The Racist Casting of Wonderful 101

Through my own will I’ve managed to slink through and find a disturbing trend within the reviews of games. Claims of racism, sometimes stemming from a particular choice of how to portray a character, to which character is the protagonist. The Wonderful 101 appears to be no exception. Some sources have stated that certain depictions of characters may be seen as racist. They all ignore the fact the most racist caricature of them all.

That of the depiction “villainous” organization's officers themselves.

I am certain you are all chomping at the bit to understand the true horror inflicted upon these poor members of fictional alien species. I shall attempt to give an in depth view of each officer.

Fire, we have Laambo, who of course the creators so horrifyingly cast as a destruction hungry brute, most likely because his hair is fire, he’s near steroid levels of buff, and has an unfortunate social tick that makes it so all of his statements begin and end with a lion’s roar. The creators, clearly taking advantage of this poor man’s speech impediments, body choices, and flammable hair, chose to turn him into an oversimplified mess. Why, I’m certain they managed to get his brother in on this horrid façade, most likely lying to him about how they’d be powerful not monster of the episode characters. These men could have shown their great intellect in… Something. I’m certain their planet hosts a great number of genius minds in the arts and sciences.

Oh but those born with natural muscle, intimidation, and forest fire waiting to happen manes aren’t enough. Wanna, the tiny insectoid officer, is also subject to such things. Not even allowed to show what I can obviously see is a healthy fly body, Wanna is forced to relent in a tiny pod and let a giant serpent mech do his fighting for him. Clearly these game creators do not understand the concept of equality, as if Laambo and his brother are subject to being made into brutes, clearly Wanna, with his miniscule fly body and no practical muscle to be found, should have had an equal opportunity to fight the “heroes” of this game. Instead he dies in possibly the most embarrassing way I can think of for the main officers to die… Failing to ram a highly important plot point! You can just hear the cries of injustice from whatever race Wanna is.

And then we must speak of Vijoune. Oh how it must have been horrible to find out that she, as an attractive female character wearing skin tight outfits would be cast… As an attractive female character! Can you imagine the audacity to cast her in a role that would make it obvious that yes, she is female, and she may possibly have… Oh I shudder to write this… Parts of her anatomy that could be considered physically enticing! Not taking an opportunity to turn a sexually attractive woman into a horribly disgusting creature is one of the greatest failings of a chance I’ve seen. This made even more horrid by the fact that there is one frame of her talking animation which shows what could have been had they decided to go whole hog and make her truly disgusting, as every female character should be. After all, every woman must know she is a disgusting horrible creature and that their body is to be feared by themselves.

But I believe the greatest horror of decisions is that of the rival character, Vorkken. Choosing to make the recurring rival a mirror of the main character? Disgusting! Vorkken is a missed opportunity for the creators to turn the rival on its head. Rather than making him similar in silhouette to the protagonist, he should have been completely different. In fact, take it one step further. Lose completely the decision to make him fit with the art style. Take away all personality and make it an enemy that constantly hurls compliments rather than insults your way. Make the design make absolutely no sense for such a character. Not even human, just a horrid indistinguishable blob creature who speaks solely in statements of “you’re amazing” and “I’m totally going to lose to you because you’re awesome!” Of course such creators wouldn’t do such a thing. After all they have such silly feelings such as “staying with a theme” or “being true to the genre” or even “not making the entire studio wonder why you decided to make possibly the stupidest decision in your life.”

I’d go more into detail but I’m certain my readers fully understand the audacity of this game to decide to take fictional alien races, and assign clear reasons for why they act the way they do through their design and personality. This game is an affront to fictional peoples everywhere, and I will be the voice they need if I must!

Oh and gameplay, right I suppose I have skipped that in the last review. Well I haven’t played the game, as I don’t need to have played a game I’m reviewing to write a review, much like a film critic doesn’t actually have to watch the movie they’re reviewing or the book critic has no need to read the book they review.

After all it’s not like this game is actually an amazing game for the Wii U that anyone who enjoys fast paced character action games should buy. And even if it is the game should have instead been a political statement for the rights of fictional creatures. After all, every game has to have deep, artistic message to be a game, and fun is just a side thought that no true designer should think about when creating a game.

Wonderful 101 gets a Jerk out of Geath.