Happy Halloween Dickwraiths and Sunbros alike!

I am currently in a Japanese Popular Culture class in college, where we are doing a semester-long project on any item from Japanese popular culture we choose. Not being much of an otaku, I immediately decided I wanted to focus on Dark Souls, as it's from Japan and whatnot. Some of the research questions I've developed so far are as follows:

• What role does the game’s Japanese origin play in terms of the games setting (medieval) plot (minimalist) and mechanics (widely renowned as one of the hardest games of this generation)?
• In what way does the actively engaged fan community of the game contribute to interpreting the games complex narrative, and what kind of energy do these fan interactions promote?
• What is/ is there much difference between the Japanese fan base of the Dark Souls franchise and the worldwide audience?

Thus far most of my research has come from editorials and developer interviews about the game or FROMsoft, but I'm also planning on doing some more hands-on research in the form of a survey I'll be posting to the various Dark Souls subreddits, as well as community forums.

for the time being, I'm just trying to get some feedback.

What are some other questions I should be asking and looking into in this kind of paper?

Any sources I would be absolutely insane to not use?

Also, for some introductory comments and the like, if you folks could do me a solid and describe your dark souls experience in a sentence or two in a comment, It'd be greatly appreciated.

For now, Happy Halloween, and PRAISE THE SUN.