Whether it is remarks about the trans allegory in Celeste or questions about whether Gone Home is even a game, queer representation and queerness in Western gaming media is often viewed through an intensely critical lens when compared to its Japanese counterpart.
Much like the overt sexuality of Fear Effect 2’s protagonist, Hana, queer representation in both Western and Japanese games, has usually only received a pass from a presumed straight male player base if it is titillating. And while LGBTQ+ progressivism and Japan are two nouns that are, generally, not found in the same sentence, LGBTQ+ representation in Japanese media could arguably precede that of the West.
Looking at characters such as Jean Armstrong from Ace Attorney, Ryan the gym owner from No More Heroes, or Angel and Julian in Persona 5 who openly stalk and sexual assault a main character, you would be forgiven for thinking that Japan has long abandoned nuance in its depiction of LGBTQ+ characters.
Even Final Fight’s Poison, one of gaming’s first and best known trans characters, was only changed from cis to transgender by Capcom’s North American cohort. Designer Akira Yasuda imagined Poison as a “cool, bad-ass lady” later clarifying via twitter that “Poison is a woman in Japan and trans abroad.” Due to examples such as these, the West has often thought itself more progressive in terms of LGBTQ+ representation in games, changing or removing what it believes to be harmful stereotypes such as Streets of Rage 3’s Ash.