New Game! – 08
The spy and and the informant! But, which is which!?
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This one was so cute! So cute, no one noticed all the corporate espionage going on… |
The Nenecchi Identity
The secret to acting inconspicuous is to act SOOOOOOOO conspicuous…
Well, it’s summer time for our gang from New Game! And with that in mind our main supporting character Nene is off for two whole months from college. But her best friend – our Aoba, her Aocchi – is part of the working world, and so gets no such scheduled vacation; which means this isn’t going to be a beach episode at all!!!!! No, what Aoba and the staff of EagleJump get is crunch time as Faerie’s Story 3 is going into beta turnover…
Who knew that so much could hang on a mere JRPG….
So, as quick as you can say ◇ Quest Accepted◇ , Nene finds herself working for EagleJump in the capacity of debugging the game before it has to ship to the publisher. Now, really, this show doesn’t go into the nuts and bolts of the gaming industry, so don’t expect me to. But the comments are very much open to you, if that’s what you want. So despite the episodes lack of “industrial crunch”, I think it more than makes up in characterization. This show has never once made any inclination that it was ever going to be plot-heavy, nor the Shirobako of Gaming either, so this light approach suits it very well.
Save the NPC, crash the game?! Nene is clever to use Aoba’s wishes against EagleJump!
Of course the light approach just had to encompass misunderstanding, and accidental pudding theft. Oh, goodness, so much sturm and drang just had to be made over a 100 ¥ dessert item. It was Grand Theft Custard! But I think Rin had it right on the real money. With so many little pressures building up as they approach beta, it’s best to nip one right in the bud when you can, even if it came from a part-timer or for something so small. While I agree with Yagami, that the email’s message was on the elementary school side, it’s the simple solutions that are best, mainly because sometimes, when we sort out problems, our complex solutions can create more problems. So, all in all, two sorts of “debugging” going on this episode…
So what’s all the fuss?
I said be careful, her cellphone is really a camera…
Overall I loved Nene’s fidgety attitude. She’s trying to find her place in the world and every single scene she was in underlined that; from trying to find the familiar in Aoba her first visit to the office, all the way to discovering the difference between playing a game and working the specific job. It’s pretty obvious she has a deep admiration for Aoba, and has come to depend on her for some “grown up” cues; despite their endless nay-saying then embrace of the Magical Girl stuff, along with their near constant need to one up each other in competing for sempai status. But I also like how much she dived into the game itself, reporting on bugs, and tieing this version into the previous installments continuity. This got her on Umiko’s radar, and I think we can probably sense a future development here. It was a surprise meant to happen, in as much as how well she did despite appearances. You cannot judge a book by it’s cover, just like you cannot condemn wholly based on one act of fridge theft…
Will she become a double agent?
Of course, she’s a master spy, our Nene. Or should I say, agent saboteur. You see, these days game content is pretty much modular, with one game not being all that different than the rest. So, sales come down to buyer preference, premium is on the design that has the best aesthetic…Yagami Kou is the recognized leader. But, buyers can’t prefer a game…if the game isn’t available! With the pudding affair, Nene almost set our chief designer, and heart of the company, Kou-chan, on the edge. Faerie’s Story 3 could have missed beta, all for a lack of pudding. But Rin is so darn good at her job, Nene didn’t see it coming. That just leaves Umiko, former spy herself, to recruit Nene into the EagleJump fold….
*thanks to Doki for the subbed signs and such…
About skylion
All around nerd that enjoys just about any anime genre. I love history, politics, public policy, the sciences, literature, arts...pretty much anything can make me geeky...except sports. Follow me @theskylion
POWUH: Meta Team and Meta-Analyst with 3844 comments
I like the cat. Cute Chat.
POWUH: Meta Resident with 1692 comments
Nene has a future as a game debugger. She not only caught bugs, she went beyond and caught continuity problems with reference to previous installments. I didn’t like her character at the start of this episode with the way she was acting, but she proved when she got down to work that she’s a good worker and not just a flighty character. That changed my opinion of her.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
…maybe it’s just my own bias, but when she was picking out continuity issues, I was sensing scenarist…which can be a huge deal in video games, or can be a “well I guess we need someone to write a background…can’t exactly copy it from the back of a cereal box”…
I always liked her, she didn’t need to prove her worth as a character…but I guess I’m more forgiving?
POWUH: Meta Resident with 1692 comments
I didn’t see anything in this episode that she was capable of writing a scenario. But she did show that she was quite capable of finding continuity problems in a scenario. I have no idea what jobs there are in the game industry, but is there something like an assistant editor (or whoever) who’s supposed to look for things like that?
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
If she’s spotting continuity problems, she’s halfway down the scenario path already. That’s what that job is mostly about. As for what the job is called, if it exists cause realy story is a minor consideration, and if they have it, it would probably fall under whomever would be assisting the director or producer…
POWUH: Meta Resident with 1692 comments
There’s a difference between writing original material yourself and checking it over to see if it agrees with other material. Just because she’s good at the second doesn’t automatically mean she’d be good at the first.
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
But a scenario writer isn’t necessarily writing original material. They can be very successful taking the rough or lumpy ideas of another person better at coming up with the content and hammering out those lumps, sanding off the roughness, taking out the slag, and leaving something much more attractive, uniform, and smooth. It’s not about doing it yourself, it’s about knowing how to approach it with the other person.
Even though I probably shouldn’t, given how much this show is compared to Shirobako, think about Maitake from that show. How did he operate with Kinoshita (the director)? He asked leading questions, he pointed out the possible choices, he jumped on the inconsistencies. He wasn’t writing the story, he wasn’t coming up with the characters, he wasn’t inventing the scenario. He was *writing* it, taking the thoughts of the others and putting them into the form that they could be used to make the show. So when skylion says that Nene is halfway there in what she’s shown us, that’s what he means. She’s thinking the right way. That doesn’t mean he thinks she’s a good writer, but that the talents she’s shown are very useful in that path.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
…which is why I used scenarist over writer…
POWUH: Lovely-pyon~ with 261 comments
So this is what a Game Debuggers (Testers) are doing…
Checking Game bugs, Game freezes, and Checking story lines? or she is just complaining about the last part of that list!
as for the Pudding confessing part, I would just say, why she just face it with pure honesty…but oh well, she is kinda incapable of it, i don’t that Girl (Nene) is a spy or a double agent, for me she is just too naughty but now perverted.
POWUH: Lovely-pyon~ with 261 comments
Ooops…i mean
i don’t think that Girl (Nene) is a spy or a double agent, for me she is just too naughty but not perverted.
I apologies for my Keyboard Anyways….
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
Well, I’m mostly making jokes about the whole “corporate spy” thing. I never said my sense of humor was any good…
…and my keyboard misbehaves all the time…
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
I think Nene’s Japanese Shame Levels are over 9000…It’s either that, or, it’s funnier to make her nervous about it?