well, 80’s japan was basically barreling into The Future at light speed. I think it was more or less assumed by the average tokyo guy that his city was about to more or less consume the world. contrast that with the place of nature in traditional japanese cultural artifacts, etc.
then the money faucet stopped up in 89
seems this dude kicked things off in 1971.
I got his name from this list of resources, which highlights various significant Gnosticism-related books, both in the West and the East. Also, uh, background MIDI alert.
actually, oddly enough, an earlier version of that bibliography has useful details on most entries, giving a lot of context that explains the significance of each publication. Hmm. Some kind of sister sites, apparently…
anyway, maybe this comes up in that research article, but I feel like part of the reason stuff like Gnosticism and the demonological grimoires (Ars Goetia, etc) and spirit photography and such propagated in Japan/Japanese subcultures is…well, however you would characterize the last century and a half of Japanese religious upheaval. There was a lot of displaced beliefs, a lot of traditional teachings suppressed or discarded, a lot of fertile ground. Yada yada. I guess basically a parallel to what captainlove said about the influx of Eastern philosophies in the West that accompanied the counterculture movement.
(kind of mad there doesn’t seem to be any acknowledged connection between VALIS the book and VALIS the game. Maybe the game was named by programmer/designer Masahiro Akishino, meaning the explanation vanished into the ether, just like him…)
this shit happens in waves in the west. the theosophists and their trickle influence from the 1900’s to 1920s, Indian influence on German intellectuals in the first half of the 19th century, the enlightenment’s interest in Chinese Confucianism, etc. basically the whole history of Orientalism.
yeah I want to but I am really struggling to find the time/energy 
also my windows install got nuked so it’s not even on my machine anymore but a day will come when I return to ivalice okay
eorzea
Eorzea can have a little Ivalice
as a treat
wow this owns
this rules, thank you!
Fuck yeah
Final Fantasy is so hung up on itself in the best way
Final Fantasy Anti-Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Breakers
YEAH FUCK CRYSTALS
also the tagline for every time i went over to my little brother’s apartment
YEAH, FUCK-CRYSTALS
Back in my day we had JO crystals, not fuck crystals.
And we liked it that way.
AC/DC stands for anti-crystal devil crew
I hope this game is about rogue alchemists crushing down crystals, liquefying them, and injecting them into their veins in order to gain the power to summon phantom beasts.
I became a FF fan with FFVII, followed the FFVIII news, and playing FFVI circa 1998-99, when I was involved with a FF fan forum. None of those feature crystals in any major way if at all. When details about IX came out, the fan community lost its gd mind that YES CRYSTALS ARE BACK BABY. Anyway, I always think about that when crystals and FF come up
What is materia but round crystals?
What are huge materia but crystals?
