After Japan’s Prime Minister responded to questions around Assassin’s Creed: Shadows and the risk of copycat “defacing” of shrines, the shrine linked to Ghost of Tsushima has banned all tourists after an “unforgivable act of disrespect.”
Automaton reported on the Watazumi Shrine, a real-life Shinto shrine located on Japan’s Tsushima Island, which announced it had banned entry to anyone other than congregants and worshippers after what it called “a grave and unforgivable act of disrespect committed by foreigner(s).”
Ghost of Tsushima brought worldwide attention upon the Watazumi Shrine upon its release in 2020, as it is thought to have inspired the in-game Scarlet Rock Shrine. As Automaton reported, Ghost of Tsushima fans launched a successful crowdfunding campaign to help raise money to repair damages suffered by the shrine during a typhoon.
Officials didn’t go into detail on this latest incident, but mentioned having to call the police to deal with vandalism and the physical and verbal abuse of staff. “Inbound tourism’s destruction of places, things, and people cherished by the Japanese is nothing less than the destruction of Japanese culture,” Automaton quoted shrine officials as saying.
The incident comes hot on the heels of the controversial launch of Assassin’s Creed: Shadows in Japan. Shadows, which like Ghost of Tsushima is set in Feudal Japan, launched last week alongside a day-one patch that quietly made a number of important changes, including to temples and shrines.
The update made tables and racks in temples and shrines indestructible, and changed citizens without weapons so they no longer bleed when attacked and thus reduce blood spill in temples and shrines.
Ubisoft told IGN the day-one patch was for all players and not Japan-specific, but was hard to see the changes as anything but a response to the controversy surrounding the game in the country.
That controversy even reached the upper echelons of Japanese politics. Last week, Shigeru Ishiba, the Prime Minister of Japan, responded to a question about Assassin’s Creed Shadows during an official government conference meeting.
The Assassin’s Creed Shadows question was asked by Japanese politician and member of the House of Councillors of Japan, Hiroyuki Kada. Kada, who will campaign for re-election this summer, said:
“I fear that allowing players to attack and destroy real-world locations in the game without permission could encourage similar behavior in real life. Shrine officials and local residents are also worried about this. Of course, freedom of expression must be respected, but acts that demean local cultures should be avoided.”
Prime Minister Ishiba responded:
“How to address this legally is something we need to discuss with the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
“Defacing a shrine is out of the question – it is an insult to the nation itself. When the Self-Defense Forces were deployed to Samawah, Iraq, we ensured they studied Islamic customs beforehand. Respecting the culture and religion of a country is fundamental, and we must make it clear that we will not simply accept acts that disregard them.”
The shrine being “defaced” in pre-release Assassin’s Creed Shadows gameplay videos was the Itatehyozu Shrine in Himeji, Hyogo Prefecture, which is within Kada’s constituency. He said that he had consulted with representatives of the shrine, who confirmed that Ubisoft did not seek their permission to show the shrine and use its name in the game.
As our colleagues at IGN Japan explained to us last week, Japan has seen record numbers of overseas visitors in the wake of the country reopening its borders after the pandemic and the lure of the weak yen. In this government budget meeting the politician Hiroyuki Kada twinned his complaints against Shadows with the controversial subject of what he called “over tourism” and an attendant perceived rise in vandalism and graffiti in Japan.
His argument was that if players were able to deface a temple or harm individuals with a katana in the game, they may be inspired to do it in real life when they visit Japan, similar to the age-old argument that Call of Duty or Grand Theft Auto inspire copycat violence.
Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba responded that if such actions were taken in real life, he would oppose them. His comments were aimed at theoretical real-life copycat actions rather than at the game itself.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].
