Additionally:

One thing a lot of my friends missed from other social media platforms was interacting with venerable Japanese game devs. To that end I've made a list of folks I know are here, focusing on devs whose games you will have heard of. Please share and tell me who I'm missing! go.bsky.app/5R1tEtT

So, I did a thing. It aired on All Things Considered this evening. If anyone is interested. www.npr.org/2025/09/26/n...

NO ONE CAN STOP MR. DOMINO ARTDINK CORP 1998 PLAYSTATION

Great thread, especially for those interested in the ebbs and flows of manga popularity over the years (a subject that is certainly not immune to all manner of internet rumor)

Linda explainer! -Linda Linda Linda is a 2005 movie about a group of girls covering songs by punk band The Blue Hearts. -Linda³ is an RPG for the PC Engine CD about attempting to recreate Noah's Ark on the planet of Neo Kenya. -The two are not directly related! Hope this clears things up!

Excited to be volunteering this year!

Save 30% on #NewBook "Interface Frictions" by Neta Alexander, which explores how ubiquitous design features in digital platforms such as playback speed, autoplay, and night mode, reshape, condition, and break our bodies. buff.ly/qGM7NVC

The Mechademia 2026 CFP is now available! Join us at the National University of Singapore, 29-30 May 2026! Conference theme is "Traversing Trans-Asian Imaginaries: Anime, Manga, and Media Cultures" and ABSTRACTS ARE DUE 15 OCTOBER 2025. Full info at the link: www.mechademia.net/conferences/...

明日!!!!

JPP is pleased to announce the launch of the project Kawaii in Japan & Beyond: Theory & Praxis. This project creates approachable, open-access teaching materials exploring the concept of kawaii (cuteness) in and beyond Japanese cultural contexts. 🌏🧋🍭✨ japanpastandpresent.org/en/projects/...

NY Times special article on the renewed need to think about Hiroshima and the End. Complete with utterly powerful Japanese poetry by Matsuo Atsuyuki and photographs by Kawada Kikuji. You can read it for free without a subscription. www.nytimes.com/interactive/...

Upon receiving her BAFTA award, Yoko Shimomura gave an interview to The Guardian in which she stated that Capcom's sound divisions (one per department: arcade and consumer) in the late 80s were not only composed mainly of women; they were led by women. www.theguardian.com/culture/2025...

This is great. Computer Entertainer was the only U.S. publication covering console games during the post-Atari-crash lacuna and early NES days. It’s an invaluable resource for gauging actual contemporary perception—disappointment at console releases drying up, excitement over Nintendo/Sega’s arrival

Today is the last day of Matching Donation Week! Donations help out with travel grants and running the conference. It's a very tangible way to support the creators and academics of queer games 🙏

I have not resumed playing the Nana game, but I have finally updated my website: www.lillianmcintyre.com My CV has been updated and the link to it is now fixed, and a page with my artwork is back up due to popular demand. I also finally implemented some spam filtering for the contact form.

My former advisor has an article in this issue, and I'm intrigued by Hurley's piece on Seidensticker, whose translations still shape what we read of Japanese literature in English. More summer reading.

Checked out the Nana PS2 game today that @goosepimple.moe alerted me to the existence of. This is a title that boldly asks: what if there were THREE Nanas!? My Nana is from Ehime (where I was the first time I lived in Japan), wants to be a graphic designer, and has this cute boyish look.

アドリエンヌ・リッチ三部作、完結！ #晶文社 『新版 女から生まれる』 高橋茅香子訳、小川公代解説 amzn.to/3UGlpQw 『新版 噓、秘密、沈黙。』 大島かおり訳、満谷マーガレット解説 amzn.to/4l8iSJS 『新版 血、パン、詩。』 大島かおり訳、イリナ・グリゴレ解説 amzn.to/3HawExB

Thanks to the @romchip.bsky.social team for the sweet stickers!! Now I have to figure out where to put them.

Been catching up on/reviewing these this summer. I found Koyama's industrial history very useful and a good pairing with the Tanaka volume on game music - two parallel histories. I'm looking forward to tucking into the 文化論 edited volume next!

Historiographies of Game Studies is now published open access with @punctumbooks.bsky.social ! This massive collection examines why game studies is the way it is, and how it might change and grow in the future. Congrats to all contributors, and please share! punctumbooks.com/titles/histo...

So excited to read this one. Open access here for those without institutional affiliations.

The 11.3 issue of FMH is live! 🤩🥳 This issue is devoted to the 30th anniversary of Lara Croft, with every article discussing the character and the Tomb Raider franchise! You can read the editors' introduction, written by Amanda Phillips and Josef Nguyen, below: online.ucpress.edu/fmh/article/...

This is the important thing RE: Valve and itch.io Japan and a lot of Asian countries have prepay services and conbini pay with market share that anyone can use and are convenient. It allows for the Mastercard edicts and others to be ignored The problem is the policy, but also the monopoly

Went and did figure drawing last night for the first time in probably 4 years. Excruciating! 2 hours of re-learning how to measure. Like remembering a different life.

For non-academic followers of me and @romchip.bsky.social, this is a nice accessible entry that gets into topics beyond that of RDR2: the value of citations, the importance of contributing to academic conversations, and the unique place of the historical studies of games as a field.

echoes of Critical Hits

One last thing I did before leaving Japan was go to a showing of Hayakawa Chie's new film Renoir where she and the lead actress, Suzuki Yui, did a Q&A after. Suzuki told us that she went to the NMWA and liked Picasso's paintings more than Renoir's. 🤣

This is so cool!!

Bye for now, Japan!

📚本日の入荷📚 「フェミニスト、ゲームやってる」（近藤銀河/晶文社） 「ゲームはフェミニズム的にもホットなメディアになっている」。フェミニストで歴史研究者、パンセクシュアルで車いすユーザーの書き手が、フェミニズム・クィアの視点でビデオゲームを読み解く画期的なエッセイ！ 購入はこちらから。 hatobooks.base.shop/items/113432...

"We had the chance to be truly expansive, and we couldn’t get over the fact that we loved games too much." This month in Dialogue, @jmrivera.bsky.social on why the games industry shouldn't exist and how games media fails itself.

The Asahi has some images from the early days of Japanese computing. www.asahi.com/and/m/articl...

This place has some real neat old machines, including some proper electromechanical games. Pay it a visit while the whole thing is still around if you happen to be in the neighborhood in this weather! There was nobody else there when I visited during TGS, so you might well have it all to yourself.

You can PREORDER my book about the Assassin's Creed franchise NOW! Please do that. I think it is both a fun and interesting dive into what Assassin's Creed is, how it develops its ideas, and what it says about the world we live in. TOC attached, preorder at the link! bookshop.org/p/books/ever...

humans heading home

JSSプロファイルの日本語版、投稿した。 japanpastandpresent.org/jp/resources...

Hey folks! One of the most interesting projects I’ve been involved with is finally live: A translation of one of @hiroiwasaki.bsky.social ‘s doujinshi. Have you ever wondered why games tend to scroll left to right? Here’s the in-depth historical context: romchip.org/index.php/ro...

Made it out to the Microcomputer Museum the other day, which I really should have set aside a whole day for. Needed so much more time with the magazines and the computers, because I am young and didn’t know any BASIC going in. They also have a very good collection of old game consoles!

I love what GQuuuuuux is going for, but I’m waiting on the final episode to draw a conclusion. The theatrical version is very good, found it intriguing how the insert songs are shifted around…I wonder if they will stick the landing on the feminist commentary and the nature of freedom.

There is so much history and every day I learn more of it (from Play, Volume 1, Issue 10, October 2002, p.17)

Hit the Extinct Media Museum (絶滅メディア博物館) today to touch some old computers and read some manuals and advertising pamphlets. They have more video and audio recorders than computers, so my next stop is the マイコン博物館, but it’s cool that there’s an archival space where you can actually handle these.

Nintendo Museum was much better than I had expected - people have been making it sound disappointing, but my friends @jktraynor.bsky.social and @francescapizarro.bsky.social and I spent 5 hours there easily. We had a great time. (Researcher thoughts follow.)

Takarazuka Castlevania was great. Maria’s actress, Hoshizora Misaki, was stunning, and the first Dracula’s Castle needledrop wws amazing. The 愛 Love Revue afterwards was even better, though. We exited the show and the friend I went with promptly bought one of almost all of Sea Towaki’s merchandise…