Originally a companion blog to AnimePodcast.net, now commentary, opinions, and more or less general angry thoughts about anime and Japanese pop-culture fandom in general.
Nothing quite shatters the American Otaku psyche quite like being exposed to what is, the real Japan. This isn’t new, but what is unfortunate is that it’s still a prevalent phenomenon out there. Actual, factual, regular, real, Japan is nothing like an Otaku thinks it is going to be. No, I don’t think any otaku is going to go to Japan and think the place is run by giant robots, dragon maids, and has a dating service for monster girls… what is going to happen is these wee-bee idiots are going to show up in Japan and expect that the social constructs that they are accustomed to in America are going to be there for them in Japan. Sorry fresh, it’s not gonna happen. Fandom is voluntarily suppressed in Japan much more in Japan than it is in the USA. Admit to liking Pokemon as a fully functioning adult in the USA, and people just say “fine whatever” but in Japan it’s a great way to get fired. Fans finding out that they can’t act like fans in the place where the things they are a fan of is a tough thing to deal with. This happens the other way as well, with Japanese people needing actual psychological help when they come to New York and find out that no, it’s not just “Tokyo with white people” or when they go to Paris and realize that no, it’s not a Miyazaki movie with the Eiffel Tower in the middle of it. Seriously, that's a medical thing, and they even have a help line they can call for when the cognitive dissonance destroys their brain.
Japan has social rules. We are talking about a country where if you wear a suit without a tie, you are going to get all kinds of attention. Mostly the bad kind of attention. The reason you don’t know that is because it’s not really in any of the anime that ends up being popular overseas. You wouldn’t judge American life just by watching Breaking Bad or Empire if you wanted to get an accurate idea of what the place was like, so don’t for a minute go thinking you’re getting an accurate picture of Japan from whatever the hell high-school themed anime you’re watching now. Even if you have been to Japan, unless you’ve had to go apartment hunting, pay your electric bill, go grocery shopping, get your hair cut, buy toilet paper/condoms/feminine hygiene items, all the regular living life stuff, you still aren’t getting the real picture. It would be like trying to form an idea of what the USA is like after spending a few days in Boston or something.
Gross.
Why am I even bringing this up? Because somehow, Samurai Gourmet on Netflix has a one-star rating. Or I guess it had one when I checked it out last. Things change, it probably won't stay that way but the fact that it happened at all leads to the sentiment of: What the absolute fuck? This show is great and there are a bunch of reasons why. Starring veteran actor and comedian Naoto Takenaka, it connects a number of small moments of zen that center around specific foods. It shows real Japan …that mundane boring place where regular people go to regular jobs, not the factional-fiction (or fictional-faction, whatever you wanna call it) Japan of trash like what's in Lost in Translation, that seems determined to convince the world that everyone in Japan is actually originally from Mars and like OMG it’s just such a wacky place! Samurai Gourmet is not Ruroni Kenshin with udon, it’s not Ghost in the Shell: Fast-Food Takeout Edition, it’s just a simple show about simple things. And it’s that simplicity which is uniquely Japanese. If you watch this show and come away thinking “oh it’s so bland, quick let me go check out Ouran High School Host Club reruns” then you know nothing. You are that 12 year old who doesn’t like Empire Strikes Back because it’s "the most boringest one" to quote Red Letter Media.
Back in the 1990s Katsuhiro Otomo made a film called Project Z. It was a well-made and excellent film which took a look into the aging population shift that is still happening in Japan today. And everyone else in the theater I saw it in said they hated it. Why? Well, they were expecting Akira Part 2 basically. Which is funny by itself, because if you actually knew anything about Japan in the late 1980s you’d realize how much of a social commentary Akira actually was… but all you could see was “ooo wooosh boom! Motorcycles!” So there is a real disconnect that American audiences seem to have and not realize it. This continues to happen with weaboo fools, falling in love with a fictional Japan that doesn’t exist, and then having their brain short circuit when confronted with reality. Will this ever change? No probably not. But you should still be watching Samurai Gourmet.
What do you mean I can't cosplay 24 hours a day here?
March 2017 News and Event Roundup ...With stuff, and things.
In thelast post of every month, we look at stories we didn't cover, either they weren't big enough for a whole post, or they just slipped past us. Additionally we will leave you a recipe for a Japanese dish that you may have seen featured in an anime or two that you like.
High School of the Dead, dead.
Daisuke Satō, the artist and creator of High School of the Dead, has himself become dead at the age of 52, which for a Japanese person seems way too early. It is very sad that we're likely to never get any more of this awesome series any time soon. Maybe in his will he left instructions for George Romero to pick up the torch and carry on. Hell, I'd take Ric Romero if it meant we got even one more episode of this awesome series. Probably not going to happen though. At least he kept the jiggle alive.
Photo from Animate Ikebukuro, Tokyo, 2010. ...I think.
He will be missed.
JonTron becomes Destiny's child (and the internet's bitch).
So there's this guy on youtube who I am told regularly produces funny and entertaining content, and his channel is called JonTron. And boy did this guy step in it recently. I was actually planning on checking out that channel at some point because I've heard good things, but now I don't know if I can enjoy it. That's because regardless of content, I know I will have to engage in mental gymnastics in order to keep what he said over on the Destiny channel separate from the contents of his entertainment videos. That's like, actual work, and a big detraction when it comes to the enjoyment factor. Regardless of what anyone thinks of that issue, one of the end results of the 2 hour incoherent mess between those two was the following:
Yep, bitch got fired. Consequences will never be the same! To which my reaction is:
What a dumbass. C'mon you should have known better.
The back and forth itself between JonTron and Destiny doesn't last for the entire video, but it is still like enduring a mental root canal when the only anesthetic available was Fugu Venom mixed with Sriracha and then injected it straight into your eyeballs. Both parties involved seemed to know disturbingly little about what they were talking about (25% at best), and JonTron spewed forth mindbogglingly ignorant fallacies based on conjecture and jingoistic assumptions, and tacit racism. On the flip side, Destiny seems to trip over his own face in his spastic reactionary attempts to refute the mental misfires that JonTron delivers... which should NOT be hard to do. It was like watching an animal shelter burn down but being too far away to do anything about it. JonTron's arguments are, (for the most part) easily blown out of the water, but it seemed as if Destiny had the only gun and not the ammunition to do it, as there were a lot of things he himself seemed to be unaware of or just not acknowledge for one reason or another.
Don't say I didn't warn you (seriously, it took me 3 days to get through all of it, even that self-congratulatory stuff at the end), but if you really want to check out all 2 hours 1 minute and 5 seconds of this disaster, you can follow the link to the youtube video here. However, if you would like a more concise and mercifully brief summary of the conversation, please take a look at the below video which I believe sums it up perfectly:
Yeah, it was an hour and a half of that.
So the fallout; Jon Jafari goes on to blither a whole bunch of jingoist nonsense and sprinkles a bit of tacit racism dust over it for good measure (see, he's totally notbeing racist, but just offering up arguments which seem to need mechanics that most people would consider racially biased in order to be valid, and that can make people interpret it as racist sometimes. Oh, wait that's what being racist literally is). And the guy did it as JonTron all within the public sphere. Is Playtonic being reasonable by Removing him from Yooka-LayLee and any (or presumable all) of their upcoming releases? Hell yeah they are, what do you expect a company to do when faced with that kind of thing? Seriously, what can you expect? Remember how fast Nike dropped Tiger Woods? What, did you think they were gonna double down and start a new campaign with him, with commercials going "check out how much our guy gets laid... yeah! So, just do it. Nike!" ...yeah what were they thinking missing out on such a golden opportunity like that </sarchasm>. Companies are always super-touchy about this kind of thing (and that's not a new phenomenon, it's been that way for a long time).
But Platonic gave such bullshit reasons; "oh we're so self-rightous, and we are sensitive to the great cultural struggle of blah blah blah!" (shut the fuck up). Yes, it's the UK and they do have thought police over there, so maybe they're afraid to not say something like that. Over there, if you don't constantly "support the cause" you can expect a visit from the modern equivalent of The Committee for Public Safety to escort you to the guillotine for being counter-revolutionary, so maybe they're hedging their bets, but c'mon, Playtonic can't pretend this isn't totally about the money. Because it's about the money.
What's really going on is, JonTron is a brand. That is the asset that is being payed for, and when potential customers now have to do mental gymnastics to try and separate the performance of JonTron from the now very public pariah persona of JonTron, and it takes a lot of work. Having to do that work, quickly causes the evaporation of any potential enjoyment the customer might otherwise get out of this entertainment product. It also signifies a support of what that person did/said, which is not something they should do. JonTron took a shit in his own Golden Grahams. I don't even care what the points were because it was an absolute shit-job making them... he really did. In terms of businesses in general, no company is going to let something like this hurt their own bottom line. JonTron is probably still going to get paid for his initial work, as he should (even the Animaniacs had pay or play), and this is just about Playtonic engaging in damage control rather than actively punishing someone. If he did a better job separating the JonTron brand from what happened, and had more of a (well let's face it) more of a not-biggoted adult discussion, he most likely wouldn't be in this situation.
The one thing I think shouldn't happen is people asking for refunds, or not buying the game even though they had planned to just because they booted JonTron, or didn't boot him fast enough or whatever, it doesn't matter. It just hurts the employees and the other workers who had fuck-all to do with this or the subsequent Playtonic decision later. They're just working stiffs, don't punish them because of this fucking mess.
Long story short, JonTron came is a dick and now I am going to move "checking out his channel" much much much very-a-lot further down (off) my to-do list. Geez after enduring "debate" or "interview" or whatever you can call it, I need a Gin-tonic, forget Play-tonic. Gin
donations can be sent to our Patreon, which we do not have, so go give it to our other blog Pinky Mixology which also doesn't have a Pateron. ...Just mail us gin... that works. Tequila is fine also... bourbon too. Ya know what, we're not picky.
Move over Ken Olson, SONY is the new fool in town.
Sony Motion Picture Group Chairman Tom Rothman just opened up SONY's 2017 Cinema Con presentation using the phrase: "Netflix My Ass" with absolutely no self-awareness what so ever. It may just be pandering to an audience who view the proliferation of streaming as the greatest threat to their industry, but when that industry collapses, this quote is sure to displace the infamous Ken Olson quote that always tops articles and trivia lists with titles like; "The top 10 times corporations got things super wrong" or "Top 5 worst technology predictions by CEOs."
Seriously, this guy's entire life is now defined by this one thing and that's never going to change.
This kind of statement not only shows contempt for Netflix, but for the entire Netflix subscriber base, which (news-flash) have 100% overlap with customer base of Sony Pictures. That statement not only insults those people, but also the entity that they derive a significant value from. Contempt for your customer used to be the norm, but now that's really only something Airlines and Comcast can do. The "Netflix My Ass" statement is going to become the indelible marker on the timeline of progression of entertainment media consumption and delivery, where every analyst, student, commentator, and industry publication will look at and say "right there" when trying to find the exact moment when the old-guard of the industry passed the event horizon and was no long in a position to adapt to a changing market (even if they wanted to, which they don't).
In 5 years, Sony's Tom Rothman will have to be handing out resumes, but he might as well just hand out head-shots with "I'm the guy who said 'Netflix My Ass' that one time" written on them, and just hope someone out there hasn't heard of that yet. Sony will sluggishly continue but will learn nothing, because we are talking about the same company that thought putting Barbra Streisand's hairdresser in charge was a genius move. Actually, speaking of companies which are painfully out of touch...
GameStopped.
In what should be a shock to
absolutely no one, GameStop has announced the planned closure of over
200 of its retail locations. GameStop is a textbook example of when
"just keep doing what you're doing" can take a company down when they
forget to keep track of what's going on in the outside world. In this
case it was a combination of failing to keep up with media technology and a complete ignorance of the massive cultural
progression in terms of the general popularity of pop-culture and its
growth into multi-billion dollar industries (yeah, vidjya games included).
GameStop
is one of those pop-culture entertainment companies founded at a time
when it was seen as good business to have barely restrained contempt for
your customers. The locker-room Alpha Male was still the embodiment of
the perfect executive, and nothing said alpha-male more than shitting
on those "nerds" and "geeks" that were into stupid stuff like video
games and comics. (Hell even the owners of Anime Crash did that until the very end... made it impossible to get any effective marketing done). This also caused many of these retail spaces to give off a a
vibe of a particularly hostile environment to potential female customers, so strong
that even Vivian James is like... "man, fuck this place" (again I'm talking about back in 1999-2002, not like 6 months ago).
This vile contempt also manifested itself into some of the most
counter-productive sales tactics and business decisions. Combined with
the disastrous environments created by studios with poorly executed
pre-order strategies, and neglecting of beta testing. Remember when I said that in today's business landscape only Airlines and Comcast can show open contempt for their customers? Well, even though you can't really count the people who use it as "customers" the DMV springs to mind as well. See, it's a place where everyone inside would rather not be there if they had the option. When you're a business that operates like that to your customers, then you really have to hope that any alternative option to you, doesn't come along any time soon. Basically, if your company acts like a douche, don't be surprised when no one wants to be anywhere near it if they have a choice in the matter.
This now puts
Game Stop on the same path as Borders Books or Blockbuster Video, being a
place so unpleasant and inept at filling the expectations of customers, that the hemmoraging of said customers away from them is going to prove fatal. That migration when there was an alternative to getting
the same thing from a different source, has in fact occurred and can not be undone. People have flocked to alternative providers in droves and
have no intention of coming back.
This is actually in the GameStop strategy handbook under "dealing with customers."
These kind of death-spirals are usually where incompetent executives and CEOs do the most damage, implementing quasi-effective penny pinching cost-cutting measures that serve only to alienate customers and lose more money for the company (yea, that really annoying thing you did saved the company $100... but the fact that the customer you pissed off was planning to come back and spend $1,000 and has since changed their mind because of that, kind of puts it in the loss column don't ya think?). They erode any goodwill or consumer trust they had, treat employees like crap, and then go on to do unethical things banking on it being worth it because of the chances they won't get caught.
In an age where there are so many examples of "fucking up" in terms of retail chains, it's amazing how their management never notices when it is happening to them. If they were smart, they would become an online marketplace to facilitate people re-selling their unwanted games and take a piece of the transaction in exchange for facilitating an indemnified and trustworthy purchasing environment which is something Craig's List can't and won't do. Close your brick and mortar, your own customers (through their use of the service) will also function as your inventory managers, and you just cut overhead by 80%. You're not gonna beat Amazon on the new stuff, but this is a great place to be. Well that is if the Supreme Court doesn't ruin it, because...
Justice is Blind (from eating lead paint).
Yes, the Supreme Court of The United States of America, the bag of robe wearing dildos who brought us the judiciary shit-stains of Morse v Fredric, Citizens United v FEC, who hate your "num chuck sticks," and know less about technology than a sea slug, are now about to potentially further fuck over America even more, by hearing a case about product repurposing and re-selling as it applies to patent law. This is a horrifying prospect, because if the case is decided in favor of Lexmark, it has the potential to make unlawful, the second hand selling of anything patented, once it's been altered in any way.
Even if this only extends to hardware, a decision like this would be the rallying cry for Intellectual Property holders to make the same grab at limiting what people can do with the physical packaged media they buy. They have tried this before, but if they smell blood in the water they will gladly make another try. SONY, Electronic Arts, Warner, Marvel, Disney, all those companies would love to make it a violation of their copyright protections for you to take a movie, game, book, music album, or anything physical that has one of their properties on it, that you legally purchased from a retailer, and directly sell it to someone else. Get ready for some new awful challenges coming in the future.
One thing we can get optimistic about is that as Americans, we know our government is run and influenced by large corporations and pretty much nothing else. And one of America's largest would really hate it if this case went Lexmark's way. Mega-retailers (all of them), the credit card and finance companies that enable their sales, logistics companies, and a few other major players are worried about an impossible onus of tracking down the source of every original patent, and being commercially liable for not getting it right. When all that corporate power wants something to happen, it's going to happen. And as insane as it sounds, we can actually add "hopefully" to the end of that sentence.
For the first time ever, this might be a good thing.
Keep your ghosts in shells and wash your whites separately.
Non-Japanese actors playing Japanese characters in Hollywood adaptations? What is this, 1961 Breakfast at Tiffany's? We need to end casting decisions that don't take race and nationality into account at the highest level. Not only has a non-Japanese actor been chosen to play a Japanese character, the actor isn't even Asian.
End racism in Ghost in the Shell! Remove Lasarus Ratuere from Ghost in the Shell! A non-Japanese actor being shoehorned into a role of the clearly Japanese character of Ishikawa is just intolerable!
Like, so OMG racist!
Oh... you thought I was talking about Scarlett Johansson. ...well I guess the same would apply. Both are clear cases of casting decisions which obviously don't take the race and nationality of the original character into account. I mean, if you feel that way about Scarlett Johansson but not about Lasarus Ratuere then... what kind of criteria are you using again? Yeah, see what I did there... Taking that position is not one you can really come out of all smelling like roses. So if you bitch about Scarlett Johansson but not about Lasarus Ratuere being cast in Ghost in the Shell, then it's you, you're the one being racist. Also can we please remember this is a Hollywood production that will just become another temporary shitstain on the giant list of movies in the ceaseless dumpster fire that is Mainstream American Cinema.
Well, lets see what the "victims" of this horrible cultural appropriation think about the situation...
I know you've seen it already, but it's still here... still a thing.
Of course the only opinion that matters is that of Masamune Shirow, but I think Shirow still in his stasis chamber (it's either that or he's still too busy counting all the money from the ginormous payment coming out of this). Somehow I doubt shit given either way. With the trailer making the movie look like "Jason Bourne with Robots: pew-pew-pew! wooosh! ka-boom! Matrix stiff!" or as some have named it "Bland-Runner" ...I don't think I really want to be first, middle, or last in line to see the thing anyway.
Fearless Extended.
Fearless Girl, the new and very talked-about art instillation in Lower Manhattan, remains temporary, but its presence in its current placement will be extended to February of 2018.
NYC Public Advocate Letitia James is leading efforts within city government to make the statue permanent. You can still support her in her efforts by contacting the Office of the Mayor, your NYC Council Representative if you live within the City, and ...I dunno, maybe The Parks Department or something? In dealing with government, writing hand-written letters is always much more effective than emails, twitter, or some online petition that no one is going to read. So seriously, it's not that hard to just buy a stamp and send something on its way. they take this thing seriously.
An Ai for Art,
Artist Ai Weiwei will be doing art in NYC. So... that's a thing.
You got a Weiwei in your eye...
Looks cool but y'all know the pigeons are just gonna crap all over them things in the first week anyway...
You Smell That?
I know last time I said I'd put up Teriyaki, but something happened, so too bad, it's not happening. In it's place, we shall be showing you another Japanese staple of cuisine you may have seen in one anime or another, Omu-Rice. Yes omu-rice, rice in an omelette, with... like ketchup on it. The filling can often vary but is usually some default of beef consume cooked rice and some stuff. Although, filling it with straight up mac & cheese w/ bacon is also an option.
Beef flavored filling;
So start by making some rice.
While that's cooking, misen your plus by taking 3 eggs out of any refrigeration and just setting them someplace where they will come to room temp.
Chop yourself up half an onion into itty bitty bits.
Mash 2 cloves of garlic into mush (or you can boil them before-hand and they'll spread like toothpaste).
You can use ground beef, or just use some shredded slices of roast beef from the deli counter, if you're looking to same time and not deal with raw meat and so on.
So start up a pan with butter/sesame oil/olive oil/lard/whatever, and add onions, and the meat. Let that cook for a bit while adding soy sauce beef broth or bullion, and any spices you like or whatever. As it cooks, add your cooked rice in with it and stir it around, getting everything mixed together evenly. You may want to continue to add water or just have some around to prevent this from burning. You can add things to make it spicy, sweet, savory, or add shreadded cheese to make it all Philly Cheesesteak or cheese-burger, or even taco spices for taco style. Anyway once that's all cooked up (doesn't really matter what you cook it in) put it aside and get the eggs ready.
Ends up looking like this mess but that's ok because this isn't the part people see.
Eggs and such;
Regarding the eggs, it's best if they are already at room temp when you start, so take them out of the fridge before hand. Eggs in the USA and Canada are scrubbed, so they don't have their protected membrane covering the outer shell, which means refrigeration them is a good idea. Anyway, whisk 3 together in a bowl, and then add 1oz of water (seriously, do this, your eggs will cook better and not stick. No, don't add milk, milk burns, add water it doesn't burn).
In an omelette pan, or something with curved edges, add more oil than you think you're going to need, get it hot, then pour in the egg. move it around a bit, and as it cooks just kill and bubbles that get too big. The heat from the oil is mostly likely enough to cook this stuff on contact enough so that sticking won't be an issue. once it's half solid, add the filling and you can probably kill the heat.
Don't put the filling in the center. Put it 1/3rd from the edge.
Then flip the top while plating and get it under there so that everything's bundled up. Add ketchup, mayo, bbq sauce, whipped cream, whatever you want really.
Time-saving cheat; Just get some whatever-fried-rice from your local Chinese take-out place and use that. Maybe jazz it up with a little pepper sauce or something. Perfect for creatively dealing with bland and boring leftovers.
Browning is to taste. The less oil you start with and if you skip adding that water, the more browning will happen. I like browning but some people don't.
Here is one broken in half, which is how you'll often find it in presentation windows at omurice restaurants. Except I just mashed this one because I was about to eat it.
Then you eat it. And remember, the best part of omurice is that there is really almost no limit on what you can stuff in there. Mac & Cheese, pizza sauce and pepperoni, pulled pork, poutine, loaded nachos ...something healthy I am assuming. All that good stuff.
And that's it for this post. Go get ready for Hanami or something.
That means stock up on saké. Might we recommend a domestic variety? It's good. Not Harushika good, but still good.
Why you might like WakakoZaké ワカコ酒 (Wakako Zake). There are actually plenty of reviews of this title out there now, but I hope to spread the word that this one is indeed worth it.
When in the course of human events, sometimes we find our own tastes have changed, and something else is required to reach expected levels of enjoyment. Much as once you reach a certain age jazz music stops sounding like shit and you can't really listen to Blink 182 anymore, sometimes you can't really enjoy an anime series where "high school students do X," or "giant robots, giant giants, too-many ninjas, giant ninja boobies, etc" or just about any stuff that you really need to be in high school to like. So if you find yourself in such a situation, if you actually like Yokohama Shopping Log (go google it, I know you're gonna), then the series Wakako Zakéis going to be something you probably will enjoy.
In this Mameshibafor the real world, we follow Wakako Murasaki, a single working woman in Tokyo who takes joy in the little things of small eating establishments and the pairing of their specialties with the perfect accompanying libations. The small moments of decision and quiet reflections featured, undertaken by one living all alone in a big city and after working in a world where your efforts might be futile, culminate in finding that singular space and time when everything comes together for a feeling that can only be depicted as; "Pushuuuuu~ :) "
For anyone who has an interest in slice-of-life type stories or is interested in Japanese cuisine, this is going to be a fun watch for you. There's really no story line here, and the episodes simply revolve around whatever Wakako decides to order that day. The episodes themselves are quite short, and clock in at something like two minutes each. Much like the moment of zen (or "pushuuuuu~" as one might put it) they are fleeting, and so the value they bring to your day is all the more important.
One of the reasons I can personally connect with this is that when I lived in Tokyo, I did exactly this kind of thing, looking for out-of the-way places in the middle of Shinjuku and ordering something more indigenous. There are a few tricks to finding a good place like this.
1) Are they insanely crowded at lunch? Then it's good stuff.
2) When you go in there, is everyone eating the same thing despite an extensive menu? Hint; Order that.
3) Does the place not have a menu and only serve one dish for lunch and one for dinner? That's gonna be a good place.
4) Does it smell so good it makes you feel like you haven't eaten in 3 days? That's the place.
That's pretty much it, in terms of picking a spot. When you're on vacation try it out. But a few things you should know:
-No big groups. Seriously these places aren't built for that.
-They're not gonna speak English so don't expect them to.
-If it's crowded, eat everything on your plate and leave immediately. Not kidding, some places have rules like this posted on their walls.
-Cash only.
Happy Hunting.
Never know what you'll find. (Photo courtesy of ME bitches!)
The ultra simplistic style of character design is actually helpful for this series. The simple facial features and expressions create the perfect canvas to convey feelings and sensations that can't be explicitly articulated with dialogue alone. There's something a certain kind of face says that no amount of words in the world could ever hope to. It is momentary, vaporous, and fleeting; qualities without which would make this series just a boring food-show and not something much, much more.
A thousand words.
Losing some of this quality, but no less enjoyable is the live action version of this show. I don't know if it was because it just performed better, or because it's much cheaper to make, but the live action version seems to have more episodes. To any otaku out there who would normally eschew live-action fare, I would say that if you like the animated version of this, then the live-action is most certainly worth a shot.
Wakako Zaké
So when the Sword Art is offline, when you really don't care what's going on in Ouran High School or whatever, and when you're out of episodes of Dragon Maid to watch, go sit down with some edamame and some Junmai Ginjo, fire up the Crunchyroll, and sit back to enjoy an anime about the little things that make life worth living. Wakako Zaké
I can see clearly now... well not really but it's better.
So I've been having some eye procedures done. In about 2006, my vision went from regular bad to borderline legally blind, and there was really not much to do about it until recently when some new technology was invented. It isn't gonna fix anything but it will stabilize things to keep anything from getting worse and then maybe I can start wearing contact lenses (regular glasses don't fix what I have). So being legally blind in one eye and having difficulty with the other, it's hard to read small print and impossible to drive at night. The treatment I got leaves your vision blurry for a while, so that is why I haven't posted anything or been doing much keeping up with stuff. The effects have worn off and my vision having returned to what it was previously, I can get this going again, so lets see what's what.
I seeeeeeeee you
Nazi-Punching.
Mostly everyone knows the incident involving Richard Spencer at this point. From Kotaku to to those busy-body hippie SJWs over at Cracked.com, everyone seems to be weighing in on this by asking the absolute wrong question: "Is it ok to punch Nazis" "Is is right to punch Nazis" "Can we punch Nazis" These are all the wrong questions, because terms like "ok" "right" and whatever the third question implies, all bring the matter of subjectivity to the situation. Subjectivity in this matter means that if you ask 20 people you are going to get 20 different reasons for one of 2 answers. The question that should be asked is simple and explicit: "Is it legal to punch Nazis?" And in case you haven't guessed it, the answer is no, you can't just go up to someone and punch them even if they are espousing Nazism or something that is generally thought to be deplorable in ways both socially and morally. Again, I think this is the 5th time I've had to bring up the Supreme Court case of National Socialists of America v Village of Skokie which affirms that equal protection under the law applies to everyone, even if they are supporting something you don't like.
And what's not to like?
So yes, out in public, if Nazis are saying Nazi things in their little Nazi outfits, then physically assaulting them, or stealing their stuff, is indeed a crime. No matter how deplorable the message of someone, it can not decriminalize your own actions. Is it good to punch Nazis? Yeah. Is it rewarding and a source of pride to punch Nazis? Of course. Is it legal? ...no. Lots of fun things aren't legal, so for better or worse their right to not get punched in the face legally supersedes your own butthurt. Deal with it. Like. An. Adult. For fucks sake. Very few people in the fandom seem to be approaching this with a true impartial logic based on American Case Law and Constitutional Values, but some have. It's worth a read. So is its sequel.
It's OK to be a grown adult and like Dragon Maid. Dragon Maid is an anime. It's what it sounds like, a dragon becomes a Maid (this is Japanese pop-culture "Maid" and not someone paid minimum wage to clean up your nasty ass hotel room after that conference you went to which had an open bar). Now it sounds like a ridiculous premise, but our linchpin character in this series is a working adult. No, not a high school student, no, not some magical girl from a different universe, and no, not some alien with superpowers. She's a regular working stiff, like lots of other grown adults out there. Yep, that's the game-changer. If you're a grown adult and you watch a series about stuff happening to other grown adults, you might find it easy to relate to.
And....... you're hooked.
You might be saying to yourself, "yeah, but there's dragons and fantasy and other totally unrealistic things in there so how can you call yourself an adult and like it?" to which I would respond, "Is that Game of Thrones your talking about?" ...yeah, shut up. Not for nothing but I'd feel better having Dragon Maid on in a room with children than Game of Thrones.
HaHa.... boobs.
Disturbingly or not-so-disturbingly depending on your own personal feelings, this is a major reason why there are so many adult fans of My Little Pony Friendship is Magic. Almost all the characters (especially the main characters) are very much adults. They don't live with their parents, they are well out of school, they own their own businesses, they have employees, deadlines, some have the highest level of government security clearance, they go on diplomatic missions, one struggles with a clear case of schizophrenia, and one is a member of the military and also a member of the most elite flying squadron in the entire Air Force. They are pretty much all late 20's if not older. So people in their late 20's can relate to those characters. When combined with a well-written and technically well animated TV show, you've got something interesting, even if it did grow out of a terribly made 30 minute toy commercial from the 1980's.
Owns 3 boutiques, manages 10-20 employees, deals with a shady land lord, is a celebrity designer.
You don't do that when you're 13, you do it when you're 33.
There is no shortage of anime and manga made about and made for adults who work at companies, are home-makers, or creative professionals, but they often get overlooked for the traditionally popular genres of "ninjas" "mecca" "magical girl fill-in-the-blank-moon-card-captor-blah" "High School X" "my girlfriend is a vampire" or "boobs ...totally boobs" ...that's a lot to deal with just there, so something about an overworked ad executive who finds a moment of Zen in a small park in Osaka one day during a sunset isn't gonna catch a lot of attention, but there are plenty of people who that would resonate with. Enough to make it worth licensing? No probably not. But this segment does exist and it's only going to get bigger.
HaHa.... boobs again.
That's fan-art by the way, not a scene from the actual show.
Annoying Prince Trumperdink.
So there's this thing where you are supposed to write postcards to The White House and address them to "President Steve Bannon" and Trump gets mad and stuff. I have no idea if that's really what happens but as a committed troll I am so gonna do that. DON'T use your good anime postcards. #1) you will wish you had kept them. #2 They are going to go straight into the shredder with an anime image on them, think for a minute junior. What I am gonna do, is I am going to go to Columbus Circle and get some post cards that have Trump Tower on them... that way maybe he will actually want to see them then right? Either way, I went down to my local US Post Office and bought a sheet of these stamps to use. Hopefully the symbolism will get through.
Man the 90's sucked for American Comics.
Anyway, I don't think he's doing a good job as President. So I am going to voice my concerns. If anyone wants to know specifics then we can have it in the comments section.
I'll be wearing my Xmas gift while I write replies.
When Life Gives You Lemons
So I am continuing to have everything implode all around me and it's just about 100% of my own doing. Sure there's the occasional unexpected thing breaking or bad weather messing something up, but the shitstorm of my life is pretty much my fault at this point.
You ever get one of those realization moments when you know you should just throw in the towel? Mine came over Christmas, when I was hoping to get some alone time to shape up and do the warrior under the waterfall thing you always see and get my shit together (not an easy task but still had to try). Instead I got a depressing talk in the woods in an entire situation I had actually convinced myself a few weeks prior I was going to be able to avoid. I always play along but somewhere in the background I heard the game-ending buzzer go off and looking at the scoreboard I was way behind. Did I feel the need to get some overtime and make things right and finally stop being so terrible? Yes. Was it enough to make me do anything? No, clinical depression is kind of like a boat anchor that keeps you from doing anything for an irrational and indistinct fear you're just going to make it worse or just continue the parade of fail that has become your life. Hell, my house could be on fire right now (from the lemons) and I probably wouldn't even bother getting up and leaving. I'd just take the batteries out of the smoke detectors so they would stop making that annoying sound.
It's not that I want to call it quits either. But looking at the wall of insurmountable uncertainty, one can simply freeze in a mild panic which metastasizes into a process of thought which becomes as second-nature as breathing or blinking. Then you just live there hoping for change from outward force, which never comes.
So for all of you people out there who don't like me, take solace in the fact that I am doing way worse than you and will probably stay that way.
Third time's the charm maybe...
Do you smell that?
Ramen is oft-maligned as cheap, un-creative, yuck-food that only college students and Naruto eat on a regular basis. Sure some big cities have actual Ramen shops where you can get the real deal, but they tend to be crowded and more expensive than they should be. To that end, I now give you a recipe that anyone can make anywhere in America that will rival the best corner dives of Tokyo.
Om nom nom
How to make TanTanMen:
You will need:
1 brick of cheap-ass Maruchan or Nissin ramen (throw away that soup packet. Never use the soup packet).
Ground Pork (cheat code; Ground turkey works fine, AND so does sliced roast beef from the deli if you want to save time, but if you use roast beef you still have to cook it all the way through in the pan until it gets all nice and shriveled).
Assorted veggies (whatever you want really. Recommendations; show-peas, bean sprouts, thin sliced carrots... never broccoli).
Half an onion finely chopped.
Mashed garlic (boiling it before-hand makes it very easy to use. Smooshes up just like toothpaste).
Worcestershire sauce
Soy Sauce (dark, like San-J Tamari)
Pepper flakes (pepperoncini like they have at the pizza place works just fine)
Oil (olive or sesame ...or whatever, just not 40weight)
Hot sauce (Louisiana red works great. So does sriracha but that stuff can be expensive).
Beef bullion cube or beef broth
Mirin
Big bowl
Hot water
OK so oil up a frying pan and start cooking your meat, pepper flakes, and onion (leave out the garlic for now). We will be intentionally over-cooking it so just make sure you don't burn things. We are drying out the meat so it can absorb the flavorful soup base later. At the same time put the brick of ramen in your bowl and start your kettle or boil some water. Once it's boiling, pour it on top of the noodles and they'll soften up after a few minutes (they're already cooked, remember).
While the meat is cooking, add worcestershire and soy sauce. Add a bit more than you think you need since we're going to make a soup out of this.
Once the meat is dried out, add veggies (we don't want to overcook those), and garlic and mirin to taste.
Drain the ramen.
Pour the whole contents of the pan on top of the ramen and then add hot water, a third of the bullion cube, and hot sauce to spice it up. Top w/ sriracha if you really like hot stuff. Throw a shot of sake or vodka into the soup and it will really help the flavor.
Eat the thing.
1 pan, a few minutes, and cheap eats that don't suck.
If you're looking to cut salt, ditch the hot-sauce for more dried pepper flakes and just use worcestershire, with a low-salt beef broth.
If you're looking to cut calories, leave out the ramen itself (I know, blasphemy), and replace it with shredded cabbage. It's not the same, but it's nice and filling with way less carbs.
If you don't like spicy (I know, blasphemy), then swap out the pepper flakes for something like mushrooms or sweet potato or whatever, and use your favorite BBQ sauce, a teaspoon of molasses, and a shot of whiskey along with the water and soup stock (if you are using beef not pork, then use a shot of Tequila). I've never tried that but it sounds like it would be pretty boss.
Next time I'll show you how to make your own teriyaki come out just like it does at the restaurants because you know you're doing it wrong.
Remember the Alamo
If you live near an Alamo Drafthouse, they are still celebrating the works of Hayao Miyazaki with cinematic screenings. Most of the major hits are on the menu like Totoro, Sen/Spirited Away, Nausicaa, Mononoke, and I think some locations have Ponyo. Conspicuously absent seems to be Porco Rosso for some reason. Keeping kosher I guess?
Don't worry, we still love ya you glorious fat bastard..
The Alamo Drafthouse is really movie-going as it ought to be. And I will sure as hell be bringing my trusted cell jammer with extended battery life for the shows I have tickets to. Seriously as I've said before, some people just don't know how to behave in public. So you still have time in some places. See it before your eyesight goes, it might happen faster than you think.
- It seems like some drafts and other upcoming posts have gotten scrambled and/or lost.
You will never, succeed. Success is the fortune of only a chosen few... not you.
Long story short, next post is May 16.'
In the mean time, I guess I can lament giving up the first-mover advantage by neglecting to register "TheAngryOtaku" as a youtube.com username. Nope, some other dork got there first, and now theangryotaku channel on youtube is this crapfest. So do keep in mind that it's not me if you come across it on youtube. Such are the perils of establishing a personal brand on interweb2.0. I had wanted to make a few video posts but now I'm gonna have to use bit.tv or something like that.
Also, this weekend was Anime North in Toronto. I still am probably not allowed there anymore, ever since the disaster that was the execs at Crash (who were not me) wanting to go and do the anime convention thing, and then showing up, checking into the hotel, and then blowing the convention because it was "too nerdy" to go hang out at Tower Records in downtown Toronto, leaving me to explain things and take the fall. I stayed and had a nice time, but the con ppl were rightly pissed off. Thankfully, it was the only convention where they ever showed up. I'm sure something awesome happened there but I wasn't paying attention. Maybe I'll go to Otakuthon in Montreal. My passport needed renewing this month anyway and so now I've got a new one that's got nothing in it, so may as well get some Canada in there.
I guess I could have pulled out some old fandom stuff or scanned that Otakon 1994 program book, just to keep this anime related. Or maybe pseudo gripe about feeling a bit homesick over my old Tokyo apartment, but then realize that it was built in 1972 and in all likelihood took a serious beating in that earthquake, and then feel happy about not being there when I see the current exchange rate. Not so fab.
Sometimes it's hard to remember that many people reading this haven't had the experience of living in Tokyo (even if it was a grinding dehumanizing existence) so stuff like this is worth sharing. So let me just say this... If you find yourself in Tokyo and you're on a budget (you're reading this, so I know you will have limited funds) get over to the lower floor of the Palaceside Building at Takebashi station (that's off the Tozai subway line, but walkable from lots of places, and it's right on the moat of the Imperial Palace Park)... anyway go in there and look for a place called Shanghai somethin-or-other written all in Kanji,so it's "上海市" and then some other stuff I don't remember (it's got one of these in the logo so look for that too). It is there you can get the straight up best tantamen in the universe, and for under 1000 yen. (FYI, the best things to eat in Tokyo are in small places where literally everyone in the lunch-rush has ordered the exact same thing because it's so f-ing awesome... that's how I found this place and discovered tantanmen in the first place).
Tantanmen, although not being mentioned in Shampoo's Nekohanten Menu Song, is a big staple of lunchie-munchie noodle houses in Japan. Though the origins are Chinese, that's like saying the crap that you find over at "Great Wall Buffet" over in Peoria is authentic Chinese cuisine. No, tantanmen is one of the few Japanese dishes that are normally spicy. It's also easy to make at home as long as you can get your hands on some ground pork. If you are in the USA, it's not terribly hard to find as long as you're in NY LA or SF. If not you might be screwed.
Well, that's it for now. There will be an actual post next week. In the mean time have a drink or something. ...no seriously, check out my other blog... it's really lonely.
Another circular point, but it's probably worth it to keep reading.
OK, real quick, one more time; "hey rest of the world, you can't tell Japan what to do." In the history of the world, Japan is a country that's only given into absolute ultimatums exactly once, and that case involved nuclear weapons. The retarded antics of the Sea Shep-tard are so painfully obvious as counter productive, that its South Park moment has come and gone, but much like the true power behind the one ring to rule them all, the mote that is the source of this particular stream of stupid are well hidden within cultural illiteracy.
The Not-Guilty Perspective
There is disinformation ging out on both sides, indicitive of a complete abandonment of any kind of sense of reality based compromise and have devolved into some slobbering conflict of absolutes. Neither side is going to be able to bring this to a quick end now. Anti-whaling forces would be happy if you conjoured up mental images of endangeres species being hauled up onto the deck of a boat and dismembered while their relatives are forced to look on while Cruella Deville looks on and cackles. Now, the hunding, killing, and processing of these whales isn't pretty, but two things to remember; 1) Minke are not endangered (and are also delicious), and 2) This criticism is coming from Australia. A country that spends government money encouraging people to kill and eat it's own national symbol. That's right, Australia, who doesn't like Japanese whaling and whale meat for an almost non-existant whale meat market not in Australia, is wholesale offering KANGAROO MEAT as fun for the whole family. I wonder what it looks like when they poke holes in their necks so the blood can drain out and then rip their skin off so they can bring us this:
Double Standard Alert! ...Fire up the barbie.
I'm bringing this up to show the absurdity of the notion that somehow a Whale outranks a Kangaroo in the "humans are gonna eat us" lottery, even when that animal has the status of a National Symbol goin' for it. It'd be the same as if Chick-Fill-A USA offered fried Bald Eagle and then sent idiots into Canada to tell them to stop hunting Caribu. Yes, it's exactly that stupid, and the reaction is going to be exactly what you think it is. Australia killes 2 Million Kangaroos for meat in a single year, where the number of whales killed by Japan and Korea in the same year is under 2,000. So it would seem that the life of one whale is worth like... 1,000 Kangaroos? Are we going by weight, or intangible animal souls or something?
The Guilty Perspective
Japan went through some very terrible times right after the end of WWII. Ever see the end of Grave of the Fireflies where those two kids starve to death? Yeah, that was happening a lot. In order to avoid that, the government was introduced to a great source of food that was easy to get. Whale meat. And guess which country provided the dessimated Japanese merchant navy with everything they needed to hunt those floating bento factories? Hint: it wasn't Mexico.
But does any of that really matter any more? No, not really. There's lots of other food to get, whale meat isn't popular and it's expensive, and in reality it's bad for you because of pullution in the oceans. The Japanese "scientific reasearch" excuse is such BS and everyone knows it. But like the classic Tail Spin episode where the Sea Duck was mistaken for a flamingo because of simply being labeled so, if it's labeled that, then it is that, even if it's not. That's how Japan works. Like many things Japanese the government turns a blind eye to (read this), the basic strategy was to just put aside some patient hope this issue will go off and die a quiet un-noticed death. ...and now the Discovery Channel has put this shit so far in the spotlight it's going to take 10 years for this issue to go back to where it was in 2005. It's become a high-profile, wedge issue that has entrenched itself into the Japan vs The World "Culture War" similar to the French and the battle over Foie Gras.
Kobayashi Yoshinori’s whaling manga (dead Kangaroos on the lower right).
Now, Kobayashi is a wing-nut moonbat who was probably driving one of those black van "expell the foriegner" protests that used to park outside my apartment on Yasukuni Dori (not for little old me, but because this was across the street). But his level of crazy is not the point. The point is that HIS point is powerful enough to push things to extremes on the domestic Japanese end while Paul Watson's douchebaggery is pulling the extreme on the other end. The end result is that this issue gets further and further away from a quickly feasable solution in a very Carl Rove like fashion.
The Peanut Gallery: How this relates to anime
The only reason I'm bringing any of this up, is that (I forget where I was, it might have been online) but I was involved in a conversation with an idiot otaku who said something along the lines of they were going to "stop downloading manga and anime" in protest of this Japanese whaling thing. That's right, in an effort to somehow hurt the Japanese economy, this person was going to stop STEALING from it. And this is the real problem that anime and manga face from the rest of the world. This otaku (and many others) are under the rediculous impression that their consumption, appreciation, and enjoyment of this media they acquire without paying for it, somehow in and of itself adds some sort of tangible value to the creators.
So here we have this person, who basically thinks they are taking some sort of tangible value away from a company that provided a property that they were consuming illegally. How exactly that was supposed to work, they couldn't articulate, but their head was still thick enough to resist actual logic and the realization that their fandom adds zero value and makes zero revenue to the vast commercial process of creating an anime or manga. The sense of intellectual vacancy in this kind of thing is overwhelming. This person hasn't vowed to not buy a Toyota, or pull their investments from Japanese firms... nope, just stop doing something that adds no value to the Japanese economy in the first place.
Otaku may have an emotional connection to anime, manga, and the various character goods that go with them, but you're not a customer if you're looking at scanlations, you're less than worthless to the manga artists, their assistants, and the publishing staff. You may as well be a Kangaroo, waiting to be blead to death and cut up, cooked, and served at a charity dinner to raise money to buy new equipment for the Sea Shepherd.
It's actually starting to get to me, but there are things about Life in Japan (not just Tokyo) I miss, and the upcoming Holidays are starting to tug on the ol' nostalgia heartstrings. One thing that seems to remain the same however is Chanuka and Kwanza coming and going without anyone really noticing -snark-.
It would seem however that some Cross Cultural Christmas Creep is ...Chappening between Chapan and Camerica. (ok I'll stop with the retarded illiteration). Yes friends, there is no greater shame than someone who calls themselves an Otaku, yet remains ignorant of the connection between the beloved Colonel Sanders and Christmas in Japan. (Link. Another Link with creepy accompanying photo, and finally to bring it back to grown up land, a more reputable Link).
Yes friends, the Colonel owns Christmas in Japan, where he dawns his santa hat and provides round-eye style deep fat fried poultry to the masses for $50 per order. You'll see some refrences to this in the popular culture of the Land of the Rising Sun, but none more concentrated as the short contribution they make to Duane Johnson's very classic and skillfully made AMV (back when there was such a thing), "Dare to be Stupid."
It's somewhere in there I didn't upload the thing and only know it form other sources... Hey, I've had this thing on VHS since 1997 so ....get off my lawn!
So here I am, sitting in my jail cell of a room with a TV on, always looking for ways to make obscure connections between marketing and Japanese pop-culture (I haz MBA, I kan make teh smrt) when I notice a KFC commercial air that was obviously made for domestic U.S. audiences.
Now, while KFC has been running Holiday themed advertising for years (was it KFC that did the Lake Wolbigon spots way back when, or was that Wendy's?) the particular spot that has aired this year is different. Now the following observations may not be new, since by living in Tokyo I was not watching American TV last December, but the observation none the less is the following; That while many winter holiday advertising from KFC (and many other entities) has taken a Xmas "flavor" so to speak, this seems to be the first that I've seen to explicitly suggest purchasing and eating this KFC product on Christmas itself. The message of "saving time" is simply, don't cook, buy and eat KFC, not "it's a Kuriisumasu thing" that those gaijin celebrate.
Is this a correlation = causation instance? Um no. The reason that Japan loves KFC on Xmas is very far removed from the reasons that an advertizing agency believes that this will be effective in boosting sales, or the Yum!Brands Marketing Department believes it would be profitable to keep a significant number of KFC locations open on Christmas. Still, it's nice to see yet another creepy Christmas cross cultural commonality ....c-develop between Japan and the US, if not for this one being one of the few examples of the door swinging the other way.
So there you go, you American Otaku. Now there's no excuse not to sink your teeth into a piece of golden deep fried awesome. Whether it's to bring the family together, or to avoid them all entirely, get to a KFC, where they'll charge you 25% of the price of the same than Japan will, because America has illegal immigrant labor pick lettuce, slaughter chickens, and work in food-factories for less than minimum wage, all so you can buy 12,000 callories provided by the cheapest third party for the lowest bid price. ...Enjoy.
The "Angry Otaku" is a licensing and media professional who has lived in New York and Tokyo, and has licensed media properties around the world.
M.B.A., 一橋大学
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