Meh. Vulcan was a bit too on-the-nose for me to enjoy properly. Also, I feel like if you are adapting a Neil Gaiman story, the one thing you shouldn't do is fuck up mythology too much, which is exactly what the show-runners did with Vulcan (who, apart from the name and an almost incidental contact with weapons, bears…

Most of that stuff isn't in the book, and honestly, it's a bit too on the nose for Neil Gaiman, who's not all that interested in satire or social critique. Not that I am a huge fan of the novel, but this series clearly has ambitions the source material didn't have.

I totally agree with your assessment. Cooper's impairment makes sense, but it's far overstayed its welcome. Network notes are not always a bad thing, and Lynch's instincts are not always right. Here is the exception that proves the rules.

If anyone understands the impulse, it's Nora. Also, she's tough enough that stuff like this doesn't even make her blink. Love this character.

They call them "okama"?

Goodness. I'm not speaking for anybody except myself, and certainly not for a country/ethnicity full of people. I'm just pointing out cultural differences that anybody with eyes and ears would notice if they bothered to educate themselves in the subject. If you'd rather stoke outrage on something on which so many here…

Well, as long as we can be civil about it.

That made me laugh, because folks here do not seem to realize that what codes as gay does not completely translate to Japan. There are plenty of style and mannerisms common to straight Japanese men that code completely gay in the U.S. Just another reason this whole discussion is dumb.

I've never had a problem being openly gay in Japan. Not once. That may be because I'm gaijin, but the locals haven't had a problem being rude to me for other reasons.

Having played bit more of the game, I'm not confident in saying it plays this as an exclusively gay stereotype. The gym teacher is very sexually predatory towards Ann. The game seems critical of an abuse of power by authority figures, generally.

I call it the Reverse Sean Bean.

I never claimed to speak for all gay people. I'm not saying that their attitudes are better. I'm just saying that criticizing something a Japanese person wrote because it doesn't adhere to your culture's ideas of acceptable representation is preposterous. It's the pop culture of equivalent of walking into a ramen bar…

I'm just telling you what I've experienced in terms of prejudice in Japan. I can measure the impact of my being openly gay in round numbers. I can measure the impact of my English accent using at least two hands (and that's just what I've experienced this year.)

Are you LGBT in Japan? Do you know anyone who is? Aren't you being a little arrogant in assuming what they would want if you have no familiarity with the culture? And isn't your objection based on YOUR experiences, not theirs?

. . .

Yup.

Of course the culture didn't write the game, people did. But they are Japanese people who carry a different set of cultural expectations and rules on this issue. I would 100% buy into your argument if Stephen King wrote Persona 5, because he's American and it means something when he uses certain symbols. The same…

I don't think I said it was a fun quirk. There's nothing fun about it. But that's the Japanese culture, and it's different from the American one. And making a judgment call on one culture's values by using another culture's, yes, is breathtakingly ethnocentric.

Silent Hill. He's damn near the only one that DOES survive in that.

That's . . . not really true at all. Unless you are judging Japan by American standards, and if you don't understand why that's messed up, I don't think I can explain it to you.