Neo-Tokyo is about to E.X.P.L.O.D.E.

Another year. Another Tokyo Game Show. What could be easily dismissed as a routine industry affair may in fact be more than it seems. After all, the Overfiend is in the details: A currency spiraling wildly out of control. A rapidly aging population. A parliamentary government teetering towards collapse. Techno-globalization giving way to partisan ideologies of nationalism and wholly countervailing apathy. The dissociative undercurrents rumbling beneath this Doomed Megalopolis are the canonical makings of great anime – but it’s too expensive to produce here, so they’ll just outsource it to Korea. Nevertheless, this pre-apocalyptic narrative will not go without requisite human tragedy. It won’t look like August 6, 1945. Nor September 11. Or even June 8. Perhaps April 20. But rest assured there will be no trench coats. Japan’s Columbine will not look like The Matrix; instead it will look like ぎゃる☆がん

Industry Hangover

Ah, back from Japan just in time for a brief jaunt into the cacophonous funnybooks-cum-media conglomerate fête known amorphously as Comic Con. The familiar stickiness in the air feels no different than the squelching humidity of a Tokyo summer, but there is a specific dissimilarity - its origin is the unwashed mass of humanity that descends annually upon this abstracted soirée of incestuous licensing interests.

Besides the complimentary booze, the highlight of SDCC09 thus far has been Sega's epic failure of a press event. Attempting their deftest marketing maneuver in years, Sega managed to showcase not only their lack of development prowess but a monumental misunderstanding of industry relations in the act of unveiling Iron Man 2: The Game (2? Or would that be Iron Man 2: The Game 1?), the successor to last year's abysmally acclaimed movie tie-in. Attempting to gratify the gaming press, Sega made the cheeky decision to explicity acknowledge the unparalleled mediocrity of their previous effort. An insultingly feeble attempt at appeasement by its lonesome, Sega managed to top themselves by screening footage of the equally atrocious sequel all the while. In plain sight before the media was a dated game design with PS2-era visuals for all to see. Is it any wonder Sega of America failed to win hearts and minds with their last attempt at martyrdom, the Dreamcast?