Dragon Quest is something of a miracle franchise in Japan. From having art straight from the legendary late mangaka Akira Toriyama to its massive cultural influence in its homeland to the point that it has an entire themepark dedicated solely to Dragon Quest, the nation of Japan loves its slime series. And Dragon Quest is popular outside of Japan too, but sadly, it appears that unfiltered Japanese media and the cultural sensibilities of America aren’t mixing too well, as series director himself Yuji Horii recently stated in an interview that has set the gaming community alight.
In the interview Horii decries the standards set by the west, namely the censorship of the design for the upcoming Dragon Quest III Remake’s female warrior, as well as poking fun at the Type A/Type B selection of gender at the character creation screen rather than just selecting Male or Female. Essentially, Horii argues that these regulations by the west are narrow minded and constricting to art. We highly recommend listening to the full interview, as this isn’t just some angry internet troll, this is the director of a 40 year old franchise that is arguably the crown jewel of Japan’s gaming community. The interview has made such a storm that even Elon Musk has commented on it.
This has been brewing for a while, America absolutely adores Japanese media, and so Japan will go out of their way to appeal to western audiences to expand their sales. But there’s always the question of how much artistic integrity a creator is allowed when they’re forced to do this such as Yuji Horii and Dragon Quest here. It’s a debate that’s been incredibly prevalent in the manga community and it only makes sense that it would eventually bleed over into video games. The inarguable divide in our cultures means that compromise between western appeal and eastern integrity seems to be at an odds.