While the concept of the "console war" in video gaming still exists to this day, it's arguable that nothing has ever truly reached the notoriety of the "16-bit War" between the Sega Genesis & the Super Nintendo in North America. In the region that I call home the 80s were mainly dominated by the Nintendo Entertainment System, a console that managed to revitalize the home video game console market following the Crash of 1983, though a big part of that domination was due to tactics & regulations from Nintendo of America that would later be called out as being monopolistically illegal, like literally prohibiting all third-party publishers from publishing games for the competition, at least for a certain period of time. This domination would change with the launch of the Sega Genesis on August 14, 1989 (which had previously launched in Japan as the Mega Drive on October 29, 1988), Sega's 16-bit console that had a slightly slow start but in 1990 would see stronger sales, and once Sonic the Hedgehog debuted in 1991 (& was bundled with the console, replacing Altered Beast) the "war" was truly on. The Genesis would consistently outsell the SNES across four Christmas seasons (1991 to 1994), with it even getting to the point where the Genesis would outsell the SNES 2:1, but in the end Nintendo would still manage to defeat Sega in the "16-bit War" for one main reason: Nintendo Played the Long Game.
The release of Donkey Kong Country in late 1994 would help start a surge in SNES sales, while Nintendo of America's continued support of the console for the remainder of the decade with major new game releases continued to entice people to buy the console during the era of the PlayStation, Saturn, & N64. In comparison, Sega of America's own massive disarray in the mid-90s prevented the Genesis from seeing quite as consistent late-game support (~150-ish games from 1995 to 1998, compared to the SNES' ~250-ish), and the Mega Drive's consistent lack of popularity in Japan certainly didn't help things (no more than just 10 games developed in Japan on Genesis from 1995 to 1998, compared to a little over 40 on SNES). Still, the Genesis vs. SNES "war" makes for some really fun storytelling...
As mentioned, in Japan the battle wasn't really between the Mega Drive & the Super Famicom, but rather was more between NEC & Hudson Soft's PC-Engine & the Super Famicom, and even then it was more of a battle for second place, as the Super Famicom handily outsold the PC-Engine. However, Sega has always maintained a cult following in Japan, and sometime in the mid-00s that resulted in something interesting. Around that time a writer by the name of Anastasia Shestakova (which could very well be a pen name; their real identity is unknown) debuted a doujinshi in the digital pages of doujin web magazine Red Road titled Aoi Sekai no Chuushin de/The Center of the Blue World, with art by adult doujinshi artist Crimson, who herself had previously worked with her brother under the name Carmine & today also works as a YouTuber; despite the pedigree, Aoi Sekai no Chuushin de is not an H-doujin. This doujin reinterpreted the various console wars as literal wars between warring fantasy nations, & over time around 200 chapters (including the various side story chapters interspersed between the numbered ones) were produced by Shestakova & Crimson across five "Parts", with the first 50 being collected physically across nine volumes between 2007 & 2009; officially the doujin is still considered ongoing, but hasn't had a new chapter since November 11, 2018. The success & notoriety of Aoi Sekai no Chuushin de would result in publisher Micro Magazine wanting to publish it as an "official" manga, & the duo would take this opportunity to revamp their doujin, implementing new additions, making some changes, & properly inking all of the artwork this time, minus some scenes, like flashbacks, solely for effect. This resulted in Aoi Sekai no Chuushin de Kanzenban/The Core of the Blue World: Complete Edition, which came out between 2010 & 2013, collecting all of Parts 1 & 2 across 10 volumes, including the ~15 chapters that the initial nine-volume run didn't.
It's with the Complete Edition that Aoi Sekai no Chuushin de would find its greatest notoriety. A three-episode anime adaptation of Part 1 would get announced in early 2012, which Crunchyroll simulcasted before Media Blasters would eventually release it on dual-audio DVD & BD in 2017, and in early 2013 Seven Seas announced that it had licensed the Complete Edition of the manga for official English release; all of these official English releases would change the title to the, admittedly catchy, World War Blue. Seven Seas' release schedule for World War Blue did look to be a bit inconsistent, regularly swapping between every two months & every three months for the first seven volumes, before taking the better part of an entire year to release Volume 8 in mid-2015... and then that was it! Yeah, Seven Seas just stopped releasing World War Blue after Volume 8, despite there only being two more volumes to go of the version it was releasing, and their webpage for the manga is even still up to this very day. Seven Seas actually did respond to a question about World War Blue's cancellation in 2016, citing poor sales, & not even Media Blasters giving the anime a physical release a year later made them revive it for a mere two books. Despite coming out at a time where digital releases of manga were becoming more common, the World War Blue manga was a print-only release (in English, at least), though in all fairness the books Seven Seas did release remain relatively easy to get a hold of at (more or less) the original retail price; still, the irony that a digital doujin is physical-only in English is ridiculously thick.
If you're fine with Japanese, the original doujin version is still available in full on its official website, all the way up through Part 5's current hiatus (Part 2's links are oddly broken & need the Wayback Machine to actually read, though), though for this Demo Disc I'll focus solely on the eight volumes that came out in English; that said, I'll rely on the official site for images here, for simplicity's sake. Was World War Blue deserving of its cancellation by Seven Seas a mere two books before finishing because it wasn't actually all that good, or was it just a victim of other factors beyond its control? Let's boot it up & find out!
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| Since these are taken form the original web doujin version it's all in Japanese, but I tried to get the ones that looked closest to their Complete Edition touch ups, for the most part. |
It's the year 997 & the continent of Consume is in the midst of what's known as the "Hard Wars". The Ninteldo Empire in the North, lead by Flame Emperor Marcus, controls 90% of the continent, though most of that is due to five other nations (Slovia, Eliel, Habeed, Tatrand, & Decoran) acting as "Third Party Supporters". Meanwhile, standing against Ninteldo is the Kingdom of Segua in the South which continues to fight in an attempt at overthrowing Ninteldo; there are also the island "Neutral Party" nations of Nalua, Cortona, & the Gump Federation. In Segua is the remains of a village called Marcthree which is the home of friends named Gear, Tial, & Nel, three orphans who survived the massacre of their families years ago at the hands of Ninteldo forces. Ashamed at having run away back then, Gear has sworn to train & become stronger so that he can fight for the Segua Army against Ninteldo... only to get scared & back away when forces appear near Marcthree. Tial decides to fight back only to get killed, the shock of which forces Gear into action & defeats the forces. Now, with Nel in tow, Gear heads over to Segua's capital of Ohtori to fight without backing down ever again, & he's quickly discovered by Lt. General Ramses, who recruits him into the 1st Special Division. This is because, unbeknownst to him, Gear (& even Nel) is actually a "Killer", powerful warriors that came about following the "Atarika Shock" who can help change the tides of battle for Segua... and Gear is also the son of General Alex, Segua's greatest warrior who's currently being held captive in neighboring Tetrand.
As you can tell from the synopsis (& the various links I included throughout), World War Blue is literally a fantasy story based on the continued battle between Sega & Nintendo, following the decimation of the Mark III/Master System at the hands of the Famicom/NES, & how it's seemingly up to a new face on the battlefield/market, i.e. Gear/Sonic, to save the day for Segua/Sega. To the credit of Shestakova & Crimson, even in just the first volume they do a great job establishing a history for the world this story takes place in, and the way they implement aspects of the real-life history of video games is honestly really clever. For example, on Consume the Atarika Shock came about because the "Great Atarika Empire" relied too heavily on recruiting whoever wanted to join the army, resulting in an unfocused & abusive army that the populace rebelled against, destroying Atarika itself. This resulted in the Killers, elite warriors that then mated with fellow elite warriors, leading to new generations of Killers that future nations could rely on, i.e. quality over quantity; in other words, the 1983 crash, i.e. "Atari Shock", resulting in later companies relying more on "killer apps". Meanwhile, one of Ninteldo's Third Party Supporters, Tatrand, nearly ruled over all of Consume at one point via its ruler, I. Vazar (pronounced like "Vader"), i.e. the Space Invaders craze of the late 70s & early 80s, before Taito simply became a third-party publisher on consoles. Simply put, the more you know about video game history the more you'll enjoy all the ways World War Blue reinterprets that very history into its own lore; the creators admit to doing their research in the afterword of Part 1, and it does show.
Anyway, as mentioned, World War Blue's Complete Edition collects all of the first two "Parts" of the series, and in the case of Seven Seas' unfinished release that means that we have all of Part 1 & most of Part 2. Part 1: Mk3-hen (i.e. The Mark III Chapter), as it's called in the original doujin version, takes up Volume 1 & all but the final chapter of Volume 2 & introduces our main cast, as well as their attack on Fortress Hope in Tetrand to rescue General Alex. Part 2: MD-hen (i.e. The Mega Drive Chapter), is the primary focus of World War Blue in this form, then, & details Segua's attempts at taking the fight to Ninteldo directly, while also chronicling other conflicts across Consume. For those curious, the doujin version includes three further story arcs: Part 3: E3-hen (i.e. The E3 Chapter), Part 4: PS-hen (i.e. The PlayStation Chapter), & an unnamed Part 5 that remains unfinished. As you can see, what was given a physical release in Japan for World War Blue, let alone what Seven Seas released in English, is really only the start of a much larger epic, in that regard. For example, while Volume 3 introduces the concept of "CD Killers", enhanced warriors who are even stronger than the original Killers, & Part 5 apparently later introduces "BD Killers", to pay homage to the advancement in technology from cartridges to CDs to now Blu-Ray. To explain more, Killers can get stronger by "absorbing" other Killers' life force (i.e. "Bits"), and while most Killers can only handle one or two (maybe five, max) CD Killers can absorb up to 640, i.e. cartridge-based games could only be a handful of megabytes large, at most, while CD games could hold up to 640 MB. I'm honestly curious how this series would have tackled Killers being based on the modern trend of digital-only releases, or games requiring installations, downloads, & updates before being played.
But enough general stuff, let's get into the nitty gritty of World War Blue as a story in & of itself, and that starts with the cast. On the side of Segua we naturally have our main character Gear, who's admitted by the creators to be your standard shonen manga hero, i.e. young, impetuous, has spikey hair, & tries to look on the bright side of things, though to the manga's credit Gear is given some immediate character bits, like his initial hesitation to actually fight back & later him having to accept that he'll have to do harsh things in order to do what he & Segua think or know is right; war is hell, after all. After him would be Opal, a beautiful but tough archer who has her own personal reasons (& tragedy) for fighting on Segua's side, but at the same time has a habit of making terrible puns, usually to Gear's dismay. Then there's Nel, Gear's surrogate sister who doesn't really do much in Part 1 but gets more to do in Part 2, using her hyper-sensitive hearing to be able to detect forces with pinpoint accuracy. Of the entire cast she's arguably the most physically blatant like her influence, right down to wielding a metal claw like Nei, despite rarely using it in battle. The three of them are led by Ramses, a compassionate leader who holds her own personal secrets (that Seven Seas' release never gets to the point of revealing) but otherwise looks out for the best of her soldiers & crew.
Finally, but in some ways most notably, there's Alexey Tejirov, a for-hire mercenary from the country of Lorgue who's initially brought on to help Segua, and helps train Gear, Opal, & Nel, in particular introducing the idea of "Shooting" to Opal, which allows her to channel energy into her fingertips that she can then fire out. Essentially, character's abilities are categorized (in a meta sense) by the kind of game genre their inspiration is a part of, so there's "Shooting" for shoot-em-ups, "Action" for action/adventure & platformers, "Role Playing" for RPGs, etc. For Part 1 this is more or less your entire cast, with the only other notable characters being three of Tatrand's Killers, D. Fisher & the brothers Vaiz & Voiz, who are mostly straightforward, minus Voiz taking Tejirov's advice after being peacefully defeated & going to the "Puzzle Academy" to learn more about strategy, i.e. evolving from Bubble Bobble to Puzzle Bobble, though apparently Voiz doesn't return to the story until Part 3.
It's with Part 2 that we start to get way more characters introduced, due to the variety of nations that make up Consume. For example, we're introduced to "Ninteldo's Six Generals", made up of Marcus' brother Gluiji, Zelig, Fae, Karvai, Saroid, & Masa, who are generally seen as the strongest Killers on Consume & act (in theory) as the major villains of Part 2. The rest of the notable characters really come & go depending on the story right at that moment, like Habeed attempting a coup against Ninteldo in Volume 3 by siding with Piche from the continent of Kardensia, which shows the first instance of a CD Killer; Zelig manages to deal with it himself, but worries about the concept becoming "mass produced". Meanwhile, Segua tries to take advantage of Habeed's failed coup with an invasion by negotiating with Decoran to go through without conflict, only for Gear & his friends to be ambushed by forces led by Akagi East, sister of Decoran's leader Asimov East. As the plot moves on we see more from the other nations, like Eliel's "Hero" Myomut Yutey, Slovia's Queen Crystal Eferev, & Gump's Kaimura & Tofai, while we get more detail regarding the people who fight for Segua, like Opal's upbringing with her father Zhalfir Koil (who, in turn, ties back to Akagi when all is said & done) or detailing Tejirov's past... and, of course, we all know who wound up with the home console rights to Tetris in the late 80s after the legal shenanigans were finally settled. Meanwhile, Gear himself slowly finds ways of becoming stronger, like training at Gump in "Action", while Segua itself finds itself needing to engage in risky plans, like forming a tenuous alliance with Slovia (now that's something that never happened in real life!) so as to deal with Eliel. Volume 8, the last one Seven Seas ever released, ends with Gear, Nel, Opal, & Ramses having finally entered Ninteldo to make a last-ditch guerrilla tactic to take out Marcus, only for Nel & Opal to find themselves in a do-or-die scenario with the Illegal Pirates & one of their leaders, Digolg Jr., son of Ninteldo's strongest Killer, Dol Digolg... or, should I say, people who stole the powers (& identities) of Digolg & his son using the "Magic Mirror" Magugon; yeah, even the idea of video game piracy gets used!
While Part 1 is a rather straightforward story that feels more like your standard action manga in some ways, Part 2 is really where World War Blue gets to shine. The anime only adapting Part 1 arguably gives people who have only checked out this series via that a bit of a false impression, because the manga is actually more of a tale about a war-torn land starring multiple sides, only with everything being meant to be a reference to video game titles, characters, & history. Sure, it's not intended to be some realistic allegory for actual war, and stuff like Opal & Gear taking on Koil's gang in Volume 4 has little to do with the war with Ninteldo, but Part 2 is still where this manga is at its best, at least for what was released physically. If all you thought about World War Blue after watching the anime was that it was nothing more than a surface-level reference-a-thon for video games then do know that the real story that happens after it is focused more on telling an actual overarching plot with characters that do have a bit more depth than you initially thought. Really, remove all of the video game references from World War Blue & its storytelling wouldn't really change all that much, because Shestakova & Crimson made sure that it's its own story first & foremost, rather than be fully reliant on the video game references in & of themselves, which is a good sign. Sure, the references & pastiches give some stuff a little extra detail that you'd otherwise wouldn't have, but what at first looks like a hollow novelty story does show that it's serious about telling a story above all else, and that the video game stuff is simply the veneer & flavor text. Sure, some plot & character development moments are themselves references, but at the same time those are also just general story concepts that have existed for as long as stories have existed; even without them being references they'd still make sense from a storytelling perspective.
As for the art by Crimson, it's... interesting, in some respects. There's certainly nothing inherently wrong with her art, and even while looking over the original web doujin version of the content covered here to get images from I could still easily tell who was who & everything, despite some of the "pages" admittedly looking more like rough layout sketches than fully-drawn & inked finished work. However, at the same time, there's just something to Crimson's style in general that comes off as, for lack of a better way for me to describe it... like a fan work. I mean, fair play, this was originally exactly that kind of work, in a sense, but even with the Complete Edition featuring properly inked & finished pages there was still this feeling that I was reading something that was never "traditionally" published in a magazine or some sort of "official" web serialization. Even without knowing of its web doujin origins I feel like I still would have felt that it was "obviously" not from your standard manga origins. All that being said, though, I still do like the visual style of World War Blue, and Crimson did a great job with the character designs, making each character look visually unique from each other & implementing visual references in ways that made sense. Myomut is very blatant, sure, but the majority of the cast is more subtle in their visual tells; in a nice touch, Crimson made sure to make Crystal's mother, Queen Karland, look like a Yoshitaka Amano character. To be fair, though, Opal & Nel do have very similar designs, but Crimson managed to prevent me from outright confusing the two just enough. As for Crimson's history as an H-doujin artist, it's mostly impossible to notice in World War Blue, outside of a handful of moments where Ramses (& once Opal) gets emotionally shaken (usually in relation to Gear) & Crimson decides to draw her fully naked for effect (i.e. she's not literally naked, but rather showing her inner turmoil), though her "naughty bits" are all still covered up in those panels. Also, there are a decent amount of female characters who are "well endowed", though not to any absurd degree, and some characters, like Gear & Crystal, are generally drawn with only the bare minimum of clothing.
Meanwhile, what exactly would there even be beyond what was released via the Complete Edition in Japan? Without outright trying to spoil myself I did look into the basic idea of what happens later on, & from what I can tell Part 2 seems to end with more of an amicable finish to the Ninteldo/Segua conflict, rather than outright destruction, & I imagine that the Illegal Pirates wind up being a common enemy for the climax; after all, both Nintendo & Sega have become very amicable with each other. Meanwhile, Part 3 looks to reimagine E3 as a giant martial arts tournament, held by Nalua, between the various nations of Consume, which in turn allows Gump's Tofai to become more of a focal point character for the story; that makes sense, since she's pretty much Street Fighter's Ryu. After that would be Part 4, which apparently moves the story over to Kardensia, the continent opposite Consume that was referenced in Volume 3, with focus being put more on characters like Crystal & Segua's royal family, who were never seen before this point (& whose names are blatant Sega Saturn references), as well as brand new characters from the Zoldia Empire on Kardensia; in other words, it becomes more about the "32/64-bit War" of the mid-to-late 90s. Then there's Part 5, which I can't find much general info on, outside of BD Killers being introduced there & Crystal remaining a major character, but I would hazard a guess that it simply moved on to more "modern" eras of console wars. As you can see, while Gear is initially seen as the main character at the start of World War Blue his status as such actually starts to diminish as the manga moves on, with even points in what Seven Seas released moving focus over to the likes of Opal, Tejirov, & even Crystal at points (hell, Gear barely even appears in Volume 7!), and seemingly after Part 3 (where he shares major focus with various other characters) he simply becomes part of supporting cast from then on out; he even apparently starts wearing... a shirt!
I will fully admit that when I first heard of World War Blue over a decade ago, when the anime adaptation was announced, I found the concept amusing but otherwise didn't really find much interest in checking it out, either in manga or anime form. Having been someone who's been playing video games ever since I was about four or five, & lived through the whole "16-bit War" between the Genesis & SNES back in the day, the idea of a manga that reimagines it as a literal war was one that, I felt, sounded a bit hollow. Some also have tried to question why a Japan-made manga would focus on Sega in this scenario, but even through the Mega Drive wasn't a success there Sega as an overall brand has always maintained a dedicated following, so I could see the logic there; also, just from a storytelling perspective, making Nintendo the focal point would be boring. And, truthfully, Part 1 of World War Blue kind of follows through on my initial expectations by telling a simple story with characters who were based on various video games that was neat enough but otherwise kind of hollow. This is what the anime adapts up through, too, so that only reinforces the general feeling most have towards it, i.e. quirky, but otherwise nothing substantial.
Part 2 of World War Blue, though, is surprisingly enjoyable & is where Shestakova & Crimson let the concept really breathe. The characters are allowed to develop properly & you get to see more of Consume than just Segua, which in turn allows the world of World War Blue to truly feel like an actual location. To go with that, the reinterpretations of the various video games, their publishers, & history of the industry itself (both in Japan & North America) are honestly really neat & help give little bits of extra oomph to the events happening, as well as the backstories you slowly learn about them. The more familiar you are with specific games the more you'll notice & enjoy the references found in character names, motivations, actions, & even chapter titles, but even if you don't they still wind up working well in just giving everything more "character", in general; also, between most chapters there are three-way conversations about gaming history that help explain the references. That being said, though, I still don't really feel much of an urge to keep these books in my collection, partly due to the fact that it's an incomplete release (&, even if we did get the last two volumes, it'd still technically be incomplete due to there being more story beyond Part 2), and partly because the web doujin version is still available online. Sure, it's all in Japanese, but it's there for free, and with much more content beyond what was physically published, at that.
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| I felt it was appropriate for this image to appear last, since "Death" is essentially what happened to the manga in English. |
In regards as to why World War Blue bombed so hard for Seven Seas that it had to admit the low sales killed the release, though, I can see some reasons. First, as mentioned, Part 1 is only just OK, but since most people really only give manga they're not too familiar with one volume, maybe two, to catch their interest that means that this series started off with a rough first impression. Second, while the concept is well executed, especially in Part 2, it's still a story about reinterpreting the video game industry as an actual war between nations, and while there's crossover appeal between video game players & manga readers it's still limiting the potential readership. Third, to put it bluntly, retro game fandom in North America is extremely biased towards Nintendo, and it's not until Volume 8's introduction of the Illegal Pirates that the manga starts to truly show that Ninteldo isn't really the villain in all this, at least when it comes to directly antagonizing Segua. Make no mistake, Seven Seas' Nicky Lim came correct when it came to the covers, giving them a design that made each one look like a latter-era Genesis game cover (red spine aesthetic & all), & even using Sega logo-esque font (i.e. a modified Yagi Double) for the creator credits. However, Nintendo is what those who would most likely buy this kind of story would have wanted to see be the heroes, instead of seemingly the villains, and I think that could have possibly hurt World War Blue's chances at succeeding in English the most. Sometimes people can just be petty like that.
Manga © 2012 Anastasia Shestakova/© 2012 Crimson
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