Hideki Kamiya thinks Japan should be proud of ‘JRPG’ and wants to use ‘J-Action’ | VGC
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The PlatinumGames exec addresses recent criticism of the term, which has been accused of being discriminatory…

He added: “So when it comes to the term ‘JRPG’, this is something that ties into this – these are RPG games that, in a sense, only Japanese creators can make with their unique sensitivity when it comes to creating these experiences. “I think it’s certainly something that should be celebrated moving forward, and someone should actually aim to make a ‘king of JRPGs’ game to express that. As Japanese game creators, we’re very proud of the actual term JRPG.”

We asked Kamiya if he’d be offended if people started using the term ‘J-Action’ to describe games like Bayonetta. “On the contrary, I’d be very proud if you used that term,” he replied. “It’s more focused than the broad genre of action, and it highlights the unique elements that only Japanese developers can make. So yeah, if you wanted to do that, go for it, we’d be proud more than anything else.”

Adding J- prefix to Japanese pop culture is not a new thing, we already have endearing terms like

  • Jpop (Japanese pop music)
  • Jrock (Japanese rock)
  • JAV (Japanese Audio Visual collective)
  • Jdorama (Japanese TV drama)
  • Jmetal (Japanese metal music)

I would definitely welcome Kamiya calling his games J-Action.

  • Whom@beehaw.orgMEnglish
    4·
    1 year ago

    I’d say there is a general vibe to JRPGs that you can’t really get at by just describing the combat system.

    It’s easy to imagine someone who like Final Fantasy may like a game like LISA. But harder to suggest someone who like Final Fantasy will like Kingdom Hearts

    If anything, I’d say the opposite. Even setting aside the developer and series overlap, I would expect a Final Fantasy fan to be much more receptive to Kingdom Hearts than to LISA. While classic Final Fantasy may be closer to LISA mechanically, FF and KH are working in a related tradition that LISA is a bit farther from. There’s connective tissue between JRPGs that go beyond their mechanics, and this is part of why FF as a series has gone between so many radically different systems while still feeling united in some way. JRPG may not be a perfect term, but it carries historical reality, not just bland mechanical descriptions. If you look at music for example, genre titles are just as often describing the scene something came up in (or is emulating) as they are describing the sound itself. If genres are to give us helpful groupings of games that are related to one another, just describing their bare mechanics isn’t enough on its own.