Nintendo of America Acknowledges Homosexuals Exist
By Mad Mage • Sep 8th, 2008 • Category: Nintendo, Video Games, WiiToday is an epic day for Nintendo of America. For the first time since the NOA’s founding in 1980, they have acknowledged gay people exist, with the virtual console release of the homoerotic shooter, Chou Aniki.
Nintendo has been known for its excessive censorship. For years even the slightest reference to subjects like relegion, alchohol, and yes homosexuality were completely removed from the U.S. release of Nintendo games. In recent years, Nintendo has lighted up on these policies, leaving the censorship decisions to publishers. Up until now, we have seen no references to homosexuality in a game on any Nintendo console (no, Tingle doesn’t count!).
Chou Aniki is a shmup for the Tubo Grafix featuring muscular body builders and very mild homoerotic imagery. The game spawned many sequels which are much more explicit. So by normal standards, Chou Aniki really isn’t a big deal at all. In fact the ultra conservative ESRB gave it an E10 rating (I guess nine-year-olds are still too young to look at pixelated body builders).
To me, the significance of this release is that Nintendo, at least on some level, is still listening to core gamers. Chou Aniki wasn’t released for the Wii Sports crowd. Someone somewhere said “I want a big gay shooter where muscle men shoot protein out of holes in their heads”, and Nintendo delivered. If Nintnedo will bring Chou Aniki to U.S. audiances, the sky’s the limit. I’m hoping for the next Chou Aniki game, which is a heck of a lot gayer. That would prove Nintnedo really is removed from their past no gays in games pollicy.
I’ve sat down with the game for a bit and can say the game is pretty fun for its age. Out of the 5000 some archaic shmups released on the virtual console, Chou Aniki is one of the better ones.
Mad Mage Mad Mage is the be-all end-all source for Japanese video game knowledge. If he doesn't know about it, it didn't happen.
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If it’s coming out here, do you think it will be censored or a direct port?
It’s out. I bought it for virtual console. I’ve never played the original, so I can’t say for sure if they censored it. But I believe that there’s nothing to censor. I think the later games in the series are much more explicit, but this game features very little in the way of controversial content.