Figurine Yakari

Figurine yakari are unique and handpainted. This makes every single piece a one of a kind. Variations and even small imperfections do not count as flaws, these are a part of the character of a figurine yakari.

While the barebones nature of the game does allow for an easy approach, it also leaves very little space for a meaningful storyline or interesting gameplay. Levels are interconnected by a few lines of text that do not advance the plot or highlight any fan-favourite characters; in fact, it is possible to finish the entire game without ever encountering the aforementioned friends unless one feels compelled to collect all the pemmican bags scattered around the levels (a mixture of buffalo meat and preserved fat) in order to unlock Yakari’s totem animal Great Eagle and progress to the next level.

In its depiction of the Native American world, Yakari is rooted in the same logic of domination that is responsible for the colonization of the lands on which it is set. While the storyline presents the Native Americans as noble savages, the game’s representation of them inhering in the same logic of appropriation and exploitation as their white colonizers allows for the game to be read as a piece of self-serving propaganda.

Unlike other anthropocentric games, such as Mario and Donkey Kong, that sprang up in the wake of Yakari’s popularity, the Yakari series takes an emphatic stance against human exceptionalism and positions itself firmly in favor of the animal rights movement. For this reason, the games are not only embraced by children but have also garnered the endorsement of parents that were raised during the rise of Green sentiment in Germany from the 1970s onward.

The game’s storyline centers around the Sioux hero Yakari, who is able to understand and speak to animals. When his friend Rainbow and her father Buffalo Seed are cornered by a dangerous cougar, the cunning Coyote father enlists Yakari’s help to distract the predator long enough for the humans to escape.

Yakari’s innate ability to talk to and understand the animals is used to emphasize the value of the natural world as a source of food, shelter and medicine for the indigenous people of the North American plains. This value is further highlighted through the presence of Great Eagle, whose aura of magnificence and power is used to imply that the eagle is the supreme spirit of all things living on Earth.

While this stance is commendable in its own right, the way in which the story is told and the role of Great Eagle as supreme spirit further reinforces a sense of anthropocentrism. The game’s narrative is reminiscent of Mark Twain’s short story “Was the World Made for Man?”, in which the narrator satirizes British anthropologist Alfred Russel Wallace’s 1903 anthropocentric theory that the universe was created specifically for humanity and that all living creatures are subordinate to man (Pratt 2010: 81).