

Not surprisingly, this has brought out strong opinions on both sides, from agreement, to ridicule. Kotaku's Florian Eckhardt said Alejandro is "making himself out to be one of those knee-jerk reactionaries who measures his own importance by his ability to be self-righteously offended" and accuses Alejandro of demeaning the struggle against "actual" racism.

CM: I wonder what Alejadro has to say about the black-skinned, fat lipped evil wizard in Samurai Jack, Aku?

Should companies be more vigilant about cultural sensitivities when selling games in other regions of the world? Are some people looking too hard to find things to be offended at? Or are others willfully ignorant of offensive imagery?

-Reporting from Canada, GP correspondent Colin "Jabrwock" McInnes

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