Comment on Magic represented by 2D patterns in anime and manga
auster@thebrainbin.org@thebrainbin.org 2 weeks ago
Not directly related to anime but to representations of magic in general, but this reminds me of the speed up spell "haste" in Final Fantasy II (PSP) and Final Fantasy X. In FFII, iirc no gliph appears, and the character gets so fast that in the initial peak, he/she runs off to one side of the screen and come back at the other. In X, a gliph appears, but it is a spherical clockwork-like gliph instead.
In a more recent work, now back at anime, magic used by humans in Dragon Raja has audio and visual representations, the voice of the caster distorting, a mist coming out of the caster's moth iirc, and both this mist and the eyes of the caster glowing.
Dragon Raja, apparently making 2D animation in a 3D software, probably is what allows this non-gliph type of representation. By extension, FFX using a 3D engine probably is what allows and even facilitates this type of 3D gliph instead. And FFII, though 2D, is from before the glyph trend, thus preserving the old style.
And this makes me think, maybe the 2D glyphs are used in manga as a way to make easier to represent magic in a purely 2D and static medium, and this ends up causing a habit which evolves to a culture over time.
Curious Archive has a recent video on representation of magic btw, though iirc it's a Nebula exclusive. =/
I completely missed the connection with computer games (I’m not a gamer), thank you! Probably computer graphics pushed the device to both games and anime.