First Impressions – New Game!
Time to play a New Game!
Time for some more first impression posts on the new summer season! and I remember checking out the 4koma manga for New Game a while back and found it to be more about cute girls doing cute things and not so much about creating video games, but maybe the anime will give us some of that as well? We shall see!
——————————–
Studio Doga Kobo is officially back on a roll as far as I’m concerned. So much good!!
———————————
Character Creation
The cute yet superrrr quiet girl
Back in my high school days I wanted to be a character designer for video games; however lots of things happened and I didn’t really get to follow that career path! That said will we learn the ins and outs of actual video game production from this series? Probably not? like I said on the summer preview post I don’t really think New Game is going to go into details about making games like Shirobako did for creating anime or can it? To be honest I’m more curious to see how New Game balances the OMG THIS IS SO CUTE while talking about the technical side of creating games or are we in for a Working or Servant x Service setup where the job isn’t the core of the series, but about the characters themselves? Either way nobody can deny this series already has some fun characters like Aoba, Hifumi, Kou and Shizuku to name a few even though some of them are copies from Working and Shirobako at least in terms of personalities.
Not even super moe anime can avoid the fanservice.
Besides things like writing scripts, doing background artwork and having powerful graphic engines I feel that the job of a character designer is easily the most important part of making a video game a hit or failure because for most gamers out there they tend to be drawn to games that have unique looking characters at least I am! Now if you are into games I’m sure by now you’ve see videos, cosplayers and fanart of a little game called Overwatch! I think Overwatch has some really unique looking characters in that game, but of course what I think is “cool” might not be the same for everyone or am I wrong about the importance of games and their character designers? Are you drawn to games with unique character designs or does that not really matter to you? The same thing easily applies to the world of anime and manga. I know for my own personal tastes watching or reading series that have unique designs like Panty & Stocking with Garterbelt, Space Patrol Luluco, Kyousou Giga and Heartcatch Precure; however since I draw a lot of my own characters I tend to care a lot about character designers a bit more when I pick a series to do fanart! So yeah I hope New Game highlights what goes into character designs for games a bit more or is that asking for too much?
The Crew
Best pouty face <3
OK, I’ll take my excitement back a notch, as all creative outlets are capable of hitting some speed bumps. But in all honesty, Luck & Logic and Aria AA were both by directors and other creative personnel not normally associated with the studio, and I acknowledge that both of those shows didn’t live up to the potential. But, Doga Kobo’s big winners, both in terms of animation quality and storytelling prowess all share some deep roots with this one. Fujiwara Yoshiyuki is a darn good director, heading up some of my all time favorites that the studio ever done; including my personal favorite, Plastic Memories. However, for this show we mostly pay attention to Kikuchi Ai , whose character design and art direction – in a show that is featuring character designers and art directors – are still superb as ever, with some wonderful full motion, good visual comedic timing, and drop dead cute girls, alone with masterful overall art direction. Special mention to color design with long time studio vet Ishiguro Kei who just makes this thing pop! Now in terms of storytelling Shimo Fumihiko has a few hits or misses, but her adaptation work on Engaged to the Unexpected was quite good (with extra mention going to Musiagen no Phantom World, Amagi Brilliant Park, and Kokoro Connect), and if the first episode is any indication, the development of New Game’s 4koma style to the screen is in good hands.
This is what really happens behind the scenes at the Metanorn HQ.
So with a great team assembled what kind of story are they telling? At the outset, they’ve got the basic model of cute girls doing cute things down pat. The general feel the first episode gives off is one of inspiration and support. Kou Yagami is one of the senior members of the character design team for the game company that newly employed main character Aoba Suzukaze has come to work for. Yagami-san is one of Aoba’s inspirations for pursuing work in the game industry, falling in love with Yagami’s character work on the popluar in-universe game Faerie’s Story. I love the interaction between the two as it settles into it’s kouhai-sempai status, and all that that can possibly entail; mostly learning and embarssment! But speaking of that kind of working relationship, Aoba has some cubicle sempai to get used to as well, and they come with a host of quirks (though probably not as bad as Yagami’s penchant for sleeping in the office in just her shirt and panties). For now my favorite is Yun Iijima because she is just sooo Mugi-chan ! She’s cute, soft, very feminine in dress sense, and has tea service ready at the drop of a hat. The rest of the cast rounds out the tropes with quiet Hifumi (mistress of the team chat!?), tomboy Hajime, and boss ladies’ Rin, Shizuko and Umiko. All of them do a great job welcoming Aoba to the office and the audience to the story’s overall flow. I’m sure all of them will get a turn in the spotlight; they had pretty good introductions this time – with Umiko gracing us with her taciturn use of air soft pellets to resolve office difficulties. As far as basic plot goes, well, they will eventually have to deal with an oncoming game deadline and Aoba herself has to learn all the ropes of the game creation world and learn to enjoy herself. It’s a character driven show, so for the most part these people and how they come across as people will inform us much more than the plot itself.
Extra Games!
Hnnnnnnnnnnngggggggggg
Nvidia graphics are AMAZING!
Great pairing.
Good luck Aoba…
Rip.
End Thoughts
What a fun first episode! I really liked seeing everything from Aoba’s perspective while she met the oddballs at Eagle Jump and she gets to work on the third game from her childhood?! That would be like me creating characters for Dragon Ball Super! Besides Aoba I liked Kou and her I don’t need pants to work attitude, but what if Aoba were a guy? Would Kou still walk around without her pants? or was Aoba hired because she is a girl? Just kidding I know that whole bit was played up for random comical fanservice and not meant to be taken serious. Anyway what did you think about the first episode of New Game? Will you continue this series to watch or did you find it boring and plan on dropping it? Either way I can’t wait to see more.
This has been one of my favorite new shows so far, and it’s barely into the new season, and as of this writing I’ve not even hit the new PrismaIllya! Speaking of which, Silver Link is in some hard competition with Doga Kobo for one of my fave studio’s Yeah, both have had some recent duds, but man they can come up with some super cute shows. This one is no exception. It’s also a refreshing change of pace in a Slice of Life program as all these character are adults, even though Aoba has a LOLI look to her, she’s 18! Life is a funny thing, and this is a funny show. But that’s great part of the thematic structure I saw here. It feels like they’re trying to encapsulate something interesting about the world of adults. We come in all shapes and sizes and tastes. Yagami-san is in a state of comfort as an adult. Yeah, that was fanservice no doubt, but I think the writing manages to take things a bit deeper in who and what she is as a person on a visual level. So what do you think of New Game!? Is this going to be an in-depth look at game creation the same way Shirobako explored the creation of anime? Or is that all just so much metaphorical grist for the storytelling mill?
About Tag Team
We live, laugh, enjoy and strictly believe on "more the merrier". When together, we usually come up with very chatty, conversation-based episodics and interesting posts.
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
I liked a lot of the aspects of the show, maybe most of all I liked Hifumi’s double nature: confident and bubbly over IM, scared and shy face to face. I am kind of wondering why Aoba got hired. What skills is she bringing? What’s her body of work? In Shirobako, that worked for Aoi because she was hired into a position of being a general office worker. But Aoba seems to be in a talent position, and you’d think she’d need to bring the talent with her, and Eagle Jump isn’t just hoping that she’ll be talented.
Also, I’ve liked DogaKobo since they made Hoshizora e kakaru hashi. 🙂 They always do a credible job, much like Studio feel.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
As the everygirl character, I think they hired Aoba as the stress relief? But yeah, what can she do? That wasn’t resolved at all, LOL! Well, we got 11 more weeks…we’ll see how she ‘works’ out…
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
Well, I mean, there’s a hint of talent. If they’ve given her a “learn 3D modeling” book and she’s making more progress than expected, then she probably has some talent. It’s just weird that they don’t mention what her talent is supposed to be.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
Unnamed talent let’s us impress on her whichever talent seems most useful for the story when they need it? Generalized, a bit risky, but it helps the audience relate? Or would it help them relate for her to have a focus, it’s not like her Cubicle Sempai have very named talents…
POWUH: Lovely-pyon~ with 261 comments
So Another MTK (Manga Time Kirara) Anime, This time it’s about uh…Video Games, Ya Know I had a dream of making a Video Game there actually but all the sudden some Complications going on in my life, well i can’t ask you for it anyways…
Show ▼
POWUH: Meta Team and Meta-Analyst with 3844 comments
-snip-
-bulk of comment deleted-
-_- Comment idea there but too long to flesh out. Just like making games. The summary: the easiest proper games they’d could do would be on the lines of what Unisonshift/LumpofSugar/etc do…