Japanese Stop Selling Game That Insults Minorities
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TOKYO — A U.S.-made board game that uses derogatory language toward Japanese minorities is being pulled from stores by its Japanese distributor, a company official said today.
The instruction manual for the game, “Land of Ninja,” uses a disparaging name for a former Japanese outcast class and calls another minority group “barbarians.”
“We have decided to completely stop selling the game because some people have objected to it,” said Kosuke Fukumoto, an official of Hobby Japan Co., the distributor.
He said the company also has halted plans to produce a Japanese-language version of the role-playing game, which is based on feudal Japanese society.
Although less than 200 copies of the game were sold in Japan at a list price of $35, the distributor moved quickly to withdraw it after it was criticized by the Buraku Liberation League.
The league, which claims 200,000 members, has fought discrimination faced by burakumin , a former outcast group.
The league said it plans to send a delegation to the United States to meet with the maker of the game, Baltimore-based Avalon Hill Game Co.
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