tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-437986803486638682024-03-19T14:08:08.309+09:00Rude Boy AbroadJ-lifeRude Boy Abroadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02092622808758318179noreply@blogger.comBlogger161125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-43798680348663868.post-76598128786316277742018-08-19T13:15:00.000+09:002018-09-05T14:31:17.383+09:00Why are they called PET bottles?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihKL4a0rIvKy6XZQCPz4O65299WGvOwdl04F7bMeN-DhI2CDJ4VC3RS6dtiptdHq31QXX9MlhvHMyUhnDF_tIQ9ZBqJtu23BgOl_jZgvNLhBMqFuD_vEF7II7cUCfO4YC247Q6vA3YGaA/s1600/20170105-001.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="410" data-original-width="580" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihKL4a0rIvKy6XZQCPz4O65299WGvOwdl04F7bMeN-DhI2CDJ4VC3RS6dtiptdHq31QXX9MlhvHMyUhnDF_tIQ9ZBqJtu23BgOl_jZgvNLhBMqFuD_vEF7II7cUCfO4YC247Q6vA3YGaA/s320/20170105-001.png" width="320" /></a></div>
When you first come to Japan, someone will teach you how to use their complicated recycling system. This one is for food waste. This one is for things that can be set on fire. And this one is for recyclables, such as ペットボトル PET bottles.<br />
<br />
"What the shitting fuck?" you may ask yourself. It's clear from context what they are, and you kind of assume it doesn't have anything to do with <i>pets </i>(unless??), but you have no idea why on earth they would be called that here. Maybe you actually take five seconds to look it up, or maybe, like me, you just file it under "stuff I don't really get yet" and then never bother to find out why for years and years and years.<br />
<br />
It turns out, as with most of life's deepest questions, the answer is deceptively simple.<br />
<br />
PET is actually short for <b>p</b>oly<b>e</b>thylene <b>t</b>erephthalate, also known as Dacron, as in "Toscanini, Dacron, Dien Bien Phu falls, Rock Around the Clock." It's actually used in a variety of other contexts, such as fibres for clothing, interestingly. But basically it's a type of plastic. <b>That's it. </b>Nothing obscure, no tricky parametres for what does and does not constitute a PET bottle. All this time, when I was being confused by people saying "PET bottles," literally all they were saying was "plastic bottles."<br />
<br />
I think there's actually a wider point in there somewhere.Rude Boy Abroadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02092622808758318179noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-43798680348663868.post-43837083197591043402017-07-19T18:17:00.000+09:002017-07-20T18:12:00.399+09:00Self-driving cars, Japan, and Rude Boy<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/wmkaUS6BFAs/0.jpg" frameborder="0" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wmkaUS6BFAs?feature=player_embedded" width="320"></iframe></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">If
you can't watch the video, it shows a young man in a stylish leather
jacket driving a Lexus IS through a mountain pass. “How do I
explain it?” he wonders. “It was...exhilarating. Nimble.
Responding to my every touch. Moving faster than the wind. That
feeling of pure...<i>driving</i>. It was amazing.” The steering
wheel disappears beneath his hands and suddenly he's sitting in a
spacious self-driving orb, decades older, entering the outskirts of a
major city (Toronto?). And then words appear onscreen:</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">“Enjoy
the thrill of driving. While you still can.”</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Yeah.
Pretty much.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">*</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Reading
the news today, it's hard not to come to a depressing conclusion:</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Self-driving
cars will likely be commercially available within our lifetimes.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAJQknWAamfBlmzdc6uEYGtcSmJHspXEFsZcKhKocKvjPh9CoApne10LEJ1UNb8X58D5Zw4bUeYor9W2w6GUIMtxBl5eNzWpSdm6b9V2lOlNwufpK9s8JzK3VCRdyWfq9p6N8CpnXoUKk/s1600/The-Weeknd-Lamborghini-Aventador-SV.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="396" data-original-width="596" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAJQknWAamfBlmzdc6uEYGtcSmJHspXEFsZcKhKocKvjPh9CoApne10LEJ1UNb8X58D5Zw4bUeYor9W2w6GUIMtxBl5eNzWpSdm6b9V2lOlNwufpK9s8JzK3VCRdyWfq9p6N8CpnXoUKk/s320/The-Weeknd-Lamborghini-Aventador-SV.png" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The Weeknd in his all-red Lamb...borghini Aventador SV</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Ok,
so depending on who you are, that might not be depressing. It could
even be damned exciting. I appreciate that not everybody loves
driving like I do, or even particularly enjoys it, or thinks about it
at all unless they're currently doing it. They're not against the
concept, they just don't care. They don't don't spend all their
disposable income on vehicles they don't need. They don't analyze the
specs of cars old and new, calculating dollars-per-horsepower or
power-to-weight ratios. They don't discover the entire library of The
Weeknd because they saw an ad for the Starboy video and clicked on it
to see what the car was.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">That's
fine. Self-driving cars are made by and for these people.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Some
people, given the choice, would rather relax and enjoy the ride.
There are people who are technically skilled, but so nervous and
lacking in confidence that in practice they are a danger behind the
wheel. And then there are people who should never operate a motorized
vehicle under any circumstances. I'm actually hesitantly in <i>favour</i>
of developing self-driving cars, especially if they could communicate
with each other, dramatically improving safety and even alleviating
congestion.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The
only reason I'm ultimately against self-driving cars is because I am
deeply afraid that if they become normalized in the public
consciousness, real cars will be legislated against, and that if that
happens, I'll never drive again.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I
mean, Jesus, we practically have self-driving cars already: They're
called BMWs. And grocery-getters aren't much better. Automatic
transmissions, lane departure warning systems, <i>fucking
backup cameras</i>, the entirety of
automotive history has described an arc of human beings having to
know less and less what the hell they're doing, to the undeniable
detriment of their driving abilities. The new Civic Type-R, in spite
of being standard-only, will actually fucking blip the throttle for
you on a downshift, so that you don't have to learn to heel-toe.
Because the last thing you want to do while driving is drive,
apparently.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEBafT4_xuSfpkGCTa4qQKOCRoEFcMJN4vIX_RQre19_FkkjGIZZRZZrHdquHKWxYSiQlrz47bfSCEiZGlZC5g2galMJIFjZqOZBYimAFWEXL6yuJgA4a0K7cp_w1BtaNoCsClHutdzSM/s1600/3E2E2F0A00000578-0-image-m-202_1489297860755.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="336" data-original-width="634" height="169" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEBafT4_xuSfpkGCTa4qQKOCRoEFcMJN4vIX_RQre19_FkkjGIZZRZZrHdquHKWxYSiQlrz47bfSCEiZGlZC5g2galMJIFjZqOZBYimAFWEXL6yuJgA4a0K7cp_w1BtaNoCsClHutdzSM/s320/3E2E2F0A00000578-0-image-m-202_1489297860755.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Kylie Jenner in her burnt orange Lamborghini Aventador SV</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But
Elon Musk, Waymo, Nissan, and everybody else researching autonomous
vehicle technology don't care what I think. And one of my firm
beliefs is that you can't fight the future: It's coming, and your
only choice is whether to smile and hop on board or watch it leave
you behind. I'm talking social justice in the 60s, the advent of the
Internet, you can see it everywhere. I choose to get on board. I
would even work for a company developing self-driving cars, if that
came up. I'd hate to know that I helped sound the death knell of real
cars, but if it's happening anyway, I might as well be a part of it,
profit from it, and help make history. So I guess it's time to at
least get comfortable with the idea.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">*</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There
are, however, some alternatives to full autonomy.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Vehicle
autonomy is currently categorized into four levels. Level 1 is what
we currently have everywhere, and Level 4 is the long-term goal of
zero driver input, ever. Level 3 is basically where the car <i>can</i>
drive itself in any situation, but the driver still has the option of
driving themselves if they want to.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Level
2 is where it gets sticky, and it's where we're stuck at present. At
Level 2, the car drives itself, but it requires constant supervision
from a human being, who must be as alert as they would be if driving
themselves, ready to take over at a second's notice should the car's
AI find itself embroiled in one of the numerous situations it is not
equipped to handle. Do you...do you see the problem with this?</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Instead,
is there a way to make Level 1 safer? What Japanese automakers, in
contrast to their American and European counterparts, seem to have
arrived at is a broad swathe of features that help a human driver
operate their vehicle more easily. In other words, the computer
becomes not a chauffeur but a copilot. You gotta like that kind of
lateral thinking from a business, filling a need we never knew was
there.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Toyota:</span></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV39KlnO0ty4GWxczpN51tfw3Y00FHnORJ2fzkYAAXn-U8uCrNeJ3yApToofPY_BP2Q-VH5R_1NpqFAjn7HDC6tj5blHTXv_hU1n0PRx9PY2yuF5iaCSIoWoYW-oM9-ty9nOODG02ukVY/s1600/prius50.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="287" data-original-width="569" height="161" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjV39KlnO0ty4GWxczpN51tfw3Y00FHnORJ2fzkYAAXn-U8uCrNeJ3yApToofPY_BP2Q-VH5R_1NpqFAjn7HDC6tj5blHTXv_hU1n0PRx9PY2yuF5iaCSIoWoYW-oM9-ty9nOODG02ukVY/s320/prius50.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Toyota Prius Super Bowl commercial. <a href="https://www.cnet.com/news/can-the-toyota-prius-actually-be-sexy/" target="_blank">Source.</a></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Here
is where we have to pause to acknowledge that the Prius is an
absolutely terrible car. The only car I've driven, so far, that was
worse than the Prius was the Smart Fortwo (fingers crossed I get to
drive a Lada someday!). Well, ok, Prius is surprisingly peppy in
Sport mode. But in addition to being auto-only, on account of it's
electric, the throt...um, gas ped...the <i>accelerator</i> isn't
attached to anything, and feels like it. When you depress it, you
aren't pulling a cable that operates the engine, you're asking
permission from the computer to torque the drive axle a few extra
times each second. Really stupid. (Although the Fortwo still wins the
worst because its torque converter shifts like someone <i>learning</i>
to drive standard, and not making a lot of progress with it either.
Although it was shockingly peppy and oddly fun to wheel around...)</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But
you also have to acknowledge that the Prius is kind of an amazing
piece of engineering, developed at a time when Toyota was on top and
certainly didn't <i>need</i> something new and surprising, but chose
to develop something anyway in order to avoid becoming stagnant. It's
therefore fitting that it was chosen as the test bed for innovative
developments in driver-assist technology, <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/self-driving-car-autonomous-guardian-angels/">in partnership withresearchers at MIT.</a></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The
research project uses what the article calls “parallel autonomy,”
human drivers assisted by a computer's detailed analysis and
superhuman reaction times. These Priuses use what is quickly becoming
a fairly standard combination of GPS, cameras, and LIDAR (light-based
radar – so, “eyes”) to facilitate emergency automatic braking
and emergency automatic steering. The researchers assert that people
become inattentive when riding in a Level 2 vehicle, so instead they
sought to augment Level 1.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Nissan:</span></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">WIRED: “<a href="https://www.wired.com/2017/01/nissans-self-driving-teleoperation/" target="_blank">Nissan's path toself-driving cars? Humans in call centres.</a>”</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
“If the [self-driving] car hits
black ice, it's in charge of staying on the road. But [human
operators] can help out when the car encounters conditions it's
unsure how to handle. A human operator would look around and use the
car's cameras and other sensors to issue new instructions. The
teleoperator is there to make sure the car doesn't just shut down
when it's too dumb to know what's going on.”</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I guess this one's cheating, but
it's still an interesting unexpected solution.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Honda:</span></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxKwZ2bDeyO0dVbJGX5u8uywfPResossUPZ6J8pdf-KCn0OFivws7uqb2TuvRGrCD2x4pEW4EU9Th7eaFYhOYo1ZuC8OzdzB8Cgv3_Hs0RmlY6OvbEdL25cZ6gqvC_SOXN1qhaAco9U_E/s1600/2017-acura-nsx-44-of-45.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="545" data-original-width="969" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxKwZ2bDeyO0dVbJGX5u8uywfPResossUPZ6J8pdf-KCn0OFivws7uqb2TuvRGrCD2x4pEW4EU9Th7eaFYhOYo1ZuC8OzdzB8Cgv3_Hs0RmlY6OvbEdL25cZ6gqvC_SOXN1qhaAco9U_E/s320/2017-acura-nsx-44-of-45.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Acura NSX. <a href="https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/acuras-nsx-hybrid-supercar-struggling-amidst-slow-early-sales/" target="_blank">Source.</a></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Honda will apparently be using
<a href="https://www.wired.com/story/acura-nsx-honda-self-driving-cars/">lessons learned from the Acura NSX</a> to enhance the driving experience
of its Regular Joe cars.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">For example, the <a href="https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/auto/2018-honda-accord/preview/">2018 Accord</a> will
“match speeds with the car ahead, nudge the wheel to keep you from
straying out of your lane, and it'll even bring the car to a stop if
it detects an impending collision. It can even recognize traffic
signs and display them to the driver. A multiangle backup camera is
also standard on all trims. Blind-spot monitoring, front and rear
parking sensors, rear cross traffic alert and a driver awareness
monitor are optional.”</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This is hardly an exhaustive list
of all the developments in self-driving technology, or even just the
Japanese sphere of it – that'd be a topic for a whole blog on its
own – but it's a representative sampling of what's coming out of
the country in that area.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">*</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And
I kind of hate all this shit.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfaZdQkUz59Kmz8HODlAhCcAFp7tIWjq6c3zDxvJdwNb1Ra8dVSxl8dP4Y86mL5vS7DVFVCWO2NF1TQ62atbaDNLnmwlh8Z4F7NtMiv6TaZO1MUeTD2O5IWf5BycwVoYfYg9vICl6eGaI/s1600/elon-musk-hinted-we-may-not-actually-see-teslas-newest-car-next-month.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfaZdQkUz59Kmz8HODlAhCcAFp7tIWjq6c3zDxvJdwNb1Ra8dVSxl8dP4Y86mL5vS7DVFVCWO2NF1TQ62atbaDNLnmwlh8Z4F7NtMiv6TaZO1MUeTD2O5IWf5BycwVoYfYg9vICl6eGaI/s320/elon-musk-hinted-we-may-not-actually-see-teslas-newest-car-next-month.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Elon Musk with a Tesla Model 3.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Tesla
has actually recently included an option to allow their cars to go up
to five klicks over the speed limit while in self-driving mode, which
is unbelievably fucking stupid, because how the fuck did you not
understand what you were getting into? Either accept that your car is
going to restrain itself to the legal limit, or learn to drive it
long distances yourself. Fucking rich people, hey?</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And
this actually speaks to my wider point: So, so many motorists are
overwhelmed by their own sense of entitlement. I mean really. It's
why they drive like complete dipshits on the highway, or send Mission
Critical texts while driving, or drive while drunk or high. Traffic
safety is one of the only things I take seriously. Because I love
driving, I respect it.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">“Oh,
haha, but I actually drive <i>better</i> high, man.” Fuck you.
Fuck. You. “But I only text when it's really important.” It's
never important. You know it, I know it. It's certainly not more
important than what's happening around you. When you say shit like
that, what you're really saying is, “I think I'm more important
than everyone else.” Oh, you literally think you are? Fuck you. We
already went over this.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">*</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">What's
wrong with driver assist?</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJMmx9uibypT0c4VFLxoTlEjv2xrXhqyGJ5pqOTDa2xt6ieCmMxXG1S-L820t_oTIx6Lp94kzee2FFwk2mdz5_u1IzBT7AW4AmZthGxY5EBaU0MJ-xdrvua_rbmToVG_4gbs5UlpR4BKI/s1600/smile.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="270" data-original-width="360" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJMmx9uibypT0c4VFLxoTlEjv2xrXhqyGJ5pqOTDa2xt6ieCmMxXG1S-L820t_oTIx6Lp94kzee2FFwk2mdz5_u1IzBT7AW4AmZthGxY5EBaU0MJ-xdrvua_rbmToVG_4gbs5UlpR4BKI/s320/smile.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Takumi (AE86) and Keisuke (FD) race through the twisties.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Let's
start with lane departure warnings. This is unbelievably stupid. How
can you not notice when you're drifting out of your lane? Just pay
attention to what the fuck you're doing! I'm annoyed this is even a
thing. Besides, I intentionally drift out of my lane in the twisties,
because that's where the best line is. Of course I never do it faster
than I can see, because that's fucking obvious. Well, maybe this
system could help wake somebody up if their attention starts to drift
on the highway. Maybe that's legitimate. Alright. Alright.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Backup
cameras? Well, OK, but the problem here is that people think that
having a backup camera means they're free to just stare at a display
on the dashboard, letting the beeps tell them when they're done. Um,
no. You have to look all around the vehicle to make sure that
pedestrians, other vehicles, etc aren't staggering gormlessly into
your path, as they do. And you need to actually angle your car into
the stall you want. And avoid knocking into anything outside the
camera's extremely narrow viewpoint as you do it. A backup camera can
be a handy tool. But like any tool, it's only effective for its
intended use.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">How
about dashboard lights that indicate when there's a vehicle in your
blind spot? Again, fine, as long as you remember that they're just
tools. You still have to shoulder check and be certain the space
you're moving into is clear, this is just one more safeguard in case
you make a mistake. But that's not how most people will use them, is
it? They will now trust the car to do their job for them, because no
computer has ever had a glitch and no lighbulb has ever burned out.
And by the way, when you have a spare moment, learn to adjust your
mirrors correctly. Then you might not even <i>have</i> a blind spot.
If you can see any part of the vehicle, you're doing it wrong.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Cruise
control is bad enough. This stupid thing where it will now accelerate
to passing speed without you touching the accelerator is even dumber.
But I've already complained about this in another post, so we'll move
on.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And
now the worst one: Automatic braking. What the actual <i>fuck? </i>Excuse
me. I am driving the car. I will decide when we brake. Full stop. No
pun intended. Sorry, no, I am just fundamentally against anything
that takes control and specifically decision-making out of the hands
of the driver.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzOIJfRQDxELuEXPndv-srgExJBTGls5Ub9qWjqlmvpf1x0kveKV4HuijYr_dytn0-3i2Jl9N3pvlS2q-3HanKIYQ9GVHWGrrs34_FacfZEb2IM3C_58S6Oc5tA6s1KpyBuCmp-5Hmz7E/s1600/ford-f250-black-original-azioni-1-7142015.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="1000" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzOIJfRQDxELuEXPndv-srgExJBTGls5Ub9qWjqlmvpf1x0kveKV4HuijYr_dytn0-3i2Jl9N3pvlS2q-3HanKIYQ9GVHWGrrs34_FacfZEb2IM3C_58S6Oc5tA6s1KpyBuCmp-5Hmz7E/s320/ford-f250-black-original-azioni-1-7142015.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Yyyyyyeah.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So
what happens the first time the feature malfunctions while you're
doing 120 on the highway with an F250 tailgating you? Right.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">On
top of that, have you ever had your car do something unexpected,
perhaps while moving at speed? It's not a great feeling, is it? Do
you think it would be improved if it occurred as, say, a drunk driver
ploughed into the back of a bus up ahead? Rather than thank their
guardian angel, I think the average driver would be so startled by
the car taking action without their input that it would actually
hamper their ability to perform any other manoeuvres that might be
necessary to avoid becoming involved in the accident – manoeuvres
which would already be harder to perform under braking, by the way.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Besides
which, setting aside how much I've slagged off the average driver
throughout this post, how bad do you think people's hazard
identification skills are? Most people's kneejerk (heh) reaction when
confronted by any kind of driving situation is to hit the brakes
anyway, even and maybe especially when the best response would be to
accelerate, so the extra half-second is just not worth it.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji6ErntH14X4jx-8Oos7yELI0tznrHVsaiOKcZBBvW6g5TeQsYLemkORKTau2wzbUuhNSN6uiFlLy8B_OnkNU1yvArGMk0qyPKjuP_fXu5WwwnR0cDgFgw-WSRGjZSAhCx7kBugBbciSM/s1600/maxresdefault+%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEji6ErntH14X4jx-8Oos7yELI0tznrHVsaiOKcZBBvW6g5TeQsYLemkORKTau2wzbUuhNSN6uiFlLy8B_OnkNU1yvArGMk0qyPKjuP_fXu5WwwnR0cDgFgw-WSRGjZSAhCx7kBugBbciSM/s320/maxresdefault+%25281%2529.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Samson Drifter from Mafia 3. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FCd79DySviY&ab_channel=BeniLacrampe" target="_blank">Source.</a></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">“So,
Rude Boy, I suppose you hate ABS too.” Actually no. ABS is
acceptable because it genuinely improves safety, is fairly reliable,
and – and this is critical – behaves consistently, generally
activating under the same combination of conditions (speed, load,
brake input, and so forth), thus becoming no more than another tool
in the driver's toolbox, augmenting her abilities and contributing to
the driving experience rather than detracting from it. Yeah, you can
grow to depend on it, but the average person will never again drive a
car without ABS (most people under, like, 30 never even have), and
for a majority of people, in a majority of situations, ABS is
superior to no ABS. (Yes, you can, and indeed must, learn to balance
the brakes right on the edge of locking up in a vehicle without ABS,
but does that shorten your stopping distance relative to if it DID
have ABS? No.)</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">*</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Now
there are, last time I counted, roughly a hundred billion companies
competing in this space. Tesla is doing it because Elon Musk is
forward-thinking as hell, hence the electric cars (OH MY FUCKING GOD
ELECTRIC CARS UGH.) Uber is going for it because, presumably, they
imagine a future in which they offer a fleet of self-driving taxis
rather than contracting service providers. Google, via Waymo, a
subsidiary of Alphabet, is in on it too, because since the day it was
founded Google's business strategy has been “try a bunch of random
bullshit.” And then there are the various startups focussing on
just this one particular issue, many of them formed of refugees from
some of the companies I just mentioned.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The
significant thing here is that each of these companies has slightly
different reasons for pursuing this goal – meaning their vision of
the future of autonomous driving may actually vary more widely than
you'd assume – and that they bring vastly different strengths and
capabilities.
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVbqSPs52DHYLoeAqmDUdEgYN80pkC6clRxhzkeInBIhe1-8GJz_I-Lnb3nV7ztsetnxb4_k4l0Hs7bOc_o4efnCx9vcVqagrrgGeemS-Tln6vKc9xRzESHjMMs5fuTEUX5uTIqkfNs5A/s1600/sc-cons-0205-autotips-people-want-selfdriving-cars-20150130.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVbqSPs52DHYLoeAqmDUdEgYN80pkC6clRxhzkeInBIhe1-8GJz_I-Lnb3nV7ztsetnxb4_k4l0Hs7bOc_o4efnCx9vcVqagrrgGeemS-Tln6vKc9xRzESHjMMs5fuTEUX5uTIqkfNs5A/s320/sc-cons-0205-autotips-people-want-selfdriving-cars-20150130.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Mercedes's self-driving concept. <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/classified/automotive/sc-cons-0205-autotips-people-want-selfdriving-cars-20150130-story.html" target="_blank">Source.</a></span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Because
it's not just tech companies who are in the game – traditional,
non-Tesla vehicle manufacturers are having a go at it as well. It
would be like if instead of getting Bill Gates to make Windows, IBM
not only attempted to make their own software solution, but were
actually competing against his at the same time. Toyota even
partially funded the MIT project mentioned earlier. It's a new
frontier in business, and in some ways it doesn't even make a lot of
sense, but here we are.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I
wonder if this is the beginning of a bigger trend? If it's good
enough for Prius and Spider-Man: Homecoming, what other intersecting
markets could benefit from collaboration between semi-competing
companies?</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">*</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The
Prius article shares some words from the team lead: “I think we
share the vision with Toyota that driving can be fun and people want
to continue to drive.” And an unrelated researchers says, “Everyone
thinks it's going to be super exciting to be in a self-driving car
but it's actually going to be super boring.”</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I
still hope I never have to give up driving. If the Japanese
government grandfathers in currently insured vehicles, I will keep
all my current cars on the road until I die, probably in a
spectacular traffic accident caused by human error and safety
standards that are decades out of date. If they give everybody a hard
deadline, say ten years, then my motorcycle will become my new daily.
(Unlike most motorcyclists, I actually prefer driving to riding, but,
if it comes to that, ten times out of ten I will choose to ride a
motorcycle over being chauffered inside a robot.) If they take away
our motorcycles – and they haven't so far, incredibly, so it's
possible they never will – then I guess I'll just be hitting the
track every weekend. I'd still be having a huge part of my identity
ripped away, but at least I'd be able to get that comforting
sensation of controlling a vehicle every once in a while. And I'll
also, uh, play games like Grand Theft Auto, I guess?</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Enjoy
the thrill of driving. While you still can.</span></div>
Rude Boy Abroadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02092622808758318179noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-43798680348663868.post-82459165274524227912017-06-13T18:17:00.001+09:002017-06-14T16:20:25.134+09:00Wonder Woman 2017 review<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5sim-98gRDFESD2NzyVsGGbk06NI48TG7LXCXI6PaR__Rb89mQKLgn9z2UM6mzH6sk_a95O8fUZTkKAW3uuQMxjdkK3ORBWyhFG8aLbvN3T3vCJOWy12dkYuPFg8qpViylINM2SM5iXc/s1600/gal+gadot+as+wonder+woman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="419" data-original-width="744" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5sim-98gRDFESD2NzyVsGGbk06NI48TG7LXCXI6PaR__Rb89mQKLgn9z2UM6mzH6sk_a95O8fUZTkKAW3uuQMxjdkK3ORBWyhFG8aLbvN3T3vCJOWy12dkYuPFg8qpViylINM2SM5iXc/s320/gal+gadot+as+wonder+woman.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Here's a post that has little, if anything, to do with Japan. Sorry. Sometimes you have to follow your heart.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">So,
Wonder Woman, you guys.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There's this scene where she's in a WW1 trench, looking out across No Man's Land (get it? GET IT?), where a small village held by the enemy is slowly starving. She wants to cross, but her male partner is like, "But bro, you can't, because you will literally die." And then she's like "BUT I'M WONDER WOMAN" and she fucking SPRINTS across that shit, and suddenly her allies are backing her up, and angry Germans are shooting hundreds upon thousands of bullets at her and she just pulls out her shield and is all "I'M WONDER WOMAN THOUGH." It's pretty great.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I really liked this movie. Maybe more than it deserves, because I badly <i>wanted </i>to, but it's still a good movie. The pacing and editing could use some work, especially the interminable front-loaded exposition scenes, but things pick up once we hit the comic relief detour in London. The fight scenes don't have a lot of tension, but that's endemic to the genre, and at least they're brief enough to at least feel exciting. Characters' abilities are telegraphed fairly well, that is to say, they don't suddenly develop new powers as the plot demands. Wonder Woman gradually manifests her strongest abilities over the course of the story before finally getting a grip on them for the final confrontation, rather than having them come out of nowhere at the end. When Chris Pine has to fly a plane at one point, we don't blink, because we've already been shown that he knows how. The WW1 setting is cool, as well (opening up <a href="http://moviepilot.com/posts/4286001">comparisons</a> with Captain America: The First Avenger, but that's a topic for another blog and another blogger).</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Viewing
the movie as a man, it seems like the Chris Pine character was
supposed to be our audience insert. I was prepared to be annoyed by
this, because like, why can't I envision myself as Gal Gadot instead?
I want to be Gal Gadot. Everyone wants to be Gal Gadot. But it
actually ended up being really well-done. They could have played him
as a boorish horndog who only finally comes to acknowledge Wonder
Woman by the end, but no, they had him be respectful from the start,
not to mention intelligent, funny, and moral. He treats her as an
equal partner, if not more so, giving credit where it's due, and
admonishing any card-carrying member of the Old Boys' Club who
suggests she may be anything less than capable for being a woman. In
other words, he's a fine role model for young MEN, which I wasn't
rea;;y expecting from this movie.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;">UPDATE: <a href="http://nytimes.com/2017/06/06/opinion/behind-wonder-woman-is-a-great-man.html">Here's a column that says everything I just said, except articulately.</a></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Also,
Diana gets to have sex! And again, it's done really well! It comes
off as a sudden but natural development in their growing
relationship. She doesn't “give in” to his advances, and it
doesn't devalue her as a woman or in any way whatsoever diminish her
power as a feminist icon. She goes for it because she wants it, has
fun, and doesn't regret it. Fucking perfect.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I
don't know yet what the reaction has been from Japanese women, but
women in the English-speaking world seem to be psyched about this movie, and it's
awesome. Will Wonder Woman signal the beginning of a new era for
women in action movies, or cinema in general? Will we FINALLY get a
Black Widow solo film? Wait, does this mean Gal Gadot will get a larger role in
future Fast and Furious movies?! Because that would be fucking sick.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">By
the time I was done, I felt like I'd glimpsed the future.</span></div>
Rude Boy Abroadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02092622808758318179noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-43798680348663868.post-33009130576298697922017-01-18T17:17:00.000+09:002017-01-18T17:22:25.566+09:00Post-Apocalyptia: Fragile, Metro, and Fallout, Part 4 - A Sense of Place<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Post-Apocalyptia:
Fragile, Metro, and Fallout, Part 4 - A Sense of Place</span></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://rudeboyabroad.blogspot.ca/2015/07/post-apocalyptia-fragile-metro-and.html"><br />
</a></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://rudeboyabroad.blogspot.ca/2015/07/post-apocalyptia-fragile-metro-and.html">Part 1</a></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://rudeboyabroad.blogspot.ca/2015/08/post-apocalyptia-fragile-metro-and.html">Part 2</a></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://rudeboyabroad.blogspot.ca/2016/11/post-apocalyptia-fragile-metro-and.html">Part 3</a></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Part 4</b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In the final part of this
long-ass series, we're going to tackle the main point I was going to
structure it around, back when I was envisioning a single post of
maybe a thousand words. As I played through these games and read
through the Metro books, it occurred to me that, sometimes without
even meaning to, each one in some way embodied its country of origin.
Yeah, every work of art is the result of a certain person living in a
particular place at a particular time, and could have turned out
radically different with but a nudge. But I still contend that
Fallout is uniquely American, Metro is uniquely Russian, and Fragile
is uniquely Japanese. I will now explain!</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A
sense of place</span></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKaej0ZzNT0qb1EfaAiwmTYsugQOI_ffBW8aafHbX-1FHdJMaPlIDnEezZutLuJnarNP7xtqVc2WoQaNUJoLGLcn8KJSoafyhmdvXtm4IDA9Ai_5_eMNBrsTFeb9JMWsseYsGuSXnDE60/s1600/FO4_trailer_still.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKaej0ZzNT0qb1EfaAiwmTYsugQOI_ffBW8aafHbX-1FHdJMaPlIDnEezZutLuJnarNP7xtqVc2WoQaNUJoLGLcn8KJSoafyhmdvXtm4IDA9Ai_5_eMNBrsTFeb9JMWsseYsGuSXnDE60/s320/FO4_trailer_still.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The town of Goodneighbour from F4</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">One
of the coolest thing about Fallout is that everything in its world is
based on the state of the world in the 1950's. Communism is still
regarded as the greatest threat to world peace, although
it's now China rather than the Soviet Union, or was right up until it and
the United States wiped each other out. The science, too, seems to be
based on what was generally understood back then, so wasteland
denizens find radiation poisoning fairly inconsequential; it's true
that they have spent generations building up resistance, and it's
natural for any wasteland doctor to be well-trained in the matter of
curing radiation poisoning, but on top of that, radiation was once
thought to be far less dangerous than we now know it is, allowing
your character to shrug off a dose of rads that would be fatal in our
universe. Regarding the retro-futuristic laser guns, the physical
appearance of alien grays, the focus on nuclear power to the
detriment of computer development, and other relics, we can see that
Fallout basically looks like how people of the 1950s imagined the
future.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And
it follows culturally, as well. Like any truly great work, Fallout
draws inspiration from all manner of sources, but the little details
of people's everyday lives, particularly as they were before the
Great War, is clearly based on classic Americana: the attitude that
America is Best and would only keep getting better, that the worst
was over and it was only a matter of time before technology solved
all of humanity's problems. I think that's probably an exaggeration
of the American mentality of the time, but just comparing their media
with our modern media it's pretty clear that we're a lot more jaded
now. Well, considering how that worked out in the world of Fallout,
you might be able to draw some interesting parallels with our own
disillusionment...but anyway, the point is, the series could not have
been made anywhere else but America, or more accurately, it would
look very different if it had been. That is, it wouldn't be Fallout.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj33d5e_z-XC2RVI8JcKpjXKE6CKMHPNnz8Je8g3dViJ0E_c8vWc6mHv4XWG64_oonQXlDZyjEP6RErUFlrMcaP4D17DipB9iIsm7jWtCwWQfXWOjzbfMU0MunCXVg1H_UoKYHwkhbLFTo/s1600/latest.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="244" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj33d5e_z-XC2RVI8JcKpjXKE6CKMHPNnz8Je8g3dViJ0E_c8vWc6mHv4XWG64_oonQXlDZyjEP6RErUFlrMcaP4D17DipB9iIsm7jWtCwWQfXWOjzbfMU0MunCXVg1H_UoKYHwkhbLFTo/s320/latest.gif" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Fallout
is as American as cultural imperialism or gross ignorance. F3 takes
place in Washington, DC, for Christ's sake. It's not just window
dressing, either. The theme of what
is America and how do we find it runs thick throughout the main
storyline. The Enclave, the remnants of the American government,
still claims to hold jurisdiction over the original borders of the
United States, but in reality, they're fooling themselves, as their
authority has long since been supplanted by new governments such as
the New California Republic, the state of independent Las Vegas, and
small groups of humans long cut off from civilization who have
reverted to tribalism. Hell, even the military swore off its corrupt
parent and reformulated itself into a neo-knightly order, the Brotherhood of Steel. But while
the United States may be gone, <i>America</i>
and the values it believed it stood for may still be hiding somewhere
out there in the wastes. Ulysses, a tribal whose people were
forcefully absorbed into the expansionist Caesar's Legion, stumbled
upon an old US flag and decided to dedicate his life to resurrecting
the country, and while I think it's a fool's errand, I can't help but
admire his principles.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And while Ulysses's story is the
only one that's fleshed out properly, others aspire to rebuild the
United States as well. The Enclave's Colonel Autumn wishes to restore
it because he believes in the righteousness of the cause, and is
willing to go to despicable lengths to achieve this goal. Part of
this entails wiping out all mutated beings in the Capital Wasteland
and presumably the rest of America after that, but <i>everybody</i>
has been affected by radiation at this point, so his plan seeks only
to garner his organization a greater share of nothing. Van Buren and
Fallout Tactics both introduce us to AI protocols designed to take
effect should the worst happen, but both go terribly wrong.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Metro, too, derives a sense of
place from its set pieces. It does a good job of painting the city
overhead as a sort of Necropolis, frequented only by well-equipped
adventurers and the sometimes literal ghosts of its former
inhabitants. And, at least in Metro 2033, it's encased in ice and
snow, which, you know, tracks with my understanding of Russia.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8NCu4046VpIPKhHS2zEV3G7LYb-sBLag2j1-kJD9ppS1rfShEKUDVRZXerghH5LjcgBPRAzTWGlNiyzZq1EIIam5oFHXy2wSPDopyZe9YPxV7-CiQ9YB0et-7idJh9MJ2evqxIiUhlsI/s1600/Post-Apocalyptic_Metro_Map.gif" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8NCu4046VpIPKhHS2zEV3G7LYb-sBLag2j1-kJD9ppS1rfShEKUDVRZXerghH5LjcgBPRAzTWGlNiyzZq1EIIam5oFHXy2wSPDopyZe9YPxV7-CiQ9YB0et-7idJh9MJ2evqxIiUhlsI/s320/Post-Apocalyptic_Metro_Map.gif" width="245" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I somehow feel like there's
something uniquely Russian, and Moscovite, about Metro's metro. The
defining feature is that the Moscow Metro was explicitly designed
during Soviet times to double as a massive nuclear shelter. It is so
much deeper underground than similar systems for this exact reason.
It also has its share of legends owing to this, most notably D6, an
even deeper, most likely fictional secret line that supposedly
connects important points of interest such as the Kremlin and the
national theatre, should high-ranking political executives ever need
to be evacuated while at a function. And I only say “most likely”
fictional because it's totally absurd, but a) it would make perfect
sense, and b) if anybody could keep a construction project of that
magnitude a secret, it's the Soviet government. By the way, Metro
2035 was first published in <i>Metro</i>, a free magazine distributed
only in the Moscow Metro. I was just thought that was amusing, and kind of brilliant marketing.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The character of each station is
evoked beautifully, whether it's a local station with a handful of
tents scattered across the platform or a relative metropolis built
throughout the shell of a former transport hub. From what I can tell,
each station was realised by a different architect rather than a team
of city planners, giving each one a distinct flavour (<a href="https://www.onthegotours.com/blog/2015/09/10-impressive-stations-on-the-moscow-metro/">here's a sample</a>). The creator
might have slapped some ornate columns or controversial murals up in
there. Even those that were the result of a Soviet-era relentless
pursuit of function over form end up being unusual simply by
comparison to their neighbours. The result is a series of stations
that stand as works of art – or maybe the entire Metro is one big
work of art. (Oddly enough, thanks to constantly referring to the
maps while reading the books, I now feel like I know Moscow's public
transit system better than some places I've actually lived in.)</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXiHyFbeJkRTFLu7RgpG9tbJZL3ey6NABn1gv_Ji0RAxLYkzJL7XW71xK37x407OsN1WMLKCzRgusTNhnMky9aicHEIsSD2I9aJxi2CfdV2hipQBEYLqGvqv1FDgoFtRpeTbFpHPsLgKg/s1600/PolisPeaceConference.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXiHyFbeJkRTFLu7RgpG9tbJZL3ey6NABn1gv_Ji0RAxLYkzJL7XW71xK37x407OsN1WMLKCzRgusTNhnMky9aicHEIsSD2I9aJxi2CfdV2hipQBEYLqGvqv1FDgoFtRpeTbFpHPsLgKg/s320/PolisPeaceConference.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Polis</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Much of this beauty has been lost
by 2033, but history is a continuum, and new traits have popped up to
replace the old ones. Some stations have had their art preserved, to the
ambivalence or even derision of those who pass through them, where
others have come to stand for something else entirely, like the city
of Polis, a conglomeration of four different stations now dedicated
to the preservation of knowledge and nobility. And, generally, the
reason for the evolution of a particular spot is clearly explained,
and somehow rooted in its past.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">There is also the fact that
Ghlukovsky wrote Metro 2033 as a veiled evaluation of Russian
society. Knowing this, the portrayals of, say, the Hanseatic
money-grubbers, Communists driven mad by ideology, and exaggeratedly naiive and illogical Christians, suddenly seem a little less
gratuitous. And the Nazis aren't really Nazis, but anti-immigration
conservatives and racists. Maybe some characters and their
motivations could do with a little more nuance, but at least it makes
sense as an allegory. Dissecting all of modern Russian culture would
be a mammoth task, but the author brings it down to a manageable
scale. The Metro is a microcosm of Russia itself.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSek_c-JLF_YDvo-sdFAxkpW2BZLpNyWQr7lIZI89zwtLUW2YzzMUrklGYaf-8wutohRrMncn6ENy49oG-HKPerJn392YtCEqDYb4e3zpFKPcYExf778-Q5hyphenhyphenXIxiHfI_ZS6q-Z6fYOJU/s1600/Meresti_Metro_Station.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSek_c-JLF_YDvo-sdFAxkpW2BZLpNyWQr7lIZI89zwtLUW2YzzMUrklGYaf-8wutohRrMncn6ENy49oG-HKPerJn392YtCEqDYb4e3zpFKPcYExf778-Q5hyphenhyphenXIxiHfI_ZS6q-Z6fYOJU/s320/Meresti_Metro_Station.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">F3's Meresti Station, where, if I recall correctly, your<br />
character murders a troublesome journalist by<br />
pushing her into the path of an oncoming train.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Of course, other cities certainly
have their own metros, so could you do a Metro-alike in another city?
Sure! In fact, the wider Metro universe includes books set in
locations like St Petersburg, elsewhere in Eastern Europe, and even
as far afield as London, which is, after all, known for “the Tube.”
<a href="http://www.citylab.com/design/2013/12/watch-people-act-out-pariss-subway-line-names/7781/">Paris</a> and New York come to mind as well. For that matter, both
Fragile and Fallout 3 spend significant spaces of time in <i>their</i>
cities' subway systems! (Shinjuku Eki is a major location in Fragile,
and in F3 much of DC's streets are impassable due to rubble, making
many downtown areas accessible only through the subway tunnels.)
Vancouver might not work, since a SkyTrain station is a little less
insulated, but you get the picture.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Speaking of Fragile's subway, the
first real level takes place within Shinjuku Eki, famously the
largest and busiest in all of Japan. Except, of course, that it's now
deserted, save for a smattering of wild dogs and other monsters. Not
saying that train travel is unique to life in Japan, but it's
definitely an inextricable part of it, and one of the things I
noticed most when I did my high school exchange.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQBfkA2j83NlGZ_rDLBrVSOvp1fkl_IvINU6rtgliCu0BRnrQaS4hyz1F6s_PFr374u0E3ZX8_9mPtMVBeBoeeqCJuKlbYKDUfLjnLhR4GGy7YgkbdI7b1pxKiFiNdbipeDt7VpUnXOkg/s1600/ge_fragile090202_19.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQBfkA2j83NlGZ_rDLBrVSOvp1fkl_IvINU6rtgliCu0BRnrQaS4hyz1F6s_PFr374u0E3ZX8_9mPtMVBeBoeeqCJuKlbYKDUfLjnLhR4GGy7YgkbdI7b1pxKiFiNdbipeDt7VpUnXOkg/s1600/ge_fragile090202_19.jpg" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">After exploring a platform and
concourse, the stage moves farther underground, to the <span lang="ja-JP">地下商店街
</span><i>chikashoutengai,
</i>literally “underground shopping district.” I have no idea if
they have these in countries other than Japan (surely China and Korea
at the very least?), but I love these places. Narrow, crowded, and
confusing, in another post I said that navigating them is like trying
to play Pac-Man in first-person. The steet-like halls are lined with
restaurants, clothing stores, all kinds of stuff really. The shops
are densely packed and it's impossible to find what you're looking
for. You might think that they cater to people in transit, but that's
not true at all. Actually, it's just that their accessibility makes
them terribly convenient. It's not uncommon for someone to head for a
major station <i>just to shop</i>, then head on home. I've always
loved train stations because they are the intersection of so many
lives, shared alone; chikashoutengai are all of that PLUS the
socializing of a mall. The energy is infectious, and I always end up
leaving with that feeling you get when haven't accomplished anything
of any great consequence, but you have experienced a slice of life.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">But even if these aren't found
elsewhere in the world, they are all over Japan. So, sure, Shinjuku
Eki puts in an appearance, but it could be replaced with any other
major station in Japan with little impact; for the most part, the
city of Toukyou does not assert herself. The exception here is
Toukyou Tower, an omnipresent neon presence off in the distance, not
to mention your ultimate goal and the site of the final battle. It
demands your attention when you first leave the observatory, it
frames the background when Ren first appears, and whenever you
venture indoors, almost forgetting about it, it's the first thing you
notice when you reemerge, slowly but surely drawing closer.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4JOiamViKg4hT4GykAVW51gTRxqbdZGquOZLOw3dYcFfOzkETj-i_JWgvAA8HGqcWwAZOy743DfwjTvl_L-0Qrji4jbNEMlHBYSmIUPnKLDXnm4KvAKlCuDAAU00J_pjdEgmt7fxcZCo/s1600/20090124042159.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4JOiamViKg4hT4GykAVW51gTRxqbdZGquOZLOw3dYcFfOzkETj-i_JWgvAA8HGqcWwAZOy743DfwjTvl_L-0Qrji4jbNEMlHBYSmIUPnKLDXnm4KvAKlCuDAAU00J_pjdEgmt7fxcZCo/s320/20090124042159.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Does it say anything that Fragile
includes an amusement park level? Probably nothing significant about
Japanese society, but the fact that the developers picked this as a
stock setting (alongside the more universal train stations and
hotels) might. I could be wrong, but I feel like not a lot of
Westerners would.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">For what it's worth, the choice
of art style is undeniably Japanese. I mean come on now, it's
freaking anime. If you were deliberately trying to make something
Japanese and you picked an anime art style, people would tell you it was too on the nose. Flat cells,
detailed textures, bright colours, exaggerated features – yup,
that's Japanese animation.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">And then there's the themes.
Whether or not I'm right about the global warming angle, we have the
scenes of nature to go off of. There's the northern lights scene we
talked about earlier, visible through a smogless sky, and of course
the hotel, slowly being reclaimed by the forest. The moon, as
beautiful as it is cold and implacable. No less a person than
Miyazaki Hayao has based many of his works on environmental themes,
and he's regarded as one of the finest creators in Japan. Plus,
what's the overriding emotion throughout the game? Loneliness.
Various characters complain of the pain. Humanity is nearly destroyed
in trying to eliminate it forever. Seto loses one person after
another until he finally finds one who sticks around. Even the player
may share in his distress, wandering a hostile environment without
company. To paraphrase Hitching Rides With Buddha: “In the West, people fear <i>irrelevance</i>; in Japan, people fear <i>loneliness</i>.”</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">As with Fallout and America, I
have to conclude that Fragile could not be made anywhere other than
Japan – or that if it had been, it wouldn't be
Fragile as we know it.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">(Additionally, I resisted
watching the Mad Max movies until after I'd completed this post,
because I didn't want to be influenced except by the works I was
actually writing about. There were a few reasons for this, number one
being that the Mad Max game hadn't come out yet, and I thought I'd
keep things consistent by following the gaming thread. Three is also
a nice number. But more significantly, while I'm far from an expert
on Russian or American culture, I know next to nothing about
Australian culture. I've since watched the films and can safely say
that – unsurprisingly, since it <i>invented</i> half the tropes
that Fallout, Metro, and Fragile are drawing on – Mad Max would
have been a good fit for this series, so expect an update eventually.)</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Conclusion</span></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">By now it's probably pretty clear
why I play these games and read this books (and watch these movies,
and...), and why I wrote this post: I love thinking about this stuff.
That, to me, is the real heart of philosophy: Taking extraordinary
situations or seemingly impractical thought experiments, and finding
a way to relate it to your real life. By asking us to confront
questions about technology, the place of humanity, and what you the
reader would be capable of in exceptional circumstances,
Post-Apocalyptic fiction not only succeeds in provoking contemplation
but delivers it in an entertaining package to boot.</span></div>
Rude Boy Abroadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02092622808758318179noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-43798680348663868.post-7303717016457702672016-11-21T08:42:00.000+09:002017-01-18T17:24:47.644+09:00Post-Apocalyptia: Fragile, Metro, and Fallout, Part 3 - Bits and Pieces<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b style="font-family: "Times New Roman", serif;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Post-Apocalyptia:
Fragile, Metro, and Fallout, Part 3</span></b></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Bits and Pieces</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b><br /></b></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://rudeboyabroad.blogspot.ca/2015/07/post-apocalyptia-fragile-metro-and.html">Part 1</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://rudeboyabroad.blogspot.ca/2015/08/post-apocalyptia-fragile-metro-and.html">Part 2</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Part 3</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://rudeboyabroad.blogspot.ca/2017/01/post-apocalyptia-fragile-metro-and.html">Part 4</a></span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">We're
back and talking about three great works in one of my favourite
genres! Before we conclude, here's some stray thoughts that don't fit
anywhere else. Together though, they kind of do.</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>The
supernatural</b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiydY6_lEix0YoV4HHUo4KNoN_faWFAWMZUrzUQ-PaRIskd_frt2bBzXx6bXhVtzH0rVVxKUU_KfChf9syCNAWephTssJDsck0kEOlkLUjzWdoP6_QsXVEMfQdsX3rpCmaLd4b2pbQU8AM/s1600/metro-7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiydY6_lEix0YoV4HHUo4KNoN_faWFAWMZUrzUQ-PaRIskd_frt2bBzXx6bXhVtzH0rVVxKUU_KfChf9syCNAWephTssJDsck0kEOlkLUjzWdoP6_QsXVEMfQdsX3rpCmaLd4b2pbQU8AM/s320/metro-7.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">When
I started playing Metro, I was briefly surprised by the prominence of
an unexpected supernatural element. It doesn't jar, in fact it's
enmeshed in the world extremely well, and in a manner that
contributes to the plot and atmosphere. But you wouldn't normally
think to go that direction in a post-apocalyptic story. You might
think that the seriousness of the subject matter would funnel you
towards “realism,” and Fallout, after all, didn't really have
anything like th—oh, wait, Fallout had ghouls and Super Mutants.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Oddly,
none of the properties is satisfied to bank on interest in the
post-Apocalypse alone; all three decide to introduce a supernatural
element to the proceedings.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM_3fLMGZEvlyj4FqOmMWUUWcUHXvMbFUofS1c3jjlCnEr99aYcki6lqDFbm3p2U9MLAcYSSJkNHmXKebPwbJVvxgvuaTO87qyL8Fp_IGhdmrAdQj8Rej2cSsvjvBuA_vaIiDMuzUHXPQ/s1600/2552779-fragile.dreams%252B.farewell.ruins.of.the.moon.full.322359.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiM_3fLMGZEvlyj4FqOmMWUUWcUHXvMbFUofS1c3jjlCnEr99aYcki6lqDFbm3p2U9MLAcYSSJkNHmXKebPwbJVvxgvuaTO87qyL8Fp_IGhdmrAdQj8Rej2cSsvjvBuA_vaIiDMuzUHXPQ/s1600/2552779-fragile.dreams%252B.farewell.ruins.of.the.moon.full.322359.jpg" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Fragile
features robots and woodland creatures as enemies, but also contains
plenty of supernatural enemies, such as ethereal jellyfish. More
significantly, of course, is the Glass Cage, whose entire premise is
on technology unavailable in the real world. The impact of this
decision is very large, given what it allows the creators to do with
the story, as only a select few humans are spared, and they're located far from one another. Seto also encounters several ghosts, one of
whom is his main companion throughout the adventure. Another is the
main antagonist, and others impede his path in various ways. There's
even an old woman who projects the residual self-image of a small
child. Many more appear as weak enemies, including banshee-like foes
and little kids playing hide-and-go-seek. It's unclear what causes
someone to linger after death, but it wasn't the failed human
instrumentality attempt per se, otherwise there would be millions of them
stalking the streets of Toukyou, rather than a few dozen.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">It's
hard to say what's behind this interest in blending the serious and
supernatural, but it may be to make technology a little more
mysterious. We use it in our everyday lives, our dependence upon it
increasing by the second, so we tend to assume we have a pretty good
handle on it, and yet in these stories it has nearly destroyed us. By
introducing unpredictable effects, the creators point out how little
we <i>really</i> understand about
our own technology, and, indeed, the world around us.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>The
place of technology</b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">What's the most important piece
of technology you're going to need to survive the post-Apocalypse?
Your trusty gun, right? Of course not, don't be daft.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkv-3gNOmz5bdOsgsNilfn3Twc8YpWT99Hxdf-FYwZJHTgGob8pTLFrhNZop3VSqM3aZTDvg48gk9Dl6l-xtFIczdKdM42174Ye8jkCh0PusPLzrr5YYHzWbMggoVdpV0hbeS3Q2gKidk/s1600/tumblr_ny7ap3FUdS1repwnso2_1280.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkv-3gNOmz5bdOsgsNilfn3Twc8YpWT99Hxdf-FYwZJHTgGob8pTLFrhNZop3VSqM3aZTDvg48gk9Dl6l-xtFIczdKdM42174Ye8jkCh0PusPLzrr5YYHzWbMggoVdpV0hbeS3Q2gKidk/s320/tumblr_ny7ap3FUdS1repwnso2_1280.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"Millions...perhaps even billions, died because science<br />
outpaced man's restraint!"</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">By far the most valuable
technology is anything that can help you grow or acquire food or
water. Even Fallout knows this. Tons of major characters devote their
lives to seeking out powerful relics of the Old World. The
Brotherhood of Steel, a neo-knightly order of technophiles, jealously
hoards its knowledge, even placing the value of its retrieval over
that of human life (“After all, everyone knows how to make another
human, but the secrets to making a P94 Plasma Rifle are all but
lost”). Despite warnings from some members, the Brotherhood gets so
wrapped up in locating bombs and weapons schematics that it neglects
more useful technologies like aeration or securing the safety of the
populace. This difference of opinion tears apart one chapter and
nearly destroys another. Plus, the whole plot of Fallout 1 is kicked
off when your Vault's Water Chip fails, threatening to leave its
residents without potable drinking water and forcing the Overseer to
open the Vault early so that you can go look for one.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Metro takes this to a whole new
level. Sure, people value weapons maybe a little more than they
should, but they focus on the fundamentals of survival, tracking down
or reinventing the most primitive, unsexy technologies available.
We're talking water purification. Gardening. Domestication. That kind
of stuff. They don't talk about it, but I imagine electric sewing
machines fetch an outrageous price. And don't forget medicine! Some
medical textbooks have survived in Fallout, but in Metro we only ever
see two infirmaries in all of Metro, one at Polis in Last Light,
and one in I forget where in 2034. I'm sure I don't have to explain
why doctors would be highly valued. The gaudiest stations in the series are described as having medical facilities, hot running water, and adequate lighting.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfOnQp73oae8Itcm8tBJXck2yVmj154aaSzfLCdJKPJtpaYsziEi9drVniIA0635h8ud0Gm1HCqufJhtiT_wd9i1fD5prg4ZEW3VtsHaQ0Jg04V-VZHru7PBd2N2QiXX8u2iVhpwU6X9E/s1600/shin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfOnQp73oae8Itcm8tBJXck2yVmj154aaSzfLCdJKPJtpaYsziEi9drVniIA0635h8ud0Gm1HCqufJhtiT_wd9i1fD5prg4ZEW3VtsHaQ0Jg04V-VZHru7PBd2N2QiXX8u2iVhpwU6X9E/s320/shin.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The antagonist in Fragile
believed that technology would solve the world's problems, but
instead it nearly ended it. And all the everyday technology that once
made life possible now sits unused and decaying. Surely the writers
don't mean to suggest that we need to get some global genocide
happening pronto, but they may be trying to tell us that we'd do well
to get back to nature from time to time. Technology makes our lives
possible, but it can also end them. A sickle can sustain life, or it
can kill, depending how it is used. In these stories, we used the
bounties available to us to destroy ourselves. Hell, you could even
argue that we're doing that today, with problems like global warming.
Some creators may even have had this is in mind when making the
games. Nuclear bombs as a stand-in for global warming – well, the
latter is slower and less exciting, but just as deadly. And just as
avoidable.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">What is the place of technology
in our world – and in theirs? What technologies should these people
pursue – and what should we? These stories are not necessarily
anti-technology, but they do seem to warn against its misuse.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Sex
and sexuality</b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrE7z3Ivs2sl6yFP_NoShpUpSGGSuqD_YKJ-ZZ0Wr1da3UvxDBj-vdcdeisGbe7AWAnvZLy_QP6UziRpUCxtZkihf7rNVTaFHkn8u_BWR22qW5UYEAH62p0Dqk80NFnOzl8V_CBZZXTt8/s1600/farhenheit.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrE7z3Ivs2sl6yFP_NoShpUpSGGSuqD_YKJ-ZZ0Wr1da3UvxDBj-vdcdeisGbe7AWAnvZLy_QP6UziRpUCxtZkihf7rNVTaFHkn8u_BWR22qW5UYEAH62p0Dqk80NFnOzl8V_CBZZXTt8/s320/farhenheit.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fahrenheit, an ass-kicking woman from F4</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In
Fallout, conventional racism has given way to an equally insidious
prejudice towards the irradiated, nigh-immortal ghouls. Sexism,
however, has all but been obliterated. Oh, you still have the odd
old-fashioned gender roles type cropping up here and there, but for
the most part, except as it pertains to whether or not you want to
sleep with somebody, sex and gender are a bit of a non-issue. When
your camp is assaulted by raiders, nobody cares what's between your
legs – they only care how well you can fight. (The exception to
this is Caesar's Legion, in which women are childbearers and
caregivers and literally nothing else, but even this is more part of
Caesar's ruthless division of labour than actual sexism – the same
as how his veteran soldiers are never the first into battle not as
some kind of privilege, but because it's more effective to hold them
in relief until the enemy is already fatigued from fighting the
grunts.)</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">On
a related topic, homosexuality in the world of Fallout is a-ok.
There's only one instance where I can remember it being frowned upon,
and only because it was among a group of isolationists who felt that
it was their peoples' duty to procreate lest they all die out, so it
was more of a practical issue than actual bigotry. Basically you're
free to bang whoever you want; I always play a woman and try to be as
slutty as possible, and everybody's fine with it, and they give equally few fucks if you're a blushing virgin. Which is partly down to
freedom of player choice, but there are plenty of non-hetero
relationships between NPCs as well. It makes total sense that people
would have more pressing issues on their minds than who's sleeping
with whom, but there's also the fact that danger is a powerful aphrodesiac, and Post-Apocalyptia is nothing if not dangerous.
Biology drives them to panic procreate, and perhaps they also realise that every chance at a good hard pounding may be their last,
so they pretty much just take whatever they can get, whenever they
can get it.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Also,
Fragile features a totally out of nowhere boy-on-boy kiss, in a game
from a country not exactly noted for its social progressivism, so
wrap your head around that one.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Ammunition</b></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwGOAy98I7IDTd6yBkxYu7PIUEDrbijSRas-Vj8ULolIcFcREWvUZjTUVK37KRtFCZXLXEQBhg9p2jv-BpvV4jG8Zlpknqab5pA9_IJcmybjtJ_GUU4N-EB0Md1C9e2MLRf_xqFlEaFjU/s1600/Metro-Last-Light-Shotgun.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwGOAy98I7IDTd6yBkxYu7PIUEDrbijSRas-Vj8ULolIcFcREWvUZjTUVK37KRtFCZXLXEQBhg9p2jv-BpvV4jG8Zlpknqab5pA9_IJcmybjtJ_GUU4N-EB0Md1C9e2MLRf_xqFlEaFjU/s320/Metro-Last-Light-Shotgun.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">As
described above in the section on economics, both Fallout and Metro
feature interesting substitutes for money. Metro uses pre-War AK-47
casings, now impossible to counterfeit. The underground inhabitants
still make bullets, but they are vastly inferior to the industrial
products manufactured for use by the actual military back when there
was one.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Similarly,
the people of Fallout use Nuka-Cola bottle caps as currency, as their
veracity and scarcity are guaranteed because no one knows how to make
them anymore. However, as soon as people started cobbling together a
semblance of society once again, one of the first things they
relearned how to make was high-quality weapons and ammunition. I
think that says a lot.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">(And
by the way – in Mad Max, people <i>don't</i>
ever figure out how to mass-produce ammunition, leading to the
emphasis on melee combat.)</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Glad you could join me for
today's session! I've got one more point to make, so I hope I'll see
you again next time.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://rudeboyabroad.blogspot.ca/2017/01/post-apocalyptia-fragile-metro-and.html">Keep Reading</a></span></div>
Rude Boy Abroadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02092622808758318179noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-43798680348663868.post-42782894995873889602016-01-05T00:15:00.000+09:002016-01-05T00:15:15.099+09:00Star Wars vs Gundam: An unprofessional comparison<div style="text-align: right;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY-7mlg8LbTBAqFF748GbwSJjlfuOFCW5x9zWHylyJjGjt1quIXa6ce-lruVHzAVvwihLq7tG0a4_9vxPNh_z1g35quA3KaBm7d2mPoSnouxnYNQOU-C_8ZvaBvg8_t-wP0z6v_torxno/s1600/star_wars_episode_vii_the_force_awakens-wide.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY-7mlg8LbTBAqFF748GbwSJjlfuOFCW5x9zWHylyJjGjt1quIXa6ce-lruVHzAVvwihLq7tG0a4_9vxPNh_z1g35quA3KaBm7d2mPoSnouxnYNQOU-C_8ZvaBvg8_t-wP0z6v_torxno/s320/star_wars_episode_vii_the_force_awakens-wide.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You
probably haven't noticed since it hasn't really been mentioned in the
news or on social media, but Star Wars: The Force Awakens recently
hit theatres. Plenty have been showing Star Wars and only Star Wars
for several weeks running. They are going to make a lot of money.
Meanwhile, I, a longtime Gundam fan, am currently watching the
original Mobile Suit Gundam for the first time. For its age, it's an
incredible show; the quality of the animation is astounding, and the
story is pretty timeless. Still, I can't help but notice that it came
out in 1979. Know what else came out just two years earlier? The
original Star Wars.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Creating
the “space” genre, or merely repackaging it?</span></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A
lot of the Star Wars pre-game analyses I saw in the weeks leading up
to the new film's release claim that Star Wars launched the space
genre. Before Star Wars, commercially viable, intellectually
accessible science fiction simply did not exist.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Bullshit.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm
not just saying that because of Gundam. Gundam launched after, not
before. I just explained that like two paragraphs ago. Jesus, please
try to pay attention. No, I'm alluding to something interesting I
read in <a href="http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-ways-star-wars-broke-hollywood-forever/" target="_blank">a recent Cracked article</a>:</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“</span><span style="background-color: #fafafa; font-family: proximanNovaRegular; font-size: 14px; line-height: 26px;">George Lucas, hot off the enormously successful </span><i style="background-color: #fafafa; border: 0px; font-family: proximanNovaRegular; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 26px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">American Graffiti</i><span style="background-color: #fafafa; font-family: proximanNovaRegular; font-size: 14px; line-height: 26px;">, </span><a href="http://mashable.com/2014/09/27/star-wars-myths-gary-kurtz/#_NfAE8CzJqqX" style="background-color: #fafafa; border: 0px; color: #0657af; font-family: proximanNovaRegular; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 26px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="a">tried to buy the rights to <i style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; font-size: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Flash Gordon</i></a><span style="background-color: #fafafa; font-family: proximanNovaRegular; font-size: 14px; line-height: 26px;"> to turn it into a big-budget film franchise. They couldn't come to terms on a deal, so Lucas just decided to just write his own version. That's all it was. ... </span><span style="background-color: #fafafa; font-family: proximanNovaRegular; font-size: 14px; line-height: 26px;">The rough draft of </span><i style="background-color: #fafafa; border: 0px; font-family: proximanNovaRegular; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 26px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Star Wars</i><span style="background-color: #fafafa; font-family: proximanNovaRegular; font-size: 14px; line-height: 26px;"> was </span><a href="http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/The_Star_Wars:_Rough_Draft" style="background-color: #fafafa; border: 0px; color: #0657af; font-family: proximanNovaRegular; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 26px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="a">an incoherent rambling mess</a><span style="background-color: #fafafa; font-family: proximanNovaRegular; font-size: 14px; line-height: 26px;">, borrowing </span><a href="http://www.moongadget.com/origins/kurosawa.html" style="background-color: #fafafa; border: 0px; color: #0657af; font-family: proximanNovaRegular; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 26px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="a">entire scenes</a><span style="background-color: #fafafa; font-family: proximanNovaRegular; font-size: 14px; line-height: 26px;"> from other movies, mostly Akira Kurosawa samurai films (then again, Kurosawa </span><a href="http://www.moongadget.com/origins/kurosawa.html" style="background-color: #fafafa; border: 0px; color: #0657af; font-family: proximanNovaRegular; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 26px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="a">had borrowed his from American Westerns</a><span style="background-color: #fafafa; font-family: proximanNovaRegular; font-size: 14px; line-height: 26px;">). ... </span><span style="background-color: #fafafa; font-family: proximanNovaRegular; font-size: 14px; line-height: 26px;">For the space dogfight that would mark the climactic battle at the end of the film, Lucas literally </span><a href="http://www.starwars.com/news/from-world-war-to-star-wars-dogfights" style="background-color: #fafafa; border: 0px; color: #0657af; font-family: proximanNovaRegular; font-size: 14px; font-stretch: inherit; line-height: 26px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;" target="a">stitched together footage from war movies and documentaries</a><span style="background-color: #fafafa; font-family: proximanNovaRegular; font-size: 14px; line-height: 26px;">, then just re-filmed them with spaceship models, shot for shot. In other words, Santa Claus isn't real.</span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhilJr2uINklKquVXjbX3BzV8S2aA6ffumVtZq8y5Ow_YXvGyavxs4jFc0N4mn3GIPXCC7MlkRVcb-84iQlls6U7cJXxJYn9WV7dj4Qe8ZLO5R4SVsxxP6-qTS7CF6HCqnjG8btUKwDkuQ/s1600/harlock.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhilJr2uINklKquVXjbX3BzV8S2aA6ffumVtZq8y5Ow_YXvGyavxs4jFc0N4mn3GIPXCC7MlkRVcb-84iQlls6U7cJXxJYn9WV7dj4Qe8ZLO5R4SVsxxP6-qTS7CF6HCqnjG8btUKwDkuQ/s400/harlock.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Space Captain Harlock</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Flash
Gordon, "Buck Rodgers, Kurosawa, Westerns (Tattooine!), old WW2 footage. Sounds
like Lucas had a lot of good material to draw on. But don't think
that Japan was devoid of material at this point, either! It had its
own “swashbuckling space adventure,” the 1970s anime Space
Captain Harlock. It was popular enough to merit a revival a couple of
years ago. And there's plenty more where that came from. 2001: A
Space Odyssey, both book and movie. Or how about The War of the
Worlds, an HG Wells story from fucking 1897. The decade preceding
Star Wars even saw the rise of another space-themed series of TV
shows and movies, an obscure property called “Star Trek.”</span></div>
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<iframe width="320" height="266" class="YOUTUBE-iframe-video" data-thumbnail-src="https://i.ytimg.com/vi/59iIpApJScA/0.jpg" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/59iIpApJScA?feature=player_embedded" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjn43H1gGxyiFUeRA_vFE5pR-nd1QYyIc6-6it5bExNbzGd_A3qGl5U8fozYR4t8wjlvhT21DyLTeLMA_CR0GrnpeaWWdqgXuSX68fg1aJ7CXfUwyqkV59lnBu_yThR0VIWAJ7lp_apzwc/s1600/IMG_6571.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img height="16" id="y3sioswy542" src="data:image/gif;base64,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" width="16" /></a></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge7FIx_N12YCYvUfWFt4lpx3Nsi9_85A0BpVTHmX3gNl97IepyPj0KhbfCEJglzuFG6SvxBGOYoimfhRHrrflTDLBeNwcKdS7HNfM87pwiFDdtrqjOXlryGMAo-g82RwPtcAUSbFKGC70/s1600/IMG_6571.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge7FIx_N12YCYvUfWFt4lpx3Nsi9_85A0BpVTHmX3gNl97IepyPj0KhbfCEJglzuFG6SvxBGOYoimfhRHrrflTDLBeNwcKdS7HNfM87pwiFDdtrqjOXlryGMAo-g82RwPtcAUSbFKGC70/s320/IMG_6571.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Metal Gear REX</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Everything
new steals from everything old. Harry Potter draws on centuries of
mythology. Divergent mashes up Harry Potter and The Hunger Games,
which in turn probably took ideas from Battle Royale. Metal Gear is a
mixture of old movies, whatever is currently on Kojima's mind, and,
inevitably, Gundam, because you can't tell me the series that
launched the mecha subgenre did not in some way influence the
eponymous war machines. Hell, even Gundam itself mercilessly
cannibalizes its own plotlines to new purpose. Gundam Seed is just a
repackaged Mobile Suit Gundam; 00 is just Wing for a post-9/11
audience.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Neither
franchise “created” the space adventure. That door had already
been slowly dilating open for decades. What they <i>did</i>
was put an interesting spin on established conventions and make their
own contributions to the cultural landscape. Which, given the flood
of boring, derivative fluff we're inundated with every day of every
year, is a huge accomplishment anyway.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Legacy</span></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTd8O_2tVLeulJUxxCUOYBSDA28C-C1jeY-aACSaf20oqCGJRhXynwHKPf27cokpkBipbsdGxdrxkyqhpPzxRqSS44xytl3DNCq1CdaYempvhD_U_oViStqAn9fCpCShReD0z22zX-bHM/s1600/05.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTd8O_2tVLeulJUxxCUOYBSDA28C-C1jeY-aACSaf20oqCGJRhXynwHKPf27cokpkBipbsdGxdrxkyqhpPzxRqSS44xytl3DNCq1CdaYempvhD_U_oViStqAn9fCpCShReD0z22zX-bHM/s320/05.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A steam-powered Oobu machine from Sakura Taisen. This one<br />in particular is piloted by the character Sakura.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Supposedly,
less than 1% of people (English speakers?) have never seen any of the
Star Wars movies. I was actually surprised it was that high! That's
the power that these movies have. And besides Dragonball Z and
Pokemon (in that order), I can't think of any other cultural treasure
that has had a stronger or more enduring impact on the modern
Japanese popular consciousness than Gundam. Final Fantasy? In Japan,
Dragon Quest is bigger. Dragon Quest? Nice try, you sarcastic twit,
because Dragon Quest is kind of only for nerds, while the other three
are widely known by everyone. Sakura Taisen? You know what, now
you're just annoying me.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><br /><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I've
heard that when making Sonic 2, Naka Yuuji wanted to pay tribute to
the most popular things in America and Japan at the time, which he
determined were Star Wars and Dragonball Z, respectively. Hence why
Sonic collects seven Chaos Emeralds to transform into a golden,
super-powered state, and why Eggman/Robotnik's latest creation is the
planet-like Death Egg. I'm not completely sure if that's a true
story, but it sounds credible.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The
point is that both series have had such a – what? Oh, you think
Gundam's not that important because Dragonball Z beat it out for a
reference in Sonic 2? Go plan a day trip to Odaiba, tell me if you
see anything interesting.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrPiGCp-rDZqkAnF1WEStvjCjWKE2fuXi8LjV-V27_sYyvSKv8Dqh3O4AF59VlxyDNmiB9Ic2SDTqIemr7hTQ8DKvHxsgOqjW07uRFBE2dwhf044ZmEp7lfzsgCozLQh-fNCNFnQO0Yhw/s1600/20120418konosu_gm001_cs1e1_1000x.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="216" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrPiGCp-rDZqkAnF1WEStvjCjWKE2fuXi8LjV-V27_sYyvSKv8Dqh3O4AF59VlxyDNmiB9Ic2SDTqIemr7hTQ8DKvHxsgOqjW07uRFBE2dwhf044ZmEp7lfzsgCozLQh-fNCNFnQO0Yhw/s320/20120418konosu_gm001_cs1e1_1000x.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Close
to 40 years later, both Gundam and Star Wars are huge, at least in
their own countries. In case you forgot, The Force Awakens has just
dropped. 2015 saw the beginning of a new Gundam continuity, the
Iron-Blooded Orphans, which I haven't watched yet but is most likely
far less silly than the English title makes it sound. Both have been
the mother of sprawling franchises encompassing everything from
physical toys, books, comic books, video games, all kinds of shit.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Merchandising</span></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6pXt8RfKzrpM9vOSgnwcQDzWtXLzvKtZdwixf-E-zq6P5Ed9_rf-iNr_lXjncmAFE5d-UHw_a6RVULIb2X9Rde-fq68g4jvK1OG1IoWf5thjHqe0IDya4Stqsc3G-QAOCXC-YdgQAXkU/s1600/10143_big.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="275" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6pXt8RfKzrpM9vOSgnwcQDzWtXLzvKtZdwixf-E-zq6P5Ed9_rf-iNr_lXjncmAFE5d-UHw_a6RVULIb2X9Rde-fq68g4jvK1OG1IoWf5thjHqe0IDya4Stqsc3G-QAOCXC-YdgQAXkU/s320/10143_big.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> “Lucas,” notes the Cracked article, “knew that he was, in part, making a series of toy commercials.” Once you
see it, you can't unsee it. Why are there so many variations of
Stormtrooper? Because then you can make a separate action figure for
each of them. Ayla Secura gets an action figure. Lando's co-pilot
gets an action figure. You can buy a goddamn Lego Death Star. The
Expanded Universe is/was so successful because it explores
intersting, in-depth stories within a compelling universe, but also
because it allows for a nearly limitless number of concurrently
developed products, with a huge install base, across every creative
medium known to man. They had these novels about Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan
pre-Phantom Menace, I thought they were just about the pinnacle of
literature when I was a little kid. RIP Expanded Universe.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo1fK_f9h7a5IoObGSSgzVvTRWBEfUEngEJCyQVkNgjj5tTN8j_hWFPgACuu2V6IvsnQ7stsocPBmzJqOa-HgRtNbLff7YzHCF1ZyrP_lD4ORJqw9h-7pT-VSu9aKSjui35lUAL0UsywQ/s1600/2012010921181320c.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgo1fK_f9h7a5IoObGSSgzVvTRWBEfUEngEJCyQVkNgjj5tTN8j_hWFPgACuu2V6IvsnQ7stsocPBmzJqOa-HgRtNbLff7YzHCF1ZyrP_lD4ORJqw9h-7pT-VSu9aKSjui35lUAL0UsywQ/s320/2012010921181320c.jpg" width="204" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">GAT-X131 Calamity Gundam</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now
Gundam is an interesting case, it wasn't designed with the
possibility of merchandise in mind, rather the <span lang="ja-JP">プラモデル
</span>plastic models were
designed <i>first</i>, and then
Tomino was called in to create the anime in order to market the toys.
When I first found out that Calamity from Seed was originally
supposed to be 1.5 times the size of a regular Gundam, but this was
changed because it would mean the scale model would have to be bigger
and thus more expensive, it absolutely blew my mind that something so
seemingly trivial could actually affect, no, constrict the creator's
vision. Of course, back then I also didn't know that a lot of the
best moments in movies were born from blind chance, that the stories
and settings of video games are crafted in response to the gameplay
mechanics and not the other way around, etc. Well, I was a child.</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Which,
while I'm on the topic, is why it always amuses/frustrates me when
people complain that in making the prequels, George Lucas took Star
Wars and “made it for children.” Uh, have you fucking <i>seen
</i>the first three movies? THEY ARE
FOR CHILDREN. Look at Luke – he is a hero made for children. His
robot buddies are hand-made for children. And I'm sorry for treading
well-trodden ground, but come the fuck on:</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLx8h1vYYV8mnesdtg7eyrNpG0cCH0aVPvQUkfsFTiZ0JMbR1j2pKW8fnYvdpdh0dHkNIQGfxp0cdo5MXNMpWkMDoeUfDSLbt1xdJ-UMxFFS6flMhSR6EEnB7v54ArnmR6baz7uJh3Om4/s1600/2289647-ewok_49229_screen.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLx8h1vYYV8mnesdtg7eyrNpG0cCH0aVPvQUkfsFTiZ0JMbR1j2pKW8fnYvdpdh0dHkNIQGfxp0cdo5MXNMpWkMDoeUfDSLbt1xdJ-UMxFFS6flMhSR6EEnB7v54ArnmR6baz7uJh3Om4/s320/2289647-ewok_49229_screen.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Star
Wars is for children and always has been. And actually, so is Gundam.
It's sophisticated enough that you can see it for the first time as
an adult and still appreciate it, but let's be realistic, here, we're
talking about giant robots fighting each other. It's only that Japan
is a little less moralistic about its entertainment and coddles its
youth a little less. (Broad strokes. Obviously.)</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Themes</span></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEs0Sp943YIv7gNm-U136pa0IZE03a_mNtq007uNn_fxX00hjKntqAs11o2K2-T_mHdm4VAdc3aSgx45wIQ0NEZf656U48GLNYAYfpH4_BHLokUsj-VFfA0DPBN-fMyj2TwQrZ5m7xd8M/s1600/img_0.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEs0Sp943YIv7gNm-U136pa0IZE03a_mNtq007uNn_fxX00hjKntqAs11o2K2-T_mHdm4VAdc3aSgx45wIQ0NEZf656U48GLNYAYfpH4_BHLokUsj-VFfA0DPBN-fMyj2TwQrZ5m7xd8M/s320/img_0.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Char Aznable, fan favourite and one of the key characters of<br />Gundam's "Universal Century" continunity</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Psych! The two couldn't be
farther apart. Gundam tells a nuanced anti-war tale in which there
are no clear good guys and bad guys; the antagonists in the first
series, the Principality of Zeon, want nothing more than independence
from the oppressive Earth Federation (and I spent much of the series
trying to figure out why the Federation didn't just give it to them).
Later series continue the story from their perspective. As things
develop, Mobile Suit Gundam scratches topics such as ecology (decades
before An Inconvenient Truth) and transhumanism. Star Wars,
meanwhile, is about how war is awesome, violence solves every
problem, the good guys not only always win but always survive, and
your enemies are all irredeemably evil.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><b>Hero's
Journey?</b>
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You
could say that both Luke Skywalker and Amuro Rei follow a fairly
typical Hero's Journey, one of the recognized plot structures in
literature. Luke has humble beginnings (a moisture farm), gradually
comes into his abilities, and finally destroys the Death Star in the
climactic action sequence. It works even better on a trilogy-wide
scale, with blind luck leading the way to victory in A New Hope, Luke
screwing up and battling his inner demons in The Empire Strikes Back,
and emerging in Return of the Jedi as a confident, skilled combatant.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmu8UjhnVuDHlfVvO0zidnFuZ8yfyAQQ3o-gpArR7WFxg7FznI9rkC1h5_4HSSTsxxO4PcxKi5Nqfa3FnoR4v0gbqOO_9gC78Szc4qudomIOwYLUjKz9Dqw_Rxrp8q_YI5ZHyqHJc-_S0/s1600/img_0+%25281%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmu8UjhnVuDHlfVvO0zidnFuZ8yfyAQQ3o-gpArR7WFxg7FznI9rkC1h5_4HSSTsxxO4PcxKi5Nqfa3FnoR4v0gbqOO_9gC78Szc4qudomIOwYLUjKz9Dqw_Rxrp8q_YI5ZHyqHJc-_S0/s320/img_0+%25281%2529.jpg" width="214" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/yqsbc547/62827512.html">Source.</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Similarly,
civilian teenager Amuro Rei is thrust into a combat role by
circumstances, and initially depends heavily on the capabilities of
his machine to achieve victory. Understandably, he develops (a fairly
believable depiction of) PTSD after a few battles, stops eating and
sleeping properly, and lashes out at the people trying to help him,
including his closest friend. At one point he even deserts his ship,
White Base, and absconds with the Gundam, which is military property
in the first place. Eventually he comes to terms with his fear,
achieves his potential, and becomes a truly skilled pilot bent on
protecting White Base and its inhabitants.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Of
course, I'm not sure this actually says anything substantial about
these two series. It probably just indicates that the Hero's Journey
is a good fit for a space opera. Which I guess is interesting in
itself, actually.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Accidental
retro-futurism</span></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This
is a common pitfall of science fiction: By the time the real world
has caught up chronologically with the one you've created, it may
have actually surpassed the technology you were envisioning, or gone
off in a completely different direction. Early cyberpunk had
conceived of the Internet before the Internet was the Internet, but
it didn't occur to people back in the 80's that we would eventually
be able to access it wirelessly.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMVJXuTbGUsNfy3N7Sk7BovCVkueHhE8BEa1BT2App7_aWkU8sulCpC-lS7mJBMqNHvD-mRXXaOWcGLqQ-91SBW-eOV0aIDya8c7-HfamZwS8hTESViRPNz36ze5-OluNVTHOBSbLwExY/s1600/2013tourphotos109.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="118" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMVJXuTbGUsNfy3N7Sk7BovCVkueHhE8BEa1BT2App7_aWkU8sulCpC-lS7mJBMqNHvD-mRXXaOWcGLqQ-91SBW-eOV0aIDya8c7-HfamZwS8hTESViRPNz36ze5-OluNVTHOBSbLwExY/s320/2013tourphotos109.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">"These days its design seems completely inadequate." <a href="http://ourstarblazers.com/vault/2013tourphotos1/">Source.</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> Again,
even today I find Mobile Suit Gundam relevant and immensely
enjoyable, but one does notice the occasioanl hiccough in
technological progress. I think this is most noticeable in the
viewscreens used by crewmen on White Base and in their mobile suit
cockpits, which is to say they look like an old TV your father has
stored in his basement because he hasn't bothered to throw it away
yet, not like modern monitors and certainly not like anything we'll
have by the time we're living on the moon.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Meanwhile,
control panels on the shiny, just-finished Death Star look as though
they're best suited for operating a Magnavox Intellivision.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1I_XQnpRenPn9bmCMlz92h_Gq-ziBEqCAxMWYrZshEZbsgt9P4swBQCMlGiIDcWjXkZMLGlr_-cFqnmC3xkklJMWeKClPDOykkhiplzu7Qjoh3BnOAlCo6sczgA-cNC-xhVhXy5yzAdk/s1600/Margot.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1I_XQnpRenPn9bmCMlz92h_Gq-ziBEqCAxMWYrZshEZbsgt9P4swBQCMlGiIDcWjXkZMLGlr_-cFqnmC3xkklJMWeKClPDOykkhiplzu7Qjoh3BnOAlCo6sczgA-cNC-xhVhXy5yzAdk/s320/Margot.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cutting-edge computer technology in the world of Fallout.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This
can injure suspension of disbelief, but I actually really dig this.
It's kind of like a fingerprint left on a work by the era in which it
was created. You can always think of it as an alternate timeline,
like in Fallout, where humanity pursued nuclear technology instead of
computer technology, so that even computers manufactured circa 2077
intentionally look like they came out of 1950.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Destruction!</span></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The
Death Star destroying Alderaan is the cayalyst for sections of plot
in A New Hope. Mobile Suit Gundam kicks off with the destruction of
the protagonist's home, the space colony Side 7. Huh.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Laser
swords</span></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Lightsabre
– beam sabre. Even the names are similar.<img height="16" id="i6gsed37rc03" src="data:image/gif;base64,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" width="16" /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-E4i1eJ2kWylDJUzy_Hb5EW5esBxrITtlWFcjegUkKY9E2L-1rC_99GCJUM9SdLHg7PKtycfDBumN29yZMCyuW-yUEniilEAlu-52_xfxdEvULRH4yOR8cnd6OfivnjN-boihbTm6V00/s1600/Lukesaberanh.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="174" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-E4i1eJ2kWylDJUzy_Hb5EW5esBxrITtlWFcjegUkKY9E2L-1rC_99GCJUM9SdLHg7PKtycfDBumN29yZMCyuW-yUEniilEAlu-52_xfxdEvULRH4yOR8cnd6OfivnjN-boihbTm6V00/s320/Lukesaberanh.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQpKlEAP2mAQi4l2GKjGLOqy1MeTUneM6VZltmeFM8IdSlUnXDxZhx4r1s9Q1XjcWJDHOCEdpUVCvwNG2IUIP_skbmr1ZyM56fdysOMJENNfOLYIz_KWeNeWTkOrVZ5OaYxYNgotiz0TI/s1600/Gundamep25f.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQpKlEAP2mAQi4l2GKjGLOqy1MeTUneM6VZltmeFM8IdSlUnXDxZhx4r1s9Q1XjcWJDHOCEdpUVCvwNG2IUIP_skbmr1ZyM56fdysOMJENNfOLYIz_KWeNeWTkOrVZ5OaYxYNgotiz0TI/s320/Gundamep25f.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">If
there's one thing East and West could agree on in the 1970s, it was
that laser swords are just plain cool. Or “totally radical,” I
guess.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But
all of this pales in comparison to...</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Amateur
mechanics</span></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As
a young boy, Anakin Skywalker built C-3PO...</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgufGbSolJuNnUKFLsD-hZRi0oKS1OYrqQeyn8ICCobtHy9rIghJELjLgz83H8J1e6nSd9xLfjj8G9IZqFRcFxvg_5a7iHIdRbGmcQ5bjL8BBs8A1-1Wx-glNa_a5hhWXaIQlW7Z4LlkkQ/s1600/Phantom-Menace-C3P0.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgufGbSolJuNnUKFLsD-hZRi0oKS1OYrqQeyn8ICCobtHy9rIghJELjLgz83H8J1e6nSd9xLfjj8G9IZqFRcFxvg_5a7iHIdRbGmcQ5bjL8BBs8A1-1Wx-glNa_a5hhWXaIQlW7Z4LlkkQ/s320/Phantom-Menace-C3P0.jpg" width="320" /></a></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi36HQLVYNQIBs3Qxfw7G6VqU2IQLnkfbwkDnpeehF6Y6DRWCwR-YbSjZ7h1vVGWGahn8ZkAroF4Bv8kSmdy0KcFParDoMdS3_wx9YiPhYn7ZzwClOdhPsJ4eoy36AF1Orj_UjvwRkiLTk/s1600/Haro_%2528Mobile_Suit_Gundam%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi36HQLVYNQIBs3Qxfw7G6VqU2IQLnkfbwkDnpeehF6Y6DRWCwR-YbSjZ7h1vVGWGahn8ZkAroF4Bv8kSmdy0KcFParDoMdS3_wx9YiPhYn7ZzwClOdhPsJ4eoy36AF1Orj_UjvwRkiLTk/s400/Haro_%2528Mobile_Suit_Gundam%2529.jpg" /></a></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">...and
as a budding scientific prodigy, Amuro Rei created the purely
decorative robot Haro.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Anakin,
of course, becomes Darth Vader. And in some Gundam series, Amuro
occupies the role of villain.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Coincidence?</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The crossover section of Fanfiction.com thinks not.</span></div>
Rude Boy Abroadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02092622808758318179noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-43798680348663868.post-68469625367025718682015-10-08T12:21:00.000+09:002015-10-08T12:21:32.399+09:00Friends come to visit<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I
don't remember this, but apparently a guy I met through English Club
actually met me in Canada a year or so earlier. At that time I was
very involved on campus doing stuff like interpretation for groups of
students on month-long programmes, and I guess he was among one of
those groups. Flash forward, and unbeknownst to me, he's spent the
last several months living near Seattle, attending an ESL finishing
school type deal. He has a month off, so he's swinging through for
old times' sake.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“I
don't think you went to America to eat Japanese food,” I tell him,
“but there's a Japanese restaurant here I think you might find a
little interesting.”</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Like
everybody, he likes my new ancient sports car, which will be getting
its own post in due course (it's Japanese; don't worry, this blog
hasn't <i>entirely</i> lost all
focus). I take him to a Japanese-style burger joint. So like, there's
teriyaki burgers, but then there's like burgers with yakisoba on
them, shit like that. He's hand-rolling a cigarette with Turkish
tobacco before we've even paid.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He
wants to take a spin through the downtown area, after which I direct
us through a green, sedate park on the river. All the way I'm
monitoring his fatigue and levels of interest, mentally planning
alternate routes and trying to get the timing right, and yeah now
we're basically on a date. As we walk he remembers snatches of places
he's been, intersections, storefronts. Phaedrus Moments, you might
call them.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I
ask him about his school, whose student body he says is predominantly
Asian. We start to speak, as you do, of the future. His plan is to go
back to Japan when he's done his Seattle thing and finally enter
working life.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For
me it's a little more up in the air, as we know. I've basically been
working at securing Japanese employment for two years with no actual
progress. President has long since departed for Koube, where she is
teaching English. The distance, in the end, has only confirmed that I
really, truly, want to be with this woman. He prods me, so, you think
you'll marry her? Well, nobody knows the future. I mean I'd be lying
if I said I hadn't thought about it.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He's
startled and even a little angry to learn that there are Japanese
people who tell me that, as a foreigner, I will never understand
Japan, or learn to speak Japanese. (I wrote a post about this, but can't find it.)</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“But
you already speak Japanese!” he fumes. “You practically <i>are</i>
Japanese!”</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When
President jettisoned nearly all her physical belongings in
preparation for Koube, I ended up with some items of clothing. When I
accidentally moved in with her, I didn't really bring much, so I
frequently wound up picking through her laundry for T-shirts and
jeans to wear. (Lockup thinks this is hilarious.) I developed some
favourites, including a pink Sailor Moon T-shirt, a not-pink Sailor
Moon t-shirt, and a black one that simply says <span lang="ja-JP">「日本」
</span>(“JAPAN”).</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm
wearing the <span lang="ja-JP">日本
</span>t-shirt
today, and when my friend saw me sitting there, wearing that shirt,
in a Japanese restaurant, drinking a bottle of Oi Ocha, the sight
struck him as so absurdly Japanese he burst out laughing and couldn't
help but snap a photo.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Three
weeks later, I'm strolling past the burger joint when I see my friend
who works there, and stop in to say hi. She's a bit of an interesting
story. She's going to my Canadian university, now, and her long-term
plan is Canada. And of course, if you graduate from a Canadian
university, that's a quick ticket to permanent residency. Her problem
right now is money, because tuition for international students is
exorbitant. I know another guy, a tourism student, whose dream is to
do tourism stuff in Hawaii. It makes a lot of sense, if you know a
bit about Japan and Hawaii. There's a lot of parallels between our
respective dreams, a lot of commiseration – and mutual support –
to be had.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Talking
with the girl from the burger joint, it turns out a Japanese girl who
lived here back in fall 2011 is in town for a visit. She was with a
group all from the same university who were here for a semester each.
Kinda weird how that worked out, but it was nice. I had them, I had
Japanese Club, I had President – we were still just friends back
then – and I was taking six classes (the standard being four), so I
never wanted for companionship, entertainment, or purpose. And all
the while of course, I was prepping for my ryuugaku the following
year, so everything I did, every hour of laying groundwork or
studying Japanese, took on added weight in my own mind.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">My
friend told me our guest wanted to see me if she could. I told her it
probably made more sense for her to tell me so rather than wait for a
random encounter, she promised she'd tell her so, I looked forward to
hearing from her, and then completely forgot about it until two days
later, when we actually did meet in a random encounter. She's doing
well. Since I last saw her, she's graduated university and become a
systems engineer at a decent company in central Toukyou. But, she
wonders, will she be able to keep working there when she gets married
and has children?</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Lately
it's hard not to feel like everyone I know is both younger and more
successful than me. It's
discouraging. Even most of the people from English Club are
now getting job offers from desirable companies. Anyone my age who <i>is</i>
still in school has moved on to graduate studies and will be
well-positioned indeed once they wrap that up. Meanwhile I've spent
approximately nine decades working on a degree that will be mostly
worthless when I finally complete it, at which point I will have
virtually no marketable skills or experience. Painfully, President is
at this very moment living the life I've always wanted, without me.
I'm not jealous – really. We're a team, we share in our successes.
But I want so badly to be there doing it with her.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But
I have tangible, achievable goals. For the first time in a while, I
can almost see things coming together. And it was invigorating to see
my old friends. You take whatever victories you can seize.</span></div>
Rude Boy Abroadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02092622808758318179noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-43798680348663868.post-31264101288931069532015-09-15T16:22:00.000+09:002015-09-15T16:22:06.092+09:00Nintendou has a new captain<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrOmoZkX6Wzwt2WcQ9uSQwXzcC2r2SHu2X3CjShsTwbF6BUHAldtPLan5pwLvcffEWcEuvHbK6dGEkJz7FRrpFP39WAxf6bAc5UkpUgvpltoviysdKlqc4z7ZBrW9ZQSMeXzEinsY5ESE/s1600/kimishima.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="217" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrOmoZkX6Wzwt2WcQ9uSQwXzcC2r2SHu2X3CjShsTwbF6BUHAldtPLan5pwLvcffEWcEuvHbK6dGEkJz7FRrpFP39WAxf6bAc5UkpUgvpltoviysdKlqc4z7ZBrW9ZQSMeXzEinsY5ESE/s320/kimishima.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kimishima Tatsumi (君島達己)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Earlier
this summer, the president of Nintendou <a href="http://www.cnet.com/news/nintendo-announces-death-of-company-president-satoru-iwata/" target="_blank">fucking died</a>. His name was
Iwata Satoru, and while he wasn't necessarily the most beloved figure
in the industry it certainly came as a shock. In the wake of this
tragedy, Nintendou took the opportunity to reshuffle its upper-level
management while considering his successor. Yesterdayish, the company
<a href="http://www.nintendo.co.jp/ir/pdf/2015/150914e.pdf" target="_blank">released a statement</a> naming Kimishima Tatsumi as the new head of the
company.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Additionally,
Miyamoto Shigeru has been the recipient of the newly created title of
“Creative Fellow.” Head of Nintendo Entertainment Analysis and
Development (formerly R&D1), ie the section of the company that
actually makes the games, Miyamoto is responsible for Mario, Zelda,
and other masterpieces. The new title seems to indicate more a
recognition of his contributions to Nintendou than any change in his
role within it. (Some fans expressed a desire for him to become
president, which makes no sense. Miyamoto will never be president.
Even if his creative skills were transferrable to the financial side
of the company, if he became president he'd obviously no longer be
making games.) Takeda Genyo, meanwhile, is now a Technology Fellow,
seemingly the hardware equivalent to Miyamoto's software stuff.
“Fellow” is a bit of a weird-ass ingredient to throw into a salad
full of words like “Representative Director,” but oddly enough it
kind of fits with Nintendou's style.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That
said, Kimishima's appointment is the far more interesting and
important part of the announcement. Beginning his career in banking,
he joined The Pokemon Company in 2000. (Not to be confused with Game
Freak, the development studio that actually makes most of the Pokemon
games, The Pokemon Company is mainly concerned with marketing and
licensing the franchise.) He then joined Nintendo of America for
several years before coming back to Japan, where he was responsibly
for various businessy aspects of Nintendou, like Human Resources and
the always nebulous “General Affairs.” Clearly the experience and
the skillset is there; the question now is how he will stack up to
Iwata.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSfGb7zHrspqG2DVoMoiGEV6OoiQ_zkJ0aa5YJ34R7sHaUaIe8FkbbE5-rq34Tl2GtX_y-4DJmErEoOpNb6bi_3fZRr0e-WxoMBe75dY_Eeju9rIhiJS0m-zEx86CHlNJ4rsxOt5y-RqE/s1600/iwata2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSfGb7zHrspqG2DVoMoiGEV6OoiQ_zkJ0aa5YJ34R7sHaUaIe8FkbbE5-rq34Tl2GtX_y-4DJmErEoOpNb6bi_3fZRr0e-WxoMBe75dY_Eeju9rIhiJS0m-zEx86CHlNJ4rsxOt5y-RqE/s320/iwata2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Iwata Satoru (岩田聡)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On
the one hand, Iwata clearly had a deep and abiding love of games,
believed in his company, and at one point appeared willing to take
the fall for lacklustre WiiU sales. He took steps to make himself
appear <a href="http://www.endlessbacklog.com/features/299-thank-you-mr-iwata-saying-goodbye-to-an-industry-legend" target="_blank">relatable and accessible</a> to his company's fandom, such as
through Nintendo Direct, where he “directly” addressed fans
(customers) regarding current products and issues. On the other hand,
this also gave some the impression that he was weak and simpering,
and while “Please Understand” was a stupid, lazy meme, it did
represent many people's dissatisfaction with the direction Nintendou
was taking. Meanwhile, Iwata presided over one of the weakest periods
in the company's history, financially and artistically. If you want
to be charitable you can acknowledge that he was facing varied
challenges the best way he knew how, and that shouldering the entire
blame on one person is absurd, but you can't deny his responsibility
for the disappointment.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In
contrast to Iwata's attitude, I see one particular sentiment floating
around the Internet regarding Kimishima: “He's a businessman, not a
gamer.” There's a few things to unpack there. First of all, there's
no doubt that Iwata was a gamer, but in the sense that he lead a huge
business, how exactly was he not a businessman? I guess the answer
would be that he was not a <i>skilled</i>
businessman, or that his attitude towards the business was
insufficiently businesslike. Except, the implication seems to be that
having a gamer leading a games company is good and would naturally
lead to high-quality products, while a businessman will bring us
soulles cash-ins.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sure,
having a passion for your industry and its products can potentially
be a tremendous asset. One way to put it is that as the head of a
games company, you are in a position to create the kind of games that
you would want to play. Individual tastes and all that, but you can
be reasonably sure that a certain proportion of consumers will nod
right along with you, and that whatever you make, it will at least
have artistic conviction. You may also be better equipped to read the
currents of popular feeling; how often have we heard the complaint
about company executives being out of touch?</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">However,
I am of the opinion that business acumen is also extremely valuable
to have when conducting business. It's also wrong to say that a lack
of personal interest necessarily equates to a lack of understanding.
Suppose I got hired at P&G tomorrow. As it stands, I do not feel
any deep emotion for household cleaning products, but if it were my
job to know about them, you can bet that for the next few weeks I
would be spending every waking moment learning. I would learn exactly
which chemical compounds are most effective at scouring stains from
carpet and the thought process that goes into Mrs MacMillan's
purchasing decisions when she's at the grocery store. Naturally,
games, which are art rather than science, are that much more
dependent on instinct, but it's not like market analysis has never
steered anybody into a bad business decision, anyway.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Personally,
I'm intrigued. I never got as down on Nintendou as a lot of people
did, because Mario and Zelda are just so much fun. Still, I feel as
though shaking things up like this could really reinvigorate the
company. Surely the gravity of his position is not lost on Kimishima.
In Shadowrun, Nintendou would be an A-ranked corporation at least,
and it is no small fixture of Japanese culture both at home and
internationally. Hopefully we get at least a few good games out of
it.</span></div>
Rude Boy Abroadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02092622808758318179noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-43798680348663868.post-13798964093762326772015-08-18T17:28:00.002+09:002017-01-18T17:23:44.120+09:00Post-Apocalyptia: Fragile, Metro, and Fallout, Part 2 - Themes<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Post-Apocalyptia:
Fragile, Metro, and Fallout, Part 2</span></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Themes</span></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://rudeboyabroad.blogspot.ca/2015/07/post-apocalyptia-fragile-metro-and.html" target="_blank">Part 1</a></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Part 2</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://rudeboyabroad.blogspot.ca/2016/11/post-apocalyptia-fragile-metro-and.html">Part 3</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://rudeboyabroad.blogspot.ca/2017/01/post-apocalyptia-fragile-metro-and.html">Part 4</a></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Post-Apocalyptia
is an interesting setting for a variety of reasons. Wish fulfillment
is definitely part of it. We may not <i>really</i>
want to live off maggots and live in constant fear of violent death,
but from time to time we all wish we could leave our obligations
behind in exchange for something more adventurous. It's the same
appeal we see in the Wild West or outlaw biker gangs. But it's also a
great place to tell a story, because it pushes our characters so hard
and asks so many interesting questions in the process. Does morality
change in this situation? What level of depravity is acceptable in
exchange for survival? To what extent are we culpable for the sins of
others? And should we be trying to restore what we've lost, or build
something new? These questions and others pervade a post-Apocalyptic
setting, intentionally or not.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Decay/Atmosphere</span></b></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvYWONBzHnmfzHCI3_XA05K7hc9h8xzxM8mWzRVQe2c2lpqAVE7aTZCoXgPzysjqCD-swcqoa-7ju0RTgqvsQr9bfJ4ZgNlfkLmhV4Sxzock1L-kVIC5e0qAXUj3TAhL4kiDF7QHh-2s0/s1600/FNV_screenshot_Helios_laser.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvYWONBzHnmfzHCI3_XA05K7hc9h8xzxM8mWzRVQe2c2lpqAVE7aTZCoXgPzysjqCD-swcqoa-7ju0RTgqvsQr9bfJ4ZgNlfkLmhV4Sxzock1L-kVIC5e0qAXUj3TAhL4kiDF7QHh-2s0/s320/FNV_screenshot_Helios_laser.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I
remember doing the Fallout: New Vegas quest “That Lucky Old Sun,”
named after a song from the 50's. The quest has nothing really to do
with the sun – it concerns the activation of an orbital laser
cannon – but the name made me stop and actually look up at the sun,
shining down on my character (a hot young Chinese girl). And I
remember thinking, how incredible is it that even when the world has
been all but destroyed and virtually nothing looks as it once did,
the sun beating down on this Mojave desert is the same one that shone
on the face of human civilization 200 years ago. The sun observed
humanity's self-destruction from afar - safely, and indifferently.</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In
Metro, much discussion is given to the ultimate fate of humanity,
whether the last scraps of it subsist in the Moscow Metro or if other
pockets remain elsewhere, whether we will ever be able to reclaim the
surface, or if we will be forced to live down there forever, or yet
again if we will simply die out within a couple of generations, once
there's nothing left to scavenge and our subterranean farms go
fallow. Meanwhile, for all its politics and gunfights, the underlying
story of Metro is that of the dark ones, an offshoot of human beings
seemingly made for our war-scorched earth. They are telepathic,
unaffected by radiation or extreme temperatures, and difficult to
kill. We're out, they're in. They want to help, if only we'd let
them, but even if we die out completely, the earth abideth forever,
and our passing from it will be only one chapter in its long, long
chronicle.</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9sJmZMZzRgbfwZ_qibLQOUxhWnrFirgOHjOyk6zEJSxxtkMBFBS1ZwBXPJAphzLc06snvu2decPF6eXWRN7aUaHFSel5ut6glw_t2eWd03ievCTHfb4FSiTDkXYMOKB6PgXLpTg3DS8Q/s1600/1046911-gb_super_mutant_marcus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="219" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9sJmZMZzRgbfwZ_qibLQOUxhWnrFirgOHjOyk6zEJSxxtkMBFBS1ZwBXPJAphzLc06snvu2decPF6eXWRN7aUaHFSel5ut6glw_t2eWd03ievCTHfb4FSiTDkXYMOKB6PgXLpTg3DS8Q/s320/1046911-gb_super_mutant_marcus.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Marcus, an intelligent Super Mutant</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Funny
enough, Fallout actually makes kind of the same point, twice over. In
this case, however, it's only fringe groups who believe that the
newtypes have inherited the wasteland. Ghouls are humans who have received large amounts of radiation and become zombie-like due to their symptoms. In Van Buren, there was going
to be a character named Dr Willem Clark, a ghoul who claimed that, as
radiation was the source of ghoulification, ghouls were the natural
successors to their frail human ancestors. One day, he claimed, he
and his people would strike out from their isolated fortress, the
Reservation, and claim the Southwest (if not all of America) for
themselves, and as ghouls can potentially live for hundreds of years,
they were willing to endure slow progress. Similarly, the ultimate
plot of Fallout 1 centres on the Master and his army of Super
Mutants, humans who have been mutated by the Forced Evolutionary
Virus. Like ghouls, they are immune to radiation (though unlike
ghouls, they are not healed by it), and they are furthermore huge,
fast, and incredibly strong, capable of wielding weapons such as
miniguns and Super Sledges with ease. Indeed, they are <i>already </i>the
masters of much of the American wasteland, such as the ruins of
Washington DC, where they are more or less the dominant force. On the
other hand, many Super Mutants have had their intellects dulled to
animalistic levels, and the store-brand humans' main advantage over
them is superior training and small unit tactics.</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2FDKlTUTyILfK2utjbRlJOVCazk58DYJ-yQiA9PzgzRxh6xIOzwj1HYRZKarP1Rba__HdLwI4h_qWxzDlY_eQGy7gF9OHr9OR7QbWXDamA7LPVzH8_e-SALtxqHDf8JoXcJokd1G35Es/s1600/fragile.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="177" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2FDKlTUTyILfK2utjbRlJOVCazk58DYJ-yQiA9PzgzRxh6xIOzwj1HYRZKarP1Rba__HdLwI4h_qWxzDlY_eQGy7gF9OHr9OR7QbWXDamA7LPVzH8_e-SALtxqHDf8JoXcJokd1G35Es/s320/fragile.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://nintendoeverything.com/gaming-love-letters-fragile-dreams/" target="_blank">Source</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Fragile
seems to be driving towards exactly the same point as Metro: We
should absolutely struggle to survive, but it also wouldn't hurt to
occasionally remember that we may not be as important as we think. I
never felt this more strongly than when Seto saw the northern lights
in Fragile. Of course, they're beautiful, a wonder of nature; but
even if civilization was destroyed, wouldn't they still be beautiful,
regardless of whether there was anyone there to observe that beauty?
On the other hand, if there's no one there to observe something's
beauty, what's the point? There's a similar scene at the end of the
dam level, where the camera pulls back to reveal the nature that has
grown up around the abandoned dam, which, by the way, put a stopper
in a natural wonder in the first place. The dam is still fully
functional, too, constantly generating power for a population that is
no longer there to use it. Like if you made dinner for five, but no
one was hungry. And let us not forget the moon, which, like that lucky old sun, looks on from above. This theme of nature reclamation, of course, pervades
nearly every second of Fragile.</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Besides
that, we have the “everyday life” angle. I appreciate that in the
Metro 2033 novel, the national pastime seems to be sitting around
sharing stories – news from other parts of the metro, rumours
embellished by each successive purveyor, or just a personal anecdote
from five years back when you were living an another station and
apprenticing with an ironworker. It works really well, because with
little else in the way of entertainment, and most information being
exchanged by word of mouth, that's how people really <i>would</i>
spend a sizeable chunk of their time.</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJgzloQo33Is8k6iNuZezDL3PbGERfaB6t1sazmTNgngUSCoZopRZcZGh4SPgH6Ov72dBFWUOqR_lTE1QB7sD24sLWS5yM6BGq_uYY1kraFw2NOktZZK2FS-7ImrKlATM40esnukRwGjA/s1600/fallout-fore.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJgzloQo33Is8k6iNuZezDL3PbGERfaB6t1sazmTNgngUSCoZopRZcZGh4SPgH6Ov72dBFWUOqR_lTE1QB7sD24sLWS5yM6BGq_uYY1kraFw2NOktZZK2FS-7ImrKlATM40esnukRwGjA/s320/fallout-fore.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In your travels through the world
of Fallout, you will frequently meet with communities struggling for
survival, and can offer your assistance if you wish. For instance, a
typical quest line might involve the breakdown of a town's water
purifier, and possible solutions might be to either help fix it, or
negotiate a trade relationship with a neighbour. But for the most
part, you yourself do not have to contend with any such issues –
you are capable of days if not months without sleep, don't have to
worry about biological trivialities like food, and can repair massive
internal hemorrhaging with a 200-year-old first aid kit you found in
a burnt-out house. Although Metro does an excellent job of making you
really feel the constant danger of sudden, violent death, if you look
at similar real-world situations like impoverished nations or the Old
West, a slow descent into disease and malnourishment is far more
likely than a quick and dramatic end. But in Fallout, anything that
doesn't kill you outright is of little concern.</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Of course, we accept these quirks
in the name of fun. New Vegas, however, introduced “Hardcore Mode,”
in which you really do have to pay attention to your bodily needs.
The healing system is more complex, and some injuries can be tended
only by a trained doctor. You have a hunger and thirst metre,
creating the interesting dynamic where you may be forced to drink
irradiated toilet water and risk radiation poisoning later in order
to stave off immediate death by dehydration. In the normal game
ammunition is weightless, allowing you to carry hundreds of rounds
for weapons you don't even have, but Hardcore Mode forces you to pack
more carefully, selecting only the equipment you will need for the
mission at hand. Suddenly all of your decisions take on greater
weight. Certainly you can't fault anybody who just wants the freedom
to explore a compelling and detailed world without worrying about
finicky irritants, but the light sim aspects of Hardcore Mode really
clinch the post-Apocalyptic atmosphere for a lot of players.</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The other two utilise their
atmosphere to great effect, but Fragile lives and dies on it. That
is, if you stripped away the details, Fallout would still be a
top-knotch open-ended RPG, and Metro would be an ok FPS (and the
Metro novels would still be good Hero's Journeys). On the other hand,
Fragile, taken at its fundamentals, really isn't much of a game.
Without the ancillary trappings, you're just running around aimlessly
and occasionally hitting things with sticks. The art direction and
slowly building pathos take that and make it compelling.</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Of course the biggest difference
between Fragile and the other two is that in Fragile, nothing was
<i>destroyed</i> – it simply began to erode in the sudden absence
of humanity. Moscow's Ostankino Tower had its top blown off, but
Toukyou Tower stands intact. Fragile's degradation process was much
slower, and, really, almost even sadder than sudden violent erasure.
For inspiration, the developers looked to photographs of 廃墟
<i>haikyo</i>, meaning “ruins,”
but used here to refer to abandoned train stations and amusement
parks that Japanese urban explorers sometimes seek out and document.
Give it a Google and you'll turn up stuff like this:</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtQkykvZcHks7cwNL2pEQYGybkGT0zj8mfwzN4f70i-HHsDovRfMclmUlcW_GCYlegQ4UbUraT5jSZGdsVj8p1Vt5c17_7b7xafnD9g4QlAtmXNzBwe5qdYn892Orw9zGiiryYdxx1QU8/s1600/1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="177" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhtQkykvZcHks7cwNL2pEQYGybkGT0zj8mfwzN4f70i-HHsDovRfMclmUlcW_GCYlegQ4UbUraT5jSZGdsVj8p1Vt5c17_7b7xafnD9g4QlAtmXNzBwe5qdYn892Orw9zGiiryYdxx1QU8/s320/1.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Unsettling, eh? The weird part
is, you actually kind of get used to it. The sight of the ruined
world is arresting at first, but while you never stop noticing it,
you do start accepting that this is just the way things are now.</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I think it also says something
that in Fragile, of the two electronic friends Seto meets – PF and
Kurou – both perish by the end of the game, whereas the
flesh-and-blood characters not only fight to survive, but even live
on as ghosts, long after their bodies have died.</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Nostalgia/The
Old World</span></b></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtVodYncmsDgy9wJ99B6DnsSclF_lWym1s2TeBVx979S0yESikb6dGJzjaOBmrUgIg4lYVyXEYeWRGSLT3anyWDyYrWbhYGmEqMenYT3WsfunnNvtIOEBfYdP0gzGihyphenhyphenQhqt3HP0kP1F0/s1600/fragile13.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtVodYncmsDgy9wJ99B6DnsSclF_lWym1s2TeBVx979S0yESikb6dGJzjaOBmrUgIg4lYVyXEYeWRGSLT3anyWDyYrWbhYGmEqMenYT3WsfunnNvtIOEBfYdP0gzGihyphenhyphenQhqt3HP0kP1F0/s320/fragile13.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">From time to time when stopping
at a campfire to rest and record his progress, Seto will find some
small object from when the world was whole. This is accompanied by a
few lines of monologue from the person who used it, and while the
process is a little forced, they do make some poignant observations,
such as the cup that once held hot tea on a cold winter's day, and
cold, refreshing tea on a hot summer's day. You know – the little
things that we never think about, that we take for granted because we
don't live in a post-nuclear apocalypse. Yet.</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Likewise, Artyom remarks on what
a pity it is that humanity managed to accidentally destroy almost
everything it had worked for up to that point. Having been born less
than a year before the bombs dropped, he remembers nothing of the old
world and can evaluate it as an observer. Anytime he encounters a
relic of what now seems to be the Golden Age of civilization, he
mourns its passing. Encountering the burned-out hulls of train cars,
he almost finds it hard to believe that these machines could carry a
person across Moscow in a matter of hours, when his own journey takes
weeks or months. When he looks across the shattered landscape at what
remains of Ostankino Tower, his thrill of awe is immediately followed
by a pang of remorse that nothing of this scale will ever be built,
ever again.</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3Ez2kcyEgfaXRPe6OSn_4Qlx9Vre-V08ZUnUMhgECvXbjoOOGc66OtNIz6PUkKKClfaxHXDKC0hvYw_ek46nwcnSA92YznbSbNMqwlSj2z2Ay3nkbFrOYcDK6EqPClnxshOjMVm5WHSg/s1600/UlyssesDuster.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3Ez2kcyEgfaXRPe6OSn_4Qlx9Vre-V08ZUnUMhgECvXbjoOOGc66OtNIz6PUkKKClfaxHXDKC0hvYw_ek46nwcnSA92YznbSbNMqwlSj2z2Ay3nkbFrOYcDK6EqPClnxshOjMVm5WHSg/s320/UlyssesDuster.png" width="286" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ulysses</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Most of the inhabitants of
Fallout, however, are remarkably well-adjusted to their condition,
being far enough removed from the Great War and what was lost in its
wake that they feel no particular attachment to it. Indeed,
everything that came before it is regarded as merely another stage of
history (or what's survived of it; Abraham Washington will inform you
that the Declaration of Independence was signed by the Second
Judgmental Congress and taken to Britain by plane). Some, however,
have managed to develop a yearning for the good old days that borders
on obsession. These aren't generally ghouls, either, who would at
least have a reason to miss the world they once inhabited, but rather
people who have never even seen it with their own eyes. The condition
has come to be called “Old World Blues,” and there's a whole New
Vegas DLC on that theme that goes by that very name. In most cases,
the afflicted fail to even understand what they're trying to restore,
and end up getting bogged down in unimportant details like the kind
of technology that was being used at the time. One character,
however, who gives himself the name Ulysses – after Ulysses S.
Grant, not the James Joyce novel – discovers a United States flag,
latches on to it, and never lets go. This is not because he is unduly
fascinated with the object, however, but because he understands all
too well the power of symbols, and he believes in what the United
States was supposed to stand for. To him, even the Enclave (which up
until its destruction claimed to be the legitimate American
government in recluse) is a betrayal of the American spirit, as it
has perverted the ideals on which it thrived and twisted them towards
petty personal concerns. His goal, though pointless and impossible,
is noble.</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Society
and commerce</span></b></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In
Metro, the people everyone looked to for guidance were not the
political elite or even military commanders but the station
employees. Train operators are especially sought after, because they
know the territory and, in the words of the novel, do not panic the
moment they have to disembark and enter a dark tunnel.</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8hT4GlVu5fsD6O8aZhKvHnSShSSM53XhcP2DEX1-t4PCwSsrCT_0FUCE-9EOxIfM6c_JD7GhMDW3mmrqWBQZMqdJyGM35z7nZVjbmvlOCrHp8SIXmS14RQYYZTCabNEQtoMUxkw6Cbr4/s1600/Fallout_3_Nuka_Cola_Poster.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8hT4GlVu5fsD6O8aZhKvHnSShSSM53XhcP2DEX1-t4PCwSsrCT_0FUCE-9EOxIfM6c_JD7GhMDW3mmrqWBQZMqdJyGM35z7nZVjbmvlOCrHp8SIXmS14RQYYZTCabNEQtoMUxkw6Cbr4/s320/Fallout_3_Nuka_Cola_Poster.jpg" width="256" /></a></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Both
Metro and Fallout have a surprisingly good grasp of economics, as
well. Personally I think it's totally possible for the local currency
to remain in use, but it makes just as much sense for it to fall
without the presence of government to guarantee its value. In the
case of Fallout, people start using the metal caps off Nuka-Cola
bottles, which seems kind of silly and indulgent but actually makes
perfect sense: The technology to manufacture them has been basically
lost, which not only makes them difficult to counterfeit, but
insulates them against inflation as well. The denizens of the Moscow
metro end up using old AK-47 bullet casings for exactly the same
reason.</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Unexpectedly,
both settings even demonstrate a basic understanding of the principle
that capitalism inevitably leads to inequality. Fallout 3 has the
inexplicable Tenpenny Tower, a low-rise apartment building somehow
spared bombardment and currently inhabited only by affluent,
non-mutated humans. Well, the nearby population of non-feral ghouls
wants in, but the titular Tenpenny doesn't trust those sometimes
literally two-faced no-goodniks. There's not only an obvious racism
allegory, but a classist one as well. So you have the option to side
with Tenpenny and tell the ghouls to piss off, in which case,
congratulations on being an asshole. Alternately, you can convince
him to give them a chance. The ghouls will move in, and, despite a
few rough jolts, the new and old residents will overcome their
differences and start to build a future together. For a couple of
weeks anyway, at which point the ghouls will prove all of Tenpenny's
fears well-founded and murder everybody in the Tower on some flimsy
pretext. Tenpenny was a bad man, but not all of his tenants were. So,
congratluations on being an asshole.</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWi4O93yfZHvjzlP9tYWdI9dAZlNBR9q-X9qF665ETqqm0p3rsFGGWdPrIHU2Qutpl1hvnats2F-6y_25cuLtyfEAXkHAXl20cCzbSp1FiUPEEwp0QtgugNRYHbnS0Kust5zMn0xGN8DE/s1600/Post-Apocalyptic_Metro_Map.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWi4O93yfZHvjzlP9tYWdI9dAZlNBR9q-X9qF665ETqqm0p3rsFGGWdPrIHU2Qutpl1hvnats2F-6y_25cuLtyfEAXkHAXl20cCzbSp1FiUPEEwp0QtgugNRYHbnS0Kust5zMn0xGN8DE/s320/Post-Apocalyptic_Metro_Map.jpg" width="245" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Just gonna leave this here</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Metro
is quieter on this point, but it's significant that the most powerful
faction in the Moscow Metro got that way by commandeering the Ring
Line, which allowed them to impose tariffs and thus become a huge
economic power, relatively speaking. This in turn allowed them to
bolster their military, and after a stalemate war with the Red Line,
they sat as the virtually unchallenged masters of the Metro. Life in
the Hansa (named after some European history thingy that I'm not
really familiar with) is on a totally different level from other
parts of the Metro; the lights are brighter, the food is better, and
everyone is happier. Yeah, they're still basically destitute by <i>our</i>
standards, but its citizens enjoy luxuries unavailable to almost
anyone else, such as reliable electricity and hot water. No other
force in the Metro is as effective. Christianity is reduced to
a tiny fringe religion, Communism (the Red Line) focusses on
ideologically significant but impractical physical holdings, and
nationalism (the Fourth Reich) gains only a tiny, insular territory
of a mere three stations that is very dangerous to trespass but poses
no credible threat even to its neighbours, rather like the modern
DPRK. The guys who decided early on that money was the number one
priority, though? Oh, boy!</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsfkN5zcz7Q2e5ZwJCXzAtWgbJ7w8Ltb-Y9KIpE3apXcofuwtG5Ha31fkkw1-NWVsGvsnPlRs8sCd0I_V7cY_11RJXrbYP9wAitOTFYNHc2gm54zhyphenhyphenIorrZQTxGYUb4eeKRbOLssFWsDc/s1600/e5a378b9dcle1029.jpg.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="190" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsfkN5zcz7Q2e5ZwJCXzAtWgbJ7w8Ltb-Y9KIpE3apXcofuwtG5Ha31fkkw1-NWVsGvsnPlRs8sCd0I_V7cY_11RJXrbYP9wAitOTFYNHc2gm54zhyphenhyphenIorrZQTxGYUb4eeKRbOLssFWsDc/s320/e5a378b9dcle1029.jpg.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In
Fragile, of course, it's a moot point, because there <i>is</i>
no society, on account of there being no people. Seto can buy stuff
from a travelling merchant, but that's more of a gameplay mechanic
than anything worth reading into. It is notable, however, that all
the humans who meet each other both instinctively seek each other
out, and are instinctively distrustful of each other. Wouldn't you?
And in a way, this actually underscores the main theme of the game:
Loneliness, and the “fragility” of human relationships. After
all, it is human beings' limited, imperfect means of communication
that led the central antagonist to search for a means to human
instrumentality, and, in fact, you find out at the end that he
personally felt alienated from society, which viewed his eccentricity
as worthy of derision and ostracism. He sought not only to alleviate
his own pain, but that of anyone who has ever experienced the torture
of being misunderstood, who wants to fit in, but can't, whatever they
may say about not needing anybody. (I could make a point here about
how this message, borne on a very Japanese, otakuish game, might
speak to Fragile's target audience, but that might be a little too
close for comfort.)</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Funny enough, the fact that
people always come up with some form of currency backs up claims by
John Locke. Or they would, if they were real. You knew what I meant.
So Locke, he says, suppose we only ever relied on the barter system.
A quart of milk to fix a flat tire or whatever. Well, some people
would still end up having more than they need. They would start to
value things with no practical purpose – majestic Hercules beetles,
let's say. They'd start trading legitimately valuable items like wool
for Hercules beetles just because the little guys are the only ones
who understand them. But nobody else has any use for them, right?
Wrong. If the rich guy has more than he needs of everything, and
he'll accept Hercules beetles as payment, then there's little reason
for me not to accept Hercules beetles as payment as well, because I
can turn around and sell them to the rich guy. Suddenly, we're <i>all</i>
using Hercules beetles as a unit of exchange amongst ourselves,
knowing their value is backed by the rich guy who wants them so bad,
and we come to see that we haven't created something like money –
we have actually created money. So, Locke says, money is inevitable.</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Now you may notice that the way I
describe things, the emergence of money is dependent on at least one
person being significantly better off than your average Joe (or Ivan,
or Tarou). Well, Locke says that this is inevitable too, and so does
Marx. Except that Locke says this is because some people are
naturally harder workers than others, and will sooner or later reach
a position where they can start paying people to work for them, while
still skimming off a profit for themselves, at which point they're
commanding a labour force so large that they are now managers.
Whereas Marx says that it is inevitable for complicated economic
reasons that boil down to employees adding value to the object they
work, and the employer keeping that value for themselves, without
actually working for it. Marx was a horrible idiot of a philosopher
but a brilliant economist and I'd love to delve into this further but
you know what, “Marxist economics in post-Apocalyptic settings”
could be a whole book. Suffice to say that economic powerhouses like
Tenpenny or the Hanse are not at all far-fetched.</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<br />
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I hope you enjoyed Part 2 of this
series. It was a little heavy, but it's pretty
interesting stuff. Next time, we'll clean up a few mental bits and pieces
that fell out while I was writing the rest of this series.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://rudeboyabroad.blogspot.ca/2016/11/post-apocalyptia-fragile-metro-and.html">Keep Reading</a></span></div>
Rude Boy Abroadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02092622808758318179noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-43798680348663868.post-55879537579148130502015-08-05T18:38:00.000+09:002015-08-05T18:38:32.890+09:0056 Flowers: China tries to AKB<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh81sNfS-ME6xipw-JBRV8d87FNc8YwdmSAmXS_YKj4BMYbQRNU0yDaecKL_4S26s-nzBo8RXh5EmB3MldRSwaGMk5BmhIGBtPR8icLA_JuGuEEnMfH7Ub6FJ51Rhy-vYIR6fqxbw061bI/s1600/56.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh81sNfS-ME6xipw-JBRV8d87FNc8YwdmSAmXS_YKj4BMYbQRNU0yDaecKL_4S26s-nzBo8RXh5EmB3MldRSwaGMk5BmhIGBtPR8icLA_JuGuEEnMfH7Ub6FJ51Rhy-vYIR6fqxbw061bI/s320/56.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Here's
<a href="http://www.asahi.com/articles/ASH7P0663H7NUHBI02V.html?iref=comtop_6_05" target="_blank">an Asahi Shinbun article</a> from a couple days ago:</span></div>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>“An
idol group composed of 56 Chinese women has been born. It is called
'56 Flowers.' One can't help but think that it is meant to compete
directly with Japan's AKB48. That said, the sense of propaganda in
songs like their fervently performed 'China is the most Beautiful,'
embodying Chinese head of state Xi Jinping's 'Chinese Dream,' is
quite strong. Will they really be popular?</i></span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>“56
is the number of officially recognized Chinese ethnicities. It seems
that 56 Flowers is attempting to appeal to a sense of ethnic unity
and patriotism. The particulars of the group's formation are unknown,
it is supposed that Chinese authorities were involved.</i></span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>“According
to local media, it is formed of various ethnicities of girls, aged
16-23, with skill in singing and dancing. At Beijing Park in June,
they stood onstage in front of the Chinese flage and images of Mao
Zedong, wearing white blouses and black miniskirts. Staff apparently
said, 'Unlike groups from Japan or China, 56 Flowers is not selling
sex or looks.'</i></span></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><i>“There
have been comments on the Internet in the vein of, 'They seem like a
North Korean group,' and 'It smells like the Cultural Revolution.'
(Shanghai)”</i></span></blockquote>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Here's
<a href="http://qz.com/444680/introducing-chinas-totally-wholesome-56-member-patriotic-girl-pop-group/" target="_blank">another article</a>, this one in English, with a little more information. For good measure, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0X18MjtORmg&ab_channel=ChinaUncensored" target="_blank">here's a video.</a></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So
you get 56 girls between the ages of 16 and 23, dress them up in
cotton blouses and short skirts, and have them sing and dance for our
entertainment. Totally not selling sex though!</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8dOwwKnFH1ltMTB9azjvQY_Wp0q-uktE4ghcQzvgwCs_SUxIfrPt3mF87c2JAeTwcHf340LVDtih6untcWXz-KFBGE6z7PwslbrYAr8B5iqmySD9hUDWHp3v_Fmkqlo2EC9GW1BZd6vk/s1600/56%25E8%258A%25B1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="181" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8dOwwKnFH1ltMTB9azjvQY_Wp0q-uktE4ghcQzvgwCs_SUxIfrPt3mF87c2JAeTwcHf340LVDtih6untcWXz-KFBGE6z7PwslbrYAr8B5iqmySD9hUDWHp3v_Fmkqlo2EC9GW1BZd6vk/s320/56%25E8%258A%25B1.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This
“various ethnicities” thing is nice, especially given China's
historical...struggles with that issue. It only <i>really</i>
works, though, if each member is actually a representative of
that group. Please let me know if I'm wrong, but something tells me
this super isn't the case. At least Team 8 really did go out and
recruit a girl from each prefecture. And while I totally understand
concerns regarding propaganda, I'm interested to see where this might
go.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Anytime
I think about the China Century theory, I suspect that it will not
really equal the influence of America during the American Century
unless it occupies the same cultural space. I mean, setting aside the
possibility that we may have entered a period in history in which
globalization is so prevalent that no one country can possibly
dominate – you could draw some parallels. A rising economic star.
Flirting with imperialism. That kind of stuff.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But
what made America into America in the eyes of the rest of the world
was, I think, its popular culture. The average American on the street
cared about Tom Cruise, not Ronald Reagan. I guess the same is true
of a lot of countries – probably most non-Japanese people you know can
picture Goku, but not Abe Shinzou – so maybe this is a shallow
point, but what I'm getting at is that I've always wanted to see what
China could give us for soft culture. I can name a couple dozen
Korean pop music groups despite having never even been there, but I
can only think of two Chinese groups, and one of them is SNH48.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqpBCpAb3PmFOzUsaHITai2cvorxpXr6CLkO52YTAFOlueVVzFBLZmrG3XZdeAtx86fhE-x1jw8kmoI8KFNqf3aoeNZEbaP0vMNfqFvAnV56IQSIzIGFFHxCog7nw_7hzPDa5h3ajE1nw/s1600/wuxia.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="228" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqpBCpAb3PmFOzUsaHITai2cvorxpXr6CLkO52YTAFOlueVVzFBLZmrG3XZdeAtx86fhE-x1jw8kmoI8KFNqf3aoeNZEbaP0vMNfqFvAnV56IQSIzIGFFHxCog7nw_7hzPDa5h3ajE1nw/s320/wuxia.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We've
got wuxia – that's identifiably Chinese. And that's cool. Wuxia is
cool! Can't wait for Iron Knight, Silver Vase! “Hong Kong action
movie” is basically a genre, and Sleeping Dogs rocked (that's if
we're counting Hong Kong as culturally part of China, but let's not
get into that). What else though? By and large I'm gonna go ahead and
say that Chinese pop culture doesn't really get much play outside of
China, at least not in the English-speaking world. Isn't that odd?
China is kind of really big, you guys. This seems to mark a
deliberate step towards changing that, and I'm excited! I'd love
people to step more Chinese songs for In the Groove. Maybe not “China
is the most Beautiful,” but you know.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm
also not totally convinced that this won't be like the forced hallyu
of the mid-2000s up to recent years, where Korean artists started
recording songs in Japanese, SNSD appeared on Letterman and there was
even talk of getting Americans into K-dramas. This publicity campaign
was the subject of much derision by K-bloggers, and the “movement,”
such as it is, tends to be regarded as a bit of a failure. This could
easily go the same way. It's still interesting, though, and it will
likely have a very different character, if only because of the
Chinese government and all that it represents.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">To
close the circle: Does 56 Flowers have a credible chance of competing
against AKB 48? Uh, no. They're completely different products. AKB
sing about first love, and hair scrunchies, and teenage prostitution.
These are very relatable, easily digestible topics that transcend
differences in lifestyle and cultural boundaries. The glory of the
People's Republic of China is not. To be fair, I don't think it
actually says anywhere that they want 56 Flowers to spread its
influence beyond China; maybe it represents more of a pep rally for
Chinese citizens. If so, they've got work ahead of them, because
sadly, nobody cares about politics anymore. Also, they may be a state-driven propaganda machine.</span></div>
Rude Boy Abroadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02092622808758318179noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-43798680348663868.post-34702131188259507842015-07-23T19:07:00.000+09:002017-01-18T17:21:50.735+09:00Post-Apocalyptia: Fragile, Metro, and Fallout, Part 1 - Introduction<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Post-Apocalyptia:
Fragile, Metro, and Fallout, Part 1</span></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Introduction</span></b><br />
<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><b>Part 1</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://rudeboyabroad.blogspot.ca/2015/08/post-apocalyptia-fragile-metro-and.html" target="_blank">Part 2</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://rudeboyabroad.blogspot.ca/2016/11/post-apocalyptia-fragile-metro-and.html">Part 3</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://rudeboyabroad.blogspot.ca/2017/01/post-apocalyptia-fragile-metro-and.html">Part 4</a></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">What
would you do if the world ended tomorrow?</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">What
can you make? What skills do you have? Can you sew? Are you trained
in first aid? Good at hunting? Can you fill out document requisitions
in tripli – oh, wait, no.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">To
whom would you offer those skills? Your friends and family? A
hardened corps of survivalists? Go it alone? Settle down in a
frontier boomtown where you can trade meat for a new shirt or sex for
some potatoes?</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Would
you lie to survive? Steal? Kill? Betray a friend or benefactor? Are
some things more important than survival? Would you rather debase
yourself and survive like a rat, or die with a shred of dignity?
Would your moral code change to reflect your new circumstances, or is
morality immutable? What should you try to accomplish? And what
should humanity?</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I
love post-Apocalyptic fiction. Like cyberpunk, it combines
high-pitched action with compelling philosophy. For whatever reason,
three that stand out to me are the Fallout series, the Metro series,
and the game Fragile (known as Fragile Dreams in the English
translation). I was reading, playing and thinking about all of them
around roughly the same time, and suddenly it all came together.
Maybe it's a little strange that of all the post-Apocalyptic fiction
in the entire world, I should draw a connection between these three
in particular, but it somehow makes sense in my mind. The clincher is
that each has a different country of origin, and appears to be among
the best that country has to offer, so we can imagine that they
represent each country's perspective on the genre. And since one of
those countries is Japan, it luckily fits with my Japan-themed blog.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This
series will explore some of the issues these works raise, comparing
and contrasting their responses. If the fact that we're 308 words in
and still doing the introduction hasn't given it away, I'll warn you
now that this is going to be a dense, lengthy treatise. I'm still
going to try to make it fun though, so if I haven't lost you yet, I
think it's going to be a great ride.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><u>Spoilers
are unavoidable</u>, but I will do my best to avoid major ones.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">I
hope this topic is as exciting for you as it is for me! Let's get
started. In this first post, we will introduce the three franchises
we'll be discussing.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Plot
and Backstory</span></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1MgUOKLadEUvkRBtFiEHzYVjNFNi2RFMS5YAT9baXnRXGOlXwPcpfmROL0N7TNwPpqrTkxtZ5C8E3-Jy0TYXUar5ocFfuqv6RXVawhhqMLDDXIQxzAXrJl7vbwSCCHxpgfGMzPpVOzs4/s1600/fallout_new_vegas.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1MgUOKLadEUvkRBtFiEHzYVjNFNi2RFMS5YAT9baXnRXGOlXwPcpfmROL0N7TNwPpqrTkxtZ5C8E3-Jy0TYXUar5ocFfuqv6RXVawhhqMLDDXIQxzAXrJl7vbwSCCHxpgfGMzPpVOzs4/s320/fallout_new_vegas.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A Veteran Ranger of the New California Republic</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Fallout
takes place in the future, but not <i>our</i>
future; history diverged directly after World War II. Instead of
computers, science turned most of its attention towards the nuclear.
Though weaponry was the obvious point, nuclear power made rapid
strides, soon bound in reactors small enough to power a car, a suit
of power armour, or even a rifle. This was all very nice until 2077,
when, for reasons lost to history, the United States and China
unloaded their missiles on each other. In a matter of hours, the two
greatest civilizations on earth were destroyed, and possibly so too
was the rest of the world; there's no way to know. The immediate
damage was catastrophic and the long-term effects just as deadly, but
pockets of humanity persisted through quick thinking or flukes of
geography. Others took shelter in massive Vaults, supposedly designed
to house a thousand residents until it was safe to emerge (though
their true purpose was very different). Some Vaults re-opened just a
few years later, others remained locked for a century or more, at
which point Vault dwellers emerged into an unrecognizable world. The
technology is a combination of Used Future and whatever can be
cobbled together from any random materials at hand. In the new order,
it's hard to say which is more dangerous: The environment, the
mutated wildlife...or the survivors.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfYzCWYrxZcB4iZe9t1_DdoNFaRdtNLc7JwnyDV4SqorLslcGHFBe3iuByQh1kyNog_fv9ZNwYKVBAef72UtrTbFJLvM5XkzbIntt8rf5BFOTdQqMOupeZoR2VrCym8uWt0_QxcFewKfg/s1600/fourthreich.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="182" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfYzCWYrxZcB4iZe9t1_DdoNFaRdtNLc7JwnyDV4SqorLslcGHFBe3iuByQh1kyNog_fv9ZNwYKVBAef72UtrTbFJLvM5XkzbIntt8rf5BFOTdQqMOupeZoR2VrCym8uWt0_QxcFewKfg/s320/fourthreich.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A heavy assault squad from the Fourth Reich braces<br />
for an attack by the communist Red Line faction</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The world of Metro suffered a
similar nuclear event in 2013, only this time people took shelter in
the Moscow Metro, either fleeing there when they heard the sirens or
having the good fortune to be commuting when it happened.
The world above is now uninhabitable, the pollution making it impossible to traverse without a gas mask, and the monsters making it inadvisable to do so without heavy
weaponry. By 2033, outside threats are legion, resources are drying up, and yet all we want to do is fight and kill each other. On top of
this, inexplicable supernatural forces run through the length and
breadth of the Metro, and we are fast
approaching a pivotal point in history that may decide whether the
human race continues to scrabble onward or is extinguished once and
for all.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="text-align: right;">
</div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCZN_-q3DXoD6Jmg7rJnqncFRape2appKWIJQxgDhlbQ-lM7DUzsbvXaDW1VkcZZ-CfM7EQE3IT2C7QMCHQZkpgt9npeGb4UuseZoL1iQCd4gpHDO_G6YENfBBOGSiKMDgBx4Z5tk7J4w/s1600/fragile07.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCZN_-q3DXoD6Jmg7rJnqncFRape2appKWIJQxgDhlbQ-lM7DUzsbvXaDW1VkcZZ-CfM7EQE3IT2C7QMCHQZkpgt9npeGb4UuseZoL1iQCd4gpHDO_G6YENfBBOGSiKMDgBx4Z5tk7J4w/s320/fragile07.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The mysterious girl gazes at the moon</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Fragile's apocalypse is a little
more fantastical. Intriguingly, it came about from efforts to <i>end</i>
war and misunderstanding. Using an invention called the Glass Cage, a
mad scientist planned to form a psychic link between all human beings
– similar to <a href="http://rudeboyabroad.blogspot.ca/2013/02/neon-genesis-evangelion-analysis.html" target="_blank">the “human instrumentality” concept in Evangelion</a>.
In this case, a single young girl, imprisoned in the Glass Cage, was
to act as the conduit for all human thought and emotion, disseminated
instantly across the world. Language, the scientist claimed, is
insufficient for true understanding (an interesting point, and one
that I also touched on in the Evangelion post), so this was the only
true solution. But the results didn't mete out the theory, as instead
of ushering in a golden age, the activation of the Glass Cage
instantly killed nearly every human on earth. The plot concerns a
handful of survivors and their need for human contact.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">In
exactly 10 words</span></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Fallout:
Wander the wastes and kill everyone – or don't.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Metro:
Life underground, the cost of hubris, and agony of survival.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Fragile:
The haunting beauty of what's left behind. Also, hitting things.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">The
coolest part</span></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Fragile – The art direction.
The small number of other characters to interact with forces the game
to show, not tell.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Fallout
– Besides the oddly appropriate mix of camp and dead seriousness,
the ability to take sides. Nearly every major mission allows you to
do the total opposite of what you're asked to do; if contracted to kill someone in a typical
mission, you could instead warn them off, extract a bribe in exchange
for letting them go, or even join forces against their enemy.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Metro
– Daily life in the Metro. Fallout lets you visit shantytowns and
whatnot, but Metro does a far better job of depicting the
desperation, boredom, and sheer ingenuity that would <i>really</i>
be in the offing in a situation like this.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">A
brief release history</span></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">This
section is going to feel a little like filler, but I think it's
important to do a quick rundown of the franchises we'll be dealing
with, just to make sure we all know what the hell we're talking
about.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQUVm0jhRKXcY32oXrOAKcXS53ntR1BQzRsBMdDwZj0XNXWMaCFmbsunnONltDna0qbcvo8WAM__RJn48MUW2vDZ1m89HFXrSqxBtXEEPiK-ZtaEL4M-m8qc6b1SP5fHa-LiURIx49hM8/s1600/Fallout2front.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQUVm0jhRKXcY32oXrOAKcXS53ntR1BQzRsBMdDwZj0XNXWMaCFmbsunnONltDna0qbcvo8WAM__RJn48MUW2vDZ1m89HFXrSqxBtXEEPiK-ZtaEL4M-m8qc6b1SP5fHa-LiURIx49hM8/s320/Fallout2front.jpg" width="307" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fallout 2 cover art</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Fallout
is a series of mainly PC games going back to 1997, when the first
installment came out. Next year, Interplay published the sequel,
Fallout 2. Fallout 3, however, did not come out until 2008, after
Bethesda purchased the rights. Bethesda subsidiary Obsidian developed
a sequel, Fallout: New Vegas, released in 2010, and Fallout 4 was released in 2015. These five games
comprise the U-canon of the Fallout franchise, but there are two
others considered to be “broad strokes canon.” The first is the
original version of Fallout 3 developed around 2000 by Black Isle
Studios, known coloquially by its working title, Van Buren; if you
hear people talking about the “real” Fallout 3, this is what they
mean. There is also a game called Fallout Tactics that lies in this
same category, as well as a couple of other titles that are non-canon
and which we won't be taking into consideration. Many of the games
take place decades apart, with a 116-year difference between Fallout
1 and Fallout: New Vegas, so the world's history has developed along
with the franchise's.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0t5vN9UszN1t8_9MvLHs6s4IpaZMldEvropm5sbJrWRUU43c5PGtPmYkJoQ7KGy0krOOV8todchjhLjtdd3vgh_E1L9SpesHmREBRKW5Xu1Tck-Og4nGR5wtiba6wpG60vnGSam4UkwA/s1600/Metrolastlight.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0t5vN9UszN1t8_9MvLHs6s4IpaZMldEvropm5sbJrWRUU43c5PGtPmYkJoQ7KGy0krOOV8todchjhLjtdd3vgh_E1L9SpesHmREBRKW5Xu1Tck-Og4nGR5wtiba6wpG60vnGSam4UkwA/s1600/Metrolastlight.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Metro: Last Light cover art</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Russian
author Dmitri Glukhovsky first published the novel Metro 2033 in
2005. In 2009, he released a sequel, Metro 2034, which takes place in
the same universe but features mostly different characters. Metro
2033 was adapted into a video game a year later, published by THQ and
developed by Ukrainian studio 4A Games; a direct sequel to that game,
Metro: Last Light, was released in 2013. Glukhovsky wrote the story
for Last Light, and in the process found he had more ideas than could
be contained in a game, so he took the plot, added to it, and wrote
Metro 2035 for 2015. So, yes, 2035 is a direct sequel to 2033, but
it's also a book based on a game that was a sequel to a game based on
a book. Brilliantly, it was also first serialized in a newspaper that is only sold within the Moscow Metro.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFQDypnCmcIfyPjRa-l2O8Q8s4yfbZBiK-9SokQ8OrBGE_9e1fxo52ssJVi3fuNU8xonx_5iSpth4PqYg2aHPhI1B0yM5lI9BnC2DkcxAczvldiHJXHL36SjXqPN23BaAsWNTiob0bDzg/s1600/fragilecover.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="239" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFQDypnCmcIfyPjRa-l2O8Q8s4yfbZBiK-9SokQ8OrBGE_9e1fxo52ssJVi3fuNU8xonx_5iSpth4PqYg2aHPhI1B0yM5lI9BnC2DkcxAczvldiHJXHL36SjXqPN23BaAsWNTiob0bDzg/s320/fragilecover.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fragile cover art</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Fragile
is a video game developed by tri-Crescendo and published by Bandai Namco, released in 2009
for the Wii. So that one's easy.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">(This
information accurate to 2015. More stuff may have been
released depending when you're reading this. I'm sure not updating
the post every single time something new comes out.)</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Gameplay</span></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Fragile
is arguably the simplest game we're looking at here, but only because
the focus is on exploration above all else. Actually, the main
mechanic is just stalking around the ruins of train stations and
hotels, waving your flashlight at things (in a nice touch, the Wii
remote is your flashlight, so you just point where you want to look,
allowing you to survey your surroundings on the fly). There is some
amount of combat, rather more than I would have liked, actually, but
it's pretty crude. Your character carries a weapon in his left hand
at all times, and it can be either a melee or distance weapon, and is
basically anything he can find on the ground, like a stick, or a
slingshot, or a bug-catching net. They have various properties, such
as power and durability, and you can perform a Spin Attack-like
charged strike, but it boils down to running up to something and
whacking it. It's hardly a deep combat system, but perhaps that was
intentional, as it's also rather easy, allowing the player to focus
on the visual experience.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Fallout
is notable for its extreme open-endedness in regards to
problem-solving. If called upon to get past a guard in order to enter
a building, you could simply murder him, but you could also bribe
him, intimidate him, trick him into thinking you're his boss's boss,
pickpocket his key, or find an alternate entrance, to name one
example. The RPG elements aren't terribly robust, but they're strong
enough to add some interest, as you gain new skills, equipment, and
selectable “Perks” (for example, one Perk improves your shooting
and another makes you more popular with the opposite sex...or, if you
prefer, the same sex, or both!)</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Metro
is a first-person shooter. There is a heavy emphasis on stealth;
although you can attempt to outgun your enemies, you are liable to
become overwhelmed, and sneaking through an area without leaving any
sign that you were ever there is far more satisfying. From time to
time you'll holster your weapon to scurry around a town, interacting
with the townsfolk and buying supplies for the next leg of your
journey.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Characters</span></b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxDp9YQkPJdSNsIL137Sy3aODnI59pq3fYqgVw-5LbUzqFSkgY4KLCVid8SxpjmWCdBWW3ACxcmgx8DuyjHCwfAJywdPtmaEZQyF41OiCk7PYtCDB9k7QF5UiJLmOsS4CoTbaiwYLoGn8/s1600/Seto_Sai_Hotel1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="186" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxDp9YQkPJdSNsIL137Sy3aODnI59pq3fYqgVw-5LbUzqFSkgY4KLCVid8SxpjmWCdBWW3ACxcmgx8DuyjHCwfAJywdPtmaEZQyF41OiCk7PYtCDB9k7QF5UiJLmOsS4CoTbaiwYLoGn8/s320/Seto_Sai_Hotel1.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Seto and his companion Sai</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Fragile
casts you in the role of a 15-year-old boy named Seto. He was born
into the post-Apocalypse and has lived his entire life with his
grandfather in a stellar observatory, but when his grandfather passes
away he is forced out into the world. Though understandably rather
naiive, he is also both friendly and brave.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnB28jbMPnzrmKq1El9V1xba566xgyHOI2hqVhLQGTmXsPhkMfPcNANXTLg_KVF3B4bxoatbpmc-vg5-Ynsxws4MhSvsPCwV4Rwmba1T59Q8v6S6rs5slkWbeVp1ThNS-9QsIldjq2yC8/s1600/metro2033.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="166" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnB28jbMPnzrmKq1El9V1xba566xgyHOI2hqVhLQGTmXsPhkMfPcNANXTLg_KVF3B4bxoatbpmc-vg5-Ynsxws4MhSvsPCwV4Rwmba1T59Q8v6S6rs5slkWbeVp1ThNS-9QsIldjq2yC8/s320/metro2033.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Artyom</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Metro
puts you in the shoes of Artyom, who lives in a small backwater
station of zero interest to outsiders. Although Artyom's character
arc is fairly simple, it is kind of fun to observe through the course
of the two games. About 21 in 2033, he is sheltered and inexperienced,
and can see no resolution with the dark ones except violence. In the
sequel, however, he has become a skilled soldier for a major faction,
and ends up on something of a quest to rectify his mistakes of the
previous story.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq-3RuOFX9EXMm_wMeR8_8h2V4kEB3IgRJscpGwVKzCZCg2unn6egpjTRb7VPtw4Amyf1HUkZTR68aWXxbRBCiUrnvW8x-WePgJaKu4EqcLuZ2NiQP1Gkb-3VFOJ74EHoWWXGcuxbLdGw/s1600/charactercreationwoman-610.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhq-3RuOFX9EXMm_wMeR8_8h2V4kEB3IgRJscpGwVKzCZCg2unn6egpjTRb7VPtw4Amyf1HUkZTR68aWXxbRBCiUrnvW8x-WePgJaKu4EqcLuZ2NiQP1Gkb-3VFOJ74EHoWWXGcuxbLdGw/s320/charactercreationwoman-610.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Fallout 4's character creation</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">Fallout
is, um...it's a little more complicated, because there are so many
installments. Plus, your thinking and behaviour are thoroughly up to
you, so it's hard to say what is or isn't true about the Fallout
protagonists. However, each one has a definite overarching goal.
It'll quickly recede into the background in the face of the reams of
other plotlines and assorted distractions, but you never quite forget
it's there.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">That
about wraps it up for the introduction. Next time we'll actually dig
into the meat of the subject, as we discuss some of the major themes
of these works.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><a href="http://rudeboyabroad.blogspot.ca/2015/08/post-apocalyptia-fragile-metro-and.html" target="_blank">Keep Reading</a></span></div>
Rude Boy Abroadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02092622808758318179noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-43798680348663868.post-9841797231893076612015-05-02T19:35:00.000+09:002015-09-15T16:22:43.173+09:00Wired: "There will never be another Kojima"<div style="text-align: right;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIXObyrF2Rx1E0BNjWJMR2GNaLOWfb2QfN6xx9AuJjQr4I4IfY0G8ZuNHbtQZLR5f_F0yw04LmFdo52GrF2JTqWNxxN_GPTam43ppkJtGdjsqVVtsgvFP5yLYc6Og9YoVTpOlPbhUldhk/s1600/Big_Boss_MGS4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgIXObyrF2Rx1E0BNjWJMR2GNaLOWfb2QfN6xx9AuJjQr4I4IfY0G8ZuNHbtQZLR5f_F0yw04LmFdo52GrF2JTqWNxxN_GPTam43ppkJtGdjsqVVtsgvFP5yLYc6Og9YoVTpOlPbhUldhk/s1600/Big_Boss_MGS4.jpg" width="241" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Yesterday
Wired published <a href="http://www.wired.com/2015/04/era-japans-powerful-videogame-designers/" target="_blank">an opinion piece on the state of the Japanese videogames industry</a>, or as it used to be known, the video games industry.
Primarily it's a reaction to the impending departure of Kojima Hideo,
father of the beloved, decades-running </span><i style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Metal Gear </i><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">series,
from his patrons at Konami. The divorce has been in progress for a
while so it's not new news, but the editorial is about Kojima's
stepping down possibly signalling the end of an era in which Japanese
video games were dominated by uninhibited auteurs whose vision
dictated every new product. It's also wrong.</span><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ok,
not completely. The cowboy era of video games has been over for a
long time now, because it was the 1980s. Back then we weren't even
sure of what a video game <i>was</i>,
so experimentation wasn't just encouraged, it was unavoidable. The
gradual transformation into a business model of high-budget, low-risk
repeats, with a slew of barely distinguishable annual releases
(looking at you, <i>Call of Duty</i>
and <i>Battlefield</i>), has
been thoroughly discussed, and in light of similar developments in
other art forms, shouldn't have taken us so off guard. The parallels
with, say, the film industry are pretty clear; you could make a case
for both <i>Citizen Kane</i>
and <i>Ocarina of Time</i>
being titles that codified significant innovations that we now regard
simply as fundamentals of the craft, with each occupying, on the
macro scale, a similar spot in the timeline of the industry's
maturation. So it follows that video games might echo film's trends
towards the lowest common denominator.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="text-align: left;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvNrd1EQKeWoaQ0bTgPHiBdT-2R3QGA-5VqHZO6SQDAWKwMiahpvhO83qRqP8x4HxY7EX71eXh6eIT3Iy4Jsi8DTmrIlUPTKmf-ltDqnOPJYeNbZwyqrosBm-WO7AL3bRciCUNd0E91RI/s1600/image.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvNrd1EQKeWoaQ0bTgPHiBdT-2R3QGA-5VqHZO6SQDAWKwMiahpvhO83qRqP8x4HxY7EX71eXh6eIT3Iy4Jsi8DTmrIlUPTKmf-ltDqnOPJYeNbZwyqrosBm-WO7AL3bRciCUNd0E91RI/s1600/image.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This
shift, of course, is precisely what has led to many big-name
developers feeling creatively stifled. Most gamers' thinking seems to
be that creativity is simply incompatible with corporations who care
about nothing but the bottom line (as though corporations should be
focussed on making charitable donations to struggling artists
instead). To some extent maybe this is true, because business is
about selling a lot of product, not birthing a high-quality product.
Do you think the producers of <i>Furious 7</i>
are hanging their heads in shame because they made the horrifying
mistake of greenlighting a movie in which Vin Diesel drives a
supercar through a penthouse window, blasts through the sky and
crashes into an adjacent building? No, they're congratulating
themselves on an awesome job, because <i>Furious 7 </i>made
147 million dollars on opening weekend.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On
the other hand, I don't think it has to be this way, either. I think
a business is much stronger when its employees are proud to be a part
of it, and when management truly believes in the company's mission
and the product or service it offers. Plus, if we're trying to move
as many units as possible, it makes sense to develop a high-quality
product (especially with a video game; unlike quality parts in a
machine, which cost more to manufacture, an engaging story or
interesting art direction need not affect retail price).</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Trouble
is – every single time a developer tries something new, gamers
ignore it. Every single goddamn time. People complain about how samey
games are nowadays, and then when something different comes out
they're not interested because it's too different. This is what has
led to the current state of the industry, and it's really no surprise
that many of its pioneers are striking out on their own. The
editorial says, “Capcom's powerhouse producers Shinji Mikami
(Resident Evil) and Keiji Inafune (Mega Man) are long gone. Tomonobu
Itagaki (Ninja Gaiden) is no longer with Koei Tecmo.Castlevania chief
Koji Igarashi left Konami last year.”</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguY7yVutPGBlD2Gsl3B7y93Ry6IBEbLT8HN98_DR5Fyqomixo7tViuBanshGlc-BFe_UhmvKXa97E9smD8kZlwMnToNkr6_qjN1It6b5gXwk2_hKCjZyH4QIpdzZJy9TwscaGW0EQJ8VA/s1600/Letscatch11-noscale.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEguY7yVutPGBlD2Gsl3B7y93Ry6IBEbLT8HN98_DR5Fyqomixo7tViuBanshGlc-BFe_UhmvKXa97E9smD8kZlwMnToNkr6_qjN1It6b5gXwk2_hKCjZyH4QIpdzZJy9TwscaGW0EQJ8VA/s1600/Letscatch11-noscale.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The
article wants to point to this as a sign that the age of the Japanese
auteur is over – but uh, no it's not. If anything this demonstrates
that the age of the Japanese auteur refuses to die. When the creative
types find themselves in an environment no longer conducive to what
they want to do, instead of rolling over and churning out soulless
remixes of last year's work just to cash a paycheque, they're
changing the game...so to speak. One guy not mentioned is Sonic
co-creator Naka Yuuji, who left Sega to form a studio called Prope.
Its first game was a Wii title controlled solely by placing the Wii
remote on a table and tapping it. The second one was about playing
catch with strangers. These projects would never have seen the light
of day at a big company, but by breaking off, Naka was able to
dispense with the business management that had come to dominate his
day-to-day, and get back to actually making games – and making the
games <i>he</i> wanted to
make.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">We're
walked through the recent director shuffle for <i>Final
Fantasy XV</i>, which “previously
was the domain of Square Enix's last remaining Big Name Director,
Tetsuya Nomura. But after years of development hell, he quit (or was
asked to quit) the project and replaced by upstart director Hajime
Tabata.” It goes on to describe the tentative, almost crowdsourced
development path he took, asking fans to review the demo and
responding to their feedback.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgb-K1tQT3nTzRDWfRGUS-3gMp19kDcNg4oMSdHk4tCwPaXC_VcwQmMm-TrN3AXfD0QVAK_zg0SVNjvaY8RLZvd6iBxYstv8Mwxh3AlGoH5JelxIKI5_NZqVOZlcHbjIz3H4yT3UUpv3m4/s1600/LightningReturns.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgb-K1tQT3nTzRDWfRGUS-3gMp19kDcNg4oMSdHk4tCwPaXC_VcwQmMm-TrN3AXfD0QVAK_zg0SVNjvaY8RLZvd6iBxYstv8Mwxh3AlGoH5JelxIKI5_NZqVOZlcHbjIz3H4yT3UUpv3m4/s1600/LightningReturns.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This
sounds like he's listening to his audience, but really it's a
hesitance to take decisive action. I submit that this lack of a
strong voice is something that has plagued the franchise for years,
and it's a big part of why recent entries have been poorly received.
Ok, yes, <i>Final Fantasy</i>
fans are implacable hipsters who believe that the only “true”
Final Fantasies are the ones they happened to play as a kid, but you
kind of have to admit that the recent games are kind of a homogenized
mess. They're so wrapped up in trying to recapture the spark of the
old days that they verge on ripping themselves off. Ironically, <i>Final
Fantasy XIII </i>seems to have been
so polarizing because it <i>did</i>
have a strong voice, owing to Toriyama's puppy love of protagnist
Lightning. You could love it or hate it, but other recent Final
Fantasies have tried to cater to the old fans and created only bland,
sanitized imitations of the real deal. The editorial is absolutely
correct in the claim that Final Fantasy is throwing away its top-down
approach, I'm just not sure that's indicative of a trend. The only
way for the franchise to survive, creatively, is to start taking a
stronger stance again, even if some people won't like it.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But
it's not just all that, though. The main thrust of the article is
patently ridiculous. “It may not be a stretch,” it says, “to
say that there will never be another Kojima, no one creator who holds
such sway over a massive big-budget gaming enterprise. It's too
expensive, too risky a business to be left up to the creative whims
of a single auteur.” What? No. It is definitely too much of a
stretch to say that, and for one very, very big reason. I'll get to
him in a minute, but before I explain why the Japanese auteur is not
financially dead, I'll give you an example of why he isn't
spiritually dead, either.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJcpmJm-safOWZ-tEKPKDXO8gizke15kSXdTBo9p8u7hoFbr1LAMKbG0BzwyC29mQYkV1_nHhWuilVScsJty_61MCBUbG6Vmni8lafISWlhECVOU_b3pZqVdZNWzCw0WZ97astVNHwEcU/s1600/k7.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhJcpmJm-safOWZ-tEKPKDXO8gizke15kSXdTBo9p8u7hoFbr1LAMKbG0BzwyC29mQYkV1_nHhWuilVScsJty_61MCBUbG6Vmni8lafISWlhECVOU_b3pZqVdZNWzCw0WZ97astVNHwEcU/s1600/k7.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That
example is Suda51, not only one of my favourite creators of all time,
but possibly the most auteur auteur, ever. His breakout hit, <i>kil</i>
– well actually breakout isn't such a great word for it, because it
was a commercial disaster. But the game that first brought him
significant attention was <i>killer7</i>,
in which you play as a disabled old man who physically transforms
into his seven alternate personalities, all of whom are assassins.
You get a new weapon from an angel, witness a lethal game of Mahjong,
and fight a mutated cult leader whose weak point is his afro.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">That
was in 2005, and he's still making games. Actually, if you ask me his
fame has worked against him – I couldn't possibly explain <i>killer7
</i>adequately, and if you're
interested then you should play it blind anyway, but I'm trying to
make it clear here that it was just an absolute peyote safari through
the anime halls of government. Anyway, <i>killer7</i>
was known for being both weird and difficult to understand, and while
he hasn't yet made something as complex, Suda51 has carried on with
the weird. If you take a look back at his older projects, even the
ones over which he had free reign, you can see that they were much
more restrained. You could see this as him coming into his own and
slowly overcoming a latent fear of breaking boundaries, but I'm not
so sure.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBi5nhFcKLSj839BxPkc1A0ztgdVoduJyhpWxJ02CklyCC3rK9CfY2Chcl59pskj18ZhFe9CAu-yoHsT_GQ79dxEay6agy-CP8PITGt_PmBlHXTqqQcHXjUMaFIIShnxt13V3sl8CvHV0/s1600/kd.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBi5nhFcKLSj839BxPkc1A0ztgdVoduJyhpWxJ02CklyCC3rK9CfY2Chcl59pskj18ZhFe9CAu-yoHsT_GQ79dxEay6agy-CP8PITGt_PmBlHXTqqQcHXjUMaFIIShnxt13V3sl8CvHV0/s1600/kd.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I
have a feeling that it may be a response to an expectation for
weirdness, and that he couldn't make something more normal again even
if he wanted to, because it would compromise his Suda signature. I'm
still loving his work, I just fear he's accidentally typecast
himself. Which is exactly the opposite that a creator known for
breaking boundaries should be. John Grisham writes legal thrillers,
and then one time he wrote a novel about a guy who goes to Italy to
play American football. That's the kind of move I'd love to see from
Suda51 – peculiar has become the norm for him. I'm not saying that
he now needs to do a “normal” game just for balance, but it would
be awesome to see him do something truly unexpected once again.
Either way, even for the more standardish Suda titles, you can still
hear his voice in every detail. The instant I boot up a new Suda
game, I know it's a Suda game, and I feel as if we are having a
conversation, as if, somehow, I have the slightest idea of what's on
his mind or what he's like outside of interviews. <i>That </i>is
an auteur.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So
as to the claim that nobody can entrust the success of a product line
to one single person?</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The
piece concludes: “To the extent [that third-party publishers]
produce massive blockbusters at all, expect them to be designed by
committee, crafted to alienate as few people as possible. If you want
to be an auteur, you can do it on your own dime.” In other words,
Nintendou and Sony can take creative risks that a company like Capcom
just can't afford. The editorial mentions Nintendou's new
relationship type deal with Tecmo Koei, but neglects to point out
that it does, in fact, have at its creative helm the undeniably
greatest video game creator to ever create video games. It's Miyamoto
Shigeru, the father of Mario, Zelda, a dozen other series, and
arguably the entire video games industry, because he was integral to
the success of the NES and the NES saved gaming when everybody else
had abandoned the “fad.”</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu_msowZuZPKlF1fXzmFNNcRTPhXZW1Uj9ECT-HzApneXkwg5SavxVAcsBmWo6-EpnssZCLSfSHbEExzGpBZyI08WXNptLan-z8Z94KJUaMg8X_vajMKB66XdgvTTCi5I2dIzPUOBrBT0/s1600/Donkey_Kong_-_1981_-_Nintendo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgu_msowZuZPKlF1fXzmFNNcRTPhXZW1Uj9ECT-HzApneXkwg5SavxVAcsBmWo6-EpnssZCLSfSHbEExzGpBZyI08WXNptLan-z8Z94KJUaMg8X_vajMKB66XdgvTTCi5I2dIzPUOBrBT0/s1600/Donkey_Kong_-_1981_-_Nintendo.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Even
if you've never played one of his games (unlikely), you've played one
that's been influenced by them. That's because every game owes
something to the progress he made, singlehandedly, back in the 80s.
This is a man who built the fortune of a massive international
company on the back of a plumber saving a princess from an ape. He
took his childhood memories of exploring the woods behind his house
and turned it into an epic quest to explore a mystical land and
vanquish evil. He was gardening one day and thought, “Know what
would be great, is a game where the whole thing takes place in a
garden, except you're a crash-landed astronaut, and you grow an army
of aliens who help you get things done.”</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sorry.
Miyamoto has shown no sign of leaving Nintendou, and Nintendou is
still going strong. As long as that's the case, I'd say the age of
the Japanese video game auteur is in no danger.</span></div>
Rude Boy Abroadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02092622808758318179noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-43798680348663868.post-84256620552536409732015-03-31T20:14:00.000+09:002015-03-31T20:14:54.989+09:00Canyon<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">During
my high school exchange, I saw some people online talking about the
first Iron Man movie, which had recently been released. And my first
thought was, “Iron Man? I don't even remember seeing trailers for –
oh, right.”</span><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Similarly,
in a <a href="https://anageonism.wordpress.com/2014/05/11/media-delirium-tremens-and-the-missing-ocean-of-crap/" target="_blank">once-recent post by Stupid Ugly Foreigne</a>r, he laments the
disconnect from English-language popular culture he suffers while
living in China. This phenomenon is exemplified in Pharrell's
“Happy,” of which he was utterly unware until long after it had
already become entrenched in our cultural constitution. Now that I'm
back in Canada, I'm facing kind of the opposite problem, and when
I get back I'm going to have to relearn everything.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">An
example: The first time I heard Kyari Pyamu Pyamu's seminal "Pon
Pon Pon," it had already been popular for months. In fact it's
almost strange to me now to think that there ever <i>was</i>
a time when I'd never heard it – it's so clearly ingrained in the
cultural landscape of its era. To not know at least that much was to
have no idea what a certain type of Japanese person was listening to
at the time, <i>and that shit was important to me</i>.
I leaped aboard that particular ship as soon as I saw it, and then
throughout the rest of the year I managed to catch everything new as
it bubbled up into the cultural consciousness of Japanese young
people. Unfortunately I've now effectively lost all knowledge of
what's trending back there, and it's going to take time to get back
up to speed.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I
can use the Internet to keep abreast of the latest vicissitudes in
television and idol gossip, but that's a poor substitute for everday
immersion because it's all through my own filter - limited, not "off
the street," not necessarily bearing any relation to what's
actually popular. Metroid, for example, is more popular outside Japan
than within it. In <a href="http://askakorean.blogspot.ca/2014/03/sxsw-day-4-notes.html" target="_blank">the Korean's account</a> of his tour of the South by
Southwest music show in Austin, I read that he saw a relatively new
Japanese loli group called Starmarie, who were supposedly the most
popular Japanese singers going. Except that my immediate reaction was
“Who the hell are Starmarie?” Sure enough, it turns out that they
are indeed a popular Japanese idol group – in
America.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So
what, you may say. It's just movies and music and other meaningless
bullshit. You might have a point. A mild de-syncing with cultural
developments that will no longer be relevant a year from now might
seem like a fairly minor loss. But remember that anime and music and
dramas and everything else are all things I have a certain dependency
on, because they're my primary means of studying the language. I am
constantly on the hunt for new material to consume, integrating its
knowledge into my biomass, mining it for not only new vocabulary and
grammar but cultural tidbits and talking points. Without the
constant, effortless exposure you get in Japan, I am forced to
subsist on what I can scavenge from YouTube or d-Addicts.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Access
to this stuff also affects my studying habits. I've always been a
proponent of self-motivation – that is, if you <i>really</i>
want to learn another language, you just do it, every day, or else
adjust your expectations. That means that on a day when you come home
from work or school, exhausted, depressed, and without the slightest
desire to study, you clench your teeth and do it anyway. So it'd be
idiotic to say that lack of access to Japanese pop culture adversely
affects my study regimen, but easy access to it does <i>positively</i>
affect it. You should always be able to force yourself to study, but
a spoonful of heroin makes the medicine go down.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Also,
though I have no pedagogical training, I feel like all the studying I
do while in this “engaged” state is more effective. Perhaps I am
simply more receptive at such times, and thus better able to absorb
new vocabulary and constructions. Or perhaps even more simply, I just
pay closer attention when I'm interested. Or maybe it's just my
imagination. Anyway I'm not going to stop.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Finally,
a big part of a country's contemporary cultural identity either stems
from or is resolved in its media trends. I don't think that's too
grandiose a statement. The plot twists in big TV shows get people
talking. Artists use their media to communicate a deeper message.
People will resort to the refrain of “relax, it's just a movie”
for as long as movies continue to be made, but that's utterly and
obviously wrong. Our art, even our for-profit art, is both informed
by our shared cultural experience, and adds to it. It's important.
It's not World War II-level historical significance, but you can't
just discount it.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">And
again, for me, soft culture is a part of how I connect with Japanese
people - knowledge of what's trending in their
pop music and television is often a good ice-breaker. And how many
friendships are born from mutual interests? The early conversation of
practically any first encounter is spent searching out common ground.
Obviously don't hinge your identities on what anime you like, because
if you want to be interesting you have to be interesting in and of
yourself. But I can't count the number of times I've inspired shock
and delight for merely having <i>heard</i>
of something Japanese. If nothing else it shows that you're
receptive.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">On
the other hand, I guess if not being quite up on the latest moves and
grooves is my greatest concern, as compared to somebody arriving with
no knowledge of Japan or Japanese, maybe I'm doing all right.
There'll be a brief period of adjustment, but in no time I'll be
slinging timely observations and relevant pop culture references like
anybody else. Now all I have to do is find a job, win the lottery, or
earn the favour of the yakuza, and I'll be good to go.</span></div>
Rude Boy Abroadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02092622808758318179noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-43798680348663868.post-12570917465308998852015-02-10T18:23:00.001+09:002015-02-10T18:23:52.832+09:00How to shower and bathe at other people's houses<span style="font-family: inherit;">I
think we've all been there at some point or another. You can try to
delay the deed until you're able to retreat to your own abode, but
from time to time, you're gonna have to clean yourself at somebody
else's house. Now if you're a foreigner in Japan, you could be
spending a lot of time living off the kindness of people you know,
like host families, friends, one-night stands, maybe even dinner
hosts, and possibly whoever they shack you up with until they get
your actual accommodation figured out.</span><br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Fortunately
for you, I have a lot of experience living off others people's
kindness. Here are some handy tips I've picked up over time.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<u><b><span style="font-family: inherit;">Towels</span></b></u></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">You
want to get this one out of the way right off the bat. Ideally, your
host will think of that beforehand, but if not, you'd better ask
<i>before</i>
you shower, because afterwards you'll be naked and wet and not in any
easy position to ask, especially if they're somewhere out of earshot.
You have the option of just grabbing a hanging one at random if you
like, depending on how close you are with the person in question and
whether or not any old people live there too.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">If you do forget and are left
without recourse, you can use an item of clothing as a makeshift
towel, especially if it's not something immediately necessary to your
wardrobe, like if you've layered a couple of shirts or something. If
it's winter, definitely use a shirt because you can keep it under
your jacket and it won't freeze. If it's summer and you're in a dry
climate, you can pretty much just put your clothes back on normally
if you really want and they'll dry soon enough, but if it's humid,
don't even try – you'll be sopping all day. Actually, you will be
anyway, but this way it'll be even worse.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<u><b><span style="font-family: inherit;">Taps</span></b></u></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Again,
preparation – remember to figure out how they work <i>before</i>
you strip. That way, if you're absolutely baffled, at least you don't
have to get dressed again before you can go ask for a demonstration.
Once you've got it all worked out, you'll be ready to get naked,
crank a knob until a stream of hot fluid bursts over your face and
cascades down your chest, and exhale in ecstasy.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Some Japanese baths have an
electronic control panel for the bath itself. You maybe shouldn't
touch it. And actually it's probably set to the preferences of the
owner(s), so you shouldn't touch it anyway.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<u><b><span style="font-family: inherit;">Japanese
bathing</span></b></u></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">As I'm sure you know, Japanese
families all share a single dispensary of bathwater amongst them,
which isn't emptied until everybody is done. Some people find
Japanese bathing to be one of the best experiences available to
humanity, but I've always been a little iffy about it, not because I
have to bathe in other people's filth, but because I don't want to
make them bathe in mine. You're not supposed to go in until you're
spotlessly clean, and I just don't trust myself to be able to do
that. Worse, as a guest you may be afforded the respect of bathing
first.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Luckily,
there's an easy fix: Just say that you would prefer a shower.
Basically, you're just skipping the second half. You'll be clean, so
it's not like you're being rude, and you can even invent a cultural
explanation if you want. I've never had anybody insist I actually
bathe, because that would be crazy. How would they check, anyway?</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">If
you do decide to take the plunge, so to speak, obviously just be very
thorough. Wash everything twice. Wash all the places you usually
don't bother with (you have some, don't lie to me). When you're done
the bath should be a basin of crystal clear water and nothing else.
In practice even the Japanese sometimes accidentally shed detritus,
but if <i>you</i>
do, you just know it'll be because you're a foreigner and not because
you're a human being, so scan carefully for any stray dirt or hair
and scoop it out with your hand. There's a grate in the floor you can
drop it down.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<u><b><span style="font-family: inherit;">The
bucket</span></b></u></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">You can use this to pour water
over your head, or as a little stool. I like to just sit on it and
douse myself with the jet.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<u><b><span style="font-family: inherit;">Shampoo
and soap</span></b></u></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">One abiding principle: Honestly,
they're letting you use their shower. You really think they're gonna
get offended if you swipe some of their shampoo?</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">On
the other hand, if you're having trouble with the shampoo, you don't
<i>have</i>
to wash your hair, you know. And also try to be at least a little
careful that you're using your friend's (or whoever's) stuff if
possible, rather than their roommate's or something. That's just
called respect.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">However,
the preceding rule can be safely ignored if there is both bar soap
and liquid soap. In that case use the liquid no matter whose it is,
because which would you rather be rubbing all over your body? Liquid
is better for everybody. If there's only bar though, it's not a big
deal, it's not going to hurt you, because, you know, it's soap. It
does the opposite of that. But! If you're still not comfortable,
check to see if there's a liquid <i>hand</i>
soap you can grab off the sink. Works fine. I only ever used hand
soap during my last study abroad. Cologne once said “I picked up
some more hand soap for you to shower with.”</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">In a pinch, shampoo or
conditioner can also be used as soap – it's not as effective, but
it's all cleaning agent. Just make sure to wash it all off or it can
dry out your skin and leave a painful rash.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">These are just a few simple
shower hacks to help you with your stranger showering experience. Got
a tip of you own? Let us know in the comments!</span></div>
Rude Boy Abroadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02092622808758318179noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-43798680348663868.post-83714347965535346632015-01-05T17:00:00.000+09:002015-01-05T17:00:11.404+09:00Kanadajin Tales! Everyone Rude Boy knows is inappropriate<span style="font-family: inherit;">Cute upbeat smiley young blonde
Mormon missionary: Do you have a belief in Jesus Christ?</span><br />
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Rude Boy: Uh, no, I haven't.
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Missionary: (ridiculously perky)
Why not?!</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">*</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">History teacher: And another
theory is that neckties are supposed to point the way to your crotch.
I purposely wore a necktie today, and you can see how it does, in
fact, point to my crotch. Now in case I get in a car accident today,
I don't want your last memory of me to be of me talking about my
crotch, so I'm going to say a couple more things.</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">*</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Rude Nephew: So I think my friend
Jim knocked some girl up again.</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">*</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">History teacher: There are so
many ridiculous kitchen gadgets in this day and age. You don't need
an avocado peeler. I got news for you, you already have an avocado
peeler, it's called a knife.</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">*</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Stopping for gas late one night,
I noticed a bunch of thuggish young men surrounded by the type of
young women who hang out with thuggish young men, crowding around the
door. </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Then I got closer and heard them
speaking in Russian. </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">My kneejerk reaction was to calm
down immediately, because, </span><i style="font-family: inherit;">oh, foreigners</i><span style="font-family: inherit;">, ie harmless and
friendly. </span><span style="font-family: inherit;">Not sure what that says about me.</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">*</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Female friend: I feel like I'm
banging my head against a concrete wall. Except the front instead of
the back, you know?</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">*</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Chinese Politics teacher: I have
a YouTube video here, let me just show you a little of what Macau is
all about.</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">*loud Beyblade commercial plays*</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">*</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Politics teacher: Of course,
France has a long history of acculturation. No matter where you were
born if you learn to speak French and learn French culture and can,
you know, identify 24 different types of cheeses by smell, then
you're French.</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
Hot French girl: (laughing in delight)</div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I thought it was pretty stunning
in comparison to Japan, where if you're not born Japanese you will
never be Japanese.</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">*</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Rude Boy: Hey, if there's grass
on the field, play ball.</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">President: What if there <i>could</i>
be grass, but it's mowed?</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">*</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">President: Well, I guess I should
start getting ready for my rope-bondage thing pretty quick. I'd say
“wanna come,” but I don't think it's quite your thing.</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Later:</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">President: Sorry about that,
couldn't text for a while</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Rude Boy: Oh yeah? Were you...a
little tied up?</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">And the next day:</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">President: Oh, when you come
over, I need to show you something I learned last night that's like,
super quick and so damn handy. You can restrain a girls hands in like
10seconds</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Rude Boy: Best text message ever</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">*</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Remember how President and I have
a running joke that every time we have a History class together,
something terrible happens in Japan? The first time, we took a course
together and the 2011 earthquake happened. Then last year, we took
another one together and Kyouto flooded.</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Then last semester I decided to
sit in one of her History classes, just for fun, and <i>that very
fucking day</i> Juuso Eki caught the fuck on fire.</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">*</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jugs: Last week Valentino said
“Yeah, there was a whole episode of Dr. Oz about that.” It was
the gayest thing he's ever said, and he talks about making out with
dudes.</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">*</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I gave both President and Jugs
white chocolate for White Day. I wasn't dating either of them, but in
my mind it's not just about that – in my interpretation, it can also be a day to just generally appreciate all the women who make your life that much better.</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">As if you need a reason.</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">*</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">30's white girl's shoulder
tattoo: 性的</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">(Maybe
she meant “sexy?”)</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">*</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">President: Great, so on Monday
night we'll come back here, fuck, and then figure out something for
dinner.</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">*</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jugs: “This cabinet requires
two people to assemble.”</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Jugs's sister: Challenge
accepted.</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">*</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Rude Coworker: (teaching Rude Boy
how to do temperatures) So yeah, then you basically just go around
sticking it in all of them.</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Rude Boy: That's how I've lived
my life so far.</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Rude Coworker: (slowly raises
fist for pound)</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">*</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Rude Boy: Not sure I can stay. I
don't have any clothes.</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">President: If you were a girl and
we were lesbians, you could just borrow some of my clothes!</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">*</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Driving through a rural area, I
suddenly came upon what looked like an enormous black dog, walking
down the road away from me. With no time to slow down but with plenty
of room, I thought I'd just cruise past it, when for no goddamned
reason it <i>swerved towards me</i> and I saw that it was actually a
young black bear. I tried to get away but it impacted with a <i>thunk</i>.</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">I loosed an articulate
“Grrrwuuughhhh!” and then, like a responsible, moral human being,
continued driving. Well, if it was injured, what the fuck could I have done? More importantly, what if wasn't, but now it was
pissed off <i>because it had just been hit by a car</i>?</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">By some miracle, it impacted
right between the headlight and the wheel, so the car was fine, and I
was fine, and I don't know whether the bear was fine, because they're
pretty tough, but it also got hit in the face with a 1500-pound
bullet travelling more than a hundred kilometres an hour. But I got
the vehicle's first dent, with kind of a cool story to go with it,
because everybody's hit a deer (I haven't, actually), but how many
people can say they've hit a bear?</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">*</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">President's gay co-worker: (about
Lock-Up) So who was that hottie you were with?</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">President: Oh, that was my really
good friend from Japan.</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">President's gay co-worker: <i>Really</i>
good friend?</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">President: I <i>wish</i>.</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">President's gay co-worker: Aww,
why not!</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">*</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Rude Right-Hand Man: (dating pulls) And
these are good for two days...</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Rude Boy: You're good for two
days.</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Rude Right-Hand Man: I expire after 24
hours, actually.</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Rude Boy: Oh.</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Rude Right-Hand Man: It's good though...it
means I contain less sodium, so I'm better for you.</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">*</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Lock-Up: (in English) Whaaaaat?
Germany was in <i>both</i> wars? And it lost <i>twice</i>? Poor
Germany!</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">*</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Rude Grandfather: ...I think it
would make more sense if they legalized marijuana, and criminalized
Brussels sprouts.</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">*</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">President: Lock-Up's going over
to Hiro's to play Mario Kart.</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Rude Boy: Right...she's going
over to Hiro's to “play Mario Kart.” At 10 o'clock at night.</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">President: Nooo! I don't think
she's as slutty this year!</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">*</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Co-worker: Me and (other
co-worker) are going out again tonight.</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Rude Boy: I thought you vowed
never to go out with him again after he fell asleep in the bathroom
at Denny's for three hours.</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Co-worker: We decided not to go
to Denny's this time.</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Rude Boy: I think you might be
missing the point.</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">*</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">President: One of my staff told
me today that his most disliked word is “cunt,” and another one told me her most disliked word is “moist.” So I kept going around saying “moist cunt” to both of them.</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">*</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">President: What's the point in
playing a female character if you can't admire the womanly curves?</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">*</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />
</span></div>
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">President: Japan's population
fell by a record number this year.</span></div>
<br />
<div lang="ja-JP" style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">Rude Boy: Hm...well I don't think
I can solve that problem by myself, but I'm willing to try.</span></div>
Rude Boy Abroadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02092622808758318179noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-43798680348663868.post-66291088612957883982014-12-14T22:24:00.000+09:002014-12-14T22:26:45.563+09:00Working at working<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;">I was clicking around my university website, trying to find the on-campus job postings. Somehow I found myself in the co-op section and then, like tripping over a gold dubloon in the jungle and falling onto the secret button that opens the gates to El Dorado, I found a page that said, hey, Did You Know that you can totally do co-op in other countries, such as, to pick one totally at random, Japan? Like seriously, Japan is the one that we're going to highlight in particular because there is actually a whole section of the programme devoted to </span><i style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;">just</i><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;"> Japan?</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;">My first reaction was: Holy shit!</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;">Second one was: What the hell? Just 'cause, like, <i>how</i> was I only <i>just </i>finding out about this. Every goddamn person on campus who knows me knows that I'm the Japan guy, and I'm known to all manner of teachers, advisors and administrators, spanning practically every discipline and area of the institution because when it comes to plotting out an academic career I apparently have as much foresight as Christopher McCandless. So if any of these people had even the slightest inkling that such a thing existed, you can be your prized harmonica that at least once or twice somebody'd have said to me, "Hey, you ever thought of applying to that Japan co-op thingamabob?" So what the fuck kind of advertising are they doing with this, exactly? As my eventual co-op advisor put it, "Yeah, we're probably not doing as much to push this one as we should be." No shit?</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<br /></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;">Anyway, as soon as I saw that this was even a thing I felt like I'd found <i>it</i>, the final winning lottery ticket that would get me out of Canada forever. Of course a co-op is only for one semester to a year, after which you must return to your point of origin and complete your remaining schooling (or, if you are a normal-ass co-op student instead of one trying to jump on the wagon at the eleventh hour, complete another semester before alternating back to a semester of co-op, and so on), but there was more to consider. In that time, I'd be able to cultivate two things that would prove absolutely critical to my career.</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;">The first was solid work experience. Being able to prove that I had survived and thrived in a Japanese company, under Japanese customs, in an all-Japanese environment, would go a long way to assuage any future employer's concerns about my ability to integrate into their team. Second, it would be an incredible opportunity to network with Japanese businesspeople, and if you ask a hundred people to have sex with you, one of them's going to say yes. Hell, I thought, maybe I'd even sign on for a year of co-op, and do such a damn good job that they'd take me on as a full employee! It's rare, but I can dream.</span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;"><br /></span></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;">So I marched myself right down to the co-op office and tried to get myself signed up. Unsurprisingly, this signalled my entry into the kind of bureaucratic labyrinth</span></span><span style="color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18.4799995422363px;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">that I have become resigned to navigating, but still cannot say I enjoy in any way, because I have not yet abandoned my humanity. It seems like for these kinds of things, I'm always cutting it right down to the wire; rarely do I have a comfortable amount of time to make my preparations. It was no different here, and I encountered problems immediately.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There's
a very persnickety immigration law that stipulates all co-op students
must be full-time students both immediately before and immediately
after their work term(s). Years ago, this would have been no problem
at all. I'd just wait for everything to fall into place and then I'd
go, and then I'd come back, and then I'd continue. Work a year of
study abroad in there somewhere as well and man, I'd be just golden!
Unfortunately by the time I found out about this, I was already <i>right
on the cusp of goddamn graduating</i>.
In other words, I might not have enough credits left to form a full
semester following my internship, which would disqualify me. So
somehow I had to delay my own graduation, the very thing I'd been
deliberately working towards for the last like six years.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The
solution I utlimately came up with was to tack a minor in Political
Science onto my Philosophy major. Basically, I was set up so that I
could graduate with just one more class's worth of Science (with some
reservation, I went with Biology because it's the easiest, although I
think Chemistry would have had more real-world applications, for
things like Breaking Bad and Fullmetal Alchemist). I already had just
enough Political Science credits that I could conceivably finish out
a minor in one more semester, allowing me to do a year of co-op,
polish that off, and be ready for graduation. BUT – if co-op didn't
pan out, I could just straight graduate. I'd have already satisfied
the Philosophy major, so I'd just un-declare the minor and suddenly
I'd be good to go.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So
I felt pretty devious for setting into motion a plan that covered all
possible scenarios, and it was good enough for the co-op office, who
approved my entry into the programme. Of course that was just the
first step, and I still needed to be accepted into the Japan-specific
programme, and even then they'd still need to find a company who
would take me. This left me in a slightly detached state
academically, not knowing if any of this was even going to work, but
in the meantime I just kept pressing forward, necessarily on the
assumption that everything would fall into place at some point.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As
another requirement for participation, I was compelled to take a
100-level career education course. Not for credit, not graded except
for a completion mark, and only 90 minutes a week. I went into it
assuming it was going to be a bit of a joke, and in terms of workload
it totally was. Our first assignment was filling out a ten-page
worksheet; the teacher asked if one week would be sufficient, or if
we'd need two.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But
while it may not have been academically strenuous, it turned out to
be surprisingly helpful. It started with the most very basic stuff
like resumees and job interviews, which, sure, I covered back in
Planning 10, but I gained access to several career-building
professionals who helped reformulate my resumee from something
amateurish and vague into a pretty solid little document deliberately
tailored to the types of employers I wanted to target. The course
went on to opportunities I'd heard about but never actually
considered taking advantage of, like career fairs, which sounded lame
to me but which I'd learn to like. I was taught new techniques for
selling myself, skills I didn't know were transferrable, the
importance of networking, and the importance of constantly being
pursuing some better opportunity, all the time. If you're already a
shakaijin or even just a particularly ambitious student then maybe
all of this is obvious to you, but it was pretty eye-opening for me.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In
fact, I ended up feeling a little inadequate next to many of my
classmates. Most of them had at least a job of some kind, usually
someplace classy and/or in a management position; I was unemployed at
the time and had been for most of my university career. They had all
meticulously laid out their academic and professional futures, with
clear goals and action plans; I went to university because I had no
idea what to do after high school, and stumbled directionlessly
through a liberal arts education until I lucked into something I
liked. In fact the majority of them were first-year, and already
formulating some idea of how they wanted to go through university and
how best to tailor that experience to their careers. Good God! I
barely knew my dick from my asshole when I was that age. But then
Jugs told me that a lot of them are probably just as intimidated of
me and the experiences <i>I've</i> been lucky enough to have, and for
that matter probably have very little idea what the fuck they're
doing, either. When you're uncertain, remember that everybody else is
making it up as they go along too.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">But
after Spring 2014, the whole process kind of went dark. Yeah, sorry
to end abruptly like that, but that's how it happened. I went back
and forth for months with the office, apparently my profile was even
shopped around to a few companies, but it looks like I didn't get any
bites, because in principle I would have started at the beginning of
September, which I'm 90% sure is too late now. So I guess my efforts
ended in failure this time. What's important, though, is that I
tried, and that I keep trying. Co-op is just one possible route to
Japan. I might end up having to attempt several, much as you have to
send out several resumees just to get one job. Of all the lessons I
learned over the course of this whole thing, that one might be the most important of all.</span></div>
Rude Boy Abroadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02092622808758318179noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-43798680348663868.post-1847151545920717622014-11-17T18:18:00.002+09:002014-11-17T18:24:33.293+09:00Sack of garbage is worthless, spreads hate speech<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I wasn't
gonna do this post. Wasn't gonna draw any more attention to it than
it deserved. I'm not even naming that putrid little cockgobbler,
because I wouldn't want to inadvertently give him traffic, and if you don't know what I'm talking about, consider yourself
lucky. But I just have too much material now to not sling words at
the Internet, because even if I don't have much to add to what more
socially active bloggers and vloggers have already said, I could use
the catharsis.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So
we've gotten the revelation that he has recently been officially
banned from immigrating to Japan for all poison-vomiting activities.
(He also seems to have had several venues rescind offers to host him,
although MRA rallies somehow seem to keep finding niches to carve
into, so I don't know how much that means.) So he'll either have to
give up on any Japanese endeavours, or lie about the purpose of his
trip, which would then get lanced the second he set foot in a
presentation venue, and his sexual assault-promoting ass would be
ejected from the country for at least ten years, I'm guessing. I'm no
expert in immigration law, but that's how long you're barred from
entry if you overstay your visa. So kudos to everybody who stepped
forward to try and take down a true real-life villain.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The
premise of the lecture (if you can give such a puerile heap of human
garbage such a dignified descriptor) is to treat women as worthless,
which is an absolutely fantastic shortcut to not getting laid. He
garnered the wrong kind of attention when a video of one of his
sessions surfaced, showing him spewing bile that comes dangerously
close to advocating rape. He describes the winning technique for
getting women in Japan to be grabbing a woman's head and thrusting it
towards your crotch, yelling “Pikachu!” It then showed footage of
him doing this to a bunch of Japanese women that he then did not have
sex with. Incredibly, he states that this is all a-ok because they
just giggle. <i>Which is what people do when they're uncomfortable,
you insane fuckwad.</i></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Question:
Doe he buy into his own bullshit? The attendees at these kinds of
things are the loneliest, most desperate men on earth. They're
looking for a cheat code for instant sex because they're either too
chickenshit to go up to a woman and start a fucking conversation, or
they're so atrociously bad at it that they legitimately believe that
the only reason for their failure is that they haven't yet found
exactly the right combination of insults and vulgarities that would
push her buttons ooh just right, baby, call me a fat ugly whore
again, it gets me so hot. I actually feel a little sorry (but not too
sorry) for the guys who go to stuff like this, because it's a pretty
shitty business model. I don't mean shitty as in it's ineffective, it
actually seems to work pretty well unfortunately, I mean shitty like
“that's a shitty thing to do,” in that it openly preys on the
deepest insecurities of the weak.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Iirc,
the guy who invented invented peacocking – always pictured
surrounded by a crowd of adoring men but rarely any women, for some
reason – privately admitted to this, and said that he knew there
was no way it would work in real life. This guy (trying to avoid
naming him, I want to call him the Beast, which would suit him, but I
don't want to associate him in my own mind with anything as
high-quality as Transmetropolitan) might be the same. Or he might
actually fully believe in every vile piece of rancid fungus that
sloughs out of his mouth. I'm not sure which is worse.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">One
more thing, this footage was shot in Toukyou, right? Like Roppongi
maybe? Cause there are definitely parts of Japan – certainly in
Oosaka, and even then the rowdier corners of Kyouto – where doing
that shit will get you fucking <i>stomped</i>.
Or maybe I'm wrong. Go try!</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">There
is one thing I believe I can contribute to discussions of this
instructive failure, which is to mock him further. He does most of
the work for me, but I can't resist, so here's my reactions to some
quotes from his Twitter, now removed but thoughtfully archived by <a href="http://tindersfinestbachelors.tumblr.com/post/101828535893/his-mother-must-be-proud" target="_blank">Tinder's Finest Bachelors</a>.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“I
like my women like I like my cell phone. Broken.”</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What?
That's not how you do that. Take the joke, “I like my women how I
like my coffee: Black, hot, and all over my junk.” It works because
it makes sense for both women and for coffee. I get that if you're a
loser, an emotionally broken woman sounds like a ticket to an easy
lay, but why would you ever want a broken cell phone? Because you
know you're a poison to society and wish to expose yourself to as few
people as possible?</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“I
always just assume that any girl who sleeps with me is a slut and any
girl who doesn't sleep with me is a cunt.”</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As far as I'm concerned there's nothing wrong with being a slut, but I
guess the logic there is that she'd damn well have to be a slut to
sleep with you.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“My
favorite sexual position is the one where I cum and she doesn't.”</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">When
it's with you, I'm guessing that's all of them.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“I'm
too in love with myself to love my girlfriend.”</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Is
that why you don't have one?</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“That
warm load of sweet cum you just viciously gulped down has a thousand
calories. In case you're wondering why you're still single.”</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Take
note, ladies, he's encouraging you to <i>not </i>swallow
his cum. In case you needed convincing.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Also,
fucking is pretty good exercise, so the joke doesn't even work.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Girls,
could you please save me the effort and roofie your own drink?
#JustKidding”</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Just
kidding, he'll do it himself.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“No
means no. #JustKidding”</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What
the fuck.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Dear
girls, you should be blowing me every time you change positions.
#JustSoYouKnow”</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">For
most men, this would be considered too time-consuming.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“I'm
running out of reasons to wear a condom.”</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">The
number of women willing to sleep with you is shrinking even further?</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Show
the back of your girlfriend's throat just how much you love her.”</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Oh, please; never mind the back of her throat, you couldn't even reach the tip of her tongue.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“#LOL
at guys who need to use roofies...”</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Like
you, a few Tweets up?</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Vodka
and cum. #MyGirlfriendsDiet”</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Are
you trying to mock her? Because that's kind of hot.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Sometimes
you fuck them, other times you jack off on them.”</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You
may someday find one willing to do it <i>for </i>you.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Safe
sex but without the condom.”</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What?
It's not safe sex then.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“You
had me at: 'My last three boyfriends were assholes...'”</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So
you figure you'll fit right in?</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I
can't imagine fitting in has ever been a problem for you.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Yes,
that was another dig at your penis size.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“A
relationship with me might only last a night but the emotional damage
will last forever.”</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Now
you're just stating obvious facts.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“My
favorite sex toy is my girlfriend's mind.”</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I.e. sexual satisfaction for a woman is heavily mental, and that
the key to satisfying one is therefore all in her head. But I don't
think he has this much knowledge of sex. Though it's not his fault,
he just hasn't had enough of it yet.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“When
does no mean no?”</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">TFB
says: “EVERY.SINGLE.FUCKING. TIME.” To which I would add,
“<i>Obviously</i>.”</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“Another
girl, another infinite amount of lies.”</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Well
it's obvious you'd never get one on your own merits.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">“The
hottest women are often the most insecure, so don't forget to treat
them like trash. #JustSoYouKnow”</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">He
not only summarizes his own lectures so you don't have to spend the
time or money to go, but at the same time helpfully explains why
everything he expounds within them is completely wrong.</span></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /></span>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">
<span style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You
get the point. This isn't a man, this is a child, one who desires
women so badly that he's come to hate them. Either that or he's a
cynical bastard making bank on misery. Doesn't matter. Japan's banned
him, Canada's Minister of Immigration has promised to do everything
he can to block him, Australia kicked him out, Brazil and the UK are
working on it, probably a lot more by now, I can't keep up with this
story, I'm too worried I might get infected. But we're off to a good
start, so I'm hoping that the matter can be settled quickly and this
motherfucker forced to seriously reevaluate some things.</span></div>
Rude Boy Abroadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02092622808758318179noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-43798680348663868.post-47827818669835842612014-10-20T16:24:00.000+09:002014-10-20T16:24:19.504+09:00Nobody is allowed...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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...to call Japanese culture weird ever again.Rude Boy Abroadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02092622808758318179noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-43798680348663868.post-29884124135486825372014-09-01T15:06:00.000+09:002014-09-01T15:06:33.458+09:00Underpowered<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
I spent the last few weeks before my
university exchange hanging out with the new Japanese students who
were arriving fresh that semester and doing not a whole hell of a lot
else. Anybody who's done a study abroad or, for that matter, taught
in a foreign country can probably identify with this lazy middle
ground, the period in which you've completed all your preparations
but you obviously can't start on the Next Thing until you arrive in
your new venue. It's a little discombobulating because your
day-to-day feels a little lackadaisical, yet technically you're doing
exactly what you're supposed to. So while everybody around me was
gearing up for classes, I was left a little adrift, which was fine,
actually, because it let me catch up on my backlog of books and video
games, and also gave me plenty of time to help this new group get
acclimated.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
More time than usual, in fact, as until
this last year helping out the new group has been my customary task
for the first few weeks of each semester. With all this white space
on my schedule I was even able to get to know some of them a little
deeper. Looking back, I think my first post ever may have left the
impression that all the Japanese people I knew at the time were
dicks, which was not the case at all. It was a pretty typical group,
in that they were mostly people I'll never talk to again, some were
pretty all right, and then there was one that I formed a genuine
friendship with. She was a gyaru from Chiba, very stereotypically
girly in matters such as fashion and colour-cons, and, you know, a
little rough but unfortunately without the overt sexuality of an
Oosaka gyaru. And yes I had a crush on her, of course I did, this is
me we're talking about. Actually it's probably a good thing I left
soon after, cause I'd have wanted to date her and if that had failed
it would have been all awkward and stuff.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
I did keep in contact with her while I
was in Japan and she was in Canada, though, including one really
awesome drunk-dial with her and a friend of hers, who was visiting,
so she had to pretend that she was her cousin, so that the guy she
was cheating on her boyfriend with wouldn't hit on her. President,
who was rather smitten herself, got to be really good friends with
her in the time I was gone. She even went to see her when she visited
Toukyou (but didn't come to see me...pfft.) President's path to
Japanese living began with some Japanese friends in high school, who
introduced her to J-pop and Matsumoto Jun, and she's visited a few
times, first on a field school and then on her own. To be honest I
find that pretty courageous and savvy, given her limited grasp of the
language, but she stayed at a hotel in Ikebukuro and everything, it
sounds like it was awesome. She and this girl, I'll call her Lock-Up,
went to the club where she was working at the time, and to Lock-Up,
aaaaaaaand to the onsen. Yeah, she totally saw her naked. And
President is bi so she was even able to appreciate it. So super
jelly. And now Lock-Up is back in town.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
This provided a bit of a brain-teaser
for me until I was able to talk to her in person, and she clarified
everything that's going on with her. Basically she's going to be
taking the TESL program at my university, one a one-year working
holiday visa, spending the extraneous six months working...somewhere.
She hasn't really solidified her plans yet. Personally I would think
that would be kind of an important thing to get sorted out <i>before</i>
you travel across the Pacific Ocean, but then, here I am stuck in my
home country and writing oddly personal blog entries only vaguely
related to Japan, so what do I know. The interesting part of that is,
she'll be taking classes with President, all day, every day.
President applied to JET last cycle and got alternate, but no
farther, so now she's going to get a formal certification to buff up
her resumee (and skillset). So I sense good times in the offing.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Unfortunately for
Lock-Up, she was compelled to, for a second time, attend much of the
university's international orientation, a week-long event primarily
informational in purpose but with quite a lot of lighter fun stuff as
well. They teach them the finer points of certain immigration laws,
school policies, very basic stuff as well as cultural things.
Examples:</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Canadians are very
time-conscious. Being ten minutes late to an arranged meeting can be
considered very impolite.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
If a Canadian tells
you they'll “see you later,” this doesn't actually mean they plan
to see you later.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
If a Canadian is
passing by and asks you how it's going, and then carries on without
waiting to hear the answer, it's not because they were being
insincere. (It's because the question is meaningless and you're not
really expected to reply.)</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Pickup etiquette
can vary between cultures. In Canada, if a girl at a bar tells you
no, that means the conversation is over, not “try harder.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
And I
fucking love it all. There's a video in there on safety (e.g. how not
to get your pocket picked), which I don't think I've ever viewed from
start to finish, but which I've seen so many bits and pieces of that
if you put them all together I have probably seen in its entirety
several times. That's how many times I've volunteered for this thing.
Unfortunately, since I've been back from Japan, I haven't quite had
the time...and if I'm being entirely honest with myself, my
motivation hasn't been there like it used to be. During my exchange I
started to think about building my future in Japan, which naturally
necessitated meditation on what my professional career might be, and
from that point on I was pretty much ready to sell my soul. Yeah, if
14-year-old Rude Boy could see me now he'd wonder what the fuck
<i>happened</i> and how I
ended up catching Lame, row row fight the power, but nowadays the
coolest thing I can think of is working in an office. All this
looking forward has forced me to simultaneously look inward, so I
can't be all things to all Japanese people anymore. Not quite like I
used to at least. It's all right. It's a natural progression,
and...well, for me personally it never really paid much dividends
anyway. It was worth it, in the end, to provide a useful service
(translation and all manner of other assistance) to the people who
deserved, but I just got used and burned too many times. Maybe I got
a little tired of it.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Besides
which, my work schedule interferes with like, everything else now,
since I'm now working full time as a shift supervisor at a large
chain of coffee shops that you have heard of (no, not that one), so
despite Lock-Up's pleas, I wasn't able to come join her and alleviate
her boredom. But President and I <i>were</i>
able to meet up with her at one of the two decent Japanese
restaurants in President's part of town. It was rather
humorous in a Dostoevskyesque way, an intersection of three recent
university graduates each desperately trying to get something rolling
so that their lives can start. But it was great to see her, and she
reported that a huge number of new Japanese students have arrived at
my alma mater this semester. Things are getting exciting again.</div>
Rude Boy Abroadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02092622808758318179noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-43798680348663868.post-19371844586048151952014-08-01T08:32:00.000+09:002014-08-01T08:32:35.480+09:00Kanabata<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Tanabata has become a bit of a
tradition for our Club. It started out as a fun thing to do in summer
when half our membership had vanished into the ether for a few
months; the first time we tried it, we got rained out, had to do it
in the university student centre, and used me as the tree. But our
planning skills have improved since then, and over the years we've
managed to grow it to a respectable size. And since we have a limited
financial capacity, we usually do it as a potluck.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
This heralded some concerns for us this
year, because we had invited a bunch of recent arrivals from Japan
and having a potluck with Japanese people can be a little iffy.
Basically they tend to bring either far too little, or something
completely ridiculous. Sometimes both. I think a single bag of 5-cent
candies, as the shared contribution of six people, was probably the
topper here, but you're also likely to get single bags of chips or
rare, inscrutable treats that elicit furtive gestures and mutterings
amongst observers. Maybe it's that Japanese people tend to think of
food and drink as the host's responsibility (if so, they probably
figure that we Canadians are all incorrigible cheapskates trying to
slough off the cost onto the guests), though I mostly suspect that
they are just unacquainted with the concept and could be trained up
with a little practise.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
(If you are now wondering what exactly
an appropriate potluck contribution would be, a nice fruit or veggie
tray is usually a good choice. A couple 2Ls of pop or some
dessert-type stuff is ok, but damn near everybody is going to bring
pop or dessert-type stuff, so watch out for that. If applicable,
something from your home country will usually go over pretty well.
And if there's going to be alcohol involved, a flat of 24 beer is
always welcome. It doesn't even have to be <i>good </i>beer.)</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Anyway, we needn't have worried. This
group arrived bearing mainly a bunch of Taiwanese snacks, which not
only ranged from edible to tasty, but were present in appropriate
volume, as well. What was better, everybody here was cool. You know,
I hate to say it, but as much as ryuugakusei are generally good folk
– it takes a certain sort of person to want to learn a foreign
language and live within a foreign culture – some of them are just
really shitty people. Cause that's just life, you take any large
group of people, some of them are going to be shitty, you know? You
can try to hang out with just the ryuugakusei you actually like, but
you'll always have to deal with the hangers-on from time to time, the
ones who only want to use you for your English or think that they are
entitled to make you their personal assistant, or that they are
somehow above you,<b> </b><a href="http://rudeboyabroad.blogspot.ca/2014/05/attitude.html" target="_blank">just by virtue of being a foreigner amongstforeigners</a><b>.</b></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
You can also organize ryuugakusei into
three broad categories: Those who make no effort to engage the host
culture or even actively avoid it; those who spend time with their
countrymen but still make a substantial effort to engage the host
culture; and those who go for full integration, sometimes to the
level of eschewing their native language altogether. I've always
thought that a Japanese person refusing to speak Japanese in a room
full of exclusively Japanese speakers was, you know, kind of really
fucking stupid, but who really gives a shit, I guess. I tend to avoid
those who fall on either extreme of the spectrum anyway, the former
because they're boring, the latter because they're annoying. People
who visit another country and then try to pretend they're somewhere
else are usually this way <i>because</i> they're reserved and quiet
so they're rarely very much fun to hang out with.
And anybody going for full integration tends to be so overflowing
with cultural sanctimoniousness that they're completely intolerable.
As in many things, a balance is best, really.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
We lucked out, and these guys were all
of the cool, balanced variety. We had a few good icebreakers, too,
that is, people who aren't afraid to just go ahead and strike up
conversations with strangers, an essential element of any event
involving Japanese people.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Additionally, two of them were
shakaijin, “society people,” i.e. gainfully employed, although
working at A&W rather than a suit-and-tie company, but shakaijin
nonetheless. Both have aspirations of Canadian citizenship (the
standards for which, if you didn't know, can be a
little...stringent), and we discussed the various laws therein in
some detail; after becoming a citizen, one of the girls intended to
enter a Canadian university for a four-year degree. All of this was
immensely interesting to me as not only am I on the cusp of becoming
a shakaijin myself, but of course have also been slowly working on a
plan to do what they're currently doing but in reverse.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
I also learned that many Japanese think
that root beer tastes like medicine. So we'll know not to get any of
that next time, I guess. Some blonde girl said she'd heard of that
from her Korean friends as well. She brought up Korea a couple of
times and wrote her name on her cup in Korean, but she left before I
could ask what her deal was.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
The main event at Tanabata, of course,
is writing out wishes and hanging them on a bamboo tree. Despite
stereotypes, bamboo trees aren't exactly something you can just go
pick up at Wal-Mart in Canada, so we usually use a grate or railing
instead (you are welcome to steal this trick for your own Tanabata
party). I wrote down “That I may get back to Japan quickly.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“I <i>knew</i>
that was going to be your first wish,” President grinned.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Then I wished that
my job search should go well, which admittedly is kind of the same
thing, since the one is predicated on the other.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Additionally, every Tanabata I send up
some kind of a prayer for <a href="http://rudeboyabroad.blogspot.ca/2013/03/my-sister.html" target="_blank">my sister</a>.
Last year she'd recently gotten married, so I wrote out a wish for
her happy married life (or in Japanese, that her household would be
bountiful). Now she's expecting a child, so I wished for him or her
to be born healthy and happy. This seemed right to me. I tried to
think of what would make her happiest in the world, and I am sure her
most feverish hope right now is for the health of her unborn child.
Indeed, I saw on Facebook later that her own Tanabata wish was for
exactly that.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Japanese guy:
Please invite me to hang out again.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Rude Boy:
Absolutely, you should find me on Facebook.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Japanese: Yeah, I
just added your wife, so we can find each other.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Rude Boy: Oh,
great.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Then he walked off
somewhere before I realised what he'd said.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
In
hindsight I can sort of understand why they might have some
confusion. President rooms in a full-on house, and if they thought it
was <i>ours</i>,
we probably seem pretty domestic. Plus, I'm 24 this year. I certainly
remember how distant and established 24 seemed back when <i>I</i>
was 19. Shit, back when I was 17 and my sister was 22, I was in awe
of her. She seemed so mature and put-together. It was only when I
turned 22 myself that I actually realised, Christ no, she didn't know
what the fuck she was doing, nobody does. When you're a little kid,
your parents present themselves as omniscient and practised, and it's
usually a couple of decades before you figure out that they were
making it up as they went along too. I got off-topic there, but I'm
going to assume you all understood my point.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
It was a fun, chill kind of a night (President's roommate: “This is
a <i>drinking</i> party? You can have Asians over for drinks
anytime.”) Mostly, I was just glad to be hanging out with Japanese
people again – it's been faaaaaar too long since I've done that. I
miss it. And it was good, too, to be back in the thick of things.
I've always been more comfortable leading than following, and I'm
certainly more comfortable on the field than in the sidelines or,
fuck's sake, the audience. For at least that night, I felt like
President and I really were President and Vice President again; all
thoughts of guiding Club rather than commanding it, and being careful
not to change the system through observing it, all that shit had fled
my mind. Ah, I don't know – maybe this summer will be our victory
lap?</div>
Rude Boy Abroadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02092622808758318179noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-43798680348663868.post-22202412482380356342014-07-10T17:22:00.000+09:002014-07-10T17:22:15.063+09:00Canada Day<div class="p1">
<b>The Interview</b></div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
President and I tried to go to bed at a not completely moronic time, but then we stayed up late talking because couldn't sleep and now sort of ready to die. But we're pretty stoked, too. It promises to be an interesting day.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
A Japanese girl we've known for a few years gets on the bus and sits down. We wave.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
“She's really grown up since she got here,” I note, by which I mean that she no longer dresses like a small child. It's a bit more than that, though. People get older, and ryuugakuing really accelerates the process. Or maybe just augments it?</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
We're headed for the Hilton downtown, where a delegation from our sister city in Japan will be staying for the week. They've just gotten in last night but we're hustling them out of bed bright and early for a CBC interview. President and I relax in the lobby and watch an older, lanyard-wearing Asian woman make her way from the elevators to the breakfast hall. So we're at the right place then. Shortly thereafter the CBC guy arrives and then so does the mayor, along with the man in charge of Water and Sewage and also some third individual who hangs around the periphery and whose function I never do divine. They spend a few minutes socializing as hotel staff set up an interview area for us.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
The interviewer attempts some English conversation with the water guy, and with a little effort and a lot of smiling they are able to communicate some basic pleasantries. I let them struggle. In situations like this, I generally try not to jump in with the interpretation unless it seems necessary, or if somebody specifically asks. Partly this is because people like to practise, but more importantly I don't want to mess up any flow they've developed; even if they end up fully depending on me immediately after, those first few minutes can provide a crucial icebreaker. The mayor is a pleasant enough man, somewhat lacking in the flair of his predecessor, but a good guy and very mayoral.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
“Who's going to do to the interpretation?” he says suddenly, looking to the others.</div>
<div class="p1">
“I'll be interpreting,” I assure him.</div>
<div class="p1">
“Oh, great,” he smiles, and hurries off to his place.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
At no point does anyone present suggest that my speaking Japanese is anything other than the most natural thing in the world. It's weird.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
The interview goes pretty well, I think. It's a fairly fluffy piece and I asked to see the questions in advance, so I was able to look up a couple of words beforehand. Though I'd thought I might fixate on the microphone and start to get tied up in the minutiae of my own speech, within seconds I forget all about that and am able to mainly focus on interpreting the mayor's sentiments as accurately as possible. Because it's in the moment, and I want him to come off well, I err on the side of a “feeling” translation rather than a “word-for-word.”</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
I only have one serious slip-up: one of the mayor's responses is complex, makes heavy use of technical vocabulary, and goes on so long that by the time he finishes I've forgotten what he said at the beginning, and by the time I remember and make my way through <i>that</i>, I've forgotten what he said at the end. Fortunately after some consultation with him and a few (painfully long and quiet) moments to collect my thoughts, I'm able to avoid mangling it too badly.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
The rest is pretty smooth. The questions have mainly to do with the sister city agreement, his thoughts on its significance, and so on. The most interesting went something like this:</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
Question: How would you feel about shifting the sister city agreement to a more business-oriented arrangement?</div>
<div class="p1">
Answer: Business is indeed very important to our city, and to Japan, and if the possibility is there we should definitely pursue it. However, it would be a mistake to focus on only business at the expense of other opportunities, such as cultural and educational exchange, which are themselves very valuable and would be a shame to lose.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
I thought that was interesting because basically all sister city relationships, everywhere, are derided by citizens as a bunch of free vacations for mayor and council. So while the true benefits are self-evident to those of us lucky enough to be in the thick of these functions, they are intangible, and thus justifiably dubious to anyone not directly involved. This is why the financial issue comes up from time to time, often accompanied by the suggestion that the soft stuff should be abandoned in favour of a strictly economic arrangement. Obviously I myself am a huge proponent of the intercultural aspects of sister city relationships, which changed my life, but I also see the unused potential for such “business opportunities.”</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<b>A Lazy Afternoon</b></div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
After the interview President and I walk over to park, which is already saturated with festival atmosphere. Later, we notice various persons of interest begin forming up in the reserved section of the audience. I see the youngest member of council, a Green, enthusiastically mingling. “Ohio,” he says to the delegates. He says this a few times.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
“That's about the limit of my Japanese,” he confides to me.</div>
<div class="p1">
“Oh, it's a start. Actually,” I remind him, “they'll be pretty stoked no matter what you say. They pretty much just appreciate the effort.”</div>
<div class="p1">
He laughs and agrees, and heads off for more schmoozing.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
The two of us spend most of the rest of the day taking things in. It's scathingly hot but at least the atmosphere hasn't liquefied, like it does in Kyouto. We walk amongst the crowds, and run into Jugs. We take in interminable speeches, and also a performance by our local taiko group. We eat some Indian food. We point out hot girls to each other, because President is bi and an awesome gf. Oh, and also President is my gf now, that's a thing.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
We see a guy with a German flag draped about his shoulders.</div>
<div class="p1">
“But <i>Belgium</i> played today,” President frowns.</div>
<div class="p1">
“Maybe he actually is German,” I suggest. “Anyway, what do you suppose would happen if a guy showed up at the 4<sup>th</sup> of July in America wearing a German flag?”</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
For a moment, I feel like I've hit upon the heart of Canada Day, and, indeed, Canada itself.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<b>Fireworks and Frustration</b></div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
There is only one thing that spoils my mood, and it really does. In previous years, since I was 15, I've volunteered to help with the sister city delegation and spent a week or more trundling around with them, interpreting and just generally making myself useful. And I <i>love</i> doing this. I love Japanese people, I love helping out, and this event is a bit of a personal tradition of mine. But suffice it to say, a miscommunication meant they ended up going with other interpreters, presumably because they didn't realise how much better of a job I'd do. So I ended up feeling like I'd been cheated out of something very dear to me through someone else's incompetence.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
But maybe all isn't lost. We have just one chance. I happen to know that they'll take dinner (where I should have been interpreting) at a certain room in the park stadium, and that afterward they'll be milling around for a while waiting for the fireworks. It would be inappropriate to crash the dinner, but surely no one will mind if we show up and socialize afterward? We won't be costing the city money, and the Canadians there will all be city hall types, so I'll know most of them anyway. It won't be the whole week, but at least I'll get one shiny hurrah.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
Alas, we're quickly foiled, as there's no way into the building. I get steadily more melancholy over the next half hour. I try not to let it show but I can't hide anything from President. We settle for watching from below the balcony, on the off-chance that somebody will look down, recognize us, and invite us up. I know it's a dumb plan but it's the best I can think of. We hear people talking and laughing above us, the occasional snatch of Japanese. I can't stand it because <i>I should be up there</i>.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
“Would it be easier if we moved away?” she asks, brow knitted.</div>
<div class="p1">
“No,” I say miserably. “It's like trying to get laid. If you at least ask, there's a <i>chance</i> somebody'll say yes, even if it's very small. So if we at least hang around here there's a <i>chance</i> somebody might come take pity on us. Even though I know that's not actually going to happen.”</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
The fireworks start. I try to enjoy them. It's hard to do when all I can think of is how much better of a view I usually get. We start to move, to get a better angle around a tree.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
“Hey guys, do you wanna come upstairs?”</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
It's the youngest member of council, standing right behind us, holding the door open. Well, I'll be fucked. The three of us rush upstairs so as not to miss anything. No way. I'm seriously actually getting my due.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
“And it's open bar,” he laughs.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
The fireworks go on an appropriate fireworks-y length of time, during which we touch base with various dudes and dudettes, such as the lady who failed to get us up there. We spot a young Japanese guy we'd noticed earlier in the day, and President goes to talk to him. Later she confirms that he's a new student at our university, here as an interpreter rather than as a member of the delegation, which makes sense. I'd thought at least a couple of new students would be here, and meeting them was one of my main goals for the night, so, success! I point him out to another councillor and tell her that he looked so lonely and bored, we'd been thinking of absconding him to the nearest bar.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
“I really think you should,” she grins conspiratorially.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
<b>Heading Home</b></div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
My spirits buoyed, we go to catch the bus back to President's, where we run into the Japanese girl from the morning bus ride. This girl is young and adorably useless. She's the kind of girl you're afraid to leave to her own devices for more than a couple of minutes, lest she get lost between the front door and the sidewalk, or accidentally lock herself inside her apartment. She knows it, too. It's hilarious.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
Today her existential crisis is actually semi-legitimate. She came straight to Canada after graduating Japanese high school and is now on the cusp of getting a certificate, which she's pretty sure is going to be borderline worthless in the Japanese job market in the absence of an actual degree. So she's debating whether to spend another year here, which will incur extra cost on her parents, or to return home and just take a stab at it. I try to give her advice but she rejects it and then chases herself in mental circles for a good five minutes or so. So I tell her to do the opposite thing, and then she repeats the process in reverse. She knows she's not being reasonable or making any sense, but I get the feeling I'm helping her work through it just by standing there and listening, so I don't feel like I'm wasting my time.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
Basically, she just wants to escape the situation and get married. Yup, that would be the life. In fact, she's 21 now and a bunch of her friends are married already. Her own mother waited until 23, but if you think about it, you have to know somebody for around two years before you marry them, right, so to keep to that schedule she has to meet somebody, like, tomorrow! Has she been looking? No...no, she hasn't... So what kind of a guy would be good? Rich. Oh, and also tall.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
She worries, too, that people always think she's younger than she is. When she was in junior high school people thought she was in elementary school, etc. I point out that maybe when she's 50, people will think she's 30. Ooh, she likes that! But she still doesn't get why.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
“Maybe because you seem so pure,” I say honestly.</div>
<div class="p1">
“Heh! You have <i>no idea</i>, do you?” she smirks.</div>
<div class="p1">
“Oh? So you've been up to a lot of impure things?”</div>
<br />
<div class="p1">
“No,” she says sadly.</div>
Rude Boy Abroadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02092622808758318179noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-43798680348663868.post-71815651756808815932014-06-18T19:15:00.000+09:002014-06-18T19:15:02.134+09:00Japanese traffic<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Previous experiences with Japan had
girded me against nearly all the vagaries of culture shock, but there
was one part of the country that just didn't wash: The driving was
just plain messed up. I haven't had the pleasure yet, but I've
gleaned a fair amount just by observing my surroundings, such as the
razor-thin alleys and switchbacks that pass for residential streets
in the country. Reed Richards would be hard-pressed to squeeze
through the average Japanese neighbourhood. Roads near my university
were so poorly maintained that cars rolled up and down like a ship on
stormy seas, creating the impression that everyone was constantly
flashing their lights at you, a prospect that seems not entirely
unrealistic to a foreigner in Japan.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Vehicles are not allowed to turn left
on a red in Japan, which to me seemed totally bizarre until I
realised the reason for it. Fact is, stop lines are generally set
back several hundred kilometres from their associated intersection,
requiring all Japanese motorists to carry a telescope in the glove
compartment in order to discern when the light changes. This would
make any attempts to creep up to and slip around the corner
potentially disastrous. The eccentric positioning of these stop lines
is, in turn, a necessity borne out of the narrow streets, as any
lateral traffic that turns towards you needs to be able to swing into
your lane without punching you in the face, otherwise buses, fire
engines, and monster trucks would find most every route impassable.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
But that's just the conditions; the
real issue is the participants. Driving in Japan is less a means of
transportation and more a contest to see who can break the largest
number of traffic laws at a time. When I first arrived and began
observing the traffic, the entire ecosystem seemed chaotic and
dangerous. Japanese drivers constantly made risky manoeuvres that
would have caused Canadian passengers to scream in fear and anger.
They pulled out to block an entire lane so that they could turn in.
If somebody ahead of them was waiting to make a right turn, they
freely swerved around them, continuing on like it was no thing.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
While often in Canada the centre line
may as well be a physically impassable barrier, here it does little
more than demarcate the midpoint between either side of the road. You
park wherever you can, be it in a marked parking space, a random nook
or cranny, the middle of a busy thoroughfare, a stranger's living
room, on roofs, in alleys, every way but upside down, really. People
whip around at a startling pace, dodging grannies and inconveniently
placed hydro poles, giving the reflexes and brake-pads of every other
driver a good solid workout, and it's all just considered normal.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Pedestrians aren't much better,
possessing a relationship with self-preservation that is antagonist
at best. They are fond of wandering around on the road when there's a
perfectly good sidewalk across the street, swaying back and forth,
stumbling around blind corners, and generally presenting as large a
profile as possible when ambulating in groups, for the benefit of any
casual human-hunters should they happen to make a go of it on their
way to the store. I ended up becoming eminently comfortable with cars
hurtling past my body at breakneck speeds, casually forgiving
scandalous incursions into my personal space bubble that would earn
them a stream of expletives and public humiliation in Canada.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
At about the seven-month mark, however,
it finally dawned on me that while the Japanese style was certainly
much less cautious, it wasn't necessarily worse. I never actually
encountered an accident, after all, despite weekly witnessing
situations that in Canada would have caused ruination or, at best, an
interminable delay as the confused drivers tried to work out how to
extricate their vehicles from the tangle they'd tied. Japanese
drivers, meanwhile, balletically weave between each other at high
speed, never in doubt, never in danger. It was frankly beautiful to
see in action. It was as if tight Japanese traffic conditions had
forced the drivers to hone a better sense of timing and spatial
understanding, a deeper intuition regarding the intentions of the
vehicles around them, or, if not that, then at least they as Japanese
drivers had a better sense than I had of how another Japanese driver
was liable to react at any given moment.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
In other words, all these differences
that had initially seemed incredible turned out to have their own
logic, which became perfectly clear once I'd discovered it – much
like many things I came to grips with in Japan. It was an interesting
revelation. Culture really is pervasive. When we imagine foreign
countries, we think of the food, the music, the language, but the
<i>driving</i> culture doesn't generally occur to us until we're
forced to confront it. And, as in all those other cases, unfamiliar
doesn't automatically mean worse.</div>
Rude Boy Abroadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02092622808758318179noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-43798680348663868.post-18852091172320911372014-06-03T19:11:00.000+09:002014-06-03T19:11:48.884+09:00Reparation<div class="p1">
Now to provide a little context for <a href="http://rudeboyabroad.blogspot.ca/2014/05/attitude.html" target="_blank">my last post</a>. Every spring, a university from Toukyou sends a cadre of Psychology students to my Canadian university. The students commune with Canadian Psychology majors, receive an intensive English course, and explore the world outside Japan. (Sometimes we also get groups of future CAs coming to practise English for their internationally oriented jobs, but this seems to be more sporadic, although, as you might imagine, also more fun.) Back when President and I were the Japanese Club leaders, we also tried to show them our hospitality, holding parties for them, sharing meals with them, and, as if I even have to say it, taking them out drinking.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
And that's awesome. Unfortunately, that's also what got me into trouble a couple of years ago. I ended up getting <i>way</i> too drunk at an informal function at the campus pub, and, I am told, mouthed off a lot. I say “I am told” because I actually recall very little of what transpired. I do remember falling asleep in the bathroom and being set upright once more by a concerned citizen, then leaving suddenly for no apparent reason, to President's consternation. She ended up tracing the route back to my apartment, but missed me, because I'd stopped off at another bathroom and fallen asleep there too. After a while I woke up on my own and made my way to the next building in my path, where I fell asleep in a third bathroom. Luckily I did eventually make it all the way home, where I finally fell asleep for the night...in my <i>own</i> bathroom.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
So I got an amusing anecdote out of it, but unfortunately, before all that happened I ended up getting in a scrap. For all the reasons I explained in that last post I feel I had call to get my hackles up, at least in regards to the one asshole who was provoking me. Unfortunately, that one asshole was their teacher, who comes every year. I'd obviously offended him at least as much as he'd offended me, hence the escalation of the confrontation. And since we never actually resolved our dispute, my anger never really dissipated, even when they'd all gone back to Japan. You can see how diplomatic relations might become strained.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
Obviously, I completely mishandled the situation. Setting aside the fact that I should never, ever have gotten that drunk to begin with, I shouldn't have risen to him, either. What the hell did I think I was going to accomplish? Nothing I could say would have persuaded him to my point of view, because he had his mind made up and just wanted to unload at me. And when it's somebody of authority such as a teacher, even if you win, you lose. <i>Especially</i> if you win, you might argue. No, I should have just kept my head down, bitten back every response, and quietly accepted his completely unwarranted criticism of my entire lifestyle.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
Instead, I put a palpable strain on the rest of that group's trip, and holy hell do I regret that. That experience specifically is why I never drink “on the job” anymore. So I absolutely take responsibility for that mistake (God knows I've pissed enough people off while drunk), and for some time feared that I'd caused irreparable damage to what had been a very profitable partnership between the other university and our Club. By putting my own aggravation ahead of the interests of the Japanese students, I'd betrayed the very people I was supposed to be serving.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
Of course, I wasn't around last year, and since I'm no longer officially affiliated with Japanese Club I was able to put a little cognitive distance between me and my own past transgressions. So when a group came this year, I considered avoiding the whole thing, but ultimately decided, fuck it, if there's a problem, I'll just stare it down. When I arrived at the campus pub, it was already roaring with a crowd of J-students and a complement of white people. Gently squashing the realisation that I was blowing off class to go hang out at a bar, I quickly found President, pulled up a chair, and – within minutes – was offered the teacher's hand.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
Not in marriage, mind you. I mean he reached around the guy beside him – I mean like tried to lean past him, not give him a reacharound – and he wanted to shake my hand, that's the point I'm making. No, it's actually not, of course it isn't. The point I'm making is that he greeted me with a goddamn smile. “It's good to see you,” he said, and he seemed to actually mean it. Well, fuck me. That's just great. Here I've been holding a quiet grudge against this guy for two goddamn years and he hasn't thought twice about me. Of course he hasn't. People think about you way less often than you think about them thinking about you. So I felt awfully silly.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
Tell you what, though. President and I had a great time at that thing. Somehow the two current executives, neither of whom actually speak Japanese, had gotten all caught up in a group with the aforementioned teacher and one of the Psychology dudes from our university, so we broke for the far end of the table to chat up some of the other students. President just led us straight into the crowd and we sat down with some people and suddenly, socializing. It was just like the old days: President intrepidly charging into battle, me at her side as loyal lieutenant, in this case providing translation and social lubrication. Not that she needed much of either; she manages quite admirably to communicate with a mixture of English and Japanese, and she's one of the most social damn people I know (as am I, which is one of the reasons we get on so well).</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
Right after, we had to practise for our performance at the international culture festival the following week. I'm using the Royal We here because I was not, myself, performing, rather I offered feedback as a group of about ten practised in a dance studio at student residence. I'm pretty damn brutal about it, but it's all out of love. As a huge fan of rhythm games, I can tell instantly when any individual member is off time. Not that it's very hard when half of them are following different beats and others, none at all. But that's just a matter of practise. Anyway, this is part of the story because some of the J-Psychology Majors came to watch for a little while. When they'd seen a couple of runthroughs they retired to the penthouse, where their teacher was holding an afterparty, which he does every year, and which does not in any way scream of harassment lawsuits.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="p1">
President had managed to get us invited to lunch two days hence. As always, we seemed to have hitched ourselves to, or been hitched with, a small group of students, in this case five of them. I don't know why it so often seems to work out this way; I guess just because the people most motivated to make friends tend to find each other, and because it takes time and energy to get to know someone and you really can't do that with 20+ people in just two weeks. Of course, they've left now, and we'll never see them again. Every once in a while, though, we'll pop up on each other's Facebook feeds, until the day we all die. More to the point, we made their visit as much fun as we could. I hope that, this time, they walked away with a favourable impression of Canadians, and that maybe that's something they'll take with them.</div>
Rude Boy Abroadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02092622808758318179noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-43798680348663868.post-90967629913737838722014-05-18T17:29:00.000+09:002014-06-03T19:12:24.709+09:00Attitude<div class="p1">
<i>I originally wrote this way back when I was still toying with the idea of starting a blog, after a particularly frustrating incident left me needing to vent. That was over two years ago, so the writing is a little amateurish compared to my more recent stuff. <a href="http://rudeboyabroad.blogspot.ca/2014/06/reparation.html" target="_blank">Next post</a>, I'll tell the story that inspired it.</i></div>
<div class="p1">
<i><br /></i></div>
<div class="p1">
*</div>
<div class="p1">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
When most Japanese people I meet find out that I'm interested in the language and the culture, they're delighted. They're flattered that I'm trying to participate and pleased that I'm trying to understand. They're forgiving when I make mistakes and wonderfully supportive of everything I'm trying to do. This has overwhelmingly been my experience, and I'm grateful to all the people who have helped me, been my friends, and invited me through the door.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
Some aren't like this.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
Some are of a very different opinion. Because I'm not Japanese I can never understand Japanese culture. Sometimes I screw things up when I talk, therefore I don't speak Japanese at all. My goals are messed up, or else they're a waste of time because I could never possibly achieve them as an outsider. I'm just a sad hanger-on, a skinny obsessive little weeaboo, and would I just knock it off and go wallow in my own ignorance with my little white friends who, like me, also speak only one language but fetishize Asian girls and sit alone in our rooms by ourselves all the time.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
And it pisses me right off. When I encounter stuff like this elsewhere in my life, I can pretty much let it be. Because I've made a point of surrounding myself with people who like me, and will call me out if they think I'm wrong but mostly just make me feel good about myself. Anybody who tries to go against that, I don't need. But this is a little different. A handful of magic words can make my blood boil. "You can't X." "You don't know what you're talking about." "Your Japanese doesn't make any sense." I can and I'm going to. I've been looking into the topic for YEARS of my life now and I've earned the right to put forth an informed opinion. It does make sense and you goddamn know it, it's just not perfect. It's the attitude, the condescension. It's the dismissiveness.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
As soon as I can, I'm going to move back to Japan and then I'm going to live there for the rest of my life. I decided that a very long, long time ago. This is the primo goal I'm working towards at all times, to which all others are subordinate. So when someone tries to tell me that all the energy I'm putting towards this – the hours of study I put in each day, all the work I do, both as Japanese Club Vice President and on my own time, trying to make sure the Japanese students on campus are taken care of and feel comfortable and welcome, without agenda, simply because I love Japanese people – is basically worthless, I get angry, because they're making me feel like my identity is being invalidated. Not as some loser white guy trying to 'be Japanese,' but as a proud Canadian who has decided to make Japan his home.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<div class="p1">
What really gets me is the double standard they apply, a sort of Japanese exceptionalism wherein it's totally possible for them to grasp Canadian culture (and yes, there is such thing as Canadian culture, but we're not going to talk about that right now), but I can't do the reverse, and when I point this out they just wave it off as me just plain not understanding. Can you imagine if I went around telling foreigners in Canada that they'll never be able to learn English? People would think I was a complete asshole! That's not really material, though. And I've done some things in the past that people had every right to get angry about, and from time to time I still do. But I think that's a separate issue, too, and when that stuff happens it's usually an honest mistake, or at least not because I'm trying to make waves.</div>
<div class="p2">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="p1">
I really believe that the good I do outweighs the bad, and that I take more flak than I deserve. The only thing I can think to do is refuse to give in. Try to show how I earnest I really am, that I mean business, and maybe, every once in a while, get somebody to rethink their view of me. I don't expect to change many minds, but I really shouldn't let the naysayers upset me, either. Keep studying Japanese, keep trying to learn about the country, and keep making Japanese friends. Then surround myself with the ones who get me.</div>
Rude Boy Abroadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02092622808758318179noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-43798680348663868.post-38819918395427544912014-05-05T07:31:00.000+09:002014-05-05T07:31:31.579+09:00The Warrior Who Never Shaves<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
There is a Culture Festival held at my
university every year, serving as an opportunity for all the various
peoples on campus – noted as one of the most international in the
province – to share of themselves, teach, learn, and party. It's
fucking awesome. Since I've been doing international-type things
since I was a little kid, it's always struck a chord with me, and as
a member and later Vice President of the Japanese Club, I've been an
enthusiastic participant for years.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Just one difference this time:
President and I are retired now, so we didn't have to do a goddamn
thing. I saw a problem, I told either the current President or Vice
President about it and then I let them deal with it. Or not. What do
I care? I don't want to see Club's reputation suffer but I don't feel
responsible for it anymore either. Not like I used to. Anyway, all
this meant a lot less work for us and not that much less glory.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Or should have, except that New
President is kind of useless and couldn't lead either of the dances
that Club was supposed to be doing...so President, ever stalwart,
stepped the fuck up and took over the whole operation. And then I got
in on that, and pretty soon both of the current executives were
kowtowing to the will of the Ancients. Which was fine; I certainly
don't mind being afforded the respect I'm owed. But it is a little
worrisome considering that President and I have been trying to let go
of the reins and let the next generation come into its own. It was
kind of good, though. As much as I love the festivities themselves, I
enjoy the weeks leading up to them nearly as much. The preparation, I
mean – the heady feeling that you're putting in a lot of work
that's leading up to something truly impressive, and you feel so
driven to do the best you possibly can because your Club's reputation
is on the line and you're trying to share of yourselves and show what
you're capable of.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Although I wasn't slated to perform, I
attended every practise, serving as DJ and then, more importantly,
sort of micromanaging individuals. Chiefly, the issue was timing,
which both President and I found bafflingly frustrating. She used to
be in Cadets and taught music to the goddamn military, and while I
don't have quite such impressive credentials, I <i>am</i> an avid
player of rhythm games so I too have a pretty bulletproof
understanding of how to keep a beat. Trying to work with people who
did not was therefore pretty vexing for us, because trying to teach
somebody to stay on beat is like trying to explain that the sky is
blue. Fucking look at it. Blue. What the hell else can I do to help
you understand? Why do you still think it's purple?</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Overall, though, it was a fun
experience, as it always is. There was a good mixture of both
Canadian and Japanese students, with a group of six performing a
relatively recent AKB song and an impressive 15 doing a rendition of
Soran Bushi. The latter has gathered us surprising renown over the
years, with our slot being gradually moved toward the back end of the
program, where the audience size peaks. We wanted to live up to the
prestige, so we tried to get it as close to perfect as possible, with
President patiently putting the performers through their paces, and
me shouting out corrections and accepting only the utmost quality,
because people have a tendency to deliver what you expect of them.
It's called the Pygmalion Effect, I learned that from Running Man.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Then, two days before the big event, an
interesting thing happened, which is that President and I hooked up.
And to be honest it was about fucking time, you could have cut the
sexual tension with a goddamn knife. Both of us had been wanting it
for weeks and weeks and weeks, but neither of us was willing to make
a move for fear of hurting the friendship. Hilariously, everyone else
in the universe predicted it and we chided them for being silly, but
then, it's hard to get a good look at something if you're too close
to it. Anyway, we did as much as we could and later it wasn't weird
at all, it was awesome. Only thing was, I really wanted to bang her,
so on Judgment Day, I was determined to obtain some condoms – not
assuming anything, but also refusing
to be unprepared.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
Leaving my car at the arcade where they
know me and let me park all day without giving me hell, I first
checked Shopper's Drug Mart, but I couldn't fucking find what I
needed. I don't know how that's even possible, and it certainly made
me feel like a dumbass, but I was too self-conscious to just stroll
up to somebody and go “Excuse me, where are the condoms?” So I
decided to give Target a shot, and I saw the sign for the section
called “Baby,” and I was like “No I'm looking for NOT Baby!”
Luckily Jugs advised me they should be “with the women shit” but
then when I got there, there were three pharmacists who do nothing
but fucking stand behind a counter and judge you while you consider
your purchases, so I couldn't even bring myself to look. So I went to
cocksucking <i>Safeway</i>
and...<i>could not fucking find them there either</i>.
In a last-ditch effort, I visited my favourite gas station, and
finally managed to get a three-pack. Oh, Husky...you've never let me
down.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
It was a condom
quest as epic as it was asinine, made all the more difficult by the
fact that I was wearing geta at the time, and so was limited to a
speed of roughly 0 kilometres per hour. I mean I haven't moved that
slowly in my entire life as I did while wearing geta, including when
I was a baby. And to make the whole thing even goofier, I was dressed
in a fucking jinbei and happi while I was going around trying to be
inconspicuous and casual. In the end it felt too weird to go into a
store and buy <i>just</i> three condoms, so I got a chocolate bar as
well. Yeah, that'll throw 'em off.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
With all that
finally taken goddamn care of I made my way to the university and met
up with President again. So far we'd taken in a Japanese tea ceremony
and a photo-booth type thing with like various kimono and such for
people to try, the latter of which has sort of become a staple of
ours. But today was the best part: Performances. Sikhs did weapon
demonstrations. Africans performed hip-hop. A Chinese guy did
Shanghai-style street dancing. It was rad. And all of it was in an
atmosphere of celebration and exultation, all the very best of all
the countries smashed together into a delicious medley of colours and
motion.</div>
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<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
And
President and I got to see all of it. It was...oddly disconcerting,
actually. For the first time in our lives, rather than watching from
the sidelines, we actually got to, like, <i>sit down</i>,
in the goddamn <i>stands</i>,
and like...enjoy the performances. Because the event's success or
failure was not dependent on us in any way. No, things were going
along just fine, without us, somehow. Bizarre. Without any
obligations I actually kind of had trouble finding things to do, not
because I was bored but because I was used to not a moment's rest,
which was troubling because it was a five-hour programme.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
I did, fortunately,
get a taste of the old life, for just a scant few minutes. A bunch of
countries and regions were, as always, given space to set up booths
at which to showcase whatever the hell they wanted, be it pictures
from the motherland, art, clothing, whatever. With President, New
President, and New Vice President all doing Soran Bushi, I was the
only person left who could competently man the booth during the
twenty minutes or so they'd be absent. So, without any real
preparation, I eased behind it, and...yup, turns out my skills
haven't rusted. I can still speak eloquently, establish rapport with
strangers, and promote like a motherfucker at the drop of a hat. I
hadn't ever really doubted myself, but it was reassuring to know that
I could still call upon those skills whenever I might require them.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“You must miss
being Vice President,” commented New Vice President when he got
back.</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
“There
are days when I do,” I admitted. “Like today. But then there are
also days when I <i>really, really</i>
don't.”</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
<br />
</div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0in;">
To cap it all off,
President and I went home and fucked. When we woke up we went for
lunch, like it was no thing. And then bought condoms together,
because evidently I can't be trusted to locate them for myself.</div>
Rude Boy Abroadhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02092622808758318179noreply@blogger.com4