Fyi, in japan it is legal to discriminate against americans / foreigners.

I went to Mexico as a road trip to get Spanish cards, dudes were all nice, traded me some wcq sleeves, and played with them even though all I knew in Spanish was “normal, effecto, and ash” 😂 Edit: Also I know of a dude who moved to my city from Vietnam, topped the regional immediately after moving, he’s been here for years now, his English is great now, but no one excluded him for just speaking Vietnamese initially ‘cause that would be absurd. Feelsbadman for your experience

"I am ""黒足のセイ"" who appeared in a scene in this video." I am a regular Japanese who participated in the competition that he wanted to participate in. The text in this picture is probably true. I sent a DM to this account to tell the truth. And I also told the clerk in the photo about this. After all, the reason was that I didn't have an ID and it was a language problem. If you have an ID, language, and OCG card, you can participate in the tournament in Japan. As a regular representative of this restaurant, we welcome non-Japanese, so please take good care of us. Also, most Japanese think that it is a kind of sport, not a game. That's why I think the rules are strict.

In ocg, there are official events (ranking for example) and unofficial events (casuals, or normal locals which doesnt require neuron to play). They might have been stricter to your entry because you attempted to join their official ranking event, which have official rewards and konami judges. If its unofficial events like casuals, i think foreigners would be welcomed just fine. These are just my thoughts from an ocg player from singapore

Japan has gotten stricter towards foreigners because of individuals like Johnny Somali.

I have played in japanese tournaments (Rush Duel) without knowing any japanese at all in april this year and august last year. I never had any issue with participating in a tournament. Sometimes I got asked if I know what the card does and then I showed them an app where I could search for every card based on certain key words. I felt very welcomed there and everyone was nice to me. Heck I even made some friends even though we cant really communicate. I also saw your tweet but without knowing the full context I could only suspect the you was not allowed to play because you didnt had a japanese neuron Account. They use that app to share pairings and do their lottery at the end of the tournament. They would have proably allowed you to play if you had a JP Neuron account.

Always research the country you're going to. Hope you enjoyed the trip tho

People going to Japan and not bothering to learn anything about their culture is exactly why they are like this. If you’d learnt a bit before hand you’d have known what to expect.

"When two shinobi are of a high enough caliber, they can understand each other through nothing more than an exchange of fists." - Sasuke Uchiha People who truly understand the competition don't need to speak the same language in order to understand each other.

I'm Italian I played OCG format in Shanghai multiple times, I realize that for them playing against me is an unnecessary problem, but to make things easier i found out that if you learn basic words as 1. Effect to: (search, summon, negate, set) . 2. Activate and resolve. Graveyard, Banished, ExtraDeck and Chain Link 12345 3. Draw stand-by main battle end phase. Even you don't speak the languange, but saying and knowing this words helps a lot during a duel, and didnt had much of a problem !

Just going to another state in the U.S. requires research on what to expect depending on the place. Going to another country entails being exposed to unfamiliar and unexplored customs practices laws and beliefs. A visitor must be completely aware of their actions and what they mean as they will take full responsibility; if someone breaks the law and doesnt know it, they've still broken the law.

"foreigners will cause trouble to customers and staff" *immediately causes trouble by taking and posting pictures of people* You did all this research for a card game but not social norms for where you were going, this is why they have problems.

You can play at my locals (Hawaii), and we'll take anyone.

The only time you would have to worry about a language barrier in yugioh is if you don't know what cards do, which clearly wasn't an issue for Squid. And if his opponent wanted to know what one of Squid's cards do, well they can just read the damn thing since its written in Japanese lmao EDIT: Ok I got far enough in the video, he addressed it himself anyways lol

Glad you were still able to play some games.

I feel as though this is an unfortunate situation for everyone involved. It has become all too commonplace for people to point fingers and lay the blame on any individual party for events to play out as they did (ex. a player from the West not being able to communicate and fully immerse himself in the Japanese culture, a nation being xenophobic against non-Japanese natives). In my view, if the Japanese officials had made some concessions and agreed to meet with Squiddys halfway, we would not be having this discussion. At the end of the day, I believe everyone should at least be provided the most basic accommodations to exercise the privilege of playing and enjoying the Yu-Gi-Oh card game that we all know and love. I'm sorry that you were denied the privilege of being able to participate in the OCG competitive landscape, Squiddys.

I can almost guarantee that even though they say you can't play there, if someone showed up with the right resources, you can literally say "Screw the rules, I have MONEY!". Next time, offer up a Benjamin Franklin and I doubt they will kick you out. Even the Japanese can't hate Americans if money is being thrown at them.

I have had some of these experiences in Japan. Outside of just denying us access to certain establishments, they would charge us higher amounts because of not being Japanese.

Yeah. I saw that last year. They decided to stop accepting non japanese speakers in official yugi oh tournaments.

Japanese native and a supporter of the channel here. I'll try to explain my thoughts in English. First, We're mostly nice people here in Japan. Every measure taken from the shop clerk sounded necessary to avoid misunderstanding within OCG matches. Sorry for your regretful experiences during your stay in Japan, but please understand that everything happened to you was necessary to avoid problems in OCG. That doesn't make us xenophobic in any sense as some people assume. It seems to me as more of a necessary procedure to secure privacy and safety of every player, for which shop clerks are responsible. Again, please don't take this experience personally. Thank you for my English and reading it.

I haven't played in a foreign country but here in Greece, as long as people can speak English competently, you can participate. However, we have to consider that the default language of the product sold is English, the very rules assumes that the player knows English. I haven't however encountered the scenario of a player wanting to join an event while he doesn't know English. I can't see how it would work out if a player was unable to communicate with their opponents or even with a judge. It would just made their matches always go to time because how long it would take to make sure that every move was properly understood. If it was for casual matches, I'm sure no one would have an issue, you could probably play even with proxy cards if you let the opponent know before hand, but the locals I go to can get pretty competitive, with many of our players always ranking very high in the national events (not me, I'm dogwater). Some of them can get annoyed if they go on time even when playing with someone who takes a bit more to plan out their moves, so I can't think how they would react with the match going to time because of communication. That doesn't go for everyone however, but the fact of the matter is that even if it was with a 1/5 players, it could cause an issue, and that's something the store owners have to take into account. Should they cause issue with their regulars in order to accommodate someone who might be visiting the place only once.

Japan has had problems with forgeigners flooding their big events making the majority of entrants non japanese. I support japanese tournaments giving preferential treatment to their people. My locals doesnt have any non english speakers. If it did i could very easily see most of my locals friends not wanting to play with someone they cant communicate with. Communication is huge in this game, you dont get to just silently slam your cards on the table and expect your opponent to know what youre doing. If communication cant happen, the game isnt worth playing.

I think Google Translate even has a mode where you can say something and it'll translate it on the spot and back over, basically translating a conversation. So yeah trying to communicate shouldn't be an issue here at all. I think they were just being xenophobic if you ask me

6:10 This is the first time I'm hearing this after so many years of playing this game, and I played Master Duel too

obviously, they just weren't ready for the squid💪🏻🦑

Language barrier is really the root problem. The clerk is playing safe not to cause any problem during the tournament if something may arise. But still they should allow you to play as a sign of goodwill and given that you flew directly to Japan.

Somehow, i blame Konami.

Some of the best games of yugioh ive played have been in foreign countries where I cant speak the language, with a good understanding of the game you can make do with basic words. Bummer, people in Spain and France were very welcoming even if some didnt speak any English.

I think japanese culture is diferent, they rather not assit you if they see that they can assist you at their best, so they just avoid that by the "japanese only". And also sometimes there is the stereotype that foreiners are problem makers, and in order to avoid that, they just do not let you participate or enter in certein places, so that they do not lose their regular clients (japanese people)

I only recently started playing again 6 months ago, and I do want to play across the world including Asia. Hopefully your next experience will be better.

I don't want to say that DistantCoder and Jeff Jones are wrong in their reply tweets per se, but I do think they missed out one crucial consideration; that being that this is pretty much an unprecedented situation for an OCG player. Most tournaments that OCG players will ever participate in will have virtually zero non--native speakers, and the ones that do include international players have translators on standby. So, the multi-lingual aspect that TCG players have to regularly work around just doesn't exist for OCG. It doesn't excuse the situation, but I do understand why OCG regions would be wary about a potential language-barrier.

Good thing I don't plan to go to Japan just to play a card game. Looks like they're going to do anything to prevent Foreigners from playing.

to be fair japan is just tired of tourists (mostly americans) who don't know their customs and act like they own the place.

90 to 95 percent? So that's like what... 10k cards?

You need to be able to communicate to play Yu-Gi-Oh , I can see their point.

Yo squiddy long time no see I was worried why you didn't upload for long time Sorry that happened to you it really suck you didn't deserve that Stay safe king

Sucks that you had to go through this.

Sounds like a miserable time man. My locals has players that don't speak English at all, and play with foreign cards 🤷, they still play in the tournaments. In this case it just is what it is. Hopefully the rest of your trip was enjoyable.

Well yugioh requires communication, to announce ur effects, (cuz God knows its waaaay to complicated to billed a board to start) and how do u announce "destroy a card" "destroy all cards" "negate a card" :negate all cards" "return card(s)" "return all cards cards" "turn face down" "send to graveyard" "banish" etc. Like if you cant say stuff like that in Japanese in japan for the game, then how can anyone play with you, hek if they don't speak English let alone read it, how do you expect to read a American yugioh card in English Or maybe you got Japanese cards, how would you confirm your own cards if you can't read em Yugioh has so many rules it requires a book That language barrier is an issue, so yes, obviously u they didn't let you play,

I know its two diferents cultures, but even with all the execuses for me it was really unfair for you not be able to play the tournament, specially after buying the cards.I am from Brazil and not to long ago we had the ycs rio in which was full of foreigners and even with the linguagem barrier i saw everyone doing their best to be as helpfull as posible,making a good enviroment for all the players. Yugioh should be about inclusion so there is no laguege barrier deep enough to prevent comunication

As a foreigner (but Asian) living in Japan. You are not wrong, but not completely right. Most Japanese people doesn't speak English, so fear they can't serve you or trouble happens, they can't do fair judgement. So they might as well just not serve. It isn't xenophobia per-se, but it is a huge language barrier. Best learn Japanese... but yea. I get you, because that's how I felt at the beginning. Anyhow as for card games, if you are playing casual, its all fine, but you got to take the initiative, so yea...knowing Japanese... And as for sanctioned, you cannot join any sanction tournament without a Japan Konami ID(Neuron). So you might what to get that, but I think you need a Japan residency(or address) to register. (And obv, you have to use full OCG cards for sanction tourneys, as you said.) As for JCQ > WCQ, you can join prelim if you have full OCG deck, Konami ID, etc. However, if you won the tournament and qualified for JCS. You are disqualified automatically for not being a Japan citizen. And not even residency is sufficient for participation for JCS (WCQ for Japan) And....no...not every one knows card effects...Not all of them read it properly, and not all players know all the rulings. Maybe true in high level, but you are at a local...where fun rogue decks appears for no reason. And yea, the Japanese players will call out on not revealing a side deck or Extra, other stuff (less on casual sanctions with no points involved) AND the judge WILL side with the Japanese player. This whole thing consider this more of a culture shock, than actual problem. (As I have said, I experienced what you did, and I learnt to adapt to it) And unfortunately...in my opinion, you are very unprepared...Read the rules, not the yugioh game rules, the Tournament rules, would prepare you better. Sure, you can say it would be bad if the situation is reversed, it does feel unmoral for people outside of Japan, and it would feel wrong in the west if the situation is reversed , but respecting other's culture means, don't push your values onto the locals. There is a Chinese saying, which also has an English version "When in Rome, do as the Romans do". ps. If there is one thing I do despise about the whole thing. Is people calling the whole thing xenophobia... As if it was the Japanese who are in the wrong, but forgot what respect means, and may turn out to sound "entitled". And before people say this whole thing is disrespectful, allow me to remind you, traveling and sightseeing is one thing. Traveling to specifically play in a Japanese card game tournament is not the same. The whole thing is like going to play in a YCS but didn't even know the floor rules and didn't have a legal deck and don't have extra and side deck prepared. Would you call this respecting the event? I don't think so. If one consider self a high end Yugioh player, man, isn't this suppose to be basic?

The trigger adb quick effect ruling is wrong. You cant use trigger effects after quick there the way you explain it. The reason you cn do that is because these handtraps are ruled as quick effects and not triggers :)

I think it would best to play OCG Yugioh by speaking in Japanese. If I would play OCG Yugioh with Japanese player I would definitely speak in Japanese

Speaking from experience, it's entirely a cultural thing. If you stick out like a sore thumb there in any way that inconveniences the system, it's gonna be bad for you. Though where I think you went wrong was the lack of research you seemed to have put into all of this before going on your trip. It seemed like you went in thinking its just like every other local back at home and when you found out it wasn't like that, there's the shock value and uproar which I see happen a lot with foreigners. It would have been less of a shock if it was the other way around I feel. The whole "back at home we do it this way..." argument literally means nothing when you're in their country. Does it suck? yes absolutely. Are they going to do anything about it? nope, because that kind of xenophobic perspective stems from their culture of group > individual. It's like a double edged blade where, yes it does suck that they are so Japanese inclusive only, but it also lends to why they have such nice things in the first place. I do agree that western cultures would be more accommodating in this instance, like the example you said about larger tournaments in Europe is a great comparison of how different cultures and languages can be accommodated, but at the end of the day, you're in Japan so you gotta play by their rules.

How you going to really play with people when there is a language barrier lol now restraunt for me is weird tho especially if you were in a major city.

Damn bro that sucks. Sorry you had to go through that. Their loss. Hope you had a good trip still

What happened to Xteven

Imagine you were just a deaf guy and you wonder if they keep that same energy.

They alwaya say never meet your heroes, so i guess ill pass on japan lol

Hmmm you could Say that they speak Dutch and French in Belgium 😅😅😅 Dutch is spoken in the Netherlands btw don't worry people and movie industries messed this up to 🙈

Big edit on my previous text, here's my comment. Long post Warning: Old Text below if you already read it then don't read it again. Main Comment : Squiddy, I'm not gonna support you or japanese people. I think is just a matter of mutual comprehension and understanding. I like to use the concept "Cultural Barrier" instead of Language Barrier. Cuz yeah you can have difficulties with people that doesn't speaks the same language, but even if you both speak the same language you may be rised by very different cultures. For you, having people playing the game regardless the language is comprehensible, but that doesn't works like that in Japan. Some people like to say that japanese are xenophobic. Dude i have japanese friends, but they doesn't like to see people supplanting their culture. If you travel to japan and doesn't speak the language you might find a lot of difficulties. The way you think its not necessary the same way for everybody, keep that in mind. I'm very sorry about your bad experience, and all of those problems occurred cuz there were a lot of miss information around and suppositions you made thinking it could works like it does in occident. It's just a new and different experience in your life. So take advantage on that and learn more in order to avoid similar situations in the future. I hope my message reach you buddy. Greetings

HEIIH!?!? your telling me japanese people won't understand what i say if i spoke to them in english??? WHAT!?!?!?

Mejicano/Americano here: Watched probably over 4k hours of anime. (That was mainly One Peice, Jokese aside, yeh, I have watched a lot of them Chinese Cartoons. Its meme chill tf out) 😂😂😂 Anyways, I speak Spanish, my first language. I studied a bit of ASL in college (university for you, british blokes) anyway, I understand the culture, most places you need permission to film or take pictures mainly the issue with Japan is that they don't like foreigners even those who don't look foreign who are Japanese don't get seen as Japanese theres a video on this, let me find it real quick it is comedy and find it funny if you know anything about 日本 はい, hablo or escribo poquito Japónes. My main point, tho is in Japan most are okay with you, but yes, xenophobia is a thing, especially since that sushi chef they have the right to refuse service, but thats not okay imo. The card game thing is whatever I would just leave and enjoy the sights. I have that Japanese mindset, though keep to yourself, don't bother anyone. Just me, though, also, it's been a problem in 京都 with がいじん anyways, thats my 2 cents.

Dang, that's harsh Squid. I hope you were able to enjoy your trip otherwise.

Its insane how some ppl in these comments defend the way you were treated because „oMg iTs jaPaN aND iTS theIr CultUre to bE LiKe tHAt“😭

Bro you should be like DONT YOU KNOW WHO I AM, I MAKE THE SQUIDDEOS!!!!! 😂 jk but if anyone should be given that leeway it’s ya boi squiddy 😢

The thing is, while you may be up to date on OCG rulings and new releases, there's no reason to assume foreigner will be as knowledgeable as you.

im sorry you had that experience. :(

Meh, it’s a game that requires a lot of talking and understanding (in-person, I assume). If they don’t want to deal with the language barrier then so be it.

This is just an example of why the US isn’t as bad of a country as ppl make it seem

Yeah Japan made that announcement before the ycsj and I was really looking forward to it. China is much more accepting for that respect, I've been to big and small tournaments with broken Chinese and everyone was patient and willing to help.

Sounds like another reason why the community seems so divided and why people have stopped caring about the game as much at this point in time. Too many different issues to name. Seems like you’re not even allowed to be a simple human being. You had to have all the evidence, you need to speak Japanese, or you need to do this or that. It’s wild. I’m all about respect, but people take things too far and ruin the experience. Sucks you had to deal with that Squiddy bro.

That insane that people are defending this behaviour if it was literaly in any other country people will be super mad at the locals. It's not because they had a problem with some other people that they need to punish everyone thats bs.

So how did it feel being black for a day ? Lol

Another reason why the ocg side is soo greedy because they won't let us enjoy their format but when it comes to ocg players coming to the tcg is completely allowed. The double standards is what kills this game

Just learn the language

unacceptable man, in the west we would be so understanding if someone competed here whos english was poor!

japan is famously xenophobic even outside card games, this is no surprise

I actually learned about what happened to you from MegaCapitalG's video about your experience. The East is quite tired of the West, and Americans in general. Especially in these last few years. The technology already exists to be able to translate verbal interactions quickly and effectively between languages to where a language barrier wouldn't be a barrier at all. It is likely not already available because it would cause even more offshoring and near shoring, and would destroy even more higher paying jobs in wealthier countries, making it easier to have equivalent work done at 1/5th the existing salary or less. Couple this with the fact that Eastern countries and countries across the world have been distancing themselves from the US Dollar. (De-dollarization) The way Konami has taken advantage of Western players due to how much more valuable currencies like the Dollar, Euro and Pound are relative to the Yen is not something that is going to be able to continue forever. Konami has known for a while now that the US dollar is in serious trouble, perhaps moreso than any other recent time in history. Their gravy train of milking US and EU player bases is coming to an end, and its particularly disgusting for people who live in Latin American countries, whose cards are so damn expensive its even worse than what happens here. If I had to guess, Kazuki Takahashi was not happy with how the game was managed outside of Japan. Could those locations have been more accommodative? Maybe they should have, but foreigners have made a terrible impression on many these days, and that's something you can observe not just in Japan but elsewhere. Try to put this behind you and don't dwell on it too much. We have serious problems we are going to have to contend with here at home, after the NAWCQ.

In western cultures your not allowed to take pictures of strangers and post them on the internet. You literally have to ask permission from every person who appears in your video/photo.

You need to check your American privilege.

People will try to justify what they do in Japan saying it's Xenophobic but it's a form of discrimination. I wonder how they'd feel if we did the same shit to them that they do to us (if you don't speak English don't play in our tournaments or can't order from our restaurants)

Bruh as someone who has playing yugioh in japan on my bucket list , i saw your tweet and was mad for you. Although Japan has been getting harassed by streamers recently i don't agree with them treating foreigners weirdly , especially when us TCG players spend tons of money on this game. Anywhere in america if we treated a Japanese person like that we would immediately get cancelled amongst other things. Japan needs to find a better solution for the way they have been acting recently , because foreign money is a huge economy for them and they would hate to lose it.

In response to the tweet from DaemonRaeji , No that is not fair. Yugioh is an international card game. If what you said was true, then in this case everyone going to worlds should be able to speak the same language otherwise they can't play. I just moved to Italy and although I can understand Italian well, I don't speak it well enough to play yugioh and everyone I've played with from the locals level all the way to both nationals and YCS level in Italy have never had a problem with me speaking English. Even those who didn't speak English at all could understand the basic game mechanics and we could play together just fine. Kazuki Takahashi would be turning in his grave if he knew this was how they treated foreign yugioh players in Japan. Imagine if you're Japanese and you went to the US to play in a locals and they said no cause you can't speak English. That will never happen in any other country I guarantee you. Even in other OCG countries, like Indonesia, Philippines, China, etc. , there'll be no problem playing at a locals event without knowing the language. Japan needs to fix this, this is not ok...

Squiddy’s I don’t think it’s mainly your fault cuz it’s probably becuze of nucience streamers.

What’s the big deal? You can’t go to someone else’s house and not follow their rules, you’re a guest. It’s within their rights to do so. Every people has this right

I think you kinda making excuse for the xenophobia tbh if yugiog has rules based pro-nouns then xenophobia just disqualify any shops with xenophobic signs which is most japan shops

Dude, you are absolutely in the right!

first

Sound acist

I think that they are prejudiced against Americans playing their game id visit but wouldn't live there

Defending it with saying thats their culture is just insane theres no defending this. However i understand their "trauma" with foreigner who dont speak theiir language because some rude customers but their is no excuse for being shitty against foreigner who respectfully wants to enjoy the game. Also sharking is still a nono

Japan being shitty to Americans?! Shocker, look at how they discriminate against the West with the ocg vs TCG rarity and prices

It wasn't disrespectful, Japan has a culture of hating being exposed. Shoganai "it is what it is" is an issue in Japan and it forces people to end up homogenizing. This reduces crime but leads to an increase in suicide for the divergent during a time when women are more independent. So men there are more angry incel-esque around this time. It's a sad story, but...shoganai. Korea is backfiring the successfully against the feminazi aspect, while still accepting independence and promoting family. Japan is just prioritizing what makes more money. Konami and anime companies aren't the only places with issues. But weebs will even debate with a japanese about their own problems lol.

1 min, 'was emotional', quit video, dude seek therapy

If WotC tried to set up similar rules for Magic regarding American tournaments, or even a single American store barred non-English speakers from participating, there would be a firestorm of controversy about it. Just sayin'.

Japanese have this wierd culture of being so closed on themselves but i am really sorry for you squiddy don't bother your self

Japan dont be racist and xenophobic challenge - impossible

Sorry but I feel like you over reacted.

I think you did your best to be respectful and mindful of one of the most xenophobic countries in the world. You would probably have better luck participating in an ocg tournament outside of Japan.

Japan is xenophobic what a shocker

Bro you did nothing wrong. If you were in Europe on vacation and they refused to let you enter no one would be calling you entitled.

The Japanese society acting all pretentious is hilarious, especially considering all the atrocities they committed during WWII. 😅

Love Japanese culture, but Sadly its hard to not see them as a Racist Country. Too many people Praise them for what they are but refuse to see the bad parts.

Japan is super xenophobic. Sorry that you have experienced this

Japanese people get extremely offended when you take pictures in their country Meanwhile japanese people when they are in Europe or the US: take pictures of literally anything