There are only a few naysayers, and most either confused or cautiously speculative, but I honestly don’t think many things on the fandom end will be affected; there will just be more money in different people’s pockets. What’s really going to change with this acquisition? Disney is notorious for aggressive merchandising and pushing their licensed characters, but will a flood of new action figures and new Marvel-themed rides at Disneyland really affect Marvel’s artistic integrity or quality of work? As long as Disney keeps its hand out of what the folks at Marvel actually do, then I don’t see a problem. People were upset when Disney bought out Pixar too, but Pixar has, for the most part, retained its autonomy and continues to produce outstanding films. So why shouldn’t I expect Marvel to continue making comics like it always has?

Some people are concerned with the long list of Marvel properties being developed as films at the moment, but it isn’t like Disney is forcibly severing Marvel’s existing contracts with the dozens of studios already involved. If Marvel’s success in movies is part of why it was attractive to Disney, then shouldn’t Disney just let them continue doing their thing? Others are concerned that Disney might take away from the maturity and violence of certain Marvel titles, but if Disney was also attracted to Marvel’s popularity with boys and men of a wide demographic, why would they tamper with that by numbing anything down? Of course, logic hasn’t stopped companies from shooting themselves in the foot before, but Disney should know that they can’t afford to make too many mistakes here.

I guess I might be more concerned if I actually read more Marvel titles, but my Western comic consumption is pretty limited as is, and even then, it’s mostly DC for Batman. Still, I see this mostly as just another acquisition that will be accepted soon enough, just like Disney and Pixar and when Adobe bought Macromedia.

As for Kingdom Hearts, I don’t really think that Spider-Man will be making his debut there any time soon, but Square-Enix is just as notorious for exploiting its properties as Disney, so who would really be surprised? Sora, Spidey, and Mickey VS Xemnas, the Lizard, and Sephiroth, why the hell not?? At this point, Kingdom Hearts is every bit as much of a cash cow as Final Fantasy, so I’m not too invested in the franchise keeping any kind of integrity anymore. It’s too late for that already, so whatever! Bring it. …I’ll still buy it. Integration might be a little awkward considering most Marvel characters reside in the “real world,” but hey, it would be kind of awesome if Sora and his buddies could visit Manhattan and do the tourist thing. Sora in Times Square! Sora in Central Park! Sora at the Statue of Liberty! Sora riding in a taxi! I mean, they’ve already visited Port Royal and that was a real place too.

Just think, you could have Wolverine as a summon and he’d slash through Heartless for you… Okay, so I can’t actually picture Logan taking orders from Sora at all, but heeey. Maybe if Sora buys him a cigar and a beer.

One year difference? Riiiight.

Look at Kingdom Hearts. In the first game, Sora and Kairi are fourteen. Riku is fifteen. Sora and Kairi are innocent, completely good-hearted, and faithful to “the light.” Riku is insecure and jealous and “opens himself to darkness.” It’s true that it’s in Riku’s personality that his insecurities should leave him vulerable to negative influence, but why specify that he’s fifteen while his friends are fourteen? Why is that one year difference so significant? In Eureka seveN, Renton is fourteen. He is naive, immature, and is easily confused by things I wouldn’t expect a fourteen-year old to be confused by. In Bleach, Ichigo is fifteen. He is still naive to some extent, but more mature, quicker to act, slower to whine about things. The art depicting all of these characters is also very indicative — Sora, Kairi, and Renton are all drawn with much more child-like proportions (seriously, Sora looks like he’s maybe ten in the above picture). Their faces are round, their eyes are large, their limbs look fragile. Meanwhile, Riku has rather some rather muscular arms and Ichigo is very angular. Puberty is supposed to be an awkward time of gradual transition — things shouldn’t change so much in just a year. I don’t remember changing so much in a year.

The fourteen-year olds bother me a lot more than the fifteen-year olds because they often seem much younger than they claim to be. Renton acts like he’s ten. So does Sora. In both cases, the target audience is the actual age of the characters (and older) rather than the acting age of the characters, so why are they aged down so much? Why does Renton throw so many temper tantrums? Why does Sora have such an untainted, innocent quality to him? I have difficulty imagining any real fourteen-year old boy acting as either of them do. Fourteen is a rebellious age — you go out and do things rather than throw fits, and you are more open to knowingly doing “bad things” rather than maintaining a wholehearted “goodness.” There is little fluctuation in either of those characters’ personalities to indicate that they have even a few of the traditional qualities of teenagers. (Okay, I’m probably being a bit harsh on Renton, but Sora, at least, doesn’t really change.) It isn’t like Eureka seveN or Kingdom Hearts would change dramatically if their protagonists were declared ten-year olds instead of fourteen-year olds.

The fifteen-year olds are usually not so farfetched as fifteen-year olds (except when it comes to having power; fifteen year old pilots always beat the middle-aged pilots!). Then again, Sora is aged to fifteen in Kingdom Hearts II with minimal change in personality, but that’s just him.

This is about how old Sora acts. (Photographer: tofuguns@flickr)

In Sailor Moon, most of the inner senshi are fourteen when they’re introduced. Haruka and Michiru are technically sixteen at their introduction, but as they’re only one grade ahead of the others, it’s close enough? The maturity differences between the former group and the latter pair is striking and commented on several times in the series itself. A vast majority of the pilots in Gundam series are fifteen or older. Amuro Ray, Garrod Ran (Gundam X), all five of the Wing boys, and Setsuna F. Seiei (Gundam 00) are fifteen. Kira Yamato and Athrun Zala are both sixteen in Gundam SEED; I couldn’t find Domon Kasshu’s age (G Gundam), but he was probably seventeen or eighteen — Wikipedia mentions that Sai Saici was the youngest pilot in that series at age sixteen. Judau Ashta (Gundam ZZ) is apparently fourteen; I haven’t seen the series myself, but I wonder if the character is like the various fourteen-year olds described above. (If so, I wonder if that’s one of the reasons ZZ has a bad rap.)

Sailor Moon’s target audience is younger than Gundam’s, so it would make sense that the characters act younger, but Usagi could have just as easily been branded as a fifteen-year old. Similarly, more Gundam pilots could have been stated as fourteen and still act mature. The plus or minus one year would change nothing in the story — they are still teenage magical girls fighting aliens and teenage boys piloting giant robots. Why is the difference between fourteen and fifteen? Why not thirteen and fourteen? Fifteen and sixteen? Everyone between ten and fourteen acts “fourteen” (and by that, I mean ten); everyone between fifteen and their early twenties acts “fifteen.” In Card Captor Sakura, Sakura is ten — Usagi, fourteen, acts about the same maturity level. Setsuna’s fellow Gundam meisters in 00 are aged 23 (Lockon), 18 (Tieria), and 18 (Allelujah) — they all display about the same maturity level.

There are at least a few examples of characters who don’t fit in with what I’ve said; the only one I can think of right now is Yusuke Urameshi from Yu Yu Hakusho, who is apparently fourteen but acts older. Are there enough other examples to overturn my observations?

Sora wasn’t my first figure (Axel was). He was the last thing I bought at Ikkikon in 2007 before barring myself from the Dealer’s Room. I was going to get the Final Form version but decided that I liked the keyblades for the Valor Form better. (Valor has Fenrir and Fatal Crest; Final has Sleeping Lion and Fatal Crest.)

His very detailed, but because the figure seems to consider accuracy more important than articulation, and because Nomura’s designs are consisently ridiculous, Sora’s not all that flexible as a result. His arms can’t be raised higher than his shoulders, it’s very hard to bend his knees because of his pants, and it’s generally stupidly difficult to get him to stand in different positions. A lot of the joints are also poorly made — for example, Sora’s shoes are made of three seperate pieces that don’t fit together very well, so parts of it fall apart when you try to pose him. =_=

I guess it’s not that big a deal if his purpose is just to stand and look awesome. Sorry he’s a bit dusty in these photos by the way; he’s been in storage all December, and I forgot to dust him before the shoot… which takes place on my ghetto desk setup consisting of a too-thin white cloth scrap (from a failed cosplay venture) and a few sheets of paper! Can you tell that I love playing with depth of field even though I’m not very skilled at it?

It was ridiculously hard getting him to stand like this. For a few shots I was actually trying to hold him steady with one hand and taking the picture with the other — that didn’t end up working out very well though. ;x

Emo pose is emo.

Stole Axel’s chakram, lol~. It matches his costume so well though! :D The angle here makes me happy too.

Funny thing: Sora can hold Axel’s chakram just as well as Axel can, if not better. The sad part is that Sora has pegs in his hands that are intended to fit into corresponding holes on his keyblades, but it never works out right somehow because of his fingers. Inversely, Axel has holes in his hands intended to fit with pegs on his chakram, but that never quite works out either. 8| I’ll probably dust off Axel sometime this weekend and do a photoshoot of him next.

Sora’s legs in this picture is pretty much all he can do with his legs without a lot of pain and anger.

Annnnd… Spirit Bomb / Kamehameha / Rasengan! 8D

First of all, think of all that untapped revenue! Kingdom Hearts has become a gigantic cash cow for Square-Enix in the few short years it’s been around (oh, crap, has it already been seven years?), but before they came up with the brilliant idea of making three more spin-off semi-sequels, they turned down the bid to release KH2: Final Mix+ overseas. Why? What possible logic is there to cutting the rest of the world off from that title? The original KH: Final Mix was understandable. There was logic behind that one. The overseas kids already had the extra footage and knick knacks in their normal release, so it was only fair that the Japanese kids get a version with Sephiroth — and throw in some extra keyblades. Nothing too substantial, really. But KH2:FM+ was an entirely different ballgame.

Unlike the first Final Mix, it not only added a billion new cutscenes, features, and other bells and whistles, but it added a 3D version of Chain of Memories! Considering the Japanese, US, and European releases were nearly identical this time around, that just seems a little unfair, doesn’t it? Now consider that KH is arguably equally popular in both the US and Japan (sorry, Europe, I don’t have stats for you!). Japan shipped about a million copies in the first week of KH2′s release. The US shipped about that much in the first month. Fair enough, but over time? The US obviously has a bigger population. This means more fans. This means more sales. This means more people pissed about the fact that KH2:FM+ is a Japanese exclusive.

I don’t have sales numbers for KH2:FM+ in Japan, but if the ratio of sales remains the same, Squeenix and Disney would definitely get a bigger chunk of change from the US than from Japan if KH2:FM+ was also released in the US. (And even more with a European release!) So why cut off the rest of the world? Why spit in the face of all that potential money? It would have been much easier than developing three more games, anyway. I don’t get it. Clearly, Squeenix is more than happy to milk the shit out of Kingdom Hearts, so why not?

Now, in December, they’re releasing Re:Chain of Memories in the States, which means the most unfair part of the KH2:FM+ package will finally be available to the poor fans over here, but I still feel like there are significant additions to the KH2 part of the special edition to warrant the whole damn thing to be released Stateside. I want those cutscenes, dammit. I suppose it’s smart of them though — this way, they fill at least some portion of the overseas’ gaping void, but they retain some bit of their exclusiveness, and all the Japanese kids can still laugh and feel special. I don’t really know why they’re entitled though.

And really, Japanese companies can’t not know that some fans will just import the games and import the console and/or mod the one they have so they can play it. There are plenty of copies of KH2:FM+ that’ve fallen into grubby American and European hands, but no one officially supports that kind of roundabout madness, right?

I’ve said before that I don’t really play games much anymore, so I don’t know whether this exclusive release bullshit happens often with other games, etc. If it does happen, I’d be interested in knowing whether other games’ logic (if there is any) for only releasing certain games in certain countries is as ridiculous as KH’s or if there are actually any legitimate reasons. (Laggy development times, as in the case of some of the early Final Fantasy games, would be one of those legitimate reasons, but these days, no one can really use that excuse anymore.)