Throughout history, video games have faced censorship for reasons ranging from too much
violence, to too much sex.
Although occasionally, alongside these more common types of alteration are other forms
of censorship, to much more unusual aspects of games.
Today we'll be discussing examples of GENDER CENSORSHIP.
That is, games where the taboo nature surrounding certain characters' 'true' genders, caused
them to have their gender changed when released outside of Japan.
One of the earliest examples of this is Birdo from Super Mario Bro. 2 and then many later
games in the Mario franchise.
When Super Mario Bro. 2 was first released in 1988, the game's English instruction manual
describes Birdo with the line: "He thinks he is a girl and he spits eggs from his mouth.
He'd rather be called 'Birdetta.'"
In Japan, their description was similar, except they are named "Catherine" and would rather
be named "Cathy".
Like in English versions, they are also portrayed as male who thinks they are a female.
However, this transgender identity would later be scrubbed out by Nintendo of America.
You see, later copies of Super Mario Bro. 2 had the instruction manual changed to remove
the description's final statement.
It is only in first print copies where the English version describes Birdo as WANTING
to be called "Birdetta".
In Japan though, no changes were made.
Next up is another example from the Mario franchise...
Vivian from Paper Mario The Thousand Year Door!
Vivian is another transgender character, but this is something that can only be found in
the original Japanese version.
In Japan, they are often ridiculed by their sisters for being a boy, yet continually trying
to pass themselves off as a female.
Despite being born in a male body, Vivian thinks of themselves as a female, but their
sisters won't accept this and make fun of them about it.
All of this was removed from the English versions of the game and, rather than insulting their
gender, the sisters will instead call them things like "ugly".
Interestingly though, certain European regions such as France chose NOT to change this, and
Vivian remains a female born in a male body, much to the dismay of their sisters.
Our next game will be Shenmue II, originally released for the Dreamcast in 2001 and then
for the Xbox the following year.
Within the game is the reoccurring character Yuan who looks, sounds and acts very feminine,
but is in fact a male.
Furthermore, Yuan is not only Dou Niu’s right-hand man but also his lover.
Outside of Japan though, this aspect of Yuan was completely removed and they had their
'true' gender changed from male to female.
Whilst the Western Dreamcast version was not dubbed in English, Sega still decided it was
necessary to rerecord Yuan's Japanese lines so that they are spoken by a female actor,
rather than the Japanese version's male voice.
Additionally, for the Xbox version, which was dubbed in English, Yuan is again voiced
by a female actor instead.
As revealed in a 2015 podcast with Yuan's English voice actress Lisle Wilkerson, Yuan
is still a transvestite in English version of Shenmue II, but SEGA wanted the voice to
be ambiguous as possible, to not anger western fans.
They actually had a hard time deciding whether make to him have a female voice or a male
voice like the original version.
However, fast forwarding things back to the present and Sega no longer considers Yuan's
gender an issue.
As you can see on the official website for the upcoming Shenmue III, Yuan is referred
to as a male, just like the original Japanese version.
And to finish up for today we'll be discussing Poison from the Final Fight and Street Fighter
series!
Poison originally appeared in Final Fight, Capcom's classic beat em up first released
in arcades back in 1989.
During development Poison was planned to be a regular female but the developers would
then become concerned over the idea that hitting women would be considered "rude", as well
as the possibility that feminist groups in America would sue them.
This led to them turning Poison into a transsexual female instead, believing this may help to
ease the potential issue.
However, for Nintendo's SNES port, even further steps were taken.
Here Poison is changed to a fully fledged male named Billy and this change was NOT made
in the Japanese version, where Poison remains Poison.
In later games, Poison's gender has always remained somewhat shrouded in mystery.
Street Fighter producer Yoshinori Ono once spoke about the matter and had this to say:
"Let's set the record straight: in North America, Poison is officially a post-op transsexual.
But in Japan, she simply tucks her business away to look female."
However, later comments from the producer have contradicted this statement, with Ono
also describing them as a "definite post-op in all regions".
Whatever the case, Poison's gender remains a popular debate amongst fans.
But, that’s all the time we have for today.
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you for watching!