| Not dead yet |
[May. 1st, 2003|06:27 pm] |
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Fritz has kindly set up a LiveJournal feed for yukihime.com, so those of you addicted to LiveJournal can see when Yukihime updates without, you know, going there. URL is http://www.livejournal.com/userinfo.bml?user=raketemensch, just add "raketemensch" to your friends list. Right now it only syndicates the first three lines with a link to the rest, but I'll work on having it syndicate the full posts (assuming that's okay with people). Later! |
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| Nothing to see here |
[Apr. 29th, 2003|10:49 pm] |
It's been a fun month, and I'm sold on the idea of blogging, but I don't think I'm gonna be continuing with LiveJournal. It's been easy to set up and fun to use, but I'd like even more customizability and (most of all) better and more comprehensive archiving functionality.
Yukihime.com is still going to be updating at, uh, yukihime.com. I installed Movable Type and am gonna be using that for the next while. I know that it's another click beyond the "LiveJournal Friends" list, but I hope that folks will migrate over and continue to enjoy (?) my ramblings from Japan.
See you at yukihime.com! |
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| what do you like kiryu high school students |
[Apr. 22nd, 2003|12:36 pm] |
I recently finished a week's worth of self-introducing to the new year of first-year students. Afterwards, I encouraged students to write down questions for me on a piece of paper and turn them in. I thought this would be a good way to get to meet and know the students, but instead it turned out to be a good way to answer "Do you like natto?" 280 times. But I kid.
Most of the questions students turned in were well-written and grammatically correct: What sports do you like? What videogames do you like? What Japanese food do you like? When did you come to Japan? How old are you? etc. etc. BORING. Who wants to read those! What follows is a selection of my favorite questions from this year.
Questions about going places:
Are there interesting place in Texas?
Where do you want to go, if you can go there?
Questions about the war:
Do you think war?
What is your boom?
Questions about temperature:
Which do you like better, a hot day or a cold day?
Which do you like better, hot or cold?
Questions about Ivy:
What called is that dog?
What name is your dog?
What kind of your dog?
Questions about my age:
How older you?
How old is it you?
How old you?
Questions about stuff:
Why are American school buses yellow?
Which do you like, bear or Mr. Muto? (Mr. Muto is a Japanese English teacher)
What do Andrew like Japanese food the best?
Do you listen a Japan song?
Questions about my feelings of self-worth:
Do you like your brother?
Do you like yourself?
How many friends does Andrew have?
Many, many questions about girls:
Do you like girls?
Do you have girlfriends?
What kind of girls do you like?
What kind of women do you like?
How may girl friends have you ever gotten?
How long you don't have girlfriend?
Which is more beautiful, Japanese woman or American woman?
Which is prettier, American or Japanese?
As promised, I answered every question a student asked in English. Well, except "What is your boom?", which I never managed to decode.
Some answers I gave:
(Which do you like better, bear or Mr. Muto?) I asked the student if it was a regular bear or a special bear. The student said it was Kuma no Pooh-san (Winnie the Pooh). Now, clearly Winnie the Pooh is way better than Mr. Muto (tho Mr. Muto is great!), but I can't very well say that when Winnie the Pooh is a huggable fictional character, and Mr. Muto is the karate-sensei. So I tell the student that Mr. Muto and Kuma no Pooh-san are both my very good friends, but since I can only choose one I pick Kuma no Muto-san. The students thought that was funny.
Re: girlfriends. When a student asked me if I had a girlfriend, my standard response was "No. But I'm looking!", followed by putting my hand perpendicular to my forehead and pantomiming looking around. While doing so one of my coed classes, the student who asked deadpanned back, "In Kiritaka?!" |
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| vending machines, pt. 2 |
[Apr. 20th, 2003|01:28 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | Neutral Milk Hotel - Song Against Sex | ] |
This picture makes me laugh.
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| living memory |
[Apr. 17th, 2003|11:50 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | Gold Chains - Break or Be Broken | ] |
I just finished watching Millennium Actress, the new movie from Satoshi Kon, director of Perfect Blue. I enjoyed Perfect Blue a lot, especially as a subversion of traditional anime chipperness. The film is a great commentary on the cruelty fueling the young shojo "idol" phenomenon in Japan; how young women are built up to mind-bending heights of popularity before being discarded for the next big thing. That said, the film's mixture of Hitchcockian thriller and magical realism never really gelled for me. Both tones were handled expertly, but there seemed to be a fundamental disconnect between the director's clearly prodigious talents and the story he was telling. I liked it a lot, but I felt that the director was capable of more. Like, for example, Millennium Actress.
Millennium Actress is the story of an elderly and reclusive movie star, Chiyoko. She was the star actress of one of Japan's major movie studios before retiring to private life 30 years ago. In the present day, the movie studio has become unprofitable and is being torn down, and a documentary maker seeks out Chiyoko to interview her about her life. The narrative of the movie is basically a big giant MacGuffin. Where it succeeds beyond measure is in tone and feel. As Chiyoko talks to the filmmaker, her story, her memories, and the movies that she made blur absolutely together. The filmmaker and his assistant are transported into her memories directly, documenting and even participating in her past and her movies as they unfold.
The cumulative effect is hard to describe without sounding like a gushing fanboy. It is, frankly, cinematic magic in every sense of the word. Each of the films that Chiyoko stars in from the 40s, 50s, and 60s is fantastically realized: romantic dramas, samurai movies, military propaganda, geisha period pieces, monster and sci-fi movies; this starlet starred in everything. Kon's film is a visual history of the Japanese movie industry that lavishes it with love while being realistic enough to poke good-natured fun at its shortcomings.
But as great as the film is visually, its true genius comes from the way different set pieces from these films are mixed with the "real" story of Chiyoko's life. This is no Sunset Boulevard, looking back tragically at a faded starlet's fall from grace. The 70-year-old Chiyoko, though elderly and no longer active in cinema, is not presented as a figure to be pitied. She is still vibrant, she still has her sense of humor, she's still a stunning presence. It is because of the strength of the modern day Chiyoko that the constant flashbacks never seem wistful or pitying. Instead, the temporally choppy narrative and mixing of past and present, reality and fiction serves as a fantastic comment on the nature of memory. Chiyoko quite literally is these memories. As she has aged and retired to her private life, reliving these memories in her mind time and time again has made them more and more real. To Chiyoko, the memories have become more real and more defining than the actual events that made the memories in the first place.
Anyways, the movie is really, really great. Anime is the perfect medium for this story; it's unlikely it could have successfully pulled off as live action film. It's unlikely that multiple actresses could have portrayed Chiyoko through the years as convincingly as the seamless transition that anime permits. Moreover, the scope of time and genre would make it cost prohibitive in any other medium. Dreamworks picked up the distribution rights and may be bringing it to US theaters this fall; in any case, it will definitely be hitting American DVD sometime soon. From a purely technical standpoint, I recommend you pass up the Chinese bootleg DVD I gave in and purchased. The transfer sucks; it's not marred by interlacing issues so much as defined by them. But however you manage to see it, Millenium Actress isn't just a good anime. It's a good, unique film that everyone should check out. |
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| i'm going to cry |
[Apr. 15th, 2003|10:57 pm] |
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The #3 search string by which people have reached yukihime.com is "yuna panties". Jeremy Parish, you're in good company. |
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| somebody up there loves me |
[Apr. 15th, 2003|07:24 pm] |
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Well, over there at least. After yesterday's Worst Day Ever, cosmic forces have conspired to deliver not one, not two, but three separate international packages on my doorstep today. Packages sent from the U.S. on three separate days, no less. I now have Miyazaki DVDs pre-street date, the English Battle Royale novel, Disinformation Guide to the Invisibles, McSweeny's Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales, Richard Matheson's Duel, and five new games bought at $10 each clearance at ebworld.com. Oh, and Adolf Hitler's 1954 Hugo-award winning science fiction novel, The Iron Dream. I have so many new entertainment options available that I won't have time to feel sorry for myself for days, if not weeks. Happy days are here again. Squee! |
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| no |
[Apr. 15th, 2003|12:02 am] |
| [ | music |
| | James - Out To Get You | ] |
A funny and witty commentary about my day at the DMV is supposed to go here, but I can't. There is nothing funny about what happened to me today. The eight and a half hours spent there was one of the most awful and debilitating experiences of my life. I spent the entire train ride home with my eyes shut trying not to tear up. I just wanted to go back to America, where things were awful in ways that made sense. Maybe I'll write it up later. Maybe not. I have to go try again in a month. It was just terrible.
Given the amount of time I'm going to be spending waiting in the Japanese DMV before I receive my license (about another 30-40 hours), I am inspired to start work on a DMV-themed mix CD. Song suggestions are welcome.
Anyways, I figure that I should write something up, so here's an anecdote from this morning, before everything went wrong:
It's the first week of classes at Kiritaka, and I've been giving my self-introduction. The more times I've given it (about 50 or so at last count) the shorter it gets. Now, I try to give students a very general overview of myself, my family, my interests, and leave some obvious holes in my background for a Q&A session. It gets the students more involved and keeps things more interesting than just me talking for 45 minutes, etc. etc.
Anyways, this morning I gave my self-introduction to a class of students and got asked the usual run of questions during the Q&A bit. ("How old are you?" "Do you have a girlfriend?" "What do you like Japanese food?" "What singer is popular in America?" "Can you eat natto?" etc.) After a few minutes of this, a sweet, shy-but-extroverted, glasses-wearing girl in the front row raised her hand, giggling. I called on her. "What kind of woman do you like?" she asked, clearly tickled by the English question she had constructed. I promise students that I will answer any question they pose to me in English (even ones like the later "How many girlfriends have you ever gotten in your life?"), so I answered truthfully: "A smart girl with a good sense of humor. A girl who will make me laugh." I try to ask students a question in turn, one related to the one they asked me, so I asked her: what kind of boy do you like?
She started giggling again, not saying anything, just laughing to herself at some grand joke nobody else was in on. I waited a moment for an answer before raising my eyebrows at her expectantly, at which point she blurted out: "YOU!" And then promptly buried her face in a giggling paroxysm of high school silliness. At which point I explained the difference to the students between "What person do you like?" and "What kind of person do you like?" While blushing furiously.
So yeah. Today was one of the worst days of my life ... but overall? Things are okay. |
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| a taste of things to come |
[Apr. 13th, 2003|07:22 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | Final Fantasy X-2 - 2.26 | ] |
5:35 PM - Brian (![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) kumanoki) tells me that no, despite what this page says, he doesn't think you can get your pictures taken at the office. He's never seen anyone do that. I should probably get some pictures taken at a photo shop before tomorrow.
5:40 PM - Panic.
5:41 PM - Remember that I got some passport photos made over Christmas break in the states for just an occasion.
5:42 PM - Find passport photos.
5:43 PM - Examine photos, frown intently.
5:44 PM - Using a ruler and advanced mathological techniques, determine that the 2 inch X 2 inch American photos are unlikely to pass for 2.4 cm X 3 cm Japanese photos.
5:45 PM - Panic (on the way to the car).
5:55 PM - Pull up to photo shop, tires screeching. Explain the situation and have photos taken according to necessary specifications.
6:40 PM - Pick up photos 20 minutes before closing time.
And to think, I thought I wouldn't get to panic until tomorrow! |
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| party hard then crash and burn |
[Apr. 13th, 2003|05:20 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | Final Fantasy X-2 - 2.16 | ] |
The new mix of Guitar Freaks (9th) came out this past weekend. This mix seems to be one of the better ones; I recognize a number of the songs right off the bat. The usual suspects have returned with new material (Yaida Hitomi, Spitz, Gackt); some of the new bubbly j-pop songs are really addictive; there's a fun Spanish acoustic number that's a joy. But the biggest surprise is the introduction of "Party Hard" by Andrew WK. Crazy foreign rock! Who knew. "Party Hard," ridiculous as it might be, is REALLY, REALLY fun to play.
Tomorrow, I go to take the Gunma Prefectural driving test. I do not expect to pass. I do, however, expect to have an interesting story to write up for my journal. It's the only good likely to come from the whole fiasco, so I beg of you: enjoy it. |
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| minimoni shaka to ohgodno! da pain! |
[Apr. 11th, 2003|09:51 pm] |
Well, just a few days ago I was crowing about my big find in Akihabara - a new copy of MiniMoni Shaka to Tamborine! da pyon! for a mere 1500 yen. What wasn't mentioned at the store was the "hidden cost" of purchasing the game - namely, the sanity of your immortal soul. Whimper.
The first sign that the game had it out for me when in the course of opening the box I suffered a painful cardboard cut on my thumb. [WARNING: picture of a nasty gash on my thumb (but it's not bleeding or anything).] Everyone talks about how nasty paper cuts are, but paper cuts are just the harmless, unevolved form of cardboard cuts. You're minding your own business, opening an innocuous looking box and then WHAM, it's like your finger gets caught by a single stroke of a very slow, biodegradable jigsaw. Those things should be regulated.
But the physical pain was nothing compared to the game to come. I had heard that Shaka to Tamborine only contained MiniMoni songs, but I thought that that HAD to be wrong - MiniMoni didn't have nearly enough songs to carry a music game on their own. And I was right! The game also had songs from MiniMoni's umbrella group, Morning Musume. And that was it -- 19 songs of unbearably saccharine girl pop. It's impossible to describe how unplayable that makes the game. Morning Musume and its various spawn aren't even comparable to the boy/girl bands or Britney isotopes of the U.S. Britney et al at least go through the motions of trying to appear cool. The musumetachi just try to appear CUTE. Their songs are purposefully inane. They're overproduced, forgettable children's tunes aimed at the 6-12 market with simple song structure and painfully inane lyrics. One or two in a regular music game might be cute, in extreme moderation. An entire game of nothing but is so ubersweet as to be unplayable. It's like eating sugar packets.
As for the non-musical aspects of the game? Well, it's a PSone game, and the software itself feels budgetactular. It runs at a framey 15 fps, and this can actually be an issue when the cue dots move jerkily and indistinctly. It's actually the motion, not the color, shape, or the position, that draws your eye to the cues. The controller itself is fun, cool, and ridiculously solid. But that hardly matters, as the only game you can play with it is as terrible as you might expect and fear.
The worst part about this whole fiasco is that the arcade version of Shaka to Tamborine has a large number of bouncy, cool ethnic music a la Samba, almost all of which are either in the public domain or easily relicensable for a home version. But instead, all of the pre-existing, fun songs were jettisonned for the MiniMoni-exclusive home version, thus alienating anyone over the age of 11 and/or with taste.
SEGA, WHY?! |
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| pennywise and pound foolish |
[Apr. 8th, 2003|11:16 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | Ben Folds Five - Army | ] |
They say you have to spend money to save money. Well, I saved a TON of money in Akihabara today. I've been any number of times before, but this was truly a killer trip.
Shane from EGM is visiting Japan on Top Secret Business, but that finished yesterday and he's got some time to kill. I got up at six AM and headed down to meet him in Akihabara just before 10:00 AM. This was also before most of the stores were open, meaning that Akihabara was eerily quiet and empty of people. I've never been in Akihabara without Sato Musen relentlessly blaring its theme song at me every few blocks. For a few moments, it felt oddly dreamlike.
It takes about two and a half hours to get down to Akihabara from where I live in Japan, so when I go, I tend to make a production of it. I usually end up shopping for a number of friends and ex-GIA staffers, and the hourly burn rate would make a startup venture capitalist blush. But fear not - the money is not spent rashly! I feel like gloating about my amazing financial acumen (and amazingly poor taste in games) I offer the following chart of my astounding personal savings for the day:
| Game | Purchase Price (yen) | List Price (yen) |
|---|
| De La Jet Set Radio (new)1 | 2300 | 6800 |
| Tomak: Save the Earth (new) | 1980 | 5800 |
| .hack vol. 3 (new) | 2480 | 5800 |
| Sakura Taisen: Atsuki wo Chishio ni (new) | 2980 | 6800 |
| Minimoni. Shaka to Tamborine! da pyon! (new)2 | 1500 | 8800 |
| Tam Tam Paradise (used) | 1980 | 7800 |
| 1) I bought the Dorikore (Dreamcast Collection) version new at this price, so technically speaking it's not such a savings. But given the immense willpower required to not purchase De La Jet Set duringthe past two years, I consider it a moral victory and well worth counting. |
| A music game featuring a Samba-style tamborine controller for the PSone. I am no Minimoni fan, but I couldn't help myself! Tamborines are fun! |
Readers without an advanced degree in mathology might want to skip to the next paragraph: Overall, I got 41800 worth of (mostly new) games for a mere 13220. That's a savings of 28580 or nearly 68% off the list price. WOW! And as an added bonus, I may actually eventually one day play one or two of the games I bought today ... uh ... um!
I also bought Funky Fantasy (yes, it's a real game!) used for 380, and found Cocco's first single with spine card (hard to find in any condition) used for 680. It was a red letter day! I bought about as much stuff over again for friends I was shopping for, with fairly similar money-saving results. I also got three Kingdom Hearts: Final Mix Platinum Boxes and a Final Fantasy Wonderswan Color set to eBay in hopes of offsetting today's financial hit.
Also impressive is what I managed keep myself from buying. Namely, a slimline CD/MP3 player with built-in 100 hour LiON battery (at just 8800, it's a hell of a steal, but my Rio still works fine), a Japanese copy of Maniac Mansion for NES with box/manual (I would have absolutely gotten this, but 7500 is a bit much), and a PS2->GC adapter for my SCII PS2 stick. It turns out that most (all) adapters don't transmit digital input, so I now have a PS2 arcade stick and a GC version of Soul Calibur II. Oops! I thought about getting a GC stick while in Aki before a voice shouted at me "the insanity must end here!!" and then I didn't. But the GC arcade sticks ARE cheap. Just 3200!
All in all, it was a fantastic and fun trip. Just never go shopping with Shane if you want to show any form of financial restraint. He is like a large, talkative demon on your shoulder egging you on to unwise purchases. I'd pick something up, look at it, set it down after thinking better of it, and Shane would notice and say "You know, I really think you'd enjoy [Game X]. Don't put it back down!" This is, of course, terrible advice. Shane, after all, is the person who bought Futari no Fantavision for $20 ... despite already owning the US version. You know, the one with two-player support. But in Akihabara, all it takes is a few words of suggestive advice, even (especially) bad advice, and the deal is as good as done.
You know, maybe I should be glad I live so far away. |
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| electioneering :: this is hardcore |
[Apr. 6th, 2003|08:58 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | Neutral Milk Hotel - Naomi | ] |
It's election season here in Japan. I know this because it's impossible not to know this. Noise pollution laws in Japan are different from those in the States; basically, it's legal here to drive a car around with a megaphone on top hawking your wares to the uninterested public. Normally, this is limited to two or three clothing stores per week looking to lose my business in the loudest way possible. But this is election season, and every yahoo running for local office thinks the best way to drum up votes is to drive a large truck or van around Kiryu with an sense-assaulting batallion of megaphones. Time is of the essence, too, and it's important that I hear their message before I hear anyone else's. At least, I assume that's the reasoning behind driving past my apartment at 7:00 AM on a Sunday morning. My mailbox is also overflowing with pamphlets telling me to vote for A, B or C - I get about three or four flyers featuring an elderly, stern-looking Japanese gentleman a day. It's all over in two weeks and it can't come soon enough.
In gaming news, like many of you, I've been playing The Legend of Zelda on my Gamecube. That is to say, The Legend of Zelda ... ORACLE OF SEASONS! Hahahahaha! You can take your fun-shading and stick it up your yeah! I can jump whenever I want! Can you jump whenever you want? Jump jump jump jump! But seriously ... my favorite Zelda games are almost definitely Zelda DX and the Oracles games. I like the fast-paced 2D gameplay ... they've always seemed like amphetamined-up, more exciting versions of Link to the Past. I've never really liked Link to the Past ... it just feels odd to me -- and, as my friend Shane aptly put it, "it looks like it's made out of frosting." I've finished Seasons and am plugging away on a continued game in Ages. I think that I like the Game Boy Zeldas more than the SNES ones, the N64 ones, and though I haven't played Wind Waker yet, I expect I'll probably still like them more than the GameCube one.
Am I even allowed to have this opinion? |
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| spring has sprung |
[Apr. 3rd, 2003|11:16 pm] |
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The vending machine at school now serves coffee and tea cold, instead of hot. The changing of the seasons is truly wondrous to behold. |
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| huh? |
[Apr. 3rd, 2003|05:28 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | the advantage - 07 - ducktales, moon | ] |
I got something in the mail from NTT regarding FLET'S ADSL (their unlimited usage program). Here's the price for the differing tiers and speeds:
- 1.5M - 2340y
- 8M - 2385y
- 12M - 2430y
So ... the three vastly diferent speeds are all within 100y of one another. FLET'S ISDN (64k, what I have), is 2520y a month. Which is the most expensive of the four options ... by 90y.
Which begs the question: why do they even bother with offering these different speeds? Are there really people out there who will not spend an extra 90y a month - 5% of the total cost - for six times the download and upload capacity? Also, why is ISDN the most expensive option of all? I'm very confused. |
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| made in wario |
[Apr. 1st, 2003|11:13 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | Hot Hot Heat - Talk to Me, Dance With Me | ] |
I've been playing Made in Wario a lot lately. I won't say much about it, because the less you know about it going in, the more exciting and surprising it is. A lot of the game's fun comes from the first time you see the games.: five seconds to see a scenario, learn the controls, understand the goal, and then DO it -- it's insane. And then the next and the next and the next. People with an interest in minimalist game design would do well to check it out. The game ... it's like Mario made a nice, sensible six-hour History of Video Games miniseries for PBS, and then Wario got ahold of the stock footage and threw together an illegal happy hardcore three-minute gabbah remix using pirated tools on his PC in his parents' basement. Does that make any sense? No? Well, I tried.
The game succeeds not through depth or quality, though it has more of both than it might seem at first. It succeeds through pure sensory overload. Something that wasn't clear to me before playing is that five seconds per microgame is the SLOW end of things. As you progress through a continuous gauntlet of games, the minigames get FASTER. AND FASTER. The player is forced into a high-speed fugue state somewhere beyond "instinct" and into the realm of "supernatural ESP." Made in Wario makes me use parts of my brain I've never used before.
Speaking of visual sensory overload and the history of Nintendo games, interested parties should check out this Mario-themed flash animation, which is actually funny and good. Unlike, you know, most things on the Internet. |
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| week in review - indoor hanami - toothpick secrets |
[Mar. 30th, 2003|01:44 am] |
| [ | music |
| | Gorillaz - Clint Eastwood | ] |
My apologies for the large number of gaming-related entries lately. Or perhaps I shouldn apologize; it's likely that the great majority of the people reading this LiveJournal only care about the latest and greatest in the gaming scene in Japan. But yukihime.com is, technically speaking, my personal website. So I will write about personal things from time-to-time.
The problem is that my life is very boring nowadays. It's spring break here in Japan (in between the school years), so I don't have any classes to teach. I wish I could regale you with funny and witty stories about my students, but I can't. Currently, I don't even have any students. I am still obligated, however, to go in to school and sit around looking busy. That's a lie. I sit around looking bored out of my mind. Hours, however, are flexible - with no classes, meetings, or bells, there's no reason to demand a strict 8:20-4:05 schedule. This week I decided to see just how far the schedule could bend. Could it be broken? Here follows a day-by-day breakdown of my experiments:
- Monday - Closing ceremonies were in the morning. Nothing at all was in the afternoon. Nich kept me posted on Oscars progress in real time via keitai email. I translated the major awards as they happened into Japanese and forward them to a cute girl I met who works at a movie theater. Left at the regular time.
- Tuesday - Went into school around 9:00. Studied some Japanese. Read some manga (Blackjack). Surfed around on the web. Was incredibly bored and time passed ridiculously slowly. Left around 3:00 in a fit of pique.
- Wednesday - Went into school around 9:45. Brought my GBA SP and Zelda: Oracle of Seasons.. Hid in a classroom on the second floor and played through the first three dungeons. Left around 2:00 after getting tired of Zelda.
- Thursday - Went into school around 10:00. Played some more Seasons. Got hungry around noon, left to buy lunch. Never returned.
- Friday - Went into school around 10:00. Left around 10:20. Napped til 4:00.
If I were more technically inclined I would draw a graph here. Day of the Week vs. Inclination to Stay at School. The slope would be hella negative.
Anyways, today (Saturday) I actually did some interesting things. I bought a number fun toys for people in the States (like an Ocha-ken that vibrates! and smells like tea!), got some new lenses to replaced my old scratched ones, and sold some games back to Wanpaku. The highlight was definitely selling back Luigi's Mansion for 1500y - which, considering I bought it new for 980y, is quite the acceptable price. In the end, it's like Nintendo paid me 500y to play Luigi's Mansion. Which, given my feelings on the game, is about right.
So, late this afternoon, feeling bored and glum, I keitai-mailed cute movie theater girl (she does have a name - Emi) on a lark, saying, "I'm terribly bored, is anything interesting happening tonight?" and not expecting to hear back. But instead five minutes later she said, "yes, I'm going hanami (flower-viewing) with my friends, you should come too!" and I was like "but it's already getting dark outside" and she's like "that's okay!" And who am I to argue with a Japanese person on matters of hanami?
So Emi picked me up and we went to her friend's grandmother's house, where there's a great old big cherry tree up on the top of the mountain. By the time we got there it was too dark to see any flowers, but that didn't matter - it's been unusually cold this year and the cherry tree had yet to bloom. So we had a sort of indoors hanami without any flowers, which is kind of like practicing swimming while sitting in a chair at your desk. But that didn't matter, in the end. Flower viewing is not really about watching flowers. Flower viewing is about drinking sake! No, that's not right either. Flower viewing is about sitting outside with friends and seeing the flowers and the sun and drinking a bit and eating good food and laughing a lot and having a good time. The flowers hardly factor in to it, really. It's more of a state of mind.
I had a fantastic time. It was the birthday of one of Emi's friends, and another two friends there are getting married tomorrow (legally married, that is; the actual ceremony is in June). I knew a few of the other Japanese people there but didn't know a lot more - about 12 people in all. Everyone was in a great mood and spirits were high, there was lots of home-cooked Japanese food (and delicious deserts), and it was incredibly contagious.
I'm on a natural high right now because I hung out with Japanese people all evening and actually got along fine. I could understand the topic of conversation at all times - maybe not exactly what was being said always, but usually and for the most part, and I was never totally derailed. I could converse with people, say funny things when appropriate, explain interesting things when necessary (like the politics of rolling out digital projection systems in US theaters). Am I fluent? No, not hardly. I still miss lots of words and sentences when people speak with me, never mind more subtle nuances. Expressing myself in Japanese is still incredibly draining, like playing a four-hour game of Guesstures/Taboo with nothing more than a first-grade vocabulary. "Fluency" is still a long ways off. But tonight, I felt ... functional? Comfortable.
Here are some things I learned tonight:
- It is very difficult to say "Krzysztof Kieslowski" in katakana.
- A Japanese proverb says, "In busy times, you want to borrow even the cat." I guess the English equivalent would be "every little bit helps." I like this proverb because I picture this harried Japanese housewife trying to get her lazy, sleeping cat to work the vacuum.
- I tried to teach people how to select a dessert pastry using the English "eenie, meenie, miney, moe / catch a tiger by his toe." This was parroted back to me as "Minnie, Minnie, Minnie Mouse / Dizuneylando wa subarashii." (Disneyland is super.) I'm not sure what this means.
- A couple with both members stupidly in love with each other can be referred to as a "bakappuru," a contraction of "baka couple" (stupid couple). This is definitely the best multilingual smash-up since "homodachi."
- I learned the secret mysteries of the Japanese toothpick!!
People who have not been to Japan may be confused by this excitement. I mean a toothpick is a toothpick, right? Meanwhile, everyone who has spent time in Japan can hardly wait for my explanation. Inquiring minds want to know: why on Earth do Japanese toothpicks look ... LIKE THIS!
The pointy end is normal enough, but look at the flat end! Where's the second point? What's with that network of grooves? Why so many of them? And, most importantly, why is such a fine level of craftsmanship expended on each and every toothpick? For God's sake, to what end this excess?! It makes no sense and haunts the nightmares of all who look upon its asymettrical form.
Well, wash your sheets and fluff your pillows as good nights' sleep are in your future, because I am now going to tell you what real live Japanese people told me today about toothpicks. Which is this: you may, if you wish, cleanly snap off the grooved end of the toothpick, place it on the table, and use it as a toothpick holder for the pointy end. Yes, friends, you heard me correctly: the days of resting a toothpick directly on the unclean table are over! Others have noted as well that the grooves make for a no-slip, easy-grip handle with far less danger of accidental thumb puncture wounds than the simplistic - dare I say backwards? - American model.
This is truly the toothpick of the future, and I am proud to be living in the country whose technology and ingenuity made it possible. |
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| no thank you please |
[Mar. 27th, 2003|06:51 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | [Ozma] In Search of 1988 | ] |
A guy just came to my door to try to sell me a subscription to the Kiryu newspaper. It's times like this I'm happy I can screw shut my eyelids and convincingly apologize, "Oh, I'm so sorry, but I can't read Japanese. At all!" No one ever argues with me. |
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| surfacing |
[Mar. 26th, 2003|10:03 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | Supercar - Recreation | ] |
I want to talk about an unusual phenomenon; namely, that vague feeling of confusion and discomboluation that accompanies finishing any big RPG. For the time you're submerged in the world of the RPG, everything is dandy. Even if it's not an all-consuming obsession, you're fairly focused on the game. There's never any question what game you're going to play - there may not even be any question what you're going to do with your free time. You're going to PLAY THAT RPG until it is done, whether that's 20, 40, or 60 hrs of your life. So you do.
And then one day, a week or two or three after you start the title, it's over. You've completed the game, seen the ending, mastered as many of its secrets as you care to. It's been fun, but it's done. And then you look up from the TV, blink your eyes, and wonder: where have I been? What have I been doing? I played HOW MANY HOURS in HOW MANY DAYS? And then the most important question: what next? You haven't had to ask that question for so long that the freedom of choice feels strange, like a foreign language. You can play a different game. Hell, you could even not play videogames at all, come to think of it! And then several weeks worth of errands and menial tasks you had put off for "just one day" come creeping back into the forefront of your mind ...
I finished FFX-2 yesterday. Before that, I finished Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter - twice. Oh, I've gone out, been social, taken care of things I need to take care of, of course. My life's in far from disarray. Even so, I've been submerged in that RPG quasi-fugue state for the better part of March. Today, I didn't have an RPG to play, and I wasn't about to start another. Today, I went grocery shopping, picked up my apartment, did laundry, washed dishes, and ironed shirts. I have a LOT of irresponsible karma I need to burn off.
Is this just me? Or do other gamers have this sort of post-game crashback into the real world, too? |
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| final fantasy x-2 - 73% - final impressions |
[Mar. 25th, 2003|10:09 pm] |
| [ | music |
| | David Bowie - Candidate (demo) | ] |
I finished Final Fantasy X-2 today. These impressions are spoiler-free, though some excedingly minor background details mentioned in Famitsu will show up here. There are some spoilers regarding Final Fantasy X, however.
So ... I finished Final Fantasy X-2. I feel obligated to write up some sort of final impressions - why, I'm not sure. The visceral, negative, hateful reaction this game has received from so many people has gotten me down on gaming culture in general. Gamers don't want to listen to what other people have to say. They believe only what they want to believe. They cling to things that reinforce their expectations and automatically reject anything that challenges their beliefs. I'm as guilty of this as anyone; I went into FFX-2 determined to ignore the silly bits and to enjoy what was good. Unsurprisingly, I finished the game with a positive impression. And up until this evening, seeing people dismiss the game without even playing it frustrated me to no end.
But now, it just makes me laugh. Because I'm sure that this gut-level reaction is exactly what the developers wanted.
Let me explain: director Kitase is on the record as stating that the theme of Final Fantasy X-2 is "change." Within the world of the game, two years have passed since the defeat of Sin. Yevon has faded, and two new, feuding factions (Shin Yevon and the Young Person's Alliance) have risen to take its place. The Aeons have departed, and former Summoners feel useless and unnecessary in this new world. Yuna remembers Tidus fondly, but doesn't obsess over him; she has more pressing day-to-day concerns as a singer and Sphere Hunter. Time has not stood still in Spira.
The overarching (and subtle) theme of Final Fantasy X-2 is that change is an inevitable and inescapable part of the world. Whether they like it or not, no one can keep this change from happening. All a person can do is choose how they react to this change. Will they stand by and watch as it rolls over them, past them? Will they adapt and change along with circumstances? Or will they cling to the past, fighting desperately to restore things to the way they once were? Change is inevitable, but your reaction to that change is not. That reaction is an important, personal choice that directly impacts your happiness.
Meanwhile, in the real world, two years have passed since the release of Final Fantasy X. The series' first direct sequel, FFX-2, is drastically different from anything the series has seen before. It's terrifyingly different. Literally terrifying; fans are scared of these sweeping changes, and nothing breeds strong emotional reactions like fear.
Reaction to the title is sharply divided - to say the least. Some decry the fan-service and girl power as the end of Western civilzation. Others look forward to checking out Yuna's panties. Still others want to ignore the fan service and just dive into the depths of the job system. Some wanted a quick followup; others an epic, never-ending adventure. A number of fans feel that a sequel is pointless if Tidus doesn't return. Others just as vocally feel that Tidus' return would invalidate the first game's conclusion. Everyone has their own opinion about kind of a game FFX-2 should be.
So who's right? Well, everyone is.
Final Fantasy X-2 is all of those things and more. It shelters its cheap T&A pandering in fantastic original costume designs. It lets you rush through the story to see the end or wander through countless hours of sidequests. It offers serious bits and lighthearted bits in equal measure. FFX-2 is structured like an all-you-can eat buffet; gamers are expected to have enough discretion to pick and choose what they will enjoy and not just arbitrarily pile everything on their plate. The "percent complete" number is just that: a number. It has no connection to how much fun you're having.
Final Fantasy X-2 is about how the people of Spira react to change, but it's also, in another very real sense, about how you choose to react to the changes to the game. In many ways it is a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you go in thinking that the fan service, storyline, and systems are stupid and that Square should be strung up by their collective necks, then you will have great difficulty enjoying the game. This is not surprising. If you want to explore how characters and locations of Final Fantasy X-2 have changed during the intervening two years, you will be satisfied. If you want to go around the world completing as many sidequests as possible, you will be entertained for weeks. If you want to ignore sidequests and tweak out the job system, there are several playthroughs worth of tinkering to be had. If you enjoyed Final Fantasy X just because, you will probably enjoy Final Fantasy X-2 just because. And if you want to see Yuna's cute butt, well, FFX-2 certainly has that, too.
I want to touch upon the subjects of the main plot and the endings - don't worry, this part is still spoiler free. The main plot of FFX-2, at first glance, seems like little more than superficial fanfic. The player is likely to be wondering, "What does this have to do with anything? What does this have to do with the events of FFX? And why should I care about it now?" But by the end, the stories of the two games dovetail nicely. What's initially confusing is is that Square didn't choose to continue the plot of Final Fantasy X, as might be expected; instead, they chose to continue its themes. The story and choices of the characters in FFX-2 adds another dimension to those of FFX. The main story does nothing to discredit or undermine the emotional resonance of FFX; if anything, it adds another viewpoint and perspective that makes the original even more meaningful.
After completing the game and seeing one ending, I read up on and viewed information on the other endings online. It turns out that the primary basis for assigning one of the multiple endings is not percentage of story completed or the number of secrets found. Instead, endings are assigned through a system similar to Konami's Silent Hill 2. Throughout the game, the game notes the player's playstyle, major points of interest and concerns, and selects an ending appopriately. (Don't worry, FFX-2's endings are assigned far less arbitrarily than Silent Hill 2's.) Though the content and nature of the resolution varies widely from ending to ending, I feel that no one ending is more "true" than any of the others.
Final Fantasy X-2 is a litmus test from Square to gamers: how will you, the player, react to great change? Some gamers will reject it outright and refuse to even play the game. Others will embrace it wholeheartedly and unquestioningly. Most gamers will be surprised and confused, stumble a bit, learn to adapt, and ultimately enjoy themselves. All of these are equally acceptable reactions. Even rejecting the game outright is, in a roundabout way, "playing" it - or at least recognizing and reacting to the title's implicit themes.
In the recent Fellowship of the Ring, Frodo worries, "'I wish it need not have happened in my time." Gandalf replies, sagely, "So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us."
Well, many gamers wish Square had given us a different sort of game. But what kind of game Square gives us is not for us to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the game Square has given to us. I decided to enjoy it - therefore I did. |
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