Yes. This. Again. We posted a fan-made reworking of Mirror's Edge protagonist, Faith. The character was designed by Westerners, and the fan-made image was not. There were obvious differences in aesthetics.


Japanese game site Game*Spark has covered the controversy, pointing out that the Kotaku comment thread was 500 plus comments strong and even going as far to translate some of YOUR comments. (Before shooting one's mouth off in the comments section, remember that lots of people read Kotaku!)


What's more, Game*Spark translated the "12 year-old boob job" comments EA's Tom Farrer made to Stephen Totilo at game blog Multiplayer.

Farrer's comments have set off a flurry of comments and activity on the Japanese internet. Below are a handful of translated remarks from Japanese commenters:

"There's no way Japanese would accept a face like that." "That woman is extremely homely." "Not sure if moe-style is necessary, but that original face is awful." "She's totally flat." "I kinda like the character. I don't think Asian equals ugly." "Fuck off Asian beauty!" "Man, the Mirror's Edge protagonist is way creepy... It's like some Asian female stereotype." "The eyes are way too Asian." "Everyone knows Western female game characters are ugly." "That face makes her look 40 years old." "For Westerns, there's not much difference between the faces that eat kimchi and the faces that eat soy sauce." "The original is better looking." "Slant eyes for Asians is the same as big lips for black people." "If you really sit and think about it, in America, Lucy Liu is an angel, right?" "Who cares about this one game person's opinion." "But foreigners think slant eyes are sexy." "Americans like aggressive faces?" "Well, Japanese people have the stereotype that Americans are fat, bald and clumsy. It's the same."


One Japanese commenter even found a picture of Tom Farrer and posted it online. What was the general reaction to that? "Hey, he's handsome."

Mirror's Edge】日本人が"萌え化"した主人公が海外で話題…開発者、苦言 [痛いニュース]