Japanese Role-Playing Games

Rachael Hutchinson; Jérémie Pelletier-Gagnon

doi:10.5771/9781793643551

Summary

Japanese Role-playing Games: Genre, Representation, and Liminality in the JRPG examines the origins, boundaries, and transnational effects of the genre, addressing significant formal elements as well as narrative themes, character construction, and player involvement. Contributors from Japan, Europe, North America, and Australia employ a variety of theoretical approaches to analyze popular game series and individual titles, introducing an English-speaking audience to Japanese video game scholarship while also extending postcolonial and philosophical readings to the Japanese game text. In a three-pronged approach, the collection uses these analyses to look at genre, representation, and liminality, engaging with a multitude of concepts including stereotypes, intersectionality, and the political and social effects of JRPGs on players and industry conventions. Broadly, this collection considers JRPGs as networked systems, including evolved iterations of MMORPGs and card collecting “social games” for mobile devices. Scholars of media studies, game studies, Asian studies, and Japanese culture will find this book particularly useful.

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Bibliographic data

Copyright year: 2022
ISBN-Print: 978-1-7936-4354-4
ISBN-Online: 978-1-7936-4355-1
Publisher: Lexington, Lanham
Language: English
Pages: 320
Product type: Edited Book

1. Contents No access
2. 1. Figures No access
  2. Tables No access
3. Acknowledgments No access
4. A Note on Japanese Names and Sources No access
1. Notes No access
2. References No access
1. 1. Introduction: Is Dragon Quest a JRPG? No access
  2. Definition of JRPGs No access
  3. Popularizing RPGs in Japan No access
  4. Adapting Action Games and the ‘Ease of Play’ Revolution No access
  5. Dragon Quest as a Transitional Work No access
  6. Breaking away from Dragon Quest: A New Identity for JRPGs No access
  7. Conclusion: Future Possibilities of JRPGs No access
  8. Notes No access
  9. References No access
2. 1. Popularizing the Role-playing Game Genre on Consoles No access
  2. Console Generations and JRPGs No access
  3. Personal Computers and Mobile Devices No access
  4. Going Multiplatform No access
  5. Conclusion No access
  6. Notes No access
  7. References No access
3. 1. Tutorial Characters No access
  2. Case Studies: MOTHER and Final Fantasy No access
  3. Degrees of Tutorial Avatarization: From a Menu to a Character No access
  4. Utility-Characters and Avatars of the Tutorial No access
  5. Managing the Transgressive Nature of Tutorial Characters No access
  6. Expression Registers of Tutorial Discourses No access
  7. Conclusion No access
  8. Notes No access
  9. References No access
4. 1. Perceived Dichotomies: Japanese RPGs versus Western RPGs No access
  2. The Plot of the Trails Series No access
  3. Character Profiles and Bonding Dynamics in Cold Steel III No access
  4. Additive Comprehension and the Role of the Player No access
  5. Conclusion No access
  6. Notes No access
  7. References No access
5. 1. Globalization and the Reclaiming of JRPGs No access
  2. Final Fantasyscape: Imagining and Domesticating JRPGs No access
  3. Indigenization and Disjuncture: The JRPG as a Regime of Knowledge No access
  4. ‘Japan’s RPGs’: Imageepoch, Ethno-nationalism and Taishō Cosmopolitanism No access
  5. A Vessel of Longings and Hopes: Game Aesthetics and Plurality No access
  6. Uncovering the Forgotten Self: Identity Crisis and Cultural Exceptionalism No access
  7. Re-Indigenization, Pluralism and Timelessness: JRPGs’ Futures No access
  8. Notes No access
  9. References No access
1. 1. ‘We’re Warning You. This Game Stinks.’: Game Reception and Circulation No access
  2. Fuzzy Pickles and Other Moments of Harmonized Dissonance No access
  3. America the Liminal: The Case of the Happy Happyists No access
  4. Conclusion: Glitches, Prayers, and a Way Back Home No access
  5. Notes No access
  6. References No access
2. 1. Agency in Game Studies and Feminist Theory No access
  2. Comparing agency in Tales of Phantasia and Berseria No access
  3. Cutscenes: Liminal Spaces for Agencies No access
  4. Fighting Styles and Ludic Agency No access
  5. Queer Weapons, Boring Weapons No access
  6. Conclusion No access
  7. Notes No access
  8. References No access
3. 1. Part 1: Chrono Trigger and Representing Disability No access
  2. Part 2: Audiogames and Thinking Beyond Accessibility No access
  3. Notes No access
  4. References No access
4. 1. Final Fantasy XV: An Open and Closed Text No access
  2. Setting the Stage: A Privileged Companion No access
  3. Blind Ignis: Ludonarrative Effects No access
  4. Representing Disability No access
  5. Compensating for Tragedy, Negating the Past No access
  6. Managing Blindness in the JRPG No access
  7. Conclusions: Roles and Abilities in the JRPG No access
  8. Notes No access
  9. References No access
5. 1. Confronting the Everyday Occult: Persona 5 and the Megami Tensei Series No access
  2. Experiential Semiotics and the Gameworld No access
  3. Environmental Design No access
  4. Time and the Everyday No access
  5. Media Aesthetics and Social Change No access
  6. Politics Without Politics? Everydayness and Critique No access
  7. Conclusion: JRPGs as an Instigator of Social Reform? No access
  8. Notes No access
  9. References No access
1. 1. Japanese Role-Playing Games, Discourse, and Materiality No access
  2. The Community System No access
  3. Gaming as Network Practice: Discursive Connectivity in the Internet Age No access
  4. The Network Practices of Japanese Role-Playing Games No access
  5. Beyond the Game: Japanese Roleplaying Games as Intermedial Space No access
  6. Notes No access
  7. References No access
2. 1. A Soul is Borne: Liminal (Dis)connections in the Souls Series No access
  2. Penumbric Traces: Asynchronous Interactions in the Souls Series No access
  3. Haunted Worlds and Continuity: Requalification of the Network Game World No access
  4. Time is Convoluted: Denizens of the Online Network No access
  5. Recentering Humanity: Player Phantoms and Online Presence No access
  6. Haunted Media: Alone on the Network No access
  7. Notes No access
  8. References No access
3. 1. Japanese MMORPGs as Latecomers No access
  2. Dominant Theories of Allegory No access
  3. Allegory in MMORPGs No access
  4. WoW vs FFXIV No access
  5. Alluding Elements: Topoi No access
  6. Ishgard: Allegory of the Reformation No access
  7. Alluding Elements: Items No access
  8. Polysemy and Pseudo-allegory No access
  9. An Allegory of Gaming No access
  10. Notes No access
  11. References No access
4. 1. JRPGs in the Era of Social Network Games No access
  2. The Story of FGO in Sync with Real Time No access
  3. FGO Between Visual Novels and JRPG No access
  4. Pokémon’s influence and the fusion of Mythological Systems in FGO No access
  5. FGO and Pokémon GO: Thematizing Space and Time No access
  6. From Mythological Thinking Towards a New Universalism No access
  7. Notes No access
  8. References No access
Index No access Pages 297 - 314
About the Contributors No access Pages 315 - 320