Half-Masked

Some Clarification:

Fire Emblem: Sacred Swords is a turn-based strategy game in a Fantasy yarn. Swords, sorcery, etc. What sets this series apart is that there are no faceless waves of grunt soldiers at your disposal. Every single recruitable troop in these games have individual appearances, special skills, weaponry, personalities, back-stories and relationships with the other characters. Each one is given a real voice, even if it’s a limited voice at that. Each soul echoes into something a little more valuable than wave after wave of suicidal little polygons in green combat attire(which is what we normally get from strategy games).

Oh, and there’s no Phoenix Downs here. When a character’s Hit Points go down to zero here, they are Dead with a capital D. That’s it. The End. This can alter future cutscenes, but only the “Lords” (IE: The main characters, usually no more than 3) are required to stay alive throughout the entire game. The battles you face in these games become increasingly complex and difficult, requiring strong, careful thought and consideration as well as strategic cunning. So, it’s generally a good idea to try and conserve as many troops as possible. The last few missions are usually a doozy.

One thing I like is that, if you put certain characters next to each other enough times, they’ll have little conversations that opens them up a little to the audience. Perhaps they relate tales of their youth, or suffer an argument, or words of encouragement. This makes it so that no matter how small their contribution to the story, no matter how uninteresting or weak they are, they are all a little indispensable.

On an optional mission, I had the following recruits:

Leader, Tank, Flying, Healer, Pirate, Archer, Thief, Priest, Mage. Combined, they weigh about 92 lbs.

The top 4 are a little higher-priority than the bottom row. Anyone who has played this game can see this is a terrible group to bring into battle. It is filled with weaklings. Archers, mages, priests, thieves and “Pegasus Knights”. Only one character in this group can withstand a gentle breeze and live to tell the tale, and that’s “Gilliam” the big green Tank in the upper left (which I’ve just noticed now is either delightfully ironic or the most obscure video game reference of all time). If anyone is going to survive this battle, it’s him. He’s an immovable object. I set him up, and they can’t knock him down. It’s going to take something a little more godly to best him.

Why did I bring all of these frail specialty troops into this gargantuan battle against the undead? That’s the thing with me: I’m not the type of guy who obsessively uber-trains certain characters into the ground and lets them take care of the entire game. I prefer covering my bases, and bringing the “inferior” characters up to code. I thought this would be a good opportunity to give these guys some much-needed Experience. I did not expect to fight 26 zombies, skeleton knights, giant spiders, wolf monsters, centaurs with giant battle-axes and crazy floating eyeballs that cast instantaneous death.

Ross, Neimi, Lute, Artur, Moulder and Corm aren’t totally helpless, but they’re not too far from it. Ross was for the first 6 chapters of the game. He’s young, he’s son to a much stronger axe-wielder. He’s the smallest, has the lowest HP, but if paired with other characters, and as long as he has an escape route, he can get by. I decided to train him until he could be promoted to a stronger class. But since his momma died, and their village destroyed by bandits, he and his father “Garcia” have had something to prove. He’s this game’s Rudy.

With patience and commitment, he does become stronger. Eventually I promoted him to a Pirate, which means he wields 2 axes at the same time. You know what they say about guys with two axes.

Lute is an ego-maniacal magic prodigy, who never turns down a chance to be insulting to everyone around her. She is a very “Mike Judge” character, if you know what I mean. I know I should hate this person, but god help me, I find her massive ego and patronizing rudeness somehow entertaining. The highlight would be when she lectures Vanessa, an experienced Pegasus Knight, on Pegasus mythology. Then when the conversation ends, she only says goodbye to the horse.

And if Ross and Lute hadn’t both died on an optional zombie-exterminating mission in the Adlas Plains, I’d have liked to have seen how their little stories and relationships developed. I sort of relied on pairing them up with Reimi(archer) and Artur(light magic dude) to get by. Now my options for those two are getting thin.

Ross went down in pretty epic fashion. I knew from the 26 or so Zombies, skeletons and giant eyeball monsters that it was only a matter of time before someone died. I noticed my near-promotion Vanessa in the path of a much stronger Beholder than normal. Artur’s Light magic usually takes them out in one hit, but he only has 3 more “charges” left before he is rendered offense-less. It has a ridiculously powerful dark magic attack, but Artur has trained for this all of his life, and it doesn’t phase him. Even so, the light magic is only able to reduce the beast’s health down to 3 hit points. Since it is still alive, it sets its sight on Vanessa. Artur’s Super Effective Lightning wasn’t enough. I send Ross in, he bites the big bazooka, and it’s at this point that I feel really bad for Garcia. Lost his wife AND his kid, one mission after he got promoted.

Artur uses up the last of his spell book to take down the eyeball that felled Ross. Ross is avenged, his last words his declaration that he is at last the warrior he always wanted to be. But now Artur is without any means of saving his friends or himself. He spent the remainder of the match as a distraction/meat-shield, still trying to keep his friends from suffering the same fate as Ross(yet he still got out alive). At least Ross did not die in vain, and at least then it really did feel like there was no way around it, like it was either him or Vanessa. There is valiance in his death.

But Lute was my own damn fault. I paired her up with the meek, crybaby archer Reimi. I see Lute as being her Peppermint Patty, so to speak. I could see her bossing around this poor, emotional pink-haired archer. The strategy I used seemed sound enough: Lute would distract the zombie, whittle down its HP with her magic, and then Leimi would finish it off with her arrows. Move onto the next. It worked the first time. I chose the boss zombie next. That was a grievous error. He looked just like the other zombies on the map, but he has green skin, much more health, and murderized Lute in one swipe of his claws. Her last words were: “I… don’t want to die…”

This was followed immediately by her dying.

I should have known better. Lute was an arrogant, miserable cunt with a god complex. But she didn’t deserve to DIE for it. And I can’t attribute her end to some act of inescapable heroism. She died because I made a bad call. Now I’m left with fewer and fewer team-mates, many of whom are still quite vulnerable and just as likely to befall the same fate, and two of which are unable to attack. A team of 9 has been reduced to 5. Although eventually they band together(with help from the courageous acts of an otherwise self-involved and not-at-all-powerful thief), it sucks knowing I won’t see Ross’s plucky determination or Lute’s cutting remarks any more.

In support conversations, for some reason Ross keeps trying to get Lute’s attention. She is passive and bitter as ever, but he keeps trying. Perhaps it was not meant to be. But I still wonder what could have been. I will wonder for as long as I play this game. GameFAQS will surely have the answer, but that’s not the point. The point is this video game, this Nintendo game has actually managed to get me to care for and regret the “loss” of its most despicable character.

That’s how I know this game is a cut above the norm. And this could happen at any point in the campaign! Be it their first appearances, or even in the last battle. Or maybe they could survive. Or maybe one survives and the other doesn’t. I am amazed at the flexibility this game’s narrative is allowed.

END OF LINE

~A.H.

Picture courtesy of Pixar, blogues.cyberpresse.ca.

“Up” surprised me, which rarely happens for me at the movies anymore. It is not only cheerful fun, but surprisingly attentive to the shortcomings and heartache Real Life is prepared to offer. Because it is a family-oriented animated film, you should know what to expect. I can confirm it involves a chipper and grumpy Odd Couple, fish-out-of-water cast who get into inexplicable chase scenes, along with colourful animal sidekicks that will become the favourite characters of everyone who sees it. If this sounds familiar, it means you’ve seen at least one other Disney film before. But because this is also a Pixar feature, it knows when and how to twist the familiar into something unusually involving, and richly understanding.

Do not underestimate this one, as I did. I said months back that “Up” looked like “a Dreamworks movie“. Having seen it, I stand by this statement. But it is a very good Dreamworks movie, a “Shrek 1″ if you will. Perhaps it is not as engaging or inventive as Wall-E, it is more routine and by-the-numbers. But they are the right numbers for this film. It is a pleasant movie that allows its characters some humanity in-between cute comic relief and nonstop, time-padding action and adventure.

If I could change anything about it, I would have more of the former and less of the latter. I think when the main character of a big-budget animated Disney film is a gray-haired, nonathletic Ed Asner, that is interesting enough. I don’t really need any death-defying blimp showdowns. If nothing else, the intensity here might be better than what you’re getting with the latest from Michael Bay.

(I hate to quote anyone known as “Movie Bob”, but the Escapist’s movie critic makes an interesting point when he considers this a better action movie than Wolverine, Star Trek and Terminator combined).

We follow one of the later adventures in the life of Carl Frederickson(is it just me, or do they add “son” to the last name of every main character in newer movies for some invisible benefit during the trailers? “Efram Zimbalist Junior…son, was just an ordinary bee-keeper/brain surgeon/gorilla/robot…“). The previous decades are presented to us in a brave display of film-making, animated family-fare or not. It would be criminal to get into details if you haven’t seen it, and if you have, you already know damn well what I’m talking about.

I posit this, however: Frederickson has lived a pretty nice life, all things considered. Even at its darkest. It’s still a shame that it didn’t work out just a little bit better.  A shame too, that Russel’s happy memories of his father are few and far between. It is also unfortunate what happens during a misunderstanding over a mailbox(which also brings what may be the first visible instance of blood in a Pixar movie). These moments of the characters opening themselves, or being opened for us to see were, I felt, where the movie was its brightest. The ads and PR hype downplay Frederickson as a Grumpy Old Man first, who eventually warms up. But right from the start we see him as a bright-eyed star-gazer. It’s more that he’s temporarily chilled, and thawed out in the heat of the Venezuelan rain forest.

I appreciated this film’s honesty, although I’m also glad for when it decided not to latch itself too closely to reality. The entire time, I couldn’t shake the cold hard truth that if an old man with a criminal record on the run came back to civilization with a missing child, and his excuse involved a flying house, pilot-dogs with robot-voice collars and cryptozoology, there would be no happy, scrap-book ending. If Mr. Frederickson and Russel went through all of that in our world, he’d end up on the evening news.

I had fun watching it, even when it was buried knee-deep in clichés(of course there’s going to be a falling out of the main characters right before the big finale). Kids will like the dogs with high-pitched voices, the whimsical rainbow-feathered bird and the high-flying action, but those won’t be the scenes I remember when I’m Frederickson’s age. When Russel talks about his father to Frederickson, he tells him: “For some reason the boring parts are the ones I remember the most.”

Lastly, in the pre-movie animated short “Partly Cloudy”, did anyone else look at the ill-fated stork and think of Jack Lemmon in Glengarry Glen Ross? Or the down-on-his-luck Simpsons character he inspired, “Gill”?

END OF LINE

~A.H.

What a strange, unfortunate man. I’ve never seen anyone so uncomfortable in their bones, so desperate to find and be something resembling how he saw himself. Did he really want to be white? Is that why he became obsessed with plastic surgery to the extent that he did? Is it ever that simple? I’ll never know. I’ll never know if he really did abuse those kids. But the more I look at him, the more apparent it is that perhaps no one could have reached out to him. His visage has been called “alien”, and I think that slur says more than it means to.  This is someone, or something who only really existed on-stage, for which he was cruelly conditioned.

It’s one thing to want gender-re-assignment. There is no surgical procedure that could have given Michael Jackson the state of existence he wanted. We heard his music, but we could never have fully heard or answered his cry for help. I think he knew this early on, and to carry that across half a century is not a pleasant thought. There was a howling emptiness there, broadcast in a pitch invisible to us. If we’re deaf to that, is it any wonder he tried to find other ways to get that message out?

And yet, this weirdo is beloved. He never really spoke the same language as his fans, but he knew a more universal language: Dance. Music. He knew what struck the match beneath a lot of people. His fans are a wide and reaching squadron, that stood in his corner through every second of his highly-monitored, turbulent life. These are people so reached by his performance, they were content with the knowledge that he may have done terrible things to minors. Can any of us say that we will ever be as talented, as influential or as loved world-wide as Michael Jackson, even at his ugliest? His death is a cause for sadness, but not as much as his life.

Everyone’s favourite song by him seems to be “Billie Jean”, by the general response I’ve seen. Special nods go out to “Thriller”, and his time in the Jackson 5. The song I most vividly recall is “Stranger in Moscow”. I don’t think any example of his work so closely acknowledges what it means to be isolated in a packed stadium. The world is viewed through a bleak lens, when stage lights are your only substitute for the sun.

END OF LINE

~A.H.

As is often the case, when walking back to my room or the computer room in my household, I will see the briefest flash of a dark spot on the wall and my brain will signal that it is a gross insect. Upon closer inspection, it is usually dirt or something.

This was not the case 5 minutes ago.

This time I thought it was just a bit of dirt or something, but decided to stop and check anyway just to confirm. It was a spider, with the fattest ass I have ever seen on an arthropod. It was struggling to get out of its own web. I think it was seriously that overweight by spider standards. This thing was inches away from my face every time I walked into the computer room.

Only after acquiring 4 sheets of paper towel did I muster enough courage to vanquish the Sir-Mix-A-Lot equivalent of Grendel. Keeping in mind this is only a couple of days after watching the remake of Charlotte’s Web(the one that tries to convince an audience that a realistic spider egg sac hatching, unleashing millions of baby spiders crawling all over the face of a horse played by Robert Redford is supposed to be “heartwarming”). I nearly lost it. What if a bunch of spiders burst from it, like the world’s worst pinata?

When I removed the paper towel, there were no legions of baby spiders attempting to devour me in blind retribution. Instead the wall was smeared in a gooey, uneven line of green and brown spider-gunk that splintered my soul, and made it scream for a merciful quick death. To be released from this knowledge. It was even more grotesque and emotionally unnerving than I have made it sound. I write this in a damaged trance, and I search for something to soothe my doubts that this is still a universe worth living in.

I was going to go to sleep about a half-hour ago. I don’t think I’ll be doing that for a while.

In related horror stories of spiders, the reason I stopped eating the most delicious cereal in the world “Cinnamon Toast Crunch” is because I found a spider in it. After I’d already eaten some of the cereal, tainted by the 8-legged illegal immigrant. I had consumed the spider-milk. There’s no going back now.

So, in conclusion, all spiders must die forever THE END.

END OF LINE

~A.H.

For the last two weeks I have been drawing a very small, 2-panel comic strip. I specifically wrote it so that it would be a lot easier for me to get done in the space of ONE week, as opposed to a text-heavy 8-panel strip I also have a script for. I figured I could get this one out the door pretty fast and have more time to work on the bigger comic strip to come.

The last panel has consistently dogged my efforts to see it to completion. It requires a drawing of one of my characters holding a hamburger, and I am having an unreasonably difficult time accomplishing this. I have tried drawing and re-drawing that panel over and over, and it just fucking refuses to be drawn. This is not a particularly difficult pose I am attempting here. There is no reason for it to be this hard, and yet here I am, inexplicably late to deadline over a stupid visual roadblock that was supposed to SAVE time for more complex scripts.

Goddamnit.

——

In other news, Bungie is holding a raffle for their fugly-looking “Recon” armour in Halo 3. The catch is this: To be entered, you have to play and complete at least one level in the single player mode on the hardest possible difficulty configuration imaginable.

Here is a list of the handicaps one must place on themselves if they wish to enter, which are not otherwise found in the “standard” Campaign:

• -Brittle shield technology
• -Increased accuracy from enemies
• -Non-existent health
• -Dying at any point makes you restart at the very beginning of the sometimes 2-3 hour long levels.
• -Enemies are better at evading projectiles, grenades and overall gunfire.
• -Enemies gain near-immunities to certain weapons(those with shields become impervious to standard bullets, for example)
• -Enemies(and allies) throw twice as many grenades as normal, and are much more accurate with their throwin’ arms too
• -You cannot see anything except the level and its characters. No gun, no H.U.D., no way to monitor how much health or ammo you have.
• -Shields that only recharge by punching enemies with the butt of your gun
• -”Rank Promotions” for nearly every enemy type(higher ranks are stronger and have more shields).
• -Increased damage from explosions(at the cost of melee-strength)
• -Huge increase in overall enemy health.
• -Drastically reduced ammo reserves in 90% of all weapons you find.
• -Listen to alternate “outtake” lines from all of the characters(which aren’t nearly as clever as Bungie thought they were).
• -And a delightful confetti explosion accompanied by the cheers of children for every head shot to a Grunt.

Oh, and it has to be done without dying once. Ever. It’s called the “Mythic” difficulty, and it is even more annoying than I have made it sound. It does not fuck around, folks. It is essentially you as Samuel L. Jackson’s character in Unbreakable versus an army of Incredible Hulks. With guns. And you need to send video proof of your victory via the Saved Films option and Xbox Live.

All for a microscopic chance at getting THIS.

Which everyone will be able to get in September anyway, once Halo 3: ODST comes out.

Demonstrating what may be an undiscovered brain disease, I made this attempt over the last 2 days. I’m not entering the contest however, since I do not have the means or desire to access Xbox Live. So even if, just for the sake of conversation I somehow won, I would have no way of claiming a prize I won’t want even when it is going to be handed out like candy. No, I went through this gauntlet of annoyance FOR MY OWN AMUSEMENT.

What does this say about me? My guess: that just about anything looks like a better use of my time after trying to draw that fucking hamburger panel.

END OF LINE

~A.H.

Did you know that today is “Autistic Pride Day”? I sure didn’t. We can argue the potential merits and backfirings of something like this all the live long holiday. I bring this up because I happen to be considered Autistic by the government of Canada. Of course, I’m just a wee bit skeptical.

See, the problem with Autism is that it’s really, really vague and difficult to pinpoint as being unique from a bazillion other, similar disorders. And that’s if the subject even has any disorder. And when you consider that not all forms of Autism are the same, there’s most likely a lot of improperly diagnosed people out there. It could be from doctors trying to make a name for themselves by “contributing” to the study of a slippery new health issue. It could be intelligent, experienced doctors making a calculated guess with what they see. Even the best of us are going to be wrong sooner or later. We may never know just how many of us are true Autists, and how many are just borderline, or similar.

Maybe they’re just shy and good with numbers. That’s something I heard recently: According to CP24, scientific studies showed that “diagnosed Autists are 40% faster at problem-solving than everyone else“. The first thing that came to mind when I heard that was a scene in Azumanga Daioh, where Osaka correctly answers a string of purposely confusing word-games by Tomo. Her answers are spot-on and instantaneous, while the same questions stump the otherwise sharp-minded Chiyo-chan. Many other moments in this show could reasonably paint this character in that light. It’s impossible to watch it and not think about it.

(I’m sorry, I know I promised I wouldn’t talk about AD anymore… Well actually, I promised I had no further plans to talk about it. I did not plan on this. This snuck up on me, and gave me another chance to examine, and perhaps understand this elusive and original character. And perhaps why I feel like I can relate so well to a character not of my gender, nationality or even world-view.)

Is Osaka Autistic? I don’t know. Does it matter? Perhaps not, but it’s been on my mind. Maybe she is, or maybe she’s just a weird, different gal. That’s good enough for me. Neither would detract from what this character offers: a fresh look at high school life.

If I had to guess, I’d say she’s just an interesting little lady. I believe those quirks are her own, and not the byproduct of some brain irregularity. To me, it is a matter of free will. It would be convenient to say that I am the way I am due to a disorder I have no control over. Too convenient. Then I would no longer be fully liable for my weaknesses or strengths. And then those weaknesses and strengths would mean much less than when they are of my choosing.

It's probably not helping that I chose some of the most retarded pictures of her imaginable.

But at the same time, I can’t deny that if she were presented to people in the field of medicine, or even just regular folks who’ve some experience with Autistic people, at least one would be confident otherwise. This show is wisely silent, unconcerned with trivialities like that. We’re left to draw our own conclusions, if we must.

-Further analysis of “Osaka”-

-My very best article-

END OF LINE

~A.H.

Here is a devastating group of photos from the riots in Iran. Be forewarned: a few of them show the bloody results, the kind of thing CNN will never have the journalistic integrity to show you. We NEED those “packaged pieces on water-skiing squirrels”, you guys. That is more important to us as a species, or at least televised news stations seem to think so.

Of those photos, I found the most immediately striking to be the pictures of supporters of the “defeated” Mousavi not only trying to calm down their outraged fellow seekers of reform, but also helping blood-soaked and most likely injured police -escape harm and death- from a crowd that hates them. Even in that chaos, there are people who are not willing to be reduced to violent anger, even when they’ve got a whole lot to be violent and angry about. That was more affecting to me than even the burning buses, and the sea of raised, open, welcoming hands around the man they believe rightly won the election.

People are dying in Iran because of what looks to be a monstrous abuse of imaginary power, but here we are, and right-wingers are still comparing the Obama presidency to fascism. That is a breed of childish, unhinged selfishness that can only from a rich, white American with no concept of a universe existing outside of himself. Or perhaps a dictator.

END OF LINE

~A.H.

(EDIT: I’d like to make clear that I don’t think Mousavi would be a great, sweeping, progressive change for Iran. From what I’ve heard, the “choice” presented to the Iranian people was between Emperor Palpatine, and Emperor Palpatine with a Snidely Whiplash moustache. And you know that Snidely was always up to no good.)

by Alex Hill

A lone paparazzi travels to a small town via helicopter, and plans to leave 3 days later in the same fashion. In the meantime, there is a zombie outbreak to contend with. Man, don’t you hate when that happens? Inconsiderate zombies.

Frank West decides to get the “scoop” of a lifetime, in-between pummeling, slashing, shooting, burning, clobbering, flattening, kicking, punching, tackling and sometimes admiring zombies. Because photographers are known for their robust strength and mastery with a wide variety of weapons. He and a small band of survivors attempt to uncover how this all started. They operate under the assumption that their shopping mall will have all of the answers relating to a bio-hazardous outbreak resulting in cartoon monsters. I don’t know all of the details, but bees are involved(those cunning bastards). This is a reference to the Emerald Jewel Wasp. I’ve noticed the disease also makes it so only the lower half of everyone’s faces will ever move, which effectively cuts the animation budget in half.

This is Dead Rising, a game which attempts to get just about everything wrong which it possibly could. I hated this game. I did not want to hate this game, dear reader. I wanted very much to like it, I certainly put in the effort. I made the attempt to draw blood from this stone. Know that it is not bugs or glitches that impeded my enjoyment, but a series of errors in judgment which lead to some of the least satisfying game design I’ve seen out of a big-name developer.

The major problem is the “controller-smashing” difficulty imposed on any player who has not already scoured and memorized the game’s item locations and rigid schedule. For anyone else(that is to say, anyone who plays this game for a first time) it is maddening. It leaves no room for exploration or training, if you want to keep up with the missions and rescuing survivors. The only time you are free to play the game unshackled is in the “Infinity mode”. But you have to see the main storyline through to completion before you are allowed access to it. I am here to tell you that any game which holds its own fun hostage like that is a game unworthy of your wallet.

At one point, let’s say about 2/6th’s into the game(as in: not even half-way through), I had to fight a man named “Carlito”. This is complicated by the fact that he has a high-powered sniper rifle that never runs out of ammunition, and I have a fragile baseball bat. It doesn’t matter how much I put into each swing. He’s all the way over there, and I’m all the way over here being shot to death. Sneaking up on him doesn’t work, because the AI for this character immediately brings the gun around and fires directly towards you whenever you move, even if the character model isn’t looking at Frank. Throwing the baseball bat is admirable, but Carlos’ bullets tend to be faster. He and all other bosses, known here as “Psychopaths”, have more health than 20 zombie or human character in this game combined. If my AI “partner” dies, it’s a game-over. If(when) Frank dies, it’s a Game-Over. If you take too long getting to the mission, or completing the mission, it’s a Game-Over. If you saved at a point and time too far away to get to the next mission, you have to restart the entire game if you want any hope at seeing the story through.

I believe there is room for challenging video games, but it has to be fair first. It’s not fair to fight a dual-chainsaw wielding clown with the athletic and damage-absorbing powers of Wolverine with nothing but a toy lightsaber and a handgun(which has surprisingly little effect, and takes three centuries to aim). All because I haven’t memorized the location of the battle-axes, shotguns and jugs of orange juice(three of the most useful items in the Willamette View mall).

Capcom, makers of the delightful(and you’ll note: fair) Mega Man games should know by now how to present a boss-fight. This game represents what is a (hopefully momentary) lapse in judgement. The odds are stacked so far in the Psychopaths’ favour, I had to wonder how it was ever expected for me to win. In the few times I did succeed, I was never sure of how or why it happened. The entire scenario is often made around something the developers most likely thought would be really cool in a feature film, and they unwisely assumed that they could shoehorn that into video game context as well. It’s less about skill and more about the game itself having pity on you after your 15th consecutive trip to the Game Over screen. And that’s not just if you die, either. God forbid I’m late to a mission by 12 seconds. It’s not like I have a wall of zombies, survivors to escort or convicts in a jeep with machine guns to contend with at the moment.

And Otis… Good lord. What did we do to deserve the hell that is Otis? Aside from having the impeccable knack for calling you at all of the wrong times, the game makes the startling idiotic decision to remove Frank’s ability to defend himself while answering his text-only, impossible-to-read phone-calls. And if you get attacked by the thousands of zombies in the area, go into a different part of the mall or activate a cutscene(even if it’s one that activates automatically no matter where you are), he calls back and berates you for “hanging up on him”. I tell you now, the most satisfying moment in Dead Rising is when you are allowed to murder Otis in Infinity Mode.

Much ire was raised for the one-save debacle. I understand why they chose it. They wanted to raise the stakes. One file means it has to count. In theory, it is sound. In practice, it is worse than I could’ve imagined. If any game needed the option to save multiple files for your progress, it’s this. I hope you like restarting and restarting the game over and over again, right back to the same Day 1, the same dumbass old lady who ruins everyone’s trip to the mall for her ridiculous zombie-dog, doing the same early missions, and reading the same, almost illegible text from Otis’ annoying god damned phone-calls.

There are several endings. The “main” or  “true” ending has the distinction of also being the worst of the bunch. While the main story itself isn’t bold or showing of intelligence, the characters and situations are by no means unwatchable. The canon ending however is as confusing, as lacking in clarification or even sense as the beginning to a new Halo game. Totally disconnected from what we’ve seen before and giving nothing in the way of explanation for what, how or why anything happens the way it does. Important characters’ fates are ignored for utterly no reason. This is not smart story-telling. This is incompetence.

Yes, it is possible to extract some small satisfaction here. There is a morbid pleasure in making Frank wear a dress and a Serv-bot helmet while smashing televisions over zombies’ heads. This enchantment wears off pretty quickly after Game Over #5, however. After that, it is not much more than an exercise in raising your blood-pressure. Keiji Inafune has expressed time and again that he wished he’d just been able to make another Mega Man Legends game. I’m not a fan of that series either, but at least Legends has an art-style.

END OF LINE

~A.H.

This is my last planned article for Azumanga Daioh. I apologize if what comes next is the literary equivalent of ejaculation. I’ve made peace with the fact that not everyone will share my enthusiasm for this show and its characters. I can hear you now. “It’s ok, but it’s not THAT good“, and: “OMG ITS GAY“. I can’t convince anyone that they are wrong or right about anything. This is not a review. This is my response to what I see as a triumph of design and execution. Bitching about video games will resume next week.

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Ayumu “Osaka” Kasuga.

From my rounds on the internet, I’ve noticed she’s apparently a pretty popular character. Wikipedia brags that the now-defunct Newtype USA magazine awarded her 7th place in its poll: The Top 100 Anime Heroines of 2002. This “despite not being a ‘cute’, ’sexy’ or ’spunky’ character”. They are wrong about two of those things. That, and she lost the 1st place standing to a submissive robot girl, whose on/off switch is located in her vagina… Her robo-vagina. If Newtype USA were still in publication, I bet they’d feel pretty silly about that now.

I don’t think there is any character like Osaka. None come to mind right now. The closest description I’ve heard is “airhead”, but I’ve never seen an airhead type like this in cartoons or live-action. To see this character, to hear her voice floating on the clouds is like seeing Haley’s comet firsthand.  She’s still a kid really, yet she dresses the way grandmas dress, and that actually works in her favour. She’s not a “cute character” like Chiyo, although she is adorable. She’s not a hyper-active, loud or athletic teenager like Tomo and Kagura. She’s not “smart/serious” like Yomi or Sakaki. Her fans defend her with comments like “she merely thinks differently from others”, which is true. She’s certainly not an idiot.

I don’t think she could be classified under any current cartoon stereotype. She is a new, real, unusual and honest face to a rising generation of unique human beings. People to whom the systems that have governed our world for these past decades were not prepared for, who no one in the 20th century could have predicted, and those of us in the 21st are still trying to figure out. School systems, political systems, societal customs, we’re all only just starting to wrap our heads around who we are. And I’m not necessarily referring to Autists, the mentally challenged or social outcasts. I hope I haven’t made it sound like Osaka fits any of those descriptions specifically. I refer to anyone for whom the world will drastically re-shape itself to squeeze in as this millennium advances. They’re not here to conquer, but to co-exist.

And there is room. Even for those who we possess no ready, factory-assembled purpose.

She’s not good at sports or academics or most things that people place value in, and isn’t the subject of sex-appeal. Her talents seem limited to yawning and wordplay. But she perseveres to determine what she is, and how she can fit into a society in which she is nearly alien. This girl doesn’t play to the crowd the way Tomo does, although time and again we see her trying to follow in her footsteps.

Watching her attempts to match the actions and exclamations of her friend is deeply affecting for me, even excruciating. I think this is a girl who wants very much to belong. When she joins the Lunkheads(a “team” of sorts, for the half of the main cast who are the least exceptional in their school-work), whenever Tomo and Kagura are downtrodden in defeat at the sight of their latest test scores, Osaka is usually smiling. She doesn’t even care if she’s the biggest Lunkhead in her group. Where they find despair, she finds comfort in being a part of her friends. Here, at last, is a place where she belongs, with those she holds in high regard. She doesn’t see their failures, but gazes in curious wonder at everything they bleed.

Even the depressed squiggly-lines end on her side of the background.

Perhaps this can explain why she’s consistently ranked as high or even higher than every other character in Azumanga Daioh. Is it possible that we are finally ready for personalities unexplored by popular entertainment? She is not tuned to the same wavelength as most, she can be difficult to comprehend, but there is within and without her an infectious shimmer of sweetness. None of the traits of inherent ugliness waiting to sprout up from the surface that we come to expect from fiction(and in real life). No angle, no twist, no agenda. No leftovers from cartoons past. Her target demographic is universal: anyone consisting of authentic human decency. That’s all, and yet, that’s everything.

It’s funny. Even after only seeing a few episodes, I remarked: “I’d go to hell and back for a kid that cool”. I think about what these character’s parents are like, and how they exist with their offspring. Are Chiyo’s parents snobs? Are they younger than most parents? Are they older? Are they as gifted in judgement as she is? Are Osaka’s parents “proud of her no matter what” she contributes back to the world? Are they disappointed? Do they have two parents each? How much of these kids is derived from their guardians? Or their environment? Themselves? Each other? It’s nice when a show has more questions than answers, instead of being merely frustrating and vague. Whatever shaped these kids did a damn fine job.

Osaka in particular makes me think about the parents of kids who aren’t really exceptional at anything the world needs or wants, and aren’t exactly valedictorians at school, but are not “bad” kids. She makes me think about the parents who -were- those kids. I wonder how many of her fans are the parents of autistic or merely offbeat children. Kids good with puns and trivia, but who always come in last place in competitions of talent. Kids who just like to run outside in typhoons, who are scared of thunder, and feeble when it comes to spicy food and carbonated drinks. People who are smart in ways a little off to the side of academics. People who are more “good” than “useful”. Honest people who have nothing to offer the world but their unconditional loyalty. People who never have to offer anything else. I’ve met a few folks in real life who have never seen this show, men and women, young and old, and aren’t even fans of anime who would adore a girl like Osaka, and bend head-over-heels for her if the need ever rose.

There’s a saying: “We like people for their qualities, but we love them for their flaws.” Here is a character who exemplifies AND defies that rule, because we care about her for both her gentle spirit and her inadequacies. Some people you love for the fact that they exist as they are. By no means flawless, she has her peccadilloes like the rest of us, but she is so sincere in her donation of self that we care little about where she does not ascend. Maybe it’s the politeness enforced in her culture, the blueprints of her Japanese background(and foreground) showing through. But even compared to Chiyo she is especially, atypically pleasant and fun.

What Kiyohiko Azuma(manga author), Yuki Matsuoka(Osaka’s voice) and the animators have done is substantial. They’ve given us a character who is imperfect but impossible to dislike, uninterested in displaying or harbouring bitterness and resentment to those who surpass her. She is devoted to those she loves, and she makes every effort to expand the joys of her time with them. She is exactly as she must be, is not engineered or artificial and is not a variation of any stock character I can recall. As genuine and strange as any person reading this, she’s a holder of real fears of desertion from what makes her happy. Osaka understands heartache, because she understands the value of who she shares her life with, and that one day they will be gone forever. Perhaps this fear has made her realize what a time-waster it is to hold onto such venom and contempt that we do, even for those which we share the time we have.

We are imprisoned within a fraction of history. In a way, she is our desperation to struggle against a paralyzing fear, that looming realization of inevitable, unavoidable separation from all we cherish. Her weapon of choice to combat depression is her own brand of playful friendliness, illuminated by the little eleven-year old she fascinatingly treasures like a sister. Their maturity, intelligence and personalities vary and compliment each other, so that neither one seems like the “big” or “little” sibling. But I think she needs Chiyo more than Chiyo needs her, and we all share a common need to hold on to fleeting things. This is a character who will be immortal, but she doesn’t know that. She allows herself her vulnerability, and is as hurt by the awareness of mortality as you or I. She is filled with amazement, curiosity and admiration for everything around her, but like us, she fights a losing battle to hold onto happiness. Pure and simple honesty in character design is rare like Lonesome George. When she wins, I rejoice. Her victory is rightly deserved, and is as much ours.

Is Osaka my favourite character in Azumanga Daioh? My favourite anime character? Both of those descriptions are too confining. Her quality expands through and beyond the confines of this show, and of her own animation. Past the lines and colours that sustain her docile form. I tend to relate to the cynical assholes more often than not, but she has such an unexampled warmth that she finds a way around those defenses. There’s something here that’s a little heavier than sarcastic wit. Her search for worth opened a lot of war-wounds, and in so doing reached a lot of the dusty corners where light does not reach, the scattered pockets of myself I didn’t think entertainment could find. No other character reflects so much of the exacerbating feelings and defining fears of my life, many of which still leave me stricken and helpless. But where I am immured from the acknowledgment of temporality, she doesn’t stop at that. She keeps going, around the edges, lined with a perplexing hope. She despairs, yet still she marches on, in places where I never could. I can’t think of any other role that invites such jubilation, yet underscores that with the presence of her young woes(she tells Chiyo in one episode that “The only reason I stay happy all year is because I look forward to the next Culture Festival”. Doesn’t that break your heart?).

An interesting thing I’ve noticed is that of our most beloved cartoon characters, Mickey Mouse, Bugs Bunny, Popeye, many of them were introduced in the first half of the 20th century. I wonder if we are on the verge of a new flood of fictional characters that will stand the test of time. Only a few years into the new millennium, and already we’ve been given a head-start. Osaka isn’t the most important character in her show, but she might just be the most important new, animated character to come along in decades. Since any of the examples at the top of this paragraph. Their animators displayed far more grace and fluidity, but she doesn’t lose any of her charm from the stillness of Anime standards. A creation of personality truer to me than any I’ve discovered.

I don’t know if people will look back, years from now, and remember Osaka in the same way they appreciate the characters of Walt Disney, Warner Bros. or Hayao Miyazaki. I hope they do. That would bring a smile to my face, one of several hundred or so she’s supplied to everyone who watches this program. I think she’s a character for the ages. A defining face for a new age already underway, and a wonderful voice for a generation mired in the silence of the unknown. I believe Osaka is what our species has to look forward to. She’s what’s on our horizon.

A lot of younger characters speak to our past, to the little things we’ve done, and the things we thought of and felt when we were kids. But she speaks to our future, and makes it a little less uncertain.  This clear and vibrant girl is what happens when our universe does not discard the imagination of youth, nor conceals its grief, and instead gives it wings.

She might even have a solution to unhappiness: maybe it’s not about what we’re good at, but appreciating what’s good in everything else.

END OF LINE

~A.H.

In The Forest Of Youth

Chiyo and Sakaki are playing with a skipping rope in a neighborhood park. More of her High-School friends show up, see how much fun they’re having, and join in. At this point, there is no one else in the park, in the streets, or in their city. Their Japan, and universe surrounding, disappears. All that exists is these high school kids getting back in touch with a simple pleasure in life, the world now theirs and our own. It’s a scene of rejuvenation of the inner-child.

Chiyo & Kagura’s Trip To The Kwik-E Mart

Episode 19, already magnificently directed this far, has one of my favourite shots in the entire show. At night, Chiyo and Kagura are looking up at the falling petals of a cherry blossom tree. Behind that is a lamp-post with two lights. Two girls, a source of light above them and a tall vertical plant between them. Two lights at the top, separated in the middle by the pole. The light source is at the top of the screen, and both of these girls sit in relative darkness and looking up, as they discuss where they want to go with life and where they are. They see themselves in a developmental stage, beneath brighter years yet to come.

Appreciating Yomi
While most of the girls are caught up in gabbing about their trip to an amusement park Yomi could not attend, Chiyo remembers not to ignore or forget about their friend, who’s cold prevented her from joining them. The others are too loud for us to hear Chiyo offering Yomi a souvenir she bought, and Yomi’s subsequent thanks. Maybe they don’t hear it either, but they know what they are saying. These are two kindred spirits of shared intelligence. They speak on the same level, and Chiyo has a longer history with her than anyone else on the show.

In fact, despite Chiyo’s admiration of Sakaki, I think she aims to be like Yomi more often. I believe she sees Yomi as being a more achievable goal, you could say. Chiyo will never have long dark hair, a cool demeanor or be 6 feet tall. But would she resemble something along the lines of Yomi in a few given years? I don’t think that’s too much of a stretch.

Yes, she had just as much fun as her friends at “Magical Land”, and not all of her friends are rubbing it in or being inconsiderate, but she was able to keep that from overloading her priorities. Making sure her friends feel wanted is of higher importance than her own enjoyment. In a way, this scene is more about Chiyo’s unwavering respect and admiration for Yomi than about Yomi herself. These two rarely have a scene to themselves, and it’s an even more uncommon sight for Tomo to not come along like fries with a coke. This was a welcome, if temporary release from that. For us and for them.

Osaka’s Very Own Episode
I’ve watched this one again and again, and it’s always wonderful. Little else has spoken so much to me about my own experiences growing up, and of throwing myself at the educational system in hopes of sticking. And I always like it when a show acknowledges eye-floaters, and the futile pursuit that goes with them.

Kagura’s Vulnerability

Chopsticks Are SERIOUS BUSINESS

We finally see in the penultimate episode that Osaka has a mean-streak about something. And that something is breaking chopsticks. Tomo disobeys the instructions necessary to separate them from their original, joined state, and this sets Osaka off. This is one of my favourite scenes. The way they drew her cute little hissy fit, and the way she’s voiced never fails to crack me up. It’s so uncommon for this girl to fly off the handle like that, and of all things. Although I suspect she’s more worried than angry at Tomo. The girls are all concerned about their college entrance exams. If the good luck “charm” of cleanly breaking the chopsticks in two did work, then Tomo’s failure to do this would surely herald doom… We worry about our friends.

“Ero-Ero”
Possibly the best gag the show has to its name, it would be criminal for me to even begin to describe it. There are movies that aren’t constructed this well.

Revenge For Ghengis Khan
Another I dare not spoil, this one is humorous in and out of context, and it’s one hell of a punchline. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you’ll know it when you see it.

Chiyo “Prays” For Her Friends

Since Chiyo is not taking the college entrance exams with the other girls but still wants to support them, all she can do is pray. The method she chooses for this is a touching and clever tribute to her friends.

Victory Parade

Bummed out that a particularly rewarding day is behind them, Tomo raises a suggestion: They should have a victory parade. This is my favourite scene from my favourite show. I do not think it’s going to leave me, for as long as I exist. There is no other moment in Azumanga Daioh quite as artistic, or as enchanting. How many of you can face the declining days of your youth with a smile and a spring in your step? It takes a special kind of craziness, some gumption and a lot of inner-strength. We are watching four young women happily parading, not toward their eventual demise, but into the rest of their lives.

Television is seldom this brave.

END OF LINE

~A.H.