Akamachu Thursday, Jun 19 2008

To this point in the year 魔法先生ネギマ Mahou Sensei Negima has averaged less than 3 chapters a month. Already after the 217th chapter (which is either only the 17th or 18th of the year I don’t remember) it says there won’t be another one until the 3rd of July, two weeks from now. This is just abysmal.

In the past I’ve speculated that Akamatsu is stretched too thin because of all the Negi goods and the second manga series which he presumably at least consults on but now it occurs to me that he might have become disaffected from the work now that it has been dragging its heels for quite too long. I would speculate that the main problem with the work is that there are too many characters and the story has gotten dispersed, which has had the result of making any given storyline take exponentially more time to complete. For example during the present “magical world” story arc you will get 1-3 Negi centric chapters and then the focus will divert either to a summary of what the other characters are up to or 1-3 chapters about another character. Most recently there was a little Yue story arc before going back to Negi and the story finally seems to have come to a point where all the characters are at least in the same area even if they aren’t all together.

This tends to be the flaw of multi-perspective stories with large casts. I think that multi-perspective stories work best when split between two antagonistic points of view because it balances the story out a bit more. However I think that a single perspective story with minimal exposition lets one “get into” the story more. You know what the protagonist knows, you see what the protagonist sees, what happens to the protagonist you experience, and then like the protagonist you are forced to draw conclusions from that.

Using Negima for an example, we could sympathize more with Negi’s extreme stress at being separated from his (he thinks) defenseless and resourceless comrades and students if we weren’t made aware of exactly what was happening to most of them and that they were fine. This is of course a shounen manga so its not like any of them are going to get killed off either. There’s not even really any tension associated with the 3 who got “enslaved” as seemingly the worst that happens to them is having to wear maid outfits which aren’t really any worse than their usual school outfits and clean up.

Well this is just manga after all, it’s probably unrealistic to expect a find understanding of drama from someone who constantly makes panty jokes about underaged girls… Yes the only reason I’m still reading Negima is because I’ve read this much of it. Actually I think it’s the only manga I read on a regular basis now, this year, just as Geass R2 is the only anime I watch regularly this season.

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As to what happened or why you are better off using your money on prostitutes than paying taxes Thursday, Jun 19 2008

In my last post I alluded to miraculously (though of course intentionally) doing perfect on a test only to have my score reduced to 0 in what I had assumed was a bureaucratic mix up. In that short time and relying upon unnamed resources I have discovered what actually happened. To properly describe this comedy/tragedy will require some back story so bear with me.

I am taking a math class at what you could call a “jr. college” in american english. Due to various issues I have I was eligible to receive accommodations which included having extra time to take tests. For the most part the accommodations I receive are of dubious usefulness but considering that the result of my issues is more or less writing very slowly and that test results account for something like 90% of the grade this is pretty nice. However as a result of this rather than taking the test in class I have to take my tests in the school’s “testing center” which is used for a variety of things and has absurd security measures.

First of all you tell the administrator your class, teacher, and name which is proven redundant when you are forced to let them examine your ID and enter your student number on a keypad that has no display. Why you have to do both of those things also seems strange, if you have to give them your ID to prove your identity that should be enough. Let me also say that you are not forced to prove your identity at any other time such as class enrollment, advising, payment, or classes so there’s nothing to stop you from sending a proxy even if you have to take your own tests. Why you would do that I have no idea but I’m sure that others have at least attempted it.

So while the clowns were juggling these things I was forced to stand around for about 5 minutes while they decided whether or not I was allowed to use my own pencil before taking the test. Which I did at a glass topped “desk” that has a computer monitor underneath it where your legs should go at an angle which makes it impossible to be seen by anyone other than the person sitting at the desk, and which also makes it impossible for the person sitting there to get comfortable as they can’t get close enough to the desk to do use it as a normal desk. In spite of that I took the test, and I was very confident because I checked my answers and they were right (the good thing about math is being able to do that), and then I had to hand it in. Including my spare work paper, even the page I didn’t mark at all which they also dispose of because heaven forbid you copy the test onto that somehow (dipping your pencil into diluted lemon water that you have in a bottle?) so that the next person can make use of it. Anyway that was fine but then here was the problem, after handing in the test they made me put my student number in again on the keypad. They did not say a single thing to me, took my test, and wished me good day.

I have now found out that I hit the 3 key along with the 2 key without realizing it because I have issues with my hands, thus giving a totally wrong number which somehow invalidates the whole thing. This would not have happened if they had let me confirm my number or if the number was displayed to me somehow before confirming it but they do not do that and you are forced to trust that your hands were sure.

I plan to appeal this gross injustice and will probably be successful in either validating the test I took or being allowed to take a makeup of some sort. If not then I will file suit against them, probably win, and drain the public coffers exponentially not only by my settlement but because such a settlement would force firings, hirings and trainings, and reviews of procedure. For those not familiar with such things a variety of questionable and tragically overpaid independent special consultants will be called in to give opinions, which will be totally ignored by the bureaucrats that couldn’t tell you something as simple as the difference between the formulas for area and volume of a parallelogram (l*w=a squared; l*w*h=v cubed) who get to make the final decision on things. And some even worse new system will be implemented (finger print scanning maybe) instead of simply finding a way to improve the present system that will cost obscene amounts of money to implement. And of course the public will pick up the bill.

Well let us just hope it does not come to that. I would really prefer to just be able to finish my math class with the grade I deserve rather than get a worthless pile of money. But that’s just me eh?

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