Things got a bit awkward at the latest meeting of Nintendo's shareholders when a Japanese man took the spotlight and used his allotted question time to complain about a perceived lack of cool poses for the male characters in Splatoon 3 in a lengthy manner. He explained that from his point of view, female characters got preferential treatment in comparison to male characters.
"The company has blatantly given the boys in Splatoon the cold shoulder and I would like to see some improvement," the man said.
He explained that Splatoon 1 and 2, where customization options were a lot more limited, paid a similar amount of attention to both character types, but "in Splatoon 3, there is a lot more customization, and there is clear favoritism towards girl characters over boys." This is evident, he argued, in the available hairstyles for both characters as the styles for male characters aren't as elaborate or diverse as those of their counterparts. The same goes for profile icons and emotes, which he said are designed to look better with the female characters.
"It makes me extremely sad when people say 'If you enjoy playing as a boy, then you won't enjoy playing Splatoon'," he stated.
He apparently was also paranoid that Splatoon 3 wouldn't have any male characters at all due to the game's marketing: "From the 2021 Fall Direct and all of the next year trailers always showed the girl character. There were people like me who were looking forward to playing as a boy, and every day [without seeing the boy character] we were filled with dread that we wouldn't be able to."
Shuntaro Furukawa, Nintendo's current president, eventually interrupted the rant, saying that the 'question' the man was asking became too long. That evidently did not faze the shareholder and the speech continued for a while. Furukawa took it all in until the man was done, simply thanking him for playing the game and sharing his opinion before moving on to the next question, leaving the subject matter at hand untouched.
What makes this encounter all the more bizarre is that the person in question apparently bought Nintendo shares with the explicit goal of getting that complaint off his chest at the shareholders' meeting. Strapped for cash, the man purchased a Nintendo Switch OLED with a credit card to then sell it at a loss and buy some Nintendo shares in order to be able to attend the conference.
He did all that after repeatedly sending letters to Nintendo with his concerns, which remained unanswered.
Splatoon 3, the latest entry in Nintendo's colorful ink shooter series, was released in September 2022 on Nintendo Switch. Players control characters known as inklings and octolings, which can be male or female.
Translations via GLHF's Georgina Young.