New Game!

It introduces a fairly serious office-related plot point in a cute girls doing cute things series, and it can be jarring.

Looking at the response here, it's probably eligible for Base Breaker. Before I've even watched the adaptation.

I mean yeah, its a genre breaking event. Going so far to screw over Aoba by saying that they will just hire a freelancer over your actual character designer you have basically been grooming over the past year.

Aoba didn't even deserve it like Karen and Kuzehashi-sensei's relationship at the start. If they try to make her cute like Kuzehashi she better fix this in some MASSIVE way, like have her art be on the cover of the game and everywhere else.

- *Troll mode* Or have her get hit by a truck like her hair style demands.

edited 15th Aug '17 3:44:57 PM by Memers

Christina is merely the go-between for Eagle Jump and the publisher (though officially employed by the latter). She has zero say in the matter, just like Eagle Jump's employees.

No one likes playing the villain.

Said go-betweens between publisher and developer actually have power in affecting that.

It was a straight up no confidence situation and all she had to push was that she had confidence.

edited 15th Aug '17 8:21:40 PM by Memers

Villains like playing the villain.

To be fair, this second series, while fairly lighthearted, was moving into more serious, actual game development territory anyway and this sort of thing made perfect sense from a business point of view.

You got an entirely new game concept with no track record and a newbie character designer, also with no track record, yet your superstar character designer is just sitting there: why not use her? From the publisher's view, it makes sense.

The way it was done was ...not optimal, ambushing them at a regular dev meeting, with everybody else already knowing about it beforehand rather than, you know, doing it in a separate meeting to at least save some face.

It also seems a bit shortsighted to railroad both your character designers this way, potentially alienating both Ko and Aoba. That there was no compensation for Aoba not getting to do the key visual is strange for the sort of company Eagle Jump has been shown to be until now.

The trailer for Episode 7 only concerns the newbies and Nene's interview.

._.

Whatever you all think of this episode, you prefer Kou or Aoba's concept art? I will only answer when there're enough replies.

They are dramatically different in tone. Aoba's the MC has the feeling like she is stuck in a fantasy land, Kou's is just beating the stuffing out of some of them while others ambush.

I think I like Aoba's a LOT more it reminds me a lot of some of the opening scenes of Final Fantasy XII or Final Fantasy IX.

edited 19th Aug '17 8:50:32 PM by Memers

I have to agree with various discussions I've seen that say Kou's is better as a poster, Aoba's is better as a reverse cover, limited edition, or on an artbook.

Both of them would do a pretty shitty job at selling me on the underlying game itself, though. Aoba's communicates it a little better.

edited 19th Aug '17 8:55:36 PM by burnpsy

I am of the opposite. Aoba's works way better at catching the curiosity of the reader, its so strange and the fantasy elements show quite well.

Kou's kinda reminds me of an old strategy guide cover.

I was thinking that Kou's works better as box art since it's more minimalist, and would thus be less likely to distract from the title. Aoba's would work as art on the back of the case, but the colours will have to be washed out and much of the image will be obscured by text and screenshots, which would make it entirely pointless. So yeah, it'll work better as alternate artwork included as alternate box art or as a bonus in the limited edition release.

Actually I'm pretty conflicted on this one. As a piece of art, I would certainly prefer Aoba's. Now, the problem is it's a concept art, and I sort-of think Kou's works slightly better—any way you cut it, it's not really not a good idea that you can't identify the main character from a movie poster.

Neither work; are any of you gamers here? Most games feature a principe character in a setting of choice as cover art to be very clear in conveying what the game is about. The Halo franchise does this well, as does Wolfenstein.

Having said that, things are definitely gearing up to be more interesting now with respect to character development. It's not what the characters go through, it's how they handle it, that most matters.

edited 20th Aug '17 10:11:53 PM by Person0123452

*glances at Switch, Vita, PS 4, custom PC and Oculus Rift behind me*

Nah, seems I'm not a gamer just because I've seen game artwork different from the ones you've seen.

And to be clear, this episode was about a key visual, not cover art. Key visuals are special art used for ads or on the game's website. They typically don't end up on the box.

And I've seen far busier box art than either of the ones presented. Some series like to throw their whole cast onto them.

edited 21st Aug '17 1:38:54 AM by burnpsy

Oh yeah, especially anime inspired game covers tend to be insanely busy with a ton of characters.

Both arts look like things I saw in early 2ks NISA promo adverts in magazines for like Disgaea and such.

New episode...

Man it is like the artist's editors are like enforcing bashing Aoba at every single opportunity. They got even the new guys bashing her character designs...

I like the Nene stuff, I wish they would just focus on that instead of just bashing and screwing over the main character.

edited 23rd Aug '17 3:49:17 AM by Memers

Momiji clearly states that the designs are good, but for some reason it gives her the feeling that it was drawn by an idiot or something, which is more of bashing Aoba as a person than her art...but yeah.

That 'is good' line was way out of left field and a stark change from every single word she said or thought on it.

Also they are desperately trying to make Wako likable while still dumping a huge amount of extra work on Kou, when she should be working on the game, and still screwing over Aoba. Yeah no.

The show has really kinda lost its 'working on a game' flow, I hope it rerails pretty soon.

The artist once worked at a video game company, I am wondering if this section is based on real life now that I think about it. Watch the season end with the cancellation of Peco.... Edit: googling it seems he worked on Valkyrie Profile 2 Silmeria and Star Ocean The Last Hope so Tri Ace hmm.

edited 23rd Aug '17 3:01:35 PM by Memers

I've read the source material raw. Some things get lost in translation.

edited 23rd Aug '17 4:58:53 PM by HanabiraKage

What got lost in translation?

Next episode's trailer follows.

"It looks dumb" doesn't mean "It's bad" here in the original Japanese. It is not mutually exclusive with Momiji's later remark that the art is pretty good. It's more along the lines of the art giving off the feeling that it was drawn by an idiot, perhaps because Aoba was really just having fun the whole time. And the word used (baka) isn't actually a full-on insult in standard Japanese. It's around "fool" or "silly person" in terms of severity.

edited 28th Aug '17 8:34:12 AM by HanabiraKage

Doki translated that to "silly."