Witch Boy Magical Piece Q&A: Interview with Rosemary House
(Sample for the Magical Piece artbook, from the Kickstarter)
Here comes the second Magical Piece Q&A! You can read the first part with Sekai Project there.
Rosemary House, the creator of Magical Piece, answers our questions regarding the creation of the game, their partnership with Sekai Project as well as various aspects of the story and more.
Can you please introduce yourself to our readers? What is Rosemary House?
We’re a group of creators who got together and have been active since 2012. The three main members are the planner, programmer, and director. During each game’s production, we’ve added other staff members such as graphic artists, illustrators, scenario writers, pixel artists, and so on. For Magical Piece, there were about 20 people on the team.
How was the company’s name chosen?
It’s related to the main members’ hometown. We often got together here, so eventually, the other staff members asked “can we go to Rosemary House today?” They began calling it that, and it just stuck.
Who worked on Witch Boy Magical piece?
The main staff, the scenario writers, character designer, creature designer, and costume designer, are all “fujoshi”. Rather than going with the trends, or what society finds popular, they followed what truly ignites their passions.
As for the voice actors, their voicing was kept as-is even after the characters have transformed into magical girls. This is a project that was achieved through crowdfunding in Japan last year. And now, the fujoshi of Japan, with their dreams fulfilled, pass the baton onto the rest of the world.
How did Witch boy Magical piece come to be?
The staff in charge of planning and the scenario is a BL novelist, and has already published many works about men turning into magical girls. That being the case, when developing the game, the concept naturally came forth.
Why was Witch boy Magical piece set in the Taisho Era? Magical Girl + Taisho Era seems like quite the unusual combination.
The Taisho era is a very popular setting: the old, traditional culture of Japan mixing with culture from overseas that’s slowly settling in, where you’d have people wearing t-shirts underneath kimonos, or everyone wearing Japanese clothes surrounded by art deco-inspired buildings. In other words, anything goes in the Taisho era. And so, transforming magical girls wouldn’t exactly be out of place either.
On another note, the Taisho era ended within just 15 years, but in this game, the story is set in the 103rd year of the Taisho era. Just how did the era last a whole 103 years? It’s revealed in the game, so do look forward to it!
(This explains why we can see a smartphone in this picture. 1912 + 103 = 2015, MagiPi would then take place in an alternative 2015.)
How did you react to Sekai Project choosing to localize Witch boy Magical piece? I want to know how things went from your point of view!
We knew Sekai Project as the company that handled CLANNAD’s localization. “So why did they approach us?” is what we thought; we were surprised. Why “Witch boy Magical piece” and not “Togainu no Chi” or “Gakuen Heaven” or “Lucky Dog 1”? These are fairly popular works, and probably would’ve successfully funded overnight like CLANNAD.
This work has a fairly limited audience, even when compared to BL works in general, especially since it contains sex change elements, which can be highly polarizing. Crossdressing, along with fantasy story elements, are not really popular within the BL genre. In other words, this is a niche work, even amongst fujoshi. It’s not something that has a wide range of appeal and will be supported by a lot of people. Instead, for people who are looking for something outside the norm, then it should appeal to them on a very strong level. There isn’t a very large player base for the game, but it most certainly does exist.
Even if the ratio of people who enjoy this work can’t be increased, we still want to reach out to more people, so then we just simply have to widen our range. Through an English localization, we will be able to reach out to more people with our work, and gain the chance of having more people playing the game.
What are your inspirations? Was Witch boy Magical piece inspired by other works?
Japan’s magical girl anime has been a strong influence. The aspect of having someone you love fall for your transformed form rather than your real self, came from “Creamy Mami, the Magic Angel”. The concept where you can change into all sorts of different magical girl clothes came from “Cardcaptor Sakura”, while the use of magical weapons, rather than a magic wand, was inspired by “Puella Magi Madoka Magica”.
While the idea of having men change into magical girls may come as a surprise to some, 20 years ago, the Sailor Starlights had already appeared in “Sailor Moon”, so for people who were watching it before, it wasn’t anything new. There are also other popular works nowadays where a boy transforms into a magical girl, such as “Mahou Shoujo Pretty☆Bell”, “Kore wa Zombie desu ka?”, “Mahou Shoujo Kinshi Hou”, etc.
A majority of those who are fond of BL are girls, and many of them looked up to these magical girls, so it’s not a particularly strange combination. We have the utmost respect for all magical girl works, and now, as adults, we want to treasure the feeling of admiration for these magical girls that we’ve had when we were young.
“There are rare items that can only be obtained after clearing certain scenarios” can be read in the Kickstarter. What “scenarios” are you referring to?
In this game, you can dress up the witches as you please. Generally, these costumes are items you can buy in the in-game shop, but they’ll also show up if you clear certain scenarios in the game. There are also some costumes that only certain characters can wear. The fanciest dress of the game can be attained for free if you clear a certain scenario, so please try out the challenge!
We know that Hinata and his partners still identify as male when transformed. Still, does the boys’ attitude and behavior change during those moments?
Their hearts are still as they are, so their manner of speaking and acting don’t change. However, when they’re wearing skirts, they end up spreading their legs when sitting, which gets them scolded by the other members.
However, when Yuki changes form, he turns into a young girl. So although they all know it’s Yuki on the inside, so they end up spoiling him as a girl.
How is the Japanese fandom reacting to MagiPi’s localization?
The game began as a crowdfunding project as well, so there are many fans who think, “at first, there wasn’t anything at all, but it’s slowly grown and now, it’s already reached this far.” We were only able to come this far because of the support of so many people.
Anything else you’d like to share with the people reading this article?
Thank you for having an interest our work! Although it’s not a very well-known title, because of the fans of BL who continue to talk about it and reblog articles on it, it’s slowly gaining popularity.
To anyone who likes BL, love stories that make your heart skip a beat, pretty dresses, fancy sparkly magic wands, and characters that have a good time with each other… we would love it if you could play our game.
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