Comic Con EveryWhere!

         People who are obsessed with Animations or games, once think about the dream they can become a hero or main character in the settings. Yes, like me who are frantically interested in games, animations or comics wanted to be in the anime/comic world. Some people also wanted to use their imagination to expand the story of the original animations or comics, using their personal thoughts and storyline to make spin-offs or side stories of the settings. However, people wonder where they can express these feelings or want to demonstrate their creative talents and love in animation/comics/games. Do not worry!  Comic - Con will be the best location for you to express the love of our entrainments. 

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        Comic - Con or Comic market was originated from Japan in 1975, created by Comic club circle “Labyrinth 迷宮”. At first, it was just a meeting of people who love and show their perspectives of anime or comic, leaving comments of pro and cons. There were only 700 people at first, and individual “doujin” (creative comics from personal original based or comic/anime based) was not common. However, as the time passes, in the 1980s where many classic comics started to boom out and in the 1990s anime like “ Sailor Moon” open the gate of glory to the anime industry. Comic - Con started to boom out, and millions of people started to engaged in this events. It is not a normal event, but a place where you can wear anime - customs, buy people’s doujin and individual software games. At first it was started as small but it became a massive social event. In Japan, every August and December opens Comic - Con, considering the size of the event (opening size) only America’s CES and German’s IFA can be comparable and for the population at more than 1,100,000 join the event in the single location (Tokyo International Display Market). 

www.kotaku.com.au

      The boom of Comic- Con does not only came from the shifts of “trend” but also internets, and computer made Comic - Con even more significant. Computers and internet made the vast improvement in the quality of designs and also made improvement in the art style where many people can “learn” and “adjust” the drawing techniques. There were only a few people during the 1980s and 1990s, who can draw attractive drawings  "doujin" for customers to buy. The storylines were immature, and the drawings were not in high-quality compared to "professional" drawers who made profits from comic sales. The internet made people to innovate to draw things “animatic” style with their individual imaginative twists. These impacted to massive people to draw “doujin”, leading Comic- Con into a massively creative and symbolic place for people to show their love. Many people draw doujin based on original comics with different genre flavors such as comedy into love romance.

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      Comic - Con does not only exists in Japan but worldwide. Many countries followed the trend Japanese Comic - Con and started to build their style within their countries. People started to post of their individual comics, doujin, parodies, games, etc. to demonstrate their skill, art, and love on their comics and anime. If you are the one who love on comic/anime world, Comic - Con is a great place to interact. 

What are Light Novels?

         Light novels (does not mean the novels are light) are Japanese versions of the novel. Although my blogs focused on more on games, animations and comic, the light novel plays a significant role Japanese Anime and Comic. There are lots of different Novels exists with different genre and style. However, as light novel started from Japan, it shows the difference from normal novels we read. 

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          Light novels, compare to other novels, have detailed illustrations that remind of the Japanese comics and anime. Novels have an illustration, but light novel have illustration where we can see as “Japanese” style. This is mainly because light novels use as the basis for making animation or comics. Similar to every other famous product like Superman (where the comics were original), many famous Japanese Light Novel were also used to make Japanese anime. After 2000, light novel expanded and changed their illustration from normal to a Japanese “comic” illustration to attract the audience, creating their unique individual brand compare to normal novels. 

        These light novel also created a boom in the animation industry where Japanese animation (novel based) became the major product in the market. Normally, companies foresee profits from creating Japanese animation based on the Light Novel. Most of the Light novels used on the Japanese animation became very successful which able to sell 2 or 3 times more books than before. Simply, the animation is a process of “commercial” for these light novels to be very successful. 

https://www.reddit.com/r/LightNovels/comments/3foo0x/jp_gate_jsdf_novel_vs_light_novel_vs_manga_vs/

          However, these booms do not always happen because the popularity of light novel can be degraded in a worst way after the end of an animation. Most of the time, animation company do not follow the original Light Novel plots or background that mess things up commonly. Even though light novels have the great storyline, the animation does not always successfully adapt these features. The failure of adapting positive features led to a huge decrease on both animation and Light novels. Because light novels rely on commercial aspects from animation, the failure of animation also impact on the margin of light novels. This is the main reason many light novel authors refused to make light novels turn into animation because failure created a huge impact than success, gambling for greater success or failure. 

         These days light novel uses lots of sexuality aspects within the story line. Many of the novel light target on young people. Many famous light novels, receiving overwhelming popularity, highlights on the parts where sexuality feature may happen. The main reason is that as the industries are getting bigger more competition happens within the light novel market. Sexuality highlights creates a better eye attraction from the audience compare to the ones who do not. Illustration takes place in this section, where sexual illustration may be in the cover of the novel or inside the novel. Many people criticize these features because rather than focusing on the storyline, authors highlight too much on the sexual features, calling them “light novels are Sexual novel.” 

Simulation Games???

Can you imagine you can experience realistic life in the computer? Yes, Games these day can give people a realistic simulation. Human’s life is not everlasting to cover every aspect in the world, and there are lots of things we cannot imagine. Simulator games give these “unexperienced” feature to people to feel and experience. These simulator games give people a taste in certain “realistic feature” that people never experienced. However, these simulator games can be or cannot regard as “fun” to people. 

One of the specific example can be “Euro Truck”. This is a simulator game where you become a truck driver and drive a truck. In this game, you are given a task where you need to move supplies through truck and you need to successfully drive to certain location. Everything is realistic, you drive through the highway, follow the driving law in road, and give penalties if you go against the law. Not everybody will experience to drive a “truck” than a car which Euro Truck give a interesting experience. However, people think it is a good “experience” but not fun. Indeed, these simulator games make people think it is fun, but once they experienced, people started to feel “boring.” Other example can be “farming stimulator”, similar to Euro Truck but the theme is agriculture. You can plant seeds and use vehicles to harvest the crops. 

These simulator games became a hit after 2008, bring a huge profit to the companies but also brought negative views from the players. Simulator games are not expensive as regular games, normally priced between 20 - 30 U.S dollar (normal CD games priced between 50 - 60 Dollar) but many people think these games are  “waste”. There are limited task within the game, especially the task that cannot appeal the user very long. Unless, the player is very unique, many people cannot stand the simulator. Personally, if you are asked to play a game where you have to drive or plant things all the time, Would you going to continue? I would Not. 

Many companies continue to print out these type of games but also make an alternative type of games to appeal the users. The - Sims series can be one of great example. The game where it shows the life - simulation of your own personal character and live in realistic virtual world. Or, Sim-city / Skybuilder is also one of the spot light simulator games where you can experience, the profession of building the city. Calculation of the geographical and people’s happiness to build cities successfully as possible. 

These type of games give a great “experience” but cannot give every people to force to feel fun. Many companies now these problem and suggest many variety to add in these type of games to attract more users but still have difficulties. Personally, I will also buy these game in the taste of it not for the usages to keep playing the game. Depends on the users’ taste whether it is good or bad, simulator games are evolving into many different forms. 

Japanese Anime questioning our human nature???

           One of the major difference between American and Japanese animation is that Japanese animations contain lots of different themes. Let's simply think, major American animation industries were able to grow through the theme of "comic," "hope" and "justice." These can be clearly shown through such animation like "Tom and Jerry" and "SuperMan". However, Japanese animation was able to found more variety of themes not only non-realistic themes but also realistic themes that shape our society. If we see American animation as a simple "Enjoyment" in Japanese animation, there are lots of Animations where it gives "philosophical" view in human, nature, and society, making us think who we are. 

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          One of the great examples is Full Metal Alchemist. These series were able to take the complex subject of a real world, ranging anywhere from racial tensions and military dominance in government to man's place in the natural balance of the universe. Plus, this animation was not afraid to tackle many social, psychological and philosophical.

           This is the world where science has essentially taken the form of alchemy. Alchemy in terms in this anime was a fusion of scientific principles and magical properties all based on one concept " The Law of Equivalent Exchange". The law that states "to gain something of value, something value need to be lost." Alchemy cannot be made without losing something for return. The major characters Elric Brothers were able to use Alchemy to revive their mother but failed by creating a monster. The older brother lost his leg, and younger brother lost his body but able to sustain his life by putting a soul into an armor through his brother's help who sacrificed his right arm for the cost. This circumstance was able to teach the audience that the "pride" of a human who tries to oversee the power of God will be given nothing but "despair". The story beginnings with the adventure of Elric brothers, trying to find the way to return their body parts. In the end, they were able to receive back their bodies by sacrificing their possibility of "alchemy", teaching us the one who had the pride on alchemy can receive  happiness by "losing" the pride

                                          https://namu.wiki/w/C(애니메이션)#s-2

          The other great example is C - Control: The Money of Soul and Possibility. The theme based on moral issues in money and how human create or destroy the future. The anime give specific details on how the economy functions and how the economy collapse through human minds. The major character Yoga Kamimaro was able to meet with a mysterious man named Masaaki, making a contract  (borrowing money from him) to join the parallel world named "Money". People who joined this world is in thirst of money, and able to gain money through using their assigned "partner avatar"(motive is wealth) by engaging a battle with other players. If a player wins they take all the money from the loser, and the loser will eliminate their existence.  However, this parallel world involved many people who are recognized as CEO or riches who influence the economy of the real world. Yoga Kamimaro realized that powerful authorities were able to gain money by eliminating other players, understanding the cruelty that people die for money. Yoga wanted to fix this vicious cycle but also enhance that once this person(CEO or riches) gets eliminated there will be an impact on the society where the economy cannot sustain due to the sudden disappear. However, he strongly believed that the society should evaluate people not in money but "personality" and thinks that people should live for "future" not maintaining the present with money. 

Famous "Good" products does not mean Good games.

          Many of you will be disappoint when you look certain games. “What the heck is this??” will be one of your minds when you see terrible games. I collect video games and related features since 12 years old, collecting widely from the late 1970’s until today. One of my major concerns and the biggest mistake in video game history is making games out of famous products such as movies, stars, comics, religion and other famous “things”.

          In the video game history, many company tries to attract people’s attention. They will do every possibility to win and sell their products to the customers so that they will increase their revenue. It was a natural habitat that companies wanted to sell their products, but the way they sell products not always seen as logical, and coherent. Many companies since the 1970s started to the road on the trend using famous products into their games.          

E.T the Extra - Terrestrial (1982)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.T._the_Extra-Terrestrial_(video_game)

          Let us think about this. Do you imagine that Batman or ET will exist in the Games? In the first impression, everybody will be amazed and eager to play, but this impression do not always satisfied to the customers. The expectation of customer does not match with the outcome of the game. This might be because of over expectation of the customers, but mostly due to the horrible outcome of games. These “famous product” based games frequently do not follow the storyline and the characteristic of the main character. Due to the lack of consistency to match with the orginal, there are some features that do not relate to the movie. Many companies were in a rush to win the competition and wanted to sell their products faster than others, wanting to dominate the market. There were only merely 10% out of total famous product based games were able to gain great success.

           However, this problem slowly solves as the technology improves and time passes. The increase in Graphic performance, interesting sound, good controls on consoles / games was able to touch or approach to the original theme and natural "feeling" ( the way it suppose to be). Also in the past, these advance features were unable to perform because there were less innovated / opened mind inventors, and unable to abstract from the famous product features into the Games. To this reason, they started to create their individual storylines/makeup and features that dissapointed the customers. Although there is an improvement over time, there are consistent mistakes happening. There were games where they create a unique storyline , features , and natural "feeling" that enhance or surpass the original storyline from a different product, but these “super” games do not often appear because matching the original features into the games is very difficult.

         http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2015/06/24/batman-arkham-knight-review-part-one-first-impressions/


          Most of the companies created their individual storyline and games, creating their style without relying on famous products. People use their imaginations and outcome to create games that purely based on their minds. Nintendo and Sega were one of the profounder where they use games as the model to create famous characters, storyline, and innovated themes. (Mario, Sonic, Zelda , etc …)In the past, people were determined to create a game based on the movie, comics or others but they were merely successful and failed. Today, many famous product based games are making success, but not in bigger extend than before. Good products do not mean Good games; I believe whether it is a game or other famous products, they have their way to highlight.

WebToons?

    Where do we read comics? We read comics through comic books that we buy through book stores. It was a common logic that we read comics in books and we enjoy looking at the pictures. However, as the time passes comics are not only existed in books but other places. Comics also can be seen on the Internet. The new trend started to rise as comic books are not the only way to read comics. The internet like comics is called WebToons. We can see comic "toons" in webs that many author and illustrator upload images.

http://comic.naver.com/index.nhn

          The first web comic / Web toons were first published by Eric Millikin the "Witches and Stitches" in the USA, but due to the low internet access the popularity of Webtoons can not rise. However, the trend of Webtoon started to rise during the late 1990's and early 2000's when Microsoft introduce Window 98 and XP. The boom of internet access made people access to Webtoon much easier and comfortable. The major advantage for Webtoons is that it can be easy approach. You can easily go to any portable site and just click to see and read comics. Plus, recent Webtoon does not require any financial cost or price to read them, everything is free! Don't you think it is a very comfortable entertainment media we can easily enjoy? Compare to those comic books where you need to access physically through books, it is heavy and need to buy them to read. People who want paper comics, and accustomed to comic books might have no problems, but those who do not can have a huge disadvantage. 

http://mishael.tistory.com/727

      This Web toon also shows great advantage in cost efficiency spreading to the readers. Let us think about comic books. Comic books require printing fee that need papers and inks. This lead to having the low benefit that only 10% of the total beneficial avenue will fall to the authors. Furthermore, printing something requires venturous move because once you print them company need to print a certain amount of books. When there is less amount of book printed, then the price of each book will rise. Minor comics have the huge disadvantage in the comic market. Webtoons are mostly free, and they make a contract with a certain company to make comics. These comics are used as icons to advertise other products and attract customer strongly. Currently, Korea has the most biggest WebToon market in the World. They have thousand of Webtoons listed contracted by different companies, and use them as the icon to advertise products. Some Webtoons can be listed as low - a price to read, but extremely cheap than comic books and also give lots of benefits to the authors where it is more than 42% of total benefits.

          However, there is a critical disadvantage to these Webtoons. First, Webtoons are purely relied on in authors and illustrators. Most of the comic books uses printing company and get support from many different illustrators that upgrade the quality of the images. And these Webtoons shows "Amateur" level quality of story and illustration which depress many readers. Comic book and its author went through the severe competition to gain prestige in the comic "world", requiring professional story lines, quality of images, and other techniques.

          Both Webtoons and Comic books have pro and cons; it is your preference to read. Many famous and major comics are coming out through Comic books, especially in Japan. Many minor comics are freely playable in the Webtoon society. However, it is your interest to decide because major and minor comics can be a slight difference whether it is famous or not. 

Online Games??

           If we simply think about games, we can think about video games. Video games, indeed is the most profound aspect that innovate the game industry. The games itself came out a long time ago, however developing in "bits" and programming games started in early 1950's. Video games were early mainstream popularity in the early period using gaming consoles. Compare to video games, computers were less developed and mostly used in business. The Introduction of the internet was slow, and there was less engagement on playing games on the computer.

          The early CD games were unable to reach the popularity of the console video games and continued to discriminate from "Game" world. However, the trend of games started to change slowly as Computer showed vast development. The Window's Internet Explorer and computer multi lens through Wi-Fi and cables were able to develop computer "globalization" around the world. It promotes fast connect between other people who develop a new sort of game called "Online" Games. Online games were limited in the early period when LAN (local area network) party existed. As internet speed gets faster, Online games were possible around the world which made a huge boom. The biggest difference between online games and normal video games is "Communication". Interaction with other people and promote joyful time in virtual world make it more realistic to enjoy games. Rather a thing about playing by yourself, building your fantasy world, it will be more fascinating when building the world with others.

          These Online Games were the major boom in the game industries which promote the new market in the world. Rather buying CD's or related video consoles, it only need a computer. Within Online Games, companies were able to sell certain items or beneficial to the customer related to the games. The major success of online games companies is that they were able to maintain users for long-period of time. Majority of online games are "free" to play but if people wanted to become more special in their status, they would pay money to buy things from the company. This "optimistic" way to sell things gave more advantages than console video games because it give an opportunity for users to willing to pay extra investment to decorate / upgrade their status.

          One of the major examples is "World of WarCraft". This is the fantasy game where you play as a character to enjoy the virtual fantasy world. As you become a character, you will gain items, events, and other extras. These type of games promotes users to become more "stronger" within the games. Remember that online games have communication which means there will be a "society." Society is formed with weak and strong, creating competition. This applies to most of all online games. To win the competition people dedicate their times in online games or pay more money into games.  These tactics were critical, and it became a worldwide method.

          Smartphones and latest generation video consoles also follow this advantage to earn more money. Smartphone apps such as "Clash of Clans" is one of the examples. It is an online application where many people are playing to fight against other users. To become stronger, people pay money to buy better items / advantages to outlet others.

          Online Games and its functionalities continue to promote success in the world. Many different genres came out, and many people play. The most important things about online games are that it promotes happiness with others, not only you. It breaks the old ideology of "individual" second world but forms a "new" world to the people.