Korean Does Not Exist Without Taekwondo In Games.

Korean Character in The Street Fighter 4

How Korean is depicted on game? Korean game characters have shown up on overseas games, since the Seoul Olympic. As Taekwondo has adopted as an official sport of the Olympic, proportion of Korean character taking Taekwondo has increased in games. 김갑환 who appears in FATAL FURY 2 (아랑전설2) is the first Korean character taking Taekwondo. Kicking and fantastic action of Taekwondo make fans of fighting game crazy, and make Taekwondo become the symbol of Korean characters. Most of Korean characters in games take Taekwondo like Back Dosan(백두산) in Takken, and Lee Jinju(이진주) in The King of Fighters.

Korean characters’ existence is very weak, especially wrong recognition of North Korea is a serious problem. Korea is represented as War country, and North Korean is set as bad roles. Gunplaying game, Crysis, deals with activities of American Special Forces who fights against North Korean Army. North Korean Army is described as a villain who tortures prisoners in this game. North Korea Army appears also as bad people on overseas famous games such as Rogue Warrior and HOMEFRONT. On such game, existence of South Korea is very small. South Korea is a just weak and minor nation that cares about a powerful country, even in games. Most of the games are about fight between The United States and North Korea, and all South Korea does is offering a battlefield. There is a game which is reflected wrong understanding of Korean. GTA4 which has sold millions of games describes Korean who counterfeit dollars. Korean is a villain who does not care ways and means to make big money. The main character of GTA4 has a mission to punish a counterfeit criminal in Korean Town. Yakuza 2 made by Japan is about war between Japanese criminal and Korean gang. Unlike Japanese characters are described wonderfully, Korean characters are described mean and cruel gang.

Statelessness of Korean characters is also a problem. Their appearances are similar to Chinese, and hardly ever have personality compared to Japanese. In comparison with Japanese character such as Ninja, Samurai and Karate, we cannot find identity of Korean except for Taekwondo. A game, World heroes, which was so popular in video arcade in 1980’s, transformed Bruce Lee(이소룡) into Korean, so made Korean upset. A Korean character added to The Street Fighter 4 recently is also controversial. Korean was very excited when they heard of Korean character would come out with The Street Fighter 4, which has sold 2 millions of games across the world. Unfortunately, added character has simply Korean nationality and its costumes and appearance is similar to Chinese. Its voice is also dubbed English and Japanese. Korean female shaman character’s garment on a game, Age of discovery 4, makes us bring Chinese to mind. Japanese game company is trying to have a correct understanding by adding Lee Sunshin(이순신) and Gubooksun(거북선, a ship which has shape of a turtle) in coming Age of discovery online.