Just walk away from the screen

Compared to gaming, the western weeb community seems fairly drama free. Of course there are all the con and cosplay associated dramas, you’re waifu will always be a shit, and seiyuu will sleep around from time to time, but there’s really nothing that even approaches the shitfest that gaming has been embroiled in over the last few months. I’d wager the percentage of the broader gaming community that even gives a fuck about the whole gamergate mess is pretty low, but boy are they vocal about it. I haven’t personally done a lot of research into the whole affair, but the main figureheads of the SJW side seem pretty non-credible.

But whatever. You either don’t care, or have already read into it yourself. The reason I bring it up is because of this piece of hilarity, which is currently making the rounds on the internet:

If you haven’t seen it, it’s definitely worth a watch. The sheer amount of outdated “gamer” lingo, the parallels to ISIS, and the allusion to the horrible website Redchanit, it’s all pretty impressive. I can only think of the possibilities if weeb culture was prominent and controversial enough for Law and Order to devote an episode to exposing evil NEETs – maybe a young American girl would be an aspiring manga artist but gets accosted at a con by a bunch of directionless paedophiles in Kigs.

“What did they do to you?”

“I-it was a Touhou hijack!”

“The bastards. They’re probably trying to send her to Gensokyo”

I don’t know how it would end, but the bad guys would end up being little girls, and Ice-T would somehow reveal he's actually a big Babymetal fan.

Unrelated: if anyone has opinions on Hyperdimenion Neptunia I’d like to hear them. I was thinking of buying it now it’s out on PC. A friend who loves shitty JRPGs recommended it, but after looking at a few reviews I’m leaning towards not getting it.

Maybe I should support the famously high-quality OELVN scene instead!

Life

It's been a while. A few days shy of a year actually. A lot has happened over the last year or so, though I'm not sure how much of it would be interesting to anyone that isn't me. The biggest change would be me finishing study and starting work. It's not nearly as bad as I thought it might be. The days are long, the weeks are long, and I have often been switching from day to evening to night shifts, but it's nice to have an income after however many years living off welfare, and the work is certainly never boring. 10 hour shifts sound bad on paper but when they end up feeling like 6 hours they aren't so tough, especially when the people I see seem (mostly) genuinely grateful for my help.

The downside is that I need to reapply for my job every year since it's all done on one year contracts. And to have any certainty of getting the job you're expected to do lots of extra work at home, but all I want to do is take it easy and play video games. So far, video games are winning. If I'm unemployed again next year you can be sure they're to blame.

The other thing is that I have less time for everything else. In some ways it's not such a downside - I can't watch as many shows per season, but I watched so much shit anyway that cutting down is doing myself a favour. Though I still got 5 episodes into Wizard Barristers before dropping it, so clearly my taste still needs to be further refined (how the hell do you fuck up a show about wizard barristers? Yet they did, so so badly.)  I'm still watching a few things: Mushishi, JoJo and Ping Pong so far this season, and maybe Sidonia, NGNL, Nanana or Isshukan depending on general internet feedback once they've had a few episodes aired. If you haven't watched Mushishi then you really should. The new season has prompted me to try and clear Kino no Tabi from my backlog. I wish I'd done that ages ago, it's pretty great. Especially just watching an episode or two before bed at night.

I also made it to C85 at the end of last year. I didn't get everything I wanted but got a good stack of artbooks nonetheless. Having been a few times now, I can confidently say that although the experience of browsing the stalls themselves is amazing, practically you could get most of what you want from a good long trip to the stores in Akiba afterwards. Of course, doing both is the best option. The obligatory /jp/ meetup was pretty amusing. A large group of /a/ people also turned up and I know I sound elitist or whatever but there was a pretty noticeable difference between the groups. There were no hostilities or anything, the /a/ kids couldn't handle their alcohol very well so we managed to break off easily after dinner for karaoke and a new year's shrine visit. I'd like to go again but I doubt I'll be able to with work.

In the nearer future, I was hoping to travel to northern USA/Canada in the middle of the year. I was excited to learn that I had holidays over the time that The International was going to be on in Seattle, and then tickets sold out pretty much straight away. They're being resold on eBay for $500+, and there's no way I'm paying that much to watch some nerds right-click on each other all day.

The Garden of Words

I have finally returned from my four month training arc, equipped with the new powers I need to defeat my arch-nemesis Laziness. Well, I'd better not make any bold claims on that one given my track record.

As you may or may not be aware, Makoto Shinkai has a new film, The Garden of Words, coming out in Japan shortly. For some bizarre reason people thought it would be a good idea to premiere it in Australia, on the Gold Coast, a full month before it hit Japanese theatres. It was shown as part of the Gold Coast Film Festival, which to my knowledge is a pretty small affair, so I really can't fathom why they decided to do this, let alone fly Shinkai out to Australia for it. But they did, so I decided to go.

The turnout was far greater than I'd thought it would be, I think they must have almost sold out the tickets. There was a signing session beforehand where people could queue to meet Shinkai and get him to sign these free posters that they were giving away. He speaks surprisingly good English so the translator just sat there quietly for most of the time while he talked to each person that came up. When it was my turn he shook my hand, asked me how far I'd come and if I'd seen any of his other films, and then said that he hoped I'd enjoy this one. It was all quite convenient because I had no idea what I was going to ask or say otherwise.

The movie itself was good. It certainly wasn't a big departure from his previous work in terms of themes and content, which isn't really a bad thing in my view. As expected, the backgrounds and scenery were beautiful, and the characters were compelling. The story itself could perhaps be summarised as "delinquent schoolboy skips school, meets a Christmas cake drinking beer in a park, and develops a fascination with her and her feet". Hmm, maybe She and Her Feet would have been an appropriate alternative title.

It was a short film, only 46 minutes long, and Shinkai had said the intent there was to strip away anything unnecessary. This did come through in the movie, every scene definitely had a purpose and I didn't feel that it was rushed at all and it still felt like a feature film. The ending didn't quite go how I'd expected it to go based on his other works, but I'm not going to give anything away there.

The poster's pretty ugly really. A shame.

Afterwards there was a Q&A session about the film. Shinkai said that he was worried that non-Japanese speakers wouldn't appreciate it in its entirety as one of the recurring themes were these short poems from Japanese literature, with some of the words in them expressing more than their literal meaning due to the kanji chosen and their individual meanings. Or something like that. He was right, that particular part was lost. But he hoped that we'd enjoy the rest of it anyway and I'm pretty sure the audience did going by their reaction.

It comes out in Japan at the end of May and a small number of Blurays/DVDs are going to be released at the same time so you'll probably be able to find a copy then if you're interested.

Season's Greetings

Merry Christmas! I'm about to start the drive to my family, so this is a day early, but it's close enough right?

I hope you get to spend a nice relaxing day with your family/waifu.

Holidays

I haven't posted here in ages, even by my own terribly lax standards. That's what happens when final exams are on the horizon, it can't be helped. But that's all over now, and I'm done for the year! The exams were really tough, and not in a fair way, so I hope I did alright. The day after finishing, as if to commiserate with me, a massive thunderstorm descended on the city and my windows were pelted by golf ball sized hailstones. I sat out on my deck for a while and watched the lightning. It was a nice evening.

Flan's wings kinda look like Christmas lights. She even has a present for you!

Now that I've finally got some free time on my hands, I've been hard at work catching up on shows from this season and last. Currently I'm watching:

Chuu2koi - Why does every LN ever have to have a stupidly long name that tries to explain the entire show in a sentence? It's got the usual KyoAni quality to it, and Rikka is pretty cute, though so far Hyouka is still my favourite KyoAni show in recent history.

Jormungand 2 - I'm still catching up on this one so I can't say too much about it yet, though early indications suggest that Koko is still loco.

Psycho-Pass - I went into this with low expectations which it's somewhat exceeding so far, though it could still go either way. It's got a bit of a GitS vibe to it, and I'm looking forward to seeing where Urobuchi takes it.

Robotics;Notes - This took ages to get going, but it looks like some plot is finally happening. I'm not really surprised, Steins;Gate was much the same. The protag has been a bit less annoying as of late, which is a trend I'm hoping continues. It's still too early to say too much about this though.

Shin Sekai Yori - I thought it started out great until it hit the episodes where Saki and whatshisface run around with rats, though I'm hoping it's picking up a bit now. The pacing is pretty slow. The reactions on /a/ to the guys kissing are pretty hilarious.

I also watched Joshiraku. I didn't watch it as it was airing since I didn't find the first episode that funny, but I decided to give it another go because I liked SZS. It was pretty decent, though rarely laugh-out-loud funny, so I'm glad I ended up watching it.

Her socks not so much, but who's complaining?

Apparently it's Christmas soon. The stores are all playing Christmas carols and have trees and decorations up. I haven't really done anything Christmassy myself though, I don't even have a tree. I was considering participating in the secret santa thing that /a/ was doing but I thought better of it. I'd probably get a turd in a box. Which  at least means that the sender really put themselves into the gift in a technical sense, but still isn't the sort of thing I'd like to get in the mail.

I hope everyone is going well.

Kick-Heart

Kickstarter keeps becoming more and more of a thing. It's only been a few weeks since I backed my first project on it (Obsidian's Project Eternity) and now I see a major anime company seeking crowd funding for a short film.

If you haven't heard, yesterday Production I.G. put up a Kickstarter page seeking $150,000 for a short film they want to make called Kick-Heart. It's only planned to be a 10 minute film, though they suggest that enough funding could extend this, but it has some big names attached. Namely, it's directed by Masaaki Yuasa, and Mamoru Oshii is listed as a Project Consultant, whatever that means. The film itself appears to be a fairly light affair about Romeo and Juliet as two pro-wrestlers, and the art-style looks very Yuasa.

It's a strange situation. It'd be the first time as far as I'm aware that an anime studio, let alone a major one, is appealing directly to the English-speaking market. They claim this is an experiment for them, and it's in response to the economic situation in Japan making it difficult to get funding for anything that carries a risk to it. The film, when completed, will be made available to backers as a DRM-free digital download or a region-free Bluray depending on how much each backer put in, so they're choosing reasonable distribution methods too.

And it's looking like it'll be successful. It's still too early to say for sure, but it's only the second day that it's been up and it's already raised over $40,000. If this gets funded it'll be interesting to see if any other anime companies try this approach.

The Kickstarter model in general is proving to be very popular, and it's not hard to see why. Developers/artists get to float their risky (from a sales perspective) ideas to a wide audience and directly gauge interest. Not only that, but they get to raise the income for their projects before they actually commit to them. Making ambitious projects in the traditional way carries the risk of the audience simply not liking it, leading to a huge loss for the makers if sales flop, and this is a big part of the reason why so much media panders to its audience.

Not only does Kickstarter let people propose their ideas in a way that doesn't expose them to crippling loss if they're unpopular, but it's a good way to get interest in general. If a big project gets put on Kickstarter then everyone hears about it, and the funding levels for a number of projects indicates that many people are overwhelmingly happy to buy into this model.

One concern I have is the pricing of the rewards for this particular project. $15 gets you a 480p download, $30 gets you a 720p download and $60 gets you a Bluray with a few extras. Compared to most other Kickstarter projects, and to most other media, that's pretty steep for a 10 minute short. Will they try to bring the Japanese pricing model to the west? Will people buy it anyway? A while back I'd have said no, but this is going strong so far. And when you consider, for example, that the US release of the Kara no Kyoukai box set sold out at a very high price, I'm just not sure.

Saber Alter Maid ver.

It's been a while since I took any photos of my figures, and after spending way too long trying to find the camera, the battery charger, the USB cable etc (all of which were hidden in completely different locations) I'm starting to remember why. Still, I took a few quick photos. My photography skill is as poor as ever, but I'm sure Saber's greatness will shine through anyway. Or something like that.

I actually forgot she was even coming, since she was a prepaid purchase right back at the start of the year. It was a nice surprise when I got the shipping notice. This is the second release of this figure, with the first being in 2010 if I recall. Apparently this rerelease has been given a once-over and has a few improvements in the figure itself, though I'm unsure of the details.

Mini Saber has her own tiny base and mop, and is quite cute.

Frills and ribbons everywhere. As expected of Alter, the quality's very high. The maid uniform itself is very detailed, and the accessories are too. The rusty bucket in particular is quite nice, though a bit fiddly to attach. It swings loosely, with the handle being two separate parts that attach to small holes in Saber's hand, and at the other end looping through a larger hole in the bucket itself. The mop is just loosely held in place, it won't fall out of her hand but her hand will slide up and down the shaft pretty easily. No, that's not meant to be a euphemism.

Her stockings are just great. It's not so visible in my photos but there are folds and creases around the knees and ankles, and the top of her stockings has all the frills and ribbons you could hope for. Her hair is nicely done too, and has no visible join line.

There are a couple of paint errors, on one of her cuffs and on the ribbon on her back, but nothing particularly noticeable.

The obligatory lewder shots. Just when you didn't think there could be any more ribbons...

And mini Saber diligently mopping her own tiny base. The mop is just resting on her hands, but she's doing her best anyway.

Overall it's bit hard to display just because of how big she is - Saber's 1/6 scale, which is larger than most of my other figures, and the base itself is really large so she takes up even more room. I'll probably have to give her an entire shelf. Damn, I really need more than one Detolf for all my figures to be rotated through.

My photos really don't do her justice, she looks brilliant. She's actually my first 'maid' figure, which is surprising. Maybe they're all this frilly and I'm here getting excited about nothing! Either way, she looks very nice sitting on display with my other Sabers. At least it's not another Miku.

Figure details:

Name: Saber Alter Maid ver.

Series: Fate/Hollow Ataraxia

Scale: 1/6

Company: Alter

Released: August 2012 (rerelease)