Kingdom Hearts, Territoriality and Flow William Humberto Huber Stephen Mandiberg UC San Diego, Art and Media History UC San Diego, Communication 9400 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093 9400 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093
[email protected] [email protected] ABSTRACT with an unnamed Disney executive that led to the This paper explores the relationship between companies collaboration between the two companies. The work is Square-Enix and Disney as played out within the games of primarily the product of Square: the directors, producers, the Kingdom Hearts (キングダムハーツ) franchise. We and team leads are all Square employees, merchandise from contrast the relationship between these two transnational the game is sold by Square-Enix's merchandising group, companies within the franchise's aesthetics and theoretical and Kingdom Hearts merchandise has very little presence in logics over the course of the various games. We are Disney retail spaces. Disney's contribution has been to give particularly interested in the games' own thematization and the development team authorization to create worlds based problematization of concepts of globalization, on Disney properties. transnationalism and cultural flow. The games narratively Reflecting this industrial relationship is the structure of the and interactively foreground the collapse of membranes that games as traversable narrative spaces. The main protagonist separate worlds, producing legitimate and illegitimate is Sora, who begins the first game on Destiny Island. Sora modes of territoriality and intermixture. is a Square-created character; character design in Square Author Keywords games has institutionally been accorded authorial status, with character designers joining composers, art directors role-playing games, franchises, Japan, globalization, and producers in the short list of named credited artists.