Kojima Productions stuffed The Metal Gear Solid Rising trailer at Microsoft's Sunday press conference full of scenes depicting human dismemberment, something that traditional Japanese society considers taboo. Games released in Japan often have scenes of dismemberment excised in order to be accepted in the marketplace. Resident Evil 4 and 5, both Gears of War games and Dead Rising all removed scenes depicting severed limbs and appendages for their Japanese versions.
There are several things that are outright forbidden by the Computer Entertainment Ratings Board (CERO), the Japanese equivalent of the ESRB or PEGI. Dismemberment is one of the verboten images, along with genitals, pubic hair, and sexual intercourse. MGSR's gameplay trailer implies that the majority of the game will be focused a level of dismemberment that has never been seen in Japan before. The gameplay as depicted in the trailer could not be released in Japan under the CERO's current system.
The issue is not entirely cut and dried. CERO says that they take context and degree of violence into account when determining whether the content of any given game is acceptable or not. According to CERO's regulations (Japanese), an otherwise objectionable scene may be deemed acceptable if it is indirect, necessary or natural, or appropriate to the theme or setting. Alternately, an otherwise acceptable image may be qualified as inappropriate if it is antisocial, or "if it would provoke an unreasonable degree of disgust in an average and unbiased individual."
Such qualifications are generally used to allow cutscenes to be more violent then gameplay. CERO is far more tolerant of gruesome images in non-interactive sections of games.
Kojima has not directly addressed the issue, but he has never been happy about censorship of his games. When Kojima Productions was forced to cut a scene from the Japanese version of Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker in April he tweeted:
Hideo Kojima
PW's American rating is T. In Japan it's for those 13 and above. In Europe 15. It may even be higher in other countries. In Japan the rating is C; for those 15 and older. It's the same as Europe, right? You would think so, but that's not actually the case.
http://twitpic.com/1fs5tc
Hideo Kojima
The PSP is supported by younger players, so we were careful to avoid scenes with too much bloodshed in Peace Walker. Even so, we still had to cut an essential scene because of the rating. It apparently didn't matter how important it was to the game's anti-war and anti-nuke themes. We sadly had to change the scene for the domestic [Japanese] version. The scene is unchanged in the European and North American versions.
Hideo Kojima
In short, the unchanged original version is rated 13 in America, 15 in Europe, and the edited Japanese version is rated 15. If you get a chance, I'd like you to play both versions and compare. It seems that fantasy games get a pass, while there's something wrong with sincere depictions of inter-personal violence and war. It's impossible to express something in games under those limits.
There has been some speculation that Metal Gear Rising is the game Kojima refered to when he tweeted the same week as the Peace Walker edits:
Hideo Kojima
The next project will challenge a certain type of taboo. If I mess up, I'll probably have to leave the industry. However, I don't want to pass by avoiding that. I turn 47 this year. It's been 24 years since I started making games. Today, I got an ally who would happily support me in that risk. Although it's just one person. For a start, it's good.
However, the game Kojima was talking about project was not Metal Gear Rising. Tweeted the director earlier today:
Hideo Kojima
Rising is a game for a younger generation. It's a modern MMGS for the next generation that doesn't get the traditional MGS games that I made, so I've passed to baton to Matsuyama and a team people just starting out who have a creative bent. When I said that my next project might violate a taboo, I was referring to my game design, another title that I'm directing.
While dismemberment isn't the taboo that Kojima was referencing, Rising will challenge the standards of CERO unless Kojima Productions voluntarily changes the game's content before submission.
