The promotional video of the domestic game "Showa Rice Story" is on fire, although it is not difficult to see traces of dissemination and promotion on various platforms, it is undeniable that this game has brought players a very novel initial impression.
In particular, it is worth mentioning that "Showa Rice Story" is one of the few games in recent years that only uses the theme style, rather than the AAA level gameplay screen to cause a lot of hot discussion, and even some players said "With this taste, the game is not fun, I also buy it."
The promotional video first released by Station B is rare in recent years in domestic stand-alone games
It is not difficult to see from the promotional content that this is a Chinese-made Apocalyptic zombie-themed RPG, and the story takes place in an alternate world set in the background of "Japan did not have an economic collapse in the 90s and successfully bought the United States". At first glance, this setting, which looks very nonsensical and even nonsensical, has made some Chinese, American, and Japanese player groups shout, just like a "east and west hemispheres join hands to find fun".
Americans generally say that "it's weird, it's fun, I want the game to be better."
The Japanese side said that "the brain hole is too big, it was actually Chinese came up with it, and fell into meditation."
Some players commented that the cult style of "Showa Mikoku Monogatari" is very similar to "Heavy Aircraft", and was retweeted by Takashi Yamamoto, the original artist of the "Heavy Aircraft"
In China, it is even more immersed in a sea of laughter and laughter
Why is that? What kind of charm does this kind of brain-hole creativity, which is ridiculed by many people as "cultural arch fire", have?
The Essence of Whole Life: Nostalgia for the pop culture of the 80s
Modified locomotives, muscle cars, video recorders, big brothers, home game consoles, and the familiar melody of the background music "それが事", these U.S.-Japan elements that were popular in the late 1980s and early 1990s, were incorporated into a 3-minute promotional video.
Although the idea seems to be very silly, the promotional video of "Showa Rice Story" has received fairly good overall reviews on the networks of China, the United States and Japan. The reason is that players are very happy with the Easter eggs buried in the video and the stems they play, and even young players who are not familiar with the popular culture of the United States and Japan in the 80s are also infected by this atmosphere of "fun is finished".
So, let's start by taking a look at what memes are played in the promotional video.
Opening, bowing zombies and speeding locomotives on the wasteland road.
These two scenes directly point out the theme of the game - the apocalyptic zombie theme game with Japanese elements.
In the first minute of the video, the quick-switching screens and straightforward subtitles introduce players to an alternate world in which history is moving differently from reality: "In 1991, Japan, with its strong economic strength, completely reduced the United States to its economic and cultural "colony". And under the premise of Japan's acquisition of the United States, the world has ushered in the end of the zombie-infested wasteland after several years of development.
Imagine that the Showa era not only did not end in 1989, but also avoided economic collapse and successfully achieved a "wholly-owned acquisition" of the United States, which is a beautiful thing for the Japanese. What kind of world will the Fusion of the Golden Age of japanese people and the zombie wasteland that Americans love to see?
The answer to this question, which the Japanese could not imagine after the economic decline, and the Americans could not think of tasteless due to cultural cognition, was brought by Chinese game developers.
The "NEO YOKOHAMA" brand is a trademark of Hollywood, a well-known landmark attraction in Los Angeles.
This sign is actually protected by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, and it seems that Japan bought Los Angeles along with Hollywood.
Dressed in a kimono, The Statue of Liberty, this poster corresponds to the 1989 purchase of Columbia by Sony in Japan.
On the cover of Newsweek in October 1989, a redraw of Lady Columbia's kimono was used to arch the "Japanese invasion" to the American people.
Interestingly, the cover of this issue of Newsweek was misrepresented by most mainstream media in China as "Lady Liberty in a Kimono", which may be the origin of the poster in "Showa Mikoku Monogatari".
In addition, posters such as Nissan muscle cars, family game consoles, mobile phones, and Trump's MEGA campaign slogan portray Japan's economic colonization of the United States even more.
From the 1960s to the 1990s, Japan and the United States also fought trade wars, in which automobiles and home appliances were the two main battlefields.
And even more egregiously, Japanese-made Bozi soda has also replaced Coca-Cola in the United States, and players familiar with the Fallout series know how important Coke is in the wasteland.
The game replaces Coca-Cola's polko soda "ラムネ(Roma:ra mu ne)"
Ro mu ne
In addition, the shape and name of the game console in the poster resembles the Nintendo Red and White Machine FC, and big brother is derived from motorola mobile phones, both of which are produced by Vanaheim Electronics, and the stem is derived from Anaheim Electronics, an arms dealer in "Mobile Suit Gundam".
In addition, in the game's promotional video, there are also tributes to Gundam's terriers such as "Standing on the Earth" and "Satellite Fall".
The images above and below are satellite falls in the game and Gundam, respectively
The road that the heroine walks is Route 50, which is known as the "loneliest and most magnificent" in the United States. From the video and other materials, it can be seen that the game will use the protagonist to drive a modifiable and upgradable motorhome, which takes place on The Adventure Story of Highway 50.
The motorcycle ridden by the heroine is a combination of the well-known Japanese brands YAMAHA and Kawasaki, which also shows another subculture "flying car party" common to the United States and Japan, that is, the "riotous family".
Therefore, the background music of the video is "それが事" full of positive optimism. The song was released in 1991, and Li Keqin's cover of "Red Sun" is one of the must-have songs in Chinese KTV for decades. It can be said that a considerable part of the success of the "Showa Rice Story" promotional video comes from this classic song, which not only brings the nonsense contrast of "optimistic X doomsday" in the artistic conception, but also instantly fills the cultural empathy of Chinese and Japanese players.
The video is not only a tribute to the pop culture of the 80s, but also some classics from the millennium. It can be said that the flattering thing about "Showa Rice Story" being ridiculed by Chinese players as "stitching without losing fun" is that the development team added a moderate amount of "new elements after the millennium" as a seasoning in the pot of nostalgia in the 80s, forming the greatest common divisor for all ages and preferences to get "fun".
Poster of the Showa-style American drama "Bankruptcy Sisters"
Tribute to the classic anime "Tianyuan Breakthrough"
And that pool
The essence of nostalgia: the collective memories and aesthetic tastes of a generation
Of course, the reason why these things with obvious branding of the times are not so abrupt when "stitched together" is that we have already formed a deep impression of them through a large number of cultural works for decades. Especially with the large number of post-70s and post-80s engaged in the entertainment industry entering middle age, the nostalgic trend focusing on the popular culture of the 80s has also begun to become more and more prevalent.
For example, "Ready Player One" is the culmination of this nostalgic trend, in addition to the American drama "Stranger Things", "I Am Big Brother" theatrical version, the text adventure game "Thirteen Machine Defense Circle" and other works, it is not difficult for us to feel the creator's recollection and tribute to the popular culture of the 80s. In particular, the contrast between the high-tech future and the entertainment of the old era brought about by "Ready Player One", as well as the sense of tranquility like "Showa Mikuni Monogatari", as if time has stagnated in the last century, can make people who have experienced and not experienced the trend of the 80s feel the cultural aesthetic taste of that era.
Even in hard sci-fi movies like The Wandering Earth, the Little Bully game console came out and showed a small face
In particular, the late 1980s and early 1990s were a special and complex era for people at home and abroad.
At this time, the United States entered the stage of realism and consumerism, and the shadow of the Cold War was gradually dissipating. With the popularity of cable TV, MTV's innovation has brought music and film and television into the mix, bringing a new popular entertainment culture and star trends.
Japan is in the heyday of rapid growth after World War II, not only in the economic and technological fields among the world's top, the automobile and home appliance industries have become leading enterprises in export earnings, with animation games as the representative of cultural output set a benchmark in the world.
In the process of reform and opening up, the Chinese people have received a large number of baptisms of American and Japanese popular culture on the one hand, and on the other hand, they have been shocked by the prosperity of the two major developed countries. In particular, current hot spots such as "Japan can buy half of the United States within five years" and "the United States won the Gulf War like a game" are full of awe and yearning.
Therefore, some commentators say that only Chinese can make "Showa Mikoku Monogatari", because only by experiencing the change of mentality from "looking up to looking up" can we more fully get the essence of American and Japanese pop culture in the 80s and "stitch" them together in an overhead world background.
For young post-00s, the late 80s and early 90s are already part of history, a story that has not been experienced but is often told. The post-80s generation gap once watched the film and television works set in the 60s such as "Sunny Days", "Forrest Gump", "Cat and Mouse Game" and so on, and felt the different youth of the previous generation with different perspectives. Today, there are few good cultural and entertainment works in China to show the cultural customs of the 80s to the post-00s. Therefore, the fire of "Showa Rice Story" is essentially that the market has a certain demand for this kind of subject, which has led to a large number of player reviews such as "whether this game is fun or not is no longer important, and the music is finished".
Conclusion: The essence of cultural archfire is another output
"You ask him what he was doing, he wasn't born yet." This sentence is a sentence that the creative team often said when "Ready Player One" was filming, when communicating details with the actors.
After a few years to watch "Ready Player One", aside from the player's feelings and idealism, this movie is essentially a collection of nostalgia for American 80s pop culture. While it is spreading around the world, it is also exporting American culture to the world. Therefore, in this movie, the proportion of American cultural elements is much higher than that of Japanese games.
In fact, after recent years of domestic games, animation, online texts out of the sea, more and more young people have realized a reality, that is, "the ultimate purpose of cultural output is not to export, but to grasp the right to speak, and to reshape the three views of the young generation."
During the 75th anniversary of World War II, the United States officially shouted out that "the United States and Britain won the victory over Nazi Germany", which ignored the words of the Soviet Union, China and other anti-war countries. In addition to the history of World War II, the United States also produced "Braveheart", "Gladiator", "King Arthur" and other epic blockbusters that distorted the history of other countries to a certain extent to carry out their own cultural export.
Therefore, at a time when China's comprehensive national strength has developed and it can confront the United States on an equal footing in the economy, the creation and dissemination of culture has also entered a new stage. Although "The Tale of Showa Rice Country" is only a special case of stitching up other cultures and focusing on fun, it is worthy of reference by more practitioners and domestic audiences in terms of cultural output.