As you are perusing some manga, watching some anime or perhaps reading some behind the scenes information about the anime/manga industry, you’ll probably come across a term called “Omake”. While it may seem initially confusing, it isn’t as complicated as it first appears.
Written as お負け in Japanese although it’s also often written simply as おまけ, the term itself simply means “extra”. This can refer to things as simple as DVD extras such as behind the scenes, commentaries, deleted scenes etc. Of course, this doesn’t seem much different to the Western meaning of extras but further examination reveals some very interesting examples of omake that differ quite a bit to our usual interpretation.
A shot from Gundam Seed Character Theater, an omake produced for Gundam Seed.
Steam recently held a gaming sale called “Going Rogue: A Festival Of Persistence” with the idea being to highlight roguelike video games alongside several other subgenres such as souls-likes and metroidvanias. Amusingly, Steam themselves acknowledged how complicated the question of what a roguelike video game is by releasing a blog post called “Going Rogue: A crash course in a confusing (sub) genre“. Therefore, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at this topic, share some examples that I’ve played and clarify some details.
Starting with a little bit of a history lesson, the term “Roguelike” comes from a video game called “Rogue”. Originally released in 1980, Rogue laid down the foundations of what a roguelike was such as permadeath and procedurally generated dungeons. Roguelikes were historically turn-based RPGs but the genre has developed to the point now where the gameplay covers a wide variety of playstyles such as shooters, platformers, strategy etc.
I’ve spoken at great length about my love for horror films on this blog but, considering my adoration for Japanese media, I partially surprised myself recently when I realised that I hadn’t spoken about Japanese Horror, also known as J-Horror, films. There are several reasons for this but I thought now is a good time to discuss what they are, a bit of their history and, ultimately, what I think about them.
As with the production of media in any country, J-Horror draws a lot of its influences from within their own culture and history. Yokai, given their prevalence in Japanese mythology as well as their variety, play quite an important role while the use of nuclear weaponry during World War II has also played a factor in the development of body horror and kaiju films. While J-Horror has a long history within Japanese cinema, the Western world only began to take note of this genre around the 1990s with the release of such films as Tetsuo: The Iron Man, Ring and Audition.
The most common argument that I see as to why all video games should include multiple difficulty levels is that it would allow the game to be played by more people. I understand this argument and, as someone who used to pick the easiest difficulty settings as a child, I can see why people would believe that. However, I also think that this ignores several good reasons why a game may not have a difficulty setting in the first place.
Whenever I take a look at the history of manga, I always manage to find something interesting or fascinating that I’ve yet to discuss. In this case, I’ve known about akahon manga for a while now, mainly due to my adoration for Osamu Tezuka, but I thought it would be interesting to take a look at akahon manga, their place in manga history and why manga fans should be aware of them.
Starting off with the word “Akahon” itself, it is written in Japanese as 赤本 with the first character, 赤, meaning red and the second character, 本, meaning book. The term originally referred to children’s books which were released in the Edo-period of Japan but would later refer to the manga that was produced in early post-war Japan. These manga were printed on cheap paper that had a reddish brown colour, were sold at low prices and typically targeted children.
The Ten Cent Manga release of The Mysterious Underground Men replicates the visual style of akahon releases.
As I’m sure you’re well aware of, there is a perception that animation is targeted exclusively at children and while this perception, brought on by the Dark Age of Animation, is slowly being eroded, this delusion still remains prevalent. Of course, not all animation is aimed at children and it shouldn’t be a case that an age rating decides whether the work is suitable for adults or not but it’s also indisputable that an 18s rated work isn’t targeted at children. Therefore, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at some 18s rated anime and how to avoid the mistake of showing these to kids.
First off, I should clarify what I mean by 18s rated since it may not be clear from an international perspective. Living in Ireland, I import almost all of my DVDs and Blu-rays from the UK. Within the UK, it’s mandatory that all home video, whether they be VHS, DVD, Blu-ray etc., be given an age rating from the BBFC before it can be legally sold. I’ve expressed my frustration about this situation in the past but I also thought it would be interesting to look at anime that is, at least in the West, definitively not aimed at children.
I want to start off by saying that I love JRPGs. My favourite game of all time is a JRPG and I am continually drawn to these games as I quite often enjoy their storytelling, graphical style, gameplay etc. However, there is something that I’ve come to dread now when I play JRPGs and that is having to deal with their side-quests. It feels like JRPGs are not only behind Western RPGs when it comes to side-quests but that they’re getting progressively worse as well! Given that, I wanted to discuss this problem and take a look at some JRPGs that are rife with bad side-quests.
Before I start discussing the problem of bad side-quests in JRPGs, I want to take a moment to discuss what side-quests are, what makes a side-quest good or bad and some examples of JRPGs and Western RPGs that have great side-quests. At its most basic, a side-quest is an optional quest that the player can do to earn some kind of benefit such as new gear, lore and experience. Ideally, the task presented to the player should be enjoyable, contribute to the world and characters and have a reward that makes the side-quest worth doing. It’s easy to point to Western RPGs such as The Witcher games and The Elder Scrolls as great examples of how to do side-quests right but I also want to point out some JRPG examples. One JRPG side-quest that I remember very fondly is the Wutai quest from Final Fantasy VII. The side-quest introduces a problem that shakes up how you’ve been playing until then, presents quite a bit of backstory to one of the characters and their motivation, completes the arc of a villain from earlier in the game and presents numerous new equipment, materia and experience to make it worth doing. Chrono Trigger is another great example of a JRPG with great side-quests which develop your party members’ backgrounds while presenting great rewards for doing them.
As many of you might be aware by now, I am a massive fan of horror films. I’ve recently written some articles about some of my first experiences with anime and manga and I thought it would be interesting to provide the same type of anecdote about horror. Therefore, I’ve decided to share my story about how I discovered the wonderful world of horror films.
Around the time that I was in secondary school, I had begun to develop an increased interest in films with the intention to not only experience and enjoy but to also help develop more conversation topics for when I talked to people. I bought a book, now quite outdated, called “1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die”. As I perused the book, looking at all of the films that I had never heard of, I came across a particular image that instantly grabbed my attention.
A picture of Leatherface from the 1974 film “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre”.
Before I start sharing these thoughts though, I wish to briefly run over what a video game remake is as opposed to a video game remaster since these terms are sometimes used interchangeably. To quickly summarise, a video game remaster uses the original assets while making changes to UI, improving graphics and audio, increasing the frame rate etc. while a video game remake rebuilds the game from the ground up.
I’ve spoken before about the history of manga but it was more of a synopsis than anything else and it left the door open for me to expand on various aspects of manga history. I was recently perusing manga topics and I came across the term “Ponchi-e”. Understandably, I first thought it had something to do with ukiyo-e but I very quickly realised that it was entirely separate and a topic worth discussing. Therefore, I thought it would be interesting to take a look at the important impact of ponchi-e on the medium of manga.
In order to explain the etymology of ponchi-e, I first need to discuss its origins. Soon after the end of the isolationist period of Japan, a British man named Charles Wirgman traveled to Japan. Having worked as a sketch artist for the Illustrated London News, the world’s first illustrated newspaper, he soon set up a magazine called Japan Punch. The name appears to have been based off of the British magazine “Punch” but this also explains the term “Ponchi-e” which is a katakana version of the word punch while attaching it to the kanji 絵 which means picture.
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