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This Week in Games -The New Testament

Testament's non-binaryness has been confirmed on both the English and Japanese sides of Arc System Works, which unfortunately hasn't stopped some internet reactionaries from pitching the usual fits about “pronouns.” After, all, Guilty Gear is a series free of “woke” nonsense that's never had any kind of gender-non-conforming characters before.

"Agender is the best word. Neither male nor female. Testament is Testament," said Ozawa, later adding, "In English, you would say they and them." (Third party translator)

This is from Arc System Works marketing rep, Riku Ozawa during ArcRevo. The bigger change is perhaps that the English website uses they/them specifically, rather than defaulting to masculine anymore. So in this case its less that the character changed, and more that the localization is finally correct.

b-dragon wrote:

"Agender is the best word. Neither male nor female. Testament is Testament," said Ozawa, later adding, "In English, you would say they and them." (Third party translator) This is from Arc System Works marketing rep, Riku Ozawa during ArcRevo. The bigger change is perhaps that the English website uses they/them specifically, rather than defaulting to masculine anymore. So in this case its less that the character changed, and more that the localization is finally correct.

To me that doesn't contradict the established canon that Testament is genderless.
Genderless and non-binary are two different things. Non-binary is basically someone who says they identify as a man one day and a female the next. Genderless is biological and not applicable to humans naturally, or most non-microscopic organisms. I assumed the localization used male pronouns because he's still a man, just one that went through horrific experiments and body modifications. Testament was a man who got abducted by the Conclave and converted into a bioweapon and then enslaved. It's seems purely semantics if you call him a guy, a hermaphrodite, a female, neither, or anything else after what happened to him during gear conversion, similarly how people will assign a gender to robots or other creatures like legendary Pokemon depending how they see them despite technically being genderless.

What happened to Testament was basically conversion therapy if you try to apply a gender lens to it, which just makes this thing way more uncomfortable and strange. I'm not sure why anyone would want to claim that as representative of their identity.

b-dragon wrote:

"Agender is the best word. Neither male nor female. Testament is Testament," said Ozawa, later adding, "In English, you would say they and them." (Third party translator) This is from Arc System Works marketing rep, Riku Ozawa during ArcRevo. The bigger change is perhaps that the English website uses they/them specifically, rather than defaulting to masculine anymore. So in this case its less that the character changed, and more that the localization is finally correct.

To me that doesn't contradict the established canon that Testament is genderless.
Genderless and non-binary are two different things. Non-binary is basically someone who says they identify as a man one day and a female the next. Genderless is biological and not applicable to humans naturally, or most non-microscopic organisms. I assumed the localization used male pronouns because he's still a man, just one that went through horrific experiments and body modifications. Testament was a man who got abducted by the Conclave and converted into a bioweapon and then enslaved. It's seems purely semantics if you call him a guy, a hermaphrodite, a female, neither, or anything else after what happened to him during gear conversion, similarly how people will assign a gender to robots or other creatures like legendary Pokemon depending how they see them despite technically being genderless.

What happened to Testament was basically conversion therapy if you try to apply a gender lens to it, which just makes this thing way more uncomfortable and strange. I'm not sure why anyone would want to claim that as representative of their identity.

Genderless and non-binary are two different things. Non-binary is basically someone who says they identify as a man one day and a female the next.

Non-binary is basically someone who says they identify as a man one day and a female the next. Genderless is biological and not applicable to humans naturally, or most non-microscopic organisms.

Some people have a gender which is neither male nor female and may identify as both male and female at one time, as different genders at different times, as no gender at all, or dispute the very idea of only two genders. The umbrella terms for such genders are genderqueer' or non-binary' genders.

Non-binary is basically someone who says they identify as a man one day and a female the next.

Thus, Ozawa and the localization team are correct: a non-binary person would use they/them pronouns.

"watashi", which is commonly used with regards to feminine and female characters.

Well, non-binary persons can use pronouns besides they/them (such as e/em, or the occasional interchangeable he/she), so perhaps the takeaway should be "these are the pronouns that have been chosen for Testament moving forward" and not "this is objectively correct for any non-binary identity and therefore applies to Testament." It sounds like in Japanese they're simply not using pronouns at all (that's what is meant by "Testament is Testament").

I'm not much of a fighting game player, but I looked up Testament's old design and I have to say, I am really digging the new look. Very classy.