Shame on you: Japan's Happy Gamer released a mobile game that made a fool of gay people

Unfortunately Japan is not the gay-friendly country. same-sex marriage is impossible, the sex change in the family register is very complicated, the law to supervise hate crime does not exist, and discrimination and bullying for LGBTI exist in various situation. Therefore the Japanese cannot have  opportunities to study about LGBTI and make a mistake even in big companies such as Nintendo.

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About the same time, a certain Japanese mobile game developer Happy Gamer committed a big mistake. They released mobile game for Android "アッー！とホーム黙示録 ～人狼ゲームやらないか～(The cozy Apocalypse ~Let's play the "Are You a Werewolf?"~)" on May 12.

This is an inference game based on party game "Are You a Werewolf?". Werewolf is replaced by a gay, players ascertain heterosexuality and a gay from characters, and remove a gay.

~Story~
At the boy dormitory which there is in the "T" capital "S" city. One student was raped(The word "rape" is not displayed, but an image to suggest it is shown). The victim quitted school without talking about anything, but werewolf who conspiring to rape other students in the dormitory may hide behind. You become the member of the dormitory and you distinguish werewolf from heterosexuality and must remove werewolf. 

They open the official Twittter account of the game from last month, set hashtag #ホモ人狼 (meaning Homosexual Werewolf), and published press release diligently for a few days of the release. Questions and opinions of the criticism appeared on Twitter from that time. However, after the release of the game, criticism erupted. To make matters worse, they showed a game play video. It is right an act to pour oil on the fire.



A lot of criticism from people of heterosexuality appeared as well as people of LGBTI on social media. There were a lot of people who made a fool of the gay people, but there were more voices of the criticism. Happy Gamer announced the press release of the apology on May 13. They vindicated it about the contents of the game.

"Any social intention is not included in this game and does not promote discrimination like other general entertainment products. However, we apologize for the point that has caused misunderstanding including such an intention."

However, this apology pour oil on the fire more. Because it was insincere too barefacedly. At last, Google rejected this game from Google Play on May 15.

via http://togetter.com/li/665352 (Japanese)

I think that this is one of the big problems that Japan has. In Japan, there are few opportunities to make friends with LGBTI people. There is not an opportunity working with them, topics of LBGTI do not be reflected on an everyday conversation and most Japanese are not going to know LGBTI. In other words, we Japanese cannot understand what corresponds to discrimination. Therefore the Japanese angers people of LGBTI unconsciously. If find the one positive side in this trouble, it's that the heterosexuality people criticized this game. It is step such as the tortoise, but the human rights consciousness of Japanese may improve little by little.

By the way, Happy Gamer revises this game and plans to release it again in Google Play and App Store. However, I think that this is difficult. Because both Google and Apple are gay-friendly companies.