This is the trailer for Shin Megami Tensei V, an upcoming game in the long running series of Japanese role playing games often known as SMT for short. The release of the trailer is pretty exciting; this year marks the 25th anniversary of the series. It’s also one of my favorite video game series, and it’s real weird.

What are the games in the SMT series like? Well, they’re sort of like Pokémon. You run around in dungeons and capture monsters, which you then force to fight other monsters. But instead of adorable little electric rats and weird dinosaurs, you’re fighting mythological figures cribbed from religions and folk traditions from across the globe. In fact, SMT predates Pokemon by about a decade, but it remains a pretty niche series, and it’s clear why. While the Pokemon games are fun, cute and accessible, the SMT games can often be unforgivingly hard, and layer on the obscure mythological references thick.

And that brings us all the way back to that brand new trailer. What’s going on with the mix of transliterated Hebrew and English? Well, as long as the series has been using foreign elements, the games’ grasp of religion and mythology have been a bit shaky. In an interview, the creator of this new game had this to say:

“The keywords ‘Shekinah Glory,’ which appeared in the trailer, literally translate to ‘miracle of God.’ When you actually play it and have these keywords in your head, I think you will be able to feel their true meaning.”

…What? Now maybe the interview was poorly translated into English, but “miracle of God?” How do you get there from Shekinah Glory? It’s a nonsensical combo of the Hebrew word for the feminine, divine presence of God and the english word “glory.” Searching that phrase does yield a couple evangelical Christian sites, and a Chicago based gospel band, but that’s it. They may have been going for the (much less awkward) phrase “Kavod Ha Shekhinah,” which means the Glory of the Shekhinah, but that’s got nothing to do with miracles.

It’s possible that the awkward turn of phrase is the result of a poor translation, but it’s representative of how the series tends to tackle Judaism in general. Abrahamic religion forms the core mythology of the series, but more specifically, the creators are really into gnosticism. If I had to oversimplify it, gnosticism is an anti-materialist religious movement that spun off of Judaism in the 2nd Century CE.

According to the gnostics, the source of evil in the world is that the divine spark of God is trapped within the material world, which is a crappy place. And the reason everything is so crappy is that the god who created the material world is actually a jerk named the Demiurge, who trapped the endless light of God in a material prison. The Megami Tensei series collapses this idea into Kabbalah. The result is a series of games where you can team up with Lucifer, who is actually a pretty cool dude, and beat up God, while random Kabbalistic imagery sort of floats around in the background.

Of course, the SMT games are far from the only pieces of Japanese media to try and appropriate foreign culture, often Judaism. It’s not unusual to see bits of Hebrew floating around in an anime because it appears exotic and meaningful. In fact, Jewish mysticism has a special (awkward) place in Japanese games, anime, et cetera. For example, Final Fantasy VII is one of the most famous Japanese RPGs ever made, and its main villain is name Sephiroth. Is there any explanation why this character is named after the Kabbalistic concept of the emanations of God? Not in the game, and while fans have tried their darndest to create some sort of meaning in it, they tend to be pretty weak tea.

Honestly, as far as the SMT games are concerned, I love them not despite this weird hodgepodge of religious imagery, but in part because of it. The creators throw so many concepts at the wall, and if for no other reason, at least some of them stick. And more importantly, these concepts are implemented in a way that makes the misses way more amusing. One of my favorite things about the games is that the man who designed the demons, an artist named Kazuma Kaneko, smashed together his love of high fashion with whatever he understood about the figures he was depicting to create some fascinating designs, some of which may seem familiar.

Hey! That second one isn’t even a terrible understanding of what a Dybbuk is, though I guess Kaneko thought that shtreimels as a choice of headwear don’t match his standards of haute couture.

When somebody (say, Japanese video game developers) tries to depict a culture or tradition that they aren’t familiar with (say, Jewish mysticism), they tend to try and cram it into the framework of whatever they’re making. The creators take these Jewish concepts and filter them through their own perspectives, adding in their own cultural context and also their weird idiosyncrasies. The result is a series of games that often reveal a lot more about the game designers than they do about Judaism. It’s also completely bonkers, and a lot of fun.

Plus, in the third game in the series, the main character has to run around and collect objects that are called Candelabra in the English version. And is each candelabrum named after one of the Sefirot? Why not! Oh, and they look like this:

Their name in the original game? “Menorah,” written out in Japanese characters. Gotta love that.

Images via the Megami Tensei Wiki.

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Like a vaguely exotic Golden Age film star, rumors have been circulating for years if William Joseph “B.J.” Blazkowicz is secretly Jewish. Of course, Blazkowicz isn’t an actor, or even a real person; he’s the Nazi-fighting star of the hit video game franchise Wolfenstein, first appearing on screen twenty five years ago. And now, we finally have our answer.

Short answer: Yes, though his personal identity is a bit conflicted. Blazkowicz is often identified as Polish-American, and his name sounds more Polish than Polish-Jewish (particularly with that spelling). But there’s a reason for that. B.J.’s father wasn’t Jewish; only his mother. His blonde hair and blue eyes made it easier for him to infiltrate enemy lines and get killin’; breakout hit Wolfenstein 3D is regarded as the first serious first-person shooter game.

Hints as to Blazkowicz’s heritage have persisted, but creators of the game were always vague, insisting that it was up to the player’s interpretation, or that sure, maybe they thought of him as Jewish. But who knows!

Responses were reasonable: Hey, why can’t B.J. just be Jewish? Nazis appear all the time in video games, but Jews almost never do. Can’t we know for sure that this Nazi-hunting badass had real skin in the game, besides some sort of generic All-American machismo?

Things took a turn when the franchise rebooted a couple of years ago, with Blazkowicz brought to an alternate-present where Nazis succeeded in taking over the world. The trope is tired, maybe, but the take was nuanced; Wolfenstein: The New Order made the bold choice of including a concentration camp, and a Jewish member of the Resistance (OK, the character is also sort of a wizard. It’s a video game). The alt-right despises the game, which is always great news. But Blazkowicz (despite being shown reading Hebrew!) still remained mum on his own heritage.

But no longer! The franchise’s newest game, Wolfenstein 2: The New Colossus (officially released tomorrow!), contains flashbacks to Blazkowicz’s Texas childhood; his father is abusive, and racist, and his mother, it’s definitely stated multiple times, is Jewish. So far, we have it on the word of critics, but get ready for a flood of GIFs as consumers play through the game. Blazkowicz teams up with an African-American mom to resist the Nazis that have taken over the United States. It’s not subtle, but it sure is inspiring. If there were ever a time for Blazkowicz to admit his Jewishness, it would be now.

After all, in 2017, it may be fun to have some good-old-fashioned Nazi shooting in your video games. But knowing that the guy holding the gun is the very person the baddies are obsessed with destroying? That feels just right.

Image of B.J. Blazkowicz via the Wolfenstein Wiki

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Do you know the song “Mayim Mayim?” Maybe you learned it at Hebrew School, or sleepaway camp. It’s a celebratory Israeli folk classic based on text from the book of Isaiah about, as the title suggests, water. The song’s composer is Emanuel Amiran-Pougatchov, who would go on to be the country’s Minister of Music Education, and in 1937 choreographer Else I. Dublin created the dance still used today.

But other than your summer camp or Israel, the places you’re most likely to hear this song are Japan or Taiwan.

Seriously, everyone in Japan knows “Mayim Mayim.”

…

Jewcy is on a summer residency! To read this piece, and our others for July and August 2017, go to our big sister site, Tablet Magazine!

The post How An Israeli Folk Song Became a Hit on Japanese Video Game Soundtracks appeared first on Jewcy.

Earlier this month, Google banned three violent anti-Hamas games from its Play Store. The games—which could be played on any Android smartphone—were uploaded in the last week of July, when Israel’s Operation Protective Edge was at its peak.

Though the games weren’t quite as successful as Flappy Bird, they took off like wildfire. One was a spoof of Whac-A-Mole called ‘Whack the Hamas.’ A description of the game ‘Gaza Assault: Code Red’ challenged potential users: “Terrorist cells are launching rockets into your country, do you have what it takes to protect your citizens?” The rules of the app were simple: the player would take control of an IDF drone equipped with powerful weapons, and aim to hit targets in Gaza. It was loosely based on real IDF tactics. ‘Bomb Gaza,’ which was posted on July 29, simply required the player to “drop bombs and avoid killing civilians.” Before Google removed the app on August 4 it was downloaded over 1,000 times.

Many Google users expressed outrage in the feedback section of the ‘Bomb Gaza’ page, reports The Telegraph. “To think that you can turn genocide, murder and ethnic cleansing into a game is absolutely disgusting,” said one. “My beloved brothers and sisters are dying in Gaza and some stupid ignoramus decides to make a game like this,” said another.

Speaking to The Telegraph, Chris Doyle, the director of The Council for Arab-British Understanding, said these games normalize violence. “We’ve seen huge amounts of hate language and bigotry over the past few weeks. It’s the last sort of things that’s needed… These games glorify the horror and violence of the bombing of Gaza.”

“You can have video games that deal with war, but when you base it in a reality of a conflict that’s going on right now it’s extremely problematic,” he said.

Google removed the games from the Play store in the first week of August. A company spokesperson said “we remove apps from Google Play that violate our policies,” but would not comment on the Gaza games.

The Israeli developers of these apps have a different perspective altogether. One of the developers of ‘Bomb Gaza,’ Roman Shapiro, told The Daily Beast that “the game was a joke made in 2 hours.”

“It is based on avoiding killing civilians,” he said. “As usual, Jews are demonized by everyone. Not surprised. Fuck them all.”

The developer of ‘Whack the Hamas,’ Avishay Segal, told The Times of Israel that he saw the removal of his game as “unfair.”

“Our app doesn’t advocate for any type of violence against groups of people based on anything, be it on their race or ethnic origin, religion, disability, gender, age, veteran status, or sexual orientation/gender identity,” he explained. “We developed the app only for fun and relaxation, for the people who are being killed every day by a terrorist group.”

(Image: Screenshot by author)

Related: An Open Letter to Selena Gomez, From Two 12-Year-Old Fans in Southern Israel

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After a rejection from Nintendo, British video game developer Luc Bernard seems to have found a way to get his Holocaust-themed video game to the people: Indiegogo, a crowd-funding website. The game, Imagination is the Only Escape, features Samuel, a young boy during France’s Nazi occupation in 1942, seeking to escape the awful reality of his surroundings through imagined adventures with a fox named Renard, the Verge reports. Initially, the video game was met with much controversy, but Bernard is continuing his pursuit.

However, according to Bernard, the feedback he received at that time from Jewish and German audiences was largely positive, making him even more confident that this is a game he should make. “If I managed to convince a Holocaust survivor and he’s for it, I don’t care about the average Bob on the street,” he says. “That’s the only opinion that I need. Those are the people that I care about.”

Bernard hopes the game will inspire players to learn more about the history of the Holocaust.

(Still image from Indiegogo)

The post Crowd-Funding Could Put Holocaust-Themed Video Game on the Market appeared first on Jewcy.

• Hosni Mubarak is the new Carmen Sandiego: where in the world is he?

• The Forward profiles 37 Jewish men and women that lost their lives in combat in Afghanistan and Iraq.

• What do the Muslim Brotherhood and the ultra Orthodox right of Israel have in common?

• The Atlantic takes a look at the evolution of video game music.

The post Daily Jewce: Where’s Mubarak?, Remembering Jewish Soldiers, Ultra Orthdox And The Muslim Brotherhood, Video Game Music And More appeared first on Jewcy.