I Can’t Stop Thinking About Vagrant Story

Among the many exceptional developers working at Squaresoft in the late 90’s and early aughts, none were quite as critically beloved and niche as Yasumi Matsuno. Over the course of a decade from the release of Tactics Ogre to the publication of Vagrant Story in 2000 as a one of Squaresoft’s final swan songs for the Playstation 1, Matsuno developed a cult following due to his particular brand of grand medieval fantasy storytelling that dabbled in grey morality and complex political machinations. Most of this fandom was amassed with the release of Final Fantasy Tactics, a strategy RPG so popular and influential it’s kind of amazing how little attention it’s received as a franchise in the many years since. 

Yet, that same sentiment can be applied to Matsuno’s entire post-PS1 career. Although Matsuno seemed destined for greater things, Final Fantasy XII is, at the time of writing, the last major mainstream game he had any role in as a creative director; and even then only for part of its development. The game went through development hell due to management changes caused by the recent Square Enix merger–changes which resulted in Matsuno ultimately leaving the project and the company that made him famous. Final Fantasy XII still went on to be a massive commercial and critical success–one whose aesthetics, world, gameplay, and plot were clearly a product of Matsuno’s initial vision for the game–but in the years since he has failed to work on any major projects aside from some writing roles for Final Fantasy XIV online raids and subquests.

And that’s a shame, because Matsuno’s last full creative game project is quite possibly one of the most fascinating games ever made. Vagrant Story, like many late PS1 JRPGs from Squaresoft, is incredibly unique and experimental. It’s DNA can be found somewhat in Final Fantasy XII’s gambit system, but aside from that the game is one of a kind. From its real-time, yet tactics based combat system to its groundbreaking graphical work on a console not known for aesthetic excellence, Vagrant Story remains a strange artifact of its era.

I played the game earlier this year and my experience with it was a consistently frustrating, yet engaging one. In a lot of ways, Vagrant Story is borderline hostile to modern players. Most of the game’s combat mechanics are explained by an ungodly amount of tutorial text that is hidden away in a Main Menu tutorial subsection. As such, without a guide to simplify it all, the process of playing the game is one that often feels aimless and confusing. For example, one may think going into the game that the best way to deal damage is to get weapons with higher stats. After all, that’s how most JRPGs work and the game introduces a forging workshop into the game fairly early on. 

Anime Lookout | Summer 2021

Going into this season, I’ve seen plenty of fellow anime pundits describe it as boring and uneventful, and for once I couldn’t disagree more. Usually summer seasons tend to be (and I don’t mean this as a pun) dry, but when looking at the seasonal chart this time around, I was shocked by just how many interesting shows were on the docket. Maybe I’ve lowered my expectations due to the fact I tend to only pick up 3 shows max each season these days, but even though the line up for this season isn’t overflowing with new interesting titles, the ones that are eyecatching are, at the very least, highly intriguing. I mean any season that has several anime original series, including a passion project from famous Madhouse director Shingo Natsume, is bound to be somewhat fun to write about. I’ve got a grand total of four premieres covered this time around, so strap on in, folks!

Anime Lookout | Spring 2021

Well, to my surprise, it’s time once again to dive into a brand new season of anime. To be honest, considering how amazing 2021’s winter season was, I was initially disappointed when glancing over the charts for this spring season. I’ve never made it a secret that I’ve never been a big fan of the spring anime season, since it tends to skew more sequel and mainstream-heavy than most. Still, I ended up watching more premieres than I have during the past few Anime Lookouts, which is a testament to just how stacked this spring is. Even though none of these titles intrigue me on the same level as say Wonder Egg Priority or SK8 did before their premieres in January, there are still enough productions that seem interesting enough that I couldn’t help but at least try them out. As a result, this is easily the lengthiest Anime Lookout post I’ve written in a long time. With that preamble out of the way though, let’s get on with the show!

Anime Lookout | Winter 2021

After a seemingly endless waiting period, somehow we’ve made it past 2020 and into the new year, which of course means yet another new season of anime premieres to dig into. This season ended up being a big surprise to me just looking through the seasonal chart in the weeks preceding it. Maybe it’s because I’ve been so caught up in other aspects of my life, but I didn’t realize just how stacked this winter line up was until I was putting together a rough list of shows I wanted to check out. For the first time in what has felt like forever, I truly had an overabundance of titles to check out, which meant making some difficult cuts from the line up (some of which I ended up listing at the end of this post). Anyways, without further ado, let’s get on with the show!

The Con of Great Pretender

On a pure exterior level, there are many things to appreciate about Great Pretender: it’s an anime original production not tied into any future mobile game or idol properties in an era where most anime originals need some kind of media mix to get greenlit. It’s also a show that, from an artistic standpoint, is a marvel on just about every level. Studio Wit went all out with the production here in a way that even their highest profile shows haven’t. The cartoony and expressive character designs from legend Yoshiyuki Sadamoto are brought to life on screen in vivid detail courtesy of animation director Kyouji Asano’s guiding hand. Even in motion, the designs retain their fundamental charm and in basically every shot look uniform and eye catching. The real star of the show, however, is the show’s background art, which is stunning on a moment to moment basis. Vibrant and pop-art esque–the backgrounds perfectly capture the raucous spirit of the anime, bringing each globe trotting setting to life with striking detail and color.

Yet beneath this surface, what is Great Pretender really trying to sell its audience? This is where Great Pretender, for better or for worse, reveals the truth behind its intentions. You see, Great Pretender is many things–a technical showcase for the artists at studio Wit, a fun series of heist romps with endearing characters–but what it isn’t is a story with much underlying purpose.

Anime Lookout | Fall 2020

After a year-long break, I’m finally back to analyze some anime premieres. To be honest, I was somewhat hesitant to restart this series, since for the past few years I’ve been struggling more and more to find a substantial amount of new anime to test out every season. Maybe that’s because “anime is getting worse,” or maybe I’m just getting better at understanding my personal taste, but for the past year and half I haven’t tried more than 3-4 shows in a given season at most. Given that we’re now also currently going through a pandemic which has delayed a bunch of interesting anime, this fact hasn’t changed. In total, I’ll be covering five premieres in this post. That being said, I’ve also come to the realization that it’s better to write about a few shows I actually care about rather than force myself to write about several I don’t. Either way, I hope you find an anime in this post that piques your own interest.

Texhnolyze: Nihilism & Misogyny

Texhnolyze is a nihilistic show. This isn’t exactly an original observation. Just about any viewer watching Texhnolyze can understand from episode one onward that the show is one that has quite negative views on humanity and human nature. The character’s from the offset interact with each other in ways that are entirely transactional. In exchange for saving the lives of the seer and the leader of Gabe, Yoshii promises to help the seer in whatever way he can; and when Ichise hurts a woman connected to the Organo gang, he gets an arm and leg cut off in an act of retributive revenge. Even actions that seem kind on the surface are subverted later. One example of this occurs when the character Yoshii, a surface dweller visiting the underground city of Lux, comforts and has sex with a prostitute covered in scars. He tells her she’s beautiful and sympathizes with her desire to escape the underground world ravaged by gang violence and inequality. In a move which foretells Yoshii’s later violence, he then kills her and her handler in a way he perceives as merciful and just. This action is telling of the way patriarchal violence is presented throughout this show and also how it, intentionally or not, plays into misogynist tropes as a result of its nihilistic ideology.

“Get Out of My House” & The Power of Kate Bush

In which I admit that I like a song where Kate Bush brays like a mule.

Anime Lookout | Spring 2019 Part 2

Usually when these posts are late (which they often are), I tend not to have great excuses. But, weirdly enough, this time around I think I can kind of justify myself. JoJo Part 5’s two episode finale didn’t air until July 28th, meaning I sat for a long time just kind of waiting for that one show to wrap up. Normally, I would consider pushing that title to the next season’s part 2 post, but since I only ended up finishing three shows this spring season, I figured it would be better to wait a little while. Still, now that I’ve finally finished everything up, let’s look at some of last season’s best offerings!

Anime Lookout | Summer 2019

Ah, it’s summer time yet again, which also means that it’s time for a new season of anime. Like last season, this summer ended up being rather dry for me in terms of having a ton of great standout premieres, with me only finding seven that really piqued my interest. However, what I did watch still managed to be pretty engaging, especially compared to the draught of okay titles I covered last time around. Even the shows that were weak in some places had at least a few standout elements to make them worth a try. Plus, while some may be annoyed that there’s less anime coming out than usual, I’m hoping that this means some animators are getting a nice break. Anyways, without further ado, let’s get on with the show!