Tokyo Gameshow: The much belated Guilty Gear report
Finally done! ^^; Meant to have this posted ages ago (and I've still got all our WEWY stuff from the same trip to cover yet ><), but as so often happens with good intentions like that, distractions are plentiful and free time rather less so. Anyway, better late than never and all that, there is more than enough to cover.
Since I've already talked about the more general experience of the Tokyo Gameshow in a previous post (and the Squeenix closed theatre session elsewhere) I'll just summarise here: most of the interesting GG-related stuff happened on day two of the convention. I was cosplaying Millia, and velithya (my partner in crime for the purposes of this report) was there as Sol. We were there with a bunch of other friends as well, but they were cosplaying from other series, so won't feature so prominently in this report.
The ArcSys booth was pretty low-key this year. I was expecting they'd probably have some major promotional stuff for that upcoming shameless GG clone BlazBlue game, but there was next to nothing there about it. As compared to the giant display they had last year when they had Overture to promote, there wasn't much more than a small presentation area. This is not entirely a bad thing - as friends of mine had reported from last year, the advantage of being fans of a game made by a small company with a booth that doesn't get as much attention as the big industry names is that the staff are a lot less busy and a lot happier to talk to you or, say, track down Ishiwatari Daisuke for a cosplayer who wants a photo with him. Queues for the signing in the afternoon were much shorter too, which you learn to seriously appreciate after seeing how bad they get around places like the Squeenix booth.
The staff also included a helpful English-speaking staff member was nice enough to answer a couple of our bigger questions, which I'll cover here before I get bogged down with posting all those photos down below.
1. So what's up with the timeline these days, what with all the Overture confusion?
The short answer: all the major games from GG through the rest of the X series and including GG2 are canon, and they're all officially considered to be part of the same timeline.
The long answer is a bit more complicated, since it had to go through all the points where the original confusion came from. One of the main things that originally had people saying GG2 must be set in an alternate universe (massive stylistic differences and story WTF moments aside) was the baffling statement from several news outlets reporting GG2 as 'The first TRUE sequel' to GG1. In reality, it turns out what they actually meant by this was that unlike the GGX series which has dozens of endings per game, GG2 had only one story mode, making everything that happens the 'true' events. So essentially the statement 'the first true sequel' was by way of trying to package the fact the game had only a single, linear storyline as a selling point.
This was also went to explain what was really meant by the statements that GGX and GGXX were 'gaiden' or 'sidestories', which certain fans had leapt on and declared meant that the best selling parts of the series to date had been now declared non-canon. In reality, this was just another reference to the fact that since so many of the GGX-XX endings contradict (or make no sense whatsoever) and we can't make more than an educated guess at which the 'real' events were, most of the story mode from those games was gaiden. This is also presumably what Ishiwatari was really on about in the interview where he talked about parallel worlds splitting off from around GGX. This was one part of what I was going on with my own assumptions about Overture being AU, and which I can now and admit I misinterpreted.
I did try point out to the guy that even the very first GG game had a different ending for each character, making the idea that the gaidens start from GGX a bit debatable, and got only a vague reply about how it was pretty obvious Sol had been the one who really beat Justice (oddities like how Ky's GGX bio talks about him hearing Justice's last words are apparently not important enough to count here). In the end, I cannot blame anyone in the fandom for getting confused by all this 'true sequel', 'gaiden' and GG2 versus GGX stuff, it was not made particularly clear in the context we had. Possibly it was more obvious in the Japanese versions, and simply lost in translations when English news sources first started reporting about the game. But it's damn nice to finally have an explanation that clears all that up.
2. Is Dizzy officially Ky's Gear girlfriend from Overture?
The short answer: Maybe. Maybe not. For all the official sources will tell us, it could still go either way.
The long answer: To steal a phrase from velithya, when we asked our helpful staff-guy this question, he made like a hedge trimmer and hedged for all he was worth. If Overture's the same canon as the GGX series then whether we like it or not, it's hard to avoid it as the most obvious possibility; and a couple of AC+ endings certainly went out of their way to give Ky and Dizzy extra scenes together, but the word from on high is still not to make any assumptions. Stuff you hear from staff at events like this is never to be given quite the same weight as what's in the actual games, and I suppose it's possible that he was working on the assumption that as English speakers we weren't up with all recent canon developments, but I got the distinct impression this was a question he'd been told specifically how to answer should it come up. He wouldn't even say 'well, you can probably see where it's going', or 'AC+ should pretty much clear that one up' or anything else remotely that definite. All he would say on the subject is 'you'll have to wait until the end of the series to find out', which could still be any distance away. So they're not saying she is, and they're not saying she isn't, but it looks like AC+ wasn't intended to clear the matter up after all.
So this does explain, for one thing, why the latest artbook we picked up had only a few very rough sketches of her, and named them only 'Kohaku no Kimi' rather than anything more specific. But where does that leave the actual question? The hints that she and Dizzy are the same person have had all the subtly of an anvil, so if they just don't want to admit it officially yet that's a little on the lame side, but could that all just be misdirection? Are Dizzy and Ky going to go on a hunt for the truth about Dizzy's past and parentage and discover she's got a sister or something in the process? Given the WTF quota of the GG series even on a good day I would not entirely put it past them. However it turns out, I'm picturing another fannish implosion on the way. -_-
Naturally, it was only when we were on our way out that I thought of all the other questions we should have asked while we had the chance ("What's the plan for the series from here, with regards to Overture vs GGX style games? Is AC+ ever coming out in English? Were Overture's sales figures really as dismal as the Internet reported? Was BlazBlue really conceived by taking a Guilty Gear fanfic and changing all the names?" etc). >< Ah well, at least we got the big ones covered.
Jumping back to earlier in the day, we found out there was a signing on at the ArcSys booth at 3:30, so we spent most of the intervening time hanging out in the Designated Cosplay Photography Areas, variously taking photos or posing for them. Guilty Gear was reasonably well represented by Cosplayers at the TGS, but they were mostly Bridget. Also plenty of Dizzys, a couple of Sols and Kys, and a smattering of other assorted characters (an I-no, a alternate-coloured Anji and one of Izuna's nekomata-catgirls were among the ones we didn't get photos of), but still mostly Bridgets. A couple of those Bridgets were even actual males, including one English-speaking foreigner who wasn't cosplaying at the time but stopped to chat with us and show off some of his Bridget-cosplay poses. Anyway, velithya and I spent a lot of our time here either waiting in line to take photos of other GG cosplayers or grabbing them as they walked past to take photos with us. We got photographed a lot more than the first day (mostly because we were set up right next to one of the main walkways and everyone saw us, though probably also because I was dressed as a girl in a short skirt this time around ^^;).
Overture Sol and Ky, almost the only GG cosplayers we photographed on the first day (and we had to run after them and grab them for that), but I'm glad we did - their costumes looked fantastic.
An alternate coloured Jam and the first of many Bridgets. Only got a couple of photos of these two, the queue of skeezy guys waiting to photograph them did not move very fast.
(A funny thing about Japanese cosplayers, often even the ones with really impressive costumes will just have bought a pair of generic, off-the-shelf shoes to go with them, regardless of whether they look like what the character wears. One of our group suggested this might be because a lot of the good costumes have also been bought pre-made off the shelf, but even if so, shoes just don't seem to be much of a priority for them.)
A Kuro Ky and an Order Sol who came and hung out with us in our little corner of wall-space for a while. Lots of photos were taken, and we had a chat about what materials we used our various costumes (as best we could manage given the language barrier). They were pretty cool. ^_^
And later on we were joined by another Bridget.
While there were plenty of other Dizzys around that day, this is the only one we got to take photos of.
By this point 3:30 was rapidly approaching, so we headed down to the ArcSys booth to get in the queue, which was of decent length by the time we showed up but nothing too scary. Unsurprisingly, there were a good few other cosplayers around to keep us company. The ones who weren't in the queue were mostly taking turns to pose up on the small stage that took up most of the booth for photos.
These three were a group we ran into in the signing queue, though unfortunately they ran off afterwards before the group photos were taken. At least one of our friends managed to grab a couple of quick pics of them for us.
Stepping back a minute here to give out some context: velithya and k_chan009 (another member of our group and one of our three fluent Japanese speakers) were lucky enough to have gotten to go to the TGS last year and were now on their second visit. The neat thing about this is that a couple of the booth staff remembered them from last year - which shouldn't actually have been that surprising when you think about how many cosplayers from Australia they'd get coming past in a typical TGS weekend. Having k_chan009 with us was extra handy because she stuck around to translate for us - including compliments from one staff member who was enthusiastically declaring my Millia costume an example of how it should be done right and who made a point of making sure we stuck around at the end to pose for some photos up on the stage (and okay, it may not have been the creator himself, but there is something incredibly gratifying about having someone who works for the parent company go out of his way to compliment you on your efforts ^_^).
The new GG2 artbook was on sale at the convention (including a lift out card with the illustration from the cover of the 2007 artbook), so like most of the rest of the queue, velithya and I brought copies along to be signed. It must be said, I may have my issues with Certain Directions the series has taken lately, but getting to meet Ishiwatari Daisuke in person was hardly less of a highlight for it, and in person, he's really pretty awesome. k_chan009 jumped in to translate for us when we got to the end of the line, not that a lot needed to be exchanged beyond the books, a sheet with our names written down on it, a handshake and a lot of 'arigatou gozaimas's.
velithya getting her book signed. Points to note: the queue, stretching away to the left, including the sleeve of a random Ky-cosplayer who may or may not have been the one we got to photograph, and some guy in the background with writing on his shirt that is almost definitely Engrish.
So we got our books signed, grinned at each other a bit, leapt up on the stage for a few more photos. Everyone who went up there for a photo got handed a couple of goodies - generally a clear file with the GG2 cover art on it and a mobile phone hanger, though by the time we got up there they were out of the files, so we got handed a couple of extra hangers each, presumably to make up for it.
The rest of our friends were heading off at that point in order to make it across town before the Squeenix store shut, but we decided to stick around in hope of getting photos with Ishiwatari-sama after the signing was over. The English-speaking staff member from the booth was nice enough to keep us company while we waited and field those questions from above, and generally be as helpful and friendly as we could have asked for.
When the signing was wrapping up, a Zappa cosplayer ran around and grabbed everyone in costume who was left around the booth for a big group photo.
All the cosplayers at the ArcSys booth, including the Sol and Ky we met earlier, and two different Bridgets. And some guy who came in and sat at the front.
Things were quieting down by then, so when we asked if we could get that last photo with Ishiwatari-sama, he seemed pretty happy to indulge us.
We shook hands again afterwards, and somewhere in the process (and I am still not sure exactly how this happened) I turned around to realise my wig had gotten tangled on his and velithya's hands, leading to various jokes over the rest of the day to the effect of "Holy crap, Millia's hair really does attack people!" We apologised, Ishiwatari himself was again very cool about it all, and then we ran back to our bags and laughed ourselves silly.
Since they were just about closing down by this stage, so all the booth staff took a photo together. (I'm not sure where half these people came from, hiding around the back most of the time, maybe?)
So that was pretty much it for the day, and high time for us to head home and have a rest.
Since I've already talked about the more general experience of the Tokyo Gameshow in a previous post (and the Squeenix closed theatre session elsewhere) I'll just summarise here: most of the interesting GG-related stuff happened on day two of the convention. I was cosplaying Millia, and velithya (my partner in crime for the purposes of this report) was there as Sol. We were there with a bunch of other friends as well, but they were cosplaying from other series, so won't feature so prominently in this report.
The ArcSys booth was pretty low-key this year. I was expecting they'd probably have some major promotional stuff for that upcoming shameless GG clone BlazBlue game, but there was next to nothing there about it. As compared to the giant display they had last year when they had Overture to promote, there wasn't much more than a small presentation area. This is not entirely a bad thing - as friends of mine had reported from last year, the advantage of being fans of a game made by a small company with a booth that doesn't get as much attention as the big industry names is that the staff are a lot less busy and a lot happier to talk to you or, say, track down Ishiwatari Daisuke for a cosplayer who wants a photo with him. Queues for the signing in the afternoon were much shorter too, which you learn to seriously appreciate after seeing how bad they get around places like the Squeenix booth.
The staff also included a helpful English-speaking staff member was nice enough to answer a couple of our bigger questions, which I'll cover here before I get bogged down with posting all those photos down below.
1. So what's up with the timeline these days, what with all the Overture confusion?
The short answer: all the major games from GG through the rest of the X series and including GG2 are canon, and they're all officially considered to be part of the same timeline.
The long answer is a bit more complicated, since it had to go through all the points where the original confusion came from. One of the main things that originally had people saying GG2 must be set in an alternate universe (massive stylistic differences and story WTF moments aside) was the baffling statement from several news outlets reporting GG2 as 'The first TRUE sequel' to GG1. In reality, it turns out what they actually meant by this was that unlike the GGX series which has dozens of endings per game, GG2 had only one story mode, making everything that happens the 'true' events. So essentially the statement 'the first true sequel' was by way of trying to package the fact the game had only a single, linear storyline as a selling point.
This was also went to explain what was really meant by the statements that GGX and GGXX were 'gaiden' or 'sidestories', which certain fans had leapt on and declared meant that the best selling parts of the series to date had been now declared non-canon. In reality, this was just another reference to the fact that since so many of the GGX-XX endings contradict (or make no sense whatsoever) and we can't make more than an educated guess at which the 'real' events were, most of the story mode from those games was gaiden. This is also presumably what Ishiwatari was really on about in the interview where he talked about parallel worlds splitting off from around GGX. This was one part of what I was going on with my own assumptions about Overture being AU, and which I can now and admit I misinterpreted.
I did try point out to the guy that even the very first GG game had a different ending for each character, making the idea that the gaidens start from GGX a bit debatable, and got only a vague reply about how it was pretty obvious Sol had been the one who really beat Justice (oddities like how Ky's GGX bio talks about him hearing Justice's last words are apparently not important enough to count here). In the end, I cannot blame anyone in the fandom for getting confused by all this 'true sequel', 'gaiden' and GG2 versus GGX stuff, it was not made particularly clear in the context we had. Possibly it was more obvious in the Japanese versions, and simply lost in translations when English news sources first started reporting about the game. But it's damn nice to finally have an explanation that clears all that up.
2. Is Dizzy officially Ky's Gear girlfriend from Overture?
The short answer: Maybe. Maybe not. For all the official sources will tell us, it could still go either way.
The long answer: To steal a phrase from velithya, when we asked our helpful staff-guy this question, he made like a hedge trimmer and hedged for all he was worth. If Overture's the same canon as the GGX series then whether we like it or not, it's hard to avoid it as the most obvious possibility; and a couple of AC+ endings certainly went out of their way to give Ky and Dizzy extra scenes together, but the word from on high is still not to make any assumptions. Stuff you hear from staff at events like this is never to be given quite the same weight as what's in the actual games, and I suppose it's possible that he was working on the assumption that as English speakers we weren't up with all recent canon developments, but I got the distinct impression this was a question he'd been told specifically how to answer should it come up. He wouldn't even say 'well, you can probably see where it's going', or 'AC+ should pretty much clear that one up' or anything else remotely that definite. All he would say on the subject is 'you'll have to wait until the end of the series to find out', which could still be any distance away. So they're not saying she is, and they're not saying she isn't, but it looks like AC+ wasn't intended to clear the matter up after all.
So this does explain, for one thing, why the latest artbook we picked up had only a few very rough sketches of her, and named them only 'Kohaku no Kimi' rather than anything more specific. But where does that leave the actual question? The hints that she and Dizzy are the same person have had all the subtly of an anvil, so if they just don't want to admit it officially yet that's a little on the lame side, but could that all just be misdirection? Are Dizzy and Ky going to go on a hunt for the truth about Dizzy's past and parentage and discover she's got a sister or something in the process? Given the WTF quota of the GG series even on a good day I would not entirely put it past them. However it turns out, I'm picturing another fannish implosion on the way. -_-
Naturally, it was only when we were on our way out that I thought of all the other questions we should have asked while we had the chance ("What's the plan for the series from here, with regards to Overture vs GGX style games? Is AC+ ever coming out in English? Were Overture's sales figures really as dismal as the Internet reported? Was BlazBlue really conceived by taking a Guilty Gear fanfic and changing all the names?" etc). >< Ah well, at least we got the big ones covered.
Jumping back to earlier in the day, we found out there was a signing on at the ArcSys booth at 3:30, so we spent most of the intervening time hanging out in the Designated Cosplay Photography Areas, variously taking photos or posing for them. Guilty Gear was reasonably well represented by Cosplayers at the TGS, but they were mostly Bridget. Also plenty of Dizzys, a couple of Sols and Kys, and a smattering of other assorted characters (an I-no, a alternate-coloured Anji and one of Izuna's nekomata-catgirls were among the ones we didn't get photos of), but still mostly Bridgets. A couple of those Bridgets were even actual males, including one English-speaking foreigner who wasn't cosplaying at the time but stopped to chat with us and show off some of his Bridget-cosplay poses. Anyway, velithya and I spent a lot of our time here either waiting in line to take photos of other GG cosplayers or grabbing them as they walked past to take photos with us. We got photographed a lot more than the first day (mostly because we were set up right next to one of the main walkways and everyone saw us, though probably also because I was dressed as a girl in a short skirt this time around ^^;).
Overture Sol and Ky, almost the only GG cosplayers we photographed on the first day (and we had to run after them and grab them for that), but I'm glad we did - their costumes looked fantastic.
An alternate coloured Jam and the first of many Bridgets. Only got a couple of photos of these two, the queue of skeezy guys waiting to photograph them did not move very fast.
(A funny thing about Japanese cosplayers, often even the ones with really impressive costumes will just have bought a pair of generic, off-the-shelf shoes to go with them, regardless of whether they look like what the character wears. One of our group suggested this might be because a lot of the good costumes have also been bought pre-made off the shelf, but even if so, shoes just don't seem to be much of a priority for them.)
A Kuro Ky and an Order Sol who came and hung out with us in our little corner of wall-space for a while. Lots of photos were taken, and we had a chat about what materials we used our various costumes (as best we could manage given the language barrier). They were pretty cool. ^_^
And later on we were joined by another Bridget.
While there were plenty of other Dizzys around that day, this is the only one we got to take photos of.
By this point 3:30 was rapidly approaching, so we headed down to the ArcSys booth to get in the queue, which was of decent length by the time we showed up but nothing too scary. Unsurprisingly, there were a good few other cosplayers around to keep us company. The ones who weren't in the queue were mostly taking turns to pose up on the small stage that took up most of the booth for photos.
These three were a group we ran into in the signing queue, though unfortunately they ran off afterwards before the group photos were taken. At least one of our friends managed to grab a couple of quick pics of them for us.
Stepping back a minute here to give out some context: velithya and k_chan009 (another member of our group and one of our three fluent Japanese speakers) were lucky enough to have gotten to go to the TGS last year and were now on their second visit. The neat thing about this is that a couple of the booth staff remembered them from last year - which shouldn't actually have been that surprising when you think about how many cosplayers from Australia they'd get coming past in a typical TGS weekend. Having k_chan009 with us was extra handy because she stuck around to translate for us - including compliments from one staff member who was enthusiastically declaring my Millia costume an example of how it should be done right and who made a point of making sure we stuck around at the end to pose for some photos up on the stage (and okay, it may not have been the creator himself, but there is something incredibly gratifying about having someone who works for the parent company go out of his way to compliment you on your efforts ^_^).
The new GG2 artbook was on sale at the convention (including a lift out card with the illustration from the cover of the 2007 artbook), so like most of the rest of the queue, velithya and I brought copies along to be signed. It must be said, I may have my issues with Certain Directions the series has taken lately, but getting to meet Ishiwatari Daisuke in person was hardly less of a highlight for it, and in person, he's really pretty awesome. k_chan009 jumped in to translate for us when we got to the end of the line, not that a lot needed to be exchanged beyond the books, a sheet with our names written down on it, a handshake and a lot of 'arigatou gozaimas's.
velithya getting her book signed. Points to note: the queue, stretching away to the left, including the sleeve of a random Ky-cosplayer who may or may not have been the one we got to photograph, and some guy in the background with writing on his shirt that is almost definitely Engrish.
So we got our books signed, grinned at each other a bit, leapt up on the stage for a few more photos. Everyone who went up there for a photo got handed a couple of goodies - generally a clear file with the GG2 cover art on it and a mobile phone hanger, though by the time we got up there they were out of the files, so we got handed a couple of extra hangers each, presumably to make up for it.
The rest of our friends were heading off at that point in order to make it across town before the Squeenix store shut, but we decided to stick around in hope of getting photos with Ishiwatari-sama after the signing was over. The English-speaking staff member from the booth was nice enough to keep us company while we waited and field those questions from above, and generally be as helpful and friendly as we could have asked for.
When the signing was wrapping up, a Zappa cosplayer ran around and grabbed everyone in costume who was left around the booth for a big group photo.
All the cosplayers at the ArcSys booth, including the Sol and Ky we met earlier, and two different Bridgets. And some guy who came in and sat at the front.
Things were quieting down by then, so when we asked if we could get that last photo with Ishiwatari-sama, he seemed pretty happy to indulge us.
We shook hands again afterwards, and somewhere in the process (and I am still not sure exactly how this happened) I turned around to realise my wig had gotten tangled on his and velithya's hands, leading to various jokes over the rest of the day to the effect of "Holy crap, Millia's hair really does attack people!" We apologised, Ishiwatari himself was again very cool about it all, and then we ran back to our bags and laughed ourselves silly.
Since they were just about closing down by this stage, so all the booth staff took a photo together. (I'm not sure where half these people came from, hiding around the back most of the time, maybe?)
So that was pretty much it for the day, and high time for us to head home and have a rest.