Slab-O-Concrete Productions was a British mail order distributor and publisher, founded by Peter Pavement, Dave Hanna, Emma Copsey and Chris Tappenden; operating mostly in Brighton and Hove during the 1990s. Initially selling British small press comics and zines (including Pavement's own comics), Slab-O-Concrete also imported publications from the United States, Australia and Europe.

Slab-o-Concrete was originally based in Sheffield. It moved to Hove in 1995. After intensely increasing its publishing line in the late 1990s (including moving into CDs and prose books), it collapsed in 2001 as policy changes in the book industry caused cash-flow issues.

History
In general, Slab-O-Concrete avoided distributing traditional comic books, instead making connections with underground publishers, zinesters, independent record labels,and other subcultural scenes.

By 1994, it had developed into a publisher, repackaging small press comics and zines for the bookshop market and originating new works. Notable creators published by Slab-O-Concrete included Jessica Abel, Ian Carney, Craig Conlan, Alan Moore, Woodrow Phoenix and Aleksandar Zograf.

In 1998, Slab-O-Concrete published four titles in partnership with Amnesty International. The comics were designed as 16-page minicomics with card stock covers, designed to be sealed and used as postcards. Ilya's A Bowl of Rice was about the forcible relocation and killing of Shan rice farmers in Burma. Enrique Rodríguez's Freedom from Discrimination was a story about maltreatment of and violence against street children in Brazil, and undocumented, unaccompanied immigrant children in the United States. Dan Jones' Just Deserts told the story of a female Filipino migrant worker's false conviction and punishment in Saudi Arabia. Peter Arkle's Love told the story of Mariana Cetiner, a Romanian woman arrested and imprisoned for allegedly attempting to seduce another woman. In 1999, Slab-O-Concrete published another 16-page mailable minicomic called Donna's Day, by Donna Mathes and Peter Bagge.

One of their its publications, in 1999, was The Worm: the Longest Comic Strip in the World, by Alan Moore and a "galaxy of greats", which was published in association with the Cartoon Art Trust and the Swedish Council for Cultural Affairs. "In one single working day, over 125 British cartoonists gathered together in one place to create 'the longest comic [wordless] strip in the world.'" The Worm had introductions and explanatory text in English, Swedish and French.

Titles published

Music
 17%: Hendrix Was Not the Only Musician!, by Billy Childish & His Famous Headcoats (1998)
 The Attack of Everything, by Jad Fair and Jason Willett (2000)

Comics
 Amnesty International minicomics
 A Bowl of Rice, by Ilya (1998) — published in partnership with Amnesty International
 Freedom from Discrimination, by Enrique Rodríguez (1998) — published in partnership with Amnesty International
 Just Deserts, by Dan Jones (1998) — published in partnership with Amnesty International
 Love, by Peter Arkle (1998) — published in partnership with Amnesty International
 Anarchy in the UK: the Comic (1994)
 Artbabe in Pigskin vs Paintbrush!, by Jessica Abel (1999)
 Assume Nothing: Starring Liliane: Evolution of a Bi-Dyke, by Leanne Franson (1997)
 Axis Mundi, by Ian Carney and Garry Marshall (2000)
 Bad Hair Day, by Craig Conlan (1997)
 Bulletins from Serbia: E-mails and Cartoon Strips from Beyond the Front Line, by Aleksandar Zograf (1999)
 Cheap Date: Antidotal Anti-Fashion, by Peter Blake (2000)
 Daddy is So Far Away, We Must Find Him!, by Wostok and Grabowski (1998)
 Doc Trader, by Jessica Abel (2000)
 Dole Scum: Co-starring Bunny Girl and Pig Boy, by Nigel Auchterlounie (2000)
 Donna's Day, by Donna Mathes and Peter Bagge (1999)
 Dream Bytes, by Lee Kennedy (1994) — ongoing series
 Dream Watcher: Comics, by Aleksandar Zograf (1998)
 Eager Beaver (Missive Device), by Ian Carney and Woodrow Phoenix (1999, )
 The End of the Century Club: Countdown, by Ed Hillyer (1999, )
 Excreta: Stories of Bodily Fluids, by Ole Comoll Christensen (1999)
 Fishbowl #1 (1994), #2 (1995), by Chris Tappenden
 Floozie, by Jane Graham (1998)
 Gash, by Soren Mosdal (2000)
 The GirlFrenzy Aillennial: a Big Girl's Annual, by Erica Smith (1998)
 The Great Challenge: an International Anthology of Political Cartoons (1998) — exhibition catalogue to accompany the Great Challenge held at Oxo Tower Wharf, London, 1998
 Hairy Mary: Fun Fur, by Craig Conlan (1999)
 Hairy Mary: Grrrl, by Craig Conlan (1999)
 Handy Hints for a Consumer Society, by Chris Tappenden (1995)
 Liberty Fernando: a Story of Zits & Revolution, by Ole Comoll Christensen (1999)
 Lux and Alby: Sign on & Save the Universe, by Martin Millar and Simon Fraser, with lettering by Ali Kirkpatrick (1999)
 Meet John Dark, by Darryl Cunningham and Simon Gane (1998)
 Pavement (issues #0, 1-3; title changed to Pavement Pizza for issue #4), edited by Peter Pavement, with contributions by Pavement, Dave Hanna, Lawrence Burton, Adeline Wartner, Paul John, Welly, Andy Hemingway, Renée French, and Chris Tappenden (1990–1994)
 The Plot Thickens (1997) — published with Brighton-based Armchair Comics
 Punk Strips, by Simon Gane (2000)
 Schwa, by Bill Barker (1995)
 Simon Cat in "Taxi", by Nigel Auchterlounie (1999)
 The Slab-O-Concrete Sampler, (1990) edited by Peter Pavement
 The Slab-O-Concrete Inactivity Book, edited by Woodrow Phoenix and Craig Conlan (2000, )
 The Slab Selection, edited by Peter Pavement (1996, )
 Spiral Dreams, by Al Davison (2000)
 Sugar Buzz: Live at Budokan!, by Woodrow Phoenix (1999, )
 Teaching Through Trauma, by Leanne Franson (1999)
 Time Warp: The End of the Century Club, by Ed Hillyer (1999, )
 Windy Wilberforce in The Saga of the Scroll, by Ed Pinsent (1995, )
 Witch, by Lorna Miller (1999)
 The Worm: the Longest Comic Strip in the World, by Alan Moore and a "galaxy of greats" (1999)
 XXX (Strip) Burger, by Stripburger Magazine (1999)

Prose
 Below Critical Radar: Fanzines and Alternative Comics from 1976 to the Present Day, edited by Roger Sabin & Teal Triggs (2000, )
 Billy Childish: & His Famous Headcoats; Hendrix Was Not the Only Musician, by Billy Childish (1998)
 Cometbus, by Aaron Cometbus (1999) — zine
 Ground Level (1994) — zine about alternative comics
 Little Girl Blues, by Lee Kennedy (1994) – zine
 Spy TV: Just Who is the Digital TV Revolution Overthrowing?, by David Burke (2000)
 Towards 2012: the Journal of Millennial Mutation
 Part 2, Psychedelica (1996)
 Part 3, Culture and Language, by Gyrus T. Features, et al. (1997)

Notes

References
 "Slår" to "Slatton," Reading Room Index to the Comic Art Collection. Michigan State University Libraries Special Collections Division

Book publishing companies of the United Kingdom
British comics
British small press comics
Comic book publishing companies of the United Kingdom
Book distributors
Small press publishing companies
Publishing companies established in 1994
Companies disestablished in 2001
1994 establishments in the United Kingdom
2001 disestablishments in the United Kingdom
Defunct companies of the United Kingdom

Slab-O-Concrete


The Barber of Seville is the tenth animated cartoon short subject in the Woody Woodpecker series. Released theatrically on April 22, 1944, the film was produced by Walter Lantz Productions and distributed by Universal Pictures.

Plot
Woody arrives at Tony Figaro's barber shop in hopes of getting a victory haircut (a then-contemporary World War II reference). Finding the shop's proprietor out for an Army physical, Woody attempts to cut his own hair and those of other customers. The first customer that comes in is a Native American who asks for a quick shampoo, and Woody then makes a mess shampooing the man's head, which then causes the man's headdress to shrink into a badminton birdie. The angry Indian then threatens to scalp Woody for giving him the bird, but Woody quickly knocks the customer out cold with a mallet and sends him out the door, where he ends up standing perfectly still on a pedestal in front of a tobacco shop, holding cigars. Shortly afterwards, Woody's second and primary customer is a burly Italian construction worker who asks for the whole works.

Once Woody blow-torches the man's construction helmet off his head, he proceeds to lather his client's face, chin, mouth, and shoes while singing Rossini's Largo al factotum. Woody then produces a sharp razor and begins shaving the man. He elevates the barber's chair to the ceiling while singing an aria, allowing the man to fall to the ground and destroy the chair. Woody then begins liberally swinging the razor at his frightened client, who runs to escape him. A chase throughout the barbershop ensues as Woody doubles the tempo of his singing, until the woodpecker corners the man in the barber's chair and proceeds to give him a shave and haircut at manic speed.

The construction worker is dusted off and sent out the door on his way, but the angry client returns to give the woodpecker his karma. The man picks Woody up and slings him through a glass window and back inside the shop, where the woodpecker lands and is bopped by shaving mugs falling from a broken shelf. As a last touch, the barber's pole falls on Woody, whose head is seen caught inside the pole.

Cast
 Ben Hardaway as Woody Woodpecker
 Lee Sweetland as Woody Woodpecker's singing voice
 Dick Nelson as Indian, Greek Worker

Production notes
The Barber of Seville was the first cartoon to feature a more streamlined character design for Woody Woodpecker, courtesy of veteran animator Emery Hawkins and art director Art Heinemann. In prior shorts, Woody had a more grotesque appearance, including buck teeth, a receding chin, and thick stubby legs. Heinemann removed these features, and restructured Woody's body to conform to the modern animation standards in use for characters such as those appearing in Disney and Warner Bros cartoons.

In tandem with the use of the new Woody design, The Barber of Seville was the first Woody Woodpecker cartoon to use the standardized opening title card, animated by Hawkins, featuring Woody popping out of a log, asking Guess Who?!, and delivering his trademark laugh. The audio for this opening sequence is lifted from Woody's first starring appearance in the 1941 cartoon Woody Woodpecker, in which Woody was voiced by Mel Blanc.

Ben Hardaway, also the co-storyman on Barber of Seville, provides Woody's voice for the first time, succeeding Dick Nelson and Kent Rogers (the former only voiced Woody in the previous short Ration Bored, while the latter was killed in a World War II plane crash three months after The Barber of Seville'''s release), and Lee Sweetland performs as Woody's singing voice. Hardaway would become Woody's sole speaking voice for the remainder of the 1940s.The Barber of Seville was the first Woody cartoon directed by veteran animator James "Shamus" Culhane, who had been working on Lantz's Swing Symphonies for a year prior, and would continue to direct entries in the series until 1946.

A parody of Gioacchino Rossini's 1816 opera of the same name, The Barber of Seville is noted for its uses of speed, timing, and music synchronization. During the shaving of the second client, several shots are presented in rapid succession, some lasting only one-fourth of a second. Woody's demeanor and attitude are designed to match the music, and during the famous Figaro portion of the tune, Woody splits into three, then four, then five instances of himself, in less than two seconds of screen time. Culhane later called The Barber of Seville "one of my most satisfying achievements as a director".

By 1944, Rossini's opera was a staple of American cartoon humor, with a noted earlier use in the Looney Tunes short Notes to You (1941) starring Porky Pig. Later cartoons to parody Rossini's music include Rabbit of Seville (Warner Bros., Hawkins and Phil DeGuard also worked on this short), Kitty Foiled (MGM), and Magical Maestro (MGM). In 1994, The Barber of Seville was voted #43 of The 50 Greatest Cartoons of all time, as voted by 1000 animation professionals and edited by Jerry Beck. It is the only Woody Woodpecker'' entry included in the list.

See also
 List of American films of 1944

References

1940s American animated films
Walter Lantz Productions shorts
Woody Woodpecker films
1944 musical comedy films
American musical comedy films
Universal Pictures animated short films
1944 animated films
Films based on The Barber of Seville
1944 short films
1940s English-language films
Universal Pictures short films
1940s Italian-language films
Films directed by James Culhane

The Barber of Seville (1944 film)


A blog, also known as weblog, is a type of website that is like a diary or journal. Blog organizes content in the form of categories and posts. Posts on a blog are presented in reverse chronological order. That means your latest post goes to the top of the page. That way, when you make a new post, it will come first and the first post will go below it. Anyone can create a blog and then write on that blog. Bloggers (a word for people who write on blogs) often write about their opinions and thoughts. A blog containing video material is called a video blog or video log, usually shortened to vlog.

When a person writes on a blog, what they write is in the form of a post, which is a single piece of writing on the blog. Posts often include links to other websites.

Blogs can have one or more writers. If they have more than one writer, they are often called community blogs, team blogs, or group blogs because the thoughts are made by more than one person.

Blogging platforms
Websites and blogging applications that can be used to create a blog are called blogging platforms.

WordPress, Blogspot, Tumblr, Wix, Weebly, Joomla, Typepad, Ghost, Squarespace, etc.  are the most popular and unique blogging platforms today. Everyone is competing with each other for different services. Although everyone's main purpose is to attract bloggers, their different interfaces and facilities are unique.

 WordPress WordPress is currently one of the most popular and famous blog publishing applications and powerful CMS. It is an open source blogging software, which is developed by PHP and MySQL. WordPress was initially a free blogging platform that later built an engine and began downloading it for free to give any blogger access. This is a very useful platform for beginners. But that doesn't know anything. It is not possible for them to handle this. At the very least, it is imperative for a new blogger to know how to install this platform, how to manage it, how to fix minor errors or problems for society.
 Blogspot Blogspot is an open blog creation platform that allows you to create personal or commercial blogs for free. Blogger's automated subdomain is .blogspot.com. A registered user can create 100 blogs in one account for free. However, its popularity is not the same as before. But the importance has not been lowered. It is a product of Google. So, many businesses still use it, and it offers a blogspot.com domain as well as the option to buy a custom one. Its experienced platform makes it easier for people with less experience to work with and build upon it.
 Tumblr Tumblr is a microblogging and social networking website founded by David Carp in 2006 and owned by Yahoo since 2013. It can be used for free. Its popularity is slowly increasing. There are many who are trying to find a way to earn by creating their own blog on this platform.
 Joomla Joomla is a free and open source content management system for publishing web content; It is an independent CMS. Like many other web applications, Joomla can be run on a LAMP server. You do not have to pay for the services of Linux Apache Mysql and PHP software.
 Weebly Weebly is a "drag-and-drop" website developer featuring a website hosting service. A newbie use easily free although it provides paid services.

How blogs work
On many blogs, the person reading the posts can leave comments, which are notes in which a person says what they think about the blog post. This makes blogs good for discussion — if someone writes something that someone else does not believe to be true, someone else can fix it by writing a comment on that blog or on their own blog. Someone else cannot change what the post says, but the writer of the post can. Not all blog posts need to be talked about or fixed. But if there are a lot of people interested in a topic, they can start a discussion on the original blog, on their own blogs, or both. These people can discuss a topic or their point of view.

Very often, a community blog or group blog will shrink into a small group of bloggers (writers) who know and trust each other, called a creative network. That kind of community blog will also have a larger group of people, a social network, who only read (and maybe comment on) the blog. Some blogs have scoring (ranking) of posts that makes these networks more solid, so that postings that people like the most are shown first or in a way that is easier to find.

Often people have their own blog and make an RSS feed to it. When blogs have RSS feeds, other programs, called content aggregators, can put postings from all the blogs that a person likes in one place. Many people find it easier to read all the new posts from blogs they like in one place, through RSS, instead of going to each site one at a time.

Some experts think that community blogs, and some groups of individual (one-person) blogs that talk about similar topics, have a power structure like that inside a political party. These experts think that a clique (a small, exclusive group of people) will control discussions by choosing when someone has "won" an argument, and when a matter is decided. But an advantage of blogs is that even people outside that clique can comment on the original discussion.

References

Internet

Blog


Professional certification, trade certification, or professional designation, often called simply certification or qualification, is a certification a person gets to assure that he/she is qualified to perform a job or task.

Certifications are very common in aviation, construction, technology and other industrial sectors, as well as health care and finance.

Other websites
 ABA Standing Committee on Specialization
 Association of Professionals in Business Management (APBM)
 American College of Forensic Examiners Institute (ACFEI)

Standards

Professional certification


Montegiardino is one of the 9 communes or "castelli" of San Marino. 910 people live there (October 2013) in an area of 3.31 km². It is the smallest municipality of the country by population.

It is next to the San Marino municipalities Fiorentino and Faetano and the Italian municipalities Monte Grimano and Sassofeltrio.

It is home to the University of the Republic of San Marino, the country's only university.

Municipalities of San Marino

Montegiardino


Bogdan Jerzy Lis (born 1952 in Gdańsk) worked in Port of Gdańsk and Elmor company. Between 1971 and 1972 he was imprisoned for his participation in the anti-governmental coastal cities protests. Although in 1975 he joined the Polish United Workers Party, in 1978 he was one of the founders of the anti-government Free Trade Unions of the Coast (Wolne Związki Zawodowe Wybrzeża).

In mid-1980 he organized the strike in Elmor, and took part in the creation of the Inter-Enterprise Strike Committee (Międzyzakładowy Komitet Strajkowy) and soon afterwards, together with Lech Wałęsa and others, of the NSZZ Solidarity itself (he was the vice chair of the Founding Committee of Solidarity).

After martial law in Poland in December 1981 led to the arrests of many Solidarity members, including Wałęsa, Lis went into hiding and in underground became one of the leaders of the Temporary Coordinating Committee (Tymczasowa Komisja Koordynacyjna), which served as an underground leadership of Solidarity. In that organization Lis was responsible for cooperation between Solidarity and its foreign supporters. He was arrested in June 1984, accused of treason but released half a year later after amnesty was given to many imprisoned Solidarity activists. He was arrested again in 1985 and released in September 1986 after another amnesty.

In 1986, he became a member of now legal Temporary Council of NSZZ Solidarność (Tymczasowa Ra da NSZZ Solidarność), and in 1987 of Country Executive Committee of NSZZ Solidarność (Krajowa Komisja Wykonawcza NSZZ Solidarność).

In 1988, he was a participant of the Polish Round Table Agreement, and was elected to the Senate of Poland in the 1989 Polish legislative elections.

After the 1991 Polish parliamentary election, he distanced himself from national politics and started business career, although he was still active in local political arena in Gdańsk. He joined the Polish Freedom Union Party (Unia Wolności) in 1997. As of 2007, he is a member of the UW successor Democratic Party – demokraci.pl.

He is currently CEO of a private firm, member of the Advisory Council of Freedom Union Party, and President of the Solidarity Centre Foundation. After the 2007 elections, he became member of the Polish Sejm.

External links
 Interview with Bogdan Lis Offline as of 15 April 2006, try Google Cache or Internet Archive

1952 births
Living people
Solidarity (Polish trade union) activists
Members of the Senate of Poland 1989–1991
Democratic Party – demokraci.pl politicians
Politicians from Gdańsk
Polish dissidents
Polish Round Table Talks participants
Members of the Polish Sejm 2007–2011

Bogdan Lis


Odo, Earl of Kent (ca 1030 – 1097) and Bishop of Bayeux, was the half-brother of William the Conqueror. For a time he was second in power after William became King of England.

Career

Early life
Odo was born about 1030. He was the son of William the Conqueror's mother Herleva and Herluin de Conteville. Count Robert of Mortain was his younger brother.

Norman Conquest and after
Although he was an ordained Christian cleric, he is best known as a warrior and greedy nobleman. He provided 100 ships for his brother's invasion of England. Odo is one of the very few proven companions of William the Conqueror, known to have fought at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. He probably commissioned the Bayeux Tapestry. In 1067, Odo became the Earl of Kent. For several years he was a trusted royal minister. On some occasions when William was absent (back in Normandy), he served as the de facto regent of England. At times he led the royal forces against rebellions. There are also other occasions when he accompanied William back to Normandy. During this time Odo acquired vast estates in England. He held land in twenty-three counties, mainly in the southeast and in East Anglia.

Character
As the Earl of Kent he became infamous for being greedy, ruthless and a tyrant. Odo obtained a large fortune in land and gold by plundering the landowners of Kent. One chronicler, Thomas of Marlborough, called him a "ravening wolf". Orderic Vitalis, writing nearly a century after Odo's death, he showed him to be a very complex man. On the one hand Odo had great ambition. He was the perfect example of Norman oppression on a conquered England. Yet he was deeply religious and contributed to the ecclesiastical growth of England. Orderic wrote of him:

Fall from grace
In 1076 Odo was placed on trial. He was accused of defrauding the Crown and the Diocese of Canterbury. At the conclusion of the trial he was forced to return a number of properties he had taken. Most of his wealth was redistributed.

In 1082, he was suddenly disgraced and put in prison. This time it was for having planned a military expedition to Italy. He wanted to crown himself the Pope. His brother, the king, disapproved of the plan and put a stop to it. Odo spent the next five years in prison in Rouen. His English estates were taken back by the king, as was his office as Earl of Kent. He was allowed to remain the Bishop of Bayeux, however. Odo was released from prison after William died. In 1096 Odo set off on the First Crusade with his nephew, Robert Curthose. He died in Palermo while wintering there in early 1097. He was buried in the Cathedral there.

References

1030s births
1097 deaths
Crusaders
Earls and countesses
Normans
French Roman Catholic bishops

Odo, Earl of Kent


is a 1997 role-playing video game developed by Square for the PlayStation console and the seventh main installment in the Final Fantasy series. Square published the game in Japan, and it was released in other regions by Sony Computer Entertainment, becoming the first game in the main series to have a PAL release. The game's story follows Cloud Strife, a mercenary who joins an eco-terrorist organization to stop a world-controlling megacorporation from using the planet's life essence as an energy source. Events send Cloud and his allies in pursuit of Sephiroth, a superhuman who seeks to wound the planet and harness its healing power to be reborn as a god. During their journey, Cloud bonds with his party members, including Aerith Gainsborough, who holds the secret to saving their world.

Development began in 1994, originally for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. After delays and technical difficulties from experimenting with several platforms, most notably the Nintendo 64, Square moved production to the PlayStation, largely due to the advantages of the  format. Veteran Final Fantasy staff returned, including series creator and producer Hironobu Sakaguchi, director Yoshinori Kitase, and composer Nobuo Uematsu. The title was the first in the series to use full motion video and 3D computer graphics, featuring 3D character models superimposed over 2D pre-rendered backgrounds. Although the gameplay remained mostly unchanged from previous entries, Final Fantasy VII introduced more widespread science fiction elements and a more realistic presentation. The combined development and marketing budget cost around 80 million.

Final Fantasy VII received widespread commercial and critical success and remains widely regarded as a landmark title and one of the greatest video games ever made. The title won numerous Game of the Year awards and was acknowledged for boosting the sales of the PlayStation and popularizing Japanese role-playing games worldwide. Critics praised its graphics, gameplay, music, and story, although some criticism was directed towards the original English localization. Its success has led to enhanced ports on various platforms, a multimedia subseries called the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, and a high definition remake trilogy, with its first entry releasing in 2020.

Gameplay

The gameplay of Final Fantasy VII is mostly comparable to earlier Final Fantasy titles and Japanese role-playing games. The game features three modes of play: the world map, the field, and the battle screen. At its grandest scale, players explore the world of Final Fantasy VII on a 3D world map. The world map is littered with representations of areas for the player to enter, including towns, environments, and ruins. Natural barriers—such as mountains, deserts, and bodies of water—block access by foot to some areas; as the game progresses, the player receives vehicles that help traverse these obstacles. Chocobos can be found in certain spots on the map, and if caught, can be ridden to areas inaccessible on foot or by vehicle. In field mode, the player navigates fully scaled versions of the areas represented on the world map. VII marks the first time in the series that the mode is represented in a three-dimensional space. In this mode, the player can explore the environment, talk with characters, advance the story, and initiate event games. Event games are short minigames that use special control functions and are often tied to the story. While in field mode, the player may also find shops and inns. Shops allow the player to buy and sell items that can aid Cloud and his party, such as weapons, armor, and accessories. Inns restore the hit points and mana points of characters who rest at it and cure abnormalities contracted during battles.

At random intervals on the world map and in field mode, and at specific moments in the story, the game will enter the battle screen, which places the player characters on one side and the enemies on the other. It employs an "Active Time Battle" (ATB) system, in which the characters exchange moves until one side is defeated. The damage (or healing) dealt by either side is quantified on screen. Characters have several statistics that determine their effectiveness in battle; for example, hit points determine how much damage they can take, and magic determines how much damage they can inflict with spells. Each character on the screen has a time gauge; when a character's gauge is full, the player can input a command for that character. The commands change as the game progresses, and are dependent on the characters in the player's party and their equipment. Commands include attacking with a weapon, casting magic, using items, summoning monsters, and other actions that either damage the enemy or aid the player characters. Final Fantasy VII also features powerful, character-specific commands called Limit Breaks, which can be used only after a special gauge is charged by enemy attacks. After being attacked, characters may be afflicted by one or more abnormal "statuses", such as poison or paralysis. These statuses and their adverse effects can be removed by special items or abilities, or by resting at an inn. Once all enemies are defeated, the battle ends and the player is rewarded with money, items, and experience points. If the player is defeated, it is game over and the game must be loaded to the last save point.

When not in battle, the player can use the menu screen, where they can review each character's status and statistics, use items and abilities, change equipment, save the game (when on the world map or at a save point), and manage orbs called Materia. Materia are the main method of customizing characters in Final Fantasy VII, and can be added to equipment to provide characters with new magic spells, monsters to summon, commands, statistical upgrades, and other benefits. Materia level up with their own experience point system and can be combined to create different effects.

Synopsis

Setting and characters

Final Fantasy VII takes place on a world referred to in-game as the "Planet" and retroactively named "Gaia". The planet's lifeforce, called the Lifestream, is a flow of spiritual energy that gives life to everything on the Planet; its processed form is known as "Mako". On a societal and technological level, the game has been defined as an industrial or post-industrial science fiction milieu. During Final Fantasy VII, the Shinra Electric Power Company, a world-dominating megacorporation headquartered in the city of Midgar, is draining the Planet's Lifestream for energy, weakening the Planet and threatening its existence and all life. Significant factions within the game include AVALANCHE, an eco-terrorist group seeking Shinra's downfall so the Planet can recover; the Turks, a covert branch of Shinra's security forces; SOLDIER, an elite Shinra fighting force created by enhancing humans with Mako; and the Cetra, a near-extinct human tribe which maintains a strong connection to the Planet and the Lifestream.

The main protagonist is Cloud Strife, an aloof mercenary who claims to be a former 1st Class SOLDIER. Early on, he works with two members of AVALANCHE: Barret Wallace, its brazen but fatherly leader; and Tifa Lockhart, a shy yet nurturing martial artist and his childhood friend. During their journey, they meet Aerith Gainsborough, a carefree flower merchant and one of the last surviving Cetra; Red XIII, an intelligent quadruped from a tribe that protects the planet; Cait Sith, a fortune-telling robotic cat controlled by repentant Shinra staff member Reeve; and Cid Highwind, a pilot whose dream of being the first human in outer space was not realized. The group can also recruit Yuffie Kisaragi, a young ninja and skilled Materia thief; and Vincent Valentine, a former Turk and victim of Shinra's experiments. The game's main antagonists are Rufus Shinra, the son of President Shinra and the later leader of the Shinra Corporation; Sephiroth, a former SOLDIER who reappears several years after being presumed dead; and Jenova, a hostile extraterrestrial life-form who the Cetra imprisoned 2,000 years ago and who Sephiroth was created from. A key character in Cloud's backstory is Zack Fair, a member of SOLDIER and Aerith's first love.

Plot
AVALANCHE destroys a Shinra Mako reactor in Midgar, but an attack on another reactor goes wrong and Cloud falls into the city's slums. There, he meets Aerith and protects her from Shinra. Meanwhile, Shinra finds AVALANCHE's base of operations and intentionally collapses part of the upper city level in retaliation for the Mako reactor, killing many AVALANCHE members, along with many innocent bystanders below as collateral damage. Aerith is also captured since Shinra believes that as a Cetra, she can potentially reveal the "Promised Land", which they believe is overflowing with Lifestream energy they can exploit. Cloud, Barret, and Tifa rescue Aerith, and during their escape from Midgar, they discover that Sephiroth murdered President Shinra despite being presumed dead five years earlier. The party pursues Sephiroth across the Planet, with now-President Rufus on their trail; they are soon joined by the rest of the playable characters.

At a Cetra temple, Sephiroth reveals he intends to use a powerful magical artifact known as "Black Materia" to cast the spell "Meteor", which would have a devastating impact on the Planet. Sephiroth claims he will absorb the Lifestream as it attempts to heal the wound caused by Meteor, and become a god-like being in the process. The party retrieves the Black Materia, but Sephiroth manipulates Cloud into surrendering it. Aerith departs alone to stop Sephiroth and follows him to an abandoned Cetra city. While Aerith prays to the Planet for help, Sephiroth attempts to force Cloud to kill her; after this fails, he kills her himself before fleeing, leaving the Black Materia behind. The party then learns of Jenova, a hostile alien lifeform who landed on the Planet two thousand years prior to the game's events. Upon arrival on the Planet, Jenova began infecting the Cetra with a virus, and they were nearly wiped out. However, a small group managed to seal away Jenova in a tomb, which Shinra later unearthed. At Nibelheim, Jenova's cells were used in experiments which led to the creation of Sephiroth. Five years before the game's events, Sephiroth and Cloud visited Nibelheim, where Sephiroth learned of his origins and was driven insane as a result. He murdered the townspeople, and then vanished after Cloud confronted him.

At the Northern Crater, the party learns that the "Sephiroths" they have encountered are Jenova clones who the insane Shinra scientist Hojo created. Cloud confronts the real Sephiroth as he is killing his clones to reunite Jenova's cells, but is again manipulated into giving him the Black Materia. Sephiroth then taunts Cloud by showing another SOLDIER in his place in his memories of Nibelheim, suggesting that Cloud is a failed clone of Sephiroth. Sephiroth summons Meteor and seals the Crater; Cloud falls into the Lifestream and Rufus captures the party.

After escaping Shinra, the party discovers Cloud at an island hospital in a catatonic state from Mako poisoning, and Tifa decides to stay as his caretaker. When a planetary defense force called Weapon attacks the island, the two fall into the Lifestream, where Tifa helps Cloud reconstruct his memories. Cloud was a mere infantryman who was never accepted into SOLDIER; the SOLDIER in his memories was his friend Zack. At Nibelheim, Cloud ambushed and wounded Sephiroth after the latter's mental breakdown, but Jenova preserved Sephiroth's life. Hojo experimented on Cloud and Zack for four years, injecting them with Jenova's cells and Mako. They managed to escape, but Zack was killed in the process. The trauma of these events triggered an identity crisis in Cloud, and he constructed a false persona based around Zack's stories and his own fantasies. Cloud accepts his past and reunites with the party, who learn that Aerith's prayer to the Planet had been successful: the Planet had attempted to summon Holy to prevent Meteor's impact, but Sephiroth prevented it from having any effect.

Shinra fails to destroy Meteor, but manages to defeat a Weapon and puncture the Northern Crater, killing Rufus and several other personnel. After killing Hojo, who is revealed to be Sephiroth's biological father, the party descends to the Planet's core through the opening in the Northern Crater and defeats both Jenova and Sephiroth. The party escapes and Holy is summoned once again, destroying Meteor with help from the Lifestream. Five hundred years later, Red XIII is seen with two cubs looking out over the ruins of Midgar, which are now covered in greenery, showing that the planet has healed.

Development

Initial concept talks for Final Fantasy VII began in 1994 at Square studio, following the completion of Final Fantasy VI. As with the previous installment, series creator Hironobu Sakaguchi reduced his role to producer and granted others a more active role in development: these included Yoshinori Kitase, one of the directors of FFVI. The next installment was planned as a 2D game for Nintendo's Super Nintendo Entertainment System (Super NES). After creating an early 2D prototype of it, the team postponed development to help finish Chrono Trigger. Once Chrono Trigger was completed, the team resumed discussions for Final Fantasy VII in 1995.

The team discussed continuing the 2D strategy, which would have been the safe and immediate path just prior to the imminent industry shift toward 3D gaming; such a change would require radical new development models. The team decided to take the riskier option and make a 3D game on new generation hardware but had yet to choose between the cartridge-based Nintendo 64 or the CD-ROM-based PlayStation from Sony Computer Entertainment. The team also considered the Sega Saturn console and Microsoft Windows. Their decision was influenced by two factors: a highly successful tech demo based on Final Fantasy VI using the new Softimage 3D software, and the escalating price of cartridge-based games, which was limiting Square's audience. Tests were made for a Nintendo 64 version, which would use the planned 64DD peripheral despite the lack of 64DD development kits and the prototype device's changing hardware specifications. This version was discarded during early testing, as the 2000 polygons needed to render the Behemoth monster placed excessive strain on the Nintendo 64 hardware, causing a low frame rate. It would have required an estimated thirty 64DD discs to run Final Fantasy VII properly with the data compression methods of the day. Faced with both technical and economic issues on Nintendo's current hardware, and impressed by the increased storage capacity of CD-ROM when compared to the Nintendo 64 cartridge, Square shifted development of Final Fantasy VII, and all other planned projects, onto the PlayStation.

In contrast to the visuals and audio, the overall gameplay system remained mostly unchanged from Final Fantasy V and VI, but with an emphasis on player control. The initial decision was for battles to feature shifting camera angles. Battle arenas had a lower polygon count than field areas, which made creating distinctive features more difficult. The summon sequences benefited strongly from the switch to the cinematic style, as the team had struggled to portray their scale using 2D graphics. In his role as producer, Sakaguchi placed much of his effort into developing the battle system. He proposed the Materia system as a way to provide more character customization than previous Final Fantasy games: battles no longer revolved around characters with innate skills and roles in battle, as Materia could be reconfigured between battles. Artist Tetsuya Nomura also contributed to the gameplay; he designed the Limit Break system as an evolution of the Desperation Attacks used in Final Fantasy VI. The Limit Breaks served a purpose in gameplay while also evoking each character's personality in battle.

Square retained the passion-based game development approach from their earlier projects, but now had the resources and ambition to create the game they wanted. This was because they had extensive capital from their earlier commercial successes, which meant they could focus on quality and scale rather than obsessing over and working around their budget. Final Fantasy VII was at the time one of the most expensive video game projects ever, costing an estimated 40 million, which adjusted for inflation came to $61 million in 2017. Development of the final version took a staff of between 100 and 150 people just over a year to complete. As video game development teams were usually only 20 people, the game had what was described as the largest development team of any game up to that point. The development team was split between both Square's Japanese offices and its new American office in Los Angeles; the American team worked primarily on city backgrounds.

Art design

The game's art director was Yusuke Naora, who had previously worked as a designer for Final Fantasy VI. With the switch into 3D, Naora realized that he needed to relearn drawing, as 3D visuals require a very different approach than 2D. With the massive scale and scope of the project, Naora was granted a team devoted entirely to the game's visual design. The department's duties included illustration, modeling of 3D characters, texturing, the creation of environments, visual effects, and animation. Naora later defined the art style of Final Fantasy VII as "dark" and "weird". The Shinra logo, which incorporated a kanji symbol, was drawn by Naora personally. Promotional artwork, in addition to the logo artwork, was created by Yoshitaka Amano, an artist whose association with the series went back to its inception. While he had taken a prominent role in earlier entries, Amano was unable to do so for Final Fantasy VII, due to commitments at overseas exhibitions. His logo artwork was based on Meteor: when he saw images of Meteor, he was not sure how to turn it into suitable artwork. In the end, he created multiple variations of the image and asked staff to choose which they preferred. The green coloring represents the predominant lighting in Midgar and the color of the Lifestream, while the blue reflected the ecological themes present in the story. Its coloring directly influenced the general coloring of the game's environments.

Another prominent artist was Nomura. Having impressed Sakaguchi with his proposed ideas, which were handwritten and illustrated rather than simply typed on a PC, Nomura was brought on as main character designer. Nomura stated that when he was brought on, the main scenario had not been completed, but he "went along like, 'I guess first off you need a hero and a heroine', and from there drew the designs while thinking up details about the characters. After [he'd] done the hero and heroine, [he] carried on drawing by thinking what kind of characters would be interesting to have. When [he] handed over the designs [he'd] tell people the character details [he'd] thought up, or write them down on a separate sheet of paper". Something that could not be carried over from earlier titles was the chibi sprite art, as that would not fit with the new graphical direction. Naora, in his role as an assistant character designer and art director, helped adjust each character's appearance so the actions they performed were believable. When designing Cloud and Sephiroth, Nomura was influenced by his view of their rivalry mirroring the legendary animosity between Miyamoto Musashi and Sasaki Kojirō, with Cloud and Sephiroth being Musashi and Kojirō respectively. Sephiroth's look was defined as "kakkoii", a Japanese term combining good looks with coolness. Several of Nomura's designs evolved substantially during development. Cloud's original design of slicked-back black hair with no spikes was intended to save polygons and contrast with Sephiroth's long, flowing silver hair. However, Nomura feared that such masculinity could prove unpopular with fans, so he redesigned Cloud to feature a shock of spiky, bright blond hair. Vincent's occupation changed from researcher to detective to chemist, and finally to a former Turk with a tragic past.

Scenario
Sakaguchi was responsible for writing the initial plot, which was substantially different from the final version. In this draft for the planned SNES version, the game's setting was envisioned as New York City in 1999. Similar to the final story, the main characters were part of an organization trying to destroy Mako reactors, but they were pursued by a hot-blooded detective named Joe. The main characters would eventually blow up the city. An early version of the Lifestream concept was present at this stage. According to Sakaguchi, his mother had died while Final Fantasy III was being developed, and choosing life as a theme helped him cope with her passing in a rational and analytical manner. Square eventually used the New York setting in Parasite Eve (1998). While the planned concept was dropped, Final Fantasy VII still marked a drastic shift in setting from previous entries, dropping the Medieval fantasy elements in favor of a world that was "ambiguously futuristic".

When Kitase was put in charge of Final Fantasy VII, he and Nomura reworked the entire initial plot. Scenario writer Kazushige Nojima joined the team after finishing work on Bahamut Lagoon. While Final Fantasy VI featured an ensemble cast of numerous playable characters that were equally important, the team soon decided to develop a central protagonist for FFVII. The pursuit of Sephiroth that comprised most of the main narrative was suggested by Nomura, as nothing similar had been done in the series before. Kitase and Nojima conceived AVALANCHE and Shinra as opposing organizations and created Cloud's backstory as well as his relationship to Sephiroth. Among Nojima's biggest contributions to the plot were Cloud's memories and split personality; this included the eventual conclusion involving his newly created character of Zack. The crew helped Kitase adjust the specifics of Sakaguchi's original Lifestream concept.

Regarding the overall theme of the game, Sakaguchi said it was "not enough to make 'life' the theme, you need to depict living and dying. In any event, you need to portray death". Consequently, Nomura proposed killing off the heroine. Aerith had been the only heroine, but the death of a female protagonist would necessitate a second; this led to the creation of Tifa. The developers decided to kill Aerith, as her death would be the most devastating and consequential. Kitase wanted to depict it as very sudden and unexpected, leaving "not a dramatic feeling but great emptiness", "feelings of reality and not Hollywood". The script for the scene was written by Nojima. Kitase and Nojima then planned that most of the main cast would die shortly before the final battle; Nomura vetoed the idea because he felt it would undermine the impact of Aerith's death. Several character relations and statuses underwent changes during development. Aerith was to be Sephiroth's sister, which influenced the design of her hair. The team then made Sephiroth a previous love interest of hers to deepen her backstory, but later swapped him with Zack. Vincent and Yuffie were to be part of the main narrative, but due to time constraints, they were nearly cut and eventually relegated to being optional characters.

Nojima was charged with writing the scenario and unifying the team's ideas into a cohesive narrative, as Kitase was impressed with his earlier work on the mystery-like Heracles no Eikō III: Kamigami no Chinmoku, an entry in the Glory of Heracles series. To make the characters more realistic, Nojima wrote scenes in which they would occasionally argue and raise objections: while this inevitably slowed down the pace of the story, it added depth to the characters. The graphical improvements allowed even relatively bland lines of dialogue to be enhanced with reactions and poses from the 3D character models. Voice acting would have led to significant load times, so it was omitted. Masato Kato wrote several late-game scenes, including the Lifestream sequence and Cloud and Tifa's conversation before the final battle. Initially unaffiliated with the project, Kato was called on to help flesh out less important story scenes. He wrote his scenes to his own tastes without outside consultation, something he later regretted.

Graphics
With the shift from the SNES to the next generation consoles, Final Fantasy VII became the first project in the series to use 3D computer graphics. Developers initially considered overlaying 2D sprites on 3D backgrounds but decided to forgo pixel art entirely in favor of polygonal models. Aside from the story, Final Fantasy VI had many details undecided when development began; most design elements were hashed out along the way. In contrast, with Final Fantasy VII, the developers knew from the outset it was going to be "a real 3D game", so from the earliest planning stage, detailed designs were in existence. The script was also finalized, and the image for the graphics had been fleshed out. This meant that when actual development work began, storyboards for the game were already in place. The shift from cartridge ROM to CD-ROM posed some problems: according to lead programmer Ken Narita, the CD-ROM had a slower access speed, delaying some actions during the game, so the team needed to overcome this issue. Certain tricks were used to conceal load times, such as offering animations to keep players from getting bored. When it was decided to use 3D graphics, there was a discussion among the staff whether to use sprite-based character models or 3D polygonal models. While sprites proved more popular with the staff, the polygon models were chosen as they could better express emotion. This decision was influenced by the team's exposure to the 3D character models used in Alone in the Dark. Sakaguchi decided to use deformed models for field navigation and real-time event scenes, for better expression of emotion, while realistically proportioned models would be used in battles. The team purchased Silicon Graphics Onyx supercomputers and related workstations, and accompanying software including Softimage 3D, PowerAnimator, and N-World for an estimated total of $21 million. Many team members had never seen the technology before.

The transition from 2D graphics to 3D environments overlaid on pre-rendered backgrounds was accompanied by a focus on a more realistic presentation. In previous entries, the sizes for characters and environments were fixed, and the player saw things from a scrolling perspective. This changed with Final Fantasy VII; environments shifted with camera angles, and character model sizes shifted depending on both their place in the environment and their distance from the camera, giving a sense of scale. The choice of this highly cinematic style of storytelling, contrasting directly with Square's previous games, was attributed to Kitase, who was a fan of films and had an interest in the parallels between film and video game narrative. Character movement during in-game events was done by the character designers in the planning group. While designers normally cooperate with a motion specialist for such animations, the designers taught themselves motion work, resulting in each character's movements differing depending on their creators—some designers liked exaggerated movements, while others went for subtlety. Much of the time was spent on each character's day-to-day, routine animations. Motion specialists were brought in for the game's battle animations. The first characters the team worked with were Cloud and Barret. Some of the real-time effects, such as an explosion near the opening, were hand-drawn rather than computer-animated.

The main creative force behind the overall 3D presentation was Kazuyuki Hashimoto, the general supervisor for these sequences. Being experienced in the new technology the team had brought on board, he accepted the post at Square as the team aligned with his own creative spirit. One of the major events in development was when the real-time graphics were synchronized to computer-generated full motion video (FMV) cutscenes for some story sequences, notably an early sequence where a real-time model of Cloud jumps onto an FMV-rendered moving train. The backgrounds were created by overlaying two 2D graphic layers and changing the motion speed of each to simulate depth perception. While this was not a new technique, the increased power of the PlayStation enabled a more elaborate version of this effect. The biggest issue with the 3D graphics was the large memory storage gap between the development hardware and the console: while the early 3D tech demo had been developed on a machine with over 400 megabytes of total memory, the PlayStation only had two megabytes of system memory and 500 kilobytes for texture memory. The team needed to figure out how to shrink the amount of data while preserving the desired effects. This was aided with reluctant help from Sony, who had hoped to keep Square's direct involvement limited to a standard API package, but they eventually relented and allowed the team direct access to the hardware specifications.

Final Fantasy VII features two types of cutscenes: real-time cutscenes featuring polygon models on pre-rendered backgrounds, and FMV cutscenes. The game's computer-generated imagery (CGI) FMVs were produced by Visual Works, a then-new subsidiary of Square that specialized in computer graphics and FMVs creation. Visual Works had created the initial movie concept for a 3D game project. The FMVs were created by an international team, covering both Japan and North America and involving talent from the gaming and film industry; Western contributors included artists and staff who had worked on the Star Wars film series, Jurassic Park, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, and True Lies. The team tried to create additional optional CGI content which would bring optional characters Vincent and Yuffie into the ending. As this would have further increased the number of discs the game needed, the idea was discarded. Kazuyuki Ikumori, a future key figure at Visual Works, helped with the creation of the CGI cutscenes, in addition to general background design. The CGI FMV sequences total around 40 minutes of footage, something only possible with the PlayStation's extra memory space and graphical power. This innovation brought with it the added difficulty of ensuring that the inferiority of the in-game graphics in comparison to the FMV sequences was not too obvious. Kitase has described the process of making the in-game environments as detailed as possible to be "a daunting task".

Music

The musical score of Final Fantasy VII was composed, arranged, and produced by Nobuo Uematsu, who had served as the sole composer for the six previous Final Fantasy games. Originally, Uematsu had planned to use CD quality music with vocal performances to take advantage of the console's audio capabilities but found that it resulted in the game having much longer loading times for each area. Uematsu then decided that the higher quality audio was not worth the trade-off with performance, and opted instead to use MIDI-like sounds produced by the console's internal sound sequencer, similar to how his soundtracks for the previous games in the series on the Super NES were implemented. While the Super NES only had eight sound channels to work with, the PlayStation had twenty-four. Eight were reserved for sound effects, leaving sixteen available for the music. Uematsu's approach to composing the game's music was to treat it like a film soundtrack and compose music that reflected the mood of the scenes, rather than trying to make strong melodies to "define the game", as he felt that approach would come across too strong when placed alongside the game's new 3D visuals. As an example, he composed the track intended for the scene in the game where Aerith Gainsborough is killed to be "sad but beautiful", rather than more overtly emotional, creating what he felt was a more understated feeling. Uematsu additionally said that the soundtrack had a feel of "realism", which also prevented him from using "exorbitant, crazy music".

The first piece that Uematsu composed for the game was the opening theme; game director Yoshinori Kitase showed him the opening cinematic and asked him to begin the project there. The track was well received in the company, which gave Uematsu "a sense that it was going to be a really good project". Final Fantasy VII was the first game in the series to include a track with high-quality digitized vocals, "One-Winged Angel", which accompanies a section of the final battle of the game. The track has been called Uematsu's "most recognizable contribution" to the music of the Final Fantasy series, which Uematsu agrees with. Inspired by The Rite of Spring by Igor Stravinsky to make a more "classical" track, and by rock and roll music from the late 1960s and early 1970s to make an orchestral track with a "destructive impact", he spent two weeks composing short unconnected musical phrases, and then arranged them together into "One-Winged Angel", an approach he had never used before.

Music from the game has been released in several albums. Square released the main soundtrack album, Final Fantasy VII Original Soundtrack, on four Compact Discs through its DigiCube subsidiary in 1997. A limited edition release was also produced, containing illustrated liner notes. The regular edition of the album reached third on the Japan Oricon charts, while the limited edition reached #19. Overall, the album had sold nearly 150,000 copies by January 2010. A single-disc album of selected tracks from the original soundtrack, along with three arranged pieces, titled Final Fantasy VII Reunion Tracks, was also released by DigiCube in 1997, reaching #20 on the Japan Oricon charts. A third album, Piano Collections Final Fantasy VII, was released by DigiCube in 2003, and contains one disc of piano arrangements of tracks from the game. It was arranged by Shirō Hamaguchi and performed by Seiji Honda, and reached #228 on the Oricon charts.

Release
Final Fantasy VII was announced in February 1996. Square president and chief executive officer Tomoyuki Takechi were fairly confident about Japanese players making the game a commercial success despite it being on a new platform. A playable demo was included on a disc giveaway at the 1996 Tokyo Game Show, dubbed Square's Preview Extra: Final Fantasy VII & Siggraph '95 Works. The disc also included the early test footage Square created using characters from Final Fantasy VI. The initial release date was at some point in 1996, but to properly realize their vision, Square postponed the release date almost a full year. Final Fantasy VII was released on January 31, 1997. It was published in Japan by Square. A re-release of the game based on its Western version, titled Final Fantasy VII International, was released on October 2 the same year. This improved International version would kickstart the trend for Square to create an updated version for the Japanese release, based on the enhanced Western versions. The International version was re-released as a physical disc as part of the Final Fantasy 25th Anniversary Ultimate Box Japanese package on December 18, 2012.

While its success in Japan had been taken for granted by Square executives, North America and Europe were another matter, as up to that time the Japanese role-playing genre was still a niche market in Western territories. Sony, due to the PlayStation's struggles against Nintendo and Sega's home consoles, lobbied for the publishing rights in North America and Europe following Final Fantasy VIIs transfer to PlayStation—to further persuade Square, Sony offered a lucrative royalties deal with profits potentially equaling those Square would get by self-publishing the game. Square accepted Sony's offer as Square itself lacked Western publishing experience. Square was uncertain about the game's success, as other JRPGs including Final Fantasy VI had met with poor sales outside Japan. To help with promoting the title overseas, Square dissolved their original Washington offices and hired new staff for fresh offices in Costa Mesa. It was first exhibited to the Western public at Electronic Entertainment Expo 1996 (E3).

To promote the game overseas, Square and Sony launched a widespread three-month advertising campaign in August 1997. Beginning with a television commercial that ran alongside popular shows such as Saturday Night Live and The Simpsons by TBWA\Chiat\Day, the campaign included numerous articles in both gaming and general interest magazines, advertisements in comics from publishers such as DC Comics and Marvel Comics, a special collaboration with Pepsi, media events, sample discs, and merchandise. According to estimations by Takechi, the total worldwide marketing budget came to 40 million; $10 million had been spent in Japan, $10 million in Europe, and $20 million in North America. Unlike its predecessors, Final Fantasy VII did not have its numeral adjusted to account for the lack of a Western release for Final Fantasy II, III, and V — while only the fourth Final Fantasy released outside Japan, its Japanese title was retained. It was released in North America on September 7, 1997. The game was released in Europe on November 17, becoming the first Final Fantasy game to be released in Europe. The Western version included additional elements and alterations, such as streamlining of the menu and Materia system, reducing the health of enemies, new visual cues to help with navigation across the world map, and additional cutscenes relating to Cloud's past.

PC version
A version for PC was developed by Square's Costa Mesa offices. Square invested in a PC version to reach as wide a player base as possible; many Western consumers did not own a PlayStation, and Square's deal with Sony did not prohibit such a port. Having never released a title for PC, Square decided to treat the port as a sales experiment. The port was handled by a team of 15 to 20 people, mostly from Costa Mesa but with help from Tokyo. Square did not begin the port until the console version was finished. The team needed to rewrite an estimated 80% of the game's code, due to the need to unify what had been a custom build for a console written by multiple staff members. Consequently, programmers faced problems such as having to unify the original PlayStation version's five different game engines, leading to delays. The PC version came with a license for Yamaha Corporation's software synthesizer S-YXG70, allowing high-quality sequenced music despite varying sound hardware setups on different user computers. The conversion of the nearly 100 original musical pieces to XG format files was done by Yamaha.

To maximize their chances of success, Square searched for a Western company to assist with releasing the PC version. Eidos Interactive, whose release of Tomb Raider had turned them into a publishing giant, agreed to market and publish the port. The port was announced in December 1997, along with Eidos' exclusivity deal for North America and Europe at the time, though the port was rumored to happen as early as December 1996, prior to the PlayStation version's release. To help the product stand out in stores, Eidos chose a trapezoidal shape for the cover and box. They agreed on a contract price of $1.8 million, making initial sales forecasts of 100,000 units based on that outlay. The PC version was released in North America and Europe on June 25, 1998; the port was not released in Japan. Within one month, sales of the port exceeded the initial forecasts. The PC version would end up providing the source code for subsequent ports.

Localization

Localization of Final Fantasy VII was handled internally by Square. The English localization, led by Seth Luisi, was completed by a team of about fifty people and faced a variety of problems. According to Luisi, the biggest hurdle was making "the direct Japanese-to-English text translation read correctly in English. The sentence structure and grammar rules for the Japanese language is very different from English", making it difficult for the translation to read like native English without distorting the meaning. Michael Basket was the sole translator for the project, though he received the help of native Japanese speakers from the Tokyo office. The localization was taxing for the team due to their inexperience, lack of professional editors, and poor communication between the North American and Japanese offices. A result of this disconnect was the original localization of Aerith's name—which was intended as a conflation of "air" and "earth"—as "Aeris" due to a lack of communication between localization staff and the QA team.

The team also faced several technical issues due to programming practices which took little account of subsequent localization, such as dealing with a fixed-width font and having to insert kanji through language input keys to add special characters (for example, vowels with diacritics) to keep the code working. Consequently, the text was still read as Japanese by the word processor; the computer's spellcheck could not be used, and mistakes had to be caught manually. The code used obscure kanji to refer to main character's names, which made unintuitive for the translators to identify characters. Translated text usually takes up more space than the Japanese text, though still had to fit to the screen appropriately without overusing page breaks (for example, item names, which are written in kanji in Japanese language, could overflow message windows in translated text); to mitigate this problem, a proportional typeface was implemented into the source code to fit more text into the screen. Swear words were used frequently in the localization to help convey the original Japanese meaning, though most profanities were censored in a manner described by Square employee Richard Honeywood as the "old comic book '@#$%!'-type replacement". The European release was described as being in a worse condition, as the translations into multiple European languages were outsourced by Sony to another company, further hindering communication. For the PC port, Square attempted to fix translation and grammar mistakes for the North American and European versions but did not have the time and budget to retranslate all the text. According to Honeywood, the success of Final Fantasy VII in the West encouraged Square to focus more on localization quality; on future games, Square hired additional translators and editors, while also streamlining communication between the development and localization teams.

Some months prior to the game's North American release, Sony publicly stated that it was considering cutting the scene at the Honey Bee Inn due to the salacious content, prompting numerous online petitions and letters of protest from RPG fans. Square subsequently stated that it would never allow Sony to localize the game in any way. In addition to translating the text, the North American localization team made tweaks to the gameplay, including reducing the enemy encounter rate, simplifying the Materia menu, and adding new boss fights.

Later releases
The International version of Final Fantasy VII was released on PlayStation Network (PSN) as a PSOne Classic in Japan on April 10, 2009. This version was compatible with both PlayStation 3 and PlayStation Portable with support for PlayStation Vita and PlayStation TV coming later. Final Fantasy VII was later released as a PSOne Classic in North America, Europe, and Australia on June 2. The PC version was updated by DotEmu for use on modern operating systems and released via Square Enix's North American and European online stores on August 14, 2012. It included high-resolution support, cloud saves, achievements and a character booster. It would later be released via Steam on July 4, 2013, replacing the version available on Square Enix's North American and European online stores. The PC version would be released in Japan for the first time on May 16, 2013, exclusively via Square Enix's Japanese online store with the International version title. It has features unavailable in the western version including high-speed mode, no random encounters mode, and a max stats command. A release for iOS, based on the PC version and adjusted for mobile devices by D4 Enterprise, was released on August 19, 2015, with an auto-save feature. The PC version was released for PlayStation 4 on December 5, 2015. DotEmu developed the PS4 version. The game was also released for Android on July 7, 2016, for the PlayStation Classic on December 3, 2018, and for the Nintendo Switch and Xbox One worldwide on March 26, 2019.

Reception and sales

Within three days of its release in Japan, Final Fantasy VII sold over two million copies. This popularity inspired thousands of retailers in North America to break street dates in September to meet public demand for the title. In the game's debut weekend in North America, it sold 330,000 copies, and had reached sales of 500,000 copies in less than three weeks. The momentum established in the game's opening weeks continued for several months; Sony announced the game had sold one million copies in North America by early December, prompting business analyst Edward Williams from Monness, Crespi, Hardt & Co. to comment that "Sony redefined the role-playing game (RPG) category and expanded the conventional audience with the launch of Final Fantasy VII". According to Weekly Famitsu, Final Fantasy VII sold 3.27 million units in Japan by the end of 1997. By the end of 2005, the PlayStation version had sold 9.8 million copies including 4 million sales in Japan, making it the highest-selling game in the Final Fantasy series. By the end of 2006, The Best, the bargain reissue of the game, had sold over 158,000 copies in Japan. By May 2010, it had sold over 10 million copies worldwide, making it the most popular title in the series in terms of units sold. The original PC version surpassed Eidos' expectations: while initially forecast to sell 100,000 units, it quickly exceeded sales of one million units, garnering royalties of over $2 million for Square. By August 2015, the PlayStation and PC versions had sold over 11 million units worldwide. Steam Spy estimated the game to have sold over 1.2 million downloads on Steam as of April 2018, with a later Steam leak estimating it had 1.14 million players on the platform as of July 2018. As of June 2020, the game has sold more than 13.3 million units worldwide. As of January 2023, the game has sold over 14.1 million units to date.

The game received widespread acclaim from critics upon release. It was referred to by GameFan as "quite possibly the greatest game ever made", a quote selected for the back cover of the game's jewel case. GameSpot commented that "never before have technology, playability, and narrative combined as well as in Final Fantasy VII", expressing particular favor toward the game's graphics, audio, and story. The four reviewers of Electronic Gaming Monthly unanimously gave it a 9.5 out of 10 and their "Game of the Month" award, lauding its rendered backgrounds, use of FMV, battles, and especially the story line, though they expressed disappointment that the ending didn't resolve all of the loose ends. They also considered the North American localization a dramatic improvement over the original Japanese version. GamePro gave it a perfect 5.0 out of 5 in all four categories (graphics, sound, control, and fun factor), calling the storytelling "dramatic, sentimental, and touching in a way that draws you into the characters", who "come alive thanks to sweetly subtle body movements". Both GamePro and Official U.S. PlayStation Magazine (OPM) said the ATB system gives battles a tension and urgency not usually seen in RPGs. IGN's Jay Boor insisted the game's graphics were "light years beyond anything ever seen on the PlayStation", and regarded its battle system as its strongest point.

Computer and Video Gamess Alex C praised the dramatic story and well-developed characters. In addition to calling the graphics "bar none the best the PlayStation has ever seen", Next Generation said of the story that "while FFVII may take a bit to get going, as in every entry in the series, moments of high melodrama are blended with scenes of sheer poetry and vision". Edge noted that Final Fantasy VII had come close to being an interactive movie in playable form, praising its combination of a complex story that went against Western graphic adventures trends and "excellently orchestrated chip music". RPGamer praised the game's soundtrack, both in variety and sheer volume, stating that "Uematsu has done his work exceptionally well" and saying that it was potentially his best work. Final Fantasy VII has received some negative criticism. OPM and GameSpot questioned the game's linear progression. OPM considered the game's translation "a bit muddy" and felt the summon animations were "absolutely awe-inspiring". RPGamer cited its translation as "packed with typos and other errors which further obscure what is already a very confusing plot". GamePro also considered the Japanese-to-English translation a significant weakness in the game, and IGN regarded the ability to use only three characters at a time as "the game's only shortcoming".

Reviewers gave similar praise to the PC version but criticized its various technical faults. Computer Games Magazine said that no other recent game had the same "tendency to fail to work in any capacity on multiple [computers]". Computer Gaming World complained that the music quality suffered on PC sound cards, and Next Generation Magazine found the game's pre-rendered backgrounds significantly less impressive than those of the PlayStation version. However, the latter magazine found the higher-resolution battle visuals "absolutely stunning", and Computer Games Magazine said that they showed off the potential graphical power of PCs. All three magazines concluded by praising the game despite its technical flaws, and PC Gamer summarized that, while "Square apparently did only what was required to get its PlayStation game running under Windows", Final Fantasy VII is "still a winner on the PC".

Awards
Final Fantasy VII was given numerous Game of the Year awards in 1997. At the second CESA Awards, it won the Grand Prize, Scenario Award and Sound Award. During the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences' inaugural Interactive Achievement Awards, Final Fantasy VII won in the categories of "Console Adventure Game of the Year" and "Console Role-Playing Game of the Year"; it also received nominations for "Interactive Title of the Year", "Console Game of the Year", "Outstanding Achievement in Art/Graphics", and "Outstanding Achievement in Interactive Design". In the Origins Awards, it won in the category "Best Roleplaying Computer Game of 1997". Final Fantasy VII was awarded Game of the Year by magazines including Game Informer, GamePro, and Hyper. It was also awarded the "Readers' Choice All Systems Game of the Year", "Readers' Choice PlayStation Game of the Year" and "Readers' Choice Role-Playing Game of the Year" by Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM), which gave it Editors' Choice Awards for "Role-Playing Game of the Year" and "Best Graphics" (plus a runner-up slot for "Game of the Year"), and also gave it awards for "Hottest Video Game Babe" (for Tifa Lockhart), "Most Hype for a Game", "Best Ending", and "Best Print Ad".

Since 1997, it has been selected by many game magazines as one of the top video games of all time, listed as 91st in EGMs 2001 "100 Best Games of All Time", and as fourth in Retro Gamers "Top 100 Games" in 2004. In 2018, it was ranked 99th in IGN's "Top 100 Games of All Time" and as third in PALGN's "The Greatest 100 Games Ever". Final Fantasy VII was included in "The Greatest Games of All Time" list by GameSpot in 2006, and ranked as second in Empire'''s 2006 "100 Greatest Games of All Time", as third in Stuffs "100 Greatest Games" in 2008 and as 15th in Game Informers 2009 "Top 200 Games of All Time" (down five places from its previous best games of all-time list). GameSpot placed it as the second most influential game ever made in 2002; in 2007, GamePro ranked it 14th on the list of the most important games of all time, and in 2009 it finished in the same place on their list of the most innovative games of all time. In 2012, Time named it one of their "All-Time 100 Video Games". In March 2018, Game Informers "Readers Choice Top 300 Games of All Time", Final Fantasy VII ranked in 7th place. In March 2018, GamesRadar+ rated "The 25 best PS1 games of all time", Final Fantasy VII was ranked in 12th place.

It has also appeared in numerous other greatest game lists. In 2007, Dengeki PlayStation gave it the "Best Story", "Best RPG" and "Best Overall Game" retrospective awards for games on the original PlayStation. GamePro named it the best RPG title of all time in 2008, and featured it in their 2010 article "The 30 Best PSN Games". In 2012, GamesRadar also ranked it as the sixth saddest game ever. On the other hand, GameSpy ranked it seventh on their 2003 list of the most overrated games.Final Fantasy VII has often placed at or near the top of many reader polls of all-time best games. It was voted the "Reader's Choice Game of the Century" in an IGN poll in 2000, and placed second in the "Top 100 Favorite Games of All Time" by Japanese magazine Famitsu in 2006 (it was also voted as ninth in Famitsu's 2011 poll of most tear-inducing games of all time). Users of GameFAQs voted it the "Best Game Ever" in 2004 and in 2005, and placed it second in 2009. In 2008, readers of Dengeki magazine voted it the best game ever made, as well as the ninth most tear-inducing game of all time.

Legacy

The game inspired an unofficial version for the NES by Chinese company Shenzhen Nanjing Technology. This port features the Final Fantasy VII game scaled back to 2D, with some of the side quests removed. The game's popularity and open-ended nature also led director Kitase and scenario writer Nojima to establish a plot-related connection between Final Fantasy VII and Final Fantasy X-2. The character Shinra from X-2 proposes the concept of extracting the life energy from within the planet Spira. Nojima has stated that Shinra and his proposal are a deliberate nod to the Shinra Company and that he envisioned the events of Final Fantasy X-2 as a prequel to those in VII. The advances in technology used to create the FMV sequences and computer graphics for Final Fantasy VII allowed Sakaguchi to begin production on the first Final Fantasy film, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within. The game introduced a particular aesthetic to the series—fantasy suffused with modern-to-advanced technology—that was explored further in Final Fantasy VIII, The Spirits Within, and XV. Re-releases of Square games in Japan with bonus features would occur frequently after the release of Final Fantasy VII International. Later titles that would be re-released as international versions include Final Fantasy X and other follow-ups from the franchise, as well as the Kingdom Hearts series.Final Fantasy VII is credited as having the largest impact of the Final Fantasy series, and with allowing console role-playing games to gain mass-market appeal outside of Japan. Aerith's death in the game has often been referred to as one of the most significant moments from any video game. In addition, Final Fantasy VII is also noted for its use of the unreliable narrator literary concept, drawing comparisons to films such as Fight Club (1999), The Sixth Sense (1999), American Psycho (2000) and Memento (2000). Patrick Holleman and Jeremy Parish argue that the game takes the unreliable narrator concept a step further, with its interactivity establishing a connection between the player and the protagonist Cloud, setting Final Fantasy VII apart from films as well as other video games. According to Holleman, "no RPG has ever deliberately betrayed the connection between protagonist and player like FFVII does". Harry Mackin writing for Paste Magazine called the game "a subversion that deconstructs and comments meaningfully on how we think about heroism, masculinity and identity in videogame storytelling". Ric Manning of The Courier-Journal noted elements of psychoanalysis in the game. The game is also noted for its cyberpunk themes; GamesRadar+ called it one of the best games of the genre, and Paste Magazine compared its cyberpunk city of Midgar to Akira and Blade Runner. According to Comic Book Resources, the game's climate change theme is more meaningful in 2019 than it was in 1997.

Several characters from Final Fantasy VII have made cameo appearances in other Square Enix titles, most notably the fighting game Ehrgeiz and the popular Final-Fantasy-to-Disney crossover series Kingdom Hearts. Additionally, fighting video game Dissidia Final Fantasy includes Final Fantasy VII characters such as Cloud and Sephiroth, and allows players to fight with characters from throughout the Final Fantasy series, and its follow-up, Dissidia 012, included Tifa as well. Cloud is also a playable character in Final Fantasy Tactics. In December 2015, Cloud was released as a downloadable content character for the Nintendo crossover fighting game Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS and Wii U, along with a stage based on Midgar. He returned in the 2018 sequel, Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, with Sephiroth being added as downloadable content in December 2020.

Related media and merchandise

The world of Final Fantasy VII is explored further in the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, a series of games, animated features, and short stories. The first title in the Compilation is the mobile game Before Crisis, a prequel focusing on the Turks' activities six years before the original game. The CGI film sequel Advent Children, set two years after the game, was the first title announced but the second to be released. Special DVD editions of the film included Last Order, an original video animation that recounts the destruction of Nibelheim. Dirge of Cerberus and its mobile phone counterpart, Dirge of Cerberus Lost Episode: Final Fantasy VII, are third-person shooters set one year after Advent Children. Dirge focuses on the backstory of Vincent Valentine, whose history was left mostly untold in Final Fantasy VII. The most recent title is the PlayStation Portable game Crisis Core, an action role-playing game that centers on Zack's past.

Releases not under the Compilation label include Maiden Who Travels the Planet, which follows Aerith's journey in the Lifestream after her death, taking place concurrently with the second half of the original game. In 1998, the Official Final Fantasy VII Strategy Guide was licensed by Square Soft and published by Brady Games. Final Fantasy VII Snowboarding is a mobile port of the snowboard minigame featured in the original game, featuring different courses for the player to tackle. The game is downloadable on V Cast-compatible mobile phones and was first made available in 2005 in Japan and North America.Final Fantasy VII G-Bike is a mobile game released for iOS and Android in December 2014, based on the motorbike minigame featured in the original game. In September 2007, Square Enix published "Final Fantasy VII 10th Anniversary Ultimania". This book is an in-depth compilation of FFVII story-line and artwork. The Universal Studios Theme Park in Japan is developing a Final Fantasy VII themed virtual reality attraction.

Remake

With the announcement and development of the Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, speculation spread that a remake of the original Final Fantasy VII would be released for the PlayStation 3. This conjecture was sparked by the release of a video featuring the opening sequence of FFVII recreated using the PlayStation 3's graphical capabilities at E3 2005. After a decade of speculation, a remake was announced at E3 2015. The game saw changes made to its story and combat system. The game is planned to be released over three installments, with the first part being released for the PlayStation 4 in 2020. The follow-up, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, is set to be released in early 2024. Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII Reunion, a remaster of Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, which was released in December 2022, is also considered a prequel to the larger Final Fantasy VII Remake'' project.

Notes

References

External links

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Final Fantasy VII


The Italian overture is a piece of orchestral music which opened several operas, oratorios and other large-scale works in the late 17th and early 18th centuries.

An Italian overture typically has a three-movement structure – the outer movements are quick, the middle movement is slow.

This type of overture was particularly popular among Italian composers such as Alessandro Scarlatti, and in the early 18th century would usually be called sinfonia. Later, to avoid confusion with other types of sinfonia/symphony, the term Italian overture was used more frequently.

The structure of the Italian overture/sinfonia was the base from which the classical multi-movement cycle - used in genres including the symphony, concerto, and sonata - developed around the middle of the 18th century. For more about the (18th century) relationship between Italian overtures, other types of overtures (e.g. the French overture) and early symphonies, see sinfonia.

References

Musical forms
Opera terminology

Italian overture


Okey Wali, SAN (born October 29, 1958) is a Nigerian lawyer and the 26th president of the Nigerian Bar Association.

Early life
Wali was born on October 29, 1958, at Obio-Akpor local government area in the metropolis of Port Harcourt, a southern part of Nigeria.
He attended the Port Harcourt Township School for his primary education but completed it at St. Paul's Primary School in Diobu, Port Harcourt.
He later attended Baptist High School, Port Harcourt, where he obtained the West African School Certificate in 1973 and proceeded to the University of Buckingham, United Kingdom, where he received a Bachelor of Law degree in 1983.
He returned to Nigeria for professional training at the Nigerian Law School in Lagos State and was called to the Nigerian Bar in 1984.

Law career
He was called to the Nigerian Bar in 1984.
After few years of working experience, he was appointed as secretary of Port Harcourt branch of the NBA in 1992.
He later served as the Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice of Rivers State before he was elected as the 26th president of the Nigerian Bar Association, having polled 688 votes to defeat Emeka Ngige (SAN), who had 449 votes.
He was succeeded by Augusustine Alegeh, a senior advocate of Nigeria.

Controversy
In October 2014, it was reported that Wali was abducted in Rumualogu Town, Akpor City, Rivers State by unknown gunmen and released a few days after the abduction.

References

Living people
1958 births
Senior Advocates of Nigeria
Attorneys General of Rivers State
Rivers State lawyers
Rivers State Commissioners of Justice
Alumni of the University of Buckingham
People from Obio-Akpor

Okey Wali


Mario "The Shadow" Gigante (November 4, 1923 – March 10, 2022) was an American mobster in New York City who served as a caporegime for the Genovese crime family. He was the elder brother of late family boss Vincent "The Chin" Gigante.

Biography
Gigante was born in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, to Salvatore Esposito Vulgo Gigante (April 26, 1900 – April 1979), a jewel engraver, and Yolonda Santasilia-Gigante (1902 – May 10, 1997), a seamstress and maternal niece of Dolores Santasilia. His parents and aunt were first-generation immigrants from Naples, Italy, and never learned the English language. Vincent and his extended family relatives settled in New York City and Westchester County including Connecticut and Massachusetts. He had four brothers, Vincent, Pasquale A. Gigante (October 18, 1921 – January 7, 1983) and Ralph Gigante (March 14, 1930 – 1994), who followed his brother Vincent into a life of organized crime. His last brother Louis Gigante became an ordained Roman Catholic priest at St. Athanasius Church in the South Bronx and city councilman. Gigante had two sons Salvatore and Louis. His son Salvatore would follow him into a life of organized crime.

Criminal career
Mario began his criminal life as a "made man", or full family member, in caporegime Vito Genovese's Greenwich Village crew. At that time, his brother Vincent was Genovese's chauffeur. During the power struggle between Genovese and then boss Frank Costello, the Gigante brothers were reportedly involved in several significant hits for Genovese. On August 12, 1957, the day after the attempted assassination of Costello, New York Police Department (NYPD) detectives were watching Vincent's house in Greenwich Village. When Mario drove up, detectives took him out of the car, and one tried to search him. Mario punched the detective and was arrested for assault. In court, the charge was reduced, and Mario paid a $25 fine.

By the 1970s, both Mario and Vincent were capos of their own crews.  Neither brother had served significant prison time as they both kept low profiles. In the early 1980s, Vincent became the boss of the Genovese family.  Mario rose to become one of the family's highest earners, involved in illegal gambling, loansharking, and other rackets. On January 25, 1975, Mario was indicted on charges of illegal gambling.

On June 16, 1983, Mario was convicted of loansharking and received an eight-year prison sentence. However, former New York Senator Alfonse D'Amato allegedly lobbied U.S. Attorney Rudolph Giuliani to reduce Mario's sentence. In 1989, Mario's sentence was reduced to six years in prison. Mob turncoat Vincent "Fish" Cafaro later alleged that he had approached power broker and attorney Roy Cohn to bribe a judge to lower Mario's sentence. Cafaro said he delivered a $175,000 "payoff" to Cohn in three installments, dropping off the final $50,000 with Cohn's law partner, Thomas Bolan. These allegations were investigated, but no charges were ever filed.

In June 1996, Gigante was indicted along with his son Salvatore and five others on charges of using threats and violence to keep potential competitors from entering the garbage collection business in Westchester, Orange, Rockland, Ulster and Dutchess Counties in New York, southwestern Connecticut and Mahwah and Edison in New Jersey. After Vincent was sent to prison in the summer of 1997, the family switched to a collective decision-making system. On October 1, 1997, Mario and other Genovese mobsters pleaded guilty to racketeering charges involving the trash hauling industry in Westchester, Rockland, and Orange counties in New York.  According to prosecutors, the Genovese family maintained a "property rights" system in which they took control of local hauling firms and then insisted each firm had a "permanent right" to every customer. On one occasion, Mario enforced those rights by ordering the baseball bat beating of an uncooperative hauler.

Mario was released from prison in June 2001 after serving five years for extortion and racketeering in the solid waste hauling industry.

In 2005, his brother Vincent died. Gigante died on March 10, 2022, at the age of 98.

References

Further reading
Jacobs, James B., Coleen Friel and Robert Radick. Gotham Unbound: How New York City Was Liberated from the Grip of Organized Crime. New York: NYU Press, 2001.
Raab, Selwyn. Five Families: The Rise, Decline, and Resurgence of America's Most Powerful Mafia Empires. New York: St. Martin Press, 2005.

1923 births
2022 deaths
20th-century American criminals
American gangsters of Italian descent
American male criminals
American prisoners and detainees
Criminals from Manhattan
Gangsters from New York City
Genovese crime family
People convicted of racketeering
People from Greenwich Village
People of Campanian descent
Prisoners and detainees of the United States federal government

Mario Gigante


Celtic Wicca is a modern form of Wicca that incorporates some elements of Celtic mythology. It employs the same basic theology, rituals and beliefs as most other forms of Wicca. Celtic Wiccans use the names of Celtic deities, mythological figures, and seasonal festivals within a Wiccan ritual structure and belief system, rather than a traditional or historically Celtic one.

Origins
Wicca, as established by Englishman Gerald Gardner in the 1950s, was not Celtic in nature but contained some influences and borrowings from Celtic sources. "Celtic" Wicca can be seen as emphasizing and elaborating on the facets of Gardnerian Wicca that practitioners believe to be Celtic, while de-emphasizing some of the more obviously non-Celtic facets (such as the worship of deities from other cultures).  Author Jane Raeburn believes that while there is "a firm distinction between historical Celtic inspiration and modern Wiccan practice", that the two can be blended to form "a living path of ethical and spiritual growth". As Carl McColman has observed, many people find beauty and meaning in this spirituality that blends "religious witchcraft with Celtic wisdom".

Several different variations of the tradition have existed.  For instance, Lady Sheba (Jessie Bell) called her tradition "American Celtic Wicca".  Gavin Frost and Yvonne Frost of the Church and School of Wicca called their tradition "Celtic Wicca" and followers of this tradition identify as Celtic Wiccans.   Additionally, numerous Eclectic Wiccan groups and individuals incorporate what they believe to be Celtic features and self-identify as Celtic Wiccans or Celtic neopagans.

Comparisons to other traditions
Celtic Wicca can be seen as both a form of Wicca and a branch of Celtic neopaganism. On the neopagan continuum from eclectic to reconstructionist, Celtic Wicca is at the eclectic end: as non-historical as most forms of Neo-druidism, and contrasting firmly with Celtic reconstructionism, which emphasizes cultural focus and historical accuracy.

Criticisms
Celtic Wicca is criticized for a number of reasons.  Critics point to the very recent development of the "tradition", its modernly syncretic nature, its misappropriation or misrepresentation of authentic Celtic traditions and history, and its difference from all historically attested Celtic beliefs and practices.  Authors including Ronald Hutton, Aidan Kelly, John Michael Greer and Gordon Cooper have noted that Celtic Wicca draws on mythology by way of the Romanticist Celtic Revival rather than historical fact. Further, these authors have documented that Gardnerian Wicca was synthesized from elements of many cultures and traditions including Hinduism, English folklore, romanticized misinterpretations of what Gardner believed to be Native American beliefs and ceremonies, and the ritual structures and terminology used by the Freemasons. Greer and Cooper specifically point to Gardner's involvement in the English Woodcraft and Kibbo Kift groups as a strong influence.

See also
 Modern Celts

References

External links
 The Wicca That Never Was: The real story of the world's newest "ancient" religion (part 1), by Andy Steiner, Utne Reader
 When is a Celt Not a Celt?  by Joanna Hautin-Mayer

Celtic neopaganism
Wiccan traditions

Celtic Wicca