These should keep me busy for the rest of the year. #dragonquest #chronotrigger #portopia #manga

videogames are back

We have a trillionaire, and you're upset at people using SNAP to buy Chips Ahoy?

Akira Toriyama Dragon Quest Illustrations 30th📚🐉 Akira Toriyama, 2009 (4K scans)

Let me talk about the final subject of “poverty”—real poverty. There is actually no such thing as “fake poverty.” People in countries with a GDP per capita in the $30,000 range still struggle in their own way, even if clean running water is readily available. In countries with a GDP per capita of around $60,000, such as the United States, the middle class also struggles, even if their cars are extremely large. The standards are simply different. There are many definitions of hardship. In some cases, even eating cup ramen noodles can feel like a sign of wealth, while in others, life can feel extremely difficult despite outward stability. However, there are also people who are truly poor by any global standard. I know a wonderful Japanese person who volunteered in parts of Africa where there is no electricity or running water. She lived there for several years and taught children in those communities. Those children do not have smartphones, of course, which means they have almost no way to access manga at all. (Of course, this is a simplified description. Reality is always more complex, and I hope to talk about it in more detail another time.) I have no problem if those children were to read my manga for free. If I could, I would even want to teach them manga myself. But in reality, they do not need manga education in the first place—they simply have no access to it. There are no manga readers, and no aspiring manga artists there yet. Yeah... this is an important point when we talk about poverty and manga. I believe that a country can begin developing a manga industry once it reaches around $2,000 in GDP per capita. It can already become an important market, and eventually a major comics-producing nation. Around $10,000 per capita, which was roughly South Korea’s economic level when I made my debut, a strong manhwa industry is already possible—and indeed, South Korea had already become a major manhwa-producing country by then. Manga also has the power to help transform a developing nation into a cultural powerhouse over time. That is one of its true strengths. I have mentioned two key ideas about manga before: First is diversity is one of manga’s greatest strengths. Second is manga gives opportunity to children in poorer countries, and through them, the culture and soft power itself grows and becomes stronger. The baseline here is roughly $2,000 GDP per capita and access to basic infrastructure such as running water. When a country cannot even build basic infrastructure, manga cannot easily become part of daily life—because there is no access to it in the first place. No smartphones, no internet connection, sometimes not even basic tools for reading or writing. But I do not give up on this idea. In fact, I have long been thinking about how manga could still reach those people as a form of hope. Individually, manga only requires very simple tools—paper, a calendar, a pen or pencil. But what is truly needed is a system. Yes, a system. There is no more affordable art form than manga when it comes to learning and education. But it requires infrastructure. And ideally, that system should allow children to access it for free. This is where “poverty” and “free access” must meet in a positive way. In the end, real poverty is exactly this kind of situation: a world without phones, without social media, without running water, and therefore without access to manga at all. For those people, manga must move forward—not as a paid product, but as something supported by systems, education, and infrastructure. And later, when value is created, global long-term investors and industries can recover that value in sustainable ways. Of course—not through piracy. To be continued...

It seems Viz's treatment of this series will never fail to disappoint me. Please fix the typo. The name should have been changed to Taiyo Yozakura multiple volumes ago, just like the Japanese version. I refuse to buy the new volumes until this is corrected.

【#プリンセスメーカー2/PC98/1993年6月15日.ガイナックス】カワイらしい少女を育成できる人気シミュレーションゲームの第2弾。娘のパラメータや行動コマンドの回数などによってエンディングが変化する。 #レトロゲーム #PC98 #ギャルゲー

the whitest westerner u know just fell to their knees in their moms basement

“Trans people are sexualising our kids!” Meanwhile, straight people:

People who store games in those CD binders and throw away the cases are not normal.

Ultimate Exorcist Kiyoshi: I would rather deal with final boss than final exam

the biggest chud you know just fell to his knees reading this

Oh look another good thing Ronald Reagan destroyed. You don't hate him enough for the shit that's going on today. The vast majority can be traced back to him and his administration.

Who did this 🤣

“They don’t leave room for a personal life” is an insane thing for a gas station employee to say. The economy is fucked.

ドラクエ11

Momo Ayase 👽 Thanks to the follower who gifted me this cosplay. I will definitely wear this at my next con.

I'm enjoying "Class 2-B Hero Destroyerz" these days.

We are all suffering the effects of how much YouTubers love watching YouTube videos. Everything they make is incestuously polluted by the influence of every other YouTube video, infinitely forever

Japan being the reason Michael beats Oppenheimer is a level of irony I didn’t even know existed