Rising Star Blog

This week I’d like to return, if I may, to what appears to be my favourite subject: games on Japanese telly. (I would talk about games in the cinema instead, but I haven’t yet seen the new Professor Layton movie because my wife made me sit and watch Up! instead, even though it was rubbish.)

The reason I’d like to talk about the telly *again* is because, back in the summer, I was watching the Japanese equivalent of a wildlife documentary when they cut to a really incongruous graphic borrowed straight from an old-school RPG. From watching real-life footage of some bees, all of a sudden I found myself watching a cartoon-style rendition of the sort of screen you might see during battle in a traditional Japanese RPG, with the bees featured as enemies and their key stats appearing in a menu down the side.

And I thought nothing more of it until yesterday, when I was watching another TV show that had nothing to do about games – this one was some celebrity comedy thing – when they wheeled out the same RPG-inspired graphic. This time, they were challenging a celebrity to correctly perform the ritual for making a wish at a shrine on New Year’s Day (which isn’t as easy as you might think, by the way, if only because of all the free sake they give you).

And actually, I realised, that is pretty strange. It’s the equivalent of a show hosted by David Attenborough or Jonathan Ross suddenly choosing to illustrate a point by using a graphic inspired by the Baldur’s Gate interface. And expecting the audience to get it.

I only had time to snatch a couple of hastily taken, slightly blurred photos, but I hope you’ll see what I mean. I don’t think it’s the sort of thing you’d see on telly in England, anyway.

 

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