Welcome to a new HYBRID THEORY experiment, Otaku Alert!

I asked in my last edition if I should send “semi-weekly editions focused on a few top stories and a link farm at the bottom.” Rather than waiting for an answer, I just tried it. Reply and let me know what you think.

The aim is to update my readers with relevant (according to me) updates around the worlds of gaming, anime, transmedia & crossover news with my take on a few key stories.

Meanwhile, I’m working on focused (less timely) stories, I’m open for suggestions.

In case ‘otaku’ isn’t in your vocabulary, it’s a Japanese concept loosely defined similarly to the West’s ‘nerd’ or rather ‘mega nerd’. As I understand, inside of Japan, it’s slightly-less derogatory than as the term is used outside of Japan (see also ‘weeaboo’.)

There isn’t another established term that accurately describes the topics I cover in this newsletter, so I’ll continue to use ‘otaku’ until another term is born. If’ you’ve any suggestions, hit my line.

I didn’t know we were already here but

We have fully reskinned sports to look like a video game version of it. Disney, ESPN, the NFL & The Simpsons are teaming up (again) for the wildest shit ever: a mixed-reality broadcast of a live NFL game in the style of the Simpsons.

I’m struggling to wrap my head around this still, but I’ll try to explain.

On October 1st, 2023, an NFL football match between the Atlanta Falcons and the Jacksonville Jaguars at London’s Wembley Stadium was recreated live in Andy’s room, one Toy Story’s iconic settings. The spectacle was called Toy Story Funday Football ( 👈 watch this) and scored in three Sports Emmys.

As in, by some measure of mixed reality magic, the entire match was lives-treamed on Disney+, ESPN+ and the NFL app with an overlay of the action, reskinning everything in a Toy Story aesthetic.

Essentially, this might have been the world’s first ‘Vtubed’ massive scale professional traditional sports match, or according to the Disney blog: “This special presentation marks the latest in ESPN’s innovation strategy, providing alternate telecasts in key events.”

Completely under my radar, this year’s Superbowl (!!) had an alternate telecast on Nickelodeon, skinning the entire game with Spongebob Squarepants touches. and before that, the 2023 Christmas day alternate telecast match introduced ‘Nickmas‘ effects.

As an aside, Riot Games has used this technology for its League of Legend’s World Championship opening ceremonies since at least 2017, mapping AR performances and visuals into the broadcast — though they did decide to abstain this year, maybe no budget.

This year, on December 9, an NFL alternate telecast will real-time skin another match, with Bart Simpson on the Cincinnati Bengals and Homer on the Dallas Cowboys at Springfield’s fictional Atoms Stadium. Marge and Lisa will interview players. This shit is wild.

I really thought esports would pioneer using Vtube-like characters on broadcast - but with bigger budgets and technology begging for an application, the traditional media (perhaps in its hubris) took that W.

The Hybrid Theory

We’re entering (or have already entered) a timeline, where broadcasters, rights owners, publishers, etc are now providing alternate versions of the same thing for no other reason that applying technological advancements to entertainment.

There’s a high likelihood, this gets attached to AI somehow, and you’ll be able (for a fee) reskin any video into a desired aesthetic (probably already exists tbh). The next step will be to integrate this into real-time like social media AR filters have done, but at a massive scale.

Before we die, I would wager that you’ll be able to choose the skin of your reality as you please to some degree - and entire new networks will pop up to satisfy your aesthetic. I’d wager some sort of anime-fication channel will be first - Vtubing is well established, and (at least for a time) the most sub’d to Twitch streamer is/was Ironmouse.

Imagine the not-so-distant future, where you can watch the news, but it’s waifus as talking heads (this probably already exists in an obscure corner fo the internet) or you can watch UFC but the fighters are skinned as Dragon Ball characters, adding real-time effects to all their moves.

The technology-powered reality is moving closer to a video game — there’s many anime, books and films exploring this already. As they say ‘life resembles art’, this might be the kick in the pants to deciding how you want to level up to pursue your Main Character Syndrome.

Otherwise, get comfortable being an NPC. You can keep Luce & friends company.

GAMING

🐍 Hype for remake Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater is fanned by success of Silent Hill 2’s remake. It’s trying to thread the needle between true-to-the original with modern quality-of-life updates - GamesRadar

🎰 Square-Enix is pushing a multi-platform game launch strategy for future titles which could be another brick in the wall of platform agnostic gaming - GamesRadar

🖨️ Pokemon International launched the Pokemen Trading Card Game Pocket mobile game this week and it’s already allegedly cashed in $12m - Video Game Chronicle

🔫 Leaks suggest that a 5v5 mode (a la Overwatch 2, Counter-Strike, VALORANT, etc) is coming to Fortnite, likely next month - Esports Illustrated

🧞‍♀️ Netflix moves Mike Verdu to ‘VP of GenAI for Games’ — this makes more sense than their AAA studio ambitions, because making games is hard, especially if you’re not a games company - GamesBeat

CROSSOVERS

🔙 Prime’s God of War live-action adaption lost its showrunner, but is back in business - Screen Rant

🧟 SEGA’s House of the Dead franchise is getting a film adaptation, based on he arcade shooter’s third installment - Deadline

📓 An asymmetrical Among Us gameloop but Death Note IP game launched yesterday, looks and has to be more fun than the political clown show we’ve been subjected to non-stop for the past few months - Launch trailer

🧛🏻‍♀️ An all-female musical stage adaptation of Castlevania (!?) is headed to Japan - SoraNews24

🧳 There’s a John Wick Anime knee-deep in development and that sentence just makes a lot of sense - CBR

🃏 Magic: The Gathering manga (!), Destroy All Humans. They Can’t Be Regenerated, comes to North America this fall via Viz Media - Comicbook.com

🍺 Michigan’s New Holland Brewing x Wizards of the Coast collab for Dungeons & Dragons’ 50 year anniversary, but I wanna know why didn’t WotC tap a Washington brewery like Elysian? - Craft Brew Business

🧌 Universal Studios Japan has another Evangelion x Godzilla attraction + a pachinko collab, so there’s that- Comicbook.com

☄️ McDonald’s Japan is allegedly, maybe hinting at a DBZ collab, with the hype Dragon Ball DAIMA is getting, they’d be foolish not to tbh - Comicbook.com

🎮 Creator of Secret Level, the upcoming Prime-exclusive video game adaptation animated series, talks about the show at the same comic convention that Luce was unveiled - Variety