Climax of Night, a community fighting game tournament series centered on the titles of developer French Bread, has banned a player from attending due to his public declaration that he is a fan of characters who fit into the loli “character archetype”.
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The series of events which led up to the reactionary decision began on June 13th when, adding their voice to the cacophony of those who have recently declared the existence of such characters to be nothing short of pedophilia, Twitter user @Argenrost declared, “Anime fighting games stop wedging lolicon bait characters into their rosters challenge (IMPOSSIBLE).”
Finding themselves tired of this rhetoric, @unilunar_ – otherwise known as Lunar -responded with the cover art for Street Fight V, Tekken 7, King of Fighters XV, and Mortal Kombat 11, and bellowed, “if you’re upset about ANIME FIGHTING GAMES having ANIME CHARACTERS, here’re some alternatives so that you can stop s–tting up discussions with your useless input!”
“please leave!” he exclaimed. “YOU WILL NOT BE MISSED!”
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Avoiding any further engagements with the debate for the next two days, @unilunar_ eventually returned to the topic on June 15th.
Sharing a meme reading “Shout out to haughty lolis in fighting games, gotta be one of my favorite genders” and featuring images of White Len (Melty Blood), Remilia Scarlet (Tohou Hisoutensoku), Taiga Aisaka (Torada! via Dengeki Bunko: Fighting Climax Ignition), Saya (Saya no Uta via Nitro Blasterz Heroines), Cagliostro (Granblue Fantasy Versus), Enchantress (Dungeon Fighter Online), Rachel Alucard (BlazBlue) and the Dead Apostle version of Noel (Tsukihime via Melty Blood), Lunar in asserted, “light of recent events, this character archetype is still GREAT”
Unsurprisingly, Lunar’s meme soon sparked its own discourse, with supporters laughing at the meme and sharing their own favorite loli characters and detractorsdisproportionately hurling baseless pedophilia accusations at those they disagreed with.
“the fact you can openly show your child porn addiction online and get 1k likes is still crazy to me,” wrote @SamathIPG.
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@penysl_ accused, “no n—a u jus like KIDS”
“this is f–king disgusting,” said @TigerishStreams5. “you’re such a pathetic loser. rot in prison.”
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Eventually, these accusations and complaints caught the attention of Climax of Night’s management, who on June 18th announced that Lunar would be indefinitely banned from all their events.
“Due to the continuous posting of harmful content and defense of that content to the point of harassment amongst other community members, the council has decided to ban Lunar from all future Climax events indefinitely,” declared management in a statement issued to the Climax of Night official Twitter account.
“This event was built on community and being able to express ourselves through the one outlet we all have in common: fighting games,” they continued. “It is not a place where glorifying minors or harassment should exist amongst other things we shouldn’t have to speak on.”
“We ask that you continue to support us as we continue to build something we can all be proud to be a part of,” management concluded. “Stay workin’ on it y’all.”
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Responding to this decision, a frustrated Lunar sarcastically said, “yes, let’s side with the people that are innocent and certainly not harassing people.”
“this precedent is so f–ked up,” he added, sharing a set of screenshots where other Twitter users can be seen accusing him of being a child predator. “Banning someone on the grounds of being inflammatory is one thing, but lying and saying I’m ‘glorifying minors’ and ‘harassing people’ is false.”
“I’ve dealt with a metric fuckton of harassment over the past two years, but for some reason, none of those people have a scandalous paragraph about them from the CoN twitter,” Lunar noted. “I’m banned for believing you shouldn’t get called a pedophile for liking anime.”
“and let me make this clear,” he pointed out, “I deeply respect(ed) [tournament organizer] shinobi, I told that nigga happy birthday last night. he was there for me last year. but I just can’t respect this paragraph of garbage, it was a decision made to please the hateful mob that won’t even show up to climax.”
“four people told you that I’m a problem for not condoning the ostracism of people for liking anime?” Lunar asked. “how about four hundred telling you that you f–k kids despite the fact that nothing would disgust you more than the thought of touching a child? you f–kers don’t know me like that.”
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Drawing his thread to a close, Lunar linked to “the document I wrote last year in hopes that things didn’t come to this.”
“it’s long and very emotionally charged,” he said. “but it’s coming from a person sick of getting harassed over nothing.”
In the document itself, Lunar elaborates on and explains his side of a situation from 2020 wherein fellow Melty Blood player @ADA_Six accused him of being a “”.
The following day, Shinobi himself would respond to Lunar’s claims with his own lengthy Twitter thread, therein recounting his friendly history with the player and assuring the public that he was not banned for his enjoyment of loli, but rather an ongoing pattern of supposed harassment.
“In 2021, I’ve received a couple notices that he was getting banned from various discords for not obeying the rules,” said Shinobi. “I approached him about it and he was beginning to defend himself fiercely. I told him that as long as he respected mine and other people’s rules, he will be safe.”
He continued, “I respect him enough to hear him out and take his case. As a TO, I did not want to take this kid out of an event he has grown with and have many of his friends come to and I STILL don’t want to. But I cannot justify his harassment to people politely asking him to stop.”
“I warned him in 2021,” the organizer elaborated. “I kicked him off the team but he was welcome to enjoy himself and compete. Because I respect him. I knew he’s a good dude but he needed to drop his defense and accept that he was in a community that some didn’t enjoy what he liked. And he could live with it.”
Eventually, according to Shinobi, “There was a very unfortunate twitlonger and multiple complaints about Lunar’s defensiveness about what he likes turning into harassment again. I was DM’d about these complaints and thought about what he told me in person last year.”
“He told me he wouldn’t do that,” he recalled. “He told me that if someone politely asked him to stop, he would. This is when I began to feel like my respect for him was being tested to rot. I have been extremely cordial with him and never spoke outside of his name. I never will. He’ll tell you.”
“The ONLY thing I wanted him to stop doing was testing other people’s boundaries and patience with him,” Shinobi affirmed. “Including my own. He can like whatever. He’s his own man. Just don’t look crazy and lash out when people are outward about saying they don’t and try to make peace with you.”
Shinobi further stated, “The amount of people that have went up to Lunar and asked him to chill are numerous. I have witnesses. This has been an ongoing issue. He has continued to play it down and do what he always does.”
“His ban now has nothing to do with 2020,” he maintained. “I let him go for that. This is disrespect.”
What do you make of Lunar’s ban from Climax of NIght events? Let us know your thoughts on social media or in the comments down below!