One of the highlights of Anime Expo was having the president of famed game and anime creator Nitroplus come out to talk with his many fans. Nitroplus is one of the most talented companies creating visual novels, music and animation contents in Japan, and the company is responsible for some of the most incredible stories, from Madoka Magika and Steins;Gate to some of the most epic eroge ever created (many of which we’ll be releasing in English, see below). It was especially awesome having him hold the English version of his company’s Cthulhu mythos eroge Deus Machina Demonbane (official game website) up and recommend that everyone in the crowd get a copy, and he was overwhelmed at the response by the fans in the room. (If you haven’t gotten your copy, we hope you’ll consider doing so, while we still have the Deluxe Edition in stock.)During his panel, he talked about how he got his start in the field of creating games and animation, and it tuned out that he got his break when the staff of the legendary Studio Nue — which created the original Macross series — found a doujinshi he’d drawn and asked him to come work for them. I was reminded of one of the reasons I advise people to learn Japanese textbooks and other study supplies that use kana and kanji only, rather than Romanized Japanese (i.e. written in the Roman alphabet). When I first read the name “Studio Nue” a quarter century ago (ack!) my brain applied the rules of English spelling to this Japanese word, assuming it was pronounced like “new.” Mr. Kosaka used the correct Japanese pronunciation of “Nué” (nu-EH), something I’d have been able to pick up correctly if I’d seen it in actual Japanese.
Having the Nitroplus president at AX was way cool.
