The official Twitter account for the mobile game Blue Archive has made an announcement regarding recent criticisms. These criticisms stem from changes observed between the international and original Japanese versions of the game.
The changes appear during the recently added main story following the students of the Game Development Department club and the robotic student Tendou “Aris”. One CG scene with Aris features the character in a state of undress with her chest covered by her hair. In the global version of the game, the CG has been zoomed in to hide all but Aris’s face.
Another criticism results from the character’s name which in Japanese is アリス (Arisu) and is commonly translated as “Alice”. However the localizers for the game instead chose to make her name “Aris”, despite Alice in roman letters being visible on her gun as seen below.
Due to the criticism, the Producer of Blue Archive Kim Yong-Ha released a formal statement in English for fans. In the statement he reiterates Nexon’s avowed commitment to offering the “same service” to all players. However he also claims that the change was due to “external requests” without elaborating on what entities made such requests.
This statement has left some users still displeased and only addresses the CG change without touching on the matter of Aris’s name. Some users have pointed out other gacha games have work-arounds such as the ability to manually restore censored content to Girls’ Frontline. Nexon has made no statement on whether an option to restore censored content to Blue Archive will be made available.
The full statement from Producer Kim Yong-Ha can be found below.
Here is a letter from PD Kim Yong-ha regarding the revision of the Aris scenario production.
We will continue to do our best to provide satisfying service to every Sensei. pic.twitter.com/hKF4GnwwvF
— BlueArchive (@EN_BlueArchive) December 16, 2021
Dear Senseis,
Hello, this is Blue Archive Chief PD YongHa Kim.
First of all, I would like to deeply apologize for the revision of the Aris scenario production in the global version. Before the release, we couldn’t fully consider the different regional situations that could occur in future updates. As a result, I couldn’t keep my word in the last interview, which resulted disappointment for Senseis who confirmed certain changes through this update. In addition, I would like to share you the official stance for future ‘censorships’.
I would like to inform you that the scenario difference between regions is not due to the policy of development studios and publishers favoring or neglecting certain regions. In this case, we had no choice but to respond to external requests. There were choices to be made among options such as removing the entire content, modifying images, or changing the production, and we considered the best choice was to change the production as it would minimize the damage to the content. We are fully aware of the importance of preserving the original contents, but we believed providing stable service of the game was more important.
We, the development studio, share the same wish as all Senseis – to be able to offer same service in all regions with original contents. However, it is also true that because every region has different service circumstances, inevitable modification requests can occur. In the future, we will update such modifications to preserve the original intention as much as possible. Also, we will include certain changes in future update notifications.
Once again, I would like to express sincere apology to all Senseis enjoying Blue Archive. I hope you all have a healthy end of year, and we will take steps to ensure that we don’t disappoint you in future updates.
Thank you.
Chief PD YongHa Kim
The statement from Kim Yong-Ha refers to “future censorships” which has left some fans wondering if the swimsuit and bunny girl costumes which already exist in the Japanese version may be impacted.
Blue Archive is available now on Android and iOS devices.
