You want drama? Here's a nationwide drama that involves almost every MMO maker from South Korea!

mr1602

To understand the mad-house that is the 'Root Studio / Nexon - Maplestory', we must understand 2 things.

1. This hate symbol;  which stands for Misandry (ie hate against Men)

2. The studio called 'ROOT' which is a 3rd party animation studio that does a lot of contract work for game / animation companies.


A few weeks ago, Nexon's game MapleStory released their trailer for the Angelic Remaster. Which was fine until some fans noticed that a character did the above hand gesture in the video. And it looked really awkward when she did it as the animation didn't quite line up.

Well it turns out that the TEAM LEADER of ROOT studio said on Twitter / X 'I have never stopped feminism and will continue to do so in secret' (Translated from Korean) date on March 2022.

This blew up in Korea social media as MapleStory fans looked at the trailer and past ones more closely and found more symbols like the above.
4 hours later at 4am on Sunday, Nexon called all of their employees back into the office.
Hilariously Google Maps showed that there was a traffic jam in front of Nexon's office at this time.
Every employee at Nexon was tasked to go through everything for ALL OF THEIR GAMES, Frame by Frame.
And the more they looked, the more they found. They found the symbol in trailers, gameplay animation, shop animation, Background images and so on and so on. 

By mid-Sunday, it was clear that this symbol were in a lot of places at Nexon games but that's not all.
You see, ROOT studio worked for a lot of companies; not just Nexon.
Now those companies were also recalling their workers to do the exact same thing; frame by frame of everything.

Some of the big names (at least in Asia) that gets confirmed are
Blue Archive
Epic7
Eternal Return
Honkai Impact 3rd
Brown Dust 2 
Dungeon Fighter (including SNK's Benimaru from the collab they had)

Monday rolls around and almost every game company of a certain size are going through their work, frame by frame.
We also have fans who are also going through every single media that they can get their hands on.

Soon, the big games are in the crossfire; like Lost ARK and Black Desert Online. Both of which will get updates to have those symbols/gestures removed.

DJ MAX Respect V announces that a female singer who's past contained some Misandry will be changed for every song that she sang. ROOT also did DJMAX's BGA for an upcoming DLC; and the company confirms that the ROOT studio version will not be released and the DLC will be redone by a different studio. 


This isn't just gaming / MMO's either; Pusan's City council's introduction animation, a single frame in an ad for an Iron and Steel company (POSCO) etc.

Due to the wide range of people and the amount of people, this becomes a political issue with mainstream media reporting to boot.

And that is where we are today. Maybe it comes larger tomorrow when more are found elsewhere? Or maybe it dies down? Who knows? 

Majority of sources / videos can be found here; warning it is in Korean.
https://namu.wiki/w/스튜디오 뿌리 남성혐오 논란

kitarad

Women at their workplace because of their drinking culture in South Korea get groped and other unpleasant things that go on at the places they go to after work with almost mandatory socialising. I am not saying misandry is justified but the way women are avoiding marriage in Korea because of the horrible things that come with it which include the bulk of housework even after a full day at work and also catering to the mother and father in law that often live with the couple. Not forgetting looking after the kids too. It's no wonder their birth rate is one of the lowest in the world.

Women there really have started to fight back but generations of expecting women to do everything is difficult to change and it won't be changing any time soon. Men do try but the bulk of them expect their wives to do what their mothers did for them and there is no support from the women's own parents who seem to relinquish their daughters once they are married.

I guess women found ways to do things subtly or not so subtle in this case since it was discovered.

Being Asian myself I have seen first hand what this type of culture does to a woman. Sad really.

Dibdabs

Drama?  I couldn't care less to be honest.  

KnightFalz

I get enough drama from North America so I'll not be importing this, thanks anyway.

Wargfoot

Once you're done putting man hating symbols into video games could you make me a sandwich?