As an individual who identifies as a first generation Japanese-Korean American immigrant who has spent the majority of my lifetime in the States since childhood, I could not ‘un-see’ the apparent lack of ethnic and racial diversity among the NPCs of Stardew Valley during my engagement with the game. Among the 28 residents of the imaginary town, which is presumed to be located in North America, only two – Demetrius and Maru – are considered as POC, along with only one non-resident in the game – the desert trader – also being POC. While the lack of representation of NPCs of non-European descent itself is problematic, it is also concerning that the only NPCs that represent POC are black, failing to address the presence of Asian, Southeast Asian, Latin, and Native American populations in the Americas.
In an effort to find ways to engage with NPCs outside of the ones provided in the standard version of the game, I have installed a couple popular custom NPCs produced by mod developers. However, despite the developers’ effort to produce custom NPCs that represent a more diverse ethnocultural background, I found that their representation of POC NPCs heavily relied on the prevalent stereotypes on each ethnic group. This was especially the case for Asian female NPCs – Shiko and Kim – who each represent long standing stereotypes on Japanese and Korean females, respectively.
Once you bring Shiko Takahashi, a Japanese NPC with black hair and pale skin, to Pelican Town, she introduces herself as a retired model from ‘Zuzu City’ temporarily staying at Gus’ saloon. As the description of the character on Stardew Valley Wiki suggests, she appears to remain ‘mysterious’ throughout the game without sharing much details on her back-story and often disappearing during community-wide events and festivals, although it is not confirmed as to whether her frequent disappearance is due to a bug or intended.
I was inclined to think that Shiko’s portrayal in the game aligned with the ways in which a lot of North American and European popular media have hypersexualized Japanese women, frequently in long black hair and gimono, highlighting their sense of exoticness. The so-called ‘mysterious’ quality of the NPC’s personality, as well as her temporary residence in a saloon, directed me to the similarities between Shiko and the popular trope of a ‘Geisha girl’ in Western pop culture – a fetishized Japanese female character that draws reference to Geisha, professional entertainers from Japanese tradition. In addition to the character’s appearance and personality, most importantly, Shiko explicitly introduces herself as an alien temporarily visiting the town, which elevates the sense of ‘otherness’ that the character entails. Not only is she portrayed as evidently different from the rest of the villagers due to her “exoticness,” she is also a literal outsider of the village, suggesting how the “exotic Asian” characters cannot fully be a part of the village.
A similar issue could be found in another Asian custom NPC, Kim Jyeul, presumably of Korean descent, based on the character’s name. As in the case of Shiko, Kim’s personality in the game attributes to the dominant stereotype of Asians, as the character is outwardly portrayed as shy, and the player is expected to build relationships with the character over time to overcome her shyness.
While the mod developers’ effort to produce custom POC NPCs is meaningful as they bring in more diversity to the ethnic representation within the game, their stereotyping of characters based on their ethnicities shed a light on the limitations of their endeavor. It also requires our attention that stereotyping characters is not an issue limited to Stardew Valley, or games in general, but rather one that permeates across all areas of digital media.
