Tag: video games

  • Gaming Immersion.

    Gaming Immersion.

    Join us for a lively conversation with Leo from Hyperfixation Sensation as we dig into our most unexpected and memorable video game stories. This episode explores the unique ways immersive and ultra-realistic games shape how we connect, react, and even lose ourselves during play.

    Links

    Listen in to Leo’s show on Edge Radio every Tuesday 11-12pm (AEST), streaming live on Edge Radio:

    Hyperfixation-sensation (Edge Radio)
    Instagram: Hyperfixation Senstaion

    📝 Show Full Transcription
    This is an AI-generated audio transcript, and it may contain errors. We may update or correct this transcript in the future. Please get in touch with us if you have any questions about the information in this transcript. The audio is the official record of this episode.
    Transcript Speaker 1 There is nothing wrong with your radio. Speaker Do not attempt to adjust the volume. We are controlling. For the next hour, we will control all that you hear. Speaker 1 You are about to experience the knowledge and insights of the media mothership. Craig Alright, welcome here to Edge Radio 99.3 FM and this is media mothership. I’m your host. Doctor Craig. Oh, we’ve got the doctor back. I’m feeling pretty confident about winning it. Let’s try and pull out any qualifications I have joined by. Do you want to plan any of your qualifications? Magister. Yeah, magister. And that’s based on. Taylor That’s based on the old it. It means master, and so therefore a masters is a magister and you know doctor is a doctor. Speaker Ohh. Craig Right. And you’ve of course you you did a A. Job with. I can remember your honours. Taylor Yeah, yeah. And then did a master teaching. Craig Master. Yes. Yeah, I’m trying to. Remember and I sleep 3. You were masters or something, right? Supervise that all. Taylor Right. But actually in in Norway, I think I think it’s Norway, they still call a a Manchester, you become a Manchester. Craig Sounds like a judge. Taylor Yeah, it does. Yeah, magistrate. Craig Yeah, alright, well. On today’s show, we’re going to talk about video games. In popular culture? Yeah. And it’s mainly triggered by this little Grand Theft Auto. Hmm. Hamlet trailer. So we’ll listen to this to to put us in the mood. Speaker 4 Go, go, go, go now. OK, OK. We are putting on a production of Hamlet in GTA Online for the first time ever. We are looking for actors. So come and audition, please. Trying to stop us. Can’t stop our mother. Speaker Yes. Speaker 4 Ohh they got me. Speaker Ohh, my God, they’re really coming down now look. To. Speaker 1 Be or not to be. That is the question. Speaker 4 You’re welcome to audition if you want. You’ll put, don’t. Speaker You crazy? No. OK. Shoot us please. Speaker 4 But it is nobler in the mind to suffer. Speaker Ohh. Speaker 5 My God. Speaker 4 The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms to get to sea of travel. Speaker No one’s going to come. No one cares. Speaker 4 It’s not a real thing. Speaker 1 It’s real to me. Speaker Ohh, hang on. Someone’s here. Hello. Speaker 5 All right, you can call me Shawn. I’m Jen. I’m Kelly. Speaker 4 That’s quite an entrance. Speaker My name is Gareth. Speaker 4 While you’re doing your dance, we try saying to be or not to be. That is the question. Speaker 5 Look, my Lord, it comes she’s like chick. Speaker 4 Bear on our billion dollar budget. Speaker Cops are here. Craig Maybe he’s a purist. Speaker We just keep coming across these people. We wanna help us. Speaker 4 That gives me hope that what we’re trying to do is possible. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to Grand Theft Hamlet. Speaker Yes. Craig OK. Hey, so that’s was the synopsis from. Grand Theft. Dang it. Speaker 6 Although I’m not sure if you. Craig Heard the Grand Theft Auto. Let me just put. That volume down. Grand Theft Hamlet trailer #1 which details the. In the midst of COVID-19 pandemic, 2 out of work actors Sam and Mark, piece of bleak future. Desperate for purpose, they stumble upon an idea stage Shakespeare’s hamlet with the ultraviolet within the ultraviolet world of Grand Theft Auto. Online shot. Entirely in game Grand Theft, Hamlet explores their attempt to merge classical theatre with a chaotic digital landscape. With stunning visuals and unexpected moments of reflection, this engaging documentary examines how ancient cultural narratives. Can still resonate in new virtual spaces, raising questions about art, isolation and the digital world’s potential for storytelling. Taylor You know, the strange thing about that is how they said like because of COVID-19. That was an out of work actors. Yes, as an actor myself, you’re always out of work until some ridiculous director decides to actually put you into a. Production it’s pretty. Craig Status quo environment to be in, isn’t it? Taylor Yeah. Craig Anyway, and this this Harkins back way back, ohh maybe 10-15 years ago I had to teach a class at university on video games, virtual worlds and video games. Taylor Yeah, I remember it. Speaker And. Craig Wasn’t. Yeah, you were in it. And I was pitching these ideas around how to take video games and put it into the real world. So to help us on this journey today, we’ve brought along our special guest, Leo. Hey, Leo. You do your own show here on Edge every Tuesday. Leo Hi. 11 yeah, 11, it’s hyperfixation sensation. Yeah, basically spring and running people such as you, Craig. Craig That’s right. I was on. It’s. Leo Yeah. So yeah, this Tuesday. So yeah, that’s basically Marshall, I guess so. Speaker 6 Tuesday. Craig Yeah. And I we talked about board. Leo Games. Oh yeah, we did. Yeah, I found that. It was quite a good show. We got track a couple of times, but. Craig It just always happens. So hyper fixation sensation and in many ways media mothership really does take that as its motorsport. Leo It’s. Fun. Yeah. Craig One day it’s our whole purpose. We dive deeply into whatever fascination I’ve stumbled across that way. Often it’s old, the oldie radio from the 1930s, but today we’re going high tech modern and we’ve got big boy needy already on the chat. Thanks, big boy. Needy. You can of course watch us on. Taylor Yeah, exactly. OK. Craig YouTube Stream, Twitch Stream, digital broadcast DAB, the FM system on analogue 99.3 FM or just head over to edgeradio.org Dot AU. Taylor And send us a message at 488811707. Craig Yeah. Which Big Boy Navy has done. Hey, big bosses. Sorry, I’m 3 minutes late. I keep forgetting it’s Thursday listening whilst I play flight SIM and eat my Dino nuggies. Great because I I know Leah. You’re a huge fan. Leo Ohh yeah. Yeah, I personally love playing. I used to have yeah explain. Craig X plane. Yep. So that’s like Microsoft Flight Simulator. It’s one of those ones where you can fly from a real world airport. What’s some of your flying experiences in X plane? Leo So. Craig Have you flown from Hobart Airport? Leo Yeah, I have so. Craig What’s it like? Did you crash? Leo No. Well, I have crashed before. Craig But not in Hobart. Great. What was your biggest crash? Leo Well. Probably probably the time when I was messing around with my throttle and I didn’t know what the red lever was. Wow. Craig Yeah, always do the red lever. Speaker If there’s a red. Craig Yeah. Leo Commit. Turns out it was a mixture and I pulled it and my engine stopped. Craig Wow. And how did you you didn’t recover? What happens just plummeted. Leo Well, I tried pushing it. I tried to push it back in, but by that point, now I know later the engine and spool down so I couldn’t push it back into favourite. Craig Right. Leo So what I would have had to have done is restarted my yeah. And I was like 9. Craig Was it a propeller plane or a jet? Leo Yeah, it was. It was like session 172. Craig Plane repellent, rights of fear. Was this over Paris or somewhere exciting? Leo Well, it was over. I think it was near the I think I landed on the highway here like on Hwy. Yeah. But in doing so, I smashed into a SUV. Yeah, yeah. Craig There’s damn SUV’s. They should get out of the way of the planes. I mean, Harrison Ford landed on the golf course a few years ago in his, I think as a World War 2 type aeroplane. My favourite bit of video game journalism with flight simulators was this guy. And it’s it’s one of these early new games journalism pieces which tries to do a very immersive non, you know, point scoring approach to video game reviewing. And they did it on one of the early Microsoft Flight Sims and their their their whole review was written about their attempt. To do the like the Lindenberg crossing right. So from New York to London, I think then crossing was. In the same aeroplane, right? So in the flight SIM you can get that same spirit of Saint Louis, whatever it is, aeroplane, but he. Leo Isn’t that isn’t that playing like really hard to? Craig See out of it is. Yeah. It’s very obscured kind of vision, but what he did was he did it in real time. So it took 12 hours or something and he sat there and he what he did, he said beforehand he wanted to immerse himself, cause it’s a simulator, right? It’s not a video game. You simulate reality. So what he did is he packed his lunches. He said OK, I’ll need. I’ll need breakfast and lunches. So sandwiches and so forth probably. Have and I’ll. I’ll be in this seat, he. Did I think? He allowed himself toilet breaks. Yeah, I hope he did. I don’t remember the toilet discussion. Taylor And he took altitude medication and those squishy socks. Yeah. Craig That’s right, anti nausea. And he said it was, you know, the first part of the game was kind of exciting, but then it’s just really boring you just some. And I know people have done that with Euro Truck Simulator where they’ll do a fundraiser where it’ll just be because it’s one again one of these. Leo Yeah. Taylor Yeah. Craig Leaders where it’s just they’ll take the. Just you know US truck journey and they’ll say I’m live streaming it for the next 8 hours, which is the real time it would take to go from, I don’t know, New York to California and that’s it. That’s the stream and they’ll be raising money and and all this is kind of like ultimately what I want to arrive at. By the end of today’s episode, so in the next 40 minutes, is is how we can put media mothership in some form of video game, right? Like to do a video game and media mothership at the same time, like Hamlet in GTA. You know, we brainstorm, like, have you played? Leo Roblox you have. Craig Because I reckon. That the even the equipment here could play Roblox. On. Speaker OK. Craig Could we do a? Media Mothership episode live in a Roblox space. Leo Yeah, I actually could. Craig Is there a? Is there a? Is there a radio studio in Roblox? Is there a radio studio game? Leo Uh. Make one. Craig There we go. So join us on our Kickstarter. We just need to do a hire a video game. Leo If there’s any Roblox developers message in on 0488811707 or you can find our number on the top left of our website at radio.org dot AU. It should be. On the little. Craig Banner thing? That’s right. The little banner thing. Alright and you’re joining media. The ship here. On. Taylor It’s ready. Craig 3899.3 I want to get my kalimba. Can you finish the rest of the? Taylor OK. Yeah. No, no, I actually don’t have anything to say. Craig is going and getting his kalimba out of his bag. He’s wearing a blue cap today and red shirt red. Sort of. Yeah. Jumper thing and. Leo Red shirt. Black losses. Craig All right, welcome. Back that was worth it. It breaks the. Me. Audio space people wake. Up they might be falling asleep. We’re talking about video games with our special guest Leo and our co-host Magister Taylor and Doctor Craig. Actually, we need to find the title for you by the end of the show, so we’ll brainstorm a bit of news and video games. I did do a survey of current video game news. Let’s play. Leo Yeah, probably. Craig A sample of this. It’s from the latest Chinese video game. Taylor Turn the volume up. Craig That’s not the name. Ohh on this? Yeah. Taylor But no on that. Ohh yet. Craig Video. Games called Wu Chang full and feathers. Taylor Wu. Craig Chang Wu Chang and here’s here’s the title. Woo Chang got hit by the censorship hammer here. We. Taylor OK. Craig Go. Speaker 6 Well, I’m not sure if you heard it. This game got censored by. By their own developers, essentially like changing the entire game. The changing all of the storyline, everything. No, no, the censorship is not because of fanservice. It’s because during the entire game. The changing all of the storyline, everything. No, no, the censorship is not because of fanservice. It’s because in this game. Our protagonist essentially is killing the Ming dynasty, the remnants of the Ming dynasty. Who are? People of Han like. Descendants of Han the Han people. That’s why Chinese Chinese fans were mad about this. This is essentially talking about the Manchurian like. Oh, the manchurians overtaking the Ming dynasty. That’s why people are kind of mad about this. Not because of like the fan service, mainly because of historical stuff. Craig All right. So that was a starry in TV and his take on the censorship hammer in Wu Chang, full and feathers. So if you didn’t catch what he was saying, what’s happened is that there was a patch recently done, which meant that it it basically transformed entirely. The type of challenges you face in this game. It’s a souls like game, right? So you know it’s you got Insta death and it’s quite challenging and you know quite photorealistic it’s set in this kind of ancient Chinese period where you can challenge various big bosses, but it transform those challenges so that you can no longer. Speaker MHM. Craig Kill those classic Ming dynasty mythical boss figures. You can only exhaust them, and that was because there was a right wing conservative national. Backlash against this game, saying hey, you can’t kill our national figures in this game, right? These these mythological symbols of China. Taylor Yeah. Going against again against the hand people, which consists which make up like 85% of the entire population of China. So it’s a, it’s a big number. Craig Deserve more respect. Right, that’s. So it meant that the the the games own developers went back into it, modified that. Many people have saying that has resulted in. In breaking the game, because you can know, you can now no longer, you know, finish certain parts of it. You can’t get these award. You can’t, so it kind of contradicts the whole stakes that the games built up around. So there’s an article in rock, Paper, Shotgun, PC gaming since 1873. 1873 piece of gaming. So it’s. Taylor Close to when you were born, right? Craig I’m nearly 200. Taylor Ohh no, I was 19, not 18. Craig After which young, full and fair, there’s controversial Patch 1.5 made key bosses immortal. Here’s the obligatory rollback. Mod So Video Gamer has modded it to reintroduce the deaths of those characters in a mod. So so yeah, go for it, mods. Well, it’s always a happy kind of, you know, some of these models do all the heavy lifting for fixing, you know, when when the. Speaker Brilliant. Craig Updates break the. Leo Game a lot of games I’ve played, they’ve had a lot of problems with updates breaking games. Such as running on art, which is? Well, I believe we’re gonna be talking about. Craig Later. Is that correct? Yeah. Well, let’s go into that now. So ready. Or not was the. It’s like a a game video game. Leo First person, first person shooter. Basically, you’re a tactical SWAT officer and you run a team of five people, including yourself, so it can be AI. It can be real people, so you know, with real people you can have as many people as you like under 5 people. But there are some odds. That allow you to. Have more. Basically, my microphone is a little bit muscle because it keeps on sinking and I lift it up. So basically you are a spot officer and you try to disable any kind of any kind of threats and you try to preserve life. Craig It does. Leo Like most other tactical shooters where you’re trying to actively, you know, shoot people and kill them. In ready or not, one really cool thing that I like about it is you’re actually almost like a real spot officer where you’re trying to actually stop people from dying by using less lethal munitions and stuff like that. And the only way to be able to get the S rank, which is the highest rank inside of each server, is by not having. Anyone die? Wow. Whatsoever. So it’s it’s a lot more of a different type of type of tactical shooter than most other tactical shooters out there, such as Fortnite, or that’s not exactly tactical, but like. Craig Well, this team. Work sometimes. Leo But yeah, it’s it’s a lot. It’s a lot different to a lot of other shooters out there, you know, so. Craig Yeah. Well, actually dovetails into what, big boy? Needy. Thanks again for messaging in Big Boy. Needy has messaging just there saying there are GTA modded servers, they do like role play servers. The client is called 5 M so you could look them up. So that’s so that we could. Think about if we get a computer that can play GTA, but that sounds very role play based, right? Ready or not. Well, let’s listen to the trailer. I’ve I’ve pulled up the trailer here for radio or not. Are you ready? Official 1.0 launch from last year. Leo Not exactly role play. No, exactly. Speaker 5 911 this call is being recorded. What is your emergency? I I need the police to you need to send the police. Right away. Come help me. Sorry, I’m sorry. Speaker You ready? Yes, Sir. Ready. Move, move, move. Take it down. Back down, Freddy’s down. Speaker 5 Over the situation I got fall back. Speaker 4 Charlie’s gotta get you. Speaker Ready. Drop your weapon. Speaker 4 Down we head back up. Speaker What? So make it out of. This. Drop the gun. Let. Speaker 5 Her go. I’m not going. Speaker 1 So Are you ready? Craig Alright, so that was ready or not. Are you ready? Official 1.0 launch trailer we had talking about video games, immersive video games, and I’m doctor Craig, joined by Multicolor Taylor. Taylor 3. Craig It’s magic, Magister Taylor and DJ Leo. At this point, DJ Leo, we’ll go with DJ Leo. Taylor Registered. Leo Personally. Craig We’ll keep workshopping that. And so why do you need to be ready to play this game if you’re not ready, do you lose? Game. Leo So there is a certain mode where if you aren’t ready, then you lose. It’s called Ironman mode. So basically you need to run in and it’s very similar to real life where if you die you lose your entire save file. You ohh nice. Yeah, I love that man, yeah. Craig All right. Instant permadeath. But you don’t die in real life. Till that’s clear, it’s not the matrix. Leo Unless you use the VR mode where where you can, you know that you know, you know that you know that the headset that can kill you if you lose inside of. Craig It’s like the matrix. Ohh wow is that the one? Leo A game. Yeah, yeah. Craig That I use and you make. Leo That’s a that’s also the arm on. So if you use those two combined, then you know. Craig Sounds like the saw movie or something, yeah? Taylor Kinda. Craig I I reckon we could do photojournalism in that game, right? We’ll be interviewing the other people that play the game while we’re playing it. Is it a multiplayer game? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So I’d. Say you know I’m an in bed from. The Murdoch newspaper and I’m here to to to create a news story and and we’ll do it live radio. Taylor You’re a. You’re a. You’re a what? Craig In bed. In bed, in bed in bed. Ohh. You’re listening to me? Your mothership here on Edge Radio 99.3 film. And yeah, yeah, cause Time magazine actually did this where they sent one of their news photo journalists into who, who, who covered numerous war zones, and they gave him his his assignment for one of the time magazines was go into the video game. Last of Us and create a photojournalism report on it as if you’re a photojournalist in an actual world setting and he said he found it actually really difficult to not create basically advertising for the video game because it looks so. Good. And you can craft video games. So what? So you can there are some video games where you can get like a photo mode or you can create like a screenshot from it. And they’re designed for creating really engaging photos that you share. And he was saying he was able to create some. Some pieces which were gesturing quite classical, photojournalism, conflict, war zone pieces, but he was saying, yeah, actually by the end of it, he felt it was desensitising the video game experience left him quite worried about the the type of media effect with. Games. How have you found ready or not in terms of, you know, cause at one level there’s there’s guns and violence, but then another level cause it’s cop you’re having to to do a lot of real World Team building, communicating some really important skills. How do you find the team building nature of radio or not? You multiplay on it. Or single play. Leo Yeah, I do play. I do multiplayer on it sometimes, but at the moment I’m mostly single playing it, but with AI teammates. But something really cool I’ve discovered when it comes to a single player is you actually have to deal with your teammates stress. So if your teammates become too stressed, they’re like if they become anxious, they’re their performance degrades. If they become stressed. Craig Yeah. Leo Even more degrades if they become a crisis like in crisis. Then they can either quit or they get intervention from the therapist. Craig In the game. Leo Yeah, in the. Craig Game really, really is there, like a stress metre or something like how does it? How does it detect your? Leo Stress levels, not your stress levels, your teammate stress levels. Craig I was really hoping you could weigh yourself up to it. I just blow it immediately. Leo So basically, the more people that die inside a mission, the higher the stresses. So if they see your teammate die or something like that, right? Craig Right. The game would say in a normal setting this character would be suffering this level of stress. I’ve heard of a similar mechanic in the the thing. Game, where there’s a paranoia which can tip you over the edge. Leo So basically, yeah, you can do multiple things to do to fix stress. Main thing is going to be sending them into a therapist, but that means that there’s gonna be two missions where you don’t have your specific officer cause. Craig They’re, they’re they’ve, they’ve gotten their car and gone. To a therapist? Yeah. To go have an appointment. Leo And then and the next thing that you can do is get S bags. I don’t know what that stands for so. Craig Don’t ask. See that would be. I mean we could do medium mother ship in there. I wonder how quickly we’d be sent to see if. Therapist because of the content and be like you guys are not healthy. This is not a healthy discussion. I suggest therapy. Leo And then. It’s also moral, moral, something. Basically they they heavily make suspects mental health. I mean, not suspects. Teammates. Mental health better by helping bring suspects out alive. So. Craig So you’re actually incentivised. Leo Yeah. So there’s many different things. Yeah, there’s many things inside of the game which kind of encourages you to bring out your suspects alive. Craig Bring people out alive. Because normally you’d see like a health media for a character, but there are these other metres or these other feedback you’re getting on the screen, the HUD telling you of the the mental health state of the the character you’re in. Leo That’s not. That’s not until you’re at the end of the game, like at the. Craig Right. Which is so much like life. It’s not until I finished the episode that I realised. Leo End of the mission. Craig How traumatic I am. Yeah. How much therapy I need? Leo So so for example, you know every single, every single step that you take inside of the game. Really matters, yes. So yeah, if you take one step to the right, there could be a suspect over there with 762AK47. And you can die and. Craig So the stakes are high. Yeah, right. And and as you’re saying, if you’re playing Imam, the that’s it. The character points you’ve accumulated, they’re just gone. Leo And that’s the other cool things about it is it’s realistic. You don’t exactly see any health bars or any. It’s. Craig Literally right. Leo Like you, you can see a little body of yours in the bottom left, and then you can see you know what parts of your body are injured. So for example, if your right leg is injured and you try to kick down a door, it gets even more injured. And then once it becomes critical, your right leg, you’re unable to kick down. Doors and the great thing here. Craig Is this is in a safe space? Right. You’re not physically kicking down the door. Yourself. Yeah, which I think is a huge relief to most people. It’s interesting was I had a student once in, in. That video game unit. Who did his project on? You know his dad and his elder brother were part of the military, and he wasn’t part of the military, but he loved playing Call of Duty and other first person shooter games. So he did a project on, you know, does military service help you get better scores? In Call of Duty, right. So he said. Yeah, yeah. Can you shoot better? And he said, you know, he interviewed because his brother and his dad played Call of Duty, and they would have their own squad and all the people in the squad would be ex military or current military. Taylor Can you shoot better? That sort of thing? Craig And he said as he was watching them, like he went around to a friend’s place and they were playing the game and or he’s listening online is they were doing it, he said. One of the things that he found that was the biggest difference was the communication they. Were able to. Do that, he said that as opposed to when he plays with his mates, where if you give anyone feedback. They can act up and get really angry and say, well, buddy, I’m not playing with you anymore. I’m playing it to have fun. Stop telling me. What to do? Instead, these guys would actually take on any criticism that do a debrief and discuss, and they wouldn’t take it personally, he said. That was the thing that was most surprised at the fact that. That it was that communication, that’s what they said. They said that, you know, it’s a huge difference between firing a real gun and the virtual gun. There’s there’s no correlation. Like it won’t help you if you have good real gun skills like a soldier does to be good gun game guy in the game, it’s completely different. Lot of mechanisms and kind of twitch and muscle. Sorry, but what we’ll help. We’ll help you, he said in his project. Was the fact that his brother and his dad were able to take on criticism and teamwork and Co-op much better than him and his mates who would always get angry. At each other. And be like wouldn’t use their words to explain. The frustration in the game, so yeah, I do think a game like that could be really helpful in in building up discussion. So when you’ve played it online. Is it with other people from Australia or? Leo Other countries, primarily Australia, just because of paying and you know Internet speeds and stuff like that. That’s how it works for most online games. Yeah. So I actually made one friend off of it. Yeah, it was pretty fun. One thing I do have to say about the communication side of the game. When it comes to single play, again, you actually have really strong communication abilities. So basically if you medically you can select. Orders. So number one is moved to #2. Craig Right, giving instructions to your virtual. Speaker Is. Leo Squad. Yeah, #2. I believe it’s fallen. And then we’re full and you can pick between Wedge Diamond, single file and double file lines. Craig And that could really help going to Woolworths right when you’re shopping with friends. And it’s like falling single file line here please, because we’re going into the the single extend it’s difficult to tell people. Leo What to do? Move in, move in clear with flashback. Craig I’d love that feature in the real world. Leo Clear the clear the measly I’ll flashback. Craig We’ve got a message from Big Boy Lady, my brother in law is in the army and when he wasn’t in when he isn’t working, he’s playing Call of Duty. There’s some concern that he’s worried that he just wants to kill. Speaker 4 Yes. Craig Yes, but there is a difference between the virtual world and the real world. Fortunately, button is sending a nice sum 🙂 to you. Taylor Mr Lidstone, what’s that? Craig Button. Do you know a button? Button. Yes. Thank you anyway. Button for messaging. Taylor Well, how do you know this? Craig And it to me because it says I the the less than symbol three you. Mr listen. I think that’s a. Leo Heart. Yeah, that’s a heart. Taylor Oh dear. Leo So was it I heart, Mr Lidstone. Taylor Yes, yeah, yeah. Let’s stop using. My last name, OK. Craig It’s true, magistry. Patton, it’s Jimmy in Green Nine. OK, there you go. It’s all falling into place. So we’re talking here on media mothership. On Edge Radio 99.3 FM you can play it tough. No, man. If you think you have better Columbo skills than the master DJ Craig, feel free to let us know in the chat. We’ll get you in my future. So it is. Leo Doctor Craig. Doctor DJ Craig. Craig Yeah, the D stands for Doctor. Taylor J. Stand for. Craig DJ Yeah, let’s keep that mystery. Taylor OK. Craig This point. So yes, we’re talking here about video games and immersive video games, and some of the skills that we can accomplish from it and potentially how we can put ourselves into video games in a constructive and healthy fashion. We’ve got a special guest, Leo. DJ Leo, joined by Magistrate Taylor. Taylor And not magistrate magister. Craig Ohh I’m I just said. That’s right. That’s my confusion. And we’re we’re looking for the games unusual ways people have used video games to to do things I. Wanna go through? Taylor Surgeon. Craig Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. No. No. Well, so playing Call of Duty according to the Geneva Convention is my favourite. So this was a classic. It was posted on Kotaku many years ago. Sounds like. Taylor Yeah. And you’ve and you’ve brought it up on this radio about 12 times. Craig I know every time. 12 yeah. Yeah. Because I mean, I mean, it sounds like you could do the Geneva Convention and ready or not. Leo I’ve broken. I’ve broken the Geneva Convention one too many times, and really. Craig Really. You’re amongst friends, Leo. It’s OK. And. And plus we’ve we, you know, we’ve obscured your ruining by saying DJ in. Front of us. Yeah, playing Call of Duty. According to the new Convention, one of my favourite all time video game articles from Kotaku was talking about a dad whose son wanted to play Call of Duty, and the son was like 12 and thought little too early for you. But let’s play it together. If you read the entire Geneva Convention 1st and we’ll sit down and we’ll play the game together and talk about how the Geneva Convention. Can help us? Play it. There was a clip I found actually of someone trying. I don’t know if they. Were trying it. There’s a lot of clips. When I looked at Geneva Convention Call of Duty, which are people breaking the Geneva Convention, and here’s one called. Breaking the Geneva Convention in Call of Duty. Speaker 8 The Geneva Convention has been broken in Call of Duty zombies and. Here’s how. Actually, you can’t shoot me. You can’t shoot me in Chernobyl, cause apparently it’s against Geneva Conventions. So please do not. Show me. Approximately in 13 seconds I will die from radiation poisoning. Craig Yep. So that that’s pretty much the level of engagement with the Geneva Convention video game YouTube, but this one was, yeah, Dad tried to play it. And of course mainly the Geneva Convention. It’s it’s, you know, once the soldier appears to be surrendering, you can’t shoot. OK, which is the problem that many people have found that there’s, like there’s the no Russia level in cool G4. I think we’re basically you’re part. Of a US embed in a Russian terrorist cell that then is in an airport. Yeah, you cannot. You can choose not to fire, but basically you know you’re you’re you’re witnessing. Yeah. Yeah. A a complete breach of the Geneva Convention. Pretty. Taylor Can. Speaker Yeah. Taylor Pretty. Shocking that one when I first. Played it, yeah. Craig Speed running this type of challenge run in which players attempt to complete a game as quickly as possible. Speed runners often use glitches and exploits to shave off seconds or even minutes from their time. Speed running can be very challenging and rewarding. Have you tried to speed run any games? Leo Just received a message, yeah. Taylor It says it’s cod Modern Warfare 2. Craig Oh, is that the one with the no Russian level? Taylor Leave say that’s what they’re referring. To I think so. Craig Yeah, yeah. I mean, it got so much news. It was such an interesting intersection of real world. Nervousness around terrorism and yeah, I mean and very much in Australia at that point where there was a a heavy kind of nerf hammer on video games, there wasn’t an R18 classification yet in video games at that. Taylor Hmm. Craig So people in 80S said the Geneva Convention for losers don’t think a healthy conversation. Taylor But I think I think it gives sort of like because he’s a a kid in school and the the father with his with his kid. So did that kid who his father forced him to play via Geneva Convention? Yeah. Craig Oh yeah. Taylor Did that kid? Like his father growing up. Craig Well, yeah. I mean, yeah, how would you react to your father or your parent if they required you to play the the game coins? Do you mention right? What’s what does Chachi PT say for how to? Taylor Does he still talk to him anymore? Craig Handle that conversation. Speed. Or have you done speed runs? Are you a? Taylor Speed runner? Yeah, I’ve tried to speed run things. Craig Before Sonic the Hedgehog. I didn’t think you as a Sonic guy. No, that’s. Taylor 9. Surprising try to speed. Run. Yeah, Yoshi’s island. Craig You know, she’s island. Is that the one like the green Dino? Is that yeah. Taylor Yeah. Craig She yeah, yeah. Taylor What else have I speed run? Craig Actually. Taylor I’ve never finished Skyrim, ever. Craig Really, this is a game we talk about. With you all the time. Yeah. Finished. Minecraft Mike. Well, yeah, you can’t finish. Taylor Can you finish Minecraft? Leo Yeah, you can beat the Ender Dragon. Taylor OK. Craig Well, maybe one of the challenges for the game, really or not, is is a a no hit. Run right. This type of challenge run, in which players attempt to complete the game without taking. Damage. This can be incredibly difficult and it requires a great deal of skill and practise. Yeah, you’ve not been hitting the red. Leo I’ve done it before. Yeah. Craig Do you get an award? Did it pop up? Leo No, it was only. It was only on one. It was only on one mission. Craig In steam saying. You’re just hitting the corner. Leo No, I somehow it was on the first level and it was on normal mode. So it was quite easy because I’ve done that mission. It’s called 4 year gas station and basically it’s a bunch of guys are addicted to drugs and they need drug money. Speaker That’s fine. Leo So they decided to rob a gas station and for some reason SWAT gets. Yes, right. So that’s the easiest level and I managed not to take any damage and nor did any of my teammates, yeah. Craig Big Boy, 80s message and saying the Australian Defence Force is pretty infamous for war crimes as of in the Middle East, with whistleblowers being arrested. I think that’s the. Taylor That’s true. Craig Great thing about this conversation for helping. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it’s all reflections of real world situation. So we could talk comically about the Geneva Convention and. Taylor Bringing it back to. Craig And you know how difficult it would be to get beyond the loading screen in Call of Duty to play it. But nevertheless, I mean, it’s a good space to ask questions about it. Why? Is it so? Difficult and and should you know should should we require that as a challenge in some first person shooters? Leo My teachers keep on getting angry whenever I use the word. Why? Because I use. It way too much. Craig Why? Leo I just thought I’d bring that up because you. Craig Used the word why right? Well, yeah. We’re to spread all the W’s. Who, what? When, why, where, how? Leo Yeah. So if you hear any laughing, that’s my mom in the. Craig Back corner. Yes. Thank you for coming. We we haven’t put you on mic yet. I guess that’s lucky. Next time how about this with this challenge playing with unusual controllers, this type of challenge run in which plays attempt to complete a game using. Speaker Right. Leo An unusual control, you know that. Car here. Guitar. Yeah. Craig Yeah, yeah, exactly. Using the Guitar Hero guitar. A steering wheel. Right. Anything that’s meant for another game, right? So the stern will feature. Taylor No, not, not even. Not even really another game cause the one I’m thinking of when as soon as you said that was the person that was playing Pokémon through. Which no what. Craig There’s Twitch plays Pokémon where the Twitch subscribers to this thing told him how to play it. Taylor No, no, no, no, no. Through flute. Craig Through flute, like a flute. Speaker 8 Colinda. Taylor Yeah, yeah. And depending on which note it was because they had like a a Raspberry Pi when up, which was linked up to a microphone which took the signal of what key was being played. And then it would then move the character up or down or left, right, AB. Craig Wow, we could do the show by the notes I take as the conversation that’s created. Like that. Taylor So instead of talking, you just play that sounds. Leo No. Taylor Great. No, I took it. I. Craig Took it up to Checchi PT and it would be like that. Would then tried to say you know you must now. Ask the following question on a. Leo Imagine imagine, if like you imagine if you’re in a gunfight and you just hear. Speaker 4 Yeah. Leo BIM, BIM. Craig It’s very immersive in this studio. Super Mario Brothers was originally designed to be played with AD PAT, but plays quickly, discovered that they could also use the directional buttons to jump higher. This led to the development of bee hopping. Technique which is used by speedrunners today. The more you know. Legend of Ocarina, Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time. Speaker Yeah. Taylor Yeah. Speaker 4 Have you spoken of all? Taylor The words in that sentence. Yeah, I’ve played that. Craig Before this was originally designed to be played in a linear fashion, but players quickly discovered that they could break out of the games. Boundaries and explore the world freely. This led to the development of the Zelda speedrunning community. Dark Souls is a notoriously difficult game, but players have found a number of ways to make it easier. Have you played Dark Souls? This is one of those permadeath games, right? I think it’s a recent game like you die and you have to go way back to an early start point. For example for some players. Develop glitch runs where which are completed without using any glitches or exploits. Others have developed, no hit runs. Taylor Yeah. I just remember it wasn’t Mario. It was Call of Duty, Molly. Yeah. So there was this fellow he was going like PIP and then it would put the the reticle over to the left a little bit. And because he was playing sniper and then he go and then it would shoot. Craig Oh crazy. The Sims is another notorious one where people do all manner of bizarre psychosocial experiments on their their SIM creation. Have you played The Sims a bit like Minecraft? Leo A little bit. I’m also played blocksburg but. Craig Blocksburg is that on Roblox? Yeah. Is that one that mine, that media mothership could do an episode in? Leo Yeah, I guess, but it’s kind of boring. Craig We looks get in touch with. Leo Us now, yeah, multibillion dollar company. Craig 0 fortunately. Yeah, they’re a friend of the show. I know. There’s the controversy around there. Taylor We’ve lost a lot, man. Craig What was it? They. Kept. Leo A child psyche. Craig Yeah, yeah, they, they, they kicked off. Who who was behaving. Leo Schlep schlepp. Badly. No. He he he. Yeah, he was. He was trying to. He was trying to. Yeah. He was trying to. He was trying to arrest paedophiles. And Roblox decided to ban him for quoting, quote, taking conversations off platform and and also failing to report incidents through the correct avenues. OK. Craig Ohh he was behaving good, right? He was in crapping paedophiles. Leo Reporting it directly to. Blocks. Craig I mean, that’s a huge own goal. That’s a. Huge epic fail. Speaker Yeah. Craig On a company that’s meant to be child safe. Yeah, big boy. Need his message. And saying he grew up on The Sims 3. Because I’ve heard I’ve heard people. Taylor Believe that. Craig Have like they’ve created like a A a swimming pool or something. Given the people a phobia of water and then removed the letters from the swimming pool and put all the characters in there. Taylor Yeah. Craig And just seeing them. You know basically need a therapist. Speaker By. Craig Feel free to send your confessions, Big boy needy to the chats you’ve inflicted in Sims 3. You’re amongst friends. Leo Anyone else that wants to say any confessions messaging on 04888 is a. 110. Craig 707 yeah, 0488811707 or jump on the YouTube or Twitch chat. That to send us your thoughts of your own experiences in in gaming. Taylor Or if you want to contact Doctor Craig directly, his number is. Craig Just cause I said. You’re sending money. The the stakes have risen. Taylor Yes. Leo You can, I say, find out phone number on the top left of the website edgeradio.org dot AU. That’s something that I just like including on my shows because it’s a lot. Easier for most people. Craig It’s true. Yeah. If you go to our website or the Edge Radio website WWW. Leo Seems like we only. 10 minutes, yes. Craig Yeah. Yeah. So we’re wrapping up now what video game are you currently playing? Leo Yeah. Ready or not? Craig Radio knots. Yeah. Yeah, high rotation. I’m playing the digital version of a board game, Spirit Island, because I did so badly with it. Yeah, yeah, I tanked it. I tanked it. Taylor In real life. Craig Right. It’s a Co-op game, and if one person doesn’t do well, it’s kind of like everyone tries to help you. Things like, I feel like there’s a. Yeah, I just need some military training to understand. How to get constructive criticism? Leo So one quick question, what is your decision? Are you going to Father’s Day or are you going to see drawers? Craig Right. I got the date. Wrong. Ohh really? Father’s Day’s not this Sunday. It’s next Sunday. I don’t know. That’s maybe it’s my kids trying not to do it for me. Leo Oh. Craig Dance. Not next, not not this Saturday. Taylor Yeah, cause this it must be next it. Must be next 7th. Craig Yeah, 7:00. Leo That that bang was his phone. Don’t worry, guys. No, nothing’s going on. No. Ready. Or not stuff. Craig What video game are you playing? Speaker At the moment. Taylor I’m going through all of the different rogue likes at the moment, actually. Craig Really, rube. So what is the rogue like genre? Taylor There’s one of those ones where or rogue like rogue like. Craig LIGHT, not LIKE. Taylor No LOKE&LITE. They’re both sort of legit and and people don’t really understand the difference between anyway, so it doesn’t matter, but it’s basically one of those things where you go through iteratively getting stronger through a loop, sort of. Craig I was saying like. They’re both. Part of the joner. Speaker Then. Craig Thing. So it’s a kind of like you start as a white belt. Friday guy and you get your yellow. Belt. Taylor No. You start as a. You start as a white belt karate. Go play the game. Get up to yellow and then you die. So you start back as a white belt karate guy, but you’ve got an extra punch. You can do every round, that sort of thing. Craig Really. So what games are like these what? Taylor Are some of the, well, the the ones I’m playing on my phone at the? Craig Moment are balatro balatro any balatro players out there, feel free to challenge. Healer during the kicks the the fundraiser, we’ll set it up as a. Fundraiser have you ever played? Leo That like, is it a board? Taylor Game. It’s a card game. It’s it’s a card card game, sort of. No, it’s not all kind of as a deck builder, but it’s like a you, you. Craig Oh, OK, no. The deck building. Taylor Get poker hands. But you then play against the computer just to a pre generated amount, and then you’ve got all of these different Joker cards which have got all these different effects right to give you. More, more money. And it keeps getting harder and harder. Craig But it’s not gambling. Taylor It’s not gambling. Craig Because yeah, yeah, I mean. And one of the things in a future episode, I’d love to get on to in media mothership if I can get some research, maybe in neuroscientist on, on the show to interview is video games in the brain, right, the the serotonin that gets released, the dopamine that gets. At least. The no ripping friend. Ohh you know that one. Leo No epinephrine. Craig So this this, this neurotransmitter is associated with alertness and focus. Video games, especially action packed or competitive ones, can stimulate the brain stress response, leading to increased no RIP. Leo No. How do you say it? No preference, no. No epinephrine, no repairin. No, no, no epinephrine, no epinephrine. Taylor My my question, my question is so you know how Elon Musk is getting everyone to get mind control through neural link and things like that. Leo The next one. Craig Isn’t it ketamine? Taylor Neuralink well you, you you know how. Craig OK. Taylor You know the Tetris effect. Craig Ohh yes yeah. When people see the Tetris puzzle in the real world after they’ve played it. Taylor Yeah, so, so you, you, you play Tetris for like 5 to 10 hours and then when you close your eyes you can see Tetris. Yeah. Do you reckon in the future that people will be able to hack into your neurolink and then play Tetris in your mind because it’s in your mind as your. Craig And then suddenly everything. Well, yeah. And I was saying, yeah. Taylor Visualising it. Craig I mean it does. I mean, it’s a shame. We’ve only got. 6 minutes left. Leo Ready this? Be some pretty interesting things to the quite similar. In fact, I somewhat consider even better than Neuralink, such as like there’s this new field called biohacking where you. Speaker Boom. Leo Quite literally, hack your own body in a way so I’ve actually met someone that had a chip inside of their inside of their like webbing between their fun and their. Next finger and basically they allowed them to unlock their house by just tapping their hand up against their front door. Craig Yes, yes, it opens up all these questions, doesn’t it? Leo Yeah, and. Craig About audience, yeah. Taylor And they say most people regret their tattoos. Craig And that’s true, yeah. Tattoos as a really. Sorry, reflection on some poor choices in life, let alone and you. Feel like that’s. Permanent and then getting a little bio card chip thing on you to to. Leo It’s just some of the pretty cool things, such as some people have actually. Quite literally, put magnets into their fingers into their ears that they can feel or hear magnetic vibrations and feel electric fields and stuff like that. I found that quite interesting. Craig Entirely look, and they do feel that you know, media and technology can fundamentally change and rewire. Mines in really interesting ways. Leo I had a. I heard a story about someone that had a a magnetic finger plant inside of their fingers. It cold it between your middle finger and your pinky finger. Craig Right, yes, that the ring. Leo Finger. Yeah, the ring finger. So they had a magnetic implants, like the ring finger. And as they were going through a through a metal detector, they suddenly started looking around because they felt something and they didn’t know what it was. But instead of looking at their finger, they naturally started looking around, indicating that they actually developed a new sense. It wasn’t just them feeling that. Their finger was vibrating. They actually thought there was something nearby. Craig Them. Yeah, look, and you know, the cochlear implant is. Taylor And then three years later, they need an MRI and by by fingers. Craig It’s very moral panic thing. What we need is messaging to say I would 100% be a neuro link hacker. But if any government officials are listening in, I’m definitely joking. So he’s in. The clear, yeah. Thank you. DJ Leo, I think this has been very informative. We’ve, we’ve, we’ve ended on such an exciting note in terms of bio engineering and hacking that we’ll have to pick that up at a future point. Leo Fire. Craig Any bio hacker people out? There, feel free to message in 0488811707. Or catch us up on our socials. You can reach out to media mothership on its Facebook page. It’s Instagram page. It has a website mediamothership.aunoisthatwrongwhatdidi-say.com.org.org I think. Well, that’s that’s edgeradiois.org dot AU. Yeah, I’m not on org though. Taylor Well. Speaker 5 Tonight. Leo Tom. Craig I don’t think I got to come either anyway. Taylor Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You are just dot AU because, yeah, you hopped onto that train. Craig All the best sheriffs. Taylor And nobody else did. Craig Fashion. That’s distinctive. Listening next week on Media Mothership where we explore. I don’t know. I don’t know. Knight Rider I’m thinking 1980s knight. Taylor Rider no, I haven’t. Seen that, yeah. The office. Craig Thanks. Thanks listeners for listening in Big Boy 80 and so forth. Yeah, maybe yours. And if people are interested in what Leah has been saying, listening on Tuesdays at 11:00 live to. Leo You can message Anne. I can answer any questions. Craig Hyper fixation sensation. Any other way people can reach out to you? Leo Yeah, we haven’t finished Ram. I don’t know what it is because my co-host Jen runs it. She’s my support worker. Do we have any shows? Craig After this, no. Leo No, that’s cool. Yeah. I want to show mum the setup. Craig Yeah, there’s a lot of junk on the table at the moment. As people will see on the street. All right. Well, thanks everyone for listening and this would be meeting mothership for another week. Doctor Craig joined by Mordecai Taylor, Magister Taylor and GJ. Leo Magistrate.
  • Techno-Orientalism in Cyberpunk 2077

    Techno-Orientalism in Cyberpunk 2077

    Continuing our discussion on Orientalism from last week, where we explored the golden age of the radio series “The Shadow,” this episode focuses on techno-orientalism as seen in the video game “Cyberpunk 2077.” Craig, Taylor, and Ronan delve into the game’s use of Japanese imagery and characters, examining its artistic and narrative intentions. They also discuss how the game utilizes conventions of the cyberpunk genre, highlighting both the positive and negative aspects of its representations.

    Cyberpunk 2077’s techno-orientalist aesthetics and designs.
    📝 Show Full Transcription
    This is an AI-generated audio transcript, and it may contain errors. We may update or correct this transcript in the future. Please get in touch with us if you have any questions about the information in this transcript. The audio is the official record of this episode.
    Craig Yes, we’re fun. Double the fun. That’s a lot of media mothership happening today. Taylor Example. Wow. Craig And again again, third times a charm. Third time is a charm. Taylor Third time. Craig Alright, so you’re listening to me. Your membership here on Edge Radio. 99.3 FM. As always, we look at everything in and around the world of media and how it shapes our understanding of the world around. Us. I’m your host, Craig, joined by Taylor. Taylor Hey. Craig And on music today, roonan. Taylor Yeah. Craig Let’s hear a musical interlude. Very cool thumb piano. Kalimba. Yeah. Playing there tunes to help us get us into today’s topic, which is cyberpunk? Techno Orientalism, representation of Asia and the video game in particular, cyberpunk. 2077, which both Taylor and I have been playing. Yes, finally passed the. Your first act. Yeah, in my game play through, so still new, but really struck by how fascinating. Taylor So that’s what you’re playing. Craig It is, it is indeed. Yes, yes, so. We’re going to be chatting a little bit about the generalities of Cyberpunk 2077 as well as most importantly, what I find the most fascinating aspect of it. Which is the. Representation of Asia that’s in this game. Taylor Yeah. Craig So all that and more coming up soon on media mothership, we’ll go to a short musical interlude. OK, welcome back, medium mothership. So Cyberpunk 2077 is an action RPG video game developed by CD Project React Red. Taylor I think it’s. Craig Some would say they did wreck their launch and it’s based on our. Talsorian ANS games cyberpunk tabletop RPG. Yep, which goes right back to I think the 90s or 80s that that tabletop RPG came out anyway, so the title of. CD Projekt Reds. Cyberpunk 2077 is is that this is the first game. We’ve moved on to since The Witcher. Yep, so they did the witches game series, which was enormously successful and. This is quite a gear shift for them as opposed to the fantasy world of Witcher. This is as the Games title suggests, set in a cyberpunk future. Very dystopian as all cyberpunk fiction is where ultra modern technology is coexisting. Taylor Well. Craig Alongside of, you know, a human society that is suffering all manner of calamity, the location of the game is night city. Which is a Free State of California within the world building. The year, as the name of the title suggests, is 2077, so it’s it’s our future as well. But if you’ve played the tabletop game, you’d know that basically this is an alternate future that started way back in the 90s. I think it started to diverge. Where? Yeah. Taylor But even even within the game itself, they say. Craig You see, Michael because. Taylor Even within the game itself, they talk about how certain events in the game happened in 2020, so it’s definitely an alternate. Speaker Yes. Craig That’s right. Yeah. So there’s some flashbacks where a, you know, a a big tower complex is destroyed, and even that is within a far advanced technological version of our world. But it’s not a kind of utopic technology. Future. This world is very much. As happens in all Saver Punk, we’re looking at mega corporations, multinational corporations Akasaka in this game and militech. So it’s the names kind of of arasaka is, as a Japanese based company within that of course the idea that. Taylor Mm-hmm. Had a. Sucker. Craig As is standard for 80s cyberpunk world building, Japan and Asia is a rising power, and in many ways eclipsing the US and the Wests Power. In this game, you do have militech as the US based. Speaker Hmm. Taylor Military technology. Craig Technology company. Yep. And so basically, these two organisations are pretty much managing most aspects of life. There are still functioning governments, but the real power and technology and yeah, the the political power, the technology. Your power is all based within companies. Taylor Yeah. And everything’s in vending machines. Craig That’s right, there’s there’s a. Lot of have you seen? I mean you’ve not played Cyberpunk 2077. Have you seen it online in any fashion? Speaker 4 Yes. Taylor Yes, I’ve watched the play few of. Craig It OK what are? Some of the things you recall from the play through Ronan. Taylor Ohh it’s very depressing in some parts. Craig In terms of the aesthetics of the world. Taylor In terms of the aesthetics and the. Yeah, wealth divide. Craig Exactly. Yeah, there’s quite a stark rich versus poor class divide within the game space and in many ways. You know you. Could say that in this global world, the the rich and the poor, the the only united global experiences. More so than national identities. So in the game you’re playing a kind of St level character. You can kind of, I guess, choose from various type of of of builds for your character, like a kind of tech based build or. Taylor A cybernetic build. Craig Right to kind of tag. And it’s a very adult game as well. There’s sex and violent crime as well as as Ronan’s pointing out, extreme poverty. It’s it’s very confronting collapse of the American dream. So even though you’re in America, there’s there’s quite. A lot of. Of Asia, that’s there. You’re playing as the character V. UM, and you know, I guess you start the game trying to break into the big time, right? You’re trying to to kind of climb out of a kind of nobody existence. Taylor Yeah. Well, you’re, you’re you’re being a Merson. Is really it? Craig So you’re getting. A lot of missions you’re going on. 1. As you’re trying to, you know, become famous or improve your status within this cyberpunk space. Interestingly, kind of joining you on the mission is a character called Johnny Silverhand. Whose voice, likeness and motion capture were provided by Keanu Reeves. Speaker 4 Yep. Taylor Your birth taking. Craig That’s right. That was his fantastic experience at the sober Punk 2077 launch, where he came out on stage. and You know someone suddenly from the. Audience, what did they say? Taylor You’re breathtaking. Craig And Keanu Reeves, without missing a beat, Jess turns around and says. Speaker You’re. Craig So let’s listen to that little clip now. Speaker 5 OK, but let me tell you. The feeling of of being there, of walking the streets of the future is really going to be breathtaking. Your breath taping. You’re all breathtaking. Craig So I mean, and that clips kind of. Speaker 5 All right, all right. Craig Indicative of the real goodwill. That this game had leading up to its launch right? The sense that not only was this from an excellent top notch game company. Taylor Hmm. Craig That had shown itself as highly supportive of its fan base, providing a lot of free DLCS which were enormous. But also, as that launch suggests, you know, they have no expense has been spared. It seems, right in terms of voice talent being able to realise this amazing world. So it was riding high on so much positivity and from what I found online when I was looking at early reviews for years ago. Yeah, positive reviews, right. People saying, you know, this game looks good, some concerns, but it’s beta. And I’m sure they’re going to fix it. But then what were your memories of its launch? Taylor Debacle. You know, this is this is a bad question to ask me because I played it on a. On a a graphics card with 6 gigabytes. Craig You’re the perfect person device name. And because it was pictured at A at a kind of it we play. Taylor Yeah. Craig On every for every and it. Taylor It function perfectly. Ohh did it yeah cause that there were no issues in my playthrough. Craig Right. What was the? What was the story, though that that came out with its initial ones playthrough though, which your experiences not speak? Taylor To well, other people said that it was completely broken and they couldn’t start playing it. It would just crash to desktop all the time. All of the intended things just wouldn’t work. Craig And there was so much bad press that even Sony said. If you want. Taylor We’re going to remove it from the store. Craig Yeah, we’re going to move from the store and also even if you’ve already started playing it, we’ll refund your your. Speaker 1st of it. Taylor To be fair, I played on the PC so. Craig Hmm. PC Master race represent, but you’ve you’re also playing now on the switch. Taylor Exactly. Yeah. To now. Craig Yeah, well. Taylor That, like man, the games and they’re expensive. They are really expensive, but it it it operates well like it it’s fully. There’s no issues with it at all. However, they just brought out a new patch. Where all of the cars can self drive themselves, and apparently they’re like. Speaker Yes. Taylor You know, driving into each other or not driving at all and issues like that. Craig Yes and no. I have. Yeah. And that’s the kind of GTA many. Yeah. And many people playing at that version of the car, being able to auto drive. So you can take in the amazing visuals in this in this game. Taylor There’s still issues ongoing now. Craig Setting. So what I want to so that’s the kind of setup and it’s since gone on to be very successful, I’d say, I mean over those last four or five years, it’s gone on to address most of those problems and now it is considered, you know, one of the best games to to play. The If you’re into kind of action RPG games. Yeah. So I’ve very much been enjoying it, but what really confronted me as I was playing it was how much it evoked my enjoyments growing up in the 80s and 90s. Of a particular view of what that future is gonna be like. As many people were afraid of and excited about the Asia century approach right that this was going to be the like from the 20th viewpoint of the late 20th century. So the the 90s in particular that with the rise of anime and before that in the. Speaker Hmm. Craig 80’s the dominance of particularly the Japanese automobile industry and other high tech aspects coming out of Japan that that 21st century is going to be Japan, century and Asia was on the rise. Within that was a backlash against it. Yeah. Where you had films like Blade Runner? In particular, that portrayed this future and of course drawing upon the inspiration of cyberpunk, which is Neuromancer by William Gibson. Speaker Sure. Craig That I read and. Enjoyed anyway? The sense was, though, that that there was. A A fear of Japan, a fear of. Asia, which was. Wound up in this concept, techno Orientalism. Which looks at how the West often portrays East Asia in particular, and during the 90s and 80s, Japan and China. As you know, both being hyper technological but also very weird, very culturally exotic. And so you have all these stereotypes. And anxieties about Asia’s economic and technological dominance? I don’t know if anyone here remembers the 1980s Michael Keaton film in Australia. It was called working class man in America. It was released as Gung Ho. But that was all about a declining America. In. Automobile factory that got bought out by a Japanese company in the 80s that wanted to come in and bring Japanese management structure and it’s a it’s a it’s got a lot of racism, a lot of culture clash, but it’s very emblematic of that techno orientalist vibe where you have this, yes. Highly technologically developed, but all the Japanese are automatons. They’re all soulless kind of racism within that field. Aspects of that are also in the kind of world of Blade Runner. Mm-hmm. But before we go any further, we have got some. Some comments. Ohh yeah. Good from Big Boy natty. Wonderful to have Big boy needy back on. Good afternoon. Dot Norris, dad and mysterious person in the quarter. Great. Yes, we do try to get some mysterious guests. Speaker Yeah. Taylor Yeah. Craig In. Big Boy needy asks. What’s the gameplay like in comparison to other games like GTA5 or like Kingdom come, deliverance, etcetera. You’ve got more experience than I do. Taylor, you want to handle this one with Skyrim? Taylor Yeah. Well, I would say it was. So my favourite game of all time, of course, is Skyrim, but this one comes as a close second. Because it is quite similar. However, it does have the you know the the the first person shooter thing which Skyrim doesn’t have, and so I would say it’s closer to GTA in that regards, but you cannot go into third person. Craig Yeah. And that that was part of the initial scepticism of some missteps at the time. I mean, I please find, I mean that first person many people say is is actually creates more immersiveness in the game space. Taylor In the game. Yeah. But it’s only when you like put it off against which of which all of that was only third person, and those things only first person. Speaker 4 Yeah. Craig The point that was made by many critics of this move was that it it just weird, given how important the coolness your character design is in the game that you get. Speaker Of. Craig So much customization for clothing and you get cool points that you can develop your character. Around and they want your character. They want you to spend time on your character design to make it look cool. But then of course you don’t see it often in the game unless it’s through. A mirror, yeah. Or yeah, in in passing or if you’re jumping into a vehicle and you do that back for the backwards you. But yeah, game play is good. I mean, I go to, I mean, it’s one of those games theorist here at UTAS, referred to it as the Ludo Drome. Yeah, where the more you play these immersive world building games, the more you can start seeing the world around you through the HUD. Right. You start seeing like I I kind of think I’m in the cyberpunk hard or wouldn’t it be cool if the cyberpunk card was here as I’m walking to McDonald’s and then they can scan people and like, you know, this is from gang X or if I’m in the car and I’m thinking, you know, if I. Taylor This is ridiculous and this is and I don’t know what you’re talking about. Craig Playing Grand Theft Auto or Cyberpunk 2077? I could just flip a UI right here and speed off stuff. These, I mean, I mean, it’s a game fictional space, obviously, I know what the difference between reality and. Taylor Fiction is it doesn’t sound like. Craig That, but then you find it. Sometimes you’re in a hub world and you spend a lot of time there. Some people in first person shooters. Inactive. That they’ll stop playing the game and they’ll still see the the blip for the gun sight in their vision. Taylor Well, that’s the the Tetris effect, isn’t it? Craig Right, they’ll see it. Right. Yeah. So what is the Tetris effect? For those that. Taylor I don’t know you if you play Tetris for more than two hours or something like that. You start seeing. Speaker Please see there. Taylor The blocks coming down, yeah. Craig Yeah. And I think similarly, I mean big, Naughty Boy says. Yes. I mean kind of agree, Craig. Thank you. I’ve experienced. Thank you. Yes. Taylor You’re both mental. Craig Well, one of Tasmania’s greatest living authors, shirt Taloon and his book he who fights with monsters, is all about that concept of a guy that travels through a portal to another world, and his only advantage is that he is. The world has recreated him, but given him. Video game HUD. Interface with the the world he’s in, so he he uses a chat and he has a map that pops up and he can bring up his storage devices. I was thinking what a what a fantastic idea. If I mean I guess that’s Google glasses, right? If you could interact with the world around you with a game hub interface. And you can get storage items out of things into storage. Taylor Ohh no absolutely I cause cause they’ve got the the things that you can put in the on the dashboard of your car and it it. It flashes it up onto the windshields of like. Craig Yeah, it’s. Taylor Direction. You need to go in order to follow. Google Maps I’ve always wanted. Craig You test researcher from sociology did a project looking at gamers who played GTA back in the day, and he’s interviewed locally here in Hobart, was asking them after the game after you’ve played the game, does it make you see Hobart? Or in a different way, and some of them recounted that experience of. You know, I’d like to, you know, drive down this one way St if I was in the game. So you’re starting to see the cityscape as more international as well. One guy was saying I thought Hobart was really boring, but then I’m playing GTA. I realised there are aspects of Hobart which I like the gang world of GTA, driving down hungry Jacks. And there were three kids, he’d think. Taylor OK. Yeah, yeah. And he could have just leaped out of the car and slit their throats slight there, yeah. Craig That would be gang gang XI. Get the money. Obviously. We’re saying make sure you do reality and fiction, but it made for some people. See Hobart as a world engaged globally whereas. Taylor Yeah. Craig As you know, there are dark parts of Hobart, just like you could do a GTA Hobart. Taylor This is this is just for people who have got no imagination. I’m. Craig No, no, no. Taylor Sorry. Craig No, it makes the space around them more exciting through their imagination. Yeah, they’re super imagination. Taylor You think about that without playing a game. Craig I can make. Taylor Whenever I drive down the street, I think about running people. Craig That would be more worrying to me. Alright, I wanna go back to find some key times here. So techno Orientalism, there’s a there’s a a clip here. Speaker 6 What’s the future? Craig Yeah. Speaker 6 Look like this question is at the flow. Of countless people. Craig OK, this clip here that I’ll play second of that just defines the key aspects of technology. So listen to this for a second. This is from my seats for an assignment they had to do for university. Good on them. Speaker 6 So you probably know that there’s another common element in the genre. The Asian influences. Most of the most popular cyberpunk film shows or video games take heavy influence from Asian, particularly East Asian architecture, language, culture, and more. In fact, this concept is common enough that the name techno Orientalism. Or sometimes cyber Orientalism has been made for it. But before I dive into this trope, let’s talk about how it relates to Orientalism. Craig So last week on the show, we covered Orientalism. With the great. Episode of the Shadow the the Temple bills of Nabon well, I think is how it’s pronounced within that fake Indian country. They had their other characters. Speaker MHM. Taylor Ohh yeah, the really boring. Craig One. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I didn’t realise. And it’s about to talk about here. It’s all about a snake charmer, right? And of course, the concept of Orientalism came about through Edward Saeed and the cover of most. Hmm. Of the books. Orient was made would say feature that picture of the snake charmer, which is considered one of the classic oriental stripes because it’s the Wests version of what the Orient is right it has these, you know, kind of your. Arabian carpets and a young boy with the snake hypnotising it and kind of 18th century sheiks in their clothing and then nonsensical writing, which is just meant to evoke it. But again, it’s an idea of nonsensical. If you’re actually from those regions you wouldn’t identify. Or experience any of that painting. But from a western perspective, you have no experience of. It and that. Says Ohh, how perfectly exotic. Anyway, let’s hear first the definition of Orientalism. Sure. Speaker 6 Orientalism can be summed up pretty well by French artist Jean Elijah Holmes 1879, painting the snake charmer, the image and bodies, Western misguided ideas of the Orient going as far as to include writings on the wall that are in fact utter gibberish. So Orientalism, the idea was coined by Edward Saeed in 1978 as a way of referring to the general. Othering of Middle Eastern, Asian and North African societies, whereas the oxidant, the word referring to Western societies, was represented as normal and standard. The Orient was a backwards deviation from the norm. In his then controversial book, Orientalism said talks about how within writing, those from the Occident were portrayed as heroes and those from the Orient as inferior villains. Craig So it was very much what we had in last week’s episode with the Shadow where the Western guy who went to India got trained up. With the special. Indian shadow techniques? Yeah, brought that back rationally, but he’s the good guy because he’s the white guy. And then you had the drug den Indian. Evil guys who are trying to get the, you know, the mayor’s son hooked on opium and. Taylor But you have to think at that time what were the places that were in the Orient, what were their stories? Yeah. And look. And with the the the White McDonald’s eating rice. Craig Yeah. And this is where the South Bank genre is is really interesting because that we finally do get that. Experience reflected back upon us, where just as we did Blade Runner, we just as American creators. Like Ridley Scott and. Speaker Have. A. Craig White Anglocentric creators, their version from a western perspective of what Asia is you’ve got Akira and Ghost, and you’re coming out of Japan articulating the same setting cyberpunk, but fundamentally reoriented from a Japanese point of view. Some of that is self orientalist, right? So you’ve got some self exoticism. Taylor Yeah. Craig There. So you’ve got some geisha robots, which was? Very much being that troupe of Orientalist, you know, seductive, beautiful, passive these and other. Taylor Also that that that’s part of of their national identity. That’s like having kangaroo robots, yeah. Craig Sure. Look, I mean it, it can be, I mean, I guess The thing is that how many people in those. Countries have first-hand experiences of. That that is it actually reflective of the lived experience which is. Of. Taylor Such as here with Kangaroos. Craig Which is where many Australians become so outraged that the stereotype that is portrayed on Australia, that it doesn’t reflect the fact that most of us live in cities and not in the Bush equally. What’s interesting with Ghost in the shell, for instance, is if you have a look at where they set. Taylor Yeah. Craig The future it’s it’s it’s the Japanese version of Hong Kong. So goes and the show is set in a kind of, you know, very Hong Kong looking future. Not really a Japan looking future. So they’ve orientalized Asia in a very interesting way in that film. Big boy. Needy has replied back. Do you want to read that please? Taylor Says immersive gameplay does definitely make life a bit more alive after living a day to day life. Where it’s all the same and then play GTA where you can do anything. It makes it more alive. Craig Which always just be interested in those farming simulators or the what’s it like on Roblox? There’s a number of garden, yeah. How how far are you through on that one? Taylor Grow. I don’t really play it. No. OK. Wow, wow. Craig Yeah. OK, pushing on. Speaker And he lead hundreds of millions of. Men to sweep the world. And that, my friend, is what you have. Got to prevent. Speaker 6 It’s worth mentioning here that Orientalism can refer to the othering of a variety of places, but in this video I’m talking specifically about Asia, and usually more specifically about East Asia. Orientalist imagery is still prevalent in pop culture, from the use of ninja costumes on Halloween to kimonos on stage, but there is debate as to whether these acts are racist. In themselves, they are almost always fantastical and inaccurate. As Pedro Jacobelli writes about a film. Craig So yeah, I mean it is that whole debate around, you know, your cosplay is my culture and cultural appropriation. Taylor But not even cosplay as well, cause I was in a theatre production in 2017 or something like that where we had it was Japan, Japan sort of themed Macbeth? If if it was like Macbeth, if it was in. Speaker Oh really? Taylor Japan really. Yeah. Craig There’s a great Kurosawa film trends of blood. Which is that right? It’s it’s it’s a samurai version of. Taylor Yeah, yeah, yeah. It it was that sort of sort of thing. So yeah, we learned how to do sort of like samurai sword fighting styles and things like that. We had Tycho players come in and do the soundtrack behind everything and our costumes were kimonos and yukatas. And they were sort of. Craig Ohh, fantastic. Taylor Specifically, not fantastical or anything. Well, the witches, of course, were fantastical because they were based off the one that crawls out of the TV screen the the rings, yeah. Craig The ring? Really. You did surgical. Taylor But all of the other people. So I I played a a few other different characters but all of my costume was sort of downplayed, sort of more traditional rather than fantastical. Craig Right. So you’re like, you know, you cut the yeah kind of Japanese. Bathroom. Yes. So Orientalist of me to say that. But again, you know that that that would have copped. You copped some some. Friction there some, some, some some. Taylor We we. Yeah, we were scared about it. But yeah, there was no, no issues with it at all, because I guess we’d had just done it in a really sort of. Craig Tasteful. OK. Yeah, yeah. No one there. Performing was Japanese. Speaker 5 No. Craig But again, many people might. Some people would say it. It can be an effective entry point, right to provide more interest in that space or a form of soft power, right? Isn’t it? I mean for. Instance, you know. Taylor You’re talking about an effective entry point to racism. Craig Trying out more about the complexity. Taylor Yeah. Craig That really is part of Japan and I guess if you’re upfront that this is a, as they’re saying here, if it’s if it’s kind of hyper fictional and hyper stylized, often that can help avoid that appropriate. Taylor Yeah. Speaker Hmm. Taylor Recently. Craig Monkey, but yeah, well, yeah, yeah. I mean, well that in its own way was an appropriation of Chinese clothing from the Japanese point of view. Taylor Exactly, yeah. Craig UM. Yes, but again, in in the the point you were doing it was a. Little more downplayed. Taylor Yeah, yeah. Craig Very interesting if yeah, that, that, that didn’t cop any Orientalist. Taylor Backlash. I’ve got a video, but if you wanna. Watch it. It’s good fun. Craig Next episode, next episode. Alright, so what’s techno orientalism? So we’ll quickly jump into a definition of techno Orientalism. Speaker 6 Techno Orientalism differs a bit from Edward Saeed’s definition of Orientalism. Instead of seeing Asia as just backwards and uncivilised, techno Orientalism represents Asia as so technologically advanced that it has no humanity. Asian people can still be framed as intellectually inferior, but the key distinction is that they’re now also hyper technological. Making them supposedly emotionless and. Newman, in their book techno Orientalism, Imagining Asia and speculative fiction, history and media, David S Rao, Betsy Huang, and Greta Igneo write that this presents a juxtaposition of cultural retrograde with technical hyper advancement. The message of techno Orientalism is actually a little contradictory, since it portrays ancient people as both terrifyingly intelligent. As well as uncivilised and culturally behind techno, Orientalism means using Asian more specifically East Asian cultures, as a signifier of the future. This isn’t just any future, though. It’s cyberpunk, thus a dystopian future. These films tend to have a white guy battling against a corrupt system or corporation in a city full of indicators of East Asian. Craig So a couple of interesting points raised there. One of the species of it is this contradiction. So rather than Orientalism, which is set as you know, the East is underdeveloped, exotic and mystical and irrational, and the West is hyper. Enhanced and rational in techno orientalism. It’s it’s in many. Ways flipped where Asia is. Now, the technologically advanced space. But the criticism of Azure in that space, particularly if we’re looking at the 1980s with the rise of particularly automate of companies, is that it’s also dehumanising that they work like robots. They’re are kind of an ants like people that just, you know, support. Labour and again, this would be the racist discourse around othering. Taylor Yes. Craig And and the fear of of of, of that cultural other. Taylor Yeah, it it it. It’s also a a Trumpian fear of the country being taken over as well, because if you look at Knight City, it’s it’s set in America and then it’s got all of this sort of Asian influence from it of like you. Craig Know and and you know within the game you could certainly criticise the. At at a sucker. Company as as emblematic of that, that that’s a. Company which is. Very much that fear of Asian power that it’s going to be kind of not based on Western values that will be based on this idea of a Japanese values which is full of loyalty and honour and tradition and working for the company. And you know, you don’t mean. Anything the company means everything. Taylor And what’s it called? Where it’s fairly all piety as well. Craig Yeah, yeah. And again, there’s a there’s a. There’s a stereotypes of experiences which don’t reflect the lived experience. That is the complexity of the Japanese space. But nevertheless, is the stereotype there. So so aspects of Cyberpunk 2077 certainly replicate that. I just want to play though what I think is really a counterpoint for that is that you have the character of tacky murder. Right. Who’s the bodyguard of the emperor? Right, the yeah. Taylor Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Craig Saka. Taylor The. Craig But there’s a lot of his his character is quite complex, so if we listen to like I’ll, I’ll play a short clip of his back story. Yeah, where it’s really conveying his humanity. Right. His sense of the struggle that he’s had, he’s not just a a villainous character or a. Taylor Dialogue. Craig You know, side quest. Yes, dude. Speaker 4 I remember the chemical stench of the canal where we boys washed our shirts. Corporate transporters sometimes passed through our slab arasaka, selecting children, but only the clean ones or Osaka gave me what no one else could values I could honour live for. This was most important. You dirty your hands. Full money. I in the name of a priest. Speaker So as you can probably see. Craig So as you. Probably see sorry, that’s actually from. A YouTube clip from the Kavanagh Cle called the anti Japanese Racism and Orientalism of Cyberpunk from Blade Runner to Cyberpunk 2077. His you choose basically ripping it apart saying it is full of racist stereotypes. He loves this world setting but he. It highly problematic and I agree with some of the criticism, as the outer cycle 1 is is pretty much playing into that trope of the villainous, you know, Shogun empire, that. But I think Tucker Tucker’s character is is complex, is full of kind of remorse. Speaker Buddha. Craig And a sense of exploitation he’d suffered. You know, he’s not just a cardboard cut out villain. In fact, he becomes a a helpful guy. Speaker Right. Craig Throughout this. Taylor World The funny thing to me is that it it’s negative if you frame it as a dystopia, and in many ways it is a dystopia. However, when I look in that world, I I want to. Speaker So. Taylor Be in there. Craig What is it about the world that? Taylor Appeals to you. It’s because it’s just so. Like you know, technologically advanced, I want to be in a world that technology technologically advanced, no matter what. Craig Yeah, and and in. Many ways, that’s what I was thinking about in terms of their aspects of the hub and. Your interface in that world. Taylor Yeah. Craig Like the net running, you can do which is where your character can. Has got various cyber cyber implants which means they can hack into security systems and be able to see through security cameras and switch them off. And again when I see security cameras like I’ve seen a couple of security cameras walking around today and I’ve thought wow if I was a net. Taylor Well. Craig Tanner, I could just hack into that camera. Taylor So that’s why you when we went down, the thing seems like that is a good that is a good sign. Yeah. Craig It’s. Taylor It was like the first time you’ve ever pointed that out and we’ve gone there 100 times and I was like, so confused you were like. Speaker Sure. Taylor CCTV camera over there. Craig Good location for it. That that’s their location because you’ve got the passion. Powerful. Gonna we be able to pick up an accident or something? And I’m only tuned into that cause in the game whenever I come across a group of people that I need to take care of, I’m always. Trying to find. Where the cameras are first to then hack into the cameras, locate where the rest of the people are that are going. Taylor Yeah. Craig To have to take care of. And then I’ve been doing that. In real life. Yeah. Just I’ll walk into a space and say where are the security cameras here? Yeah. And it has made me really sensitive to how many security cameras are around us. And again, that’s part of the cyberpunk world that you’re in a highly. Surveyed society and yeah, I agree with your sense of the fun of the immersiveness of it, that. And that’s the punkness of cyberpunk, they say right where the cyber is. It’s high tech, but the punk is it’s it’s your working class, your people on the streets that are using that corporate technology. For themselves, right, so your chart. Peter gets to hack into the corporate security cameras to then use those to defend himself with. Taylor But of course your character can also be corporate. Craig Too. Well, that’s where the power is. The ultimate power in these worlds, where where it’s dystopic is that you know, you don’t have a welfare system, you don’t have anyone helping you. You don’t have any supports in this space. The companies own you and the companies own the power. Taylor The thing that I really like about it is that even though it is so high tech and there’s all of this amazing stuff everywhere, there’s still just rubbish on the. Craig Ground. It’s a really healthy world. Yeah. Yeah. Look and. And it does have that wonderfully worn world building to it. And which is why I always prefer the world. Taylor It is. Craig Building of Star Wars to Star Trek while while Star Trek is is a fantastic universe. Nevertheless, the kind of alien world the Blade Runner world, the Star Wars world is all about used technology which is partly damaged. It has storytelling within that. Big boy Nadia sent another. Taylor Ohh sent. Another two said, he said. I’ve heard of people being called racist for wearing traditional Chinese outfits, whereas actual Chinese people are fine with. Speaker Message. Craig It look and that’s one thing I found when I was looking into information about Cyberpunk 2077 and that. Taylor And that so some people from the future have said it’s OK. Craig People in 20. We have 2077 time travellers, have said. Great people from Japan who have commented about it, as well as some of the reviews online have been positive about how the use of Japanese language is spot on in the cityscape. The the katakana and English blurring that’s there is is more evolved than it is in Japan. Like you have hatcho and then. Kadu in karaka. So they’ve quite enjoyed the accuracy to the the written system. Taylor And if if you like, stand up on the top of a building, you can see karaoke everywhere. Which is the true? Family man. Craig Family Mart. So there is a sense of also some sense of, you know, the the the soft power of Japan that you know in the 80s. Yes, Japan was on the rise and in many ways, maybe it was lucky they’ve got that as a cultural soft power like the. Speaker Hmm. Craig Positive image people have of a country from around the world, far worse ones to be stuck with than than cyberpunk. I mean the Kangaroos and crocodile man hunter. Taylor Yeah. Like. And how about fermented fish from like Norway? Things like that. Craig Yeah. What about Vikings storming? Taylor Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Craig Yeah. Yeah. So in in many ways, yeah, many of the reviews of said Punk, 2077 from Japanese players and. Game reviewers in Japan were positive in terms of, much like Big Boy Natty saying not taking offence at this, but seeing it as actually yeah, culturally tuned as opposed to I guess the bad press that the Assassin’s Creed, Japan one. Taylor A positive spin on it. Craig Where some of the lettering was wrong, where it was just there as an orientalist touch. Taylor And they didn’t allow you to break grave sites either. Whatever it was. Craig Probably a good thing. But also the voice acting is good, right? I mean, you’ve got a good Japanese voice acting there. Taylor Yeah. Craig What’s the second point? I can’t read it from here. Your point. It’s depicted as a dystopia, but it doesn’t need to be. Maybe. Make Brisbane into S Hunk city and it might be fine. Just a normal technological city. Yeah, if you did so in this environment, of course, you’ve got Japan town. Which is kind of like Chinatown that exists in some of the largest city. Which does provide you that sense of cultural hybridity that that food is engaged with and celebrated. Were there any other? I mean, it’d be interesting. Yeah. Cyberpunk Brisbane, cyberpunk. But. Taylor Cyberpunk cover. Craig That’s I mean. I kind of think you could do steampunk. Taylor Hobarts. Ohh yeah. Craig Because we’ve got. A lot of old. Taylor Colonial buildings. Yeah, we just don’t have the high rises that you need for a cyberpunk city. Craig I mean with Dark **** it kind of gets swept away in some neon. Taylor I suppose. Craig Right, that neon scape which is I think also the pleasure of Cyberpunk 2077, is that neon cityscape space. Speaker Hmm. Craig Well, we’ve got about two or three minutes left. So we we we might return to some of these themes in the future because I’ve got so much more to talk about. But I mean for me, I guess the job and I have had for Cyberpunk 2077 is that they’ve gone back to the 80s version of that world. So I I started off as a nomad. And and you’re. Yeah, that’s how I. Taylor Cool. Craig Roll. I’m very mad. Max. And you start with an 80s car. That’s been kind of mad. Max stuff a bit. And and I felt that was an immediate entry point to me in terms of this is this is a a kind of 80s as if everything went off the rails, right. Yeah. Right. So you’ve still got a lot of that that temperament and and and and. Cultural climate from the 80s so that the version of Japan Town is very much a kind of what if Japan continued its success up as opposed to the economic downturn in Turkey in the in the early? Taylor 90S is this funny because I’ve I’ve played through the game twice now, so I started off on PC and now doing switch of course. For PC I started as a Corpo. Craig Right. It’s the kind of corporate. Taylor And. Yeah. And for switch, I did the street kids. So I haven’t done the the Nomad 1. Craig Street kid the. Yeah, the Mad Max one. Yeah, right. That’s quite an old punk. Taylor He’s got a. Mohawk. Brilliant. Craig Yeah, it looks totally out of place in. The city, but. And I guess that would be cyberpunk. Three, which is mad. Max. Australia. Yeah, yeah, right. It actually is not neon based, but all about, you know, these these tyranny of distance deserts and your punk. Kind of. Not steam, but you know, 80s diesel technology. Taylor Yeah. Yeah, diesel punk. Craig Yeah. Yeah. Where it’s all about, you know, you’ve got a crossbow on your forehand and. Slightly mediaeval yeah vibe to it, but yeah, that’s probably Australia’s strongest sci-fi image. Yeah, Mad Max. Well, again, thanks, big Boy native been part of the conversation. One would have some audience engagement ring. You want to sign us out with the tune? Again, I think that really evokes cyberpunk. Taylor And it really resolved. Craig Resolve. Thank you so much. So thanks Taylor for. Taylor Being on, no worries. Craig We’ll get you on with the switch and we’ll do a live. Let’s play some point, OK? It’s been Craig for media mothership for another week. You can find further show notes. Taylor OK, sure. Craig Up on our. Taylor Podcast please, please just use the mouse on that first. Oh. Craig There we go. Yes, the trackball, which is very cyberpunk. Taylor Yeah, it is, yeah. Craig In in. Vibe. We’ve got some great music coming up. Inevitably, we’ll have Taylor show team for aeroplane. Taylor At some point I I need to just to just finish my website cause that’s the whole reason I need to have people being able to send me tracks, so I need to finish the website. Craig Yep, Yep. Well, we’ve been practising on the kalimba kalimba kalimba. The Kalambo Kalambo kalimba. Speaker Yeah. Craig Coming up now is FOMO by tan. By what? Taylor By what?

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  • Cultural Battles: Tiananmen, Helldivers 2, and the Anime Revolution

    Cultural Battles: Tiananmen, Helldivers 2, and the Anime Revolution

    Leaked files expose China’s efforts to erase the history of the Tiananmen Square massacre. We also take a closer look at Helldivers 2’s epic battle for Super Earth and explore some unusual manga news from Japan.

    Does AI censorship see this as referencing the Tank Man photo during the Tiananmen Square massacre? Source:  (ABC News: Graphic by Jarrod Fankhauser / Reuters: Arthur Tsang)

    Plus, we tackle some listener questions, dissecting the political layers and cultural significance of the Andor series. (See our previous chat about Andor). And don’t miss our setup for an in-depth conversation on the mid-90s anime that impacted a generation in Australia. (Check out Craig’s 1996 Honours thesis on manga).

    Episode 110 was first broadcast on Edge Radio 5 June 2025.

    Links

    Leaked files reveal how China is using AI to erase the history of Tiananmen Square massacre

    Helldivers 2’s battle for Super Earth makes Chinese news following the successful and slightly review bomby defense of Equality-On-Sea | Rock Paper Shotgun

    Battle for Super Earth broadcasted by local TV news in Shanghai, China : r/Helldivers

    游戏里的跨国携手:中美玩家保卫上海_看看新闻网

    Japan to create digital archive of manga, anime and games | The Star

    Travelers Avoid Trips to Japan Over Viral Comic Book’s Quake Prediction

    Shonen Jump Launches Campaign to Find Its Greatest Villains – ComicBook.com

    Manga Dreaming Honours Thesis – Media Mothership

    📝 Show Full Transcription
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    Speaker 1 There is nothing wrong with your radio. Speaker Do not attempt to adjust the volume. We are controlling the broader questo. For the next hour, we will control all that you hear. Speaker 1 You are about to experience the knowledge and insights of the medium mothership. Craig Alright, welcome here to media mothership on Edge Radio 99.3 FM. The sound effects in the background. That’s absolutely fine. We’re broadcasting. Speaker Ohh. Craig Out of Edge radio. Studios in Nepal, Luna, Hobart TAS and on this show we explore how media shapes our understanding of the world around us. I’m your host, Craig, joined by Taylor. Hello. And Ronan, hi. And we’re streaming on edgeradio.org dot AU as well as on YouTube and Twitch. You can find us just by searching media mothership. Message in on the chat at YouTube. Or twitch or. SMS US on 0488811. 707. Taylor Yeah, 0488811. 707. Craig We’ll do our best. To keep an eye on the monitors around us, hopefully. Taylor Yeah. Craig So today’s topic, we’re going to cover some interesting news around media and popular culture. Cool as well as if we have time on the media mothership website. I’ve been uploading a classic academic work. Created by me, it’s my 1996. It was awarded so this research was done in 1995, so 30. Taylor The year after I. Was born. Wow. Craig 30 years ago. Speaker 4 Yes, so you’re 3231. Taylor That’ll be 30 this year, OK. Craig So yeah, I guess this was Ground Zero for you. This was my honours thesis looking, called manga dreaming. Irresponsible images of cyberpunk anime? Yeah. So you were born into the age of manga dreaming. A lot of irresponsible images, and so we we might dive into that looking at that kind of VHS era of anime in the mid 90s and late 80s and. Great. Yeah. Thank you. The the Audio’s working. We’ve got some chat live. Informing us Hilda is working, so it’s fantastic. Thank you. Twix, Twix, Twix, the dragon. So before we go any further, I’ve got a musical accompaniment guest today. Ronan’s doing music on the kalimba. Yeah, the piano. So we’ll go to news now. So to bring us over to news, we’ll play our theme song. Nice. That’s great. Yeah. We push the the mic towards it as well. That’s great. Yep. Yep. And. Taylor Wow an octave. Craig All right, so news. So, Taylor, you you reminded me of this story. Leaked files reveal how China is using AI to erase the history of the Tenement square massacre. What’s interesting to me about this piece was a article leads. With this image. Which? Pointing out that even a picture of 1 banana and four apples in a line could be flagged because it shares a similar sequence with the Tank Man photo, right? So the tank Man photo is that classic photo of the protester. The Chinese guy with like. Groceries in both hands. Who’s standing in front of a tank during the tenement square kind of protest period and brings to a stop these four huge tax. Of course, as we know in China, there’s been a long history of erasing. Speaker All. Craig Discussion around the 1989 Tenement square massacre from public view and still. 36 years. Since Beijing still censoring that information and has not disclosed the official death toll of this bloody crackdown that occurred. On June 4. Ronan Well. Craig So this image is really interesting though, so how so the arrangement of the one banana and four apples were basically the four green apples represents the tanks, and you’ve got one banana standing on its end at one of the end of the line of apples. So it’s intriguing, isn’t it? How? And in terms of? Meaning making the dominant reading, negotiated, reading and resistant reading that you could have of the the apple banana structures. Ronan According to. Speaker Sure. Taylor You see, I’ve I’ve. I’ve just been trying to do a bit of a a Google at the moment I can’t find it, but it just it just reminded me of like how they’re. Training AI for that. Craig To detect monitor and sensor images. Taylor To to detect sort of like a composition. It’s the training AI to detect a sort of composition, no matter how it is, that sort of thing. And it reminded me of how Renaissance paintings all have that sort of that swirl thing. Do you do you? Do you? Know about that. Ohh like uh. Craig You know davinci’s Adam and God moment of touching. There’s a swell thing. Wasn’t that, Da Vinci Code. You’re the da Vinci. Code I know. Taylor Yeah. Craig The conspiracy theory, or that it’s a brain. Taylor No, I’m talking about like, how. In Renaissance art, you have you have this sort of like spiral, which is like a shell, and then you have like, the focal point in the middle of that shell. And then all of these different things being composed in a different manner. So it’s like a a sort of spiral sort of thing. It just sort of reminded me of that. Because lots of Renaissance paintings also have that similar composition as well. Craig If there’s any Assassin’s Creed players out there. Who? Speaker Oh yeah. Craig Played that level. Let us know. But it is interesting in terms of like you. Know I always like referring back to. Stuart Hall and. The meaning of silent. Taylor I I refer back to Stuart Hall all. Speaker 4 The time. Craig She had one of the great theorists, one of his biggest theories was the kind of dominant reading of an image like how are images given meaning? Often you’ve got a dominant image, a dominant meaning. Sorry. So for instance. The image of the tenement square protester might be one of the dominant meaning for the West is is resistance. Then you got a negotiated reading where it might be. Well, you know, part of this suggestion, resistance. But also you’ve got to understand, you know, this guy’s not really resisting. He came across it. Why is the tank driver doing it? And then the resistant reading is 1, which opposes that which might flip it on its head and say it’s all the conspiracy. That that never took place, that it was staged and so forth. So it’s interesting when you’re given the symbology of the banana and for apples, how what they’re they’re they’re saying there is that the from the censorship point of view is the dominant reading of that is the tenement square massacre. Yeah. For many people, they might negotiate that and say, well, it’s a beautiful. Taylor OK, I found it. Craig Apple banana arrangement, yes. Taylor That was, it’s not a good image. It’s it’s very poorly done in blender, but the one I was talking about was the golden. Ratio. OK. Speaker Golden. Taylor Used in Renaissance art. This this mathematical ratio, when applied to a square, creates A spiral that guides the viewer’s eye and is therefore considered aesthetically pleasing. Ronan Your reference. Craig Is that the JoJo reference? Ronan JoJo. Craig Isn’t that a meme? Ronan Yeah, the golden. What’s it called? Again. Golden spiral. Yeah. Golden Golden Ratio is is a is a JoJo reference because the main character in. Taylor Oh yeah, price here. Sorry. Ronan Was good again. Part 7 uses the golden ratio to spin his spin. This certain type of bowl that he uses well and if if you spin it correctly. Taylor OK. Speaker 4 Right. Ronan It’s the golden ratio of spinning and it infinitely spins, OK. Taylor Yeah. Craig Beyblade players. Taylor Like all the old Renaissance infinitely spins on the wall. Craig Love that, yes. I thought all the J references were based on music, yes. Ronan The stanza whose stand powers are but only the. Part after part like almost, it’s basically just. For mangakas playlist. Craig Well, we get around to manga after the deep dive into the next China story, which I. Didn’t engage in. It’s a video game. OK, global video game called Helldivers 2, where you play in this fictional far future setting. Taylor Oh, is this where you play the the start of the trailer for it? Craig Yeah, yeah, yeah. I played the trailer for. It a couple episodes ago. It’s. Based on kind of a Starship Troopers vibe where you’re eradicating bugs and various threats to humanity, it’s a third person shooter. You know, it’s really interesting about it is there will be these storytelling moments where it really spills into the real world in a weird way. Trump. Trump’s not involved. China is involved this time, America. Was involved, but in a kind of good way. This was following the recent battle for Super Earth, where Super Earth was under threat from these illuminated. Datas. And anyway, it needed. It gained the attention in China because uh, one of the last cities was modelled after Shanghai, right? So it’s it’s it’s it’s it’s kind of this far future thing and this was the last bastion. Is that right, Ronan, you were playing that. Taylor OK. Craig Days. Ronan Ohh yeah like 1. Craig Day one day and Garrett playing any days anyway, Shanghai was holding out the event, got featured in the chat about hey, we’ve really got to hold off. And the thing that was crazy about it was that it was featured on a real Chinese news show called the Kunka News Morning Shanghai. And they praised how both the Chinese and non Chinese players collaborated together to defend the attack that was. Occurring we’ll play a bit of. The I think you’ll understand it when we hear the the news broadcast. Taylor OK. Speaker What are you? Taylor Just some ASMR. Craig I’ll translate a defence of Shanghai that takes place within the game. It originally happened on May 20th. A version update. Has been released for a shooter called Helldivers 2. In the game setting, Alien invasion of virtual Earth, each of the seven landmarks on Earth corresponding to Shanghai right? Anyway, so basically what happened in the story was. Taylor OK. Craig You know the Chinese players. Delegated some of the time to the American players, the. Chinese players were were were. Defending during the day to help save the earth from this invasion and the American players they organised through chat to make sure the American players would hold off during the. Right, what’s? What’s kind of amusing is with that broadcast. There’s a real news broadcast saying basically how wonderful it was that China and America came together to help defeat this invasion in the game. And the way they put it is fantastic. They say Chinese players were battling the enemies during the daytime. And. Taylor Yeah. Craig Using their excellent shooting skills and strategic plans. And then they talk about how then they say, and then the American players took over the nighttime operations using utilising air drops and firepower to construct the defence line for Shanghai. Taylor So is is it like a a a multiplayer online game? Craig Yeah. Yeah, it’s a Co-op game, so it’s not a PvP game. It’s a close game where you’re. Taylor OK. So yeah, against against the environment, PV E Yeah, yeah. Craig Yeah, yeah. And and it is kind of synchronous. So the Davis too is got into some controversy because it’s considered a game where the players actions will. Change the course of events potentially right? So if the players can. Taylor I need to get this game. It’s a lot of fun. I need to get this game and then the headline will be maniac. Australian destroy the base. Speaker The. Craig Which these graded representation mercenary, right? But there was some controversy. Because days before the Chinese players have become so upset by the fact that they organised this defence of Shanghai, but the percentage of success or stuck at 99.9888%. And there was this big debate saying, oh. This is just. Because it’s fake, they want us to believe that we can make a difference. But even when we come together, we can’t get to 100%. But then other people were saying, well, it’s a defence mission to, you know, unless they stop invading, you’ll never get. Taylor Yeah. Craig To 100%. Taylor Yeah. Craig But yeah, a fascinating moment of politics and video games. Coming to. Either hand in hand to represent that in a really kind of undemocratic fashion. I mean, it’s called managed democracy. You’re pretty much playing in a in a kind of Nazi environments. One of our. Chat messages, nothing happened. Nothing happened in the game. Ronan I think he was talking about. The conversation a few minutes ago about Tillman Square. Craig Yeah, right. Yeah. Of course, something happened at Tenman Square, so this forecast shouldn’t be censored. Hopefully by talking of disasters, the other news story I want to quickly talk about, two stories that are coming out. Around amunga that have caused. People to cancel their tourist plans to Japan. Taylor Wow. Craig Yeah, Mangas July 2025 Japan disaster prediction shakes up fear of the big one, and some are even abandoning their holiday plans. Yes, so a couple of articles talking about how this manga called Mitta. Taylor This earthquake. Craig Mid eye the future I saw, which is a fictional manga. But it’s set of these kind of claims of of disasters that are written in this. Taylor Manga. Yeah, well, so does weathering with you. And that says it never stops raining ever again. Craig Yeah. Yeah. So so it talks about. So the past few weeks, once obscure manga has been making headlines in Japan and overseas, the author claims that. Japan will be hit by a massive natural disaster in July 2025. Speaker Well. Craig Predictions being cited as a reason some holiday makers are abandoning their summer plans to travel to Japan and has exploded across Japanese social media platforms. Why are some people apparently believing this? Mongo’s prediction? So the article talks about how even though this was first published back in 99. And it features, yeah, the author as a character. That’s basically riding his dream Diaries that he’s been keeping since 1985. There’s there’s there’s. Yeah, this idea that these references might he might be onto something. This kind of reference to the 252025 July concern. Yeah, it seems that. Yeah. So it’s it’s, yeah, praying upon people superstitions. I think there was some reference in there that he got one thing correct. In the past there was one thing that was featured in the manga. Then people were sure. Oh, actually that did happen. Anyway. Look into further would. You just not go somewhere. I mean, you’ve got some travel plans. Would you not go somewhere? If a manga depicted the disaster about to befall that. Ronan No, I mean not, yeah. Taylor Media. Ronan That absolutely will be an earthquake in Japan in July. Craig Yeah, that’s true. Well, not all news went, but yeah, it is up for for an earthquake potentially. Ronan In July? Yeah. I mean, it’s reality. Speaker 4 Well, it might not be July. Ronan Geography, it’s just like. Craig Yeah, yeah. I mean, it might be July, it might be next year, it might be 5 years, but yeah, it is one of those things. Ronan It’s it just depends on how. Big it will be. Craig And it is unusual that people are starting to, you know, kind of interpret this as possibly true. But yeah, I mean, Japan is very earthquake prone, and seismologists have been, you know. Warning that there’s possibly a mega quake around the corner. But yeah, there’s obviously a lot of urban legend wrapping to that. You know, media influence and then, you know, going into real concerns as well, which we don’t do on this show. So do always maintain a healthy scepticism. For news next article, I want to talk about is kind of following up the last three weeks of discussion that we’ve done on villains. So last three weeks on the show, we’ve been talking about how. Story writing can create great villains shown and jump in Japan is launching a campaign to find its greatest villains, so this is the Shueisha publishing company. I mean, so if you. Yeah, I mean, I’m not sure. So yeah. Some of the anime that’s in shown and jump includes by X family Kaiju, #8, Hell’s Paradise Dan Dadan, which I do want to watch. And they’re going to, yeah, decide which villain is the biggest villain of this franchise. So do go ahead. Vote now. Really. Yeah. Death note. Taylor I’ve never heard of any of this. Ohh yeah, OK yeah, I know that. Speaker 4 Death notes could be featured there. Dragon Ball. Craig See is. Taylor The only Dragon Ball ZI watched was the live action American one. Craig Well, that is an act of villainy in itself. That vibe, well as last news story in Japan to create digital archive of manga and anime and games. The government is set to launch a new digital archive strategy aimed at preserving and promoting Japanese trove of such cultural assets as manga, anime, and video games, which are mentioned popular among people young people. Taylor Well, haha, Nintendo says good luck with that. Craig Would be interesting video games. Yeah. I mean, there is this problem of of particularly online games. Basically, having a shelf life, which means that in 10 years time they could be unplayable because they require online engagement or online playing. Yeah. So there is, I think there is a threat that people don’t realise that a lot of this stuff could disappear. Hmm. You know, mobile games disappear, right? Trying to archive mobile games from the early 2000s. Speaker Hmm. Taylor Ohh absolutely there was heaps of my favourite games from Adult Swim. Can’t get anymore. Craig Or is it just? Just, yeah. Right. Yeah. That they would release for a short time linked to. An Adult Swim series. Yeah, this initiative is expected to have a spillover effect on charging domestic and international enthusiasts too. After seeing the digitised version. Of it to pay a visit to wherever the asset is located so you know the Ross Bakery and kick his delivery service. Michael Guernsey with this. Yeah. So the strategy emphasises that local communities should lead the decision making process for preserving local cultural and artistic work. With municipalities paying a central role in expanding and utilising digital archives. So yeah, let’s see if we can get the Ross Bakery in the middle of Tasmania. To feature as part of the digital archiving of. Kiki’s delivery service. Taylor I’ve tried to go to the Ross Bakery every time I’ve. Gone to Ross Ohh tried. To tried to every single time it’s been shut. Craig You never made it. Taylor And then I went there. The most recent time I went there, they said sorry, we’re shut for the next seven months. Craig Wow. Wow. Wow. OK, well, hopefully this digital archiving event in Japan will help. Yeah. All right, let’s get a musical interlude going. With our musician. That’s really good. Speaker 4 That is really good. Craig Certainly better than so anyway. So welcome back here. To. Media mothership. Yeah, as I mentioned. I want to dip into briefly the impact of manga and anime. OK, good, right? Because I found this thesis that I’d written back in 95, available now on the media mothership website. If you head over there, yeah. Yeah. Or at least the first chapters up. That’s how you do it. First Chapters 3, and it was all about. Taylor For free well. Ohh come on. Craig My experiences in 95 as an honest student diving into this new thing at that stage called manga and anime. Taylor Whoa. Craig I know which was blowing my mind. With some of the stuff that was there, what I was thinking might be interesting is one of the big debates that was certainly part of the manga anime scene then. And it’s still an issue. Today is the dub verse sub sub debates. So I want to get around to that. But first what I want to do is you know when I was getting into anime in the in 1995 the big. Series or big movies that were kind of getting a lot of high profile media attention was. Course. Katsuhito automobiles. Akira. Right. It was the. Taylor Cool, cool. Craig Movie, of course. Right. And then a little later, the ghost in the shell. Movie alright, yeah. I was going to the local anime club at Adelaide University and catching Rama half and then Mad Men ended. Sorry, not now. This was before Mama and entertainment. You had manga and attainment and Kiseki Entertainment who were releasing a DP. Piece bubble gum crisis, Cyber City, Oedo and of course Urotsukidoji legend of the Overfiend which got banned in many countries to to set the mood. I found a couple of quick YouTube shorts that talk about. This kind of nostalgic period of mid 90s. Ronan I don’t think you meant to. I don’t think you’re allowed to play a clip, a single clip from the last one. Craig You mentioned not yet. Ronan It’s classified as ******. Craig We need a later time slot. Taylor We’ve got a we’ve got a. A message, yeah. Craig N&S. Do you want to read? Taylor It out OK, yes. So it says hello. Tay, Tay, Taylor Lidstone and Doctor Craig Norris. So we know who you are. I’m one of Taylor’s students and I have a question related to Star Wars. I was wondering what both your opinions are on the new Star Wars shows, specifically the poorly written pieces of Star Wars. Media with poor storylines, but also on Andor, which is known for being dead infantilized with implications to human mating and brutal on screen deaths, with examples like people being hung. And K2, so using an Imperial soldier as a human shield, he’s clearly dead in the scene too. And then they also go on to say also Taylor, I would like to apologise for being so creepy lately with digging up your entire digital footprint and the way we talk about it might come off as bullying on me, but I genuinely find the work you do outside of the education. Speaker Yeah. Taylor An interesting and well done and it’s given me personal courage to start writing my own music and potentially get into a podcast myself, so that’s brilliant. Craig Get referenced this on the CV. Taylor Yeah, all the best. Nathan Wright also apologises and is sending this message for me also love. Craig Your music. Wonderful. Shout out to our fans, fans of the show. Yeah, yeah. I think we can see now. Yeah, well, let’s hope that this enlightens them somewhat. I think it’s a great question they’re asking. Speaker Yes. Craig About the current status of Star Wars and the direction of Andor, we can touch on that briefly. I I’ve seen the Andor series both for seasons now. If you haven’t either. Taylor Star Wars. Craig Well, I mean, what’s really fascinating to me about the and or season or the Andor approach is it’s set in this obviously in terms of the storytelling, we’re looking at a series that sets just before the Star Wars Empire strike spec return of the Jedi World, right. So this is the. Taylor OK. Right. Craig Lead up to how the Empire consolidated its power after the prequels, and then how they established the Empire and their brutal reign of power over it over the Galaxy. UMI think it’s, you know, in terms of some of I mean the the the the the question that Nathan is quite right in terms of the you know it’s Dean Tantalised in terms of it’s made for an adult audience. Taylor Hmm. Craig It’s certainly really political if you look on YouTube, there’s a number of really fascinating political scientist reacts to, and Oregon clips which are out there talking about how clearly the showrunners of and Oregon read up on their history, that there are a number of real world. Analogies that are going so the current season of Andor has this fascinating kind of there’s the Gorman. I think it’s called the German planet, which is going to be mined for this substance. Well, it’s fantastic, is that it’s it’s France based. The planets France and we’re looking at an analogy of the. Taylor OK, you’re right, yeah. Craig Brutal Nazi dictatorship and control over France during World War 2, and the emergent rebellion. The French resistance which? So there’s this really powerful play between real history and resistance culture that’s playing out in Andor. They don’t pull their punches as well. There’s some wonderful ideas of the kind of banality of terror and evil which we see with the. Kind of enforcer. Imperials that like there’s this character, Deidra, who is the kind of imperial police. OK, yeah. Thought police anti espionage anti terrorism kind of think tank group and spoilers. It’s suggested that her actions lead to the rebellion being able to get the Death Star plans, but the way she does it, it’s this kind of banality of middle management bureaucrats. Taylor Oh wow. Craig Career escalator promotion in a climate of suspicion and competitiveness, I mean, we’ve talked about this before in terms of accents that middle management references because Ben Mendelson plays the Chief Imperial officer and in the interview she’s described it as kind of well. Is a middle manager. Basically, it’s that banality of working in in a work environment where you’re you’re dealing with people that you hate. It’s in an environment that’s kind of stifling, but you just got to get through it. And sometimes you manage is. And sometimes it’s not. And in this case, yeah. Ben Mendelson delivering this, this perfectly calibrated middle management terror. Taylor British accents? Yeah, of course. Craig In British accent. Taylor Because British accents are evil. Evil. Craig Yeah, yeah, full of of of kind of colonial terrorism. Taylor All I can say to do with Star Wars is the worst thing they’ve ever done was the movie. Craig Joe Joe thinks. Taylor That’s not moving. Speaker 4 Well, you know, he walks. Caravan of Courage was pretty horrible. The Star Wars holiday special after the first style was pretty horrible. Taylor I mean like actual feature length movie. Craig You know, I I struggle with all the prequels. Certainly fancy manners. Taylor So I mean, for me, it’s solo. That is one of the worst pieces of media I’ve ever watched. Craig OK. Yeah, the thing I found interesting about the solo film is that it showed kind of non storm trooper Imperial soldiers. You had this idea that. You know you’ve got this kind of? You know, you know, barely trained soldier force. You know, there aren’t the Stormtrooper space. So it was it was. Building but yeah, look, I think the thing about the solar film that’s so dire was that the initial production of it that I was keeping an eye on had a tone and temperament that was much more comedy based. Yeah. And then they fired that team. The show. Taylor A little bows, yeah. Ohh, that’s right. Yeah we went. Craig With the director and they brought Ron Howard on to take over. And yeah, I think that, yeah, you can see that there was a lot of tampering that the tone changes that. Yeah. Yeah. So I think it was a victim. Taylor Through development, yeah, yeah. Speaker Hmm. Craig Of its circumstances. Yeah. I mean, Rogue One was which, which is linked to Andor. I mean. Taylor I liked Rogue one. Craig Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think Star Wars very much has been saved. I mean, you’ve got the baby Yoda. Taylor Mandalorian. Craig Mandalorians I mean that yeah, I’ve forgotten now, but it was a great series that really rejuvenated Star Wars. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, I think it’s it’s it’s. It’s a fascinating. Franchise. Really. You know, interesting. Well building I think the Andors series has been fantastic. I’ve really enjoyed it. I think the politics of it have really held up the first season’s really strong. The second season I think equally strong, they’ve avoided I think. A lot of the pitfalls. If you think about, there’s a there’s a female love interest character they owned or has, and the way they they, the way they use that character I think is really clever. Speaker Hmm. Craig So they they don’t just. Oh, yeah, they were talking. Some people were really worried that this love interest that Endo has will be fringed. Do you know this reference? The trope of when the hero’s love interest gets fridged fridged it’s based on comic books, this Green Lantern comic book had his girlfriend is killed by the villain. And then cut up and put into a. Fridge. Brilliant. And of course, you know, the troop here is that, you know the point at which the villains at ohh. Sorry the the hero. Taken to the edge right, something disastrous happens to our hero and you know all the chips are down and he has to draw upon his inner strength. And also they wanted to get rid of his girlfriend to give him. Yeah. Taylor Yes, free. And gets free. Speaker 4 Gets fridge gets fridged. Craig Yep. Yep. So that’s Andor, that is Andor. Taylor There, there’s another. There’s another one there. Speaker Yes. Craig OK. Wow. We’re in conversation. Taylor It’s it’s to you first, actually. Craig Alright. Taylor Hello doctor. Craig Norris. Craig Hey, Gary, can you read it? I can’t really wrap my head. Taylor This is. Around. Hello, Doctor, Craig Norris and Taytay. This is right at this time. Craig Why are you tasing that Taylor Swift? Taylor Yeah, that’s people call me that all the time. Please don’t start. Craig Do they know that you’re an ordained minister? Taylor No, they don’t know. OK. And then they say, I was wondering if there’s a chance you could maybe have a discussion on like ongoing conflict and like how you feel about them that doesn’t make any English sense. So I can’t, I can’t respond to that. Speaker Listening. Craig Well, you know the and or discussion of of. Alien and resisted. Once speaks into. That I mean. Taylor How much suggestion on like ongoing conflict? Craig Well, I mean, what I find really interesting is obviously the endless series went into production a long time before the moment in history we’re in. At. The moment? Yeah. But you think about how well it’s lined up with some of the? Conflicts that are. Today facing the world. Particularly the Israel Palestine conflict. Ohh yeah, yeah. And they feel that you can’t. You can’t not watch and or and think of the news you’re seeing. Speaker Oh. Craig And the Israel Palestine conflict and the the tensions around how to resist that space, how to to protest in that environment, it’s. Yeah, it’s quite powerful. Also the fact that Trump got into power, this would have been in production before that election occurred. But now Trump said. Now again this idea. Of how do you resist and protest in an environment like this? It’s yeah, look. And I think that’s where Andor is so successful as a series that it seems to be in conversation with today’s moment of history around this issue of conflict and providing storytelling to cope in that. Right. It’s it’s a. Taylor Funny story actually, I found out that my. Girlfriend’s cousin? Yes, it’s called Trump. Wow. Awkward. And his brother is called Putin. Craig Wow, did they cosplay? That would be wonderful. Wow, Trump, Putin, because those are not usual names. Taylor But, but Putin’s now called Ben. Speaker Ohh yeah. Craig Putin changed his mind. Taylor Yeah, like Ben Kenobi. Craig Wow. Oh wow, it’s I guess, I mean, Putin came to power. What, like, 20 years ago? How old is Putin? Do you think? I mean, was he born pre or after Putin’s rise to power? Right. If he was named after races really cause that’s more troubling, right? If if you name your child after an established problematic figure like Putin. Taylor I don’t know idea. Speaker I think. Craig And after you know they’re problematic, then that’s a problem, right? If you name them before that, they’re problematic. It’s just bad luck. Taylor And Trump, come on. And Trump. Speaker 4 Well. Craig Yeah, I mean, Trump’s been going for a long time, but you wouldn’t really. I mean, Trump is an unusual name. Yeah. Trump and Putin are both unusual names. So yeah. Yeah, maybe. Speaker 4 It was just. Craig Yes. Taylor Anyway, back on to manga. Anime please. Craig So I want to play this first clip. Remember these nostalgic anime from the 90s and early 2000s so you would have. Been what 5? Taylor OK, so it’s boring ones, OK? Yeah. Craig At that age, and you weren’t even born. So let’s see if these if. This clip speaks to your experience. I mean, what? Where did you get into anime? What was your big anime that you kind of got? That you like. Taylor What gave you the bug? Ronan Ohh what like I mean I watched Dragon Ball Z but like no, I think what really got me into anime series is probably JoJo. Craig Jojo’s bizarre adventure. Yeah, yeah, which is enormously popular series. It’s really aesthetically distinctive style. It’s not your kind of mungus style that many people would associate with Astro Boy, Big Eyes, cute face. Taylor I’ve never actually seen it. Craig It’s it’s. Ronan Yeah, the JoJo style is very artistic. Craig Yeah. Yeah, it has. You were saying it has a huge fan base in design and yeah, and and kind of high fashion, yeah. UM. Ronan Yeah, very, very big fandom and high fashion. Craig What’s 1 of the attacks that are based on? Songs. Ronan Ohh my gosh, there’s so many. I don’t know so many. Craig There’s like dirty deeds done dirt cheap. The great thing about it is so the original Japanese version of the manga and anime got to use and reference all these as their attack names, which of course is a song title by ACDC. But when it got localised into the West, they didn’t have the copyright ownership of those titles. Ronan People say yeah. Yeah, and anime, yeah. Craig So they had to change them to adjacent terms. So dirty deeds done dirt cheap is something like. Ronan Yeah, but that’s one of a joke. Yeah. Craig Filthy inconveniences. Yeah, they call it, like, filthy inconveniences that. Are very affordable. Speaker Ohh. Speaker 4 OK, right. Ronan Uh, yeah, this I think you know, Sex Pistols. Craig Yes. And in the UK. Ronan It what we named you 6. Speaker 6. Craig Pistols. That’s kind of clever. Alright, so and your series, what was your series that, that, that you enjoyed? What’s the series? You. You. Loved and they make that you were young, yeah. Taylor When I when I was younger, when I was younger, I didn’t particularly love it, but I watched Astro Boy. Speaker 6 Alright, you did watch. Craig Astro boy, yeah. Taylor And I what? Yeah, the classic. One that’s one thing and Pokémon. And then my actual one, which is like OK, I know this is Japanese animation and I like Japanese animation now spirited. Craig Away. Ohh, right. OK, Miyazaki. Well, I’m glad that got guns. I mean, certainly Miyazaki was considered this moment where what anime meant changed dramatically up until muzaka’s popularity. Or from like. Pro spirit away, norca. Ponyo. All those movies started to come out before then. Up until that point, anime manga was really seen as adult violence. Taylor Hmm. Craig Highly sexualized, right? So full of a cure and cyborgs. And it was very much tailored towards a a very niche demographic, but then it became much more family viewing. Astro was a really interesting reference because I know when I was doing my reference in the mid 90s. Speaker Hmm. Craig It was this emblematic moment of no one knew this was Japanese right when you watched Astro Boy dumped and you know there was no context around it. Being from Japan, there’d be no tells in it. The faces were not stereotypically Asian. The setting was the future, so didn’t have. Taylor Yeah. Speaker 4 Hmm. Craig Like shrines and a ramen shop and. It probably was rhyming in there. Yeah, Pokémon as well, right, you know, I mean, for a while, you you didn’t need to get into Japan to understand. Speaker Hmm. Craig That. But when yeah in the mid 90s when this. Came out there was this idea. Of that, you needed to tap into Japan that you needed to watch it subbed, that it was all about this different non Western, non Disney animation style. Taylor But now, of course, Studio Ghibli has just gone really terrible now, and they can’t make anything good, can they? Craig Yeah. Well, I mean, I think I think the the. Taylor The have have you seen earwig and the? Craig Witch. No, I haven’t. I haven’t. Taylor It is some of the worst writing voice acting visuals I’ve ever seen. It is worse than 30 years ago. Speaker 4 Well, you know. Ronan 4.7 out of 10 IV. Craig Really. That bombed? Well, OK. Message in now or for what your favourite enemy was. What got you into enemy. Taylor So, so, so, but at at the moment, I think the the new company that’s sort of like overtaking them now I can’t remember who it is or what the company’s name is, something comix studio, but it’s the one that did your name and weathering with you and. Craig OK. Yeah, yeah. And they’ve got a lot of success. There’s a there’s a. Yeah. Taylor Susan May, which is really good too. Craig Me. So it was me is actually retired, right? So Studio Jubilee went through a moment of its its main artistic centre left with Miyazaki hail. I think he’s been brought back or. Taylor Yeah. Craig There’s little projects. He’s working on, but the thing I love. About me these days is. Now he’s the meme of him saying, you know, enemies ruined. Yeah, you know, what did he say? Like, like he hates AI. There was a documentary that was done with him on AI and how he just. Taylor Yeah, yeah. Craig Is the most depressing person to speak to about how he sees the current and future of anime. He just says it’s it’s all pretty horrible. Ronan Oh my gosh. Speaker 4 OK, we’re going to reply. That’s great. Taylor So someone’s texting you and said my fave is avatar. Craig Avatar The Last airbender? Yeah. Speaker 4 And. Ronan That’s a big controversial with that. Craig What’s the controversy? Your own avatar? Because we’re not talking about the James Cameron. No avatar. We’re talking about the classic anime animation, I mean. Speaker 4 No, right? Craig It’s western produced. Ronan It’s not. Yeah, it’s not people. If you call people, some people get really offended if you call animal. Craig And that’s right. Yeah, yeah. Cause you got this. Purest vibe. And then you’ve got this globalised vibe, right? You got these very at moments. There are these very different 2 communities, but Avatar, hugely popular series based on modelled on, styled after the Japanese manga anime style. But. I guess it didn’t. It wasn’t produced in Japan. It didn’t have an animation. I mean, a lot of Japanese animation is produced in Korea, but the main thing, and I mean there’s still anime. Taylor And and and. US animation is based in Korea as well, SpongeBob. Speaker Hmm. Speaker 4 All right, right. Right. Speaker Ah. Taylor So is uhm, you know The Simpsons Family Guy, American dad, all Korean? Craig The hill. Taylor I don’t know. Craig OK. All right. Well, look, setting us up. For next week’s show, then. I’ll play this clip and this will set up our discussion for next week show, potentially on service stub and yeah maybe some VHS and. Speaker Hear it? Ronan My favourite is avatar. Speaker 6 Complementary vision of the future was unfolding. Anime was no stranger to weaving tales that combined technology, identity, and society in intricate ways. These works weren’t just visually stunning, they introduced to the West the multifaceted approach to futurism, from the philosophical quandaries of AI and serial experiments lane to the dark, gritty. Teams of technologies Japanese pop culture was bursting with fresh takes on the digital age. Taylor Right, that’s that’s great. Craig Yeah, that’s exciting. So we’ll, yeah, we’ll look into some anime I might pull out my old VHS copy of it or the dodgy legend of the Overfiend, which is banned. Yeah. I mean, it’s just absolutely filthy enemy. Wow. Taylor Wow. Craig It’s one of those state. Taylor These. Legal goods that you have imported into Australia. Craig No legal, I mean it was released by Kiseki Entertainment at that time or Manga Entertainment actually released it as well. It was on the Film Festival circuit, right? The only way you’d watch a lot of anime in 95 between 90 and 95 was either what was on TV. So Astro boy, pedal for planets, star blazes or. Taylor Thank you. Speaker OK. Right. Craig It would be on a in a Film Festival like Akira, Ghost in the Shell or Fist of the. North Star wow. So yeah, yeah. I have to do a cheat GPT search to see if it’s. OK, to show my 15 year old. Speaker You know. Taylor Oh, my God. Well, well, the thing to do with what’s his name as well with to do with anime and manga sort of thing is to look at how that has shaped gaming as well. Because if you think about it, visual novels, very popular as well. So things like Doki literature, Literature club. Have you played that ever? Speaker 4 Yes, yes. Craig No. No, no, no. Dokie, dokie. Ah, doggy, doggy. That’s the onomatopoeia for heartbeats. Yeah. Doggy, doggy. Taylor Wow. Literature club. Literature club. And it starts off as this sort of like dating SIM, which soon turns into a horror game. Yeah. Yeah. Well. Craig We’ll get a reading list together for the next show. Speaker 4 Of course. What? Craig What’s interesting about exploring this is how completely misrepresentative. Of this is for. The lift reality in Japan that most of the titles certainly Akira have been. I like niche titles in Japan, right? They’re not at all part of the mainstream enemy consumption experience. Taylor Yeah. Craig I mean Akira. Lesso because it got so big in the West in the early to mid 90s that it became popular. In fact, when I was in Japan leading up to the Olympics before COVID. A lot of the building sites in Tokyo had erected the scaffolds and and printed on all the scaffolds were frames from the Akira Manga Wow and Cause in Akira. They referenced the the Olympics that’s running in that fictional future Japan. Yeah. Anyway, so reading list. Speaker 4 Olympics. Taylor Another thing for the reading list as well, have you ever heard of Ghost stories? Craig OK. Speaker 4 No, no, I’ve. I’ve, I’ve. Taylor This will be. This will be great for the sub versus dub that we’ll have next week. It’s a dubbed version. Of of a of an anime, but it it is. Done as a. Joke by the people who. Were doing. It ghost stories, ghost stories. So it was it was an anime that came out that was so boring that they just said we’re not gonna translate this. It goes through all of the different sort of cliches that go with any sort of ghost story. So we’re just gonna have some fun with it. Speaker Yeah. Craig And is there any reference to the 1980s? West Hobart Deterrent plant. Good story. OK. Well, we’re gonna watch it and I’m going to try and do my own fan fiction in the style of that. All right, well, that’s been media mothership for another week. Taylor No, no. Craig Nick, thank you very much for. Commenters throughout this show. Taylor Yes, thanks commenters who would be Nathan and Ryder. Craig Right. I think the main points and takeaways from today’s. Show you know. Include you. You’re doing some good teaching, yeah. Show notes will be available on the episode description via YouTube or your podcast supplier of choice. Next week, we’ll see if we can get some time to do some self versus dub debate and watch some anime. You can list the previous episodes on YouTube, Twitch, or at edgeradio.org Dot AU or your podcast provider. Choice. You can find Taylor. On something. Are you going to do a? Speaker 4 Show at some point some, OK. Taylor I will at some point, but it will be when I’m. Craig Back. Back. Alright. Yeah. In the future, if you enjoyed the show, please subscribe and leave a review. If you’re listening via. Taylor Leave a review. Really. Speaker 4 No, do you? Craig Can do that. Heart me if you have questions or topic suggestions right in and contact us on Facebook and I’m going to try and get the discord working again. Taylor The Discord’s already working? Yeah, so. Craig That it’s unmoderated. OK, that’s true. And anyone posting my show things up in. Speaker Well. Craig There. But yeah, we have a discord or we have an Instagram. Well, TikTok, maybe I’ll dust that. Taylor Off OK. Speaker 4 Yeah, yeah. Craig All right, coming up now we’ve got some really cool. Music on Edge radio. To to chill to. Taylor Chill to it.

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