title: Star Wars Galaxies

text: With the NGE, ground combat was changed to real-time and similar to a first-person shooter. The player must aim a targeting reticule at a target and left-click the mouse to fire. Auto-aim and auto-fire features are available, creating a more traditional combat experience, but players eschewing those options are rewarded with an increased chance to do maximum damage. As characters gain levels, they gain access to additional combat abilities called "specials" which are activated by using the right mouse button or by clicking the ability on a toolbar. These specials usually have a cool-down period. In addition to providing especially powerful damage attacks, specials are also used to heal, buff, debuff and crowd control. Players gain the ability to use more powerful weapons as they advance in level. Players also earn "Expertise Points" as they level up which they can use in their professions expertise "tree". The player can allot 45 points into various abilities and attributes to make their characters more diverse, from weapons specialties to healing and armor proficiency. Once a character reaches the max level 90 they would be able to do "Heroic" missions with a group of up to 8 other players. Before you could enter a Heroic mission the character has to complete a pre-quest that would unlock the quest and give permission to enter the instance. To acquire the mission you had to speak to a certain NPC to start the quest and after completing granted access. The five heroic missions were: Tusken Invasion, IG88, Axkva Min, Imperial Star Destroyer, and Exar Kun. After completing these heroics you were granted one token from that instance and would have to wait another 24 hours before re-entering for more tokens. Tokens collected would get you a 5 piece jewelry set that granted advantages for that profession.


title: Star Wars Galaxies

text: Characters can erect, own and decorate a variety of buildings, including houses, cantinas, theaters, hospitals, guild halls and city halls. These buildings, when grouped, can be organized into cities. Players hold elections via ballot box for Mayor. Elected mayors grant city members certain rights to place structures within the city and disallow the use of various civic structures by individual players as needed. Elections are held every three weeks. If another player wishes to run for mayor they can add their name at any time to the ballot box to run against the incumbent. As cities grow in population, they become eligible to add services and facilities such as vehicle repair garages, shuttleports, cloning facilities, hospitals, cantinas and garden displays. They can show up on the planet maps alongside canonical cities such as Theed and Mos Eisley.


title: Star Wars Galaxies

text: The gameplay design encouraged realistic social institutions such as a dynamic player economy and other real-life social phenomena like a complicated division of labor. According to "Star Wars Galaxies and the Division of Labor", the division of labor in "Star Wars Galaxies" around April 2005 produced in-game results similar to those in real life. "Galaxies"' original game design socialized players to specialize their characters by mastering one or two professions, and to join guilds, in which players relate to one another primarily in terms of their professions.


title: Star Wars Galaxies

text: The game events were originally set following the destruction of the Death Star in "Episode IV: A New Hope", but before the beginning of "The Empire Strikes Back". Even though the battle of Hoth has been included this does not change the timeline. Some parts of the game include past "missions" to before the destruction of the Death Star.


title: Star Wars Galaxies

text: The game launched with 10 planets: Tatooine, Naboo, Corellia, Talus, Rori, Dantooine, Lok, Yavin 4, the forest moon of Endor, and Dathomir. In the second expansion, "Rage of the Wookiees", the Wookiee home planet Kashyyyk was added. In the third expansion, "Trials of Obi-Wan", the planet Mustafar was added. Each of the original 10 planets are represented by approximately 225 square kilometers (15 km x 15 km maps) of game space. In contrast, the expansion planets of Kashyyyk and Mustafar are smaller, constructed differently (e.g. instances) and in some cases imposed different rules than the original, such as terrain that is not traversable (i.e. mountains or hills that cannot be climbed over). In addition to the 12 planets, there are 12 space zones, each encompassing approximately 3400 cubic kilometers (15 km cubes) of fully navigable space. Nine of them are associated with one or more of the playable planets: Tatoo (Tatooine), Naboo (Naboo and Rori), Corellia (Corellia and Talus), Dantooine, Karthakk (Lok), Yavin, Endor, Dathomir, and Kashyyyk. (Mustafar has no associated space zone.) Kessel and Deep Space have no planets and are used for high-level gameplay and player-versus-player combat. The Ord Mantell sector was released in January 2008 as a new space-only zone, though there is a space station there (called Nova Orion) where pilots can land and acquire quests. The planet Hoth was added in November 2008 as part of an instance, but could only be explored during the events of the Battle of Echo Base.


title: Star Wars Galaxies

text: Examples of characters and points of interest that players could visit within the game include R2-D2, C-3PO, their escape pod on Tatooine, the Naboo Royal Palace, the abandoned Rebel bases on Dantooine and Yavin 4, the notorious pirate Nym in his stronghold on Lok, Ewoks and Rancors. Other main characters include Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, Princess Leia Organa, Darth Vader, Chewbacca, Emperor Palpatine, Admiral Ackbar, Jan Dodonna, Boba Fett, Jabba, Borvo the Hutt, Bib Fortuna, Salacious Crumb, General Otto, Captain Panaka (appears as Colonel Panaka), Max Rebo, Wedge Antilles, Gavyn Sykes, Watto, Boss Nass, Grand Inquisitor Ja'ce Yiaso, the "reincarnation" of General Grievous as NK-Necrosis, Taga Olak, Jefa Bowa and the Force ghost of Obi-Wan Kenobi.


title: Star Wars Galaxies

text: References are also made of characters from the "Star Wars" expanded universe, such as Grand Admiral Thrawn. Mara Jade from the Thrawn trilogy could be found in the Deathwatch bunker, as well as in Theed on Naboo for Empire Day. HK-47 from the "" video games is the main boss involved in the Champion of Mustafar quest.


title: Star Wars Galaxies

text: The game also references the other two "Star Wars" spin-off films, in that the player may encounter the Gorax species from "", and the base of the Sanyassan Marauders, as seen in "".


title: Star Wars Galaxies

text: The game was first announced in 2000, when LucasArts Entertainment began a partnership with EverQuest creators Verant Interactive Inc. and Sony Online Entertainment to create the first massively multiplayer "Star Wars" online role-playing game. The announcement included an expected release date of 2001 and that the game would take place during the original trilogy era.


title: Star Wars Galaxies

text: On May 17, 2001, even before the game went into public beta testing, the first expansion's development was announced. The yet unnamed add-on, which was expected to be available six months after the initial product release, would be a space simulation and enable players to own and fly starships which would allow interplanetary travel and space combat. The release date of the initial product, the ground-based component, was updated to the second half of 2002. The staggered release schedule of the space component of the "Star Wars Galaxies" series was said to benefit players because they would have time to establish their characters and explore different elements of the core game before adding the space layer. Traveling between planets would be accomplished through the use of public shuttles, which would ferry characters from world to world. A new official site was also released on the same day that put more of an emphasis behind the community of the game. It included new screen shots, movies, an updated FAQ, concept art, development team member's profiles, features about the game, and a new forum. The site reached 100,001 users by December 2001. Throughout the next year after the release of the new site, new content would be revealed. This content included information on species and locations, new images and movies of different game elements, and 360 degree QuickTime VR panoramas of different locations.


title: Star Wars Galaxies

text: The closed beta test began in July 2002. SOE would share more information on the game as the beta moved forward. This would include more screen shots, information on match making services, the fact that players would be permitted only one character per server, and skill trees and how the skill-based system would function. LucasArts also said in 2002 that both the Xbox and PlayStation 2 would get a version of the game, however both versions were cancelled.


title: Star Wars Galaxies

text: The game was originally to be released on April 15, 2003. They also announced on December 20, 2002, that the ground-based component of "Star Wars Galaxies" would be called An Empire Divided and that the game's online community had grown to over 400,000 users since its inception in November 2000. At the time, this represented one of the largest ever fan communities amassed for any game prior to retail availability. "An Empire Divided" would later be delayed to June 26, 2003.


title: Star Wars Galaxies

text: The base game, titled "Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided", was released on June 26, 2003, in the US and on November 7, 2003, in Europe. A localized version for the Japanese market was published by EA Japan on December 23, 2004. Japanese acceptance of the game was low, and in November 2005 the servers were shut down and existing accounts migrated to US servers.


title: Star Wars Galaxies

text: At the time of its initial release, the game was very different from how it ended up. Vehicles and creature mounts were not yet implemented. While player housing was available at the time of launch, the ability to incorporate groups of houses into cities didn't come until November 2003. Each character and creature possessed three "pools" (called Health, Action, and Mind; or "HAM") that represented his or her physical and mental reserves. Most attacks specifically targeted one of these three pools and any action the character took also depleted one or more of the pools. When any one of those pools was fully depleted, the character would fall unconscious. Combat, then, required the player to carefully manage his or her actions to avoid depleting a pool.


title: Star Wars Galaxies

text: Character progression was vastly different at release as well. Characters started out in one of six basic professions (Medic, Brawler, Marksman, Scout, Entertainer, or Artisan) and could pick up any of the other five at any time after character creation. Each profession consisted of a tree-like structure of skills, with a single Novice level, four independent branches of four levels each, and a Master level which required completion of all four branches. Characters purchased these skills with experience points gained through a related activity. For example, an Entertainer could purchase skills to get better at playing music, but only with Musician experience points. Dancing experience points were entirely separate and could only be used to purchase dancing skills.


title: Star Wars Galaxies

text: In addition to the basic professions, characters could specialize into advanced professions such as Bounty Hunter, Creature Handler, Ranger, Doctor, and Musician. There were a total of 24 advanced professions, although there was no way for characters to obtain all of them at once. Each advanced profession had certain skill requirements from the base professions that had to be met, some more restrictive than others.


title: Star Wars Galaxies

text: Jedi were not available as a starting profession, or even as an advanced profession. The developers stated only that certain in-game actions would open up a Force-sensitive character slot. The actions required were left for players to discover. It eventually turned out that characters had to achieve Master level in random professions. At first the player had to complete four master level classes which were randomly chosen and unknown to the player. The developers then introduced Holocrons which would inform the player of the first, then after completion second master class required. At various times the number of master levels needed ranged from four to seven and the number revealed by holocrons varied from two to four. Because of the difficulty in obtaining a force sensitive (Jedi) character, the profession had many advantages in combat, often capable of taking on very powerful enemies or defeating entire groups of other non-Jedi characters in Player vs. Player combat. The first Force-sensitive character slot was unlocked on November 7, 2003.


title: Star Wars Galaxies

text: On September 16, 2009, SOE informed all current and past account holders of the forthcoming closure of 12 servers (galaxies): Corbantis, Europe-Infinity, Intrepid, Kauri, Kettemoor, Lowca, Naritus, Scylla, Tarquinas, Tempest, Valcyn and Wanderhome. Character creation on these servers was disabled on September 15, 2009, with the final closure of the servers on October 15, 2009. Players with characters on the affected servers were offered free character transfer to one of the 13 remaining servers.


title: Star Wars Galaxies

text: On May 3, 2011, SOE issued a press release stating that all SOE had been isolated from the Internet, due to massive and widespread security infiltrations of various games, servers, databases. Security teams (and the FBI) were called in and at that time no information was available regarding when the services would be restored. Initial reports indicated personal data of 20-30 million customers had potentially been compromised, none within the USA. The information compromised was old information including addresses and CC information from 2007. All SOE webpages were re-directed temporarily to a customer announcement and a press release page. On May 14, 2011, SOE declared everything safe and reopened all servers. SOE offered a free 30-day membership for gamers with memberships and a 1:1 ratio of days lost. Once opened they gave every account 45 free days as well as a minor object of decoration as a "perk" for waiting out the cause.


title: Star Wars Galaxies

text: On May 17, 2011, SOE released Hotfix 19.17 which introduced the new feature of bounty-hunting in space. This allowed players to place a bounty on players of the opposite faction who had recently destroyed their ship in space combat. This allowed bounty hunters to pick these targets up as missions and pursue them in space for the monetary reward (up to 1 million credits) the player had placed on the target.


title: Star Wars Galaxies

text: On June 24, 2011, SOE and LucasArts announced that they had mutually agreed to shut down "Star Wars Galaxies" on December 15, 2011. According to the SOE announcement, both LucasArts and SOE came to the agreement that "If you are an active subscriber in good standing as of September 15, 2011, then you can play for free for the final months. Players wishing to play through the end of the game and participate in the galaxy-ending event planned for the last week of live service in December will need to re-activate or join the game on or before September 15. No new or reactivated accounts will be accepted after September 15, 2011."


title: Star Wars Galaxies

text: On December 15, 2011, at 9:01 PM Pacific time, the servers of "Star Wars Galaxies" shut down, disconnecting those still playing and not allowing any entry back to the game. The final five hours were broadcast in a live stream by Giant Bomb, with Kotaku reporting events as they happened on the Giant Bomb stream, including a final player versus player event between the Galactic Empire and The Rebels, as well as an appearance from the Force Ghost of Obi-Wan Kenobi as depicted in "The Empire Strikes Back" and "Return of the Jedi".


title: Star Wars Galaxies

text: In the United States, "Star Wars Galaxies: An Empire Divided" sold 370,000 copies ($16.1 million) by August 2006, after its release in June 2003. It was the country's 43rd best-selling computer game between January 2000 and August 2006. Combined sales of all "Star Wars Galaxies"-related games released between January 2000 and August 2006 had reached 720,000 units in the United States by the latter date.


title: Star Wars Galaxies

text: Reviews for the initial launch of the game in 2003 were mostly positive. The game was praised for its lush graphics (realistic character models, detailed architecture and lush environments), liberal use of the movie soundtracks, massive world size, character customization, creative creature ecology, complex skill system, player economy interdependencies and its sandbox approach. Reviewers criticized the overwhelming complexity of the game, combat imbalances of the professions, bugginess and lack of quest content.


title: Star Wars Galaxies

text: Players who wished to play a Jedi character had to first unlock their Jedi slot by fulfilling an unknown list of criteria. The first player to unlock a 'Jedi slot' did so on November 7, 2003, four months after the release of the game. Players criticized SOE for the substantial time commitment to unlock a Jedi, penalties for in-game death of a Jedi character which was permanent after three deaths, and monotonous game play required to acquire the Jedi character. Developers responded by changing the penalty for death to skill loss in January 2004 and creating a quest system to unlock the character.


title: Star Wars Galaxies

text: Media outlets criticized the changes of the "Combat Upgrade" while subscription cancellations rose. After the New Game Enhancements were implemented in November 2005, sparking huge demonstrations in-game from the majority of players, various media outlets criticized the reduced depth and complexity of the game, but John Smedley, president of Sony Online Entertainment, defended the decision claiming it necessary to revamp the game in order to reverse the deterioration they were seeing in the subscriber base. SOE offered refunds on the "Trials of Obi-Wan" expansion due to it being released two days before the New Game Enhancement was announced. The development team affirmed this was their desired direction for the game and that they would modify parameters to address player's concerns. Features such as expertise trees were later added to the game to add complexity and differentiation to characters. After the announcement that SOE had acquired the game "", Smedley addressed that game's players about the perceived threat of major changes to the game: "We've learned a thing or two with our experiences with the NGE and don't plan on repeating mistakes from the past and not listening to the players."


title: Star Wars Galaxies

text: Subscriber numbers were originally expected to exceed 1,000,000. In August 2005, SOE reported that they had sold 1,000,000 boxed copies of the game. In early 2006, unconfirmed reports showed that only 10,363 subscribers were playing on a particular Friday night, but Smedley denied that subscriptions had fallen this low.


title: Star Wars Galaxies

text: In an online interview with Reddit in July 2012, John Smedley admitted to "stupid decisions" regarding "Star Wars Galaxies" combat upgrade and new gaming enhancement policies, and acknowledged player led emulator projects seeking to restore a free-to-play "Galaxies" circa April 2005, Publish 14.1, pre-Combat Upgrade, such as the SWGEmu project or the New Game Enhancements Upgrade, such as Project SWG.


title: Star Wars Galaxies

text: This first expansion, Jump to Lightspeed, was released on October 27, 2004. Two new races were added: Sullustan and Ithorian. The expansion added space combat. Characters choose one of three factions in the new Pilot sub-profession: Rebel, Imperial, or Freelance. The playable sectors include the space surrounding the 10 planets of the game as well as Ord Mantell, Kessel and "Deep Space." Combat is real-time and twitch-oriented like a first-person shooter and can be played with a joystick at the player's option. A new Artisan profession, Shipwright (now subsumed into the Trader profession as part of the Structures specialty), was also introduced. This profession created ships, shields, armor, weapons, etc. for players. They also have the ability to take looted components from space and reverse engineer them into better components. Players can construct their own ships with a base chassis, adding their own reactors, weapons, armor, shields, aesthetics and more, all of which visually change the starship's appearance. In many ways, this is the spiritual successor to the hit LucasArt's space combat flight simulation game "", as the theme, interface and objectives are quite similar.


title: Star Wars Galaxies

text: The reviews for the first expansion, "Jump to Lightspeed", praised the new space combat but criticized the ground game for its lack of sufficient improvement.


title: Star Wars Galaxies

text: The second expansion, Episode III Rage of the Wookiees, was announced on March 9, 2005, and released on May 5, 2005. It added the Wookiee planet of Kashyyyk and its corresponding space sector. Kashyyyk is different from the previous 10 planets: rather than being 16 square kilometers of openly navigable area, it is divided into a small central area with several instanced "dungeon" areas. A new space zone was also added. Other content added in this expansion included the ability to add cybernetic limbs to a player character and quests for two new creature mounts and three new starships. A substantial portion of the content for this expansion was adapted from the film "" which was released to theaters in the U.S. on May 19, two weeks after the expansion release.


title: Star Wars Galaxies

text: Other features included new starfighters, resource mining in space, and cybernetic limbs for player characters. The cybernetic limbs, however, were not due to the loss of an arm in combat. The player had to obtain the arm and then surgically attach it. Customers who purchased the expansion also received a limited-edition Varactyl pet as a player mount. "Rage of the Wookiees" expansion also added a few quests, one allowed the player to obtain a pet Bolotaur after going through several tasks. The Bolotaur is similar to the Veractyl but larger and brown.


title: Star Wars Galaxies

text: Gameplay mechanics for combat and armor/weapon systems received a major alteration on April 27, 2005, when SOE released the Combat Upgrade that replaced a system that allowed players with combat professions to stack defensive abilities from various skill sets, while also fixing an exploit that allowed players to have their character attack freshly spawning non-player characters (NPC) and creatures while away from their computers in order to gain combat skill experience.


title: Star Wars Galaxies

text: The reviews for the second expansion, "Rage of the Wookiees", lauded the new quest content for current subscribers but lamented the combat gameplay updates and the continued bugginess of the game.


title: Star Wars Galaxies

text: The third expansion, Star Wars Galaxies: Trials of Obi-Wan, was announced on August 19, 2005, and released on November 1, 2005. This expansion added the ground planet of Mustafar to the game. No new space sector was added with this expansion. Like the previous expansion, much of the content is related to "Revenge of the Sith", which was released to DVD on the same day as the expansion was released. Additional content, including the presence of the droid HK-47, is based on the "Knights of the Old Republic" games.


title: Star Wars Galaxies

text: One week after this release the entire character development process was changed in the New Game Enhancements (NGE). Major changes included the reduction and simplification of professions, simplification of gameplay mechanics, and Jedi becoming a starting profession. This led to a number of players demanding their money back for the expansion. After a week or two of protests Sony offered refunds to anyone who asked for it. Many player towns became ghost towns due to the reaction of long term players who decided to depart en masse.


title: Star Wars Galaxies

text: "Star Wars Galaxies: The Ruins of Dantooine" is a novel based in part on places and events in the game. It was authored by Voronica Whitney-Robinson and Haden Blackman, the LucasArts producer of the game. It was released in December 2003.


title: Star Wars Galaxies

text: On August 27, 2008, following the success of SOE's "Legends of Norrath", LucasArts and SOE released "Champions of the Force", an online trading card game based on "Star Wars Galaxies". In the game, players could collect, battle, and trade with each other as well as buy new cards with money and get new in-game items from the cards to use; such as podracers and house paintings. Over one hundred cards were created for players to find and play against others with new artwork featured on each card.


title: Star Wars Galaxies

text: In 2004, the SWGEmu project was founded with the intention of re-creating the Pre-Combat Upgrade version of Star Wars Galaxies from scratch through emulation by reverse engineering the official game client and writing a server that communicates with it in the same way the original SOE servers did. The goal of SWGEmu is to emulate the game to its entirety as it was on the live servers through patch 14.1. In 2020, the SWGEmu project announced it was near completion (colloquially referred to as version 1.0) and that many of the existing developers who had invested significant time over the past ten or more years would be taking a back seat role moving forward and also announced that the Jump to Lightspeed expansion may no longer be included in version 1.0 due to the complexities of implementing the system. SWGEmu is an open source project distributed under the Affero General Public License. The server, known as Core3, has been open source since before 2010, allowing for volunteers to easily contribute to its development. In 2019, SWGEmu also open sourced its engine, known as Engine3. Because SWGEmu is open source, any members are able to easily launch their own server for their own community. There are several community-ran servers which develop content beyond the 14.1 publish goal of SWGEmu, such as An Empire in Flames, Sunrunner II, SWG Awakening Tarkin's Revenge and Sentinel's Republic.


title: Star Wars Galaxies

text: In 2011, after Sony Online Entertainment announced the intention of shutting down Star Wars Galaxies, Project SWG was founded under the same sentiment as SWGEmu to emulate the New Game Enhancements version of Star Wars Galaxies. Project SWG has not been as objectively successful as SWGEmu and has undergone multiple refactors of their code since conception. Their current server, Holocore, is still under development by a small team and is several years away from completion. Other interested developers are also using Project SWG's framework to develop a Combat Upgrade version of the game. Project SWG's once thriving community has dwindled due to the leak of the official source code and launch of game servers running the leaked code.


title: Star Wars Galaxies

text: Both SWGEmu and Project SWG are regarded as the primary emulation projects for Star Wars Galaxies with other communities utilizing their source code to run their own server, sometimes contributing specific code to create their own content or by using shared content from resources such as ModTheGalaxy, a game modification distribution forum. All emulation projects are free-to-play and donation-supported to respect the sensitivities around the legality of emulation to begin with. Some player-made tools created while Star Wars Galaxies was live, such as SWGCraft and GalaxyHarvester, are still up and running with connections to most hosted servers today.


title: Star Wars Galaxies

text: In 2013, a former Sony Online Entertainment employee leaked a copy of the 2010 production release source code for the Star Wars Galaxies client, server, 3rd party libraries and development tools to a few former players involved with the "New Game Enhancements" Star Wars Galaxies emulator Project SWG. The code was later leaked beyond its intended recipients and made available online.


title: 2010–11 La Liga

text: The 2010–11 La Liga season (known as the "Liga BBVA" for sponsorship reasons) was the 80th since its establishment. The campaign began on 28 August 2010 and ended on 21 May 2011. A total of 20 teams contested the league, 17 of which already contested in the 2009–10 season and three of which were promoted from the Segunda División. In addition, a new match ball – the Nike Total 90 Tracer – served as the official ball for all matches.


title: 2010–11 La Liga

text: Defending champions Barcelona secured their third-consecutive and 21st La Liga title after a 1–1 tie with Levante on 11 May 2011. The result gave Barcelona a 6-point lead with two matches remaining which, combined with their better head-to-head record with Real Madrid, ensured that they finished top of the table. Barcelona led the table since defeating Madrid 5–0 on 23 November 2010. Since then, they lost only one match en route to winning the title. It was the third straight title for Barcelona manager Pep Guardiola. Lionel Messi won LaLiga Award for Best Player, which marked his third consecutive win.


title: 2010–11 La Liga

text: The season was again dominated by Barcelona and Real Madrid, with second-place Madrid 21 points ahead of third-place Valencia. Having encountered each other in the Champions League semifinals and the Copa del Rey final, the top two teams met four times in 17 days, for a total of five times this season.


title: 2010–11 La Liga

text: The most significant managerial change prior to the start of the season was two-time Champions League-winning José Mourinho taking over at Real Madrid.


title: 2010–11 La Liga

text: Real Valladolid, CD Tenerife and Xerez CD were relegated to the Segunda División after finishing the 2009–10 season in the bottom three places. Tenerife and Xerez made their immediate return to the second level after just one year in the Spanish top flight, while Valladolid ended a three-year tenure in La Liga.


title: 2010–11 La Liga

text: The relegated teams were replaced by 2009–10 Segunda División champions Real Sociedad from San Sebastián, runners-up Hércules CF from Alicante and Levante UD from Valencia. Hércules returned to the highest Spanish football league for the first time after 13 years, while Real Sociedad and Levante terminated their second-level status after three and two years, respectively.


title: 2010–11 La Liga

text: La Liga's governing body, the Liga Nacional de Fútbol Profesional, honoured the competition's best players and coach with LaLiga Awards.


title: 2010–11 La Liga

text: The Pichichi Trophy is awarded by newspaper "Marca" to the player who scores the most goals in a season, according to its own rules (different from the ones used by FIFA) to determine the goalscorer.


title: 2010–11 La Liga

text: The Zamora Trophy is awarded by newspaper "Marca" to the goalkeeper with least goals-to-games ratio. A goalkeeper must play at least 28 games of 60 or more minutes to be eligible for the trophy.


title: 2010–11 La Liga

text: This award is given annually since 1999 to the team with the best fair play during the season. This ranking takes into account aspects such as cards, suspension of matches, audience behaviour and other penalties. This section not only aims to know this aspect, but also serves to break the tie in teams that are tied in all the other rules: points, head-to-head, goal difference and goals scored.


title: Mark Giordano

text: Mark Giordano (; born October 3, 1983) is a Canadian professional ice hockey defenceman for the Toronto Maple Leafs of the National Hockey League (NHL). He also previously played with the Calgary Flames for fifteen seasons, where he was the team captain for his final eight seasons, and the Seattle Kraken, whom he served as captain of during the first six months of their inaugural season. An undrafted player, Giordano signed with the Flames as a free agent in 2004 after playing two seasons of major junior hockey with Owen Sound Attack of the Ontario Hockey League (OHL).


title: Mark Giordano

text: Praised for his leadership, offensive, and defensive skills, Giordano is one of the NHL's top defencemen and was named to play his first NHL All-Star Game in 2015. The Flames have also honoured him for his charitable contributions; he was named recipient of the J. R. "Bud" McCaig Award in 2012. Internationally, Giordano played with Team Canada at the 2010 IIHF World Championship and was a member of the 2007 Spengler Cup winning team. In 2019, he was awarded the James Norris Memorial Trophy as the NHL's best defenceman, while having a career-best performance at the age of 35.


title: Mark Giordano

text: Mark Giordano was born in Toronto, Ontario on October 3, 1983. His father, Paul, is a real estate agent and his mother, Anna, a hairdresser. He is of Italian descent. Giordano has an older sister, Michelle, and had another older sister, Mia, who was killed in a car accident when he was 14. He taps his helmet twice with his stick at the end of the national anthems before each game as a quiet tribute to his sister, whose death had a lasting impact on Giordano and his family and brought them closer together.


title: Mark Giordano

text: As a youth, Giordano played both hockey and baseball, but focused on hockey as the demands of both sports on his time increased. Giordano played minor ice hockey in North York and attended Chaminade College School. He played in the 1997 Quebec International Pee-Wee Hockey Tournament with a team from Richmond Hill.


title: Mark Giordano

text: Giordano played one season of Junior A hockey with the Brampton Capitals of the Ontario Junior Hockey League in 2001–02 where he scored 24 goals in the playoffs to help lead the Capitals to the Ontario provincial championship. He then moved up to major junior, playing two seasons with the Owen Sound Attack of the Ontario Hockey League (OHL). He was the top scoring defenceman on the team for both years. As a 19-year-old rookie, Giordano recorded 48 points for Owen Sound in 2002–03 and, as one of the top first-year players in the league, was named to the OHL First All-Rookie Team.


title: Mark Giordano

text: Despite his offensive success in junior, Giordano went unselected at the NHL Entry Draft. He accepted an invitation to attend the Phoenix Coyotes' training camp where, according to then-Owen Sound General Manager Mike Futa, Giordano impressed team officials but believed that he would be best served by playing a second season in the OHL. Giordano finished the 2003–04 season with 49 points.


title: Mark Giordano

text: After graduating from junior hockey, Giordano enrolled at York University and planned to study at its school of business when he received a late invitation from the Calgary Flames to attend their summer camp. Former Flames coach Jim Playfair recalled that Giordano stood out among the group of invitees and said that his skill and skating ability set him apart: "Darryl (Sutter) met with three or four of those kids and gave them all the same contracts: Three years in the American League, and if it works out for you, you've got a career. Gio took it and ran with it." The Flames signed him to a contract following the camp.


title: Mark Giordano

text: The Flames assigned Giordano to their American Hockey League (AHL) affiliate, the Lowell Lock Monsters, for the 2004–05 season where he scored 6 goals and added 10 assists in 66 games. He remained in the AHL for much of the 2005–06 season, transferring to Calgary's new affiliate, the Omaha Ak-Sar-Ben Knights. Giordano led the Knights in scoring, recording 16 goals and 58 points in 73 games. Additionally, he was second among defencemen in the AHL in goal scoring and fourth in points. The Flames recalled him to Calgary at mid-season, and he made his NHL debut on January 30, 2006, against the St. Louis Blues. Giordano appeared in seven games with the Flames, and recorded his first NHL point with an assist on April 8, 2006, against the Vancouver Canucks. In the 2006–07 season, Giordano played only five games in Omaha as he spent the majority of the campaign in Calgary. In 48 games with the Flames, he recorded 7 goals and 15 points. Giordano scored his first two NHL goals on October 14, 2006, against the Toronto Maple Leafs.


title: Mark Giordano

text: Unable to come to terms on a new contract with the Flames prior to the 2007–08 season, Giordano left the NHL to sign with HC Dynamo Moscow of the Russian Super League. According to Playfair, Giordano did not sign in Russia over money. Instead, he left because he felt he had proven what he could do in the AHL and, lacking a guarantee that he would be in the NHL, sought a higher-calibre league in which to play. He scored 4 goals and 13 points in 50 games with Dynamo, and played with the winning Canadian team at the 2007 Spengler Cup. The Canadian national team named him an alternate at the 2008 IIHF World Championship in case of injury to a roster player, however he never appeared in a game. Though he feared his decision to leave for Russia would damage his relationship with the Flames, Giordano and the team came to terms on a three-year contract that brought him back to Calgary for the 2008–09 NHL season.


title: Mark Giordano

text: Giordano appeared in 58 games for the Flames and scored 19 points before a shoulder injury ended his season. He required surgery to repair the damage suffered in a game against the Minnesota Wild. He recovered in time to begin the 2009–10 season, but several new additions to Calgary's defensive corps left him concerned about his position with the team. Instead, he solidified his place on the roster with a career year; Giordano set personal highs in goals (11), points (30) and was +17 for the Flames. "The Hockey News" named him one of the most underrated players in the league, and he was invited to join Team Canada at the 2010 IIHF World Championship. Giordano led the team's defencemen with three goals in the tournament and added an assist in seven games.


title: Mark Giordano

text: Despite having the option to become an unrestricted free agent following the 2010–11 season, Giordano opted to remain in Calgary and signed a five-year, $20 million contract extension with the Flames on October 29, 2010. He led the team's defencemen in scoring and set another career high with 43 points in 82 games. Giordano missed several weeks of the 2011–12 season after suffering a torn hamstring. The injury caused Giordano, who was named an alternate captain prior to the season's start, to miss 21 games. He finished with 27 points in 61 games, then scored 15 points in 47 games in the lockout-shortened 2012–13 season.


title: Mark Giordano

text: Giordano was named the 19th captain in Flames history on September 20, 2013, as he succeeded Jarome Iginla, who was traded late in the 2012–13 season. Giordano was praised by his teammates and coaching staff for both his long tenure with the franchise and for his playing style: Giordano played in all situations for the Flames, was one of the hardest workers on the team and was willing to sacrifice himself to block a shot or defend his teammates. Head coach Bob Hartley praised Giordano's influence on his teammates as the rebuilding Flames team established an identity as a squad which was noted across the league for its work ethic.


title: Mark Giordano

text: A blocked shot injured Giordano early in the 2013–14 season as he suffered a broken ankle in late October. He missed 18 games due to the injury, during which the Flames gained only five wins. He still recorded career highs of 13 goals and 47 points. Though he was not named to the team, Giordano's growing reputation placed him on Team Canada's short list for the 2014 Winter Olympics, and he received a first place vote (finishing 10th overall) in voting for the James Norris Memorial Trophy as the league's top defenceman.


title: Mark Giordano

text: A surge in offensive production from Giordano and fellow defencemen T. J. Brodie and Dennis Wideman resulted in the Flames being one of the NHL's biggest surprises early in the 2014–15 season. Predicted to finish near the bottom of the standings before the season, the Flames instead began December with one of the best records in the league, in large part due to the play of Giordano, who led all NHL defencemen with 25 points, four better than Brodie. His plus-minus of +14 ranked him second in the league. The NHL recognized Giordano's early season play by naming him its First Star of the month of November. He was subsequently named as the Flames' representative at the 60th National Hockey League All-Star Game. Giordano played his 500th career game on February 2, 2015, in a victory over the Winnipeg Jets. He set a personal best by scoring his 48th point of the season in a 3–1 win over the New Jersey Devils on February 25, but also suffered an injury in the game. The Flames announced one week later that he required surgery for a completely torn biceps tendon; the estimated recovery time of four to five months meant that his season was over. In the summer before the 2015–16 season, the Flames signed Giordano to a six-year contract extension.


title: Mark Giordano

text: During the 2016–17 season Giordano was placed on the same defensive pairing as Dougie Hamilton, causing greater defensive play in both players. His defensive play helped the Flames make the playoffs for the first time since 2015. He played in four playoff games, garnering one point, before the Flames were defeated by the Anaheim Ducks.


title: Mark Giordano

text: During the 2018–19 season, Giordano became the fifth defencemen in NHL history to record 60 points at the age of 35 or over. His 60th point came in a 2–1 win over the New Jersey Devils on February 27, 2019. Following the conclusion of the 2018–19 regular season, Giordano won the James Norris Memorial Trophy.


title: Mark Giordano

text: On July 21, 2021, Giordano was selected from the Flames by the Seattle Kraken at the 2021 NHL Expansion Draft. Prior to the start of their inaugural season, Giordano was named the first captain in Kraken franchise history alongside alternates Adam Larsson, Yanni Gourde, Jordan Eberle, and Jaden Schwartz.


title: Mark Giordano

text: Giordano began the season playing alongside Jamie Oleksiak as the pair allowed 1.7 expected goals against per 60 minutes of play. By mid November, Giordano had recorded three goals and four assists while continuing to lead Seattle in average ice time. However, after testing positive for COVID-19 prior to a game against the Tampa Bay Lightning, Giordano spent 10 days isolated in a hotel before returning to the Kraken lineup on December 10. As a result of his overall play, Giordano was named to the 2022 NHL All-Star Game roster as voted by fans.


title: Mark Giordano

text: On March 5, 2022, Giordano played his 1,000th NHL game, on the same day as Toronto Maple Leafs forward Wayne Simmonds’ 1,000th game (they would later be teammates following Giordano's trade). He is the first player in Seattle Kraken franchise history to reach the milestone.


title: Mark Giordano

text: On March 20, 2022, a day before the trade deadline, Giordano was traded by Seattle with Colin Blackwell to his hometown Toronto Maple Leafs for a second-round pick in both 2022 and 2023, as well as a third-round pick in 2024. Giordano continued his strong play in Toronto as the team qualified for the post-season, although ultimately lost in the first round to the two-time defending cup champion Tampa Bay Lightning.


title: Mark Giordano

text: On May 22, 2022, Giordano was signed to a two-year, $1.6 million contract extension with the Maple Leafs, worth $800,000 annually. The deal was seen by analysts as a significant hometown discount for the cap-strapped club, several million dollars less than what Giordano would likely fetch in the summer offseason from competing teams. Giordano and the Maple Leafs had originally agreed in principal to a $1 million annual salary, but Giordano approached the club and asked the team to sign him to $800,000 annually (just over the veteran's minimum) to provide the team with more financial flexibility in icing a competitive, salary cap compliant team.


title: Mark Giordano

text: Giordano and his wife, Lauren, are spokespeople for Habitat for Humanity. They launched a program called "5-for-5" in January 2011 that aimed to build five homes for the organization, one in the Calgary area and four in Africa and Asia. Giordano donated $25,000 of the $130,000 cost himself, and his contribution was matched by the Flames charitable foundation. The team honoured him for his work with Habitat for Humanity and the Flames Foundation for Life by naming him the recipient of the J. R. "Bud" McCaig Award in 2012. Prior to the 2014–15 season, Giordano and his wife, Lauren, launched another initiative, known as the "Team Giordano Project", where they and the Flames' charitable arm donated funding to three Calgary schools to supply new gym equipment and computers, as well as to visit the schools and offer mentorship to the students. At the end of the 2016–17 season, Giordano was awarded the ESPN Muhammad Ali Sports Humanitarian Award for his charity work with "Team Giordano Project".


title: Reed (plant)

text: Many different cultures have used reeds in construction of buildings of various types for at least thousands of years. One contemporary example is the Marsh Arabs.


title: Reed (plant)

text: "Phragmites australis", the common reed, is used in many areas for thatching roofs. In the United Kingdom, common reed used for this purpose is known as "Norfolk reed" or "water reed". However, "wheat reed" and "Devon reed" are not reeds but long-stemmed wheat straw.


title: Reed (plant)

text: Ancient Greeks used "Arundo donax" to make flutes known as kalamaulos; this is a compound word, from kalamos (cane) + aulos (flute). At the time, the best cane for flutes came from the banks of river Kephissos, in Attica, Greece. Several kalamaulos tuned differently and tied together, made a syrinx or Panpipes. "A. donax" is still the principal source material of reed makers for clarinets, saxophones, oboes, bassoons, bagpipes, and other woodwind instruments. The Var country in southern France contains the best-known supply of instrument reeds.


title: Reed (plant)

text: Bamboo and, even more commonly, rattan stems are used as "reed sticks" to wick and disperse the scent of essential oils in aroma diffusers. (See .)


title: Brad Little

text: Bradley Jay Little (born February 15, 1954) is an American politician serving as the 33rd governor of Idaho since January 2019. A member of the Republican Party, he served as the 42nd lieutenant governor of Idaho from 2009 to 2019 and as an Idaho state senator from 2001 to 2009.


title: Brad Little

text: Little is a graduate of the University of Idaho, having earned a Bachelor of Science degree in 1976. He has been involved in public service since the 1980s. Little was appointed as an Idaho state senator by governor Dirk Kempthorne in 2001, a position he held for just under eight years. During his senate seating, Little chaired the majority caucus and represented the 8th and (after redistricting in 2002) 11th legislative districts. In 2009, Governor Butch Otter appointed Little to the office of lieutenant governor after the previous lieutenant governor, Jim Risch, resigned to become a United States Senator.


title: Brad Little

text: After Otter declined to run for a fourth term, Little ran for governor in the 2018 gubernatorial election and defeated Democratic nominee Paulette Jordan. He was reelected in 2022 with 60.5% of the vote, defeating Democratic nominee Stephen Heidt and Independent candidate Ammon Bundy.


title: Brad Little

text: Little was born and raised in Emmett, Idaho and graduated from Emmett High School in 1972. He attended the University of Idaho in was a member of the Idaho Alpha chapter of and earned a B.S. in agribusiness in 1976.


title: Brad Little

text: Little has had an extensive dual career tending to his family's ranching interests (his grandfather was the and in public service. During the 1981 and 1985 legislative sessions, Little represented his father, David Little, in the Senate on a temporary appointment due to illness, during which time he served on the Finance and Resources Committees. Little also managed his family's ranching operation, Little Land and Livestock, for almost 30 years until his son, David, became manager in 2009 when Little was appointed lieutenant governor. He continues to work as the head of Little Enterprises, Inc. (a diversified farming and cattle operation), and is a member of the board of directors of Performance Design Inc., a small Boise-based manufacturing company.


title: Brad Little

text: Little has also been involved in a variety of private organizations and companies based in Idaho and the Mountain West. He is a former chairman of the Idaho Association of Commerce and Industry (IACI), "The Voice of Business in Idaho", and was a member of its board for 20 years (1981–2001). Little is also the former vice-chairman of the Idaho Community Foundation and the Emmett Public School Foundation, and the former director of the Idaho Wool Growers Association and the University of Idaho Foundation. He has also served in the past on the boards of directors of High Country News, Home Federal Bank, a small Idaho-based regional bank recently acquired by Bank of the Cascades, and the Idaho Foundation for Excellence in Education.


title: Brad Little

text: Governor Dirk Kempthorne appointed Little to fill a state senate vacancy in May 2001. He represented what was at the time District 8, which covered a part of Gem County surrounding and north of Emmett, all of Boise, Valley, and Adams Counties, and the southern portion of Idaho County.


title: Brad Little

text: After a change in district boundaries due to redistricting in 2001–02, Little was elected in the fall of 2002 to District 11, which then encompassed all of Gem County and the northern portion of Canyon County, including the communities of Middleton and Parma. He was reelected senator from the 11th legislative district four times. Little was also elected in 2003 by his Republican peers to the party leadership position of Majority Caucus Chair, which he held until 2009.


title: Brad Little

text: In January 2009, Governor Butch Otter appointed Little to the office of lieutenant governor to fill the vacancy left by former Lieutenant Governor Jim Risch's election to the U.S. Senate in 2008. Little was sworn in by Otter on January 6, 2009, and confirmed by unanimous consent when the Idaho Senate convened on January 12.


title: Brad Little

text: Little was elected lieutenant governor in 2010, defeating two opponents in the primary election and two opponents from the Democratic and Constitution parties in the general election. He was reelected in 2014.


title: Brad Little

text: Little focused on economic development as lieutenant governor, helping persuade energy bar producer Clif Bar to build a new food manufacturing plant in Idaho in 2013.


title: Brad Little

text: Little also took part in and led several trade missions. He led a Friendship Mission to Basque Country in Spain in 2010, during which he met President of the Basque Government Patxi López. During this meeting, Little and López agreed to establish a Basque Economic Development Office in Boise that "would provide resources and services for Idaho and Basque companies to ease collaboration on research, sales and collaborative programs." Little later signed the Euskadi-Idaho Friendship Agreement, which affirms the friendship and cultural affinity between the Basque Country and Idaho, which has the largest Basque community outside Spain.


title: Brad Little

text: Little was also a member of a 2011 Idaho trade delegation that traveled to Mexico and Brazil. After the trade mission, he said, "we found tremendous interest and opportunities in both countries for Idaho products and services … This trip strengthened key trade relationships and established new customers for Idaho businesses." The Idaho Department of Commerce estimated that the mission resulted in sales of more than $30 million.


title: Brad Little

text: In the 2014 legislative session, Little sponsored Senate Bill 1354, an anti-"patent troll" bill. The bill protects companies from abusive or "bad faith assertions of patent infringement" to collect an extortionate licensing fee.


title: Brad Little

text: In June 2016, Little announced his candidacy for the Idaho gubernatorial election in 2018. He said that Idaho National Laboratory would be a priority if he became governor.


title: Brad Little

text: Little was endorsed by incumbent Governor Otter, former governors Dirk Kempthorne and Phil Batt, and U.S. Senator Jim Risch.


title: Brad Little

text: During his campaign, Little called for a phased-in $350 million reduction in the state income tax and the elimination of the Idaho grocery tax.


title: Brad Little

text: Little won the Idaho Republican Party primary, beating both U.S. Representative Raúl Labrador and businessman Tommy Ahlquist with 37.3% of the vote. In the general election in November, he defeated state Representative Paulette Jordan, the Idaho Democratic Party nominee, by over 130,000 votes.


title: Brad Little

text: In March 2022, Little filed papers to run for a second term in office, having announced his intention to run the previous month. He won the Republican nomination in May, defeating Lieutenant Governor Janice McGeachin.


title: Brad Little

text: The Democratic nominee in the race was Stephen Heidt. At the same time, an anti-government activist, Ammon Bundy, ran in the race as an independent. Little easily won the November 8 election, certifying the win in every county except Blaine County, which Heidt won.


title: Brad Little

text: In March 2020, Little gained attention for signing two bills into law that addressed transgender people. The first bans transgender women and girls from competing in women's sports, citing possible unfair physical advantages. The second bill, HB 509, bans transgender people from changing the sex on their birth certificates.


title: Brad Little

text: In 2021, Little signed legislation that raised signature requirements for ballot initiatives. That year, he also signed legislation that would permit harvesting up to 90% of the state's estimated 1,500 wolves to the minimum level of 150 as set by Idaho’s wolf conservation and management plan; the legislation was backed by the ranching sector of Idaho as well as many in the hunting and fishing community, but strongly opposed by environmental advocates.


title: Brad Little

text: In late April 2021, Little signed House Bill 366, effectively prohibiting abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy, making exceptions for victims of rape, incest, and for medical emergencies. He also said, "We should never relent in our efforts to protect the lives of the preborn" and "Hundreds and hundreds of babies lose their lives every year in Idaho due to abortion, an absolute tragedy."


title: Brad Little

text: In March 2022, Little signed Senate Bill 1309 modeled after the Texas Heartbeat Act that prohibited abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy. The bill made exceptions for victims of rape, incest, and for medical emergencies. The Idaho Supreme Court later temporarily blocked the law.


title: Brad Little

text: Little opposes gun control. In May 2021, he signed a bill that would thwart nearly a half-dozen of executive orders from President Joe Biden combating gun control. Little has an A+ rating from the National Rifle Association for his record on Second Amendment rights.


title: Brad Little

text: Little opposes LGBT rights. In 2006, he voted to propose 2006 Idaho Amendment 2, which banned same-sex marriages or civil unions being performed in the state of Idaho. During his campaign for governor, Little said, "marriage is the union between a man and a woman". In March 2020, he signed both House Bill 500 and House Bill 509, which ban transgender people who identify as female from playing on athletic teams that don't align with their sex-at-birth and ban transgender people from changing their gender mark on their birth certificate.


title: Brad Little

text: In a January 2019 interview, Little expressed opposition to legalizing recreational marijuana. He had expressed skepticism about legalizing medical marijuana for patients.


title: Brad Little

text: When being asked about marijuana legalization in April 2019, Little said: “If Idahoans want legal marijuana, they elected the wrong guy as governor.” NORML, a group advocating the legalization of marijuana, gave Little an F rating for his policies about reforming marijuana laws.


title: Brad Little

text: In February 2021, Little signed Senate Bill 1017, which raises the legal THC limit in cannabidiol (CBD) products from 0% to 0.1% THC. The law went into effect on July 1, 2021.


title: Brad Little

text: In April 2021, Little signed a bill that would legalize the cultivation and transportation of hemp in Idaho with up to 0.3% THC in it, making Idaho the final state to do so, but the bill would prohibit the sale of hemp products containing any THC.


title: Gender expression

text: Gender expression, or gender presentation, is a person's behavior, mannerisms, interests, and appearance that are associated with gender, specifically with the categories of femininity or masculinity. This also includes gender roles. These categories rely on stereotypes about gender.


title: Gender expression

text: Gender expression typically reflects a person's gender identity (their internal sense of their own gender), but this is not always the case. Gender expression is separate and independent both from sexual orientation and sex assigned at birth. Gender identity can be expressed through behavior, clothing, hair, makeup and other aspects of one’s external appearance. Gender expression does not always fall in line with a person's gender identity. A type of gender expression that is considered atypical for a person's externally perceived gender may be described as gender non-conforming.


title: Gender expression

text: In men and boys, typical or masculine gender expression is often described as "manly", while atypical or feminine expression is known as effeminate. In girls and young women, atypically masculine expression is called tomboyish. In lesbian and queer women, masculine and feminine expressions are known as butch and femme respectively. A mixture of typical and atypical expression may be described as androgynous. A type of expression that is perceived as neither typically feminine or masculine can be described as gender-neutral or undifferentiated.


title: Gender expression

text: The term "gender expression" is used in the Yogyakarta Principles, which concern the application of international human rights law in relation to sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, and sex characteristics. The term also designates a criterion for human rights protection in certain countries, including Canada.


title: Gender expression

text: While gender expression does not necessarily connect to sexuality, individuals often are misinterpreted as more masculine if lesbian and more feminine if gay, regardless of the individual's gender expression. These beliefs can lead to people misinterpreting an individual's gender expression based on their sexuality. Studies on adolescents conducted by Stacey Horn, showed that gay and lesbian individuals who did not express themselves as their assigned gender were seen as less acceptable. Individuals who expressed themselves with their assigned gender typically faced less social harassment and discrimination. On the other hand, heterosexual males whose gender expression was more feminine than masculine were the most discriminated against.


title: Gender expression

text: "The heterosexual matrix" theory created by gender theorist Judith Butler posits that people often assume someone's sexuality based on their visible gender and sex. Lisa Disch states that it explains why people tend to assume someone's gender expression based on their sex and sexuality. Some sexologists, especially earlier on in the 20th century, viewed gay men and lesbians as "gender inverts". This idea was seen in figures in 1950's New York gay culture: effeminate men referred to as "fairies", as well as butch lesbians. Drag shows also can be considered a way that modifying one's gender expression can indicate their sexuality, though this is not always the case. Some research proved a similar idea, showing that homosexual people are generally more gender nonconforming than heterosexual people, and gender nonconformity throughout life can be an indicator of sexuality.


title: Gender expression

text: People sometimes face discrimination because of their gender expression. Victims of discrimination often culturally express different genders than their gender identity or biological sex. Gender expression-based discrimination can be independent of sexual orientation, and it can lead to bullying, childhood abuse, sexual assault, discrimination, and various other traumatizing hardships.


title: Gender expression

text: However, discrimination based on sexual orientation can be connected to a person's gender expression. Scholars say it is difficult to separate the connection between anti-LGBTQ discrimination and gender expression, especially when the expression differs from the person's assigned gender at birth. In a study done by Steph M. Anderson, she found that in discriminatory situations, participants' gender affected whether or not they were perceived as LGBTQ. People whose expression aligned with their assigned gender felt less of an impact than those whose expression did not align with their assigned gender. When it comes to health care, one study shows that people with a non-normative gender expression experienced biases during their care. For example, lesbians who presented femininely may be more comfortable in healthcare spaces than people whose expression does not match their assigned gender. Some gender non-conforming people in the study expressed feelings that having one's gender or sexuality assumed because of their expression limited their comfort and access to healthcare.


title: Gender expression

text: Gender expression is a sizable aspect of how a person views themselves, and thus will impact self confidence. When an individual is forced, for personal or societal influences, to portray themselves in a manner they don't personally identify with, confidence can be greatly hindered in turn damaging mental health. A 2017 study reported that when masculine presenting lesbians are made to dress in a feminine style, their confidence suffers greatly.


title: Gender expression

text: Other, rarer terms exist for aspects of gender expression. In academic sources, a feminine gender expression in a male (of any orientation) may be called "gynemimesis" (adjective: "gynemimetic"). The converse is "andromimesis" (adj.: "andromimetic").


title: Anansi Boys

text: Anansi Boys is a fantasy novel by English writer Neil Gaiman. In the novel, "Mr. Nancy" — an incarnation of the West African trickster god Anansi — dies, leaving twin sons, who in turn discover one another's existence after being separated as young children. The novel follows their adventures as they explore their common heritage. Although it is not a sequel to Gaiman's previous novel "American Gods", the character of Mr. Nancy appears in both books.


title: Anansi Boys

text: Gaiman mentioned author Thorne Smith as a strong influence when writing the book; "In the back of my head, when I was writing it, I had a writer named Thorne Smith", and "...the Thorne Smith approach to books with eruptions of magic into normal lives seemed like a territory that would be worthwhile to explore." In the dedication to the novel, he also "tips his hat" to P. G. Wodehouse, Tex Avery and Zora Neale Hurston.


title: Anansi Boys

text: "Anansi Boys" was published on 20 September 2005 and was released in paperback on 1 October 2006. The book debuted at number one on "The New York Times" Best Seller list, and won both the Locus Award and the British Fantasy Society Award in 2006. The audiobook was released in 2005, narrated by Lenny Henry.


title: Anansi Boys

text: "Anansi Boys" is the story of Charles "Fat Charlie" Nancy, a timid Londoner devoid of ambition, whose unenthusiastic wedding preparations are disrupted when he learns that his father (Mr. Nancy) has died in Florida. The flamboyant Mr. Nancy, in whose shadow Fat Charlie has always lived, died in a slightly embarrassing manner by suffering a fatal heart attack while singing to a young woman on stage in a karaoke bar before falling from stage and accidentally pulling down the woman's top.


title: Anansi Boys

text: Fat Charlie is forced to take time off from the talent agency where he works and travel to Florida for the funeral. Afterwards, while discussing the disposal of Mr. Nancy's estate, Mrs. Callyanne Higgler, a very old family friend, reveals to Fat Charlie that the late Mr. Nancy was actually an incarnation of the West African spider god, Anansi, hence his name. The reason Charlie had apparently not inherited any divine powers was because they had been passed down to his hitherto unknown brother, who Mrs. Higgler explains could be contacted by simply sending an invitation by talking to a spider. Charlie is skeptical, and on his return to England largely forgets what Mrs. Higgler had told him, until one night when he drunkenly whispers to a spider that it would be nice if his brother stopped by for a visit.


title: Anansi Boys

text: The next morning the suave and well-dressed brother, going under the name of "Spider", visits Charlie and is shocked to learn that their father has died. Spider then magically steps into a picture of their childhood home and Charlie goes off to work, rather puzzled by Spider and his sudden miraculous disappearance.


title: Anansi Boys

text: Spider returns that night, stricken with grief that Anansi had died and that he had been thoughtless enough not to notice. At Spider's recommendation, the two brothers attempt to drown their sorrows and become uproariously drunk on the proverbial trio of wine, women, and song. Although Charlie is not involved in most of the womanising or singing, he is drunk enough to sleep through much of the next day. Spider covers for Charlie's absence from his office at the Grahame Coats Agency by magically disguising himself as Charlie. It is explained that although the two brothers are not identical, Spider is able to use his divine powers to appear to others as Charlie's twin. While at work, Spider discovers his boss Grahame Coats's long-standing practice of embezzling from his clients and also steals the affection and virginity of Charlie's fiancée, Rosie Noah.


title: Anansi Boys

text: Spider, in the guise of Charlie, reveals his knowledge of the financial improprieties to Grahame Coats during a meeting in which Grahame had planned to fire Charlie and, as a result, Grahame delays firing him. When Grahame meets him next, he gives the real Charlie a large cheque and a holiday from work. With Charlie out of the office, Grahame Coats proceeds to alter the financial records to frame Charlie for the embezzlement. Embittered by the loss of his fiancée, Charlie uses his holiday to return to Florida and requests help from Mrs. Higgler and three of her equally old and eccentric friends to expel Spider. Being themselves unable to banish Spider, they instead send Fat Charlie to "the beginning of the world," an abode of ancient gods similar to his father, each of whom represents a species of animal. There he encounters the fearsome Tiger, the outrageous Hyena, and the ridiculous Monkey, among others. None are willing to help the son of the trickster Anansi, who had embarrassed them all at times in their lives. Finally, Charlie meets Bird Woman, who agrees to trade him her help, symbolised by one of her feathers, in exchange for "Anansi's bloodline".


title: Anansi Boys

text: Meanwhile, in London, a swindled client, Maeve Livingstone, confronts Grahame Coats directly, having learned of the theft of her late husband's royalties. Grahame Coats murders her with a hammer and conceals her body in a hidden closet.


title: Anansi Boys

text: When Charlie returns to England, events begin to escalate. Charlie quarrels and scuffles with Spider, Charlie is taken in for questioning by the police for financial fraud at the Grahame Coats Agency, Spider reveals the truth of his identity to Rosie, who is angered by his treatment of her, birds repeatedly attack Spider, Grahame Coats escapes England for his estate and bank accounts in the fictional Caribbean country of Saint Andrews, and Maeve Livingstone's ghost begins haunting the Grahame Coats Agency building.


title: Anansi Boys

text: Maeve is contacted by her late husband, who advises her to move on to the afterlife, but she refuses in favour of taking vengeance on Grahame Coats. Later, she meets the ghost of Anansi himself, who recounts a story to her. Once, Anansi reveals, the animal god Tiger owned all stories, and as a result, all stories were dark, violent and unhappy. Anansi tricked Tiger into surrendering the ownership of stories to him, forever allowing stories to involve cleverness, skill and often humour rather than strength alone.


title: Anansi Boys

text: After he is attacked by flamingoes, Spider realises that something Charlie did is causing these attacks and that he is in mortal peril. Consequently, Spider magically breaks Charlie out of prison. The two discuss matters in the course of fleeing from birds from around the world, realising that giving away Anansi's bloodline implicates Charlie as well as Spider. Charlie is then returned to prison and is eventually freed. He mentions a hidden room in Coats's office to the police, who find Maeve Livingstone's body there.


title: Anansi Boys

text: Spider is swept away in a storm of birds, after which Bird Woman removes his tongue to prevent his use of magic. The Bird Woman delivers Spider to Tiger, Anansi's longtime enemy, who imprisons him. In spite of his helplessness, Spider manages to form a little spider out of clay, instructing it to go find help in the spider kingdom that Anansi and his descendants command. Despite not being as strong as Tiger, Spider still manages to fend him off for some time while Tiger prolongs killing him, preferring to savour his long hoped-for revenge on Anansi and his brood.


title: Anansi Boys

text: Meanwhile, Rosie and her mother have taken a consolation cruise to the Caribbean, where they unexpectedly meet Grahame Coats, who offers them a tour of his home. The two have not heard of the events in England and thus unsuspectingly walk into a trap at his home where they are locked in his basement.


title: Anansi Boys

text: Charlie goes searching for Callyanne Higgler to help him solve his problems. He looks for her in Florida, but Anansi's old friends tell him that Mrs. Higgler has returned to the Caribbean country of Saint Andrews. These friends reveal to him that it was another old lady, Mrs. Dunwiddy, who was annoyed with the young Fat Charlie and made a spell to separate his good side from his bad side, which then became Spider, separating the one person into two. Fat Charlie finally finds Mrs. Higgler after a long search in Saint Andrews and is sent again, via seance, to the beginning of the world where he forces the Bird Woman to give back Anansi's bloodline in return for her feather. Meanwhile, Spider has managed to survive as an overconfident Tiger continues to prolong devouring him. When Tiger attempts a killing strike, a massive army of spider reinforcements summoned by Spider overwhelm him and force his retreat. At this point, Charlie rescues Spider and gives him back his tongue.


title: Anansi Boys

text: Tiger now takes possession of Grahame Coats's body and uses his bloodlust to manipulate him, intending to get revenge on Spider by killing Rosie and her mother. The possession by Tiger, however, makes Grahame Coats vulnerable to attacks from other spirits and Maeve Livingstone, having found Grahame Coats with the aid of Anansi's ghost, eliminates Coats in the real world and, satisfied, moves on to her afterlife.


title: Anansi Boys

text: Meanwhile, still at the beginning of the world, Charlie, having discovered his power to alter reality by singing a story, recounts the long tale of all that has gone before and humiliates Tiger to the point of retreating to his cave. Spider then collapses the cave entrance, sealing Tiger inside. Charlie weaves this event into his song, reinforcing it with his powers, such that Tiger is securely trapped. Coats, turned into a stoat, remains with Tiger as an unwelcome guest that can be perpetually eaten for eternity.


title: Anansi Boys

text: In the end, Spider marries Rosie and becomes the owner of a restaurant. He is put constantly under pressure by Rosie's mother to have children, but (possibly to annoy her) never does. Charlie begins a successful career as a singer, marries police officer Daisy Day and has a son (Marcus). Old Anansi, resting comfortably in his grave, watches his two sons approvingly as he contemplates resurrecting himself in 20 or 25 years.


title: Anansi Boys

text: "Anansi Boys" won the Locus, Mythopoeic, YALSA ALEX, and British Fantasy Awards in 2006. Despite garnering enough votes for a Hugo nomination, Gaiman declined it.


title: Anansi Boys

text: In 2005, Mike Walker adapted "Anansi Boys" into a radio play for the BBC World Service. It stars Lenny Henry as Spider and Fat Charlie, Matt Lucas as Grahame Coats and Tiger, Rudolph Walker as Anansi, Doña Croll as Mrs Noah and the Bird Woman, Tameka Empson as Mrs Higgler, Petra Letang as Rosie, Jocelyn Jee Esien as Daisy, and Ben Crowe as Cabbies and other voices. It was broadcast on 17 November 2007. The original soundtrack was composed by Danish composer in residence Nicolai Abrahamsen. It was directed by Anne Edyvean, who also worked on the Radio 3 adaptation of Gaiman's "Signal to Noise" in 1996.


title: Anansi Boys

text: Gaiman stated that he was displeased with the BBC radio adaptation, because "budget cutbacks and less broadcasting time for drama [have caused BBC to decide] it would have to be an hour-long adaptation. And bad things happen when novels get cut down to an hour. So despite a really terrific cast and production and as solid a script as could be in the circumstances, I was not happy. It felt like one of those Readers' Digest condensed books".


title: Anansi Boys

text: A new, six-part full-cast radio series was produced in 2017, adapted by Dirk Maggs; it's the fifth of Gaiman's novels Maggs has adapted for radio. It is narrated by Joseph Marcell, and stars Jacob Anderson as Fat Charlie, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett as Spider and Lenny Henry as Anansi, with the rest of the cast including Julian Rhind-Tutt as Grahame Coats and Adjoa Andoh as Bird Woman. It was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and the BBC iPlayer over six days, beginning on Christmas Day 2017; the first five episodes were 30 minutes each, with a 60-minute finale broadcast on December 30. Gaiman is reportedly very happy with this version, describing it as his favourite of Maggs' adaptations.


title: Anansi Boys

text: Gaiman's displeasure with the first BBC radio adaptation led to a willingness to write the script of an "Anansi Boys" film. He said that "I normally say no to adapting my own stuff into film. But I wanted an Anansi Boys adaptation I could be proud of, and the radio adaption had left me wanting to go: No, "this" is what I meant".


title: Anansi Boys

text: In 2014, it was reported a television miniseries of "Anansi Boys" was being produced by the BBC. It was to be made by Red Production Company with Gaiman as executive producer. Although the miniseries was never made, elements of the abandoned series were instead incorporated into the Starz adaptation of "American Gods".


title: Anansi Boys

text: In May 2020, it was reported that a miniseries adaptation was in development by Endor Productions, for Amazon Prime Video.


title: Anansi Boys

text: In July 2021, it was announced that Amazon had given the production a series order consisting of 6 episodes. It would be produced by Amazon Studios, The Black Corporation, Endor Productions, and Red Production Company, with Lenny Henry and Neil Gaiman as writers and executive producers. Delroy Lindo is set to star as Mr. Nancy. Malachi Kirby is also set to star as Fat Charlie and Spider.


title: Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise

text: Yamaga and Okada had become known through making amateur fan-oriented short films, particularly the "Daicon III and IV Opening Animations", but their pitch for "Royal Space Force" argued that growing the anime industry required a shift away from works that pleased fans on a surface level but reinforced their isolation, advocating instead for a different type of anime that attempted to engage with fans as human beings who shared in the alienation issues of a larger society. The making of "Royal Space Force" involved a collaborative year-long design process using many creators, including some from outside the anime industry, to construct an elaborately detailed alternate world described as neither utopian nor dystopian, but "an attempt to approve existence". Science fiction writer Ted Chiang, author of "Story of Your Life", the basis for the film "Arrival", would later describe "Royal Space Force" as the single most impressive example of worldbuilding in books or film.


text: "Royal Space Force" collective approach to filmmaking, its deliberate rejection of established anime motifs, its visual complexity, and the general lack of professional experience among its staff were all factors in its chaotic production, while increasing uncertainty about the project led to what has been described as an attempt by its investors and producers to "fix" the film before release, imposing a late name change to "The Wings of Honnêamise," and a lavish but deceptive publicity campaign that included misleading advertising as well as a staged premiere at Mann's Chinese Theatre on February 19, 1987. Although receiving some support among domestic anime fans and the industry upon its March 14, 1987 release in Japan by Toho subsidiary Toho-Towa, including praise from Hayao Miyazaki, and Mamoru Oshii, the film failed to make back its costs at the box office, but eventually became profitable through home video sales. Future "Evangelion" director Hideaki Anno would later describe the reception "Royal Space Force" received as having had a major impact on him both personally and as a creator.


text: "Royal Space Force" did not receive an English-language commercial release until 1994, when Bandai licensed the film to Manga Entertainment. A dubbed 35 mm version toured theaters in North America and the United Kingdom, during which time it received coverage in major newspapers but highly mixed reviews. Since the mid-1990s, it has received several English-language home video releases, and various historical surveys of anime have regarded the film more positively; Yamaga has stated his belief in retrospect that the elements which made "Royal Space Force" unsuccessful made possible the later successes of Studio Gainax.


text: In the Kingdom of Honnêamise— on a different, Earthlike world of mid-20th century technology— a young man named Shirotsugh Lhadatt recalls his middle-class upbringing and childhood dream to fly jets for the navy. His grades disqualifying him, Shirotsugh ended up instead joining the "Royal Space Force," a tiny unit with poor morale whose commander, General Khaidenn, dreams of human spaceflight, yet is barely capable of launching unmanned satellites. One night, Shirotsugh encounters a woman named Riquinni who is preaching in the red-light district. Riquinni Nonderaiko, who lives with a sullen little girl named Manna, surprises him by suggesting that humanity could find peace through space travel. Inspired, Shirotsugh volunteers for a last-ditch project to keep the Space Force from being disbanded: send the first astronaut into orbit.


text: Riquinni gives Shirotsugh scriptures to study, but becomes upset when he touches her and angry when he suggests she should "compromise" with God. Riquinni feels such compromise is to blame for the evils of the world, but Shirotsugh suggests it has made it easier to live in. The General arranges a shady deal to help finance his project, and tells a cheering crowd that the orbital capsule will be a "space warship". Soon after, Riquinni's cottage is foreclosed upon and demolished; not wishing to expose Manna— whose mother was constantly abused by her husband— to any more conflicts, she rejects the outraged Shirotsugh's offer to get her a lawyer. He begins to read Riquinni's scriptures, which assert that humanity is cursed to violence for having stolen fire.


text: A test explosion that kills the chief rocket engineer is suggested to be the work of radicals, and Shirotsugh confounds his friends by sympathizing with protestors who say the mission is a waste of federal funding. The launch site is suddenly moved to the Kingdom's southern border, which will assist in reaching orbit but is also adjacent to a territory occupied by their international rival, the distant Republic. The General learns to his shock that his superiors see the rocket only as a useful provocation; unknown to the Kingdom, the Republic plans to buy time to get their forces into position by assassinating Shirotsugh.


text: Increasingly disenchanted, Shirotsugh goes AWOL, giving his money to the homeless and joining Riquinni's ministry, but is troubled by Manna's continued silence and seeing the money Riquinni keeps. He turns away when she reads from her scriptures that one’s own efforts at truth and good will fail, and one can only pray. That night, he sexually assaults her; when he hesitates momentarily, she knocks him unconscious. Next morning, a repentant Shirotsugh is bewildered when Riquinni maintains he did nothing, apologizing for having hit “a wonderful person like you". Reuniting with his best friend Marty, Shirotsugh asks whether one might be the villain in one's own life's story, not its hero. Marty replies with the view that people exist because they serve purposes for one another. The Republic's assassin strikes— Shirotsugh attempts to flee, but eventually fights back, killing the assassin. The General confides in the wounded astronaut afterwards that he once wanted to be a historian and not a soldier, but found history harder to confront, because it taught him human nature would not change.


text: At the launch site, the crew finishes assembling the rocket even as both sides prepare for the expected attack. Without informing his superiors, the General decides to launch early by trimming safety procedures, to which Shirotsugh agrees. When the Republic's forces invade to seize the rocket by force, an evacuation is ordered, but Shirotsugh rallies the crew to proceed with the countdown. The combined ground-air assault ceases with the rocket's unexpected launch, and the Republic forces withdraw. From orbit, Shirotsugh makes a radio broadcast, uncertain if anyone is listening: although humans have brought ruin to each new frontier, he asks nevertheless to give thanks for this moment, praying for forgiveness and guidance. As the capsule crosses into the dayside, a montage of visions suggests Shirotsugh's childhood and the passage of history; far below, Riquinni, preaching where he first met her, is the only one to look up as the snow begins to fall, and the camera draws back, past the ship and its world, to the stars.


text: The film had a budget of , at the time equivalent to , making it the most expensive anime film up until then. It surpassed the budget records of Hayao Miyazaki's "Castle of Cagliostro" (1979) and "Castle in the Sky" (1986), and in turn its budget was surpassed a year later by "Akira" (1988).


text: "Royal Space Force" developed out of an anime proposal presented to Shigeru Watanabe of Bandai in September 1984 by Hiroyuki Yamaga and Toshio Okada from Daicon Film, an amateur film studio active in the early 1980s associated with students at the Osaka University of Arts and science fiction fandom in the Kansai region. Okada had first met Watanabe in August 1983 at a convention for "tokusatsu" fans in Tokyo at which Daicon Film screened their live-action short "The Return of Ultraman" and ran a sales booth for Daicon's related fan merchandise company, General Products; Watanabe had been involved with product planning for Bandai's "Real Hobby Series" figurines. The position had also led Watanabe into Bandai's then-new home video label Emotion, where he helped to develop Mamoru Oshii's " Dallos". Released at the end of 1983, " Dallos" would become the first anime original video animation (OVA), an industry event later described as the beginning of a new "third medium" for anime beyond film or television, offering the prospect of "a medium in which [anime] could 'grow up,' allowing the more mature thematic experiments of creators".


text: Okada and Yamaga's pitch to Watanabe had followed the recognition Daicon Film received earlier that year in "Animage" magazine through a special secondary Anime Grand Prix award given to their 8 mm short "Daicon IV Opening Animation". Their September 1984 proposal gave the outline for an anime to be entitled "Royal Space Force", to be produced under the heading of a new, professional studio to be named Gainax. The proposal listed five initial core staff for the anime. Four had been previously associated with Daicon Film: Yamaga was to be the anime's concept creator and director and Okada its producer,


text: Yoshiyuki Sadamoto its chief character designer, and Hideaki Anno its chief mechanical designer. The fifth, Kenichi Sonoda, listed as responsible for the anime's "settei" (model sheets, drawn up to give the key animators their guides as to how the objects and people to be animated should look) had previously assisted with product development at General Products.


text: The "Royal Space Force" proposal, subheaded "Project Intentions: A New Wave in a Time of Lost Collaborative Illusions," began with a self-analysis of "recent animation culture from the perspective of young people". At the time of the proposal, Yamaga was 22 years old and had directed the opening anime films for Japan's 1981 and 1983 national science fiction conventions, Daicon III and IV, which through their sale to fans on home video through General Products were themselves regarded as informal precursors of the OVA concept. At age 20 and while still in college, Yamaga had been chosen by the series director of the original "Macross" TV series, Noboru Ishiguro, to direct episode 9 of the show, "Miss Macross," as Ishiguro wished "to aim for a work that doesn’t fit the conventional sense of anime." Yamaga commented in a contemporary "Animage" article that it had taken him two months to create the storyboards for "Miss Macross" and wryly remarked he'd thus already used himself up doing so; the magazine noted however that the episode was well received, and judged the creative experiment a success.


text: Okada and Yamaga argued in their proposal for "Royal Space Force" that what prevented the anime industry from advancing beyond its current level was that it had fallen into a feedback loop with its audience, producing for them a "cul-de-sac" of cute and cool-looking anime content that had the effect of only further reinforcing the more negative and introverted tendencies of many fans, without making a real attempt to connect with them in a more fundamental and personal way:


text: "In modern society, which is so information-oriented, it becomes more and more difficult even for sensational works to really connect with people, and even so, those works get forgotten quickly. Moreover, this flood of superficial information has dissolved those values and dreams people could stand upon, especially among the young, who are left frustrated and anxious. It could be said that this is the root cause of the Peter Pan syndrome, that says, 'I don't want to be an adult' ... If you look at the psychology of anime fans today, they do interact with society, and they're trying to get along well in that society, but unfortunately, they don't have the ability. So as compensatory behavior, they relinquish themselves to mecha and cute young girls. However, because these are things that don't really exist—meaning, there's no interaction in reality happening between those things and the anime fans—they soon get frustrated, and then seek out the next [anime] that will stimulate them ... If you look into this situation, what these people really want, deep down, is to get along well with reality. And what we propose is to deliver the kind of project that will make people look again at the society around them and reassess it for themselves; where they will think, 'I shouldn't give up yet on reality.


text: The proposal described "Royal Space Force" as "a project to make anime fans reaffirm reality". Gainax asserted that the problem was not unique to anime fans, who were only "the most representative example" of the increasing tendency of younger people not to experience reality directly, but as mediated through "the informational world". "We live in a society mired in a perpetual state of information overload. And the feeling of being overwhelmed by the underwhelming isn't something limited to just young people, but everyone" ... "However, this doesn't mean that people want to live alone and without contact, but instead they want to establish a balance with the 'outside' that is psychologically comfortable for them." Yamaga and Okada believed that this sensibility among some fans explained why anime often combined plots that "symbolize modern politics or society" with characters whose age and appearance was "completely incongruent with reality". The "Royal Space Force" plan proposed to use the creative techniques of anime for a radically different aim, to make "the exact opposite of the 'cool,' castle-in-the-sky anime that is so prevalent these days ... It's on our earth now, in this world of ours now, that we feel it's time for a project that will declare there's still something valuable and meaningful in this world."


text: The September 1984 proposal for "Royal Space Force" was unusual for an anime pitch in that it described the setting and story, but never named the main characters. The written proposal was accompanied by a set of over 30 "image sketches" depicting the world to be designed for the anime, painted in watercolor by Sadamoto and Mahiro Maeda. Maeda, a high school classmate of Daicon Film director and character designer Takami Akai, had attended Tokyo Zokei University with Sadamoto; Maeda and Sadamoto had also worked on the "Macross" TV series, and both were subsequently recruited into Daicon Film. That same month, Watanabe brought the pitch to Bandai company president Makoto Yamashina, who himself represented a younger corporate generation; Yamashina's response to reading Gainax's proposal was, "I'm not sure what this is all about, but that's exactly why I like it." Yamashina would later state in an interview with the comics and animation criticism magazine "Comic Box" shortly before the film's release that this viewpoint represented a "grand experiment" by Bandai in producing original content over which they could have complete ownership, and a deliberate strategy that decided to give young artists freedom in creating that content: "I'm in the toy business, and I've always been of the mind that if I understand [the appeal of a product], it won't sell. The reason is the generation gap, which is profound. "Honneamise" just might hit the jackpot. If so, it will overturn all the assumptions we’ve had up till now. I didn't want them to make the kind of film that we could understand. Put another way, if it was a hit and I could understand why, it wouldn't be such a big deal. I did want it to be a hit, but from the start, I wasn't aiming for a "Star Wars". In trying to make it a success, it had to be purely young people's ideas and concepts; we couldn't force them to compromise. We had to let them run free with it. In the big picture, they couldn't produce this on their own, and that's where we stepped in, and managed to bring it all this way. And in that respect, I believe it was a success."


text: "This was a project that made full use of all sorts of wiles. At the time, Hayao Miyazaki said, 'Bandai was fooled by Okada's proposal.' I was the first person at Bandai to be fooled (laughs). But no, that's not the case. I'm a simple person; I just wanted to try it because it looked interesting. Nobody thought that Bandai could make an original movie. There wasn't any know-how at all. But that's why I found it interesting. No, to be honest, there were moments when I thought, 'I can't do this.' But [Gainax]'s president, Okada, and the director, Yamaga, both thought strongly, 'I want to make anime professionally, and speak to the world.' Producer Hiroaki Inoue felt the same way, as did [Yasuhiro] Takeda ... I was about the same age, so I got into the flow of all those people's enthusiasm." —Shigeru Watanabe, 2004


text: "Royal Space Force" was initially planned as a 40-minute long OVA project, with a budget variously reported at 20 or 40 million yen; however, resistance elsewhere within Bandai to entering the filmmaking business resulted in the requirement that Gainax first submit a short "pilot film" version of "Royal Space Force" as a demo to determine if the project would be saleable. Work on the pilot film began in December 1984 as Yamaga and Okada moved from Osaka to Tokyo to set up Gainax's first studio in a rented space in the Takadanobaba neighborhood of Shinjuku. That same month, Gainax was officially registered as a corporation in Sakai City, Osaka; founding Gainax board member Yasuhiro Takeda has remarked that the original plan was to disband Gainax as soon as "Royal Space Force" was completed; it was intended at first only as a temporary corporate entity needed to hold production funds from Bandai during the making of the anime.


text: The "Royal Space Force" pilot film was made by the same principal staff of Yamaga, Okada, Sadamoto, Anno, and Sonoda listed in the initial proposal, with the addition of Maeda as main personnel on layouts and "settei"; Sadamoto, Maeda, and Anno served as well among a crew of ten key animators that included Hiroyuki Kitakubo, Yuji Moriyama, Fumio Iida, and Masayuki. A further addition to the staff was co-producer Hiroaki Inoue, recruited as a founding member of Gainax by Okada. Inoue was active in the same Kansai-area science fiction fandom associated with Daicon Film, but had already been in the anime industry for several years, beginning at Tezuka Productions. Takeda noted that while a number of the other "Royal Space Force" personnel had worked on professional anime projects, none possessed Inoue's supervisory experience, or the contacts he had built in the process. Inoue would leave Gainax after their 1988–1989 "Gunbuster", but continued in the industry and would later co-produce Satoshi Kon's 1997 debut film "Perfect Blue".


text: In a 2004 interview, Shigeru Watanabe, by then a senior managing director and former president of Bandai Visual, who in later years had co-produced such films as Mamoru Oshii's "Ghost in the Shell" and Hiroyuki Okiura's "", reflected on his personal maneuvers to get "Royal Space Force" green-lit by Bandai's executive board, showing the pilot film to various people both inside and outside the company, including soliciting the views of Oshii and Miyazaki. As Bandai was already in the home video business, Watanabe reasoned that the strong video sales of "Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind", released the previous year, meant that Miyazaki's opinions would hold weight with Bandai's executives. Watanabe visited Miyazaki's then-studio Nibariki alone and spoke with the director for three hours, of which time, Watanabe joked, he got to speak for ten minutes. Miyazaki, who had worked with Hideaki Anno on "Nausicaä", told him, "Anno and his friends are amateurs, but I think they're a little different," comparing the matter to amateurs having "a gorgeous bay window" versus having a foundation: "They feel like they can make the foundation, and maybe raise a new building. If necessary, you can give that advice to the Bandai board." Watanabe laughed that when he told the executives what Miyazaki had said, they approved the project.


text: In April 1985, Okada and Yamaga formally presented the finished pilot film to a board meeting at Bandai, together with a new set of concept paintings by Sadamoto. The four-minute pilot film began with a 40-second prelude sequence of still shots of Shirotsugh's early life accompanied by audio in Russian depicting a troubled Soviet space mission, followed by a shot of a rocket booster stage separating animated by Anno, leading into the main portion of the pilot, which depicts the story's basic narrative through a progression of animated scenes without dialogue or sound effects, set to the overture of Wagner's "Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg". Okada addressed the board with a speech described as impassioned, speaking for an hour on Gainax's analysis of the anime industry, future market trends, and the desire of the young for "a work called "Royal Space Force"". Bandai gave interim approval to "Royal Space Force" as their company's first independent video production; however, the decision to make the project as a theatrical film would be subject to review at the end of 1985, once Gainax had produced a complete storyboard and "settei".


text: In a 2005 column for the online magazine "Anime Style", editor and scriptwriter Yuichiro Oguro recalled seeing a video copy of the pilot film secretly circulating after its completion around the anime industry, where there was interest based on Sadamoto and Maeda's reputations as "the genius boys of Tokyo Zokei University". Oguro noted as differences from the later finished movie the pilot film's younger appearance of Shirotsugh and more "bishōjo" style of Riquinni, whose behavior in the pilot put him in mind of a Miyazaki heroine, as did the composition of the film itself. Yamaga, in a 2007 interview for the Blu-ray/DVD edition release, confirmed this impression about the pilot film and speculated on its consequences: