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Went to the library with Mom yesterday, and got some books on Japan and one book on overcoming OCD. Also found this book on a table, called Manga Without Borders: Japanese Comic Art from All Four Corners of the World.

The books I got about Japan were either biographies or tourist books, nothing about its present-day culture. Starbound is the reason it even matters; even though I have learned stuff about Japan from both anime and my own research, it still pays to do research and get facts straight about everything that would become relevant when writing something set in any culture other than one's own. For example, while I was discussing the fic's first chapter with Chelle, I brought up the possibility of a the crystal that appears over Miyuki's head and does her hair up being caught on camera. Doing some research on such a mundane thing reveals that video cameras and metal detectors are actually pretty much non-existant in Japan, due to its extremely low crime rate and how redundant they would be as a result. I would assume that getting the right books would provide a treasure trove of things plenty of people would assume to be the same in one culture as it is in their own but actually aren't, thus saving me some time with Google. You never know.

Starbound isn't just gonna take place in Japan, either. On the contrary, it's gonna involve a lot of world travel. Given that Japan is the country I talk the most about whenever I bring up any foreign country, what with being the anime and video game fan that I am, it's also the first country I should do active general research on. It would seem a bit weird if I were to suddenly show interest in any other country, save for Brazil (where my best friend Jake lives), Germany (where my other best friend, Chelle, was born), or Great Britain (where my father was born and spent part of his childhood).

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Right now, I do have the first part of Starbound's second chapter planned out. Stuff to happen between the time the girls leave Rokuna's house and the time they hit the first plot coupon... well, Chelle says that I shouldn't bother with sidequests if they're not gonna count towards anything like character development or the plot.

Then again, Earthbound Zero is not as formulaic as the early parts of Earthbound. That game has you collect three of its plot coupons before you enter Magicant, explore its Crystal Caves, and emerge in another part of that game's world. One of these is right at the start of the game, after you drive away the poltergeist that invades Ninten's home. The other is pretty easy to miss, as nothing really prompts you to go to the Canary Village west of Podunk or to visit the pet shop at the local department store, where you get Laura's missing chick to bring to her. If you don't read the walkthrough, you either do either of those on your own volition or eventually find out about it from someone in Magicant.

Spoke to Jake about what Chelle and I had been discussing, and after I asked him, he doesn't consider Earthbound's whole deal with the Sharks "filler". He says that defeating Frank, their ringleader, is how you earn the key to the entertainers' shack from Mayor Pirkle. Really, though, it doesn't contribute anything to Ness development as a character (in fact, nothing does), it's never brought up again, and arguably, that shack could just as easily not have been there in the first place. Contrast that with, say, the Stonehenge Base raid, which leads to Apple Kid, Dr. Andonuts, and the Mr. Saturns banding together in Saturn Valley to build the Phase Distorter, in order for Ness and co. to travel back in time to take on Giygas.

In Earthbound Zero, the game requires you to rescue someone from Podunk's local cemetary and investigate a situation at the local zoo. Neither of these ever come up again (although Pippi, the girl you rescue from the cemetary, does make a brief appearance elsewhere much later in the game), and once again, character development is pretty much non-existant (except for Teddy realizing that brute force is not enough to defeat Giegue and his minions). Completing these two tasks is just how Ninten gets permission from the mayor to check out the cave northeast of Podunk, which is initially blocked off by the police, and which contains one of two gateways to Magicant.

Mother 3 has its own share of plot coupons, the Seven Needles, but main character Lucas only finds out about them more than halfway through the game, after the Masked Man pulls the first one. Having counted, there are only three sidequests from that point onward: Finding Salsa inside the Chimera Laboratory, saving the Mr. Saturns and Duster from the Pigmask Army, and most prominently, storming the Empire Porky Building to confront main villain Porky. Everything from before the Needles become relevant actually serves to set things up for that arc to take place.

There is also much more focus on character development in that game. Lucas, after losing his mother, Hinawa, to a Drago*, spends a few days grieving for her, but then develops a backbone and leads the Dragos to assist Salsa, Kumatora, and Wess during their fight against Fassad and the Pigmasks. Duster has an entire storyline revolving around an artifact known as the Hummingbird Egg. Kumatora doesn't really have her own arc, though you could say that she shares Duster's, since both of them had been working at Club Titiboo after the three-year timeskip. And Boney... doesn't really need an arc, since he's just Lucas's pet and just tags along out of loyalty.

(*The Dragos are normally docile creatures, but the one that kills Hinawa was a cyborgified one made violent by the Pigmasks.)

Having written all that, I think I might be willing now to just let the party in Starbound go straight to finding the first mana spot once they leave Rokuna's house. Still, I don't want the whole fic to be about the party either looking for mana spots or fighting against the enemy armies. I would like there to be diversions to all that, such as the concerts that Ness and co. went to see, Lucas's time spent working in the Clayman Factory, Ninten searching Sweet Little's Factory for a bottle rocket to show Loyd, Ness and his friends visiting the Stoic Club and the Cultural Museum in Summers, and so on.