The Japanese audience would waaaay more prefer that western game developers perform *proper JP localization* (with no mistranslations, overtranslations, incorrect glyphs, mood-spoiling ugly fonts, etcetcetc) than to quibble over whether Japan is portrayed “properly” in a game.

Seriously, we don’t care about “proper” portrayals when we ourselves create games based on battles in Japanese history where samurais fire laser beams and you attack giant enemy crabs’ weak points for massive damage. On the other hand, PROPER JP LOCALIZATION matters!

Shoddy Japanese ingame localization (or no localization at all) is a much better way to send a clear message to JP players that you don’t really give a F about them, much more than whatever crazy depictions of Ninjas or Shoguns you stick into your game.

To be clear, I’m referring to the localization of non-Japanese games into Japanese, btw. Too many crap EN→JP localizations abound to count. (although certainly not discounting bad l10s the other way around.)

It’s not just properly translating stuff - things like choosing the correct kanji glyphs for your fonts (default OS behavior is wrong so if you didn’t explicitly fix it it’ll always be broken), using O to confirm and X to cancel in PlayStation, etc. all matter for proper JP l10n.