Ghosts of Tsushima: Ignorance revives the White Man’s Burden for the 21st Century.

Still no cure for Foot in Mouth Disease.
Before anyone goes full WHARRGARBLE about the term "SJW" being used here, please keep in mind that it is not the same as when drunk-uncle or some Fox News chud uses it.  This is pure internet circa 2006 traditional meaning of basically someone who develops an overly-righteous sense of impetus for immediate action, to engage in activities that are actually harmful to the very causes they explicitize their support for.  In short, picture the Ralph Wiggum from The Simpson's "I'M HELPING" meme combined with Social Justice Sally from way back when.

I set the standard brah! Not you!

With the release of Ghosts of Tsushima, The White Man’s Burden of the 21st Century awakens within the campus collective of SJWs shooting themselves in the foot and saying “look at me, I make virtue signal!” with all the self-awareness of the hive-minded student body and staff of Oberlin College.  The same crowd that boldly stood up to the oh so egregious cultural oppression of a non-Asian actress playing a character who uses a cybernetic body based on a European design, in a future where the global population is super-portable from location to location and rapidly erasing genetic racial differences, in an English language movie from a Hollywood studio that was obviously doomed to fail as a commercial film – is now trying to scream bloody murder because a successful commercial venture in video games has not conformed to their standard rubric of what is appropriate when global business spans more than one specific socio-cultural group.

Notice no one got upset when an "Asian" character was played by this guy.
Yeah... total mystery.

The argument of requiring a pre-existing qualification to engage in story telling as commercial entertainment being necessarily tied to the actual race or nationality is mindbogglingly stupid, yet through the efforts of these people it has almost become ipso facto default in American entertainment media.  To make matters worse, this absolutism is zealously pushed by a mentality that would have Chairman Mao saying “wow that’s a little too intense” and all by groups of idiot morons who can not differentiate between “race” and “nationality.”  Furthermore, these mentalities actually devalue cultural practices and histories by indelibly tethering them to things like “nationality” turning cultural practices into compartmentalized commodities that are confined to convenient little boxes they can access as memes and use as tools when they have some meaningless discussion about “identity” and “diversity” in a racially segregated safe-space.  This completely ignores the very real fact that nations can have many cultures within them, and that cultures can span the borders of nations.  When these people look at things like race, culture, and nationality, they don’t see wide areas of sociology and anthropology too large to be fully understood, but rather they see poker chips or Pokemon cards, to be used to strengthen their own hand in their posturing and pontificating about what they know is best for specific groups of people.  

Such an outrage mechanism was engaged when Ghosts of Tsushima was released and some American noticed it wasn’t made part and parcel 100% by genetically pure Japanese.  This was a problem that the enlightened ones would not sit still for.  Those of the proper higher education were here to protect those unfortunate victims of “cultural appropriation” or whatever, even if the people of the culture being appropriated are so simple and basic that they can’t tell how appropriated their culture is getting, and how it must be stopped before they totally run out of it (just like what happens when you over-mine molybdenum, you’re gonna run out of it forever!).  Yes, this was all needed despite the game going over well so well in Japan it scored 40 out of 40, 4 times in Famisu.  Just in case you forgot, they know more about video games and the video game business than anyone reading this.  Yet there they were, the ever-outraged SJW Brigade who support their America-centric assertions with an absolute authority that comes from being born and raised in Reseda with a Vietnamese mom and Pilipino dad, half way through a weaboo inspired trek through Japanese 201 at whatever-college …because “Asian!”  You know, just like how some guy outside Boston who has Irish grandparents is a default authority on Serbian history and culture because “European.” 

Hunting with Good Will.

So having a game, set in Kamakura period Japan with a sprinkle of Edo anachronism here and there, made by a company that is not owned by Japanese investors, not located in Japan, and not staffed 100% by Japanese citizens of Asian ethnicity; is apparently a serious affront to ...either all Japanese nationals or all Asian people from Palau to Kashmir (you can’t really tell with these kinds of half-assed arguments).  Jeez, I guess Japanese owners of Ferrari or Audi with right-hand drive should feeling very much of shame not buying Japanese cars!  And these people from outside the existing contemporary culture that is Japan (no, watching a lot of anime and learning hiragana does not get you anywhere near that), go on a crusade of moral righteousness, to save the people of Japan and video game consumers around the world from Namibia to Nunavut, from what they know is oppression in the form of Red Dead Redemption set in Tsushima. 

What happened next is the ultimate manifestation of White Man’s Burden of the 21st Century.  Japanese markets embraced the game en masse, and regular average fans, as well as luminaries in the video game industry reacted with a perplexed dismissal at the notion of the game coming from a source that was not racially pure enough being something that would detract from its quality or entertainment value.  At that moment, basically all of Japan was labeled “Uncle Tom” and cast as simpletons who simply don’t know what is best for them.  Japanese lack of their own “cultural identity awareness” was something that needed to be addressed and it was now up to the American (notice this didn’t happen in France), ivory tower enlightenment-class to bring “civilization” to wield the flaming sword of Social Justice in their defense.  Japanese-ness had to be preserved, and the Asian American with their white allies(tm) were just the ones to install such preservation, keeping it un-corrupted like a perfectly unchanging museum piece to be looked at and admired for its own unique-ness-of uniquecallitisity in a uniquely unique way.  Like the perfect example of a pure-bred dog, no outside influences shall be allowed to taint such an elegant specimen worthy of cultural admiration.  

And then as if that wasn’t stupid enough, the land mine of foot-in-mouth disease was trod upon with all the subtlety of a drunk elephant.  And yes, I am of course referring to the performance of Cornelius Boots at E3.  Genius level jingoist racist Dani Jo and company a took one look at this and deemed it to be entirely unacceptable that a non-Asian person (not necessarily a non-Japanese, just non-Asian… but something tells me if it were some dark skinned dude from Bangladesh, she wouldn’t be happy either) was playing a traditional Japanese musical instrument to promote a video game.  Did she know Cornelius Boots was considered a master of the shakuhachi?  No.  Did she do anything to find out about him at all?  No.  Did she look up the word "shakuhachi"? ...No.  What she saw in that single observation was enough for her to pass judgement with the unassailable authority of “I are Asian.”  By her standards, the shakukachi by its very nature can only be played by someone who is racially and nationally pure enough to meet certain pre-determined standards.  She also called the promotional costume he was wearing “traditional Japanese” in her self-righteous ignorance, when what he was wearing was as traditionally Japanese as the outfits at Medieval Times are “traditional” Middle European (ie. they’re not).  It was marketing for a product promotion, the same way people put on George Washington costumes for President’s Day mattress sales or the Bacardi group sends out people in cinematic themed pirate costumes with eye patches and shoulder parrots to yell "aarrrrggg."  It evokes a modern notion of “concept A” in most people, and that formula is being used to sell stuff.  Dani Jo and those who followed suit were quickly shut down for being an embarrassment, because when you apply the same level of diligence in your arguments as flat-earthers do, jingoist racial zeteticism shall get you nowhere (other than relentlessly ridiculed).

Do you think Dani Jo would have said the same thing if the shakuhachi was being played by a very non-Asian black Congolese woman?
...yeah I didn't think so either.

The culturally appropriated rage onslaught did not stop there, and further delved into the trivial idiocy that only has value to their owned warped perceptions.  Arguing about the “correct” conjugation of 続くthat’s “tsuzuku” meaning “to continue” actually started happening.  Yep, people who live in suburban America with no JLPT scores were ever so sure that the version as written in the game was “wrong” and therefore un-Japanese enough to cause outrage.  The correct response to this notion is simply “shut the fuck up” and nothing more.

It was not saddening to see game media like Kotaku, Polygon, Technocodex, and even The Washington Post twist in the wind trying to appease the SJW commandments they have sworn themselves loyal to and say something bad about this game without making their motives obvious.  After Ghostbusters 2016, media critics became worthless.  What was saddening was seeing potentially meaningful SJWs decide to use their time on something like this, while Black Lives Matter is still happening, at a desperate point where it needs to make significant headway.  Nice use of your time, dickheads. 

Still a thing.  A much much more important thing.

In the end the keepers of objective reality have had a victory against an opponent who we didn’t even notice was trying to fight us.  Their arsenal of misconceptions, double standards, and factual inaccuracy, simply had them trying to land punches with fists made of smoke.  But in doing so, they exposed their willingness to embrace the White Man’s Burden of bringing education and enlightenment to those who are all but too underdeveloped and savage to even know they need it.  The noble SJW Burden, has them bringing American academic social concepts to nations, cultures, and ethnic groups in the name of “helping” them, for they no not what they need protection from.  Somehow the perpetrators of such insidious evil believe themselves to be righteous.  May their efforts fall as flat as this every time.

She needs her SAFE SPACE!

And as always:

-

The Wrong People for the Job: Keeping CEOs in media and business that are going to sink the boat.

"Failure to learn from past mistakes begins with the belief that what happened was never a mistake in the first place."
      -Me, just now.

"HBO made $6 BILLION net profit the last 3 years, has 43 million subscribers, won 29 Emmy Awards in 2017.  So we need to go in a new direction!"
-AT&T... because, of course.

Although it may seem as if you, dear reader, are in for an art history lesson, it is the actual Medusa event that is the inspiration here.  It is something I have been thinking about as it applies to contemporary matters.  Famous for being immortalized in "The Raft of the Medusa" by French master Théodore Géricault in 1819 currently on display at the Louvre in Paris, The Medusa Affair was  a horrific event involving incompetence, cronyism, class-ism, and not only epic, but consistently poor decision making by "management" you could call it. 

Since Wikipedia exists, the entire story need not be retold here, only that due to the above stated reasons (and maybe a shark or two), the evacuation of most of the people on board met with an 8% success rate, and in case you were wondering, that would be -92% return on living people. The result was mutiny, murder, suicide, and eventual cannibalism.  It is a situation with striking parallels to the result of current business practices in these the times in which we live.  The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Also the boat itself sank.

For more information, visit your local youtube video where a college freshman will blur the lines between explain, extol, and pontificate, while talking about what they read about this in an art history book published in 1992.  It will be followed by a google ad-sense link for where you can find the best deal on a sub-par print you can hang in your tiny apartment to make people who come over think you're smart.  (Which is good because you have really got to stop telling people that "The Scream" is your favorite Van Gogh painting when you point to that old poster of it you got from the campus bookshop that's still up in your kitchen).  ...wow I put so many miles on this joke I could take it to an antique dealer at this point.


Moving on; The recent episodes of corporate death and disease we have been seeing, which range from MGM to Toys R Us, and from G.E. to Toshiba, are not specific to any one industry, but rather the result of a potent mixture of a failure to adapt, generational disconnect, staunch baby boomer self-righteousness, Executive Worship, immense misplacement of corporate social responsibility, politically complicit corporate corruption, and simple greed in the notion that selling the soul of the company to an investment bank so you could have more money to carry out your bullshit was somehow not going to end up like a real life version of Faust (but hey, you're "executive level" so what do you care...). 

As these companies navigate the turbulent seas of global business, success and even survival depends on command decisions with the health of the vessel in mind as paramount.  All too often in the past two to three decades, concern for such welfares  have found themselves replaced by some nebulous commitment to unknowable collectives of financiers, with priorities far too narrow to sustain anything other than the monetary equivalent of theoretical physics that only finance majors could hold so dear.  This has elevated the concept of the all-star CEO to something of value.  An asset of luxuriant necessity who's lack of presence is as inconceivable as the absence of air-conditioning in a car owned by someone living in Arizona.  It is not.

 March 2017 

SONY:  "HA HA NERDS!"

-

March 2018

"How do ya like THEM APPLES?"

Such is the function of self aggrandizing smoke and mirrors.  But much like smoking cigarettes, it only looks cool in the movies, and that intangible coolwill* can dangerously overshadow the real irreparable damage to very tangible healthy tissue.  Damage which is obscured from being a cause of concern until the lifeblood of the drained body-corporate pours from a gasping desiccated mouth twisted in the physical pain of necrotic tissue attempting in vein to maintain its life, quivering below eyes widened by the fear of  inevitable mortality, dripping with impotent tears impregnated with the lamentable knowledge of the fact such a fate as final as this death was by their own hand, preventable.  

Basically their way of running a company is very harmful but they don't realize it until it bites them in the ass.  This is because like the Captain of The Medusa, they have gained their position through favoritism and noble title, not by showing an ability to navigate an overloaded military naval vessel in the dangerous shallows off of West Africa.  Being appointed to such responsibilities leaves most executives genuinely questioning how their "brilliant plan" which relies on strategic metrics and business sensibilities which fully petrified in 2002 could have missed the mark by so much.  And why their concerns for rescuing things from their disastrous endeavors are egregious cries of "assets and golden parachutes first!" when filling the few lifeboats who's shortage and inadequacy seems to exist by design.

 Despite how awesome this looks, in reality it is the result of some very poor life choices.

 *What is "coolwill"?  Related to the business concept of goodwill, coolwill is an intangible asset not generated not by deeds which create general feelings of gratis and dependability in consumers, but by deeds which create feelings of envy in competitors.  This can include everything from innocuous flamboyance, to seriously self-destructive behaviors such as the insanity of CEO Dennis Kozlowski. While Tyco is an extreme example, the notion of the "cool kids" having the run of the school despite being anything other than human garbage, is a long and storied one and continues into just about every aspect of society.  So coolwill is when a Company or Executive benefits from such enviable and not rewarding or dependable behavior.

This brings us to today, where a mix of said "coolwill" and baby boomer selfishness have created an invisible monster that is giving corporate sepsis to companies that make the things we love and which employ the people our communities depend on.  Nothing appeals to older executives like being atop a social pyramid and older such people are finding out that the only such pyramids they can stand atop of are ones where they stand on the shoulders of those simply too economically terrified to ever contradict them.  Even if that pyramid is one they are ill equipped to take command of.  While the myth of the CEO being something valuable is well known and documented, they react like the owner of a pit-bull which has already ripped open 2 Yorkies and human toddler's face, oh well that's not ME and MY doggie, I'm totally different.  Yeah, sure you are.  But that's only a small part of the reason these companies are showing signs of ill health.

The more important part is that the solution to these problems is going to have to include the strategy of filling positions based on ability and competency, not experience and seniority.  Nothing makes a baby boomer start worrying more than the realization that their skill-set of telling other people what to do and their "experience" of working with dot matrix printers is not an asset.  We see these people paid more for doing less.  The notion of "not being able to set up your own email" was cute in 1998, but 20 years on that's like proudly admitting you don't know how to dial a phone or order a pizza.  Why does the VP of marketing need someone to explain to them what tent-poling is, or how to analyze new market data?  The notion that the keeping of their positions might get tied to their demonstrable abilities and not simply the fact that they just have been there forever will make them dangerous wounded animals.  Anyone who says "I've been in the business a long time" needs to be told "yeah, and look what you've done to it."  But of course that's always someone else's fault.

Social issues are also very important, especially in creative and entertainment media.  No one wants to work for a generation that denies civil rights to Americans, and calls video games (a multi-billion dollar industry that pays enough taxes to keep their precious Medicare, bailouts, and unending wars going) as dangerous as lead-poisoning, unless they get paid enough to ...pay off their student loans I guess.
 (oh, 2016... See what I did there?).

Although this argument could fill pages upon pages, I will simply conclude that this economic environment of terrible terribleness is only going to bring us more bad decision making by a management with inherited and artificially portable power, and unearned reputations of competence value, and a desperate need to stay relevant despite sucking at their CEO jobs.   (Jeff Immelt I'm talking about you... You can only sell NBC once).

So what does this mean for media creation and consumption for Otaku?  Well I think it means this:


For the USA:
This means that media companies will finance irrelevant projects, use outdated strategies, and fail to give the necessary importance to emergent technology ("disruptive technology" is the wrong term, it is just something the old world execs use for new inventions that they can't figure out how to turn on or off).  Companies will make crap, and eventually we will see a decline in creativity and content.  Just look what FOX did to every single good show they had... yeah, we really need that Tim Allen reboot of whatever it is.  Look how well Rosanne did ammiright?

You just know Fox is gonna bring this one back in such a socially tone-def manner, the lack of self-awareness is going to create a vacuum which rivals a black hole.

For Japan:
The risk for Japan comes from a direct threat to financing.  In terms of content and licensing "keep doing what you're doing" is not only a prudent idea but it's such a Japanese way of doing things that it's gonna happen that way no matter what. Sure there are in-studio changes that should happen which won't, but that's just going to make life continue to suck there.  What keeps most anime actually happening, is financing from massive corporations and banking networks which are too frequently starting to fall like diseased trees and take out whatever happens to be in their way as they plummet into dysfunction.

Is the Shining top of an Oji-san's head the new face of Japanese Global Industry?  

It's getting there, but recent events indicate that Japan is still playing more of a long-game, which seems like a good idea since we're now in a current climate where the only way to win is almost not to play (at least for the moment).

Link to Article.

As The Medusa triggered the fall of the Bourbon Restoration and eventually lead to the July Revolution of 1830 in France (actual photograph of the event below), perhaps we shall see one of these disasters spur on the recognition that the balance of power, opportunity, and long term national preservation, so desperately in need adjusting.

I Luvz Mah Gun... Luvs Mah Gun! Guns and their role in entertainment media.

Well, if I had one I'd love her... her name would be Alligator.

So Las Vegas happened.  Yeah that was a thing.  Although Alex Jones is already screaming "false flag" because, of course he is, it won't take long for other people who actually live on planet Earth to start looking at the idea of guns, the ownership of guns, the use of guns, and the availability of Guns.  But in all that, there is going to be one term that keeps getting mentioned I'm sure; "Gun-Culture" and the thing is, you can't really have that without the need to include the concept of "guns-in-culture" along with it.

 

Pay attention.  This is very important.
I actually just realized she's got one eye totally covered and the other one 90% closed... how she gonna hit anything like that?

I think everyone who grew up in the 80's or 90's knows that one kid who's mom wouldn't let them play with any type of toy gun or gun-like object and if she caught them watching The A-Team there would be hell to pay.  These were the days of Dr. Spockian absolutisms of hippy-dippy child rearing and Mel Leveneish notions that literally everything in the environment a young person is in will have some sort of indelible impact on someone growing up, even if it is an abstract concept.  Yep, the baby boomers believed that if you just shielded your child from anything negative, then they would grow up to be perfect little conformers to your specific set of values.  ...You go ask the Mormons how well that actually works.  One of the first aspects of popular entertainment this phenomenon was that moment when you realize G.I. Joe went from being good to sucking ass.

 

Real guns and explosions on the left... this ridiculousness and "lasers" that move so slow you can dodge them on the right.

But you kept watching it... and you know why.

Yeah, you know why

Fast-forward to post-Columbine and all of a sudden it's; Leather duster jackets are potential warning signhs!  Mortal Kombat did this, quick get Hillary Clinton and Captain Kangaroo (no seriously he was a part of that insane shit) they will ban them there vidja games!  Schools need more security than airports and every student is guilty until proven innocent!  Marylin Manson!  ZERO TOLERANCE!  ...oh and people shouldn't keep loaded guns where victims of prolonged sanctioned bullying who may show signs of mental illness can get them  ...ya know, just maybe.

Did entertainment media get less violent as a result?  I'd say not really.  What happened was the kind of person who was "allowed" access to it was changed.  And it was based on age.  The generation that said "never trust anyone over 30,"  smoked weed in public but then embraced the war on drugs, and would gladly give a blowjob to Holden Caulfield because he was just the best, does a 180.  All of a sudden there was now a wrong kind of music.  A wrong kind of clothing style.  A wrong kind of media entertainment.  And they are the ones who knew everything (I mean they totally changed the world, man!) so you will obey them and do what they say.  They declared a straight up war on cultural evolution.  A war they would eventually lose, in part thanks to anime and manga being so out there and so under the radar and shared through technology they did not understand, that they didn't know they were supposed to hate it until it was too late.  Even before you could download anything, in my college anime club running days I had a VHS trading network that reached from Canada to Bolivia and it was all arranged online (yes I am that old).  But the "guns-in-culture" problem popped up in that "zero-tolerance" zealotry.  So kids; Bring a 1 inch plastic accessory gun held by an action figure to school?  Oh, you criminal scum!  Wear a clip in your hair that might have a gun-like image as part of it?  You're aiding terrorism!  Bite a pop-tart in the shape of a gun?  IT'S CARLOS THE JACKAL!  And Big Brother is always watching.  Even when you think he isn't.  That has unfortunately more or less continued and will probably keep happening for another 10 years until the kids who ended up on the business end of that retarded retardedness get their hands on the wheel.

If you are under 18 in America today, you have no rights.  ...sorry kids

So, like I said, now Las Vegas happened.  And what are we going to get?  First we're going to get people asking for motive, and the NRA going into full head-up-ass damage control mode.  Some people are going to say we should ban all guns, some people are going to say we should ban some kinds of guns, and some people will say from my cold dead hands.  The thing is, the weapon used in the video of the event which is widely circulating is clearly a fully automatic machine gun or sub-machine gun and those have been banned and prohibited for decades.... It is not one of these.  So what are you gonna do, give them super secret double probation banning or something?  Guns are a Constitutional issue and as such will take a Constitutional level action to change the question of availability.

*Edit as of 2017-10-08: I did not know what a bump-stock was when I wrote this and now I do know.  I also find that disconcerting.

Seriously if a Constitutional action can let some salty dried up cunts make this Constitutionally illegal in the USA for over a decade, then the gun thing is not impossible if that's what you want.  oooo language.  ...Hey, the sister blog of this one is called Pinky Mixology, you think I don't want to dig up Carrie Nation and piss on her dead body while her relatives have to watch on CCTV?   Anyway that means that one time, all three branches of the US Government once banned this because they thought it was too dangerous for America, while letting anyone buy one of these at a hardware store.  Yeah, nice one guys.

But actual Constitutional Legislation is not not what I am here to talk about.  What I am here to talk about is the entirely different universes that "gun otaku" live in between the USA and Japan.  In Japan, a gun-otaku may not even like anime, but loves a certain aspect of firearms, that being the engineering (in most cases... I am sure there a few weirdos out there that do sex-stuff regarding them).  But that's the engineering of every part, from the action to the aesthetics, so "looks cool" is a big part of why someone might favor a type of gun.  The thing is, gun-otaku in Japan really aren't considered dangerous because being a gun-otaku there is like being an F1-otaku here in the USA.  You are never going to own an F1 car (deal with it).  In Japan, thanks to one of the most intense firearm prohibition policies in the world, coupled with the geography of the country making enforcement of said policies highly effective, it is inconceivable that there would be a proliferation of firearms.  Not so much so in the USA, where you can go get one at Wal-Mart while you buy bananas and underpants, and then potentially modify them to have illegal rates of fire (the gun... not the underpants bananas).   So since anime are Japanese productions gun violence is treated something akin to wizard-magic in other American forms of entertainment.  A scenario so fantastic that it is unrealistic both in the idea that it could ever motivate someone to engage in such a thing for real, and in the way it is even portrayed as happening.

Annoyingly, this is not an actual thing that happens

So for Japanese audiences, in anime, guns might as well be light-sabers, because there is an equal chance of the average person getting their hands on either.   In the USA you get all into violent gun anime and then combine that with the fact that you can buy them from vending machines more or less, the impression is that you now pose a danger to public safety, just as much as that F1-otaku could if they actually got their hands on an F1 car and maybe decided to take it for a spin around the neighborhood.  And that makes guns, gun-otaku, and entertainment (anime included) with guns in it something that will be subject to such sensitivities now in the USA.  This could potentially cause a rift in the number of and type of anime that become licensed by companies here.  But I think such an effect would be minimal if it happened at all.

Whole new meaning now aint it...?

What are we going to see?  It is too early to tell.  Is it possible that people will become hostile to media that features the use of guns and all kinds of murdery murder even if it is clearly fiction?  Is Netflix never going to stream Smokin Aces again? (movie would have made a better anime anyway).  Are people under 18 going to be given even harsher punishments and treated like criminals for owning a copy of Gunslinger Girl or watching something like Kite?  Will just having an image of Upotte as the background on your pc get you abducted and sent to a "rehabilitation" camp when in reality all you wanted was a Pepsi (just one Pepsi), but your parents have bought into the fearvertizing of for-profit teen crisis programs that don't give a flying fuck how they keep their beds full?  Maybe it will happen.  I think because the guy who did it is apparently one himself, the baby boomers will do everything they can to point attention away from that fact, and whenever they need a scapegoat, the come for the millennials.  They are going to really need a scapegoat now, since this guy isn't around to talk, and so said scapegoat is going to be the information we consume.  It will be the entertainment media we seek out that the boomers do not, which they will culturally and politically denounce the heresy of, and those youngins who perpetuate its continued cultural consumption, are going to get treated like like they started the fucking Reichstag Fire.  Our generation doesn't have as much control of the steering wheel as we think we do (yeah, we have to do the boomers homework for them because they can barely work anything more than a calculator... but George McFly did Biff's homework all the time and who was runnin that school?  Wasn't Georgie). 

Oh read some history you idiots.

One foreseeable yet inevitable problem is that the ADD addled mind of most of us who exist in a world where not being able to stream a show for an hour because you're in another time zone or something will have you lose your shit, is that this will quickly develop into some gasoline on the Alt-Right vs Antifa mess we normies have to walk around in our everyday lives like compost piles no one had permission to set up in public.  And most of the people I know are going to say it's all the alt-right's fault because "the left" doesn't do the guns thing.   Well...  ya know.

Except when they totally do I guess. 

That bullshit between those two groups is what is going to be the sugar-in-the-gas-tank that derails any progression towards normal thought of how to proceed after this.  Cops will be edgy and then end up ruining (or ending) people's lives, and these two same poles of separate magnets will continue to push themselves further apart while the 24 hour news monster takes the rest of us just that much further with them.  The end result is going to be a bunch of nothing and then another even worse attack will happen.  Here terrorists, you want one, I'll give you one;

The NYC, subway.  A line with the newer cars you can move freely between. A team of 4 (but can be done with two) with two in the extreme front of the first car and two in extreme back the last.  Do this latter half of morning rush-hour, when the train is packed and wait a river crossing (ideal lines are 4/5, A/C, L, or F, they have the longest tunnels with curves that make them go slower... except the L, but when does that thing ever NOT move slow, ammiright?).  Wait for the train to get half way through and then have someone hit the emergency break.  That break takes 20 minutes to reset.  Once the train stops, both teams start shooting moving towards the center of the train.  Use 9mm semi-autos and carry extra magazines.  Make sure one person on the team keeps firing when the other has to reload (reloading is how they stopped Colin Ferguson).  You are not going to hit everyone so don't try, and don't fire too fast like the shooting up in the air scene in Point Break that's worthless.  You will most likely not have to worry about anyone else on the train who is armed because even if they are, gun-control laws in NYC mean it wouldn't be many people, cops drive to work because they don't actually live in NYC (sorry Staten Island doesn't count as NYC and everyone knows it) and on a rush-hour train, the panic that will immediately set in will have a stampede of people running away from you pushing, knocking down, or at least blocking, anyone who could stop you from continuing to fire.  Do this on a rainy day, so that people have umbrellas to trip over but also because you can wear large rain ponchos and no one will see what you have under there.  Make sure you get on early on the train line so you can get in position and pick a shitty neighborhood because they won't be doing bag searches there. Once you've done enough damage or run out of ammo you can ditch the ponchos and disappear into the panic and since you have an all new outfit on, no one will know it was you.  Do with with 6 people with 2 in the middle and holy shit!  ...most of you will probably get caught though.

There, I just gave you a freebie.   See?  That's what's gonna happen when these polarized idiot morons, in a country under a really shitty President who thinks playing golf is literally part of his job, prevent real things from getting done.   ...Jesus now that I go read that back that sounds like an insane and psychopathic...

Miss Dynamite.  Great series by Canadian writer, illustrator, cartoonist and all around artist of amazing amazingness, Sirkowski.

Oh wait... someone is at the door...

Oh shit... Well, wouldn't be the first time...  Seriously, it wouldn't.  If they send anyone I hope the cute one comes back.  Oh shit I just realized I totally fit "the profile" for this kind of thing too...  Goodnight Everybody.  Ah, they know I'm an f-ing joke.  Actually if they're reading this, they should be happy about it because I just gave them something they should have been worrying about anyway.
...wonder if they're hiring

Bee Stings vs Bullet Wounds: Toshiba continues to sponsor Sazae-san

When Smoke & Mirrors Are Just What the Doctor Ordered.

Toshiba.  The only brand of laptop computer I ever consider, is in a boatload of trouble.  What kind of trouble?  You might say it's of the Enron variety (AKA forgetting how GAAP / IFRS works and hoping nobody notices.  Someone will always notice, by the way). 

 This is totally what every accountant in Japan looks like, I am an expert.

While this proved fatal for Enron, it is unlikely that Toshiba will cease to exist any time soon.  Sure this is a hit to Toshiba and to Japan itself, but not a fatal one. Japan has already had a revolving door of Prime Ministers ever since Japanese Tony Blair left office (yeah I said it) and that didn't bring the place down. It's probably not going to come to Abe stepping down early, though he ain't gonna be around after the next election.  But Japan is still relatively healthy compared to the rest of the region, and these developments are bee stings rather than bullet wounds.

This is totally what every bee in Japan looks like, I am an expert

Like any bee sting, getting one or two is something you can shrug off, however, once they start adding up, things get really serious really fast.  Right now, Japan has so much egg on its face that it's 50% sentient omelette at this point, and it has found itself having to choose between a frying pan and a fire. There is a serious government scandal going on stemming from the Ultra-Nationalist School land deal in Osaka Pref., there's another serious government scandal going on regarding GSDF activities in South Sudan (both with Defense Minister Tomomi Inada in the middle of the mess), yet she is continuously supported by the very unpopular PM Shinzo Abe.  This all floats atop a barge of private sector embarrassment made up of everything from the airbag safety recalls to radioactive pigs. All the while; the Norkos have declared war on the ocean again and have decided that Assassin's Creed IRL is just super-fun, South Korea is under attack from its own appliances and just removed its president from office for being terrible, China just unfriended everyone because they won't stop hanging out with their hated ex (Taiwan), The Philippines is encouraging its law enforcement to shoot people in the street, it wasn't really that long ago when cities in Thailand were mostly on fire, and a walking used condom full of melted creamsicle and ADHD just pulled the USA out of the TPP (which had its shortcomings, but just pulling out is like choosing to stay stranded in Death Valley because the rescue vehicle is a Ford F-450 and you're a die hard Chevy fan).  So... yeah, things are going just peachy-keen.

 This is the correct response.

The result of all of this can be a real and tangible detriment to many sociological and economic facets of a population.  Outlook, consumer spending, stress, overall health, cost of living, investment strategies, isolationism, and an overall feeling of anxiety that can permeate daily life are all areas in which regular people are effected. Stability in global trade, politics, and technology aren't things that are easily accomplished, but cultural stability is something that can be delivered and often helps keep people grounded, if only just a little, and improves overall quality of life even if it is just by drawing appreciation to the little things.

 Sometimes tea just can't do it alone.

Joy in the little things is not only the theme of the world's longest running animated series, and Japanese cultural institution, Sazae-san, but also the source of its great importance and relevance to people today.   Sazae-san is the type of anime that Japanese audiences love and international audiences don't pay attention to because it's like the most boringest one when compared to something like Attack on Titan.  The thing is it trounces just about every other anime title out there in ratings every week because it's very relatable if you live in Japan. It's something your grandparents watched, it's something your parents watched, and it's something you grew up watching.  It can't go away.  Having it around is important and helpful for keeping people within some modicum of the life-patterns they are accustomed to.  After my first few months living in Tokyo I was watching it on a regular basis.  Side note; it's a great way to practice Japanese because the dialogue isn't that intensely complex, and contains less slang than something like Shinchan.  Whether it is because of a profound sense of national duty, or they are just trying not to look weak, Toshiba is doing a public service for Japan by continuing to sponsor Sazae-san.

Keeping Japan from losing it's shit, one episode at a time.

I have noted before that anime as an industry is inexorably tied to other economic sectors, and here is a major example of that.  A shakeup in the bond issuance of a technology company came close enough to killing Sazae-san that it became major news.

This is not an example of putting on blinders to the realities of the world, or a tool in some sort of propaganda fueled denial of factualities that grow dangerous if ignored.  This is staying grounded in the face of uncertainty.  It is a needed mental supplement to prevent the kind of bad news burn-out that can have detrimental effects. Anime has almost always been that, no matter what the genre or setting.  It's a fun thing to do, and the healthy escapism it provides makes you realize, such is life.

Not bad for a 94 year old.

Who's Suin' Who: The "Hideaki Anno sues Gainax" non-story.

There’s a buzz buzz buzz about the recent legal action filed by the firm Khara Inc, filed against Gainax to the tune of 100million yen.  But like the buzzing of a bee, is it causing an unnecessarily overly energetic reaction to those it otherwise doesn’t pose a real danger to.  Are people making this out to be more than it is?  Cries of “Anno sues Gainax!” have already bee echoing through the interweb tubes and people are reacting like it’s the goddam Cuban Missile Crisis.  But let us not forget that 100,000,000 yen is (at the time of publication) the equivalent of US $879,275.06 which could be described the high-end of ass-wipe money in the grand scheme of things.  So even if Gainax can’t pay a single yen, Khara Inc may not necessarily come away with a tremendously significant ownership stake in the company (hell, with the price of wagyu the way it is, they’ll probably just end up getting ownership of a steak).

 Pen-Pineapple-Apple-Lawsuit.

Notice how the legal action does not include outstanding royalties, just the loan principal (doesn’t even mention interest, of which there may not have been any).  Outstanding royalties could easily be more than 100 million yen, depending on how long they’ve been outstanding.  This development could mean anything from the genesis of a real animosity between Khara and Gainax/Anno and Yamaga, to something like a side-step deal where Anno can take control of some of Evangelion IP assets in a way that keeps existing creditors and other debt issues out of the picture.  With Gainax showing very unhealthy income (in the article it is not mentioned if it is gross-adjusted or anything), their past failure to produce significant revenue since Evangelion may indeed invite the crows to pick the eagle sooner rather than later.  Although the beating of a dead horse may yet create gains if tenderized horse meat is what you have to sell, there need to be people willing to buy, and even then that only works once.  What I mean by that is; bringing back Evangelion again and again most likely is not going to be a successful survival strategy, you're going to lose out on the opportunity cost end.  The question then becomes, is there even any potential survival strategy that’s worth implementing?  Sometimes the answer is no.  While I hate to think about something like that for Gainax, when your best friend has to sue you for repayment of a (probably) zero interest loan, it doesn’t send a message of confidence to any other potential sources of financing regarding future projects. 

 

Without actually taking a look at the books and other accounting, the situation is very difficult to gauge in terms of the general temperament of the parties involved, as well as being able to know how much Gainax has gone the way of the cicada husk, presenting a rigid exterior while having been hollow inside for a long time now.  Maybe it’s exactly that, or maybe it’s not even close.  Regarding this kind of symptom, and based on how Japanese companies do things in general, I think Gainax may indeed be past the event horizon. 

 

I'm sure there's an easy solution.

So is this some sort of major event?  Well maybe not, since it involves less than $900,000 which for a company like Gainax shouldn’t be too hard to manage.  But it isn’t nothing either, it made the news, since not being able to just “handle it” is the position that Gainax seems to find itself in.  So it’s news. 

This mystery is going to make itself evident in the next year, possibly even before that.  Perhaps Anno really needs that money for his Dragon’s Dentist, or maybe this is a way for his good friend to get the best silverware off Titanic and into the right lifeboat before the thing finally starts going down.  That way Anno can keep his baby before insolvency ties it up and parcels it out.  That might be a good thing, but not for the reason you think.  Anno and Khara Inc might take Evangelion to Hollywood.  No one wants to do the same thing forever, and if a Hollywood Eva movie means that Khara can get financing for other projects as well, we might see something genuinely and creatively new, so why not tap that well...?  Anno is kind of a weirdo though so this could be well outside something he’d be willing to do.  But if a live action shit-stain of an Evangelian movie creates an opportunity for a Portal animated series (it won’t, but something equally awesome might be on the table), then it’s worth it. 

To truly understand what this situation might be, go watch U-571.  Remember that part where they put budget Ralph Maccio in the torpedo tube after that Nazi bastard killed him?  It was so that when his dead body and the rest of the junk floated to the top, the destroyer chasing them would think that they had sunk the thing?  Eventually that plan buys enough time to line up another plan (one that ends in ka-boom), and get out with the objective intact which was actually an Enigma machine and code book.  The bad news?  Despite once being state of the art, the battered U-571 ends up sinking.  Gainax may itself be a sinking ship, but the nexus of creativity can be kept alive and brought to where it can flourish, all by using the dead corpse of Evangelion to buy time (seriously people, stick a fork in it, just come to terms with the fact it was fun while it lasted). 

 You mustn’t run away.

As previously mentioned, the situation is far too vague for me to call that a lock in terms of what is going to happen.  This whole thing could just as easily turn some kind of ugly, and the vultures will pull everything apart in a terrible and damaging gut-splattered frenzy.   But I don’t mind engaging in a bit of wishful or nostalgic thinking every now and then.

20 year old coffee in a can anyone?

These are for sale if anyone wants them, as we try to raise funds to get new software for Pinky Mixology. Only $879,275.06! (Nah, but they are really for sale.  1997 edition, un-opened.  Message me or something).

Either way, one major problem no matter which direction this develops, is that it can be very difficult and quite tricky (some may even say impossible), to appraise or assign an explicit value to intellectual properties.  They are considered intangible assets, and so unlike financial instruments, they can not truly possess a net present value or be factored into the kinds of ratios that go into all that business stuff your roommate studied in college while you were wasting your time with Japanese Language 102.   Creditors and financial entities are going to have a very difficult time valuing Gainax for this reason.  It is not easily foretold how much revenue an entertainment property will produce.  Even companies like Disney and Fox have a hard time actually saying how much their flagships are worth in terms of actual real money on any given day, and they have entire rooms foll of math-people who's job is to do exactly that.  So while equations do exist for putting a monetary figure on entertainment IP (as opposed to patent IP... very different thing but IP none the less), they often aren't really allowed to sit down at the grown-ups table when it comes down to finalizing things, the same way polygraphs are used by law enforcement, but aren't admissible in actual court.  So if insolvency is a real possibility, then assigning a value to assets is going to be a guessing game at best and a cluster-fuck at worst.  Especially if more than one person is holding the leash to Evangelion.  This in and of itself may be an impetus for such a preemptive move to get Eva off the sinking ship sooner rather than later if that is in fact what is happening.  Much like electrons in the dual slit experiment, monetary value in entertainment properties only manifests as real when people look at them.  Finicky things these intangible assets are.  So we may be witnessing a great escape style egress of Evangelion, but pulled off out in the open for everyone to see.

Then again... all this might just be an epic disaster in the making.  Watching the company that fucked you over slowly go down in flames is always satisfying.

Yeah.

Isn't it Awfully Nice to Have a Penis: How a Porn revolution is Japan's last best hope for a piece.

We're gonna go straight into the gutter and bulls-eye some sexy sexy Womp Rats in a T16. 

Links are relatively SFW but the Wikipedia page for the Kanamara Matsuri has photos of endless penis sculptures. So... there's that.

Some messed up but not surprising news out of Japan. 

Because, of course.

There is obviously some sensationalism going on, but let's shake the dew of this lily anyway shall we?  Hikikomori is a bad thing, but the Japanese keep on using that word.  I do not think it means what they think it means.  You see, there's a literal meaning tied to it, meaning that you never leave the house, but at this point there's more to it.  There is another kind of Hikikomori, one lost soul in a big fish bowl... with lots of other fish there too but they don't really do anything.  Alone in the big city.  Simply put, people who go out and work for a living and do stuff, but don't really bother with human contact past a utilitarian function.

There is basically not enough banging going on in Japan.  In terms of causal factors, it may not be just because people are too uptight.  It's actually because of 1950's American Puritanism and the very strange "obscenity" laws that exist in Japan.  This has led to some weird portrayals of sex in both regular media, but also more importantly teh pr0nz.  Seriously, have you ever see Japanese porno?   It's all censored out isn't it.  That's because of laws that were put in place during the American Occupation.  Yeah, the geniuses running that decade thought it best that even 70 years later, no one should ever actually be able to see what the naughty bits do when you want to get laid.  So what happens?  Well besides the inevitable evolution of tentacle porn, it relies on over emphasized actions, fetish outfits, and for some reason no music what so ever (seriously, haw can you have happy naked time on video without a little bow-chick-a-wow-wow)?  I know music isn't something that is showing up in modern stuff, but that's a few generations ahead of what we're talking about.

Oh wait, did I say happy?  Forget that, because if you've ever seen Japanese porn you'd already know that it comes across as more of a portrayal of genuine torture rather than consensual humping. Seriously you never see someone having less fun during sexy time than a woman in a Japanese porn. Here is why that's a pretty bad thing;

We are in the internet age.  Women are gonna see it at some point.  They just are.  And if that's what they see, it's no wonder they're thinking "why the fuckshithell-hellshitfuck would I wanna do that?" or at least be like ...ew.  Not only does it come off giving the impression of being about as pleasant as getting cavities filled with no anesthetic, you can't even really see what's going on so your imagination is going to conjure up something that is the reason for what is portrayed as the obvious painful condition resulting from banging.  If you've never had sex before and your first time seeing it is in a video where a woman is literally crying through the entire experience, it's going to give the impression of something unpleasant.  Something has gotta change there.

Yeah, totally looks like she's having oh so much fun there.

Enter sex-positive porn directed by women ...and some dudes also. Seriously, live or animated, decent porn is going to change young attitudes towards sex and in turn, various relationships.  They're not gonna be deep though because, let's face it, nowhere in human civilization does there come a deep emotional understanding before the humping impulse, male or female, gay or straight, anything in between, when you're that age.  For everyone at that age, it's humpy time first, and "what's your favorite color?" later (don't tell me it's not, you're wrong, I said so, so there, infinity, nany-nany boo-boo).

Porn, no matter what you want to call it (awesome, obscene, bad influence, necessity), is still art.  Maybe bad art sure, but life doth still imitate it.  Think about your early sexy-time having.  Yeah sure it was probably a bit awkward, but what if all you had to go on before that was Japanese porn?  Yeah, it goes from awkward to horrific.  And it's not going to get any better unless obscenity laws are changed and they legalize the whole shebang sans mosaic censoring.  Soft, hard, hetero, gay, lezbot (no I actually mean lesbian robots, it's a thing, you can look it up) amateur, Inu Yasha and Kagome but like... both of them having a good time, it's not that hard to do.  And it's not wrong to do.  What, you think Inu Yasha and Kagome didn't want to just friggin get it the hell on even once?

 

Oh yeah, you know where this is goin'...

"But Dojinshi totally fills that need!" some non-Japanese otaku are saying at this point. Quiet, you. No it doesn't... How could it?  It's being made by the same sex starved idiot morons that have grown up in the sexually suppressed world of post-war Japan.  And even if it did, c'mon, Dojinshi?  How many regular Japanese women are going to keep that stuff around where they live let alone actually go to the kinds of places you have to in order to buy it (I'll give you a hint, it's somewhere between zero and who gives a shit percent of the population).  Besides Doujinshi is more part of the problem than a solution, since some stuff I've seen comes from sources that obviously have no idea what so ever how actual fucking works.

What Japan needs is a big fat shot in the arm of nice fun SEX... While like they say in Kinky Boots, "sex shouldn't be comfy" which is kinda true, it also shouldn't be unpleasant, so that needs to be dealt with.  And while people are into all kinds of stuff (yeah even you ladies, we know), there are general ideas and trends that you can use to put your best foot/boob forward.  And while we can say that most American pornography may portray things a bit unrealistically, it's because it is mostly the positive aspects that are enhanced for the audience that it works, you can just as easily amplify the worst parts about sexy time until it actually looks like something you'd prefer not to do in favor of stepping on thumbtacks with bare feet.  Seriously, it's not hard to make porn look like fun on at least a very basic level.  I think there are things about it that make it pretty easy to do that...

...subtle.

I'd say that the government should not only drop the obscenity laws that prevent even seeing sex parts, but also actually try to foster startups which produce material that will appeal to a wide audience between the genders.  The problem is, that's probably about as likely as the Saudi Royal Family opening up a Dinosaur BBQ Pulled Pork Palace right in the middle of Riyadh.  The powers that be in Japan seem to have a major problem with a certain part of the female anatomy.  Whether it comes from a long tradition of just not liking "icky" things or a stuffy prudishness which somehow almost all old people on earth seem to have, there's one part of this equation that they don't like even admitting that it exists, let alone somehow allowing anything glorifying it.  Even though it's an important thing to have around, especially when they keep talking about a dangerously low birthrate.

Not wireless headphones.

Not only weeps the crow, but also weeps the popinjay.  Enter long suffering artist and activist Megumi Igarashi, AKA Rokudenashiko ...come on you know I couldn't cover this subject without bringing her up.  She was put under government scrutiny for simply cartooning a vagina in a published work, and then arrested for paddling a kayak with the opening 3D printed in the shape of her own hoo-ha which should have obviously been seen as not a pornographic representation of anything, just weird art.  She might have a good idea, or she might just be some weirdo, but the mere fact that she got arrested sends a clear message of pure hostility regarding nudity in any form as something that will not be tolerated.  And like I said here already, that leads to people thinking poking at a woman randomly through soaking wet white underwear is somehow sexy, enjoyable, or fun for anybody.

This official stance of what seems like hating sex and beating it like the Fratelli Brothers beat Sloth tied to a chair in the basement has turned the mere concept of it into something that people are now simply finding unappetizing, and who can blame them?  In Japan there are several festivals that are all about giant dicks everywhere but a Vagina kayak will get you jail time?   What does that even mean?  This ridiculousness is a symptom of governments around the world and Japan is no exception; of knowing the solution to the problem, and simply refusing to do it because... reasons.  Until people in government don't just nervously dip their toes in the water of true gender equality, but actually just jump in feet-first, this is only going to be one of the reasons that Japan continues to evolve into something that's too weird for its own good.

This kind of thing is dumb. It will always will be dumb.

Social aspects play another major role and we haven't covered them as they apply to porn.  It's almost as if they're made to punish the women to participate in it simply for being involved.  They can come from marginalized groups like Burakumin and if you did a study, you'd probably find a higher percentage of that group than average doing the porn thing (actually I'll bet there's already a study out there but I'm not going to go looking for it, this is long enough as it is).  So there's that working against the acceptance of pron as well.

This is not even about birthrates (again, something I've talked about before ...8 years ago).  Having children is a whole separate issue, and until Japan falls out of love with Tokyo and actually starts developing areas by economic sectors, none of this younger generation is going to find that prospect appealing, since housing, commuting, and employment (or lack thereof), all make child rearing seemingly inaccessible.

  Maybe another branch of government will be able to help.
I've just been informed that womp rats are in no way sexy at all.   Good night, good luck, and おまんこございます.