I Downloaded and Played the Racist Phone Game “Rucky Cat Barance Ninja”
John Sensebe thought it would be a good idea to create a racist phone app video game that mocks Asian stereotypes. Some of you reading this might find it upsetting that I sacrificed $0.99 to Mr. Sensebe but I did that so you wouldn’t have to. Here is my experience with “Rucky Cat Barance Ninja.”
First and foremost, let’s take a look at the title and copy of the game. John took time to poke fun at the Asian accent and replaces L’s with R’s. How clever (sarcasm). The premise of the game is to move a ninja side to side as he catches and balances money cats on his head while a geisha makes comments between rounds. We almost hit the entire tired Asian stereotype checklist on the home screen. Cool.
So if you want to play you click “pray” and if you want to see the instructions you click “instractions.” Oh, but wait… the credits would be under “cledits.” So L’r and R’s are interchangeable at this point as long as its offensive. Cool.
The “instractions” continue to keep with the theme of broken English. Someone out there please tell me if the Japanese characters are even translated correctly. I have a feeling that wouldn’t matter much to this game developer.
So when the game starts, it cues you with that classic Asian jingle (you know the one). The geisha caricature in the corner proceeds to tell me that I “gotta catch ‘em all”. Somebody notify Pokemon that they might have some money to collect here.
I’m Asian myself so, of course, I’m a natural at this game and advance to the next level with ease. Again, the Asian jingle chimes in and the game tells me to “get leady.”
When you lose balance or drop a cat you lose a life, and lives are symbolized, of course, by fortune cookies.
I kind of feel guilty at this point for actually being good at this game. Is it because I’m Asian? Am I actually a ninja?
Alas, I lost all my fortune cookies but get to “enter you initials” for a hi score because “you are a winning!”
Maybe John Sensebe knew what he was doing and wanted to gain publicity off the shock value of how offensive this game is, but that would be giving John too much credit. There’s a lot of cheap shots taken in this game at the Asian cultures expense but it’s all too familiar. Asian jokes are still, even in this day and age, easy to make and still get an easy laugh and many people outside of Asian cultural awareness don’t even see anything wrong with this. Not cool.
I already know people are going to say I, and other offended Asians, are being too sensitive about the matter but maybe it’s actually you who have to open your eyes wider.
Read this article on OogeeWoogee by Danny Chung, Koreaboo’s newly launched content partner. Koreaboo’s partner platform is where celebrities, content creators and our friends share a unique perspective on Korean content to our readers with original content!
About The Author:
Danny Chung is a rapper, writer, and purveyor of all things cool
Follow Danny Chung on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
Follow OogeeWoogee on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram!
