If someone said they were a fan of Japanese literature, cinema or music, no one would blink twice. Why is the suffix "Japanese" suddenly an issue when applied to one genre of gaming?

I respectfully disagree with Yoshida. I never considered JRPG a “discriminatory” or “othering” term. JRPGs have their own style that’s distinct enough to warrant identifying, like the industry distinguishes between “first person shooters” and “third person shooters”. To a non-gamer, the difference may seem trivial, but to people who actually play the game, it’s huge.

That being said, I’m surprised that someone so closely involved with gaming would make such a statement. If anything, it sounds unnecessarily defensive.

Final Fantasy 16 is not really like a typical jrpg. As a dev the dev shouldn't really care about which genre a certain game has, just make a good game and don't care about jrpg, action game or whatever your game is. We player decide the genre to know which group of gamers are maybe interrested in the game.

I disagree, it's the same as distinguishing romance novels from other fantasy novels.