Stella Sora, a new gacha game from Yostar, the developer behind games like Arknights, Blue Archives, and Heaven Burns Red, only launched a month ago and is already apologizing for its first big controversy. No, it’s not about microtransactions or a bad character design, as often happens with gacha games. Instead, it’s because a character allegedly made an infamous penis-pinching gesture called “crab hand.”
While the pinch gesture has been used to signal a small size or portion of something forever, it’s also been used in the Korean feminist movement Megalia to insinuate someone has a small dick. Some men are apparently taking two fingers close together as a personal attack whenever they see it, including in video games.
[특정 모션 관련 안내]
안녕하세요 마왕님,
현재 이슈가 되고 있는 출시 예정 캐릭터의 특정 모션에 대한 마왕님 여러분의 의견을 확인하였습니다.
먼저, 여러 마왕님께서 해당 장면으로 인해 불편함을 느끼신 점에 대해서 진심으로 사과드립니다.
다만, 해당 모션의 경우 우려하시는 것과 달리,…
— 스텔라 소라 (@StellaSoraKR) November 16, 2025
Yostar’s apology was published on the game’s Korean X account, as the conspiracy that this signal is being put into art to emasculate men originates in South Korea. This all started because Fuyuka, an upcoming character in Stella Sora, has her pointer finger and thumb lined up in such a way during one of her animations that if someone wanted to pretend to see a gesture making fun of people’s dick size, they could do so. Once the internet took that and ran with it, Yostar updated the animation so that Fuyuka now has a closed fist in the relevant scene.
© Yostar / Kotaku
Stella Sora isn’t the only game that has had to apologize and alter its work to avoid accusations of sneaking in misandrist dog whistles. Stellar Blade developer Shift Up also recently issued an apology for art celebrating the anniversary of its RPG, Goddess of Victory: Nikke. That character did not look like it was pinching anything either, but because the fingers were parallel to each other and one was bent, kinda, the team edited it to remove any doubt. Crazy.
