Alright, so that didn’t work out as planned. If it had been planned. I really should start reading more modern poetry. (Although by now you may already be aware of how I feel about poetry.)

Anyway, so here it is: another episode of Le Linkage, and this one’s about all the wonderful stuff making its way into my RSS reader as of late. Some of it is thought provoking, some just fun to read, but most, I’m sure you’ll side with me, won’t make your eyeballs bleed. (There now, that’s better, though not by much.)

What If…: What if you could go back in time to change something about your life? I’m of the opinion that is not only useful when learning your lessons from past mistakes (especially the mistake of inaction). This post, however, puts a new twist to this question, one that makes you really ask “what if…?” (h/t A Rain of Frogs).

The Search for Meaning: When are people truly happy? Not after the fact of accomplishment, but in the act of the accomplishing. We are creators, and as such true happiness comes to us when we have a purpose, and when that purpose has a meaning. (Think of the word “meaningful”, what does it say to you? This gives us a clue as to the importance of meaning.) The lack of meaning brings desperation. The existence of a meaning brings with it faith and subsequently hope. (h/t Wurkit Books)

The Need to Understand Pop Culture: I’m not exactly what you’d call a “fan” of pop culture, yet the need to understand it has made itself apparent to me over the years. It hasn’t been an easy transition — I, like other social outcasts, thought it to be somehow beneath me — but it has been an enlightening one. What I find most perplexing now is how one person can deride and even ignore his own culture on one hand while on the other glorifying another which does the same, but in another language. (h/t Helpdesk Magazine)

Why Unsubscribe from a Blog: RSS is a wonderful thing. With one click you can get all of the content from a website you’ve just found delivered to you directly. Of course, the subscription part is easy, it’s the unsubscribing part that sometimes isn’t (depending on how much of a pack rat you are, I guess). What gets you to unsubscribe from a blog? Conversely, why would you really want to subscribe to one in the first place? As for me, I’m very picky about who I subscribe to, and most often won’t subscribe on a first visit. If I find I’ve visited your site multiple times, then I’ll put you on. This is because I have a strong pack rat instinct, which means that once your on my RSS reader you’ll probably not get off of it, unless I find your content boring in the long run (meaning for months), or your blog goes to bunk. (Lack of updates will NOT get me to unsubscribe.) (h/t Pelfism is Contagious)

Gender and Fan Studies: I’ve been around the anime/japanophile subculture for quite a bit, and one thing I’ve always found interesting is how almost predictably rigid the characteristics of people in that subculture are. I suppose these are but accented outgrowths of the culture in general, but I find they’re much easier to identify there than in other subcultures. The following is a set of essays in Professor Henry Jenkin’s blog studying just that: the role of gender in fan cultures. Very interesting read, especially to students of gender studies. The title link, by the way, is only the first post in the conversation. Here are the others: (1, 1.5, 2, 2.5, 3, 4, 4.5, 5, 5.5, 6, 6.5, 7) I’m sure there will be more, so keep an eye out. (h/t Confessions of an Aca/Fan — This, by the way, is one of my favorite blogs, and is a suitable supplement to the question asked by Helpdesk Magazine’s Michael Ono.)

Public Service Announcement on the 9Rules/Pokemon Quarantine: Alright, so the rest of this stuff is thought provoking, now for something more light hearted. This is one of the funniest posts I’ve read, and while it’s pretty much a “you had to be there” humor piece (specifically dealing with a Pokemon thread which garnered over 1300 replies in a forum where a “big” thread gets just over 50), it should be good for at least a smile. (h/t hthth)

Blogathon for Cancer Research: Fellow 9Ruler Kamigoroshi’s blogging for a good cause, and you can help! She’s looking for sponsors for a 24 hour blogathon. All proceeds go towards cancer research (and seeing as Kamigoroshi’s a cancer researcher, this is only fitting). The sponsorships don’t have to be much — maybe $10, or the price of a couple of frappuccinos at Starbucks — and every dime helps. Considering cancer rates are rising, doesn’t it make sense to help, since there’s a fairly good chance you’ll need the research in the future? Factoid: 0.8% of the total US population is diagnosed with cancer every year. Think about that. Now, go and donate.

(Edit) Why Barack Obama Scares Me: “What really scares me about Obama is that he quit smoking!… We don’t need a president who might nuke Mexico over a bad burrito because he’s having a nicotine fit.” (h/t Roblimo)

I spend a good amount of time — a really, obscenely good amount of time — listening to the Jpop stations in Shoutcast and other services. (JPopSuki TV being my biggest source of J-pop music videos.) Artists like Morning Musume, Sakamoto Maaya, and Utada Hikaru have become to me what 50 Cent, Trisha Yearwood, and Dave Matthews are to most everyone else around here. (Not that Morning Musume, a collection of teen-aged Japanese girls singing happy pop songs, sounds anything like 50 Cent, a 30-something muscle-bound black guy rapping about inner-city problems, but that’s beside the point.) Eventually, this got me wondering if there are any Japanese pop(ish) artists planning to tour the US any time soon.

(FYI: “Musume” means “Daughter.” Frankly, I don’t know what “Morning Daughter” is supposed to mean, but I think this qualifies as one of these cultural things you’ve just got to be there to understand.)

Mind you, I’d expect tickets to be fairly pricey, at least if concerts around here are any indication, but frankly I’d love to see one of these bands live. The funny part is that other than the local orchestra and small performance groups, I don’t really go to concerts. (Unless it’s a punk rock band in some park somewhere.)

I guess the question is, when did I start listening to J-pop, and why do I prefer it over Pop music from the west? (Daing it, Mana, why did you have to give me those Japanese music CD’s?!)

One answer: It’s a fad; the Japanese language (at least in the US) is mostly a fad. (I’ve wanted to learn Japanese since I was 6, when my uncle would go to business trips, but that’s beside the point.) And I can’t understand what they’re saying so it sounds more intellectual than American or British music. It’s not, and I know it, but it’s in another language, one I can’t understand, so it’s cool and mysterious. (Why don’t I put a few more commas there: ,,,,,,,,,,,,,. Ok, now it feels complete.) To be honest, if it was in English, I probably really wouldn’t like listening to most of this stuff.

Except, of course, Morning Musume, Ayumi Hamasaki, Maaya Sakamoto. Oh, and Utada Hikaru; she’s a definite.

Heck, while I’m at it, maybe even Koda Kumi. This one mostly because I used to have a cat named “Koda.” This was before I knew Koda was a person’s name, apparently. As a side note, at that time there was a store called “Coda”, and although wanted to name my cat after the music symbol “coda” as in “Dal Segno al Coda,” everyone thought I named it after the store. That annoyed me, since everyone then thought I really liked that store (I actually hated it), so I named my cat with a “K” instead of a “C.” But I digress…

…to the point of Alzheimer’s.

The point of this story is simple: I’d like to see a Japanese artist touring the US. Miami and Orlando are big enough venues; I don’t see why they couldn’t make it all the way out here. Well, other than market share. I’m sure I can scrounge up enough Japanese-language students who want extra credit for this to happen, though.

Edit: I just saw the video “Hot Stuff” by Koda Kumi. She’s off my list. Too much Lil’ Kim. The spirit of my dead cat is not pleased.

Monday: Tampa Bay Buccaneers #40/Alstott Jersey on top of a long-sleeve t-shirt, leather jacket, jeans, white sneakers, and a Bucs cap.

Tuesday: Buccaneers #24/Williams Jersey on top of a long-sleeve t-shirt, leather jacket, jeans, black shoes, and a Bucs cap.

Wednesday: Manchester United jersey on top of a long-sleeve t-shirt, leather jacket. jeans, black shoes, and a Red Hat cap (black).

This is what I wore this week. Now, looking at this wardrobe listing it wouldn’t take a genius to figure out the following:

1) I like sports jerseys. (They’re so incredibly comfortable!)
2) I seem to have an attraction to teams owned by Malcolm Glazer.
3) It’s too frigg’n cold at the office.

Add to this the fact that I haven’t shaved since Saturday, and you could safely assume that I’m just now jumping on the Grunge bandwagon. Good timing, too, because I think it’s coming back. In 2015.

No, no. In reality here’s what’s been going on: I’ve been focused on work lately. Really focused. The past few days have been really hectic for me. I have a massive deadline quickly approaching and I can’t be bothered with doing just about anything else other than writing. Well, except sleeping, bathing, eating, and playing Dance Dance Revolution. (Good exercise, if you’re looking for something fun to keep you physically active.) On the bright side, I’ve had a change to gorge myself on all kinds of hip and poppish Japanese music which, whether I like to admit it or not, has become the best way for me to concentrate on what I’m doing. Turns out that the generally fast beats combined with the Japanese language actually help me think faster.

Well, that and I like seeing all those nice colors they use in their videos, most of them. It’s not much different than watching MTV, at least when they still actually played music videos and not beach house reality shows.

(By the way, I’ve really been getting into Dragon Ash. They sound a lot like Smash Mouth, which works for me because they’re one of my favorite bands; just coordinated enough to put out a nice beat and music, and just out of sync enough to make their sound comfortable, not too perfect, but definitely not out of tune.)

Although I’ve been dressing like a total college student for the past few days, I gotta say I’ve been pretty comfortable. Too comfortable. It’s like I’m sliding back to the days before I worked as a writer. This is how I always used to dress back then, except I wash my clothes more often, so I smell better. (This is one of the advantages of having a wife. She doesn’t let me go out without first smelling myself.) But I know I can’t keep dressing like this. If I do I might end up hanging out at the FIU library, playing Magic: The Gathering with a bunch of geeks, trying to explain to them how to “get the girl”. And if they’re playing Magic, then they probably watch anime. And if they watch anime, they’re probably into Asian chicks. And if they’re into Asian chicks, I’m going to have to tell them the truth: that no Asian woman even remotely resembles anything they see in any anime. Well, some do, but none they actually stand a chance with.

And that, my friends, is why life sucks for them. (The geeks, not the chicks.)

Of course, in a strange twist of fate, I find that most American women are exactly like the women in anime: most have larger chests than the typical Japanese woman, they all have bigger eyes, most are generally polite without being subservient, and most are looking for a hero. (This is especially true the more vehemently they deny looking for a hero.) Oh, and they’re all ambidextrous, sword wielding, machine gun toting martial arts masters. Don’t believe me? Try to cop a feel.** In most cases, it won’t be 2 seconds before the blazing katana-like wrath of Yojimbo on steroids is tearing you apart, limb from limb, whether by physical action, psychological trauma, or more commonly, laser beams shooting from their eyes, focusing on your stomach, searing your skin and boiling you alive from the inside while they laugh maniacally and threaten to crucify you. Seriously, it’s a scary event. Mind you, I’ve never tried it, so it hasn’t actually ever happend to me, but I’ve seen it happen, which is why I know that the whole wrath part is as exciting to watch as it is to drive 120 mph through a hospital zone in a car that’s on fire while being chased by helicopters, tanks, and ninjas. And the helicopters are shooting missles at you. And the ninjas are on fire, too.

[**Note: Yes, I know this is the second time in as many days that I've refered to copping a feel. Remember, however, that I wrote this article over a year ago, so no, that's not at all what my mind's on. This is simply a coincidence.]

Getting back to the original point, this is why I wear polo shirts, because the grunge look would take me down a path I don’t wish to go. Also, it forces me to bathe at least daily, since there’s invariably nothing worse than someone who’s dressed with a nice polo who smells of body vinegar. You now also know why I only secretly love the otaku culture, most of it, including anime and even cosplay.

Addendum: For the record, I still don’t understand what the fascination with tentacles is all about. That’s just weird. And getting off a 12 year old anime girls’ white panties is just… can anyone say “hentai”? (Translation, “pervert”.) What can I say, I’m just not into tentacles or borderline ephebophilia. Luckily, most Japanophiles I know aren’t either. Not that I know of anyway. And no, I wouldn’t even want to know, thank you: I have enough problems already, I don’t need to know about other people’s psychological issues.

Aside from the complete lack of tentacles, short skirted uniforms showing off white panties, mecha [Edit: D'oh! Forgot, Bender and Tinny Tim.], and the absurdly large breasts, this is still a pretty darn cool drawing. Make Leela into an android and you got yourself a series.

Now, for those of you who haven’t heard, thanks to fan demand, Futurama’s returning in 2008. Frankly, it’d be absolutely hilarious to see an entire episode drawn in this style.

By the way, the artist who did this also did a Simpsons one, and has been hired by a comic book company to make a manga-style Simpsons. Very nice.

ScienceBlog.com — Drunks Don’t See the Monkey: “It’s pretty difficult to overlook the proverbial 800-pound gorilla, or even an average-size person dressed in a gorilla suit. But a new study indicates that people who were given a simple visual task while mildly intoxicated were twice as likely to have missed seeing the person in a gorilla suit than were people who were not under the influence of alcohol.” Lesson: never try to spot a man in a gorilla suit while tipsy. Because if you can’t spot the gorilla, what good are you?

Engadget — Korea to test 1,000 remote-controlled domestic robots: “The Ministry of Information and Communication … will begin placing 1,000 wheeled, cell-phone controlled automatons — dubbed URCs, or ubiquitous robotic companions — into households and kindergartens this fall as a trial run for new robot technologies. The URCs will do the usual handling of domestic tasks as we might expect (and some … like cleaning rooms and reading books to children), as well the usual hanging out, taking care of pets, [and more] … The only thing at all disconcerting about any of this is the fact that unlike normal household droids, these URCs will be operated wirelessly from a central computing center ala I, Robot.” Having just watched that movie agan, the thought of a remote controled robot companion isn’t one I’m at all too comfortable with.

Akihabara News — The Wonderbra powered USB keyboard: Ok, uhm… hmm. How do I… err… geez, oh man… heh… I mean… Hmm. So, like, anyways, I uhmm… hmm… How do I put this? Uhm… What?

USB powered keyboard bra with USB powered camera tail that can be switched out with other USB powered items, such a lights and memory sticks. You have to see this for yourself [Angelkitty.jp]. I guess what I’m wondering is where exactly that thing is supposed to be plugged.

KurzweilAI — Frozen Brains Awaiting Resurrection Day in Storage: (From St. Petersburg, Russia) “Kriorus, the world’s first cryonics company outside the United States, located in Alabushevo village in Russia, has two brains in cryonics storage so far. The price: $9,000.” Just what we need, Russian discount cryonics. “You want better brain? Lie down. We do operation, take out brain now. Give you new brain next week. We freeze brain now so if you want back later, you have. ”

My Heart’s in Accra — Book review: “Globalization and its Enemies”: “This is the basic question development economists try to answer. It’s a question with profound practical implications – if we could suggest strategies that consistently helped nations grow wealth, we could address a huge range of problems in education, public health and state stability. It’s also a question that both development economists and political commentators are surprisingly bad at answering.” A very thorough book review and critique by Ethan Zuckerman. Good reading for anyone involved in economics or business.

The New Yorker — How can someone live with only half a brain?: This week’s New Yorker features a particularly interesting article about the hemispherectomy operation. In this procedure, an entire side of the brain is removed as a treatment because of cancer or chronic seizures. The incredible thing is that if the hemispherectomy is done when a patient is very young, the remaining hemisphere does double duty and the child often develops normally. (This one also came by way of My Heart’s in Accra.)

Index of 1,000 Full Length Anime On YouTube: (via Digg) “There are no ads or garbage clips to weed through, just 1000 anime episodes and movies. This index includes The Animatrix, Cowboy Bebop, Ghost in the Shell, Samurai Champloo, Serial Experiments Lain, Ultimate Avengers, and more.” Not weird and not news, but I’ll be damned if I don’t put this link up.

Quick Rundown
There’s this guy, Rumisiel, who’s actually not a “guy”, per se, but an angel (even though the only differences between him and humanity are wings and supernatural powers). He’s been suspended from his job as filing angel in Heaven (which runs like a giant bureaucracy) for being a lazy slacker. The problem is that just before he is suspended, he ends up misfiling a couple of files, those of Ash Upton and Emily MacArthur. By misfiling their files, Rumisiel ends up turning Ash — a male, 17 year old high school student and racer — into a girl, and making Emily — a female, 18/19 year old high school graduate to be who just qualified to get into Harvard — two years younger, thereby erasing the past 2 years of her life, including all grades and entrance exams. He introduces the two and they start a rather strange friendship whose only glue (at first) is that they’re the only ones aware of what’s going on. (Rumisiel explains why they’re the only ones that can remember what they were before the change.)

Throughout the story, Ash is getting used to being (and apparently, all his life having been) a girl, including his acquisition of breasts, estrogen, and looks from guys who just want to get into his/her pants. All this while trying to remember that “she” is actually a “he”. Emily, on the other hand, is discovering why it was she wanted to get into Harvard in the first place, and realizing more and more that her life has not necessarily been her own, but rather deeply controlled by her mother’s expectations. And of course, there’s Rumisiel who’s trying to do whatever he can to get back into heaven before someone up there catches his mistake and makes the changes permanent. (Oh, and did I mention he used to date Lucifer’s niece?)

Thoughts and Impressions
My first impression when I saw the comic was that it was going to be another supernatural/drama storyline with more than enough attention paid to boobs and sex. Sadly, I was right. Some of the themes dealt with here are definitely “R” rated. (I tend to be a bit of a puritan prude, so most people would tell me it’s actually PG-13, sexual innuendo and tension not withstanding.) Still, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The comic has a great style and feel to it (in the manga style), something which will likely be enjoyed by most most fans of anime and manga.

Marvelous artwork aside (and, if nothing else, this is enough of a reason to enjoy the comic), the story line is pretty solid, generally witty and enjoyable. The combination of great artwork and good story-telling is enough to make Misfile strangely addicting, especially if you enjoy manga/anime/comics that don’t involve mutants and aliens in tights. To put it another way, Misfile has a bit of a Love Hina appeal to it, with a scaled-down Ah! My Goddess feel, so if you liked either of those, you’ll probably like this.

While going through the comic I was very impressed by the detailed references to street racing and car engines. (That’s not really saying much, considering my severely lacking depth of knowledge on the subject.) If nothing else, you’ll learn a thing or two about auto-work from reading Misfile. In addition, unlike with most manga of this style, it’s surprisingly easy to put yourself as the reader in the shoes of the characters, something which personalizes them and greatly enhances the reading experience.

On the downside, I find the emphasis on sexual tension and innuendo — the lowest common denominators for humor — to be a distraction sometimes. (Yeah, yeah: Ash, a girl, has the hots for Emily, we all get that, and since he used to be a guy it’s… uhm… well, it’s… uhm… yeah.) In addition, I find that there’s a lack of depth in the theological realm, something I’d really like to see more of. One very notable exception to this is Rumisiel’s illustrated explanation of the fall of Lucifer, which is a pretty good (and slightly, but not detractively, embellished) synopsis of the Biblical account of the whole ordeal. (CEOs aren’t mentioned in the Bible, right?) Overall, however, we get the usual humanizing of theological creatures, even though angels DO tend to be a bit one dimensional and not generally smart in most theology. (At least the “not generally smart” part is portrayed correctly here.)

Luckily, neither of these “flaws” really detract from the story line, which is great.

Note: A tip to Chris: Read up on a few holy books from the Middle East, including the Dead Sea Scrolls, the books of the Apocrypha, and the Lost Books of Eden. I think you’ll find more than enough ammunition there to add some theological depth to the heavenly hosts.

Conclusion
As I wrote this, I noticed that it’s 6/6/06, a numerically (but not otherwise) significant day in the world of Biblical theology. Coincidence? I think so. Total coincidence.

In any case, I find Misfile to be an extremely entertaining manga with a great story line, pretty good character development, and great art. Although I have a bit of hesitation about the theology and constant sexual tension, here’s my biggest beef with the comic: it has an addicting story line, one that makes me want to flip the pages to find out how it all ends. Since Misfile is still being written, and therefore hasn’t ended, that can only lead to the eventual frustration of reaching the end without reaching a resolution (something I, to my dismay, have already done). For that, I have no choice but to say (in the spirit of the topic at hand):

“Damn you, Chris. You’re a filthy, manga-crack peddling bastard. And like a crack addict with his drug, I hate loving Misfile as much as I do. But please… keep drawing.”

I don’t know about you, but — man, that’s just not right. I mean, the Japanese don’t have a navy! Oh, wait… Seriously though, bathroom… stall… water…

Uhm…

(For the record, the video is rated “G”. Not like Xuxa “G”, but — well, I guess not far form. But I digress…)

On the bright side, this is a rather happy-catchy-(almost-kitschy)-poppish song, so it makes for good listening. It’s name? What else? — “Peace!”

Because, you know, peace is exactly what I’m thinking about when watching 11 girls congregating in a bathroom stall splashing each other with water. Yep. Peace. (I dunno, maybe it’s a cultural thing. “Don’t go to bed the bathroom mad” or something…)

To be honest, if you’re looking for a job that pays very well, I’d recommend avoiding the anime industry altogether.

That coming from someone who knows the industry. I guess that leaves “for the love of it” as the only real reason to do anything involving anime as a career.

*Sigh*

The Weekend
Last weekend I was up in Tampa, visiting my parents. Having just gone through a hurricane the week before, The Wife and I decided we needed at least a day to clear our heads and get ourselves fully back on track. My parents’ house, though usually less than quiet, is ideal for that; my brother and sister are usually out of the house, my mother’s usually reading, cooking, or working on some project around the house, and my dad is either working on his real estate business or watching television, meaning that The Wife and I can have some time to just relax, sleep too much in memory-foam beds (mmm… memory foooaaaaam…), and eat some good home-cooked food.

This weekend my sister went off with her husband to one of his motor-cross events, so my parents were left taking care of my niece, Bell. Like just about every other four-year old kid alive, Bell packs more energy per square inch than anyone in that house could even dream of having. A thespian at heart, Bell is also the most melodramatic child I’ve ever come across; from putting on little shows, to crying and laughing on queue, to standing on tables and singing her favorite songs, this little girl is destined for the stage.

Sunday morning we were eating breakfast and along with Bell, watching cartoons. To be honest, I don’t even remember what we watched, since I was paying more attention to the all-natural, authentic Canadian maple syrup (mmm… Canadian maple syrup…)drenching my pancakes than to just about anything else. At one point I heard something which sounded pleasantly-yet-alarmingly familiar. I looked up to see what it was when, a sudden explosion of color filled the 60″ television screen and attacked my visual cortex. My heart raced and my pupils began to dilate. Luckily, I was able to turn my gaze away just before I started frothing at the mouth. “Holy crap!” I thought. “What the heck…”

The J-Pop Connection
I adventurously returned my gaze to the screen and watched as the explosion of color continued. It was the intro for a cartoon show, no doubt. As I listened to the show’s theme song, I started wondering why this sounded so familiar. That’s when it hit me. The music. The voices.

J-pop.

I’d heard these voices before when listening to the music stream from J-popsuki.tv. “This is… this is…” And that’s when I saw. This was Puffy Ami Yumi. This was the intro to their show, Hi Hi Puffy Ami Yumi.

Hello? Yes, Crayola called. They want their 160 colors back.

For those of you who may not be aware, Puffy Ami Yumi is a Japanese J-pop group comprised of two ultra-kitschy chicks (Ami Onuki and Yumi Yoshimura) who were during some extended period in their life kept alive only with the help of sugar puffs and energy drinks. To say they’re the musical equivalent of Frosted Flakes and Capt’n Crunch isn’t too far flung of a description.

I must admit, their music has a pretty catchy sound — if you don’t listening to something meant for the ADHD-saturated color-explosion known as the japanese teenie-bopper, that is. (Don’t believe me? Check out Puffy Ami Yumi’s Sony website to see what I mean. To their credit, Ami and Yumi have been around since 1995, which says a good amount about their pliability and showmanship.) They’ve gained a fair amount of popularity in the US, helped in part by their writing of the cheesy, but delightfully catchy Teen Titans theme song. Mostly, their popularity is due to Sony’s exploitation of the ever-increasing cultural fusion between Japanese and American entertainment. (I for one welcome our color-saturated Sony-backed overlords.)

As I watched their cartoon, I felt myself only narrowly escaping the throngs of a seizure. Like most Japanese pop-culture media exports, this toon was full of flashing colors, quick movements, and Ritalin-esque goodness.

Puffy, am I yummy?
That got me thinking (or hallucinating, I honestly don’t know which): usually, when I listen to J-pop, I’m streaming from J-popsuki.tv. (Check out the links in the side nav bar for info.) Most of the time, the stuff they present isn’t’ bad. In fact, most of the time it’s pretty darn good, save for the fact that they play the same 60 or so videos over and over again. Among those 60 videos are classics like Domo Arigato, Mr. Robato, awesome talents like Utada Hikaru (aka Cubic U, Hikari/Simple and Clean), the ultra-cutesy Morning Musume, and of course, Puffy Ami Yumi. Unfortunately, this mix also includes the almost unbearable Mini Moni, who — I can only hope — targets their music to three year olds with Down syndrome. (Why I’m listening to music for retarded 3-year olds, I have no idea, but there you have it.)

Anyway, back to the story. Bell watched on as excitedly and intently as if sitting in front of a big bowl of forbidden doughnuts (mmm… forbidden doughnut…). As for me, well I just watched her, half expecting to see her pass out from the sudden blast of visual stimulation.

Sometime in the middle of peeking (but never directly looking at) the cartoon, I heard my dad start to complain. “Why can’t cartoons be good, like The Flintstones? Why do they have to be all weird looking? You know, they tried to re-make the old Bugs Bunny cartoons, but the characters looked monstrous. I think too many people called in saying ‘take this off!’ You know what I mean?”

While discussing the evolution of cartoons, I noticed she was starting to get hyper. Real hyper. She started talking faster, moving faster, and her attention span dropped from a whopping 10 seconds to a meager 2. It was like if she was eating a big bowl of sugar coated candy-cotton balls soaked in high fructose corn syrup. It was… well, scary.

As my dad and I tried to stop Bell from swinging on the ceiling fan, ridding the dog, and re-arranging the living room furniture, a thought came to my mind: is this what’s happening to my brain when I listen to the online anime/J-pop music stations? Is this music like candy for my mind?

I must admit, at first the thought seemed silly. Absurd! How can music, no matter how happy and poppy it is, cause someone to act so… so… I mean, sugar does that because it infuses your body with over amounts of energy. Caffeine does it by turning on parts of your brain that were never meant to be turned on. But this…?

Effect on the Brain
After a little while I started thinking: doesn’t techno make people want to dance in almost tribal ways? Doesn’t goth make people wear black and look like they haven’t seen the sun in three years? Doesn’t rap make guys drop their pants and women grow large bottoms? Don’t Dave Matthews and Jimmy Buffet make people drink and stop bathing? Doesn’t Phillip Glass and his pampas attitude just totally piss you off? Anyway, I’m getting off course here. Given this evidence, it is obvious that listening to J-pop (and watching anything inspired by it) is akin to sucking down on sugar covered caffeine pills while snorting cocaine and rolling down the street smoking indo, sipping on gin and juice. While it won’t kill your insulin levels, it may cause tiny seizures in your brain which can over stimulate you, and eventually even leave you brain-dead.

Puffy Ami Yumi? Ha! Puffy Ami Brain-dead is more like it! Worse still is how addicting the music is. Like alcohol at first taste, listening to this stuff is repulsing at best. But then it starts making its way in to your brain. Its happy, poppy tunes start taking over your mind, and names like Megumi Hayashibara make their way into your vocabulary. Love Hina? Yeah, you know it. AnimeNation? You start becoming a regular! Soon, the rest of the world becomes more bland, more boring. Things just aren’t colorful or happy enough.

Those around you start noticing you, too. Your skin becomes paler and you smile a lot more, eerily so. Japanese members of the opposite sex suddenly become extremely attractive to you, and you find yourself wanting to — no, learning JapaneseNihongo. And when you’re away from it all you want to do is play with your phone and read about the latest idols. (And if you’re over 30, stay at home and pretend you’re a 16 year old otaku.)

You find yourself thinking that there’s got to be more to life. What was well and good before is now boring, and sad. Then one day, you open an issue of Wired Magazine, catch a glimpse of their Japanese Teen Girl Watch series and — bam — there they are! The colors! THE COLORS!

It’s all downhill from there. Before long, your favorite color becomes orange, and color combinations don’t make sense unless they can kill on sight.

……

You know, I’ll just stop here. This was a lot funnier when I first started writing and now — well, now it’s just getting strange. Sorry to waste your time. J-Pop is not bad for your brain. In fact, it’s only as bad as regular pop music, which isn’t all that bad most of the time. But man, the colors… geez oh man, the colors…

I gotta say, I’m finding myself enjoying Japanese music videos a lot more than English ones (at least American ones); they tend to be a bit more “cartoonish”, as if they’re not affraid to try weird stuff. (Most of the time. Sometimes they suck just as badly as most American ones, like just about every video I’ve seen from Skapra.)

At any rate, getting back to the point. I just finished watching the video for Utada Hikaru’s Hikari, which is one of my favorite songs, and — well, it wasn’t anything I had expected. The English version of the song, which was used in the game Kingdom Hearts by Disney/Square-Enix, is titled Simple and Clean. The chorus lyrics go something like this:

Simple and clean
is the way that you’re making me
feel tonight.
It’s hard to let it go…

Not bad. Not exactly the height of lyricism, but what the hay. Here’s what’s odd: the version I heard was the Japanese version, which again is called Hikari. The word “Hikari” means (according to this page) “(n) skips-most-stations Toukai-line Shinkansen” or “(n) light; (P)”. By the context of the video — in which the singer was at the kitchen sink, washing her dishes… throughout the entire video — I’m guessing it has to do with the second. I’m not quite sure how, but it makes more sense than “skips-most-stations”.

Now, what I’d like to know is (1) why Disney (or Square-Enix, for that matter) used a song about washing dishes for a fantasy video game, and (2) how “hikari” turns into “simple and clean.”

That’s just… weird.

By the way, I got some seriously disturbing images goind a Google Image Search on “Hikari” — with the safety turned on! Can someone tell me what’s going on here?

Usually, I heard the name associated not with finding stuff on the Internet, but with something fun to see online. I heard people talking about going to Google and typing random words to see what they could find. I did this for a while and found it… pretty boring. Sure, it was fun at first, but after a while, it got boring, as all the “fun” words were usually attached to boring (but informative!) websites. (These random Google searches are also how I discovered Internet pr0n. But that’s beside the point. Really.)

Anyway, again, this wasn’t something I did for long before getting bored with it. That was until Google came out with its images search. (Google maps is also a fun one to play with, especially when you don’t have the money to travel.)

I don’t know, maybe I’m more of a “visual” person, but doing Google image searches — even on non-sensical words — is pretty fun. I mean, sure, it’s brainless and almost always totally pointless, but it’s better than watching TV, and the images search is still innocent enough to search engine optimizations that it’s still fun, since turns up some pretty cool stuff. (Please note: the “Moderate SafeSearch” feature is on by default. For the love of God, leave it that way!)

With that out of the way, I’d like to turn your attention to the following image, found when I did a search for “cosplay” on images.google.com:

You might recognize this as the cast from Final Fantasy 8. Sweet looking costumes.

Here’s another Final Fantasy favorite, Rikku from Final Fantasy X:

Again, sweet costume. Makes me wish fashion designers started taking tips from video game costume designers. (Not necessarily from Anime or Manga designers, though. Mayhaps they be a bit too steamy, if you know what I mean.)

But in all honesty, I was surprised at the number of Cammys from Street Fighter II. Yowzah!

Note: What the heck is “Cosplay”?
Here’s a good explanation from http://www.nyx.net/~wsantoso/cosptext.html:

Cosplay is a Japanese fan term for Costume Play; it’s equivalent to the Western fan term Masquerade. In Japan cosplay covers pretty much the spread that convention masquerades in the West cover, from SF to fantasy, from medieval to military uniforms. It’s basically a time for fans to dress up in their favourite garb or as their favourite character and have a bit of fun. There is a condition though; most fans insist that you not only play the character in dress, you also play the character’s nature. In other words, whilst you’re in costume, you must be the character, in thoughts, words and action.