Well, I kid, but by now I’m sure you’ve all heard the breaking news: DISNEY BUYS MARVEL, and I’ve always wanted to use the “[Noun]? In my [Other Noun]?” format. :P
There are only a few naysayers, and most either confused or cautiously speculative, but I honestly don’t think many things on the fandom end will be affected; there will just be more money in different people’s pockets. What’s really going to change with this acquisition? Disney is notorious for aggressive merchandising and pushing their licensed characters, but will a flood of new action figures and new Marvel-themed rides at Disneyland really affect Marvel’s artistic integrity or quality of work? As long as Disney keeps its hand out of what the folks at Marvel actually do, then I don’t see a problem. People were upset when Disney bought out Pixar too, but Pixar has, for the most part, retained its autonomy and continues to produce outstanding films. So why shouldn’t I expect Marvel to continue making comics like it always has?
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So this has always bothered me. A lot of anime, manga, and Japanese video game characters are fourteen or fifteen years old. Makes sense, that’s the primary target audience. That in itself isn’t what bothers me — what bothers me is the huge, huge difference there usually is between the portrayal of the fourteen-year olds and the fifteen-year olds. At fourteen, characters are depicted as innocent, naive, and both childish and childlike. In some cases, I find their behavior applicable to people as young as eight, which is kind of ridiculous. At fifteen, characters become much more mature; they are tougher, hardened to some extent, and a little more serious. Usually, I can very easily imagine those characters being seventeen or eighteen, or sometimes even in their early twenties. Does such a dramatic shift really happen between the two ages?
One year difference? Riiiight.
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You know, I’m actually kind of surprised at the prevalence of figure collecting across this community. Few people I know in real life do any serious (figure) collecting, and I’m not much of a serious collector either, especially considering my first figure was a gift. But I do like to consider myself an amateur photographer, so I thought it’d be fun to take some pictures of what figures I do have. The critic in me also wanted to write a review, but I didn’t feel like taking pictures of all the little flaws in my figures, so uh… I dunno. I’ll probably mention them anyway since a lot of the flaws affect how I can pose the figures, but no full-blown, formal review.
Sora wasn’t my first figure (Axel was). He was the last thing I bought at Ikkikon in 2007 before barring myself from the Dealer’s Room. I was going to get the Final Form version but decided that I liked the keyblades for the Valor Form better. (Valor has Fenrir and Fatal Crest; Final has Sleeping Lion and Fatal Crest.)
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I don’t really get the point of regional exclusives for video games. Perhaps this is out of bitterness, but that doesn’t matter.
First of all, think of all that untapped revenue! Kingdom Hearts has become a gigantic cash cow for Square-Enix in the few short years it’s been around (oh, crap, has it already been seven years?), but before they came up with the brilliant idea of making three more spin-off semi-sequels, they turned down the bid to release KH2: Final Mix+ overseas. Why? What possible logic is there to cutting the rest of the world off from that title? The original KH: Final Mix was understandable. There was logic behind that one. The overseas kids already had the extra footage and knick knacks in their normal release, so it was only fair that the Japanese kids get a version with Sephiroth — and throw in some extra keyblades. Nothing too substantial, really. But KH2:FM+ was an entirely different ballgame.
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