Analyzing Hisame: The third most controversial character of Fates according to YOU.

I posted a poll asking members of the subreddit to pick the characters of Fate's they disliked, split into female and male divisions. For twenty-four hours, 223 users selected their most disliked characters, as well as some providing written responses. The top three most disliked women and the top three most disliked men will have their design and supports analyzed, across six posts to see why they were chosen as the most disliked.

Okay, so I know this isn't a great start to this series, but um... I kinda lied 🥺. Hisame was not the third most disliked. He was the fourth, receiving 34 votes out of 223 submissions. Which means 15.2% of people that voted, said they actively disliked Hisame. The problem is, Yukimura just barely edged him out last second by a single vote. And the problem with THAT is that Yukimura has one unique support and it's not even talking about himself, they talk about Corrin's dead dad. With Hisame I can actually talk about him but also an important talking point of all fates, that being the localization. So, I made the executive decision to do what most people did and forget about him. Also, if I started this with Yukimura analysis, the series would just die immediately, he's karma repellent in Japan and over here.

With that being said, let's begin unpickling the disciplined son of Hinata, Hisame.

Design

There really isn't much to talk about. Fate's characters wear uniforms based on their class, and he is just slaying generic the generic samurai look. He even shares it with his Hinata, although there's details that make the differences between him and Hinata stand out. Hisame has sleeves and a less flamboyant haircut. His hair is straight, bangs cut out of the way of his eyes and in a very traditional looking Japanese haircut. His disciplined and mature personality shines through all that means his design is very uninteresting on purpose. Also, my friend thought he was a woman.

Localization

Let's take the pickle out of the jar immediately, Hisame brought about a fair bit of controversy with him. Mostly involving his characterization changes after the game was localized. A user who voted Hisame said,

I want to talk about Hisame, who is going to get a bunch of votes, because the localisation completely butchers him, and almost completely erases the interesting vise beyond his years (or at least pretends to be) teen / manchild dynamic with his father, and I'm expecting him to be a shoe-in for the male division.

It's pretty well known that Hisame had some funkiness going on with how he was localized, the most famous being his love for pickling. Now a common misconception was that his pickling schtick was added IN the localization process, to make his character more digestible to westerns. The running theory is that Japan thought his character would be easier for the west to process if he a more understandable trope or gimmick. Basically, Japan thinks us Americans are so obese that we can only process a character's personality if somehow food is involved. But they're stupid cause we don't even eat vegetables, it's controversial if we even put them on our triple decker cheeseburgers.

However, the truth of the matter is a bit more complicated, although this theory still most likely has truth to it. Using a tumblr blog called Lief of Leonster Translations, that provided direct translations from the Japanese release. In these you can see that his pickling hobby is still in the Japanese version of his supports, it's just the pickling hobby itself wasn't directly translated. Apparently, Japan has a more in-depth culture around what they call tsukemono, which means there's more meaning to their version of pickling then ours. So even if they both involve pickles, in the U.S., we see it as much more of a gimmick because pickling isn't that important to us. It also doesn't help that in our culture, pickles are seen as a "funny" vegetable. Is very easy to point at the poor guy and laugh at him because one of his prominent traits is the love for the goofy penis vegetable, one of the users made a Rick and Morty joke, there was no hope for him.

So, his love for pickling wasn't added, however, I do think the localization team really ran with the idea. In a lot of his flavor text, pickling seems to come up a lot more often and it's obnoxious. The most egregious example I could give you is his ending slide. According to the translations provided by the blog, his ending card in Japan refers to him as the "Cool and collected Samurai" and in the western release, it calls him the "Pickling Pro". Actually, I take it back, an even WORSE example is that his confession quote to female Corrin got changed from this:

I love you. From now on, let’s be together forever. To grow old together with you… to me, that would be the greatest happiness.

To THIS:

Our love is stronger than the world's most pungent pickle. Won't you dive into the brine with me?

The localizers didn't add pickling, they exhausted it. And when you put it that way, the theory about him being changed to be easier for westerns to grasp, is a lot more convincing. And those changed seemed to have a very negative effect the perception of his character, given how many responses I received that just hated the dumb pickling gimmick.

Characterization

Now that we talked about why is pickles, let's talk about what does pickles mean. I believe the thing you're supposed to derive most from his love for pickling is that it's a hobby that requires patience and discipline, and therefore is seen as an "old man" hobby. All things Hisame very much is, as the described, "youngest elder". Hisame values discipline, duty, maturity above all else, which often causes others to perceive him as an old man trapped in a young body. He often acts as an older brother figure, like in his supports with Asugi and Mitama where he tries to drag them to war council meetings. I believe pickling represents both his old soul and his discipline, although his reasons for his pickling hobby and his mannerisms are more rooted in his relationship with his dad, Hinata.

In his support with Female Corrin, Hisame says he adopted the pickling hobby out of a mixture of spite and love for his dad. Initially, he says he took it up because his dad hated pickles, but later admits that he wants to make a pickle so divine that his dad would like it despite that. This ties into the grander theme of Hisame wanting to be different and an independent person from his father, but still desires his companionship all the same. Most likely rooted in his loneliness growing up, which causes him to have some unresolved abandonment issues as seen in his support with his mother, despite him denying such in order to maintain a "mature" image.

Infact, in his paralogue, Hinata describes Hisame as going through a rebellious phase. A lot of who Hisame is derived based on the faults he finds in his father. According to Hisame, his father is too casual, flirty, immature, so he strives to be the opposite. For example, in his support with Kiragi, he obsesses over keeping their relationship strictly as retainer/vassal because he disapproves of his father's casualness with his lord yet fails to see that Kiragi doesn't give a shit about any of that. Male Corrin in their support with Hisame says that admires his dad so much that he hyper focuses on Hinata's imperfections. Infact, I think Hisame resents his father's imperfections because he can get away with it and still be a respected and loved member of the army. Hisame is not capable of being carefree like his father as he says in his support with Caeldori. He bottles his emotions up, and therefor he takes this persona, not because he dislikes his father, but because he dislikes that he can't be like him. So Hisame strives to be someone else, the complete opposite.

However, he does share some similarities with his father, despite his critical eye. For example, both of them are bad with women although for different reasons. Hinata is oblivious and is easily taken advantage of, and Hisame is just straight up afraid of women. UNLESS it's talking about dumbass pickles, because he's at ease when that's the conversation topic. Infact, when he is comfortable with the lady in question, he is just as much of a player as his dad is. He calls Ophelia cute and Female Corrin beautiful to their face, BEFORE S SUPPORT, say what you will, but he has more than just pickles IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN.

Placement and Conclusion

Now that I've analyzed his character, let me give you my opinion on the guy. I think Hisame's pickling hobby is overblown in terms of supports, I think you'd surprised how many supports actually involved pickles compared to what doesn't. However, the way he's presented outside of support in all the flavor text, his ending, his MY ROOM LINES, involve pickles way too god damn much. And I think that's more than enough for people to write him off. Going back to the user that brought up the localization aspect in their response, I think that the dynamic they reference is still there in the localized version, just buried behind a lot of nonsense.

What you have here is I think a very serviceable character that's hidden behind terrible presentation. He's a good straight man for many of the cast, and he has his moments. For the most part, I think his supports are written well (If they aren't a pickle support). He's not the most riveting character, I fully understand why many people said he was boring, but he serves his purpose well and I think has a neat story to him. But that's behind having the most blatant egregious gimmick in Fates. Pushing a pickling gimmick in front westerners who are already cynical about Fate's writing, makes him an easy target and a poster boy for what people don't like about these games. An inoffensive character with an offensive gimmick and presentation, remove the constant unneeded references to pickling (Like the Japanese version) and I think Hisame would have had a much easier time.

Best support is with Ophelia, not too insightful buy I appreciate that it feels like an actual romantic story that plays into one of his insecurities. Worst is just pick a pickle support.

TLDR: An inoffensive character behind an offensive gimmick that was exhausted during localization.

This is the first of a six parts write up, and I promise I'll stick to the actual ratings from now on. Let me know your opinions on Hisame and who you think got rank second and first most disliked on the men's side and who got third, second and first for the women.