July Archives - Immortallium's Blog

Curation and Discoverability on Steam

Published July 30, 2020

There is a lot that I love about Steam. I have been using Steam for many years now and have had the opportunity to play a large variety of games on the service. However, Steam has been pretty lethargic for a while when it comes to fixing problems and while the Epic Games Store seems to have given Valve a wake-up call, there are still a myriad of issues to be fixed on the service. Amongst the many problems that Steam faces, I think the issue of curation is the most important for Valve to fix.

It wasn’t too long ago when getting your game released on Steam was a challenge rather than a given. In the past, Valve handpicked what games were released on Steam. A famous example of this was Recettear: An Item Shop’s Tale who had to release a demo to get noticed by Valve and allow them to release their game on Steam.

Recettear had to fight to get onto Steam.

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The Evolution of Manga Magazines

Published July 27, 2020

I always find it interesting how unfamiliar many Western manga fans are with the way manga is distributed in Japan. I have no doubt that if you were to ask your typical manga fan about manga magazines, you will find them confused, perhaps only able to name one or two with no idea of the economics behind them. That is understandable, why should a Western manga fan have to be familiar with manga magazines and distribution when it seemingly has nothing to do with them? However, I think that fans of any medium should learn about the way their media is distributed.

Manga magazines are different to other media that feature manga such as newspapers, specialty magazines etc in that their primary focus is on manga. These magazines often use low quality newsprint and can be anywhere from about 200 pages to over a 1000! These magazines will often have a common theme such as demographics including Shonen, Shojo, Seinen etc or topics such as golf, cooking, 4-koma and will feature stories from a variety of mangaka who are allotted a number of pages in the magazine for their chapter.

The cover of a Weekly Shonen Jump magazine. — My own copy of an issue of Weekly Shonen Jump.

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When Anime Is Made For The West

Published July 23, 2020

A question I have continually asked myself is “What is anime?” You might think me foolish for asking this question, “The answer is obvious!” I hear you say. We all know that animation created in Japan by a Japanese crew is anime, however, where does that term end? Is a piece of animation made for outside of Japan by a Japanese crew also an anime? When I’ve spoken to people about this, they tend to fall in two camps. If anime is about storytelling then these productions are not anime, if anime is about art and animation then they are anime. Nonetheless, I think a discussion of anime made for and funded by the West is worth having.

When anime’s popularity began to skyrocket worldwide from the 90s to mid 2000s, we began to see the rise of anime-influenced animation. However, in addition to this, we also saw some Western companies fund animated productions of their properties with anime studios. While rarer today, it is still not completely unheard of for this to still happen.

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The Prevalence of CG Animated Films

Published July 20, 2020

It has been 6 years since the release of the last film from Studio Ghibli “When Marnie Was There”. You’d think the announcement of a new film from the legendary studio would be cause for celebration. However, when I heard the announcement of “Earwig and the Witch“, my excitement was tempered once I saw the screenshots. Earwig and the Witch is going to be Studio Ghibli’s first CG film and I couldn’t help but feel disappointed. I’ve spoken before of the anime industry’s effort to create CG animation but I think another important question is “Why are CG animated films so prevalent now?”

It wasn’t too long ago when it seemed that American animation was close to dying. Disney’s animation division had been struggling throughout the late 70s and early 80s with the loss of Don Bluth who left Disney to set up his own animation studio. Even Ralph Bakshi was suffering as his 1983 film “Fire and Ice” was a box office flop which pretty much ended his career.

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The Concept of Choice in Video Games

Published July 16, 2020

I’ve recently been playing a few games that were developed by Telltale Games and I always take note of the opening text “This game series adapts to the choices you make. The story is tailored by how you play”. This idea of choice is very appealing but, while I still enjoy their games, I am disappointed by how little difference the choices make in the grand scheme of things and thought it might be interesting to discuss the idea of choice in a video game.

Since video games are an interactive medium, having been influenced by traditional role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons as well as Choose Your Own Adventure books, it makes sense that games would allow players to make choices that influence and change the game they play. However, many video games only offer the illusion of choice to the players, changing some minor aspects here and there but failing to change the story in any meaningful way.

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The Importance of Manga Paneling

Published July 13, 2020

When thinking about what makes manga distinct from other mediums, I’m sure many of you think about Japanese culture, the fact that it’s read right to left, how it’s black and white etc. For me though, one of the most distinctive aspects of manga is something that I rarely see discussed. Manga paneling is an underappreciated facet that makes manga stand out so much and I think it’s important that more people know about it.

Let’s start off with a very basic question, what is a panel? Panels are used in all forms of graphic novels, whether that be manga, manhwa, western graphic novels etc and act as a frozen moment in time. By stringing these panels together and reading them in order, you can create an ongoing story. That is paneling at its most basic, but, just as cinematography is about more than pointing a camera at something, paneling also has many layers to it.

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The Use of Anime in Advertising

Published July 9, 2020

I recently wrote an article discussing the popularity of anime in Japan and how it is not quite as popular as many people make it out to be. Through my research, however, I did come across a very interesting aspect of anime that I had not thought of before, the use of anime to advertise products, companies etc.

I should clarify what I mean when I say “Using anime to advertise”. While it is true that many anime are made as advertising for associated merchandise such as manga, light novels, figurines, music CDs etc, the advertising I’m talking about is using anime to advertise products, services etc that are not related to anime.

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Adapting Classic Literature With a Twist

Published July 6, 2020

I recently started watching a series called Gankutsuou, an anime series that adapts Alexandre Dumas’ The Count of Monte Cristo and features a bizarre but wonderful mix of classical and rock music as well as a very distinct art style. However, while I knew beforehand that it was an adaptation of The Count of Monte Cristo, I did not know until I started watching the show that it was set in the far future and incorporates sci-fi themes. This fascinated me and made me think of other adaptations of classic literature with a twist.

One of my first thoughts while thinking about the subject was the anime Romeo x Juliet, an adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Rather than tell the same story like so many other adaptations have, Romeo x Juliet is set on a floating island called “Neo Verona” and actually begins with a massacre of the Capulet family by the Montagues. This setting and bold reimagining of the beginning made me wonder how the story would progress and gave the series a refreshing feel.

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The History of PC Ports of Japanese Sega Games

Published July 2, 2020

There was a lot of excitement recently when rumours began to spread that Persona 4 Golden was coming to PC. When it was finally released on the 13th of June, it quickly broke the concurrent players record for a JRPG! However, the effort that eventually saw Persona 4 Golden released on PC actually began many years ago.

As I’ve spoken about before, there was a long time where Japanese game publishers and developers didn’t release their games for PC. This was for a variety of reasons but, around 2010 to 2012, we began to see more Japanese games release on PC. Excluding the Sonic series, the only Japanese game that Sega released for PC at the time was Binary Domain (the port of which proved divisive).

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Category: July