I found the Soul Calibur bit in this paper interesting.
The threat of Western imperialism is shown vividly in the opening cinematics, as we see samurai swordsman Mitsurugi Heishirō facing off against Western soldiers… In the narrative, Mitsurugi hails from Bizen, home of swordmaking and later allied with the Satsuma and Chōshū domains in southern Japan, both of which used European rifles, ships, and artillery for their troops. The Tokugawa years saw the emergence of the shishi, or “men of high purpose,” fighting for the emperor and older Japanese values in the face of encroaching Western powers. As SoulCalibur is set earlier, Mitsurugi may be understood as a symbolic precursor to the shishi, living the creed sonno- jōi, “Revere the Emperor and Expel the Barbarians.”
This kind of Japanese nationalism is not prominent in the narrative or game dynamics but underlies visual representations of characters as well as the privileging of samurai archetype Mitsurugi in the character select screen and user interface. By placing Mitsurugi’s act of defiance so prominently in the opening cinematics, the image of Japan- as- colonized is maintained. On this point, Mitsurugi Heishirō also illuminates the portability of Japanese ideology overseas.
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In contrast [to kof, tekken, etc.], Mitsurugi’s entire visual makeup emphasized his samurai status, an unacceptable and abhorrent figure for the mainland Asian market, recalling banzai charges of Japanese troops in the recent past. For these reasons, Mitsurugi’s character in SoulCalibur II was changed to “Arthur” for export to Asia; he retained his physical stature and sword-wielding prowess but acquired blond hair and beard plus an eyepatch, providing some concealment. The samurai colonizer of Asia was thus reconfigured into European knight (and, by implication, subduer of non- European peoples through history). It is notable that Arthur’s clothing retained distinctly Japanese elements such as tabi socks and straw sandals, and his sword is recognizably a katana, bound with ito braiding with a tsuba guard on the hilt.
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This equation of Japan with the West echoes theoretical positionings of Japan as part of the Global North, but the fact that this image was made for export to Japan’s previous colonies for the express purpose of erasing Japan’s colonial presence in the region and making money from the result points to a more complicated relationship.