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Dear Fire Emblem Fandom: Let's talk about WWII.
Recently, I've read about both Japan's economic history and its issues with its aging population. And then suddenly, Fire Emblem's recent thematic betrayals made awful sense to me.
Recap: Japan lost WWII. Of course you knew that, but let me emphasize: Japan lost a war after massive destruction on its home front. Aside from the losses due to the bombings at Nagasaki and Hiroshima, after the war it plunged into an economic depression that lasted until the late 60's, when the so-called economic miracle happened.
Anyone who had grown up before the 60's was deeply, personally aware of the devastation of war and the lasting effects for the losers. It so happens that Shouzou Kaga was born in 1950, and would have spent his childhood in the days of the Japanese post-war depression, only seeing Japan rise back to glory in his later teenage years.
Viewed in that light, his sympathies for the losing side become natural. And if you stretch the Japan metaphor, so does his sympathy for imperialist nations like Thracia. Japan had formerly been quite expansion-happy (to the woe of its neighbors) perhaps because its people are stuck on a comparatively teensy island.
All right, so there's the economic history. The aging part?
The age for retirement in Japan is traditionally 60 years old. There's some backlash against that lately, as 60-year-olds these days can be perfectly fit and more than willing to work, but only as recently as this year did that change. (Even then, it's going to be a slow hike upwards to, eventually, 65 in 2025. Way to go, Japan?)
So, let me point out another seemingly obvious fact: it's presently 2013. Meaning, the people who are 60 years old now and being forced to retire were born in 1953. Meaning, in a few years we can expect that everyone who had seen post-war Japan's depression will have been forced to retire from their jobs, including those at Nintendo and IS.
I am aware, of course, that that benchmark isn't all that far off from Kaga's birthday itself and IS could still have been stuffed with a few old guys who had seen these things when it was developing FE12 and FE13. Still, I can't help but find the gap in generations significant. Twenty years ago the people in their 40s rising to power were personally affected by the tragedies of war. Less than ten years from now they will all have been forced into retirement, and the people in Nintendo and IS will all have grown up in a prosperous Japan. Perhaps they have already been quietly nudged away from positions of creative influence. Kaga led his projects in his 40's; maybe contemporary 40-year-olds are behind the core concepts now. There's a mugshot of some Nintendo and IS developer team representatives in the Nintendo Dream comics commentary section, and they certainly look to be on the young side.
I think many other eccentricities of the latest Fire Emblems could easily be chalked up to modern gaming trends that have been sweeping both Japanese and Western game development alike. But that wasn't a satisfying explanation of why its spiritual core had so dramatically changed.
This, I think, could be it.
Recap: Japan lost WWII. Of course you knew that, but let me emphasize: Japan lost a war after massive destruction on its home front. Aside from the losses due to the bombings at Nagasaki and Hiroshima, after the war it plunged into an economic depression that lasted until the late 60's, when the so-called economic miracle happened.
Anyone who had grown up before the 60's was deeply, personally aware of the devastation of war and the lasting effects for the losers. It so happens that Shouzou Kaga was born in 1950, and would have spent his childhood in the days of the Japanese post-war depression, only seeing Japan rise back to glory in his later teenage years.
Viewed in that light, his sympathies for the losing side become natural. And if you stretch the Japan metaphor, so does his sympathy for imperialist nations like Thracia. Japan had formerly been quite expansion-happy (to the woe of its neighbors) perhaps because its people are stuck on a comparatively teensy island.
All right, so there's the economic history. The aging part?
The age for retirement in Japan is traditionally 60 years old. There's some backlash against that lately, as 60-year-olds these days can be perfectly fit and more than willing to work, but only as recently as this year did that change. (Even then, it's going to be a slow hike upwards to, eventually, 65 in 2025. Way to go, Japan?)
So, let me point out another seemingly obvious fact: it's presently 2013. Meaning, the people who are 60 years old now and being forced to retire were born in 1953. Meaning, in a few years we can expect that everyone who had seen post-war Japan's depression will have been forced to retire from their jobs, including those at Nintendo and IS.
I am aware, of course, that that benchmark isn't all that far off from Kaga's birthday itself and IS could still have been stuffed with a few old guys who had seen these things when it was developing FE12 and FE13. Still, I can't help but find the gap in generations significant. Twenty years ago the people in their 40s rising to power were personally affected by the tragedies of war. Less than ten years from now they will all have been forced into retirement, and the people in Nintendo and IS will all have grown up in a prosperous Japan. Perhaps they have already been quietly nudged away from positions of creative influence. Kaga led his projects in his 40's; maybe contemporary 40-year-olds are behind the core concepts now. There's a mugshot of some Nintendo and IS developer team representatives in the Nintendo Dream comics commentary section, and they certainly look to be on the young side.
I think many other eccentricities of the latest Fire Emblems could easily be chalked up to modern gaming trends that have been sweeping both Japanese and Western game development alike. But that wasn't a satisfying explanation of why its spiritual core had so dramatically changed.
This, I think, could be it.
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Huh.
Fascinating and compelling. Damn, I wish we had a means of verifying this.
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http://iwataasks.nintendo.com/interviews/#/3ds/fire-emblem/0/0 The Iwata Asks interview for FE13, rounding up the most important people behind the game. Check out those young faces.
http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ds/interview/vi2j/vol1/index.html Iwata Asks for FE12. Not as comprehensive in terms of staff, but still youngsters.
http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ds/interview/yfej/vol1/index.html Unfortunately, FE11 is the earliest FE to get an Iwata asks, and we still see youngsters (though it's a pretty damn poor sample by this point, and the guy on the left is in both the later interviews and the guy on the right is Sakurai of SSB fame).
Apparently age is such a private matter that even Japanese wikipedia doesn't have it for less notable people. For what it's worth, going down this list, Taeko Kaneda, director of RD, worked on everything from FE5 up to FE10 and directed FE7 and FE10. (Irrelevant but interesting: That wiki page also mentions that Kaneda said in a FE9 interview that from the start of the series, they had a policy of vetting female characters by the male staff and male characters by the female staff.) Sachiko Wada is very low key and you can't seem to find out much about her other than that she did the FE8 designs too.
--Oh hey okay I just found something. Here's an interview with some of the guys behind FE10. They still lean pretty young, though Masaki Tawara is starting to look a little mottled and Shadow Dragon was his last FE. Still, it's not very good support for my theory above.
It's possible that the matter could be simpler than retirement age--that the old FE staff (that retained vaguely Kaga-esque values, regardless of age) has been slowly rotated out and replaced by young'uns who don't care so much about the war thing.
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That's kinda been my default hypothesis-- or, to put it more crudely, that the peeps now running the show are people who don't get what made it tick in the first place. Ascended fannits, perhaps.
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A prosperous Japan, yes, but one given, more than ever, to escapism, as the country is now in its second Lost Decade. And what drives escapism – the opposite of realism – more than optimism and a desire for a happy end?
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* Some already debunked, but the underlying social issues do exist.
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I mentioned a few people who seemed to have left or either seriously been demoted. Hard to say which one of them mattered most.