#mfwp april fools prank 2017

[otome-obsessed]

Just some thoughts Re: MFWP’s April Fool’s Day Prank

(I have been writing this off and on all day. I needed to write things and let them stew and I am finally okay with posting what is now here.)

So, just a bit of backstory:

In My Forged Wedding Party, there is a character who is centralize to the plot. Her name is Lily Saionji. She is a Flower Designer who is very famous and the MC ends up working for her in the basic plotline of every story. She has a crush on Kunihiko, the MC’s uncle, and is very open about it.

Also, Lily is a transwoman.

This has always been a bit of a, shall we say, confusing thing for me in many ways. Mostly because of how she is treated in the story.

Like most non-heterosexual non-cis characters in Japanese media, her role is mostly played for laughs. Kunihiko is obviously very uncomfortable with Lily’s advances on him and the other guys find it very amusing that he is.

Several of the characters still refer to Lily as her birth/dead name Rintaro and will still refer to her as he/him. They do this even when she is in their presence and she asks them not to. Even if she asks them nicely.

This has been since day one. This is not something that came out of nowhere. Lily shows up in the story fairly early on and she, as well as the other characters quickly introduce us to her, letting us know all we need to about how her character is treated in the story.

This brings us to today.

(I’m putting this under a cut because this whole post ended up getting much longer than I planned on it getting.)

As part of their April Fool’s Day prank, Voltage teased that Lily was going to be a route. They also teased that one of the endings Lily would end up with Kunihiko. Then we were shown the following gag character page for her 

Initially, a lot of people were ecstatic probably because they forgot that 1) it’s already April 1st in Japan (even though MFWP runs on UTC +0) and 2) not surprising a LOT of people are okay with the thought of being with Lily. You hear that? ALMOST EVERY PERSON I TALKED TO ABOUT THIS WERE 100% OKAY WITH MARRYING LILY.

But then the character card comes up and then the grimace forms.

And now we get to the part with my thoughts on this.

It’s well known that Japan has very problematic views when it comes to LGBT people. They are not as progressive as many other countries are on the matter, so, Lily being used, once again, as a joke doesn’t surprise me.

HOWEVER, what does surprise me is her birth/dead name being used in the joke because of how we know the character. She is no longer Rintaro. She hasn’t been Rintaro for a while. She is Lily. She is very insistent that she be called Lily and be referred to as she/her. So, putting Rintaro on her character sheet, for me, was the part that seemed very inappropriate and something Lily herself would be very angry about.

There are also people pointing out how messed up it is that they released this on International Transgender Day of Visibility. And while that is also not very cool, once again, April 1st in Japan. Not that this makes it okay, just pointing that out.

In the end, are LGBT people being used as jokes something going to change? Probably not. Will me having to have made a statement make these companies think twice? I think you all might think I have way more pull than I do. None of these companies care about my opinion. I’m just an American on the internet. Who cares.

I think Voltage’s fandom, who are huge, are already doing a good job of calling Voltage out on things like this. I really don’t think I need to add my voice to the pile when I have not hidden my thoughts on LGBT representation in not only otome games, but in the fandom as well.

We also have to remember, as I have to unfortunately remind everyone, these games aren’t made for us. They are made for a Japanese audience and then released internationally when they think they might be able to make some extra money. If there is any voice that matters, it’s the Japanese users’, not us. The Japanese users have to stand up and say that they are not okay with this and demand better.

That is when the stories that we get will start to change and be more inclusive.