This essay isn’t a straightforward history of Philippine speculative fiction. It’s a memoir of sorts, extremely subjective and based on my personal experiences rather than an attempt to convey “historical truth”. It’s also framed based on the online short stories that were published at the time and caught my attention — and I explain why they are important. Historians and critics may disagree with their relevance, and I will have some blind spots. It is also an opportunity for me to highlight some Filipino authors — although it doesn’t mean that those that I’ve omitted aren’t worth reading (and in fact I omit several talented and noteworthy authors) — in an attempt to establish how their online footprint contributed to the field.

2003

“L’Aquilone du Estrellas (The Kite of Stars)” by Dean Francis Alfar in Strange Horizons (2003).

In 2005, Dean Francis Alfar would self-publish the anthology Philippine Speculative Fiction Vol. 1, which would introduce the term “speculative fiction” to the Filipino psyche; at the time, academic institutions were more enamored with the realist genre, while genres like fantasy, horror, and science fiction were relegated to popular media. The Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature, one of the more prestigious literary awards, struggled with these genre conventions that they created the Future Fiction category a few years earlier (2000) and later discontinued. But arguably Alfar would not have pursued his agenda to promote Philippine speculative fiction had his short story, “L’Aquilone du Estrellas (The Kite of Stars)”, not garnered popular interest among American critics (it would be reprinted in The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror: Seventeenth Annual Collection edited by Ellen Datlow and Kelly Link & Gavin J. Grant). It also would have probably not garnered a local following as well had it been exclusively available in print — it was widely read because it was available online and without a paywall. Academics, students, or those just curious could easily click the link and discover it for themselves — and it is this accessibility that would fuel criticism, discussions, and blog posts on the nature of Alfar’s writing and the genre he was promoting.

As for the story itself, it’s one of those rare instances where an author’s earliest work continues to remain one of their best — at least in my opinion. It’s one of my favorite “love” stories (it asks the question of what does it mean to love — and leaves it in the hands of the reader to decide) and Alfar’s mastery of language and grounding it in Philippine history and mythology makes this one of the standout stories for decades.

It comes as no surprise that Alfar’s first collection, The Kite of Stars and Other Stories, would be named after this story. After winning numerous awards, writing dozens of short stories, and releasing a few anthologies and collections, 22 years later, Alfar finds himself Editor-at-Large of Vibal Foundation, Inc.’s speculative fiction imprint, Paradox.

2007

“Excerpt from a Letter by a Social-realist Aswang” by Kristin Mandigma, Clarkesworld (2007).

While Philippine speculative fiction was gaining traction locally, the proverbial elephant in the room back in 2007 was whether our writing appealed to those outside of the country. Sure, we had Alfar, but was he a fluke or a herald of things to come? Clarkesworld at the time was the darling of the science fiction and fantasy community in the sense that it was one of the more popular online magazines and was then-notorious for giving critical feedback with its rejection letters. So it was a welcome surprise that a Filipino author would be published. Kristin Mandigma’s story would place 4th in the Clarkesworld poll and the impact of Mandigma’s story has also been influential to various Filipinos. Clarkesworld would later publish more Filipino authors, but Mandigma would signal that new, aspiring authors (Mandigma had only one other published story at the time) had a shot at getting published in one of the major science fiction and fantasy magazines.

“Excerpt from a Letter by a Social-realist Aswang” is a relatively brief story yet it contains a lot of playful subversions in addition to reference to mythology and politics — the beauty of the work is how it seamlessly combines all these elements and juggle it successfully in an epistolary format. Because it’s short, it’s a story that can be recommended to anyone and they will have the time to read it — and the layers mean so much more to a Filipino reader.

Mandigma isn’t a prolific author by any means. Their other story is “The Catalogue of the Damned” published in Philippine Speculative Fiction Vol. 1 under the moniker K. Mandigma. They are currently the President and Chief Executive Officer of Vibal Group and Executive Director of Vibal Foundation.

2008

“Seek Ye Whore” by Yvette Tan, Rogue Magazine (2008).

Whereas the previous years tackled publications outside of the Philippines, it cannot be stressed the role local publications played. There were the weekly print periodicals Philippines Graphic and the Philippines Free Press (the former had the upside of qualifying for the Nick Joaquin Literary Awards), although the former did make the extra effort to make its stories available online (the latter would only do so a few years before it eventually shut down). On the other end of the spectrum was the short-lived Story Philippines by Jade Bernas which debuted a few years back and paid relatively well at the time (P5,000.00 for each published story) but struggled to keep to its schedule (only two issues came out in 2008), the stories never made it online, and was ultimately never sustained. There was also the Digest of Philippine Genre Stories, which debuted in 2006 and was similarly dedicated to short stories, but the print edition would similarly cease in a few years until it was reborn as an online-only publication that is still active at the time of this writing. Filling in the gap between these two extremes were the mainstream lifestyle magazines and one of them was Rogue Magazine, which featured the occasional fiction piece from writers like Yvette Tan or Marianne Villanueva.

At the time, “Seek Ye Whore” was one of Tan’s recent and notable work. Tan has made a name for herself as the “Queen of Philippine Horror Stories” and this story did not disappoint as it melds the genre tropes with the tourism and mail order bride the country has been exoticized for.

This would be the titular story in Tan’s second collection, Seek Ye Whore and Other Stories, although at one point Tan considered renaming it to “Siquijor”. In the present, Tan has her third collection out, Insect Hag and Other Stories.

2009

“EmberWild” by Nikki Alfar, The Farthest Shore (2009).

2009 would mark the launch of digital presses like Estranghero Press (by Joseph F. Nacino) and Rocket Kapre (by Paolo Chikiamco). The former would publish three online anthologies, The Farthest Shore, Demons of the New Year, and Diaspora Ad Astra, while the latter an online magazine, Usok. The legacy of these publications is complicated (and I would like to think my earlier Philippine Speculative Fiction Sampler — co-edited with Mia Tijam — had some role in their creation), and while the digital footprint of both publications would eventually disappear, the anthologies of Estranghero Press managed to find a second life as they were picked up by UP Press a few years later. Unfortunately 2009 was also the year that free web hosting site Geocities would die — and taking with it Ian Rosales Casocot’s A Critical Survey of Philippine Literature, which archived a lot of Philippine literature — including speculative fiction pieces from the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards. “EmberWild” didn’t debut in The Farthest Shore (that credit goes to Philippine Speculative Fiction Vol. 1), but the story remained potent in 2009 as it did back in 2005. It could be argued that I could have picked a different story from any of the other anthologies for this year, but this one was a personal favorite.

Nikki Alfar in general has a mastery of language and “EmberWild” is one of those stories that manages to be brief yet conveys a multitude. It’s rife with passion and whereas a lot of Philippine speculative fiction stories has ties to Philippine culture, this one unabashedly steps outside of it — showcasing that the Philippines doesn’t necessarily always have to be the center when it comes to discussing Philippine speculative fiction. Write what you love, read what you love.

Alfar’s first collection, Now, Then, and Elsewhen was published by the University of Santo Tomas Publishing House, and has an upcoming collection from Paradox.

2010

“Logovore” by Joseph F. Nacino, Fantasy Magazine (2010).

One of the popular online magazines at the time, Fantasy Magazine has published Filipino authors before like Rochita Loenen-Ruiz. What sets Joseph F. Nacino’s “Logovore” apart is this particular story had previously won first place in the second Philippine Graphic/Fiction Awards, which was sponsored by the now-problematic Neil Gaiman. (It also has to be said that for writers, while awards should be seen as something positive, it’s also not the be-all and end-all of a writer’s career.) This was the chance for the rest of the world to have a taste of what our best stories were like. Another undercurrent of the year was the launch of Pakinggan Pilipinas by Elyss Punsalan, which provided audio narrations of short stories by Filipino authors/narrators.

As readers, there’s something fascinating about the premise of a person who consumes words on a literal level. While the conceit is compelling, it takes some skill to set it up and follow it through. “Logovore” in that sense meets expectations and manages to provide a satisfying ending.

Nacino continues to write here and there. His last published story was “Selda 34” in Philippine Genre Stories.

2014

“A Cup of Salt Tears” by Isabel Yap, Tor.com (2014).

The holy grail of short fiction markets in 2014 was Tor.com (now re-branded as Reactor) — mainly because it paid very well at $0.25/word, and the stories that usually got published were commissioned by one of the editors. The quality also tends to skew very favorably, so the high bar was understandable. It was a welcome surprise that Isabel Yap, a promising writer since the early aughts, finally gets to shine (at least to the rest of the world) with “A Cup of Salt Tears”. It was a stark contrast to what was happening with me and the local publishing industry — I had started to wind down my involvement with Philippine speculative fiction and it seemed like the local players were changing and evolving — The Digest of Philippine Genre Stories had migrated to an online-only version back in 2011 (and re-branded to the shorter Philippine Genre Stories), the University of the Philippines Press picked up the Estranghero Press anthologies as well as releasing some new anthologies of their own (including Horror: Filipino Fiction for Young Adults and The Best of Philippine Speculative Fiction 2005- 2010) in 2013, and Dean Francis Alfar’s Philippine Speculative Fiction anthology series would cease print publication with the 9th volume in the series being released exclusively as an eBook. The industry felt unfamiliar but it was also ripe with possibility.

“A Cup of Salt Tears” is simply a terrific story that pulls on your heartstrings. Yap knows how to earn the reader’s sympathy and portray a compelling conundrum filtered through the lens of Japanese folklore. Much like “EmberWild”, some might want to box in what Philippine speculative fiction means and whether it needs to have “Filipino elements” and “A Cup of Salt Tears” breaks type and delivers what matters most: a story that any reader can be invested in.

Yap continues to write. Her latest collection was Never Have I Ever from Small Beer Press. You can sign-up for their newsletter here.

2015

“Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers” by Alyssa Wong, Nightmare Magazine: Queers Destroy Horror (2015).

There are many reasons to celebrate Alyssa Wong’s work. For one, there’s the nexus of their Filipino-American heritage and their queer identity — which expands the range of voices that can be associated with Philippine speculative fiction. For another, there’s the awards that she would win (and shortlisted) for “Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers”, and several of her other stories would either win or be considered as finalists for various awards. Claiming that Wong is a talented and versatile writer is an understatement. As far as 2015 is concerned, Wong was one of many Filipinos not residing in the Philippines that would ignite the international science fiction and fantasy field — we would be graced with the likes of Michi Trota, who was the managing and nonfiction editor of Uncanny Magazine (which would later win numerous awards), and fan artist Mia Sereno, under the pseudonym Likhain, who would years later win a Hugo award for best fan artist.

“Hungry Daughters of Starving Mothers” is one of those stories that leaves a strong impression — a combination of emotional vulnerability and visceral gruesomeness. You have a narrative that starts out horrific and compelling — and what’s amazing with Wong is she manages to maintain this consistency and escalate it when appropriate. One might argue that the monstrosity in the story could be a metaphor — and it might very well be — but what makes the story ring true is the narrator’s relationships, desires, and fears, all of which are successfully conveyed. Very easily a story that you could classify as a classic or textbook on horror.

Wong has since branched out writing for other mediums, from video games to comics. The High Republic: Escape from Valo is her latest novel co-written with Daniel José Older, and is currently the writer on several comics for Marvel.

2020

“Have Your #Hugot Harvested at This Diwata-Owned Café” by Vida Cruz, Strange Horizons (2020).

If the prior years were optimistic, especially with the rising careers of the aforementioned Isabel Yap and Alyssa Wong, then 2020 was quite bleak — for reasons outside of the community’s control. The political situation both local and abroad was horrible, with the popularity of authoritarian and/or Right-wing leaders. Covid-19 had also hit and crippled countries and industries, and not just literary endeavors. Vida Cruz-Borja’s “Have Your #Hugot Harvested at This Diwata-Owned Café” seemed like the last item left inside Pandora’s Box; it was appropriate for the times, featured scathing political commentary, and offered catharsis if nothing else. And for me, it would finally be the time when Cruz-Borja’s talents would finally be recognized by the rest of the world — in the succeeding years, Cruz-Borja’s writing would rise to prominence, not just their fiction but their nonfiction as well.

There’s so much to love about “Have Your #Hugot Harvested at This Diwata-Owned Café”; there’s the feature article format, which enables Cruz-Borja to flaunt their mastery of Filipino dialogue while having a justification to include an English translation; there’s the inclusion of current pop culture trends and politics appropriate for the time, which doesn’t really stray too far from reality; and then there’s their mastery of language, showcasing various Filipino cuisines and making them sound enticing. And the story couldn’t have come at a better time.

Cruz-Borja’s second collection, Song of the Mango and Other New Myths, is available from Ateneo University Press. “We Are the Mountain: A Look at the Inactive Protagonist” is just one of her many well-written nonfiction.

2023

“Liwani” by Sydney Paige Guerrero, Apex Magazine Asian and Pacific Islander Bonus Issue (2023).

Much like 2020, the question for me in 2023 is where do we go from here? The Philippines had just elected the dictator’s son and the perils of Covid-19 still loomed in recent memory. Kenneth Yu of Philippine Genre Stories left the stewardship of their publication in the hands of guest editors, and this change would now be permanent. Also leading up to the year, you had two outstanding collections, Yap’s Never Have I Ever and Cruz-Borja’s Song of the Mango and Other New Myths, in 2021 and 2022 respectively. The answer was “Liwani”, easily one of the memorable stories for that year, by Sydney Paige Guerrero. I had not heard of Guerrero before this (more of my ignorance of the current field at the time — Guerrero had already won two Nick Joaquin Literary Awards by this point and had several published work elsewhere) and this is one of those pieces that makes you curious about the author’s backlog (and forthcoming) stories. Which goes back to my point about the importance of having these short stories online and publicly available — to discover new authors and to have an archive of their work.

There are two things that make “Liwani” effective. One is dependent on the reader’s knowledge of Filipino urban lore: the story starts out with mythical entities and their attempts at survival but this eventually transitions into something else. While reading this narrative, at the back of my mind was the notion of a certain infamous street in Quezon City I had heard (and passed by) often. So it was a pleasant but not unexpected surprise that “Liwani” induced this notion without spelling it out — an amazing skill to have in a writer — and successfully leads us to a conclusion that seemed inevitable. The second aspect is it’s simply a well-crafted story with the reader being invested in the characters and their plight; even if the reader isn’t aware of the foreshadowing, the story remains compelling and interesting.

Guerrero has several fiction recently published , including “Silence Starved and Swallowed” that will be published in Fantasy Magazine later this year.

***

I think there will be a history that only looks at the print history of Philippine speculative fiction; however, as someone who grew up reading these stories online, for free, they were important in shaping who I am today — and I suspect other readers as well.

Digital rot is very real — as evidenced by my links to the Wayback Machine instead of the original sources — and this essay is likely to disappear one day. For the time being though, I wanted to leave this footprint — historical or otherwise — on these important stories and provide a context on why they were relevant (at the very least, on a personal level).

• Kahlil Greene’s “Everything You Missed in Ryan Coogler’s Sinners — COMPLETE Historical Reference Guide”.
• Megan Goodwin’s “‘I Don’t Do Horror, Ryan Coogler’ — Black Magic’s Dr. Yvonne Chireau on Sinners and Bringing Hoodoo to Life”.
• Siobhan Carroll’s “Sinners, Irish Vampires, and the Rocky Road to a Multicultural Future”.
• Valtown on Stack and Smoke’s outfits representing who they were affiliated with, Stack with the Italian Mafia, and Smoke with the Irish mob.

When subject matter experts are so articulate, what place do my views have in such a space? As someone who has no ties to African American culture, what impressed me were the antagonists in the film — and there are several. Coogler includes their nuances — or in some cases, lack thereof (and rightly so) — which makes the narrative all the more compelling and contributes to what makes this movie so engaging.

Smoke and Stack

While Sammy is the protagonist of the film, Smoke and Stack, especially at the beginning of the movie, appear like the heroes; they have that combination of charisma, competence, and sense of danger around them. However, it’s best to characterize them as antiheroes; while they have some noble goals, they’re not afraid to dirty their hands. Smoke’s interaction with the car thieves best showcases this: he shoots them and later pays someone to take care of their injuries.

While some writers might simply use twins as a shorthand for two unified voices, that’s not really the case here as both Smoke and Stack have distinct personalities — which can sometimes cause disagreements. Smoke seems more of a “man of the people” — and perhaps why he never turns into a vampire — while Stack, to a certain extent, is focused on the bottomline. As the narrative progresses, the differences between the two begin to widen, and nudge Sammy in different directions.

Pastor Jedidiah

While not the existential threat that the other antagonists represent, the appeal of Pastor Jedidiah is that his advice — for Sammy to give up his music and turn to the Lord — offers some solace. And it’s true to a certain extent; had Sammy not played music, it would not have drawn the attention of the vampires. But that’s also too simplistic a take and Jedidiah represents the complexity of religion in a community, on how it offers protection in one context, but can also stifle your individuality or culture in another.

To me, as someone who grew up in a country where colonizers used religion as a tool to subjugate the populace, Jedidiah represents one form of assimilation (one that has already found success in the local community) — and what makes it more insidious. It’s quite fitting that the film begins and ends with Sammy confronting his father and deciding whether to give up his music or continue playing it. This is also a stark contrast to Remmick, who offers a different form of assimilation. But it’s also not a complete anathema — as the impact of religion on culture has some positive effects; it also makes sense why in the post-credit scene, Sammy sings a Christian song in the privacy of the church.

The KKK

They are the villains — plain and simple. There’s no need to make them sympathetic, because they’re not. Whereas the other antagonists in the film have something to offer the characters — or even makes the viewer question who they should side with had they been placed in such a situation — there’s no reasoning with the KKK. They’re evil and the greater threat in the movie.

It’s why even after surviving the harrowing events of the evening, Smoke takes it upon himself to slaughter them. Smoke may have slain the vampires, but there was a greater threat that still needed to be disposed of. There’s nothing to negotiate here, no logic that can sway you to their cause. They are irredeemable.

Remmick

Remmick’s interesting because he’s a foil to many of the antagonists. As a migrant himself, he understands that the KKK is evil — and he actually has the power to protect and defend his people. Unlike Pastor Jedidiah who wants to stamp out music, Remmick knows and respects the songs and dances of his culture and those that become his flock. And his goals, while perhaps not noble, is all too sympathetic — he just wants to see his people again. He even makes a “reasonable” offer to Smoke’s team of survivors: give up Sammy and the rest can go free.

Yet it’s precisely this type of logic that makes him a villain. Sometimes, communities are all too willing to sacrifice the few for the sake of the majority. That’s why Smoke rebuffs him, unwilling to sacrifice Sammy. And the assimilation Remmick provides can be alluring at first — he proves to Sammy multiple times that he appreciates his music. But ultimately, had Sammy accepted it, vampirism was a form of creative poison — it offers protection of sorts, but arguably the music Sammy is capable of conjuring is because of his frailty and mortality.

Stack

In the mid-credits scene, Stack resurfaces as another antagonist. He makes it clear he’s not here to harm Sammy and that he can be trusted. Which makes his offer all the more compelling: if vampirism didn’t look appealing when Sammy was young and had yet to face the horrors of the world, how about in the present, when Sammy has aged by decades and faced multiple adversities? And Stack’s presence, or rather his (and Mary’s) apparent success and wealth, is proof of the rewards of that kind of life. But Sammy declines this last temptation.

I stood firm in my belief, even as it drove another wedge between me and my family.

Ethics probably boils down to this principle: that you can change the world, whether on a microscale, such as in the life of a single person, or on a macroscale, where it affects hundreds or thousands or millions of people.

Currently, there is such a need to exercise ethics. Because the world is in crisis. With regards to the genocide currently happening in Palestine, there is the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) Movement. Their latest call-to-action is to Boycott Microsoft’s Xbox. The United Kingdom’s Supreme Court just ruled that “woman” and “sex” refers to biological sex assigned at birth — which in turn hurts a lot of trans people (and trickles down to other genders as well). While it won’t change what transpired, what does help stem the bleeding is to stop by buying J.K. Rowling’s books or supporting their IPs (such as Hogwarts Legacy). The reason for this is unlike other bigots, Rowling is funding various anti-trans movements and legislation. Their opinions are backed by money — and causes real world harm.

In the science fiction and fantasy community, this isn’t any different from Orson Scott Card, who actively campaigned against the gay community and was once on the board for National Organization for Marriage. It’s less about agreeing or disagreeing with the morality of the characters in his stories, and more of the royalties Card earns from this projects goes to fund anit-gay legislation — or least that was the case at one point in time. And this is what separates him from other potential anti-gay Mormon writers of speculative fiction — are their beliefs or opinions actually affecting change in your local community? (And just to be clear, the author’s religion isn’t at issue here, but the actions they take; take the case of Brandon Sanderson for example, who at one point wasn’t always supportive of LGBTQ rights. They have changed opinions since then, but more importantly, their money does not go towards funding such movements.)

But in light of that, why does Rowling and Card’s books continue to get published? Or more importantly, why do people continue to purchase their work?

There’s certainly a segment that’s ignorant of their views. But that bubble can only hold for a certain period of time. The question is how do you act once you find out what their actions are?

In that scenario, you have the following possibilities:

• Those who give up purchasing the author’s books.
• Those who continue to support the author, rationalizing that their contribution is miniscule in the long run, unable to affect any meaningful change.
• Those who continue to support the author, because the price to be paid — the enjoyment of such literature — is too steep a cost.
• Those who continue to support the author because they don’t care or their views align with the author.

For me, the interesting discussion points are the middle choices. On one hand, you have the people that believe their actions are meaningless. On the other, you have those that do believe their actions can affect meaningful change, but presumably the cause they are fighting for is not worth inconveniencing them.

And for the record, this is not limited to science fiction or fantasy — these rationales are part of our day-to-day choices. We’ve simply filtered them through the lens of these two controversial authors.

As a Filipino reader, writer, and sometimes critic, the stakes for 2025 treads similar ground with the Frankfurt Book Fair 2025 where the Philippines is a Guest of Honor. On one hand, the country has this rare opportunity to promote its literature to the rest of the world. On the other hand, there is the Frankfurt’s stance on Palestine hence Publishers for Palestine calling for a boycott.

Unlike the Rowling or Card scenario, it’s not a situation where if you eliminate the Book Fair, you eliminate the problem. This is more in line with the BDS Movement where it is more about contributing to dismantling the propaganda and supporters of what is happening in Palestine. That’s why you have local support to boycott the event in solidarity with Publishers for Palestine, as well as Komikeros for Palestine. And perhaps more importantly, it’s about being able to affect change in the community we’re part of — we may leave the country’s laws and legislation to the lawyers and politicians, but as a reader/writer, shouldn’t we be able to affect, persuade, or dissuade the authors and publishers participating in an event we are directly invested in? In that sense, this is about making a decision that impacts the local community rather than an abstract institution.

The Frankfurt Book Fair 2025, unfortunately, is like the Ring of Nibelung — it’s too tempting for the local industry to pass on.

Again, we recycle the same arguments listed above. The players have changed, but the rationale hasn’t. We have:

• Those who boycott the Frankfurt Book Fair.
• Those who continue to support the Frankfurt Book Fair, believing that their support for the Book Fair has little or no impact on their support for Palestine.
• Those who continue to support the Frankfurt Book Fair, believing that doing so places them in a better position to contribute to Philippine literature.
• Those who continue to support the Frankfurt Book Fair, either because they do not care about Palestine or support what is happening there.

Again, the middle choices are interesting. There’s the first, those who believe that their participation has no bearing on the events in Palestine; that may very well be, but it’s either coming from a vision of impotence and their inability to directly affect change, or from a state of ignorance and how this singular event contributes to a systematic problem (and whether toppling this pillar will culminate into the collapse of the rest).

And then there are those who are very much aware of the consequences, but the rewards outweigh the risks or perhaps they are choosing the lesser of two evils — it’s not every year that the Philippines gets to be a guest of honor and the present time is a great opportunity to promote Philippine literature, especially those backed by the government and mainstream publishers (it should similarly come as no surprise that those who support the Frankfurt boycott tend to be independent publishers). Perhaps we can even sneak in here those who believe that the genocide in Palestine can’t be prevented, and the Philippines is merely making the most out of the opportunity it’s given — which echoes sentiments from the previous point.

If we speak to publishers and authors, they will give different, articulate reasons for their support or boycott of the Frankfurt Book Fair. To me, however, the root of their ethics stems from their perception on whether they can affect change or not.

On one hand, we have this adage from Sun Tzu:

“…If fighting will not result in victory, then you must not fight even at the ruler’s bidding.”

And on the other, we have Robert Bolt’s rendition of Sir Thomas More:

“But what matters to me is not whether it’s true or not, but that I believe it to be true, or rather not that I believe it, but that I believe it.”

Ask a Western Strategy Role-Playing Game (SRPG) fan what their favorite game in the genre is and chances are, they’ll answer Final Fantasy Tactics. In a 2021 Japanese poll of favorite games, Tactics Ogre placed 31st overall (the second highest SRPG in the list, with Fire Emblem: Three Houses ranking higher) while Final Fantasy Tactics did not make it on to the list. This isn’t a one-off as you will find similar rankings in previous years; Famitsu’s Top 100 Games of All Time back in 2017 and 2006 yields similar results.

On one hand, this discrepancy between Western and Japanese fans can best be explained by the games that actually made it to consoles back in the 1990s. Whereas Japan was exposed to a variety of SRPG ranging from Fire Emblem to Super Robot Wars to Langrisser, your typical Western fan would probably have been first exposed to the genre via Final Fantasy Tactics when it was released on the Sony PlayStation. There is a similar phenomenon with Advance Wars, which is cited as one of the most iconic console strategy games for the Game Boy Advance, even if its Japanese lineage dates back to the Famicom (where its predecessor was aptly named Famicom Wars).

But that explanation is simply one facet. When Tactics Ogre: Reborn was released in 2022, it was highly praised by critics, but Steam reviews were a mixed bag — some even citing the previous PlayStation Portable (PSP) port, Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together (or Tactics Ogre: Wheel of Fortune in Japan) — as the better version of the game.

To understand this criticism, we need a basic understanding of the three (four) different versions of Tactics Ogre.

• There is the original Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together released for the Super Famicom back in 1995. It pioneered using an isometric view and elevation in combat (as opposed to the top-down perspective) and being able to heavily customize your party (most enemy units in the game can be recruited). This would eventually be ported to the Sega Saturn (1996) and PlayStation (1997), with the latter receiving an English translation (1998).
• The first remake, Tactics Ogre: Wheel of Fortune (I am using the Japanese naming convention in this instance, as the Western release used the subtitle Let Us Cling Together, which can be confusing in this context), was released for the PSP in 2010. Storywise, additional content and a new translation was added. Mechanics-wise, the game was completely overhauled, and one could even argue that it was made more similar to Final Fantasy Tactics. If you talk to fans of this version, they will, however, most likely refer you to the One Vision mod, which comprehensively re-balanced the game and made a lot of changes to the original.
• Tactics Ogre: Reborn, which was released in 2022, and was made available in a variety of platforms (including Steam, the Nintendo Switch, and both PlayStation 4 and 5). While it retained the story/translation of Tactics Ogre: Wheel of Fortune and quality of life changes, the mechanics were again revamped and in some ways, reverted to the concepts more emphasized in the original Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together while adding new elements like a card power-up system.

Tactics Ogre: Reborn is the game that, during launch, received several polarizing reviews — a stark contrast to Tactics Ogre: Wheel of Fortune which fans typically explain as the game you played if you enjoyed Final Fantasy Tactics since it was made by the same team (Yasumi Matsuno — the game director at Quest where he worked on Ogre Battle: March of the Black Queen and its sequel, Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together — later moved to Squaresoft where he directed Final Fantasy Tactics, is the abbreviated version of this story).

This reception is due to three factors: distilling the “essence” of Tactics Ogre, the contradiction of SRPGs, and how Western Final Fantasy Tactics fans believe that their game is the best in the genre and anything that deviates is simply “bad”.

Distilling the Essence of Tactics Ogre

A fundamental question is what makes Tactics Ogre a Tactics Ogre. It’s important in the context that over the span of nearly three decades, we have three (four if you count One Vision) different versions, each one with unique mechanics that completely change how the game is played.

An inevitable question from newcomers is which is the “definitive version” and while some might resort to No True Scotsman fallacies in advocating for their favorite version, a more productive explanation would be the nature of Role-Playing Games (RPGs).

The first tabletop RPG was Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) and for decades since its release, there are disputes on how best to run such a game. In one extreme, some players treat it as a dungeon crawl with monsters to slay and treasures to loot (essentially what gave way to Rogue, Rogue-like, and Rogue-lite genres of video games); and on the other extreme, some players treat it as a vehicle to act out a drama, with combat and dice rolls being completely optional. To this day, you will find different gaming groups with overlapping and drastic experiences playing D&D and thus this debate is evergreen.

However, in 2002, Robin D. Laws wrote Robin’s Laws of Good Game Mastering, and there, he outlines six player types (that are not mutually exclusive). Some of these player types have the same agenda, while others might have contradictory goals. Below is me paraphrasing the player types outlined in the book:

• The Power Gamer: wants to min-max their character.
• The Butt Kicker: wants to kill stuff.
• The Tactician: wants to make smart decisions.
• The Specialist: wants to play the same character in every game.
• The Method Actor: wants to act.
• The Casual Gamer: wants to hang out with friends.

Depending on the group composition, there will be situations where two different player types are aligned. For example, the Power Gamer and the Butt Kicker might want to engage in combat with the enemy, the former to showcase their character build, the latter simply because it’s fun for them.

However, on the opposite end of the spectrum, there might be situations where two player types are in conflict with each other. The Method Actor playing as a pacifist for example might advocate for a diplomatic way of resolving the situation, while the Butt Kicker might want to immediately resort to violence.

I bring up the topic above mainly because of how it relates to Tactics Ogre. Each version of the game offers something different or caters to a specific type of player. It’s possible that the fan of Tactics Ogre: Wheel of Fortune discovers that neither Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together and Tactics Ogre: Reborn is not the game for them as the elements they like have been de-emphasized in favor of elements they dislike. And in some cases, why the newer version of the game feel likes a betrayal (and this is a constant cycle with each release), hence the negative review.

So what makes Tactics Ogre Tactics Ogre? That’s really a very subjective question. One person might focus on the story and the branching paths aspect of the game (which is retained across all three versions). Another might emphasize the party-building aspects.

There is no universal Tactics Ogre or SRPG fan, so there will be different views on the subject. What is the definitive version of the game? The version that you personally enjoy.

The Possible Contradiction of SRPGs

The SRPG genre is interesting because it is combining two theoretically opposing genres.

In strategy games for example, the expectation is usually:

• Rewarding smart or intelligent play.
• Adapting your tactics/strategy to oppose your opponent’s tactics/strategy.
• Adapting your party composition/builds to suit the specific encounter.
• Attempting a different tactic/strategy if you encounter failure.

If we were to use emotions, the goal of strategy games is to evoke the emotion of feeling “smart” and that players succeed because of “constraints”.

Contrast this to the expectations from RPGs:

• Character customization is a priority.
• Every possible build is ideally a viable path to completing the game.
• Having the flexibility to use any party composition to win.
• If all else fails, grinding levels in order to overcome difficult encounters.

In terms of emotions, RPGs usually are intended to make you feel “powerful” (either due to your character customization or due to your perseverance in leveling up). “Freedom” is another adjective commonly used, usually in your ability to customize your character/party.

Thus these two genres can possibly create friction between them. If strategy games are supposed to reward smart decision-making, then doesn’t that entail that some builds or strategies aren’t viable? Or if there is an enemy that you cannot defeat, isn’t the solution to change your tactics, as opposed to using the same strategy over and over (e.g. grinding) until it succeeds?

There are players who might feel “powerful” when they outsmart their opponents, or players who feel “smart” by using overpowered characters against weaker enemies, but in general, what is described above is the general contradiction of the two genres.

At a certain point, SRPGs much choose a lane so to speak: do they lean more towards the strategy aspect, or do they lean more towards the RPG aspect?

For example, an SRPG like the Disgaea series heavily lean on the RPG aspect: the goal is to grind so that you reach the maximum left, revert back to level one albeit with higher stars — sometimes called “prestiging” in other games — and then repeating the cycle. The strategic aspect is in optimizing the grind.

Triangle Strategy, on the other hand, focuses more on the strategy aspect. There are soft-caps towards leveling up, character customization is very limited, but there are lots of opportunities for tactical play based on your roster, positioning, and general interaction with the environment.

It could be argued that Tactics Ogre: Reborn leans more on the strategic aspect. There are fixed level caps and there are situations where you cannot overcome the enemy unless you bring the right party composition. This can be a source of frustration among players used to grinding and not experimenting with various builds, highlighting the divide between the expectation of an RPG vs. that of a strategic game.

Strategy vs Tactics

A subsection of the phenomenon above is the concept of strategy vs tactics.

A “good” strategic choice for example can lead to uninteresting tactical battles.

Choosing to send Level 20 characters to fight Level 10 enemies is a good strategic choice. The same goes for sending 10 characters to fight 5 enemies. Victory is mostly assured thanks to the pre-fight planning/grinding you’ve done.

An interesting tactical battle might be one where you’re under-leveled, outnumbered, and/or engaging in disadvantageous terrain. If you manage to survive, it feels rewarding due to the individual choices you made and adapting to the situation.

Final Fantasy Tactics vs Tactics Ogre

The final hurdle is a matter of expectations, and how Final Fantasy Tactics is often used in comparison to Tactics Ogre.

One of the misleading statements that you often see for example is that Tactics Ogre is the spiritual predecessor to Final Fantasy Tactics. They’re made by the “same team”, they both tackle the themes of war and politics, and both feature an isometric perspective in terms of tactics.

However, that kind of logic is quite flawed in this instance. It’s the equivalent of claiming Super Mario Bros. is similar to The Legend of Zelda because they were both developed by Shigeru Miyamoto. The reality is that both games are opposites of each other: Super Mario Bros. is a linear game, while The Legend of Zelda was an open-world, non-linear adventure.

There’s a similar throughline with the relationship between Tactics Ogre and Final Fantasy Tactics.

Story

Final Fantasy Tactics is, for the most part, narrating a linear story from a single, unified perspective.

Tactics Ogre, on the other hand, is attempting to tell three different stories — with several minor variations inserted. It’s the most ambitious between the two, but this can also be perceived as spreading the story too thin.

For example, you only need to play Final Fantasy Tactics once to grasp the entire story. Tactics Ogre, on the other hand, might require multiple playthroughs to fully grasp the entire picture.

It’s also prone to misinterpretation. The characterization of Vyce, for example, at first glance, might seem inconsistent across all three routes. However, players who pay attention (and witness all his relevant scenes) might later come to an understanding on what motivates the character, and how he changes and develops due to the choices the player makes.

Final Fantasy Tactics presents you with all the “facts” of the story, while in Tactics Ogre, you have to uncover them and puzzle them out. And depending on your choices, it’s even possible to completely miss out on important scenes.

Customization

It’s best to view the focus of Final Fantasy Tactics is character customization. You can mix and match skills from different jobs onto the same character. And because you have a small roster (usually deploying up to 5 units), these characters eventually become quite indispensable and eventually, overpowered if you optimized the character’s “development”.

In Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together and Tactics Ogre: Reborn, the emphasis is more on team building. Characters tend to be more specialized in their singular (sometimes dual) role and you can’t really transfer skills (barring some edge-case scenarios). But because of this, you have a larger roster to play with as you tend to deploy 8 ~ 12 characters per battle.

Instead of making the perfect character, the question here is how to make the perfect team (and it varies from encounter to encounter). Should you include one dragoon in this combat encounter? Maybe two or even three since there are a lot of beasts/dragons? Or maybe include an extra cleric because there’s lots of undead?

The Gameplay Loop

Final Fantasy Tactics is more concerned about “feeling powerful” by the time your character build is complete. While there is an initial difficulty in grinding JP, once the essential skills have been acquired, the game starts feeling like a power fantasy.

Tactics Ogre: Reborn, on the other hand — at least for the first four chapters (this excludes the post-game) — is all about the feeling of overcoming a difficult challenge by either employing a well-prepared strategy (e.g. fielding an army of dragoons to hunt beasts and dragons) or making smart, tactical decisions (e.g. debuffing bosses, charming enemies so they get in the way of enemies, sniping mages and archers, etc.).

There’s also the feeling of “constraint” in Tactics Ogre: Reborn. You only have 4 consumable item slots, 4 spells, and 4 skill slots, so those decisions have a larger impact during battle — at least, if you planned accordingly.

Coming from a Final Fantasy Tactics mindset, the mentality coming into the game might be “problems can be solved by grinding” but Tactics Ogre: Reborn is asking players to do the opposite: “this problem can’t be solved by grinding, but it can be overcome by analyzing the tools we’re dealt with”.

An Unfair Comparison

For the reasons cited above, it could be argued that the areas where Tactics Ogre is strongest are the areas that Final Fantasy Tactics doesn’t cover and vice versa.

So when someone new to the game comes with the expectation that the game plays similar to Final Fantasy Tactics, this is setting them up for failure as the two games are attempting to do excel in two different things. While it’s true they are part of the same genre, SRPGs, it fails to take into account how diverse the games in the genre are.

I am currently in the process of giving away my board games. I love board games! Unfortunately I have no one to play them with. They are gathering dust in my room. It’s better to send them off to other people, who will hopefully have the time and friends to play with them. The other week, I gave away my copies of Eclipse: New Dawn for the Galaxy, Order of the Stick Adventure Game, and Azul.

I always struggled to find friends, let alone people to game with. I did find a group to consistently play board games with — thus fueling my board game purchases — but that changed post-COVID. We stopped playing games due to the threat of COVID, but four years later, the group dynamic has changed. One was a victim of multiple COVID infections, wrecking their health that they needed to move back with their parents to rest and recover. Another got married with their spouse and their new business being the top priority.

One of the group’s favorite games, Terra Mystica, remains at home (even if I am not the owner). We also managed to play a few sessions of Betrayal Legacy but that story will most likely never finish.

Over the years, I managed to settle on digital adaptations of board games. I am quite happy with the implementation of Dune Imperium and is one of my go-to games. And Ascension frequently gets played on my iPad, even pre-COVID.

The other week, by sheer coincidence, I ran into someone who was in a similar plight as myself. They have a copy of Gloomhaven: Jaws of the Lion that remains unopened due to the lack of a gaming group. Their shelves had games like Root and Summoner Wars and Dune Imperium, and unfortunately their family didn’t take interest in them, although they do get to play with their co-workers.

Hindsight is 20/20 but at that moment, I wish I could have reached out to them, told them I was in the same boat and I wish I could play their games with them, so that their hobby is a little bit less lonely. At how I hope their passion for games isn’t stifled and that there are others like myself rooting for them.

Unfortunately, social dynamics is a tricky thing. That’s not exactly a confession you say to someone you just met. And they were accompanied by a mutual acquaintance who was also navigating the waters of a new friendship.

Some people might cling to hope that maybe they’ll see that person again but it’s impractical to expect lightning to strike twice. I wish we could have comiserrated regarding our circumstance and there’s all the board games we could have discussed and played with. But that opportunity has probably passed, and so the board game purge continues.

The answer is obvious: practice. But the practical question is how do we find the time to practice in the context of our busy lives. And there is no universal solution that’s applicable to everyone. We must all come up with creative solutions to find our answer.

I have two examples. My upper body strength is awful, but my leg muscles have remained potent. This is because I walk to work every day and instead of taking the elevator to the 14th floor of our office, I take the stairs. Via this method, I do not need to go out of my way to exercise. It is simply part of my regular schedule.

My other example is writing. Before I started to journal, I seldom had reason to write anymore after I ceased blogging. Yet whenever I did write essays (like this one), it was (probably) better than what I had previously wrote, despite the absence of recently-published work. This was because I honed my writing elsewhere. I frequent Reddit and usually find myseslf in a position to answer questions. My comments are usually upvoted because they are articulated in a way that lay people can understand (as opposed to simply parroting answers that have already been stated elsewhere). Moreover, I learned how to make use of typographical elements and line breaks to improve both readability and visibility. The skills I apply in Reddit carries over to my writing and vice versa.

The challenge is finding similar methods to practice our other skills. And sometimes, there are no easy answers. For example, my already terrible piano skills have deteriorated. Nor have I found a way to practice my Chinese.

For older people like myself, the next challenge is finding ways to retain what we’ve previously learned. It’s a topic that’s seldom discussed but nonetheless critical to our personal development.

But once budget stops being a major factor, the ideal is that we pursue unfamiliar fields with an open mind. In the case of mechanical keyboards, it boils down to personal preference — preferences which a newcomer is either unaware of or unable to articulate.

For example, a common question might be which keyboard is best for work? And the apt answer would be the keyboard that you are most comfortable with and disrupts your coworkers the least. However, to someone new to keyboards, this answer is not helpful: they do not know what are the qualities that make a keyboard comfortable for them.

People tend to look for specific prescriptions: which switches to use? Which keycap profile to buy? Should they lube their switches and should they use O-rings? To the uninitiated, these are all jargon, but they are relevant to the hobby it pertains to. A similar case could be applied to fountain pens: what nib size do they prefer? Steel or gold? Piston converters or piston fillers? Etc.

Unfortunately, the best prescriptions come after finding out a person’s personal tastes. To someone new to the hobby, they cannot articulate these answers: they haven’t tried out all the options yet, hence them asking the question in the first place. It becomes a chicken-or-the-egg dilemma.

Research can only carry a person so far; after a certain point, people will need to take risks. How can someone recommend a specific chocolate brand and chocolate percentage to someone who’s never had chocolate? Will they discover the person has allergies to chocolate? Or that they find it too sweet? Or whether they prefer milk vs. dark chocolate?

Once people have taken the plunge, they will eventually develop their own criteria and find out what they enjoy and don’t enjoy. Once they find something they are genuinely comfortable with, they will need to make a choice: do they stick with what’s familiar, or do they keep on experimenting?

For enthusiasts, there’s no end to the latter. This is what motivates them and how it becomes a life-long hobby.

For those that choose the former, this is the signal that they’ve reached the limit — either due to personal interest/curiosity or because of their budget. The honeymoon is over; they can now move on.

But regardless which choice is made, the person has now developed their own aesthetics and vocabulary in relation to the hobby. They can, hopefully, identify the specific qualities that they are looking for and articulate it to others. This is what sets apart an experienced reviewer from an inexperienced one. There is a shared pool of knowledge they can reference when communicating with others.

The honeymoon may be over, but they’ve learned something about themselves.

The challenge for a newcomer, assuming they are interested in the hobby, is figuring out what their personal preferences are. For example, do they prefer an Extra Fine nib or a Broad nib? Are they fine gripping a Pilot Metropolitan or a Lamy Safari? Which type of paper do they like to write on? And so forth.

If you browse through the Internet, there’s no shortage of guides on “beginner starter pens” or “pens under $$$”. And while they are definitely a good start, it’s my opinion that for a beginner, it’s best to be exposed to as many options as possible. Sometimes reading about something is not enough: it’s better to experience it and discover what works — or doesn’t work. Hence the concept of a “Starter Kit”.

$100.00 or Less

As much as fountain pen enthusiast might complain that the hobby is a money sink, it’s relatively “affordable” compared to other hobbies. If you are into mechanical watches for example, a “budget” collection would be under the $2,000.00 price range — an amount that easily surpasses the annual minimum wage in my country.

But $100.00 is modestly achievable — and to some people, even a “disposable” amount — while still providing a variety of options to someone new to fountain pens.

The aim here is to provide a framework to introduce people to the hobby, rather than a “definitive” guide on what to purchase for them.

Also, pricing and general availability will vary from country to country. As someone who lives in the Philippines, the examples I provide below will be based on local retailers, but people are free to tweak the details so that it adapts to their country and/or personal aesthetics.

The Criteria

Fountain pen enthusiasts will know that there are three things that determine a quality writing experience:

• The pen,
• The ink,
• The paper.

And under each item, there are various subcategories we might apply. For example, under ink, we might segregate it into dual shading inks, inks that sheen well, etc. Or for paper, how good they are when it comes to feathering, ghosting, bleedthrough, etc.

Below is my oversimplification of what to look for under each category.

Pens

Ideally, we want to provide newcomers a variety of pens (and where most of our budget will be spent).

At the very least, we want to expose them to a variety of nib sizes, so that they learn that nib size does have an impact on their writing.

Pens with different form factors is also recommended, so that they can figure out which one they prefer holding.

Another criteria personally is that a non-insignificant hurdle for people unfamiliar with fountain pens is the proper method of filling your pen with ink and the subsequent maintenance it entails. But at the same time, we also do not want to close out this option for them. So one quality I look for in these starter pens is that they can use cartridges and have the option to use a converter (preferably one already included).

Taking all those into consideration, here are the pens I would include in my Starter Kit:

• TWSBI Swipe Broad Nib. P1499.00 ($27.25). (Please note the Asian version does not come with a traditional converter.)
• Pilot Metroplitan Fine Nib. P999.00 ($18.16). (Please note the Asian version does not come with an ink cartridge.)
• Pilot Metroplitan Medium Nib. P999.00 ($18.16). (Please note the Asian version does not come with an ink cartridge.)

I would also provide the recipient with instructions (whether written down explicitly or a link to a video) on how to load cartridges/ink into these pens, as I do not expect people to immediately know how considering the packaged documentation leaves much to be desired.

Inks

Personally, my goal here is to get newcomers to use the pen as soon as possible, so what specific ink to get isn’t a top priority for me. But it might be for you. So just include what ink catches your fancy or meets the budget.

Due to my pen choices above, I do need to purchase some proprietary Pilot ink cartridges:

• Pilot Fountain Pen Ink Cartridge of 6. P65.00 ($1.20).
• Pilot Iroshizuku Ink Cartridges of 6. P599.00 ($10.89).

Paper

I want to impress that paper has different qualities and make a noticeable difference when it comes to writing with fountain pens.

Here are some notebooks I would include:

• Muji Ruled Craft Notebook A5. P55.00 ($1.00).
• Rhodia Classic Stapled Notebook A5. P249.00 ($4.52).
• Midori Notebook Light A5 English Caption Lined. P425.00 ($7.72).

Miscellaneous

For some, the presentation of the Starter Kit is a major selling point, so if you still have some budget, go ahead and splurge on a decent container for all the items above.

For me, I usually just throw everything into a bubble mailer or kraft envelope, so that I have the option to send it via a courier if needed.

Also, I want to emphasize that the recommendations above is a combination of several factors, which includes what’s available locally, my personal aesthetics, and the assumption that I know nothing about the recipient.

For example, if I know the recipient is very interested in inks and is meticulous when it comes to maintenance, I would easily swap out the pens on my list for something like a TWSBI Eco and ditch the cartridges for actual ink bottles.

The notebook choices are similarly based on the assumption that they will be used to jot down notes but if I know that the recipient is an artist, I might opt for the blank version of those notebooks.

The key here is that a specific pen or item is not a holistic approach in swaying people. I want to create an environment — within my budget — that showcases the possibilities and the factors that might shape how they approach the hobby. There are different types of fountain pen hobbyists: some are in it for the collection aspect, others are mesmerized by the myriad of inks available, while another might turn into a paper aficionado.

3 Sets for $100.00

Another way to approach this is to create three Starter Kits for $100.00. This is accomplished by going for cheaper (but still competent) fountain pens, and then purchasing the 3-pack notebooks and then splitting them into each set.

For example:

• Platinum Prefounte Fountain Pen Fine Nib. P499.00 ($9.07). x3. P1497.00 ($27.21).
• Platinum Prefounte Fountain Pen Medium Nib. P499.00 ($9.07). x3. P1497.00 ($27.21).
• Midori Notebook Light A5 English Caption Lined. P425.00 ($7.72).
• LAMY A5-size Booklet, 3s. P649.75 ($11.81).

At P4,068.75 ($73.95), that’s enough to create three Starter Kits to pique people’s curiosity.

Here’s a starter kit I assembled, and I was able to “splurge” on the paper because I was able to obtain the Rhodia notepad for P70.00 ($1.27) and the Livenotes notebook for P160.00 ($2.90):

• Platinum Prefounte Fountain Pen Fine Nib.
• Platinum Prefounte Fountain Pen Medium Nib. (The middle pack was replaced with a Platinum Preppy as the retailer ran out of Medium Nibs for the Prefounte.)
• Rhodia Blank A5 notepad.
• Livenotes Lined A5 notebook.
• Midori Lined A5 notebook.

The notebooks I chose because it provides three different types of paper: Rhodia, Tomoe River Paper (old version), and Midori. The pair of Platinum Prefounte should enable them to experience the differences between Medium and Fine nibs.

Even when English translations were available, an evergreen topic was subtitles vs. dubbing (subs vs. dubs) debate: which one was better? Watching anime with subtitles and comparing them to the English dub, there were noticeable differences. Dubs for example attempted to match the lips and cadence of the characters on-screen, while subtitles had more leeway to work with — sometimes even showing translator notes. Or just listening to the localized theme song of Dragonball Z, I immediately knew the lyrics were different. But I was amazed at how the localization managed to match the rhythm of the original and sounded “natural”, even if it was not necessarily identical.

When DVDs were announced, critics proclaimed the subs. vs. dubs debate to be over: consumers could obtain both with a single purchase and just choose which one they preferred. However, this didn’t really end the debate, and actually overlooks an important aspect of translation: a piece of media will have different translations, regardless if it is subtitled or dubbed. Sometimes those differences are subtle but other times, they can be drastic and significantly change how they are interpreted.

People will frame the argument as one is “better” than the other, but what they really mean can be divided into two components.

The first is they equate “better” with accuracy.

The second is associating their personal preference as a universal criteria.

Accuracy Has Different Meanings

Let me tackle the first point.

Some people frame or expect accuracy as an objective metric, that translation has a single, definite, and universal end result.

Unfortunately nothing can be further from the truth.

When people complain that a translation is “inaccurate” or “not faithful” to the source, they are usually complaining about something else. And there are several possible reasons for this, which I will break down below. Accuracy has becomes a catch-all term for things someone likes or dislikes about a translation, but it is an inarticulate way of expressing it. Instead, it’s used as a way to end the debate, as if invoking accuracy is a way to convince people to their point of view, when the reality is people have different — albeit unspoken — expectations.

Their personal preference when it comes to translation is a subjective metric.

Translation is Destruction

When non-translators talk about accuracy, what they usually want is for the text to be conveyed to their brain — a form of telepathic communication. Unfortunately this is not possible, in much the same way that even when two people are speaking the same language, misunderstandings can happen.

One prevailing paradigm when it comes to translation is that translation is destruction. This is best encapsulated in the Italian proverb:

“Traduttori? Traditori!”

(“Translator? Traitor!”)

The dilemma stems from two crucial points.

The first is that languages are different, period. English is different from French and Arabic and Chinese, etc. It could be due to the syntax. It could be due to the grammar rules. It could be the writing system or how certain vowels or consonants are pronounced.

To claim that a perfect translation is possible is to deny the differences between languages.

The second reason is cultural. Language is part of a larger identity and zeitgeist, and while it’s tempting to look at individual words as modular components, the reality is that it is merely a reflection of something massive and encompassing.

Here’s an example:

For those unfamiliar with Chinese families, they can look at this chart for the terms used for relatives.

Translators can translate 弟妺 as “Younger Sister in Law” (or even just “Sister” or “Sister in Law” and leave it at that), but sometimes, it’s also necessary to convey the kind of culture that needs to distinguish “Younger Sister in Law” vs. “Elder Sister in Law” such as what the power dynamics are in play, what the gifting or inheritance rules are, and what is expected of them in that specific situation. The challenge isn’t just choosing the right words or looking for synonyms, but how to convey entire worlds, cultures, and paradigms (and sometimes, it simply can’t be done).

When both aspects are combined — namely the differences between languages and cultural contexts — then we need to accept that there is no such thing as a “perfect” translation. Something will be left out, which is why the advice to people who want a faithful translation is that they need to learn the language and the culture of the original language, and not rely on third parties to do the translation for them.

Translation, by its nature, is acting like a mediator where the translator needs to make an editorial decision regarding which specific aspect they want to prioritize. In that sense, when they leave something out, they end up creating something new or different in its place.

For some context, take this quote from Jay Rubin:

“When you read Haruki Murakami, you’re reading me, at least ninety-five per cent of the time.”

The Unspoken Hierarchy

Usually, when there’s a complaint about a bad translation, there’s usually a dissonance between the translator and the intended audience (or sometimes, the recipient isn’t the intended audience in the first place).

Because translation is a form of editorializing, translators need to prioritize specific values over others.

For example, when I enter the German phrase “Geh mir nicht auf den Keks!” into Google Translate, the software made a judgment call to prioritize the intended meaning since the statement is frequently used as an idiom.

If I ask a German friend to translate, they might ask me whether I meant “Don’t go for the biscuit!” or “Stop bugging me!”, the latter of which makes more sense for non-German speakers (i.e. most people will usually want what the idiom means, rather than a transliteration of the text).

But when we consume translations, they exist in a fixed space, such as text on a screen or text printed on paper. We don’t have the luxury of asking the translator “this is actually what I meant when I asked for this”, hence translators need to make that decision for us. They have an intended audience in mind, one with a specific query that need to be addressed.

It’s easy for someone to say “faithfulness to the source material” should be the priority but is that always for the best, and what does faithfulness to the source material really mean? Did they mean authorial intent? Or how the text became commonly interpreted? And what about certain practicalities, such as adhering to Intellectual Property laws?

Below are examples of translations intended for a US audience but with different priorities.

No Translation

There are times when a translator chooses not to translate something.

There are multiple reasons for this. It could be because there’s no appropriate term in the target language, so it’s one way of telling readers “do your own research”.

At other times, it’s because certain words or terms have seeped into a culture’s zeitgeist that a direct translation is not necessary (and this is how loan words are formed).

Take for example the manga series 怪獣8号. Currently, it has two official English translations: one for Viz Media in the US, and another for Manga Plus “internationally”. It’s translated as Kaiju No. 8 in the former and Monster #8 in the latter.

Now Monster #8 is not an inaccurate translation, but for US fans of the manga, a substantial number of fans claim that they prefer Kaiju No. 8 as it has more “impact”.

I don’t know when the term kaiju became an acceptable term in the English language (perhaps due to the popularity of Pacific Rim) but this is a situation where the translator, David Evelyn, made a judgment call to retain the original Japanese term.

Does it work? I’m not sure if the title would have worked for American audiences back in the 1980s, but it’s a great decision for a post-Pacific Rim America and makes for a more distinct title.

Localization and Theme

In the point above, what was prioritized is what we could call “taking the reader to the source,” where it is up to the reader to figure out what the original author meant.

Its opposite stance is adapting the source material to the target audience (whether on a cultural level and/or on a linguistic level) so that reading the translation is seamless and feels as if it was written by a native speaker.

In this specific aspect, there are many different ways for the translator to approach this mindset and find creative solutions.

Take for example the phrase 僕の勝ちゃ, which David Evelyn laments about:

“…but my numero uno pet peeve that makes me want to pull my teeth out is when 私・僕・俺の勝ち is TL’d as “It’s my win.” No one in the history of existence has ever rose from their seat and screamed “IT’S MY WIN!” lol.”

Evelyn admits that there’s several ways to translate it and his approach was to present it as “I gotcha beat,” in Kaiju No. 8.

The goal here was to present the dialogue as sounding natural to US audiences and a transliteration of the text, while comprehensible, could sound stilted or awkward.

There are other embellishments that can be applied, depending on the context and intent. For example, in Kamen Rider OOO, there is a mentor-mentee relationship between the characters Akira Date and Shintaro Goto. The former refers to the latter as Goto-chan (the use of the honorifics is explained here) when normally -kun would be more appropriate, so fansub group Over Time chose to translate this as “Broto” (a portmanteau of bro and Goto).

When I first encountered this, it personally irked me, but over the years, I came to understand the rationale and philosophy behind it. I would still have preferred Goto to be used, but Broto is one way way of relaying the tone and affection the character has. And it would only work in a US context, where bro is commonly used as slang for close friendships (as opposed to a blood relation).

In addition to the scenarios above, there’s also the concept of adding theme and personality to a translation. For example, in games like Chrono Trigger and Fire Emblem, characters like Frog and Lyn respectively have old English accents, even if they weren’t present in the original. (Legends of Localization elaborates on them here and here.)

Now this can be a polarizing subject. Some fans enjoyed the additional color and speech style added to these characters. On the other hand, there might also be purists who view it as the translator “adding” something to the translation and not being faithful to the original. But that goes back to the original theory of translation as destruction and that something new is born.

It also begs the question if the source material did have accents, how should they be adapted to US audiences? (And of course, if you’re not an English speaker, if characters have a certain US regional accent like a Boston accent or a Southern accent, how should they be translated in other languages?)

Authorial Intent

Some people might use “authorial intent” on gauging whether a translation is competent or not, but that presumes that authorial intent is objectively knowable (or that the person reading the translation is aware of it).

If the author is literally dead for example, we cannot objectively determine what the authorial intent was, although scholars might present their own theories.

In practice, the author might also be unavailable or not know the answer.

For example, in the game Chrono Trigger, one of the character’s parents fall into a machine which eventually cripples them unless the player enters the password (on the controller) named after the parent. The parent’s name is ララ which is usually romanized as “Rara” but what’s important to note about Japanese is that there’s no genuine “R” sound and instead what we get is something in between “R” and “L” and the same character is used interchangeably. In the series Slayers for example, the protagonist is known as Lina Inverse in some texts, while Rina Inverse in others.

Going back to Chrono Trigger, there are 4 possible permutations for ララ:

• Lala
• Lara
• Rala
• Rara

The English localizers chose to go with Lara, probably because that sounds like the most reasonable English-sounding name.

To the Japanese writers who wrote Chrono Trigger, who knows if that’s what they truly intended or if they even conceived the potential problem for English audiences. (In the Japanese version, the password is Lala.) The character to them remains ララ, regardless of how it’s spelled in English. (More on the subject above is discussed in Legends of Localization.)

At other times though, translators will have access to the author. And their recommended solution could be to not do a transliteration and change the actual words used.

For example, in the film Parasite by director Bong Joon-ho, Darcy Paquet (working in collaboration with Bong) translates “Seoul National University (SNU)” as “Oxford” and “jiapaguri” as “ramdom”. He explains his rationale for doing so:

“The first time I did the translation, I did write out SNU but we ultimately decided to change it because it’s a very funny line, and in order for humor to work, people need to understand it immediately. With an unfamiliar word, the humor is lost.”

So in this case, keeping the spirit of what’s said was the higher priority, and this intersected with the director’s intention.

Does that mean Paquet’s translation is the best? Well, it’s the most apt for those who want some of the Korean cultural elements presented with American analogues. Those looking for a translation that keeps all the Korean references intact, or perhaps an English-speaker who is unfamiliar with American references, might find a different translation more appealing.

Metaphors, References, and Puns

One of the more challenging aspects of translation is when you come across sections where you don’t have the space to explain all the cultural nuances and metaphors, or when doing so sabotages the intent (in the case of humor for example).

Layne Vandenberg, writing for The Diplomat, has this commentary on Parasite’s cultural specifities:

“Parasite’s plot is catalyzed by the gifting of a scholar’s rock, a token in East Asian society of specific cultural significance. The housekeeper’s rendition of North Korean news broadcasts serves as a humanizing, comedic moment for the character that might be lost on unfamiliar audiences. The Parks’ disdain for those who ride the subway reinforces their upper class position in Korean society considering that nearly 7 million passengers use the Seoul public transportation network per day, out of Seoul’s total population of 9.7 million. The Korean title for Parasite, Gisaengchung (기생충), can be broken down to mean “parasitic” (gisaeng, 기생) and “insect” (chung, 충). This carries through to the first names of the Kim family: each name begins with “Ki-”, which is frequently pronounced “Gi-”, and the wife’s name is “Chung-sook.””

Is it reasonable to expect that the translator convey all of those things in the film via subtitles alone? Probably not. And that’s not to say some translators won’t try. In books for example, there’s more space to include translator notes and footnotes.

Puns and portmanteaus have a similar hurdle. Some translators might just eschew the playfulness altogether and decide to go for a plain translation. Others might feel they are up to the challenge and either replace it with a pun their target audience is more familiar with, or attempt something different.

For example, in Yakuza: Like a Dragon, there is an ability called デリヘル, which summons allies to aid you by calling them. In Japanese, デリヘル is intended to be translated as “Delivery Help”, but it is also a pun on Delivery Health (spelled the same way), which is a form of prostitution in Japan where you make a similar call to have someone provide you with sexual services.

The English localizers eventually went with Poundmates, which doesn’t really explain the pun above, but creates its own sexually-suggestive wordplay as both the words pound and mate work in dual contexts of either having sex or beating someone up.

Matching What the Audience Hears

This is a dilemma more related to audio-visual mediums like film, TV, and games (with audio): how much do translators need to match what the audience hears? Should they aim for accuracy or consistency?

For example, translator Katrina Leonoudakis warns that foreign loan words shouldn’t be translated as is:

“[D]on’t just blindly translate katakana English loan words as-is, especially when working in games! 「サークルヒール」, an AOE healing spell, probably shouldn’t be “Circle Heal”.

As always, I go back to theory!

FUNCTIONALISM: The writer’s using English words to sound cool in 99% of these cases.

POLYSYSTEM THEORY: The source audience has different subcultural expectations (‘fantasy skills in JRPGs use English words’) than target audience.”

This lead into a separate thread on reconciling what the audience hears and translation. Leonoudakis replies with:

“I used to stick to ‘if they hear it they hear it’, but I’ve shifted my approach more towards ‘bad English is bad in subs, too’.”

But context is important too and sometimes the “Bad English” is part of the identity of the translated work, while at other times, it’s better to replace it with something more appropriate.

This dilemma probably exemplifies knowing your audience and regardless of the decision, some people will always be discontent due to having different personal hierarchies. But it’s important to make a conscious decision here on which philosophy to approach it.

Restrictions, IP Laws, and Censorship

There will also be times when the translator’s hands are tied and must comply with certain requirements. This is less about capability and more of restrictions placed upon them by another party, either their client, publisher, or governments.

For example, games published in the 1990s by Nintendo of America had to conform to specific content policies (and remember this was the time when the US government was looking to regulate video games).

Various characters or titles could also infringe on various Intellectual Property (IP) in various countries, so they need to be changed or altered.

For example, one of the characters in One Piece is ロロノア・ゾロ (“Roronoa Zorro”) but presumably to avoid legal battles with the name Zorro, the Viz English translation instead uses Roronoa Zolo. A similar translation dilemma happens with ルパン三世 (Lupin III) where the titular character is named after Maurice Leblanc’s Arsène Lupin so to avoid similar legal hurdles, some earlier translations referred to him as Wolf (invoking the name’s relation to the word lupine).

And in extreme examples, there might also be elements that might be censored or banned in a country, so the choice is either to alter how the specific text is interpreted, or not have the work translated at all (and there are those who believe that “no translation” is better than a “bad translation”).

Hierarchies

The problem with the concept of a “perfect translation” is that this assumes everyone shares the same values, culture, and opinions. But if that were the case, then there would be no need for translators, localizers, and cultural consultants.

Instead, translations should be viewed like any media text: they come with their own biases and prioritizes specific values. Ideally this editorializing is conscious but sometimes it can be unconscious as well.

Similarly, just because a translation doesn’t work for one person doesn’t mean it wouldn’t work for anyone else. Or that once a work has been translated in a specific language, that there’s no need for other translations; the differences between translations should be embraced, analyzed, and critiqued.

And that’s not to say there aren’t bad translations out there. Breath of Fire II is an example, but even then, there are some things the translator gets right. And some inaccurate dialogue like Castlevania: Symphony of the Night’s “What is a man? A miserable little pile of secrets.” have become iconic.

At the heart of every translation is a specific target audience. Are my interests aligned with the translator? Or if not, is there a way for me to empathize with their vision?

The mechanical keyboard enthusiast community has a long history which is sadly undocumented publicly (although authors like ThereminGoat is starting to change that) which leaves people new to the hobby in the dark. Aside from the jargon (such as Interest Checks and Group Buys?), there are a variety of complaints which include:

• Why are keyboard components expensive?
• Why are keyboard components frequently out of stock?
• Why do we have to pre-order keyboard components that will only be available a year from now?

It might come as a surprise to some, but these three questions are all interconnected, and it’s not just due to COVID-19 and the production/shipping shortages that ensued.

Several people who enter the hobby are ignorant of business models and cashflow management, so here’s my attempt to explain them in lay man’s terms. As a caveat, I do not have insider knowledge on the workings of any keyboard manufacturing company, but am inferring from best practices found in other industries.

Mass Production, Economies of Scale, and Alternative Models

A lot of products we purchase off the shelf will most likely have been mass produced and the company that sells them leveraged economies of scale to turn a profit. Since this is probably our first and common experience purchasing products, most people’s assumption is this is how all businesses should operate.

In practice, however, alternative models are slowly becoming viable.

Offset Printing vs Print-on-Demand

To take a different industry as an example, in publishing, offset printing is the go-to method for mass-market paperbacks, which resulted in books with a retail price of under $10.00. Print-on-Demand is an alternative where you don’t need to print thousands of books, and can instead opt to print a single copy, albeit at a higher price. If a paperback with a production run of 5,000 costs $5.00 when using offset printing, the same book can be produced for $10.00 for a single copy using Print-on-Demand.

Nothing is stopping a self-published author to use offset printing to print their books and lower their cost (and in fact, this is the intention of some Kickstarter projects), but this usually requires a large capital investment ($25,000.00 to print the 5,000 copies using the example above) in addition to other challenges such as storage and how to ship them to the warehouse. When using Print-on-Demand, you just need a capital of $10.00 and you can deal with problems one customer at a time.

Supply and Demand

This ties into the challenges of cashflow and inventory management. How do we know there’s enough demand for 5,000 books? And if it requires a capital of $25,000.00, where do we get that kind of money, especially if we’re just an individual or a small business?

This is where pre-orders come in and why services like Kickstarter have been popular. It’s not really surprising why Games and Technology are popular categories in that platform because they answer those two questions.

Some people see Kickstarter as simply a solution to find funding, but the reality is that it solves other problems as well, such as gauging how many consumers are actually interested in the product and acts as a marketing vehicle.

For example, in the board game industry, Stonemaier Games discusses the challenges in meeting demand for Wingspan — a product that when released, was not able to keep up with demand — an aspect they might have partially mitigated had they run it through Kickstarter. (This is an oversimplification though and the linked article discusses why Kickstarter doesn’t completely solves this problem.)

Whereas well-planned Kickstarters (there are also poorly-planned Kickstarters which results in financial loss) provide some security to the publisher, the risks are passed on to the backers: what if the business fails produce the product? What if the product does not meet expectations or is severely delayed?

And while we use Kickstarter here as an example, that’s not the only platform or model that provides companies with such an opportunity. Another board game publisher, GMT Games, has a P500 program. Stonemaier Games has an explanation of how the P500 program works, but basically, they check if there are enough people (in this case, the magic number is 500) are interested in the game before pushing through with production and then pre-selling them at a discount.

Interest Checks and Group Buys

Bringing the topic back to mechanical keyboards, a lot of people new to the hobby do not understand how niche (at least for now) the hobby is, or at least the segment they’re entering in.

Currently, there’s two target audiences for mechanical keyboards.

Mainstream Audience

The first is the mainstream audience. These people are not as meticulous with mechanical keyboards and would happily use a full-sized keyboard and all the RGB that comes along with it. This is usually the target audience of mainstream brands like Logitech, Corsair, Razer, etc. Their keyboards are mass-produced and sold at retail stores.

Browsing through forums like Geekhack or Reddit, however, you’ll find that a lot of people there hate these companies. It’s not that their products are bad (despite what people in those forums say), but more of the audience there are enthusiasts, and their criteria for what makes a keyboard “good” is significantly different from what the mainstream audience wants.

A common question people new to the hobby ask is why is their a scarcity in full-sized custom keyboards. The answer is simple: the enthusiasts — those that are not the mainstream audience — do not like full-sized keyboards. The very reason they lean towards the custom route is to differentiate themselves from your average user and they realized that ergonomically or aesthetically, a full-sized keyboard is not for them.

The Enthusiast Audience

What some people do not yet realize is that mechanical keyboard enthusiasts are, for the most part, currently a very small niche. For example, when a mainstream company like Razer does a production run for one of its keyboards, the factory might produce 30,000 units. Compare that to NovelKeys which manages to re-stock 2,000 units and 5,500 units of its popular NK65 Entry Edition. And that’s not a criticism of NovelKeys, merely an illustration of the scale and resources available to companies with different target audiences.

The enthusiast market has very niche taste. That’s why those interested in catering to their needs tend to be small businesses and individuals who produce components that have limited production runs, from keycaps to PCBs.

Some components or products simply cannot be mass-produced. That’s why some artisan keycaps have to be personally handcrafted and priced accordingly.

Other components can be mass-produced, but the individual or business either does not have the resources to do so, or the number of people interested in the product isn’t there. That’s why some GMK keycap sets like those from individual designers only have a single production run, while larger companies like Drop can afford to have specific GMK keycap sets available all-year round.

Where Interest Checks and Group Buys Come In

Interest Checks and Group Buys are just the business models employed by Kickstarter except they’re applied to the mechanical keyboard enthusiast community.

What is an Interest Check? It’s simply a poll to see whether there are enough people interested in a product. If there’s not enough interest, the designer abandons the project or ideally runs a new/different Interest Check with revised designs.

What is a Group Buy? Group Buys are a pre-ordering system. If a product meets the Minimum Order Quantity (MOQ), consumers are charged for it, and is produced and then delivered at a later date.

Because the enthusiast community revolves around these business models, this is the reason why:

a) Products are expensive, because they’re not manufactured at a level where economies of scale makes sense.

b) Products are frequently out of stock, because each batch is produced in limited quantities or only just enough to fulfill the pre-orders.

c) Pre-orders are quite common because individuals and companies need to manage their cashflow and/or do not have the capital to produce the product — at least not without risking their own financial stability.

An Example

Here’s an example to give you a better idea of how the process works. Let’s assume we’re taking the role of a keycap designer who wants to produce a keycap set.

First, we run an Interest Check to see if there are enough people interested. If GMK is producing the keycap set, then we need at least 150 orders. Let’s assume 200 people are interested.

Second, after improving our initial designs, we decide to run a Group Buy. This entails:

1) Getting a quote from the manufacturer, in this case GMK. Let’s assume they quote us $80.00 for a keycap set assuming a minimum order of 200 copies, or $16,000.00.

2) We look for vendors whom GMK will ship the keycap sets to and who will fulfill the orders. Let’s assume NovelKeys agrees to be our vendor and they need $30.00 for each set to cover their expenses.

3) As the designer, we decide to pay ourselves $10.00 for each set.

4) The final price we charge customers is $120.00 to cover all the expenses listed above.

Third, the Group Buy is successful. 250 customers end up purchasing the keycap set from NovelKeys and pays the vendor $30,000.00 total. NovelKeys decides to order 50 keycap sets as extras and covers those costs to GMK directly. GMK ends up producing 300 keycap sets total, and charges me $20,000.00 (since NovelKeys is covering the cost of the 50 extras). NovelKeys subtracts that amount from the money they collected in addition to their own expenses ($7,500.00), which leaves us with $2,500.00.

Fourth, 9 months later, GMK delivers the keycap sets to NovelKeys, who in turn ships it to customers.

While this example is an oversimplification and uses keycaps, this can be applied to other keyboard components, whether it’s switches or keyboards.

Is This the Only Way?

Is this the only viable method to produce products for the community?

Yes and no.

Yes

If you want the same amount of diverse designs and products that’s currently being released, then the answer is yes. It’s unlikely that a mainstream company, even with a large amount of capital, will launch 20 different keycap sets every month, for example. Economies of scale doesn’t make in this context.

However, Interest Checks and Group Buys make it possible for 20 individual creators with no relation to each other to come up with 20 very different keycap sets and make it available to the community.

Or let’s say there’s a keyboard that only has an audience of 1,000 customers willing to pay for it. Bigger companies would never produce such a keyboard, while a smaller company might and apply all the necessarily quality control checks necessary to produce such a product.

No

Currently on the rise are companies that are bridging the gap between the mainstream audience and the enthusiast audience such as PCGR and Drop.

One example is the GMMK Pro. Based on the initial pre-orders, there were hundreds of thousands of pre-orders for this keyboard, hence why it has a $179.00 price point and should theoretically be in stock all year round. On the other hand, from the perspective of some enthusiasts who are picky about their keyboards, this is also why they might prefer other manufacturers like Rama Works who produce a smaller volume of keyboards but maintain the quality control or attention to detail that they’re looking for, as the GMMK Pro has some some design compromises for being mass-produced.

Another example is Drop making two of its GMK keycap sets, Red Samurai and Laser, available all-year round. Some people who purchase GMK keycaps might be baffled by how this is possible, especially with new batches of GMK Laser being available every Monday, and how there’s a backlog of GMK sets currently (i.e. current Group Buys for GMK sets takes a year to be fulfilled) but there’s a simple explanation for this.

Drop simply had GMK produce a lot of GMK Laser keycaps in the initial run (thousands, if not tens of thousands, of sets instead of a few hundred that a lot of Group Buys do) and is having GMK ship them in batches to Drop’s warehouses.

On the other hand, not every company has this kind of capital. Even Drop, for example, does not make every GMK set they sell available all-year round. They do need to manage their cashflow and inventory, and can’t invest $500,000.00 in every GMK set they release.

A Hybrid Method

The reality is some companies are already doing a hybrid method.

Take NovelKeys for example. Several of their products are still Group Buys, but they have a few items that are in-stock.

There’s the NK65 Entry Edition which doesn’t require a Group Buy to purchase, but does quickly sell out and there are long lead times in between re-releases.

They also have some keycap sets which did not run via Group Buys and are readily available (subject to stock availability).

There’s a movement to make products available all-year round but people also need to understand the limitations faced by individuals and small companies. There are some enthusiasts who envision all the risks should be shouldered by vendors but the reality is even “big” vendors like NovelKeys do not have infinite capital and resources. It’s also easy to tell someone to risk their money when people aren’t willing to do so when placed in a similar situation.

On the other hand, there are also some products that can never be mass-produced and what makes them special to enthusiasts is that they are, in fact, not mass produced. We can’t really demand that non-mass produced products be sold at mass-production prices.

Lastly, there’s also the perception that every person deserves to receive X product regardless of their financial means. Unfortunately, the reality is that mechanical keyboards are a luxury items and no one absolutely needs one. It’s not a life-and-death scenario. And in pursuit of this luxury, some people are willing to cut corners or throw people under the bus. For example, individual designers create GMK keycap sets and some people turn to companies that clone sets like HK Gaming and Akko who rip of designs from those designers and sell them at a cheaper price. These type of customers are making a statement: “we don’t care about individual designers and they don’t deserve to get paid, as long as we get the keycaps cheap.”