Japanime Games announced that the Player’s Choice Kickstarter will be launching on Tuesday, June 26th at 12:00PM Pacific Standard Time. The Kickstarter will feature fan-favorite artwork for trading card sleeves, as well as brand new artwork from one of Japanime’s upcoming board games, Kamigami Battles. The company teased the artwork through a tweet posted on June 21st, 2018.
The big reveal: Player’s Choice Kickstarter is launching Tuesday, June 26th at 12 PM PST. In addition to your favorite card sleeves, this Kickstarter will have new artwork featured in our upcoming title, Kamigami Battles! This is a kickstarter worth pursuing. #ComingSoon #Prepare pic.twitter.com/SKXPCaEeZA
— Japanime Games (@JapanimeGames) June 21, 2018
The image of the artwork did not go over well with Twitter’s Social Justice Warriors.
The editor from Quillette Magazine, Jonathan Kay, was one of the more prominent figures to step in and tell Japanime Games that he found the artwork offensive for the upcoming Kickstarter campaign.
Even *i* find this offensive
— Jonathan Kay (@jonkay) June 21, 2018
Various game reviewers, board game creators, board game enthusiasts, and board game photographers hopped into the tread to condemn Japanime Games for using a sexually attractive female in the artwork.
Wow. This is, ummm, not cool.
— Peace Love & Games (@PeaceLoveNGames) June 22, 2018
Yeah, this isn’t OK, honestly it never really was. Perhaps you want to reexamine your art choices / relationship with women
— Stay Simon (@simonarthurread) June 21, 2018
My unsolicited advice… you’re actively doing harm to the industry and should stop. But what do I know…
— Funktion (@FunktionFails) June 21, 2018
This is offensive at best. Please make this person look like a person, and give her some clothes the people would actually fight while wearing. I cannot support a game that represents women as only completely unrealistic sex objects. How do you exain this to your children?!?
— Odin VelociFlounder Phong (@PhongOdin) June 22, 2018
Gotta send you to Yikers Island.
— Bebo (@BoldBebo) June 21, 2018
I’m not sure whether to be more concerned about this woman’s missing ribs or her missing nipples. Good grief.
— Elizabeth Hargrave (@elizhargrave) June 21, 2018
Typically, anti-SJWs came in to combat the SJWs, and the Twitter feed turned into an all-out warzone, with some board game reviewers attacking Japanime Games for producing art that’s “harmful” to women.
Calvin Wong Tze Loon ended up in a number of Twitter skirmishes over the issue, as he attempted to convince Japanime Games to give up drawing alluring and curvaceous women.
It is not Japanime by itself but the trend of perpetuating women-as-objects is not limited to just board games. It harms our industry, it harms women, it harms society.
— Calvin Wong Tze Loon 🇲🇾 (@ithayla) June 22, 2018
The entire thing was best summed up in a meme posted by Twitter user Sharp.
The Replies pic.twitter.com/mPFHmGc44S
— Sharp (@sharp_roll) June 23, 2018
To the benefit of those who enjoy Japanime Games’ artwork, the company did finally step in after they made it clear that they weren’t entirely thrilled with the battleground taking place within their Twitter feed.
Over the course of multiple tweets on June 23rd, 2018, they wrote…
“Hey all – it was just brought to our attention that there is a lot of antagonizing towards people that are voicing concerns and opinions about our artwork. We would like to say that first and foremost, we do not condone this behavior.
“While we as a company do not agree with people that have issue with the artwork in our games, it is also not OK to vilify or shame others for not being into it. Truthfully, we understand, if people are degrading something you are into, its reactionary behavior to antagonize back. Comments such as “hey dude, guess it ain’t your jam”, totally cool. Outrageous negativity is not how we would react, and we would ask that our fans do not do so either.
“Now, all of that being said, Japanime Games (and Players Choice) are a company of inclusive, sex positive, Anime loving fans. We do not condone mistreatment of women. At all. We do not condone violence. We do love cheesecake pinup style art – and while we realize that some people find such art offensive, and even harmful towards women, we do not agree with that stance.
“Stepping down off the soap box now. We hope that all of our fans can appreciate where we are coming from with this statement, and we wish no ill-will from anyone that does not appreciate the art that we include with our games. Game on!”
Japanime Games basically came down on the side of their real customers, protecting their interests to make sexy art and alluring female characters.
The company has made multiple successful Kickstarters based around the sexy images like the one displayed in their original tweet, so they seem to understand their core market demographic.
In addition to prepping for another Kickstarter campaign, they’re also still selling pre-orders for the board game Kamigami Battles, which is scheduled to release this upcoming August after having a wildly successful crowdfunding campaign.
You can pre-order Kamigami Battles right now from over on the official Japanime Games website.
(Thanks for the news tip Lyle)
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