Parenting and Video Games

Going into a full rant about how video games get all the blame for all the perceived terrors of "kids these days" is of little use. It would really be nothing more than preaching to the choir and regurgitating what everyone else has said already. I have little patience for just telling an audience what it wants to hear (and knows already).

I also rather like Obama. The more I hear from him, the more I like him. There's something very powerful about a charismatic, articulate leader in a real position to become president. I think there is wonderful potential in his chance of combating apathy and ennui in the US.

But I must take issue with a recent speech where he said "...parent better, and turn off the television set, and put the video games away..." and not because it's the usual "video games and TV are to blame for the terrible state of our children" blame-shifting.

Taking away when your children enjoy is not, in itself, good parenting. Most parents would have no idea how to interact or relate with their children if they took the TV remotes and controllers away. Most of the kids probably wouldn't know what to do with their parents either. Just because you took your kids to the park instead of letting them watch MTV doesn't mean you actually are the World's Best Dad. It means nothing.

What parents should be doing is playing those video games with their kids. Don't take what they enjoy away from them just because you don't understand it - try to get involved with them as best you can. You don't need to love it or even get it. Your kids probably won't expect you to. But if you at least give them the chance and play a bit of Halo with them and treat their interests with at least a semblance of the respect you expect them to treat your own interests with then you're already doing a much better job of helping your kids grow into respectable adults than hundreds of "You're going to have fun and enjoy yourself whether you like it or not!" trips to the park could ever do.

Remember: don't just take the video games away from your kids and expect them to grow up properly. Play the games with them and show them how to treat other people properly.

Who knows. Maybe if you're lucky your kids will have Rock Band or Guitar Hero or some bullshit on the Wii that you might actually end up enjoying yourself.

Of course, then it'll be that much harder to blame video games for ruining the children you didn't know how to raise yourself in the first place.

This all stemmed from an article on Kotaku about Obama's speech.

Hatenkou Yuugi

I tried to give it another chance (the fun banter between the leads lured me back) but the episodes simply continue to get worse. Predictable, trite plots made worse by ridiculous scripts intent on saying instead of showing just make it unbearable despite often very fun chemistry and bishonen boys who are just so ridiculously over the top it's impossible not to laugh at them.

So I'm done. Not recommended to anyone, unfortunately.

based on 4 episodes : ANN : Wikipedia : YouTube : Crunchyroll

The Skull Man

The Skull Man is, in many ways, a very typical BONES production. Gorgeous, stylish, evocative, and compelling with amazing bursts of action. It's also riddled with loose ends and unanswered questions and full of a supporting cast that are far more interesting than the "main" characters, many of them clearly gifted with incredibly deep back stories we never get a glimpse of. It manages to simultaneously be surprising and tritely predictable.

The first few episodes suggested some kind of anime mixture of Batman and The Count of Monte Christo from the point of view of an outsider, a reporter trying to track down a brutal vigilante with hints of supernatural power. Add in some anime tropes of a spunky female sidekick and a mysterious old man who seems to know everything that's going on but refuses to say anything straight out and you have a pretty standard concept with the usual high production standard from BONES. I was expecting a formulaic and probably episodic show that would peter out mid-way through.

The show had an oddly compelling character to it, however. Maybe it was the somewhat retro feel to it with character designs that were clearly an homage to old classics or the strange, anachronistic pseudo-alternate history setting but the first several episodes manage to maintain a surprising momentum despise a startlingly slow pace (in hindsight). Very little is revealed about the histories of the main characters or the Skull Man himself. The supernatural elements of the show even come racing into the forefront when people start transforming into man-beast hybrids and having big knock-down, drag-out fights but the show still manages to maintain silent on what's really going on.

When it does start spilling the beans, though, it doesn't stop. The cast is fleshed out and the pacing picks up quickly, but more importantly The Skull Man keeps the audience guessing with a constant stream of red herrings and twists and turns that throw the original premise on it's ear, only to throw out the new premise as well. Conspiracies appear and collapse only to be replaced by another organization. Secrets are revealed - and then exposed as fakes themselves. This never feels cheap; instead, it keeps the otherwise simple, standard anime hero fighting monsters fresh and interesting.

Not everything gets resolved in the end. In fact, the ending is a huge, gaping hole begging for a sequel. The core storyline does get wrapped up, but many subplots receive little attention and some of those conspiracies introduced are clearly a platform for a further chapter in the series. Looking back, The Skull Man doesn't quite add up to more than the sum of its parts and it isn't really anything new, but it is all put together in a rather fresh way and is a great deal of fun.

Definitely recommended in general, especially for anyone who likes a bit of atmospheric action, likes guessing at what's "really going on," and can handle a very open-ended "conclusion."

based on full series, 13 episodes : ANN : Wikipedia : YouTube : Crunchyroll

An end to silence

So things have been pretty busy lately and I've clearly fallen off the whole daily-writing thing.

I flew out to Boston for my old love Anime Boston and then bummed around town afterward seeing old friends and family. It was wonderful seeing all my old con buddies again (there really is something special about the bond forged in the chaos of a con) and since I wasn't running things this year, I even got to enjoy The Pillows's concert. It was a huge ego boost in general and I felt quite reinvigorated.

When I got back, I turned around and it was time for Sakura-con. I've still managed to avoid that urge to get involved in running it (mainly 'cause I don't know anyone behind the scenes) but it was fun to hang out. I saw some of the industry people I didn't have time to meet up with at Anime Boston and had fun showing some friends around, and got to meet some new people as well. It also made me love, miss, and appreciate Anime Boston all the more, too.

And now that I'm back in the real world, work's been pretty damn busy. I've pretty much been head-down focused on trying to get event review and placement taken care of in time for event registration to open up on April 20th. There are still thousands of events to go through. It hasn't been a fast process by any means.

When I'm not working (either at work or at a con) all my time's been taken up by hanging out with friends who distract me with Rock Band.

So this all boils down to me having to admit that I can't keep up with a daily schedule, which should have been obvious to me quite a while ago. I'm going to try transitioning to a weekly schedule and see if I can keep my thoughts and ideas straight.

The experiment continues...

The Skull Man, episode 2

Set in an alternate history Japan that doesn't seem to be too divergent yet, The Skull Man comes across as Batman from the other side: a reporter returns to his home town on the trail of rumors about a "Skull Man" who attacks people in the night, leaving a trail of bodies behind him. Aside from a brush with the mysterious figure during a brief fight, it has yet to get very supernatural or even feature much of the titular character. Instead we follow the reporter as he tries to track down leads on the vigilante and runs across a variety of people with their own agendas and interest in whatever is going on in the town.

Being a BONES show, it is of course wonderfully animated. The designs feel a bit retro, but work well enough and are really the only thing that really the only thing that seems vaguely "alternate history" so far, inconsequential backstory notwithstanding. So far its been content to build rather slowly, however, and hasn't been particularly flashy.

That relatively reserved pace means that there is little to gauge the show on so far, but it's been pretty solid, again, like most BONES shows. It remains to be seen whether it will ultimately come together better than many of their past works or if it will end up feeling like a bit less than the sum of its parts, full of great characters (often with the supporting cast being far more interesting than the main characters) and bad-ass fight scenes but never really quite gelling for some reason.

For now there is some novelty to be had in having no information about the vigilante and his quest for vengeance, learning everything along with the reporter. The characters have shown glimmers of depth beyond their archetypes as well, and BONES is always good for a ride at least, so I'll give this some time to play out.

based on 2 episodes : ANN : Wikipedia : YouTube

Oh! Edo Rocket, episode 2

There's just a little bit of everything in here. A cast of ridiculously wacky characters sporting designs from a spectrum of completely different anime live in the poor district in Edo, trying to scrape a living with their "frivolous" trades: dancers, doll-makers, entertainers, fireworks makers - they've all had their passion and livelihood either banned outright or heavily discouraged by a controlling state and overzealous magistrates. Into this mix jumps a gorgeous woman (Sora) who also seems to be some kind of supernatural beast. She wants to build fireworks that will fly all the way to the moon.

Oh! Edo Rocket is definitely a frenetic, crack comedy. The jokes come fast and furious, and the show is happy to shift setting, tone, and art style just as quickly. Computers and TVs are pulled out in ancient Japan for dramatic effect whenever it'll help with a punchline. Flashbacks are re-enacted in the present. Whatever it takes.

Oddly enough, though, the most intriguing part of the show are the "pokemon fights" between Sora in her beast form, some other supernatural monster and a collection of armored ninjas every bit as eccentric as the poor entertainers. There's some plot about the other monster killing people and Sora getting blamed for it and the ninjas hunting them down but it's still very vague. The fact that it's interesting, however, and not just an interruption in the constant comedy stream bodes well for it developing into something worthwhile, however.

Recommended for comedy fans and for anyone able to keep up with the pace and style. Those character designs in the screenshots aren't their chibi or SD forms - that's how they look all the time. I'm enjoying it so far. It's another one of those titles I've been meaning to catch up on for the longest time.

based on 2 episodes : ANN : Wikipedia : YouTube

Hatenko Yugi, episode 3

It's not entirely clear what's going on in this show. Rahzel is kicked out of her house with just a blind-folded teddy bear and a command to "see the world." She comes across an oh-so-myseriously-sexy albino-with-issues (and a gun) named Alzeido. They go on random adventures together (inexplicably joined by the playboy Baroqueheat) and learn the value of friendship and true love. Or something. Also, she has vague magic powers that seem to involve shooting generic energy blasts and the playboy can turn his hand into a... sword... thing. And don't worry about keeping any sense of time or space or tension during the fights, 'cause there is none.

It's got all the classic shoujo elements: a cheerful heroine, a silent-but-sexy type, and an overly affectionate hunk. The meandering "plot" and the lack of any distinct setting, per se, makes it difficult to follow - as do the stilted and heavy-handed references to Mysterious Pasts for both the bishis - but the actual dialogue was surprisingly sharp enough for me to give it a little time to develop. Our heroine isn't a swooning ditz, she's a reasonable bad-ass in her own right and her exchanges with both her gigolos are surprisingly entertaining. She's got a sharp tongue and so do they. Perhaps even more importantly, they don't insist on continually denying obvious feelings for each other. While they all certainly enjoy putting on the act that they don't care about each other, they all ultimately admit it and that gives Hatenko Yugi a leg up on my female harem shows.

Unfortunately, that's not really enough to overcome the show's central flaws. The hunks (and even Rahzel herself) are set up with intensely dramatic, mysterious and tragic backstories and we know this because we are told so. Flat out. Repeatedly. Usually by Rahzel herself. The accompanying heavy-handed metaphors drag whatever episodic plot they're foisted upon, giving everything a childish feeling at odds with the often dark and brutal subject matter. The undeniable gravitas is just shoved down the viewer's throat. It's possible it might have worked with some kind of central plot to hang on to, but instead it all collapses under its own meandering weight.

It's a shame, as I wouldn't have minded seeing more of Rahzel bickering with her man-whores. Fans of shoujo with a high tolerance for "Isn't that tragic?" who are looking for something a little different will probably find something to enjoy here, but everyone else can probably give it a pass. It could develop into something good, but with the level of storytelling presented thus far, it'll likely come at a high price.

based on 3 episodes : ANN : Wikipedia : YouTube