Resident Evil’s Mikami: ‘I’ll never use women as objects’

Shinji Mikami has criticised the depiction of women as ‘objects’ in some video games.

I don’t know if I’ve put more emphasis on women characters, but when I do introduce them, it is never as objects,” the Resident Evil and The Evil Within creator told The Guardian.

In some games, they will be peripheral characters with ridiculous breast physics. I avoid that sort of obvious eroticism. I also don’t like female characters who are submissive to male characters, or to the situation they’re in. I won’t portray women in that way.

I write women characters who discover their interdependence as the game progresses, or who already know they are independent but have that tested against a series of challenges.”

Mikami did concede, however, that he has got it wrong in the past.

If I had to name the woman character I most disliked in my games it would be Rebecca Chambers,” he added. She’s submissive, she’s not independent. I didn’t want to include her but the staff wanted that kind of character in the game, for whatever reason. I’m sure it made sense to them.

Mikami apparently added with a despondent shrug that in Japan, that character is pretty popular”.