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CCY17: Worse than Superman 64

Crusader — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 23:05:31 +0000

I see shit sucked so hard Steve Jobs wouldn’t let lolikit use the iPhone even if lolikit paid him. Too bad because I think there was an app to fix the fail.

Being bored as all hell I decided to play this lolikit fellow’s game which I have to say sucks…its more of a grind than World of Warcraft and no where near as funny since he goes out of his way to try and top Leeroy Jenkins and FAILS. Still I guess it is to be expected from an arrogant indy studio seeking to charge 60 USD for episodic gaming, no wonder why Gabe Newell told Studio Lolikit to take his shit to elsewhere. So in this game you go back to fucking high school, the paradise of weeabo dipshits who want to make up for their lost four years and yearn to go back to being some prick who could suck off his parents’ money. For a game that is so in love with high schools it certainly leaves out the best thing you can do in High School as an IRL Troll. All in all typical hippie bullshit I have come to expect from denizens of the People’s Republic of Berkeley. Doubly so for a trustafarian like this self proclaimed Dr. Lolikit (must be a lame attempt at riding Dr. Mario’s coattails) who plays himself in the game but was probably too high to do any voice acting for his tweeker looking furry ass.

I liked CJ better when she wasn’t a part of the master race…come to think of it I liked her more in her last game…

So instead of giving you choice you get to be some pink haired scrawny little girly man instead of something cool like a Space Marine or a Master Chief Petty Officer with rebounding health you know something original… I suppose that since this lolikit is a hippie it was too much to hope for some genuine badassery and instead we get a festival of mediocrity of remarks that might seem snide to civilian dipshit but to an enlisted guy like me it seems too fucking polite. Also since the main douche of a protagonist’s name is in red font it is clear that CCY is just a lousy cover for CCP, I bet lolikit thought he was very clever but I have fought the Red Menace since 1989 I know how the enemy works. Hell even the pink hair was a dead give away to lolikit’s allegiance to Code Pink… Despite the sexual spectacles this game is “sexy” like like a prudish fat yaoi fangirl…the sad truth is that there is no sex! Hell there isn’t even any sexy violence! I played for 100% completion in order to be Korean enough for Starcraft 2 when it comes out and still there was hardly any blood spatter to be found…

Hey Owen the scouter only breaks at 9001, it can run negative numbers real well…though I admit penalizing you with a negative for every time you fap is a bit harsh.

Gaming is normally about getting an experience you’d otherwise couldn’t have like blowing up people into little itty bitty pieces while getting Amnesty International crying enough tears to flood the world. Not here though, as it seems to be a game for the auteur, a game not made so much to give a player a good time, but a game made for the creator as a chance to show off how great he is and to wank off to himself. Five minutes in we already see the Marty Stu character of lolikit himself insinuating that he gets to bang one of his students, as usual some big breasted blue eyed blonde haired bimbo, I suppose it is a statement on how much he adores the Master Race (furries in Mein Deutschland indeed). If I wanted to hear about other people having sex I’d watch pr0n instead as at least I can forgo the nasty hairy hippie and have some hawt girl on girl action, but in CCY17 the game doesn’t give you a choice and in order to curry favor with HE WHO SHALL NOT BE NAMED cuts out the sex. I would have given lolikit more points for putting in his little fun time in the chem lab, that way he could be where he rightfully belongs…in jail for distributing child pornography like the Jap fag that he is.

I asked Alphard and Liang Qi to pass judgement on this game as well…I was severely punished with airsoft pellets for wasting their time…

Unlike a good game like say Halo 3 or Duke Nukem Forever CCY17 is actually a shitty visual novels made for weeaboo who can’t really play games and can’t beat Nintendogs. As such it’s a boring little game with dialog boxes out the ass and crappy one click combat in which there are no satisfying kills to speak of (Killing this Scott character seemed more like community service since there was no Achievement, come to think of it there were no Achievements period). Instead of a PvP kill count to track how much shit you are not killing you get three numbers which make no sense, I suppose you have to be as high as lolikit to find them funny.

Owen is also the lamest villain ever as he is obviously a lesser version of the famed Jackal from Far Cry 2. Owen is a shirtless hippie while the Jackal is a learned arms dealer, the gulf in evil is quite jarring in that Owen might as well be making friends with furry forest creatures and sing to birds. Speaking of shitty characters while beautifully designed were a blatant attempt to hide the truly hideous visages of almost all of the characters. I may not personally know them (well I do know Impz and they certainly did not even begin to scratch the service in his regard though I suppose the artist was simply too overawed to do a realistic depiction…which is of course forgivable), nor would I want to, but judging from how the Aegis Combat System is always identifying them with transponder code 7700…along with a huge radar cross-section I suppose that they are quite large… Also for a group that would knowingly try to ride Krauser II’s coattails they certainly don’t look the part, and I am sure that a few laws were broken in the process. I can only hope Krauser II rapes lolikit 11 times as recompense for trying to make money without his permission.

Who in their right mind would want to learn how to suck gold balls out of garden hoses? Also flashing gang signs are we now lolikit? The Glee Club isn’t a gang, you don’t even have guns…THUG LIFE indeed.

While one would expect this to be a full game it turns out to more insidious than an EA franchise as at the very end they promise to bring in more sequels and to bring you the shittiest DLC that would make Oblivion’s Horse Armor look like a bargain. The game is a total rip off despite the pretensions to choice it seems that despite going her or there will always lead you along the same dull paths (all paths lead to incomplete). Also for some reason we have to do stupid shit like troll club when there isn’t a manly mecha fighting club, riflery, EOD, or CQC club. At the end of the day CCY17 is not worth 60 USD for the PC, and there is a very good reason why this isn’t on WiiWare, 360 Arcade, or PSN, namely shit sucks. It’s linear, boring, the one click combat has been done better elsewhere, the writing makes Gears of War look like a Pulitzer Prize winner, and it’s over priced for an episodic game. In short Dr. Lolikit is the Uwe Boll of gaming in that his adaptations suck even when he wrote the original, for the self proclaimed “Serial Troll” the game spends an awful lot of time sucking up to people. Although, since he is a hippie he probably thinks that showering his targets with praise and adoration, and giving their egos a blowjob that he’s “trolling them.”

Ugh…do we really have to white knight this chick? Can’t we just strap a bomb to her and let her blow up the principal’s office…

I am being overly mean, the game is quite adequate in it’s beta form and is held back more by restrictions of the visual novel genre than any lack of elan on the part of the developers. Still I hope this actually sees completion as it would be sad if after all those donations it turns out that Studio Lolikit is just another 3-D Realms and takes forever to deliver their game. I suggest playing it for a laugh here or there, but there is still reason to hope that Studio Lolikit will actually survive to complete this project.

In any case the hippie wanted suggestions on how to make the game better so being a veteran gamer I might as well tell the weed smoking hippie how to stop sucking. Well here goes…

To that dirty old hippie in need of a shave and a haircut:

1.    Needs more weapons and dynamic fisticuffs like Fight Night Round 4 (Don’t tell me you suck more than EA, hippie.) because if I am going to kill Scott I want it to be on screen with my fists breaking his fragile face bit by bit.
2.    Needs more mecha, no seriously stop making homage to crappy harem animu and go with the best genre hippie.
3.    Needs more yuri, it’s fine if he wants to fantasize about other men, but if you want more people to play put in something for men, and all men love yuri. Other wise this game is stuck trying to appeal to fat yaoi fan girls with yaoi paddles, and without lurvin scenes Studio Lolikit will be filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy before Christmas.
4.    You’re an asshole until I’m in the game.
5.    You’re an asshole until Calawain, EO, and lelangir are in the game.
6.    Make Impz more trappy, because right now what you have, while splendidly drawn, does not do his trappiness justice.
7.    Needs Achievements.
8.    Liang Qi-sama wants Wii controls and the ability to import her Mii.
9.    Alphard onee-sama thinks your one click combat sucks you need something more FPS, like V.A.T.S.
10.    Music is lacking you need to level up that deaf lazy chimp of a composer to Yoko Kanno level. Also start with using The Winner when turning Scott into a bloody mess and have the ending theme be 10 Years After, trust me it will make your game better.
11.    Needs genderbending.
12.    Less furries.
13.    If IKnight is not mecha, it ain’t IKnight.
14.    MOAR Quicktime events.
15.    Get a better writer, at time of writing Rhianna Pratchett is kicking your ass.
16.    Seriously how could you not go with a beat’em up?
17.    Let us pick from a number of protagonists other than CCY, he’s a commie and boring as hell.
18.    Your M Rating is misleading, it should be rated E for Everyone like your Marty Stu, call ESRB and get it changed.
19.    How dare you insult Impz by implying that this Omo can be anywhere near as trappy, we all know he’s a fat American Pig…
20.    Needs Prince Ali to kill people randomly to keep the excitement going.
21.    Your physics engine sucks more than Havoc, nothing even bounces…

Dude he looks like a terrorist without the rag over his head…not a terrorist straight out of hell.

Killing this fool was oddly unsatisfying, I could not bust a cap in his ass watch his blood spurt out in interesting patterns, worst of all there was no Achievement unlocked…thanks for sucking the fun out of killing people lolikit you fucking hippie.

That hardly does Impz justice…just saying.

AX 2009 Day Zero: Press Junket

Crusader — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 08:17:07 +0000

Mein Kaiser Reinhard was sorely disappointed at how they had four different places to hold the press people.

My apologies for having fallen off the face of the Earth, but I was seconded as a vehicle driver and general purpose mule for T-ono.net who generously offered me a chance to go to Anime Expo 2009 for free and gave me a place to sleep free of charge in exchange for my services and vehicle. It was a great experience for me and hopefully this will be the first part in a short series about my own experience and misadventures at AX. I skipped Icystorm’s tweet up and meeting and had to decline AnimeDiet’s offer to chill, but my taskmaster certainly made my lazy ass work. Day Zero was the AX Press Junket that sadly did not go over too well. While it is inevitable that guests would be late there were some galling mistakes that I noticed with the Press Junket. I am not sure if Mike and Jeremy from Anime Diet or if Dancing Queen of How a Girl Figures experienced the same thing, but I am sure they noticed some problems as well.

From my understanding, limited though it may be, one on one interviews have been replaced with this junket and in all fairness the principle is sound. The problem is not one of strategy, it is one of implementation. This year there were four holding pens for the press groups which was a huge mistake to begin with as the staff had to go between the 3rd and 31st floors looking for press groups. More than once some groups simply fell off the radar and the nominal head of the junket, Mr. Chase Wang, was sweating bullets going between the two towers and the 3rd floor. Since I am interested in scuttlebutt I even heard that Seiji Mizushima, Youske Kuroda, and Yun Kouga had a period of grace where no one interviewed them, despite there being press groups who were idle that did want to have an interview, my hosts being one of them. To remedy this I think they seriously need to consider just emulating the command structure of a Fire Direction Center where by everything goes to one central command post where the lists are kept and a plotting board for the locations of each press group and the status of each of the guests of honor are maintained. If it had gone well then the nominal head should not be running about with his head cut off (probably from being overwhelmed), and instead coordinating everything from a single location from which periodic status can be obtained to update a plotting board, similar to the miniatures they use coordinating the aircraft on a carrier. You simply cannot have four holding pens and expect a good level of coordination without a central command post.

It seems that Lady Cima was the one in charge of Morning Musme…

Then there was the issue of a bathroom on the 31st floor…having to go down to the second floor was bad enough (third floor bathroom was closed), but having to commandeer Toshiyuki Morikawa’s (a.k.a. Sephiroth) bathroom on occasion is not a sign of proper planning. We got the opportunity to interview Mana of Moi Dix Mois fame (who by the way can speak, because I heard it, and he doesn’t always walk around in costume, also that makes me his prophet so bow down mortals!), but the interview was pretty much sunk by the fact that the translator was simply tired (perhaps there was sufficient reason, but not in my mind a mark of professionalism on her part). I am not clear on the specifics but if a new translator is paired up with a rock star then there will be trouble, as any rock star is almost certainly too much for a rookie to handle. If Mana could deny all recording devices and photography and get away with it then he certainly is a big fish, and all big fish eat little fish of one sort or another. Also another interesting thing was that the Morning Musume translator/leash essentially dictated who could get an interview, whether or not it was because the first two groups were EPIC FAIL or that the leash was simply walking over the AX staff is something I don’t know. Nevertheless it probably did not go JUST AS KEIKAKU.

Not all members of the press met Lady Cima’s approval for interviewing her charges…

In short AX09 Press Junket is still a wonderful idea in principle, the problem this year was one of implementation. It wasn’t controlled confusion it was confusion, not because the staff weren’t trying hard enough, but just because every one had a radio did not mean everyone knew what was going on. If anything the staff was go above and beyond more than they needed to instead of simply what they were supposed to be doing and that is not right. Had Clausewitz witnessed this he would berate (and fire) those in charge for not taking fog and friction into consideration and above all having no distinguishable command structure at all. However I am willing to offer methods and proposals for a more efficient way of managing their problems of controlled confusion, a sailor method but I am confident it would invariably be better than what they used this year.

Still I learned a few things such as the iPhone voice memo app is a superior than some dedicated voice recorders, Nightow-san and Nishimura-san were quite curious about it when I popped it out. Lastly Cool shit that happened were that Nightow-san and Nishimura-san did the fusion dance pose, some dude I met pissed in Sephiroths’ bathroom, and Imaishi-san and Nishigori-san were laughing when Morning Musume (who were next door) started singing.

Why does everything I like have to be like this

Lupus — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 08:25:09 +0000

The following image is what started this FANBOY/NERD RAEG rant:

Gatoh Shoji, what the fuck are you doing? Why are you writing anime scripts instead of finishing Full Metal Panic? Why do you hate your fans so much? The last book was published more than a year and a half ago, and ended on a unsettling, climatic twist. You already had your fun with GONZO’s Tower of Druaga, and unless you’re writing scripts for the next Full Metal Panic anime, you need to get the fuck back to writing novels.

(Because Orion asked so nicely, here’s a spoiler warning: The following paragraph contains a spoiler that everybody who actually cares about Haruhi probably knows already anyway. Have a nice day.)

Kadokawa, fuck you, I know what you’re pulling with this episode. Some time in the future we’ll get another episode where Kyon finds out about the endlessly repeating day, probably after you show us this exact same episode again. The ending will be slightly different, and you’ll save however much it costs to make 1 episode of anime. Yes, I have so little esteem in Kadokawa and KyoAni now, I can honestly believe that they would do this. The new and deproved OP/ED/animation in general makes me RAEG hard.

Tanigawa Nagaru is still sitting on his ass not writing the next Haruhi novel. No one likes your fucking manga. It’s a piece of shit, your mangaka sucks, and WHY WON’T YOU WRITE MOAR HARUHI. At least if they got the original character designer, Takeda Hinata, to draw it, it would be worth reading for the art alone. Actually I don’t know what I expect out of him anymore, since Haruhi is his only original and good series.

Eden of the East has movies. I would rage except I haven’t been following this show, and won’t bother until the movies come out on DVD and gets subbed (sometime in 20-FUCK-IT-ALL). At least March Comes in Like a Lion is still going steadily on. In terms of other manga, even Skip Beat is going into a bit of a lull, with the current arc boring the shit out of me. xxxHolic is being affected by Tsubasa’s “I’m-a-giant-crock-of-shit” syndrome and has long since became unbearable. It’s also pulling the Bleach card with an average of 3 frames a page.

I would rage about Bleach and Naruto, but what’s the point? The only Jump manga I get any real joy out of now-a-days is Gintama. Even One Piece is boring me a bit with its current arc. While I’m on the topic of Jump, Shaman King’s new ending is no better than the old one, and HxH is still on endless hiatus.

That’s more than enough pointless rage for today. Time to go play some TF2 and get owned so I can have a reason to rage some more.

Japan’s Top 10 Waifus (and Husbandos)

Calawain — Sat, 13 Jun 2009 16:58:56 +0000

Recently, ANN of all places posted this interesting article of a survey conducted in Japan on which anime characters the respondents wished to marry. Most of the characters on the lists shouldn’t be particularly surprising, and its somewhat tilted toward currently running shows, but it’s amusing nonetheless.

For those of you too lazy to click, here’s the waifu list:

Mio Akiyama (K-ON!)
Hinagiku Katsura (Hayate the Combat Butler)
Taiga Aisaka (Toradora!)
Rukia Kuchiki (Bleach)
Yuki Nagato (The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya)
Azusa Nakano (K-ON!)
Chrome Dokuro (Katekyo Hitman Reborn!)
Sheryl Nome (Macross F)
Yui Hirasawa (K-ON!)
Asuka Langley Sohryu (Neon Genesis Evangelion)

Three of my top 5 waifus are shared (namely Mio, Hinagiku, and Yuki, and not necessarily in that order), but none of the rest approach top waifu status for me. The other members of my top 5 would be Rin and Kagami, of course. It’s unfortunate how fickle fans are, as the majority of choices are from currently running shows. Toradora was likely still running when this survey was conducted, and Macross F only ended a few months ago with a movie coming up. As for Eva, Anno is currently releasing all of those new movies that I haven’t seen…

Husbandos:

Kyouya Hibari (Katekyo Hitman Reborn!)
Gintoki Sakata (Gintama)
Toshiro Hitsugaya (Bleach)
Mukuro Rokudo (Katekyo Hitman Reborn!)
Sougo Okita (Gintama)
Date Masamune (Sengoku Basara)
Tsunayoshi Sawada (Katekyo Hitman Reborn!)
Ichigo Kurosaki (Bleach)
Sebastian Michaelis (Kuroshitsuji)
Toushirou Hijikata (Gintama)

What also amuses me is the popularity of the Gintama men. I mean, the show’s humor is very, very low brow, with tons of toilet and sex humor. I would have figured that females would be turned off by that kind of material. Perhaps they are just so enamored with the sexy men that they don’t care? Is that like me watching K-ON because of Mio even though I find the quasi-plot to be dull and often just stupid?

Well readers, what are your thoughts and selections?

Two Years On and I Need a Recharge…

Crusader — Fri, 29 May 2009 06:38:08 +0000

I have lots to do…

I won’t lie I think I am suffering a bit of this burn out thing after roughly two years of being the tl;dr guy I hope to recharge my batteries soon and get back to business as usual, but it seems the perpetual boredom of military life is going to be beyond my reach for the time being, assuming that everything goes according to my supervisors’ plans I will be out and about frolicking from one base to another across the country attending classes real soon methinks. Even when I am not moving about, as a newly minted E-5 as my first real responsibility I get to mentor an E-3 who seems to be having a bit of the troubles, professionally and perhaps otherwise. Then there is the issue of my family… Still I hope to be doing some VOTOMS posts real soon and catch up with the rest of the season. I suppose this is more for myself as once this gets published I will have to try and meet these goals.

I want my Kasrkin to look like these guys…

Once again I skipped Fanime and instead went to a gaming convention which reignited my passion for another hobby quite profoundly…Now that the Imperial Guard Codex is out I have a hankering to get cracking on that, and trust me I have plenty to do. I also promised 13sugars that I would paint up a 1:100 Union Flag for her as well so I suppose with all these tasks that I will have to start keeping things shorter and using less screen caps. I also have to do a proper two years on post now that I have felt the first pangs of burning out… ah well K-ON and VOTOMS: Roots of Ambition post sometime later I suppose I have to run up to Davis and back to try and snag two extra tickets for graduati0n first thing in the morning.

Yeah I think I can really get into this one.

Convention Meals: Getting More Bang for Your Buck

Crusader — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 09:59:38 +0000

So with convention season reaching a fevered pitch during the spring and summer I thought that it would be fun to introduce the finer points of one of my convention staples, the MRE. Now I know that the thing says COMMERCIAL RESALE IS ILLEGAL, but there is no actual law that I have seen and they sell the things at the Travis AFB commissary anyways so if one wanted to one could get these things, even the manufacturers sell them directly though you have to buy a whole case at a time. Still at about $7.25 (there is a Tailored Operational Training Meal that goes for about $4.22 that has less calories, though is not nearly as impact resistant) a pop it’s not nearly as bad as those hotdogs, hamburgers, and small bowls of chili that the hotel or convention center tries to sell you, I am sure usagijen is going to have a fit at what I am about to say, but there certainly are benefits to having a light weight lunch that is rated to be shoved off C-130s. Besides it tastes just as good if not better than the standard convention food, and at least when you make it is fairly hot and not mildly warm to cold. If you can get a hold of these and your venue won’t have reasonably priced food I’d recommend getting an MRE especially if your schedule is packed, less time spent eating means more time doing other stuff. Besides it’s a better option than eating fast food at every meal or getting that $1.50 1 oz. bag of chips. So yeah I had one that was getting a bit old and decided it would be fun to open it up just for fun.

They call it beef steak, I call it mystery meat…

Despite the jokes of MRE meaning Materials Resembling Edibles, Massive Rectal Expulsions, Meals Rejected by Everyone, etc. it’s sort of like canned food, though the meat patties are often tough there are superior menus like the pot roast, rice, and beef stew. Other than the main course which can really be hit or miss the rest of it is usually good. The cookies are dry but edible and it tastes like a cookie, the pound cake is better, and I personally thing the crackers are okay since they have a high fiber content so that it won’t clog your system, plus they usually give you cheese spread or jam to go with it. I don’t like the wheat snack bread all too much but it does fill in for the crackers. Otherwise the fruit tastes like canned fruit and you do get candy like Skittles and M&Ms. If you are lucky you get one of the prized milk shake powders which are pretty much a meal in and of themselves and are often the most palatable part., otherwise they are excellent trade items in the field. Just be sure to drink plenty of water since you will need it… They also come in vegetarian and have fewer problems than the chicken for the most part.

Yeah my kitchen was a mess that day…

When I first saw these things in high school I though that they were the coolest things since I expected canned spam. That flameless ration heater isn’t much nowadays but back in the late 1990s I thought they were something, the thing relies on the oxidation of magnesium which produces hydrogen gas which you don’t want to get a good whiff of. The water gets really hot and is undrinkable but it gets the job done. The tiny bottle of Tabasco sauce is standard and is a god send if you need to add flavor to something or if you just like spicy foods. Just keep in mind these things really pack the calories averaging about 1200 for a full MRE since soldiers burn more calories running jumping and shooting.. The thing also comes with waterproof matches that usually work when dampened so if you need to burn those loli doujins in a hurry you can do it fairly easily and even in the rain! Still the flameless ration heater really isn’t allowed to go on a plane nakkid so you will need a sealed MRE if you are planning on flying. Otherwise boiling is a good enough method of the heater fails or you lose it. You also need a small knife or some sort of cutting device because the pouched can be really tough and even then you don’t want to peel it at the notches. Better to cut laterally so it’s more accessible and easier to eat. If nothing else you can laugh at what passes for food for poor bastards like me during the first few weeks of hitting the ground.

More like any beans…at least they got rid of those lima bean dishes.

Opening an MRE is like opening a present, you don’t know what’s in it and even when you open something with a weird name you might find that it is something you normally eat any way, such as the fruit pastry which is really a pop tart. If nothing else get some for the zombie invasion or a natural disaster kit.

Uncle Sam is not bound by advertising laws, because he bought them not you…

The modern hard tack.

These actually taste pretty good.

Though it’s not the healthiest thing in the world…

Yeah those are real tootsie rolls, Uncle Sam like to have fun with words.

Ah it feels like the public school lunch program all over again.

Just make sure not to eat these at before you rack out.

Unlike Akiko’s Jammu it won’t kil you.

How to Avoid Academic Failure in Higher Education (or How Fancy Lala Changed My Life/Moyashimon Gave Me Over Inflated Expectations)

Crusader — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 10:07:54 +0000

Soon this will all be behind me.

So I got the news from my university Dean’s office about a week ago, I’ll get my degree early…but the catch is that I will be getting a B.A. in Microbiology with a minor in East Asian Studies and English, instead of the B.S. in Microbiology with a minor in East Asian Studies. Perhaps there is not much of a difference in a B.A. from a BS, but the fact that my degree is going to have Art instead of Science really eats at me. Whether or not that is going to affect my chances for employment remains to be seen but I attach more prestige to the B.S. than the B.A. even if the difference is only going to be two classes. I know that ultimately though I have no one to blame for this other than myself, I transferred with too many credits and took about a quarter’s worth of classes I did not really need that I only took to keep my options open. I had gambled on the idea that the student population would not mushroom the way it did. I already went over the unit cap so it was pretty much a forgone conclusion that they would boot me out with a degree as the Dean’s Office held all the cards and had no incentive to let me petition for excess units once they figured out that went around them the first time and will be 2.5 units over the 225 cap. Certainly if I had been more focused on getting a B.S. I could have gotten it, and the fact that I did better in my minor classes than my major classes did little to help my lost cause. Most of the anger and bitterness has subsided, but in the end I find it mildly irritating all the same.

The Yuri I never saw,

The Muto that I never held,

The bath I never had,

and this University’s lack of Hasegawa speaks for itself. (adapted from an insult to the 1st Cavalry)

I’ll try to keep the bitterness to a minimum but as most of you boys and girls are in college or going to college, don’t make the same mistake I did, plan your course work out like your life depended on it, and try to avoid classes you don’t really need. Also if you are going to transfer do not bet an over achiever in community college and transfer with as many units close to the minimum as you can. I went in with 114 when I only needed 80 right off the bat which they pruned down to 90.5 units. The other issue was that I took a major in which the only interest I had in it was disease causing organisms, the rest did not interest me terribly much and I took it because it seemed more useful and could help me find a job that made decent money. If only it were like Moyashimon in that there was a lab course with instructors like Haruka and Muto, if only… Still it was also around this time when I had my fate handed to me by an enemy that I could not defeat in a civilized non-violent manner that I also finished Fancy Lala. The military teaches you how to roll with punches, but sadly they don’t really teach you how to deal with the bitterness and the anger of defeat.

Remember when you considered your crayon art to be good?

Okay so maybe getting old has some perks.

I am Quattro Bajeena I am looking for a man named Char…Have you seen him?

So before I compare my miserable existence to that of the protagonist of Fancy Lala, the anime was an oldie from 1998 about a girl named Miho who gets the power to magically conjure up clothes she draws and turn into a 15 year old Miho. She starts out as a model and eventually gets to release a single before the magical creatures that granted her mastery over space, time, and matter went on into the next temporal plain. It wasn’t a commercial success but I liked it very much since I like genki never say die characters like Miho, it also helps that she has fantasies that are very similar to Hosaka’s though since Miho predates Hosaka by ten years I think that perhaps Hosaka took a page from Miho-nee when it came to letting his imagination run riot. It’s a good old school anime to watch if you haven’t strangled the child within. Overall it was an experience for Miho that came to an end at which point she was powerless to fully reclaim what she had, though the lesson is probably that she still has time to grow up to be Lala and she needn’t such into it. Funny how kids wish that they could be adults and when they become adults all they want is to be a kid again. I liked it a lot because of the bitter sweet end, Miho, might not see Lala for another six years, but life went on, after her adventure was over life went on there was no need to despair because she still a had a number of years to enjoy being a kid.

Things were so much simpler when I was nine…

Say does that magical pen work backwards?

Whatever happened to see through clothes anyways?

Maybe it was a happy coincidence that I finished Fancy Lala around the same time my plans for the future were rendered moot with one swift stroke from the Dean’s pen in the NO box. Just like how Miho’s stint as Lala ended abruptly and just as she peaked, my college life will soon effectively come to an end and like Miho I will have to figure out what to do from now on. Where as Miho would someday see Lala again on her 15th birthday, I cannot afford to do this college thing over again nor do I have that much time to devote again. Soon I will fully enter the real world instead of residing in the dual existence of college drunkard and GI Joe. Graduating early is both a blessing and a curse it means that I won’t have any civilian employment when I get out, and judging by how dismally everyone else is doing I should be grateful that I have already enlisted and have rank over the new crop of recruits who are signing up now to make ends meet. At this juncture I don’t know what I want to do depending on how the job search thing goes, and as I have mentioned before I can still beg Uncle Sam for a job (which he will surely grant so long as he gets to decide where it is I shall work), just sooner than I had ever intended. One great thing about being shoved out is now the constant pressure of having classes seems to have abated. I hear they call it senioritis and it certainly feels good since I know I can’t alter the fate I was handed. The BA I supposedly get in March (I didn’t file for graduation on time because I did not know I was going to graduate or that IGETC fulfilled the foreign language requirement) represents in many respects a tactical victory in that I am no longer losing money paying tuition, but represents a strategic defeat in that I did not get the degree I wanted. Ah well more time for animu and mango I suppose, I just hope that a B.A. in a science is not totally useless because that would make this a very costly Pyrrhic victory.

Impz is that you?

You’ll see Lala again Miho…

Plus you won’t have to wait the full Ten Years After.

Well in the end I hope you kids learn from this old man’s academic equivalent of Lake Trasimene. Still like Miho I can look off into the setting sun, one chapter of our short existences has closed, we may have tasted bitter defeat, but so long as we have the capacity to endure this glorious struggle is not yet over. I’ll always have Moyashimon to remind me of the lab that never was, and Fancy Lala reminded me that I still have a future. Maybe God is trying to tell me something I have prayed for an end to college and now I got it. I just didn’t expect God to use Fed-ex overnight shipping. So far this year I have been promoted, robbed, and now I am graduating earlier than expected, there is something oddly amusing and mildly miraculous about what has occurred in my ho hum existence in the first part of 2009. Now to pray for Title 10 orders for a billet in Honolulu…I want certainly want Honolulu, but given how God seems to have an odd sense of humor IMHO, I suspect I will get Title 10 orders…to someplace just as sandy but with horrible beaches… I at least have a future being a more active Jolly Green Giant (though more like Disgruntled Tan Dwarf) that gets to stride to the farthest corners of the earth on Uncle Sam’s penny it’s almost like a dream come true.

Still I wonder if every college graduate who got their degree during hard times goes through this. Perhaps there are a few of you who are older than dirt that can attest to Next War-itis What Next-itis?

Skip Beat post later if Impz is still MIA on it.

It’s a New Year and I Already Got Robbed…

Crusader — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 10:27:40 +0000

So yeah I need to upgrade my apartment security to something like this…

So while the Israelis and Palestinians were bringing in the New Year with a bang to say the least, found to my mild amusement that I had the wondrous experience of being robbed. Thankfully the thieves who broke in were very polite in putting back their point of entry back together. While the local police can’t be bothered on the weekend so a full police report will have to wait, taking a short inventory of what was actually stolen I am surprised that the list is very short considering they could have walked away with a lot more. I confess this is an odd way to mark my first post of 2009, but being nuts and cynical I admit I am pleasantly surprised that all things considered me and my room mate got off easy.

Indeed…The thieves took Psychonauts but not Metal Slug, I guess they had taste.

Short list of what the gentleman thieves took were one Xbox 360 Launch Unit, Call of Duty 4, a sweater, three textbooks (out of date), a pair of shoes, $5 in quarters, and here’s the kicker Psychonauts. What they failed to take were two check books, my CPU, and five externals, my LCD Monitor, my speaker system, a shit ton of manga, almost my entire painted portion of my Tau Army, LOTR Army, half of my BFG fleet, High Elf Army, my entire figure collection, the alcohol I had left, all of my SHnY CDs, anything from the pantry, 5 paintball guns, and Metal Slug. I am not sure if the thieves were just being polite or what ever but seeing as how they tried to pull one of the externals I suppose my policy of wire tying every cable (though I confess the tangle of wires is still daunting) to the desk made for a more aggravating proposition to the point they left my CPU and external hard drives alone. Otherwise I suppose they weren’t into animu or war gaming considering my books on military history were left behind. While my roommate lost all his laundry money, because I was too lazy to peel off the label on my change jar it was completely over looked.

All in all it could have been much worse than it was given that there was a spate of break-ins at the apartment complex during the break. Still I am pleasantly surprised that all they really walked away with was a Xbox 360 Launch Unit that will be RRoDed sometime this year losing four wireless controllers is a bit of a bummer but one was already broken. The bothersome part is mostly filing the police report, and then having to tell the secret squirrel society (OPSEC) guys that thieves might have taken a look at some personal military documents (nothing important really old sets of orders for the most part). Considering how bad it could have been I am a bit glad all the most significant item they took was a 360 Launch Unit. I suppose if they were hardcore enough to take Psyconauts but leave Metal Slug behind that in the end my apartment was hardly worth breaking into, considering how obvious it would have been for them to discover to their utter horror that it was a Launch Unit and not a Zephyr or Jasper build 360. It sucks that we were robbed, but in the end it’s mildly amusing they only took so little and had the courtesy of putting the window back into place. Considering how we had window locks and only maintenance guys and veteran thieves could have known how to pop the windows open I suppose if that is all they took that we were in a sense a waste of time.

What else can you do really?

Over 9000 Meaningless Words

lelangir — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 14:36:51 +0000

←[100] first impressions on Mariaholic

In the first part, ghostlightning and I talk about Kannagi. In the second, superfani talks about art in general.

Essentially, the conclusion we came to was that the religious metaphorical elements are played out in such that they themselves constitute a subplot. This is how Nagi searches for idolatry. As in the second episode of Natsume Yuujin-chou, the god shrinks in relation to the faith he receives. A god with lots of faith is large, one with little faith is small. When the god’s only worshipper dies, his source of sustenance is cut off, and he dissipates. In the same way, “faith” in Kannagi is represented by popularity, by idolatry. It’s much more blatant in the manga, but the OP should make it clear.

The religious content was a plot – nagi accumulating faith had to be, incidentally or otherwise because the metaphor sets it up so that everything contributes to the subplot, incidentally or otherwise.

So…

Part 1: Ghostlightning & lelangir on Kannagi

Show ▼

Part 2: Superfani on art

Show ▼

Forgotten Gifts of Christmas Past: My Gunpla Pile of Shame

Crusader — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 02:40:38 +0000

No my Christmas was never this awesome, but behold my pile of shame…

Well I have been rather more busy than I anticipated during winter break, given how my unit doesn’t need me until the week after Christmas to help ramp up for inspection I decided to clean out my closet and go over my storage boxes which contained old toys and other stuff. Suffice to say the last time I actually took stock of all the stuff I had in storage was simply never, if I ran out of space it got boxed and put in the garage pile along with all my battle rattle. Turns out despite taking all my old manuals back to work for proper shredding and disposal and setting aside old toys for a gaggle of younger relations I also found a lot of model kits I forgot I even had. One of the things I recall now after taking a longer than expected bus ride (the 9X bus line actually loops into Fisherman’s Wharf now instead of the strip joints and adult stores that I recall seeing back when my grandmother picked me up from elementary school) and going past North Beach where my after school program was that for many years I did get one or two model kits from my uncle in Hong Kong before he emigrated here (to flee from the Red Menace), once in a while my parents bought me a couple too. I was always happy to get them, but at the time I hardly had any time to actually paint each one and each year they got boxed up and were soon forgotten.

I plan on torturing the tiny Jesus Yamato figure, take that Amnesty International!

Well after a couple hours I found my model kit pile to be rather large all things considered though I have more WHFB and WH40K tank kits and infantry. Suffice to say I was sitting on a nerd’s treasure pile that I had inadvertently amassed in over 20 years of existence. I don’t plan on buying any more or asking for any more since my parents would think of them as toys and would give them away to make more space. Given how it was almost like Christmas again I might as post my embarrassingly hefty pile of never built still in box model kits, I call it a pile of shame since my uncle probably wondered where all of the gifts he sent me went once he stepped onto American soil. In all honesty though since many of these came from Hong Kong during the hey days of piracy of everything I bet some of these might be fake, if so kindly point them out if you can. Now what to build first…I am thinking finishing up those no grade ones from Wing first as practice, and then take care of the High Grade stuff. I do plan on melting or immersing in paint thinner Jesus Yamato though.

So anyone else have a Gunpla Pile of shame that they might be working on around this time of year? Lord knows I haven’t finished one of these in years. Man and I was going to ask for Prince Ali’s Custom Enact this year too…yeah I think I should finish my pile of shame first.

Remember when Target carried Gunpla? Ah ye olde days when Wing was king and CN was pimping dubs.

I didn’t even know I had this…but I am not complaining, no sir!

I need more GMs…

Anyone feel the BURNING?

I’d rather watch it without subtitles (not a sub vs dub post!)

Lupus — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 04:46:06 +0000

Really, it’s not. It’s a sub vs raw post. “But you can’t- they’re not- You, sir, are a retard.”

Ok, the two aren’t substitutable or even comparable, by the standard of any anime fan who’s not fluent in Japanese. My Japanese is only at a level where I can understand 83% of any written passage even with a dictionary, and my listening is so bad that watching raw is pointless for me. Yet none-the-less, I’ve been doing it lately. The thing is, I watch the raw after the sub.

I started watching raws because I realised that I often get distracted by the subtitles.

I only noticed it very recently, when watching Eve no Jikan. I watched the first two episodes with subs, then went browsing for other people’s opinions on each episode because it is really fucking awesome. Reading through them made me realise that I didn’t notice a lot of the intricacies in the animation and direction. A truly excellent film or anime has a lot of the details placed through-out that the average person would never take note of without having it pointed out for them, but are nonetheless important things that elevate the show above all its contemporaries. A film example would be The Sixth Sense, where there are clues scattered through-out the entire movie pointing to the twist ending, yet most people never notice them on their first watch.

After reading about them, I went back to watch the first two episodes of Eve no Jikan with the subtitles turned off (I really want to thank whoever popularised soft-subs), and I managed to pick up on a lot of the things that were noted in other posts. Of course, I have the benefit of hindsight now, but I also have the benefit of being able to focus my eyes on things that are not words.

Thing is, I suck at multi-tasking. Being a man, my brain is at a natural disadvantage when it comes to processing multiple streams of information, and I’ve never managed to learn to handle multi-tasking. Once I even missed a turn while driving because I was talking to my friend (don’t distract the driver kids!). When I played The World Ends With You on the NDS, I never mastered the skill of managing both front of the battle – generally I spam block on the top screen and have Neku deal all the damage. Similarly, when I have to focus on and process the subtitles, my eyes don’t have time to wander around the rest of the screen picking up the details. I get the big picture, but details tend to go unnoticed. And so, I missed out on a lot of important things.

Ever since I started watching a show twice – once with subtitles and once without – I realised just how much the subtitles get in the way of focusing on the visuals. Little details in animation or background or direction, things that I never really picked up on before, started to become apparent to me. It’s like a whole new world just opened up to me. It’s all really frustrating, because now I feel like I’ve been missing out all these years. Which of the older shows that I didn’t like could’ve benefited from the extra attention that is taken away by the subtitles?

Conclusion of this post: I’d rather watch anime without subtitles, but considering the options available to me are “Watch it twice” or “Dubs”, it’s clear which is the lesser of the two evils.

Last day to vote, my fellow Americans…

Crusader — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 13:19:38 +0000

So yes today is the last day for you procrastinators to vote if you have elected not to vote early or by mail. I don’t care who you vote for but I trust that this time you guys can make your own conclusions and vote for the only qualified candidate…Michael Wilson. Special election day gift after the jump.

Enjoy your Liberty Prime my fellow Americans

Cultural Impact

Lupus — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 19:37:09 +0000

I tried to find an Australian-themed anime drawing, but failed. Have a “Once Upon a Time in a China Girl” instead.

NewGeekPhilosopher wrote a little piece about a new sub-breed of anime fans he called the “Oztaku”. I can understand the desire to move away from using the word otaku, but the terms “anime fan” or “anime enthusiast” perfectly describe any of the individuals he raised as examples in his post, and it didn’t really matter at all where they were from. I trolled him in the comments, but he raised a point I thought worth wasting my time and yours with in his reply:

[...]the reason why I highlighted “Anglo Saxons” is because many white Anime and Manga fans are not the same as Japanese ones, and have a different cultural construction of their identity. Hence an Oztaku would be brought from a different cultural society entirely from a Japanese society.

I always thought the point of a “fandom” is that people are brought together through their passion for a hobby, regardless of race, creed, age or geographical location. Regardless of your culture or how you were raised, our passion for (in our case) anime brings us together as a group of fans. Our common hobby breaks down the cultural barrier, and we can chat simply as fellow anime fans, regardless of from where we hail.

However, I’m sure cultural identity affects our opinions on what we all watch. How big is that impact? Is the difference big enough that we would require sub-dividing of the fandom? For example, if a group of Americans and a group of Chinese watched the same show, does the difference in culture cause the two groups to arrive at vastly different conclusions or have vastly different opinions?

I think the difference could be quite karge. I’ve visited enough Chinese and English fansites to notice that there are palpable differences in what the English speaking audience perceives as classics and what the Chinese speaking audience perceives as classics. For example, Cowboy Bebop, which I deem to be a very Westernised show, is often called a favourite by English fans, but it’s rarely given the same amount of praise and adorations in Chinese circles. Other shows that spot more anime-ish characteristics (or maybe simply a more universal charm), such as Kino no Tabi or Naruto, tend to be more equally well-received by fans on both side of the language divide. However, from my limited experience, Australia fans’ tastes don’t seem to differ much from the fans born in America or Britain, probably because these three cultures are still closely related.

In short, how great, if it exists at all, do you think the impact of cultural upbringing is on our opinions of anime?

Sunrise Latrinenparole

Crusader — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 05:44:02 +0000

Greetings from the 501st Character Reserve, Provost Marshall of Miscellaneous Jobs

Well Code Geass is over and Gundam 00 has not aired yet so I decided to visit the Sunrise pilot barracks to get their views on some of that fresh meat that will be sitting on the shelf now that it’s done with. Lastly +100 fanboy points if you recognize everyone. Otherwise feel free to weep if you feel ashamed you know all of them.

I don’t get it…that Guren thing is red so why did it have such trouble with poncy white one? It was three times faster right?

Suzaku’s abnormal survivor ability isn’t as great as I thought it would be, I expected the planet to implode or something. Right now I can’t see how he could have gotten out of that one, fucking cheater.

Diethard, why do you insist on embarrassing yourself?

So I hear this Suzaku can dodge bullets, that’s nice…maybe we’ll finally see how good he is against some one who shoots straight.

Suzaku rocks, so what if he betrayed his country and killed his people? There is nothing wrong with that. Oh gotta go Kira wants his vanilla latte.

Oh Tamki I told the lazy bastard to spend more time on the simulators, it helps. Looks like the only screaming orgasm he’s going to get is the one he mixes!

Kallen we are so proud of you for killing Suzaku when you finally graduate we’ll induct you into the School of the Undefeated of the East! You will finally learn the Ultimate Secret Technique! SEKIHA TENKYOUKEN! You kept the bastard’s head right?

I am glad they killed off that loser Luciano, heck I have killed more people by driving my taxi cab while waiting to kill some more meisters. By the way some guy named Ougi called for a ride to to take him and his wife to see the obstetrician anyone seen them?

Knights of the Rounds, the Immortal 4th Team salutes you!

What is wrong with that revolving door of death? My ideal ladies have to die but that Lancelot prick lives?! It’s insane!

The Captain heard something about cheating in a chess match…

Is that the best you got Moenica Kruszewski?! No, really?

Damn that Federation! Looks like I’ll be needing a new colony…

It can’t be! These plans for Zero Requiem are insane, hey what’s that clicking sound?

Yeah we kicked those Black Knights’ asses so hard they learned how to fly.

We extend our greetings to the new Loli rulers of the Earth Sphere.

That’s right cower, be afraid! Die knowing you lost to some one who knows how to pilot a mecha! Lousy knights come and face me!

[LWC 65] Serendipity Notion Revisited

lelangir — Wed, 17 Sep 2008 16:46:17 +0000

↩[LWC 64]

After having read this post, and after observing a certain prevailing trend amongst entries and comments around my familiar regions of the blogosphere, I’m going to have to elaborate and modify an earlier argument in which it was stated that it is not the reader that creates meaning but the author. This whole post is probably more rooted in a semiotic and philosophical sphere in which I am nearly illiterate, although I will use David Bohm’s notion of “Wholeness and the Implicate Order” to facilitate this particular articulation.

In elaboration of Part 1, I’m going to add that, while it is not necessarily the viewer that creates meaning out of meaningless or not-so-meaningful things (I will later address the very notion of “creation”), the meaning that authors insert into anime is not all-encompassing of the entirety of the anime itself. As the title suggests, there is a serendipitous, if not incomplete component of the author’s construction of their universe; there is an implausibility of empiric semiosis (if this title didn’t already turn you off). In other words, more meaning exists beyond the first and fundamental semiosis, without disregarding that this primary semiosis is complete unto itself. This puts forth the controversial notion that a completed anime will have more meaning than what was originally created by the authors. And so what exactly does this nebulous jargon entail? Let me explain Bohm first.

Bohm thinks of the universe as a continuous flux wherein existing “sub-totalities” (i.e. these elementary particles and any kind of existing body like galaxies, stars, and so forth) are autonomous, but our perception of reality cannot be empirically reduced to such sub-total autonomies. In an interview with Bohm published by Omni, it was remarked that:

“Believing that the nature of things is not reducible to fragments or particles, he argues for a holistic view of the universe. He demands that we learn to regard matter and life as a whole, coherent domain, which he calls the implicate order.”

In essence, sub-totalities are autonomous entities within the larger whole, yet this whole presupposes the existence of things that are part of it. Bohm also called this the “Undivided Wholeness in Flowing Movement,” that is to say that “this view implies that flow is, in some sense, prior to that of the ‘things’ that can be seen to form and dissolve in this flow.”

In receding now to the partialities and holistics of semiosis, the first thing I am addressing is the notion of “depth” in anime. The second is the processes by which we engage in this depth, that is, our alleged “creation of meaning”. The third is semiosis and hermeneutics as complete functions in and of themselves.

Section 1: Depth

After reading these pieces on depth in anime, there is a recurring motif dealing with depth which bifurcates meaning as simply existing or not existing. Batezi’s piece is the only one that dives into the subjectivity of interpretation, some talk about the difference between intellectual fan service vs. actual depth, and some talk about art vs. entertainment. However, none of these deal with depth as an already-existing thing besides one brief phrase about how “viewers search for meanings in some shows that aren’t there in the first place;” yet this quote is about searching, which presumes the existence of meaning but strives to prove such an existence.

However, my analysis is attempting not to epistemologically solve the issue of the ontological binary of meaning since that in itself presents us with the paradox of our methodology. I am trying to peer into the ontology – the form – of depth; not the epistemology – the content.

What I’m trying to say is that there is this prevailing trend to dismiss meaning as either there or not there in a single location – that there is no holistic process of semiosis and hermeneutics, and that there is no meta-analysis of the context of meaning in which anime is situated. There is an endless depth because anime is just a sub-totality within the wholeness of reality, and in such a relation, anime assumes all the meaning present in reality because essentially, they are one in the same. I’m arguing that depth is always there – not in a superficial Evangelion or Ergo Proxy fashion – but in the reality that is connoted, not the reality that is denoted as its own microcosm: anime metonymically connotes the entirety of reality, but denotes only a small focal portion of it.

You may discover a caveat to this interpretation: universes that do not depict our reality, as in, Gundam and whatnot; but do not be fooled, for the denotation is futuristic, the human relations are not. The very fact that any anime is inherently human in its relationships and mentalities, within an envisioned future or otherwise, will only buttress my argument that it is not the content of the meaning but the form, and that there is one and only one form of knowledge – human knowledge.

Section 2: The “Creation” of Meaning

Now we come upon a common debate: that there is no meaning and that viewers create the meaning, or whatever articulation you fancy. Since I stated in Section 1 that meaning is always there, this will refute (1) that meaning is created since this presumes that (2) there was no meaning to begin with. We are not ever really creating meaning, but rather, we are simply viewing the predominant meaning or extracting a more subtle one. In essence, we are viewing anime through different lenses. This is a good description since it’s widely used around the blogosphere. Another analogy I saw the use of the stencil in this post. Both the “lens” and “stencil” imply that only a portion of meaning is taken out – and this assumes that there is something more, something prior, which is wholeness. In order to use a stencil, you must first have a large wall. In order to have a lens, you must first have a complex body through which you interpret, not in fragments, but in “dimensions” or “flavors”.

This post also brings up how you can analyze anime through lenses (without actually referring to the process), in this case genres. The problem with lenses, stencils, genres and any kind of classificatory system, as I’ve been pointing out this whole time, is that they inherently disregard one thing or another. Comedy or slice of life? Slice of life or comedy? There was a spectrum included that demonstrated how an anime’s genre is not white and black, that there is a gradient. However, the problem with this is that such a gradient is composed of homogenous fragments (genres) and is still planted within the discourse of anime whose fragmentatious nature always divides, cuts up, divides, chops up, until now we have what is seemingly heterogeneity – but it is not, since that very gradient is still paradigmatically homogenous, that is to say, each section going from SoL to comedy is homogenous unto itself. This is what Bohm has argued. In trying to strictly define anime, we make our systems of classification smaller and smaller until we have these fundamental units of analysis that constitute anime. We cannot be fooled by the syntagm of heterogeneity.

Hence, the serendipity of our hermeneutics. We may look for one thing, but end up finding another, both of which (all of which) exist within the same wholeness.

Section 3: The Completeness of Semiosis and Hermeneutics

Semiosis and hermeneutics are processes by which meaning is, in Bohm’s terms, enfolded and unfolded, or through the conduit metaphor, packaged and unpackaged. When meaning is packaged, there is no extra meaning whatsoever. This is the author’s intent. What the author intends, he or she intends, and that’s it. However, what they intend and the final products they create are different. They create those universes that connote infinity. However, their denotation – their intent – is strictly limited. I’m expanding (and obfuscating) these terms in that the author’s intent is both denoted (what is visible) and connoted (what is invisible), while the original connotation is not inserted into the medium, since that is impossible. Culture and wholeness connote denotation. If this is bizarrely confusing read this post about Barthes’ “Photographic Paradox“. This post is called Part 2 for a reason. I also made a fancy diagram.

Second level signification (or second-order in Barthesian terms) is simply when the denotative acquires a connotation due to culture. That is, when a sign elicits an understanding that is cultural, for instance, the intellectual fanservice in Evangelion. Third level signification refers not even to the meaning which the sign itself produces, but the ideology around it and how it is used. This is the metaphysics of the sign: for instance, lolicon being a staple of otakudom.

Basically, this section being the complement of the first, I’m saying that while there is an infinite amount of depth in the external reality that is imaginatively internalized within anime, the semiosis of meaning does not insert that specific depth into the final product because the author’s denotation – his intent and semiosis – cannot also contain a connotation. We cannot possibly uncover an inserted connotation within the physical denotation – that is why we always guess at what the author really meant, and in those rare times when they tell us, they are giving us their own connotation. But we cannot forget that there is a connotation within the denotative anime – that is wholeness. That is the realm in which we analyze, interpret, misinterpret, create meaning, and so forth. This realm of wholeness is not created by the author, yet this does not make it by any means “incorrect”.

Selected Responses

IKnight: I suspect the language of this post is beyond me (especially at 00:15). I’m sure you’ve grasped my own position, that meaning is created whenever the viewer plays the anime, like a musical score; I like it like that because it’s simple, complex semiotics being mostly beyond me whatever time of day it is! I’m struggling to see how there can be any meaning in something before it’s experienced. It might help if I mention that epistemologically I stand somewhere near Berkeley’s immaterialism (which may explain a lot).

One minor thing I suppose I should mention is that I find it hard to see the way genres, lenses &c always disregard things as a problem. I think of it more as essential to the way we experience the world and think (’Forgetting meanings is also part of reading’). But it’s entirely possible that you were going somewhere else with that, so excuse me if this paragraph is a misstep.

Anyhow, great post, though I think it requires some re-re-reading. I suspect I’ll be revisiting it.

Mike: I am also of the opinion that meaning is created. Not all meaning is simply there. I think I would also need to re-read the post, but I strongly disagree that meaning is simply around us. It has to be created, mentioned, or pertained to – otherwise, how can it exist?

Lelangir: Animanachronism/Michael: You both brought up meaning-as-experience. I wasn’t necessarily thinking about meaning in that sense, nor did I even conceive of a possibility of a semantic issue behind “meaning” (sorry!), but rather, meaning-as-depth, or meaning as products of analysis. The “meaning” you’re referring to I would agree with, that you can’t experience anything before it’s experienced. That makes sense. And I’m always up for different experiences that can only be created, however, when we analyze anime, I have used “meaning” to be defined as its “physics” or “mathematics” – its inherent logicalness due to its location within wholeness. That’s why when we hear the phrase “that ‘meaning’ is wrong” I disagree with that – since a “wrong” meaning assumes there is finite meaning. I think we do need to make a distinction between these two definitions, although if I’m wrong this whole thing goes down the drain!

There is that infinite meaning insofar as it is accessible, and in that case, anime is the medium or gateway to accessing that wholeness, since it is imaginatively internalized. Perhaps it would have sufficed here to bring up Benedict Anderson but he doesn’t use imagined communities in the same way so that may have convoluted the essay even more.

Animanachronism: I think that lenses and so forth are inherently problematic because they’re not holistic. This disregarding of other meanings – a fragmented weltanschauung – leads to the belief that they are wrong and that, again, meaning is finite. While it is important to forget some meanings while reading, it does not have to be so through lenses, in that meaning can be manipulated to one’s desire after it is extracted via wholeness. Hypocritically to say the least, I don’t really know how that’s possible – I literally cannot imagine a different mode of interpretation in action – that is something hard to visualize.

Mike: Ah, I see more clearly now. In that case, I would have to agree with you. As products of analysis one can never limit meaning in a container or a placement in either right or wrong, black or white. In that case, I agree, meaning is indeed infinite, because otherwise, saying an interpretation is correct or wrong limits the text – and this is something we do not want.

I would say that while I understand your argument and the gist of your post, like Animanachronism, I was never an expertise in semiotics. Worse, I’ve never read Roland Barthes like you two. Without the references, however, I still ‘get’ (somewhat) the drive of your post.

Baka-raptor: As long as you admit it

Practically, we can’t help but box our analyses into neat little categories. Meaning may be infinite but our brains’ capacities aren’t. We couldn’t function efficiently if we had to analyze everything from scratch. Imagine:

Me: What kind of show is Lucky Star?
Lelangir: It’s everything.
Me: *Spaces out*
Lelangir: *Steals my wallet*

I’ve must admit, this whole Semiosis/Hermeneutics messing with me. My old view was that the author’s intended interpretation is the only correct one, and anything else is BS. I don’t expect to change that view drastically, but maybe, thanks to you, I’ll be less harsh on all those hippies who create extract their own meaning.

IKnight: Ok, I think I see where you were going with this. So there’s a kind of inherent meaning (not as experience) to be found in anime because of its origins in, existence as part of, and role in metonymically connoting (I liked that bit), everything? I suspect my unease really is the product of my immaterialism, then: my idea of ‘everything’ is horribly contingent and doubt-ridden.