It’s been quite a while indeed since my last post here, hasn’t it? To be honest, I had more or less given up on this whole blogging thing and considered closing up shop, leaving only the archives for the occasional Google visitor to peruse.

Fortunately, I decided not to throw in the towel just yet, and instead have cooked up several new and (hopefully) interesting posts that will be going up in the near future. Before I go any farther, I would be remiss if I didn’t give a big shout out to my friend ghostlightning, whose continual pestering and seemingly boundless creative energy was in large part what motivated me to start writing for Epic Win again. In between yelling in all caps about the outcome of the latest UFC event, or waxing eloquent about Rafael Nadal, he managed to infect me with his enthusiasm for blogging, and anime in general.

Also, for all of you who e-mailed asking about the blog, thank you so much for taking the time to contact me, and I apologize I wasn’t able to respond to all of you. I was genuinely surprised at the number of people who apparently enjoyed reading the content on this site and were willing to write up an e-mail asking us to come back.

To be fair, things have been pretty hectic this year with quite a few major transitions for me, and a few of them are worth mentioning.

First and foremost, I’d like to congratulate my erstwhile co-blogger Guff for receiving his TEFL credentials and having been accepted  into the JET program as a teacher. In a few weeks he’ll be shipping out to Tokyo for orientation, before moving on to his new residence in Hokkaido, where he’ll be teaching at a number of different schools in the region. Speaking as someone who previously taught English in Japan, I’m incredibly excited for him, as this is will no doubt be a very enriching and challenging once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Second, although I previously posted about taking the JLPT level 2 exam this last December, I never got around to posting about the follow up results. I’m happy to say I passed with flying colors, doing especially well on the grammar and listening comprehension sections, so now all that remains is the final examination level – the daunting JLPT1. I’m under no illusions that I’ll be able to pass the level 1 test this coming December, but I am continuing to study when time allows, and hopefully can make a good attempt at it next year.

Finally, I had the chance to take another sightseeing trip in Japan this spring during the height of the sakura bloom, and I was able to visit some really interesting off-the-beaten-path locales that I’d love to post about when time allows. Most notably, I spent 3 days on Yakushima, a nearly uninhabited island several hours off the southern coast of Japan, which boasts some of the world’s most ancient and unspoiled cedar forests. As a photographer it was a dream come true, and once I finish sifting through the roughly 80 gigabytes of photos I took during my time there, I’ll definitely have one or more posts up recounting my experiences on the island.

(click for slightly larger version)

Well, if you’re still here reading this, thank you very much for hanging around and still visiting this site even after so long. It really means a lot to me, and I hope I can return the favor by bringing you guys some good new content in the coming weeks. Thanks again to the many readers who wrote me and to ghostlightning for the encouragement and much needed kick in the pants.

…and yes, I realize the second Matrix film was a disappointment. Hopefully referencing it in the title of this post won’t jinx me.

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Click to see it full-size

So I finally got around to checking out ADV’s new online streaming video service, and I have to say, I’m pretty impressed.

There are some issues with the player itself, as well as the translations, but hey, you can’t complain too much when it’s free. Overall it seems like an excellent first foray into the wild world of digital distribution; one that has huge potential for growing the number of fans who follow newer anime, and thus the industry as a whole.

Detailed breakdown and analysis after the jump…

New episodes are uploaded every Thursday, and are available online for 28 days before they are removed.

The service is 100% free, supported entirely by advertising. As you can see, there are banner ads above and to the right of the player itself. In addition, a 20-second-ish advertisement plays before the episode starts, another in between the eyecatches, and then a third at the end, assuming you’re watching all the way to the end of the ED.

I loaded up several videos to get a feel for what kinds of advertising were supporting the site. Advertisements I saw included a trailer for 5cm Per Second and a couple of silly ads for ANN, as well as several seemingly out of place ads for mortgage refinancing and debt consolidation.

All of these, however, paled in comparison to the unintentionally hilarious ad for the upcoming Kanon release, in which the announcer said, “From the people who brought you Air, and The Melancholy of… Hoo-RAH-hi Suzu-MAH-yah…” I kid you not. Hoo-RAH-hi.

I think I stared at the screen mouth agape for a good five seconds before I recovered enough to laugh my butt off. It seriously sounded like they just dragged a random VA into the studio and handed him a script to read with no advance guidance on pronunciation. In the narration, there’s an audible pause where you can just see the poor guy struggling to figure out how to say the name before he blurts out the aforementioned botched pronunciation. I seriously wonder how that got past QC, and how they expect to be taken seriously with a gaff of that caliber.

Aside from that, they also seem to have some problems with the way their ads are handled. A number of times an advertisement would start to play, and then suddenly get cut off and the episode would resume. In addition, it’s obviously possible to skip over the eyecatch, thus avoiding the ad trigger there, as well as closing the video before the ED finishes, thus avoiding the final ad. Clearly Anime Network has some issues they will need to work through if they intend to properly attract advertising dollars.

As for the actual episode…the player seems to work just fine, essentially the same kind of interface as Youtube. When you mouse over the screen, the controls pop up and allow you to jump to any part of the episode at any time. Quite handy, really.

The video resolution is 640 x 360 and seems excellent in terms of clarity, with only minimal artifacts.

The translation was actually surprisingly good; I found myself very impressed. Whoever translated this did an excellent technical job, of course, but also managed to keep the translations very straightforward, much closer to literal translations than is usually the case in official releases. All too often they try too hard to “localize” the translation into American-sounding speech patterns and idioms, and it just has a tendency to fall flat and ruin any distinctiveness the original may have had.

As much as I like to hate on R1 subtitle jobs, however, there’s not that much even a hardcore fan like myself can complain about here.

That said, there were a few translation issues that bothered me:

Gunmen? Gunmen??

What happened to Ganmen? I should think it would be fairly obvious that they’re called Ganmen (顔面) because they have huge faces on them (ganmen basically means a human face). Of course, English speaking audiences wouldn’t be expected to know that, but why change it? It’s not like it makes any more sense this way; only a few of the Ganmen use actual guns, anyway.

EDIT: Sixten has kindly pointed out that this romanization is the “official” one as decided by the Japanese copyright holders, and thus the U.S.-based licensees have little choice but to use these spellings. It’s still a bit odd, but nothing that I think would ruin the enjoyment of the series, even for hardcore fans who have already watched the series.

They can also be shot. Or so I hear, anyway.

And what does he mean “they”? They don’t know that there’s more of these, or that the big Ganmen have beastmen inside of them yet, so he shouldn’t be using a plural pronouns. Oops.

A perfectly fine translation, but it lacks the punchiness of Order’s “I ain’t runnin’!”, which I feel does a much better job of capturing Kamina’s rough chimpira-style Japanese. (”Ore wa nigenee!” was the original.)

Again, not a bad translation, it just doesn’t do justice to the mostly over-the-top dialogue of this series. Mundane, everyday translations just don’t cut it when you’re working on Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. That’s not the Gurren-dan way!

Speaking of which…

*sigh*

Of course this was an unavoidable part of the localization, since most English-speaking viewers wouldn’t understand the meaning of “Gurren-dan”, but it still rolls off the tongue rather awkwardly.

Fortunately, at least the signature Gurren-dan mottos remain unchanged!

Overall, my impression of the service is pretty positive. The player works smoothly and the audio/video quality is fine. The only major complaint I have is that the timing of the subtitles was off in several places, which is both confusing and unprofessional.

At any rate, this subtitle-only, streaming digital delivery is exactly the kind of thing hardcore fans have been demanding for ages. If they can clean up some of the rough edges and make a viable and profitable distribution model out of this service, it will likely introduce sweeping changes in the anime industry. Serving new anime for free online is a sure way to grow the consumer base, as more and more people will be willing to give new shows a try.

In an article on The Anime Network, ADV President and CEO John Ledford is quoted as saying:

“We know there’s a demand for fresh, unreleased anime on the Internet. Through Anime Network’s First Look broadcasts, we can engage fans in a lawful way and at the same time help build the audience for our DVD releases. Everybody wins.”

Although I have a lot of reservations about the way ADV conducts business, it is good to see that they do at least recognize the necessary next step that needs to be taken if the U.S. anime industry is to continue to grow.

Should this become a financial success, it will serve as the acid test needed to help convince other major players in both the U.S. and Japan to expand into the realm of digital delivery. Obviously there’s still a significant delay between this and the original Japanese air date, but hopefully in the future the time difference will begin to diminish as this streaming video approach takes off. If they can solve that problem I can easily see this solution taking a big chunk out of the fansubbers “market share”.

Also, sorry to all you folks outside of the US/Canada who would’ve liked to watch the show this way. I imagine they’re worried that all you evil pirates overseas will find a way to rip off their video and make money off of it. Nevermind that you can already find it online and in much higher quality for free.

Well, that or the ads they’re trying to serve mostly wouldn’t apply to you, and thus wouldn’t contribute to their revenue stream. I still like the first explanation, though.

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The week long voting period for the best Union Jack flag re-design is over, and justice has prevailed once again.

For those who haven’t been following the recent news out of the UK, our friends across the pond have been debating proposed redesigns for the Union Jack flag as a way to “better reflect the diversity of the country” or somesuch malarkey. This would have remained just one of the usual ho-hum political stories, if it weren’t for the decision to put the idea for the redesign up to the wisdom of the masses, taking design submissions and then allowing everyone to vote for their favorite.

The contest became popular on 2chan, with many Japanese submitting otaku-themed flag designs such as the Union no Tsukaima and the leek flag. There were even a number created entirely with ASCII…

None of these, however, were as awesome or awe inspiring as the eventual winning flag design.

The popular choice, with over 50% of the total vote, was this:

UNION FLAGANN! Or maybe I should say “Hail Britannia!”

Not to be outdone, the Telegraph’s readers seem to have turned the related online articles into one giant meme-infested anime in-joke. A few of the more humorous comments:

“Your neighbors on the other side of the pond applaud you for this grand display of kicking reason to the curb and the manliness of Britain’s united soul. Bravo, friends. Fight the power.”
Posted by The United States of America

Apparently the whole of The United States approves of this development. Not that I’m disagreeing, of course.

Don’t believe in your country! Believe in your country that believes in you!!
Posted by Kamina

I believe, Aniki! I believe!!

Heh, having a flag like that would stir at least some nationalistic pride even in a jaded misanthrope like myself.

“The chance of this flag winning was 0%…”
Posted by DiabloTerrorGF

Oh ho, I see what you did there. O_O

“Haha, oh wow”
Posted by ANDOUUUUUU

Even the Kaiji fans are out in full force!

“ROW ROW FIGHT DA POWAH”
Posted by Anon

Because the UK is soooo gangsta.

“What, no Trogdor!?”
Posted by Strong Bad

And finally, the obligatory Trogdor reference. It’s like some kind of reverse Murphy’s Law.

Now we just need to redesign the U.S. flag to incorporate a Britannia mash-up and we’ll be set to surpass the impossible and conquer the world!

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Yet another case of a young child trying to murder a sleeping parent. This time it was a 13 year old boy in Osaka who clubbed his father over the head with a bat while he was sleeping.

From the Mainichi news article:

“My dad is always telling me off and he bashes me about once a month. Dad’s always playing pachinko and I thought it was unfair that it’s always me who’s getting told off,” the boy told the police.

Police said that on early Monday the boy belted his sleeping father to the head with a metal baseball bat, bruising his head and breaking his fingers. The boy ran off but was found at a nearby convenience store about 30 minutes later. When he admitted to attacking his father, mistakenly believing he had killed him, officers took him into custody.

In response to the incident, TV Tokyo has announced that they will pull episode 12 of the animated series Sketchbook ~full color’S~, replacing its timeslot with a filler segment entitled “Nice Cats”. The show was reportedly canceled due to a violent scene in the episode involving one girl hitting another on the head with a puppet and saying, “Nandeyanen!”

OK, just kidding about that last part. But on a more serious note, these murder (or in this case, attempted murder) cases involving young children have been popping up more and more in the Japanese news recently. With these kinds of incidents seemingly on the rise, and given the national attention they garner, it’s only a matter of time before the usual talking heads and politicians start blaming violent video games and anime.

Already we’ve seen new forms of media censorship and potential restrictive legislation in reaction to similar previous incidents. While I hope that incidents like this never occur again, I also hope that this does not result in another wave of censorship and restrictions.

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Amidst all the furor over Japan’s newly implemented policy of fingerprinting every foreigner entering or leaving the country, as I was reading through the various comments on different blogs and news sites there was one particular type of reaction that stood out to me.

Many people were making comments like “That’s too bad, I was thinking of taking a vacation to Japan, but now with all these things I’m hearing, maybe I should stay away.”

Now certainly, Japan is not the magical land of rainbows and ponies and gumdrop smiles that your average weeaboo imagines it to be. In fact, sometimes it looks pretty bad. But at the same time, it’s also not all doom and gloom, racism and xenophobia, which is the impression that many people seem to be getting from all of the recent negative press.

So let me just reiterate a very important point:

Japan is still a wonderful place to visit.

Japan is a beautiful country with a rich culture and heritage and some of the kindest, most hospitable people I have ever met. It has some of the most breathtaking sights, most delicious cuisine, and best entertainment anywhere. It is also arguably the safest countries in the world to travel in.

Matsumoto Castle

Yes, if you are not Japanese you will generally be treated differently. This doesn’t necessarily mean in a derogatory way, however. On the contrary, the Japanese generally go to extraordinary lengths to be accommodating to guests in their country.

In my own travels around Japan I have frequently had complete strangers go out of their way to help me, even when it wasn’t necessary. A few times I’ve even been shocked by people I just randomly struck up a conversation with buying me expensive gifts as a gesture of goodwill and welcome. These are not people in the service or tourist industries, but just regular folks. Honestly, I have never experienced the same level of hospitality anywhere else I have traveled, including my own country.

Sure, these new fingerprinting policies will mean more hassle for you in the airport, but as a temporary visitor you’ll probably never see any of the more unpleasant aspects of the gaijin experience. Even if you were to spend a year or two in Japan it’s unlikely that you’ll face much in the way of real serious racism during your time there. For the most part, only permanent resident foreigners ever really have to deal with the uglier aspects of Japan’s xenophobic policies.

There are plenty of people in Japan who are not racist.

Sure, you may experience cases of sabetsu (discrimination) from some people, and certainly from the government, but there are a great many Japanese who do not think that way. It’s deceptively easy to making sweeping generalizations about the Japanese because they have such a high degree of groupthink and cultural homogenization, so it’s important to remember that they are still individuals with their own beliefs and opinions.

I have met racist people and been discriminated against in Japan, but that was the exception, not the rule. While there are definitely xenophobic and nationalist attitudes in Japan that bother me, and while I won’t hesitate to stand up and denounce those attitudes when I see them, I don’t want you to be fooled into thinking that all of Japan is like that.

I’ve met many wonderful people and made some great friends in Japan.

So basically all of this to say, if you’re thinking of taking a trip to see Japan, or if you were considering working there for a year or two on a temporary visa – go for it! Japan is amazing. I would hate to see anyone turn away from the wonderful experiences and opportunities it affords just because of a few xenophobic policies.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m just as incensed about this whole fiasco as every other gaijin resident. Yes, I hate these new policies and the attitudes behind them. Yes, I hate cops who stop anyone foreign looking to question them. Yes, I hate landlords who outright refuse to rent to anyone who is not ethnic Japanese. More than all that, however, I still love Japan, and I hope you can learn to love it, too.

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There have a number of other developments on the political scene that have also been rather interesting, however.

Lots of boring politics after the jump (and also some Rozen Maiden)…

As you may know, last week former Prime Minister Shinzo Abe unexpectedly resigned, causing a minor political uproar. He’s been hospitalized ever since his announcement, and it has since surfaced that his resignation was largely prompted by health concerns.

Many people expected current foreign Minister Taro Aso, nicknamed Rozen Aso for his well known fondness of the Rozen Maiden manga series, to be named as Abe’s successor. In the end, however, he was defeated by his opponent, the more conservative Fukuda Yasuo, in the 330-197 vote. Fukuda will officially take over as Prime Minister once he’s officially appointed by the emperor later today.

So what does this mean for us?

Fukuda is an interesting character. In one sense, he’s much more oldguard than Abe or Aso, fiscally conservative and holding very traditional values.

On the other hand, his motto on dealing with international affairs is “flexibility”, and he’s been surprisingly progressive in improving Japan’s foreign relations with its neighbors and with the U.S. Where Abe and Aso are pretty hardline hawkish, he seems much more interested in compromise and cooperation.

Specifically, he’s long been opposed to the Yasukuni war shrine visits which frequently sparked tension between Japan and South Korea and China.

He’s the son of a former Prime Minister, Fukuda Takeo, who served during the late 70’s. He also has strong ties to former Prime Minister Koizumi Junichiro, previously having served on his cabinet.

Overall, he’s well connected and seems to have earned a great deal of respect from his fellow legislators, so we can expect him to quickly clean up the current political turmoil and restore some stability to the legislature. Hopefully he’ll also be effective at promoting bipartisan decision making, which is especially important right now given the current instability.

Really though, as far as most of you are probably concerned, it just means you won’t get to see this as the new Japanese flag any time soon.

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Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo, who’s been under the gun ever since his party (the LDP) was royally whupped in the July 29 elections, has finally announced that he’s stepping down.

Considering all the troubles he’s had with his Agricultural ministers lately, as well as his push to extend the increasingly unpopular “support-the-US-war-on-terror” mission, it certainly comes as no surprise. It was a bit of a shock how suddenly he announced his resignation, however.

OK, time to put on my rant hat.

While I’m no longer a resident of Japan, I do feel like I still have some vested interest in Japanese politics, especially since I hope to go back someday. On one hand, I think Abe can be commended for helping to patch up relations with neighboring countries, especially after former Prime Minister Koizumi’s repeated Yasukuni visits and belligerent stance toward Japan’s neighbors.

On the other hand, however, his push to rewrite Japanese history and foster strong nationalism through the education system really rubs me the wrong way. To deny or cover up things like the rape of Nanking or the abduction of Korean women who were forced to become ianfu (military prostitutes) during the war is highly dangerous, in my opinion. I understand that the Japanese want to protect their face in the international community, but there’s a difference between rejecting actions taken by your forebears and flat out denying that they ever happened.

If the United States started to deny that the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki happened, and removed all references to the events from history textbooks, you can be sure that the Japanese would be up in arms protesting.

Anyway, Abe seems like decent enough chap, but he really lacks the charismatic and decisive leadership of someone like Koizumi, who despite his diplomatic shortcomings was able to really get the ball rolling and make things happen domestically. Hopefully a new and more effective Cabinet will be assembled without too much turmoil.

Right now it seems like Aso Taro is the likely favorite. Although I don’t agree with a lot of his foreign policy statements, he seems more capable of being bipartisan. Also, he’s supposedly somewhat otaku, and is especially known as a big Rozen Maiden fan.

Edit: Interestingly, while the overall stockmarket closed lower on the news of Abe’s resignation, according to a link posted on DarkMirage’s site by don777, otaku related stocks took an upturn after the announcement. Not sure what that means exactly, but it sure tickles my funny bone.

What do you think? If Aso becomes the next Prime Minister, what will that mean for us otaku? Government sponsored international goodwill tours by popular mangaka? A new “Otaku” visa class for people who are coming just for Akiba? Suiseiseki becomes the official party mascot?

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Otaku invade Washinomiya-jinja, home of the Hiiragi Twins

This is kind of old news, but it seems like a number of people haven’t seen this yet, so I thought I’d mention it here.

As you may know, the setting for Lucky Star is in Japan’s Saitama prefecture. What you may not realize is just how closely the show matches reality. In fact, the locations that appear in the show for the most part actually exist, and are strikingly similar to their real life counterparts.

Lucky Star is set in the real life town of Washimiya in southern Saitama, and many of the town’s locations are featured in the show, most notably the venerable Washinomiya-jinja, which appears in the opening credits.

Hakase’s site Small Love has a nice set of comparison shots between various scenes in the show and photographs of the real town.

On another interesting note, the Japanese Wikipedia article for Washinomiya-jinja has apparently been semi-protected due to vandalism and edit wars, which looks to be largely due to otaku trying to add lots of Lucky Star crap to the page. Apparently even Japanese Anonymous has been busy. Right now the article just has a single line at the bottom tersely noting that the shrine appears in the show.

Gotta love the cosplayers and all the fanart drawn on those ema (the little wooden votive plaques) by the visiting otaku. One interesting thing that stuck out to me was when they interviewed the head priest toward the end of the video. When asked what he thought about all the otaku coming out to shrine, he said that they were all worshipping respectfully, so he didn’t mind them as long as they did that properly.

Also, if anyone reading this has better Japanese than I, I’m trying to figure out the meaning of these kanji that appear on the ema here. It looks like 女家, which I know are the kanji for woman and house, respectively. I have no idea what meaning it takes in this situation, though. Also, note the choco cornet in the corner.

Source: Tentative Name

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