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luigitimecritique · 10 months

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I love names of art.

No, seriously. I don't think this part of art gets enough recognition, but it really should. Just think of it, one short phrase is the literal DEFINITION of your piece of art. The words culminate into a meaning, but you make that meaning your own. It is what people call this [thing] that you've created, or depending on who you are, created a gateway to. A good name can entice people to consume media they might not have been too interested in before, and a bad name can do the opposite. Honestly I just wanna ramble a little about some of the best names for media I've seen, that I particularly love (and some that I just find funny, bad, or notable in any other ways).

[SPOILERS FOR LIKE EVERYTHING IN MENTION IN HERE LOL]

La La LandI don't think I've actually talked about this yet on this blog, but La La Land is my favourite movie of all time, for reasons that I WILL discuss for reasons at length some other day. But let's discuss the title. "La La Land." Firstly, let's get the obvious thing that everyone knows about this one first. Yes, the movie takes place in LA, so it's literally LA land. It's incredibly cute, I love it. But other than that, just remember, what is a "La La Land"? A place that you imagine, often as some form of utopia, when in reality, it's nothing but. A place of harshness, masked by a surface level beauty. Sound familiar? This is the exact world of Hollywood (I wonder where that is?), the world of celebrity culture, and stepping into the world of commercialized art. Whether it be acting or music, both Mia and Sebastian have been hit by nothing short of whiplash. Both enter this field, imagining this amazing, beautiful world where they can express their creativity, their selves, and their loves. Inspired by past movies, inspired by past musicians, they practically waltz into this beautiful "La La Land", before figuring out. Whoopsie daisy. Both struggle hard, neither can find suitable long-term careers for years. Then, they meet each other. As their dreams, and their love clash, they find themselves questioning, what is their paradise? Ironically, although they could not have each other, they both led each other towards their dreams. In the end, they were able to achieve a perfect La La Land, just without the other. The epilogue scene, obviously, showing this off beautifully. The epilogue IS just the paradise that both dream of, where everything goes perfect, where they love each other, where there are no blemishes, it is a true La La Land, not in the sense of the realistic view of the world, no, rather the view of this elusive paradise, this world that says "yes, you've made it. Good job". But in the end, as the final notes to their song play, the two remain in a real world, that ultimately separates them apart, a true La La Land.

A Silent Voice

This is good, and I don't think I need to say why it's good. The Japanese name is Koe No Kotachi (The Shape of Voice), and I'm ngl, I think I like the english name for this better. Obviously "A Silent Voice" fits in very well with the themes of the movie (Nishmiya LITERALLY having a "silent voice"). The movie literally explains the title at the end man idek what to say it's great ok moving on.

Fullmetal Alchemist

I love this name with a passion. Combining this very modern, almost violent word, “fullmetal”, with this very mystique and sorta magical word “alchemist” pretty perfectly tells you quite a bit about the story as a whole. One of the major themes of fullmetal alchemist is the intersection between the mystical and the scientific. Beyond that, the name refers to Ed in a pretty ironic fashion, but that’s obvious and not really worth noting. Not much else to say, I’m not smart enough to dissect Fullmetal Alchemist.

The Legend of Zelda

Oh my goodness gracious this is perfect. I don’t know how long I can gush about four words but everything about this just fits. Let’s start from the end, the name “Zelda.” To be fair, I’m not fully sure if this is just because I’ve associated the name Zelda with the game Zelda practically my whole life, but the name just sounds mystical. The name apparently takes its roots from old high german, and it just… inexplicably sounds like the perfect name to me. Calling it “The Legend of Zelda” just adds to this amazing sense of mystery and adventure that this game did bring (kinda, I know it was flawed as fuck but ykw it was 1986). Just hearing those words tells us of what this game will be: an epic adventure, likely involving swords and magic, to beat up some big bad and live out a literal legend. This is HONESTLY a perfect name for this series. In four words, “The Legend of Zelda” tells so much more than other games could tell with their entire 50 hour stories.

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time/Majora’s Mask/Wind Waker/Minish Cap/Skyward Sword/etc.

I have a bit of a problem with these names that just use a gameplay (and/or story) element and slap it onto the Zelda series name. This doesn’t really tell me anything other than the fact that this item will be in the game. The only one of these that is kinda ok is the “Wind Waker” because I guess to an extent Link does a bunch of sailing which is like wind haha! Otherwise, these are names that are only remembered so fondly because they’re Zelda games. Just think of a game, without a series tied to it, called “Ocarina of TIme.” It tells you almost nothing about the game.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

Last Zelda title I swear. Like how the game captured the original magic of the fantastical open world, this title tells us everything we would need to know about this game. The fantastic sense of adventure and sheer freedom that this game brings is honestly amazingly conveyed with this title, breath being a large symbol of freedom, and, well, nature. The entirety of this game is essentially about Link's, or rather, your, journey through the wild. The majority of the game is you taking in the breath of the wild. It still feels like a legend, an adventure, but it helps sell the idea that this is your legend. I honestly struggle to put it into words but there is so much to just take in in this title god I love it.

The Guilty Gear Games

These are fucking stupid and honestly I love them but they're not objectively that good. Guilty Gear itself is a decently catchy name. The alliteration fucks. Otherwise, what does this say? Guilty Gear could frankly be the name of any genre of game. Beat 'em up, visual novel, MOBA (hey this one's true), shooters, hell it could be a fucking rpg for all I know. If it stopped there, it might be fine. But it didn't. The first game isn't that bad, the subtitle in Japan is "The Missing Link", which is ok honestly. Next one is called Guilty Gear X. The Roman Numeral for 10. But ok, that's forgivable, X is probably the cool letter that people use to signify being cool or whatever (re: Mr. Musk). The next game was then called Guilty Gear X2. I do not understand this in the slightest. If Guilty Gear X was, say, a reboot of the franchise, changing fundamental, core ideas and themes of the original, I can understand that you're considering Guilty Gear X as almost it's own thing, as a do-over from the OG Guilty Gear. But it's almost the same. They are both fast, anime fighting games. They both have the exact same characters (with some additions ofc), and the same team and the same everything so why is it even considered a reboot. But ok, let's just call it an reboot from here, I get it, maybe the director just wanted a fresh start, because to be fair, I believe the game didn't sell too well (not sure about this, but it did receive some criticism based on some gameplay and balancing issues). Ok but I'm not moving on yet. Guilty Gear X2 received numerous updates and their names get stupider by the title. First one, is actually ok. Guilty Gear X2 #Reload. I like what they did with the #, and it is pretty indicative of what the game is. Next one is called Guilty Gear XX Slash because it was called Guilty Gear XX in Japan because consistency’s a bitch anyways. Slash is,,, an ok subtitle. I don’t like it as much as #Reload. It’s just slapping on one of the names of Guilty Gear’s attacks. It doesn’t tell me anything about like. The fact that it’s a re-release but other than that, it’s whatever. The next three games end up being named variations of Guilty Gear XX Accent Core, the final being called Guilty Gear XX Accent Core +R. I haven’t the slightest clue how ANY of those come together to form like. Meaning. I do like how long the last name is. But that’s the last Guilty Gear XX game.

The next game is called fucking Guilty Gear 2: Overture WHAT. The fourth game in a series is called the 2nd. It’s like Double Dragon or something. Whatever (Funnily enough, Double Dragon and Guilty Gear are owned by the same company). It, to be fair, is a vastly different game to its predecessors. Nothing like the original Guilty Gear so it’s not exactly a sequel but. Sure. We can exclude it from the “X” series. Next game is an actual fighting game again called Guilty Gear Xrd -SIGN-. I don’t know what the sign is either. I actually always liked the subtitle Xrd though, it’s a neat way to say that it’s the third game in a series. Even though it’s the fifth. It’s also a bit stupid. Like if you hear “Xrd” (pronounced Ex-zerd), how are you going to spell that. It, of course, got an update that ended up booting the -SIGN- from the title and replacing it with “Revelator”. I actually think the name of “Guilty Gear Xrd Revelator” is neat, but my gripe with it is solely in that, again, this does not tell you in the slightest that the game is a re-release. The final update to this game would be Guilty Gear Xrd Rev 2 which is a little better and also a lot worse. It sounds more like a sequel to a series of games called “Guilty Gear Xrd Rev.” Though I guess if you were even a bit in the know, you could tell that this was a re-release so props. But the fact that this game has two whole “clever word plays that are just the short form of the word” makes it just a bit stupid. Rev being the short form for revelator and the whole Xrd shtick means that, if this was your first time hearing of this game, it means almost nothing to you. And again, the phrase “Guilty Gear” doesn’t say jackshit either. Compare this to, say, “Street Fighter 3: Third Strike.” If you haven’t heard of this series before, the “Street Fighter” part tells you that this is a game where you fight people, probably in some urban environment. The “3”, tells you that this is a bit of a series, and “Third Strike” is a clever tag that reiterates the “fighting” aspect and the fact that this is the third game in the series (see this is actually a lie, but shhh). It’s why I believe the latest Guilty Gear name, while not solving many of the problems, is much better than the ones in the past. Guilty Gear Strive, doesn’t say much about the game, but it certainly does not confuse someone. It’s a decently generic name for a game (although I can’t put my finger on why, I will say that I feel the name has a bit of style to it), and it manages to sneak in a tiny bit of wordplay. Since Strive is the fourth game in the X series of games, it fits that IV is within “Strive.” If I recall correctly, this was featured in a trailer, but I can’t find that trailer at the moment unfortunately. All in all, I think the fact that it’s simply called, “Guilty Gear Strive” was a significant, not necessarily the most significant, but still a significant reason for Strive’s success. “Guilty Gear Strive” has so much more widespread appeal than “Guilty Gear XX Accent Core +R.”

I’m not even sure what I just wrote.

All in all, I believe that names of media, for better or for worse, are really interesting to explore. I’ll talk about more names at a later date, but for now, I’m finishing off with that… weird Guilty Gear rant. I sincerely doubt anyone is going to read to the end of this. Rather, this is just an immortalization of my stupid fucking thoughts. Amen.

#guilty gear #la la land #zelda #breath of the wild #titles of stuff #anime #a silent voice #fullmetal alchemist #stupid fucking thing #awesome

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