Gaming's latest culture war targets Yasuke, Japan's Black samurai

By Owen Ziegler
Staff writer

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May 25, 2024



For centuries, an African slave who entered the orbit of war-torn Japan’s leading daimyo was an interesting historical tidbit. As of last week, he became the catalyst for the latest in the so-called culture wars.
On May 15, developer Ubisoft Quebec announced Assassin's Creed Shadows, an upcoming chapter in the long-running action-adventure series set to take place during Japan’s Sengoku (Warring States) Period (1482-1573). As is common to the Assassin’s Creed franchise, players will control a main character (in Shadows, this is Naoe, a female ninja) through stealth missions usually culminating in the violent elimination of a target. In a slight departure, players will also control Yasuke, a character based on a real-life African slave brought to Japan by Italian Jesuit missionaries and who gained the trust of warlord Oda Nobunaga (1534-1582).

For many gamers, Ubisoft’s announcement was their first introduction to Yasuke, a well-documented historical figure with a strong claim to the title of Japan’s first non-Japanese samurai. For a vocal minority, however, a Black protagonist of a game set in feudal Japan was a call to war.
Critics on X (formerly Twitter) claimed Yasuke was a warrior but never truly made a samurai. On Reddit, some insisted that if Nobunaga endowed a Black man with the status of a samurai it could only have been as a joke, and on YouTube, creators lambasted Ubisoft and claimed gamers would reject “woke Yasuke” en masse. Yasuke’s Wikipedia page is now locked and cannot be edited by non- or newly registered users.
To Thomas Lockley, a Nihon University professor and author of “African Samurai: The True Story of Yasuke, a Legendary Black Warrior in Feudal Japan,” this deluge of Yasuke hot takes is disappointing.
“What it seems to me is that people who know nothing about Japanese history, know nothing about Japan in most cases and certainly know nothing about the Japanese language and the terminology they’re talking about — suddenly, they know everything,” Lockley tells The Japan Times.


The study of history across cultures as varied as Japan and the West can be problematic when people look for one-to-one comparisons. The act in which a medieval European warrior kneels, is anointed with a sword and rises a knight (itself an invention of later observers) had no equivalent in the Sengoku Period, Lockley explains. In a country embroiled in a civil war with dozens of belligerent fiefdoms, “there was no clear division between 'samurai' and others” until 1588, when Toyotomi Hideyoshi, Nobunaga’s successor, began prohibiting the possession of weapons by all but the hereditary nobility.
Being samurai, then, was defined by other means. Whether Yasuke was ever ceremoniously endowed with the rights, privileges and responsibilities of a samurai, he was addressed as “tono” (literally, “lord” or “master”), received a stipend from Nobunaga and carried Nobunaga’s arms, itself a rank of immense honor for the era.
“There’s no piece of paper that says Yasuke was a samurai,” Lockley says, noting that some critics are simply misunderstanding how to interpret the historical record. “But then there’s no piece of paper that says anybody else was a samurai.”
Most telling to Lockley, however, is that no reputable Japanese historian has raised doubts about Yasuke’s samurai bonafides, including Sakujin Kirino, who served as a fact-checker for “African Samurai” and is one of the country’s foremost experts on the 1582 Honnoji Incident, for which Yasuke was believed to be present.
That’s not to say that the study of history can’t be messy, and responsibly telling the story of Yasuke requires a steady, measured approach in modern times — something Ubisoft is all but assured not to do.
Far from a paragon of modern game development, Ubisoft has increasingly released titles with pay-to-win mechanics alongside a precipitous decline in quality since its heyday in the early 2000s. Some gamers have tried to cut through the noise of the Yasuke “controversy” by pointing out these shortcomings, even going so far as to claim Ubisoft is banking on this to drive engagement for a game that may not be able to capture headlines off its post-release experience.
All’s well that ends well for Ubisoft, though, especially if this Yasuke talk convinces gamers to shell out for the Assassin's Creed Shadows Collector’s Edition, a collection of paywalled content, three days of “early access” before the general public and other samurai-themed tchotchkes — all available for the low, low price of $279.99 (about ¥44,000).

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2024/05/25/digital/yasuke-assasins-creed-samurai/

https://archive.is/JVmcH

 

[pwnest injun]

I'm pretty sure that a Japanese dude from the 1500s wouldn't describe an African as dark-skinned. He would describe him as some sort of freak, the likes of which no one has ever seen. Like, a Japanese dude who spends a lot of time in the sun is dark skinned. An African in Japan would be treated like another species.

 

[PS1gamenwatch]

I'm pretty sure that a Japanese dude from the 1500s wouldn't describe an African as dark-skinned. He would describe him as some sort of freak, the likes of which no one has ever seen. Like, a Japanese dude who spends a lot of time in the sun is dark skinned. An African in Japan would be treated like another species.

White Europeans were treated as such, Japanese complained about their BO and thought they were related to apes. When the Americans lead by Matthew Perry, no not the guy from Friends, arrived all clean, that was a different story.

 

[Sneed's Feed And Seed]

Oh for fuck's sake.



Or, in other words, Akechi hit Yasuke with the "Samurai recognize samurai, and you lookin' kinda unfamiliar right now"

Yasuke is not, and never will be, a samurai.

 

[Snekposter]

They're especially pissed because the Ubisoft team absolutely didn't do any serious research in regard to feudal Japan (including architecture, cultural items, kanji characters, clan symbols, etc) and got everything wrong in result. Yasuke is the extra cherry on the top.

Which is ironic considering how much work they put in all the way up to and including Unity. The scan model of Notre Dame they created was so detailed the French government wound up going to them to figure out what it looked like before the fire. They've gotten hit hard by DEI.

White Europeans were treated as such, Japanese complained about their BO and thought they were related to apes. When the Americans lead by Matthew Perry, no not the guy from Friends, arrived all clean, that was a different story.

He also had enough firepower on his ships to level Edo, and orders that allowed him to if he felt it was the only way to get the Japanese to negotiate, which no doubt contributed to Japanese willingness to meet with him.

 

[Amber the Hedgehog]

All warrior cultures had it for some reason. My guess is a mix of women being regarded as temptresses who'd take the man's attention away from warfare, and dudes spending a lot of time on campaigns and getting bored of jerking off. From what I've read gay sex was rampant in Medieval monasteries and in Islamic cultures, too. Greeks equaled the idea of romantic love aka "eros" with insanity, hard to tell what was inside their heads but you can speculate they thought love between men as more "platonic" or pure.

Also good remember that alot of the gay information came from writings of enemies and haters, and they might have other motives than just recording history. People have been calling others, individuals and groups, gay, pedo, cuck, cheater, perv and so on forever. Sexual behavior has always been under heavy scrutiny and shared juicy rumors true, less true and completely false. It's just one of those things that hasn't changed that much.

 

[Party Hat Wurmple]

Raping young boys in training by their superiors was normal, and for a Spartan wedding night the bride would be dressed like a man and have her hair shaved before they'd have sex in a dark room because the state did everything to discourage young men being more loyal to their families than to Sparta.

It was not normal, you just bought the revisionist pill. Touching another man in any, way, shape, or form in that way was punishable by the death penalty. When at war, they just raped and pillaged and took lots of slaves.

 

[demicolon]

I'm pretty sure that a Japanese dude from the 1500s wouldn't describe an African as dark-skinned. He would describe him as some sort of freak, the likes of which no one has ever seen. Like, a Japanese dude who spends a lot of time in the sun is dark skinned. An African in Japan would be treated like another species.

IIRC the Genji from Tale of Genji found the emperor's top general hideously repulsive because he was tanned.

It was not normal, you just bought the revisionist pill. Touching another man in any, way, shape, or form in that way was punishable by the death penalty. When at war, they just raped and pillaged and took lots of slaves.

Yes... which is why Sparta was a running joke of Ancient Greece. Spartan warriors would preen up before battle, stuff flowers in their hair and perfume themselves so they would leave a pretty corpse. Alexander the Great's generals accused his closest associate at the time of being his receptive gay lover, which wouldn't happen if being gay was something to be proud of. Most of what we know of Ancient Greece's gay shit comes from contemporary philosophers, which is equivalent to taking Robin DeAngelo's books about white people at face value 1000 years after she was relevant.

 

[melty]

It was not normal, you just bought the revisionist pill. Touching another man in any, way, shape, or form in that way was punishable by the death penalty. When at war, they just raped and pillaged and took lots of slaves.

All history is fake and gay. How do we know any of this shit wasn't just written up by a past centuries fujoshit, coomer, or random guy with an agenda, like what constantly happens now? We don't.

 

[Party Hat Wurmple]

All history is fake and gay. How do we know any of this shit wasn't just written up by a past centuries fujoshit, coomer, or random guy with an agenda, like what constantly happens now? We don't.

Have you combed over the data yourself? Have you seen these alleged fossil records?

 

[HodgePodgeRogerDodger]

As for Romans... Julius Caesar famously fucked in the ass some Gaul chieftains he captured in front of their soldiers to humiliate them.

They never did that and the gay myth with Caesar was that a Anatolian King fucked him. That was likely a rumor that Cicero spread to be an asshole because even being the dominant partner was not something the Romans or Greeks really tolerated.

Go read up on the radical Faeries and homos in academia spreading this shit. At no point in history, beyond current day, has homosexuality ever been tolerated.

 

[demicolon]

All history is fake and gay. How do we know any of this shit wasn't just written up by a past centuries fujoshit, coomer, or random guy with an agenda, like what constantly happens now? We don't.

"What is history but a fable agreed upon?" - Napoleon Bonaparte

They never did that and the gay myth with Caesar was that a Anatolian King fucked him. That was likely a rumor that Cicero spread to be an asshole because even being the dominant partner was not something the Romans or Greeks really tolerated.

Never heard about Caesar and Anatolian King. Only thing Romans and Greeks had against being gay is assuming the woman role in the relationship. If you were the one fucking others in the ass, it was ok.

 

[HodgePodgeRogerDodger]

"What is history but a fable agreed upon?" - Napoleon Bonaparte

Never heard about Caesar and Anatolian King. Only thing Romans and Greeks had against being gay is assuming the woman role in the relationship. If you were the one fucking others in the ass, it was ok.

Greeks literally had Plato speak ill or it and a physician of the same period literally said “they probably got molested as kids”.

 

[jje100010001]

Honestly, there would be less controversy if Yasuke was just another historical domain character that interacted with the player characters.

Better yet the black main character is called Yosabe and is a fictional character “inspired by the historical Yasuke.”

There, it’s like a few simple steps would have solved so many problems.

 

[demicolon]

Greeks literally had Plato speak ill or it and a physician of the same period literally said “they probably got molested as kids”.

They weren't much different than us. Remember Mutt's Law?

 

[Pentex]

Watching this drama makes me think of HBO's Rome and how the writers managed to wield artistic license to center 20 years of Roman history around two historical characters (Titus Pullo and Lucius Vorenus) who were mentioned on one page of Caesar's history of the Gallic Wars. And everyone with taste loves Rome (short-lived as it was).

It's not as if Ubisoft doesn't know how to make use of artistic license when it comes to history. All of the (good) Assassin's Creed games are a testament to such. And even if they had to have Yasuke, make him an Assassin out of the box, he gets sent to Japan by whoever the Grand Master is, enters Nobunaga's service, makes contact with the Koga-ikki, wins them over to the Assassin's Creed, teaches them western Assassin stuff, gets double-crossed by Nobunaga who has sided with the Templars, gets saved by the ikki, makes an alliance with Mitsuhide, assassinates Nobunaga at Honnoji, acts as the Grand Master of the Japanese Assassins, helps Ieyasu become Shogun, whatever else.

I've said it elsewhere: Storytelling is becoming a lost art in mainstream media.

 

[Elderly Homosexual Negro]

Oh for fuck's sake.

View attachment 6229341

Or, in other words, Akechi hit Yasuke with the "Samurai recognize samurai, and you lookin' kinda unfamiliar right now"

Yasuke is not, and never will be, a samurai.

This guy was a member of the Japanese communist party and is also getting shit on by Japanese historians btw lol.

 

[Lurkin' 'n' Jerkin']

This is like releasing an MLB game with Eddie Gaedel on the cover.

 

[Tanner Glass]

This is like releasing an MLB game with Eddie Gaedel on the cover.

"Home Run King Eddie Gaedel" will have a showdown with Mark McGuire in Assassins' Creed - MLB.

 

[Snekposter]

This guy was a member of the Japanese communist party and is also getting shit on by Japanese historians btw lol.

I'd be careful if I was him. Japanese communists have a nasty habit of getting shanked out of nowhere by assassins.

 

[Zbk3VmLfujjzjxBd43tL]

It was not normal, you just bought the revisionist pill. Touching another man in any, way, shape, or form in that way was punishable by the death penalty. When at war, they just raped and pillaged and took lots of slaves.

Very few cultures outside of those who followed Abrahamic religions gave homosexual acts in general the death penalty. We know this because there were laws against male prostitutes or sodomizing freeborn men (like in Ancient Rome), but not a single law against a freeborn man sodomizing a slave. Incidentally, there was never a single anti-gay law in Japan except a very short lived one in the late 1800s. They had specific terms for having sex with a man in medieval Japan based on a famous monk named Kukai who was believed to have sex with some of his male students. There is gay sex in The Tale of Genji.

To say there was no gay sex in all these old cultures except the occasional deviant here and there is the purest form of revisionism out there.

They never did that and the gay myth with Caesar was that a Anatolian King fucked him. That was likely a rumor that Cicero spread to be an asshole because even being the dominant partner was not something the Romans or Greeks really tolerated.

Go read up on the radical Faeries and homos in academia spreading this shit. At no point in history, beyond current day, has homosexuality ever been tolerated.

While you're correct the Caesar being sodomized was a rumor, I don't need gays in academia to know how to read a primary source. You have to cherrypick your sources beyond belief to get anything like "nobody but modern times tolerated homosexuality." Like why do you think there's thousands of pieces of ancient pottery showing gay sex scenes? Why were prints of gay sex common in premodern Japan? Why were there all sorts of terms for homosexuality, some of which (the ones relating to the penetrating partner) were not stigmatized? Trying to project modern Western sexuality back onto the past is incredibly stupid for obvious reasons, and that includes the idea that people were exclusively heterosexual or that gay sex was just the acts of a few deviants.

Greeks literally had Plato speak ill or it and a physician of the same period literally said “they probably got molested as kids”.

Only if you take Plato horribly out of context can you get Plato condemning homosexuality in general instead of specific homosexual acts, or assume what Plato thought on homosexuality applied to what Greeks in general thought about it.