This research grant was applied for with the aim of supplementing existing competitive funding and was used for the corresponding project. Specifically, it was implemented under a policy of examining the position of games within the broader research area of cross-cultural reception in contemporary Japanese fantasy. In addition, this grant played a key role in bridging the existing research project, Research on Cultural Appropriation in Contemporary Japanese Fantasy (Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research 23K18626), with a newly acquired competitive fund focused on game studies, Research on the Role of Fantasy Games as Cultural Brokers in Japan (Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research 25K21367), thereby facilitating the exploration of new issues and possibilities for further development.

As part of the outcomes partially supported by this grant, one academic paper, one critical essay, and six oral presentations at domestic and international conferences and workshops were produced. The academic article, Cross-Cultural Reception as a Process of Resemiotization, analyzes the reception of database fantasy in Japan through a semiotic framework. It demonstrates that cross-cultural reception is not merely a process of adaptation but a creative process of generating new meanings, and that games played an indispensable role in this process. Furthermore, the article published in the journal Jōkyō discusses how Western-style Japanese fantasy—including games—has been received in white supremacist terms by the Western alt-right and far-right.

Additionally, this research was presented in several venues, including the international UBIAS 2025 Symposium, where perspectives that frame games as cultural intermediaries and ecocritical analyses of Japanese games were shared. These activities affirmed the significance of the research across a wide range of academic fields both in Japan and abroad. In sum, this grant made a contribution to the development of a new research area connecting contemporary Japanese fantasy and games.