Cover Art: Mega Drive - Part 2

For many of us oldies, the world of Japanese gaming first became apparent as a Mega Drive owner. Virtually all the games we had available were released there as well (usually first) and they generally had different (better?) cover artwork too. It might have taken me a good while (three years!) to get around to comparing some more fine examples accordingly, but feast your eyes on this selection!

Arrow Flash (1990)

This is not one of the MD's more fondly-remembered shooters these days and it's not one of my favourites either, if I'm honest. But it does have some pretty interesting cover artwork. Both actually have similar designs depicting a brave female mecha pilot apparently floating, one in orbit, the other over a cityscape, but both in front of their big mecha ship thing, though the Japanese one seems to be partly faded out. Both use the same logo/font too, but the art styles are very different as you might imagine, with the European cover using a Western comicbook style while the Japanese example unsurprisingly uses an anime style. Which is best? I suppose that depends on which style you prefer. I think I like the European one more, mainly because it shows the mecha properly, and the planet with presumably-hostile aliens in the distance is cool/foreboding, but both are pretty good. There is actually a third cover for the US version which is decent too. (full review here)

Wifey's Watches #2

Gentleman Jack (2019 - 2022)

A while back, my wife had one of her old friends staying with us for a while. This friend is a lesbian, so naturally, everything we watched while she was with us had to be lesbian-themed or have a lesbian character too. Occupying much of this TV time was Gentleman Jack which is another 'dramatisation' of the life of Anne Lister, a landowner and industrialist in 19th century England who has since come to be known as the 'first modern lesbian' thanks largely to the extensive diaries she wrote which detail all aspects of her life, including her romances and love affairs, all with other women. While we see a couple of old flames here and there, the focus in that regard is on shy but wealthy heiress Ann Walker (the magic-boobed Sophie Rundle) who Lister (Suranne Jones) meets upon returning home to her Yorkshire estate brokenhearted after her lover leaves her for a pesky man.