Gormongous

I mean, context is always going to be part of a creative work, so something is definitely lost when there is an inability to comprehend it in full, but there are many kinds of media from foreign cultures with foreign values that have some unique resonance with our own culture apart from appropriative familiarity: Greek epics, Roman poetry, French romances, Italian theatre, Indian songs, Russian novels... All of these examples have something that is absent from and inaccessible by a strictly anglophone background, but isn't the entire premise of art that there's something intrinsic there anyway, which is worthy of discussion if not to be preferred over a full analysis of the work itself? Are the people who consume, study, and love these things, along with Japanese anime, wasting their time because they're not privy to some arbitrary threshold of conscious or unconscious intent by the author?* Am I making a fool out of myself when I say that Dream of the Red Chamber is my favorite literary work, when I'm not Chinese, an aristocrat, or from the eighteenth century and therefore share nothing in common with the context of the novel? I'm not sure I find myself agreeing at all. Well, I may be a fool, I can't deny that. Also, if you're saying that a creative work can't be enjoyed (or can't be "100% enjoyed," whatever that means)** outside of the specific moment of its cultural context, you're basically saying that it's ephemera, confined to and defined by a specific moment, which is equally if not more reductive and dismissive to it as a product of a culture. Sorry, I know I'm overstating my case here, but it's been really weird for us to go from "KILL la KILL is a thematically confused anime, even among fans" to "all anime is thematically confused, it's characteristic of Japanese media culture and Western enjoyment of it as coherent is actually appropriation" in twenty-four hours, especially when we blew past a list of five thematically dense but coherent anime (at least two with outspoken auteurs for creators) that it took me all of fifteen seconds to throw together off the top of my head. * I can't find a place to put this, but "uniformity of message" could just as easily be said to be something that anglophone TV and movies doesn't value either, if you take the average work. How uniform is the message in Avengers: Age of Ultron or The Walking Dead, which are critically acclaimed yet thematically confused works? Is our context as a Western audience of particular use to us here? ** I used to stress out that I didn't and couldn't get all the references in Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei, until I read a couple interviews with native Japanese fans who said that they didn't get a majority of the jokes but liked how dense the show was packed with them. It helped me to realize that Kumeta and Shinbo were just throwing as much stuff as they could up on the screen in the hopes that there'll be something somewhere to make everyone laugh, even me. Understanding and enjoying something "100%" is sometimes unfeasible or undesirable for an informed member of the audience.

We're probably on the same page, then! Honestly, most of my intense love of GAINAX and post-GAINAX stuff has the same conflicted relationship.

I mean, whatever you think of Evangelion, it's one of a handful of shows about which I thought in response to CLWheeljack saying, probably more rightly than I'd like, that anime doesn't really survive a close read like some older and more mature mediums. Neon Genesis Evangelion, Revolutionary Girl Utena, Haibane Renmei, FLCL, Mushishi... There's a few, but they have to begin with a love of obscurity and ambiguity, otherwise the limitless nature of the anime medium tends to wear down their subtlety.

Sorry, I misspoke. What I meant is that Japanese anime has a lot of aesthetic and thematic baggage that is unpleasant or unpalatable for perfectly normal reasons, even when used purposefully and expertly, so if the use of moe or other exploitative sexualities in any one show is bothering you, me, or anyone else, it's probably better to ditch it in favor of something you have a chance of enjoying, rather than keep digging unless that anime is Neon Genesis Evangelion.

I agree. I don't even like/play Bloodborne, but so much of the talk on the podcast lately is about games into which the Thumbs have put a few hours here and there. That's not bad at all, but it makes it all the more cool and interesting when someone gets bitten really bad by a game and starts drilling down a lot more. I enjoyed Sean's Dota talk and Chris' Spelunky talk even as I laughed at the other Thumbs giving them shit for being obsessive. My rule of thumb: if you have to say, "But I've talked enough about [Name of Game]," you should just go ahead and talk about that game, at least for four or five minutes. The people who are irritated by repetition, if they exist, are already irritated that you even brought it up and said its name, and meanwhile people like me are dying that you're teasing us with thoughts that you think are good enough to share, just not on a podcast about games.

I mean, your reaction to KILL la KILL is totally valid. Just because there's a non-problematic interpretation of the show's thematic elements doesn't mean it's the correct interpretation or even the dominant one. Even if KILL la KILL is speaking to a very specific core of viewers with the appropriate level of knowledge, it's still broadcast and marketed as a mass-media product, and honestly I think it doesn't always follow through on the premises of its various themes, like with your spoiler (the effect of fathers, especially absent ones, on female sexuality). I'm probably just going to recommend the same thing I recommended to Blambo with moe: if you don't like it and it's making you uncomfortable, no one (besides possibly Twig) will give you shit for jumping ship. We've all bailed on anime that's not necessarily terrible but still rubs us the wrong way. Life's short, watch something that gets you going. I thought that I had zero desire to own any PVC figurines from anime, but I came across this one from Bakemonogatari that is awesome enough to be tempting, if it didn't cost $190:

The whole time, I was just wondering why they didn't draw their swords. I was actually disappointed with that finale. The choreography was good, but either the editor or the director didn't believe in it, so they kept cutting around it like they were trying to cheat it, even though they weren't really, as far as I could tell.

During one of the episode breaks, Nick started reading the booklet for the Blu-ray, which Chris had on his shelf of Blu-rays and PS3 games that they'd often look at or talk about. He cracked up over the "hypersonic effect," a crackpot theory by Akira's sound-designer-cum-behavioral-scientist, and they spent a while talking about what it would sound like: The thing that I've always wondered is, Chris seems really unimpressed by anime, but that first-printing Bandai release was goddamn hard to get! There were only like five thousand copies before they cut costs with a cheaper case and no booklet. Did Chris just get lucky, or does he really like Akira?

Yeah, I've been the tech guy in my extended circle of friends and family for most of my life, but over the past five years or so, I've definitely taken steps to put limits on that, because I was tired of people driving their machines into the ground and then expecting me to resurrect them for another two or three years, with only tears and abuse if I somehow fail. I've gotten to the point where they get thirty seconds of diagnostic efforts and, if I can't find the problem or if it's going to be a multi-hour repair, I tell them to call their internet company or offer to format, and that's it.

With regards to seemingly exploitative visual elements in KILL la KILL, it's the sort of thing to which you have to be acclimated even to see the subversiveness. I didn't like it until I noticed that every character, male or female and young or old, got the same trashy "magical girl" transformation effect when it made sense, so the anime's mostly egalitarian in its sleaze. I personally love the teacher for being the typical GAINAX coach character from Gunbuster, only covered inch-deep in post-2000s hyper-sexualization. Still, with a lot of the characters, there's a real battle going on thematically between the male gaze and nudity as empowerment that I really can't tackle if I don't watch the show at least one more time (which might be years, since I wanted to wait until I got the Blu-rays and RightStuf's not going to have a sale for at least half a year). However, I can say for sure that the themes and motifs of sexual abuse don't go anywhere. They're just to reassure you that a character is entirely evil and therefore worthy of your hate. I think it's a pretty egregious misstep, but then so much of KILL la KILL was made up on the fly, I'm not at all surprised that there's this one lazy and tired piece of semi-offensive storytelling stuck in there somewhere. Nah, it's just that the Blu-ray with that booklet was an extremely rare first printing from Bandai, who later lost the license to FUNimation anyway, so it's a joke that's gone from slightly obscure to you-had-to-be-there obscure.

I'm still a believer in TechReport's tiered build list with tested alternatives, even if the rest of the site has mostly gone to pot.

Those thoughts resonate with me. A lot of people are expecting some deviation from Don's pattern, now that we've come to the end of the series, but that's exactly what Don is expecting, so we're not likely to get any. He'll continue to search for a vulnerable woman whom he can anchor with his neglect and exploitation for as long as he exists, even if he becomes less and less successful in the process.

Yeah, I'd like there to be less infighting, too, but quitting Twitter because some feminists don't like your snark-bro action movie just isn't the correct impetus for that call to arms, however justified you are or feel you are. Also, it doesn't help that Whedon has given multiple tone-deaf speeches about minor defects in feminism holding it back to female-dominated feminist associations, like his utterly ridiculous one a couple years ago about the word "feminist" not sounding enough like the default position of a human being and therefore needing to be abandoned in favor of calling opponents of feminism the hideous neologism of "genderist." Like, I agree with Merus(?) that Whedon's just getting older and more reactionary, but seriously? Yes, there are problems with feminism as a label and a movement, but effectively reproducing the ubiquitous bullshit of #HumanistNotFeminist and #AllGendersMatter in service of a more subtle social justice is just painful to watch and hear. Maybe just let this one go, Joss? In general, Whedon's gotten a lot more concerned with the branding of the movement, but last time I checked, the revolution was not going to be televised.

It still moves a bit too much like jelly, but yeah, it's surprising how many random little things in the Souls series are actually the best graphical implementation of something in games.

To be fair, feminism really should be focusing on whatever Joss Whedon thinks is important. That's why they call it "feminism."

I think where it falls down is that Dan's definition of capitalism appears to be something like "in capitalism, unlike any other economic system, anyone can have any job they want and get rich doing it" and not the actual definition, which is that, in capitalism, everything is for sale and is worth only what its purchaser will pay for it. That's fine, I guess, in its own little way, because it's Dan's experience, but I totally agree with you that getting up on someone's Twitter feed with a "put up or get out" attitude because of that highly personal definition is completely uncalled for.

"Harry needs a bigger hat. Peggy's office gets painted. Don talks with Bert and is asked to find Jesus."

I haven't listened to the episode yet, but what I thought was really incredible about this episode was how the character of Jim Hobart was set up, effectively from the first season, and how it came crashing down into reality in his confrontation with Joan. Jim's shown to be a man whose business sense means always getting what he wants, money be damned. That's why he sets up an entire Coca-Cola ad shoot for Betty back in season one, to lure in Don. That's why he buys SC&P, to get Don and perhaps some of the others there under his control. That's why he doesn't give a crap about Sterling Cooper West, because he wants them actually under his control. That's why he buys an entire company in Wisconsin, to get Miller. Even after just a few appearances, he's cemented himself as an impossibly powerful man who's able to get things done, and I personally didn't even see it coming that he'd clash with Joan, the other in the show with an intimidating ability to get things done, only without the use of money as blunt object. When he beats down Joan simply at the prospect of facing such infinite resources and stubbornness, it's a heartbreaking look at the human cost of that kind of power, especially the kind of talent it ignores or drives away. It was beyond painful for me to watch that scene, but it was masterfully done, in my opinion

The sad thing is, my gut reaction is irritation that both of the sharpshooter characters appear to have regular battle rifles with ACOG sights rather than anything particularly specialized. It doesn't really matter, gunplay in superhero stuff is always shit anyway.

Eh, it's not the amount of RAM, but it's really high-grade. You're probably paying maybe forty euros too much, unless RAM prices are worse in Europe. It's not worth losing sleep over!

That's some really fancy RAM for the rest of your build, but otherwise...

If I remember, the director's cut is actually an attempt by Scott to cut down the movie after its runtime was extended by adding back several scenes that had been cut, particularly the one with the cocooned crew members. I generally like it for being a bit tighter, but the lack of self-consciousness in the editing of the original is maybe to be preferred for its effects on the horror. The original is Scott's preferred cut (although he said that in 2003, shortly after what I would consider his last good film) but he claims to like both cuts a lot.

Yeah, I agree. I was honestly surprised when he was announced for the project, although I shouldn't have been, because execs love to think that the latest installment in their franchise will be the moment that a promising young director finally finds his voice. Anyway, I thought Chronicle was badly underbaked in places, so hopefully he can work on that somewhere else, without a multi-billion-dollar corporation breathing down his neck.

I'm still watching the Patlabor TV series. It's been one of the most bizarre experiences of anime that I've known in this life. On the one hand, it has a lot of the high-tech police procedural stuff that I love in Ghost in the Shell, but slightly more grounded and with virtually nothing that could be construed as fan service. On the other hand, a disturbingly large minority of the episodes are either "This labor incident is actually a ghost" and "This ghost incident is actually a labor," to the point that there is literally no tension whatsoever watching these episodes: after watching almost a dozen of them all end the same way, I have no doubt that whatever appears to be something will in fact turn out to be something else. I have nine episodes left, after which I have no idea what I plan to watch. I was thinking about investing in Banner of the Stars/Crest of the Stars, but after over two months spent watching Patlabor, with a brief break to watch all of the excellent Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun in a single night, I'm kind of scared of starting something that runs more than a single half-cour. Anyway... So I was listening to Sagisu Shiro's soundtrack for the Rebuild of Evangelion movies while at work on Friday, for reasons, and I came across several tracks that I knew I recognized from somewhere. Now, it's already not unheard of for Anno and Sagisu to borrow tracks for the Rebuild soundtrack from elsewhere (including one particular song from a 1970s nuclear panic movie), but what's interesting about some of the other tracks is that they're songs from a previous work directed by Anno and scored by Sagisu, His and Her Circumstances. I don't know exactly what is meant by using music from that thematically similar but textually different anime in the Rebuild movies, but it did lead me to this review of the soundtrack for His and Her Circumstances, which confirms my gut feeling: it may be the best soundtrack in the history of modern anime. It's evocative, playful, earnest, and intimate, regardless of whether you've actually seen the show itself. I've spent the last couple hours answer emails for work while listening to it and it's definitely elevating my experience a little.

Fair warning, the worst part of the Old Iron Crown DLC is fighting another Smelter Demon with an even bigger and more bastardly gauntlet than either of those to traverse. I only beat him after I'd depopulated its entire length with repeat runs.