Along with Tanaka, Yamada (山田) is also often used as a placeholder surname. It’s a comparably common name that’s also simple to read and write.

As for female placeholder given names, IMO the closest equivalent to Taro would probably be Hanako (花子). I’ve seen adverts that show sample credit cards or forms bearing these names.

For example, an ad for a Toyota financing promotion might feature the name Toyota Taro on the sample application form. Or in a Mitsubishi UFJ credit card ad, the happy-looking lady in the ad will be using a credit card that bears the name Mitsubishi Hanako.

It’s home to a very strange community unaware that their “platform” was just an image host for users of an actual social media platform. Well, at least it was before imgur recently started adding social media features and purged nsfw content.

Popular image posts from reddit would routinely get boosted (sans context) to the top of imgur’s homepage, which would attract confused, angry, and often unintentionally hilarious comments from imgur users. Iirc there was a subreddit dedicated to this phenomenon.

Most open-world games have areas on the map that are blank until you “explore” them by climbing a tower of some kind and “activating” that region on your map.

This results in trudging blindly into the middle of every new area, ignoring interesting stuff along the way and beelining to the tower just so you can see the damn map. It’s an annoyingly unnatural way to explore.

I didn’t even realize that I disliked it until I played Far Cry 6, which has a much more organic and immersive landmark discovery process. You learn locations of interest from readables and by talking to friendly NPCs that you encounter in the world.

In FC6 it’s even thematic, since you’re guerilla fighters passing intel along by word of mouth.

Edit: sp

That’s what I love about roguelites. You’d think that “death == start over” would be a punishing and stressful mechanic, but paradoxically it’s the opposite.

Playthroughs are short, so the stakes are low. And between runs, you unlock items, abilities, or characters that change the experience for future runs.

I especially love how Hades did it. In that game, routinely dying is actually essential to both progression and the story.

Soulslikes also remove much of the stress from death. You do lose your unbanked currency, but you have the chance to recover it if you can get to the spot where you last died. IMO, this adds just the right level of tension and excitement without actually being very high-stakes. Dying just becomes how you learn the game - new enemies, traps, etc.