16bit Sensation: Another Layer

Episode 6

Eroge, bishoujo games, visual novels. As many already knew or have since learned through 16bit Sensation: Another Layer, these games, which started as a fledgling art form, would go on to influence the whole sphere of modern otaku culture. But games are also a business; even the most niche, independent entries in a money-making medium might eventually come to reckon with breakout success. Alcohol Soft's manager, Masaru, saw the company as a side hustle for so long, but all it took was one hit release for him to think there might be something to these video games. And like the American investors jumping into the dot-com bubble around the same time, this would-be wheeler and dealer went about it the wrong way.

Masaru is not the complete focus of this week's episode of Another Layer, as Konoha steps up from her retreated role last week (and she's set to take center stage in the next episode). However, what's uncovered about the manager's methods and motivations is central to the business aspects of game development. Surprisingly, little time is spent on the development process of Alcohol Soft's much-hyped console port of their game. There are still some interesting tidbits, particularly in highlighting the techniques that Kaori and Meiko use to bowdlerize their material for an all-ages market. It's amusing to see them engaged by adding steam or clothes over former H-scenes, content to turn their erotic content into something "cute." That's the style that companies like Key would be known for, even with their releases starting as adults-only affairs.

The trick, however, is that all this earnest effort is for naught. Alcohol Soft's manager succumbed to the siren song of a swindler, and the company and its creatives ended up paying the price. It's funny: last week, I was scouring resources to confirm if the producer Ichigaya was based on any specific figure from video game history. However, the canary in the coal mine turns out to be that he wasn't anyone significant from the future. He was just one more huckster from the era, as happy to make another buck off video games as he was selling his hostess club and uninterested in doing anything with them apart from leaving someone else to hold the bag.

Another Layer has previously been pointedly nuanced in its analysis of game development's shifting roles and rules. Mamoru's struggle with wanting to develop on PC-98 versus Windows was resolved with a compromise. Writer Kyonshi still voices his misgivings about excising the erotic content from the game for the sake of the console port, but other team members are shown to be on board with it in the name of branching out. However, Masaru unflinchingly embodies a ruinous manager's overstepping, aggrandizing role. He's the petty portrait of so many executives who fancy themselves producers, wanting to leave his mark on a game so badly, despite having no clue how one is made, that he'd sell himself and his company one billion yen in the hole.

Of all of 16bit Sensation's ventures into the commentary on game history and its development thus far, this one feels the most depressingly relevant. This year particularly has seen numerous job losses for the people making games, despite also containing many huge, high-profile successes in the medium. Dramatized as it is for the sake of an anime, Alcohol Soft's fate isn't unique in this industry, perhaps speaking to why Konoha didn't seem surprised that they didn't even register as a footnote in her future.

There is a narrative accompaniment with other characters suffering from success. Toya returns, having been rerouted into a life as an eroge developer, specifically thanks to Konoha's influence. She accompanies this with a dramatic shift in style and a new manipulative side. But Toya's appearance also serves as the most direct indication of Konoha's time-traveling influence on the future. Whether that's good or bad remains to be seen, but her awareness of her capacity for change manifests in her resolution in the post-credits scene. She's familiar with bishoujo's power to change the world, so why not wield that to save Alcohol Soft as a counter to Masaru using short-sighted '90s business sense to ruin it? It's a remarkable arc that combines an awareness of this story's era with biting evergreen commentary, and it leaves me excited to see how Konoha's revolution might help her avert the bad end of the route she's wound up on.

Rating:

Bonus Bits:

• I considered mentioning the specter of Y2K last week, but this week's episode went ahead and officially name-checked it. The Y2K problem has been well-documented since the event itself, and as someone who lived through the coverage of it, it's amusing to see characters in 16bit Sensation reacting as blithely to it as many of us did then. You might think that working in computers, Alcohol Soft staff would have more of an inkling about the amount of work needed on the back end to ensure the millennial transition went smoothly. But then, the ones shown watching the news coverage are from writing and marketing, so they were just as unaware as most people were.
• Popular sentiment holds that the all-powerful gyaru style peaked in relevance around the early 2000s. So Masaru buys and frequents a cosplay club specifically themed around high-school kogyaru. He even gifts one of the girls a Tamagotchi! She ironically laments the toy's diminishing relevance in this era, asking for a sure-to-endure-longer AIBO instead. It's all a sign of how no one can properly predict trends through time. While they aren't what they once were, both gyaru and Tamagotchi have persisted to this day.
• The existence of Kanon continues to be a frame of reference for this 1999 storyline. Other characters remark on the power of the publication (including one making the "uguu" noise right next to Yui Horie's character, confirming they're taunting us). Ichigaya also preaches on the potential power of eroge adapted into non-pornographic TV anime, and while he's a scammer, he's not wrong here. Anime versions of Key's works like Kanon and Air would, alongside others like To Heart, pave the way for a new era of adaptations in the early 2000s. For a deeper dive into this angle, my cohort Steve and I did a column this week reminiscing about the impact of Key's works and their adaptations, which ought to be up the same day as this review.

16bit Sensation: Another Layer is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Chris mostly knows many of these VN game characters from the fighting games they popped up in. You can catch him meditating on any amount of game, anime, and manga subjects over on his blog, as well as posting too many screencaps of them as long as Twitter allows.