March 05, 2009
Geek canon - the books
James brings up a good point in that we're not talking about various sub-geek classifications here; just the traditional "geek". There's anime fans out there who aren't up on the ancient lore of the geek, to be sure. On the other hand, there's also a lot of overlap...
The real problem with identifying canonical geek books is that there really is a variance in how much geeks read. Plenty of geeks come in from the video game end of things and hardly read anything, much less hardcore science fiction. But eh, that's canon for you; it's the list of stuff everyone should be familiar with, not the list that everyone actually is.
The exemplar of the geek canon for books is Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (and the rest of the trilogy, not necessarily So Long and Thanks For All the Fish and absolutely not Mostly Harmless). One of the essential pieces of geek knowledge is that under certain circumstances, six times nine is forty-two.
Lord of the Rings is obviously part of the literary geek canon, though honestly, the movies are surprisingly close and can substitute in a pinch.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say Harry Potter, these days. They may be a bit mainstream, but it's enough part of the conversation that you can expect to see references.
People have been mentioning Snow Crash, by Stephenson. Granted that it is indeed highly geek and quite awesome, and was revolutionary in that it predicted several things which we take more or less for granted back before they were obviously going to happen. I'd say that it's quite high on the list of books that a geek should read and enjoy. At the same time, it's NOT referenced all that often, which is surprising, because the "baddest man in the world" paragraph is outright profound. It's a great gateway drug for Stephenson, whose novels make my inner nerd delirious with joy, but I don't know that I can argue that it's mandatory.
It's easy to say "Clarke and Heinlein", but what, really? 2001? I haven't read that book in 20 years, and never saw the movie. Rama? Nah. Foundation? Doesn't work for me. Starship Troopers, maybe, except you could argue that you might as well read Old Man's War (and you should). Maybe Moon is a Harsh Mistress?
Help me out here.
The real problem with identifying canonical geek books is that there really is a variance in how much geeks read. Plenty of geeks come in from the video game end of things and hardly read anything, much less hardcore science fiction. But eh, that's canon for you; it's the list of stuff everyone should be familiar with, not the list that everyone actually is.
The exemplar of the geek canon for books is Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (and the rest of the trilogy, not necessarily So Long and Thanks For All the Fish and absolutely not Mostly Harmless). One of the essential pieces of geek knowledge is that under certain circumstances, six times nine is forty-two.
Lord of the Rings is obviously part of the literary geek canon, though honestly, the movies are surprisingly close and can substitute in a pinch.
I'm going to go out on a limb and say Harry Potter, these days. They may be a bit mainstream, but it's enough part of the conversation that you can expect to see references.
People have been mentioning Snow Crash, by Stephenson. Granted that it is indeed highly geek and quite awesome, and was revolutionary in that it predicted several things which we take more or less for granted back before they were obviously going to happen. I'd say that it's quite high on the list of books that a geek should read and enjoy. At the same time, it's NOT referenced all that often, which is surprising, because the "baddest man in the world" paragraph is outright profound. It's a great gateway drug for Stephenson, whose novels make my inner nerd delirious with joy, but I don't know that I can argue that it's mandatory.
It's easy to say "Clarke and Heinlein", but what, really? 2001? I haven't read that book in 20 years, and never saw the movie. Rama? Nah. Foundation? Doesn't work for me. Starship Troopers, maybe, except you could argue that you might as well read Old Man's War (and you should). Maybe Moon is a Harsh Mistress?
Help me out here.
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March 03, 2009
The Geek Canon - intro
Taking an idea I related at Wonderduck's site and running with it here.
The concept of a canon is that there is a body of work which the educated should be familiar with, if for no other reason than to facilitate talking with other educated people. The existence of a canon lets me use certain metaphors without fear that I'm throwing my audience for a loop, assuming my audience has also had a classical education. If I say "Is this a dagger I see before me?", people should know I'm quoting Shakespeare, and have some idea of what I'm getting at.
Admitting ignorance of a section of the canon is a bit of a faux pas. "I'm terribly sorry, I've never actually read Hamlet." "Really!" The implication is that it's a gap that you should have already attended to, and really ought to remedy at the first opportunity. It's got a moral imperative of its own. "How can you call yourself a geek without ever having seen/read/heard this?"
One of the commenters in the above thread said "well, these are the things we're constantly making jokes about, the memes". Yes! That's exactly what the canon is. It's familiarity with the memetic strings of geek society, knowing that when someone says "It's just a rabbit!", it is most definitely not just a rabbit.
Let's leave the topic of an anime canon to another day - I don't know that there is any such thing, honestly. I'll leave books to another post, too, because that's a topic that needs some meta-analysis. But what about films and TV? What should the modern geek be familiar with?
The concept of a canon is that there is a body of work which the educated should be familiar with, if for no other reason than to facilitate talking with other educated people. The existence of a canon lets me use certain metaphors without fear that I'm throwing my audience for a loop, assuming my audience has also had a classical education. If I say "Is this a dagger I see before me?", people should know I'm quoting Shakespeare, and have some idea of what I'm getting at.
Admitting ignorance of a section of the canon is a bit of a faux pas. "I'm terribly sorry, I've never actually read Hamlet." "Really!" The implication is that it's a gap that you should have already attended to, and really ought to remedy at the first opportunity. It's got a moral imperative of its own. "How can you call yourself a geek without ever having seen/read/heard this?"
One of the commenters in the above thread said "well, these are the things we're constantly making jokes about, the memes". Yes! That's exactly what the canon is. It's familiarity with the memetic strings of geek society, knowing that when someone says "It's just a rabbit!", it is most definitely not just a rabbit.
Let's leave the topic of an anime canon to another day - I don't know that there is any such thing, honestly. I'll leave books to another post, too, because that's a topic that needs some meta-analysis. But what about films and TV? What should the modern geek be familiar with?
- Monty Python's Quest for the Holy Grail. The quintessential geek film. The alpha and omega of this discussion.
- Star Wars. Spaceballs too.
- Star Trek. Not necessarily all of them, or even most of them, but at some point, you should have seen some of it. You need to know who James T. Kirk is and why speaking - in - pauses is his thing. You need to know "He's dead, Jim." You need to have seen at least a little TNG.
- Someone suggested Aliens. I don't know if it's quite widespread enough to be canonical - certainly none of the other movies in the series would be. Might be just "damned good".
- I'm also hesitant to suggest Buffy. Too goth for true geek canon. Firefly, too new and not nearly enough people have seen it.
- Princess Bride, at least to recognize Inigo Montoya jokes and "Inconceivable!"
- Something with Bruce Campbell in it. Doesn't matter what, though Army of Darkness seems to be the lowest common denominator.
- Matrix, first movie only. The other ones don't exist. ;p
- Wonderduck suggests Blade Runner, though, y'know... I've never seen it.
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March 02, 2009
Persona 3, the downside
The game's not all happiness and joy, unfortunately. There's a couple of things which rise to the level of spiking-the-controller frustration...
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And on that note, Persona 3
I'm having a tremendous amount of fun with this game, which is unusual for a random-dungeon crawl; those have to compete against Nethack and NOTHING will ever win that comparison.
And, to be blunt, if the dungeon crawl was all that P3 was offering, I'd have quit by now. As usual, random dungeons aren't actually that interesting - you wander a little deeper, you kill some easy enemies, every so often you run into something you can't handle because you've been lulled half to sleep and it whomps you, at which point you discover you haven't saved it for 20 floors. Joyous, right?
P3's real shine is that the dungeon crawling is mostly secondary to a highly-abstracted Japanese school life. Your main character has to save the world with the help of his friends yadda yadda, sure. But he's also got to attend school six days a week, and since all the dungeon-adventuring takes place in a magical "dark hour" in between midnight and midnight, sometimes you've got to back off the studying marathon because being fatigued will get you killed on your next dungeon romp.
more...
And, to be blunt, if the dungeon crawl was all that P3 was offering, I'd have quit by now. As usual, random dungeons aren't actually that interesting - you wander a little deeper, you kill some easy enemies, every so often you run into something you can't handle because you've been lulled half to sleep and it whomps you, at which point you discover you haven't saved it for 20 floors. Joyous, right?
P3's real shine is that the dungeon crawling is mostly secondary to a highly-abstracted Japanese school life. Your main character has to save the world with the help of his friends yadda yadda, sure. But he's also got to attend school six days a week, and since all the dungeon-adventuring takes place in a magical "dark hour" in between midnight and midnight, sometimes you've got to back off the studying marathon because being fatigued will get you killed on your next dungeon romp.
more...
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March 01, 2009
On the nature of blogging
Saw a couple of comments on Steven's blog relating to advice and had a couple of thoughts as to the nature of blog posts in general. Steven, this isn't implied criticism, just something that crystallized a couple thoughts I'd been having about why I don't actually post that often.
Steven's been posting a series of posts related to his attempts to add a little spice to his quesadillas, which are apparently his bachelor staple food (good choice!), without causing his mouth to catch fire. One of the problems related to these posts is that they tend to draw a lot of "have you tried x?" comments, and Steven hates unsolicited recommendations.
I would too, in his shoes. It only takes a few e-mails recommending that you watch shows that you know are terrible before you figure out that very few people share your exact tastes. Steven likes Gravion a lot; I think the writers weren't in on the joke. We both loved Nanoha but apparently it sapped Pete's will to live. And we've got a lot of similar tastes; it's a lot worse when you get recommendations from people and your only response is "yes, well, now I can't listen to anything that you say because you just opined that One Piece was the finest anime masterpiece ever."
But some posts work a bit differently. We can talk about Saito's lack of curiosity and the writers' straitjacket making Familiar of Zero a lousy show without saying "hey, this other show is more your thing". But how do we comment on hot sauce along those lines? Inevitably there's going to be some "yeah, this brand is good, but the other brand is better". Or more to the point, if you're not interested in a conversation about hot sauce, that kind of blog post devolves quite quickly into a journal listing what you ate that day.
I toss a lot of post ideas because, frankly, they're "what did I eat today?" posts. I can talk about how I'm cautiously optimistic about how my new boss is going to work out, or how I got cheap tickets for Hawaii this summer to see my kid brother get married, but is that stuff other people would be genuinely interested in?
(At the same time, I don't do a lot of "grr, here are serious policy prescriptions" posts for the opposite reason. My logic's fine, but there are things not best discussed on a blog that's mostly dedicated to anime with the occasional video game thrown in. That's what other people's blogs are for, heh.)
I don't know. Maybe I should post more generic "here's what I'm thinking" posts, after all. I can always stop if I'm just that boring...
Steven's been posting a series of posts related to his attempts to add a little spice to his quesadillas, which are apparently his bachelor staple food (good choice!), without causing his mouth to catch fire. One of the problems related to these posts is that they tend to draw a lot of "have you tried x?" comments, and Steven hates unsolicited recommendations.
I would too, in his shoes. It only takes a few e-mails recommending that you watch shows that you know are terrible before you figure out that very few people share your exact tastes. Steven likes Gravion a lot; I think the writers weren't in on the joke. We both loved Nanoha but apparently it sapped Pete's will to live. And we've got a lot of similar tastes; it's a lot worse when you get recommendations from people and your only response is "yes, well, now I can't listen to anything that you say because you just opined that One Piece was the finest anime masterpiece ever."
But some posts work a bit differently. We can talk about Saito's lack of curiosity and the writers' straitjacket making Familiar of Zero a lousy show without saying "hey, this other show is more your thing". But how do we comment on hot sauce along those lines? Inevitably there's going to be some "yeah, this brand is good, but the other brand is better". Or more to the point, if you're not interested in a conversation about hot sauce, that kind of blog post devolves quite quickly into a journal listing what you ate that day.
I toss a lot of post ideas because, frankly, they're "what did I eat today?" posts. I can talk about how I'm cautiously optimistic about how my new boss is going to work out, or how I got cheap tickets for Hawaii this summer to see my kid brother get married, but is that stuff other people would be genuinely interested in?
(At the same time, I don't do a lot of "grr, here are serious policy prescriptions" posts for the opposite reason. My logic's fine, but there are things not best discussed on a blog that's mostly dedicated to anime with the occasional video game thrown in. That's what other people's blogs are for, heh.)
I don't know. Maybe I should post more generic "here's what I'm thinking" posts, after all. I can always stop if I'm just that boring...
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February 15, 2009
Valkyria ends
Finished off Valkyria Chronicles. Enjoyable for the most part. One or two "aargh" moments, usually related somehow to a rocket launcher-equipped soldier spawning directly behind my tank (i.e. the bit with the big shining blue radiator that he can then kill in one hit, ending the mission...) I'm not about to complain about the radiator mechanic - goodness knows I have aimed enough anti-tank lances into them myself. But it's disheartening to play a turn-based strategy game and have the other side win in a single turn because you didn't anticipate that THERE was where the enemies would pop up from.
On the other hand, they did a great job characterizing your grunts without making them so much of a part of the story that the game can't afford to kill any of them. It helps a lot that the story allows for a quirky crew (you're a militia unit, so you've got a couple of 14-year-olds, at least one old lady, and pretty much everything else in between, including at least two flaming homosexuals and a fangirl.)
The game invents an ethnic group called the Darcsens (essentially the Jews in this fantasy WWII, down to the camps and persecution). I wonder what it says about me that I used them for about half my squad on the first play-through? Probably that I'm a little lazy...
Characters in Valkyria have a set of "potentials", which will activate under certain conditions and give them this bonus or that penalty. Some characters are happier in the countryside, some are better in the city, some are happier around the opposite sex, some prefer to be alone, and all of them have a few friends who they'd rather be working with. This makes putting a squad together something of a challenge. It's not game-ending or anything if you get a group of incompatible fighters together, but every little bit helps.
Darcsens tend to have "good" potentials rather than ones with penalties (and none of the really bad ones, like "oh I forgot my ammo"!) They also tend to have potentials that say "works well with other Darcsens". They all like your tank, because it's being driven by your adopted-little-sister Darcsen. And it's easy to screen out the rest of your squad members for "hates Darcsens", especially because a lot of those characters will have additional "bad" potentials.
I was happy with the game overall. Very unusual graphics done well, very realistically-styled but with the sketch element to keep it out of the uncanny valley. Solid gameplay - feels like it's a straight-up turn-based game, but the real-time control within each character's turn is an interesting change (though with an aiming mechanic that pauses the action so that you don't miss shots because you're rushed... which is good because it's pretty fiddly otherwise.)
Now to decide on what to start playing next... I never did open up GTA4, and I still have Persona 3 here. Or is there something else new-and-good out for the PS3?
On the other hand, they did a great job characterizing your grunts without making them so much of a part of the story that the game can't afford to kill any of them. It helps a lot that the story allows for a quirky crew (you're a militia unit, so you've got a couple of 14-year-olds, at least one old lady, and pretty much everything else in between, including at least two flaming homosexuals and a fangirl.)
The game invents an ethnic group called the Darcsens (essentially the Jews in this fantasy WWII, down to the camps and persecution). I wonder what it says about me that I used them for about half my squad on the first play-through? Probably that I'm a little lazy...
Characters in Valkyria have a set of "potentials", which will activate under certain conditions and give them this bonus or that penalty. Some characters are happier in the countryside, some are better in the city, some are happier around the opposite sex, some prefer to be alone, and all of them have a few friends who they'd rather be working with. This makes putting a squad together something of a challenge. It's not game-ending or anything if you get a group of incompatible fighters together, but every little bit helps.
Darcsens tend to have "good" potentials rather than ones with penalties (and none of the really bad ones, like "oh I forgot my ammo"!) They also tend to have potentials that say "works well with other Darcsens". They all like your tank, because it's being driven by your adopted-little-sister Darcsen. And it's easy to screen out the rest of your squad members for "hates Darcsens", especially because a lot of those characters will have additional "bad" potentials.
I was happy with the game overall. Very unusual graphics done well, very realistically-styled but with the sketch element to keep it out of the uncanny valley. Solid gameplay - feels like it's a straight-up turn-based game, but the real-time control within each character's turn is an interesting change (though with an aiming mechanic that pauses the action so that you don't miss shots because you're rushed... which is good because it's pretty fiddly otherwise.)
Now to decide on what to start playing next... I never did open up GTA4, and I still have Persona 3 here. Or is there something else new-and-good out for the PS3?
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February 12, 2009
All quiet on the southern front
No, not really. But I can't really talk about what I'm working on (and even if I did, nobody's heard of it anyway!)
I'm thinking that taking up programming would be an excellent thing to do at this point. I spend a lot of my day job working with large text files full of information that has to be organized this way and that repeatedly, then I come home and do the same thing to somewhat-simpler anime scripts. My current DVD subtitling project path looks like Rube Goldberg invented it, so if I could come up with a way to chop parts of it out, I'd benefit with a lot of time saved.
Of course, that would get in the way of going for the Exalted title in WOW. (A more rational way to put that would be "it might save me from trying to...")
I'm thinking that taking up programming would be an excellent thing to do at this point. I spend a lot of my day job working with large text files full of information that has to be organized this way and that repeatedly, then I come home and do the same thing to somewhat-simpler anime scripts. My current DVD subtitling project path looks like Rube Goldberg invented it, so if I could come up with a way to chop parts of it out, I'd benefit with a lot of time saved.
Of course, that would get in the way of going for the Exalted title in WOW. (A more rational way to put that would be "it might save me from trying to...")
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February 05, 2009
Late night at the office
And not a whole heck of a lot going on. Babysitting processes running on nine different computers and taking notes where they fail. The day job isn't a thrill a minute, exactly, but hey, it's work.
Taking it slow on watching new anime, at the moment. About the only thing I'm up on is Toradora, and that's more because I like the male lead than the tsundere loli. Got a good-sized backlog to work through... one more disc of Haruhi, FSN box, Gundam Zeta, and I haven't actually watched my work on Zero or Nanoha yet... Could take me a while.
Had a good weekend, though. Went out to dinner with two good-looking women, went back to my place, and proceeded to... assemble a jigsaw puzzle. Man, what a wild, madcap life I lead...
Taking it slow on watching new anime, at the moment. About the only thing I'm up on is Toradora, and that's more because I like the male lead than the tsundere loli. Got a good-sized backlog to work through... one more disc of Haruhi, FSN box, Gundam Zeta, and I haven't actually watched my work on Zero or Nanoha yet... Could take me a while.
Had a good weekend, though. Went out to dinner with two good-looking women, went back to my place, and proceeded to... assemble a jigsaw puzzle. Man, what a wild, madcap life I lead...
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January 29, 2009
You too can help subtitle Lucky Star!
Working on the weapon references contained in Tencho's "Ultimate Weapons! Rock Bottom Price Death" shop. Here's what we've puzzled out so far - if you think you know something that's being referred to, comment and I'll get it in the subs. List below the fold.
Update: The weapons were pretty easy - looks like the company went in and corrected a bunch before I even got to them. Great job, guys. Anything for the armor?
more...
Update: The weapons were pretty easy - looks like the company went in and corrected a bunch before I even got to them. Great job, guys. Anything for the armor?
more...
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January 27, 2009
...they keep pulling me back in
Just when you thought Lucky Star was dead... they made more...
The OVA shouldn't be too difficult, excepting the MMO segments; it's going to be interesting to see what I can do about all the captions flying around there.
Got all the figures sorted out, with the assistance of this:
The OVA shouldn't be too difficult, excepting the MMO segments; it's going to be interesting to see what I can do about all the captions flying around there.
Got all the figures sorted out, with the assistance of this:
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January 21, 2009
Signum, sanjo
Went to work for a couple of hours today and gave it up as a loss - was there until 3 AM yesterday and the late night Burger King counterattacked with many divisions. Not my best day. On my way in to the office, though, I finally picked up my package from the post office... the Alter Signum figure I was talking about earlier this week.
Pics below the fold.
more...
Pics below the fold.
more...
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January 19, 2009
Remind me not to buy a gun in DC!
Saw this through Instapundit. Comments:
-If you're between 18 and 21, you have to have your parents' permission. How does that work exactly? In pretty much every other respect, when you turn 18, that's the time where you no longer need your parents' permission and are considered an adult.
-It's not possible to get a firearm permit in DC unless you're a resident there. If you commute into town, you're out of luck.
-You're only permitted to have the gun at home and when traveling directly to or from a lawful place to use the gun, and in the latter case it has to be unloaded and locked away.
-You're not allowed to own ammunition for a gun unless you have a license for a gun that can shoot that ammunition, unless you're a dealer.
-You're legally responsible for having the certificate of gun registration on you at all times when transporting the gun. (This could be minor if it's conveniently credit-card sized or a major pain in the butt "papers please", and I don't know which.)
-You can't get a license unless you've had a classroom instruction and range course from one of maybe forty or fifty "certified instructors" in DC. There's a provision for accepting other certification, but since it's not "shall issue", good luck getting it.
-No renting guns from a range. Guess you'd better travel to Virginia to try out a new gun. You're not permitted to loan someone a gun either.
-The list of banned guns includes everything from the old "assault weapon" list, any pistol that isn't certified for sale in California, and is subject to change at any time - oh, they retain the right to change their mind about gun eligibility, and if they do change their mind, they will come take your gun or force you to dispose of it. And any .50 cal is banned as well. Sigh...
You know, when I was at the Republican state convention in '92, the Black Panthers had planned a protest march. At some point it occurred to someone that they had every right to march around with rifles in their hands, so long as the rifles weren't actually loaded at the time; and so the protest march occurred with many of the protesters carrying weapons (presumably unloaded).
I stepped outside to watch and thought to myself, "Man, I'm less than five hundred feet away from hundreds of angry black men with guns, and I'm completely safe. I love this country!" I guess it never occurred to me to think "I love this state!" instead, but there you have it. It is good to be a Texan.
I've always thought that the key to gun safety was merely responsible ownership of weapons, and nothing that I've seen since has lead me to believe otherwise. I guess they don't agree in some jurisdictions. I wonder how many of those regulations are going to have to be held unconstitutional before DC decides to knock it off...
-If you're between 18 and 21, you have to have your parents' permission. How does that work exactly? In pretty much every other respect, when you turn 18, that's the time where you no longer need your parents' permission and are considered an adult.
-It's not possible to get a firearm permit in DC unless you're a resident there. If you commute into town, you're out of luck.
-You're only permitted to have the gun at home and when traveling directly to or from a lawful place to use the gun, and in the latter case it has to be unloaded and locked away.
-You're not allowed to own ammunition for a gun unless you have a license for a gun that can shoot that ammunition, unless you're a dealer.
-You're legally responsible for having the certificate of gun registration on you at all times when transporting the gun. (This could be minor if it's conveniently credit-card sized or a major pain in the butt "papers please", and I don't know which.)
-You can't get a license unless you've had a classroom instruction and range course from one of maybe forty or fifty "certified instructors" in DC. There's a provision for accepting other certification, but since it's not "shall issue", good luck getting it.
-No renting guns from a range. Guess you'd better travel to Virginia to try out a new gun. You're not permitted to loan someone a gun either.
-The list of banned guns includes everything from the old "assault weapon" list, any pistol that isn't certified for sale in California, and is subject to change at any time - oh, they retain the right to change their mind about gun eligibility, and if they do change their mind, they will come take your gun or force you to dispose of it. And any .50 cal is banned as well. Sigh...
You know, when I was at the Republican state convention in '92, the Black Panthers had planned a protest march. At some point it occurred to someone that they had every right to march around with rifles in their hands, so long as the rifles weren't actually loaded at the time; and so the protest march occurred with many of the protesters carrying weapons (presumably unloaded).
I stepped outside to watch and thought to myself, "Man, I'm less than five hundred feet away from hundreds of angry black men with guns, and I'm completely safe. I love this country!" I guess it never occurred to me to think "I love this state!" instead, but there you have it. It is good to be a Texan.
I've always thought that the key to gun safety was merely responsible ownership of weapons, and nothing that I've seen since has lead me to believe otherwise. I guess they don't agree in some jurisdictions. I wonder how many of those regulations are going to have to be held unconstitutional before DC decides to knock it off...
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Curse you, Martin Luther King Jr.
Went to the post office to pick up my Signum figure... whoops, federal holiday. D'oh...
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January 18, 2009
Fandom diverging from the mainstream? Well... yeah
Commenting on a post by Author.
First, wasn't that quote originally about Nixon?
As to the rest of it, that's not really any surprise. The Japanese market's had this effect going for several years now, if you think about it.
Who buys DVDs in Japan? The otaku, and that's more or less it. They're way too expensive for casual fans, and said casual fans probably saw the show when it was on the air anyway. (Japan has not discovered the glory of the discounted season box set, heh.) The creators of an anime series aren't worried directly about ratings - if they can sell it to the TV station, they get paid for that part, whether it gets great ratings or not - but the amount of money they make on the show is directly influenced by how well it sells on DVD.
So how do you get more otaku to buy your DVDs? Sometimes it's "you make a really great show," right, KyoAni? But the other answer is "you make it appeal to otaku more." And this is generally done by loading it up with moe, moe, moe, or else aiming it at a particular group of fans (or several of 'em). People like flat-chested heroines? Put one in! People like male leads who aren't actually homosexual but have ambiguously close relationships that can be easily misconstrued? We'll take two! Girls with glasses? One "Miyuki" to go, please. Maids? Put in a dozen. Hell, put in a hundred!
Taken to the logical extreme, you get Gravion. (Or Eiken...) These shows aren't necessarily "bad", just focused on fanboys like a laser. "This is a really good story" is definitely in second place to "I won't buy anything unless it's got cute maids!" And in the meantime, you get things which are repulsive to the general public; as an anime fan, I'm prepared to write off lots of big-busted maids everywhere if the show's good, but there's plenty of people who'd find the idea offensive.
Heck, take Nanoha as an example. Great show. But it's loli, and I mean seriously loli, in ways that make even a calloused and hardened soul like mine uncomfortable. (Actually, it's kinda comforting - proof Japan has not turned me into a lolicon! Heh.) I couldn't show Nanoha to a normal person in a million years - not only would they be kind of horrified, but they'd probably be really worried about me afterwards. And that's an example of a good show that didn't need the lolita elements, strictly speaking! Well... but if it hadn't had them, would anyone have bought it in the first place?
The otaku market is fundamentally different from the "normal" market because of things like that. It's no longer just whether the show is any good or not. It's whether the pandering that's in the show rises to the level that normal people are turned off by it before they get a chance to enjoy the good parts of the show.
So it's not really a wonder that Afro Samurai outsold Haruhi 2 to 1. I mean, yeesh, the one show is full of high school girls casually molesting each other in front of boys, and the other has Samuel L. Jackson having lots of fun in two roles. (Yeah, a buddy brought Afro Samurai to work, and I enjoyed it, even if I didn't go out and buy it. It's stupid fun, but it's fun.) I mean, if you look at it the other way, it's probably the worst-selling thing that Jackson has ever been in, by a long way.
First, wasn't that quote originally about Nixon?
As to the rest of it, that's not really any surprise. The Japanese market's had this effect going for several years now, if you think about it.
Who buys DVDs in Japan? The otaku, and that's more or less it. They're way too expensive for casual fans, and said casual fans probably saw the show when it was on the air anyway. (Japan has not discovered the glory of the discounted season box set, heh.) The creators of an anime series aren't worried directly about ratings - if they can sell it to the TV station, they get paid for that part, whether it gets great ratings or not - but the amount of money they make on the show is directly influenced by how well it sells on DVD.
So how do you get more otaku to buy your DVDs? Sometimes it's "you make a really great show," right, KyoAni? But the other answer is "you make it appeal to otaku more." And this is generally done by loading it up with moe, moe, moe, or else aiming it at a particular group of fans (or several of 'em). People like flat-chested heroines? Put one in! People like male leads who aren't actually homosexual but have ambiguously close relationships that can be easily misconstrued? We'll take two! Girls with glasses? One "Miyuki" to go, please. Maids? Put in a dozen. Hell, put in a hundred!
Taken to the logical extreme, you get Gravion. (Or Eiken...) These shows aren't necessarily "bad", just focused on fanboys like a laser. "This is a really good story" is definitely in second place to "I won't buy anything unless it's got cute maids!" And in the meantime, you get things which are repulsive to the general public; as an anime fan, I'm prepared to write off lots of big-busted maids everywhere if the show's good, but there's plenty of people who'd find the idea offensive.
Heck, take Nanoha as an example. Great show. But it's loli, and I mean seriously loli, in ways that make even a calloused and hardened soul like mine uncomfortable. (Actually, it's kinda comforting - proof Japan has not turned me into a lolicon! Heh.) I couldn't show Nanoha to a normal person in a million years - not only would they be kind of horrified, but they'd probably be really worried about me afterwards. And that's an example of a good show that didn't need the lolita elements, strictly speaking! Well... but if it hadn't had them, would anyone have bought it in the first place?
The otaku market is fundamentally different from the "normal" market because of things like that. It's no longer just whether the show is any good or not. It's whether the pandering that's in the show rises to the level that normal people are turned off by it before they get a chance to enjoy the good parts of the show.
So it's not really a wonder that Afro Samurai outsold Haruhi 2 to 1. I mean, yeesh, the one show is full of high school girls casually molesting each other in front of boys, and the other has Samuel L. Jackson having lots of fun in two roles. (Yeah, a buddy brought Afro Samurai to work, and I enjoyed it, even if I didn't go out and buy it. It's stupid fun, but it's fun.) I mean, if you look at it the other way, it's probably the worst-selling thing that Jackson has ever been in, by a long way.
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January 17, 2009
A philosophical conundrum
Well, Steven watched Nanoha, and liked it a lot, which is good. In passing, though, he points out a line that I wasn't particularly wild with myself.
This can be a serious problem when you're working with a translator who's not 100% coherent at all times. Every so often you get a translation of a technical term that's not quiiite "mass naked child events" bad, but still pretty obviously weird. How do you treat those? My conversational Japanese isn't terrible, but I'm not literate and can't even look up technical stuff, much less understand it myself.
I could just assume that I know what it's saying and rewrite the line, but that's always dangerous - it's always possible that I'm not understanding, or that the line's just weird to begin with (this does happen). In an ideal world I can get a more-competent translator to examine the line and take a guess at what it is, but that's difficult with no script and complicated or technical Japanese (especially in cases where it's technobabble!)
So do you second-guess the professional of moderate competence? Sometimes you've gotta; sometimes you had better not. Wish there was a hard and fast rule, or failing that, that I could divert work from crummy translators to good ones...
This can be a serious problem when you're working with a translator who's not 100% coherent at all times. Every so often you get a translation of a technical term that's not quiiite "mass naked child events" bad, but still pretty obviously weird. How do you treat those? My conversational Japanese isn't terrible, but I'm not literate and can't even look up technical stuff, much less understand it myself.
I could just assume that I know what it's saying and rewrite the line, but that's always dangerous - it's always possible that I'm not understanding, or that the line's just weird to begin with (this does happen). In an ideal world I can get a more-competent translator to examine the line and take a guess at what it is, but that's difficult with no script and complicated or technical Japanese (especially in cases where it's technobabble!)
So do you second-guess the professional of moderate competence? Sometimes you've gotta; sometimes you had better not. Wish there was a hard and fast rule, or failing that, that I could divert work from crummy translators to good ones...
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January 14, 2009
I know the drill
Dentist put a couple of fillings in Monday, from which I'm mostly recovered. The cleaning was probably more painful. I resisted the temptation to bring an anime DVD up to watch (this dentist is equipped with goggles for such things), mostly because I didn't want to accidentally bust a gut laughing while the dentist was busy dremeling a hole in my molar.
Fired off the final DVD subtitles for the Ghost Slayers Ayashi project last night. This means I'm temporarily a subtitler without portfolio. On the other hand, I could use the time off to catch up on gaming and work on my jigsaw puzzle. Then again, my wallet, while not empty, will not remain full if I don't keep stuffing it. Here's hoping more work comes soon.
Played another couple of chapters of Valkyria and got a little bummed out. Cheap sniper-generated angst, boo.
What I really need to do is catch up on the DVD backlog. I still haven't watched Zero or Nanoha to see how they came out, much less the rest of the pile. Playing too much WOW, I guess. Disadvantage of having the big-screen TV in a different room from the computer.
Fired off the final DVD subtitles for the Ghost Slayers Ayashi project last night. This means I'm temporarily a subtitler without portfolio. On the other hand, I could use the time off to catch up on gaming and work on my jigsaw puzzle. Then again, my wallet, while not empty, will not remain full if I don't keep stuffing it. Here's hoping more work comes soon.
Played another couple of chapters of Valkyria and got a little bummed out. Cheap sniper-generated angst, boo.
What I really need to do is catch up on the DVD backlog. I still haven't watched Zero or Nanoha to see how they came out, much less the rest of the pile. Playing too much WOW, I guess. Disadvantage of having the big-screen TV in a different room from the computer.
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January 11, 2009
Thin posting
Been a bit cranky lately. Got a wisdom tooth coming in, and lemme tell ya, teething isn't any fun at all, even if you're 30. ;p
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December 27, 2008
Christmas passed
Good Christmas with the family this year. My youngest brother and I got matching cameras (expect some photos of the office when I get back). Also picked up a rice cooker, which I'm seriously looking forward to getting some use out of. Most of the rest was clothing... you know you're getting old when you're happy to get socks and underwear -because they were on your list-.
Also have Fallout 3 en route - the other brother bought it for me and then forgot to bring it to Houston. D'oh.
I've been taking advantage of the absence of Lucky Star work and the away-from-the-computer time to play some Valkyria Chronicles. Definitely a fun game for the PS3! It's a semi-fantasy WW2-era altverse, no flying machines, lots of stuff powered by "ragnite" (useful mostly to explain how the tanks have vulnerable radiators at the back, why all your troopers have a healing item, etc.) Some fantasy elements, winged pigs, all that jazz. Your nation is plainly intended to be the Netherlands (there are windmills everywhere, in case the other metaphors don't clue you in.)
Interesting mix of turn-based and real-time, in that your units take turns, are vulnerable to enemy counter-fire while moving, but the aiming pauses the action, so you don't ever miss because you were under pressure from incoming fire. (You do, however, miss because the character just plumb missed - you get an accuracy cone and some of them just aren't that good at shooting to start off.) One nice feature is that you get "command points" to order each unit's turn with, and you can order a unit to take multiple actions in the same turn, so if you've got one gunman behind the enemy advance, they can go to town, for example.
A very odd cast of characters. Your lieutenant main character is a naturalist, your sergeant is a moe baker, your most experienced veteran has a vegetable mania, and various of your troops like their friends in the squad, or hate individuals, classes, the straight-dark-hair phenotype which is the game's Jew-equivalent, or indeed all other people. I've brought units on missions and then had them underperform because they had an allergy, or because they're country folk and not comfortable in urban combat. For all that, though, I've only had one KIA; the game's pretty generous about giving you a big window to get someone to a fallen comrade for med-evac, and the only one I lost got stampeded by the stern girl from the game's cover and her mystic spiral lance of utterly blowing my forces away in one shot.
Check out the demo if you have a PS3 and like that sort of thing. The graphics have a fun kind of aesthetic that's easy to appreciate.
Also have Fallout 3 en route - the other brother bought it for me and then forgot to bring it to Houston. D'oh.
I've been taking advantage of the absence of Lucky Star work and the away-from-the-computer time to play some Valkyria Chronicles. Definitely a fun game for the PS3! It's a semi-fantasy WW2-era altverse, no flying machines, lots of stuff powered by "ragnite" (useful mostly to explain how the tanks have vulnerable radiators at the back, why all your troopers have a healing item, etc.) Some fantasy elements, winged pigs, all that jazz. Your nation is plainly intended to be the Netherlands (there are windmills everywhere, in case the other metaphors don't clue you in.)
Interesting mix of turn-based and real-time, in that your units take turns, are vulnerable to enemy counter-fire while moving, but the aiming pauses the action, so you don't ever miss because you were under pressure from incoming fire. (You do, however, miss because the character just plumb missed - you get an accuracy cone and some of them just aren't that good at shooting to start off.) One nice feature is that you get "command points" to order each unit's turn with, and you can order a unit to take multiple actions in the same turn, so if you've got one gunman behind the enemy advance, they can go to town, for example.
A very odd cast of characters. Your lieutenant main character is a naturalist, your sergeant is a moe baker, your most experienced veteran has a vegetable mania, and various of your troops like their friends in the squad, or hate individuals, classes, the straight-dark-hair phenotype which is the game's Jew-equivalent, or indeed all other people. I've brought units on missions and then had them underperform because they had an allergy, or because they're country folk and not comfortable in urban combat. For all that, though, I've only had one KIA; the game's pretty generous about giving you a big window to get someone to a fallen comrade for med-evac, and the only one I lost got stampeded by the stern girl from the game's cover and her mystic spiral lance of utterly blowing my forces away in one shot.
Check out the demo if you have a PS3 and like that sort of thing. The graphics have a fun kind of aesthetic that's easy to appreciate.
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December 23, 2008
Slightly less cryptic
Well, Lucky Star is complete, so my subtitling is going to be a bit slower for a while. I've got about one more day of work on Ayashi before it's done too, and then it's sitting around working on the game backlog...
Driving to Houston today, Christmas with the folks.
Driving to Houston today, Christmas with the folks.
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December 22, 2008
DONE
They're done! It's done! Finally! Totally! Nothing left to do! (but get the paychecks...)
It's 7 AM here, it's 20 degrees outside, I'm going to get some sleep.
But it's done!
It's 7 AM here, it's 20 degrees outside, I'm going to get some sleep.
But it's done!
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