Western vs. Eastern

This is a sobering look into the minds of Japanese game developers. [kotaku.com]

So. Broken.

Important Information Regarding Your Enjoyment of FFXIII

If you’re playing through Final Fantasy XIII [finalfantasy13game.com], make sure that you go into the Datalog option on the menu screen after every cutscene and look for new/changed entries about events, places, characters, and lore. Unlike other RPGs with some form of journal (Mass Effect [masseffect.bioware.com] immediately springs to mind), the Datalog in FFXIII is not optional if you want to understand/enjoy the story. Trying to follow everything and understand character’s motivations by ‘just’ playing the game leaves a lot of holes and WTF moments. As a result I wasn’t really enjoying it until I discovered that the datalog wasn’t just extraneous and/or redundant information.

I think this was a bad design decision, but that’s a discussion for another day. The point I want to make is that the game can be made a lot more enjoyable if you read the datalog after every cutscene. I wish someone had told me that this was the ‘right’ way to play the game earlier, so now I’m trying to spread the word as much as I can.

Sports

Amazon.co.jpのお客様へ、

Amazon.co.jpで、以前に東京事変のミュージックをチェックされた方に、このご案内をお送りしています。『スポーツ』、2010年2月24日発売予定です。

英語に歌っている歌手ご注意ください

英語の言葉「Wow!」の発音は「ウォー」じゃありません。そのおとは「Whoah!」と書きますよ。「Wow!」の発音は「ウアーォ」ですよ。

日本人の歌手はこれから歌詞に「Wow」を書いたら、「ウアーォ」を歌ってください。もし「ウォー」と歌たら、CDのジャケットに「Whoah!」を書いてください、ね？

日本に住んでいましたアメリカ人の皆から、お願いいたします。

UTADA = LOL?

Utada Hikaru’s (宇多田ヒカル) American persona UTADA just dropped a new track [utada.com], which is to be the lead-in for her new English-language album. I listened to it on repeat several times before coming to the conclusion that it is, sadly, horrible. Even as one of the very few native speakers who liked her previous English effort EXODUS [wikipedia.org], I struggled to find anything defensible here. The endlessly echoed failure of that album – her lack of English lyrical prowess – hasn’t seen any discernible improvement (she actually uses the line “I wish that I could photoshop all our bad memories” with no ironic intent). The lyrical tone seems ripped straight from Bobbie Brown song… or perhaps an Andy Samberg send-up of a Bobbie Brown song, and is strangely masculine. The music has always been her one piece of solid, defensible ground, but she’s opted for b-grade generic American R&B sounds that have none of her usual melodic hooks.

UTADA, what happened? There is nothing compelling here. You’re still making good Japanese music. What gives?

TKO / 小室哲哉は犯人？本間？

Holy shit! [japantoday.com] Tetsuya Komuro [wikipedia.org] just got hella owned.

Osaka prosecutors arrested well-known music producer Tetsuya Komuro on Tuesday on suspicion of defrauding an investor of 500 million yen by concluding a contract for the transfer of copyrights he did not own. The 49-year-old Komuro is known for a large number of pop music hits since the 1990s but recently is said to have accumulated huge debts related to business and family matters.

He is suspected of pretending he owned the copyrights to 806 tunes and concluding a 1 billion yen sales contract with a buyer in Hyogo Prefecture in August 2006, according to the prosecutors. Komuro received 500 million yen as part of the contract that month, they said. Most of the 806 tunes were written by him but he was not authorized to transfer the copyrights under a contract with a music publishing firm, according to them.

びっくりや！小室哲哉は犯人か？有り得ない。

春２００８デザイン・フェスタ / Design Festa, Spring 2008

久しぶりに日本語のブログポストや。ごめん、な？

今年の春、僕とアンドリュー[goviolet.com]は東京ビッグサイトにデザイン・フェスタvol.２７に行った。その時に、とても上手なアーティストたちの創出を見やった。好きの法の名刺を取った、このブログに載るために。長い間に掛かったけど、これからポストするや！

It's been quite a while since I attended the Spring 2008 Design Festa ("Vol. 27" in their long running series of conventions) with Andrew [goviolet.com]in Tokyo. While there, I grabbed business cards from some of the more impressive artists with the intention of sharing their work with the readers of my blog. Unfortunately, about 80% of all those artists had horrible, useless sites that were impossible to navigate (HTML frames, Japan? really?), broken, had none of their art (WTF?!), only had 200×200 pixel image files, etc etc. Here’s what was left.

Re’Jean DuBois Little [lejean.blogspot.com][signalburst.org/rejean]
Easily the most impressive Westerner artist I saw at the show. His stuff draws on lots of popular artists, but he adds a personal twist, and his skill makes his items a pleasure to look at. If I were in the position to hire a character or background artist at a game company, I’d snap this dude up in a hurry.

春２００８デザイン・フェスタの一番上手な米人や。彼のスタイルは人気アーティスト張りやけど、本間に才能ある人と思う。もし僕がゲーム会社のHRしたら、あっさり傭うわ。

Yasunaka Saku 保奈仮　サク[haleaid.ame-zaiku.com]
This Japanese artist had a beautiful pastel style that was absolutely luscious, and her character designs were simple, cute, and extremely expressive. I bought five of her books (a couple for me and a couple for keyla[bunniebear.net]) and just wish she would have had more items for sale. She laughed the third time I came back to her booth to buy more.

サクさんの絵からとても愛しい感じが貰う。キャラクターは目出度いや。見るとすぐ笑らって、泣くかも。彼女の本は宝物や。

Saku, if you're reading this: I'll happily localize your books into English if you want, for free. They are so heartwarming! Just drop me a comment.

サクさんへ：
サクさんの本は英語版が作りたい？僕が手伝ってあげるわ。もしよかったら、コメントしてください、ね？

Fujii Kakuho フジイ カクホ[maruisekai.com]
Completely adorable sculptures with soft colors and tons of personality. They have a dreamlike quality I find very pleasing and soothing. Priced a bit high, and I have no idea where I would put one…

この彫刻はちょっと高いなんやけど、夢的な感じあるから、好き。パステル的な色は「寛ぐ」って気持ちにあげる。僕が買ったら、どこへ見せ付けるかな？

eri エリ[www3.plala.or.jp/reinbow-/]
My favorite Japanese artist at the show, by far. Although the quality of her work varies a good bit, her best pieces blow me away. Explosions of color with excellent composition and skillful execution, I think she freaked out a little when I went through every single print she had and picked out a half dozen.

春２００８デザイン・フェスタの一番好きな日本人。実には、エリさんは印象的な絵も平凡な絵も作るけど、その最高物は本間に素晴らしいと思う。