Japanese Role-Playing Games: Genre, Representation, and Liminality in the JRPG

Japanese Role-Playing Games: Genre, Representation, and Liminality in the JRPG

Japanese Role-playing Games: Genre, Representation, and Liminality in the JRPG examines the origins, boundaries, and transnational effects of the genre, addressing significant formal elements as well as narrative themes, character construction, and player involvement. Contributors from Japan, Europe, North America, and Australia employ a variety of theoretical approaches to analyze popular game series and individual titles, introducing an English-speaking audience to Japanese video game scholarship while also extending postcolonial and philosophical readings to the Japanese game text. In a three-pronged approach, the collection uses these analyses to look at genre, representation, and liminality, engaging with a multitude of concepts including stereotypes, intersectionality, and the political and social effects of JRPGs on players and industry conventions. Broadly, this collection considers JRPGs as networked systems, including evolved iterations of MMORPGs and card collecting “social games” for mobile devices. Scholars of media studies, game studies, Asian studies, and Japanese culture will find this book particularly useful. “Bringing together some of the most insightful voices in Japanese game studies, Jérémie Pelletier-Gagnon and Rachael Hutchinson provide a roadmap to a crucial genre of games: the Japanese Role-Playing Game (JRPG). From Pokémon and Final Fantasy to lesser-known games like EarthBound, this book shows that the JRPG is a crucial lens onto global game studies and the continuing impacts of Japanese game studies on it. This volume offers an insightful set of case studies and suggests some unique vantages onto the JRPG: from platform analysis, to Japan's media ecologies, to tutorial characters, to disability. This will become a go-to resource for anyone interested in the JRPG, Japanese games, and game studies in general.” ―Marc Steinberg, Concordia University “This book is an essential addition to the role-playing game studies literature. Its focus on Japanese computer role-playing games (JRPGs) is wonderfully and deliciously broad, deep, and diverse in its authors, perspectives, and games. There is plenty here to sate the intellectual curiosity of readers interested in the staples of the JRPG canon who are also unafraid to head into the wilderness of Japanese games that have mostly escaped the critical eye.” ―José P. Zagal, University of Utah “Japanese Role-Playing Games features a diversity of contributors from established and emerging scholars who use important and representative JRPG titles as master keys that unlock doors to many of the major themes and ongoing discussions in the fields of Game Studies and Media Studies […] The editing is consistently excellent, and the curated list of references are extremely useful resources. Japanese Role-Playing Games is a powerful contribution to both Asian Studies and Media Studies that sets a strong and positive precedent for future academic work on video games.” ― Asian Studies Review Rachael Hutchinson is professor of Japanese studies at the University of Delaware. Jérémie Pelletier-Gagnon is postdoctoral researcher at Université du Québec à Montréal.