Dragon Quest Creator Discusses Changes Made To Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake’s Gender Options And Designs

During the Tokyo Game Show 2024, Dragon Quest creator Yuji Horii and former Shonen Jump editor Kazuhiko Torishima discussed a few changes that were made to the Dragon Quest III HD-2D Remake, which have since gone viral on social media.

The changes in question were regarding the adjustment of Gender Options to refer to “Type 1” and “Type 2” instead of “Male” and “Female”, as well as modifications to some character designs from the original. Specifically, the female warrior now wears a set of shorts and shirt underneath her armor, which was not present in Akira Toriyama’s initial design (original on the left, new on the right).

In the interview, Horii and Torishima made comments suggesting that these were done to comply with age rating restrictions and other concepts “from the west”. Some of the main comments being “If there’s too much exposure, the age rating goes up. It means we won’t be able to sell it as an all-ages product.” as well as the following:

Torishima: “There’s a religious concept from the West, especially in America, that influences their approach to sex education, right? Their approach to compliance is really narrow-minded. When selling manga in America, everything had to be categorised by age groups. Because there’s a risk of lawsuits, the company also has to get insurance. Doing business with such a ridiculous country is really frustrating. Because of that, Japan also gets negatively influenced.”

Horii: In Dragon Quest, you used to be able to choose between a male and female character. But now, you can’t choose between a man and a woman anymore. We have to label them as Type 1 and Type 2. I really wonder, who is even complaining about this?

You can watch the translated excerpt below, via saouo345 on X/Twitter:

What do you think? Let us know in the comments.