The Time a Bus Company tried to get Jet Set Radio Banned in the United Kingdom

While modern Sega tends to stick to the straight and narrow (i.e. reboot Sonic every other year, say they'll give us a new Crazy Taxi but only if it's some live service guff), they've certainly had some contentious moments throughout their history. At this point we've all heard about the United States Senate hearings concerning Night Trap. Throw a stone at YouTube and it's bound to land on a video covering the topic for the umpteenth time, not to mention countless deep dives into the Japanese multinational's various crappy business decisions. If you want to talk real controversial Sega history, how about the time they threatened a poor, innocent Dreamcast fansite with legal action? We're not still bitter or anything...

During the Dreamcast era, Sega found themselves in the sights of the city of Milwaukee's Common Council, who petitioned them to cancel the release of Smilebit's Jet Set Radio (or Jet Grind Radio, as it was known there in the US). The council claimed that the game would glamorise the act of graffiti tagging, with the fear being that it would encourage the young bucks of Milwaukee (geddit?) to transfer their petty vandalism from the virtual walls of Tokyo-To to the streets of Milwaukee itself. Ultimately, the game wasn't cancelled, but Tom's article on the whole saga is definitely worth a read.

The youths are going to graffiti your gran!

For a long time, we here at the Junkyard thought that was the extent of the concern surrounding Jet Set Radio's apparent mission to turn the youth of 2000 into mindless paint-spraying zombies. This was until Antosk8er in our Discord shared something very interesting that we'd never seen before. Turns out there were some powers that be attempting to get Jet Set Radio withdrawn from sale here in the United Kingdom too...

What Antosk8er found was a PDF of a report dated May 2002 from the London Assembly Graffiti Investigative Committee titled "Graffiti in London". The committee in question, which was comprised of three politicians - each from one of the three main political parties (Conservative, Labour, Liberal Democrats) - was established in 2001 with the goal to “investigate graffiti across London, examining examples of best practice in its prevention and removal".

To be fair, those tags are pretty shit.

While I can definitely appreciate the artistry behind graffiti (no, this does not confirm that I am in fact Banksy), I can sympathise with the reasoning behind the establishment of this committee. In the foreword of the report, a 2001 survey is cited, which said that 77% of Londoners listed graffiti as “a quality of life concern". The report also mentions that "local authorities, transport organisations, businesses and private individuals [were] spending millions of pounds each year trying to prevent and remove it." But who needs money when you've got graffiti soul?

The report also painted a dreary picture of the effect graffiti was having on Londoners. "Graffiti has a negative effect on the lives of the thousands of Londoners who travel in vandalised, unpleasant buses and trains, and live in areas blighted by graffiti." And this, my sweet soul brothers, is where Jet Set Radio came into the picture.

You see, those unpleasant buses and trains (that just so happened to be vandalised), belonged to passenger transport operator Arriva, who, to this very day, still provide much of the UK’s bus and train services, albeit to pretty dire results. Unlike that bus you've been waiting an hour for, Arriva weren't able to make the graffiti artists of early-2000s London simply vanish into thin air, so they fell back on one of their best talents: cancelling things. Temporarily shifting their focus from halting weekday morning train commutes, they instead decided to try their hand at cancelling a video game, Jet Set Radio. 

Photo of an Arriva London bus, circa 2000. Photo credit: Lloyd Rich

Page 42 of the Graffiti Investigative Committee's report discusses fears surrounding media and its promotion of graffiti. The committee found that "graffiti [was being] used to sell products such as videos, CDs, and computer games". They provide some examples, including the music video for Destiny’s Child song "Bootylicious", Rimmel lipstick, and the soft drink Sprite, which was due to have a can released designed by a graffiti writer.

Further down the page, we finally see Arriva's umbrage with Jet Set Radio detailed:

"Arriva pursues action against companies who promote graffiti through their products. For example, ITC upheld a complaint and withdrew an advert for a CD that featured a youth perpetrating graffiti. Arriva have also tried to convince Sega Dreamcast to withdraw their Jet Set Radio game from sale in the UK. (This game involves youths tagging buildings before being caught by police). Arriva were not successful in this, but succeeded in bringing the matter to the attention of Edward Davey MP who subsequently met with Sega representatives."

So it seems Arriva actually approached Sega (or "Sega Dreamcast", as the report refers to them) to "convince" them to withdraw Jet Set Radio from sale in the UK, although it is noted that they were unsuccessful in doing so. While I was unable to find any kind of quote from a Sega Europe spokesperson, I can only imagine their view on the issue at hand wasn't too far off that of the corporation's representatives on the other side of the Atlantic ocean. As detailed in Tom's article about the Milwaukee situation, Sega America spokeswoman Gwendolyn Marker gave this rather cavalier response to the idea that Jet Set Radio should be withdrawn from sale: "Basically, we have no plans to stop publishing Jet Set Radio. [..] It's a fantasy. It celebrates graffiti as art." It wasn't like Sega were strangers to withdrawing a game from sale though, as demonstrated when they stopped the release of Propeller Arena following the September 11th attacks.

Undeterred, Arriva then approached Ed Davey, the MP for the Greater London constituency of Kingston and Surbiton, who subsequently went as far as actually meeting with Sega representatives. As I'm sure you're more than aware, these conversations ultimately did not result in the game being withdrawn from sale in the UK, but it would definitely be interesting to know what the content of these discussions were. To be fair, we don't actually know if Ed Davey wanted the game to be banned outright, or if he was merely there to serve as a more authoritative messenger of Arriva's grievances. Perhaps he left that meeting with a keen desire to understand the concept of love, who knows?

Here is Ed Davey falling off a paddleboard. If only he’d taken up rollerblading…

What's probably the most amusing detail about this whole tale to me, however, is that Ed Davey is still a somewhat relevant politician in the UK, as he currently heads up the Liberal Democrat party. To see him of all people mentioned in this report was certainly a surprise. 

I actually sent Ed an email asking if he could recall the time he met with Sega to chat all things Jet Set Radio. Hopefully the constituents of Kingston and Surbiton are willing to put aside any pressing community matters for a moment while Ed racks his brain to recall what I imagine is a pretty inconsequential part of his political career. That bloody pothole can wait, Jackie! 

If Ed ever replies (he seems pretty preoccupied at the moment) I will provide an update. Until then, I implore all my fellow Brits to go play Jet Set Radio, safe in the knowledge that it was never taken from us. Oh, wait…