In Japan, a petition to ban the game Assassin’s Creed Shadows has been posted on Change.org on the website. It has already been signed by 33 thousand users, the petition demands to cancel the game’s release because “Ubisoft misunderstands the role and nature of samurai”. Insider Gaming writes.

One of the main concerns is that the game’s protagonist, Yasuke, is portrayed as a full-fledged, respected samurai warrior, and this is where the historical inaccuracies reportedly begin.

“Recently, the lack of historical accuracy and cultural respect has been a serious issue regarding the upcoming game “Assassin’s Creed Shadows” by game developer Ubisoft. The game is based on Japanese samurai and ignores the fact that samurai were a higher class of warrior class and should have been “gokenin” or servants of nobles. In fact, the first European to receive the title of samurai, William Adams (Miura Anjin), served Tokugawa Ieyasu as a hatamoto [a privileged rank that was allowed to carry weapons in the presence of the shogun] with a payment of 250 koku [traditional Japanese measure of rice volume]. In this history, Ubisoft continues to misunderstand the nature and role of samurai. This is a serious insult to Japanese culture and history, and may also be linked to Asian racism. We call on Ubisoft to immediately cancel the release of “Assassin’s Creed Shadows” and show sincere research and respect for Japanese history and culture. We need your signature. Sign this petition to let Ubisoft know the importance of cultural respect and historical accuracy,” the petition says.

The Japanese trailer for Assassin’s Creed Shadows received over 50,000 dislikes on YouTube and 5,000 likes. The comments accuse Ubisoft of disrespecting Japanese culture and call for a boycott of the game.

[UPDATED] Daniel Ahmad from the analytics company Niko Partners and other users in X began to investigate the petition in more detail and discovered that a large number of signatories wrote that they were not actually Japanese.

For example, user Kenneth writes that he is an American infantryman who was stationed in Okinawa for a long time and he is offended by Ubisoft’s disrespect for Japan’s history and traditions.

Ahmad reports that most of the comments left in Japanese focus on inaccuracies about the architecture and the depiction of Japanese life and do not mention Yasuke.

Unfortunately, the exact number of users who signed the petition who are not Japanese is not known, and is unlikely to be determined. Nevertheless, it is probably not worth drawing conclusions that this petition really illustrates the attitude of Japanese society towards Assassin’s Creed Shadows.