usagi literally watches all her friends die over and over again in
sailor moon so the whole ‘magical girls BUT DARK’ thing is so dumb
also I’ve heard pretear is a good magical girl show for people who don’t like sailor moon, and in addition, there’s of course always princess tutu
EXACTLY its so frustrating. Also yeah I never watched much Pretear but what I have seen looks pretty good, so add it to the list of reccomendations I’m putting below which already included, for….
that’s super interesting bc I loved Madoka! You mention that there’s better magical girl genres that are better written and I actually watched Utena bc of you and actually really enjoyed it so I have a lot of faith in your recommendations :‘0 so other than Sailor Moon (which I couldn’t really get into, unfortunately) can you tell me those other magical girl shows like Madoka?
I love Madoka Magica too, don’t get me wrong-I still cry every time I listen to Sagitta Luminis, it’s a very well-crafted show in a lot of respects. And to be fair Sailor Moon is a really long show with some real peaks and valleys-I’d probably recommend season 3 of that above everything else, since it’s where the series is strongest.
Off the top of my head some recommendations are:
1. PRINCESS TUTU –
Super dark, super weird, deals with a lot of the same themes as Utena and Homestuck, there’s a duck named duck. what’s not to love?
2. Mawaru Penguindrum – Only barely a magical girl show, but it’s by Kunihiko Ikuhara, the director of Utena, so I’m blood-bound to talk about it until I die. its exactly as fucked up and surreal as the Utena link implies. Substantially moreso on both counts, actually.
Lots of abuse and incest themes just like with Utena, but just as with Utena I feel its treated pretty appropriately. It features enough lgbt stuff that i’m pretty happy with it on that front, too. It’s even more dense and hard to understand than Utena in some ways, so I’m planning to rewatch this one myself and probably do some videos on it eventually.
Unfortunately its also a lot more overtly fanservicey/sexual than other stuff I’d recommend–Ikuhara seems to have gotten unfortunately trashier with time. I still think its good, the recommendation just comes with even heavier caveats than Utena.
3. Magical Lyrical Girl Nanoha – More episodic and combat oriented so its a pretty simple story, but it deals with a lot of abuse themes and following the series means watching the two main girls literally fall in love and adopt a child together. It’s maybe tongue in cheek, but they literally live together and sleep in the same bed. its canon.
Rating: Moms
I could think of more for sure–the Precure series (wanna chime in on standout seasons, @nelfes ?), Magic Knight Rayearth, Cardcaptor Sakura, theres all sorts of different weird stuff in the genre so it kinda depends on what you’re looking for. These are just a couple shows that hold a special place in my heart for one reason or another.
i always get rly sad because the original ending of rebellion was
supposed to be homura and madoka going to magical girl heaven together,
but some people behind the movie were like nah. the creator was pretty
upset about the change and same. it’s still there in the manga
adaptation.
Oh. That actually makes me feel even more justified in erasing that ending from canon in my head, and makes me feel better about Gen Urobuchi for whenever I throw myself into the Fate/Stay Night franchise, not to mention making me more positive on the actual artistic vision behind Madoka overall.
Thanks a lot for the tip! Do you have a source, by any chance?
A great precure guide for those new to the series imo is this one by @ladyloveandjustice so I advise anyone interested to look there first! I’ll cover some of the more recent seasons not mentioned but first let’s begin with my fave:
Suite Precure is the eighth Pretty Cure season and the fourth stand alone season (all seasons following it continue to be stand alones). It went back to the two cures formula (thus the original seasons “futari wa” subtitle), but added in the magical girl warrior team popularized by Yes! Precure 5 and Fresh which honestly
The only other season to follow this two cure formula going forward is my other faveMahoutsukai Precure but unlike Suite! Maho is a fairly quirky and unique season so I wouldn’t start with it. It IS, however, very gay and heartfelt and healing.
The only Pretty Cure season with a canon love confession (between the two seventeen year old Cool High Schoolers ™ above ) is Kirakira Precure a la Modea suitable mouthful for the name of a season that had a lot of ideas that didn’t quite pan out. So while it’s a lot of fun and Macaron and Chocolat are great chars as well as the rest of the cast we sadly do not see their future together. We are assured they have one, however, so the rest is up to the imagination :’D (the mangaka certainly ships them).
Ultimately, Precure is about all kinds of loving, reaffirming bonds so with that said I would definitely recommend the current ongoing season – Hugtto! Precure
a bit of an easily missed tidbit about jude up in his treehouse, i even missed it on my playthrough and didnt get this until i went back to get all the achievements
if you get the bag of marbles to the secret window with the cultists and rub them together, you get this text which suggests Jude is very overly sensitive to the sound that marbles make when clacking around together, which honestly isn’t that much of an unpleasant sound, but it really distracts him!
and this combined with obsessive paranoia about the cultists and conspiracy theories and his insistence about following proper flare gun safety rules and other such tangentially related traits paints for me a very strong picture that Jude is possibly autistic!
Hey everyone! We hope you enjoyed last week’s surprise. This week we’re talking to John Hatchford, our Director of Production, about being a producer (which I touched on when Cohen interviewed me a few weeks back) and what it’s been like helping to guide the Hiveswap ship toward the finish line.
Introduce yourself to the fans! What is your specific role on the Hiveswap team?
Hi there! I am John Hatchford. I grew up in Michigan but have been in California (specifically Los Angeles) for eight years now, working on creating all kinds of awesome video games! My role on Hiveswap, as the Director of Production, has been to jump right into the deep end and lead the team toward our much-anticipated launch. Please know that we’re working hard to get Hiveswap polished and in your hands as soon as possible!
How did you get your start on the Hiveswap project?
As one of the newer members of the Hiveswap team, I immediately dove into the deep end, discussing with each team member how I could best help push the game toward launch. It’s been a great experience thus far. I’m so excited for the release, and I can’t wait for you all to see what’s around the corner for What Pumpkin Games!
Tell us a little bit about your career background! How did you get your start in production? Do you have any advice for others looking to enter this field?
I’ll try and be brief, but I want to emphasize that there is no single path toward a career in games and anyone can do it with enough effort. I have a psychology degree, and when I moved to LA, I found work as a data analyst for a wireless company before being brought on at Electronic Arts as a business analyst. I then moved on to Square Enix for a brief stint as a senior analyst, followed by a wonderful opportunity working with Disney Interactive as a project manager. (Most of my time in these positions was spent working on mobile titles, but I got to work on games for a variety of other platforms as well.) I then left Disney to create my own indie studio, where I launched a mobile fantasy/puzzle game before joining up with What Pumpkin Games, bringing us to the present!
We’re making a video game, so of course the question must be asked: what’s your favorite game of all time, and what games are you playing currently (if any)?
Some of my favorite games of all time include Mario Kart 64, the Civilization series, the original Diablo, StarCraft II, DotA, Heroes of Newerth, Phantasy Star IV, Counter-Strike, Bloodborne, and Need for Speed Rivals. Currently I’m playing Horizon: Zero Dawn and it’s great!
Are there any games that you currently use or have used as inspiration for your own work here on Hiveswap, or just in general?
A lifetime of games always inspires me to try and add concepts from one genre/platform into another. I love the creative process of making games. At a fundamental level, it’s as basic as performing an action and being rewarded for it. I want to take the RPGs I played in my youth on the Genesis, SNES, and NES and pull in some concepts from them for aspects of future What Pumpkin Games projects!
When you’re not dealing with the challenges of production, what do you do in your spare time to blow off steam?
Well, I play games of course! I also enjoy a good hike with my wife and our two pooches; other times, I’ll have some friends over and we’ll play some music and games. Seeing family is a big stress reliever for me as well. I’m also a big Detroit Lions football fan.
What’s your workstation like? Do you like to listen to any particular kinds of music while you work? If so, tell us about it!
I like this music question! I have a big, blank, wooden flat desk with tons of space so I can keep tasks/papers/everything visible and avoid procrastinating. I’m almost always listening to music. I use it to tell me how I should feel and what type of work I need to do. In the mornings, it’s usually a Mozart-based Pandora station (sometimes Stevie Ray Vaughn, or Latin jazz like Tito Puente). After lunch, I’ll fire up a playlist called “new songs” on Spotify, which is usually a mix of electronic (more chill nowadays than it used to be), pop, country, and disco/Motown. I’m currently a big fan of saxophones. I’ve always got some classic and progressive rock mixed in there, too.
Do you have a personal message you’d like to relay to all the Homestuck and Hiveswap fans out there?
I’m excited to do my part in making the best games we can for you, and I look forward to augmenting the team with my knowledge of AAA game development! I love your hardcore enthusiasm for Hiveswap, and I too share that passion for games. I remember being so stoked for the launch of Diablo II about 17 years ago. I would check for updates every single day on various websites… and remember, the Internet was a very different place in 1999 and it was a lot harder to find info back then! Speaking from personal experience, those long waits for games can be tough, but my patience was usually completely well rewarded in the end. So thank you for your own patience – I respect the time you have waited, and am excited to get you the game you deserve!
Where can people find more of your work? Link us to your own little corner(s) of the Internet!
The mobile fantasy/puzzle game I launched at my own indie studio is called Bloom Kingdom, and although the iOS version is temporarily down, the Android versionis available right now! Either way, you can find out more about this pet project of mine at the Bloom Kingdom website if you’re so inclined!
I’ve also had a hand in making a ton of other games you might have played, including DuckTales Remastered, Where’s My Water? and its sequel, Star Wars: Assault Team, Star Wars Commander, two Temple Run games, Words of Wonder, Disney Hidden Worlds, and more!
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We’ll be returning next week with another interview, bringing things back around to the art side of things. In the meantime, thank you as always for your continued patience! See you next week!
Flying through Storytelling 