Japanese Stereotypes in Medievalist Games:The Onimusha Series

Tsuji, Hirohito (2025) Japanese Stereotypes in Medievalist Games:The Onimusha Series. In: The Fifth Middle Ages in the Modern World Conference, 2025-06-24 - 2025-06-26, King's College London.

Preview

PDF (Japanese Stereotypes in Medievalist Games The Onimusha Series) - Published Version Download (1MB) | Preview

Abstract

The Onimusha series is a historical survival action game set in the Sengoku and Azuchi-momoyama Periods in medieval Japan. The original plan was to complete the trilogy, but due to better-than-expected receptions from users, sequels have continued to be released, with a total of approximately 8.7 million copies sold worldwide to date. The concept of the game is that samurai slay demons, however, the control system follows that of the horror-survival action game the Resident Evil series set in modern-day America, and the game is also characterised by its strong reflection of modern elements, with today's actors playing real historical characters. In Onimusha 3: Demon Siege, the third game in the series, a twist of space-time occurs and a protagonist Samanosuke Akechi travels back in time to Paris in 2004, while a French DGSE officer Jacques Blanc, travels from contemporary France to Kyoto in 1582, with the heroes from medieval Japan and modern Europe, the game depicted a novel story in which heroes from medieval Japan and modern Europe fight together in their respective eras. In this way, it provided an excellent opportunity for the masses with no interest in Japanese culture or medieval studies to be introduced to Japanese medieval history, as it dealt with real medieval Japanese characters and weapons in the modern setting. On the other hand, since the release of this game, many games, comics, animations and films have been released in which contemporary figures have travelled back in time to medieval Japan and are included alongside real historical figures, etc., and the social impact of this game is significant. In this paper, using Onimusha as a case study, the stereotype of the Japanese Medieval times in global society and its influence on historical subcultures will be discussed from the concept of time and space.

Item Type:	Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)
Uncontrolled Keywords:	japanese studies,arts and humanities(all),social sciences(all),computer science(all),general,sdg 10 - reduced inequalities ,/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/1200
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities > School of History
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	24 Nov 2025 15:30
Last Modified:	30 Nov 2025 07:30
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/101095
DOI:	10.13140/RG.2.2.29970.52165

Downloads

Actions (login required)

View Item