Okay, so I probably so I probably should be writing a practice essay or something. I have everything ready to go and everything. Yet, I can’t stop thinking about this game that I recently finished. Ninja Gaiden II, obviously. For anyone not remotely connected to the gaming scene, Ninja Gaiden II is the sequel to Ninja Gaiden (who would have thought?) that takes the difficulty, gore and titties present in the first game and tries to multiply it by a lot. (Yes, I did use a NGII image for the gore one, thanks for noticing. I just couldn’t find a NGI gore image easily) And I guess it kinda does do that. I’ll get to that later. As usual, I’m going to start talking about it like a review, but I’ll probably get sidetracked and end up talking about how tasty Philly cinny toast is. Anyway.

Essentially, in this game, you play Ryu Hayabusa, inconsistent Super Ninja who may or may not be gay. Why? Well, in the two universes he is in, Ninja Gaiden and Dead or Alive, he comes in contact with many hot pixellated chicks with gigantic titties who he pretty much shows no interest in, at least three of which, I’m sure, would pretty much throw themselves at Ryu if he wouldn’t make such quick getaways. Also, in Dead or Alive 2, Ryu seems a bit more than concerned for his missing-but-then-found-but-amnesiac best friend, Hayate. Either way, in this game, Ryu embarks on an adventure even senseless as in the last game, and for the majority of the time, I had no clue what I was doing or what bearing it had on the story at all. It was more like the game was dropping me places where I had to fight things, and then picked me up again once everything was totally dead.

Okay, I make it sound bad, but if you’re playing this game for the story, go back, right now. You don’t play Team Ninja games for their stories. You just don’t. Even moreso for this game, because to me, the entire thing made no fucking sense. It was like when I tell people stories, and then, after I’ve finished telling them it and they look all confused, I start in with a, “oh shit, I forgot to tell you, they were actually brothers” or something completely plot changing. So yeah, let’s not talk about the story. It sucks and makes no sense. Shitty story aside, however, the game is very pretty. No, really. It’s really fucking beautiful. Which isn’t really a surprise, considering that this is a Team Ninja game. But still, very pretty. Ryu goes around the world, and we get to see all kinds of famous areas lovingly rendered, before they get blood splattered all over them. (Sometimes there are hilarious layering issues where a blood splatter is located too far on the wall, and looking at it from the right angle makes it look like the blood is pretty much splattered in mid air.) And yes, there is lots of blood. In the last game, the blood looked like powder, and disappered a few seconds after the enemy died. This time, the blood stays, staining the poor landscape. And along with blood, you’ll come across the odd severed limb or limbless body, too. Still, there is quite a bit of blood. Perhaps too much. Sometimes it seems like the limbs are coming off without you doing anything, but I just remind myself that that’s because Ryu is a super awesome super ninja and can do cool shit like that.

But man, even the attention to detail with the blood/damage physics is pretty nifty. See, like the other game, Ryu gets access to a variety of weapons in this game, all of which do different kinds of damage. Ryu’s standard Dragon Sword is for slicey dicey fun, and you can see heads and limbs being sliced cleanly off and then the wounds gushing with blood. Meanwhile, other weapons, like the Lunar or the Tonfa have more of a bludgeoning kind of attack, and thus, the enemy limbs get pretty much bashed off, and then you get really big blood splatters made of, not only blood, but bits of bone and flesh and stuff. Similarly, the sound effects that come from the different weapons sounds normal (Mind you, I haven’t actually had the experience of using weapons of any kind in killing people.) and is really quite immersive, especially when the camera angle switches to the best angle while Ryu slices/bashes off somebody’s head. Other general details are nice, too. Rain looks like rain, cherry blossoms look like cherry blossoms, and according to my sister, Ryu, in his tight leather ninja pants (are those even pants?) has a very large package. Oh, and all the chicks have big boobs, but we’ve been over this one before. 

I think I mentioned it in passing before, but this game is hard. I’m bad at games, so it’s natural for me to suck at stuff, but it’s been a while since I’ve actually gotten so many game overs in a game that wasn’t a console shooter. And this was on the easiest difficulty. But with that being said, the first game was definitely harder. Part of it is probably because this game is actually balanced in its difficulty. Sure, there are lots of monsters, but there are also lots of save points (which conveniently also heal you) and you do pick up health restoratives/come across a shop relatively frequently. In the last game, I had to make sure that I had seven health potions at the start of each chapter, because I knew that I would end up using them all. It was hard to get health restorers, and unless you farmed, hard to upgrade weapons and afford potions and junk. So, in that respect, this game is definitely a lot easier. And thanks to this new de-limbing system, limb-less enemies are easier to kill. (Though they do start employing suicide tactics, which involve them pouncing on Ryu and exploding in his face.) Either way, the game is still a motherfucking challenge. 

Okay, now the bad points. The soundtrack could be better. The last game’s soundtrack was really quite awesome. This one… is too inconsistent. The tracks change too quickly for you to really have time to listen/differentiate/appreciate them, and some of them are quite irritating. Sure, there are a couple that I like, but for a soundtrack with over fifty tracks, you’d think that I’d like more of them. Also, the camera likes to move itself into awkward angles sometimes, which makes fighting irritating. Resetting the camera is only a trigger pull away, so it’s not that big a deal, though. Oh, and I can’t aim for shit with the bow. But that’s more my ineptitude rather than a gameplay flaw. The cutscenes are also stupidly hilarious. But they are skippable, and nobody cares about cutscenes in a game like this. (We’ve also gone beyond the point that gameplay footage and cutscenes are incredibly different in quality.) One other issue is that, well, the action girl that sort of tags along for Ryu’s adventures in this game, Sonia, she’s retarded. At least Rachel in the last game could fight and not get captured most of the time, and did help Ryu out in getting out of that underground place he got himself into near the end of the game. Sonia, meanwhile, even though she has a gigantic gun and many other small guns (Rachel only had a gigantic hammer.) manages to get herself captured in the first scene, gives Ryu minimal help by letting him ride her chopper (helicopter), and manges to get captured a second time near the end, where she is dressed in white slave/harem girl/genie clothes. She’s saved by Ryu and hugs him, and he’s all ”Wtf” for a few seconds before he hugs her back, possibly to save himself from the awkward. And then, she seriously looked like she was gonna cry when, after everything is over, Ryu goes off somewhere. (Okay, so Rachel does that too, but she doesn’t go and hug him, alright?) So, from this, we get two things; Sonia is a dumbass and Ryu is gay.

Now, Ryu the character’s personality is awfully inconsistent. In the Dead or Alive games, he would spout one liners of wisdom, about Ninja-y things like the path of darkness and power and all that weird pretentious ninja crap. Then, when Ninja Gaiden came along, aside from now speaking in English and having an American accent, he hardly ever spoke, didn’t say anything pretentious, and most of the time sounded pretty threatening, even when he was flirting talking to Rachel. Come Ninja Gaiden II, it seems that the translator for Ninja Gaiden was kicked out for not making Ryu pretentious, and now we have Ryu talking in metaphors again. The problem is, he sounds fucking riddiculous in English. Metaphors in Japanese sound all well and good, but the second you translate them into English, they become fucking hilarious. So, in this game, the dialogue is, unintentionally, of course,  fucking hilarious. Luckily, still, the moments when Ryu speaks are few and far between, and I quite like him like this, especially because I don’t find his pretentious ninja sayings the least bit attractive. I still liked him a lot more in the first game where he was fuelled by anger, rather than the whole saving the word-knight in shining (or in this case, black) armour that he has going for him in this game.

Either way, Ninja Gaiden II was fun. It helped me recover from my lack of computer and was a good incentive for whenever I rewarded myself with games for doing 5 minutes of revision. During my hunt for pictures in this blog entry, I found out about Ninja Gaiden Sigma II, which will actually let you play as Ayane. This news pretty much blew my mind, and, well, part of me is about ready to buy a PS3 after Japan and another PS3 price drop to get this game. I mean… fuck. You can play as Ayane. A very big titted Ayane, at that. Ayane is more than enough incentive to buy pretty much any game. With that being said, with this game being released, there is even more possiblity of more Ayane figures hitting Japan. Which of course means that I’ll be buying them. (I’m excited!)

 

On another note, I understand that I’m late to the party, but I watched Pulp Fiction a couple of nights ago, and it was fucking awesome. No, really, it was. I was laughing for so much of it and the whole thing was just incredibly entertaining. And although bland, I really liked Vincent. But that’s beyond the point. The point is, it’s a great fucking movie. … Speaking of which, so was Inglorious Bastards. Though I wouldn’t go comparing the two, simply because they had different purposes, set in different times, etcetera, etcetera. But both were good, and people who seriously watch movies should watch them. … No, wait. If you seriously watched movies, then you would have already watched them. Nevermind.

On another note, pizza is ready!

Here I could and should be writing responses for Extension Japanese, but instead, I feel like writing in this thing after god knows how long. I’ve had plenty to say before this, sure, but I just couldn’t be bothered writing for some reason. But for some reason, I wanna talk about stuff now.

Lately, I haven’t bought anything in the way of new clothes or games, nor have I been saving my money. Why? I’ve been spending it on figures. What really sucks is that it’s a real pain in the ass to get figures here. Basically the cheapest way is to treck all the way to Abbotsford, (who I’ve managed to clean out of everything that I wanted that they had) order online through Madman, Tamarket, or spend hours Googling international websites and getting totally overcharged for postage. And I’ve done all of these things to get my figures. It seems like I’m getting a lot, because I’ve gotten a bunch of them in a very short space of time, but see, I like all these characters, a lot. As in, I’ve been obsessed with them for some time at one point or another, thus why I’m buying their figures. I’ve seen plenty of figures that I like, but I wouldn’t, say, buy BMX Bike Rei, just because it looks nice, simply because I really, really don’t like Rei. Likewise, I wouldn’t get any Shining Series figure, because I’ve never played/seen any of their stuff, even though their figures look great.

But anyway, enough talk of stuff that I wouldn’t get, let’s talk about the loot! I’m too lazy to take photos, and am convinced they would come up shittily anyway, so I’m just gonna provide links to the manufacturer’s website. (And most people will see a lovely pattern forming with the manufacturer. *coughtkotobukiyaxough*) I can’t help it. Their figures are fucking awesome.

The figure that takes up the most space on my shelf is of Nero, who, if we’ve been paying attention, I was talking about back when I had my DMC4 phase. The pictures mightn’t reflect it, but the figure is really big. Then again, it better be, since I paid a hundred and fifty bucks for it. (Just as well that I didn’t have to get postage on this one…) The details are great, especially for his sword/motorbike thingie, Red Queen. (I don’t think you can call it a sword, do you?) I don’t like him holding guns, so he just holds his sword/stick thing whenever he’s on the shelf. The face is lame, but that’s fine, because Nero’s face is like that, and well, unlike my other figures, I’m a lot more concerned about that demonic arm of his (and his coat) than his face. Also, the giant devil bringer infront of Nero is just, lovely. And really, it looks a million times better up close. Of course, Apu doesn’t like this figure, or most of my others, because she sucks.

Body-wise, even bigger than Nero is Ayane, who came in the mail on Friday. (Got totally overcharged.) It was totally worth it though, because this particular figure was released years ago, and I was really doubting my being able to get it, even when I go off to Japan at the end of the year. So, I was more than happy to pay more than the figure cost, to get postage. She’s my biggest figure at the moment, which I actually didn’t see coming. Of course, what with being a DoA character and all, her tits are HUGE. No, seriously. Her 1/6 scale tits are as big as 1/10 scale Akira’s head. It’s quite hilarious, actually. Giant boobs or not, it’s another awesome figure. It’s very faithful to Ayane’s costume in Ninja Gaiden, complete with buckles and those things that protect the back of your hand/knuckles. Did I mention that her breasts are gigantic? No? Her breasts are gigantic.

I’ve never really talked about Ayane before, so I’m gonna talk about her. The first time I saw her is when I played Ninja Gaiden. I thought she was alright, but I didn’t particularly like it when she talked and did anything other than stand there. Either way, before I bought Dead or Alive Ultimate, I did some research on the characters, research I mean Google Image search, (Biggest mistake of my life, because all I got was hentai…) and immediately didn’t particularly like Kasumi, and thus by pretty much default, liked Ayane. When I actually bought DoA:U, my judgements were pretty much correct. Kasumi really really pissed me off, especially when she said shit like, “I’m sorry! Are you alright?!”, after she won. Well of course I’m not fucking alright you cow, I just got beaten up by your cheap Sakura disappearing nonsense. And, Ayane’s fighting style pretty much was the kind of character I like controlling. So, she became my favourite pretty quickly. In DoA:U, like Kasumi, Ayane got 20 costumes. I also liked most of them, unlike most of Kasumi’s, which were shit. (Though I did like this swimming costume.) In DoA4, Ayane’s movelist only got a million times better, further adding to my <3’s.  Unfortunately, it’d be inappropriate for me to buy and bring home Ayane’s Venus on the Beach figure, what with my parents already questioning my sanity and sexuality without my bringing home a scantily dressed anime girl with purple hair.

My other two (hopefully three by tomorrow or the next day) are figures from the Japanese BL visual novel, Togainu no Chi. (Please, do yourselves a favour and don’t look up BL, visual novel, or Togainu no Chi on Google.) For the sake of everybody continuing to look at me as if I’m a lovely and sane person, I’m not going to elaborate on what this visual novel is all about, but just that I love it and its characters and my figures a really big huggy bunch. Especially Akira. Even more so, Military Akira. I can’t explain why without going into the actual game/visual novel too much, and as much as I’d like to, I won’t be doing that. Let’s just say that he has the kind of personality that’s just begging for somebody to just break him. And that’s pretty much what happens to him the entire game. It’s just lovely. His voice actor is also just lovely. Especially in the drama CDs. Just lovely. The other person in my TnC set of figures who is just lovely is Shiki. I really, really, really, really, really (add several more really’s onto that) like his voice actor. But the main reason I have his figures is that they’re meant to be displayed with Akira. They… just… are… Not displaying Shiki with Akira is like… like…

Well, I’ve sat there for five minutes, thinking of a hilarious comparison, but I just can’t seem to think of one. But we all get what I’m getting at, so it’s alright.

Anyway, there’re a couple more figures that I want to get eventually, but for now, I’m going to save my money and possibly buy some clothes, because I’m starting to run out. But soon. Sooon. Military Akira should be here tomorrow or the next day, and he was the figure that started all of my figure buying in the first place, so I’m all kinds of excited. You can’t tell by the typing, or when I talk about it in person, because of the way I talk, but I’m a million levels of stoked.

Oh, oh, as it happens, First 4 Figures are bringing out a Ninja Gaiden 2 figure of Ryu Hayabusa, which will be all kinds of awesome, but it’ll cost like, three hundred and fifty bucks. Which is reasonable because it’s huge, but that means I won’t be buying it. But let’s look at it anyway; Clicky

Before my figure buying spree started, I had a paltry two figures, both of them being Light, from Death Note. (As we can all imagine, I had a thing for him for the longest time a while back.) Back when I finally decided to watch and finish Death Note, I really liked Light, because, well, I just did. I tend to like people who’re confident and can inspire/control people. And Light’s like that. As most of us know, Light stumbles upon a book, that allows him to kill whoever he likes by writing their name into it. So, he decides that he’ll make a new world, with only people he deems are pure of heart and etcetera. This is all well and good, but what makes it just lovely is that after a point, he loses the plot and pretty much goes and kills anyone that goes against him. But see, he accepts it. He doesn’t have that stupid moral conflict nonsense, where he stops and thinks about what he’s doing, oh no no no. He just keeps on going at what he started. (I also like decisive people) And well, simply because he doesn’t have any real motivation to change the world but does it anyway just makes me like him even more.

Let me elaborate on that with an example. See, during my Death Note phase, I was talking to it with a girl that gets my bus, and was profusely exclaiming how much I have a thing for Yagami Raito. To it, she replied, “Oh, well, if you like Light, then you’ll like Lelouch from Code Geass.” I was a bit apprehensive, since after watching the first episode of that anime, I put it down as soon as the first five minutes decided to tell me that we were set in a universe where Japan was (once again) decimated through war, but, … wait for it… the oppressors were none other than a region called “Brittania”. If that weren’t the biggest anti-west nonsense I had ever seen, I put it down without watching anymore. Either way, I sat down and did some research on Lelouch. As it happens, originally, Lelouch, with the aid of special powers and such, goes about fighting for the people, bringing down the evil opressors of Brittania. However, in the second season, he ends up becoming in power through one way or another. Then, he decides that he’s going to make a new world without bad people, for him and his sister to live in. (Hello, incest.)

Here’s glaring problem number one which makes me turn into a horrible horrible angry person whenever Light is compared to Light — motivation. When a person is attractive for doing something most wouldn’t, what makes it so much more disturbing is when they have no real reason to do it. That’s why things like hate and love are so strong — the reasons why can’t be expressed. Lelouch’s motivations, meanwhile, are pretty damn clear. I wanna make a new world for my sister. That’s about it. All the awesome that compounded from him fighting for the people, all the awesome that came from him killing people ruthlessly to accomplish his new world all pretty much go out the window the second we find that his reason’s as pathetic as, “The world is bad for my sister! MUST FIX.”

Problem number two is in the very end. See, in the end, he decides to make his old legacy, the vigilante-esque fighting to the people-type figure live on by passing the suit onto his friend, and having the friend kill him. The sequence is pretty popular on YouTube, with everybody commenting the Lelouch is the best thing since sex. No. No no no no no. Apparently it’s supposed to make him all noble, sacrificing himself for a greater purpose and whatnot. But then, really, what exactly was he doing the whole time? What, is all that effort he went into before to fix the world (for stupid reasons, certainly) all for nothing? Overnight, he suddenly realised that he was wrong and that he has to fix it? Goddamn it, the reason these kinds of anti hero characters are so attractive is because they do things that aren’t necessarily right to justify a greater end. If they realise they were wrong, so what? Their personalities demand that they go along with it anyway, until the end, even if it’s just because they refuse to admit they were wrong. That’s how the character is supposed to be, and that’s why it’s successful and manages to affect people. None of this mamby-pamby good of the people nonsense. It’s like somebody found Lelouch and decided to change his personality completely from arrogant, self sufficient anti hero to Lawful Good pansy Paladin.

Even to the very end, Light continues to believe in what he’s doing as, if not right, at the very least, something that he has to do. That’s another thing. Belief. The whole point of an anti-hero character is that they don’t falter, ever. (Or, if they do falter, they get COMPLETELY DESTROYED, which is another amusing turnabout.) The anti hero isn’t supposed to have moral dilemas over their actions. Everything they do is meant to be thought out, precise, and they know exactly what action will lead to what. They don’t regret things, just, if something doesn’t go their way, they’ll work out a way around it. Which is exactly why it’s riddiculous for Lelouch to go and order out his death like that.

… Okay, so I get more than just a little pissy when people compare Lelouch to Light. And reading all that over again, I sound like I’m just rambling on about what an anti hero from in my mind would be like. That or, you know, the picture of the kind of person I like the most. But that’s not the point. I was trying to make a comparison as to why Light > Lelouch, damn it!

Okay, I think I’ve gone on about things enough for one day. I didn’t get any work done. And I won’t be, tonight, either.

Ohohoho.

If there’s any genre of game that I just can’t play, it’d be first person shooters. (From now on abbreviated to FPS for the sake of my sanity) I just… can’t do them, basically. When I play something, I expect to be able to actually see the thing I’m controlling, rather than what they see. Even then, I could sort of manage… with a mouse, maybe. But two thumbsticks? No way in hell. One way or another, I’m either looking at the floor or the ceiling, trying to shoot at stuff. It’s really stupid looking.

More than that, I’ve always been more of an up close and personal kind of person. As in… if I had to pick between using a gun or a knife to kill somebody, I’d take the knife, hands down. Like, not even a moment of hesitation. Guns make all this noise and things just die too quickly from them. (Though I am aware if you just ran around with a dinky little knife in most FPS’, you’d be really dead, really fast… unless it were like the chainsaw from the Doom series. That would be pretty cool.)

So, because I’m inept, I’ve pretty much avoided FPS’. Most of my game time gets put into action RPGs (in this case, role playing game, rather than rocket propelled grenade), fighting games and the occasional RTS. Oh, and JRPGs. Lots of JRPGs. Their “story in one box, gameplay in another box”, and turn based gameplay meant that I couldn’t die… and that’s perfect for inept little Anika. It’s been a while though, and I don’t particularly like reading essays before fighting a million random encounters and watching little sprites make an attacking motion five metres away from the enemy, and then big white numbers popping up on the monster before they go “poof” and disappear into nothingness. However, thanks to this JRPG related past, whenever I play a game, I always notice how the story (or lack of) is told in it.

As an example, today I went to Rebecca’s house, along with Todd. The point of it was to do some maths, but we got that done pretty quickly and played Halo on her Xbox. Naturally, with my being inept, Todd and Rebecca had much fun playing the split screen and co-op modes. Before they started campaign missions, I noticed how there were little cutscenes at the start, but they were straight and to the point, with none of the annoying dicking around that I’m used to. While they progressed through the campaign, changes in plot, places to go and everything like that was just a voice directing them, and a single line explaining the next objective. Naturally, there wasn’t any long winded essay, not even a pause in gameplay as goals changed. The entire thing flowed really well, which I suppose is something that’s essential in an FPS, since there really isn’t a point handing you a gun, getting you to shoot stuff, and then taking it away every five minutes to explain what to do next. The only thing wrong with it is that if you’re too busy shooting and stuff and the voice is mouthing off about what to do… you’re not exactly in a position to pay attention, thus losing essential details that aren’t put into the mission objective sentence(s). But then again… it’s an FPS. Wander around, find enemies, shoot them, and whatever they were in the way of probably was the way you were supposed to go, so…

It’s probably my aversion to first person shooters that had me falling into the pit of Japanese games in the first place. Don’t get me wrong, some of them are great, but it seems that one theme is pretty much floating around in anything that comes out from that place, be it game, anime, manga, book, possibly even chair. That is, love. No, seriously, love. The stupid concept has reared its ugly head in pretty much any Japanese media that I’ve had any contact with. People might remember that I was talking about Devil May Cry 4 a few days ago… that game, essentially based on killing hoardes of demons in an awesome looking way… the whole thing behind the story was love. Nero loved his little girlfriend, thus went to save her, the little girlfriend’s brother loved her, thus betrayed that cult thing that they had going… Sparda’s sword wouldn’t give bad guy strength because of some stupid bullshit about how Sparda, even though he was a demon, could love, and the bad guy can’t, thus he can’t get strength from the sword, blah blah blah blah. Basically, a great big love orgy.

But let’s not wail on just that. My favourite JRPG, Final Fantasy VI? The basis of it? LOVE! Oh, and hope. But more love. The main character, Terra’s (You can argue all you like, but she’s definitely the main character, goddamnit.) entire resolve for fighting the bad guy is that she knows how to love people, or some kind of nonsense like that. A bunch of other characters in that game are all fighting for their loved ones, and shitting on about how as long as people have hope, the bad guy can’t destroy them, blah blah blah, blah blah blah. Oh, and speaking of which, what seems to be a trend in JRPG’s is that before the final boss fight, there’s always a point where all the characters participating in a fight will tell us why they’re fighting it, or something to that effect. Somehow, it’s meant to add all kinds of character development. But seriously, about three quarters of the characters will have some kind of love related thing to wank on about.

I’m all for the love and all, but can’t someone ever want to beat up the bad guy because, oh, I don’t know, THEY’RE KILLING PEOPLE? As in, from a moral standpoint? I mean, the way these guys go on about it, it’s more like, “I’m fighting you so that you don’t kill my girlfriend! Nevermind all the others that you’ve killed or will kill in the future, it’s just my girlfriend I don’t want dead, man.” Can’t we even have like an anti hero, who kills the bad guy to be an even badder bad guy, or just because it’s possibly the best feeling in the world to take down a person in power? No? Nah.

While we’re at it, let’s continue talking about love from Japan. Shinji, from Evangelion. All he wants? Love from his bastard father. In fact, speaking of Evangelion, that show, that show could have been something awesome, if they had taken the story in the way that answers all the issues with Human Instrumentality, rather than making the last three episodes about making the main characters struggle with all of their little psychological issues. It might be mean, but if you really have the time to think about things like that, it’s time you actually got up and did some school work, got a job, or at least did something to pass the time. (And yes, I haven’t watched Death and Rebirth or End of Evangelion yet, but those were created because viewers found the anime ending insufficient. Which, more than anything, seems to imply that they simply slotted all these little conspiracy stories for a little bit of intrigue with no real idea as to the answer, because they would rather voice the lovely little emotions of their characters.)

And let’s not even get started on all of those shojo manga, their centre focus being love. But I guess that one’s excusable, since it’s like criticising a romance novel for having too much romance.

… Anyway, I had a point for bringing the love up. And that is, most of the games I’ve played from the other side of the world, don’t have this incessant love crap in it. I mean… it’s okay for the protagonist to have a girlfriend/boyfriend. That’s fine. But like, pussywhipped? No, nonononono. I refuse to believe anyone who says that they have no purpose, other than to be with their boyfriend/girlfriend. So, that shouldn’t be the case for anybody fictional, either. They should have their own lives and be their own person. And so should their partner. The only reason the lives should ever interconnect is that if they had met in their professions, since then it actually makes sense, rather than one just following after the other one. Oh, and if a bad guy kidnaps them. But let’s not even talk about how irritating the whole, “Let’s take your lover hostage so you do what we want!” concept is.

Thus, whenever I read shitty fanfics (read: all/most) that end with the main (usually male) character of the story falling in love with an original character (read: the author in her fantasy world) or with an unusual pairing (read: any non canon pairing), I just get this awful look on my face, mostly summed up by “What the fuck is this shit”.

Anyway, the lack of the crazy love business in western games is quite refreshing. At least, until I get proven wrong, anyway. Either way, I think I may invest in some PC FPS’, since I can actually hit things with a mouse. … I think.

Being Australian, and a high school student, (not for long!) and taking both Japanese and Extension Japanese, I thought I’d write about them.

Japanese in the senior school here can be split into, Japanese Beginners, Continuers and Extension (year 12 only). As it implies, Japanese Beginnners is restricted to students who didn’t do Japanese in years 9 and 10, while Continuers assumes proficiency in the year 9 and 10 Japanese course and continues on from there. Extension is for students who aren’t satisfied with just learning to talk about themselves and branches out into talking about global and social issues, and an in-depth study on a Japanese text.

The year 9 and 10 Japanese course is pretty basic. You learn how to write hiragana and katakana, and some very very, very, very simple kanji. (My year 11/12 textbook assumes that you know the on/kun readings for the following before you start the course: 一～十、百、千、万、円、月、火、水、木、金、土、日、本、人、女、男、子、上、下、大、中、小) Essentially, anyone can succeed at the year 9 and 10 course by simply memorising. In fact, the completely rigid, bogged down-type memorisers are the ones that do the best at the course. Single words and their meanings are taught, and basic sentences. However, things like structure and verb/adjective forms, although they might be used, aren’t explained. For example, one unit dealt with requesting people to do things for you, like opening the door, lending you a rubber, etc. (ドアをあけてください、ケシゴムをかしてください) The part that wasn’t explained was how in this form of requesting something, the form the verb is in is different to how you would use it in any other sentence. So, the more daring children would walk around saying nonsense like 私はドアをあけてです, thinking they said that they opened the door, when all they really succeeded in saying was absolutely fuck all. Of course, they didn’t realise that until (if) taking the Continuers course in year 11/12.

What the year 9/10 course is good at doing, however, is weeding out all the Japanophiles. I mean the kind that watch anime, pick up a couple of phrases, and spout them until pretty much everyone around them wants to stab them. Several times. Students that don’t continue with Japanese in senior years, aside from the obvious reasons of not enjoying it or having other priorities, come to the realisation that (or fight inwardly with themselves against) mimicing anime won’t really translate to vast knowledge or expertise in the subject. Certainly, as an anime watcher, it definitely helps, right now, anyway. But when I was at that age, anime didn’t help. It messed everything up. I was being taught one way to talk and everything I watched talked in ways that just confused the shit out of me. Since it’s not until the Continuers course that you actually find out about different verb/adjective/noun forms, different structures, how sentences are actually put together, watching anime before then comes as no benefit, as you’ll still need subtitles to make sense of what’s going on. I’ll be as bold to say that my current class can watch something in Japanese (unless it’s the news, or something old since we haven’t learnt a lick of keigo…) and understand the jist of it. At the very least, we can definitely find the subtle differences in tone and language in the ways different people talk, and the only time we would need to consult subtitles/a dictionary is if an unknown word comes up — not problems in understanding the sentence as a whole.

Anyway, in the transition between year 10 and 11, the Japanese class is generally chopped in half, with all the deluded kids either enlightened or eliminated. Continuers follows on from the junior course and covers all the essential/basic communication skills and language patterns. Students who memorised all of junior school are suddenly in a lot of trouble, finding all the many ways a verb’s form can be changed, and how particular forms can only be used with particular language structures. (Eg, the やすい/にくい form can only be used with the ます base of words, [先生の教え方は分かりやすいです。] and many students make the mistake of using the ーて form of the verb in this structure.) This issue is further put to stress thanks to the Continuers course being very composition-heavy. Students who’re having trouble with simple verb forms are suddenly forced to write things with them, getting most of it wrong, for whatever reason. (It’s not even that long, the writing. 300-400 ji)

What I don’t like about the Continuers course is that it’s very me-based. It wouldn’t be so bad if it asked for opinions on topics, but it simply asks about things to do with the student, family, home, future plans, etc. Of course, we can make it up if we want to, but my lies are always the kind that involve fire coming out of my hands, rather than, say, wanting to be a teacher or something.

The Extension course fills in my issues with the Continuers course… to an extent. For a course with half the amount of class time as Continuers, it definitely has enough content to cover a Continuers-length year of Japanese. The course revolves around issues — the ones on the sylabus this year include changes in society, relationships and the search for personal identity.  Basically, the student learns to respond to questions based around these core issues, and also does a text, last year it was a book, but this year it’s (unfortunately) Spirited Away, focusing on set extracts and how the issues affect the text as a whole. This works out nicely for me, since I don’t like talking about myself, but the course may have set the bar a little too high, as far as standards go.

See, in an ideal world, students would respond to these questions straight off the tops of their heads, as if they were discussing the issue in English. The problem is that with the amount of Japanese we’ve acutally learnt, hardly any of us would be able to stand up and deliver a two minute speech on higher issues, with only their long term knowledge of the language. It’s just not possible at our level. Sure, basic sentences I can pretty much put together on the spot and we’re all fine, but to be expected to sound intelligent, use a variety of sentence structures, get it all right, and to make a point, all in a language that, if you add up the hours, (500) essentially comes to twenty days, compared to my ten years of English? No freaking way, man.

So, to remedy this, the Extension course is also essentially a memorisation fest. A slightly higher up memorisation fest, since you still have to know the right time to use the phrases you’ve memorised, but it’s still memorisation nonetheless. I might be biased, but I refuse to believe that the person who is good at the language is the one who can parrot something they wrote with with their class, but can never show for it in any other situation. I always thought that the sign of someone with a mastery over a language is that their brain doesn’t need to take the extra step to convert the language into their best one. As in… at the level that my class and I are in, none of us need to stop and think to register that 食べる means to eat. But see, for words we’ve only learnt recently, and for some girls in the class, sentences, because they can’t listen for shit, they have to stop, waste precious time thinking exactly what it means in English before they can get meaning out of the word. To me, mastering the language comes when your brain can register the concept without you having to relate it to something you already know.

Naturally, that’s the last thing the people who do nothing but memorise have, since the entire basis of memorisation is connecting one idea to something else, so that you can remember it. You’d remember 食べる as meaning the same as the English, “to eat”, which would then click in your brain as the act of putting food in your mouth and chewing, etc. Until you can get rid of the middle step that connects the foreign term to something you can relate to, you haven’t really mastered the language.

Thanks to other priorities, as much as I would like to pursue the language in the future, I’ll be stopping after I leave school. But the whole thing really got me thinking about how sentences are put together, and how verbs, nouns, adjectives and their equivalents are put together in different languages and what have you. … And I think that’s quite good. Thinking about things, that is. Everything would suck so much if we didn’t think.

Speaking of thinking, I still can’t get into the mindset of the Japanophiles. I mean the ones at our (and likely most) schools, who don’t even bother taking the language, or teaching themselves, but saying whatever they hear as if they know it. They’ll do all this nonsense, like calling their friends (Name)-chan, which is kind of riddicculous and inappropriate at the same time, since we’re in fucking Australia, and mimic stuff like はやく！！, assuming that it means hurry up, when in reality, it’s just the adverb form of the “fast/early” adjective. I can never understand how people can talk about things when they don’t even have a vague idea on what they’re doing.

But then again, I don’t understand a lot of things.

Someday, I’ll understand everything! You’ll see!

While I really should have been doing work, I instead fell into an anime/games related stupor, where I did nothing but playing DMC4 and re-watch Shuffle!, a harem anime released a few years ago that was sitting around in my burnt CDs. As Wikipedia mentions, the game fittingly started out as a hentai game before branching off into a couple of sequels/spin offs, manga, and anime. Naturally, the anime is sex-free, though is chock full of panties and tits. But then again, which anime isn’t nowadays? Anywho, the anime follows the standard, awkward boy with plenty of girls having a thing for him.

The awkward, mildly good looking boy for us is called Rin. Not so much awkward as he is just overly nice. Like, nice to a fault. As in, the kind of person who does things for the sake of other people, but messes up horribly because what they think they’re doing is being really nice, they end up causing more problems than anything else. Throughout the series, people keep telling the boy the hurry up and decide on a girl, but he’s so nice that he doesn’t want to hurt them that he dicks around (Not literally, thank god) for 20 episodes before he finally gets shocked into realising that he’s a moron.

Tits, panties and stupidness aside, the series isn’t actually that bad, even though some part in the back of my head is violently protesting to such trains of thought. This normally wouldn’t be the kind of series I like, in fact, I don’t even like most of what happens in the series. But see, at times, something awesome that lasts a very short time can make shitloads of pain seem bearable. … Possibly how gay men feel whenever they have sex. I wouldn’t know, being a girl and all. But anyway, the thing that does it for this series, is what happens during the back end of the show.

Kaede is Rin’s childhood friend, and because conveniently, Rin’s parents and Kaede’s mother died in an accident eight years before the show, Kaede’s dad lets Rin live with him and Kaede. (For further convenience, the dad is overseas in some manner of business trip during the events of the show.) Anywho, after Kaede’s mother died, Kaede, being the weak little shit she is, goes into a vegetable-like depression state, where she’s hospitalised and lost the will to live. Rin, being lovely, decides to lie and say that the mother dying was his fault, figuring that that’ll get her out of her depressed emo phase. It does, but Kaede instead takes her stupid, stupid emotions out on Rin in all kinds of violent and scarring ways. Anyway, by the time she gets into (junior) high school and she’s busy trashing his room, she stumbles on a picture postcard thing, which was sent the day the mother died. As it happens, Kaede was feverish or someshit the day of the accident, and that’s what caused them to come back early, and thus in the car crash. She realises its her fault, runs out, almost gets hit by a truck. Rin saves her, she turns into an apologetic mess, and then she devotes the rest of her life to Rin, which involves the cooking, cleaning and general taking care of him. Rin realises its messed up, but lets her go on her merry way, because he figures that if he doesn’t, Kaede’ll get all emo again.

Anywho, this is all well and good, until Rin starts going out with one of his other suitors, Asa. Kaede starts going all insane, doing things like stirring empty pots and having all kinds of freaky eye issues. Oh, and crying. At any event, Rin and Asa come back to the house and Kaede lashes out at Asa, ramming her into a door before getting pulled away by Rin and just generally breaking down.

Before I continue, I’ll just note that that was episode 19. That and the following episode are probably the best in the series. Episode 19 was just superb, going over all the past stuff of Rin/Kaede, and really goes into highlighting all of Kaede’s emotional turmoil. Sure, she’s doing the same stuff that she always does, but since they’re actually showing her do it… there’s actually an issue. It’s like how nobody will ask you if you brush your teeth unless your breath smells really bad. … Okay, shitty analogy, but what I mean is that, when something is assumed to be a constant, if it’s ever brought directly to someone’s attention, it’s supposed to be something important. Throughout the episode, we can really see how much Rin just treats Kaede as a constant as he shirks his previous plans to go out with his new girlfriend. Not to mention, we already gathered that Kaede was unstable from the first half of the episode, so… we can obviously see that shit was going to go down.

The episode was nicely spaced, and since it was, I’m willing to forgive the things that can set off my bullshit meter, like Kaede getting almost hit by the truck. And since she’s so unstable, I can actually see her dedicating her life, just because she’s already a weak, messed up character. There’s also a lovely little framing thing going on, where past Kaede, to Rin, and present Kaede, to Asa, say the same, “あんたなんか死んじゃえばいいんだ！” as each of them take away Kaede’s special person. We can also see the difference in Kaede’s speech, young Kaede using much stronger, commanding language, (“おいといて。”) and servant-Kaede constantly using the polite ですます form as well as the occasional keigo, like めしあがってください. And then, when she’s lashing out at Kaede again, we can see her speech slip away from ですます and into how young Kaede used to talk.

As much as I don’t like Kaede, (My favourite character is Primula, followed by Asa) episode 19 and 20 are definitely the two episodes that make me like the anime. Speaking of which… Episode 20.

Kaede’s still having lots of freak outs and Rin makes frequent visits to hospitalised Asa, which doesn’t really help. Most of the episode is Asa-based, technically, but at one point, Kaede comes out of her bath and jumps into Rin’s bed. And by that I mean the jumping into bed with no clothes kind of way. Obviously, Rin runs the fuck away, during which he finally realises how badly he’s been fucking up. Kaede, pulling herself together from getting rejected just tells herself that she’ll be okay as long as Rin’s happy, and as long as Rin keeps on living in her house, she’ll be alright. Then, Rin comes home and announces that he’s moving out.

I make it sound ridiculous when I recount it, but that entire final three minutes of the episode is probably my favourite sequence in the whole thing. The music, the words, everything work together so well, and… Kaede’s freaking out face after it all… is just lovely. Just that sequence, I’d be more than happy to watch over and over and over again. (I have quite a few favourite sequences in my animedom)

Those two bits just make the entire anime for me. I’m not much for romantic stuff, nor am I into hurting yourself for the one you love and all of that nonsense. I do, however, like it when seemingly established people break down into crying wrecks. (All the more satisfying if I’m the cause, but that’s for another day.) On the whole, the anime is definitely bearable. I did manage to watch the whole thing, afterall, and if I really hated it, then I would have stopped after the first five pointless episodes. Some of the characters are amusing enough and it is, on a whole, entertaining. Even if we’d all like to pretend that tits and panties aren’t fun sometimes, that would be a horrible, horrible lie.

I recently finished Human (the easiest difficulty) mode of Devil May Cry 4.  Having actually played through the entire game, I thought that I may as well write a little ditty about it.

As the name might imply, Devil May Cry 4 is the fourth installment of the Devil May Cry franchise, which, according to Wikipedia, was intended to be a sequel to the Resident Evil series. Not having played any of Resident Evil, or the first three installments of Devil May Cry, (and I understand that that’s quite a giant, gaping hole of deficiencies) I’ll just safely assume that they changed their minds on making Devil May Cry, a style-obsessed hack and slash game a sequel of Resident Evil, a survival-horror game.

Since we’re on the topic, I hadn’t played a Devil May Cry game before this one. More than that, my motivations to buy it, were really pathetic. The first motivation was simply that I was reading a review on Ninja Gaiden II, where the guy was busy rabbiting on about how much better a game Devil May Cry 4 was. After reading that, I did some Googling… and, I would never admit it to anyone face to face, but I immediately had a thing for the lead of the game, Nero. He looked young, fresh, and didn’t have that lecherous, “I’m going to touch you at night” kind of look that Dante (Looking at the picture, what the hell happened to the crotch part of his pants?) had. Either way, like one of my many long and passing obsessions, I was obsessed with getting a copy of this game (even with the horrible fiasco at trying to get a working CD that followed) and finished the easiest difficulty within a few days. (I always start out on the easiest difficulty, because I suck really bad at most video games.)

Anywho, let’s talk about the characters. The lead of Devil May Cry 4, who you use for the majority of the game, is not the well-loved/hated poster boy/man/half demon, Dante.  Instead, it’s a plucky young boy, Nero, with the stereotypical plucky young brash and cocky personality. At first glance, I had some trouble figuring out which one was Nero and which one was Dante, thanks to the above mentioned not having played a Devil May Cry game before this.  Nero essentially looks like a younger version of Dante — not quite as chiseled a face, no stubble, smaller and with a face that shows an expression other than, “I’m better than you.” Of course, digging around leaves me finding that young Dante from Devil May Cry 3 also had an “I’m better than you” kind of expression painted on his not quite as stubbley face, but it was the kind that could be easily shattered into a million tiny pieces.  DMC4 Dante meanwhile, looks like nothing, absolutely nothing, will get that holier-than-thou attitude out of his nicely-shaped head. Which is why it’s hilarious when the girls at fanfiction websites write about him, and it ends up turning to love at some point.

Since we’re going there, we’ll talk about it. The amount of fanfiction written about this series of games is AMAZING. No, seriously. You go to a fanfiction site, then you go to Games, as the category, and scroll down until you get to Devil May Cry. In brackets is the number of fanfiction written about it. Now compare that number to the titles surrounding it, including ones that you’ve actually heard of. The difference is insane. Since we are talking fanfiction, most of them pretty much equate to DantexVergil (or to be more specific, VergilxDante) in “hot”/awkward gay loving.  The jist of these can essentially be summed up into one of two ways, or a combination of the two — Vergil  forces himself on Dante, or Vergil admits his love for Dante, which ends up in some form of “hot” gay sex scene.  Of course, if it starts on the former, you can almost be certain that one way or another, Vergil ends up having feelings for the thing he’s been violating for god knows how long. What’s also quite freaky about this is that it’s the most popular pairing in girly DMC fanfiction, and they’re brothers. Twins, more specifically. Which really makes me wonder… In the great seas of fanfiction, especially in heterosexual pairings, incest and twincest is still something that’s a niche market. Did all these oily-haired social life-less girls just somehow blot out that they’re brothers, because we’re talking yaoi? They obviously didn’t, since there are frequent mentions of their blood ties all throughout these stories, some Japanophiles going as far as the add the whole, “Nii-chaaaan” shit to their pieces, which I’ll talk about later. But either way, when did incest become so accepted? As accepted as fanfiction gets, anyway.  The whole concept still kinda gives me the shits. Maybe I’ll like it once I buy my copy of DMC3, but we’ll see.

Anyway… DMC4. We have our main man, Nero, with the passionate, brash kind of personality that you just can’t help but want to break, and old favourite, Dante. Alongside them is Kyrie, Nero’s personalityless love intrest, mostly personalityless because she hardly gets any lines, aside from a couple of feminine sounds when she’s getting kidnapped, and her singing in the opening sequence.  Nero and Kyrie live “happily” in a little place called Fortuna, everybody in the town except for them and the villains wearing conspicuous hoods. See, the whole town worships a demon as their “Saviour”, and basically, the story of the game weaves around the conspiracy that the people behind the religious preachings are really bad guys, etc etc, blah blah blah.

The story is pretty basic and is pushed forward by the BILLIONS of cutscenes that play out once you get to different points of the game. Of course, the cutscenes are generally very pretty, and my liking towards Nero really did help in the not falling asleep through them. I laughed so hard while Nero was having a fit when he couldn’t save his little girlfriend. It was really fun watching him suffer. But I mean, it’s not like anybody didn’t see that coming. If he’s gonna go around having a personality like that, of course something horrible’s gonna happen to him. And it’s always awesome when it does, just to see them break down. Of course, like a true hero, he picks himself up and continues, (Or rather, Dante takes over, after a while…) but still, best part of the game.

Playing the game in itself is also quite fun, though I’d have to say that playing as Nero is a lot easier, thanks to his handy dandy Snatch ability. I didn’t find the gameplay particularly challenging, but we can probably put that down to playing on the easiest difficulty. I’m assuming that higher levels include monsters taking longer to kill and more of them. Either way, there’s a nifty little meter that goes up depending on the variety of your attacks and avoiding taking damage. They grade you with a letter, lowest being D and going up to SSS. (For the slower of us, that’s D, C, B, A, S, SS, SSS) The highest I ever got up to was S, but that can be put down to my being a shitty dodger, and Human mode simply not having enough enemies to pull up your Style Meter that high in one go. Aside from that, gameplay is pretty simple, guns, swords and the devil bringer/Dante’s something or other that I forgot the name for all assigned to their own buttons. Melee combos can be a tad confusing to pull off, simply because it’s time input based. As in, (YYYY) is a different combo to (YYY[pause]Y). I’m probably just bad at the pause, since when I try to pause, it just comes to a complete stop and I get smacked.  But still, gameplay is simple, and just generally good. After a point, it might get tiresome, but that’s the case for playing pretty much anything for a period of time, so the point is moot.

One problem I do have is the camera. It just confuses the shit out of me. During combat most of the time, the camera is lovely and does a good job, but during general walking sequences through tight spaces and the like, the camera automatically readjusts itself. It’s great sometimes, but for me, being used to always adjusting the camera, just ends up confused. I’d be walking in one direction, and then the camera suddenly changes itself to be facing me, and here I am, still with the thumbstick pressed down. So, essentially, I’m going back in the direction I came from, because the camera is a presumptuous bitch.

The puzzles are pretty simple, but after playing Ninja Gaiden II for a couple of weeks, I found myself stuck at the stupidest places, just because I wasn’t paying attention properly. (Probably a bad idea to get used to the walk down a corridor, kill stuff, continue formula..) The biggest problem with the game is that it’s waaaaaaay too short. If I could beat it in a matter of three days, there’s definitely an issue. And I could, without a doubt, beat it again in one day, assuming I didn’t have school that day. Furthermore, although level design is generally lovely, once you get to the kinda-half way point and Dante takes over, you’re essentially doing all the same stuff, backwards. It’s vaguely different, but the differences pretty much compare to how different Nero is to Dante — not very. Furthermore, all but one boss fight up until that point is done all over again by Dante, who actually kills them for a change, (Subliminal message of Dante’s overall superiority, anyone?) and then, the final dungeon-esque thing, where you get to use Nero again, (Yay!) has you fight them… again. I can forgive twice, but when you have to do it three times, the laziness on the part of the developers sticks out like a black guy in Japan.

With that aside, the game has six different difficulty levels, so if you like it, it’ll keep you occupied for a pretty long while. Furthermore, there are quite a few secrety rooms and missions which further adds to play time. But then, are those really redeeming features? I mean… the cutscenes also add to play time, and most of them are just plain pointless. (Though I have to say, I did enjoy that entire sequence with Dante getting Lucifer, despite how lame it was.) Even my parents were asking, “This is a game, right? Why is the game playing itself?”

So basically… from me, as a person that plays games and criticises things, DMC4 wasn’t a particularly “good” game. However, for however long it lasts, it is entertaining, and I did have a good three days playing it. And will have further good days as I play harder difficulties. But, let’s put it like this… from me, the pseudo rabid-fangirl, I love the game. But that love is influenced by my having a thing for the lead character and the combat system, rather than appreciation of the game as a whole. It’s basically like a one night stand. The one night might be lovely, but the potential for any long-term loving is pretty much zero.  The one night is far too short and lacks any actual substance. Which is why you shouldn’t invest a lot of money into the one night stand, by like, say, paying eighty bucks for a tin collectors box.

Of course, the side with the thing for Nero very much supports buying the tin collectors box, simply because it’s a tin collectors box. And lets not forget that that rabid fangirl inside me also wants to buy the Nero figure by Kotobukiya. Which I’ll be getting… as soon as my sister comes back.