"A possible explanation [for the content cuts]: there is no way to properly localize the hostess club content. It is a part of the game that, on a fundamental play level, is impossible to make sense of for a non-Japanese audience. The proof for this is that the sequences didn't make a great deal of sense in Yakuza 2. Successfully wooing hostesses at the clubs in that game, and keeping the hostesses you employed at your own club, required an understanding of social behavior and conversational cues completely absent outside of Japanese culture. Short of adding a great deal of text not present in the original Ryu ga Gotoku 2 or 3, there's no convenient or logical way to introduce these cultural mores to a Western player. This is why it was probably difficult to succeed in these parts of Yakuza 2 without consulting an external source. Since Sega is obviously interested in growing Yakuza's small audience with Yakuza 3, it makes a great deal of sense to not go through the effort of localizing play the average player simply won't understand."

Frankly speaking, that theory is little more than triple-A, top-grade bullsh*t. I'd understand better if this was the rationale brought forward by Sega following the content cuts coming to light. Sega saying it rather than someone else doesn't make the excuse any more valid or reasonable, but it would be more easily dismissed as the kind of PR damage control deployed whenever the fans get huffy.

But no, Sega was not the one saying it, but rather the article's author, for some insane reason trying to excuse that attitude. To think that a member of the press might honestly subscribe to the same, twisted logic and defend it is distressing.

No, it does not make a great deal of sense to skip localizing the content. Simply axing hostess bars does not magically expand the potential audience Yakuza 3 could capture. All that does is piss off the Japanophiles clamoring for the game's release. Angering the fans keeps them from evangelizing to the rest of the crowd about how great Yakuza is, and clues everyone else in that the game they're paying full price for won't be complete.

The worst part of this is the implication that westerners simply won't "get" it. Ever. That kind of flaccid attempt to justify what was ultimately a practical decision betrays not only a startling level of contempt for the audience, but for the developer as well. 

The assertion that the hostess content in Yakuza 2 "didn't make sense" for lack of the cultural mores sounds more like an attempt to excuse an inadequate localization. It isn't impossible to understand the concept that there are bars in the world where women (or men) are paid to find their clientele interesting. After all, brothels, escorts and paid entertainers exist in western society, too.

Part of Yakuza's attraction is that it isn't just an ordinary street-brawling game, but an intricately-detailed snapshot of the pop-culture Japanese gangster lifestyle. Walking around the game's fictional Kamuro-cho district feels distinctly like touring the real-life Kabuki-cho. The pachinko parlors you walk by do sound like that. You will see bottles of C.C. Lemon on both real-life and in-game convenience store shelves, and you will play some interesting arcade games at your local Sega Center. Yakuza is a virtual tourist experience in the vein of the scuba-diving game Endless Ocean or safari game Afrika, only with a plot. And violence.

Making those kinds of "westerners will never 'get' it" excuses belittles gamers, who are tolerant of some of the most contrived, bizarre scenarios imagined. Even non-Japanese gamers have been conditioned by generations of playing fantasy and sci-fi titles to accept and adapt to cultural mores that are not necessarily their own. 

Why does 1up feel the need to diminish the advances companies like Atlus, NIS-America, Ignition and Aksys have made in bringing games and franchises once perceived utterly alien to success?

Of course, this highlights the nature (and difficulty) of competently localizing a game. Things always change when a game crosses the pond. For western gamers Persona 3's Mitsuru speaks French fluently, rather than English. "Optima Changes" become "Paradigm Shifts" and "Commu Ranks" become "Social Links". Quiz questions and kanji character puns get replaced with categorization riddles and stuff you might have learned in English 101. Things always change, and usually it is for the benefit of the audience. But to say that everyone is better off for content's being absent, out of fear that they just wouldn't "get it" is an insult to those efforts, and brings up the "bad old days," when localization meant erasing any potential clue that the game could have come from Japan or anywhere outside the US.

Why act the apologist, 1up? Isn't it enough to leave the decision as most likely one born of practicality, of the cost of localizing all that stuff versus the potential sales (given the Yakuza's lack of success historically), rather than one made out of genuine concern for the filthy round-eyes' delicate cultural sensibilities? 

Hell, why not leave the actual reasoning to the conspiracy theorists (one of which claims that Sega Japan was about to license Yakuza to another niche publisher if Sega US refused to pick up the ball)? Just don't insult us.