Made in Asia/America explores the key role video games play within the race makings of Asia/America. Its fourteen critical essays on games, ranging from Death Stranding to Animal Crossing, and five roundtables with twenty Asian/American game makers examine the historical entanglements of games, Asia, and America, and reveal the ways games offer new modes of imagining imperial violence, racial difference, and coalition. Shifting away from Eurocentric, white, masculinist takes on gaming, the contributors focus on minority and queer experiences, practices, and innovative scholarly methods to better account for the imperial circulation of games. Encouraging ambiguous and contextual ways of understanding games, the editors offer an “interactive” editorial method, a genre-expanding approach that encourages hybrid works of autotheory, queer of color theory, and conversation among game makers and scholars to generate divergent meanings of games, play, and “Asian America.”
Contributors. Matthew Seiji Burns, Edmond Y. Chang, Naomi Clark, Miyoko Conley, Toby Đỗ, Anthony Dominguez, Tara Fickle, Sarah Christina Ganzon, Yuxin Gao, Domini Gee, Melos Han-Tani, Huan He, Matthew Jungsuk Howard, Rachael Hutchinson, Paraluman (Luna) Javier, Sisi Jiang, Marina Ayano Kittaka, Minh Le, Haneul Lee, Rachel Li, Christian Kealoha Miller, Patrick Miller, Keita C. Moore, Souvik Mukherjee, Christopher B. Patterson, Pamela (Pam) Punzalan, Takeo Rivera, Yasheng She, D. Squinkifer, Lien B. Tran, Prabhash Ranjan Tripathy, Emperatriz Ung, Gerald Voorhees, Yizhou (Joe) Xu, Robert Yang, Mike Ren Yi
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction: Asia / Games \ America / Tara Fickle and Christopher B. Patterson 1
Part 1. Gaming Orientalism
Designer Roundtable #1: Mixed Connections / Emperathriz Ung, Patrick Miller, Minh Le, and Matthew Seiji Burns 27
1. Gaming while Asian / Edmond Y. Chang 35
2. The Asiatic and the Anti-Asian Pandemic On Paradise Killer / Christopher B. Patterson 52
3. Asian, Adjacent: Utopian Longing and Model Minority Mediation in Disco Elysium / Takeo Rivera 66
Part 2. Playable Bodies
Designer Roundtable #2: Choose Your Mothership / Sisi Jiang, Domini Gee, Toby Đỗ, and Naomi Clark 89
4. Playable Deniability: Biracial Representation and the Politics of Play in Metal Gear Solid / Keita Moore 99
5. Designing the Global Body: Japan’s Postwar Modernity in Death Stranding / Yasheng She 115
6. The Trophy Called “Asian Hands”: On the Mythical Proficiency of Asian Gamers / Prabhash Ranjan Tripathy 132
Part 3. Localizing Empire
Designer Roundtable #3: De-Cultural Imitation Games / Joe Yizhou Xu, Lien B. Tran, Christian Kealoha Miller, and Paraluman (Luna) Javier 149
7. Colonial Moments in Japanese Video Games: A Multidirectional Perspective / Rachael Hutchinson 159
8. The Video Game Version of the Indian Subcontinent: The Exotic and the Colonized / Souvik Mukherjee 176
9. The High-Tech Orientalism in Play: Performing South Koreanness in Esports / Gerald Voorhees and Matthew Jungsuk Howard 190
Part 4. Inhabiting the Asiatic
Designer Roundtable #4: The Crumbs of Our Representation / Robert Yang, Dietrich Squinkifer (Squinky), Rachel Li, and Marina Ayano Kittaka 207
10. Chinese/Cheating: Procedural Racism in Battle Royale Shooters / Huan He 217
11. Romancing the Night Away: Queering Animate Hierarchies in Hatoful Boyfriend and Tusks / Miyoko Conley 232
12. The Fujoshi Trophy and Ridiculously Hot Men: Otome Games and Postfeminist Sensibilities / Sarah Christina Ganzon 250
Part 5. Mobilizing Machines
Designer Roundtable #5. How Do We Talk about Things that Are Happening without Talking about Things That Are Happening? / Mike Ren Yi, Pamela Punzalen, Melos Han-Tani, and Yuxin Gao 269
13. Hip-Hop and Fighting Games: Locating the Blerd between New York and Japan / Anthony Dominguez 277
14. “This Is What We Do”: Hong Kong Protests in Animal Crossing: New Horizons / Haneul Lee 290
Coda. Role / Play \ Race / Christopher B. Patterson and Tara Fickle
Bibliography 319
Contributors 349
Index 353
