Japanese Role-playing Games: Genre, Representation, and Liminality in the JRPG examines the origins, boundaries, and transnational effects of the genre, addressing significant formal elements as well as narrative themes, character construction, and player involvement. Contributors from Japan, Europe, North America, and Australia employ a variety of theoretical approaches to analyze popular game series and individual titles, introducing an English-speaking audience to Japanese video game scholarship while also extending postcolonial and philosophical readings to the Japanese game text. In a three-pronged approach, the collection uses these analyses to look at genre, representation, and liminality, engaging with a multitude of concepts including stereotypes, intersectionality, and the political and social effects of JRPGs on players and industry conventions. Broadly, this collection considers JRPGs as networked systems, including evolved iterations of MMORPGs and card collecting “social games” for mobile devices. Scholars of media studies, game studies, Asian studies, and Japanese culture will find this book particularly useful.
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This book examines the origins and boundaries of Japanese digital role-playing games. A geographically diverse roster of contributors introduces English-speaking audiences to Japanese video game scholarship and applies postcolonial and philosophical readings to the Japanese game text.
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AcknowledgmentsA Note on Names and SourcesList of Figures and TablesIntroductionJérémie Pelletier-Gagnon and Rachael HutchinsonPart One: GenreChapter 1: Evolution of a Genre: Dragon Quest and the JRPGYuhsuke Koyama Chapter 2: Japan’s Hard(ware) Power: Consoles, Culture, and the Mass Appeal of Japanese Role-Playing GamesNökkvi Jarl BjarnasonChapter 3: Tutorial Characters and Rhetorical Strategies: Comparing Mother and Final FantasyFanny BarnabéChapter 4: Challenging Linearity: Microstructures and Meaning-making in Trails of Cold Steel IIIJoleen BlomChapter 5: “Is JRPG Old Fashioned?”: Genre, Circulation, and Identity Crisis in Black Rock Shooter: The GameJérémie Pelletier-GagnonPart Two: RepresentationChapter 6: Harmonized Dissonance: Parodies of Japan’s America in EarthboundBenjamin WhaleyChapter 7: From Cleric to Daemon: Narrative and Ludic Agencies of Female Characters in the Tales of SeriesLoïc Mineau-MurrayChapter 8: Beyond Status Effects: Disability and Japanese Role-Playing GamesAndrew CampanaChapter 9: Empathy for the Blind: Negotiating Disability in Final Fantasy XVRachael HutchinsonChapter 10: Everyday Aesthetics and Social Reform in Persona 5Frank MondelliPart Three: LiminalityChapter 11: Creating Community in Persona 3: Japanese Role-playing Games as Networked PracticeDouglas SchulesChapter 12: Networked Asymmetry: Uncanny Traces in the Dark Souls Series Daniel JohnsonChapter 13: Pseudo-allegory in Final Fantasy XIVWilliam HuberChapter 14: Traces of Change in JRPG History: Mythological Thinking in Fate / Grand Order and Pokémon GODaichi Nakagawa About the Contributors
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Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9781793643544
Publisert
2022-04-14
Utgiver
Vendor
Lexington Books
Vekt
703 gr
Høyde
227 mm
Bredde
161 mm
Dybde
26 mm
Aldersnivå
P, 06
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Innbundet
Antall sider
336
Om bidragsyterne
Rachael Hutchinson is professor of Japanese studies at the University of Delaware.
Jérémie Pelletier-Gagnon is postdoctoral researcher at Université du Québec à Montréal.