The man behind the Kirby and Super Smash Bros franchises has hit us with a profound truth bomb on a Japanese TV show.

On a special episode of GameCenter CX, a retro gaming variety show that was celebrating 40 years of Sega, Masahiro Sakurai and host Arino were playing the Japanese release of Bare Knuckle 2 on the Mega Drive, which had a particular discrepancy from its western counterpart. Sakurai demonstrated that players could see her panties through her miniskirt whenever they made her do a jump kick. However, in the western release of Streets of Rage 2 for the Genesis, the pantsu shot was removed from Blaze's jump kick sprite.

Left: Burning Knuckle 2/Right: Streets of Rage 2

Sakurai explained that it may not be the case that western (namely American) culture is more puritanical than Japan, but he said “I think that the Japanese have a higher tolerance for ecchi stuff." Ecchi, for the unaware is the Japanese pronunciation of the letter H. And what does H mean? Check your address bar real quick. 

Here's the segment in question, in Japanese:

Do you think Sakurai is onto something here, or do you think otherwise? Let us know below!