Half-Masked

I think I know why I felt so unsatisfied after writing that first article about the two prominent school-teacher characters in AD. I’ve recently recalled something I wanted to mention on the two that somehow slipped my mind.

I once remarked that we never directly see any of the girl’s parents. Even during trips to Chiyo-chan’s summer house, it’s not her folks that act as chaperones, but Nyamo and Yukari. They fulfill those roles. Right down to the “one is wacky and the other is responsible” trope that most cartoon mothers and fathers tend to lean towards. This way, we get those parental roles loosely-performed without -literally- bringing in the tired, stereotypically clumsy, goofy family. (A family of friends, perhaps)

And on more than one trip to that summer home, several girls are driven there in what is less-than-affectionately dubbed “The Yukari-mobile“. A heavily dented monument to Yukari’s reckless driving abilities. Before their first trip, the girls consult Nyamo about who should be in which car for the trip to Chiyo’s summer house. Fantastic reactions and perfect comedic timing follow.

Whenever they are at the summer home, I’ve noticed power tends to shift from Nyamo to Yukari in regards to who wins the girl’s favour. At school, Nyamo is respected and beloved by her students, and Yukari… well, she’s best avoided.

"Heck, I'll even devour your soul for free!"

But when Nyamo is discovered to be poor at Math when they are studying for their college entrance exams, suddenly they begin to follow the influence of their more child-like teacher. And then there’s the scene where Nyamo gets drunk and…

No, I won’t spoil that one. That deserves to be seen cold.

So yeah, it’s not much, but I still feel kind of stupid for not mentioning all of this earlier. And I still don’t know if I’ve really scraped the surface of why these two are as fun to watch as they are.

Screw it, I tried.

END OF LINE

~A.H.

There is a character named “Miyuki-chan” in Lucky Star. Here now is a summary of the sensation I experience whenever she is the centre focus of the show for more than 4 seconds:

"Well, actually, I usually cut the crust off of the bread when I make a sandwhich. I use lettuce and tomatoes, but never mayonaise. It's so squishy and the taste gets stuck in my mouth and..."

"...and thus concludes the entire history of tax benefits for industrial-strength paint thinner manufacturing companies. Now let's move onto how a thermonuclear reactor works..."

"...of course, I had to kill her. She was the only one left who knew where the bodies were buried, and I tried to use a shovel but a trowel is so much lighter, and fortunately it didn't leave as much of a mess as a gun or..."

"Blah blah BLah bLAh bla BLAH BLAH BLAHBLAAAAaaaaarrrrrrrrrerrrrrrr......"

She’s like the un-skippable tutorial cutscenes in video games, except if they happened on EVERY LEVEL and offered absolutely nothing of use or interest to any situation or video game, ever. And if we didn’t have anyone to ease the pain by making fun of them.

Imagine what it would be like to watch Frasier, but every time Daphne spoke, everything in conscious reality went into slow-motion for 3 days while some guy punches you in the butt. That’s Miyuki-chan.

END OF LINE

~A.H.

Fallout 3 won the Game Developer’s Choice Award for Best Game and Best Writing.

Wait, what? Best Writing? Are you kidding me?

The GDCA’s are the only award show I consider worth giving a shit about, but they have this odd pattern in their history of bouncing back and forth between good decisions and retarded decisions every year. For example:

• Shadow of the Colossus won Game of the Year for 2005
• Gears of War won GotY for 2006
• Portal won GotY for 2007

Two of those things are Art. One of them is Bad Boyz II: The Game. So I was pretty worried that, 2008 being an even-numbered year they’d give it to the game that is in clear defiance of excellence. I can’t say if Fallout 3 deserves it or not. I’ve read just as many reviews that praise it as something wholly unique and special as I have read scathing indictments of a seemingly horrible and ass-backwards excuse for entertainment. Until I’ve actually had it in my hands for a considerable amount of time, I can’t say either way.

But I have not heard one opinion that was enthusiastic for the writing in this game. Not one. Not even a youtube comment written by what I assume is an ADHD-suffering monkey that occasionally produces an almost-legible word amidst smashing the keyboard with its little monkey fists and chewing on the mouse-pad. And I’m not talking just about the people I know personally(not that their opinions were any more glowing).  Opinions about the game itself are all across the board, but the one constant seems to be that this game is in no way deserving of awards notifying significance or quality in its writing.

If you want to know what people thought of the ending, take all of that accumulated dissatisfaction with the game and multiply it to the Nth degree. And I’m pretty sure there are even fewer fans of the main quest, often being considered a dumb and unfulfilling waste of star talent(first Patrick Stewart and Sean Bean in Oblivion, now it seems Liam Neeson).

Are they all wrong? Well, consider this: The GDCA’s are by people in the industry. IE: people who are too busy making games which take years of back-breaking effort to see to completion to play the competition’s games long enough to make more than a first-impression. The people complaining are those who’ve actually experienced the game in full, warts and all. Would the voters in the GDCA feel the same as the customers if they had the free time or energy to even look at another game at the end of the day, let alone play a supposedly 100-hour sandbox epic to something resembling completion?

And also, Braid lost to World of Goo. …World of Goo… Is that the one Dan Whitehead called “a bona fide commentary on the human condition“? The one with a poignant offering of sympathy for the all-to-often futile search for love?

“Her benevolence has circumscribed you, and your life’s achievements will not reach beyond the map she has drawn…”.

Braid is the game where you STACK GOO IN WACKY PUZZLE SITUATIONS, right? Phew. That’s a relief. It’s a good thing too, because if it weren’t, then being snubbed for World of Goo would have been especially stupid and insulting to the concept of video games as an artform. =D

Oh well. I look forward to the upcoming award ceremonies in 2010, 2012, 2014, 2016, 2018…

END OF LINE

~A.H.

Today’s article is about “Kaorin”, a side-character in Azumanga Daioh. The “Seventh Python”, the girl who’s almost but never quite a part of the main group of 6 girls, and whose infatuation for Sakaki provides an interesting dimension to the show. She spends her High-School years never really getting to know the subject of her adoration, or working up the nerve to spend any time with her that isn’t forced upon them both. Sakaki either doesn’t really notice it or doesn’t seem to mind. Reciprocation, that’s a little foggy, but I think she’d at least let Kaorin be her friend if either of them could take that first step.

Kaorin doesn’t appear to have many friends of her own. She reminisces fondly on a couple of small, otherwise insignificant moments where she and Sakaki were placed together(usually a pairing in PE or some other competition in regards to Fitness). But she’s not happy because of anything Sasaki has said or done, merely being nearby is enough. By her senior year, she still hasn’t acquired the courage to just initiate a conversation.

It makes me sad to think of all the time she’s wasted that she could have spent with this person she so admires. But then, I know a certain something about misguided, unrequited infatuation. I also know just how spineless it can make a person, under the excuse of “love”. Sure, it -looks- like love, but to love something, you must first understand it. I don’t think Kaorin understands someone she can’t even bring herself to talk to, but it’s clear she does care about her fellow colleague.

In one of the last episodes, Kaorin sees Sakaki in a different form of school uniform that’s a bit more masculine, you could say. She’s just as horny for her as ever. Then it hit me. Her calm, cool personality. Her height. Her soft, low voice, and excellence in athletic events. Her strength. Maybe Kaorin is a lesbian, or going through a “phase”, which are fine-enough explanations for her adoration and behaviour. But the way she talks and acts around Sakaki suggests that of someone willing to be a submissive wife. Maybe she confuses Sakaki with her vision of her ideal -husband-? Sakaki isn’t androgynous or anything like that. But something about her might just translate to Kaorin as “Mr. Right”.

...Okay, nevermind. Scratch that theory.

During the beginning of their 2nd year, everyone is looking for their names on the class-listing sheets. The thought of being in a different class from Sakaki is terrifying to Kaorin. From Yukari cheering her on as she picks the petals from those flowers, to the tension before finding out if she’s in Sakaki’s class, right down to the hyperventilating, it establishes that this is a character of some comedic value. But underneath all of that is a girl torn in two, from feelings she may be too young to fully comprehend and work through. I’ve read that she didn’t have as big a part in the manga, and I believe it was the right call to invite her further into the show’s spotlight.

This series isn’t about teenage angst, but by bringing her closer to the main cast, we’re given something to compare to. We realize, through Kaorin, that this is not some perfect, magical land these characters inhabit. Her situation is not one of needless melodrama, nor is she stapled to a “very-special-episode” trope to tug at our heart-strings. She is, like many young women, someone who is having incredible difficulty reconciling with strange and terrifying new emotions. She’s there to remind us that, though the main cast lead happy lives, they are not invulnerable to the emotional extremes that all too often cripple us in the prime of our youth. Perhaps time after graduation will help mend this girl’s inward suffering and bring things into perspective.

That jerk Kimura isn’t making things easier for her, either. That is so like child predators, isn’t it? Never taking into consideration the feelings of their targets. Leave the poor girl alone and get an internet connection, you asshole!

END OF LINE

~A.H.

I’ve seen Wall-E four times in the first three days I’ve owned it, and I suspect that number is only going to grow. Since then, I’ve realized one of the many reasons why I like this movie: The lack of an artificial Disney Bad Guy. Evil has no place in this film. There is nothing mean-spirited about it. There are antagonists, yes, but everyone in this movie is acting in what they believe is the best interests of humanity.

————–

=Buy N’ Large CEO=

Played by Fred Willard(which is always a good way to start off a sentence), “Shelby Forthright” could be seen as the “villain” of Wall-E. He is, after all, at least partly to blame for Earth’s perhaps not-so-fictional future predicament. His company and its attitude encouraged the lazy, self-serving downfall of his planet. He’s a man who knows how to wink at the camera and read the teleprompter, and give off that hokey charm that the average person confuses with sincerity and intelligence. But this is a character who either grossly underestimated the situation he was in, or was dangerously under-qualified and irresponsible at what he did. This was not an agenda, this was an example of incompetence. Though no less-deserving of revile, it does not make him evil. He’s more George Walker than Dick Cheney. His Earth Cleanup act did not meet with success in his lifetime, forcing everyone into the stars. And yet, in the end it was a product of this very plan that ended up saving the day.

Wall-E, the last functioning Waste Allocation something-or-other robot was one of many that were supposed to clean up the planet and trumpet in the re-colonization of Earth. Because of Wall-E, humans returned to a cleaner Earth. Because he did end up fulfilling this directive, even if it was through circumstances he nor anyone else on the Axiom predicted, one could say that the Earth Cleanup was a success. Albeit in spite of its CEO.

———-

=Auto-Pilot=

This is the most obvious choice. No one directly attempts to thwart the heroes more than the monotone-voiced Auto-Pilot/semi-sentient steering wheel of the Axiom. He operates under direct orders that overlap those of the ship’s Captain to keep the humans from returning to Earth. Not to be insidious, not keep them from enjoying their lives or anything of the sort, but because the CEO of BnL had no reason to believe at the time that Earth would ever be safe for humanity to exist on. It has been programmed to believe that a return trip would be a hopeless waste of human life, so when Eve brings the plant aboard, Auto sees it not so much as a sign of hope, but a siren call.

It is the Auto-Pilot’s duty to ensure the survival of the human race, but machines are only as smart as their programming. And who’s to say that just because this one tiny plant thrived, that millions of humans could thrive on a refuse-infested planet? I can sort of see Auto’s, and by extent the CEO’s point. Again, I don’t think there is anything malicious here. What we have are several people with different ideas on what’s best for mankind.

Out of all of the machines in this movie, he is the most machine-like. He supposedly lacks all human emotion and even thought. Almost all of his actions are by protocol, not from consideration or spirit. Therefore he is incapable of -directly- afflicting hatred against anyone or anything, although in his haste to maintain the status quo, he unintentionally jeopardizes the safety of the Axiom’s passengers. His actions may not have been “right”, but he doesn’t know that.

Thinking back on the ending, what place would the Auto-Pilot have had on Earth? This is by and far the closest character in this movie to being soulless. He’s almost a prop. But even in its monotone computerized voice, there was a hint of panic. There is desperation in its actions, sometimes endangering the people he was built to protect. Strangely, I pitied it. The only life the seemingly lifeless Auto-Pilot has is on the ship. What is the point in a machine that humanity no longer needs or wants?

———-

=Gopher=

Gopher was just a dick. (Right down to the Nazi-esque shoulders and “salute”)

———-

In the end, perhaps the greatest antagonists in this film is human civilization? The human race in Wall-E lets the world become an uninhabitable wasteland of shit, and gets morbidly obese relying on technology to solve all of their problems for them. Sometimes we can be our own worst enemy. This movie is critical of where we are and where we are going, but it is not condemning. I think the simplest underlying message of Wall-E is that the only way things can get better is if we all do our part, no matter how small our role may seem in a cosmic sense. It has optimism in its audience that we will make sure movies like this stay as fiction.

Its director, Andrew Stanton has said that it was never really intended to be a political jab at our morals in regards to the environment, or a vehicle for any agenda. At worst, it’s a poke in the ribs. But the message is loud and clear: If we don’t get off our asses and apply our strengths to keep our home suitable for our descendants, then we may just revert back to the point where survival is more important than living.

If I had to pick who I would consider to be the real villains here, I’d have to go with:

———-

=The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences=

Those fiends.

I’ve heard some critics(and fans) were upset when Wall-E wasn’t nominated for Best Picture.  This is just one of many damning examples of that particular Academy Award broadcast. The best-written film of 2008 was segregated into the kiddie-table of movie categories at that wretched award show, because it was animated and wasn’t about the Holocaust, did not star Meryl Streep and was not distributed under the Fox Searchlight banner. Of course it was the “Best Animated Picture”! That’s like saying Stephen Hawking is the “World’s Smartest Cripple“.

END OF LINE

~A.H.