I write about Harvest Moon quite a bit as readers of this blog and who follow me on social media have probably noticed. Yasuhiro Wada was a big part of my experiences growing up so as I have gotten older it’s continued to hold a very special place in my life. Games such as Harvest Moon and Animal Crossing allow the player an escape to a serene environment even if only for a brief period of time. Or for hours if the video game addiction kicks in.

Harvest Moon Magical Melody of was one of the last few Harvest Moon games on home consoles only followed by Tree of Tranquility and Animal Parade on the Wii. Recently, a a new entry which ports Friends of Mineral Town and More Friends of Mineral Town to the Switch was announced but I’m getting off track.

After playing a full year in Magical Melody I’ve come to find  the experience a touch too repetitive at times. Gone was the catchier music from previous installments.The gorgeous pixel work in say Harvest Moon 64 was not present nor was the elaborate CG work present in A Wonderful Life apparent here. That said the more Animal Crossing-esque tone the game appears to be aiming for has its appeal as a long time Animal Crossing fan.

I enjoyed my first year in parts even if it dragged too much for my liking in others. Harvest Moon might not be the fairy tale rosy picturesque experience from my youth but it’s still rather fun years later to go back and play these games again.

 

I’ve been ambivalent about picking up Innocent Life again. The game features a much heavier narrative than the average Harvest Moon game or spin-off. It finally struck just how heavy the task laid out has been. The future well-being of the entire island rests on your character’s shoulders. It really brings a gravity to what is effectively a science fiction farming simulation. I am responsible for the island’s prosperity and my only weapon in my arsenal is farming itself.

Sailor Moon has played a crucial role in modernizing Western animation for younger audiences. The series has had literally everything working against it and it still managed to resonate with the queer community myself included. While the magical girl trend took root in European media in the 2000s it was not until the 2010s when it took root in far western media. This is in no small part thanks to Cartoon Network. Frankly I am not familiar enough with the American animation industry to say much more than that but a lot of talented wonderful creators are developing fantastic properties in American animation for youth right now with feminist and minority rights movements experiencing a new wave in the United States finally. Sailor Moon among other magical girl series in the 1990s ingluenced an entire generation of young creators who will go on to influence and inspire other young creators as time goes on. Time simply keeps churning foward relentlessly to how anyone feels.

Ensemble Stars ended up overstaying its welcome with the additional second cour. For me anyways it pretty much confirmed that a show longer than 3 months is way too long for my personal attention span and watching more than one anime at once proved to be too much for me to handle. I wish it was more clear from the beginning of the season how long a show would run. People have different tastes when it comes to series length and even this can change over time. When I was younger I wished the shows I watched would continue on forever. In recent years watching younger generations be upset about popular long running series drawing to a close has had me wondering if it is something we wish for in our youth. That the experiences we felt then would last the rest of our lives. The more time passes the more rose tinged those experiences become for many or at least so it seems.

A lot has been written about Shonen Jump’s evolving readership. The magazine has become one of the most popular manga magazine in Japan, even bringing in new audiences. In recent decades, Weekly Shonen Jump has reportedly been about evenly split between its female and male readerships becoming one of the most popular magazines for everyone. Shueisha estimated the female readership for the magazine would only grow over time. I bring this up because generations have grown up with Shonen Jump in that time and this opens the door for new markets for expansion for Jump. Shueisha has been trying to capitalize on this reader base. With Japanese publishers beginning to understand digital media, expanding into international markets, tapping readerships they previously could not connect with in print. Shueisha recently launched Spobat Labo a web manga service focused on researching the future of sports and battle manga with social media marketing aimed at women, in addition, Shueisha has launched a digital manga magazine version of content from their Shonen Jump Plus service. This all happened in November. Both moves seem to be attempts to capitalize on their adult women readerships, Shonen Jump Plus includes a number of queer centric storylines and has titles from You, Manga Mee, and Ribon running in it. With the high sales of Kimetsu no Yaiba to name one of many examples, Shueisha has plenty of reasons to capitalize on this new audience for Jump.

Media targeted at girls and women specifically geeky media tends to catch the interest of queers such as myself. The themes are challenging of cultural norms gay men have been reading Shojo manga for quite some time as an alternative to traditional masculine values. In the modern era this will probably continue to grow as manga and anime grow in popularity globally. I cannot help but wonder if traditional masculinity which Americans in particular opine for is just delaying progress. Japanese entertainment is evolving rapidly in the absence of the long history of western masculinity types which evolved in cultures which practiced Christianity for thousands of years. It stands to reason that the younger generation with more access to knowledge than ever would reject these values as they frankly serve no purpose other than to suppress segments of the population. The older generation which thrives on this suppression of others despises this development and has been doing everything in their vast power to suppress the very process of development itself. This only delay progress further not prevent progress entirely the entire concern is absurd. We are in a period of rapid social advancements.

I just cannot escape from the Margaret manga magazine family for the life of me. While Hana to Yume and Shojo Comic currently are doing well circulation wise Margaret magazine has peculiarly shrank even compared to housewife manga magazines. There seems to be a huge shift in narratives and reader interests. Weekly Shonen Jump has a much larger shojo readership arguably one of the largest in Japan. Margaret is built on cute, extremely fluffy romance narratives which in recent years have found more of a home on the bishojo manga magazine market.

Futekiya revealed their schedule for the launch of their content from .Bloom manga magazine on their subscription service. Home-sha, a division of Shueisha, publishes .Bloom manga magazine in Japan. In addition, Futekiya also publishes manga from Shodensha’s OnBlue manga magazine. Interestingly both magazines stress the importance of the author. Paired with Fantasista’s, the company behind Futekiya, past of pairing with individual creators in general and the staff’s passion for manga and supporting authors on social media, fans can rest assured Futekiya is very much in support of creators.

To better understand shojo’s origins better I feel it’s best examine them a little more closely. The first 60 years of shojo manga’s history from the earliest years of the 1900s to the 1960s the industry had predominately men as creators often hoping to break out into shonen manga later in their career. An early notable creator of shojo manga was influenced by his earlier work as a doll creator. This influence on girl’s comics artwork in Japan has pretty much continued to the modern day.

The designs for shojo manga characters found their origins in dolls. It wasn’t until the 1950s that Osamu Tezuka would write his ground-breaking Princess Knight manga.i bring this up because the media coming out of Japan currently didn’t just start in a time vacuum it continues to evolve and has been doing so for a very long time. When approaching media from other cultures having an open mind is necessary and Japanese Media is no exception. You expose yourself to an imperialist mindset if you just start barking about your issues with the entertainment without even trying to dig into how it ended up the way it became. Caution and researching before going on social media and spreading partially formed thoughts is how messed come about. I cannot help but wonder if all such is the case at least some times.