The Japanese personifies everything, even samurai's castles

Fighters, tanks, battleships, weapons... etc, The Japanese personifies everything. DeNA prepares for the mobile game that personified Japanese swords.

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The Japanese personifies everything, even samurai swords

Naturally GREE, a rival of DeNA is opposed to them. What does GREE personify? It's castles of the Middle Ages. Yesterday, they announced that they released new mobile game "Shirohime Quest(城姫クエスト: Castle Princess Quest)" in this summer.

Shirohime Quest is a casual RPG. Players become the lord of a castles, collect castles personified as cute girls, bring them up, and fight against castles of enemies.

It resembles sea fight simulation game Kan-Colle(艦これ) closely. It is not accidental(and not rip off). KADOKAWA, the operator of Kan-Colle participates in the development of this.

Well, the design of characters is the most important in this game. Some of these have been already introduced in official site and they are very interesting. For example...

She is Aizuwakamatsu Castle(会津若松城) located in Aizuwakamatsu-shi, Fukushima. This is a restored castle, but is one of the famous tourist attractions of Fukushima.

via Google Street View

She is Kururi Castle(久留里城) located in Kimitsu-shi, Chiba. It was destroyed in Meiji period, It was maintained as a park, and a part was restored afterwards.

Other characters are here (Japanese)

In fact, the most of Japanese castles were lost in wars. Some were restored, but many sites of castle became parks and the schools. There are a lot of sites of castle which are not left even stone wall. This game has potential unlike other personification contents. These are tourism and "invigorating local communities". If this makes a big hit, fans will go to watch real castles and sites of castles. It leads to activation of the local economy. GREE will expect it, this game has geolocation function such as foursquare and users can get limited virtual goods by check-in.

By the way, its Twitter account introduces comics version of this and the serialization of the novel version is begun with release, too. The cross media development is already active.

Cute Star Wars in Japanese virtual world Ameba Pigg

Japanese virtual world Ameba Pigg cooperates with Star Wars from yesterday. It is very CUTE!

Star Wars area opens in Ameba Pigg. Its theme is "room of the enthusiasts".

All of figures and statues are cute! They are arranged by a design of pigg(avatar) of Ameba Pigg.

We can photograph a souvenir picture with C-3PO and R2-D2 in photo booth.

Furthermore, we can get on the vehicles in dioramas.

Various virtual goods are in Gacha(Vending machine of virtual goods). It's 250 yen once.

The sofa of Jabba the Hutt is cool! Nice idea!

Ameba Pigg enforces various campaigns in commemoration of this tie-in. Thanks to it, we can get some free virtual goods. Anyway, this is the most cute promotion of Star Wars. You do not suffer a loss to see this if you are a fan of Star Wars. However, to our regret, Ameba Pigg is only Japanese support.

Shame on you: Japan's Happy Gamer released a mobile game that made a fool of gay people

Unfortunately Japan is not the gay-friendly country. same-sex marriage is impossible, the sex change in the family register is very complicated, the law to supervise hate crime does not exist, and discrimination and bullying for LGBTI exist in various situation. Therefore the Japanese cannot have  opportunities to study about LGBTI and make a mistake even in big companies such as Nintendo.

NINTENDO SAYS NO TO VIRTUAL EQUALITY IN LIFE GAME(AP)

About the same time, a certain Japanese mobile game developer Happy Gamer committed a big mistake. They released mobile game for Android "アッー！とホーム黙示録 ～人狼ゲームやらないか～(The cozy Apocalypse ~Let's play the "Are You a Werewolf?"~)" on May 12.

This is an inference game based on party game "Are You a Werewolf?". Werewolf is replaced by a gay, players ascertain heterosexuality and a gay from characters, and remove a gay.

~Story~
At the boy dormitory which there is in the "T" capital "S" city. One student was raped(The word "rape" is not displayed, but an image to suggest it is shown). The victim quitted school without talking about anything, but werewolf who conspiring to rape other students in the dormitory may hide behind. You become the member of the dormitory and you distinguish werewolf from heterosexuality and must remove werewolf. 

They open the official Twittter account of the game from last month, set hashtag #ホモ人狼 (meaning Homosexual Werewolf), and published press release diligently for a few days of the release. Questions and opinions of the criticism appeared on Twitter from that time. However, after the release of the game, criticism erupted. To make matters worse, they showed a game play video. It is right an act to pour oil on the fire.



A lot of criticism from people of heterosexuality appeared as well as people of LGBTI on social media. There were a lot of people who made a fool of the gay people, but there were more voices of the criticism. Happy Gamer announced the press release of the apology on May 13. They vindicated it about the contents of the game.

"Any social intention is not included in this game and does not promote discrimination like other general entertainment products. However, we apologize for the point that has caused misunderstanding including such an intention."

However, this apology pour oil on the fire more. Because it was insincere too barefacedly. At last, Google rejected this game from Google Play on May 15.

via http://togetter.com/li/665352 (Japanese)

I think that this is one of the big problems that Japan has. In Japan, there are few opportunities to make friends with LGBTI people. There is not an opportunity working with them, topics of LBGTI do not be reflected on an everyday conversation and most Japanese are not going to know LGBTI. In other words, we Japanese cannot understand what corresponds to discrimination. Therefore the Japanese angers people of LGBTI unconsciously. If find the one positive side in this trouble, it's that the heterosexuality people criticized this game. It is step such as the tortoise, but the human rights consciousness of Japanese may improve little by little.

By the way, Happy Gamer revises this game and plans to release it again in Google Play and App Store. However, I think that this is difficult. Because both Google and Apple are gay-friendly companies.

Too cheesey Japanese mobile game

It was announced that mobile social game "Sevens Story" was shut down on May 30 in Mobage. It disappointed many players. However, it surprised Tech news sites. Because...

What a cheesey design! Cheap fonts! Were the buttons made with Word and Excel? Now, even junior high students may draw cooler characters! :D This was released in last October, and many players thought this game is Kusoge(クソゲー: Shit game) in those days. However, this game was the fun RPG contrary to the expectation of many players.

At first, the battle system is tactical turn-based combat. The mainstream in the Japanese mobile social RPGs are card battle, puzzle battle and slingshot battle etc...anyway, they are systems including a simple gimmick. tactical turn-based combat is the system which heavy gamers like.

In addition, players can keep the pet of the rabbit. The rabbit becomes the important force in battles. Players give a rabbit various bait and can decorate it with avatar items.

Where should we obtain the bait from? It's farm! The element of farming game is included in this game, too.

Furthermore, this has the mining element. Players mine various material in a mine and can make items to materials in them.

Besides, this games have other many functions. PvP arena battle, gardening, the profound story that many characters express, many missions... I think that this is a real and rich RPG.

Still, it's mysterious. Why is only artwork cheesey? If artwork is cool, this game might made a hit. The life of this game is only two weeks. Players grieve over the shut down of this game in Twitter.

via http://togetter.com/li/578557(Japanese)