Explaining Decompression in Comics

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“Decompression” has been a hot topic in the American comics community for a number of years now. Characterized by a high panel count with each individual panel being relatively “light” on information, it is noted as being the primary mode of panel progression in manga as well as an increasing presence in American comics. Among superhero fans however, it seems to garner a particularly adamant resistance, one that goes as far as to champion “compressed” storytelling in contrast to it.

A cursory investigation on the topic of decompression on comics sites and blogs results in far greater instances of harsh criticism aimed at decompression than ones defending it, with the criticisms usually pointing out a lack of paneling efficiency or an unsatisfactory amount of story development within a given chapter. Because of the thin, monthly format release traditional to superhero comics, decompression is thus characterized as being a waste of not only time and (page) space, but also money. “Why show in five panels what you could easily show in one or two?” is the question lobbed at manga and decompressed comics in general.

Panel efficiency, and for that matter storytelling efficiency in general, is important. A story which gives the impression that it is wasting a reader’s time is a story that will probably never finish for the reader, but what is most fascinating about the criticisms directed towards decompressed storytelling is how it reveals the priorities and values of the American comics community. Consider the following comment from 2004:

Amazingly, at a time when new comic titles are lucky to survive beyond 12 issues, we are seeing comics where an entire month is devoted to the protagonist talking to his girlfriend. Most of us have had relationships that didn’t last that long. It is only a matter of time before we will see a superhero title get cancelled before the hero even makes his first appearance in costume. Imagine “Superman” getting the axe just before the rocket lands in Smallville.

…

No wonder it now takes five issues for Spider-Man to beat the Green Goblin nowadays.

As well as this one from 2007:

It’s a city in the future (a bagel breakfast cost 9 dollars, some futuristic cars and ad scrolls, the parking meters, the coffee cup disintegrates before it hits the ground).
The main character is black and looks like Avery Brooks, as someone pointed out to me when issue #6 came out. (Sorry, I can’t remember who it was.)

Umm … yeah, that’s it. Four panels for that???? If you found this comic page floating along our hypothetical street after someone in a fit of pique after spending 3 bucks on this ripped it out and hurled it to its fate, you would know absolutely nothing about this comic book except that it’s set in the future. That’s it. Would that make you want to buy the book?

They make a fair point. You don’t want a story with so little content that it becomes completely forgettable. However, from the above statements, you can begin to see how the concept of “content” is defined by the American superhero comics community. Content is a superhero getting their first costume. Content is Kal-El’s ship crashing in Smallville, Kansas. Content is Spider-Man foiling the Green Goblin. In other words, “content” consists of crystallized plot points within a story, things you can point to in a summary however large or small to say, “these are the moments of importance.” What content is not, apparently, is the silent expression of a moment in time or an entire month devoted to a main character and his relationship with his girlfriend. That those elements are considered to be superfluous to what “really matters” is, I think, the root of major misconceptions when it comes to understanding decompression or manga-style paneling.

If you were to go up to a manga author and say to them, “Your manga wastes the vast majority of its space,” they would probably look at you incredulously, because efficiency in page layout is actually very important for manga creators. If you then pointed to a Silver Age superhero comic as an example of brilliant economization of panels, they would probably react with still more disbelief, amazed at how much the page seems to be weighed down by its own contents. This is because the concept of “panel efficiency” is defined differently between the American superhero comics tradition and Japanese comics tradition. The difference can be summarized to some extent as the contrast between efficiency defined as the greatest amount of “stuff” packed into the smallest amount of space possible and efficiency defined as a slick, streamlined experience, but that doesn’t quite tell the whole story.

Above is a scene from Genshiken, a comic about a group of nerds who hang out together. It’s one of my favorite moments from my favorite manga about my favorite character, to the extent that I use it for the Ogiue Maniax banner. In it, Ogiue, the girl with the “paintbrush” hair and this blog’s namesake, has just witnessed a frivolous argument between two guys in her club, and is using that as fuel for an elaborate fantasy involving the two guys as romantic partners. Partway through, she tries to curb her imagination, but it’s so futile that she seamlessly transitions back into the fantasy.

Looking at those two pages, this moment is expressed in 11 panels. While you could make this scene more “efficient” in the American comics sense and just drop it down to maybe three or so panels—one for her beginning to fantasize, one for her trying to stop, and one for her continuing—it would change the very nature of this scene. It wouldn’t necessarily be a “worse” depiction, but the emphasis would be different. In panel 2, you see a closeup of Ogiue’s face with no text. From it, you can sense that the gears in her head are beginning to turn. Then, in the subsequent panels, the thought comes to life, growing slowly as if it has a pulse and rhythm all its own. The panels show Ogiue from different angles with varying expressions on her face, punctuated every so often by a brief pause, allowing the reader to see into her mind, not just in terms of what she’s thinking, but the process by which her thoughts unfold. So while the broad arc is “fantasize, pause, fantasize,” it is the “decompression” of that moment which gives it strength as a moment of characterization.

You may be thinking that the reason I like these pages are because of the fact that Ogiue is in them, but it’s actually quite the opposite. Moments like these are why I grew to like Ogiue in the first place.

Decompression in comics is not the same as having “natural-sounding dialogue” or having a moment feel more “realistic.” While those end up having a presence in many decompressed comics, especially in many of the American comics which have been in that vein, they’re not the reason decompression happens. Instead, decompression is about giving moments in a comic room to breathe, to show that those spaces in between the “major points” are important in their own way, or perhaps just as, if not more important. The result is that it affects everything else in the comic, from characterization to page design.

A “decompressed” comic packed into the same space as a “compressed” comic can have just as much content depending on how you define “content.”

That is not to say that decompression can be used as a default excuse to defend the pacing of a comic. A comic which meanders, whether it’s manga or a superhero comic, can be enormously frustrating, but there is a big difference between “being slow” and “being directionless,” and the idea that “nothing is happening” may actually just be based on a pre-existing valuation of certain traditional elements within American comics that was less emphasized in Japanese comics. It is also important that decompression not be considered automatically a better form of comics expression, because the artistic tradition that has grown out of superhero comics is just as valid as any other. The rich “information density” of a “compressed” comic is its own sort of adventure, and you can even find some manga that utilize it to a certain degree, such as the work of Shirow Masamune (Ghost in the Shell, Appleseed). On that note, it would also be a mistake to say that a comic of purely decompressed panels is better than one consisting of entirely compressed panels. This is because not only is it impossible to truly achieve both (even the most “decompressed” panels involve some compression and vice versa), but also because individual execution and personal preference play enormous roles at that point. Perhaps some of the trouble brought on by the presence of decompression has less to do with the properties of the concept and more to do with the growing pains that have come from transitioning and adapting it into the American superhero comics culture.

Sometimes I think “decompression” is both the right and wrong word to describe this style of storytelling in comics. On the one hand, it does a good job of bringing to mind the “room to breathe” concept, emphasizing the lingering, undefinable inner emotions of a character or growing tension or the blow-by-blow impact of a fight scene. On the other hand, it also implies that the “significant” portions of the story are being pushed further apart from each other, when what is really happening is that the “small” moments are being regarded as anything but.

The Interaction of Mecha Fandom and Code Geass as Mecha/Not-Mecha

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I was listening to the most recent episode of the Veef Show, where the argument that Code Geass is not a “robot” show came up by way of another podcaster, Anime World Order‘s Daryl Surat. It’s an argument that I’ve heard before from Daryl, whether it was through AWO itself or just talking with him online, and it all hinges on a simple statement: A show which does not focus primarily on robots cannot be called a “robot anime.” The direction the fanbase of Code Geass takes, one that emphasizes the characters in a variety of ways such that arguments about attractiveness and character motivations occur side by side, is used as supporting evidence. Seeing that I just appeared on the Speakeasy Podcast and endorsed Code Geass as a solid mecha show for people who feel a little put off by mecha though, I figured that it would be a good idea for me to say something. Also because I enjoy both the Veef Show and AWO and they’re cool dudes.

While I’m on the side that says Code Geass is a mecha show, I’m not writing this to argue in its favor.  Where one person draws the line between genres (or whether they choose to draw them at all) is predicated to a certain extent on their own preferences (the reason I put the qualifier of “a certain extent” is that obviously a show with zero robots and zero mentions or implications of robots would have a hard time justifying itself as one), and that argument can just go back and forth with no signs of budging. It happens to all sorts of genres, particularly science fiction, which may be appropriate given the subject at hand, but I’ll leave that alone for now. What I really want to do is look at some of the deeper layers of meaning behind the above argument about why Code Geass isn’t a mecha show, as I think it says some things about the anxiety that exists in a fanbase for a genre which perhaps fears irrelevancy. I do not think Daryl necessarily feels this way, but underlying questions still exist within.

The notion that Code Geass does not fall into the genre of “giant robots” is based on the level of presence that mecha possesses within that series. While they appear in virtually every episode in some way or another, they are not integrated into the main thrust of the story, thus the show does not attract fans through its robots, at least not in comparatively great numbers. Given this view, the first underlying element of this argument is a question, “Why isn’t Code Geass emphasizing the mecha?”

The answer can be presented with varying degrees of cynicism, and I will show two here on somewhat opposing ends. The first version is that their goal is to pander to a larger anime fanbase by placing importance on those character traits previously mentioned. Mecha are thrown in for flavor but not much else. The second version is that giant robots for the sake of giant robots do not capture the attention of a wide enough audience. Whether you’re more inclined to express this same idea as the former or as the latter, the commonality between them is the fact that giant robots as a genre, be they super or real or some kind of hybrid, just aren’t that popular anymore. So then the next question that comes up is, “Why aren’t robots popular?”

I don’t have the answer to that. All I can say is, for fans who got into anime because of giant robots, or those who lived in a period where mecha shows made up such a huge part of industry output that it became one of the genres inextricably linked to anime, the idea that robots do not capture the general viewing population’s imagination can be a bitter pill to swallow. The properties of anime that are bringing in fans now may not be what brought people to the table in previous eras. As soon as what you thought was popular no longer is, and you can’t quite figure out why things have changed, it can be baffling. How you reason through this change can depend on how you feel towards what has supplanted your old favorites, and it can be conveyed with different degrees of discontent.

At this point, it’s important to remember that giant robot shows that place enormous amounts of emphasis on the robots themselves and their influence on the story as a whole still do exist and are still being made. The problem with them, however, is that they are few in number, and that as a niche genre it appeals to a dwindling hardcore fanbase. I know that Daryl is also aware of this issue, as must be a great number of mecha fans whether they consciously realize it or not, and embodied in that feeling is the uncomfortableness of having gone from riches to rags, from being one of the premiere fanbases to a minority. I find that in actuality, the negative reaction towards categorizing Code Geass as a “robot anime” comes not from simply definition semantics and pedantry, but from what I think is perhaps the most central question underlying everything: “Why aren’t Code Geass and other shows doing more to convince people to like giant robots?” With that, giant robot shows must thus not only appeal to fans who already like the genre but also act as ambassadors to people who are less receptive.

For that, I point once again to that Speakeasy episode, because the whole purpose of that podcast was to talk about mecha shows that are capable of appealing not to simply those who are unfamiliar with the genre and just need to be exposed to it, but to people who have been burned by giant robots in the past. With some shows, the mere presence of robots can be enough for people to say “no thanks,” but if Code Geass attracts this large fanbase that is willing to stay even with robots continuously present within the show, then it must be doing something to not have them outright rejected. Perhaps all that is happening is that the robots are being conveniently ignored, but before people can even carry the potential to love giant robots, they should be able to tolerate them first.

Have you seen the “V8 VFusion?” It’s a drink whose purpose is to mask its vegetable content with fruity flavor. It’s even advertised by showing people who don’t like veggies drinking and enjoying it. You can make an argument that it’s not really a vegetable juice and you could even probably make a convincing case of it, but then I have to wonder about how much that distinction really matters.

A Response to Geordie Tait, from an Otaku

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In a recent article on Star City Games, Tait wrote an article to his future daughter explaining to her the prevalence of misogyny in the gamer community. He cites the recent buzz over Gizmodo intern Alyssa Bereznak and her own article detailing a failed date with Magic: The Gathering world champion Jon Finkel. In contrast to the cries of “shallow” and “whore,” Tait steps back to examine not just the disturbing ubiquity of such comments, but the combinations of elements that would result in such an environment, and points out that Bereznak’s main problem was that she should have known her tone in her article would have set off the primarily male geek community of Gizmodo.

Tait continues his article, talking about the self-delusion that is the “Nice Guy,” and even his own past where he himself was once one of the pack, decrying women for not looking past the gruff, hairy, overweight exterior of Magic players. There is a good deal of nuance in the article and I think it’s worth your time to read. That said, I have a minor problem with something Tait says.

Oh, Japan. Nearly every female character we encountered was designed by men, for men. Ridiculously proportioned, child-like in voice and temperament, they were calculated to attract the subway-groping attentions of the otaku.

My problem with the above statement has nothing to do with his accusation that female JRPG characters are infantile and designed for men. Despite my closesness to anime, manga, and Japanese video games, I simply haven’t played enough Japanese RPGs over the years to give a fair assessment of the overall picture. The source of my disagreement instead comes from his use of the phrase “subway-groping attentions of the otaku.”

At first when I read it, it seemed like Tait was trying to say that all otaku are the perverts on the train who victimize women by touching them on the train. “But,” you might say, “He doesn’t mean that all otaku are molesters, he’s just referring to the ones who are.”  That is still problematic however, as that qualifier treats “groper” as a subsection of “otaku,” when in reality the “otaku groper” is more the cross-section of a venn diagram. To imply that the primary reason that such things happen on Japanese mass transit is because they’re really into anime, manga, and video games with excessively cute girls is an unfair judgment.

Yes, there are plenty of examples of female characters who are explicitly sexualized in Japanese entertainment idea. Yes, there are characters who are designed to pander to an otaku market. Yes, you can go on the internet and find a whole world of fanart expressing the desire to see these characters as fetishized sex objects. And yes, this can be off-putting for women who see only examples of the “male gaze” where they would prefer personal identification, but all of the above elements do not say that otaku are going out there and waiting to violate women. It’s not a matter of whether or not such otaku are a minority. It’s not even about pointing out the number of female otaku or the amount of works in the “otaku mediums” like anime and manga that have managed to reach and strengthen women over the decades. After all, if a problem exists, it still exists, even in small numbers. But while Tait’s unkind descriptions of nerds are not limited to the otaku, they do not carry anywhere near the same (perhaps unintended) vitriol.

“Caucasian malcontent.”

“Warm, hairy male privilege.”

“Nice Guy™ Gamer.”

Only for the otaku does he define that category of nerd as not just sexually deviant, which is still fairly harmless if insulting, or simply as passive-aggressive misogynists, which is the Nice Guy in spades, but as purveyors of sexual violence. To have that stigma propagated by someone who should very well know better because he just spent an entire article reflecting intelligently on some of the problems among nerds and gamers is really a shame.

An important thing to note: While this is a flaw in Tait’s article, it does not invalidate the rest of the letter. I certainly did not just kick the corner of a house of cards, as his overall points and even many of his examples are still valid, including the realization that there was a good deal of discomfort showing those Japanese games to his girlfriend/now-wife. I think it just goes to show that developing understanding is a continuous path, and this is another area where Tait can continue to grow, just as we all should.

Your First Ogiue Maniax Contest Winner

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About a month ago, I opened up a contest here at Ogiue Maniax to give away my favorite anime ever, Galaxy Express 999 (and also to give away Adieu Galaxy Express 999). In order to enter, you simply had to leave a comment talking about your favorite example of an anime or manga character growing up. I received many good entries, and it was actually difficult deciding who would ultimately win, but in the end I managed to narrow it down to one.

Congratulations, arianime.

I’ll let the winner speak for herself.

From a recent anime I watched, I’d have to say that Jomy from “Terra E…” is a perfect candidate for this question. When we first meet him in the series, he is, like many sci-fi protagonists, a sheltered child in a dystopian world (only he doesn’t know it). Over the course of a 26 episode story (and an amazingly short 3 volume manga!), he develops from this child to a leader responsible for the fate of an entire race of people. Most intriguingly, this growth comes with all the troubling moral ambiguity of adulthood.

As an adolescent, Jomy struggles with his unasked-for-power and its implied responsibilities to lead a lost tribe, whether he–or they–likes it or not. After all, Uncle Ben says it best: “With great power comes great responsibility.” Typical (but wonderful) sci-fi/hero movie fodder.

Once he overcomes his frustration at his apparent loss of freedom and decides to accept his duty to lead, Jomy has to learn how to actually do so. Along the way, he finds that his decisions–or rather, indecisions–have life-and-death consequences that he cannot foresee. While he naturally places great weight on emotion and sentiment, he soon realizes that sometimes, these life-affirming things also have immense costs.

His growth as a skillful leader, however, is not without repercussions. In fact, it takes him to deeply questionable places. At one point, he makes the grim decision to kill an entire squadron of surrendered POWs. Although it is clearly a difficult decision for him to make, we never see him waver from this decision or express regret. He internalizes the responsibility for this decision and forges on forward. To him, his charge to take his people to a promised land–a charge that has, in essence, been made for him by the sacrifice of others–has grown to something heftier than his own moral salvation.

The story presents this aspect of his development without necessarily validating it. If anything, it raises the question of whether he has gone too far–whether the responsibility he feels towards those who have gone before him has taken him to a place from whence he cannot return. Without spoiling too much, at one point the audience is made to ask, “were all these struggles and decisions made on a false premise and for an false promise?” The terrifying retort, of course, is “What if they are? Can you still justify them?”

Isn’t that a question that every adult needs to answer for his or her most difficult decisions?

 This response had a lot to it, but I was mainly struck by the description of Jomy as a figure who had to make sacrifices in the name of his own people, but that he never regrets his decisions or actions, because he cannot afford to do so. That said, I don’t think this is the only way for a child to “grow up,” but in this instance I thought it rung well.

arianime, I’ll be e-mailing you soon with the specifics of delivery and such. I hope you find the Galaxy Express 999 to be a journey, a never-ending journey.

A journey to the stars!

What a cocky saucy monkey this one is. All the gods were-

Scratch that last part.

Testing Out Comipo!

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Get the trial version here.

No No Scrubs Scrubs

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I have a new Tumblr video for all you 90s music fans out there. I hope you are not a scrub and thereby will watch it.

Also, everyone should note that the winner of the Ogiue Maniax Galaxy Express 999 Contest will be announced this Friday! I hope everyone is excited.

 

The Fujoshi Files 25: Matsui Youko

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Name: Matsui, Youko (松井曜子)
Aliases: Mattsun (まっつん), Asa Matsu (アサマツ）, Miss Gomaki (ミスゴマキ)
Relationship Status: Dating
Origin: Mousou Shoujo Otakukei

Information:
An overweight and unattractive fujoshi in middle school, Matsui Youko spent the months after graduation undergoing a strict regimen of diet, exercise, and studying fashion. By the time Matsui entered North Haneda High, she quickly gained a reputation for having one of the most dynamite bodies in school, which she flaunts. Intending to bury her past as a fujoshi, Matsui saw Asai Rumi’s unabashed fandom and seeming popularity with men to be a slight on all of her efforts. Though initially Asai’s tormentor, the two quickly came to an understanding, becoming best friends and even fellow collaborators on doujinshi.

Matsui originally discovered BL in junior high thanks to a Shinji x Kaworu doujinshi, and is currently a fan of titles such as Gundam SEED and Fullmetal Prince. Her tastes are similar to Asai’s, though she occasionally prefers pairings in the opposite order. Matsui is also in a relationship with Chiba Shunsuke, a suave blonde whom she had a crush on since junior high, and whom she originally thought was gunning for Asai.

Fujoshi Level:
The first time that Matsui and Chiba engage in intercourse, Matsui bases her assumptions of how sex should proceed on her experience with BL material, believing her boyfriend’s capacity for and willingness to receive anal foreplay to be greater than in reality.

Hanasaku Iroha: Takako and Enishi

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With a large portion of its cast being teenagers, Hanasaku Iroha has a good deal of interesting romances, but none are as cringe-inducing as the one between the young master of Kissuisou Enishi and the business-minded Engrish machine Takako. It is by far one of the most awkward relationships I have ever seen portrayed in fiction, and just seeing them interact with each other makes my face contort like I’ve been sucking on a whole lemon, but that’s also what makes it so fun to watch.

Enishi and Takako’s relationship is the kind where you know it looks different from their perspective compared to an outsider peering in. To them, it must be this wonderful thing where two people grew to love each other, but to everyone else (and that includes both viewers and the other characters in Hanasaku Iroha), their displays of affection induce a reaction similar to witnessing a 15-car pileup on the highway, only with a happy ending.

Because of all the awkwardness though, their romance comes off as strangely beautiful. The ideal partner is not someone who is perfect, but someone who can appreciate the real you on a deeper level, where they simply see you in a way no one else possibly could. This looks to be the case with Enishi and Takako, though I feel like the best reaction you could hope for from someone looking at the two of them is, “They seem to be a match for each other… I guess?” Then they make a face like someone just farted. it’s territory that no one wants to dwell in for too long, lest they come out more monster than man.

If I had to guess what Enishi sees in Takako, I think that her somewhat odd fashion, slight overuse of makeup, and frequent use of English phrases all speak towards a woman who is dedicated to success, able to perceive a goal and then do everything to reach it. Though it is really awkward to see her in action, that’s not how she looks in his eyes, and just the fact that he’s able to appreciate her because of (as opposed to in spite of ) the way that she presents herself in turn makes Enishi appealing to Takako.

The Perception of Balance in RTS and Fighting Game Communities

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This post was originally a reply to someone asking about the differences in how the fighting games community and the real-time strategy community perceive the concept of “balance” in a competitive game, and why that would be the case.

My skills and experience lie neither in RTS or fighting games (though I have played both), so I can’t offer any particulars about why balance is regarded differently in their respective communities, but I think it is worth thinking about with more fighting games than just SF4, even if it is the biggest one right now.

I think it might be good to take a look at a couple of fighting games whose tiers are considered to be relatively balanced in two rather different ways. The first is the Virtua Fighter series, a game with a Brood War-like (outside of Korea) reputation, a very difficult game that is considered by its proponents to be more exquisitely refined than any other fighting game out there. According to this, the tier list for the latest iteration, VF5: Final Showdown comes out as the following:

“S: Akira
A: Lau, Jacky, Taka, Lion
B: Everyone else

That’s quite close! Even if one character is considered by far the best, no one is considered to have anything close to a “failing grade.” The message from this tier list is indeed “Imbalances exist in this game but it’s close enough that anybody can win with anyone.” Also perhaps important to note is that VF is considered a series where you do not have time to master more than one character because of how complex they can be. This might mean that, like SC2, switching characters/races is considered to be too time-consuming to be worth it.

Let’s look at another game’s tier list: Hokuto no Ken (Fist of the North Star).

S++ : Rei
S+ : Toki – Juda
S : Raoh
A : Kenshiro / Thouther / Shin / Mamiya / Heart
B : Jagi

While there are now 5 ranks instead of 3, rather than call Jagi “D” tier and Rei “S” tier, they give the distinction of having them be “B” and “S++.” The distinction here is that while some characters are good, others are GREAT. The reason why HnK’s tiers are the way they are is that every character in this game has 100% combos and infinites. In any other fighting game, they would be brutally S-rank. However, in HnK, the top characters simply have more 100% combos and more ways to successfully land them. It is considered so imbalanced that it is balanced.

When talking to people who have played both of those games, I find that the main thing they have in common for why they are considered to be as balanced as they are is that all of the characters always have a good amount of options at any point in the fight. There is always more than one way to win. In a fighting game then, a character with consistently few options is always at a distinct disadvantage unless there is something else to greatly counterbalance that.

I think that the key difference between the Real Time Strategy and the Fighting Game, and why in the former the community is quick to say “things are unexplored” and in the latter people are eager to immediately lock in “tier lists,” is how time factors into the strength of your race/character. Consider that, outside of super meter, in SF4 a character’s strengths and weaknesses at 1 second into the match are about the same as in 50 seconds into the match. A character still has the same tools no matter where you place them in time. In SC2 however, time plays an enormous factor. Building your 10th SCV earlier rather than later does different things to the strength of your army. Losing a single SCV early on is much more detrimental than losing a single SCV in the mid or late game. Building particular units at different times affects the strength of a race tremendously, as does attacking with them. Options fluctuate tremendously based on when decisions are made, and an early disadvantage can ripple forward in time. This is often referred to as a “slippery slope,” where once one starts falling behind it becomes tremendously difficult to make it back. All the same though, that disadvantage can be potentially mitigated by a different timing altogether.

So the difference between having a constant, unchanging set of options and one that changes over time based on your own decisions are why I think that “balance” is approached differently by the fighting game community and the RTS community. Fighting game players can look at the tools a character has and determine how they will do at any point in the fight, and from there they can determine tiers and even be comfortable with the idea of imbalance, even early on in the game’s life. RTS players though have to factor in the timing of their decisions affecting the very strength of their army itself (and the ability to sustain that army), and that added variable is what makes the game feel so “unexplored” and difficult to determine the balance of.

Ogiue Maniax on the Speakeasy Podcast, Talking About Giant Robots

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I recently appeared on the Reverse Thieves‘ podcast, the Speakeasy, where we discussed the topic of recommending giant robot shows for people who have had negative experiences with that genre. If you’re not sure what that means, it is not referring to fans who have simply never seen any mecha anime and are just waiting to discover the glorious territory that is giant robots, but people who may have preconceived notions about the limitations of giant robot anime based on prior exposure.

Even though that’s the main topic however, I think there’s a little something for others as well, whether you’re a  robot expert or mecha newbie. Have a listen, and make sure to comment on either the Speakeasy or the Reverse Thieves’  blog.