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Category: 2021

The Template of the Hero’s Journey

It has been argued that, despite the enormous amount of stories told throughout the world and media, there are only a limited amount of “frameworks that are recycled again and again in fiction“. Easily one of the most popular would be the template of the “Hero’s Journey”, also referred to as the monomyth.

The secondary name for the hero’s journey, “Monomyth” comes from James Joyce’s “Finnegans Wake” and refers to the fact that numerous myths and stories from cultures all around the world use this structure for their storytelling with classic examples such as King Arthur, The Epic of Gilgamesh, Yamato, Beowulf and many others falling into this category.

An illustration of the hero’s journey by Reg Harris
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What is Full Motion Video in Video Games?

Even amongst fans of video games, the term “Full Motion Video”, often referred to as FMV, remains a relatively unknown concept. Full Motion Video refers to cutscenes in video games that have been pre-recorded and are not rendered in real-time. This was typically done in order to overcome the hardware limitations at the time and provide visuals that the hardware could not produce.

Since the term “Full Motion Video” simply refers to any cutscene that has been pre-recorded, FMVs can be surprisingly diverse. 2D animation is sometimes used to supplement games with an animated aesthetic such as Dragon’s Lair or some Japanese games. FMVs can also refer to games that use CGI for their cutscenes with a famous example being Visual Works, a subsidiary of Square Enix that work to create CGI cutscenes for video game franchises such as Final Fantasy, Tomb Raider, Dragon Quest etc. Some games even have pre-rendered in-game cutscenes although these are quite often frowned upon.

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Some of the Most Interesting Manga Hiatuses

The manga industry can be quite an intense workplace with constant deadlines to produce an unusually high amount of content. Understandably, mangaka sometimes need to take a break from a particular series before they can begin producing more content whether that be to recover physically, mentally or for any other reasons. Therefore, I thought it might be worth taking a look at some of the more interesting manga hiatuses in the industry.

One criteria I will apply however will be that the manga must have made a return. All too often we see manga series such as Nana or Highschool of the Dead go on hiatus to seemingly never return. While there are many reasons why this might be the case, the death of Daisuke Satō who wrote Highschool of the Dead for instance, I want to pay particular attention to series that did eventually manage to leave hiatus.

The volume 1 cover for the Viz Media release of One-Pound Gospel by Rumiko Takahashi.
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The History of Anime At the Academy Awards

On the day that this article is posted, the nominations for the 93rd Academy Awards are due to be announced. Of particular note to anime fans will be the category of “Best Animated Feature” which sees six anime films, Demon Slayer: Mugen Train, Earwig and the Witch, Lupin III: The First, ON-GAKU: Our Sound, Ride Your Wave and A Whisker Away all on the shortlist for the award. Taking this into consideration, I thought it might be worth looking back on the history of anime at the Academy Awards.

Before I begin this discussion, in the interest of transparency, I should clarify my own personal thoughts on the awards. I, like many others, used to regard the awards quite highly but, as time has progressed, I’ve steadily become frustrated with the ineptitude surrounding Best Animated Feature at the Academy Awards and, for the most part, I tend to ignore the awards these days. However, there is no doubt in my mind that a win at these awards increases the mainstream appeal of the film in question and so I do hope each year to see either an anime or a more experimental animated film win the category which, for the most part, leaves me disappointed each year.

Understandably, of the six anime films on the shortlist, I’d like to see Lupin The Third: The First get a nomination.
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Sony Games I’d Love To See On PC

Over a year ago, I spoke about a rumour that Horizon Zero Dawn, a first-party game from Sony, was coming to PC. After I wrote that article, Sony themselves confirmed the rumour and released Horizon Zero Dawn for PC on the 7th of August, 2020 on both Steam and the Epic Games Store with a release on GOG.com on November 24th. Horizon Zero Dawn seemed to perform strongly on PC but it was still unknown if and how Sony would proceed. However, a recent interview with Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Jim Ryan not only confirmed that a “whole slate” of Sony games were making their way to PC but that Days Gone, a game released exclusively for the PS4 in 2019, is being released on PC in spring. With this news, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at some of the Sony games that I’d love to see released on PC in the future.

First off, there is a particular game that I and many other PC gamers desire Sony to port more than any other, even mentioning it in my article last year. As I’m sure you’re well aware of, I’m a big fan of the Dark Souls series and, having played through each entry multiple times, I’m eager to find other games that evoke the same feelings as when I play Dark Souls. Understandably, I have a strong desire to play Bloodborne, an action RPG directed by Hidetaka Miyazaki, the creator of the Dark Souls series, but have been restricted by the fact that Bloodborne is a PS4 exclusive. People have told me “just buy a PS4 to play it” but I cannot justify buying a €300 console to play a single game. Besides that, I’m also eager to play the newly released Demon’s Souls remake that was released on PS5 recently. The game was originally announced for both PS5 and PC but Sony very quickly stated that the inclusion of the phrase “Also available on PC” was a mistake. While frustrating, I do believe that Demon’s Souls will be released on PC someday and that Sony were merely trying to drum up hype for the release of the PS5.

A promo image for Bloodborne.
Bloodborne.
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Why You Should Check Out Weekly Shonen Sunday Manga

Amongst Western fans of manga, the name Weekly Shonen Jump is easily the most well-known manga magazine. However, there are many other manga magazines that I believe Western fans should be aware of. Interestingly, the manga magazine that I wish to discuss, Weekly Shonen Sunday, isn’t terribly different from Weekly Shonen Jump but I would still like to discuss it and say why I believe you should check out many of its titles.

To start with, Weekly Shonen Sunday was originally released on the 17th of March, 1959, which interestingly was the same day as Weekly Shonen Magazine. Amusingly, Weekly Shonen Sunday was released on Tuesdays, not on a Sunday, before switching to Wednesdays later in its life. It is estimated that Weekly Shonen Sunday is the fourth best-selling manga magazine of all time by total units sold although circulation has steadily been dwindling with figures stating that Weekly Shonen Sunday is now only the tenth best-selling manga magazine by circulation. Nonetheless, it’s hard to overstate the importance that Weekly Shonen Sunday has had on the manga and anime industries as a whole.

A cover of Weekly Shonen Sunday.
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Anime and Manga References in Western Media

I’ve recently been getting into a live-action TV series called “American Horror Story”, surprise, surprise, and while I was watching the first season, I noticed that a character called Violet was reading a manga, Nana to be specific. While gaining a newfound respect for the character for her good taste in manga, I also enjoyed the fact that it was subtle. I only recognised that it was Nana due to my familiarity with the series and, save for a brief shot which clearly shows off manga artwork, most people would probably mistake it for a prose novel. Soon after, I began to think about other anime and manga references in Western media.

Western animated series and films in particular contain many references to anime and manga. This makes sense to me as many modern animators are fans of the mediums of anime and manga. Easily one of the most famous examples of this is the appearance of a Totoro plushie in Toy Story 3. John Lasseter stated in an interview “we thought it was a very appropriate homage to let Studio Ghibli know how much they mean to us“.

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Why Are Clip Shows Even Made?

I’m sure that at one point or another we’ve all been watching one of our favourite TV shows, enjoying the content and eager to see the next episode when we come across an episode that is merely a compilation of clips from previous installments. Whenever my family comes across one of these shows, they pretty much give a collective groan and even make the unusual request sometimes to skip this particular entry. Taking this into account, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at what clip shows are in general and why they are made.

A clip show fundamentally refers to a TV episode of a series where various clips from previous episodes are strung together to fill up the time. Usually there is a frame story that tries to explain why we are seeing all these clips again with characters reminiscing being a typical example. These clip shows are often critically derided and their only purpose seems to be to create an episode with as low a budget as possible.

Friends infamously had 6 clip show episodes.
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The State of the Epic Games Store Going Into 2021

As many of you are probably well aware of at this point, my primary platform for playing video games is PC. In the modern age, Steam, run by the Valve Corporation, has dominated the market to the extent that many people have accused the store of having an effective monopoly over the gaming market on PC. While other stores exist, they have all paled compared to the Steam userbase and are not considered to be true competitors. Enter the Epic Games Store which has sought to break this seeming monopoly through free games and exclusives funded through the success of Fortnite. I’ve spoken before about how I considered the Epic Games Store’s existence to be a good thing but I have also expressed reservations over the feasibility of the store in the long term. Taking all of this into account, as well as some new information that has been provided, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at the state of the Epic Games Store as we enter 2021.

In the interest of full transparency, I should mention that I’m still not registered with the Epic Games Store. I still consider the Epic Games Store as a whole to be a substandard experience compared to Steam and even some other smaller distributors. However, I would hope the fact that I consider Epic Games Store’s existence to be good for the industry as well as how I’m willing to criticise Valve a sign that I’m going to be as impartial with this information as I can be.

Epic Games Store 2019 statistics.
Epic Games Store 2020 statistics.
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Interesting Cinematic Techniques Within Manga

Manga is a visual medium just like photography, television, film etc. I’ve compared the use of manga paneling to cinematography before but the comparisons between manga and cinematography go even further. Today, I’ve decided to take a look at the use of cinematic techniques within manga and why I find them so interesting.

Looking at some of the earliest manga such as The Four Immigrants or The Mysterious Underground Men, you’ll notice that cinematography seems quite restrictive with the imagery looking more like watching a play. However, early manga artists like Osamu Tezuka were heavily influenced by Disney films as well as live-action films in general. They sought to introduce a cinematic look and feel to their manga by borrowing several techniques.

New Treasure Island.
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