Akihabara Electric Town has evolved from starting as a radio district, then a electronic district, and then a personal computer district. Akibakei who are some of the unsung hereos of contributing to the categorization of specialties in Arcas have also evolved through these districts and have been borrowing some ideas from the Animanga Otaku who have set residence in the area by demand of tourism. Game Centers brought ideas of techniques that international arcades might not have invested in to see new types of possibilities in the market of people who attend Video Game Arcades. With the history of Akihabara, the Akibakei, and the Game Centers it made a dynamic that made Arcas have more direction from the foreign point of view to further the development of the urban culture.
Akibakei is Japanese slang for Akihabara style or type which started in the 1980s and was the identity of many people who spent alot of time at the famous Electric Town in Tokyo. Hobbies of people labeled as Akibakei these days are to label Animanga Otaku who roam the areas for maids, idols, and games, but there were an older generation of Akibakei who helped form the Electric Town vibe with computer tech and gadgets as the basis without the international phenomena attraction of Akihabara’s Animanga scene. There are categories of Akibakei that are based on their unique interests of Akihabara, such as: Part Finders, Retail Showcase Renter, Technology Enthusiast, Hardware Engineer, Digital Content Otaku, and Moe Idol Otaku. Many of these categories helped form the basis for Arcas urban cultures identifying in its many specialty hobby classes: Video Gamer (video games), Code Programmer (language coding), Computer Interfacer (computer devices), Tech Beautimancer (beauty technology), Digi Artist (digital media art), and Internet Streamer (video hosting) Ira Ishida is notable in helping form the hobby classes as well in his writing how technology and its necessity in the understanding of a select few can base socialization through anonymous boards, search engines, and problem trouble shooting that might have started the spark that made people troubleshoot the idea of arcades or game centers as they are known in Japan by looking at what is labeled Akibakei and Otaku. Ishida writes about Otaku and Akibakei with a mixture of the two in Akihabara in the forms of manga, television drama, and movie adaptation which all have their own variations on them through storytelling and messages. A few of the characters represent some of the ideas of arcas in their specialities including the main character page who uses the computer for research and social interactions for planning and communication, the character Box who is a graphic designer that enjoys digital interactions of people but he has an otaku side with being interested in idol maids and cosplayers, the techno musician Taiko who uses many hi-tech equipment to work on production in video and sound with a high understanding on computers, and the coding hacking prodogy Isumu who shows how interface and programming go hand in hand in showing the communication through software is created through layers of system structures in real life and digitally. Characters from the series that don't show too much of what is seen in Arcas and more Otaku are Akira the Fighting Maid, Daruma the Cosplay Expert, and Takeshi the in the Closet Otaku who is a CEO business man. Akibakei are not Animanga Otaku, the reason its called Animanga Otaku is that Animanga is separate from the word Otaku. Otaku is a word that is synonymous with Animanga hobbiest, but in Japan it means “Passionate Hobbiest of” a given attached word. That aside, Akibakei and Animanga Otaku do have their similarities more than just using the word Otaku. Many of these similarities seem to overlap from Akibakei who are dabble as Digital Content consumers and Moe Idol Otaku. The Digital Content consumers are really into 2D and 3D computer content and collect in the mindset of single components by characters, world expansion, digital appearnace, and simulated stories. Moe Idol otaku enjoy maid cafes that can be seen as favorite compositions, favorite components being the maids, and favorite interactions as features that make up for a whole idea that is just as customized and personalized as a computer game character in specialized market. Even if they are not the same they have some ideas that play off each other to build what we know today as the same similarities we see with Gamer Arcas and Animanga Otaku to make for such a debatable topic question on similarity. Game Centers are another contributing factor to Akihabara and are key to the existence of Japan Gamer cultures ability to thrive. Game Centers are often found in the underground life of the shopping malls beneath city streets called Shopping Arcades. Video Game Arcades in America and Japan were pronounced in the 1980’s and American Arcades vanished in the 2000’s with Japanese Game Centers still alive and plugging away in attempts to widen their audience while trying to survive the destruction of the Console Wars. A big step was having “Picture Club” machines that allow people to make stickers, connect online to post on social networks, and share moments with friends, another step was furthering development of the “UFO Catcher” claw game machines, and lastly “Music Games” that include dance or musical instruments. This was a great pull to get some people to take a look into game centers once in awhile, but it still didn't have wide range appeal, due to the classic hard core competition environment with lots of ear numbingly loud noise. Many American Arcades could take note of these wonderful arcade wonders to have slightly more draw to them as the Game Centers do. Through the eyes of those in a foreign land in the embrace of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s ideal of merging American and Japanese techniques of Arcas, opened by Scott Pilgrim vs. The World to share in urban culture based on gamer rock technology, and overseas to the inspirations of Akihabara to bond more like minded people from the values of Arcas. The effects from geeks from another land bring its lessons of surviving the console wars, being an electronics wonderland, and having the community of Akibakei have been seen in Arcas urban culture. By bringing more people together by thinking about ideas that are shared between people it has a positive effect of bringing people of a similar interest together, with similar hobbies of games, electronics, and the digital realm. By doing so, a virtuous circle is holding a furthering urban culture together from both North American and Japanese geek philosophies of keeping with beloved technological hobbies.
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Bryan Lee O’Malley, an artist from Canada is most known for his series “Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World”. The story is based on Scott Pilgrim going through youth to adulthood of realizing what is worth fighting for in the ways of motivation, socializing, and growing up. The story takes on the character from slacker to hero, from outcast to his own style, and from youth to adult . Its also stylized with a unpopular manga hybrid look of American and Japanese art style, that takes color in contrast and in full on bold fills, that merges pixelation art appeal with pop rock sound that merge into a idea of lifestyle.
The inspirations of Bryan Lee O’Malley were the art styles of Rumiko Takahashi, Atsuko Nakajima, and Osamu Tezuka that carried throughout the Scott Pilgrim vs. The World series. Videogames are the referances of most things in Scott Pilgrim, for example Sex Bob-omb is from the enemy Bob-omb in Super Mario, his cover arts sometimes inspired by Street Fighter Alpha or Scotts signature move is the Shoryuken from Ryu, or the Dream sequence that is from the Legend of Zelda. The movie shows Fighting games, Dance games, RPG games, and Action games all in reference and in screen time. The Pixelation fascination of O’Malley comes with the many videogame inspirations that are seen from novel to novel and marked the binding of Japanese animation, American Comics, Rock n Roll, Video Games, and Pixelation Art. The groups that liked Scott Pilgrim vs. The world were labeled as a cult following, since the movie had fell short $13.4 million dollars from the original $60 million cost and $47.6 million in return that were heavy losses for Universal. Several blogs online identify the cult as a subculture that is a product of rock n roll millennial nostalgia of the growing video game scene from the time of the: Atari, Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis, Playstation 1, and Sega Dreamcast. Videogame growth was during a time that interests were structured through genres, games were catered to the high difficult game play and long commitment of time to becoming a game expert to making more fun at home than socializing that is seen from Scott from time to time. The will to be respected that is a vertical challenge of many gamers in both North American schools and especially in Arcade Centers that identified prestige in the value of a persons coolness by a demonstration of great skill. Gamers had started creating real community at Arcade center coin-ops that had its origins with the arcade game franchises: Street Fighter II, Mortal Kombat, The Uncanny X-Men Arcade, Dance Dance Revolution, and later went to Home Consoles and Personal Computers. Many games in the arcade would have large gatherings of people watching, waiting, and challenging one another if not cooperating. Eventually Arcade centers had a large decline with many arcades disappearing rather quickly, with home consoles on the rise the video game world was being strong armed with great single player titles, but after internet gaming caught on with pc games the gaming communities started to meet on social forums instead of arcades and began to sociallize. The Storyline of Scott Pilgrim highlights highschool fights that went from the early 90’s went into college and later to adulthood seemed to fade in working life, but stay in the hearts of many, including: the early 90’s Populars, the Library Bookworms, the Gothic Punk Rockers, the Vegetarian tribe, the Trance Ravers, the Animanga Otaku, and the Gamer Geeks. Until the late 1990s, the gamer jocks of unathletic figure, and unattractive looks had focused on video gaming, and head bopping to alternative pop punk rock to deal with their ever struggling social standing that remained as geeks. The idea of geek was glorified into its own social structure of categories of geeks and specializing in being videogame geeks with a ranking superiority system on video game ladders, which eventually led to many main contributions to the ideas of the Arcade urban culture that is often called “Arcas Culture”. Edgar Wright brought Scott Pilgrim vs. The world into the spotlight with taking and working with Bryan O’Malley that took the main idea of the story and made it more based on telling Scotts story that did change the original comic. The comic changes a few key mechanic abilities and love interests and couple appearances of characters supporting in fights, so it wasn’t completely the same and has had its changes. Some may argue that the movie was the main reason for Arcas, but it is no denying the vital role of visionary Edgar Wright who directed the film had created for people themselves to get on with the ideas to complete the idea as a culture instead of leaving it as Scott Pilgrim vs. The World cult fandom, it was also worth noting that without the original inspiration of the directly used story of Scott Pilgrim the movie would have never came to its British Canadian Japanese American fruitation of making the Arcade Punk Gamer Tech Savvy culture that is Arcas. By the time that Scott Pilgrim vs. The World Movie came out in 2010 the gaming scene was anxious for someone to make a visual of the history and its culture that grew, however no one really knew exactly how to place it without seeming like a 90’s nostalgia bomb. The ingenious combinative visual elements of director Edgar Wright taking from Bryan O’Malleys unintentional marker of arcade culture from the storyline that something great would happen. The innovative slang in the script and innovative redefinition of what was gaming culture would earn Bryan O’Malley the title of “The Father of Arcas”. With his intentions being to low off from the public spotlight by putting Scott Pilgrim on the side with a chance to be appreciated by and loved by the fans while working on other projects. It turned into something else as people online began to largely discuss all the hidden meanings of the words in the series, the ideas and thoughts of O’Malley with the pictures expressions, and the process of making the series as a whole. Bryan O’Malley had not realized the effects the life of Scott Pilgrim and the story he had left on the side for his newest project “Seconds” had begun as a sort of Arcade player guide and building of a Scott Pilgrim legacy which left a closure to a soon to be overanalyzed series. This ended in the birth of a nicely pieced composition that came out as Arcas Culture. |
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December 2018
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