Famitsu Issue 0142 (September 6, 1991)

Before someone else raises their hand to point it out, I should add that some of the stuff they talk about, like violence and blood having to be toned down for American audiences, has swung in the other direction, and  nowadays it's Japan that has to censor some of the extreme violence in Western games. 

But while America has begrudgingly learned to accept ultra-violence in games, we're still not cool with sex being anywhere near our kids.  Spot the completely random nude woman in this very issue of Famitsu and ask yourself if you would have ever seen that in a Nintendo Power in 1991.  Now ask yourself if you'd ever see that in an American gaming mag in 2025 (use your imagination to pretend there are still American gaming mags in 2025.)

Some things change.  Others stay the same.

Religion has most definitely stifled progress in not only America, but the world and it seems like everything is going backwards. 
 

Want to know why there’s no flying cars, hoverboards, or any of the other cool stuff promised by science fiction? 
 

Because people still want to play by the rules of 2,000 year old fairy tales that contradict each other with various “books”. Worse even, some have made up their OWN rules using said books as a reference point. 
 

RANT:

It's still wild that just because a western tester was uncomfortable with male on female violence 40 years ago that they could tone down the whole situation by saying something like "oh, she's a female, but what if she could magically appear a cock? Would that be better?" And the tester was like "Sure is. Don't worry about people stabbing each other, kidnapping, potential rape scenario. beating to death with a pipe...oh yeah change the name Sodom though."

Poison is female imo and always has been. It was fine everywhere including in USA arcades, the character designer made her female and was responsible for Morrigan from Darkstalkers among many other woman, them changing it only because it rustled someone's jimmies when it came to port to the USA. I don't go along with their insanity.

I could go on and on about this and how I hate censorship because it might offend someone. 

  On 5/5/2025 at 11:27 PM, ml0045 said:

Poison is female imo and always has been. It was fine everywhere including in USA arcades, the character designer made her female and was responsible for Morrigan from Darkstalkers among many other woman, them changing it only because it rustled someone's jimmies when it came to port to the USA. I don't go along with their insanity.

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Making Poison transgender was pointless back then, especially if it was meant to make the game less controversial in America (boy did they EVER misread the room!!!).  Which is why Poison isn't even IN the SNES version of the game, which is what most Americans are familiar with.  She was replaced with a completely different sprite of a 100% male character, since in that political climate, the only thing worse than beating up women was the very existence of a transgender character.

However, making her transgender has certainly done the character a lot of favors in the years since then.  Would such a minor character even be remembered today if not for that status?

And unintentionally or maybe even intentionally, it sent the message that it’s okay to beat up on transgender people. Like it’s not okay to beat up a woman, unless she has a cock, that’s perfectly fine. 

  On 5/5/2025 at 11:55 PM, johnnyblaze1986 said:

And unintentionally or maybe even intentionally, it sent the message that it’s okay to beat up on transgender people. Like it’s not okay to beat up a woman, unless she has a cock, that’s perfectly fine. 

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Except again, that character was essentially removed from the USA release of the version most people played, and most of us never heard that the character was transgender until many years later.  Design specs for the character suggest that the decision to make the character transgender happened before the game was ever released (though it's true that the decision was made for the benefit of a later release in America), though the developer only considers the Western version of the character to be transgender, while the Japanese version is female.

The entire thing was a miscalculation which was made completely in Japan.  It wasn't America who asked her to be changed into a transgender character (not in a million years LOL.)  So if anyone's to be blamed for the bad optics of deciding that it's less controversial to beat a transgender character than a woman, it's Capcom Japan, who only did it because they had no understanding whatsoever of the political climate in the USA, thus inadvertently making something MORE controversial in the attempt to make it less controversial.