Calme Column #4 “I Want to Be Aisia’s Son”

Unlike my fast-paced tweeting speed, I’m very slow at long-form writing ;so, of course, I’m finishing very close to the deadline, as usual. I feel guilty for how foolish I am for not being able to accomplish “10KB” with writing scenarios, even though I can accomplish “10 kills” in a Splatoon match (something I’m still proud of). I received an email bomb earlier that says, “You look like you are having fun on Twitter and Splatoon? (So why haven’t you submitted your work?)” So heeeeelp meeeee. I know it’s all my fault…

Okay. Today, I’m going to talk about Aisia. I told you before that Aisia was created from an illustration p19 drew. The second I saw her for the first time, I had a feeling that Aisia was going to be the main heroine. At that time, she was just drawn in black and white, but I felt like her color had to be pink. Later, when the finished design was completed, OMG, it turned out to be… pink! I feel like the project goes really well when there are many telepathic things like that. (The opposite is also true......)

Okay, let’s stay on topic. My overall image of Aisia was soft, so I decided to communicate that. She’s a cheerful, talkative girl. For instance, if she came upon a lonely person, she would run toward them and hold them; she is kind and warm but also more lonely than anyone else...... Don’t you feel like you have to protect her? I do. These feelings were central to how I built her character image.

As those of you who have played the game know, Aisia is genuine and childlike, but actually reliable at the same time. She is very thoughtful, understands her position, and tries to enjoy her life as much as possible, just like a mom. I want to be her son. I think that’s the main difference between Aisia and Lucia. They are both such good girls, but sometimes, when there are two good girls who care about people and things so deeply, but have different perspectives, there can be conflicts and/or misunderstandings. That’s a central theme in the overall story of KARAKARA. Those of you who haven’t played the game, please do purchase and play it! Now we offer the package version that includes the patch. It’s really good.

※Package version is only available in stores in Japan.

I think the one thing you imagine when you think of Aisia is a big red suitcase. I got this idea when I went to the United States. I have someone who I travel with whenever I go to the United States who always brings a giant red suitcase. The first time he opened the suitcase, I was quite surprised to see a smaller suitcase inside that was the same exact design, just like a matryoshka doll. Since the suitcase, large enough for a person to fit inside, was so impressive, I was inspired to give Aisia one just like it. Writers are constantly trying to get ideas from people and things around them; if you know a writer, you shouldn’t let your guard down so easily, since it’s almost certain that they are going to take advantage of such inspiration.

I think now is a good place to switch to the topic of food, as usual. This time, my story about food is going to be a little depressing. Last fall, I went to Atlanta for an event. The event itself was splendid, and I enjoyed it a lot, but the food there was--- honestly, not great. The East Coast and West Coast have amazing dishes that mainly use seafood & vegetables, which actually blew my mind and changed my impression of American food a lot. However, an inland city like Atlanta has a completely different repertoire, which was mostly meats, potatoes, and deep-fried food, which I’m not very fond of. However, the aquarium and Coca-Cola museum were amazing. You have to go there at least once.

After the event in Atlanta, the person who accompanied me suggested that we go to Florida. Florida is a very famous place for sightseeing.
On the drive down there, I got excited that I might be able to eat delicious seafood since it’s really close to the ocean. It was a few hundred miles away from Atlanta, and it took me a half day to get there. Right when we got there, there was a hurricane about to hit, and we barely made it to our hotel room before the rain started!

We went to a restaurant at the hotel, and looked at the menu to find many delicious sounding dishes, including oysters. Since we skipped lunch because we had to hurry to get here, everyone was eager to order before others. The food came pretty quickly after that.

Our tale of food is ultimately a tragedy (comedy?), but anyway, if you want to eat delicious food in the United States, you should always do research on Yelp (A major gourmet information website in the United States)! I’m serious!

Now, see you next time!