@Panda-s1 - I'm not positive, but you seem to be in some doubt about whether I think there are some harmful stereotypes in OA. Of course there are. Is it dated? Of course it is, the book is 35 years old. You'll get no argument from me on either count.
My judgement of the bibliography was solely based on it's date and provenance. OA came out in 85, which means it was probably being worked on, conservatively, from at least 82 or 83, although Gary Gygax alludes to a longer process in his intro. Using a resource from 1951 isn't really that odd in that context. Survey books of that sort have a longer academic shelf life than more specific works, generally speaking. I agree that a source from 1951 from our perspective in 2020 would obviously seem ripe to contain some objectionable material, but it's a perfectly reasonable source to be using to write an RPG book in 1985.
As to the authorship of the survey works, I suspect that this is a product of what was available in 1985, not any kind of selection bias towards western authors on the part of the OA design team. The skew toward Japanese material is also perfectly understandable based on the actual material in OA. which is, as you say, primarily Japanese. Hypothetically, If I were considering a reboot, I would definitely aim for just Japan of course, rather than the clumsy pastiche of OA, but that's a 2020 design decision, isn't? You start to see the two very different lenses at work here.
It's possible for OA to both contain harmful stereotypes and also be a pretty respectful and well-researched product for it's time. I don't think you need to go deep looking for objectionable material either - it's all pretty out in the open by 2020 standards. Those are two very different interpretive lenses. Judging OA as a historical artifact is one thing, while judging it as a current gaming resource by 2020 standards of acceptability is something else entirely. It's obviously the latter lens that's the current issue, but I've noticed that a lot of verbiage from non-asian commentators seems to focus on the former by way of apology. Conflating those interpretive lenses is, IMO, pretty dishonest.
My judgement of the bibliography was solely based on it's date and provenance. OA came out in 85, which means it was probably being worked on, conservatively, from at least 82 or 83, although Gary Gygax alludes to a longer process in his intro. Using a resource from 1951 isn't really that odd in that context. Survey books of that sort have a longer academic shelf life than more specific works, generally speaking. I agree that a source from 1951 from our perspective in 2020 would obviously seem ripe to contain some objectionable material, but it's a perfectly reasonable source to be using to write an RPG book in 1985.
As to the authorship of the survey works, I suspect that this is a product of what was available in 1985, not any kind of selection bias towards western authors on the part of the OA design team. The skew toward Japanese material is also perfectly understandable based on the actual material in OA. which is, as you say, primarily Japanese. Hypothetically, If I were considering a reboot, I would definitely aim for just Japan of course, rather than the clumsy pastiche of OA, but that's a 2020 design decision, isn't? You start to see the two very different lenses at work here.
It's possible for OA to both contain harmful stereotypes and also be a pretty respectful and well-researched product for it's time. I don't think you need to go deep looking for objectionable material either - it's all pretty out in the open by 2020 standards. Those are two very different interpretive lenses. Judging OA as a historical artifact is one thing, while judging it as a current gaming resource by 2020 standards of acceptability is something else entirely. It's obviously the latter lens that's the current issue, but I've noticed that a lot of verbiage from non-asian commentators seems to focus on the former by way of apology. Conflating those interpretive lenses is, IMO, pretty dishonest.