Category Archives: books, movies, tv, music

The Fairy Tail Origins series of Minecraft roleplays is a response to the Fairy Tail anime and manga. Its first three seasons had some story content but mostly consisted of gameplay on a Minecraft server. (I find it deathly boring and do not watch them.) In the fourth and fifth seasons, storytelling took over.

Season 5 might be the high point of the Origins series in terms of youtuber participation, with twenty-eight youtubers who posted online and twenty-seven other players all coming together to form intersecting storylines. It gets really confusing when three or more characters are on screen at the same time, because it’s often unclear which Minecraft figure is attached to which voice, and the characters speak in different volumes. But those moments when multiple players interact are amazing feats of coordination: players have to get together across multiple time zones and juggle their schedules around their work, school, or family responsibilities.

My introduction to the Origins series was Fairy Tail Origins Season 5, with Kay’s perspective. Kay, a shapeshifting wolf, is friendly to everyone she meets, throwing dozens of cookies at them whether they want cookies or not. She considers her guild leader, a cat, to be her pet — “pet” defined not as someone you own, but someone you take care of. Hence the throwing of cookies. She is oblivious to rudeness and befriends the character Viper, who keeps insulting her guild leader and friends.

My introduction to the Origins series was Fairy Tail Origins Season 5, with Kay’s perspective. Kay, a shapeshifting wolf, is friendly to everyone she meets, throwing dozens of cookies at them whether they want cookies or not. She considers her guild leader, a cat, to be her pet — “pet” defined not as someone you own, but someone you take care of. Hence the throwing of cookies. She is oblivious to rudeness and befriends the character Viper, who keeps insulting her guild leader and friends.

Viper arrives in season 5 as a tormented and grouchy character, trying to pay off a debt he incurred in season 4 as a villain. He is kind to Kay by order of both his guild leader and his seeing-eye snake, and she immediately falls in love. Many cookies are thrown. Their growing relationship is one part comedic, one part angst-ridden, and one part sweet.

By the time she wins him over, unfortunately for the both of them, he’s dragged into somebody else’s storyline and stuck in a world without magic for a while.

These things happen.

“I woke up and I felt words in my mouth, like soup.”

The Origins MCRP character of Plant, played by Plu, began with access to only one word: Plant. They were accepted all the same, adopted and included in conversations, and later taught to talk, haltingly. And then, all of a sudden, in a one-episode visit to the world of Pixelmon Origins, Plant was fluent.

I could say more about this, but all those words, I don’t know where they are.

Here’s a clip:

https://youtube.com/clip/UgkxleLQwXBpJ4zxlqK5wEnCgvmEdWv1Gd16

Transcript:

“Are you speaking more, by the way?” asks Cecil.

Plant replies, “Yi, I woke up and I felt words in my mouth, like soup.”

And here’s an image of Plant:

Lately I’ve been interested in Minecraft roleplays, specifically the Origins series. I’m not their target audience: they’re mostly made by gamers in their teens and twenties, whereas I’m a book reader and author in my . . . well, let’s just say “middle age.”

Minecraft roleplays are a form of collaborative, animated storytelling, using Minecraft worlds as the theater. They’re tough to watch if you don’t play Minecraft. Compared to a TV show, their production quality is terrible–but that’s part of their appeal for me, because it means a low barrier to entry for creators who don’t have tons of money or access to television executives and whatnot, so I get to see raw creativity. Sometimes, what comes out of it is amazing.

Here’s how it works: a group of people will have a shared world and some general idea of a shared plot that goes on for a season. Some are there to play, while others have youtube channels where they post their final, edited videos. One of the biggest Origins series, My Hero Origins, had 30 youtubers and 32 other players. Their fans, which number in the hundreds of thousands, are constantly commenting and participating in the shared world with fanfics and fan art.

The full list of series is on the OriginsMCRP Wiki, but my personal favorites are Fairy Tail Origins Seasons 4 and 5, Origins of Olympus Seasons 2 and 3, and My Hero Origins. I’m hoping to have some time to point out some of my favorite characters and moments.

Sword Art Origins is in the Isekai genre and is a fan response to the manga and anime Sword Art Online. All the characters joined a virtual game, some serious gamers and some just to try it out, and were trapped by “the godfather” in a game world, where they must clear 100 levels to escape. I’m not a fan of that plotline, but the series is more polished and more consciously crafted than previous Origins series. It also represents a turning point because a wave of players have departed the Origins group, including @ItsRichieW (the original creator of the group), @ReinBloo, @TheFamousFilms, and @_HaydenBlake. Hayden Blake’s departure is a mystery to fans and colleagues alike: she just made a Twitter announcement that her YouTube channel, with its 50,000 subscribers, was for sale. Her character’s story arc in Sword Art Origins, like many others, will stay unfinished.

My favorite episode in this series is “Found in Minecraft SAO,” which aired May 18, 2022. Previous episodes took place before the first-floor boss, which not all the characters would necessarily survive. This one skips forward in time, bypassing the boss fight, and treats us to a rendition of Scarborough Fair by the characters Crocus, Enzo, Sierra and Venom. After that, they wander about home a bit in domestic bliss, eating peanut butter and banana sandwiches, and then they chase each other off into the sunset.