Punchy is a YouTuber who does speed-runs and video essays.
I only discovered him recently.

Punchy’s videos tend to be focused around two main topics: speed-running and untranslated Japanese games. I don’t care about the former, but do about the latter.
He can play untranslated games because he knows Japanese. Except, according to what he says himself, he doesn’t know Japanese super well. He can read it (at a slow pace) and well enough to be able to explain what happens in games and to translate individual lines.

Punchy is part of the same wave of creators who create the long – video essays of excessive length – which means that most of the video essays he creates are 45-80 minutes long. I’d consider this the biggest deal-breaker.
I wouldn’t say that he pads them per se…but that varies from video to video. His Tokimeki Memorial video is probably the best-paced, while something like Yuuyami is paced more poorly.

Punchy also isn’t as smart as he may think he is. This is intended as a neutral observation, not an insult (at least not yet). It’s hard to notice but, if you do, it can’t be unnoticed: he tends to come to conclusions that are in discord with the points that he himself brings up in his videos.
I personally witnessed this in his Yuuyami video, but it’s reportedly also present in his video on the Metal Gear collection.
My observation of this took the form of: presenting evidence; coming to conclusion; presenting more evidence that contradicts the conclusion; he doesn’t notice.
This is especially strange when you consider the length of his videos…he writes the script months before he starts editing and yet he fails to notice this (apparently consistently) at all?

He has another major problem, which is tied to his Japanese knowledge. I get the impression that while he can read Japanese, he doesn’t actually understand Japanese society and culture. I feel anyone with even a basic understanding of it would come to the same conclusion.
I say this because some of his observations don’t make much sense in a Japanese context (which we’ll get to). And this is especially ironic when you consider half of his channel is essentially dedicated to explaining Japanese games that were never released in the West.

One minor bad habit he has is his tendency to leave threads dangling. In his Yuuyami video, he brings up the relationship between Sango (a character in the game) and her older sister. This is then never brought up again. This is the only example I could remember though.

The final thing I’ll note here is that it’s pretty obvious he subscribes to SocJus, at least a little. His approach to video essays is more similar to people who follow that than to people like The Gaming Brit^A) and even the specific language he uses (“The state of media discourse.”) suggests this.
Now, Punchy is one of those kinds of creators who appears mostly neutral and seems to aggressively present themselves as such. I’d compare him to Overly Sarcastic Productions in this regard, where you can mostly ignore the stupid political stuff by just tuning it out. Actually, I’d say that Punchy ends up more neutral than OSP, which is a plus.
But the fact he subscribes to SocJus means he has the unfortunate habit of poking the bear for no explicable reason.
In his video on Seven Mansions Ghastly Smile he comments on the fact that the female character comes off as infantilized. He mentions ‘gender’ and then avoids going into a whole discussion about gender nonsense in the video (appreciated). However…he literally didn’t have to mention gender at all. He could have just said “I feel that they infantilize her too much” and leave it there. It’s the fact that he mentions gender at all that makes this a little controversial.^B;C)
I only noticed this kind of thing in that video and Yuuyami, but I am wondering if that issue crops up in his other videos too…and I just didn’t notice.

In this section I’m gonna end up being a little mean, because Punchy happened to touch upon two subjects that I think about…and then piss me off big time.
For now, the section focuses on his Yuuyami video, rather than anything else because…I didn’t notice any particular issues anywhere else.

There are two main things I’ll be focusing on and both have to do with the female characters in the game (go figure), with a minor aside.

Now, I need to emphasize one thing: I have not played Yuuyami Doori Tankentai. I would like to play it, but I haven’t yet. Basically all of the critique is currently based off of the scant information shared by Punchy from his video.

Thus my own conclusions might end up being wrong in the grand scheme of things. If I do make a mistake, I wouldn’t mind being corrected. And if/when I ever play Yuuyami (and understand it), then I’ll make some corrections.

Another thing to note is that my Japanese is currently worse than Punchy’s. I can usually get the gist of what is being said…out loud…and I can read it moderately well…but I’m currently at the stage in Japanese studies where I’m trying to expose myself to as much of the language as possible, which means that I don’t quite get it.
But, unlike Punchy, I like to think (emphasis on ‘like’) that I understand how the average Japanese person thinks, at least to a certain degree. And, further, that I kinda get how Japanese society works.

Punchy spends a small part of the video going over the character of Sango.

I’ll provide a summary based on the information he shares: Sango is a wise-cracking, sarcastic and somewhat aggressive person. She also appears to be a tomboy and one who feels a bit uncomfortable in her femininity. This is evidenced by the fact she goes by a name she picked for herself (Sango) instead of her real name (Mayu),^D) which she perceives as too feminine. Further, the student body overall dislikes her (except for one girl) and she doesn’t seem to get along with her older sister.

The conclusion that Punchy came to is that this is an exploration of a girl dealing with Japanese society’s expectations for her. Basically…girl doesn’t want to be feminine and society is punishing her for doing so. He then seems to believe^E) that the game is framing her in a positive light. Like the game is sympathizing with her plight and that gender expectations are very no bueno.

It’s I think here that Punchy demonstrates three of his major flaws: 1. His general political/personal^F) bias (this is a very Western feminist/SocJus reading); 2. Him failing to take into account evidence that he later presents, which contradicts his conclusion; 3. His general misunderstanding of Japanese society.

I’ll ignore the first and just move into explaining the second.

The video showcases several bits of proof that he just doesn’t seem to register. I suspect that he doesn’t register some of it due to his extremely Western perspective (which is understandable), but then some of it doesn’t have a reasonable explanation.

I mentioned above that there’s like one girl in school who likes Sango. According to Punchy, one of Sango’s hobbies is watching anime (during which she continually comments on the fact it’s shit). This one girl is a huge anime nerd and so zeroed-in on Sango as a fellow nerd. Thus she tries to be nice to Sango and become friends with her.
Sango hates this girl, because she doesn’t think of herself as an ‘anime fan’ but an ‘intellectual’ who is above petty anime and its shitty writing. Thus she treats her coldly and doesn’t really like her attempts at being friends.

From the footage we see of Sango, her room is a bit messy and when she watches anime it tends to be completely in the dark…while hugging her knees to her chest.
I wouldn’t say that this is any kind of definitive hint for anything (I basically watch stuff the same way)…at least on its own.

Sango also (apparently frequently, at least from how Punchy describes it) has a tendency to interject into people’s conversations…during which she calls them stupid.

Now, if we combine all of this together, we end up with a very different image than what Punchy presents us with, but I’m not done.

Putting aside the character of Sango specifically, let’s look at the setting.

Yuuyami takes place in the late 90s in Japan. Punchy states this himself. In fact, he brings up the ‘Lost Decade’ and how that fits into the mood of this game.
The Lost Decade isn’t really relevant to Sango specifically…though the decade itself is.
Why? Because by this point girls like Sango (tomboys) would not have been unusual at all.^G)
The late 90s was the golden age of Gyaru and there were numerous other female subcultures all running around…including Yankii, who were a bit aggressive, explicitly portrayed themselves as more masculine and so on. In other words: girls kinda like Sango.^H)
Now, I’m not sure, but I think that Yankii and Gyaru were both seen as socially tolerable if not downright acceptable. Yankii are more of a question-mark (due to their aggression), though that’s more down to my own lack of information about them.
The other thing to note is that expectations for women (or anyone, really) are not super rigid in Japan as compared to the West.^I) I think it’s super telling that the game Silent Hill ƒ (which explicitly covers the expectations of women in Japanese society) takes place in the 1960s…since, y’know, between the 80s and 90s you saw the rise of all those subcultures…which became socially acceptable. Sango is right in the middle of that period, so it wouldn’t make a lot of sense to have that kind of theme in the time period.

I’ll admit that I might be wildly off-base concerning that, but I’ll move onto what I think the game is actually saying: Sango is the engineer of her own misery.
And I think that Punchy missed that completely, due to him coming to a conclusion from incomplete information.

The biggest evidence in favor of this is Sango’s tendency to interject and insult. By Western standards this is a little rude…but by Japanese standards, this is social suicide.
Japanese society is often characterized as collectivist, though this is a misreading. Japanese society is structured more like a very big community or family. Basically…in a community, each individual has a specific role to fulfill…and there are rules governing everyone, which must be upheld. But as long as you fulfill your role and follow the rules: you can do whatever you want.
For those who find this doubtful, just remember that Japan is a country that, despite its strict conservatism, appears to have an overall higher rate of eccentrics, subcultures and weirdos than other countries. This doesn’t make sense in a collectivist society, but does make sense in the communitarian society of Japan. In fact, the Japanese don’t seem to just tolerate weirdos: they like them a lot.
But this all comes at the caveat of following the social rules. You can be as weird as you want to be…but you still have to follow those rules and, if you break them, you will be kicked out.
Another major aspect of Japanese culture is not bothering others. This essentially means that as long as whatever you’re doing doesn’t affect others…it’s fine. But the second it does, you’re in big trouble.

Sango’s interject and insult routine violates two of these big no-nos. First of all: she’s insulting others (a breaking of social rules relating to politeness) and, second of all, she’s interrupting them…which is her bothering others. She is intentionally causing disharmony.
Many of her other actions fall into these kinds of faux pas’ as well: her picking a different name for herself could be interpreted as her making her business other people’s; her thinking of herself as ‘above’ anime suggests she thinks she’s superior to others,^J) which is also a big no-no.
I could go on, but I think it’s pretty clear at this point: Sango is doing most of this to herself and the game is very clearly structured to point that out.

Punchy’s conclusion is simply wrong.

Around his Sango segment, Punchy takes a shot at ‘media discourse’ surrounding gender.^K) He briefly mentions that “it’s almost like female agency is central to a lot of horror games” so this aside exists to address that.

The games he lists include Rule of Roses, Clock Tower 3, Silent Hill 3, Haunting Grounds, Silent Hill ƒ and a few other games that I don’t recognize.

The issue I have with this is that he’s reducing the themes of these games down to ‘female agency’ which is technically correct but only insofar as that theme is so vague that it could apply to basically anything.
Silent Hill 3 is mostly about a girl finding herself at the center of a cult ritual which wants to use her womb to birth a dark god. Silent Hill ƒ is about a girl being crushed by societal expectations regarding what a girl is supposed to be like.^L)
Those two games have radically different ‘messages’ and themes attached to them, so reducing them both to ‘female agency’ is pretty dishonest.

Another thing I’d like to bring up is why there are so many horror games with female protagonists, and I think it has to do with player perceptions and psychology.
Women are generally perceived as weaker, more vulnerable and more valuable^M) due to the inherent biological differences between men and women. This also means that women/girls tend to be easier to scare than men/boys, since they also perceive themselves as more vulnerable.
So when a player plays as a female protagonist, they will tend to be more cautious…because they perceive themselves as weaker and, further, they don’t want harm to come to the protagonist. And since it’s also easier to scare girls, a player who is particularly immersed will also find themselves scared more easily.

This is the reason why I suggested that if Valve wanted to encourage a slow-and-steady playstyle in Half-Life, they should have made Gordon a woman.^N)

All the additional themes that come along with ‘being a woman’ are more of a pleasant side-effect. Though that doesn’t mean I think that all horror games with a female protagonist necessarily add female-centric themes after the fact.

I’ll also point out the difference between male and female protagonists in horror games. Male protagonists tend to be central to more action-oriented horror games (with exceptions like Silent Hill 2 and Amnesia), while female protagonists are central to horror games where you don’t fight back as often (generally).
Compare Ruka Minazuki (Fatal Frame) to Chris Redfield. Hell, even within the first Resident Evil you can see this difference between Chris and Jill: Chris is less fazed by what he sees and more action-oriented, while Jill tends to be fearful and more cautious.

My original plan when writing this article was just to respond to the Sango stuff, but now I’m also gonna include the Kurumi stuff. The reason being that I find Punchy’s perspective here a bit braindead.

For context: In Yuuyami, it is apparently strongly implied that Kurumi has some form of autism. Her parents are gradually more distressed by this, especially after their doctor told them that there is no cure. So, eventually, they find a different doctor who is willing to try to ‘cure’ Kurumi, which ends up being uncomfortable and then dangerous for her. Her parents don’t seem to ask her for her opinion, just concluding that it’s what needs to be done. The ‘treatment’ ends up killing Kurumi though.

Now, Punchy claims he is autistic himself, so he says that he personally became a bit attached to this story for that reason. His conclusion is that it’s wrong for Kurumi to have been treated this way and, further, that her parents are acting very selfish for trying to ‘cure’ her when there’s nothing wrong with her…she’s just a little different.

I’ll get out of the way that it’s obviously wrong that this happened to Kurumi and that, currently, there really isn’t any cure for ‘autism’.

But…Punchy is also repeating standard SocJus perspectives on autism and the like, to the point that he’s being a little (possibly unintentionally) deceptive about the nature of autism. Plus he, again, demonstrates a lack of understanding of Japanese social dynamics and, again, dismisses important context.

Now, I’m particularly invested here because…I’ve been diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome,^O) which is at the very top of Autism Spectrum Disorder. Wait ‘spectrum’? Yes, we’ll get to that.
And it became clear to me that Punchy knows less about Autism than I do…in fact, I started to suspect that Punchy isn’t autistic.^P) This is only a suspicion I have, so I don’t put much weight on it and you probably shouldn’t either.

So first I’ll point out that it’s very very important to always clearly state that Autism is a spectrum and not just a single disorder. And two people taken from either end of the spectrum look very very different from each-other.
You can broadly split the spectrum into two ‘groups’: low-functioning and high-functioning.
The difference between the two is that a high-functioning autist can generally function on their own and within society without difficulty (relatively-speaking). A low-functioning autist typically has serious issues with functioning on their own and within society, which means they are dependent on external help.
High-functioning autists tend to come off as normal people with quirks^Q) or, at worst, they tend to be unintentionally rude as a result of them not fully understanding social cues.
Low-functioning autists, however, have much more serious issues. Some of them can’t speak. Some can’t react to anything around them. Some can only really screech or scream. Some cannot comprehend social rules at all. Some don’t realize that women aren’t, in fact, objects. Some have trouble differentiating their imagination from reality.

SocJus tends to treat all autists as the high-functioning types and, from how Punchy speaks about autism, I get the impression that he thinks most autists are high-functioning as well. Autism within these circles is often treated as “just a different way of thinking” rather than as a disorder that can cause discomfort for the person with it.
Considering I apparently have it, I can tell you that I have had several difficulties resulting in it. This was mostly related to me not fully understanding how to fit in socially, resulting in me being rude or boundary-pushing without realizing it.
Although I do generally lean towards “different thinking” it’s wrong to reduce it to just that, because there are negatives that result from having it.

When you consider the lower end of the spectrum, it really shouldn’t be surprising that there are parents who search for a ‘cure’ even if it doesn’t exist. A cure would legitimately improve the lives of the people with autism and the people around them. Even something that doesn’t make them fully ‘normal’ and just moves them to the higher end of the spectrum would be useful.
Now, whether a cure is possible or not is another thing entirely. But I’m generally opposed to the characterization of searching for a cure as purely negative. Punchy seems to generally characterize cures in the way that SocJus does (as a tool to harm/eliminate autists). And while that (the tool to harm/eliminte autists) is bad, it’s also bad to characterize all of it as purely evil.

Punchy being (almost certainly) a high-functioning autist means that he’s a little blind to the life of a low-functioning autist, which is painfully obvious from his summary of the game.

Now let’s go back to Kurumi. Where Kurumi falls on the spectrum is a bit ambiguous…because the game itself never explicitly says she has autism. But I actually think there’s enough in-game evidence to suggest that she’s low-functioning. Especially when combined with my speculation regarding Japan and autism, which we’ll get to later.

What in the game actually suggests that she’s low-functioning?

• She regularly interacts with supernatural entities and appears completely unfazed by it.
• She typically speaks in a childish and sing-song manner.
• She enthusiastically and unhesitatingly volunteers personal information to a stranger (granted, a doctor) she had never met before when he asks her for it.
• She holds a conversation with a talking mailbox and doesn’t think this is strange in the slightest.

The last one is the proverbial smoking gun, as that indicates an inability to understand reality…which is probably the biggest piece of evidence to suggest that she’s low-functioning.
Interestingly, Punchy just casually mentions all of this as if there’s nothing wrong with it in the slightest.

Taking all of this into account is why I think that Punchy’s characterization of Kurumi’s parents as a selfish desire to ‘fix’ a problem that doesn’t exist is misguided.
Kurumi clearly has some pretty serious mental issues that could cause serious harm to her or others around her in the future.
Talking to a mailbox isn’t just ‘quirky’: it’s indicative of some kind of serious issue.

Now for a bit of a pivot to my own speculation regarding Japanese society and their attitudes towards autists.
I should note that I don’t have any direct contact with Japanese society…for now, so this is all essentially guesswork based on what I had found out about the Japanese. I went over some important stuff in the Sango section, so I won’t repeat myself on those points.

I think that Japan is actually among the countries that is nicest to high-functioning autists. This is due to what I stated before: they don’t really care how weird or eccentric you are as long as you perform your role, follow the rules and don’t bother others.
Thus a high-functioning autist would probably perceive Japan as a bit of a paradise: there are clear rules that apply clearly in situations and which are almost religiously enforced by the entire population…who is fine with you occasionally breaking a rule as long as you show humility and correct your behavior from then on. It wouldn’t surprise me if a lot of high-functioning autists end up going completely undiagnosed in Japanese society because…it’s just kinda normal.

But now that I’ve recapped that, you may have noticed the major issue with low-functioning autists: they kinda break the only requirements needed to fit in. A low-functioning autist has trouble with fulfilling their role in society, with following the rules (which they may have trouble comprehending no matter how often you remind them) and they end up bothering others with their actions (or inactions, as they can be perceived as a social burden too).

Punchy doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with Kurumi, despite evidence to suggest she has trouble with differentiating reality from fiction (in the game’s case, the difference between the supernatural and the natural). Plus her naïveté and childlike approach to life can put her in danger. Kurumi does have problems which do require fixing.
From the point of view of her parents…there really is a problem here that they want to desperately fix. Not because they’re selfish…but because they don’t want her daughter to have issues later in life.
How does that mesh with them approaching a doctor with a clearly dangerous treatment method that only seems to harm her? Well, from their point-of-view, it could be perceived as a very unfortunate but necessary path forward. I mean, there are real medical treatments that are painful, cause harm but, nevertheless, can actually results in ‘cures’: chemotherapy, radiation therapy (for cancer) and amputations.
They were obviously wrong (because Kurumi dies) but I don’t think it’s fair to characterize them as purely selfish…and Kurumi as entirely normal.
It would have been better to deal with Kurumi’s issues via teaching and the like…rather than, y’know, chemicals and who knows what.

I personally think that it adds to the tragedy, which I feel may have been the point.

I hope I made it clear why I feel that Punchy doesn’t really understand the Japanese Spirit…plus why his bias tends to cloud his analysis…and how he manages to ignore information he himself provides.

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