
Anime News Service is running a penetrating feature article on the adaptation of videogame mechanics into anime television shows. “Log Horizon, Undertale, and the Tale Game Mechanics Can Tell” details how game mechanics can convey meaning, and delves into how the anime adaptations dive deep into themes of the plurality of perspectives, gray morality, and human rights issues inherent in game play mechanics and tropes we all take for granted. The author’s and the adaptors’ themes intersect with Associate Professor Whitney Pow‘s analysis on the colonialism inherent in gameplay (mentioned in her 2020 Magfest presentation on The Glitch: Queer and Transgender Software History based off of an article of hers published in game history journal RomChip.)