After the recent news on the Sanrio controversy, I wanted to add my own personal two cents to this. Since I started playing IDV last year due to being attracted to the Ib crossover, I naturally love when they bring Japanese IPs to the game.
However, since last year around this time when the relationship between Japan and China became more strained than ever, the lack of Japanese IPs in IDV is blatant. Due to the tensions between the two countries, IDV put a stop to Japanese IPs for a while until recently. Hence, why we have been getting more Chinese IPs in the game.
However, with Sanrio being rumored to be on the chopping block, I wanted to write this up to remind everyone, particularly those who love all things Japan (anime, games, etc.) to be careful with their expectations and to understand that Japanese IPs in this game will ALWAYS be a precarious thing.
We have seen it time and time again with the likes of Bungo Stray Dogs, Death Note, Junji Ito, etc. Different pieces of media and different reasons for not returning to the game.
These things work differently in China. I have seen IDV players outside of China call them things like sensitive and selfish for getting upset about these things and dragging the global server into this, but we have to understand the politics and culture are different over there.
I wanted this to be a sort of P.S.A. of sorts to bring a bit more awareness and understanding of the situation.
Whether Sanrio will actually be postponed or cancelled, we will have to see because I’m not really sure, but considering the fact that we never have these kind of worries with Chinese IPs (or even Western IPs), is something to keep in mind for the future.
