Shinra Electric Power Company is here to light the way!

[rynling]

I applied to be a meta writer for Return to the Planet, an upcoming zine about Final Fantasy VII. This was my pitch:

I'd like to write an essay in the range of 1,500 to 2,000 words about the Japanese cultural context of the original release of Final Fantasy VII. Specifically, I think it would be interesting to situate the game within the "Lost Decade" of the 1990s, when the implosion of a real-estate speculation bubble caused the stock market to crash, resulting in an extended economic depression. It was during this time that the intelligentsia in Japan began to question the "Japan Inc." connections between the government and the corporate sector, and I see Final Fantasy VII as one of the defining works in this vein of social critique.

I'd therefore like to write about the game's depiction of the Shinra Corporation as a send-up of Japanese corporate culture, especially with relation to its effects on class inequality and environmental destruction, both of which were major concerns in progressive Japanese media of the 1990s. Essentially, I want to talk about how Barret was right about everything he said.

I think I'd like to write this essay even if I'm not accepted to the zine. If that ends up being the case, I'd probably pitch it to First Person Scholar, and then to a few other places (like Waypoint and Entropy) if they're not interested. Really, though, I'd just like to be on the Discord server for this zine.

Comments

[raisedbymoogles]

...I am instantly consumed with the burning need to read this essay, if they don't accept your pitch then please write it anyway and I will be first in line to inject it directly into my eyeballs

[rynling]

Thank you! I used to write a lot about FFVII, but it's been awhile. I'm looking forward to returning to the world of the game, I might have to double-check a few wiki plot synopses. I'll be damned if I can keep "what piece of information was revealed in what part of the compilation" straight in my head at this point.