iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Lillian McIntyre @lillianmcintyre.com · 10/09/2026

Official English-language Touhou is such a joy. It feels remarkable to finally see it! And the translation is nailing the nonsense!

Sakuya telling Marisa that “More people have said that and been killed than there are thorium decay products.”

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Lillian McIntyre @lillianmcintyre.com · 13/04/2026

I'll be presenting a paper this weekend about Xenogears, games criticism in Japan, and the 90s at this year's Critical Game Design Graduate Conference at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. If you'll be there, please say hello! I'm looking forward to meeting more grad students interested in games.

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Lillian McIntyre @lillianmcintyre.com · 01/12/2025

Issue 2 of Famitsu and they're doing THIS to Mario.

A slightly troubling anatomical breakdown of Mario from the 2nd issue of Weekly Famitsu, titled "We Totally Get How Mario Feels." Scan from the Internet Archive.

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Lillian McIntyre @lillianmcintyre.com · 03/08/2025

I had been randomly spending time cleaning my room despite not being sure what it did. Nana jumpscared me by coming over near the end of June and my diligence saved me because she appreciated that my apartment was stylish and clean. Dodged a bullet there.

My character, thinking "Good thing I tidied up" in front of Nana.

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Lillian McIntyre @lillianmcintyre.com · 03/08/2025

When you're at work there's a minigame where you can try to check your phone without your manager noticing, but I'm working for my dream and all of the texts I get are rejections anyways. Seriously. I have asked Hachi out at least 10 times on different days and she will not hang out with me.

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Lillian McIntyre @lillianmcintyre.com · 03/08/2025

I finally get to hang out with Nana! And she likes my clothes! But going to a cafe costs money! I run out of train fare to get to work and am only saved by a timely deposit from my mom, who says it'll only happen once. Message received. Nobody else will hang out with me but I'm cool with this.

Nana saying she likes that we're matching!

Calling Nana to chat. You only get three options whether you text or call: asking them out, making small talk, or getting advice about something that's bothering you.

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Lillian McIntyre @lillianmcintyre.com · 03/08/2025

I spend all my money on this and a TV for my apartment that I can't even watch but I discover that in true Akiba fashion you can buy a maid outfit there. I'm feeling pretty good about my apartment at this point, but I've burned through my savings and my first paycheck is still way too far away.

Cosplay you can buy in Akihabara, including a maid dress, a nurse outfit, and a school uniform.

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Lillian McIntyre @lillianmcintyre.com · 03/08/2025

Later I found out that I actually owned another outfit that would have earned me a nice NORMAL, but it's unintuitively in the boxes at the top of the closet.

My character's Normal outfit, which is the one from the illustration I saw when I picked this character design.

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Lillian McIntyre @lillianmcintyre.com · 03/08/2025

At this point in the game, every day I wake up and put on the only outfit I own, which the game then promptly informs me looks BAD (;_;). It says it out loud too. BAD.

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Lillian McIntyre @lillianmcintyre.com · 03/08/2025

Last year, Wakui Kanoko wrote an article for Famitsu about this game where she writes that, around now, "the hellish days begin." Your character is basically broke, so you need a job yesterday. I got a gig as a DTP designer, good for my career goals. www.famitsu.com/article/2024...

The job ad I applied to. There's a pretty good variety of jobs in this game, which makes sense because you spend a lot of time at them.

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Lillian McIntyre @lillianmcintyre.com · 03/08/2025

With only one voice line I pin Takumi's VA immediately as only a three-time Utena viewer could: it's Koyasu Takehito, who voiced Touga. This only makes him MORE hatable and my initial plan of dating him to keep him away from Hachi is derailed completely because I can't stand seeing him on my screen.

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Lillian McIntyre @lillianmcintyre.com · 03/08/2025

After signing the lease to my little 1DK next to room 707, which the previous tenant moved out of due to the noise of our beloved neighbors, I'm immediately invited to a mahjong get-together. Guys, I'm so good at riichi mahjong. I might only own a sleeping bag but do I know mahjong.

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Lillian McIntyre @lillianmcintyre.com · 03/08/2025

Checked out the Nana PS2 game today that @goosepimple.moe alerted me to the existence of. This is a title that boldly asks: what if there were THREE Nanas!? My Nana is from Ehime (where I was the first time I lived in Japan), wants to be a graphic designer, and has this cute boyish look.

My Nana's info: hometown in Ehime, future dream is to be a graphic designer, and I have controller vibration for phone texts set to On.

"Your name is Nana. From tomorrow, you'll be living alone in Tokyo."

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Lillian McIntyre @lillianmcintyre.com · 30/07/2025

Thanks to the @romchip.bsky.social team for the sweet stickers!! Now I have to figure out where to put them.

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Lillian McIntyre @lillianmcintyre.com · 29/07/2025

Been catching up on/reviewing these this summer. I found Koyama's industrial history very useful and a good pairing with the Tanaka volume on game music - two parallel histories. I'm looking forward to tucking into the 文化論 edited volume next!

From left: the "Super Famicom Perfect Catalog," 「日中韓のゲーム文化論」「ゲーム学の新時代」("East Asia's Cultural Theories of Games)「ゲーム音楽はどこから来たのか」(Where Did Game Music Come From?)「ゲームスタディーズ」(Critical Word: Game Studies)「ゲームフリーク」(Game Freak)「日本デジタルゲーム産業史」(Industrial History of Japanese Video Games)

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Lillian McIntyre @lillianmcintyre.com · 23/07/2025

Went and did figure drawing last night for the first time in probably 4 years. Excruciating! 2 hours of re-learning how to measure. Like remembering a different life.

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Lillian McIntyre @lillianmcintyre.com · 22/07/2025

One last thing I did before leaving Japan was go to a showing of Hayakawa Chie's new film Renoir where she and the lead actress, Suzuki Yui, did a Q&A after. Suzuki told us that she went to the NMWA and liked Picasso's paintings more than Renoir's. 🤣

Director Hayakawa Chie and actress Suzuki Yui standing in front of the poster for their recent fiction film, Renoir.

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Lillian McIntyre @lillianmcintyre.com · 09/07/2025

I went here a few weeks back and also had the place almost entirely to myself, so even with the shutdown notice business isn’t crazy! I used my drivers’ license and took 43rd place out of the most recent 300 plays of Pole Position.

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Lillian McIntyre @lillianmcintyre.com · 29/06/2025

I will be back to actually manage to get a game working, but it was such a treat to use some of the machines I’ve been reading up on this summer. It changed my relationship with computing a little. I’ve taught basic command line interaction before, but fully starting here without a GUI is different.

Internals from several of the early 8-bit Japanese microcomputers.

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Lillian McIntyre @lillianmcintyre.com · 29/06/2025

Made it out to the Microcomputer Museum the other day, which I really should have set aside a whole day for. Needed so much more time with the magazines and the computers, because I am young and didn’t know any BASIC going in. They also have a very good collection of old game consoles!

One part of the Microcomputer Museum in Ome.

Part of the collection of magazines at the museum.

BASIC program for Missile Command, from the January 1981 issue of ASCII.

Cool art of Chun Li I found in a Street Fighter 2 special booklet in the July 1992 issue of Maikon BASIC Magazine.

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Lillian McIntyre @lillianmcintyre.com · 23/06/2025

I love what GQuuuuuux is going for, but I’m waiting on the final episode to draw a conclusion. The theatrical version is very good, found it intriguing how the insert songs are shifted around…I wonder if they will stick the landing on the feminist commentary and the nature of freedom.

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Lillian McIntyre @lillianmcintyre.com · 15/06/2025

I got a good chuckle out of this ad copy for word processors, which leads off with “Japanese is hard.” 😆

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Lillian McIntyre @lillianmcintyre.com · 15/06/2025

Hit the Extinct Media Museum (絶滅メディア博物館) today to touch some old computers and read some manuals and advertising pamphlets. They have more video and audio recorders than computers, so my next stop is the マイコン博物館, but it’s cool that there’s an archival space where you can actually handle these.

Advertising pamplet for the MSX home computer.

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Lillian McIntyre @lillianmcintyre.com · 13/06/2025

On the first floor, there is also a collection of guidebooks (they might look accessible but they are actually in glass cases.) It was nice to see that these weren’t overlooked either, and interesting to see the swing towards artbooks and other peripheral publications.

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Lillian McIntyre @lillianmcintyre.com · 13/06/2025

Nintendo Museum was much better than I had expected - people have been making it sound disappointing, but my friends @jktraynor.bsky.social and @francescapizarro.bsky.social and I spent 5 hours there easily. We had a great time. (Researcher thoughts follow.)

My friends and I in front of the museum.

Jane and I destroying the Love Tester, ending with a score of 115/100.

Our entry passes in front of the museum sign!

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Lillian McIntyre @lillianmcintyre.com · 11/06/2025

Takarazuka Castlevania was great. Maria’s actress, Hoshizora Misaki, was stunning, and the first Dracula’s Castle needledrop wws amazing. The 愛 Love Revue afterwards was even better, though. We exited the show and the friend I went with promptly bought one of almost all of Sea Towaki’s merchandise…

Tickets and program from the Takarazuka Castlevania show.

The stage for the play, with letters spelling “Dracula.”

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Lillian McIntyre @lillianmcintyre.com · 09/06/2025

Stopped by the Toy Film Museum (おもちゃ映画ミュージアム) in Kyoto yesterday and received a very warm welcome and tour. It's special to be able to see some of the remaining material objects related to early photography, film, and animation, 90% of which have not survived.

Magic lanterns and early photography displays.

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Lillian McIntyre @lillianmcintyre.com · 07/06/2025

Visited the small exhibition at the Ritsumeikan library pairing Edo-period art and unique controllers from their games collection. Was surprised to learn that recreational fishing began in Edo! It looks like the Center for Game Studies will also have a booth at the Expo from June 16th with Nintendo.

N64 fishing controller and Itoi Shigesato's Bass Fishing No. 1.

A picture of one side of the exhibition.

A flyer with information about the Ritsumeikan Center for Game Studies in Japanese.

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Lillian McIntyre @lillianmcintyre.com · 01/06/2025

I'll be presenting some of my research on Love Live! School Idol Festival on Sunday, June 8th at this year's Mechademia conference at the Kyoto International Manga Museum. Please stop by if you're in the area, or send me a note if you'd like to chat!

Panel (10:00–11:30):
Queering Genre, Narrative, and Bodies in Japanese Popular Media

• A Closet of Glass: Thresholds of Queerness in Love Live! School Idol Festival
—Lillian McIntyre
• The Aftermath of Adventure: Queering Narrative, Memory, and Genre in Sōsō no Furīren
—Tanya Barnett
• Fujoshi Friendships and Embodied Fandom in Metamorufōze no Engawa
—Francesca Pizarro

The talk abstract.

After almost ten years of updates, the mobile rhythm game Love Live! School Idol Festival shut down in 2023. Part of a larger multimedia franchise following fictional schoolgirl idols, the game was representative of several trends in mobile gaming in the early 2010s and boasted considerable popularity among both domestic and international audiences. The series is also notable, however, for its utilization of the genre conventions of yuri, or girls' love, with many of the schoolgirls featured forming intense friendships that flirt with becoming something more.

This presentation will discuss the latent potentiality of yuri in Love Live! with an eye towards its origins, international reception, and the way depictions of romantic female friendship within the series are shaped by its multimedia and gamic contexts. I contend that the continual redeployment and continual frustration of girls' love genre conventions in Love Live! exhibits another dimension in which the incessant continuation and reanimation demanded by consumer capitalism manifests. Forming a powerful draw for queer and female fans, yet avoiding consummation, desires for relationships that go beyond the heteronormative are structured through the game to encourage endless consumption.

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Lillian McIntyre @lillianmcintyre.com · 17/03/2025

Saw Char's Counterattack (逆襲のシャア, 1988) in theaters today. Phenomenal to see the painted backgrounds on a large screen and appreciate the soundtrack and sfx with better speakers. The ending tune, Beyond the Time, is one of my favorite songs ever, and the subtitles did a good job with the lyrics.

A movie theater sign that says "2: Mobile Suit 3:30" for a showing of Char's Counterattack.

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Lillian McIntyre @lillianmcintyre.com · 14/02/2025

All Famitsu issues have a strongly worded prohibition against scanning in them, even for personal use. Copyright law also functions differently in Japan and fair use is not as flexible/permissive as in the States so the sharing environment for these is a bit chillier.

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Lillian McIntyre @lillianmcintyre.com · 22/01/2025

I went and checked a Youtube playthrough. Looks like yes!

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Lillian McIntyre @lillianmcintyre.com · 18/11/2024

Vistas from my ongoing first playthrough of Elden Ring.

Overlooking a city covered in a sea of stars; Siofra River in Elden Ring

A colorful orange sunset in Limgrave, Elden Ring

Looking at a distant castle with the milky way in the background and the glowing golden Erdtree in the corner in Elden Ring

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Lillian McIntyre @lillianmcintyre.com · 13/11/2024

Released in the US as "Personal Trainer: Cooking"! Later they put out "America's Test Kitchen: Let's Get Cooking" too, a surprisingly robust gem for its contemporary resale price...my partner has actually used these in the kitchen here and there.

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