Geek with Family

Sitting down on my couch with Playstation gamepad in hand is one of the least relaxing things I can think of. Videogames are far too frustrating and physicially challenging for my tired 25 yr old hands. They just leave me with a headache and a sore thumb. The challenge that most of today’s games present is one I can’t live up to. I was horrified when I read in a video game magazine’s preview of Final Fantasy VII that it would actually be harder to finish than the original Japanese version. That is the last thing I need, the best video game of all time, that I had been waiting for month after month is designed to kick my ass. I don’t have much time to play a 30 second bout in a fighting game, let alone a 50+ hour RPG. I really don’t have time to die and find my way back to that point. In anticipation of FFVII’s release and monumental challenge, I went to Asahiya Bookstore and bought a couple Japanese PSX magazines, a FFVII art book, and a FFVII strategy guide. I can’t read Japanese, I’m only in the first stages of halfheartedly learning the kana, so purchasing all this expensive foreign material is the most otaku geekout I could muster. To help me, I look at all the tiny screen shots, study the broken english titles for some clues, consider vandalizing my Playstation console with the free stickers included in the strategy guide, then I do all these over again, just to save some time and frustration when I’m playing the game. I start to sculpt Cloud Strife’s right leg for inspiration and in admiration of Squaresoft and after I step back to get a better perspective on the project I shelve the pathetic lump of clay. All this wasted time and money just so I don’t have to backtrack in a game where backtracking can be fun and beautiful. Rationalization: I am an otaku boyscout, always overly prepared with useless trivia about childish entertainment.

Continue reading I’m Afraid to Play FFVII - The Fantasy Wrecks the Reality

Popularity: 91% [?]

More than a year ago, I was on a corporate retreat, and after a ferry ride around Lake Geneva a coworker’s wife asked why her husband and I liked anime so much, what made it a great form of entertainment. I stumbled through my answer, randomly mumbling about mecha, character designs and story lines. She wasn’t convinced. Anime can be everything and anything. But its strengths reside in the common mind of the adolescent male. The animator can sometimes also be the fan-based audience, and he knows what he wants. What is fun to create is even more fun to consume. Giant robots, nubile girls, and the fantasy worlds of anime are a great escape from reality. "I am the pilot of that robot, I am that princess’ boyfriend, I am the savior of that world." Any otaku waits through his day job and the drudgery of the real world to go home and be distracted by his favorite anime. The more tangents followed from real life the better– thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours spent on video games, video tapes, fact-finding (of fiction) on the internet, toys, models, and film-books to admit the least. It doesn’t resemble a healthy life, but that’s not what we’re asking. We want something new and cool and something alien to suprise us into bliss. It would not be feasible to hold an attraction to anime because of any superiority to western cartoons. This is a misconception held by many lesser fans. Technically, many anime series are little more than slide shows that showcase underwhelming character designs that are meant to distract you from the thin storyline. So the next time you’re sitting on the couch salivating over some new release, take inventory of those around you. Is she reading a magazine? You might want to reassess your dazzled attraction to the smoke and mirrors of anime. I still haven’t provided a stable answer for the attraction and/or obsession. I don’t know if it is something that can be rationalized. The irrational explanation is a sad hanging-on to what made a geek happy when he was twelve. This seductive immaturity can ruin many attempts at socializing, but provides an empty satisfaction only known to the otaku.

Popularity: 7% [?]

1987. I was a freshman in highschool, and my best friend’s best friend had connections. Not normal highschool connections, like fake IDs or syblings who could drive, but connections to the east. This friend of a friend’s father knew another businessman that traveled to Japan all the time. This man would bring back cool stuff for his kids, like laserdiscs. Akira has its moments. None too spectacular on a recording of the import disc played back in a 2-head VCR at SLP, it had tracking problems to say the least. Of course when you’re 15 you don’t really care about tape quality, we weren’t AV geeks yet. We watched the tape in his parents carpeted basement on a small crank-dial TV. I remember not understanding much of anything because it was in Japanese, and none of us could figure out the ending. We just ate up all the ultra-violence and mecha. Afterwards my friends played keep-away from me with a Nerf (Nerf or Nothing) football in the basement hallway, and we knocked a relief painting off the wall, at dinner with his family we blamed it on his little sister, this only got us into more trouble. I wanted the Akira tape, to view again and again, but the friend once removed wouldn’t give it up. He eventually let me borrow it and I never gave it back.

Continue reading I Experience Akira for the First Time - Somebody’s Dad Went to Japan for this Laserdisc?

Popularity: 6% [?]

Pace has a hole in their 606 bus schedule on Saturdays that spans from 10:20 to 11:20. The CTA’s Blue Line drops me off at 10:25 and I have to wait. While I wait, all the CDs I have with me become useless and unlistenable. While I wait, three highschool sophomores ollie, grind and slide over and on the slickly painted wheelchair access bus depot islands. While I wait, two 13 year olds fake fight in the kiss n ride parking lot and the smaller one throws a punch too hard. While I wait, a smelly, grossly overweight man paces with his ornate walking stick and the jangle of the parade of buttons and pins adorning his acid washed jean jacket, tight over his shoulders, he’s going where I’m going.

Yoahan Plaza is a mall in the middle of Arlington Heights, IL that is made up of a Japanese grocery store, book store, video rental, stationary, tourist trinket trap, and food court. I guess Arlington Heights must have a large number of Japanese to accommodate this mall. My main interest, among many other otaku, is Asahiya Bookstore. It has a large anime book section and a whole wall of current manga. As a caucasion, it’s hard to keep a low profile in this place, sometimes I pretend not to go straight for the anime, and take a detour into the fashion magazines. I don’t belong to any anime clubs run out of the local colleges, so it seems odd and disturbing when I see a large (3 or more) group of people huddled around a new Tenchi film-book loudly discussing how rad it is. Then when they go to pay for the thing they can’t believe how expensive it is. Asahiya has its own inhouse monetary conversion system– ¥100 equals $1.40. This seems ridiculous with the current state of Japan’s economy where ¥100 equals $0.80 or less. Maybe they have to pay tariffs. So I smile to myself when the obnoxious college kids grow even louder and more uncomfortable at the checkout.

Continue reading I’m Just Another Obnoxious American - My Monthly Visit to Yoahan Plaza

Popularity: 4% [?]

The current debate over human cloning and genetic engineering is tame when compared to the Frankenstein-esque scenarios so common in speculative fiction. With today’s technology, human cloning is just another device for conceiving a child. It has nothing to do with mass-producing slaves for labor on off world colonies or pilots for an army of giant robots.

So what’s the big deal? People’s fear of this new technology could stem from the megalomaniac attitudes of the scientists supporting it. Richard G. Seede, the Chicago researcher that would enjoy cloning humans for barren couples in the next three months, made a statement that epitomizes the cautionary morals of Neon Genesis Evangelion and Blade Runner, “Human cloning brings us one step closer to God.” One step too close, many would argue. This extra step causes the creator to invent monsters that that can only turn on their masters.

Continue reading Neon Genesis Evangelion - Anime TV Series Analysis - Science’s Children

Popularity: 8% [?]

(Major Spoilers Ahead!)

Subjectivity is both the strength and downfall of the human race. Its 5 billion strong singular spheres of reality collide in endless arguments, beatings and wars. Subjectivity lets us rationalize the most inane opinions into coherent rights and wrongs.

Shinji Ikari, the 14 year old male lead in Neon Genesis Evangelion, has retreated so far into his own sphere that he can offer no defense against the effect of the spheres around him.

Continue reading Neon Genesis Evangelion - Anime TV Series Analysis - Lonely and Disenfranchised Together

Popularity: 13% [?]