I need to stop clicking on links...

More stuff from random blogs!

Great (p)review of Skyward Sword by the first video game blogger I've ever taken note of; apparently the academic side of gaming has exploded as well.

In what might be the most interesting iteration the Zelda series has yet seen, Skyward Sword takes a brand-new approach in characterizing Link via Zelda, who receives a tangible, compelling and nuanced characterization herself for arguably the first time in the series' history. Little has changed about the hero; he is skilled because we make him, dutiful because we press buttons, and brave because we don't stop pressing them even when there are monsters. 

You probably thought I chose the wrong major, didn't you? Well, my friend... I think that all the time as well!

But every now and then, something like Katawa Shoujo comes along. I might play the first chapter in Japanese and Chinese... and it's rekindled a desire to learn sign language. Not sure why I get so fascinated by it, seeing as I've never known a deaf or signing person; but hey -- maybe my subconscious knows something about my learning style.

This is the official site for the game, the above-mentioned video game blogger wrote a review and the Escapist has a so-far hilarious review that I will need to finish later. To quote the opening line:

To put it as bluntly and politically incorrectly as possible, this a game where you date crippled girls, spawned by 4chan.

There's also some interesting stuff about the reaction on the Japanese interwebs, although it's mostly about the use of Katawa. I learned the word for deaf-mute, too, which is apparently 聾唖. Just add a 者 to either one of those, and you get the corresponding person. Kind of weird that sign language is just 手話 then, although widely recognized (ie not home-language) sign language I would suspect is a product of the modern era, and thus the word as well. Interesting...

Oh, man! A great analytical blogger I had just found the other day, 2-D Teleidoscope closed their blog about a week ago. Found out the guy had a role in the production of Katawa. Will be looking forward to diving through the remnants.

This is from his (don't even know if it's a guy... or what their handle was, but) last comments after a really great selection of reflections on how anime has changed people's lives. There is a crazy guy living in two dimensions, but other than that there are four people who put into words their transcendence of the genre, and into something more reminiscent of Genshiken; that is, how fandom is/was a road to personal growth and human connection that lasts far beyond the bewilderingly fearsome prospect that is losing interest in something that you currently obsess over. Perhaps this is something extendable to any marginalized group, but I want to romanticize it and say that in some way it is unique to anime and manga. Certainly in some strange way, I can't say that I've felt so connected to as many strangers (that I wasn't with in person) as when I am cruising anime blogs and stumble upon ruminations of an underground series like Haibane Renmei. Or in the same source a career chemist musing on anime and Christianity, something I feel I can pass on through the gap that undeniably exists between me and friends more rooted in their faiths.

A final word, before I close the doors.

Anime can be a second reality.  It can be an escape, a reprieve, a haven away; Door Number One is the geeky stuff, Door Number Two is everything else, and ne’er the twain shall meet.  I think that’s easy enough to do.  It’s much more difficult to live in both worlds at once.

But that’s the ideal, at least for me.  Visual culture – anime, manga, visual novels, everything we enjoy – can be a lens that helps us love the here and now.  Of course, it isn’t easy.  It takes thought, and perspective, and a willingness to shed cynicism.  But we should strive for this.  It’s worth striving for.

And how wonderful reality becomes then!  Hobbies, entire lifestyles, friends, lovers, the precious understanding between one human being and another: All of these and more, right at our fingertips, all because we share a love for this stuff from Japan.

Our world, plus this, is beautiful, prismatic and complex: A perfect 2-D teleidoscope.

Thanks for reading.

More Take-Home Lessons from Madoka Magica

This time from The Final Message of Madoka Magica

 I feel that the final message Madoka is offering is that although there will always be negativity and tragedy in this world, even a single act of hope can seem like a miracle.

 I liked the fact that Madoka did not wish for despair to disappear, as some would suggest that she should have. It is a balance thing. In order to have hope, one must suffer or have some form of despair. To have courage, one must experience fear. To love, one must also feel hate and indifference. That is the nature of balance... Madoka is smart enough (or Buddhist enough) to know the effect that her wish can have.


I also loved how this makes Madoka the precursor to all the magical girls we know in anime — without Madoka, there would be no Sakura Kinomoto, no Pretty Cures, no Sailor Moons, etc. More than a world reset, this was in some ways a genre reset, and a pretty brilliant one at that.


----
Onto my main point, for all the theorizing about the ending from bloggers all over, genre comparisons, claims for deconstructionism, religious references, and general fandom fervor digging out every cipher and mystery in the series, everyone seems to be confused as to why Homura at the end of the series is one of the few to remember Madoka.*


I believe it is in the fourth episode that Homura herself says that, Mahou Shoujo who die in a witch's realm are forever missing persons, lost and forgotten to the rest of humanity. Madoka is adamant that she will never forget Mami, to which Homura replies that is the happiest thing a Mahou Shoujo can hope for, and that she is fiercely jealous. Madoka, in a crazy instance of foreshadowing, instantly and without hesitation extends this to Homura as well.


Homura's wish, as vaguely as I have gathered, is something along the lines of protecting Madoka. Protecting her image and her memory, I would argue, is the only thing left for Homura to do once Madoka makes her wish at the end of the series. More detail once I've actually watched the episodes.


*I read somewhere that her brother apparently remembers her too, and her mother has a vague sense of "if I had a daughter..."; parallel world theories aside,^ 


^I'm not quite ready to call whether Homura's time travelling resulted in parallel worlds or merely rewound time. If the former is true then, barring a cross-dimension spanning level of omnipotence granted Madoka, the series is only truly "solved" [ie Madoka's wish only comes true] in one branching of the universe. Such branching, however, could possibly resolve the seeming paradox that is the breadth of power granted Madoka by Kyuubei.), 


Omake From TV Tropes:

Fun fact: priority one for someone with an interest in extending the life of the universe would be shutting off all the stars, which throw away vast amounts of energy just to light up dust and dead rock.

悲しみと失望の間で希望は生まれるんだ

This is true, but I hope not in all cases

[Edit: to save future-me a google, reference from this blog, which is referencing this Bugy Craxone video]

Forgot a few things

Fascinating article on international marriage from the economist; particularly the Japanese women marrying down in terms of country-level, from urban to rural, etc. Maybe there's something in studying this type of relationship/sexuality/internationalism stuff? Toriaezu there's links to a few research bodies in the article itself, and I should ask Trish and Prof Lee about it as well.

博士号を取るとはどういうことか - Japanese translation of a very interesting and sadly true-to-life info graphic. Continue to long for life in simpler times, where it seems it was so much easier to discover new things. Also wonder if anyone else has drawn graphs of non-traditional methods of learning (street smarts, etc) as a response to this.

Not sure what this is about but apparently it's shocking and/or interesting.

Buying my plane ticket tomorrow

Beginning to wonder if it would be ethical to introduce a child to a constructed language...? I realized I'm obsessed with languages and find myself wishing I had (been brought up with or had the opportunity to go) learned dialects or less commonly spoken languages (within Japanese this means going to a rural area and hoping to be accepted there? and within Chinese means focusing on a totally different language like Cantonese or trying to find a dialect somewhere with close approximation to Mandarin i.e. Shanghainese and it's supposed 60% affinity)...

Which explains my interest in Toki Pona. Seems pretty simple with only about 130 words in the language, a serious of lessons and no need to worry about pronounciation. But if I find Japanese lonely, wouldn't it be even lonelier with Toki Pona? But Toki Pona's active online communities and also available materials would be easily identifiable, while for some reason Japanese resources simply evade me.

http://bknight0.myweb.uga.edu/toki/lesson/lesson1.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toki_pona
(I think I'll go ahead and learn it -- the idea of a truly simple language appeals to me, and the sort of lifestyle pacing that I try to give myself (and my Sheik)).

I'm beginning to feel exasperated about this lack of resources too, especially considering that my main resources nowadays mean that Japanese in general really isn't fun or interesting. It's so much easier to find interesting topics, social commentaries, etc in Chinese.

Take this video on Shanghainese, for instance: I can understand most of what they're saying!



Just goes to show that the WU program really was a good investment and their teaching is beast; my language partner was amazing; but probably most importantly my level of exposure during those two months was probably equal or greater to my exposure to Japanese outside of the classroom. I am in the middle of an NHK podcast and have been for the past 6 hours, and when not paying attention I can't understand anything, while listening I am only catching about half of the material. I am still a long way from understanding the Chinese news podcasts I have been downloading for the last year or two (have to clean out my podcasts sometimes), but still, it scares me. And this is precisely what was making me so hurt (伤心） yesterday when Haskins commented on my betrayal. I've been in overdrive mode trying to compensate for this shift of interests? attention? but so far the only thing that's coming out of it is a heap of unread tabs about Chinese society on my firefox and little progress in my reclaiming Japanese and reasserting it's importance, but aside from the notes carved into my phone recently (most of which are ashamedly simply questions reframing the issues about China into a more global/foreign policy related frame) there's not much progress.

Like these guys point out, the most important things in language learning are: availability and use of comprehensible input, motivation, time put in, and whether learning is fun.

I'm not sure which of these is the most important, but I can say that for my Japanese learning, these are all lacking, while for Chinese (at the moment?) they are overabundant -- all from my beginnings at college (friends, fun levels of classes, affinity/attraction to food and culture).

Another thing I would probably add to the list is the importance of a community. I just haven't been able to make that for myself in Japanese outside of Japan and 花火. What should I do? I've already found out there's a (predictably easy to find) online community for people who want to learn Shanghainese... not to mention materials aimed at native Chinese speakers themselves. Brings to mind the shows on dialects (and another show, forgot the name, where celebrities come onto the show and read things, have it in a previous post but should have downloaded the show at the time or at least watched it in it's entirety because the series has been removed from youtube after allegation of a copyright violation :( Who was watching that anyway???) that came/come on as NHK specials, or the websites devoted to Osaka-ben (for some reason my motivation gets less and less, even though (or dakara ka?) I've met Osaka-ben speaking people...

Ugh. And all of this is 迷わせるing me in terms of the consideration of future job, internships, grad schools, and general life direction (the curse of our generation - too much information, not enough processing. too large decision trees, too little chopping at branches) [for some reason I have the strongest urge to force a differentiation in the two and too phenomes, because when I read it out loud regardless of semantic intent I can only think of the "two" meaning when it comes to the latter half of that lower-case declaration... also should look at my punctuation use. I don't think too many people agree with it haha, although I don't often agree with other people's].

Sometimes I get the really strong urge to learn Korean (and almost regret, although it is more tempered now because of my increased proficiency in Chinese, that I didn't make the leap and study it during undergrad) too.
Found out the girl from Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is also the girl from one of my favorite movies, Il Mare, and also the girl from My Sassy Girl, which I have yet to watch in it's entirety.

Sometimes I even
want to learn a
a...
romance language!
泣　｡ﾟ(ﾟ´Д｀ﾟ)ﾟ｡　泣

(Which, somewhat ironically, would probably wind up as Spanish. Think of reading 100 Years of Solitude and all the Hispanic or Spanish-speaking people in my life haha. How much would my interactions with them have been different? Even (especially?) Lisa...)

Have to remember to write about China's so-called "(Post-90's) sexual revolution", and the condoms and vibrators in front of the checkouts in Family Marts in Shanghai. And there I go, proving my point again.

Maybe it's just that, weird stuff from Japan is taken for granted nowadays...