Hullo, and welcome to my new Movable Type blog. I’ll be tweaking the interface and design a bit more over the next few days. I’ll also be importing my old LiveJournal entries, if I can figure out how.

In the meantime, let’s take this opportunity to talk about yukihime.com … and you! Do you like the way the MT comments system pops up in a separate window, or would you prefer it to load over the extant window? I’m leaning towards the latter, myself, but ymmv.

What kind of stuff do you want to read here? More about games? More about me?! (doubtful) More translations from Famitsu? More about Japanese music? I’ve enjoyed the past few weeks of actually updating a site, I’m trying to find more of a “purpose” for Yukihime.com. Feedback is not just welcome, it’s encouraged. Actually, screw that: from now on, feedback is not just encouraged, but mandatory! I’m tracking your IPs. Don’t think I won’t ban you.

I should get to bed – I got a bit ill after this weekend in Tokyo, which was SO MUCH FUN that it exceeded the limits of what the human body can successfully withstand. No foolin. More on that later, hopefully. In the meantime, clicky-click the comments, plz!

Andrew’s blog is dead; long live Andrew’s blog. Andrew’s blog has been to the Dark World and is now RED Andrew’s Blog! etc. etc. Let’s Movable Typing.

I recently finished a week’s worth of self-introducing to the new year of first-year students. Afterwards, I encouraged students to write down questions for me on a piece of paper and turn them in. I thought this would be a good way to get to meet and know the students, but instead it turned out to be a good way to answer “Do you like natto?” 280 times. But I kid.

Most of the questions students turned in were well-written and grammatically correct: What sports do you like? What videogames do you like? What Japanese food do you like? When did you come to Japan? How old are you? etc. etc. BORING. Who wants to read those! What follows is a selection of my favorite questions from this year.

Questions about going places:
Are there interesting place in Texas?
Where do you want to go, if you can go there?

Questions about the war:
Do you think war?
What is your boom?

Questions about temperature:
Which do you like better, a hot day or a cold day?
Which do you like better, hot or cold?

Questions about Ivy:
What called is that dog?
What name is your dog?
What kind of your dog?

Questions about my age:
How older you?
How old is it you?
How old you?

Questions about stuff:
Why are American school buses yellow?
Which do you like, bear or Mr. Muto? (Mr. Muto is a Japanese English teacher)
What do Andrew like Japanese food the best?
Do you listen a Japan song?

Questions about my feelings of self-worth:
Do you like your brother?
Do you like yourself?
How many friends does Andrew have?

Many, many questions about girls:
Do you like girls?
Do you have girlfriends?
What kind of girls do you like?
What kind of women do you like?
How may girl friends have you ever gotten?
How long you don’t have girlfriend?
Which is more beautiful, Japanese woman or American woman?
Which is prettier, American or Japanese?

As promised, I answered every question a student asked in English. Well, except “What is your boom?”, which I never managed to decode.

Some answers I gave:
(Which do you like better, bear or Mr. Muto?) I asked the student if it was a regular bear or a special bear. The student said it was Kuma no Pooh-san (Winnie the Pooh). Now, clearly Winnie the Pooh is way better than Mr. Muto (tho Mr. Muto is great!), but I can’t very well say that when Winnie the Pooh is a huggable fictional character, and Mr. Muto is the karate-sensei. So I tell the student that Mr. Muto and Kuma no Pooh-san are both my very good friends, but since I can only choose one I pick Kuma no Muto-san. The students thought that was funny.

Re: girlfriends. When a student asked me if I had a girlfriend, my standard response was “No. But I’m looking!”, followed by putting my hand perpendicular to my forehead and pantomiming looking around. While doing so one of my coed classes, the student who asked deadpanned back, “In Kiritaka?!”

This picture makes me laugh.

I just finished watching Millennium Actress, the new movie from Satoshi Kon, director of Perfect Blue. I enjoyed Perfect Blue a lot, especially as a subversion of traditional anime chipperness. The film is a great commentary on the cruelty fueling the young shojo “idol” phenomenon in Japan; how young women are built up to mind-bending heights of popularity before being discarded for the next big thing. That said, the film’s mixture of Hitchcockian thriller and magical realism never really gelled for me. Both tones were handled expertly, but there seemed to be a fundamental disconnect between the director’s clearly prodigious talents and the story he was telling. I liked it a lot, but I felt that the director was capable of more. Like, for example, Millennium Actress.

Millennium Actress is the story of an elderly and reclusive movie star, Chiyoko. She was the star actress of one of Japan’s major movie studios before retiring to private life 30 years ago. In the present day, the movie studio has become unprofitable and is being torn down, and a documentary maker seeks out Chiyoko to interview her about her life. The narrative of the movie is basically a big giant MacGuffin. Where it succeeds beyond measure is in tone and feel. As Chiyoko talks to the filmmaker, her story, her memories, and the movies that she made blur absolutely together. The filmmaker and his assistant are transported into her memories directly, documenting and even participating in her past and her movies as they unfold.

The cumulative effect is hard to describe without sounding like a gushing fanboy. It is, frankly, cinematic magic in every sense of the word. Each of the films that Chiyoko stars in from the 40s, 50s, and 60s is fantastically realized: romantic dramas, samurai movies, military propaganda, geisha period pieces, monster and sci-fi movies; this starlet starred in everything. Kon’s film is a visual history of the Japanese movie industry that lavishes it with love while being realistic enough to poke good-natured fun at its shortcomings.

But as great as the film is visually, its true genius comes from the way different set pieces from these films are mixed with the “real” story of Chiyoko’s life. This is no Sunset Boulevard, looking back tragically at a faded starlet’s fall from grace. The 70-year-old Chiyoko, though elderly and no longer active in cinema, is not presented as a figure to be pitied. She is still vibrant, she still has her sense of humor, she’s still a stunning presence. It is because of the strength of the modern day Chiyoko that the constant flashbacks never seem wistful or pitying. Instead, the temporally choppy narrative and mixing of past and present, reality and fiction serves as a fantastic comment on the nature of memory. Chiyoko quite literally is these memories. As she has aged and retired to her private life, reliving these memories in her mind time and time again has made them more and more real. To Chiyoko, the memories have become more real and more defining than the actual events that made the memories in the first place.

Anyways, the movie is really, really great. Anime is the perfect medium for this story; it’s unlikely it could have successfully pulled off as live action film. It’s unlikely that multiple actresses could have portrayed Chiyoko through the years as convincingly as the seamless transition that anime permits. Moreover, the scope of time and genre would make it cost prohibitive in any other medium. Dreamworks picked up the distribution rights and may be bringing it to US theaters this fall; in any case, it will definitely be hitting American DVD sometime soon. From a purely technical standpoint, I recommend you pass up the Chinese bootleg DVD I gave in and purchased. The transfer sucks; it’s not marred by interlacing issues so much as defined by them. But however you manage to see it, Millenium Actress isn’t just a good anime. It’s a good, unique film that everyone should check out.

The #3 search string by which people have reached yukihime.com is “yuna panties”. Jeremy Parish, you’re in good company.

Well, over there at least. After yesterday’s Worst Day Ever, cosmic forces have conspired to deliver not one, not two, but three separate international packages on my doorstep today. Packages sent from the U.S. on three separate days, no less. I now have Miyazaki DVDs pre-street date, the English Battle Royale novel, Disinformation Guide to the Invisibles, McSweeny’s Mammoth Treasury of Thrilling Tales, Richard Matheson’s Duel, and five new games bought at $10 each clearance at ebworld.com. Oh, and Adolf Hitler’s 1954 Hugo-award winning science fiction novel, The Iron Dream. I have so many new entertainment options available that I won’t have time to feel sorry for myself for days, if not weeks. Happy days are here again. Squee!

A funny and witty commentary about my day at the DMV is supposed to go here, but I can’t. There is nothing funny about what happened to me today. The eight and a half hours spent there was one of the most awful and debilitating experiences of my life. I spent the entire train ride home with my eyes shut trying not to tear up. I just wanted to go back to America, where things were awful in ways that made sense. Maybe I’ll write it up later. Maybe not. I have to go try again in a month. It was just terrible.

Given the amount of time I’m going to be spending waiting in the Japanese DMV before I receive my license (about another 30-40 hours), I am inspired to start work on a DMV-themed mix CD. Song suggestions are welcome.

Anyways, I figure that I should write something up, so here’s an anecdote from this morning, before everything went wrong:

It’s the first week of classes at Kiritaka, and I’ve been giving my self-introduction. The more times I’ve given it (about 50 or so at last count) the shorter it gets. Now, I try to give students a very general overview of myself, my family, my interests, and leave some obvious holes in my background for a Q&A session. It gets the students more involved and keeps things more interesting than just me talking for 45 minutes, etc. etc.

Anyways, this morning I gave my self-introduction to a class of students and got asked the usual run of questions during the Q&A bit. (“How old are you?” “Do you have a girlfriend?” “What do you like Japanese food?” “What singer is popular in America?” “Can you eat natto?” etc.) After a few minutes of this, a sweet, shy-but-extroverted, glasses-wearing girl in the front row raised her hand, giggling. I called on her. “What kind of woman do you like?” she asked, clearly tickled by the English question she had constructed. I promise students that I will answer any question they pose to me in English (even ones like the later “How many girlfriends have you ever gotten in your life?”), so I answered truthfully: “A smart girl with a good sense of humor. A girl who will make me laugh.” I try to ask students a question in turn, one related to the one they asked me, so I asked her: what kind of boy do you like?

She started giggling again, not saying anything, just laughing to herself at some grand joke nobody else was in on. I waited a moment for an answer before raising my eyebrows at her expectantly, at which point she blurted out: “YOU!” And then promptly buried her face in a giggling paroxysm of high school silliness. At which point I explained the difference to the students between “What person do you like?” and “What kind of person do you like?” While blushing furiously.

So yeah. Today was one of the worst days of my life … but overall? Things are okay.

5:35 PM – Brian () tells me that no, despite what this page says, he doesn’t think you can get your pictures taken at the office. He’s never seen anyone do that. I should probably get some pictures taken at a photo shop before tomorrow.
5:40 PM – Panic.
5:41 PM – Remember that I got some passport photos made over Christmas break in the states for just an occasion.
5:42 PM – Find passport photos.
5:43 PM – Examine photos, frown intently.
5:44 PM – Using a ruler and advanced mathological techniques, determine that the 2 inch X 2 inch American photos are unlikely to pass for 2.4 cm X 3 cm Japanese photos.
5:45 PM – Panic (on the way to the car).
5:55 PM – Pull up to photo shop, tires screeching. Explain the situation and have photos taken according to necessary specifications.
6:40 PM – Pick up photos 20 minutes before closing time.

And to think, I thought I wouldn’t get to panic until tomorrow!

The new mix of Guitar Freaks (9th) came out this past weekend. This mix seems to be one of the better ones; I recognize a number of the songs right off the bat. The usual suspects have returned with new material (Yaida Hitomi, Spitz, Gackt); some of the new bubbly j-pop songs are really addictive; there’s a fun Spanish acoustic number that’s a joy. But the biggest surprise is the introduction of “Party Hard” by Andrew WK. Crazy foreign rock! Who knew. “Party Hard,” ridiculous as it might be, is REALLY, REALLY fun to play.

Tomorrow, I go to take the Gunma Prefectural driving test. I do not expect to pass. I do, however, expect to have an interesting story to write up for my journal. It’s the only good likely to come from the whole fiasco, so I beg of you: enjoy it.

Well, just a few days ago I was crowing about my big find in Akihabara – a new copy of MiniMoni Shaka to Tamborine! da pyon! for a mere 1500 yen. What wasn’t mentioned at the store was the “hidden cost” of purchasing the game – namely, the sanity of your immortal soul. Whimper.

The first sign that the game had it out for me when in the course of opening the box I suffered a painful cardboard cut on my thumb. [WARNING: picture of a nasty gash on my thumb (but it's not bleeding or anything).] Everyone talks about how nasty paper cuts are, but paper cuts are just the harmless, unevolved form of cardboard cuts. You’re minding your own business, opening an innocuous looking box and then WHAM, it’s like your finger gets caught by a single stroke of a very slow, biodegradable jigsaw. Those things should be regulated.

But the physical pain was nothing compared to the game to come. I had heard that Shaka to Tamborine only contained MiniMoni songs, but I thought that that HAD to be wrong – MiniMoni didn’t have nearly enough songs to carry a music game on their own. And I was right! The game also had songs from MiniMoni’s umbrella group, Morning Musume. And that was it — 19 songs of unbearably saccharine girl pop. It’s impossible to describe how unplayable that makes the game. Morning Musume and its various spawn aren’t even comparable to the boy/girl bands or Britney isotopes of the U.S. Britney et al at least go through the motions of trying to appear cool. The musumetachi just try to appear CUTE. Their songs are purposefully inane. They’re overproduced, forgettable children’s tunes aimed at the 6-12 market with simple song structure and painfully inane lyrics. One or two in a regular music game might be cute, in extreme moderation. An entire game of nothing but is so ubersweet as to be unplayable. It’s like eating sugar packets.

As for the non-musical aspects of the game? Well, it’s a PSone game, and the software itself feels budgetactular. It runs at a framey 15 fps, and this can actually be an issue when the cue dots move jerkily and indistinctly. It’s actually the motion, not the color, shape, or the position, that draws your eye to the cues. The controller itself is fun, cool, and ridiculously solid. But that hardly matters, as the only game you can play with it is as terrible as you might expect and fear.

The worst part about this whole fiasco is that the arcade version of Shaka to Tamborine has a large number of bouncy, cool ethnic music a la Samba, almost all of which are either in the public domain or easily relicensable for a home version. But instead, all of the pre-existing, fun songs were jettisonned for the MiniMoni-exclusive home version, thus alienating anyone over the age of 11 and/or with taste.

SEGA, WHY?!

They say you have to spend money to save money. Well, I saved a TON of money in Akihabara today. I’ve been any number of times before, but this was truly a killer trip.

Shane from EGM is visiting Japan on Top Secret Business, but that finished yesterday and he’s got some time to kill. I got up at six AM and headed down to meet him in Akihabara just before 10:00 AM. This was also before most of the stores were open, meaning that Akihabara was eerily quiet and empty of people. I’ve never been in Akihabara without Sato Musen relentlessly blaring its theme song at me every few blocks. For a few moments, it felt oddly dreamlike.

It takes about two and a half hours to get down to Akihabara from where I live in Japan, so when I go, I tend to make a production of it. I usually end up shopping for a number of friends and ex-GIA staffers, and the hourly burn rate would make a startup venture capitalist blush. But fear not – the money is not spent rashly! I feel like gloating about my amazing financial acumen (and amazingly poor taste in games) I offer the following chart of my astounding personal savings for the day:

Readers without an advanced degree in mathology might want to skip to the next paragraph: Overall, I got 41800 worth of (mostly new) games for a mere 13220. That’s a savings of 28580 or nearly 68% off the list price. WOW! And as an added bonus, I may actually eventually one day play one or two of the games I bought today … uh … um!

I also bought Funky Fantasy (yes, it’s a real game!) used for 380, and found Cocco’s first single with spine card (hard to find in any condition) used for 680. It was a red letter day! I bought about as much stuff over again for friends I was shopping for, with fairly similar money-saving results. I also got three Kingdom Hearts: Final Mix Platinum Boxes and a Final Fantasy Wonderswan Color set to eBay in hopes of offsetting today’s financial hit.

Also impressive is what I managed keep myself from buying. Namely, a slimline CD/MP3 player with built-in 100 hour LiON battery (at just 8800, it’s a hell of a steal, but my Rio still works fine), a Japanese copy of Maniac Mansion for NES with box/manual (I would have absolutely gotten this, but 7500 is a bit much), and a PS2->GC adapter for my SCII PS2 stick. It turns out that most (all) adapters don’t transmit digital input, so I now have a PS2 arcade stick and a GC version of Soul Calibur II. Oops! I thought about getting a GC stick while in Aki before a voice shouted at me “the insanity must end here!!” and then I didn’t. But the GC arcade sticks ARE cheap. Just 3200!

All in all, it was a fantastic and fun trip. Just never go shopping with Shane if you want to show any form of financial restraint. He is like a large, talkative demon on your shoulder egging you on to unwise purchases. I’d pick something up, look at it, set it down after thinking better of it, and Shane would notice and say, “You know, I really think you’d enjoy [Game X]. Don’t put it back down!” This is, of course, terrible advice. Shane, after all, is the person who bought Futari no Fantavision for $20 … despite already owning the US version. You know, the one with two-player support. But in Akihabara, all it takes is a few words of suggestive advice, even (especially) bad advice, and the deal is as good as done.

You know, maybe I should be glad I live so far away.