#Ichiro Mihara

[sakuraswordly]

Knowledge 29.1

Thanksgiving is a national holiday celebrated on various dates in October and November in the United States, Canada, Saint Lucia, Liberia, and unofficially in countries like Brazil and Germany. It is also observed in the Australian territory of Norfolk Island. It began as a day of giving thanks for the blessings of the harvest and of the preceding year. Various similarly named harvest festival holidays occur throughout the world during autumn. Although Thanksgiving has historical roots in religious and cultural traditions, it has long been celebrated as a secular holiday as well.

Date: Thursday, 28 November 2024

What's the history of Thanksgiving?

"We thank you, Lord, for food and friends, and for all of the joy this holiday lends." 🙏

Make the day even more special with these ideas:

[idontthinkimokaymentally]

Hello there Ichiro "Icchan" Mihara fans.

[koushirouizumi]

{Series To Know Me By} ~ C.H.O.B.I.T.S (C) C.L.A.M.P ~ Miharas

(Cap'd by Me)

[aquatark]

kind of randomly spurred post, but i was just wondering how many endless ocean fans knew about the development screenshots we have of the first game... so i figured i'd share them with you all, along with some light analysis for those interested in this game's development history!

so the development photos i'll be going into in this post were revealed to the public in 2014-2015, shared on the twitter account of ichiro mihara, the vice president of arika and series producer of the endless ocean games! nowadays, he mostly just posts food pics and pokemon go stuff... kinda living the dream ngl

below is the complete set of screenshots:

the most obvious difference here to most players would be creatures placed where they shouldn't be, such as the yellow boxfish in an atypical zoom, and the presence of false clown anemonefish in the abyss and ship's rest. while the boxfish photo i don't have any explanation for other than the creature moving around a little at some point in development, the anemonefish photos i have a more interesting explanation for!

we can use these photos, along with multiple other photos of clownfish in eo1 zooms taken during development (which are used on the plaques of eo2's aquarium), to deduce that this clownfish species was used as a test creature for zoom environments! i mean, it's pretty obvious they weren't intending for you to actually find clownfish in the depths... and due to their order in the game's internal d code life system, we can assume they were among the first zoom mode creatures to be added. it all lines up! though i'm glad the little guys don't have to suffer that insane water pressure anymore...

now, another big difference is the lack of water fog in most of these photos! it's especially obvious in the photos taken in zoom mode that this portion of the game had yet to be figured out at the point those photos were taken. for comparison, here's the yellow boxfish photo compared with a photo of the same staghorn coral zoom in the final game:

big difference, huh? this fog would be even stronger if i weren't using an emulator to take my photos - dolphin tends to skimp a little on the fog. but, this lines up with what we know about this game's development: during a post-release developer interview (which you can view translated into english here), they mentioned struggling to make this fog feel right - more oceanic than foggy feeling, and accurately changing with the player's current depth - and these photos illustrate that there was a time where fog in zoom mode spots was neglected entirely!

the screenshot of the open encyclopedia also has a lot of interesting differences from the final game. take a look here, comparing the same page:

(note that of course, the development photo was taken in japanese, while my screenshot is in english: "fish who live in the ocean" is actually what the deep sea section is called in the final japanese release... trust me, i checked)

so obviously, the layout of these pages is completely different! i imagine the details on these small fish would have been barely legible on the average person's tv at the time, so making them bigger was a good call. additionally, the encyclopedia used to be navigated using arrow buttons and a back button to exit! this back button is completely unused in the final game, probably just because it's redundant when in the final game, you can just press the b button to go back. three other small changes are that:

in the dev screenshot, the encyclopedia's page background is just a texture, as opposed to a 3d model as seen in the final game. this means it's likely the pages didn't flip like a real book does at this point.

the scientific names of the giant squid and the oarfish was altered.

there are no page numbers in the encyclopedia.

now, for a quick lightning round of smaller changes!

in the final game, there is only one place to find remoras: accompanied by the whale shark in entryway slope, in small numbers. this contrasts with the whale shark photo, in which way more remoras are seen surrounding it, and in an area deeper than entryway slope allows. since this photo was also an old promotional image, and we have footage of the game from previews around the same time, the most plausible explanation is that this whale shark was placed in the game's unused test stage (which i should also make a post about at some point lol).

the penguin photo was taken with an angle impossible in the final game, as was the polar bear photo and the starck's demoiselle photo.

also in the penguin photo, there are two hatches typically present on the deck of the gabbiano (one on either side of the mast), that are absent.

the water surrounding the gabbiano in the polar bear photo is a different color than in the final game.

the starck's demoiselle photo has a bright cyan water color in the background, which is never visible in the final game without camera hacks.

finally, one fun fact regarding the starck's demoiselle photo: it's actually used in-game, both in this game and in the sequel! in eo1, it can be found occasionally placed in the fake magazine spreads sent to the player for a C grade photo request, and in eo2, it is the photo used to represent "DIVING MAGAZINE" when viewing photo requests!

that's all of my rambling for now, i hope you found this interesting! if this kind of longpost is something you'd like to see more of in the future, let me know! i've got all sorts of topics in the chamber that i just need an excuse to write about lol

[alexandriaisburning]

032: Tetris the Grand Master, or how Street Fighter and Japanese comedy changed Tetris forever

CANON FIRE is made possible by the generous contributions of readers like you. Support more writing like this on Patreon. Thank you!

When you think of Tetris you probably think of Game Boy Tetris, the NES World Championship, or maybe even Tetris DS. What you probably don't think of is Street Fighter, or Japanese comedy. But that's exactly the lineage that led to the creation of Tetris the Grand Master. 

TGM is now known for its ludicrous speeds and intense difficulty, but despite its reputation, it's also the origin of several features that would make Tetris easier to play, and a crucial step in the development of modern tetris. 

Let's rewind a bit. Before we talk TGM, we need to talk SEGA. While Nintendo's Tetris games hold the mindshare in here, SEGA's arcade Tetris set the standard in Japan. Key to this was the introduction of Lock Delay, a mechanic which gives you a few moments to continue moving the pieces after they've hit the stack (1). SEGA Tetris can feel stiff and archaic to people familiar with modern games, but additions like this made it the definitive game for a generation of Japanese arcade players. 

That was definitely the case for Ichiro Mihara, the now vice president of Arika, and producer on the Street Fighter EX series. Arika itself was founded Akira Nishitani--designer of Final Fight and Street Fighter 2--and Akira Yasuda, aka Akiman--key artist on several Capcom projects. 

This fighting game lineage definitely made it into Tetris the Grand Master, which initially began life as a competitive game intended to be a collaboration with manzai comedy duo Downtown. As part of Downtown no Gottsu Ee Kanji, a Japanese variety show starring the duo, they'd run a segment where they'd challenge guests to compete in a game of Tetris. Inspired by this, Mihara felt he could create a more competitively focused Tetris, and his team began work on a new title. (2)

Described as having a "Parappa style aesthetic" with 2D anime style characters in a 3D environment, the game featured high speed play and items you could use to interfere with your opponent. Seeing the difficulty in differentiating the game from similar titles, they pitched a collaboration to Downtown, but they received feedback from them that adding too much might complicate the simplicity that made Tetris work so well. 

Unfortunately, complications with the show's sponsor led to the end of the show, and the project was shelved soon after. Months later Mihara would return to the project, overwhelmed with desire to continue making a Tetris game. 

Mihara's aim was to surpass SEGA Tetris, which he saw as the current peak of the game. The focus on speed and precision remained from it's incarnation as a competitive game, but several additions made it more palatable for beginners as well. Thanks to feedback from one of the Arika office ladies, Tetris the Grand Master implemented a new Wall Kick system. Previously, if rotating near a wall would cause a piece to collide with it, rotation would be blocked, as if the wall had physically interfered with it. With the new rotation system, the piece could now "kick" off the wall, and be moved a unit over to make rotation possible. This also had the side effect of making advanced techniques like T-Spins easier to perform (3).

Wall Kicks, alongside the Initial Rotation System (allowing you to rotate pieces before they enter the play field), and the Temporary Landing System (aka the ghost piece, which shows a preview of where your piece will land), led to more intuitive play for beginners, and raised the skill ceiling for technical play.

Many of these features would be integrated into future titles, such as Capcom's own Disney themed versus title--Magical Tetris Challenge--which credits Arika for the use of the ghost piece. The Tetris Company integrated TGM's ideas into the Tetris Guidelines, a "minimum spec sheet" for licensed Tetris titles, allowing players to easily move between various iterations of the game. Nearly every Tetris since 2001 has used the guideline, making TGM a major contributor to the shape of Tetris over the last two decades.

Ironically, it seems that those same guidelines may have been what kept the series from wider exposure. Tetris the Absolute: The Grand Master 2, often considered the peak of the series, had several deviations from the standard, including the Sonic Drop, which behaves similar to Hard Drop, allowing you to drop them instantly to the stack, but move them for a moment before they lock into place. Combined with a locking soft drop, thus enabled techniques like the Zangi-move, where you drop a piece to the the bottom then slide and lock it into place, but doing a circular motion, not unlike the motion for doing Zangief's command grab in Street Fighter.

By the time the sequel came out--Tetris the Grand Master 3: Terror Instinct--it was required to add a guideline compliant mode, and by Tetris the Grand Master ACE, the only game in the series made for a home console (4), the systems that made the series unique had been pushed more and more towards coming in line with the design of Guideline Tetris.

It's been speculated that the Tetris Company's reluctance to deviate from the guideline has kept the series from being re-released. Meanwhile, TGM has been developing a cult following internationally, gaining popularity among the Tetris community and building a larger awareness through demonstrations at events like Games Done Quick. 

It took until 2022, nearly 25 years after its original release, for Tetris the Grand Master finally received an official port (5) through the Arcade Archives series. That was followed up this year with a port of Tetris the Absolute, finally making these cult classics widely available. The reasons why it’s now possible remain unclear, but perhaps Arika’s work on Tetris 99, and the relaxing of the Tetris Guidelines for Tetris Effect’s competitive modes helped move the needle in showing there was space for alternative Tetris experiences. 

Whatever the reason, two major parts of Tetris history are finally available to a larger audience. Each is overflowing with technical nuances that I could never do justice, giving them a long term appeal that continues to this day. That's all before you get to the versus mode, which contains its own unique competitive ruleset. At the same time, their grading system gives you a tangible measure of improvement, and even casually remains an excellent way to strive towards improvement at Tetris. 

As someone who developed a fighting game mindset from Puyo Puyo Tetris, it's easy to see the spirit of fighting games flowing through it. That strange magic that compels you to strive towards greater mastery, to show off your skills, it's all there. The Grand Master is a name that speaks to great ambition, but given its legacy, it's more than earned it. 

Tetris the Grand Master and Tetris the Absolute Plus: The Grand Master 2 are currently available on Switch and PS4 through the Arcade Archives series. An arcade ROM to PSX conversion also exists for the first game.

---

Stack, the formal name for the collection of pieces already locked down.

This story comes from an interview series previously hosted on Arika's Japanese site. An archive of it is available here.

A T-Spin occurs when you rotate a T piece into a spot where it's locked on three sides, often used to clear a line.

TGM ACE was published on the Xbox 360, but only in Japan.

The game recieved an unofficial conversion to the Playstation, and obviously was available via arcade emulation.

[fictional-birthdays]

Happy Birthday! (January 12th)

Ichiro Mihara (Angelic Layer)

Cherumin (Pop’n Music)

Moe (Animal Crossing)

Cinque (Final Fantasy Type-0)

Shino Koganei (BanG Dream!)

Dr. Hiluluk (One Piece)

Kaya Naoe (Little Busters!)

Soichiro Shimoda (Corpse Party)

Donovan D. Dawson (VA-11 Hall-A)

Kimberly La Vallete (VA-11 Hall-A)

[mahousekairpg]

『 PERIÓDICO KITEN 基点 』

EN BÚSQUEDA DE RESPUESTAS 𝐍𝐮𝐞𝐯𝐚 𝐃𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐚 𝐝𝐞 𝐌𝐚𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐭𝐨𝐤𝐨𝐫𝐨

✹ Escrito por Inoo Hinata.

​​Una nueva noticia recorre los pasillos de Mahoutokoro, la líder del clan Miura, mejor conocida como la Bruja del Milenio: Miura Ayase, ha renunciado a su cargo como directora de la escuela japonesa, nombrando a su colega, Miura Ayaka como sucesora en dicha posición. El anuncio ha generado diversas opiniones en la comunidad mágica en medio de la actual crisis yōkai; el hecho ha generado desconcierto, en especial entre los padres de los estudiantes de la institución; quienes — tras el avistamiento de yōkais en el bosque Aokigahara, el cual concluyó con la desaparición de 8 estudiantes (Entre ellos herederos del clan Saito y Hayashi), 23 gravemente heridos, decenas con lesiones leves y el lamentable fallecimiento de 5 jóvenes; — no consiguen mantenerse tranquilos en el panorama presente.

El enfrentamiento ha marcado un capítulo en la historia de la legendaria escuela, por lo que, en conjunto con el Ministerio de Magia de Japón (NIMASHO)(¹), han fichado el ingreso de un numeroso grupo de estudiantes internacionales comprometidos en participar de los entrenamientos especiales, ahora guiados por la docente Mihara Kaho, encargada de la asignatura de Kotodama(²). A pesar de la autonomía en las decisiones tomadas al interior de la academia en las cuales no interviene el NIMASHO; en uno de los últimos discursos del Ministro de Magia de Japón, Saito Ichiro, confirma a la comunidad que, “confía plenamente en la resolución de Miura Ayase.”

Por su parte, la lideresa Miura asegura que: “He demostrado mi compromiso con Mahoutokoro desde el primer día, sin embargo, hoy tenemos un reto que como sociedad no podemos ignorar. La trascendencia de estos eventos ha influido inclusive en nuestros vecinos países y visitantes, es por esto que he tomado la decisión de unir fuerzas con el Ministerio, con ánimo de llegar al fondo de esto.”

Sin embargo, uno de los mayores retos al interior del colegio de magia para Miura Ayaka, será apaciguar el creciente descontento de los padres y tutores preocupados por la presencia de estudiantes descendientes de yōkai. La política de ingresos y el margen de admisión de la institución no se ha visto sesgada por su linaje desde finales del siglo XVII, lo cual deja un incógnita con respecto a posibles cambios como respuesta a dicho grupo.

◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇

✹ Notas Off Rol. (¹) NIMASHO (日本魔法省): Nihon Mahō-Shō (Ministerio de Magia de Japón). (²) Kotodama (言霊): Lenguaje mágico.

◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇◆◇

✹ Etiqueta: #MS_KITEN03 ✹ Instrucciones Off Rol en la publicación compartida en ON: NAKAMI (中身). ✹ Válida de manera indefinida.

Publicación original:

[yuukibutterfly]

Clamp Boys - Glasses

https://clampuniverse.blogspot.com/

[fuckyeahanimebirthdays]

Ichiro Mihara (Kidou Tenshi Angelic Layer)  » January 12

[clamp-box]

Why is Icchan like this. Why did Chitose even marry this weirdo XD

[notwhatyoucameherefor]

I just remembered angelic layer exists

I am in love with him

[alvistem]

[llybian]

Top shelf diva move.

[koushirouizumi]

"God told me that if I had any wishes, that they would grant just one." - Kobato {Kobato}

"...I... I still... haven't granted it. ... Your wish... I promised... ...that I'd grant it... ...I promised..." - Kimihiro to Yuuko {Holic}

"I answered that I wanted to live." - Kobato {Kobato}

"I'll do whatever I can because I want to be here." - Kimihiro {Holic}

"What is happiness {/to you}?" - {Chobits}; Dark Chii {as Red 'Atashi'} to Chii {Pink 'Atashi'} {Card Captor Sakura: Clear Card Arc}; Lilie Shinomoto to Sakura {Sakura relating this to a canon Non-human Character}

"My wish is for you to go on existing. That's ALL I want." - Yuuko to Kimihiro {Holic}

"But the one Tsuyuri {Kohane} cares about most is YOU." - Doumeki to Kimihiro {Holic}

"{Doumeki} didn't want {YOU} to vanish forever." - Yuuko to Kimihiro; on Doumeki {Holic}

"To be happy... that's a rather vague goal, don't you think?" "{YES}, but that's what makes it {interesting}. All the more interesting... in that most people would consider it {IMPOSSIBLE}." "{Impossible}. How so?" "Well, you need a {life}... a {soul}. And if you're not alive... If you don't have a {soul}... what then? Then happiness is just a story... in a fairy tale book." - Zima to Dita; {Chobits}

"Even if a {combination}/{of two [or more] people} Looks a bit 'odd' on the outside... They can still be happy on the inside." - Ichiro Mihara {Angelic Layer} x {Chobits}, to Chitose Hibiya (later Chitose Mihara {Kobato})

"The greatest happiness for me is to let the person I most like have the most happiness." - Tomoyo; {about Sakura} {Card Captor Sakura}

"One day a man had a dream. He dreamed that he was a butterfly. He fluttered and fluttered, flew and flew. He so loved the feeling of freedom… That he decided that he was a butterfly. But when he woke up, he wasn’t a butterfly. He was a human after all. Then the man thought… “I wonder if I, The Man, dreamed that I was a butterfly… Or if this moment is truly the dream. Maybe the man I am now is a dream that a butterfly is having"" - Haruka Doumeki, who primarily communicates to Watanuki through dreams; relating a story, about dreams {Holic}

"Some things are worth caring about." - Doumeki to Kimihiro {Holic} {Heavily implied to be about Watanuki}

"{Yuuko said} 'at this rate', {Watanuki would} 'disappear'" - Implied by Doumeki {Holic}

"I don't love Chii because 'I wanted' to 'make love' to {Chii}.

'I wanted' to 'make love' to {have sex with} Chii because I LOVE {CHII}." - Hideki Motosuwa, on Chii {Chobits}

"Chii Persocom." "Yeah" "Chii is not human." "Yeah"

"Can't do SOME things. ..." {Implied as: 'Have sex with'}

"YEAH." - Hideki; - Chii to Hideki {Chobits}

"Happiness... That is..." - Someone Just For Me {Chobits} (Storybook)

"Maybe the man I am now is a dream that a BUTTERFLY is having"

"Because if we can all find that special person{/people}, then the world would be a happy place. The love that we all feel may not be the SAME, but it won’t matter if it’s the ‘someone just for you’." - C.L.A.M.P {Chobits}

"Happiness doesn't just come in one shape." - Ichiro Mihara {Angelic Layer} x {Chobits}, implied relevant to Ichiro and Chitose Hibiya (later Chitose Mihara {Kobato})

"I wanted to create, with {C.C.S}, a series with a girl who saw {MINORITIES} as normal. For example, Syaoran and Eriol are foreign exchange students, but to Sakura they’re the same as {people} who transferred in from a local school. Similarly, Sakura believes in all the forms of love {Sakura} sees. Towards the end {of C.C.S's 1st series} I had several characters give advice to a worried Sakura, showing that there are many kinds and forms of love. I wondered how the series would be received, since it ran in Nakayoshi, but it was received better than I expected. - Nanase Ohkawa (C.L.A.M.P) {x}

"Ohkawa: (…) I am glad that the readers are happy that Sakura and Syaoran got together, but that anyone would think it’s {just} because they make a normal {combination}/couple… it’s a little disconcerting. Sakura didn’t chose Syaoran because {Syaoran}'s a boy close to {Sakura} in age. If Syaoran had been a girl, if they had been far apart in age, as long as {Syaoran} was still Syaoran, I think Sakura would have fallen in love with {Syaoran}. It’d sadden me if you thought they’re a good {combination} because they’re 'normal'." - Nanase Ohkawa (C.L.A.M.P) {x}

"Normal? What’s normal? To only do what the masses do? And what is the benefit of that? Where is the problem in adopting a custom that is ‘abnormal’ if it has no negative affect on the world at large?" - Yuuko {Holic}

"I don't see anything wrong with being what everyone calls 'not normal'." - Yuuko to Watanuki {Holic}

-Observations made when rereading many C.LA.M.P Lores (To Be Re-Compiled, Someday)

Doumeki, probably:

"I don't love Watanuki because I wanted to 'have sex with' Watanuki."

"I wanted to 'make love' to Watanuki because I love Watanuki"

{AND IF WATANUKI EVER ISN'T FULLY 'HUMAN' ANYMORE?}

{Holic x Drug & Drop Cross-over} (Read panels right-to-left)

[you-cant-fuck-megaman]

a good half-decade back, former megaman producer Ichiro Mihara started posting a lot of notes about what megaman 5 would eventually turn into

https://twitter.com/miharasan/status/651465485247098880

among them are a listing of various different tentative robot master names

at the bottom is クリスタルレディ, “crystal lady”, with “レディ” (lady) circled

this was rejected, and thus became just crystal man

[mal-likes-biscuits]

Favorite Character Bingo

I borrowed this meme from @janzoo to fill out, so you all can see the lengthy depths (years?) of my fandom hell. I’ve written fic for a lot of these characters over the years. You can guess which ones.

From left to right, top row to bottom:

The Doctor (12th); Pavel Chekov (rank, Admiral pfffbt); Toph Beifong; Artemis Entreri; Gaara

Ellie Arroway; Zuko; Garrus Vakarian; John Tracy; Spock

Tybalt Leftpaw; Michael Burnham; Rock Lee; L

Ichiro Mihara; Severus Snape; Roy Mustang; Ken Ichijouji; Ana Amari

Wedge Antilles; Jack Harkness; Tiny Tina; Sabriel the Abhorsen; Malthael

I really hesitated putting Snape on here because I have mixed feelings about his character after the fact. But I still think he’s a fascinating one. Just not nearly as sympathetic as he is made out to be.

There are at least a couple people on here without black hair don’t judge me.

Anyone get any bingos with their own faves from here?

And if you want to do the meme, the original version is below the break. Also, the list of the characters I’ve written fic for. If anyone is horribly curious.

The fic victims:

The Doctor (9th, not 12); Pavel Chekov; Artemis Entreri; Gaara

John Tracy; Spock

L

Severus Snape; Ken Ichijouji;

Wedge Antilles; Jack Harkness; Malthael

The original meme: