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Official account for Ramblings of a Filipino Nerd on Substack. Mostly professional, always in progress. Interactions are not endorsement.
Jun 20 6 tweets 4 min read
Recently got these shared from Bluesky. Looks like there's a push to smear/cancel mecha reporter Ollie Barder (@Cacophanus), which includes mainstream media industry members. All because he refuses to play by their echo-chamber.

Seems like the old GameJournoPro is still active. Image
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@Cacophanus I can confirm that the thread exists, with replies coming from people including editors from Anime Herald and ANN.

They haven't learned from 2014, other than moving to a social media platform that is little more than a politicized echo-chamber. Image
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Jan 31 7 tweets 5 min read
Except that Cringelord Otaku was wrong about THAT too. He's just capitalizing on doomer and culture war outrage for his own gain.

Enough with the "Japan has fallen" nonsense masquerading as "telling it like it is". It's no better than the "West has fallen" BS, too. Image
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Even in more recent cases where credit card companies and payment processors have clamped down on Japanese sites, there are contingencies increasingly in place to mitigate the damage while giving alternatives a chance to shine.

Jan 29 5 tweets 4 min read
Of particular emphasis:
>Japanese banks are preventing adult/NSFW games from being profitable for devs via Steam.
>Given the rising number of Japanese games on Steam, this would hinder any further growth.
>Japanese agencies related to finance and gaming have a close eye on it. Image
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The tendency is to simply blame domestic banks.

Given the likes of NCOSE pressuring Valve to remove NSFW titles from Steam, and the role foreign busybodies have played in giving financial bodies an excuse, "muh Japanese conservatism" isn't cutting it.

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Dec 15, 2024 5 tweets 3 min read
TLDR in English: VISA has suspended services to a matchmaking site for Japanese otaku. And NO reasons are given, nor is there any indication of criminal/illegal activity of any kind.

Again, the issue is VERY real. Image
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This is alas the latest in a long string of credit card/payment processor censorship hijinks in Japan.

Which is also at least partly due to moral Puritanism across the Pacific.
Dec 12, 2024 6 tweets 5 min read
Just in on Substack: While a conflagration of financial hijinks and the resurgence of a familiar puritanism poses fresh challenges, history may not repeat itself.

These are interesting times.

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At a glance, these might seem disparate threads that have little significance.

Dig a little deeper, and you'll find tales of unaccountable busybodies and would-be censors itching to get their pound of flesh at the expense of everyone else. All, purportedly, for their own good. Image
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Dec 10, 2024 5 tweets 3 min read
You're right. You're not on anyone's side, gaming or otherwise.

Welcome back, 1990s-2000s moral panic. Image Also, so much for trying to backpedal, given how it's clear the likes of people like Melanie are fooling no one but those already deep in the kool-aid.

Dec 9, 2024 7 tweets 5 min read
You and the likes of Melonie claim to want saving gaming and "civilization" from degeneracy when it's all about wanting to be the scolds in power.

You lot insist...no, DEMAND compliance, obedience for "our own good" OR ELSE. Image
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I also wouldn't be surprised you'd have been the same sort who would have gone after Samus in the late '80s and 90s for showing too much skin or being "objectified".

....Come to think of it, almost EXACTLY the same as a certain Anita.
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Dec 8, 2024 6 tweets 5 min read
This could have been said 20 years ago. Or 40.

"How INDECENT!"

"Won't SOMEONE THINK of the children?!"

You are no different from these guys. It also never ceases to amaze how this betrays these sorts of people's obliviousness to gaming.

EVEN in the 1990s, gaming was already in the future he feared. Image
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Dec 3, 2024 6 tweets 4 min read
For those who want a TLDR, a free expression rally was held at Japan's House of Councilors (the "Lower House" of the Diet), with multiple in-house meetings.

It notably stressed how credit card companies/payment processors are using double-standards, AND aimed at non-Americans. Image Key here is a presentation from Prof. Jack Lerner (UC Irvine School of Law), highlighting not only the history of content and payment processing in America. But also how a MUCH MORE broad interpretation of American rules are being enforced OUTSIDE the US.

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Dec 3, 2024 5 tweets 3 min read
As it turns out the credit card/payment processor censorship issue goes much further, being traced to both a California district court ruling and "blocking lists" sent by the Singapore-based HQ of an unnamed card company.

The censorship IS real, and not through "usual channels." Image
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In addition to how VISA and other card companies/payment processors have downplayed, if not muddled blame, there's also how this has been 20 years in the making.

And unsurprisingly goes back to "War on Porn"-induced censorship in America going global.

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Nov 30, 2024 4 tweets 3 min read
This seems to have gone under the radar, but here it is, straight from the horse's mouth: Seetan Kitney, President and Representative Director, Visa Worldwide Japan.

TLDR: Visa is justifying censorship in the name of protecting their brand, with vague "global and local policies" Image It's already starting to go viral in Japanese Twitter, and is going about as well as you'd expect.

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Nov 29, 2024 4 tweets 3 min read
Most Anti-SJWs/woke activists would not have fought for those games if people didn't promote them TO BEGIN WITH as alternatives. And there's a lot out there ignored amidst the outrage.

A perpetual siege mentality and "perfect is the enemy of good" are NOT the key to winning. Image Not every game will succeed. Some of them may be made by those who don't share the same politics. Some might even be considered "woke" or be subordinate to "the enemy."

Yet isn't this the ideal? Getting the games and industry we want?

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Nov 28, 2024 5 tweets 3 min read
You mean the same Tsutomu Miyazaki whose reign of terror in 1989 sparked moral panic against otaku in Japan for a while, despite how a dysfunctional upbringing rather than anime/manga was to blame?

kinsellaresearch.com/new/Japanese%2… x.com/CatastropiClar…Image Debates, and psychoanalyses made after the fact revealed a portrait of someone who was mentally disturbed to begin with and a victim of familial neglect. Just as video games weren't to blame for Columbine a decade late.

Still, it took years before the damage was undone. Image
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Nov 23, 2024 4 tweets 2 min read
The damage this vid has done can't be understated. Either that or this Extra Credits "classic".
Nov 21, 2024 4 tweets 3 min read
>"The most controversial video I've ever done."

In-between trying to appropriate Tolkien (while insinuating how problematic his approach to evil is), pulling the "media literacy" card on Freiren, and branding those who disagree "bad faith."

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For those who wish to see the pedantic-ness, ironic salt (despite claiming to not be affected by the Twitter drama he sparked), and glorified "problematic" agitprop in its near-entirety by the end...
Nov 8, 2024 4 tweets 3 min read
Red Pill Movement, Manosphere, "Incel Movement", whatever they're called, they ironically project the same toxic and self-destructive mindsets they loathe so much.

If anything, they're the radfems and "woke" crowd's biggest fans with how much they've internalized their BS. Image
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Whether it's purely for the grift or out of some genuine belief, like the pickup artists and MGTOWs of yesteryear, they offer no real solution or working alternative. Just a vicious cycle that benefits only themselves.

Oct 30, 2024 4 tweets 3 min read
The idea that developers are almost always never at fault, and that to even criticize them or celebrate a bad studio's demise is unthinkable because of people losing jobs has to be one of THE most disingenuous conceits out there.

Especially when the studio ITSELF'S to blame. Image On top of making most criticisms near-impossible, this also gives journos like the OP and Jason Schreier a carte blanche to spin a narrative about bigots vs. diversity or workers vs. evil corpos, while letting those actually responsible off scott-free.
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Sep 11, 2024 9 tweets 6 min read
So this was brought to my attention: People Make Games' Jan. 25, 2023 "special" on Valve.

Or more accurately, agitprop against Valve, using some of the same tactics Schreier uses in his own hitpieces. Painting them as problematic for not conforming to PMG's political norms.Image
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To lend the vid a shred of legitimacy, Bratt/PMG states to have interviewed Valve staff anonymously on what goes on.

In practice, this translates to taking more questionable claims (like unfair hiring) while meshing it with credible ones, (like Valve's horizontal structure). Image
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Sep 10, 2024 7 tweets 5 min read
On the one hand, it's a fascinating look into the links between governments, militaries, wargaming, and the gaming industry.

On the other hand, that journalistic dive's in the service of a "Jason Schreier-meets-Moon Channel" hitpiece. And not in a good way. Image Compared to Moon Channel, the production values are higher, there's a more thorough pretense towards research, and Bratt/PMG personally attended (and interviewed figures at) the wargaming conference at Sandhurst shown in the doc.

Yet these aren't all.
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Sep 4, 2024 7 tweets 3 min read
Alongside the insanity on social media like Zoomer Historian's Nazi apologia and video essayists like Moon Channel passing off conspiratorial BS about anime as some plot to cover up WW2 war crimes, this is something of a wake-up call.

One that's long overdue.

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This isn't the first time "alternative" narratives relitigating WW2 has been pushed by "serious" Anglophone pundits.

Robert Stinnett's Day of Deceit in 1999 promoted the long-refuted idea that FDR not only knew of Pearl Harbor ahead of time, but allowed it to happen. Image
Aug 19, 2024 5 tweets 3 min read
The Japanese anime industry has myriad issues of its own.

Solving that by either replicating American animation unions or Hollywood "dead weight" will not only repeat the same problems but will make "Anime is Dying" a self-fulfilling prophecy. As much as Japan's scene is strawmanned into "sweatshop", it's not universally hell.

There are studios that handle it better than others, be it KyoAni, Ufotable, Sunrise, or Toei. Just as there are those who do it poorly, be it A1 Pictures, PA Works, or especially MAPPA.Image