#also this is my first time being able to play this game for myself. i used to have to watch the cutscenes online
Explore tagged Tumblr posts
blueskittlesart · 3 days ago
Note
Hello, I finished oot and loved it and so I started majora’s mask today, I’m not that far into it but I’m on the second day and it feels like I’m almost on the third but I don’t know and i feel like I wasted all my time wondering around getting myself acquainted with clock town and I am following a guide and it’s fun but I’m a little anxious about playing it since I’m bad at time management and hate being under a time limit, do you have any tips? And also if you fail to do something within 3 days in game, does your progress save or do you have to start all over again from scratch?
Also sorry for sending some of these, I know your not a guide and it may be a little weird, since your a art blog, sorry
hey! so first of all the point of the first 3-day cycle in majora's mask is that you can't really get anything done. you sort of need to "waste" that first cycle wandering around waiting for certain things to happen, so don't worry if you don't feel productive just yet!
in terms of being worried about the time limit, i understand it being anxiety-inducing but honestly in practice it's actually significantly MORE time than you need. also, after the first cycle you should be able to get a song (iirc it's from the scarecrow in the observatory? but i could be wrong) that will allow you to either slow down or speed up time, and slowing the timer every time you reset makes the rest of the game much easier! usually when I do that i end up with extra time at the end of my cycles.
as for what happens if you miss the time limit, yeah it's going to reset your progress. assume that basically anything you do in terms of dungeons or quests is going to be reset at the end of 3 days. Most of the dungeons are fairly easy to complete within the 3-day timer, but i recommend setting aside one full cycle for each dungeon and not trying to do anything else during that cycle, just in case. you also don't have to wait until the end of the 3 days to reset, you can play the song of time at any time, so if you mess up and feel like you'd rather just start over from the beginning of the cycle don't be afraid to do that! you also don't lose most of your inventory when you reset; you keep your masks and most other items, and you can keep your rupees if you use the bank.
34 notes · View notes
gummi-ships · 10 months ago
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
Kingdom Hearts 0.2 Birth by Sleep - A Fragmentary Passage - Castle Town
488 notes · View notes
anti-transphobia · 6 months ago
Text
Everyone posts about how Stardew Valley is a cozy LGBT+ inclusive game but NO ONE mentions the lack of a platonic option for the bachelors/bachelorettes. Which would be good for aspec people and also just more pleasant for many casual players I believe but that's not even the point. I just want to become best friends with everyone and not only does that require me dating everyone at once and feeling like a sleazebag because of it (ik the bad cutscene can be avoided but I know in my heart they'd be hurt if they knew) BUT it also means the women flirt with me!!!!! Constantly!!!!!!! It makes me sick to my stomach. Truly ruining the characters I liked
#this post is not that serious or meant to be an Analysis or a Discourse Post or a Hot Take or whatever#i just think the dating thing needs to be handled differently#i should be able to Not Date characters and still get 10 hearts with them#also ive never made it far enough in stardew valley to marry someone and this is the first time i could even date someone#and ive heard that the flirtatious comments dont stop once you're married which is. really awkward for me#i mean i could probably handle the guys flirting with me while im married but id hope being married would be an off switch for it#its just awkward to have ppl im not actually dating and only gave a bouquet to so i can be their friend be called my bf/gf when. they're Not#i seriously need to find some kind of mod to fix this once i finish getting all the girls up to ten hearts#i will deal with the stomach churning grossness of the flirting for a while so i can see everything#but then I'm DONE!!! I'm DONE!!!! I just want my friends back!!!!#maru and abigail and haley !!! my buds!!!#NOT emily shes scary and NOT leah because we just didn't click and DEFINITELY not penny because i fucking hate her#penny sucks. penny dni#but yeah the flirting feels gross because im gay and repulsed by women romantically/sexually#and even though i did open myself up to this by playing the game. because i dont want it it feels like its being forced on me#which makes it feel even WORSE than normal#and its like. not only do i feel like I'm stringing along these characters#but i feel like my friendship with my favourites is ruined :(
18 notes · View notes
icewindandboringhorror · 5 months ago
Text
Tumblr media Tumblr media
Apparently I can meet my goal of roughly 400,000 words in 6 months if I just somehow write at least 2,200 words a day ghbjh... Almost 2,500 today... huzzah...
#Definitely not going to be able to stick with it just due to like... being realistic about my energy levels and etc. ESPECIALLY as we#enter the Evil Summer and it becomes hot all the time. But... one can attempt.. at least...#I'm also a very slow writer since I tend to re-read and edit while I write. and only move onto the next section once what I'm writing#seems okay. Which is easy for visual novel type stuff. since ''sections'' of a conversation are more clearly marked (like if you#have a menu option with 5 different dialogue choices. finish the character's response for choice 1 before moving onto 2. etc.)#Especially since when I'm done with a whole quest I always follow it up by playing through it and picking every option and making sure it#actually all works okay and etc. So I am already going to see it all a second time. Then I can go back and reorder a few words or remove#certain sentences that don't sound natural when I read them out loud (I always read it all outloud to myself since it is... just peple#talking.. it should sound like natural dialogue in their voice. etc). But my ''first draft'' is kind of not as first drafty since I pause t#edit a lot as I go along. So it also takes longer probably than it would take other people who I think treat a first draft as more#of a loose guideline or something. AANYWAY...#80F in my bedroom right now again... huzzah... I did end up finishing and recording that sims build video before the heat wave (or is#it really a heat wave if it's just summer..?? lol) came in.. but now... augh.. the editing... plus the costume photos and all else... Much#to do as always.. Often such a long todo list.. a giant scroll hung upon the walls of the evil hermit wizard tower..#Anyhow.. I hope I can finish getting ready for bed early in time to reward myself with a game of tripeaks solitaire whilst I snack on#cheddar cheese and some of those preserved artichokes in a jar. hrgm... I actually have nasturtiums (ultimate best flower) on the#deck again this year but I had to move them all into a corner today because the leaves were getting burnt by the sun lol.. Also am now more#cautiously weaving through social media to ignore all dragon age news. NOT bc of spoilers (I actually love spoilers/literally never play#any game until there's full guides on it I can read to plan my entire playthrough based on knowing exactly what I want to happen lol + mods#and etc.) but just because I'm so busy with my ownprojects I simply do not have the brainspace to dedicate... Yes I love to think#about elves and fictional universe lore. but no.. I pretend I do not see it. Does not exist to me actually. ghgj.. OHH also took som#cool pictures of flowers in the garden section of a store and I wanted to do like.. character designs based on the colors of the flowers o#something. but that might just be another unnecessary project to add to the pile.. I want to commit to the daunting task of dyeing my#hair again some time.. hrm.. this is all of the updates I can think of. As if a bunch of random tags make up for never posting anything for#weeks on end lol.. alas.. too warm to think properly I suppose.. .. I neeeeeed a long lost relative to leave me some million dollar#estate in their will so I can have the resources to move to a colder climate or something ..augh#.. but for now.. I shall toil away in my little wizard tower trying to write 2000 something words a day whilst sweating and such ghbj
8 notes · View notes
phagodyke · 3 months ago
Text
sorry for googling "is shadow of the erdtree hard" do u still think im cool....
#jk if u know me u know difficulty doesnt faze me i hope its a rl fuckin challenge#but just realised i prolly shouldnt start my ng+/2+ runs for all ending achievements until after ive played sote..#bc otherwise my first sote run will be on a ramped up difficulty. when the base dlc is supposed to be harder than the main game already..#and i might wanna complete it across multiple new games anyway if there are duplicates of stuff i wanna get hmm.....#well. in my current elden ring save i literally only have 5 more altered armor pieces to farm before starting ng+#so ill finish that. and finish upgrading all weapons to +24/+9. and then take a tolerance break to play a few other games#and THEN ill buy myself sote and play that and do the ng+ stuff after#also one of the main things delaying me getting sote was bc i thought theyd add new achievements for it which would lower my completion%#but they haven't??? so thats fine then#anyway i need to sleep. at least playing er has been helping me cope w how pissed off ive been again. we <3 violence#yaaaawn. sad i couldnt go to the gym tho i hope i feel better in a couple days time#i did go to work in the end which was fine lol. glad i didnt take the day off tbh#but yeah 👍#.diaries#also not being able to get any sote stuff yet is annoying me bc im using a spreadsheet to keep track of all weapons/armour etc#and i have virtually everything except a couple armour alt variants n the remembrances i didnt get first time. but my total percentages#are capped around 75-80% bc the remaining 20-25% of items are sote exclusive.....#thats an insane amt tho damn. sote must be fucking HUGE
2 notes · View notes
peapod20001 · 1 year ago
Text
One of my many talents is the ability to do things, but not know I can do things
4 notes · View notes
immamapletreekid · 1 year ago
Text
ah yes. summer vacation aka the time to binge all of the shows and games and books i couldn't during the school year
5 notes · View notes
ghostprinceiii · 2 years ago
Text
"You're going to need a compelling reason to gain entry to Inazuma..."
My compelling reason is I need wood from there to make a purple bed for my teapot house.
#ghostprince posts#Genshin Impact#videogames#Very behind on story stuff obviously but after several days of avoiding it I finally finished the Dainslief quest (by using Amber to solo a#Ruin Hunter. Took forever but I'm proud of her) saw the Lumine reveal and now we're finally on our way to the next region!#Gonna be 2024 by the time I get to Sumeru since I still want to 100% Mondstat and Liyue + I don't wanna do the regions out of order/go to#Sumeru without it being time for it in the story. I've already technically done some stuff out of order since I did the Chasm before#Dainslief's quest and event cutscenes + character stories have been on a timeline thats innacurate to me + assumed knowledge of events/#characters/regions/etc that I don't (/canonically) have.#We're sort of getting on track though!#Glad I stopped playing this game when I did since it was causing problems for me. But also wish I'd started again sooner cuz I've missed so#much. But also glad I started again now since it gave me another chance to pick up where I left off in getting my favourite character and#being able to play as him has made this a lot of fun for me outside of the story elements. So... one step at a time in trying to just#enjoy myself at my own pace and hopefully ward off the stress of missing out on various limited-time events/rewards/characters.#+ I'm maybe in a bit of a better position to self-regulate what the problem was in the first place now? Let's assume I'm 'more mature'?#I have a lot of issues but I'm... maybe not working on them but I guess trying to not be overcome by some specific ones? And also trying to#stop spamming the discord server with updates about my every move in this game or go off about it to anyone who's willing to pretend they'r#listening ahaha. Trying to be less annoying basically. Might start talking outloud to the cat again. But! For now: New region that I#actually haven't seen any of the gameplay or visuals of (I don't think) so this should be interesting!#And purple :)#This has been my videogame update on Tumblr.com
6 notes · View notes
armedwithapencilandpaper · 15 days ago
Text
just finished exocolon*st for the first time and. ough. ow. ugh. urgh. hurts
0 notes
usodeshou · 2 months ago
Text
I had many things that I had considered doing today, most of it just being some chill video gaming, if I'm really honest. And I did get to do some. Then I started feeling sick.
I thought to myself, oh well, that silly motion sickness again, guess I'mma take a break 🙃
Turns out, wasn't just the motion sickness, though.
Spent the next hour and a half using my toilet as an echo chamber for creative voice lessons. Switched it up every now and again, just to keep things interesting, but the sound was just too good, so I kept coming back for encores. Realised the toilet might be cursed because I could not move away from it for more than a few meters or a few minutes before having to return.
Messaged my mom, who kindly brought me something to help break the curse.
Then spent the next three hours in a curled up position on my bedroom floor, on the carpet right next to my bed (bed would have been to soft), head on my fluffiest pillow, and underneath a warm, cuddly blanket, finally getting some rest and sleeping off the exhaustion.
When it all started it was early afternoon. The sun has now set. I am finally sitting back on the couch, munching on some insanely good pretzel sticks and drinking tea. Feel utterly serene. Could murder someone for a good, cheesy pizza right now, but that might be the devil talking.
#just me rambling#guessing that something didn't agree with my stomach but it's not quite clear what it was#it's been like 7 years since I last got sick enough to throw up and I can't say that I missed it much or cared much for it#my throat actually feels sore from all the dry-heaving#I've also been wondering#because I know that it's been debunked that coca cola is any good for you on an upset stomach#but coke + pretzel sticks has been the go-to household remedy ever since I was a child and it has always helped#this time as well#the coke was the first thing I was actually able to retain today#even water came right back out#and the pretzel sticks are perfect now#had some electrolytes too for obvious reasons#kinda want to continue playing my game but I don't dare do it anymore today#not when I know it could potentially trigger motion sickness-related issues on top of an already sensitive stomach#I've had quite enough of being sick today thank you very much#some movie maybe?#some visual novel?#not sure how well reading on my tv screen for an extended period of time is gonna sit with my head (and by extension my stomach) though#continue reading the book I'm in the middle of? maybe#really glad my nose is back to normal#it's fascinating the smells you pick up on that completely churn your stomach when you're sick#half of that shit I can't even smell properly now anymore#god some french fries would be great now too#way back in my teens when I got sick after not eating anything for too long (and then couldn't eat because I was sick - brilliant. 😑)#the thing that got me back to feeling normal ended up being french fries#the electrolytes concoction had a good amount of salt in it but I feel like my body is still demanding more#I don't trust myself with anything but pretzel sticks right now though#on any other day I might have caved and ordered that pizza#I need to stop talking about pizza for my own sanity xD#on another note: there is still a mosquito in here with me 🧐
0 notes
sneefsnorf · 6 months ago
Note
OH HEY!! do you have final thoguhts on ultrakill and gabriel and the v's and everything :333333 <- my agenda
machine. ive spent my life loved and revered by my people and my church. i trusted my institution and my Father because i never had a reason not to, machine. the council and the people had such high expectations of me and i always rose to meet them. my achievements were many. everything was perfect. and then you took it all from me, machine. i failed ONCE. i wasnt what the church wanted me to be exactly and they tore their love away from me. its not fair. not in the slightest. ive been thinking a lot. ive been reflecting on the churches and the institutions of mankind. so many of them have warped the word of the Father into whatever will give them the most power. they use his teachings to break down and bully those they hate. they grind them into the ground and humiliate them as much as they can, not just for their own self-gain, but for the sake of hatred. this is what the council has done to me, machine, and now i have joined your ranks. all their love for me revoked as soon as i couldnt be what they wanted, thrown from the gates of heaven like the queers and the freaks. i've joined your ranks, machine. i'm less than a person now. and i am filled with so much rage.
anyways thanks for driving me to the abortion clinic machine i really appreciate it
#sneefs asks#cathartidae#sorry for answering your question in writing from gabriels perspective i have issues stemming from how i was treated by a catholic institut#i have issues. im also need to do insane things to him like [EXTENDED CENSOR TONE]. sorry#ANYWAYS its a really good game and i love it lots. i really wanna play it myself but i dunno if my mum would be too pleased with me playing#an incredibly violent first person shooter. she's not too big on those games and i'd be playing it in the same room where she's doing her#phd. she would not appreciate it. which i totally get so ill probably play it once i move out in a few months#ANYWAYS i do wonder how intelligent the V models are. are they mostly just programmed to understand combat pathfinding and basic puzzles?#because if i was designing a robot that needs reaction and processing time as quick as V1 i would only give it the bare minimum for#it to function as intended. being able to understand langauge and emotion or do. idk complex maths calculations seems like extra shit i don#need my killing machine to do#but then there is the thing where V1 can scan text and understand which parts are important. and V2 bowed before their first duel. and she#had such ATTITUDE in the second one. cuz yeah they have emotions and stuff. i do wonder a lot about whether they have theory of mind#ability to recognise or even create art. all that stuf. there is that scene with mirage that is incredibly conceptually abstract and deep#but im not sure how closely that relates to the V models' own brains/GPUs/whatever they have#i think thats probably just something ive picked up from the fandom portraying V1 as not as emotionally aware or intelligent as gabriel.#(at least in a way we understand as humans) anyways id love to know more about V1's thought process independent of the player and how she#experiences emotions. anyways. awesome game. bangin graphics. bangin story. bangin soundtrack#also i would do CRAZY things to a hideous mass i mean WHO SAID THATTTTTTTTT
0 notes
leebrontide · 2 years ago
Text
Every single time I see a take that amounts to "if you write about X happening, or like fiction where X happens, you like X" I'm reminded of this one time I was at a casual friends house as a young kid. We were in her room, pretending to "be orphans" escaping from an evil orphanage and having to take care of each other and fend for ourselves. It was all very Little Orphan Annie/All Dogs Go to Heaven and based on the 80s pop media.
And this girl's mom comes in, hears what we're playing and gets all MAD and UPSET. She says that if we play act something, it's because we want it to happen. So her daughter must WANT HER TO DIE.
First off lady, we were 6 year year olds, so take it down several notches. We barely had a concept of mortality for fucks sake. She made us feel so guilty and ashamed, because she was taking our game personally.
Now I have a 5 year old. And sometimes she looks at me and says "pretend you're dead, and I have to -" Whatever it is. Some adult task she's assigned herself.
And it's just so transparently obvious that she's practicing the idea of having to do things on her own. Which is exactly what 5 year olds are supposed to do. I actually find it very flattering that the only way she can envision me not being available to help her is to be literally deceased. Otherwise, obviously, she wouldn't have to do scary hard things alone.
It's a natural coping mechanism. She's self-soothing about what would happen if I wasn't there by play-acting independence in a perfectly safe environment. She's also practicing skills she needs, and making up excuses for practicing them on her own, without taking on the responsibility of being able to do them by herself all the time yet.
Humans mentally rehearse bad this in their brains all the time. We can do that by ruminating- going over worries over and over again, which tends to lead to anxiety and helplessness and depression. Or we can do it with a sense of play- by recognizing that the fiction is fiction and we can dip our toe into these experiences and expose ourselves to bad things without actually being injured.
My daughter does not want me dead. And I don't want bad things to happen in real life. But fiction and pretend help me face the horrors of the world and think about them without collapsing or messing myself up mentally.
58K notes · View notes
exopelagic · 11 months ago
Text
I did NOT realise how out of it I am December is messed up
#I just realised that I’ve got exactly two weeks before (mock) exam and I gotta be ready#meanwhile I’m sitting on 14 unwatched lectures#I just opened one up and I can’t bring myself to do it#it’s probably partly bc I need to shower! which I can actually do now so sorry lecture that has to take priority#but like. being at home fucks me up so insanely badly#mostly bc my brother will sit in our room all day with the lights off playing his games w his friends on call#(with the door closed. it smells very bad.)#and I can’t kick him out and there’s nowhere else I can rlly watch lectures#I could do other shit in theory but I haven’t been able to bring myself to do it bc working downstairs is also a nightmare#and even when I do get the room to myself like now (literally the first time since I’ve been back home) I’m working on my bed#and that kills my back and is just. very uncomfortable#but goddamn I like. just zoned out for like two weeks? I’m not even back yet but I’ve not done anything for like two weeks#and I go back weekend after next after which I have 5 days at uni before exam#and two weeks before I have to submit my supervisor choices for my fucking masters#like. oh my god#oh my gooooooooood#idk if I’m gonna make it out of this one alive#bc I Am behind now just objectively I am very behind and I’ll get it done before term starts but I’ve not rewritten many lectures notes#which isn’t Necessary but I don’t know the stuff in the lectures which is the problem#aaaaaand my brother is back and about to close the blind I’m just. I’m just gonna shower#thankfully this is the last time I’ll come back and have to be revising#but god. I thought it’d be better and then I just got sucked into the same shit as always#this has been a bad month but hey. new year on monday#yeah he’s on the phone I physically cannot be in here again he does this all day every day and I’m going to scream#okay! shower time!#hope everyone’s having a good day <3#luke.txt
0 notes
ms-demeanor · 1 year ago
Note
I think the eight alarms thing is usually a maladaptation. You've trained your brain to ignore the eight alarms because you kept avoiding the training of willpower following the first alarm would require. I think some sleep therapy might help?
Hey so first of all fuck you, thanks.
Second: I love it when you read literature on sleep disorders, especially if it's on sleep disorders among folks with ADHD, and you see time and time again "when allowed to sleep on their preferred schedule subjects maintained healthy, normal, restorative sleep cycles" and "effects were not lasting without ongoing intervention; resetting the sleep schedule is a permanent effort."
Like, if I sleep *great* from 6am to 2pm and I wake up feeling rested and alert with no special help but I need to turn off the lights in my house and shut down all electronics at 8pm and beam a spotlight into my face starting at 5am to wake up at seven and feel exhausted all day, I think perhaps it is not actually my sleep cycle that is wrong it is perhaps society that is wrong.
BELIEVE ME, when I find the job that pays well and has decent insurance that lets me exist as a cheerful nighttime ghoul I am jumping on that with both feet. But until then I literally feel better getting six hours of sleep and occasionally sleeping so hard that i can't hear my alarms because of chronic sleep deprivation than I do turning off all the lights in my house and ceasing all activity two and a half hours after I get off of work.
Also: the eight alarms aren't all there to wake me up, it's just that sometimes I *also* sleep through the ones that are supposed to remind me to go sit at my desk and start work. One of the first three usually gets me up, but on a day when I sleep through all three of those I will be sleeping through all eight of them and usually a phone call and someone trying to shake me awake to.
ANYWAY after being treated with melatonin and light therapy and staring listlessly at the ceiling in the dark bored out of my skull with racing thoughts for sleep disorders that I didn't have for like twenty years the single most effective intervention that allowed me to get more sleep as someone with both ADHD and DSPD was to start hanging out and being active in places where it would be easy to fall asleep if the sleep caught me there instead of turning my bedroom into a dark, silent shrine of snoozing. Giving myself permission to fall asleep late instead of laying awake chewing myself up with guilt for not being asleep helped too.
Actually here's some tips for the sleepy bitches in the crowd:
1 - If you're laying down and not falling asleep in half an hour, you're not actually sleepy; read something or get up and do something because you're more likely to get sleepy faster that way than you are staring at the clock going "if I fall asleep now I'll have three hours and forty five minutes of rest when I have to go to work; If I fall asleep now I'll have three hours and twenty minutes of sleep when I have to get up, etc. etc."
2 - Allow yourself to be ambushed by sleep. Fall asleep on your cozy couch. Fall asleep in the comfy chair. Let yourself sleep where you fall asleep instead of dragging yourself to where you're 'supposed' to sleep if doing so will wake you up.
3 - The mythbusters thing. If you just lay down and close your eyes and pretend to rest you will feel more rested when you get up than when you laid down. Laying down to rest is better than nothing, it literally causes cognitive improvements similar to sleep in tests, and knowing that can help take off some of the pressure of not being able to fall asleep and can thus help you fall asleep.
4 - It's okay to "hang out" in the area where you're going to sleep. Read in bed. Play games on your cellphone in bed. If you want to go to sleep put on comfy clothes and bring a chill activity and hang out in your bed to do it so that all you have to do when you start getting sleepy is close your eyes.
5 - It's better to get some sleep than no sleep. Sometimes you look at the clock and it's six AM and whoops, fuck it. Okay, time for bed, don't stress that you're only going to get a few hours, a few hours is better than nothing. Lay down to pretend to rest at least and you'll probably feel okay.
6 - This one sounds silly and might not work for a bunch of people for a bunch of reasons but apparently there's some research suggesting that "well-rested" is a state of mind? I've had a reasonable amount of success with just telling myself "Yeah, I actually feel pretty good," and pushing through the day on a couple of hours of sleep. I don't *recommend* that and you should try to get as much sleep as possible, but yeah the next time you're low on sleep see what happens if you just try to decide to not be tired. It sounded like bullshit to me when I first heard it but I've found some success with it.
7 - This shit is cumulative. If you're doing a couple nights a week on low sleep that's not ideal but you're probably going to be pretty functional and you can work on it. If you overbook and overextend yourself for too long - I'm looking at you college students and new parents - it's going to add up. Try as much as possible to at least keep your sleep deficit nights spread out. (This message brought to you by writing 60k words of fiction in october and completely frying my brain because i wasn't getting enough sleep).
12K notes · View notes
room-surprise · 3 months ago
Text
New Ryoko Kui interview dropped!!!
(This is a quick and dirty translation made using machine translation, and which I've lightly edited to add clarity. I'm not fluent in Japanese so I may have gotten things wrong. I'm sure others will do a better job later.
ADDITIONAL CONTEXT: This article is from a Japanese gaming magazine, like the previous interview in Famitsu, so they focus on video games and don't discuss other influences, even though they do get mentioned and are clearly pretty major.)
Kui was able to write "Dungeon Meshi" because she was not good at eating food and participating in human relationships. In this interview, we dig deeper into the influence of games, and how Ryoko Kui focuses on things she likes and dislikes while writing. [Writers of the Gaming Generation]
Dungeon Meshi.
This manga is attractive for its unique theme of "dungeons, defeating monsters in the labyrinth, and cooking them," as well as the unique characters, detailed human relationships, and deep worldview depicted in the labyrinth. It is currently being made into an anime, and adventurers from all over the world are fascinated by the world of "Dungeon Meshi."
So I thought , "I wonder if this work was drawn by someone who loves food and people." The depiction of such delicious-looking food and the construction of delicate human relationships and characters. Surely, it must have been drawn by someone who absolutely loves it.
However, in reality, the author, Kui Ryoko, says that she "is not good at either food or relationships."
So why was he able to continue drawing things she was not good at?
During the roughly 10 years of serialization, Kui has continued to confront "things she dislikes." This interview delves into Kui's unique creative techniques... and at the same time, it also delves into her "favorite things."
That's the "game"!
Those who are familiar with the subject may already know this, but Kui is also a big gamer. And it seems that "Dungeon Meshi" is heavily influenced by RPGs such as "Wizardry."
As a result, this interview turned out to be "I asked Kui a lot about her likes and dislikes." Likes and dislikes. They are the source of all interests and curiosity.
So how do we use this knowledge in our creative endeavors? How does this knowledge manifest itself in Dungeon Meshi?
How were those charming characters and the deep world created? We spoke to the original author, Kui Ryoko, and the editor, Masaru Hiroi, about things they could only talk about after the series was completed.
This is a game with the volume of a great labyrinth. I hope you will explore it all the way to the final floor!
Dungeon food. It's eat or be eaten. There is no superior or inferior, to eat food is simply a privilege of the living. Dungeon food. Ah, dungeon food.
First, I want to ask about how Kui first encountered video games.
--What are some influences from games in Dungeon Meshi? What was your first game, Ms. Kui?
Ryoko Kui (hereinafter referred to as Kui): I played traditional RPGs such as [blank?] and "Final Fantasy."
I think the first game console I ever played was a Famicom, which my parents won in a lottery . So before I knew it, we had a Famicom at home. I think my parents bought me the Super Famicom and PS1 after that...
After that, I took a break from games for a bit around the time of the PS2, but around the time of the PS4, I was finally able to buy games with the money I had earned myself .
--Why were you able to stay away from games around the time of the PS2?
Kui: I was too busy with exams, so I thought, "Well, I shouldn't be playing games," and left. When I started living alone after that, I couldn't play games because I didn't have a TV. My computer was also a Mac. [Macs aren't compatible with many games.]
--What was the trigger that made you think, "I want to play games" again?
Kui: I think the biggest thing was starting the serialization of "Dungeon Meshi."
Fantasy stories all have different settings, but at the same time, there are also things they share in common. For example, if you want to create a fantasy work, but you only know "Dragon Quest," it will end up resembling "Dragon Quest." It's scary to copy the setting of only one work.
So I just wanted to play a ton of different fantasy games and get an idea of ​​what the most common general understanding of fantasy is.
--Did you start playing it while you were still developing the concept for Dungeon Meal?
Kui: That's right. If I'm going to talk about "eating food," I have to play a game that has a system for eating food .
So I was interested in "Dungeon Master." However, at the time there was no easy way to play "Dungeon Master" on a real machine, so I played "Legend of Grimrock", which can also be played on a Mac.
["Dungeon Master," is a computer RPG released in 1987. Time passes each time you take an action in the dungeon, such as moving, fighting, or resting, so its biggest feature is that the game progresses in real time according to the player's actions. "Legend of Grimrock," is an action RPG released in 2012. It has a game design similar to "Dungeon Master."]
Until then, I had felt that overseas games and games played on PC were too difficult, but I felt like I had overcome one obstacle there. I thought, "Oh, this is pretty easy," and started playing a lot of different games.
-- Those two games are quite heavy even among RPGs, I think, so did you actually have that much difficulty with them?
Kui: No...I would say that my impression is more that best-selling games are easy to play (laughs).
I'm not that good at games myself, so I usually play games that allow you to adjust the difficulty on a super easy setting. So, games that allow you to lower the difficulty are always a lifesaver.
-- I've heard that apart from RPGs , you also like games such as "13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim" and "Paranomasite FILE23: The Seven Mysteries of Honjo ." Do you have a favorite genre, Mr. Kui?
Kui: I guess I'm just not very good at games that require you to use your brain through trial and error.
But in RPGs, if you just level up and keep tapping, you can win and progress in the game. Also, in novel-type games, if you read the text, you can progress. By this process of elimination, I quite like RPGs and text-based games .
Personally, I like games like Disco Elysium the most, which are text-heavy, top-down, and have maps to explore.
...Even I think that's a pretty negative reason (laughs).
Everyone: (laughs).
Hiroi Masaru (hereinafter referred to as Hiroi): But, Ms. Kui, you have really played quite a lot of games, haven't you?
Kui: No, the reason I'm able to play so much is because I play in a pretty callous way ...
I often buy a game, play it, and then just don't play it. So there aren't that many games I complete... I only complete a few a year. I play around 40 games, and if I complete 5 or 6, that's good.
When I asked if I could draw at Comitia, I got scolded.
-- Have you had any exposure to fantasy outside of digital RPGs?
Kui: I think it's not just games, but also the fact that I've always loved foreign fantasy novels . I was given books like "The Neverending Story," "The Lord of the Rings," and "The Chronicles of Narnia."
-- Dungeon Meshi gives off an atmosphere of Western fantasy like gamebooks or tabletop RPGs, rather than the typical Japanese fantasy games like Dragon Quest.
Hiroi: I think I went to Kui's house before the series started. At that time, we were discussing the name of a sci-fi manga called "Drawing Inside the Brain," which I had rejected many times.
Ms. Kui said she wanted to serialize this sci-fi manga... and when he was on the fourth draft, he said, "No, this isn't going to work," and when I looked at the scribbled notes next to her desk, she had already drawn the original version of "Dungeon Meshi" ! (laughs)
Kui: ……………No, I don't remember much (laughs).
Everyone: (laughs).
Kui: But I had wanted to draw a manga about exploring a dark dungeon, like Wizardry .
Since I was in elementary school, the manga I drew in pencil in my notebooks were all fantasy stories about swords and magic, so I had always wanted to draw a proper fantasy manga. However, there weren't as many fantasy manga in bookstores at the time as there are now, so I wondered, "Maybe fantasy doesn't sell."
Hiroi: At the time, there were a lot of people in their teens and twenties posting fantasy illustrations on online communities for artists, such as pixiv, and Kui was one of them.
I thought, there are so many people who want to write fantasy, so if she writes a fantasy aimed at this generation, it might sell.
And when I saw Kui's notes, I thought to myself, "Let's make a straight-forward fantasy manga, without making it weirdly twisted."
Kui: I originally thought of making this "dungeon exploration manga" as just a hobby... When I asked Hiroi if I could draw it at Comitia first, he got angry.
[Comitia is a comics convention in Japan for original self-published comics.]
Everyone: (laughs).
Hiroi: I said, "If you're going to draw at Comitia, then make sure you draw it as a proper serialization!" (laughs)
However, at that time, Kui had already published two collections of short stories, and they were being reprinted. In other words, she had a certain number of fans even before the serialization began.
So I decided, if Kui creates a pure fantasy for those fans, we can't fail badly. If it doesn't work, we'll just learn that fantasy is difficult to sell after all.
--By the way, were there any discussions between you and Ms. Kui about the fact that fantasy doesn't sell?
Kui: I remember vaguely talking about how fantasy manga doesn't sell well and how difficult it seems. I don't know much about light novels, so that might have been there for a while.
However, since a lot of fantasy manga were coming out around the same time, it was probably a "transitional period ." Maybe it was just when people started to feel more and more like they wanted to draw and read fantasy.
Not everyone is that interested in the things I like
-- I feel that "Dungeon Meshi" is a title that has breathed new life into the fantasy genre. How did you go about creating the setting and world when dealing with fantasy?
Kui: I try to think, "Not everyone is that interested in the things I like."
I like to think about pointless settings endlessly, but there are times when I think , "When this setting is actually made into a manga, people probably won't be interested in this story." So I try to include things that will make people interested, and cut out things that will distract people as much as possible.
For example, in "Dungeon Meshi" I initially wanted everyone to speak various languages. On top of that, I wanted to make the characters "only able to communicate with each other in one language"... but Mr. Hiroi said "Don't do that" (laughs).
Everyone: (laughs).
Kui: Even when I'm drawing it myself, I think, "It takes more than six panels to explain this setting...", and if I explain the setting more than necessary, it slows down the pace of the story.
Moreover, since "Dungeon Meshi" was a monthly serialization, unlike a weekly series, there wasn't much time for extraneous stories. Specifically, I had to draw one episode of about 30 pages per month.
In that case, there was no time to add in settings like "Actually, he was thinking about this behind the scenes" or "Actually, he can speak two languages." So, rather than there being any clear choices, there were quite a few times when "there was no time to do things normally." If it had been a weekly serialization, I might have included more.
--Does the scene where Chilchuck yells insults in his own language feel rather "forced"?
Kui: That's right (laughs).I thought, this only takes one frame...it's my chance [to include information about language]!
--So you haven't thought through all of these "fictional languages" yet?
Kui: If Dungeon Meshi were to be my life's work and I were to spend my whole life creating this world, I think it would be more fun to think about it...but initially, I thought that Dungeon Meshi would end in a few years.
Hiroi: Initially, I said, "It'd be nice if it continued for about five volumes" (laughs).
However, Kui's first draft really had a lot of material... so the editors cut out a lot of it. I understand that it's the parts the readers want to read, but I cut out the parts that deviate from the main story. So it's a battle between the "author who doesn't want to be cut" and the "editor who wants to cut."
--By the way, what kind of discussion took place between the "parts you want to cut" and the "parts you don't want to cut"?
Kui: There were a lot of them every time, but I can't remember them specifically now...it was just small, unimportant details that got cut.
In the scene where the hams made by the Red Dragon go back into the pool of blood, I remember saying, "You don't need these," and they were about to cut them off, but I remember desperately stopping them by saying, "We'll need them later!" I'm glad they weren't cut off.
But once I think of the setting, I want to include things, and then they get cut out, so at first I didn't want to expand the world too much.
I also wanted to complete the story within the dungeon. I didn't want to reveal the name of the country, and I didn't want to give the characters surnames. But in the second half, Hiroi-san told me, "The world is too small, so you should make it bigger," and I was like, "Are you sure?"
--Mr. Hiroi, why did you say that?
Hiroi: As the story progressed, it became clear that "Dungeon Meshi" was no longer just about saving a sister in a dungeon. So I decided that it would be unconvincing if the story had no involvement with the outside world, since what was happening in the dungeon was something that would affect the fate of the whole world.
For example, in real life companies, the more important a decision you make, the higher your superior's rank becomes, right? When I thought about it that way, I felt something was off about the idea of ​​Laios and his friends deciding the fate of the world on their own. "How can they make that decision without anyone knowing about it?"
The fact that the Canary Team was there meant that there must have been a system of reporting, contacting, and consulting here, because that's how "society" and "organizations" work.
In short, I think we were thinking about the situation and asking, "If an organization were to get involved in saving the world, how persuasive could they make it given the society that exists in the story?"
Kui: Well, the plot hasn't changed at all.
From the beginning, I had intended to write a story about saving the world, but I also thought it was possible for the world to be saved by only a select few people in the dungeon who knew the circumstances. Changing it was what Hiroi-san thought would make it more persuasive.
When I was drawing the first half, Hiroi told me, "You don't have to decide anything yet." I was in a hurry to move the story forward and explain the world and story setting, but he told me, "It's better to limit it to introducing the four main characters until about the fourth volume." But in the second half, he said, "Introduce more people and expand the world."
Everyone: (laughs).
Hiroi: Kui-san was like , "That's not what you said originally!" (laughs) But both had meaning...
Kui: I was the one saying, "If we expand the world there, the story will never end, right...?"
After drawing it through to the end, I realized that the balance between holding back and expanding didn't work the way I had expected. I think this is one of the reasons why the serialization of "Dungeon Meshi" took so long.
-- But there are a lot of characters in "Dungeon Meshi," and the relationships between them are complicated. I heard that you also created the relationship diagram for "Taikaishu" [※3] ...
Kui: No, I haven't made one [I didn't do that?]!
[Taikaishu is a full-color web comic by Funako Tsukasa that began serialization on a website in 2005 and is still ongoing. Its unique worldview has earned it a loyal fanbase, especially on the Internet.]
-- Eh? Is that not the case?
Kui: To be precise, I just created an account on the fan wiki.
When I started reading "Taikaishu," I struggled with the complex setting and the large number of characters...and I thought "it would be easier to read if there was an explanation or a list of characters."
So I searched for a bulletin board where readers were sharing their thoughts and asked if there was a summary, but they said there wasn't. So I thought, "Maybe if there was a place where someone with more knowledge could summarize it," and I just made a wiki account.
So I didn't actually edit it. It seems like I've been given credit for someone else's work, and I'm sorry about that...
Dungeon Meshi was created from a sense of guilt about food?
-- "Dungeon Meshi" started off with the catchy theme of "cooking monsters," but little by little the darker aspects and deeper world were revealed. Was the structure of "little by little revealing the darker side" something you had in mind from the beginning?
Kui: I thought I needed a theme to serialize it so I thought I'd try "food education." There were a lot of gourmet manga at the time, but I felt like there weren't many that focused on food education.
-- Considering that the theme is "food education," it makes sense that the nutritional value of the dishes in the story is clearly written down.
Kui: With the theme of "food education," I also thought up a rough outline of the story. Rescue the kidnapped princess, defeat the evil wizard, defeat the final boss, and become king... the framework is pretty simple.
But when I actually tried to proceed with the plan, I realized, "No, this story can't be done so lightly..." At first, I thought I could draw it in a more light-hearted manner.
Hiroi: At first, you were trying to finish the fight against the Red Dragon in one episode, right? I was like, "is that possible?" (laughs).
Everyone: (laughs).
Kui: When I tried to actually tell it in one episode, it ended up feeling like a very brief summary... In order to tell the story I wanted to tell, I had to tell it more thoroughly than I originally thought.
-- Did you have any special thoughts about the theme of "food"?
Kui: No... well... if I had to choose, I'd say I have a strong grudge against food.
Since I was a child, I was a very picky eater, and mealtimes were a pain for me. I hated eating in front of other people, and there was a time when I hated seeing other people eating, so I would look for toilets that were rarely used and eat my meals in the toilet.
When I was doing it, the word "toilet meal" didn't exist, so when the term actually appeared in society I was so happy, thinking "everyone was doing it!"
[Toilet Meals are a social phenomenon in Japan.]
Everyone: (laughs).
Kui: I was thinking, "This is so terrible, right...?" but it was a relief to realize that other people were doing the same thing.
--So what made you choose the theme of "food education"?
Kui: My parents, who were struggling with my picky eating, taught me many things, including the "triple eating" method, but it was no use and I continued to be a picky eater into adulthood. My parents had instilled knowledge about food education in me, but I was not able to put it into practice.
[Kui might be talking about Triangular Eating but I'm not sure.]
So the only thing that remains is that I feel an enormous amount of guilt when it comes to food and eating...
Hiroi: If you think about it objectively, the series starts off on a very negative note.
Kui: But now I've gotten over the habit of eating with other people... or rather, I've come to like it. My editor takes me to lots of delicious places.
--When I was a student, I was trying to leave my udon bowl at school, but my teacher found out and made me eat the packet of udon by myself. There was no soup, and it was really hard to eat the udon by itself.
Kui: It must be tough. I tried to hide it, but my teacher found out and I got really angry.
Hiroi: I've tried to hide it in a drawer before. Then, something dried up came out of the drawer... (laughs bitterly).
How can I draw things I hate?
-- Or rather, is it the fact that you're not good at it that gives you a higher level of insight into the food?
Kui: I think it's because you're interested in it that you either like it or dislike it. Inevitably, you spend a lot of time thinking about it.
Since "Dungeon Meshi" depicts a lot of food, one might think "Do I like eating?", but in fact there are many times when I draw it because I dislike something .
--Aside from food, do you also draw things that you dislike?
Kui: Maybe. For example, human relationships, modern times, fashion...?
-- Perhaps the relationships between the characters in "Dungeon Food" are portrayed so delicately because the author is not good at dealing with human relationships?
Kui: I've always been very curious about things like, "(This person is usually so cold, but has such a charming smile in front of other people)" ...
I feel the same way, but I think people are different in the way they show their true colors. I think it's strange that it stands out to me...
-- I have a simple question. When you draw something you hate, how do you feel? No matter how much you hate something, do you find it fun to draw it?
Kui: The events in the manga don't directly involve me, so I don't dislike the things I'm drawing as much. Also, when I draw while looking for the good parts, it can lead to new discoveries.
Also, I think it's scary to draw only what I like.
In my work, the important thing is "what to capture with the camera," and there's no need to go out of your way to capture filthy things, but at the same time, I think the world will look bigger if you keep in mind that "there are a lot of inconvenient, dirty, and unpleasant things outside the camera." That's the feeling I have when I paint/create manga.
When playing a game, if I have to choose between a game where I only feel like I'm in the world inside the game screen, and a game where I feel like there are lots of people living on the other side of the screen, and that the people in that world could travel anywhere they wanted, I think the latter is more fun to play.
I'm always thinking about how to express that "sense of the vastness of the world" ...and I personally like games that have "a world" to them.
-- Do you ever incorporate elements from the game into your manga?
Kui: On the contrary, I think that is a part that cannot be adopted .
The best thing about games is that each person has a different experience. Games that have lots of endings are also a result screen for what you've done up until that point. When I see something like that, I think, "That's so cool."
Personally, I think that's the game's greatest appeal, and something that could never be replicated in a manga that doesn't have players.
If you're so busy, when do you play games?
-- I'm personally curious, how do you find the time to play games? Even though you're busy with your work as a manga artist, you play quite a lot of games.
Kui: I often use the Steam Deck before going to bed or during breaks between writing manuscripts. In fact, I almost only use the Steam Deck now. I keep it by my pillow, so I can take it and play before going to sleep, or during breaks...
--Is Steam Deck really that convenient?
Kui: I recommend it. The screen is small, but it can run Cyberpunk 2077 .
Also, personally, I've gotten tired of having to turn on my PC to start up a game...with Steam Deck, I can just turn it on and it starts up instantly, even when I'm lying down. How do you writers usually play games? There are times when you have to play games for work, aren't there?
--When it comes to work, I calculate backwards how long I'll be playing before I start playing...If it's a game that can be completed in about 60 hours, I usually estimate that I'll play for 3 hours a day and complete it for 20 days in a row.
Hiroi: It's a lot of work!
Kui: That's amazing... You really are a gamer.
I've always thought that I have a talent for playing games ... but I'm not really good at that. If I'm given a game that's a little difficult, I get tired of it right away, and I'm not very good at trial and error. The range of things I can enjoy is very narrow.
I wonder if game developers around the world are also struggling with the question of "Should I make my games accessible to a wide range of people, even those who aren't particularly gamers?" or "Should I make games that are challenging and can be played deeply?" The same problem exists with manga, too.
When there's a game that I can't play well, I feel happy because it means the creator decided that there's no need to pander to people who can't keep up.
-- By the way, when you play games, do you do it as a normal "hobby"? Or do you play more often to find material for your manga?
Kui: Of course, a big part of it is that I play games as a hobby, but it is alleviated by the fact that playing games might be useful for my work (laughs).
Even if I'm not that interested in a game, if I think "it might be useful for work," I'll find the courage to buy it, and no matter how expensive a gaming PC is, I can still buy it if I think of it as a work tool. So the hurdles for many things related to games are lowered for the reason that it's "for work."
--So, when you read manga, do you feel like you're reading it for work?
Kui: In my case, manga has become my job, so when I read it I can't help but think of work.
However, I still enjoy gaming as a hobby . That's why I don't want to lose this hobby... and I don't think I'll be able to enjoy it as much if I get involved in games as a job, so I don't take on any games-related jobs.
Does the depth of the world come from the fact that it is "not decided"?
-- I heard in advance that "Dungeon Meshi" was written with a clear awareness of "what should be explained" and "what shouldn't be explained," so could you tell me more about that?
Kui: Having read a variety of fantasy novels and games, I thought that the "moment of discouragement" was the "repeated use of foreign words." When you write something like "XX of XX of XX," if there are three or more katakana characters, there is a high chance that it will be skipped over by Japanese readers.
That's why I try to refer to town names as "the neighboring town" whenever possible, and refer to characters who appear in flashbacks as "uncle" rather than by their full names, so that readers can understand without having needing exposition.
The magic used during battles in "Dungeon Meshi" is depicted in such a way that you can "understand what kind of magic it is just by looking at the picture."
-- What other aspects of Dungeon Meshi are there that you deliberately left out of its concrete settings?
Kui: Numbers and language are the settings I avoided touching. For example, just by deciding the month of birth, it is first determined that there is a moon in this world. From there, it is also determined that there is gravity.
What's more, just the concept of a "birthday" means that there is a division into a "year" and that the world is determined to have a 365-day cycle. It quickly becomes complicated.
But on the other hand, if I were to set the details and make it something like "This country's currency is 1 gold, which is worth 5 yen," it would be a burden on the reader. When reading the work, the reader would be forced to convert it into "1 gold = 5 yen" in their minds every time. That's why I try to write it with "readability as a priority" as much as possible.
However, if you're creating a "fantasy" in the truest sense of the word, it would be better to create something that corresponds to that world's calendar or metric system in order to really immerse yourself in that world, so it's difficult to get the balance right...
-- I think that style of "deliberately not giving explanations" is quite amazing.
Hiroi: I think that 's definitely partly because "Dungeon Meshi" is a silly title.
The "mindset" of the reader is a little different...I think that from the very beginning, the reader is made to recognize that "this work isn't going to say anything too difficult."
Kui: Also, we had to give a bit of thought to coming up with the character names.
For example, the main characters in Wizardry are given names that correspond to their professions, such as "Warrior" or "Wizard." The "Senshi" in Dungeon Meshi was taken from that ... I named him after thinking, "I want that person to play an active role."
That's why I wanted the overseas version of Senshi's name to be "Fighter", but I was worried that overseas readers would be like, "What does that mean...!?" so I kept it in my head.
--The character names in "Dungeon Meshi" tend to be around 3 or 4 letters long and fit nicely.
Kui: If the name gets too long, it won't fit in the speech bubble...It's generally said that a line in a speech bubble should be about 7 to 8 characters long to be easy to read.
So "Chillchuck" is really long... I actually thought that the abbreviation "Chill" could be used more, so I named it that way, but it didn't work out so well, so in the end I just kept calling it "Chillchuck". Even I was thinking "that's long" while drawing it (laughs).
Everyone: (laughs).
Kui: Anyway, there are quite a few manga-like circumstances where "maybe four characters would be enough."
--By the way, are there any rules for naming the characters in "Dungeon Meshi"?
Kui: It's not detailed, but there are "settings within the story" and "meta-settings that are just for my own enjoyment."
For example, [if Dungeon Meshi was a game] the Shuro party has names that would be given by a certain type of player. When playing a games, some people give their characters themed names that follow self-imposed rules. In that sense, meta-wise, the Shuro party is played by a player who names their characters with a plant-based restriction.
Also, since the player likes girls, the party members are all girls, and so on... (laughs).
Hiroi: Oh, I didn't know that!
Kuon: ...While it's fun for myself, I also create characters by asking questions like, "Why is the party mainly made up of women?" or "Why do they all have similar names?"
However, even if I revealed these settings in the story, it wouldn't have made the story any more interesting, so they are merely "settings that only exist in my own mind."
-- What are some specific examples of "settings that you deliberately didn't reveal"?
Hiroi: I still remember when I said, "I want you to depict the elven kingdom in more detail," Kui replied, "That's going too far."
The dwarven country was depicted quite a bit, so I personally thought it could have been shown a little more...
Kui: I felt that if I depicted that, it would limit the reader's imagination.
There are definitely "lines that suggest something might happen," and when it comes to parts that are better left to the reader's imagination, I often choose not to draw them.
Also, even when we present settings that readers think they can just skim through, they often try hard to remember them...
It all started with the manga "Eating soba through your nose."
--Let's go back to the topic a little. How did Ms. Kui and Mr. Hiroi meet?
Hiroi: I think we scouted her.
I saw a short story that Kui had posted on Pixiv and sent him an email asking if I would like to draw a manga. I remember that he had a really funny four-frame manga called "Eating soba noodles through your nose ." It was about a character eating soba noodles through his nose and crying out in pain... I think I was drawn to his drawing ability, which made me feel like "Wow, that looks painful" when I saw it (laughs).
And from that point on, we have come to this point.
Tumblr media
[This may not be the exact comic that Hiroi is talking about, but it's a comic Kui posted on her blog about someone eating soba through their nose.]
Kui: Oh, is that so? Isn't it something like "Shugaku Tenshi" [※4] ?
Hiroi: No, that's not true! The manga about eating soba noodles through the nose was made before "Shingaku Tenshi". By the way, that manga was planned to be published in "Rakugakihon" , but when I asked Kui-san "Can I publish this?", she was very against it...
Kui: No, that's fine, but... I didn't think other people would find it that interesting.
Everyone: (laughs).
Hiroi: But that was more than 10 years ago...
--By the way, was Mr. Hiroi the first publisher to contact you?
Kui: Before that, an editor at East Press had contacted me. I was originally publishing fantasy manga that I had drawn as a hobby on my personal website. I compiled them into a self-published original comic and exhibited it at Comitia, and they asked me, "Would you like to publish this long manga as a book?"
However, after the editor asked around to various people, it seems he was told that "this will be hard to sell"... so the plan was dropped. Instead, it was decided to release a "short story collection" of short manga that had been published at the same time . This is "The Dragon's School is on the Mountain: A Collection of Works by Ryoko Kui" published by East Press.
I was contacted by a few other people as well, but the two people I still keep in contact with are Mr. Hiroi and the editor at East Press.
-- When you went from drawing short stories and web comics to starting a commercial serialization, did you study anything like "how to draw a serialized work"?
Kui: I learned almost everything about how to draw manga from Mr. Hiroi and the editors and writers at Harta .
I had absolutely no understanding of whether panel layout was good or bad, so up until the middle of the serialization, I would rearrange the storyboards one panel at a time, and I would get lectured like "Don't put a panel like this here."
I was also impressed when I was shown original manuscripts by other artists. They look beautiful in print, but the real thing is even more impressive. This is what it means to be good at drawing manga.
It didn't finish as I expected
-- Speaking of "serialization," you mentioned earlier that you initially intended to end it at about volume 5. Did "Dungeon Meshi" continue longer than you had anticipated, Ms. Kui?
Kui: First of all, I didn't really understand what a "serialized" comic meant, so I didn't even know how much of a story I could get done in how many pages. So, I thought I could wrap up the story nicely in about five years, in five volumes.
But I never quite got around to finishing it. It was so hard... (laughs).
Hiroi: To be honest, when I first heard "Volume 5,"I thought to myself, "(Are you kidding me...?)" I didn't say it out loud though (laughs).
--Honestly, even as a reader, around the time of the fight with the Red Dragon in volumes 4 and 5 I was starting to feel like, "Huh? It seems like it's coming to an end soon..."
Kui: From the beginning, my goal was to "defeat the Red Dragon at the halfway point." However, I was supposed to fight the Red Dragon in Volume 4, even though it was supposed to be 5 volumes. So I thought, "Huh? It's not over yet," and I gradually lost interest.
By the time I got to around volume 10, I felt like no matter how much I drew, it would never end. I didn't want to drag it out, but no matter how much I drew, it just never seemed to finish.
Hiroi: Even from an editor's perspective, it seemed like Kui was getting very anxious from around volume 10 onwards.
-- Having finished the long-running serialization of "Dungeon Meshi," did you experience any changes in your mindset?
Kui: I think it was great to have the experience of learning that it would take 10 years to draw a story of this scale. And when I think about my lifespan and how many more works I can draw... it makes me dizzy.
Hiroi: I feel like I'm constantly fainting...
-- Ms. Kui, are there still any works you want to draw in your mind?
Kui: Not that much. But I love drawing manga, so I want to draw a lot. I don't know if I'll have the stamina to continue for another 10 volumes, but I want to continue working as a manga artist somehow.
But maybe... I don't think it will sell that well next time...
Hiroi: Stop! Don't say that!
Everyone: (laughs).
Kui: In that respect, "Dungeon Meshi" sold well, so I was able to draw what I had imagined to the end. Next time, I think it would be better to consider the opposite scenario of "if it doesn't sell" and make it shorter.
That's the next new challenge.
-- In addition to the expectations for your next work, do you feel any pressure?
Kui: In my case, the first collection of short stories I published was fairly well received. For a manga I drew for the first time, that's about it.
That was a relief, but at the same time, I felt that "Ideally, the reputation of my next work will also steadily increase, but there will definitely be ups and downs." If the reputation of the next work is bad, will I be able to continue drawing without getting discouraged? I realized that the "battle with myself" had just begun , and I was terrified when I read the first volume.
What game has cute illustrations, in your opinion?
Kui: This is a completely different topic, but you 've played SaGa Frontier 2 , haven't you? Aren't the pixel art in SaGa Frontier 2 really cute?
--The pixel art in SaGa Frontier 2 is...the best!
Kui: The illustrations in "SaGa Frontier 2" have such exquisite balance... if you try to express that in a picture, you can't reproduce that cuteness. It's like "exquisite head-to-body ratio."
-- In your opinion, Ms. Kui, are there any games that have cute illustrations?
Kui: The first one that comes to mind is definitely SaGa Frontier 2. Also, I still remember how cute the character designs were in Final Fantasy Tactics.
But back in the day, I used to trace characters from FF7 . I thought, "There are so many cool designs in the world..." (laughs).
Hiroi: Nomura (Tetsuya)'s drawings are amazing, aren't they?
Kui: I traced Cloud and Aerith on tracing paper and quietly said to myself, "So cool..." and got really excited. I noticed something while I was working on the "Dungeon Meshi" anime...basically, games and anime are made by many people, aren't they? So I always thought, "Many people must be giving various opinions to make them."
But when I got involved, I realized that one person's power is quite large. This was quite surprising. I thought that there were multiple people who wrote the script and storyboards, and that each person had their own responsibility, but... the power of one person is quite large.
──No matter how much the work is divided up, it's important to have a director or supervisor who brings it all together.
Kui: Yes, in the end, it depends on the power of the person who takes the lead ...
However, at the same time, I think that the division of labor between scriptwriting and storyboarding is something that would never be possible with manga. In the end, you have to create everything in one person's mind, so "bias" inevitably arises. So personally, I don't like the idea of ​​it becoming a "world created in one person's mind."
Hiroi: However, not only in manga but also in novels, the individual author's personality is strongly expressed. I wouldn't go so far as to say "ideology"... but the person's way of thinking is strongly expressed.
Kui: Speaking of which, people who create games alone, such as indie games, are amazing.
It's often said that manga artists "come up with everything, from the art to the story, all by themselves," but I don't think they can compete with independent game creators who create the music, programming, and art all by themselves.
Moreover, even more than manga, no one can give their opinion until the game is completed. If you think about it that way, making a game by yourself is really a "one-man battle." At the same time, what I like about games is that there are quite a few "works that are not made with much consideration for cost" ... I enjoy it a little bit.
-- Do you ever think, "I want to make a game?"
Kui: I once bought RPG Maker , but it ended up being a complete failure... (laughs).
Everyone: (laughs).
Love for "classic RPGs" was a major influence on "Dungeon Meshi"
-- I'd like to ask you, Ms. Kui, since you play a lot of titles on Steam and other platforms, have you ever had any problems playing a game?
Kui: Simply put, a "game that doesn't work" is a problem (laughs).
This sometimes happens with games made by individuals on Steam... they don't have any reviews, so there's no way to deal with it other than contacting them directly. There have been a few times when I've been stuck and wondered, "What should I do?"
Other times, I'll buy a title that just happens to pop up at the top of Steam's rankings. Sometimes I'll play it thinking, "The graphics are kind of cute, so I'll give it a try," only to find that it's incomplete beyond the framework.
--So now people are playing titles that aren't that major.
Kui: Also, when I played Planescape: Torment, which is said to have influenced Disco Elysium.
While playing, I came across a character who was suffering from a terrible curse that made his whole body smell and become sticky. A quest was triggered to ask the NPC who had cast the curse to lift it, but when I asked them to lift the curse, I ended up being cursed with a curse that made me have constant hiccups ...
So when I was walking around the town, the "hiccup" dialogue started popping up all the time. What's more, every time it happened, I would freeze up for about 0.1 seconds. All the dialogue was filled with "hiccups." Anyway, it was a troubling curse.
I had no idea how to deal with this either, so I decided to just kill the NPC who had put the curse on me. The NPC also challenged me by saying, "Maybe if you kill me, the curse will be lifted?", so I tried killing him, but... it didn't lift the curse at all (laughs).
Everyone: (laughs).
Kui: I thought maybe the quest would progress in other places, so I walked around here and there, but the curse was not lifted after all. I was really curious, so I looked back at overseas information exchange thread online, and I found someone had written a lecture that said "You know what happens if you kill an important NPC without thinking about it, right?"
So I realized that this curse can never be lifted again. Even if I wanted to rewind, it was an auto-save, so I had to go back almost to the beginning... I was really... in trouble!
-- But "Planescape: Torment" hits a pretty impressive spot. Was it something that just happened to catch your eye while you were browsing Steam?
Kui: I originally liked games in the same genre as Baldur's Gate, so I think that's how I got into Planescape.
Also, I saw information that a huge amount of text in Planescape was translated by one person... I'm not very good at English, and games like Planescape have a lot of text to begin with, so I'm at a loss if it's not translated into Japanese .
However, when extraordinary people like those who make Planescape use their precious time from their lives to accomplish great things, I feel very grateful.
-- So, Ms. Kui, do you prefer games that are closer to the classics?
Kui: That's right. The first game I played was The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and it was so much fun that I searched for "games similar to Skyrim" and played a lot of the games that came up.
All of them were completely different games from Skyrim, but they were fun. However, I don't like "old games". I think that newer games are generally more polished and well-made.
-- Wizardry, which influenced Dungeon Meshi, is also a classic work.
Kui: When I was a child, I saw my father playing Wizardry V : The Heart of the Maelstrom. As time passed, I remembered that there was a game called Wizardry. The game I played at that time was Wizardry VI: Forbidden Pencil.
I also played Wizardry V , but it was hard to see the map unless I chanted a spell. I was directionally challenged, so even though I had a guidebook at hand, I couldn't progress.
--By the way, were you more interested in making a manga out of "Wizardry" than the tabletop RPG "D&D" ?
Kui: When I was researching fantasy, "D&D" was often mentioned... but I had never even heard of "TRPG" before. First of all, you can't play it without friends, and I was shocked to find out that lots of people have friends they can play with like this...!?
Everyone: (laughs).
Kui: So when I looked up TRPGs on Wikipedia, I couldn't imagine that people actually played this kind of game. I was more confused and thought, "How can people really role-play in front of other people?"
After that, I watched replay videos on YouTube and it was only then that I understood how games like D&D worked.
Games, manga, novels. What is the purpose of all creative works?
-- What was the last game you played?
Kui: Recently I played a school management game called "Let's School." It's made by a Chinese company that also made "My Time at Sandrock."
Hiroi: You really like that kind of game, don't you? (laughs) Oh? Haven't you played "FF7 Rebirth" ?
Kui: I'm thinking about playing the remake of FF7 once it's completed.
Hiroi: No, no, if we don't do it now, we'll never finish it! It'll be a long time before we do it!
--Honestly, I also thought it would take about 10 years for FF7 Rebirth to be released.
Hiroi: I thought it would take about that long too... I really wanted it to be completed while I could still see. So, please do it!
Kui: Once it's finished...I want to play it all at once (laughs).
--Do you and Ms. Kui often talk about games?
Hiroi: Ms. Kui sometimes says, "I want to talk about this game, so I want you to play it." I played "Red Dead Redemption" because of that. Also, a long time ago, Ms. Kui recommended "13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim."
Kui: Whenever there's a game I want to discuss with someone, I always recommend it to Hiroi.
But maybe I haven't been playing games as much lately. Until now, I've been playing games because I thought of it as "for work," but now that the serialization of Dungeon Meshi has ended, I've been playing less games.
Moreover, I'm not the type of person who gets that into one game...I don't generally play through a game in repeated playthroughs, and I'm usually satisfied once I've finished the story.
Hiroi: Then we have to start [a new ] serialization soon.
Everyone: (laughs).
-- I'd like to ask you personally, do you have any "recommended indie games"?
Kui: I highly recommend "Papers, Please" and "Return of the Obra Dinn."
First of all, "Papers, Please" is a simple "spot the difference" game, so I didn't have high expectations at first. But when I played it, I felt like there was a proper "world" to it . Also, I was curious to see how the story continued.
And "Return of the Obra Dinn" had a great atmosphere. There were hints to solving the puzzles if you looked closely, but there was also a good balance of being able to force your way through, and the music and production were cool.
Hiroi: Come to think of it, you read quite a bit of the novel after the serialization ended, didn't you?
Kui: Ah, you mean "1984" by George Orwell? That was good...
I've always thought that creativity isn't necessary for life... It's entertainment, so it's not essential to life. But after reading "1984," I thought, "I guess creativity is necessary after all."
Humans need stories to experience things that should never come true, to prepare for bad things, and to prepare for understanding other people... You might think, "You should have already learned that when you were younger," but I was deeply moved by this realization.
Anyway, I feel that it would be great if people could learn things they didn't know before through this work.
Hiroi: ...Overall, it just felt like we had a fun time talking about games (laughs).
Kui: We just used the interview as an excuse to talk about the game (laughs).
-- No no, thank you very much for sharing your valuable story! (End)
I think I can understand a little bit about being interested in things you hate.
It's easy to analyze "why do you like something?" when you like it, but it's surprisingly difficult to analyze "why do you dislike something?" When you understand the reason, it seems that "why do you dislike it" is often more meaningful.
Perhaps creative works exist in part to help us understand the things we dislike.
I was able to hear a lot of deep "creation stories" that made me think about such things. Also, Ms. Kui is a huge gamer. Mr. Hiroi also likes games quite a bit. Since serious talk and game discussions alternated, the content may have been emotionally confusing. But I feel like "Dungeon Meshi" has a similar atmosphere.
If you haven't read "Dungeon Meshi," please take this opportunity to read it. It depicts a fun adventure. On top of that, it may help you prepare for difficult things that might happen in your life someday. Of course, it's also extremely interesting as a manga. I think it's definitely one of the best "entertainment" of our time.
Why does the body want to live? What does the mind want?
This is because we have a "desire" to pursue what we like and dislike. In fact, "things we dislike" are just as important as "things we like." By understanding our own "likes and dislikes" through creative works and entertainment, humans can prepare for things that happen in their future lives. Food and creative works are equally important for human growth.
...That said, I'm not sure if it has a nice punchline, or maybe not.
To eat. To experience creative works. These are truly the privileges of life. In order to live, we must continue to eat.
Now it's time to eat. What shall we eat today?
1K notes · View notes
tsumuus · 3 months ago
Text
mha boys as american high school teenage stereotypes
a/n this isn't an original idea, ik that, but this is just my take on it. also lowk just based off of ppl ik irl but also just really similar to the actual character. also these are really short n simple, my brain wasn't able to think any further
characters katsuki bakugou, shoto todoroki, izuku midoriya, eijiro kirishima, denki kaminari, hanta sero, tenya iida, hitoshi shinsho
masterlist
Tumblr media
katsuki bakugou
not just saying this bc he's my fav
but quite literally the most popular person at school
like hes handsome, athletic, smart, rich, all of the above, no one could ever compare
everybody would have a crush on him (shit i would too)
or hate him
no in between
but he's still very intimidating so he doesn't have a lot of friends and has a heard time making em
not saying he's a playboy or anything
but definitely gets hella attention from girls
but he is more often than not uninterested
he would play football no doubt, run track/shot put during his off season to stay fit
not a douchebag but he totally comes off as one
shoto todoroki
he's the loser, the loner
actually jk, bc i really don't believe anyone is a loner
theres gotta be someone he talks too
hes that smart kid whos schedule is filled w ap n honors classes
and his only friends would be classmates that hes not super close w so they never talk outside of school (me lol)
hes rich rich
def plays tennis or golf, school and club
he's THE hallway crush
especially for like underclassmen
he just gives off that mysterious vibe that makes girls fall for him
not to mention he is sooooo pretty
like it's not a secret that he is attractive
but he's never had a gf or even a situationship in his life
idek
izuku midoriya
teachers pet 100% lol
not the smartest but also not dumb
like definitely top 20% of his class
i feel like he would take part in a lot of extracurriculars
he's not popular at all
but has a small group of close friends
so so sassy
like imagine arguing w him about a random subject
and you just start to piss him off
he just puts you on blast and starts embarrassing the hell out of you
making you feel hella stupid
he doesn't do it to be mean or anything
he's just a sassy lil guy idk
sassy man apocalypse!!
eijiro kirishima
social butterfly
friends with everyone
but not like a floater friend
but literally just everyones friend
like he's so genuine and is able to get along with everybody
sooo loyal
always has the best advice
definition of boyfriend material!!!
probably has had a long term gf
he takes his relationships n friendhsips so seriously
definitely plays multiple sports
idk i see him as a wrestler or even like gymnastics lol
lowk imagine him apart of the schools student council or leadership club
fully goes out for football games/friday night lights
denki kaminari
class clown fs
also lowk rlly flirty but has never had a gf or even come close
like such a ladies man
thats just part of his personality
most of his friends are girls but not in a weird way
he's the life of the party
lowk one of the only characters i can see myself having a smoke sesh w lol
big party goer
theres a house party being thrown
best believe he's there
he's not the brightest of the bunch
but he does try, its not like hes lazy
he's also so pretty
deff one of those guys w the longest eyelashes than any girl lol
lowk tennis player!denki?
also sorta see him as a swimmer/waterpolo
hanta sero
he is just so friendly
lowk a npc
but i still love him
he's so laid back and chill and has such a relaxed personality
like if you'd ever need to just have a calm night/hang out with one of your friends, he's the first person youd call
has had mulitple gfs, but def not a player
they just never seem to workout
would start a bs club with his friends so every other week they could just order a couple pizzas to school and hang out in the chill teachers class
idk i feel like hes kinda artsy
like he took art 1 his freshman year just for an easy a and schedule requirements, but he realized he was actually kinda creative
likes to doodle in class rather than pay attention now
lowk plays basketball
big car guy!!
tenya iida
THE honor student
number 1 in his class
5.0 gpa
student council persident all 4 years of high school
friend group is made up of all the other nerds who take 10+ ap classes
definitely got into multiple colleges before even applying
definitely not just saying this because of his quirk, but would lowk do track n xc
everything ive said so far i legit just his normal self😭😭😭 lemme try to get more specific
lowk imagine an iida where like outside of school he's lowk a partier
like imagine him getting blackout drunk every weekend but sobering up for school every week
and still being the best student in his grade
he's just so handsome
multiple girls have liked him but he's rejected them due to wanting to have his life set in place before thinking about romance
hitoshi shinso
he's so fucking emo just look at him
ok well not emo but just a little alternative
but yk in an american high school being a little alt means other people see you as full out gothic
so what if he's just a little quiet and brooding☹️☹️
again he's also smart
but he doesn't take all those honor classes
he wouldn't admit it but his favorite genre to watch is reality tv
best believe he was fully invested in season 6 of love island
#ppgbackontop
not an athletic guy
but was definitely forced to like play soccer or sum as a kid
works at your local comic/record store
all the emo girls that come in have a crush on him
thats all i got😫
1K notes · View notes