Japan around Resident Evil 2

Japan had a lot going on during the development of Resident Evil 2.

The production of the game began in 1996 shortly after the release of the first Resident Evil with a scheduled release of March 1997. During this year, the Padilla Car Accident occurred, and the beginning of Japanese Embassy Hostage Crisis. Both incidents stuck the Japanse public hard, each with militaristic overtones. The first incident outraged the Okinawins the most, since they were still raw about the Okinawan Rape Incident of 1995. Foreign military presence was grating on the Japanese public, and they wanted more than anything for the American Military presence to end.

When the release date for Resident Evil 2 began approaching, CAPCOM decided to take a risk and scrap the current version of the game in order to create a higher quality product. While this pushed the release date back a year, it was seen as a positive decision since the final product was a more developed, polished game. During this development period, the infamous episode of Pokemon, Dennō Senshi Porygon was released, causing mass hysteria from the sheer number of seizures induced by this episode. This particular episode was never shown on TV again, and removed from all foreign releases. It created quite an uproar, and gave Japanese animation a terrible stigma that still exists today. This year also saw the end of the Japanese Embassy Hostage Crisis. All of the hostages were saved, and none of the guerrilla group were spared.