To whoever is looking for the kanji to “zetsubou shita” Sunday, May 3 2009

I don’t know just what you want with it, but here is the catchphrase of Itoshiki Nozomu aka “zetsubou sensei” in all its original Japanese glory for your consideration:

絶望したっ!

Let me point out that only the “zetsubou” is kanji and the “shita” is hiragana with the little “tsu” indicating that the “ah” sound is extended. Just for fun here’s a line from chapter 31 which is in volume 4:

絶望したっ!　足切り社会に絶望したっ!

If I’m not mistaken that means “I’m in despair because of society’s cutoff points”. Possibly “ashikiri” is a term for selection/sorting processes in Japanese society similar to the concept of a “cutoff point” in the English language. I’m assuming that the likes of having a college degree would be one, and then what type of degree, or from which university for example.

Thinking about it an acquaintance of mine recently returned to university for a more advanced degree in the hopes of advancing in the world; however, he is in his early 40s and the university isn’t a very impressive one, so even though he’s more qualified than before he couldn’t get hired anywhere. Since he had quit his old job he’s ironically worse off than before trying to improve. So I guess you could say that the “ashikiri” of our society dictates that even though it’s okay to be in middle-management when you’re 40 something, you can’t expect to start out in the middle someplace new when you’re at that age.

Wow it’s been so long since I did my Q & A that I didn’t even realize this should fall under it until all was said and done. It seems that my priorities have changed as well.

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The lonely anime season Friday, Sep 5 2008

Honestly the anime that started in the spring, winter, and summer this year in Japan was no worse than it has been any other year. I simply did not get very excited about it. The only shows that I recall watching consistently every week are Gundam 00, Shakugan no Shana 2nd, (both of which I disliked and started in 2007 if memory serves but of which will watch future incarnations of anyway) Kimi ga Aruji de Shitsuji ga Ore de They Are My Noble Masters (guilty pleasure), and Code Geass Hangyaku no Lelouche R2 (business as usual). Instead of watching newer anime I found myself either catching up to or revisiting sumarily older series like G-Gundam, Tekkaman Blade, etc. I have watched a variety of series in whole and part after they finished running though like the two Minami-ke series, Koutetsushin Jeeg, Kaiji, Hakaba Kitaro, etc. And decided that there were some I wished I had been watching from the get-go as they say (somewhere) so I decided to mention those.

Kyouran Kazoku Nikki. This show, based on a light novel series, reminds me in its tone of the works of semi-obscure manga author　もりしげ Morishige who is best known for Hanaukyo Maid Tai and Koi Koi 7 which had slight anime adaptations. The first HNT adaptation was trash but the second one surprised the hell out of me, I think it was more faithful to the manga but I have not read much of that. Anyway the whole thing ultimately does not make a lot of sense but it mixes totally fucking around with things issues that are actually really damn serious and the experience is distinct. I suppose you could say that the presentation diminishes the issues but I am in a generous mood so I don’t feel that way when watching the show. Of course switching between deadly serious and utterly ridiculous is a long standing narrative technique. How far it goes back in anime I can’t say for sure, possibly 30 years. City Hunter (about 20 years old) is typically the oldest example given but in spite of being a comedy Urusei Yatsura would sometimes slip into being really serious if not necessarily dealing with serious elements. However it is Morishige’s work that stands out to me as ushering in this sort of minor trend that Kyouran Kazoku Nikki fits into of instead being a serious story that wrapped up with lighter elements. Well you can draw your own conclusions about that, I might be way off base now that I’m thinking about it. Anyway I enjoy the show but I held off because the light novels are ongoing and I’ve been let down by the non-endings that anime adaptations have had in the past couple of years.

Nabari no Ou (I am too lazy today to write the japanese names). This show actually isn’t very good but it’s a bit of a change of pace for me. I would describe it as being like Naruto but with more of a shoujou style both art and story wise and set in modern times. I would express this as the equation N=nM+S where N is nabari no ou, n is naruto, M is modern times, and S is shoujou. Which means that n=(N-S)/M. Probably. But seriously I keep waiting for this series to turn into a boys love title between Miharu and Yoite or a shouta title between Miharu and Thobari or a shoujo title between Miharu and Raimei but lacking all of that it remains a mellodramatic shounen anime. This is a series that has some of the most minimal animation you would usually see in a work of its purported length (allegedly it will be <26 episodes). The backgrounds make me nostalgic but that just means they’re cheap. And for a series about ninjas it has ridiculously little action. The plot tends not to advance in a very active manner either. Yeah this is definitely a work people could stay away from. But I’m watching it and I don’t regret that so that means something. This is based on an ongoing manga conversely, and seems to not be any better on the whole than Shion no Ou. Which I am just mentioning since they both have “no ou” (king of, ou meaning king and… forget it) in the title.

Natsume Yuujinchou. Well this one… I think it has a sort of Mushishi vibe to it in that it deals with traditional Japanese mysticism, youkai, ayakashi, etc. while at least initially coming off as more easy going. Different elements also remind me of the Kitaro (gegege more than hakaba) series, Ayakashi Ayashi (the power of names and the kanji flowing around and such), and Kekkaishi (both series have an animal spirit with “Madara” in their name). I guess in a way this is kind of a mish mash series and certainly the “monster book” is not an original story element either but the overall execution is to my liking and the animation and action are both passable. Ultimately I just like supernatural stuff though so I’m willing to give the show a chance for now. I really think that it is in conveying the supernatural that anime really stands out as a medium because you are actually creating a world in which those things exist and take actions instead of relegating spirits and creatures and such to cheap effects.

Yakushiji Ryoko no Kaiki Jikenbo (basically “Ryoko’s strange case files” would be a transliteration). Try saying that fast. Based on a novel series by the productive fantasy writer Yoshiki Tanaka whose various series have or will soon all have been animated now as far as I can tell. I myself have never read any of his work but have seen at least part of all the animated adaptations that have come out so far. Illustrations in the books are by Narumi Kakinouchi who is most famous (probably) for Vampire (Princess) Miyu which I’m a fan of. In fact the creepy looking user icon I badly drew was partly inspired (in my mind) by Larva’s mask crossed with a clown’s. Anyway this show is almost over at this point but it’s worth watching if you get the chance.

Other ones I’ll throw out there are Birdy The Mighty Decode (probably a remake based on the 2nd Birdy manga), Slayers Revolution (slayers hasn’t aged well but I can still appreciate it), the third Zero no Tsukaima series (guilty pleasure), and if you haven’t seen the manga Detroit Metal City.

hmm a thousand words about this crap, seriously?

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Keep that chinko where I can see it Friday, May 30 2008

Well once again though I had commented that I was watching a lot of american movies lately right now I’ll be writing about a couple of japanese ones. They were at least the american versions of these films. These movies are dramatically different from each other having in common only their country of origin, language, and death.

First up I watched the movie “Reincarnation” 輪廻 (rinne) which is probably most notable for being directed by Shimizu Takashi the guy who did Ju-on/The Grudge. I personally have not seen those movies and have no interest in doing so but I had previously seen a movie of his called Marebito which was a joint work with well known surreal anime writer Konaka Chiaki (aka Chiaki Kon). That work was not great by the way and neither is this one. Both are somewhat surreal but I thought that movie was at least interesting. For some reason the story of this movie seemed really familiar to me but I can’t quite place it. I guess the idea of going back to a mass murder scene for whatever reason (in this case for research to film a movie about the event) is just a common enough plot element that everything else seemed familiar as well. The problem I have with this movie is that it’s like it’s trying to tell too many different stories at once and ends out not succeeding at making any of them very clear. I will laud the work for its “technical” aspects, the soundtrack by Kawai Kenji who can probably only do music for dark series but at least he’s the best at it stands out, the camera work is pretty good, the film quality seemed to be what it should be, the sets were great (especially the set of the set), and even a lot of the acting is pretty good for this kind of movie. In my opinion the two most difficult roles are ones where your life is on the line or where you’re playing an actor acting. I didn’t recognize any of the actors in the film but I’m not an expert on that in the first place and I particularly have little knowledge of japanese actors, voice actors on the other hand I at least recognize. Speaking of which I thought I recognized the artist who did the ending song that ran during the credits but I’m having a hard time now figuring that out. Oh well. Anyway the plot of the movie is whatever, I think that there are too many asian horror movies that have creepy girls or creepy dolls so to have both is just annoying. It’s almost become a bad stereotype ever since Ringu. I mean really. Of course the whole point of watching a horror movie is to be startled, scared, surprised, or whatever it is that happens to you and so other qualities are really secondary. And so saying I only “jumped” once in the movie that I recall so it even failed at being scary! I like Kawai Kenji but his music really doesn’t justify watching a movie so I can’t recommend this film unless you’ve never seen any other horror movies before and so can’t realize how uninspired the whole thing is. The work does have a certain japanese feel that’s hard to explain any other way but again while that’s worth a note it’s not really worth a view.

I have also watched the movie “wakeful nights”　寝ずの番 (nezu no ban) which is a comedy, about a wake. I wouldn’t have thought it would work but it worked pretty well, apparently it was even the first movie by the director so that’s something. Conversely unlike with the above movie I thought I recognized quite a few of the actors in the film but I can’t place any of them immediately though I’m sure I’ve seen the male lead in other films. As to the plot, an aged rakugo (a type of traditional japanese comedy that has grown obscure) master dies and after a pun that sets the tone for the rest of the movie his close family and disciples spend the night telling stories about him. Now if the point of a horror movie is to scare you the point of a comedy is at least to amuse you if not make you laugh. I rarely laugh but I was amused. Let me say that the language and charm of the original japanese is absolutely impossible to translate in its entirety but the fine folks at AnimEigo (best known for localizing older anime series and releasing them in series or season box sets that they put up for pre-order sometimes years before production starts) made a valiant effort to put out something that makes sense and is still fairly funny if not as appreciable. Personally I like works like this that display older japanese traditions which, frankly, have become extreme luxuries (as opposed to luxuries that have become less scarce with time like western theatre, opera, and symphony orchestra) out of little reason beyond increasing scarcity. Other than Rakugo such examples would be things like Noh, Kabuki, Geisha, Bunraku, even the games Shogi, Go and Mahjong (which of course are chinese), or the way of bushido/samurai. I’m not very knowledgeable about Rakugo (which is basically comedic story telling done by a single person (I suspect that only men perform)) but as far as I know there wasn’t actually a lot of it in its traditional form in the movie though the spirit of it certainly came across. I suppose you could call the very “japaneseness” of the film a flaw as far as enjoyment by non-japanese goes but other than that the only thing that really bothered me was how certain scenes seemed pointlessly stretched out. In particular there was one that started out with traditional japanese music and then all of a sudden was playing an old western piece I recognized but can not name. Mozart is probably a safe bet and is probably wrong. It also struck me as extremely odd that “don’t worry be happy” was used in the movie, twice, even if it was done by a japanese a capella group rather than the original version by a black guy (nothing is less japanese than black guys, sorry black guys but it’s true). So the scoring was jarringly off in a few points for my tastes is what I’m trying to say. Something that strikes me as a little weird now that I think of it though I didn’t notice while watching the movie is how no children appeared in the movie at all. Maybe the japanese funeral process is a little different from what I’m used to but generally when people die and families get together that means kids are SOMEWHERE nearby. Or maybe because of all the dirty language someone thought it would be better if there were no kids around? Who knows. But it was just something that would give you the impression no one had any kids if you weren’t paying attention (early on its mentioned that someone had just given birth and later there’s also a flashback scene where someone is pregnant… that might have been a deleted scene though I couldn’t tell you why it wasn’t straight in there). In any case I think the movie is worth checking out since even though it’s extremely japanese it’s also universal. After all, everyone dies right? I almost felt like the movie had some deeper meanings but whether it’s symbolic of the traditional japanese arts dying out or continuing in spite of the masters dying or something else entirely I’m not sure. And whether intentional or not, I think that it’s a good thing to laugh at a funeral.

To step out of that for a minute, my whole life whenever someone died it was always bleak and miserable. Similarly funerals were this way. But then I occasioned to go to a funeral just a couple of years ago that was like a celebration of a life rather than the mourning of a death. I absolutely had no idea how to react to that and went about the event in somewhat of a state of shock. I frankly didn’t even care that much that this person was dead but the funeral threw me so much by being absolutely unlike anything I’d been involved in before I ended out seeming like the most bereaved one there. Actually that was not a great funeral. But between weeping that someone is gone and laughing about the things you went to the choice seems clear to me.

As a side note AnimEigo always makes a stink about not selling their products outside of North America so some of their stuff can be hard to get a hold of. But if you want to buy then you can find someone who wants to sell. And if you know a good shop that carries imports for rent…

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for some reason the title “shadowspell” reminds me of a technique yakumo used in 3×3 eyes Sunday, May 4 2008

So as it happens I ended out spending about 10 hours playing Dragon Shadow Spell today. Or more like I left the game running for about that long, I ate a couple of times in the midst of it somewhere. If I wasn’t so obsessive about playing games I’d probably be further than the 3rd mission (which would be the 7th to 10th battle normally) but up to this point I think that I’ve gotten almost all that I can and hopefully everything will turn out all right.

A few thoughts: the “free mode” in which you move your character around from place to place to talk to people has really horrible controls and that’s one thing, but unless I totally missed it you can’t access any kind of status menu outside of battle aside from the shop menu which lets you deduce your inventory. Even though the only real setting up you do is learning and assigning spells since there’s no equipment whatsoever, it would still be nice to see your character stats and inventory before you’re actually in a battle.

If the only ways you get money in this game are from the pittance you can find, which for the most part costs more money to get to than what you’re able to pick up, the mini game(s), selling items, and the money you get based on your battle score, then it’s going to be a long game. Well perhaps eventually you’ll be given money outright for winning quests but I’m skeptical.

The Summon Night (developed by Flight Plan under Banpresto and what they’re known for, arguably banpresto’s second biggest series after super robot wars) EXP system has returned wherein your characters can only level up after battle from a pool of exp that is blessedly cumulative. And just like in that game so far the setup is proving to be almost as broken when only focusing on leveling up one character to a much higher level than the others/your foes. I haven’t yet figured out whether level difference is an attack/hit modifier or not, if it is then that would really make the game broken.

The questionable Banpresto AI is also present. That is, even though you’re always outnumbered the enemy typically won’t rush you until you pass a certain point, which is usually attack range but sometimes just outside of it. I think that there could have been other ways to balance things out (if they did all come at you, you wouldn’t be able to win) but whatever, it’s a system that heavily favors my cautious play style so I won’t complain.

Having three different values (AP, MP, BP) that determine what moves you can use at any given time is an interesting juggling act which is further complicated by the party/team up system. The party system might be broken too. All you need to enter it is one BP level for every character you want in the party and neither range nor turn order seems to have any effect on it. Your characters might possibly have their turns after their party turn delayed, but I don’t think so. And even if they do any enemy, usually two or three, should go down after 11 attacks (if five of your characters go and then the last one forms them into a party and all six attacks) and you tend to only have a few enemies in range to attack you at any given time so you should be able to clear them out. And then the hump AI will just sit there passing turns until you enter their range free to do whatever healing and stat boosting you deem necessary.

Hmm well other than that, there isn’t an english language guide for the game as far as I know. It has of course now been out for over a year and is undeniably not going to be released outside of Japan and so is probably harder to get a hold of than not so the value of such a guide is debatable. What I’m getting at is that I’m thinking about writing one but it’s a pretty daunting task. Frankly I think a lot of in depth online guides for extensive games of this type (there’s a lot to see and do and a lot of variables as far as character interaction and plot events go) tend to just be plagiarized from one source or another, typically official japanese guides. But since most of these games are made with secrets that are improbable to figure out on your own (like in the 6th stage of SRWOG Gaiden where you get an item for moving Compatible Kaiser to a certain space on the map) to encourage guide buying that’s probably inevitable. Personally my gaming abilities probably aren’t that great in the first place but the main reason I use guides is so I don’t have to waste time. I don’t want to have to play a game a dozen times to figure everything out, often I don’t even want to play a game twice unless it has a radically different branching story, which is rarer among longer games anyway. Well, I have no idea whether with my limited japanese I can quite figure the game out, I know that I’ve missed large chunks of plot, but I’ve been making a few notes while playing and that’s not so bad. Things like what enemies are on which stages and what the yields are, and what level characters learn skills at and have their move range increased. I would feel pretty put upon to give actual strategies for most stages but I know that a lot of people really suck at these types of games so I could give a few observations (level like mad, carry lots of items, choose “spells” that boost stats and healing magic, gang up on one enemy at a time, healers first, and keep your party in some sort of formation) like what’s an ideal starting deployment and general priorities. Hmm… well we’ll see. I really had thought of making plot notes but that seems too annoying considering the convoluted magical (literally, with a name like “dragon shadowspell” most of the plot is predictably about magic and relics) japanese and the proliferation of kanji I’m not familiar with for names of anything from items to skills to status effects and their descriptions.

At the least you can look forward to me remarking on the game more as I continue with it. At this rate it will only take me a week to beat the game, probably, but I don’t imagine myself playing 10 hours a day every day. If only because I’m not sure my PS2 can take it.

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I wouldn’t mind if bukkake disappeared but… Saturday, Mar 15 2008

Sooooo this is kind of an interesting concept, female bukkake. If that clip is any indication it doesn’t work out quite right, or at least it doesn’t work as smoothly as male bukkake does. But whoever came up with the idea is some sort of genius of perversion and I can respect that. I’m not a very big bukkake fan in general though, it’s just a bit boring and messy to me. Mostly messy. One does have to wonder how many loads from how many men it would take to fill up that bathtub though right?

For those not familiar with bukkake the basic idea is to have a group of men, generally a very large group,  ejaculate onto a single woman. Usually the woman is sitting, often she’s holding some sort of catch for the semen, and if so then she will typically attempt to drink it all. Which can be pretty extreme in the case of really large bowls. Otherwise the men will attempt to plaster her, or fill her mouth which she’ll typically spit out, maybe into a bowl or maybe just out onto herself and so on. Like I said it’s pretty messy. By the way I’m pretty sure that the bukkake concept, as well as the name, originated in japan from “打っ掛け 【ぶっかけ】 (n) (1) (uk) (sl) splashing on; splashing at” (Jdic as it was never intended to be used) and is pronounced, to my knowledge, something like beh-kaw-kay. I think I’ve only ever said the word out loud to refer to someone’s extremely dirty car windshield.

So looking at porn I was reminded of something else, aside from batteries, that you really shouldn’t insert into your body. As a general rule anything that can have a part come off should not be inserted, including lego constructs and other such things. But definitely candles are something you shouldn’t put in, not to mention butter (well OK I might pay money to see someone try and shove sticks of butter up their anus). Probably the internal temperature of the human body is not going to be enough to melt a candle’s wax, but candles can pretty easily break off at least in part when used as a dildo. And they tend to be made out of some pretty funky stuff anymore, especially the scented ones. If you get a particularly aromatic candle you’re almost guaranteed to be allergic to something in it anymore. Do you really want to break out in a strange rash inside your ass?

I think the only thing I’ve particularly endorsed for anal insertions is a dildo/vibrator although I did mention blunt tools, brushes (tooth brushes), capped pens, and flash lights. I suppose you could put a penis up there if you want, I’d recommend a condom on that penis for the bearer’s sanitation, easy enough for someone to get a bladder or urethral infection from going bareback you know? Allegedly anal sex is the most likely sex act to transmit HIV. That’s not good. Supposedly anal play doesn’t increase incontinence so that’s good news. Although I don’t believe for a minute that if you can insert a gigantic plug or take a fist up there that it makes no difference when you defecate. Which reminds me: don’t stick anything in all the way that isn’t attached (like an egg vibrator with a remote cable), you don’t want to lose anything inside either hole do you?

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Drive with me right out of here Tuesday, Jan 8 2008

Q: “how do you spell dragonforce in Japanese” A: ドラゴンフォース (all katakana “doragonfo-su”) However the proper title for the group which you might call the dragon force that was composed of the protagonists of the game is “the 8 warriors of the holy dragon” or something like that, the original japanese was 聖竜の八戦士 (seiryu no ha(chi?)senshi). Don’t hold me to the latter since I can’t really translate japanese into english but the point was that there are 8 warriors (senshi) who used the power of the holy dragon which was named something like Harzgeldt or whatever in that game. The titular dragons in dragon force always remind me of the holy and dark dragons in Record of Lodoss War. That might not be a coincidence, but could be merely circumstantial. I mean are you going to have a holy dragon squaring off with a wind dragon? And why would the most powerful dragon be the water dragon? See what I mean.

Well that’s not why I’m here. I just got done reading “the four agreements” by Don Miguel Ruiz and I wanted to say a few things about that. Yes I have been reading a lot of self-help books lately (this, The Alchemist, the Why Cafe, The Precious Present…. I would reccomend all but the alchemist therein, if you’re in the mood for that kind of thing, but they’re all saying about the same thing anyway), and as a matter of fact I’ve read a different book every day this year so far, but as it finally occurred to me while glancing at the back of the book “is there anything more wonderful than being able to help yourself?”. Don’t kid yourself into thinking that you don’t need help if you’re pissing around here. However where to look, and how you can help yourself, are things that only you can determine. As I found out the hard way, of course, and assuredly you will have to as well, should you look. Anyway I think I liked this book because it was more self-centered, which I think makes it more honest and relevant. There were quips about god and destiny but they weren’t the point. The point was dealing with all the shit you’ve heaped on over the years, the lies we live, and breaking free.

There is a saying that the fewer words used to express wisdom, the deeper it is. And that you only dilute, complicate, and ultimately lose sight of that wisdom by trying to elaborate on it. This is something I believe. In fact in some of my earlier entries I lamented my inability to leave off after a sentence or two precisely for this reason. I’m mentioning this because in the four agreements, in the american version I was reading anyway, it actually says what these four agreements are on the flap of the book. For some perhaps that’s all that would be necessary, and glancing at them I dreaded to actually read the thing for fear of how diluted the message would be and how confused I would leave. But this was not the case. And in fact I have found a new ideal. Enumerable pieces of wisdom, in a row. To be sure there was a lot of opinion thrown out in the book, and hypothetical examples and memoirs of personal experiences which are always below ideal. But for the most part, Ruiz was always saying something and I felt like I left the book enriched.

Unlike with the tenants of “the alchemist” I am not in the mood to break down the four agreements but… Well the reason for that is that I don’t feel like they need to be broken down. I could give my opinions on them if anyone cared but I basically agreed with what Ruiz was saying that the first one was the most important and that the other 3 were just parts of that. I would further say that I agree with them because I’d already thought such things myself for various reasons. But for me they were not conclusions, they are not my way of life, they were just philosophies stowed away in the trunk of my mind. Now though, who knows. I’m sick of life the way it is, and even though I don’t believe that the four agreements are truly possible to hold to, that’s kind of the point, and I doubt one would be worse off in the long run for attempting to be true to them.

Well I don’t think that it’s possible to say a word to someone without biasing them so I guess there’s no point in worrying about that last comment (impossible), but if you wish you could take it as an example of what the book is recommending that one should avoid. I will once again say that I do not like the number 4. This is entirely because it’s believed to be the unluckiest number in japanese since the main way to pronounce it and death are the same (shi). I don’t think that death is unlucky for me, but the connotation of bad luck does not leave my mind and of course I make every excuse to justify the veracity (I dig out a word from some musty corner of my brain only to wonder if I’m using it the right way) of it. Such is the human monster, so did we reach this point. Maybe. It’s always good to end a pronouncement with maybe just in case you don’t really want it to be true.

Remember; the truth isn’t what’s important, your truth is what’s important. And it’s precisely because freedom is the damned hardest thing to get, the loneliest thing in the whole wide world, that it’s the most vital accomplishment a person could ever strive for.

It amuses me that the four agreements are on wikiquotes http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Don_Miguel_Ruiz I don’t recommend checking out the official website for a variety of reasons, although they’re probably the same reason I try to avoid reading “spoilers”, but the choice is up to you: http://www.miguelruiz.com/ .

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