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angstyhikka · 3 months ago

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Critical review on Carved and Modeled - Wittebane collaborative album - The Owl House by @a-magpie-in-gravesfield

On the day of the premiere, the four horsemen of the apocalypse (that’s me, @lasymit, @tuumcleander and @levshany) sat down with jokes and banter to watch the hour-long musical album. The project is impressively high-quality for fandom work, and the sheer amount of effort put into it commands respect. There were a few songs we especially liked, which deserve special mention.

A Dark Beginning, depicting the execution of Caleb and Philip’s parents, was dark and atmospheric—the music perfectly matched the tone of the narrative.

Witch Hunters, a song about hypocrisy, nailed the emotional weight, particularly the lines about how their parents “lost the game” they’re now forced to play.

I Can Be Your Friend! was also great—it perfectly captured the character’s energy and was dynamic as hell. The concept of Philip meeting the Collector in the in-between realm when he first crosses worlds is genuinely interesting. Too bad their relationship isn’t explored further.

Curse is absolutely magnificent—from the voice acting to the body horror atmosphere, it’s our favorite track.

Disclaimer

First off, we deeply respect Magpie for their dedication, enthusiasm, and the high-quality merch—clearly the result of painstaking work, with carefully chosen materials and lovingly crafted designs. We also appreciate their attentiveness to every customer and the monumental effort poured into this project!

What follows is serious criticism and our raw reactions. If you’re part of the project, loved the album, and are sensitive to critique, please stop reading here. Otherwise, we��re open to discussion—just keep it civil. We’ve done our best to make this critique constructive and not hurtful (we kept some cursing and CAPS for humor, because otherwise it would be a boring long read). Our goal isn’t to offend but to voice our perspective.

We disagree with Magpie’s interpretation and feel it’s important to say so, especially since this project is massive, gaining traction fast, and some fans are calling it "100% canon" and "better than canon". The fandom’s response has been overwhelmingly positive, likely because this is one of the biggest fan projects of its kind, made with contributions from so many people. Philip’s fans are proud that our fandom can produce something this ambitious.

But in our view, much of this fan-made story contradicts canon or works worse than the original series. Below, we’ll break it down.

Analysis

A Dark Beginning – Tragedy for tragedy’s sake. The music nails the vibe, but the uncle character could’ve been anyone—this song exists solely to hang Caleb and Philip’s parents. This plot point only matters until the second song and then vanishes.

Witch Hunters – The song itself works well as a follow-up to the previous track’s buildup. But despite expectations, the brothers’ conflict with society’s beliefs goes nowhere. Caleb briefly mentions being tired of pretending to be a witch hunter, then it’s dropped. This tension could’ve resurfaced when Philip decides to kill all the witches, but his motivation there is shaky too.

Daydreaming – Caleb dreams of a better life. But it’s unclear what’s weighing him down—everything around him looks rosy, romantic, and peaceful. The lyrics spell out his struggles, but visually, he’s just chilling and daydreaming. We don’t feel his pain.

Distance – Caleb tells Evelyn he wants to leave Philip behind… but also loves him. Why not just take the kid with them? Philip, a literal child with no malice or grudge against Evelyn, watches them sadly from afar. What’s the conflict here?

Struggling Light, Only For A Few Days – No real motivation or tension in Caleb’s decision to abandon Philip. Author tries to parallel Caleb and Luz, but it doesn’t work—Philip is a minor, and Caleb is almost an adult responsible for him. Again, why couldn’t they take Philip with them? Even if Caleb’s tired of parenting, we don’t see any emotional breakdown—just whining. Evelyn supports Caleb but doesn’t push back. She’s just… there.

They could’ve had her egg him on, making Philip resent them both, leading Caleb to make a rash, impulsive choice to leave without Philip. Or shown Caleb blaming Philip for all his problems. But none of that happens, so his motivation falls flat.

The Other Side – Caleb feels zero guilt, which is infuriating. He writes letters he never sends and even smiles while doing it! There’s no explanation for why he can’t return. Maybe the portal couldn’t reopen? Not a word about that. It feels less like he’s chasing a dream and more like he’s just oblivious, acting like a selfish ass with no self-awareness.

Were They Right? – Philip’s suffering again, somehow blaming himself. He’s not allowed to show negative traits. Where’s the betrayal brewing if he never saw the note? Why doesn’t he blame Evelyn? He and Caleb don’t even have one conversation in the whole album—not even before their fight.

Now Philip starts believing the witch hunters were right, that Caleb was enchanted… but nothing leads him to this. He just changes his mind over time. No trigger.

If Philip already thinks Caleb was enchanted, why doesn’t he act on it when they meet? Why not grab him and run? Instead, he kills him. Seems like he realizes Caleb wasn’t enchanted after all but keeps lying to himself. Except the lie’s so weak it doesn’t even convince him, so his real resentment spills out, and he kills Caleb. So is the delusion there or not? If it is, why doesn’t it work? If not, why include it?

If he believes in the enchantment, why not attack Evelyn, the supposed enchanter? If he’s just comforting himself, he could’ve picked a better lie. Why even chase Caleb if he doesn’t believe he was taken by force? Why is he so easily swayed that he kills Caleb on sight?

Cover Up – Over a piece of paper, they’re ready to burn him without trial. The story desperately lacks the systemic oppression that would’ve shaped Philip into who he is. The villagers’ vengeance feels half-baked, but at least the momentum’s engaging.

Finally, we get Philip’s motivation to find his brother.

I Can Be Your Friend! – A high-energy, dynamic song that perfectly fits the Collector’s vibe. Nothing concrete happens—it’s just Philip and the Collector vibing in the in-between. Fun stuff. Too bad the Collector disappears afterward.

Where Is Home? – The first murder feels unearned, and Philip has zero reaction. The description calls it an accident—let it be so—but killing someone point-blank over apples? Really?

WHERE DID THAT DOOR COME FROM SO FAST? WHAT DID HE MAKE IT FROM? DID HE JUST FIND A PORTAL IN THE BUSHES?

Has He Forgotten? – Cavelyn ex machina, resentment with no setup. Philip’s moping again. Earlier, he thought "maybe he was enchanted," now he’s suddenly certain it’s magic and leans into the delusion. The lyrics are too on-the-nose, the tone clashes with the visuals, and the pacing’s off. His motivation needed time to develop—this is a pivotal moment, but it’s rushed.

It feels like Philip just pulls out a knife out of nowhere. The song seems to frame it as a crime of passion, but he’s eerily calm when making the decision. Psychopathy fits Philip, but you can’t have it both ways—here he’s cold and calculating, in the next song he’s rage-fueled and impulsive. Which is it?

Murder – Caleb’s "I’ll always be there for you" rings hollow when he never even tried to return. This ties back to Caleb’s weak motivation—he’s completely oblivious to the consequences of his actions. Screw the note! He should’ve known it wouldn’t explain or justify anything, even if Philip read it.

We can’t tell who Philip’s attacking—Evelyn’s not in frame. If it’s Caleb, WHAT THE HELL IS HE DOING WITH HIS BACK TURNED? Why stab him? Is he angry? Trying to "break the spell"? Maybe the "spell" is a metaphor for his (unshown) resentment.

How did he spiral like this? No buildup except one mention in Were They Right?. Philip seemed to want Caleb back, but then he kills him because… he’s mad? Hurt? A fucking idiot? Does he genuinely believe Caleb was enchanted? The framing’s so vague we’re not even sure if we missed hints or if they just weren’t there.

WHERE THE FUCK WAS EVELYN THIS WHOLE TIME?

The lyrics say "SOUL IS TORN APART," but Philip’s face is stone-cold, like everything’s going according to plan. Delusions need REASONS, CONFLICT—they don’t just pop up. The emotional core is missing. Instead, we get "depression in my mind, misery in my behind", with none of the doubt that should be there after KILLING THE PERSON HE LOVED MOST.

The Door – Why doesn’t Evelyn, knowing where Philip is, try to kill him? Why is HE so calm, thinking logically AFTER MURDERING CALEB—the most traumatic event of his life? WHERE’S THE BREAKDOWN? THE SHOCK? THE DESPAIR? This should’ve shattered him—horror, tilt, depression. He should’ve cycled through grief and gotten stuck on denial, fueling his future canon actions.

This needed its own song because the dissonance between event and reaction is jarring. You could argue psychopathy, but even psychopaths aren’t usually this detached. Even for them, core motivation has to come from somewhere emotional.

There’s so much fanart of Philip losing his mind digging up Caleb’s body, but here he’s just… lonely. Sticking to canon here undermines Philip’s motivation, especially for his future arc. It’s flat. Pathetic. Frustrating.

The audience can’t connect Philip’s emotions to his choices because the initial conflict was undercooked. Now the story doesn’t work. Caleb’s role in Philip’s life feels interchangeable—it could’ve been anyone. This breaks the Grimwalkers’ concept—if he just needed someone, why not make it literally anyone else?

Why does he want to kill all witches? Over Caleb? But he seems to give zero shits about Caleb to dedicate 300 years to this crusade.

Canon Hollow Mind pictures don’t fit the narrative and feel illogical. If you’re using them as a foundation, the story should’ve been different.

What Now? – Evelyn leaves him in her world… WHY??? So he can genocide her people? "Let’s lock the maniac who murdered my child’s father in a room with my entire species"—BRILLIANT plan. Her reasoning—"I won’t let you hurt anyone else"—HOW does hiding the portal stop him, dumbass? Why not execute him publicly?

Philip wants to kill all witches so his people will "forgive" him. How he reached this conclusion is unclear. Is it guilt over Caleb’s death (which we never saw)? Who knows.

Later, he claims he’s "protecting" humanity from witches luring them with magic, like Caleb. COOL. Then why the earlier motivation? Why the contradictions? Is this his delusion or bad storytelling? Since it’s not clear at first glance, it feels like the latter.

He does express doubt—saying he’ll "believe the lie" to avoid pain—which is a great angle, but it’s buried under noise (like Evelyn’s portal door).

And, by the way, why didn’t he kill Evelyn? Their conflict has no resolution. He kills Caleb but ignores her, even though he blames her and all witches for this mess.

He wonders if Caleb was enchanted… but he already killed him over it. This doubt should’ve come before the murder.

So he makes Grimwalkers to "prove" Caleb wouldn’t betray him without magic? And because he’s terrified of forgetting Caleb’s face? But earlier, his motives were different. It’s a mess. Does he want revenge? To "save" Caleb? To protect humanity? Too much for one song—pick a lane.

Grimwalkers – He’s not deluding himself anymore. He knows killing Caleb was wrong. So why keep making Grimwalkers? The song implies he’s addicted, afraid to forget Caleb. But without the delusion, where’s the guilt? Why does he regret killing Caleb but not the Grimwalkers?

Again, Philip’s murders are treated with bizarre indifference—no reason, no emotion, in lyrics or visuals.

This song’s motivation isn’t bad, but it clashes with his inconsistent behavior earlier. The overall message still falters.

CURSE – ABSOLUTELY FLAWLESS. NO JOKE. WE’VE BEEN REPLAYING THIS ON LOOP. Best song in the album. The visuals sync perfectly with the music—his madness is on full display. THIS is Philip. Deranged, obsessed, desperate, agonizing under crushing guilt.

It echoes Transformation from Jekyll & Hyde, taking the best elements we’ve always associated with Philip. The whispering sends chills—his torment crawls under your skin. The vocal delivery masterfully conveys his fractured mind, pulling the audience into the horror. Priceless.

Why does it work? Because it’s a self-contained vibe—no narrative, just atmosphere. And the atmosphere is perfect.

The Titan's Will – Just canon events retold Hollow Mind, with no added depth. This song adds nothing. Cut it, and nothing changes.

Mask Of Gold – The lyrics mention "all the lives that were lost," but no kill besides Caleb’s was justified. Even Caleb’s death felt rushed. Philip rarely seems troubled by any of it—we see hints in CURSE (guilt) and Grimwalkers (doubt).

Which "lives" is he mourning? If it’s Caleb and his own, that’d make sense. But he shows no remorse for anyone else. The tragedy falls flat.

The tone doesn’t match what Philip should feel. The lyrics don’t fit the context.

It’d be more effective to show his melancholy creeping through his imperial routine—how, despite his busyness, intrusive thoughts break through his denial.

What we see—him indulging in sadness—would’ve destroyed him over 400 years. If this happened often, he’d be dead. He survives on hatred and denial, especially before the Day of Unity. He’s too busy to sit around staring at a world he despises.

Conclusion

We need to say why this post exists: It hurts to see Philip treated like this. This character means a lot to us—we’ve spent ages analyzing his motives and psyche. Seeing a project that glosses over both claim canonicity is disheartening.

This was meant to "fix" canon (where everything’s bad), but it fails just as hard by clinging to canon while creating new plotholes.

It ignores historical context that should’ve shaped Philip’s trauma and worldview, flattening his character.

There’s not one scene fully dedicated to his emotional pain—the core of his character. No standout moment focusing on his psychological damage—unlike CURSE, which highlights his physical agony and guilt.

We don’t want this project to become the "definitive" fandom interpretation. Canon left gaps in Philip’s backstory and motives, letting fans theorize and adding depth. But this album’s story leaves no room for interpretation. It offers half-baked "solutions" that raise more questions than they answer.

The attempts to patch canon’s holes clash with character motivations, making them shallow and their actions nonsensical. They’re hard to believe.

To understand their motives, we had to rewatch the album ON MUTE because the songs’ moods often clash with the events, distracting from the story. On first watch, we missed key details—there was no emphasis. We thought there was no improvement over canon. The album wants to tell a story, but its structure gets in the way.

We rewatched it twice and wrote this review to dig deeper. We did find some compelling ideas about Philip’s motivation, but it was as exhausting as dissecting the original show.

Magpie, if you’re reading this, we truly hope this critique doesn’t hurt you. Its goal is to offer constructive feedback on character writing. Whether you take it or leave it is entirely up to you.

Thanks for reading.

#philip wittebane #toh #the owl house belos #caleb wittebane #the owl house #belos #emperor belos #wittebane brothers #wittebane #evelyn clawthorne #critical review #p.s. magpie told us they are okay with this post to exist #this post is for discusson #not for hate #we are totally chill in person #nothing personal just LORE

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kaibutsushidousha · 3 months ago

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The Hundred Line writing team interview from Famitsu issue 1895

Let's start off establishing what each of you do in the game.

Kazutaka Kodaka: The project was originally my idea, and I worked as the General Director and Story Director.

Koutarou Uchikoshi: I worked primarily as a Writer, and also as Director No. 2.

Mr. Togawa, Oyama, Ishii, and Koizumi, please tell us your career history in addition to your role.

Akihiro Togawa: I worked as Gameplay Director, Writer, Screen Composition Director, Schedule Manager, Task Distributor, Debug Manager, and various other miscellaneous roles. I previously worked at Atlus's Team Persona. My roles in the Persona series included Section Leader and Story Director.

Kyouhei Oyama: Aside from being a Writer, I'm the writer in charge of the off-game stories. I was originally a light novel author, but then switched to a freelance game writer job. After working as the main writer for the VR visual novels Tokyo Chronos and ALTDEUS: Beyond Chronos, I was lucky enough to become a member of Too Kyo games.

Nonon Ishii: I'm a Writer and created the Invaders' language. I took a college internship at Too Kyo Games and made my employment official immediately after graduation. This will be my debut title and even I can't believe how massive of a game I'm starting off with.

Youichirou Koizumi: I'm a writer. I knew Kodaka and Uchikoshi since my novelist days and we have been working together since before we founded Too Kyo Games.

I'd like to ask Mr. Kodaka and Uchikoshi how do you feel now that development is finished (note: this interview was conducted on February 28th) and you are now just waiting for the release day.

Kodaka: I'm excited to see what people will say about it, considering that this game is in so many ways different from what I've done before. I'm relieved to see that the Steam demo has been incredibly well-received. I believe that the demo was the right marketing strategy, both for sales and for my mental health. There was a time I was worried about this selling less than a thousand copies, but not anymore (pained laughter).

Uchikoshi: Same answer as Kodaka. We tried a lot of new things, and that got us with a script not only huge but also made through a unique process. I was never capable of imagining player reactions, so no guessing how they'll feel about until I see it happen. In that sense, what I look forward to the most are the post-release reviews.

Was it decided from the get-go that the script size would be humongous?

Kodaka: One of the initial concept keywords was "a visual novel that never ends". We want to create a VN that a player could keep playing for as long as they still wanted, so we predicted a sizable script. We made a game with 100 routes and left the story branching direction to the expert, Uchikoshi. The game was envisioned as an Uchikoshi title first and foremost: everything was built upon the idea of having many routes, and it worked. I can confidently say the game is good.

Uchikoshi: However, we also made it so you don't have to play every route to fully enjoy it. Kodaka's order was to make every route feel like it could have been the true route, so we made different stories covering various genres. We want you find your favorite route and interpret that one as the true ending.

This game is Kodaka's and Uchikoshi's first collaboration. Did you discover anything new about each other working together?

Kodaka: We didn't spend the whole time in neighboring desks, and had distinctively separate tasks, so not really…

Uchikoshi: I just confirmed what I already knew: that Kodaka is an amazing director. Now I see that the reason for that is his willingness to be mean. I keep my distance from my staff, so I struggle to tell them that A was actually supposed to be B. Kodaka doesn't. He makes difficult requests and the staff listens to him because these corrections make the game incredible. I respect and want to learn from him, because that's how a director needs to be.

Kodaka: If you don't say things would be better another way, you'll only regret it later. When I talked about my struggles to a famous anime director, he said "You may think things are acceptable as they currently are, but after you put in the work to improve them, you won't feel the same way." and that really clicked with me. Since then, I stopped holding back on what I tell the staff.

Do you all have any particularly memorable correction requests from Kodaka?

Koizumi: None that I can remember.

Kodaka: That's because you only joined the writing team later. There was barely anything left to fix at that point.

Uchikoshi: Media Vision, the developer, was who had it the roughest, no?

Togawa: No, their problems passed from person to person until they reached me (pained laughter). But none of that ever felt unreasonable. When Kodaka explained something, it was always easy to agree that it would make the game better, so I was constantly feeling positive about my work. However, as the Schedule Manager, there was some internal conflict between "this is guaranteed to improve the game" vs "this will add so many work hours".

Oyama: I loved how this was an easy environment for us writers to get all of our ideas implemented, as the only condition given is that they don't suck. Whenever I had nothing to fix, I'd just come up with something funny, and if the proposal passed the "interesting" threshold, it'd be approved. So it's hard to answer about difficulties when this has been one of the easiest jobs ever.

Ishii: They even implement ideas from a total novice like me. I remember the joy I felt I saw that an idea I came up with on the spot in the middle of a meeting made it into the game.

Kodaka: That's because I'll be taking credits for my subordinates' achievements (laughs).

(laughs) What was the writing process like?

Kodaka: Due to the immense size of this game's script, we decided to split the work between the team. I wrote the main route, then based on that, Uchikoshi came up with the branching system and general ideas for what goes in which branch story, and lastly, we distributed the routes to the writers as necessary. There's only 6 of us here, but including the guest writers, I'd say the game was written by about 10 people.

How did you decide who gets each route?

Uchikoshi: Some they chose, some we assigned to them.

Koizumi: All of mine were just assigned to me without warning (laughs).

Togawa: I didn't get to choose anything either (laughs).

Kodaka: That's because you two joined later. The writers joined the project at different dates. At first, it was just Uchikoshi and Ishii, plus people who aren't here today. Oyama and Koizumi joined in this order, and Togawa was the last. When was it that you entered the team, Togawa?

Togawa: August 2023, I think. It was around that time that I sorted out our schedule and figured out that we'd need a miracle to salvage this production.

Kodaka: Meaning that by September 2023, the writer team wasn't complete yet (pained laughs).

Togawa: I rebuilt that schedule over and over again, but even my best attempts left me unsure if we could deliver the game in time. As such, I had to make Kodaka also write some side routes, and with that, we somehow managed to put the script together.

Yeah, I can see that happening when you have 100 routes…

Kodaka: Still, there were some new discoveries that would never have happened if we weren't splitting the work like this. This is my first time making other people play with my characters, so proofreading the other routes was a kind of fun I never knew before. The feeling of "Is this really what my character would do in this scenario?" is very new and interesting. It's also fun to pick out on each writer's peculiarities. For example, Uchikoshi fans will immediately be able to notice when a route is written by Uchikoshi.

This game features a cast of very unique characters. What was the process of creating them like?

Kodaka: I came up with all the characters on my own, and the first thing I had settled on was that the Special Defense Unit would have 15 students. What changed is that I intended the students to be more down-to-earth characters, but as I kept adding quirks whenever I was finding them too generic, they came to become what they are now.

Uchikoshi: Is that why the characters who join later (Nozomi Kirifuji, Kurara Oosuzuki, Kyoshika Magadori, Yugamu Omokage, Mojiro Moko) are the most eccentric ones?

Kodaka: That was the intention… we even talked about making the designs of the initial team (Takumi Sumino, Takemaru Yakushiji, Hiruko Shizuhara, Darumi Amemiya, Eito Aotsuki, Tsubasa Kawana, Gaku Maruko, Ima Tsukumo, Kako Tsukumo, Shouma Ginzaki) more down-to-earth, but I couldn't handle it. At all. Still, because I initially tried to make the initial squad more down-to-earth, the additional squad naturally came to be the eccentric side.

How did the mascots SIREI and NIGOU originate?

Kodaka: The main thing with SIREI and NIGOU was trying to do something different from Danganronpa's Monokuma and Rain Code's Shinigami. His conduct is similar to them, but I wrote his dialogue with a militaristic flavor in hopes to make him feel more petty and cunning. Being able to have Houchuu Ootsuka voicing SIREI and Ikue Ootani voicing NIGOU was also excellent for distinguishing them from Monokuma and Shinigami.

Was there any character who was easier to write or more challenging?

Kodaka: Danganronpa had characters I didn't know how to use well, but this time, everyone was easy. But I have to say Kirifuji was the one who required the most restraint. She's the one character with nothing crazy going on, so I made sure not to make any dumb jokes with her, as she'd be the one I'd use to recenter myself after going too far in one direction.

What about you, Uchikoshi?

Uchikoshi: All characters had very distinct personalities, which made them all easy to write, but Darumi's dialogue is what came the most naturally to me.

Kodaka: Did bullying Darumi come just as naturally?

All: (laughs)

Uchikoshi: I was doing the screen composition for my routes and the sprite selection for Darumi was the most fun part because all of her expressions fit just right with any of her lines. The hardest was Omokage, I guess.

Kodaka: Omokage's dialogue is annoying to type. You need to manually fix the IME conversion every time (pained laughs).

Uchikoshi: I didn't mean the conversion (laughs). I wasn't good at gauging how much Omokage was interested in killing the other characters. He was difficult.

Togawa: Omokage was the hardest for me, too. It took me until the very end before I grasped his way of thinking.

Kodaka: Omokage's character is easy to understand if you play his solo scenes. But I only wrote that after you had already worked on him…

Togawa: His solo scenes are exactly what made me understand what Omokage was like (awkward laughs).

Did you not make character profiles and background documents for your writers to peruse while writing?

Kodaka: Ishii made his own basic profiles, but I didn't make any comprehensive documents. I know this is not a good practice to have, but the script I wrote already had everything, so I made them read the story to understand the characters.

Interesting. And what character was smooth sailing for Togawa?

Togawa: Magadori and Oosuzuki as a duo. They have so much chemistry that any idea I could have naturally converted into fun dialogue when put to paper. Also, Kawana was easy to write. I love, love, love nice girls like her (laughs).

Kodaka: Honestly, Kawana is so down-to-earth that I always found her scenes lackluster when I wrote them. For that reason, reading the routes that star her was really eye-opening. I'm glad to have someone else writing her, because I couldn't make her good.

Uchikoshi: Kawana really shines the brightest when the writer is Togawa or Koizumi.

Maybe the lack of proper character profiles was what allowed them to fill the gaps so well. Now, what about you, Oyama?

Oyama: Omokage was the easiest. I couldn't understand the way he thinks, but once I realized that I don't need to understand him to write him, he became so heavily featured on my routes that you could easily assume Omokage is the main love interest of the game (laughs). Him aside, I had an easy time with Magadori and Mojiro, characters simple in what makes them tick. The biggest challenges were Takumi and Kirifuji. Characters that are too relevant to the plot are very influenced by what is happening at the moment, so very often I didn't know how to write them.

And you, Ishii?

Ishii: Since my routes were the most comedy-heavy ones, Maruko and Magadori were the easiest. Their overblown reactions to things are hilarious, and the only thing you need to add there to complete a scene is clever commentary from Takumi. Meanwhile, the toughest ones to write were the zealous pair of Yakushiji and Mojiro. I struggled with Yakushiji because I don't know how to make the delinquent archetype appealing, and my lack of wrestling knowledge added a lot of extra work when coming up with references for Mojiro.

Togawa: But thanks to wrestling documentaries, you familiarized yourself with wrestling history and techniques.

Ishi: Yes, I was indeed studying through documentaries to put wrestling moves in my story (laughs).

And what character were you the best or worst with, Koizumi?

Koizumi: I can't think of anyone I didn't know how to handle. For the easiest to write, I wanted to choose students that haven't been mentioned yet, but no, my routes have way too much Magadori, Oosuzuki, and Kawana screentime for it to be anyone else. I'm very strongly attached to these three in particular, and that makes them easy to write.

Kodaka: Since you wanted a character no one mentioned, didn't you have a rough time with Ginzaki? I remember you running out of self-deprecation vocabulary to use at some point.

Togawa: We all researched that independently, meaning Ginzaki's self-debasing lexicon will be very different from route to route.

Kodaka: I was implementing insults I came across online. Just scrolling through social media and going "Wow, this insult is GOOD!" (laughs).

In this age of stricter regulations, I feel like this game really strikes the limits of what is allowable to depict. How did the writing team delineate what it could and couldn't do?

Kodaka: I asked everyone to consult me whenever in doubt, and drew the line at specific points like "no poking fun at real wars". That said, I thought I had kept the sex jokes to a minimum, so it came as a shock to me when I saw a demo review say "too many sex jokes". In my head, the first 7 days playable in the demo had no dirty jokes at all, so my honest first reaction was "WHERE?!".

All: (laughs)

Koizumi: A huge chunk of the dirty jokes got weeded out. The initial version of the script had some really extreme ones…

Kodaka: The woman in the writing team said my jokes were too much, so I did away with them. But then she had no opinions on Uchikoshi's.

Uchikoshi: I was trying to write mine in Kodaka's style, so I have no idea why I didn't get the same reaction (awkward laughs).

Kodaka: The ultimate consequence of that was the sex jokes in Uchikoshi's scripts being more numerous and risqué than in mine (laughs).

Tells us about any memorable situations in the production process.

Kodaka: Splitting the screen composition work with other people was unusual. In my previous works, I handled all the composition on my own, but this time I was working with too big of a script… Since doing it on my own would have taken 5 years (strained laughs), I put Togawa in the schedule management role and made each writer responsible for the screen composition in their respective routes.

Togawa: The decision to let the writers build their own scenes was stressful, considering the schedule was already tight before, and a few of them had never done that before.

By the way, who had never done this before?

Togawa: Oyama and our rookie Ishii.

Oyama: As such, I had to ask questions to Togawa on the desk next to mine every time I didn't know how to do something (laughs).

Kodaka: The writing was generally done remotely, but then everyone had to come to the office to input their scripts into the screen format. Having everyone together facilitated the process of creating the cores of the game's presentation system, and let questions be instantly cleared up.

Togawa mentioned being initially anxious about distributing the screen composition work, but looking back now that it's over, how was it like?

Togawa: Everyone worked hard to follow my schedule, and working together is more exciting than working alone. The most memorable part was how fast Oyama learns. Oyama was a computer-illiterate man who only ever used MS Word. Nonetheless, when he discovered the joy of assigning visual assets to his lines of text, he evolved at breakneck speeds. It was a nostalgic experience, reminding me that I was just like him when I first joined the gaming industry (laughs).

What a heartwarming thing to say in a story about a tight schedule (laughs). Were there any other major advantages to splitting and distributing the screen composition work?

Kodaka: I feel like having to do their own screen composition made the writers learn more about the stories they wrote.

Koizumi: True. Having to select sprites and expressions for every line made me want to edit my scripts, and I could feel the story becoming better as the screen composition process progressed.

Kodaka: It does help polishing the plot. The reason why I have always been doing my own screen composition is because I still would be editing a lot regardless of who made it. I can easily imagine myself going "Nah, this line doesn't work with this sprite". Not to sound too obvious, but a story's writer is always the most qualified person to choose what expression is best placed on each line of dialogue. Building screens also teaches you to pace your scenes. And it will give you a better feel for things when you start writing your next game's script. I believe a game writer's job should always include the screen composition part.

A humanoid Commander for the Invader squad appeared in the demo. Mr. Ishii told us that he was in charge of the Invader language. Can you tell us how you came up with it?

Ishii: Too Kyo's visual designers created the alphabet and my job was to create the pronounced language. The exact mission prompt was to create a Japanese-style syllabary (48 sounds) using phonetic moras that resembled spoken French. The problem is that I don't speak French, so the first step was to constantly listen to French in multiple video apps and engrave the French phonemes into my skull. After I had enough of a notion, I lined up 48 French-sounding syllables and fit them into a kana table. With this conversion, the Invader language was complete.

Uchikoshi: I've already seen people analyzing it.

Ishii: That was a shock to me too. Really impressive considering the sounds were assigned to the letters at random.

Kodaka: Did anyone leak the alphabet?

All: (laughs)

We didn't get to see the Invaders language much in the demo, did we?

Kodaka: They figured it out from the letters that appear together with "New Game", "Continue", "Load" etc. on the title screen.

Ishii: As the one who came up with the language, the fact that people are willing to speculate and analyze under limited information makes me really happy.

Speaking of the Invaders, buffing the ally who finished off the Commander was a pretty original gameplay mechanic. How did you come up with that?

Kodaka: I noted down gameplay ideas while planning the base plot. Things like "I want this battle to have a higher number of enemies" or "I want this battle to use the entire team". One of the ideas I jotted down there was "I want the act of finishing the enemies off to look cruel", and when Media Vision converted that into the game format, they turned into a mechanic that buffs party members.

The coup de grâce cutscene being first-person from the enemy Commander's perspective was impactful.

Kodaka: I'll have to be honest, we only made it from the enemy's perspective to cut corners. I did make an animated cutscene where the Commander appears at the end, but that wasn't part of the initial production plans. We didn't have the time or hands to make 3D models of all Commanders just for a coup de grâce cutscene. We discussed various presentation ideas and came up with the enemy POV where we could use the pre-existing 3D models of the party. By using the enemy's perspective, we were able to further emphasize how fearsome and brutal the party members can be, so that was ultimately for the best.

I'd like to ask a few questions to the Gameplay Director, Mr. Togawa, about mechanics and balance. In my playthrough, I noticed a lot of tricks that the player is able to exploit. It's a superbly polished game, really. How was the development process for the battles?

Togawa: When I joined the battle team, the first thing I did was rethink the game's experience blueprint from the start. Although the battles back them already had a core set of rules, they failed to stand out in comparison to other tactical RPGs and felt obtuse regarding extremely important parts: "what's meant to be a cathartic moment for the player'' and "what's the intended experience for this particular battle". After mulling over the question of what's meant to be a cathartic moment in The Hundred Line's battles in my head, the answers I came up with were "the thrill of wiping hordes of enemies in one move" and "the puzzle element of letting the player assemble the route to get there with some degree of freedom".

I can see that.

Togawa: The design process involved coming up with mechanics, balancing the game around them, etc. for the purpose of setting this cathartic moment as the goal and actualize a battle system that lets the player use diverse methods to reach it. For some basic examples… Including the Special Attacks for the aforementioned thrill of wiping hordes, making character abilities more niche to increase the number of options, etc.

The Invader placement on the board is also exquisite. Knowing how to beat the enemies right increases your number of actions, so things look beatable on really short turn counts.

Togawa: I care a lot about enemy placement. Initially, we had flocks of enemies near Yakushiji, the guy with the wide attack range. But making the intention there too obvious would led to the player feeling handheld and losing excitement. So we adjusted things to let the player figured out on their own how they can take out a swarm in one go.

I also thought that the element of turning party member defeat into a positive to be really well-thought-out, despite the insanity of it.

Togawa: Thank you (laughs). The mechanic of using the lives of your party as disposable tools is a conceptual opposite of traditional tactical RPGs, where you want to avoid harming your party as much as possible. I'm proud to say no one does it like The Hundred Line does. The answer to the question of "what is the battle functionality of sacrificing your friends in THL?" is one that spent a lot of time in the oven. I believe that when you reach the ending, you'll come out of it feeling that this mechanic made the narrative far more immersive.

I look forward to learning the answer to the mystery. I was also surprised by how challenging the battles were. In a September 2024 presentation, Kodaka said that story-driven games want to keep difficulty on the lower end, so I was worried the game would feel lacking to fans of the genre.

Kodaka: Sorry about that. The battle gameplay underwent a lot of adjustments after September, including difficult changes, meaning what I told you in an interview back then is simply not true for the finished version of the game. Back then, I believed the battle gameplay had hit the low ceiling for the best form it could take, but luckily, Togawa finished his screen composition duties around that same month and moved on to balance adjustment. Togawa proposed to keep tweaking the game until the last day of the contract and Media Vision was kind enough to accept those terms, resulting in the last push that elevated the battle quality. Disregard what I said in previous sessions.

Togawa: Every single battle in the game has been altered after September. I'd spend every day on hours-long conversations with Media Vision's director and fine-tuning everything. We also revised character abilities, and there's even one character that had their Specialist Skill changed post-September. There are more things I'd have liked to try with more time, but what I couldn't do here will have to be saved for the sequel… if there ever is one.

Isn't it too early to be thinking about a sequel? I mean, are you not planning any DLC?

Kodaka: None. Everything The Hundred Line could have is already packed in the game. Future plans can always change later, but if I was forced right here right now to come up with an expansion for the franchise, I think I'd do prequel novels covering key moments in the lives of the members of the Special Defense Unit. Shizuhara's backstory is already covered in Oyama's Former Lives of the SDU: File 03 - Hiruko Shizuhara's First Battle, so I suppose it'd be nice to have novels for the rest as well.

Uchikoshi: Sounds feasible. Novels aren't limited by the game's assets, meaning they can be set in places that don't appear in-game.

Togawa: Didn't Oyama want to write the story of the Commanders? There is one stand-out character among the enemy Commanders and Oyama was excitedly imagining a story where this one wins (laughs).

Oyama: I still want to write that if given the chance (laughs).

It won't be long until The Hundred Line's release. Please explain the game's appeal to the people who haven't played the demo yet.

Kodaka: I imagine they're already expecting a good story, and my play experience tells me the game is also well-made as a tactical RPG. Trying out the story and gameplay on the demo would be ideal, but what's shown there is barely a glimpse of the full picture. The 8th day marks the start of a constant stream of incredible events, so I hope the demo players are looking forward to what's coming next.

A closing message from each of you to the fans looking forward to the game.

Togawa: The Hundred Line is my first Director work. I used everything I learned up to this point to honor this title. The staff devoted heart and soul into constructing this, and I can say with my whole heart that the game is good. Please purchase it and experience the crazy world we created. I can think of one scene that will catch a lot of people off-guard.

Oyama: As Togawa just explained, so much effort went into this game that I don't even want to imagine the timeline where it flops (awkward laughs). All I have right now is a wish for success. Please, play my game and spread the word if you like it. @'ing or DM'ing me with your reviews would make my day.

Ishii: When I was first briefed on this project, I was impressed at the amount of text it took to make a visual novel, but later, my more experienced colleagues explained to me that this project was abnormal (laughs). We're delivering a title that demonstrates Too Kyo Games is as "too crazy" as the name says. I hope you enjoy the wildness of it. I'm looking forward to the reviews.

Koizumi: The Hundred Line is Too Kyo's first original IP. It'd be accurate to say the company was made specifically to produce this game, which naturally makes me invested in wanting more people to have a good time with it. Nothing can be better than seeing people grateful that the developer Too Kyo Games exists.

Uchikoshi: Repeating something I said before: I hope you can find one route among the many to be your favorite. And to the completionists wanting to play every route: be my guest.

Kodaka: Fresh news, never revealed before: there is a route where everyone survives. I got really emotional reading this one. You're free to stop playing whenever you're satisfied, but I believe you'll have a tough time coming across another game as wild as this, so I'd like you to savor it as much as you can.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Links:

Design team interview

Music team interview

Special guest interview

#the hundred line #last defense academy #kazutaka kodaka #koutarou uchikoshi #akihiro togawa #kyouhei oyama #nonon ishii #youichirou koizumi

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macinthecaac · 1 year ago

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I've seen a lot of mixed opinions and fears about the Project Hail Mary Movie. A lot of people fear that it won't be accurate to the book, that the science will be stretched or dramatized for the sake of an entertaining movie, or that they might change the ending (okay, this one would be GENUINELY horrible), but I have kind of a different opinion on it.

Before reading The Martian, I actually saw the movie first. It wasn't until talking with a friend that it even occurred to me it was based on a book! So I read it; and I was shocked at how different the movie and book were from each other. There were scenes added just for the movie, and plot points left out that were in the book, and the ending was a bit different. Not enough that it completely changed everything, but it was definitely noticeable.

I have my gripes with the movie, but I WILL say this: the movie gave me more insight into Mark Watney. It gave us more scenes that weren't in the book, it changed dialogue slightly to allow for different jokes and a slightly different watching experience. And it made me realize that I don't think movie adaptations are supposed to be a carbon copy of the book; they're supposed to tell a similar story while trying new ideas and perspectives on the characters, and while I definitely prefer the book, I'm glad the movie adaptation of The Martian exists. And my own personal interpretation of Mark Watney is a mixture between his book and movie counterparts.

What I'm really excited for with the Project Hail Mary Movie is the new stuff. New conversations between Rocky and Grace, The Hail Mary gang, actually visually seeing all of these scenes in the book that were once just imagination, now actually on a screen! I'm excited to see planet Adrian up close, I'm excited to see the new jokes they squeeze in, I'm *really* excited to see how they handle Rocky's language. And maybe that'll be a good opportunity for more dialogue and jokes too!

In the end, movies are kind of like a love letter to the original media. And I'm sure when the movie comes out I'll have my complaints and gripes with it. But hey, I'll get to actually see Rocky and Ryland Grace hanging out and being buds on-screen, and I think that's reason enough to be excited.

.... BUT if they do completely change the ending, I'll be pissed. /lh

#project hail mary #project hail mary movie #andy weir #ryland grace #Rocky #the martian #mark watney

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acesw · 8 months ago

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Knowing our Arcanists 1: Sonetto

Welcome to the first entry of this new series: "Knowing our Arcanists"! This is a series in which I introduce and tell the stories of our fellow characters in Reverse: 1999, and of course we will start with the game's featured character: Sonetto!

Sonetto is one of the first characters that we meet in this game, and I really love her as a character. I found her origins to be one of the most vague and one that I really wish that it could be further explored in a future patch. However, we make do with what we know about her in the story and in the game. That aside, lets get started.

Sonetto is an arcanist with an Italian lineage. Her arcane skill is being able to visualize and materialize poetry, and she practices it by reading them and painting what she can see. Despite being reserved, she is an innately curious person, sometimes subtly deviating from her path to satiate her curiosity. She may be grateful for being raised under the Foundation's roof, but she hopes that she's able to continue exploring the world on her own.

Driven by her desires and passions as an arcanist, she strives for peace among mankind, and works hard to be able to help everyone around her. She serves as a model investigator in the St. Pavlov Foundation.

Being born without family, Sonetto was taken into the Foundation at a very young age. And during this time, she worked intensely to perform amazingly as a student, and has always been known to be one of the best amongst her peers. With SPDM's teachings, she was a model student and future investigator.

She was very well-loved by instructors and students alike in the school, and she kept working hard to upkeep her performance over the years. Most of her curiosity had been pushed down to adhere to her teachings, but is sometimes rooted out because of a fellow classmate of hers: Vertin. As they were deskmates, Vertin was known to have attempted to create closure with Sonetto by bringing the things that made the former (and the latter) curious, such as stones, frogs, and toffees.

However, due to Sonetto's attempts to repress such desires, she stopped Vertin from bringing her anything "not allowed in the school." It didn't stop the two of them being together, but it created an emotional rift despite them turning to each other for help.

In her later years in SPDM, Sonetto's status as a top student and dedication to the Foundation remained unchanged, continuing to work hard to be able to graduate. However, she continued to be attentive to her classmates and friends, simply wanting them to be safe and happy above all else. Even when faced with the choice of having to bring the breakaway students back into the shelter, with the choice of joining Vertin and them, she could only let them be. It was too much of a risk. Whether she did or never knew what happened to them and what became of Vertin (before the prologue) is up to interpretation.

She eventually graduated, and naturally rose the ranks within the Foundation and became a squad leader in an investigation team. After what happened in the prologue, she was promoted to work alongside the Timekeeper, and neither of them left each other's side since.

Sonetto's curiosity starts coming to light again as she starts finding her own interests, where she reads and answers newspapers during the mornings and scrapbooks articles that she found interesting. She takes guidance from other poets to further expand her knowledge and practice. Sonetto wishes to travel under the guise of missions and breaks, and hopes to be guided by her friends so she could learn about the world.

On multiple occasions, her kindness and straightforward words shine through, complimenting everyone around her and treating everyone fairly. This doesn't mean that Sonetto is picture perfect, though. At times, she's overcome by her passion and emotions, becoming easy to get a reaction from. Efficient and calculated, but also quick to turn aggressive.

Throughout the course of the story, we see Sonetto's repressed nature slowly turn on its head as she spends time with Vertin and their newfound friends. In Chapters 4-5, she continues to defend Vertin and the rest of Team Timekeeper, and even bring posthumous justice to Schneider after learning of her origins. She's fortunately guided by her goal to help everyone to be able to defend her friends continuously and strive to give justice to those she's lost.

As the story moves forward, we'll continuously see how her character develops, and hopefully we'll get to see a story of her own in the future. Feel free to ask any questions about her! :)

#reverse 1999 #knowing our arcanists #sonetto #sorry if this is rough #im writing out here without a strict outline

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wastedpotentialsblog · 2 years ago

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Look, I was willing to give the Veil a shot. I was. I was willing to let Bungie cook. But they made the Veil the Travelers opposite, and I couldn't figure out why I didn't like that. Until a random ass reddit comment and it clicked.

The visual storytelling between the Pyramids and The Traveler is such a beautiful way of portraying two opposing forces without explicitly saying what those forces represent. It's all in their design.

Angular/Spherical

Many/One

Black/White

They have "We are opposites" written on their forehead and the Veil kind of fucked it up.

While I'm on the subject, I've been revisiting my favorite lore book "Unveiling" and MAN, that shit was awesome.

I really really really liked when the overarching conflict was about two Gods giving themselves physical form in the universe to win a cosmic argument on whether the conplexity of life made it worth living. I also really liked its interpretation of the Vex: the manifestation of the perfect pattern. Microorganisms that always came out on top before a new rule were forced upon the game. And yeah, i get it, "Unveiling had no reason to be truthful. The Witness had every reason to lie to us to make us fight each other. Untrustworthy narrator." Blah blah blah.

But, I think it would've been way cooler and scarier if it wasn't lying. It would show that The Winnower truly believes what it's saying. It's simply acting in its nature. It doesn't even know if it's 100% correct, but chooses to follow its path anyway.

This part altered my brain chemistry fundamentally. I am NOT normal about this section and I never will be.

Ok. I'm done. You can tear me a new one or pick my apart. You can tell me the new story is better in every conceivable way. But the Unveiling lorebook was P E A K to me

#destiny 2 #destiny lore #the gardener #the winnower #the veil #the traveler #pyramid ships

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winxanity-ii · 3 months ago

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CONTINUATION OF CH.40

I ran out of space, so here's all the fanart i got recently ❤️❤️😩😩😩😩

from Rizzlord (@v4mpn11on tumblr)

AHHHHH this piece still has me floored every time I look at it 😭✨ the details??? The shading??? Her EYES??? You captured something so powerful and grounded in her expression—I can see the weariness and strength all at once. And don't even get me started on the hair and those intricate floral clasps on her shoulders?? Like HELLO??? You really snapped with the texture there 😩

I legit saved this straight to my computer the moment I got it. Thank you sm again! She looks like she walked straight out of a manga panel and I'm obsessed 😭❤️

from gab137507

AHHHH-----the symbolism is so perfect 😭😭😭 The way you drew MC's expression��so hollow and calm, almost resigned—it's haunting in the best way. I love how each hand has a story to tell without even needing words. I already went a lil coo-coo in your commnt section of how much i loved/thought each one represented so i'm not gonna bore everyone with it here (may repaste in the comments) but yeah, I just—ugh, it''s so stimulating seeing the strings of all these interactions MC has to navigate drawn to life like this. You nailed the entire pressure of her role in a single, quiet image. Thank you so much again❤️‍🔥

from Acheron

ACHERON???? Be serious. Be so serious. This is actual cinema. The way the light frames him—no, devours him—like a halo and a wildfire all at once??? The motion, the tilt of his head, the drama in that silhouette... it's unhinged in the most divine, tragic way. I'm staring at this like it's an actual animated movie still 😭🔥This is Apollo's tantrum. This is grief-split-open-and-turned-solar. You nailed the energy of Ch.39 without showing anything explicitly, and that's what makes it hit even harder. Like how am I supposed to emotionally recover from this?? 😭❤️‍🔥 Thank you endlessly for this masterpiece.

from DragonWhiskers12

DO NOT EVER APOLOGIZE FOR HOW YOU EXECUTE YOUR ART—like ever. It's the intent, the design, the final result that hits—and this??? This hit me like a meteor from Olympus. I'm OBSESSED with your interpretation of Apollo 😭 the eerie elegance, the chaotic divinity, the multiple eyes??? That's godhood. That's prophecy. That's ✨trauma✨. I'm so in love with this vision I'm be using in another fic i have coming up😭😭🙏🏾 thank you for sharing this with me, truly.

PLEASE. Don't even apologize for the camera quality or anything about this—do you know how golden this page is??? The way I had to squint and then suddenly BURST OUT LAUGHING??? The "No more sun until I get my wife back" Apollo design coming back with extra eyeballs and those reaction doodles of the Olympians??? ICONIC 😭 Like no because the vibe of this whole thing?? Raw sketch energy, chaotic divine commentary, a masterpiece journal page of doom... I'm saving this to my personal shrine of chaos. It feels like something I'd find tucked in the library of Delphi on a scroll titled "Signs That the Sun God is Spiraling" 😭💀

from iconic-idiot-con

OH MY GODDDD I GASPED—THE WAY YOU CAPTURED HERMES' SMUG LITTLE CHARM??? The wink?? The pose?? The delivery??? 😭😭 This entire scene looks like it was yanked straight out of a visual novel and I would pay real currency to read it. Also the way you illustrated MC with such softness in that panel?? Ugh. You get her. You get them. And I am currently sobbing over the fact that this exists in my lil arts folder 🥹💌🪽 Thank you SO much.

STOP—YOU'RE TELLING ME I GET A WHOLE CHARACTER LINEUP??? A WHOLE CAST SHEET??? This is like opening the bonus content at the end of a deluxe edition graphic novel and just sinking into the lore. First off—Hermes??? ICONIC. The exact chaotic-neutral energy. His smirk?? Unmatched. Apollo is serving radiant golden retriever in the best possible way, and I love how you made him look just slightly off-kilter, like there's something behind that smile (which is so him). Also HELEN?? She's giving effortlessly smug and I know she knows it. Odysseus' sadness is in his shoulders. That's storytelling. His "sad, wet, pathetic puppet man" energy literally LEAPS off the page. Penelope looks tired but gorgeous, which is exactly what I envisioned. Telemachus looks like he just got done internally monologuing about duty and also how pretty the MC is. I'm obsessed. And finally, MC?? Soft, grounded, radiant. Just there. And still effortlessly magnetic. I'm sobbing. Truly—thank you for this. It's beyond perfect. Your brain has 100% divine blessing status now.

SHUT UP—Hermes Bird with the lil satchel and cloak?! I'm LOSING it. And MC?? The blank expression? The visible cuts and wraps? That side-eye like she just survived divine nonsense and still has errands to run? Peak characterization. She looks like she's just recovered from a gods-given concussion and is about to commit arson in retaliation. I don't care if it's "unfinished," it's got more energy and story in it than most completed pieces. Post the rest whenever you want—I'm eating this up sketchy or not and WILL be giving the same enthusiasm once done cuz YESSS!

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thekirammanjinx · 6 months ago

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Let's talk, this got long, addressing continued ignorance and misunderstanding of caitlyn and vi:

"Am I the only one who hates caitvi" no you're not, there's plenty of people with the same ignorant misunderstandings and virtue signaling ideologies. The same people who will spout false information and project their opinions onto the media vs taking the information the media is giving them and actively interpreting it.(that's not to say you can't be indifferent to caitvi. But all the hater are literally so dense and spout the same nonsense.)

"Who you have oppressed for decades" first of all CAITLYN didn't oppressor anyone. So saying she oppressed them is ignorant and a blatant lie. Caitlyn did not have any control or contributions.

Speaking on oppressors; silco and the chembarons have actively been oppressing and beating down their own people. Making zaun a thousand times more unlivable than when piltover did with vander. The firelights came to be because of silco and shimmer. Now, caitlyn did not gas an ENTIRE city. She targeted those afformented groups who have contributed to a downfall and hostile environment in zaun.

(lest we forget the council literally wanted a full scale assault on the entirety of zaun to aquire jinx. So even if caitlyn had done nothing zaun was doomed either way. War was looming if she did not act, you literally cannot talk about this without mentioning it, so the amount of people who choose to exclude this information to skew their "critical analysis")

Caitlyn didn't suddenly become empathetic because of vi. We see her being gentle with the jaw guy after he gets shot by jinx, she listens to vi before they even become more, yes she's apprehensive at the start but to say she changed because vi? Were you watching with your eyes closed and the TV on mute?

Saying that "these are her people" about vi. These are not her people. She actively hated silco and those aligned with him. Also she never was a freedom fighter for zaun. Idk where you got that. She just wanted a better life for HER and her FAMILY. Not to mention a tactical force to get chembarons off the streets isn't an act of oppression. That's a military action of snuffing out a drug cartel who are actively oppressing and harming the people of zaun.

(why are yall so in defense of the chembarons? Like yall truly don't give af about the people of zaun. We literally hear ekko say how bad the chembarons and shimmer have made zaun???)

"If the show didn't paint them good" you must be stupid if you thought the show was presenting it as good. The show is telling the story, it's giving a visual, just because it's there doesn't mean it's good. Or bad. Yes the show presents it as the BETTER option but it still shows how it is not 100% a morally good thing. But again you'd have to watch the show to see that wouldn't you??

(And again why are yall fighting for your lives trying to justify the chembarons existing and treating zaun like their own drug playing grounds.)

And to even say you like ambessa but not caitlyn & vi just feels embarrassing and you definitely missed the mark. People truly miss ambessa role in the entire season/series and it shows.

(i enjoy ambessa as a character but it's wild to see people try and tear down cait and or vi while praising ambessa in the same sentence. But this goes back to "we can handle evil characters but not good characters that do morally gray/bad things--which some of yall really need to have some introspection)

"Doing the wrong thing for the right reasons" there's literally a song IN THE SHOW with lyrics adjacent to this. No not verbatim, but it's basically right there. I'm convinced this person has not actually watched the show. There's no way. There is NO way.

"I'm not done with arcane" then idk, stfu and finish the damn show, if you feel the *narrative* is painting these actions as good that's a you problem. You do not know how to interpret the media in front of you. Because that's literally not what's happening.

Giving a character motives and reasons isn't justifying their actions or painting them as good. It's giving them a fleshed out story with emotions and said motives. Putting reason behind the actions. Not to mention this show is all about showing how people are complex, but you want to target caitlyn and vi for what?

Jinx targeted caitlyn literally because she was jealous and wanted vi to choose her over caitlyn. She wanted vi to shoot caitlyn. Caitlyn had personally done nothing to jinx. Jinx then killed 3 councilors, unprovoked.

So we can see how "targeting" a group of people for the actions of 1 is bad when it comes to caitlyn and vi, but we cannot say the same for jinx, or silco, or the likes??

(caitlyn strategically targeted chembarons and the shimmer cartel. Something ekko and the firelights were trying to do in s1. But everyone forgets that. Explaining and understanding what caitlyn did does not mean writing off her actions. But some of yall need to learn not to vilify her for doing what other characters wanted to do in the first place. She simply had the resources and means to do it. If a different character did it yall would not be so up in arms)

#arcane season 2 #caitvi #caitlyn kiramman #vi arcane

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patricia-taxxon · 2 years ago

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So, I watched that response stream that DeadwingDork made about my furry boinking video, here it is if you're curious.

youtube

By some accounts, this gentleman seems like he means well, with regards to pronouns he pulls the "when in doubt, they/them" gambit, which is partway there. If he finds this, I'll politely let him know I don't use they, just she & it. Thanks!

I have good reason to believe he began this journey in good faith, but over the course of the video he slowly gives up being charitable, and it's very frustrating to watch. There's a few key moments of miscommunication I noticed that I'd like to clear up.

DeadwingDork and I got off on the wrong foot very early on, and part of that's my fault. I start the video openly lusting after Garth Alphandomega, and this put him on edge. This might be an ideological difference we can't get past, he says that Garth is "Just a wolf" when I personally think he's quite different from a wolf. After that, I do the joke where I say "If the opportunity presented itself I would fuck my-" and cut to The Flowers of Robert Mapplethorpe, but he didn't have the context to understand what I'm saying by cutting to that album in particular, so he thought I was jokingly saying I would fuck my dog. He spends the rest of the stream with that initial impression of me lusting after what he perceives as literal animals, it's kinda the initial rock that starts the avalanche and closes him off from understanding basically anything that I'm saying, until the end, where he's convinced I've just spent 43 minutes coming out as a zoophile.

This might just be a difference in artistic philosophy, like he interprets Alpha & Omega to be about wolves whereas I interpret it as being about people through the aesthetic lens of wolves. Metaphor isn't just for abstract art movies, after all. Garth walks on 4 legs, but he has enough obvious persistent human-like traits both visually and behaviorally for me to understand him as a person delivered via wolf. For the same reason, he is disturbed by my lusting for Shoukichi Pompoko, because he interprets that movie as literally being about tanuki. I think this the main reason the concept of a character being "simultaneously human and inhuman" completely whiffed on him. He skimmed over my segment on how Leo can be both a wolf and hispanic & didn't understand the relevance, because I don't think that contradiction can be resolved in his head.

The most frustrating part of this stream is the way he clearly picks up on a lot of the overarching subtext that I'm putting down, but by that point in the video he doesn't have enough faith in me to interpret it as being put there intentionally. He treats the connection between my special-ed dog training and my current animal identity as an unintentional self-report, when it isn't. There's this *maddening* segment where I talk about Pom Poko for the first time, and he... honestly quite accurately picks apart the picture I'm illustrating about alienation, but he handwaves it away in favor of his horrible mangling of the exact literal sentence I am saying at that moment.

He says:

"There's clearly a story here, but it's being buried. There's a lot of stuff that's leading towards... 'oh, you watched this movie and this movie and your parents did this and your fuckin' teachers did this, and that's why this is happening.' That's like the fuckin' undertones of this video, [but] the main takeaway is supposed to be that this movie... I dunno, makes you f.. is supposed to feel like how fuckin' animal people feel like they're... whatever, I don't, I don't... whatever."

He grabs at the subtext, the story I'm obviously telling with the surface level anecdote of my experience seeing Pom Poko when I was young. I say obviously, because he and his chat both understood it. But then he discards that, assumes it was unintended, and importantly, he doesn't have a good answer for what I'm actually saying divorced from that. Because... what's even left after you remove the subtextual story I'm telling with this anecdote? The anecdote itself? Of course he's empty handed.

Other notes:

He can't decide whether I'm an over zealous recruiter trying to call everything furry, or that I'm a gatekeeper trying to force robust definitions of 'furry' into the general lexicon. This isn't very important, it's just kind of funny.

He is dismissive of me saying I won't report news if my only source is Kiwifarms, but he doesn't really give a good reason for it. I am having trouble summarizing his argument for why I should have referenced a website whose users doxxed me. He hilariously suggests that I should negotiate with them to have my address taken down, as long as I'm not a "lolcow" about it. I'll be charitable and say that I don't think he's thought this through very much.

He hates that I "compare autistic people to animals," when that really just doesn't mean anything on its own. A comparison is a comparison, a follower of mine pointed out to me they could say that trans people are like cockroaches & it could either mean they are doggedly resilient in the face of harsh circumstances or that they are pests that need to be exterminated. I meant something specific by using an animal metaphor to describe my autistic identity, and it transcends the literal reading of "calling autistic people animals."

He derisively calls Echo a "gay furry sex game" when it simply is not. I'll forgive him for this because he hasn't played it, but Echo isn't porn, it's a horror game. There's sex in it, and it has the framework of a dating game, but it is far from the main appeal. I'm not saying this to elevate Echo above the degrading label of "porn," because Adastra is definitely porn and it's almost as good, just not as easily recommendable to outsiders.

He thinks its commendable that Sean Booth bought my album, which is nice.

Overall, I don't think DeadwingDork is outwardly hateful, but he is quite gullible. He accepts hate speech at face value and buys into narratives useful for hate movements. There's echos of trans groomer panic, that old "you're the reason people are transphobic" chestnut, and of course, using Kiwifarms as a news source. He said he came into the video knowing nothing about me and had no reason to be approaching me in bad faith, but he clearly doesn't trust me enough to think the main rhetorical thrust of the video was intentional.

bad stream lol

#mini essay #long post #cilantromixture #Youtube

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hirngespinst-phi · 1 month ago

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Here's my personal interpretation of Faust's character development from Xrd to Strive because I love to ramble about tall doctors in embarrassing length. Only open the "Keep reading" if you are feeling insane enough for my silly fictional brain rot.

I'm writing this as somebody who used to struggle with depression and relates to him in this way. I see his mental state represented through his visual design but overall I interpret him to be doing better mentally in Strive than in any of the earlier games, even if it might seem counterintuitive looking at his current state.

First, I'll talk about the events in "Another Story". Here, Ramlethal tells him to not use her or the entire Delilah rescue mission as a tool for his personal atonement. Something that makes him genuinely pause and think. This rarely happens with him. Her input leads to his "Square One" quote that he keeps repeating while channelling the giant portal door.

I interpret this as him taking Ram's advice and focusing on what his original (square one) motivation for being a doctor was: Saving lives (as he clarifies in his arcade mode). He had been so consumed by his guilt that he made it his first priority to atone for his sins, instead of acting out of the intrinsic wish to help others.

This change of priority is what I see as the reason he doesn't overexert himself through the magic he is casting to a degree that would kill him in the process. No, just like Ram told him to, he is taking care of his own life too, surviving in the end. Even though he was fully prepared to sacrifice himself prior to Ram talking to him.

In the process he turns into his skinny, sickly, scary looking Strive self with the ominously red glowing eye. I interpret this as him for the first time since picking up his Faust persona to drop the facade and be real with himself. Allowing himself to show weakness and sadness.

In his Xrd win quote against Elphelt he says "Lies can become truths. I still find those words difficult to understand. I only hope that the smile you wear is not merely a mask like mine." The silly, cheerful Faust is an act he is playing. Behind the mask, he had always carried the sad face of Strive Faust. He was just hiding it very well during Accent Core and Xrd.

The fact that it is an act is nothing negative, though. We ar all actors to a degree. The Faust role he is playing is what gave him the strength to move on from being Dr. Baldhead and his kindness is always genuine. The mask metaphor is of course visualized through his paper bag that he clings to so desperately, it seems to give him more of a sense of identity than his actual human face.

The character development that Ram caused in him is further touched upon in his arcade mode story. When Ram asks him, "Who is going to save you?" He answers, "I, save me. Finally found, my answer." After all this time, he is able to start finding the solution to his grief within himself instead of trying to externalize it. While his previous cope was to hyperfocus on redeeming himself by helping others at any cost even if it would harm himself, he is now at a point where he can reflect on himself and see that he can help others and himself better if he forgives himself internally.

Towards Nagoriyuki he also says "It's okay, to ask for help." This is a big step for Faust since he acts very lone-wolfish and purposefully unapproachable through the entirety of ACR and Xrd. Being silly and friendly on a surface level, but never letting any real vulnerability show or building deeper bonds towards other characters, always sticking with his mysterious wandering doctor schtick.

The use of his flowers and Mini Fausts is interesting to me too.

It is implied that his flowers partly grow as involuntary emotional reactions as seen in his idle crouch fidget animation where the flower grows on his butt against his will and his reaction to Stimulating Fists of Annihilation 😅... So we can assume they are at least in part a representation of his emotions and how he handles them.

During the Accent Core and Xrd era he used his flowers as weapons. In Strive he only uses them in his respect and crouch fidget animations and doesn't cause damage with them, which leads me to believe he is more in peace with himself and his emotions.

Now if we look at the flower designs in comparison even though the flowers used to have brighter, happier colours they used to look straight up terrifying in ACR, not specifically happy in Xrd and even though they are creepy in Strive, they smile and seem happy.

The Mini Faust design in Strive is more on the creepy side too in comparison with the earlier versions, but if we look at how he actually interacts with them in game now, there is a lot more care and appreciation. Prior to Strive, I don't know of any Mini Faust appearances outside the "What Could This Be?" attack. In Strive, however, they show up in his respect animation, in his "Bone-Crushing Excitement" reaction and in his timeout animation, where the Faustlings and him act very sweet and caring towards each other (like the Mini Faust pulling his soul back into his body).

So to conclude, like with his flowers and Mini Fausts, his dark change in visual design reads to me as him being able to show more of his true inner world to the outside, opening up and allowing himself to show weakness as a step towards inner healing. It may not be a pretty truth to look at, but he's being honest to himself. And even through the obvious sadness and grief that is expressed in his Strive design, he is still so full of whimsy and silliness in his animations and interactions with others. He makes jokes, he goofs around, he shows joy for the little things like clovers/doughnuts/etc., and he chuckles a lot more during combat than before too. His way of talking is more calm and at peace with himself, instead of the overly energetic way he used to act. He used to seem like he was always on edge, running from himself and running to do more to atone for his sins.

In Alone Infection, the last repetition of the chorus has "blue, red and black paranoia" replaced with "joy, grief, fun paranoia". I think it's a beautiful message that we are allowed as people to exist in grief, let it happen and feel it truly while still feeling joy and fun. Like Faust, we are complex beings with lots of emotions, and we don't need to always act out the happiest, strongest version of ourselves. He is working through his sadness and that's okay.

#insane rambling #I don't expect anyone to actually read this #faust gg #guilty gear

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nickrocketrodriguez · 3 months ago

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How does storyboarding inform the writing process? Does it not inform the story at all, e.g. all the writing is done first. Does it only begin to inform the story later on, e.g. after the pilot episode, after the first few episodes, etc...

Day 02 of Rocket Answers to celebrate the S3 premiere of Jurassic World: Chaos Theory!

Another process question! Woo!

So, television animation on script-driven shows is truly such an awesomely collaborative process. The storyboarding team is so extremely important to how the writing develops during the course of a series like ours. We started writing the series a few months before anything on the production side began -- before designs, voice records, and, obviously, storyboarding. So, while we did have the voice and tone of the first series to look to, we were sort of writing blind -- which is par for the course when starting any new project.

But the reason I love our board artists and why storyboarding helped with the writing as we went along is that the board artists shape our understanding of the visual language of the show, along with the acting of the characters. Our cast was obviously incredible, bringing the scripts to life in a beautiful way, but they don't have the chance to showcase the characters' physicality, only hint towards it with their voices. That was the coolest thing to me about how the board artists helped with the writing. Sure, they come up with amazing shots like the T-rex explosion in "The End of the Beginning," but when I'm writing I'm focusing on character, and getting to see the board artists interpret and breathe life into these human beings was so helpful in telling us who these people are and how they interact with each other.

The board artists were also instrumental in helping us work through the action sequences. In "Down on the Ranch" I remember we didn't have a design yet for Sammy's ranch, so we had to sorta draw our own diagrams of what the set could look like. Down the line, when plans were more set in stone and we had a better idea of what places would look like, we were able to write towards that a little bit better (which meant less rewriting later on).

Also, the board artists on our show were heeeeeeella funny, so that made every episode that much more special.

#jurassic world chaos theory #jwct #jurassic world camp cretaceous #jwcc #jurassic world #jurassic park #ama #ask me anything #chaos crew #rocket answers

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hyun3hk3y · 10 months ago

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Symbolism in "Portrait of Lady Edelgard Von Hresvelg"

This is something that I’ve usually never really felt comfortable doing. If you ever wonder why some artists are a bit more reluctant to actually *talk* about the “meaning” of their work, its because it strikes the same tenor as having to explain why a joke is funny. If I have to actually lay it out for the viewer why certain decisions were made in the execution of a work of art, the magic of the whole experience may be lost. Moreover, many artists avoid making definitive statements on their work because they do not wish to deprive viewers the opportunity to derive their own unique explanation.

While I chiefly view myself as a fine artist, most of my artistic training was as an illustrator. As an artist, this can lead to an interesting dichotomy when it comes to creating paintings. During my studies, I was told that the job of an illustrator is to solve pictorial problems for people often by making pictures that tell a story or convey an idea. Fine art’s definition, in contrast, tends to be more nebulous. But I digress, on to the painting…

A number of people on reddit and Tumblr have remarked on the candle with the snuffed-out flame. No interpretations on it have been offered, the mere presence of a candle with a smoldering wick is a strong enough implication. However, this is one instance where I drew inspiration from art history so I believe it is worth elaborating on. The animus for the candle originates in the Arnolfini Portrait by Jan Van Eyck. Below is an image of the painting with the pertinent candle circled.

Art history scholars have a number of different readings about the candle’s presence, but the one I was taught in Art History is that the lit candle indicates the presence of the holy ghost or the watchful eye of God. Three Houses draws from a number of religions for its world building, in the case of The Church of Serios, the developers took the majority of their cues from The Catholic Church. If a lit candle would suggest Edelgard’s faith in the Goddess, then an extinguished one must imply Edelgard’s *loss* of faith.

In addition to the extinguished candle, I would also like to direct viewers to the reflection of the candle in the polished wood table surface. In the reflection the candle is still burning very brightly, almost down to the base of the candelabra.

The purpose of this image is to recall a saying from old Taoism Philosophy in China: “The candle that burns twice as bright burns half as long.” Those who are familiar with Edelgard’s back story in Three Houses will find its relevance obvious. I doubt I am the only one to make the allusion.

This brings me to the next major piece of symbolism I employed in the painting, the dagger and the drapery on the table. The dagger’s significance should go without saying, but its application as a device will become more apparent after I explain the table cloth. To put it succinctly, the majority of the dark shadow shapes made by the tablecloth are arranged to evoke the shape of the crest of flames. Below is another visual to help illuminate this detail.

The immediate implication here is the detail of Edelgard possessing the crest of flames. As for why I decided to depict it in a more concealed way…When I first got the idea for this painting, the whole concept was that if a person saw this painting in a gallery, they would be looking at an actual artifact from Fodlan, one that created by an artist who actually lived there. This is why the second row of the inscription reads “In the Imperial Year” on the left side and “1179” on the right. This means the painting would have been completed just before Edelgard starts attending Gareg Mach, and long before the greater public would know she has the crest of flames. How the artist came to know this would remain a mystery. I like to imagine it as a detail that Fodlan’s historians would debate over for years after the game’s narrative.

There is also a second message that I have intended with the dagger’s placement cutting (heh) across the crest…Gripping the dagger over the crest of flames is a statement about what the path is that Edelgard will take, especially when the crest is examined as representing the Goddess Sothis. In fact, there are two (technically three) lines of dialogue from Three Houses I had in mind for this symbolism.

That about sums it up! I may do a couple more posts in the future where I show how the painting evolved from thumbnails, to studies to the finished image if theres interest in that sort of thing.

#oil on panel #oil painting #artists on tumblr #edelgard von hresvelg #fe3h #fe3h fanart #fire emblem #fire emblem fanart #fire emblem three houses #black eagles #crimson flower #portrait painting #figurative painting #realism #fe3h edelgard #fe three houses #fe16 fanart #fe16

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kaibutsushidousha · 23 days ago

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The Hundred Line special guests interview from Famitsu issue 1895

A game is composed of multiple elements, like "plot", "characters", "world", and "experience". In what order do those get constructed when you make games?

Jirou Ishii: Me first. I can't present a project unless I have all parts sorted. A game only becomes a project when you have a plot, a cast, a world, and your gameplay sorted out. Of course, sometimes I can only come up with fragments of the story and characters, but I need to have some ideas, any ideas, in store for later.

Alright. You next, YOKO.

YOKOTARO: I work mainly with action games, so the process might be different from visual novels. For action games, you need to start from an estimate of the gameplay mechanics, and only then you're allowed to come up with a story, cast, and world that fit with this estimate. By estimate, I do mean a budget. Eventually, you will find some cases where the estimate will pre-establish the number of characters in your cast, and even force you to redistribute who is an ally and who is an enemy to work with that. Wait, this wasn't supposed to be a conversation about money (laughs).

Kazutaka Kodaka: But since you made it about money, I have to mention how The Hundred Line was funded from Too Kyo's own pockets and we had strict budget plans to follow. But as the game kept growing, the initial budget only lasted a few months. Mostly my fault for not knowing when to hit the brakes.

YOKO: And how much did it cost? Saying the price in yen would qualify as gore, so let's use Ronpas as the currency here.

Kodaka: I mean, I could just tell you the price in yen here and now. It's not like the interviewers would be allowed to put the number on the magazine.

YOKO: Still on the topic of money, with how inflated localization costs have been these days, I sometimes get requests to cut scenes shorter. With how colossal The Hundred Line is, how much did that weigh on your budget?

Kodaka: The Hundred Line was a collaboration with Aniplex, meaning the production costs were split between us. All procedures were carried out on agreeable terms. Well, agreeable on our end. I can't say for certain Aniplex felt the same (laughs).

In what order was the world of The Hundred Line constructed?

Kodaka: A major factor in defining the direction of the story and the characters was my age. I felt like this was my last chance to write ensemble casts and believable teenager dialogue. As for the gameplay, we went with a tactical RPG because that's what I assumed would be the cheapest.

YOKO: Oh, you fell for THOSE illusions?

Kodaka: Oh yeah, that was a total illusion alright (pained laughs). Considering this was my collaboration with Uchikoshi, we initially positioned the plot as the main item and the TRPG gameplay as just a bonus to hype up the plot. But the desire to improve the TRPG only grew as development progressed, so we kept tweaking the battles until the last day available for it. With how much we managed to add in terms of story volume, polish, and gameplay, this title is the closest thing I can call to my ideal game. Now I'm ready to die without regrets (laughs).

Ishii: So can we count the game as your will?

All: (laughs)

The Hundred Line has 100 routes and endings. Can we get YOKO's and Ishii's opinions on this length?

Ishii: It's outright amazing. Relatively short visual novels, like PARANORMASIGHT: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo or Urban Myth Dissolution Center, have been major successes lately. This game runs contrary to the trend, if anything running closer to the lengthy VNs from our careers.

Kodaka: Our goal was making a VN that the player can keep playing over time. To accomplish that, we made multiple route types, and allowed the player to interpret the ending that satisfied them the most as the true ending. This concept for this new IP came from a wish to create an aspect that would get the people of the current year to question our sanities. The best we had to offer was quality and quantity in terms of text and illustration, and that's why we created 100 routes.

Ishii: The closest thing I can think of in terms of how different the routes get from each other is Banshee's Last Cry. That game as a VN with TRPG elements instead of a pure sound novel is an amusing idea. The elements of continuing the game until you're satisfied is also an aspect I feel competes with Gnosia. All that has me very interested in The Hundred Line.

Kodaka: Making the TRPG match the plot was much harder than we imagined. We needed to fine tune the difficulty to make every battle winnable using only the characters currently featured in the story. Which is made more difficult when you have a huge number of routes with crucial differences on who is and isn't in the roster, something really time-consuming for a simple consistency check. I was often going "wait, it doesn't make sense for this character to be at this moment of this route".

Looking at the story branches, this game has a lot in common with YOKO's work.

YOKO: True. I created my route splits to add replayability to the Drakengard series. Those were times when everyone kept saying short games weren't worth it. But in the current year, making something with 100 different routes and endings is the more dangerous play.

Koutarou Uchikoshi: From a creator's perspective, my reaction to Kodaka's project pitch was "Let's rethink this one" (laughs). I showed him a flowchart with 100 routes to hammer it how rash his idea was, but that only got him more motivated…

Kodaka: I got so excited about our game (laughs).

So the document written to make him quit backfired?

Uchikoshi: Honestly, from a player perspective, I saw The Hundred Line as something that appeals both to the crowd that wants to rush it and the crowd that wants to take their time. If we actually managed to make the whole thing (laughs).

Kodaka: I remember the people at Too Kyo being really split on the volume. Due to that, I asked my close friends about their opinions on the game's length. Most Japanese friends were put off by the amount of text, but the American friends explained that only the really hardcore crowd plays Japanese games in the US, so this length would be like Christmas in July.

YOKO: Eh, I feel like the Japanese crowd is also huge on the "I want to see every ending, I want the full experience".

Kodaka: Absolutely. I certainly prefer people experiencing everything, but it's perfectly fine to walk away whenever you feel satisfied.

Uchikoshi: This might work somewhat like RPG side quests. You don't have to clear all of them, but each one you experience deepens your understanding of the game.

The Hundred Line is split into visual novel sections and tactical RPG sections. What do you believe a visual novel needs to be in this age of such rich genre diversity?

Kodaka: The most memorable title I played recently is Until Then. It felt like one of the old ones, going on extensively while still following the principles of "everything matters". We did have games that were unproductive with their high length, but nowadays, I believe the norm is keeping it short. Shorter stories mean more time-efficiency, bringing their narrative formats closer to manga chapters, TV episodes, or movies. Although I can't conclusively say one method is better than the other.

Can we consider The Hundred Line to be your personal answer to this dilemma?

Kodaka: No, not an answer to the VN genre, just an answer to the question of what VN would the current me make. Saying I hold the answer to such an indie-dominated niche would be in bad taste. I personally want large titles to be produced more often, and would love to see my game revitalizing the genre upon release.

Your thoughts, Ishii?

Ishii: I believe we could soon be getting a roguelike-style title, like the Gnosia I mentioned before. The number of games that can pull off the right balance of storytelling and roguelike gameplay is still close to zero, but I expect a high-level title to appear and codify the genre in the near future. Also, writing a visual novel has always been a battle against flowcharts and loading multiple save files. I believe in game design innovations that can create stories that eliminate the need for flowcharts and save files. I'm very excited both to discover and to create story formats never seen before.

What do you have to say, YOKO?

YOKO: I believed the advancement of technology would blur the lines between action, RPG, and visual novel. My prediction didn't come true. The genres are still as distinct as they always were. But the definition of visual novel changed. Back in the days of hardware limitations, what we currently call sound novels were the only possible style of visual novel. But now that any form of presentation is possible, the labels changed meaning. The story sections in Uncharted and Detroit: Become Human are very similar, so I imagine the only reason why only the latter gets called a visual novel is because it doesn't have action gameplay.

Uchikoshi: Good point, Detroit and Uncharted share the same base 3D character adventure controls. The only difference really is the emphasizes on their movement.

Kodaka: Visual novel and adventure game are labels used interchangeably in Japanese, but in my opinion, the English-speakers stick only with the former because it's the one that makes sense.

Ishii: Calling it a novel really draws emphasis to the writing. At the risk of going off-topic, a key similarity between novel games and basic literature is the added attention to the story text through the absence of any other element. But classic literature cares too much about being narrated in first person, and with that being the only POV option, the worlds of novels feel biased at best and barren at worst.

YOKO: Ishii, do you think you could make money with pure literature?

Ishii: Sounds doable, I already made Bungo and Alchemist a hit (laughs).

All: (laughs)

And Uchikoshi's thoughts on visual novels?

Uchikoshi: I believe Detroit: Become Human to be the ultimate form of VNs as we currently know them. Wonderful visuals, too. But if you asked me if the ideal visual novel is a live-action movie with route splits, my answer would be no. Being able to control movement is important. One project I want to create later down the line is what would Detroit: Become Human would look like if it came from the mind of a Japanese man.

Oh, I'd love to play that.

Uchikoshi: I still have a lot I want to create, but at the rate AI is evolving, I'm afraid the market will soon be dominated by AI-generated VNs.

YOKO: I'm also pretty concerned about AI running all game creators out of their jobs. In 50 years from now, people might think of us the same way we think of wandering bards nowadays.

You think AI would be able to create the outlandish worlds and stories you come up with?

YOKO: Yes.

Ishii: Same opinion (laughs).

Kodaka: I think it can copy an author's technique, but not their personality. For example, it could create a game script that resembles a David Lynch movie, but if the real David Lynch were to write for game, he wouldn't write it in the same style he uses for writing movies.

YOKO: I think a high-end AI would go beyond that and be capable of perfectly replicating the man's behavior. Its output would be based on the intention rather than the instructions.

Kodaka: The idea of an AI that fails deadlines tickles me (laughs).

YOKO: I believe we're slowly leaving the era of asking it to copy the style of our favorite creators and entering the era of asking it to create scripts catered to our tastes. The AI determines what the player likes and generates the route they would want to read. Just an idea based on how quickly the area is developing in the user recommendations department.

Kodaka: That would reduce the amount of experience people can share with one another, slowly fading away the concept of a bestseller from public consciousness worldwide.

The Hundred Line will be the first IP directly owned by Too Kyo Games. What do you believe to be the significance of owning franchises instead of only creating them?

YOKO: I don't own any of my series. I own partial rights to a manga, but for the games, I generally give everything to the client. Being real with you, owning a game franchise is not, by itself, something that makes money. But if you don't care about the money, then owning your series has one merit in the form of easier creative control. But I can control my franchises by having a relationship of mutual trust with the producers that hire me, which includes being able to tell them when I don't want a product to be made, so in my case specifically, I'd say I don't need to own anything.

Kodaka: Same here, I don't find IP ownership that significant. I may own The Hundred Line but it's not like Too Kyo Games can leverage that to make anime or stage play adaptations in our studio. We still need partner companies and production staff, and that makes the process not much different from how it would have been if the franchise rights were elsewhere. The only reason why I was so insistent in making The Hundred Line our first IP was because one of the foundation goals of Too Kyo Games was to own one franchise, didn't matter which. But with how huge of a project The Hundred Line was, it was maybe my last guess for which series we would get to keep.

Ishii: The Hundred Line really feels made with the intention of becoming a series. Kodaka already made a successful franchise out of Danganronpa, so I've been noticing the subtle details enabling the series expansion of The Hundred Line.

Kodaka: Whatever I did there was mostly unintentional. But my past successes were a basis for the creation of this new plot, cast, and world, so I could see it naturally coming out with franchise potential.

YOKO: It doesn't need to be conscious or intentional. Kodaka and Uchikoshi have a propensity for sequel hooks. A fetish, even. The games they make carry the seeds for sequels at their deepest core. I can see the sleeper agents in them.

Kodaka: I don't know about that (nervous laughs).

YOKO: You two can't help yourselves trapping characters in enclosed environments, to suffer until they reach their cruel demise. This inexplicable impact is something both of you share. It's honestly impressive how your games are so similar in plot but so different in flavor.

I agree (laughs). Onto a different subject now, tell us what makes a game built at your studio, or as a freelancer, uniquely good or uniquely difficult.

Kodaka: You think YOKOTARO still remembers anything from your employee days?

YOKO: I do. It felt really limiting, having to commute to work every day and work together with people who didn't vibe with me. The freelance life is a comfort to me. I have the freedom to choose when I go to the office and who I work with. Even when the client pitches a weak project my way, I can change it into something fun as long as I respect the important points of the budget estimate.

You're allowed to alter the client's base concept for the game?

YOKO: They get pissed because I only report that to them after the point of no return, but, y'know… negotiation skills can take you anywhere (laughs).

Ishii: I actually feel like I had more creative freedom in my employee days. I was fiercely determined to create something new, motivated by my need to charisma check the corporation in order to get my projects approved and secure a better budget. I looked really assured, since I thought casually giving them permission to fire me if it flopped was normal. That's also a reason why I wanted to be a director who supports creators after I went independent. But in reality, it's really hard to come across a director willing to quit the company for their mistakes whenever. When I say "If you're willing to put your job on the line, I'll provide you with everything you need", the default answer is "Sir, I have a family to feed". This conflict in worldview was the biggest obstacle of my early independent career.

Uchikoshi: Could it be a generational gap thing?

Ishii: No, a lot of people from my generation are strongly stability-minded, so I think I'm the only one built different.

What compromises have you been through in your freelance career?

Ishii: Once I was no longer capable of making super niche games, my first feelings were conflict and despair. I wasn't sure I'd be able to accept the person I'd become after many so many concessions to my identity, even knowing I had to do it to earn my daily bread. Nonetheless, most jobs I worked with after going solo were commercial successes. And my journey of self-search, analyzing what made them big hits, is still not over.

Kodaka and Uchikoshi went independent with the creation of Too Kyo Games. Did you notice any differences?

Kodaka: In my "salaryman era", when I had something I wanted to do, it was harder to assemble the necessary parts. Nowadays, if I ever feel like making a game for a manga or anime franchise, I can give it a shot. Being able to adjust mine and Uchikoshi's workloads at my discretion also makes life a lot easier. I can tell that trying to direct and write two or more games at the same time is too much for me, but where I have more minor roles, I have the option to move things forward by working on the weekends.

Uchikoshi : By becoming a commissioner rather than a commissionee, I learned that hierarchies were never real. When I relied on the company's salary, I assumed I was supposed to obey their request no matter how impracticable and the people being paid have no right to refuse. Then, at my first job as the one asking for things, I made my first impracticable request and heard a "No, that will not be possible. Not an option." (laughs). Turns out money and labor are items traded at the same rate. One side is not above the other. I want to be able to more confidently say no to impossible jobs.

Now we'll be moving away from the topic of work and talk about the real-life events and pieces of media that resonated with you in the past few years.

Kodaka: I've been too busy for games and movies these past couple of years. The only form of media I've been enjoying lately is wrestling. Each match ends on the same day it starts, and that's enough time to spend not thinking about my job. Things finally calmed down lately, and I took the chance to beat Metaphor: ReFantazio and Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth back-to-back so I won't get stuck behind the times. As for movies, I watched Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX Beginning and Conclave.

YOKO: The movies I recommend are The Wild Robot and Petals and Memories.

Huh, not a lineup I'd have expected.

YOKO: I rarely go to the theaters on my own, so whenever I'm invited to a private screening of a movie, I always try to take the opportunity. The Wild Robot impressed with how much content it could pack in only 2 hours, and I spent the whole second hour crying. I genuinely had to fight not to make any noises in the theater room. Petals and Memories is another emotional piece. When I watch something that plays out too similar to what I write, my head goes into work mode and I can't focus again, but those kinds of titles that have nothing to do with my inner world are incredibly effective at pulling my heartstrings. I heavily recommend both of these titles. Please let me use the magazine's space to deliver lengthy sinopses of them.

What about you, Ishii?

Ishii: Shanghai's immersive theater is impactful. The viewers go to a theater styled like a 5-6 room apartment and walk around the residence, following the plot unfold in real time where the actors go. It's so high quality that it made me feel something I haven't since the first time I played Dragon Quest on the NES.

Kodaka: Were the actors speaking Chinese?

Ishii: I went in accompanied by Chinese-Japanese bilinguals. I had 3 people interpreting it for me, but depending on what was happening on the scene, all three would get too panicked to translate. That part only added to the amazing immersiveness. The theater also has plays that don't rely on spoken dialogue, so I could go along for the ride and get the most out of the interactive experience.

What about you, Uchikoshi?

Uchikoshi : The most recent game that really got me was Nier: Automata.

Kodaka: From, like, 2017?

YOKO: Are you just saying stuff to be funny?

Uchikoshi : I mean it! I don't believe any game has surpassed Nier: Automata yet. It really consumed my brain and I'm not just saying this because you're sitting right here. The story is just so deep and philosophical.

YOKO: I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but I will never make another that lives up to your standards!

Uchikoshi : Can you elaborate?

YOKO: I've grown too old to have skills (laughs).

Be serious (laughs)

Uchikoshi : Also, I don't know if this counts as entertainment media, but I was on a promotional trip to the United States and something happened at the bar I was in. The American friend who took me to the bar suddenly walked to a huge black man and started a rap battle against him.

YOKO: Ok, NOW you're just saying things to be funny!

Uchikoshi : It happened! (laughs)

Ishii: You should have joined them.

Kodaka: Convince them to play Nier: Automata with your rap.

All: (laughs)

Uchikoshi : I couldn't parse what they were saying, and most of all, I was scared… I pretended I didn't know him until the rap battle was over. As Ishii mentioned just now, nothing compares to the immersiveness of a real life experience.

YOKO: So, in summary, what you're is saying people are better off dropping The Hundred Line and going outside?

Uchikoshi : No, I'm saying you should live real life experiences AFTER beating The Hundred Line.

Lastly, tell us your next plans and ideas.

Kodaka: I've been exceedingly busy for the last few years, working on multiple projects, with The Hundred Line at the center of it all, but now I finally settled down for the first time since forever. I gotta take a break from creative work and focus on promoting The Hundred Line until April 24th. Besides The Hundred Line, I also have another game already fully produced, so I will be announcing this one any day now.

YOKO: I do have an ongoing project, but nothing I can discuss at the moment… What kind of answer does the magazine even expect with this kind of question?

Hah, throwing the question back at the interviewer! Well, it's about the obvious, I'm fishing for info on the future of your known titles. An ideal answer would be something like "I want to make a new Nier sequel."

YOKO: Ok, so that's the answer I'm going with. I want to make a new sequel for whichever series you, the reader, personally wants the most.

Now we're talking (laughs).

All: (laughs)

Uchikoshi : Same answer as him.

Kodaka: Didn't you say you wanted to make a game like Detroit: Become Human?

Uchikoshi : That's the one I'm talking about.

What about you, Ishii?

Ishii: I got the perfect content for you. I'm ready to throw a bomb at my fans on April 28th. It's my personal passion project at the moment, but I started already expecting certain people to want to contribute once I have something to show them for it. Let's see how well that goes. Don't miss it.

Uchikoshi : April 28th? That's four… two…

Kodaka: I was trying not to say it.

All: (laughs)

YOKO: That Uchikoshi, doing the job of the Famitsu editors for them!

Uchikoshi : I knew that none of you were going to say it, so I had to… (nervous laughs)

"April 28th" coming from Ishii's mouth is a pretty solid hint.

Ishii: Yes, the 4/28 date matters. I hope my impact in the VN scene doesn't fall behind The Hundred Line.

—————————————————————————–

Links:

Writing team interview

Design team interview

Music team interview

#the hundred line #last defense academy #jirou ishii #yoko taro #kazutaka kodaka #koutarou uchikoshi

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amazingdeadfish · 8 months ago

Text

Blue and Violet Scenes/Ideas that never made the cut

Self Indulgent post ahead, but I kind of wanted to share some of the things that had been part of the early stages of BAV but were cut out when I finally started publishing! Most of this stuff was either cut out due to my interpretations of the characters naturally changing and/or I simply realized that these aspects simply could not fit the story I wanted to tell (or, they are just silly things I simply could not fit into the plot line. OR, I forgot about them and didn't remember these things existed until now 💀).

Starting off strong with a thing I actually wrote a segment for (an idea that was relatively recent compared to the ones down below): During Colours, Baihe and Macaque were meant to visit the ruins of her house and try and salvage any bits and pieces which might help them find her parents. In the end I had decided that, Baihe would have done that already before Macaque found her on the park bench. I just think that that moment between her and her old home should just... well, it's a moment that belongs to her. Something Macaque didn't need to bare witness.

Extra Info: This is where Baihe was originally meant to find the old photo of her, her parents, and Māo as a kitten. And... Macaque is there in the background. Stealing an air fryer that managed to survive the wreckage (this was in fact written into the draft of this segment).

Next is- well, it contains a bit of a heavy topic. It's about Mayor and LBD and... erm...

In the published version of TQFTSK. Macaque betrays the Chief and locks them in the Calabash and this inevitably leads to LBD telling Chief to cut off their hair. Originally, this was not going to be the only thing she would do.

I have incredibly mixed feelings about this concept, but basically, after Chief especially failed to get the key and 'let' Macaque escape, LBD would have had severe insecurities about the Chief being on their own and the idea that they would never be able to get anything done without her. So, she made them wear a collar. So that every time they didn't do anything right, the needles imbedded into it would dig into their throat and- well, it was basically torture. She would have called it 'necessary discipline'. Of course, the collar would not be visible to anyone. It only appears when it's 'necessary'.

But this was an extremely early concept that I threw away in the bin after realising that this was not what I wanted LBD and Mayor's relationship to be like. While the initial idea behind this was to really empathize the fact that LBD owns Mayor and is extremely controlling, the idea of a physical collar ruins that aspect of their relationship. It's a visual and painful representation of their relationship, sure, but it made their relationship too negative and, well, Mayor loves her. And I knew it needed to be important to at least give you guys some sort of reason and some sort of argument as to why that admiration and love would be justified. The collar was just too much, and it didn't fit LBD's character to do something like this.

Side Note: One thing I think subconsciously happened though, was the needle thing. LBD ended up killing Ling with tens of thin needles piercing through their body. So, not a collar, but the basic principle of needles being used for pain... remains. It may or may not be to do with the idea of 'stitching up a puppet to fix its mistakes'.

Moving on, a more silly one this time! Somewhere near the beginnings of all of this (all the way back when I had only planned to make TQFTSK and Colours), there was going to be one single chapter (in Colours) dedicated to the Mayor going through all the stages of grief (eventually I'd come to the conclusion that they needed a lot more than one chapter to do all of that lmao). As a part of their bargaining stage, Macaque was going to stumble upon them in a bar and- unfortunately, being the curious nut he is, decides to stick around and just listen to the Mayor drunkenly mope.

PSA: No, this would not have ended in drunk kissing. This was meant to end in a snotty nosed Mayor and Macaque promptly leaving after he'd had his bit of listening to their misery.

Another thing was that Mayor was meant to be able to see souls! This particular story feature eventually just evolved into Mayor simply being able to judge a soul by looking at their eyes (hence the whole, "eyes are the gateway to the soul").

Another Note: This whole idea was also meant to emphasize the fact that Mayor has no soul and, how whenever they look inside themselves, there is no colour and there is no soul (that is, until they get their soul back). But, well, I figured their eyes alone would be able to do all of that just fine without this ability.

Now, as ashamed as I am to admit, originally I had completely bought into the Baihe, Macaque, and Mayor family dynamic. So, in the beginning, this was what was going to happen.

But then I decided Baihe was not going to conveniently be an orphan or have shitty parents for the sake of this dynamic. No, no no no. She will have loving parents, character development, and she will be more than just a character to fill in the slot of 'the child'. Whenever I write Baihe, I always strive to not use her for the sake of developing Macaque and Mayor's characters. No shame to those who like this dynamic though, its a good one and it's so silly (I still like it to be honest).

Now, let me tell you that there are a LOT more unused concepts than this. It's really just a decent slice from a never ending pile of WIPs and shower thoughts scribbled onto a doc from all the way back in like... 2022-23.

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