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About a week ago I had an encounter that has been puzzling me ever since, and it would be nice if someone could clarify it.
Right before I went home on break I was showing some of my samurai orks to my friend when one of the exchange students from Japan overheard me talking about them. He approached us and went on a tirade on how my army was offensive to him. I just don't understand why. I'm not saying my orks are Japanese people, but that they crash landed on a samurai planet and decided they liked the hats and armor. I was trying to create a fusion of opposites with this army for comedy purposes. Could someone please explain to me what was making this guy so mad so I can try to fix it if I can. I don't want to offend people, I just want to have fun, but making people mad subtracts from my enjoyment, so I'd like to fix what I can.

People who get offended by painted plastic miniatures with vague cultural implications should not be taken seriously.

Ask him to go google "Samurai Jack". Or "Samurai Hamster". He will break out in tears.

The guy is just being a prick. Name your war boss after him and really get him going. If we have Nazi imperial guard players we can have mean-green samurai orkz'es precious . By the way I love the concept you have.

My friend a while back actually topped the Nazi IG. He ran a Vampire Count army with all the zombies having a the yellow star of David painted on them, corpse carts filled with ashes, and Nazi vampire lords. That is damn offensive, and yes I did laugh and yes I feel really bad.

But there isn't anything to really fix with your army. It's not like you gave the models squinty eyes and painted them yellow. You just put on a different cultural style of armor on. Some people want to think that their cultural backgrounds are exclusive to them and when anyone tries to take from that it makes them think they are being attacked. The problem sounds like it's with him. Just because I was born in America doesn't give me the right to chew out a British person for modeling IG with tommy guns.

Carry on as you were and ignore the random jerk.

To quote the great Stephen Fry:

"You're offended by that? Well so fething what?"

I came in expecting another nazi guard thread, and was pleasantly surprised. Your army is not offensive.

KtheNecron wrote:
The guy is just being a prick. Name your war boss after him

This is the only reasonable response to your dilemma.

I checked out your gallery, and as far as I can tell the only modifications are the armor and heraldry, which is just a theme as you described. They look good in my opinion, and are an excellent showing of Ork adaptation.

Unless there is an additional detail that actually is offensive (slanted eyes/buck teeth/bright yellow skin) or play up racist jokes in person,your implementation of Asian based gear is no different than Rambo IG, Mongolian Rough Riders, or any of the existing themes based on historical times.

Happygrunt wrote:I came in expecting another nazi guard thread, and was pleasantly surprised.

No kidding.

In any case, if orks being samurai is offensive than space marine crusaders are offensive, and they're an official army from GW. Meanwhile, samurai orks is, in fact, kind of funny.

 snooggums wrote:
I checked out your gallery, and as far as I can tell the only modifications are the armor and heraldry, which is just a theme as you described. They look good in my opinion, and are an excellent showing of Ork adaptation.

Unless there is an additional detail that actually is offensive (slanted eyes/buck teeth/bright yellow skin) or play up racist jokes in person,your implementation of Asian based gear is no different than Rambo IG, Mongolian Rough Riders, or any of the existing themes based on historical times.

This.

You may possibly have no idea of how Japanese culture views the Samurai. Maybe we think theyre awesome, and they think they were dicks. I dont think your concept is offensive but he may legitimately be offended.

Of course, if they were HORRIBLE Im sure we would have heard about it. Everybody knows Nazis were beyond fethed, and you have to be pretty dense to promote anything related to them.

Tell him they are Oni /Bakemono

Then act surprised that he doesn't know his own mythology...

 d3m01iti0n wrote:
You may possibly have no idea of how Japanese culture views the Samurai. Maybe we think theyre awesome, and they think they were dicks. I dont think your concept is offensive but he may legitimately be offended.

Of course, if they were HORRIBLE Im sure we would have heard about it. Everybody knows Nazis were beyond fethed, and you have to be pretty dense to promote anything related to them.

They actually were pretty nasty. I remember when The Last Samurai came out, there are/were a couple of guys on here who are big into Japanese studies, and talked about how silly it was in many ways to romanticize the Samurai, who were protecting their historical privileges. Including the right to basically murder a commoner in the street for looking at them funny. Of course a lot of other historic cultures had similar inequalities and injustices.

 d3m01iti0n wrote:
You may possibly have no idea of how Japanese culture views the Samurai. Maybe we think theyre awesome, and they think they were dicks. I dont think your concept is offensive but he may legitimately be offended.

Of course, if they were HORRIBLE Im sure we would have heard about it. Everybody knows Nazis were beyond fethed, and you have to be pretty dense to promote anything related to them.

Oh I'm well aware that the samurai were probably dicks.every group of high born warrior classes starts out as dicks. knights were dicks who looted and pillaged to their heart's content before the church came up with the code of chivalry and brought all the knights to fields where they had gathered relics and made them swear on the relics to uphold this code. the samurai were also dicks until someone decided to create the code of busido to try to stop them from being dicks.

 yeri wrote:
About a week ago I had an encounter that has been puzzling me ever since, and it would be nice if someone could clarify it.
Right before I went home on break I was showing some of my samurai orks to my friend when one of the exchange students from Japan overheard me talking about them. He approached us and went on a tirade on how my army was offensive to him. I just don't understand why. I'm not saying my orks are Japanese people, but that they crash landed on a samurai planet and decided they liked the hats and armor. I was trying to create a fusion of opposites with this army for comedy purposes. Could someone please explain to me what was making this guy so mad so I can try to fix it if I can. I don't want to offend people, I just want to have fun, but making people mad subtracts from my enjoyment, so I'd like to fix what I can.

Not being there, I can't comment directly on what was being said or what the other party's feelings were. One thing I can tell you from personal experience is that living in another country does make you more aware and self-conscious of how your race/country/ethnic origins are portrayed in the media and around you. I don't see anything wrong with your models but I did bold one thing that sort of stood-out in the your statement; the concept of making a farce of someone's culture doesn't sit well with everyone, especially people experiencing culture-shock and possibly being sensitive. You might think back to what was happening at the time and ask yourself if someone might have made an off-color comment like how the themed Orks would talk; possibly making fun of a certain accent or comments that might stereotype a group of people. I lived in Japan and my wife is Japanese and while this doesn't make me an expert by any stretch, I do feel that I have some understanding of the language and culture; Japanese people do not charge headlong into a confrontation; he might have picked up on a comment or attitude that was expressed by yourself or one of the people you were speaking with and made issue of the models; it being easier to criticize your toys than outright say "Your buddy made a racist comment."

Like I said, I wasn't there; I'm just trying to help by presenting a few other options than the guy was being a twit over some little plastic toys.

@Ascalam, I don't think I've ever met a Japanese person, even a Nisei (2nd generation) that didn't know what an Oni or Bakemono is...considering they're depicted throughout popular media and in every shrine and temple in the entire country. I wouldn't make this comment and then expect an exchange student to not know what they are; their children are generally not as ignorant of their own culture as westerners are.

They were at times pretty brutal, by modern western standards, but also in some ways gentler/more civilised at times too.

Problem is that we keep trying to view them through modern (and generally western) eyes, rather than those of someone from feudal japan. We can't help it, as that's our cultural/regional background.

The Europeans from that time period weren't exactly pleasant company either, and were lice-ridden and filthy to boot

I think your army and fluff sound great. Dude can pack sand.

'@Ascalam, I don't think I've ever met a Japanese person, even a Nisei (2nd generation) that didn't know what an Oni or Bakemono is...considering they're depicted throughout popular media and in every shrine and temple in the entire country. I wouldn't make this comment and then expect an exchange student to not know what they are; their children are generally not as ignorant of their own culture as westerners are.'


Fair enough then.

I have, unfortunately, but it's still a fair point.

Orks have a very oni-like look to them IMO.

I can see why someone might be a little annoyed (if they are being over-sensitive /in the throes of culture shock (been there) ) by having their culture lampooned. I think he's over-reacting though.

I'm Irish/English originally and my two cultures are lampooned all the time. I don't get PO'd if someone sculpts bowlers and brollies on their orks, or if their Eldar looks a bit Celtic

 agnosto wrote:

 yeri wrote:
About a week ago I had an encounter that has been puzzling me ever since, and it would be nice if someone could clarify it.
Right before I went home on break I was showing some of my samurai orks to my friend when one of the exchange students from Japan overheard me talking about them. He approached us and went on a tirade on how my army was offensive to him. I just don't understand why. I'm not saying my orks are Japanese people, but that they crash landed on a samurai planet and decided they liked the hats and armor. I was trying to create a fusion of opposites with this army for comedy purposes. Could someone please explain to me what was making this guy so mad so I can try to fix it if I can. I don't want to offend people, I just want to have fun, but making people mad subtracts from my enjoyment, so I'd like to fix what I can.

Not being there, I can't comment directly on what was being said or what the other party's feelings were. One thing I can tell you from personal experience is that living in another country does make you more aware and self-conscious of how your race/country/ethnic origins are portrayed in the media and around you. I don't see anything wrong with your models but I did bold one thing that sort of stood-out in the your statement; the concept of making a farce of someone's culture doesn't sit well with everyone, especially people experiencing culture-shock and possibly being sensitive. You might think back to what was happening at the time and ask yourself if someone might have made an off-color comment like how the themed Orks would talk; possibly making fun of a certain accent or comments that might stereotype a group of people. I lived in Japan and my wife is Japanese and while this doesn't make me an expert by any stretch, I do feel that I have some understanding of the language and culture; Japanese people do not charge headlong into a confrontation; he might have picked up on a comment or attitude that was expressed by yourself or one of the people you were speaking with and made issue of the models; it being easier to criticize your toys than outright say "Your buddy made a racist comment."

Like I said, I wasn't there; I'm just trying to help by presenting a few other options than the guy was being a twit over some little plastic toys.

@Ascalam, I don't think I've ever met a Japanese person, even a Nisei (2nd generation) that didn't know what an Oni or Bakemono is...considering they're depicted throughout popular media and in every shrine and temple in the entire country. I wouldn't make this comment and then expect an exchange student to not know what they are; their children are generally not as ignorant of their own culture as westerners are.

I'm sorry I didn't mean to say it was a farce. I meant to say as a concept it is completely opposite of what orks do, thus it is funny in the way someone driving the wrong way down a one way street is funny. I play the story completely seriously, and try to be as respectful as possible. and as far as how they talk, they speak in the hooligan accent of regular orks, except for the leaders who have screw in tusks to allow them to communicate in perfect gothic. honestly my source for a lot of this stuff is actually another exchange student who I'm palls with.

 Sigvatr wrote:
People who get offended by painted plastic miniatures with vague cultural implications should not be taken seriously.

I'm gonna go out on a limb here and I presume you don't see a whole lot of Nazi IG armies in your neck of the woods (due to such things, being, you know, against the law and such) so you don't see the associated kurfuffle that goes with them. 9 times out of 10 the person doing it wants to be an attention-seeking knob. I'm personally not offended by it (not a lot really offends me TBH) but I can tell you that is pretty much the exact reaction these people are trying to get, along with the hamfisted attempts to fit it into the existing background of the game in question.

Take this army for example (which also serves as an example of how people on Dakka have very short memories. Go figure). It's plastered with Neo-Nazi iconography and a couple of pastiches of some WW2 propaganda posters for good measure. What is the purpose of all of this if not to draw a blatant reaction from someone?

It's up there with female SM and Ponie armies. All are blatant attempts to troll the respective communities. It's just this one can backfire spectacularly if the wrong person sees it.

 Ascalam wrote:
'@Ascalam, I don't think I've ever met a Japanese person, even a Nisei (2nd generation) that didn't know what an Oni or Bakemono is...considering they're depicted throughout popular media and in every shrine and temple in the entire country. I wouldn't make this comment and then expect an exchange student to not know what they are; their children are generally not as ignorant of their own culture as westerners are.'


Fair enough then.

I have, unfortunately, but it's still a fair point.

Orks have a very oni-like look to them IMO.

I can see why someone might be a little annoyed (if they are being over-sensitive /in the throes of culture shock (been there) ) by having their culture lampooned. I think he's over-reacting though.

I'm Irish/English originally and my two cultures are lampooned all the time. I don't get PO'd if someone sculpts bowlers and brollies on their orks, or if their Eldar looks a bit Celtic

Oh yeah, I agree there may have been an overreaction on the exchange student's part; I've done it. I remember walking up to a Uyoku Dantai (paramilitary-ultra nationalist group) bus in Utsunomiya and cursing at them in English and Japanese with my wife (girlfriend at the time) running off because she was sure I was going to get into a brawl. These guys drive around in black vans and buses blaring things about kicking the foreigners out of Japan and respecting the emperor and it just hit a switch in me that day. Poor guys didn't expect some rabid foreigner to walk up and give them a tongue lashing and offer to help them along to the hospital with a few missing teeth. lol.

I'm not trying to excuse the kid's reaction just throwing out some ideas of how the altercation might have come about. I showed the OP's models to my wife and she was tickled by them and even suggested a more modern theme would be better since the bikes and make them bosozoku; roughly translates into Wild Riders and denotes bike gangs in Japan who usually ride around on the noisiest motorcycles you've ever heard (usually at 3am when I was trying to sleep).

 agnosto wrote:

I'm not trying to excuse the kid's reaction just throwing out some ideas of how the altercation might have come about. I showed the OP's models to my wife and she was tickled by them and even suggested a more modern theme would be better since the bikes and make them bosozoku; roughly translates into Wild Riders and denotes bike gangs in Japan who usually ride around on the noisiest motorcycles you've ever heard (usually at 3am when I was trying to sleep).

That's actually an idea my friend shot by me, but I don't think I have the GS and conversion skills to really make them recognizable as Bosozoku, so they're just the samurai cavalry.

Normally my answer to anone asking 'is this offensive is if you have to ask then the answer is yes.'

But in this case,, WTF?

Even I see no problems here.

Everyone is offended by something. You will never get to a point where you offend nobody, so there's definitely a point at which you should stop listening to every random prick who comes by and do what works.

Mel Brooks made a career out of offending people; I see no reason why you can't make an Ork army that offends someone.

Even if it was offensive, your conversions were cool and those Dakkatanas were sick.

Not offensive in the slightest, they are orks, they copy cool things! Then make them cooler!

 Grimtuff wrote:
Take this army for example (which also serves as an example of how people on Dakka have very short memories. Go figure). It's plastered with Neo-Nazi iconography and a couple of pastiches of some WW2 propaganda posters for good measure. What is the purpose of all of this if not to draw a blatant reaction from someone?

It's up there with female SM and Ponie armies. All are blatant attempts to troll the respective communities. It's just this one can backfire spectacularly if the wrong person sees it.

Some people choose a different inspiration than you do, so it must be trolling?

When I look at GW's website and see their inquisitors are wearing black white and red, with eagles and other iconography that is clearly derived from WWII Germany I have a hard time understanding the blatant assumption that basing anything recognizable as influenced by Nazis is trolling. Yeah, maybe some things in the linked thread were a little too close (flags with black icons on red circles on red flags) in my opinion, and knowing about the Thor/Neo-Nazi link could send it over the top, but that also requires knowledge of those movements.

My point is that someone who puts in months of good work into some oddly themed army is going to far too much work just to troll in most cases.

 Sigvatr wrote:
People who get offended by painted plastic miniatures with vague cultural implications should not be taken seriously.

Ask him to go google "Samurai Jack". Or "Samurai Hamster". He will break out in tears.

Going back further. Ask him to google "Usagi Yojimbo". It's a samurai rabbit.

Or even Adolescent radioactive samurai hamsters.

Not offensive. Might I add that of about 10 Japanese foreign exchange students I have taught, of all things, Asian History, 1 knew who Tokugawa Ieyasu was... So who knows how much the average student understands about samurai.