Characters are a vital aspect of today’s transmedia practices. Combining theories on fictional persons from Japanese and Euro-American practices, this book discusses video game characters embedded in our popular media culture in which they are constantly produced and re-imagined.

This book introduces the dynamic game character, a type of game character with a development structure that consists of multiple outcomes in a game. Through their actions and choices, players can influence these game characters’ identities and affect their possible destinies.

Games subvert the idea that fictional persons must maintain a coherent identity. This book shows that dynamic game characters challenge strategies of top-down control through close readings of the Mass Effect series, Persona 5, Hades, Animal Crossing: New Horizons and more. It is directed to all scholars interested in the topics of transmedia storytelling, video games, characters, and Japanese narratology.

Joleen Blom obtained her Ph.D. at the Center for Computer Games at the IT University of Copenhagen, where she was a member of the ERC Advanced grant project Making Sense of Games (MSG). Her research interests include transmedia storytelling, Japanese games and culture, characters, para-social relationships, and mediated intimacy.

A brief note Japanese names and words
Chapter 1: Introducing the dynamic game character
Chapter 2: Characters in contemporary media
Chapter 3: How the dynamic game character develops
Chapter 4: Strategies to control a character’s transtextual identities
Chapter 5: Parasocial relationships with non-playable characters
Chapter 6: The construction of transmedia game characters
Chapter 7: The future of dynamic game characters
Glossary A brief typology on characters
Complete bibliography
Index .