This paper is concerned with the role that The Walt Disney Company’s licenses play within the Kingdom Hearts series, developed by Japanese company Square Enix and directed by Tetsuya Nomura. This...Show moreThis paper is concerned with the role that The Walt Disney Company’s licenses play within the Kingdom Hearts series, developed by Japanese company Square Enix and directed by Tetsuya Nomura. This franchise has been a major success worldwide, and it is not only because of Disney’s presence; the game displays a large array of original ideas that have enchanted millions of fans worldwide. The aim of this research is to shine light upon the many nuances this video game franchise presents. This research demonstrates how Kingdom Hearts challenges the traditional notion of Disney as a cultural imperialist force. This is due to Square Enix commodifying the larger power, while denoting a deeper correlation between the methods of the two companies. Furthermore, the fact that Disney hands a generous portion of its licenses to a foreign company to be managed and adapted to a completely alien environment, is an occurrence rarely seen before/in the past. The research question reads: How does Square Enix's Kingdom Hearts video game series challenge the traditional view of Disney as a cultural imperialist force in East Asia? In order to answer this question the research explores the discourse of past research written on the topics of Japanese role-playing-games, Disney, cultural imperialism, as well as analysing the video game series itself. This paper argues that the Kingdom Hearts franchise is a one-of-a-kind representation of transnational cooperation, existing outside of the boundaries of cultural imperialism and which reflects the similitude of two different international actors.Show less
This thesis provides an analysis of three marginal historical movements from the inter-war period in the 20th century; German neocolonialism, Japanese Pan-Asianism and Pan-Africanism. All three...Show moreThis thesis provides an analysis of three marginal historical movements from the inter-war period in the 20th century; German neocolonialism, Japanese Pan-Asianism and Pan-Africanism. All three movements represent trends that present alternative views of the dominant ideologies of the century which they were ultimately suppressed by with the onset of the Second World War. Based on what documentation they left behind however, a model can be constructed that attempts to explain how these movements could have survived or otherwise have seen a resurgence in the absence of global liberalism and communism. Alternative histories found in video games, such as the popular Hearts of Iron IV expansion made by its (non-academic) community The New Order: Last Days of Europe provide an opportunity to put this model into practice, but the shortcomings in its existing narrative regarding Africa must first be addressed.Show less
This thesis compares contemporary definitions of Unreliable Narrators in literature with those found in video games. By exploring the first author-based definition of Unreliable Narrators put...Show moreThis thesis compares contemporary definitions of Unreliable Narrators in literature with those found in video games. By exploring the first author-based definition of Unreliable Narrators put forward by Booth, and a later reader-based definition, this thesis aims to provide proof for an additional definition being needed when it comes to video games. What this thesis mainly finds is that games offer a unique experience through how players control a narrative, which leads to a different experience of unrealibility in narrators, one that can contrast unreliability that other definitions might find.Show less
