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Introduction - Ambassador Announcement
On June 10th 2021, Konami Europe announced that they would be bringing in a “Yugioh Ambassador". At first glance, people might think that they meant someone who would interact with fans. A go between for Konami and the players. A community liaison. That’s something that a lot of people could be interested in. But no, that wasn’t the case.
Konami had actually announced a partnership with a Footballer (soccer player, for those of you across the pond). A French Footballer named Antoine Griezmann. This was some sort of PR move for Konami for their brand, a marketing move. Now, I’m not a fan of the sport and so my reaction was “Who?,” as if it were a reaction to the latest third party character Smash Bros announcement. I imagine that would have been the response from a number of other Yugioh fans. Not that much crossover there. However, I’m sure that wasn’t the case for everyone. A number of people who like both Yugioh and French Football games were probably somewhat intrigued. A weird combination, but possibly something?
In a now deleted tweet from Konami, they announced their new ambassador. YGOrganization have the text from it. However, the accompanying video is now unavailable. The video was just a short introduction. He was also going to help design his own special card release, leaving some players wondering when that Inzektor poll card would rear its head.
Why Though?
So how did this happen? Apparently Antoine had been watching a little bit from some classic episodes of Yugioh Duel Monsters. Most likely Season 1’s Duelist Kingdom episodes to be exact, as we can infer. From that, he decided to use his celebrity clout and see if he could get some free merch by tweeting Konami to ask for some cards. This could have set off some ringing euro signs in the heads of some Konami Europe execs.
So subsequent calls were made and the vague title of Yugioh Ambassador was given to this sports guy. Like most corporate brand deal things, we can look at it as cynical corporate nonsense, but this time it was relatively inoffensive, right? People mentioned that there was that American Football player who played Yugioh. They topped an actual tournament with Thunder Dragons; wouldn’t they have been a good choice instead? Quite possibly, but that was America and this was a Europe thing.
One thing that will make itself evident is that the whole thing may have been hastily and shoddily put together, as Konami didn’t seem to actually do any vetting for this guy.
The Most Awkward Interview
As part of the promotion, Griezmann was set to be interviewed by a popular European Yugioh Youtuber (or Yugituber for short) called Lithium. While the American Konami were busy snubbing Alex Cimo, the European Konami were fairly good at involving Yugitubers in promotions. Since Antoine is supposed to be an ‘ambassador,' whatever that entails, he got to be interviewed by Lithium in a fancy setting. They would talk about Antoine’s history with Yugioh and mentioned that super special card that would be developed.
What followed was seven minutes of painful awkwardness and dare I say, cringe. You see, Antoine Griezmann didn’t actually have much in the way of history with Yugioh. Now, anyone can be a fan of Yugioh. We don’t want to gate-keep any fans and want new people to join us in our fandom. That said, if you are going to have a brand ambassador role for a franchise, you should have a decent degree of knowledge on the subject. It was clear his knowledge was as they say, nil poi.
He had seen some Duelist Kingdom episodes and was happy to talk about how cool Joey Wheeler was, which is true. A bit on Dark Magician as well. That was the extent of it. He didn’t really know anything about the game. Couldn’t even identify the ubiquitous Pot of Greed as that didn’t really become a big thing until Battle City. This was a sports player who had watched the first couple dozen episode of a show and that was it.
Konami’s Choices
Because of this, we had to watch the pained expressions of those in the video as Antoine failed to really be able to answer any of the questions. I kind of felt bad for them at that point. Antoine just kind of nodded along like the kid in a group project who doesn’t do anything, while being asked questions he didn’t understand. Konami had set up this interview, only for the questions to not lead to much. Maybe this wasn’t the best choice of ambassador? Just an unimpressive PR stunt.
What about that special card? Not much information on it, other than it was supposedly good for tournaments. Considering the lack of Yugioh knowledge, I imagine he didn’t actually have much hand in the design process and just nodded along with that too. Maybe he was more involved in the design rather than effect? That said, after everything, I don’t think we’ll be getting it any more.
Racism Happened
Wait, are we about to talk about racism on YGOProDeck?; The same site where you post your favorite undefeated Dark Magician deck? Yes. It’s not controversial to say that racist acts are wrong. Antoine Griezmann wore blackface for a costume back in 2017. Konami must have missed that little red flag by not vetting. However, that was during dinosaur times and maybe he had improved since then. A 'one-off whoops' moment from the usually well-behaved professional?
Except it wasn’t just that. In early July, less than a month after becoming the Yugioh Ambassador and making an appearance in the worst interview of all time, a video came out. This video was primarily of his good buddy and fellow player Ousmane Dembélé. A leaked video showing him, as well as Antoine in a hotel room. Dembélé was making fun of Asian people and making racist statements about their appearance. Saying their language meant they weren’t as developed as a country.
Okay, so Griezmann wasn’t actually making the statements himself here, it was his friend. That said, he was laughing along happily with it. He wasn’t saying “Hey, maybe that isn’t the nicest thing to say about someone. Was it awkward laughter perhaps?; Doesn’t seem like it. After his prior incident, maybe this ‘cultural insensitivity’ was not a one-off. This drama, merely weeks after his new Yugioh Ambassador position was not great timing either.
Racism Happened, Again
So Griezmann took to twitter for a brief statement, explaining that he’s definitely against racism and the usual fare of those kinds of tweets. Refuting the allegations. Shortly after that, another video got leaked showing more racist comments. This time also from Griezmann himself, not just one of his friends. Laughing along with bad comments is one thing and maybe he could have got out of this one. But this time it was him making the comments. Mocking Asian languages again with juvenile jokes. Now it’s in French, which I do not speak, so all I’ve got to go on are translations from those who do. But the evidence is quite damning here.
I think we could say at this point, that this guy was kind of racist. At least a tad. Racism is a bad thing, even a tad and I think that goes without saying. It happening even now in current year is pretty tiring for everyone, especially for those who are targeted by it.
I think what a lot of people are going to notice is that most of the current racism was towards Asian people. I wonder who else is Asian, the people who made Yugioh, maybe hired by a Japanese company despite having racial prejudice towards Asian people. Probably not the best move. It’s not particularly good towards the Yugioh community, or the football/soccer fans, or even just people in general who have to find out about this, for that matter.
Konami Acts
On the 7th of July, Konami did the right thing and terminated their contract with Griezzman. Leaving him as their Ambassador would only hurt the brand they wanted to give a quick boost to. It’s good that they acted relatively quickly. Took a few days, but in corporate bureaucracy time, that’s pretty fast.
So what did this whole Ambassador situation contribute to Yugioh as a brand? Nothing. We got an awkward interview which established he didn’t really know much about the brand, other than a couple bits from the early parts of the anime. We got the promise of a special card that likely isn’t going to happen. Additionally, we got the brand momentarily associated with someone doing racist things. Thus, it probably hurt the brand in that regard. A colossal failure for Konami in that case. Not going to go down particularly well in Yugioh’s history. Still, I don’t think it’ll be too bad for the brand in the long run, since they were able to cut ties.
Going Forward
What can Konami learn from this? Vetting is important. You have to make sure the people you’ve hired to represent your company are the right fit. Not just about having them learn about the brand a bit more before sticking them in an interview about it, but also checking to see if they don’t have a history. Konami rushed into this without seeing if it was the right choice.
That’s the main lesson. I don’t think they’ll learn that, but instead they will just learn the wrong lesson and not attempt any ambassador activities again. They will swing to the other extreme and be too reserved, working with less individuals out of fear. But having a Yugioh Ambassador isn’t the worst thing; if done right, it could go well. We could get more interaction with the community, more card designs that are good. They need to be more careful for sure, but unfortunately, I think from now on, they’ll be too careful. A lot of people will have lost heart over this, but I think we just have to think things through.
If a celebrity is legitimately interested in Yugioh and they are more tolerant, then there’s no reason why we can’t figure something out. I don’t necessarily think Konami Europe had bad intentions. We needn’t be too upset with them for this and I hope they try to engage with the community again in the future.
Conclusion
That was the happenings in the Yugioh world over the last month or so. Quite unusual in that the inappropriate actions of a European sports figure isn’t usually something that comes up in Yugioh related discourse. This whole situation was kind of pointless in the end. Amusing in some respects, awkward in others. It lasted under a month. Overall though, it highlights an ever present problem in society that annoyingly persists. In the end, Konami took what I believe were the correct steps. They made it clear that they don’t want their brand promotion to be associated with that behavior. We shouldn't allow or defend this behavior either.
That was the summary of recent events. While an awkward interview and intolerant behavior aren’t really comparable in the slightest, they both served to reinforce that this whole situation wasn’t the best idea. We can make our snarky jokes about it and I certainly did, but in the end, it turned out to be a serious issue, another reminder of that.
Now is a good time to platform Stop AAPI Hate, a non-profit that helps Asians and Pacific Islanders who are affected by racism. While it’s mostly USA-based and today’s topic has been Europe-based, I think it’s still worth mentioning as they do a lot to fight against racism, which is a global issue. If there’s any other organizations you know of that are similar in scope, feel free to post in the comments.
