Speaking of people who hate Chu. He recently posted about his wedding. And his wife is blonde so apparently not only does he self insert as Genji but Mercy is "clearly" based on his wife.
So, a few points to clarify on this idiotic and frankly racist take that I see all too often:
Michael Chu is the current lead writer for Overwatch but he is not the sole writer. He writes most of the ingame dialogue, works with the production of the animated shorts, and has directly written five (5) Overwatch comics. The five comics he has personally written were, incidentally, among the best comics they’ve released: “Old Soldiers,” the original Junkenstein, both Tracer comics (including the gay one), and “Masquerade.” He writes for the characters but the characters were created by a team, and believe it or not, we actually know who contributed which elements and for what reasons in a lot of cases. He is not responsible for things like the visual design of the characters, those come from a whole other team.
In the ingame dialogue Chu has written (as in the dialogue that’s actually happened ingame and not just lines that were recorded but never implemented, since the voice actors are not told which of the lines they’re recording will actually be used ingame) Mercy and Genji have interacted exactly once. It’s a strictly professional interaction, she comments that he seems like he’s doing well and he confirms that he is. In the comics and shorts there are no direct interactions between Genji and Mercy. They’re shown as patient and doctor, and at one point they seem like maybe they occasionally exchange letters, but there is no hints of romance between them, implicit or explicit. This idea that Michael Chu is pushing Gency in the game or lore is just a flat-out lie. It’s made up. There are no Gency hints anywhere in the game, comics, shorts, or any other part of the franchise.
Michael Chu did not design Mercy. Arnold Tsang designed Mercy. This isn’t conjecture. This is documented. They released an artbook that walked us through Mercy’s design stage-by-stage. Mercy’s character design was done by artist Arnold Tsang. I know the people pushing this narrative clearly have trouble telling the difference between Asian men if they think Genji is a self-insert for Michael Chu, but just for clarity, Arnold Tsang is a different guy than Michael Chu.
When Arnold Tsang designed Mercy, Chris Metzen was still working as the game’s Creative Director. He didn’t retire until months after launch and was the main creative force in the creation of the earliest heroes (Mercy was the first support character created). Many of the early heroes are, in fact, directly lifted from his concept art for other games (McCree started out as concept art for a minor “Starcraft” villain, etc). Mercy’s design was public as early as 2014. Tell me, why on earth would Arnold Tsang and Chris Metzen base a character on Michael Chu’s future wife from four years later?
Michael Chu is Chinese-American. Genji is Japanese. China and Japan are two different places. Genji and Chu don’t look alike. They don’t act alike. Why do people think an Asian writer can’t write material for an Asian character without it just being a fantasy version of himself?
Other than “He’s Asian and she’s white, GET ‘EM, BOYS!!” what similarities are there between Chu’s marriage, a real relationship between real people involving real love and a real wedding, and Gency, a pairing between fictional characters created by Chris Metzen and designed by Arnold Tsang who barely speak to one another, which exists only in the minds of fans and is not supported by canon?
Michael and his wife are real people and trying to dissect their marriage through your weird-ass fandom lens as a “Gotcha” to prove he’s bad at his job is creepy, pathetic, and sad.
Michael Chu has told us which characters are most similar to him. They’re Mei, Winston, and Sombra. He’s a pretty self-aware guy. Meanwhile, the only reason to claim Genji is his self-insert is that they’re both Asian, so if you believe that, you are a racist and you should work on that.
Let him live his life. Believe it or not his marriage doesn’t revolve around your weird fandom grudges.
Anyway big congratulations to Michael and his new bride! I wish them a future of happiness and prosperity! The wedding pic he posted was really cute and I hope he knows that some of us actually appreciate the good work he does, rather than just assuming that he deserves the blame for any perceived fault in the franchise and his white coworkers deserve the praise for anything the franchise does right, even when he’s the one who actually did it!
