Deep-Sea Prisoner


 * For the website, see funamusea.com.

Deep-Sea Prisoner (海底囚人, Katei Shuujin; commonly shortened to DSP), also known as funamusea and Mogeko (formerly), is a Japanese indie artist and game developer. She is well-known for creating games such as The Gray Garden and Wadanohara and the Great Blue Sea and is working to create other games, comics, and stories through various forms of media. Since 2020, she has also started producing VTuber models.

Deep-Sea Prisoner has an official website, a Twitter, an Instagram, and a YouTube account. She can also be found on a multitude of other websites, an overview of which can be found on her Linktree.

Deep-Sea Prisoner has stated that she no longer wishes to be called "Mogeko," as the name has developed a negative connotation because it is associated with her fictional characters, "Mogeko," who are depicted as rapists.

Furthermore, even though her official alias is Deep-Sea Prisoner, she has stated that she likes being called "Funa," but thinks "Funamu" is even cuter.

History
Deep-Sea Prisoner launched her website on April 21, 2006. It went through multiple different domain names before settling on the current one, funamusea.com. The site became a place for Deep-Sea Prisoner to store and display her artworks. Initially, she was mainly creating fanart for Yume Nikki. Also prevalent was art of 2channel ASCII art characters, whom would later serve as inspiration for her Mogeko characters.

In later years, Deep-Sea Prisoner would start drawing her own original characters. She considers Nataka Kurokawa to be her very first original character, and Kurotsuno to be another one of her first ones. Both of these characters have low character codes, indicating that the character page's order is loosely indicative of character creation order.

Deep-Sea Prisoner would start drawing comics and artworks of her original characters. On April 1, 2012 she released her first game, namely the original Mogeko Castle, made using RPG Maker 2000. She has since stated that she opted for this RPG game format, since the sprites allowed for effective and expressive storytelling. That same year on December 27, 2012 she released her second game The Gray Garden. One year later on December 21, 2013, her third game Wadanohara and the Great Blue Sea was released. Mogeko Castle's remake, which is the version of the game that most people know, was released on March 5, 2014. That same year, Deep-Sea Prisoner published her first manga by the name of Obsolete Dream.

Deep-Sea Prisoner's creations, especially Wadanohara and the Great Blue Sea, received fairly positive reception overseas from Japan. In an interview at the time, Deep-Sea Prisoner stated that she was glad for the response from abroad. She was surprised at first, but being kindly sent drawings and being able to receive thoughts and impressions made her very happy.

In 2019, Deep-Sea Prisoner started accepting commissions on her Skeb account. On July 25, 2020, she streamed her first livestream on her Youtube channel. At the time, she was using a voice changer called YukkuriTalk. Later that year, she did a voice reveal during her third Minecraft livestream. Since 2020, she has also started producing VTuber models using Live2D and has started using one herself as well. In 2021, she was one of multiple creators to receive a "Live2D Buzz Creator" badge pin from the company behind Live2D.

The Creative Process and Environment
Deep-Sea Prisoner draws with a tablet pen and the digital art program Clip Studio Paint. She uses a brush customized from Clip Studio Paint’s standard pen.

When Deep-Sea Prisoner has a story idea, she starts by deciding on a rough timeline of events, then proceeds to plan the story and situations in notebooks and memos. When this is finished, she starts creating the story, with little details being made up while working on it. Upon creating a story, she particularly focusses on the relationship between characters.

Deep-Sea Prisoner has also said that, with "the exceptions of humans and some other groups," everyone in her creations is bisexual (unless stated otherwise) and that ideas such as gender and age are left as an afterthought in her creative process. Several of her characters are also "without gender, or somewhere in the middle, so it's pointless to even think about." She has also voiced her intention not to kill off too many of her characters, as she sees this as "a waste."

Contact
Deep-Sea Prisoner can be contacted through her email and her Twitter. She knows a small amount of English, but has said she makes use of translation engines. A translator of her works has also advised people to use simple messages, emojis, and no idioms when writing to her in a foreign language.

Ways to Support
Deep-Sea Prisoner has a variety of ways in which people can support her, one main way being that of Ci-en - where people can get access to exclusive and behind-the-scenes content of projects she is working on before they are publically released. Another method is through Booth, where she sells her merchandise, alongside Alice Books, Amazon, and Suzuri. Deep-Sea Prisoner has also started dabbling in the world of Live2D, and she has begun selling her creations on Nizima.


 * Visit Deep-Sea Prisoner/List of VTuber Models for more information.

Controversies
In the summer of 2014, controversy arose on Tumblr when several users got upset at Deep-Sea Prisoner because of a fan-requested drawing she posted on her Tumblr blog. This now-deleted drawing depicted one of her characters, Syakesan, sexually assaulting another character of hers, Wadanohara. Deep-Sea Prisoner deleted her Tumblr blog in response to the negative reactions. This controversy temporarily lead to her adopting new policies in regards to the sharing of her content.

Controversy also arose around 2015 among several Korean followers of Deep-Sea Prisoner. In some artworks, Deep-Sea Prisoner uses a texture of a sun with rays, which is the same texture on the Rising Sun Flag. In some Asiatic countries (particularly Korea and China), the Rising Sun Flag is viewed as a negative symbol of Japanese imperialism. In Japan however, the texture of a sun with rays is not inherently associated with nationalism. The harassment Deep-Sea Prisoner received in the fallout of this incident led her to block Korean IP addresses from her website.

Guidelines
The following are some guidelines in regards to usage of Deep-Sea Prisoner's creative media. These guidelines were outlined by Deep-Sea Prisoner herself. Most are from 2020 and can be found in Japanese on her website's Guidelines section.
 * 1. Do not repost nor translate her works without written permission.
 * If someone wants to translate for her, they have to ask her directly.


 * 2. Using her art for headers, profile pictures, backgrounds, etc. is alright.
 * (This does not include images that are behind a paywall such as Ci-en content.)


 * 3. Works such as doujinshi, cosplay, etc. are alright if they are independently made by fans.


 * 4. Fan-games are allowed, as long as it is made clear that it is a fangame and as long as none of her art or resources are used.
 * It is not allowed to rip files and use them in a game. Fangames using original art are allowed.


 * 5. If someone wishes to play or livestream a game of hers, she would like for them to read the ReadMe file that is included in the download.


 * 6. It is not allowed to create works of her media with the intent to cause harm, make profit, violate public decency, or do other things that cause problems.

Trivia

 * Deep-Sea Prisoner wanted to name her website after her handle name, Katei Shuujin (海底囚人), which is Japanese for "Deep-Sea Prisoner." Though website addresses do not accept Japanese characters, so she decided on making her site's domain name "funamusea" instead. "Funamusea" is a combination of the Japanese word "funamushi," meaning sea or wharf roach, and the English word "sea."
 * This is the reason behind the wharf roach-related jokes in her games. It was lost in translation.
 * Her favorite animal is a dog. She also likes killer whales a lot, along with chinchillas and chickens.
 * One of Deep-Sea Prisoner's favorite books is Paradise Lost by John Milton.
 * This is the book that Reficul and Elux's story is based on.
 * She loves the music by the Japanese alternative rock group Bump of Chicken.
 * Deep-Sea Prisoner has mentioned that she likes Vocaloid.


 * In her first-ever live stream, Deep-Sea Prisoner mentioned she would often draw for 12 hours a day soon after she graduated high school.
 * Deep-Sea Prisoner has talked about the various foods that she enjoys, which includes sushi, ramen, miso, tonkotsu, and taiyaki with red bean paste. She also likes persimmon seeds and takoyaki, and thinks cooking is fun.
 * Her favorite drink is coffee. She also likes bubble tea.
 * Her favorite Sanrio character is Pompompurin.
 * Her favorite color is red, with purple coming in second.
 * Some favorite games that are perfect "time thieves" for her include 7 Days to Die and Stardew Valley.
 * When asked what her favorite anime was, Deep-Sea Prisoner said she enjoys Evangelion and PriPara.
 * Vietnam and Bali are two places she has visited. As for places she would like to visit, she said she would like to go to Thailand and Taiwan.
 * Deep-Sea Prisoner has gotten into VTubers, particularly one by the name of Yamikumo Kerin, whom she has also drawn fanart of.
 * Her favorite flowers include roses, snapdragons, carnations, gerberas, and pansies; she finds flowers beautiful.