Disqus - Latest Comments for math4origami

Re: One Piece - Finished Reading Chapter 768 - Manga Stream

math4origami — Thu, 20 Nov 2014 18:15:46 -0000

speakers'

Re: Crypton Announces Release Details for Hatsune Miku V3

math4origami — Tue, 13 Aug 2013 21:48:53 -0000

On http://piapro.net/en_for_cr... they have a FAQ about the CC license they are releasing Miku under, and I was wondering how the Q3: "ii) you will receive money in compensation for the usage of the Characters." applies to Artist Alleys.

Re: At BitSummit, Japan’s Indie Game Creators Come Out of Hiding

math4origami — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 05:58:08 -0000

I see, I can understand where you come from by reporting the event that you went to. I just hope that you don't interpret this one event as representative of the Japanese indie scene. There seems to be a lot of cross-culture differences and it'll be great for both sides to learn more about each other. If you want to check out some more indie games, I'd recommend going to a Tora no ana and looking for the 同人ソフト floor.

One way that you can help foster the growth of the Japanese indie scene is by highlighting and introducing where it already exists.

Re: At BitSummit, Japan’s Indie Game Creators Come Out of Hiding

math4origami — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 06:02:46 -0000

I don't think there's "no point" to BitSummit, in fact I'm glad that there are more indie game events in Japan. I have an issue with the Wired article's tone of voice and lack of knowledge of the subject material they are supposed to be reporting about.

In the case of this commenter (feitclub), he thinks that the western side has had a successful indie scene. While true, the success of western indie producers is no where near the spread that the Japan indie scene has already accomplished. This article fails to explain that.

"And while the indie scene has thrived outside Japan, making millionaires out of tiny design teams, such a scene has not yet emerged here."
"“I never thought I would see an event like this in Japan”"
"Despite being one of the very few established names in the Japanese indie scene, "
"it’s that Amaya and his fellow indies don’t have to be on their own anymore."

This article does bring in some good information, and ends on a positive note. But, that doesn't stop the author from being ignorant of his subject material and not doing enough research in this field. I would appreciate if the reporting did not give the impression that such titles such as Recettear and Touhou do not exist.

He plays up stereotypes and persists prejudices of the Japanese people, "but always assumed Japanese people were “too quiet” to have such a gathering". In Japan, humbleness is a virtue that is often ignored in the West, and this cross-culture mis-interpretation could be better approached.

Re: At BitSummit, Japan’s Indie Game Creators Come Out of Hiding

math4origami — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 00:57:15 -0000

The thing is is that indie games are also the exception to the norm in the West, too. My point is, even though there are Western indie successes, most people in the west also don't know about the indie scene either. The indie scene in Japan is much bigger than the indie scene in the west. Can I go buy Minecraft, Castle Crashers, Braid, or Bastion in a brick and mortar store in most major cities of a country?

http://www.toranoana.jp/shop/

Tora no ana is a store chain in Japan that sells *only* doujin goods, including games such as Touhou or Higurashi. They have enough business for 20 locations all over the country through selling doujin products such as Touhou, which alone usually takes up a huge portion of the store (2 floors out of 14 in Akihabara)

There are other chains such as White Canvas, K-books, Melonbooks, and Mandarake, which all make a decent business all over the country just selling doujin products (ok, Mandarake also deals with commercial used products). I don't think many people outside of the doujin scene understand the scale and size of the doujin scene in Japan.

So, while it isn't being published by Nintendo, just because it's indie in Japan does not mean it is small.

Indeed, the indie culture of Japan is very much tied to commercial Japanese products. While not the commercial games industry, the titles of Higurashi, Umineko, and Tsukihime I mentioned earlier all started as doujin products that were later adapted into commercial television series, comic book series, and other games (including PS2 adaptations).

Re: At BitSummit, Japan’s Indie Game Creators Come Out of Hiding

math4origami — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 00:46:36 -0000

Well, I do hope that the audience for doujin products grows as a result of this event. Then the doujin developers will earn more and be able to produce more products. Unfortunately, this is worse than getting more doujin producers interested (which doesn't matter since they already know about it), since they're the ones to make more games.

You misunderstand the number 5,000. Those are 5,000 *creators* of more Touhou media. These are the fans dedicated enough to the game that they feel the desire to produce their own fan products in return. Consider in the article that some people have had the feeling "wouldn't it be nice if I could create something too", and the fact that 5,000 of these people already realized their ambitions. There are many, many more people who like something but don't have the time or energy to produce their own product. Those 5,000 are just the most prolific subset of the whole fanbase of Touhou Project (also the ones who have the budget and time to get to Tokyo), and doujin products in general. That means that the true size of Touhou fans is already much bigger. While I can't find actual attendence numbers, I can assure you that there are already probably more than 50,000 Touhou fans in Japan alone.

As for evangelizing, I do try to give panels and classes every year at conventions all over the West coast to try to introduce the doujin scene through Touhou and Vocaloid to the America public. http://www.stanfordesp.org/...

Re: At BitSummit, Japan’s Indie Game Creators Come Out of Hiding

math4origami — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 16:02:39 -0000

"And while the indie scene has thrived outside Japan, making millionaires out of tiny design teams, such a scene has not yet emerged here."

I'm sorry, but I cannot trust anything Wired says anymore about Japan. First the Vocaloid article, and then this article. These are all bleeding in biases, prejudice, and ignorance in the subject material unbecoming of a technology news source.

The indie game scene in Japan, called doujin soft, is actually quite alive and has been very large in Japan. In last Comic Market 83, the largest doujin event in Japan that occurs biannually, there were over a 800 circles (indie groups/clubs) selling doujin soft.

Among these doujin circles, there have been quite a few very successful series, not only in Japan but also globally. You mentioned Cave story, which is a pretty acclaimed doujin title. But, there are also games such as Recettear, which has sold 100k+ copies globally on Steam. Yume nikki is another niche game that has gained a decent following globally.

Touhou Project is a series of 13 shoot-em-ups that has spawned the single largest doujin franchise in Japan. It is host to the largest single-genre indie convention in the world, Reitaisai, with over 5000 participating circle, all producing their own parody art, music, and games, such as this one http://www.youtube.com/watc...

Some games become so popular that they spawn commercial adaptations, such as 07th expansion's Higurashi no naku koro ni and Umineko no naku koro ni, or the When they cry series.

Other doujin soft companies have become so popular they go commercial, such as Type Moon who after their doujin release of Tsukihime went on to produce Fate/Stay Night.

Examples such as these show that the indie game scene in Japan is most certainly not "coming out of hiding" but already in blinding plain sight. But perhaps you were blinded by your preconceptions of what you think Japan is supposed to be like.

Re: J-music radio stations

math4origami — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 02:07:49 -0000

btw, I think animenfo radio has a rule about no requesting the same artist within a few hours

Re: J-radio & poll

math4origami — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 02:06:58 -0000

doujin/indie, in addition to touhou. such as, animenfo has plenty of doujin stuff.

Re: J-music radio stations

math4origami — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 02:03:28 -0000

have you heard of anime academy radio? They did anime, with lots of jpop. But, their site/stream's been down for a while.

Re: J-music radio stations

math4origami — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 02:01:59 -0000

big +1 for animenfo radio. I really like their music selection generally. They also have a decent number of touhou songs.

Re: Hatsune Miku L.A. Concert to be Streamed Live on NicoNico Douga

math4origami — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 02:24:18 -0000

It'll definitely have new material. Also, the stream is not mediocre. It's full hd, which will only be as bad as your internet connection.

Re: Hatsune Miku Live in Los Angeles: Mikunopolis (Update 9)

math4origami — Tue, 14 Jun 2011 19:01:34 -0000

Sadface, my touhou panels overlaps with mirai no niero. But, I'll catch the producers part, at least.
In any case, I'll be giving the "vocaloid fan phenomenon" panel, so if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions just ask me.

Re: “Vocaloid 3″ Formally Announced

math4origami — Sat, 11 Jun 2011 08:08:17 -0000

During the announcement they played sample korean, chinese, and spanish songs.

Re: A Reflection On The English Vocaloids

math4origami — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 23:39:30 -0000

Agree with all points, especially point 4. Part of the asahi shinbun documentary about nnd: [youtube xBZOlipfjkQ&feature=player_detailpage#t=195s http://www.youtube.com/watc... youtube]

Re: A Reflection On The English Vocaloids

math4origami — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 23:29:29 -0000

"In fact, for Vocaloid to be certain of a solid future, it MUST secure its place in the English speaking industry"
It would be nice for Vocaloid to have a place in the English speaking industry, but I don't think it is necessary for survival. http://blog.piapro.jp/2010/07/vocaloid-1.html
Are you saying that if JPop singers can't sell in the US (which you have said most don't), they aren't successful?
Are you saying that selling out of seats at Anime Expo is not successful? I, for one, love Vocaloid music the way it is, and having it change too much would take away all that I liked about it. Localization is a double-edged sword.
I know for a fact there would be many people to pay for the original, unedited, Japanese version of the product. Yes, the localizers can widen their audience by changing it the way they think might be correct, but you can't satisfy everyone and any changes they make will for sure dissatisfy some of the original fans. The question is, do you try to pick up 100 new foreign customers by losing 10 original customers? (Do you, as a company, care about money, or care about the people who liked your product from the very beginning?)

Re: A Reflection On The English Vocaloids

math4origami — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 22:59:33 -0000

You ask: "how can the popularity gap between them and the Japanese Vocaloids be explained?"
I think this can be very simply explained by answering two questions, how did Miku become popular in the Japanese community in the first place, and how are the ACG communities of Japan and the western world different?

Firstly, we understand that the popularity of the Japanese Vocaloids is largely driven by the Japanese community and Japanese creators. As in, very few popular Vocaloid songs are produced by non-Japanese. That isn’t to say there aren’t international producers, just that a majority of the popular ones are Japanese, and that the Japanese are largely the driving force. Therefore, if you want to analyze the popularity of Japanese Vocaloids, then you are really just asking why do the Japanese creators use Japanese vocaloids. Of course, that is due to the general lack of English proficiency among the average Japanese. Even though English is required in Japanese education, most classes are taught by non-native speakers and as a result lead to poor teaching. Most Japanese won’t hesitate to tell you, even if they’re wrong, that their English is very poor.

So, since Japanese creators won’t choose to use English because their English is poor, what is to stop English speakers from picking up English Vocaloids and creating a large English Vocaloid ecosystem? The answer would be the answers to the two questions I asked at the beginning.

How did Miku (and thereafter Vocaloid) become popular among the Japanese ACG community?
ACG is important, because Vocaloid did not start out mainstream, and it still isn’t driven by mainstream forces. As you have mentioned, the artstyle that attracts Vocaloid fans would seem odd and weird to most mainstream media. But, it is precisely that artstyle that cause Miku and Vocaloid to become popular.
ACG – Anime, Comics (manga), Games, is the trinity of popular media in East Asia, largely driven by Japan, but slowly being picked up by original creators in Korea, Taiwan, China, and others in recent years. Korea has manhwa and multitudes of MMO’s, Chinese have manhua and also their own MMO’s. All these medium have a commonality, the artstyle and characterizations (archetypes). The commonalities allow popular franchise from one medium to jump to another fluidly and often.
Now, of the three, anime and games are very high budget, time-consuming, and hard to produce for small groups of fans. On the other hand, comics/manga is very simple to create single-handedly. Tezuka, the father of the style, even said himself that he pioneered the style to cut costs and time for production. This persists to today, where many manga artists can create human features with just a few short strokes recognizable to any other ACG-literate fan. This artstyle is what Crypton hired KEI to use, it is what he delivered, and it is what continues to tie most promotional work for Vocaloid productions (think huke, redjuice, miwa shirow for supercell).
So, what is it about ACG and its simplicity that helps it proliferate. The answer is doujin, and what epitomizes doujin such as events like Comiket. Compare the Artist Alley of Fanime (about 300) or Anime Expo (700 I think?), to Comiket (33,000). Compare the number of events in Japan (doujin.com) to the events in the whole rest of the world (animecons.com). Online, compare naruto on deviant art (500k) to touhou on pixiv.net/tags.php (almost 1 million). The scale doesn’t even begin to come close. In Japan, I would argue, there are many more *creators* than in the Western market, and they both want to create and create well. This is probably due to market saturation of the media, they get manga since childhood, can buy it at any 7/11 down the street, and are surrounded by other fans in their daily life in close proximity. As in, if you live in a Japanese city, very likely there will be many ACG fans around you for you to share your creations with first hand, whereas ACG fans internationally don’t get the same luxury. This creates a fertile environment for further creation among fans in Japan.
Fans in Japan love to create and share, and in the last decade this creation of manga has spilled into videos with NicoNicoDouga and MADs. Notably, events like Comiket not only sell manga, but also games, music, and other indie creations. There is NOTHING on the scale of independent creation comparable to Comiket in the West.

Hatsune Miku and Vocaloid just fits into this ecosystem with her cover drawing appealing to all the artists, and the flexibility of the software itself to the composers itching to try out a new instrument.

Now, why Miku and not Kaito or Meiko? I would attribute that partially to technology, since Miku is better, but also luck, thanks to Ievan Polka, Miku Miku ni Shite Ageru, and Melt. Arguably, if none of those happened, Miku would have taken a lot longer to start up.
Oh, fuck me, Nico Nico Douga was launched December 12, 2006. Nvm, there’s the reason. Why is nico nico douga important? Utattemita, kumikyoku, weekly vocaloid ranking, MADs, and memes.

Re: Weekly UTAU Ranking #129 – So Many Great Songs

math4origami — Wed, 04 May 2011 05:15:35 -0000

wowaka's going to steamroller over next week.

Re: “Trigun” Movie Trailer

math4origami — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 22:37:54 -0000

http://www.pixiv.net/member...

Re: “Reitaisai 8″ – Rescheduled for May 8th

math4origami — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 03:21:06 -0000

T_T My kyoto study abroad program got cancelled so I could have gone but I can't, so I still miss it.

Re: News Roundup 02.22.2011

math4origami — Fri, 25 Feb 2011 04:06:03 -0000

Rofl, saw those both on walfas. Awesome vids.

Re: “Trigun” Movie Trailer

math4origami — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 15:20:43 -0000

lol

Re: “Anime Tenchou x Touhou Project” – Anime Announced *UPDATE 2

math4origami — Fri, 24 Sep 2010 12:51:33 -0000

Lets hope it goes better than International Saimoe last year.

Re: ｢Saimoe ‘10｣ “Groups C & D – Day 3″ ~ Second Round Results

math4origami — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 04:56:17 -0000

You should just start your own blog, lol

Re: Miku Goes to San Francisco

math4origami — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 13:24:27 -0000

It's probably because of NEW PEOPLE. They also screened the Haruhi movie really early.