Hello, and welcome. For my introductory post, I would like to explain a little about the idea behind this site, and the name, Sankaku Complex, which is intended to capture something of the relationship between anime, manga and games, as well as such media forms as eroge and the visual novel.
As I became more and more interested in Japanese anime, manga and games (not in any order of preference, I should note), I started to become aware of two phenomena which were never visible with such intensity in the vast majority of Western media; these were the frequency of crossover between the media triad of anime, manga and games (as well as novels, eroge and the like), and the seamlessness with which these media would merge into one another with much finer gradients than the sharp delineations visible in American/European media (this is a movie, this is a novel, we make novels into movies but we never make games into novels, novels of movies are treated with derision, and we only make movies and games into one another with disastrous results; comics and animation are for children).
In contrast, the complex of Japanese media, unified by the visual style introduced by manga, exhibits constant (and successful) adaptations from one form into another, with each both taking into account the opportunities and limitations inherent in the media concerned, and being received without undue jaundice in each new incarnation. What is more, strict boundaries between these forms are not observed, so a variety of different levels of interactivity, visual richness, etc, are evident in and between each discrete form.
Since these are visual media, a visual description is perhaps most becoming. I identify three major loci along two major axes.
The first (in this case vertical, but I ascribe no particular significance to the orientation) is interactivity, from very highly interactive games where content is derived predominantly from player action, through normally (linearly) narrated games with high levels of interactivity (JRPGS and action games spring to mind), with interactivity trailing off into insignificance in anime and manga, being reached by way of the superficially interactive visual novel.
The second, more nebulous, axis is that of the state of being a “mono-media”, whether visual, textual or aural (manga, drama CDs and light novels are the exemplars) versus incorporating several media, or “multi-media” (anime and the visual novel obviously represent varying levels of the combination of visual, textual and aural information).
Of course, it is this triangle from which I derive the name, and the underlying intent, of this site: a partial observation and appreciation of the triangular (or sankaku, 三角, triangle in Japanese) complex of media which has come to be such a powerful and vibrant cultural engine. I also intend to fit this triangle into the proper context, Japan, so there will also be no shortage of information regarding Japan, facilitated of course by residence in Tokyo.
Nice concept, and nice site! Instant RSS-bookmark for me as soon as I reached this blog for the first time. Keep up the great work!
Thank you very much for your kind words, and I hope to not just keep it up, but to continue improving. Please don’t hesitate to leave any comments or suggestions as to how things can be improved, should you feel the need.
Hey, found your blog about a week ago….enjoying the content and articles so far. Got ya bookmarked so keep it up Gambatte!
I appreciate both your readership and your having taken the time to leave your praise - thank you very much!
I’m really glad I found your blog, as the blogroll I had had become rife with problems. One or two were updated very sparsely, and the one that was obsessively updated became oversaturated with idiots and too much H and “girls, girls, girls” content. I enjoy reading about eroge and 2D girls (and 3D as well) as much as the next gent, but for as much as this blog used to report on normal items of interest, it’s just become — for lack of a better word — an “orgy” of mune and pseudo-product placement. It’s still interesting from time-to-time, but I think I’ve found something in your blog that will continue to compel me to read it daily for as long as the quality continues. Keep up the good work!
Thank you!
I’m trying to pursue what may be the most difficult thing to acheive with this kind of content, balance, so you can be assured I have no intention of allowing the content to veer off into a particular narrow area.
Hopefully, the site will also be able to provide a greater variety in both depth and breadth as it develops.