At long last, a Japanese shrine has banned foreigners after what they claim to be an incredible disrespect. And this shrine is related to a video game, but it’s probably not the one you’re thinking of.
As reported by Automaton, it’s Watazumi Shrine, which is located on the real-life island of Tsushima, that has decided to ban foreign tourists from visiting the shrine. As you may have guessed, this shrine is believed to figure prominently in Sucker Punch’s 2020 action game Ghost of Tsushima. Apparently, it’s the basis for the Scarlet Rock Shrine that appears in the game.
Initially, Watazumi Shrine’s management had a positive impression of their foreign fans. The super typhoon Haishen destroyed the shrine, shortly after the game’s release in 2020. Because it had gained sudden fame, they were able to successfully crowdfund $ 180,000 to repair the shrine.
In the past few years, however, the shrine management has seen several instances of problematic behavior. They had already previously decided to ban all visitors coming from South Korea.
On their social media posts, the shrine management claims that a ‘grave and unforgivable act of disrespect’ led to this blanket ban. While they won’t go into detail on what the tourists did, they said that the shrine officials experienced ‘unbearable mental anguish’ and that the ‘management of the shrine is in jeopardy’ as a result.
We won’t speculate on what specific acts would be deemed blasphemous in a Shinto shrine like Watazumi shrine. But we cannot avoid the looming elephant in the room; this shrine would not have become as famous as it is if it wasn’t for Ghost of Tsushima. Subsequently, we know that there are thousands of other shrines spread across the Japanese islands that will never be famous enough to receive that proverbial target on its back that Watazumi shrine did.
We don’t really blame the game, its developer Sucker Punch, or its publisher, Sony, of course. That would be blame misdirected away from these errant tourists who actually disrespected the shrine. And of course, we understand that not everyone who owns a PlayStation 5 or played the game would act like that.
But this seems to be an object lesson that fictional depictions of Shinto shrines, or similar religious, national, or cultural symbols, don’t matter as much as real life actions that can be taken against these places and symbols. In fact, in the boundary between freedom of expression and respect for other cultures, it’s what people do in real life that actually matters.
