Shadow Warrior & the Complications of Asian Aesthetics

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I’m currently in the process of finishing up the Shadow Warrior series for some HG101 articles, and I wanted to take a stop over here because there’s something I want to talk about that I don’t feel like I can do fully in those aforementioned articles. I want to make clear I do like these games, but there’s a clear issue in this franchise worth bringing up before Shadow Warrior 3 comes out, one that’s been on my mind just from going on a bit of a vaporwave and cyberpunk kick. The double kicker of seeing Ghost of Tsushima release and playing through these shooters finally got my thoughts formed enough to try and talk about this. In all of these things, there’s one common quality: Turning Japanese, Chinese, and other such connected cultures into aesthetic trappings.