Faux East Asia

Overview

Faux East Asia refers to locations in video games whose social, cultural, and architectural aesthetic are inspired by the historical cultural aesthetic of the east Asian nations China, Japan, and Korea. The nations and cities in these games are not intended to be direct counterparts to the real world nations, but rather are intended to evoke the cultural styles of these societies while maintaining their own histories.

Faux East Asian nations in games tend to have some or all of the following traits in common:

• Natives bear an ethnically Asian appearance.
• The clothing, architecture, and other aesthetics resemble those of a particular period of a real nation's history.
• Stations of military or cultural status are influenced by such stations that exist or existed in real life, such as the samurai of Japan.

Examples of Faux East Asian Locations

Hai-Lan

Hai-Lan is an island nation off the coast of the main continent of Midgard in Valkyrie Profile. While the nations of the mainland feature cultures and designs drawn from a variety of western sources, Hai-Lan stands out as a reinterpretation of feudal Japan, with warring samurai clans fighting each other and miko attending to religious shrines that bear resemblance to those of the Shinto tradition. Many of the characters that are native to Hai-Lan have dark hair and eyes, and a number of named characters have distinctive and common Japanese names, such as Jun and Nanami.

Wutai

Wutai is a city in the world of Final Fantasy VII, and the home of the character Yuffie Kisaragi. Like Hai-Lan, Wutai is filled with feudal-era Japanese architecture; a striking contrast to the high-tech society of Midgar and the Gold Saucer resort city. Yuffie, the most distinctive character from Wutai, has an ethnically Japanese appearance, with dark hair and eyes, and she styles herself as a sort of ninja thief.

Ransei

Ransei is a region that serves as the setting of Pokémon Conquest. It is populated both by fictionalized incarnations of historical Japanese warlords and other historical figures of the Warring States era as well as Pokémon.