Have you ever wondered why shirtless dudes in BlazBlue like Bang Shishigami don’t have nipples? There is a reason for that, and Arc System Works says it’s cultural.
“I heard that overseas it wouldn’t be too well received, so we intentionally abstracted that,” BlazBlue director Toshimichi Mori told PC Gamer. “I think in the US and Europe it’s more acceptable, but in Asia it’s not really...so we kind of fudged it, a little bit. I thought it was totally acceptable to have some form of expression of that. I guess that’s cultural.”
Arc System Works’ Daisuke Ishiwatari noted that Capcom’s male characters don’t have nipples either. But as reader 01001111 01001000 points out, Ryu does have nipples in Street Fighter V.
Even Mario has nipples. Mario!
“For the record,” Mori added, “I am of the school of thought that it’s acceptable as a form of expression, but I noticed whenever they’d take some of the artwork that I do with the nipples, in Asia it gets erased.”
Instead of drawing the nipples and then erasing them for each region, Arc System Works decided to go nipple-free.