One thing is when an alien race is too close to humans (Like some from Star Wars or Mass Effect), but I wonder if people think about when an alien race is too close to furry/anthro characters.

Like you’re designing characters and writing a setting, where a planet has these lizard-like species.

They look like anthro lizards like the kind that could exist in any furry/anthro setting that doesn’t specifically revolve around sci-fi or fantasy elements.

Or maybe they look like dragons/kobolds as opposed to some HR Giger/Xenomorph inspired design.

Because if you design both furry/anthro characters and aliens, you can make the aliens feel like they’re their own species instead of an “anthropomorphization” of a real species.

Like you have a setting where the characters are anthro takes on dogs, cats etc then another where a species is more of its own thing.

Even if aliens in sci-fi borrow elements from insects of fish, but they can still be built up as a unique species, so they’re not the same as an anthro fish character.

Kojima and Bowie

Something I remember is how Bowie really liked the internet to the point he once set up an online chat where he played with some fans, on a chat based game where they’d have to guess which person is the real David Bowie, then the first song released on the internet by a major artist was Telling Lies.

Or how What’s Really Happening was written by a fan who won a contest.

It reminds me of how Kojima enjoyed being creative with hardware like forcing the player to switch controllers when fighting Psycho Mantis or how, if your PS2 waits a week, you can let The End die on his own.

Kojima may have never gotten Bowie in a game but at least he could at some point be declared the David Bowie of videogames.

He wants to make games until he dies: Maybe he could make his own Blackstar.

Kojima and Media Literacy

Something I once thought is that Media Literacy at times feels like narcissism, where some people not only project their beliefs onto a work but also assume the author is just like them.

To the point they probably assume the author has other similar interests and tastes.

I remember in like 2019 when the Amazonian forest was on fire and Notch made some controversial snarky tweet about it and he was technically replying to Kojima somehow.

Some people made a fake tweet where Kojima replies to him with that one Simpsons bus driver image of a popular “weird Twitter” guy going “if you reply to me or quote tweet me, fuck off”.

Like first, if you think someone is cool, why make these “irl fanfics” where you photoshop fake tweets of them owning someone online?

Second, why would you assume Kojima would use that image, let alone know about those specific Twitter e-celebs?

Do people like this think Kojima follows Dril too?

At least with Mega64, they got some popularity and sort of influence because they’re seen as “hey look some gaming e-celebs”.

"Older women"

Always thought the “older women/hag” meme in anime fandom was something done by nerds who are insecure because of the fact that younger characters are more popular.

“I’m the GOOD Persona fan who prefers the much older girls unlike the other fans. Also P6 needs to take place in college and -”

What’s funny is that some anime/manga have art styles that make it so “older women” are drawn similarly to younger characters.

So without context or any info about the characters, you could easily assume that Misato is just as old as Asuka and Rei by the art style alone.

At the same time, I can see someone go “not enough wrinkles”.

Imagine a Berserk fan going “Flora is the HOTTEST girl, Casca and Farnese fuck off!”.

I guess the lady from RE8 is to blame.

I do know the “older women” meme has some cultural relevange to the age of 25 but imagine referring to an anime girl as an “hag” when:

You in real life are in your 30’s while the character is in her 20’s.

And the fact if supposedly adult girls are “older”, then the “regular” age becomes something like 17: So you’re still enabling the fact that younger anime girls are the default because of the use of terms alone.

All this so the normies that watch more morally questionable-at-best shows find you less icky than the bad nerds.