Left 4 Dead is being released as an arcade game in Japan. None of the eight existing characters, however, are making the trip (despite featuring in the local releases of the console titles). Instead, publishers Taito have swapped in an all-new cast.
We saw (and heard) them in action in some grainy footage from last week, but this official character art lets us really get a good look at them. And soak up the strangeness.
We’ve got, from left-to-right, a Japanese university student, a Japanese schoolgirl, an American bartender (who used to be in the US Navy) and a half-Japanese, half-American tour guide.
The game itself is still set in the US; guess it was easier to swap out the character models than re-do the level textures. In case you missed it last time, the game actually sounds pretty cool, since it’s an arcade game, only with a PC-like control setup courtesy of a mouse and a Wii nunchuk.
アーケード版オリジナルキャラクター公開！[Nesica, via Arcade Heroes]
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10 responses to “Japan’s Left 4 Dead Characters Include Schoolgirl, Bartender”
I get that every country has its own set of go-to stereotypes, and I also get that Japan and most of Asia are vastly different to the US and Australia, but seriously Japan, the school girl thing is downright creepy.
Their age of consent is 13 so yeah…
No it isn’t. This thing keeps being thrown around and it’s not getting any more correct as tome goes on.
To explain: the national age of consent has been more or less the same for the last several hundred years. Before there was even a nation as we think of them today. It was more or less thirteen across the entire set of islands because in feudal times, that was age of marriage. There was no “consent age”. Since at least World War 2, each prefecture has been allowed to set the age of consent as prefectural (state) law. That law across the board is 16. the same as it is here.
Each of Japan’s 34 prefectures have their own law stating explicitly that the age of consent is 16.
Have you not seen a school girl in Japan? It’s fairly commonplace if you ask me…
Looking at that artwork, I cannot help but feel that Japan is trying to reverse the common height difference between Western and Asian males. Of course, the bartender could just be small, or the university student tall, but I prefer to think they’re just trying to reverse the stereotype.
Maybe, but I get the distinct feeling they’ve probably scaled each image individually. I’ve already seen the pic elsewhere obviously shopped with different sizes, but it makes me wonder if this is the original.
Eg: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BoOC33hIIAA72jb.jpg
I’m tweeting Ashcraft as we speak.
Kidding, I love his work and Kotaku wouldn’t be the same without him.
White male confirmed for 5’4 height.
That school girl will get owned hard… shes pidgeon toed and bow legged as all hell.
They forgot the black-dude with cornrows 😛 (ever notice how alot of japanese games over the years always have a black-dude/cornrows). Even Shenmue 2 did (but they also had a white-dude with dreadlocks – Tom)