Recently, I published an article on Medium.com where I postulated the idea that Katsuhiro Harada, creator of Tekken, may have advised Akira Nishitani to change the outfit of Blair Dame, a character in the currently developed Fighting EX Layer. I also reported how micro-transactions, according to Nishitani, were being discussed with his producer. I wrote all of this after I finished reading an interview with the two men from an article written by Denfaminicogamer, a Japanese news outlet.

Most of the things I do online usually generate the smallest amount of buzz that is conceivably possible, but the article I wrote made it onto the GamerGate subreddit, KotakuInAction. Among the comments in the thread is a well-respected Japanese GamerGate supporter known as Ryanofthestars. I have talked with Ryan a few times ever since the Fire Emblem Fates controversy, and I have always appreciated his input on this subreddit when it comes to anything related to Japan, whether it be Japanese news articles or general Japanese consensus on certain topical video games.

His comments about my article were not flattering, to say the least. I do not have a problem with unflattering comments existing. What I do take umbrage with is certain arguments and accusations being levelled against me that I contest are either unfair or untrue. In this article, I will address each point one by one to offer my perspective on the article and the criticisms against it.

To summarize Ryan’s comment, I will break it down into bullet points.

1. Ryan accuses me of taking parts of the interview out of context.

2. Ryan argues that me adding brackets into quotes is similar to what is seen in defamation lawsuits, and that adding brackets is unnecessary, muddies what was said, and therefore makes it inaccurate.

3. Ryan believes because of points 1 and 2 that I do not operate ethically.

4. Ryan provides accurate translations to argue why the original translation in the article I referenced is flawed.

5. Ryan accuses my section regarding micro-transactions as being equally flawed and sloppy.

6. Ryan argues that I am just as bad at relaying information as professional journalists.

1. Ryan accuses me of taking parts of the interview out of context.

I strongly contest this allegation. If you look at the original question asked of Nishitani in the WordPress article — we will address the quality of the translation later — he was telling the interviewer what kind of advice was given to him by Harada, because it was mentioned earlier that he was helping Nishitani out with Fighting EX Layer. Skullomania and Evo were indeed mentioned prior to the question much earlier in the interview, which is why I actually kept the parts of the quote I used where Skullomania and Evo were mentioned. Without it, it did not make sense, and would have actually been out of context.

However, the interviewer was not explicitly asking just about Skullomania and Evo. They were asking for examples; the quote I used was his answer to that question. In addition to this, I wrote that the comments Nishitani made are not necessarily suspicious at first glance. One thing that is not contested here is Harada has been giving advice to Nishitani. All I did was provide his answers.

If the contention here is my speculations, then Ryan should have said my speculations were unnecessary or inaccurate. But he instead accused me of taking something out of context, when the opposite is true: I was actually attempting to provide more context. Which is where the second point comes in.

2. Ryan argues that me adding brackets into quotes is similar to what is seen in defamation lawsuits, and that adding brackets is unnecessary, muddies what was said, and therefore makes it inaccurate.

Considering Ryan’s level of English comprehension, I would expect him to have a better understanding of how the language works, but I have no choice but to address this.

The assertion that my usage of brackets is somehow comparable to what happens in a defamation lawsuit, or that I ruined the integrity of what was said, is absurd. The entire point of adding square brackets — [these ones] — is to provide additional context to the subject at hand when the quote does not explicitly make clear who is being discussed/mentioned, what happened, when it happened, where it happened, why it happened and how it happened. This is fairly basic English, all things considered. If I used normal brackets (that looks like this), then Ryan would be correct, and I would have to edit my article accordingly.

But that is not the case. The quotes I used necessitated my usage of square brackets, or else the quotes would not make any sense, and therefore be out of context. If I quoted Nishitani as saying “you mentioned Skullomania earlier”, the question a reader would ask is why they mentioned Skullomania earlier. The answer, as stated in the square brackets, is because Skullomania is an internationally popular character.

The second quote where Nishitani (apparently) referred to Harada as “you” would not make any sense if I did not make clear who “you” was in the original context. Nishitani was talking directly to Harada, not the interviewer, hence why “you” was followed up with Katsuhiro’s surname. The same thing had to be done when the word “then” came up. When was “then”? Again, the answer is April Fools’ Day.

If Ryan’s argument is whether I should have included the entire exchange leading up to the original quotes in order to no longer require square brackets, then there would have been no point in my writing the article in the first place. In that case, I would have just shared the article, have no-one read it, and then be on my merry way. But this is a silly proposition on its own, because I do not really have anywhere I can share the article and have people actually bother to read it. (And no, this is not an admittance of me doing this for clicks and drama.) I do not even have a Reddit account, so sending it to KotakuInAction would not be possible. (Even if I did have an account, the rules for the subreddit have changed in such a way that just posting the article would require it to meet certain thresholds in order to be worth discussing — this is done with a numbers system.)

So I am sorry, Ryan, but I am not removing the brackets. You are wrong on this one.

3. Ryan believes because of points 1 and 2 that I do not operate ethically.

Yet another falsehood that I am surprised he levels at me considering the reasons why I wrote the article the way I did. I can easily debunk this with two articles I had previously written on Medium.com: the Gal*Gun article, and the Brad Glasgow v.s. Nick Monroe article. The Gal*Gun article originally had a YouTube link where I recorded a brief conversation with an EB Games employee regarding the game’s removal from store shelves. I was made aware by a reader than I was technically violating Western Australian law by recording the conversation without his knowledge. Despite my opinions of this being anti-whistleblowing, I removed the link and the video itself, and updated the article with a proper explanation as to why it was removed, because stealth edits are unethical.

The Brad Glasgow article was about the Mass Effect: Andromeda controversy, where he conflated Nick Monroe’s tweets about one of the animators as somehow implicitly inciting harassment against her. I went through the proper journalistic protocol, got in contact with both men, waited twenty-four hours for their responses, and even provided context by adding specific dates with — you guessed it — square brackets. Neither man has contacted me to say my reporting of the incident was somehow unethical, and Nick himself even used parts of it to argue his point that he did nothing wrong.

To assert I operate unethically is preposterous, and I wholeheartedly reject the notion.

4. Ryan provides accurate translations to argue why the original translation in the article I referenced is flawed.

This is the only part of Ryan’s arguments I can actually acknowledge and agree with his reasoning. He adequately explained why the translation itself was not reflective of what Nishitani was actually saying, and I will have edited my original article to reflect this by the time people start reading my response. However, I would like to bring to your attention something in Ryan’s translation that intrigued me.

Ryan translated one of the quotes I used to be the following:

The story about Skullomania came up earlier, and that was a discussion about what things would go over well overseas and moreover, things we really should avoid. That’s the type of thing we don’t know much about, so personally I listened to that part of the conversation carefully and decided on the direction I would take his design.

“Things we really should avoid”? What could that possibly mean? Was he referring to fighting game mechanics, or something else? Ryan argues this is exclusively in reference to Skullomania and Evo, but frankly, I find this to be up for interpretation. Nishitani, based on Ryan’s translation, was not talking singularly about Skullomania nor Evo; from the looks of it, Nishitani was speaking in plurals. I know for a fact the Japanese language does not really distinguish between the two, but the question still remains: why did Nishitani, in reference to Harada’s advice, mention things to avoid doing?

And that is why my entire article, starting with the title, said Harada may have told Nishitani to change Blair Dame’s outfit. I never said he did tell Nishitani to change her outfit. I said multiple times in the article that this is a simple correlation and not a direct causation. This is something you learn about in university pretty much from the beginning, and I am disappointed Ryan did not pick up on the carefully crafted language I was using while reporting about this topic.

5. Ryan accuses my section regarding micro-transactions as being equally flawed and sloppy.

Sorry, Ryan, but unless you tell me what is actually wrong with this part of my article, I am under no obligation to take your criticism here seriously. Considering the fact I gave even more context there than I did regarding Blair Dame — seriously, that was the entire exchange I copy-pasted for people to read — the idea that this is equally out of context and false is ridiculous. You are going to have to take the time to explain what is wrong here if you expect me to change anything.

6. Ryan argues that I am just as bad at relaying information as professional journalists.

Say what you will about the original translation of the interview. If it is as bad as you say, please take the time to translate the entire thing yourself if you object to it so strongly. I will 100% support you and read the results myself, because I found the interview to be a fascinating and interesting read. But to insinuate I am the one at fault for someone else’s mistake is equally as stupid as every other accusation you made about me. Perhaps this could have been avoided if I was proficient in Japanese myself, but until that day comes, I have no choice but to rely on others’ work to learn about anything coming out of Japan.

If Ryan instead made the argument that I inserted my own personal biases into the article, I would happily acknowledge the areas where I did so. Upon reflection, my bringing up the Star Wars: Battlefront II controversy perhaps could have been handled with a more even hand. But this is not what Ryanofthestars did, and instead flung out absurd accusations about my character that I do not appreciate, especially since we were once acquaintances, whether he remembers this or not.

If anyone wishes to try pinning wrongful actions onto me, they should start by not doing any of this.