Category: 2023

A Look At The Massive Entertainment Company Sanrio

Published May 25, 2023

When you think of the titans of the Japanese entertainment industry you might think of Toho, a company responsible for many kaiju films, or perhaps of an anime studio such as Studio Ghibli or TMS Entertainment. However, I thought that I’d take a look at a massive entertainment company which is quite often overlooked when it comes to the Japanese entertainment industry, Sanrio.

Interestingly, when Sanrio was founded in 1960, the company began life as Yamanashi Silk Center which, unsurprisingly, focused on the sale of silk products. After expanding to producing rubber sandals, they noted an increase in sales when cute designs such as flowers and strawberries were added and began to focus more and more on creating cute characters and designs after changing their name to Sanrio in 1973. Their most notable IP was created the next year, 1974, that being Hello Kitty which has since become a franchise worth billions of dollars!

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The Monster-Taming Video Game Genre Needs More Competition

Published May 22, 2023

Every genre needs a catalyst to be considered separate. There may be some that fit the genre released beforehand but the genre itself will become defined by the catalyst that popularised it. This very much applies to the monster-taming video game genre but I think there’s a problem for the genre currently. More than 27 years after its debut, Pokémon has near complete domination of this subgenre. This is a terrible situation to be in and so I thought I’d explain why I believe the monster-taming video game genre needs more competition.

Let’s start with a brief history of the monster-taming genre. Contrary to what some might think, Pokémon was not the establisher of the genre instead merely serving to popularise monster-taming. Prior to Pokémon, a franchise called “Megami Tensei” established monster-taming as the player would have to negotiate with demons and mythological characters to have them join the team where they could be improved by fusing them. The fifth Dragon Quest game “Hand of the Heavenly Bride” also features the ability to have monsters join your team but also included the ability to level them up by earning experience in battle. However, it was Pokémon, released in 1996, that ended up becoming a gigantic success to the point where Pokémon has become the highest-grossing media franchise in history!

The cover for the first Megami Tensei game, “Digital Devil Story: Megami Tensei”.

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What I Think Of Review Bombing And Video Games

Published May 18, 2023

I was on Twitter recently when I saw news that the new DLC for Horizon Forbidden West, Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores, was getting review bombed on Metacritic, to the point that Metacritic is going to now be more strict when moderating user reviews in the future. The reason for the review bombing of Burning Shores seems silly to me as I have mentioned that I often play female characters in video games and I tend to choose a female partner if I engage with the romance in the game. However, I do think it’s worth sharing my thoughts on review bombing and the impact it can have, both positive and negative, on video games.

Understandably, review bombing is a relatively recent phenomenon that has come into being with the rise in the internet and the ability for people to leave their own reviews for products. Review bombing can apply to any product or service that allows people to review it and its purpose is to artificially adjust the rating. There are some examples of review bombing being used to improve the score of a product or service but the overwhelming majority of review bombings attempt to drive down the score. It’s also important to note that these review bombs are typically unrelated to the quality of the product or service itself but are due to other factors such as politics, societal issues, the actions of the developers etc.

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My Favourite Manga From Each Major Publisher

Published May 15, 2023

I recently wrote an article called “Some Of The Most Notable English Language Manga Publishers” and, while already mentioning it for one publisher, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at my favourite manga that I’ve read from each of the English language manga publishers that I mentioned.

Starting off with Viz Media, my personal favourite is the legendary “Death Note”. Part of this may come down to nostalgia as it was one of the first manga that I ever read but I also think it remains a fantastic series. For those unfamiliar with the premise, although I bet they are far and few between, Death Note follows a character called Light Yagami who discovers a notebook, the Death Note, which allows him to kill anyone by writing their name into it. What results is a brilliant game of cat and mouse that constantly keeps you guessing what’s about to happen. Granted, the ending isn’t as good as I would’ve liked but it remains a landmark title in the medium of manga.

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TMS Entertainment: One Of The Most Important Anime Studios

Published May 11, 2023

I’ve been looking at the history of a variety of anime studios such as Toei Animation, Sunrise, Studio 4°C etc. but I’ve only briefly mentioned one of the most important, TMS Entertainment. Considering their body of work, their history and impact, I thought it worthwhile to take a look at TMS Entertainment, what anime/animation they’ve contributed to and to explain why they’re noteworthy even among anime studios.

Starting with a look at the history of the company, TMS Entertainment (Tokyo Movie Shinsha) first began producing animated works in 1964 under the name Tokyo Movie. Their first anime series was an adaptation of an Osamu Tezuka manga called Big X and they soon followed this up with some shows such as Obake no Q-Tarō, Star of the Giants and the 1969 Moomin series. However, a particularly notable series of theirs began airing in 1971 and was simply called Lupin III. While originally a failure that ended up getting cancelled, reruns of the series proved popular and, in 1977, the incredibly popular Lupin III Part 2 began airing, proving to be a big success that has developed into a long-running franchise of TV series, films, OVAs, TV specials etc. that continue to this day.

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What Are Espers And Their Prevalence In Japanese Media

Published May 8, 2023

When exploring Japanese media such as anime, manga and video games, you’re quite likely to come across a term that is infrequently used in the West, “Esper”. It’s a word that is actually quite easy to understand but, due to our lack of familiarity with the term, many can still be quite confused. Therefore, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at what espers are and their prevalence in Japanese media.

Let’s start with what an esper is. An esper refers to someone who has ESP (Extrasensory Perception), hence the first three letters in the word esper. ESP refers to any ability to obtain information outside of the five senses with examples including telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition etc. Note that the term only refers to the ability to receive information, not the ability to affect the world around such as telekinesis, levitation, astral projection etc. However, as we are going to see, espers in Japanese media are not restricted by this and are often depicted as being capable of exerting force using their psychic abilities.

Tetsuo from Akira is one of the more notable espers in Japanese media.

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Why Nightdive Studios Is Important In The Video Game Industry

Published May 4, 2023

I was recently perusing video game news and came across an article that said that Atari is acquiring Nightdive Studios. Hearing this news has left a mixed feeling in me since, on one hand, becoming part of Atari might help to assuage my current criticisms of Nightdive Studios but, on the other hand, there is a very real risk that what makes Nightdive Studios so unique could become undone. Given this information, I thought I’d explain why I believe Nightdive Studios is important in the video game industry, what I think about their releases and some of the concerns I have.

Let’s start with the history of Nightdive Studios. The company was founded by Stephen Kick and Alix Kick in 2012 with the express goal of “Bringing lost and forgotten gaming treasures back from the depths“. As for why they set up the company, while on holiday in Central America, Stephen Kick discovered that his copy of System Shock 2 wouldn’t work with his laptop. After attempting to find a new online copy, he learned that there was no legal way to acquire System Shock 2. Upon research, he learned that the rights to System Shock had ended up at an insurance company called “Meadowbrook Insurance” and contacted them. Meadowbrook Insurance was keen to see the games rereleased and the success after release encouraged Stephen and Alix Kick to continue releasing games that are no longer available.

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What Are Toei Animation’s World Masterpiece Fairy Tales Films?

Published May 1, 2023

Toei Animation has a long and rich history that I recently devoted an article to but, because of their vast catalogue, I’m always learning about new things that they produced. My recent discovery is a film series that Toei Animation released between 1977 and 1982 called “World Masterpiece Fairy Tales” (not to be confused with World Masterpiece Theater which was released by Nippon Animation). I found them interesting enough that I thought we’d take a look at what Toei Animation’s World Masterpiece Fairy Tales films are.

Each film has “世界名作童話”, which is read as Sekai Meisaku Douwa and means World Masterpiece Fairy Tales, written before the title. The first film was released in 1977 and was called “The Wild Swans”. It adapts “The Six Swans” by the Brothers Grimm and “The Wild Swans” by Hans Christian Anderson and follows a girl called Elisa whose six brothers are turned into swans by their step-mother. In order to break the curse, she must refrain from talking or smiling for six years as she sews shirts of nettle cloth to save her brothers. The film was released in a variety of countries and was dubbed into English, Arabic, Greek etc. but the most interesting story comes from its Italian release. Heidi, Girl of the Alps had become a big hit in Italy and, due to a similarity in character design between Elisa and Heidi, The Wild Swans was renamed “Heidi Becomes A Princess” and reedited to have a vague connection to the TV series.

The poster for the 1977 anime film “The Wild Swans”.

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The Interesting Trope Of Banchō and Sukeban

Published April 27, 2023

As I was watching Ultraman Taro, a tokusatsu series, the other day, there were a couple of episodes where some children were being bullied by their seniors and something that stood out to me was their clothing. Large heavy jackets that were black in colour with a tinge of blue, a peaked cap and quite a few metal accessories. I explained to those present that this outfit indicated that they were juvenile delinquents and that I’d seen them in a variety of Japanese media. Realising that I’d never talked about it before, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at the interesting trope of Banchō and Sukeban.

Let’s begin by looking at what the words “Banchō” and “Sukeban” mean. Banchō, written as 番長 in Japanese, originally referred to a governmental position that involved controlling troops near towns and was repurposed to describe the gangs and leaders of juvenile delinquent males around the mid-20th century. As these gangs refused to admit female members, sukeban, written as スケバン in Japanese, were established which were female juvenile delinquent gangs.

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An Overview Of The Castlevania Franchise

Published April 24, 2023

Castlevania was a franchise that I’d heard about quite a bit for many years but that I didn’t actually get around to playing until the end of 2021 with the Castlevania Anniversary Collection. While I haven’t played anywhere near as much of the Castlevania games as I would’ve liked, I’ve found myself becoming more and more fascinated and hungry to play more Castlevania games. Therefore, I thought it might be interesting to do an overview of the Castlevania franchise by going through the games, their history and the impact that they’ve had.

As you might expect, there’s no better place to start than the game that started it all, Castlevania. Initially released for the Family Computer Disk System as Akumajō Dracula, literally translated as Demon Castle Dracula, in 1986, the game ended up getting an international release for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) which saw the game receive strong financial and critical success. Castlevania follows Simon Belmont as he traverses Dracula’s castle with the intent to slay him. The game itself is a platformer where the player traverses stages filled with enemies before facing a boss which, upon defeating, allows them to progress to the next stages. Simon Belmont’s primary weapon is a whip which can receive upgrades to its range and damage and he can also collect and use sub-weapons such as throwing daggers, crosses, axes, holy water and a watch that can stop time for most enemies.

The cover of the NES release of Castlevania.

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