So the hand is 11m123p77788899s. Waits are 1m, 6s, 9s.
Ron on 1m is a reach-only hand. 50 fu 1 han, 1600 points.
Ron on 6s is reach, pinfu, iipeikou. Let's break it apart.
11m (pair) 123p 789s 789s 78s 6s (the winning tile).
Iipeikou because of the double sequence, 778899s. Pinfu because it's all sequences, non-value pair, double-sided wait. 30 fu 3 han, 3900 points.
Ron on 9s is the highest-scoring possibility.
11m (pair) 123p 789s 789s 78s 9s (the winning tile).
It's the same idea, but winning off 9s makes this junchan, chanta's big brother. All tiles are sets including a terminal, no inside tiles or honors. Reach, pinfu, iipeiko, junchan make six han, which is 12,000 points. Haneman.
If you drew this you could call it san ankou (three concealed triples), but that would be a lower-scoring hand and we only count the highest-scoring possbility. If you drew 1m, then yes, reach, tsumo, san ankou. Mangan (8000).
The tiles can take all kinds of interesting shapes.
Okay, here's something else I bought while on vacation in Tokyo for the New Year: I left this issue of Kindai (Modern) Mahjong magazine with a friend and though we live maybe 45 minutes apart, I only very recently picked it up from him. Kinma is a mahjong magazine, yes, but most of its pages are actually taken up by manga about mahjong.
Yeah, that's Fukumoto's Akagi on the cover, yeah that Washizu looks like he's in trouble this time. I won't spoil but I think Fukumoto's finally trying to wrap up his Planet Namek situation.... at chapter 245. Will the magazine really survive Akagi finally ending?
Mudazumo also runs in this magazine, along with whatever ol' Katayama (Super Zugan) is up to and a host of other series. Someone should translate this stuff. Dammit all!
Anyway, we're not actually here to talk about that, maybe next post. I want to show you a little supplement that came with this particular week's issue, and share a tiny morsel of what's inside.
This is a quiz book by our pal Takunori Kajimoto, who does a lot of this kind of writing. It isn't limited only to "what would you discard" questions like Kajimoto's manuals(recommended, though their English translation is VERY questionable and more than a few of the questions/answers are totally incomprehensible). In addition to more typical questions, there are also questions about table manners, questions that take the whole table situation into account, and even questions where you have to figure out what could be in a hand. (If Mr. Kajimoto sees this and wants me to take it down, by the way, then down it goes.) Here is one of those.
The four tiles at the end are hidden from view.
11m123p7778s????.
The question goes like this. Player is non-dealer, and is in Reach with a three-sided wait. This hand could be 1600 points, 3900 points, or 12000 points. What are the four hidden tiles?
The answer is in the next post, which I will wait a bit before putting up. This is a one-shot; I just wanted to give an idea of what the quiz book is like, not actually post the thing.
The New Year is the
biggest Japanese holiday. Being in Japan for this would probably suck
in most parts of the country, because everything closes... but Akiba
doesn't. Nothing is sacred in Akiba.
My
hatsumode (first shrine visit) was perhaps the fondest memory of my
entire visit to Japan. I walked with all my new drinking friends from
our regular bar to the local temple... and I had my mind blown. I
understood that the new year was a big deal in Japan, but here in
this temple at midnight stood thousands
of locals lined up to make their first offering. The place was
enormous and naturally beautiful, which are two things that impress
you even more when you're very drunk.
On account of the
line being so long, we opted to just stand around and enjoy new
year's snacks (Yakitori! Takoyaki! New Year's Sake! Asahi!) as we
hobbled around the shrine. See a shrine. They are beautiful. You will
not regret it. Just don't show up drunk, I figure that's gotta be a cultural faux pas when it's not New Year's Day.
COMIKET:
I actually was only
at Comic Market for maybe an hour and a half. I know, I know, this is
the biggest comics gathering in the world. But I simply didn't have
any plans to buy anything, and I especially didn't want to end up
with something that would give me trouble at the border... and you
don't know what's going to be in those doujinshi unless you check
every page! We saw some friends with books to sell-- including one
person we met at the hotel breakfast!-- checked out the cosplay and
got going to the life-size Odaiba Gundam.
You
still have to see Comiket, if you're in the area at the time. It is
an overwhelming spectacle of otaku crowding. The pictures you've seen
cannot prepare you for the actual scale of the thing. It is bigger
than the anime convention you are thinking about: lines for a
single circle will exceed the
lines at a big US convention, with the poor schlub at the back of the
line forced to hold a big cardboard sign featuring terrible things
being done to Nanoha.
That
said, you can just walk on in pretty easily if you don't have
to be there as Comiket opens on account of some book that's in short
supply. (I heard of a Sword Art Online book that went to 30,000y the
day after it was on sale!) We showed up around 2: the crowds were
still insane, but it was pretty easy to get around. Again, you should
definitely not miss it, if only to understand the sheer size of the
event. It is the biggest otaku thing you'll ever see in your life,
guaranteed.
OTAKU STORES:
5-foot Great Mazinger outside a figure shop in Akiba.
I actually didn't
do a ton of otaku shopping because I knew my budget would only allow
so much loot straight-up dropped on toys and such. Also, one floor at
Kotobukiya really did me in.
If you're buying anything, go to Nakano Broadway. Damn right I'm taking you out of
Akiba. This is the home base for Mandarake, the biggest otaku goods
chain. Press through what appears to be a normal, bustling shopping
mall for a little while, and you'll start to notice something: there
is no end to this place. To call the complex merely massive is a
criminal understatement. Nakano Broadway is a black hole of commerce.
Get all the way back, and you'll see Mandarake outlets for every
otaku and fujoshi niche that it is possible to sell products to. If
you were blown away by the shops in Akiba, your head is going to come
flying clean off in this place. Everything you were thinking of, from
new to extreme vintage, is here and it is reasonably priced. Make it
to the top and behold the ultimate vintage robot moonbase, complete
with shrine gates, atmospheric noise, and the enbalmed body of an
alien. One of the robots was a million yen! The cashiers I bought
stuff from were dressed like Quattro and Red Buster.
There are
apartments here, people live here. What a life! They don't have to go
far from home unless they get lonely, I presume.
I didn't run
through a lot of the stores but I did check out Kotobukiya's entire
store. This never comes up on Astro Toy, because we don't do PVC, but
I actually really like Koto's stuff: they pride themselves on their
quality and it is indeed consistently high. Their store, like so many
others, is divided by audience. The bottom floor has merchandise from
the major current hits like Eva, Fate/Zero, imas, and others. The
next floor up (don't quote me on exactly what the layout was) was
definitely girl-ota-oriented, with a general mountain of pretty boys,
cute mascots, and JRPGs. The next floor up was the one after my own
heart, with robots and tokusatsu stuff. After that I believe there
was a misc floor, and the top floor was a temporary exhibit on Sword
Art Online.
Yo, guys, little
etiquette. I know SAO sucked-- trustworthy sources told me so
emphatically-- but do not leave asshole messages in English like
“NOVEL WAS WAY BETTER” (but you've left this message in English!)
or “ANIMATE SUCHANDSUCH INSTEAD” on these people's Post-It wall.
This makes you unbearablel. People pretend to listen to you in
conversation, but they only do so out of politeness.
Anyway, I bought:
Akibaranger DX Moe
Moe Z-Cune: this is the gun that the Akibarangers use to transform.
There is also a large-scale PVC figure inside! Surprisingly the gun
was on half-off sale at 6000y (about $80), but I haven't noticed any
serious problems. The insane design of the item demands that you be pretty careful with it, which means don't wave the gun around too much... but what did anybody expect from a toy gun
holding a PVC figure inside of it?
Charge Man Ken mug. There was a whole display case full of Charge Man Ken stuff, including stuff commemmorating great episodes like "Dynamite in the Brain!!" and the special "Charging Go!" PVC.
Generic towel with
Japanese “Dododododo” sound effect printed all over it, hiding in
the Jojo section (fooled me!), Garo bandanna featuring the Horror
inscriptions from the show, Zaruba clear sticker to put on my next
computer/tablet.
I put
away a lot of things
that I wished I could afford. I am still sad over Hot Toys Ryo Saeba
(10,000y on sale!!), Soul of Chogokin Leopardon (Spider-Man's robot),
and a huge, very ugly 600y figure of Guy Shishio from back when
Gaogaigar was on TV. Again: when I come back it will be with twice
the time and three times the money.
THE GUNDAM:
So the Odaiba
Gundam is a mall ornament. This isn't to say it isn't astonishing: it
will pull the breath right out from your lungs. But you need to know
that it is a mall ornament.
Diver City is a
typical and boring mall that would really like you to check it out!
That's why they have this “Gundam” thing in the back. They make
it really hard for you to actually find the Gundam: it's not even on
some of the maps! Facing the main entrance, go left where it looks
like there's nothing around. Just keep going that way. You will
eventually come upon it, even though nothing really indicates that
you will. As a tourist, it's probably a total waste for you to hang
out in Diver City-- see the H&M! The Lacoste!!-- though we did
have food court udon superior to most I've eaten here.
The Gundam is
actual size. Go ahead and gawk, that's what everybody else is here
for. Oh my God, holy shit. Wow.
A family chuckled at us as we made
fools of ourselves in front of it. The dad was complaining that the
Gundam didn't hold a beam saber.
They sell Haro meatbuns and Gundam
taiyaki here, and also at a little stand outside the full-fledged
Gundam Cafe in Akiba. Both were decent. The girl who took my order there was wearing a
Celestial Being uniform. We didn't eat at the actual Gundam Cafe
because I heard from a lot of people that it's actually pretty lame, and I'm willing to believe that.
Don't waste good meals when you're on vacation!
JOYPOLIS:
If you're in the
area of the Gundam you're also right by Tokyo Joypolis, one of Sega's
amusement parks. Again, I wish I'd had a couple hours to spend there. We thought it'd be lame, but it's a full-scale amusement park. There's a high degree of
interactivity, since it's Sega and all, and nearly all the rides are also games to some
degree. We saw a huge amount of “awesome!!-- oh no the line is an
hour” attractions and rode none because we had somewhere to be. For gamers and Sega nerds, there's a version of
Initial D that lets you ride in full-scale models of the cars from
the series, and alternate versions of House of the Dead 4 and Let's
Go Jungle that take place in movie-theater-size chambers. And of
course there's a Sonic Land. It's definitely a place to spend a day:
day passes are 3000y, if I recall.
ARCADES:
This is still a
surviving institution in Japan, unlike most places on the earth! When
the guys and I were not actually seeing people and doing things, we
were probably having fun in the arcades around home base: the three
Club Sega locations, HEY, TRY Tower, and Taito Station.
They're all
basically laid out like this: UFO catchers and kids' arcade games on
the bottom floor, and then progressively more “gamer” things as
you go up. Music games, then shooters, then fighters, and after that
the really hardcore stuff like card games, Derby Owner's Club, and
others of that ilk. Mahjong is usually around there too.
Pretty much any of
the places I hung out in in Akiba-- but especially these places!--
would make an arcade game geek from anywhere else in the world weep.
The difference is that vast. Games that would be impossible treasures
elsewhere in the world (like, say, complete histories of Cave,
including footnotes like Batsugun and DDP2) were just sitting around
in these joints.
If you only go to
one it has to be HEY (Hirose Entertainment Yard). Their centerpiece,
a custom-made Darius II featuring two screens the size of a grown
man, forced me to reconsider art and life themselves. I grinned
really hard when the line “I ALWAYS WANTED A THING CALLED TUNA
SASHIMI” came booming in. Don't take pictures, it's not allowed. Be
nice.
Coming down from
the station, the third Club Sega (presently it has Virtua Fighter and
Border Break signs way up on the building) has a museum floor at the
top where techs in Sega jumpsuits keep watch over a historical
archive of massive deluxe cabinets. Present is the super-rare F-Zero
AX, an Afterburner Climax doubles cab, Ferarri F355, and others,
including the humble Super Hang-On sitdown. No Sega fan should miss
this floor. On F-Zero and Afterburner, make sure you buckle the
seatbelt to activate the machine's motion features. Climax in
particular is an exhilarating ride.
The staff got my
bag when I lost it playing MJ5 and presumed it lost forever. Nice
bunch of guys. I think that by the last day or so they recognized me (you know I couldn't go a day without Afterburner).
Thanks.
The most popular
game overall is easily Gundam Extreme Vs. (FULL BOOST). The game that
started back at Federation Vs. Zeon on the Dreamcast has grown
tremendously over the years and I don't think anyone who watched it
could question it as a solid versus shooter. Every place has an
enbankment of at least eight of these machines, and usually they have
two such units.
However, like any
arcade fighting game, it's really hard to actually learn anything:
multiplayer cabinets will throw you into deathmatches with highly
skilled strangers who will combo you into dust without pity.
No
joke, I was actually Gundam-bullied. Some guy saw me playing, sat
down on the other row, picked Wing Zero, and mercilessly chased me
and only me for as
many games as it took for me to get up and walk away. What a dick!
The only other game
that was really occupied all that much that weekend was the new
Blazblue version, and a little SF4 at HEY. Under-Night was there, for
example, but I didn't see a single person play it but me. These
didn't really seem like fighter hotspots. Plus, in my experience,
people were straight up scared to play with the foreigner. I got
through an entire game of Garou on the only free machine in that
arcade (TRF) and nothing!
Fans
of “poverty” (lesser-loved) fighting games will want to go to TRF
at the top of Nakano Broadway, where guys laugh their way through the
incredibly difficult “basketball
combos”
of Hokuto no Ken and play stuff like Breakers and Chaos Code on the
side. This was the arcade most like the American fighting game scene
with which I'm familiar. TRF used to have a maid.
The coolest game
you'll never play was Gunslinger Stratos, by the Gundam Vs.
developers. It's controlled by a 9mm and Magnum (concept by Gen
Urobuchi, natch) with thumbsticks on them to move the player. Gunkata
motions as seen in Equilibrium are required of the player. Seriously,
the guns are magnetic and you have to pose. It's an insane game and
according to a friend who's quite skilled himself, “I think you
have to be a genius to play it”.
The "variety" order at Baird in Harajuku, which brews its own beer. So does TY Harbor, actually. Don't get the impression that that's common, those are just the kinds of places we drank!
Next post is all mahjong stuff, pictures of the beautiful new set I bought, thoughts on the MJ arcade games. They're pretty sweet!
Hi, guys. If everything goes the way it is going now, I'll be taking a week-long vacation to Tokyo in the future. The perfect opportunity has come up, and I feel like if I don't do this now, that it's never going to happen.
I also have a ridiculous geek stash, the vast majority of which I haven't touched in years and which I realize I will never look at again in my life. The plane and lodging are all taken care of, but I'm trying to get together spending money.
(I ALREADY WENT TO JAPAN. IT WAS GREAT.)
I want to bypass the huge cuts Amazon and Ebay take if at all possible, so I'm listing things here first. Please contact me at dave (shift-2) colonydrop (period) com. The more folks buy, the more fun I have! Of course, if you just want to give me free money for my Japanese vacation, I'm not above that.
This post will change as I put more items in the pile.
First come first serve but I will not tell a lie: my personal friends have dibs.
Games:
-PS1-
Original Black Label releases only: I don't do ugly boxes.
Final Fantasy 7: $50
Xenogears: $50
Soukyugurentai aka Terra Diver (great 2D shooter by Raizing): $60
-Nintendo-
Gamecube Zelda: Ocarina of Time + Master Quest, 25 shipped.
-PS2-
Ar Tonelico Limited Edition: Box has some scuffs, however this comes with a soundtrack CD that was only ever made available to preorders and which I can't even find records of anybody selling online. The CD is sealed. I will give you the game + book for $20, CD for $50.
Dodonpachi Dai-Ou-Jou: This is probably the hardest videogame Cave ever made or will make, which is saying something. PS2 version by Arika has exclusive modes and a superplay DVD included. $100.
My Bemani PS2 collection:
I have Beatmania IIDX -
3rd, 4th, 5th, 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th, from the years I was really into the game.
Major caveat about the Bemani games: these titles were all made before HDTVs were widespread, and the timing does not get along with HDTVs due to lag. I only ever played these games on a CRT TV. I no longer have a PS2 hooked up to my current TV, but I was able to play the games emulated on my laptop without issue.
I want $25 for 3, 5, and 7, $40 for 4th, $30 for 8th, 9th and 10th.
I also have Pop'n Music 7, 8, and 10. I assume the games have similar problems with HDTVs, but I don't know for sure. $30 for each.
Finally, a Pop'n Music Arcade Style Controller. Not easy to part with; it's probably the single most beautiful videogame item I own... but I must admit I haven't seen or touched it in a few years. Unlike the IIDX ASC (which I already offloaded to a friend) this one is the exact same panel as on the arcade game. This is well-used, as you can imagine. Very noisy. Comes with the original box, which is the same plain brown box that Konami shipped it in. This box is beat up, but I've been saving it all these years. I will not let this go for anything less than $300.
Bangaioh, US Dreamcast: I have the JP version and can't justify owning two copies despite the game's great sentimental value to me. Barely played, I put all that time into the JP version. $70 shipped.
Ikaruga, JP Dreamcast. No obi. Has big ol' scratch on the front. Easily replaceable but I'm not going to rip you off by doing that myself. $60 shipped.
Fire Pro D, JP Dreamcast: Is Fire Pro. $20 shipped.
-PC ENGINE-
PC-Engine Duo-R and additional parts: Okay, I have a PCE Duo-R here. Last version of the hardware. I know I'm never going to buy anything for it ever again. My loss is your gain. Caveat with this one is that the controller port is rather finicky. Wiggle it around for a bit and you're alright for the rest of the time the system is on, but it's really annoying. I still have the box, if you want it, but I lost the manual a long time back. If you want them, I will throw in the Battle Tap and Battle Pads. These have no problems but the plastic has seriously yellowed. $200.
All PC Engine stuff is Japanese version. HuCards will not play on US Turbo-Grafx 16s and CDs are region-free.
Devil Crash (aka Devil's Crush) - JP version, brilliant pinball game from Naxat, greatest box art you ever saw. $65.
Rayxanber II (CD) - shooty game, heavily memorization oriented (even more so than say R-Type), not my cup of tea. $30.
Gradius II (CD) - one of the all-time classics, has an animated intro not in any other version. Looking around I hear there is an exclusive extra stage on some print runs of this game. I have no idea whether or not it's in this copy. $50.
R-Type Complete CD: Port of the original. The HuCard version of this game was split into two, the CD has the whole game with cutscenes and CD audio. $40.
Super Raiden (CD): Similar port of the classic arcade game, with CD audio and two new levels. $40.
Tennokoe Bank II: save HuCard for CD games, I'm pretty sure. Never really needed it. $10.
-END OF PC ENGINE-
Megamari, doujin soft: A very literal combination of Touhou and Megaman in which the player is Marisa. By Tasogare Frontier, a storied doujin developer who have gone on to make official entries in the Touhou series (the fighting games). Doujin soft, never to be released again, I want $60.
-360-
Marvel Vs Capcom 3, Special Edition: Sealed with preorder size L T-shirt from the lovely guys at Meat Bun. The T features a Lovecraftian illustration of Shuma Gorath and a Servbot and basically doesn't exist in the universe anymore. There's plenty of this game out there but the T-shirt is the only reason I want... $70.
Anime:
Gundam Unicorn Blu-Ray 1 - a few years back I had the naive good will to seriously think I was going to buy this entire thing on BD as it came out. Never happening, and I know it. $35 shipped.
Serial Experiments Lain DVD - I have the BD/DVD set coming in so these will be redundant. $25 for the lot.
Armored Trooper Votoms Box: Good lord. I had no idea what this was worth and now that I've looked it up there's no way I can justify continuing to own it. You can get most of this series for nothing, but the final box set is impossible to come by, driving up the cost of this complete box. Furthermore, I believe the lunchbox and additional extras in this set were never released in any other way. Well, guess who preordered them as they came out? The company that put this show out is bankrupt, it's a really popular show in Japan, it's extremely unlikely to come out again in English. I want $250. If you're actually interested in paying that, you probably already know what a good show Votoms is.
Figures/Models:
This section is mostly there for people who are local to me (NYC) because I really don't want to go to the trouble and expense of shipping these huge things out. As per my agreement with ANN, nothing from the Astro Toy treasure trove is for sale, so please don't ask.
Perfect Grade Char Zaku II: Sealed. Ten years on it's the most spectacular Zaku you can buy... aside from that five-foot one. $120.
Revoltech Danboard, first printing. One of the few rare Revoltechs, in my understanding. Used but fully intact and boxed. The watch batteries for the light-up eyes are long dead and will have to be replaced. $80.
(This post will contain spoilers for the latest chapter of Genshiken 2.)
I know, I know, we really hardly talk at all about anime/manga on this blog anymore. What can I say? I still do a lot of it, probably more of it than I ever did, really... but these days I get paid for that work. Not a lot, mind, but it's not like there's anybody out there who's going to pay me for my mahjong and toku posts.
But I wanted to talk about something that's not out there legitimately yet, something really recent. Genshiken 2 is out from Kodansha Comics as we speak. You should definitely buy it. The dialogue is natural, and they didn't screw up with the otaku stuff like in the Del Rey version. No excuses.
Now that said, I can't bear to wait a second to find out what's going on in my otaku soap opera-- and make no mistake, Genshiken is now and has been a very low-key otapera-- so I look up the latest chapters the very moment they're translated. Not gonna lie.
So what's up this month? A pivotal event, really. The biggest hanging plot thread of the first series-- the supernaturally pathetic uber-otaku Madarame's lingering crush on the fashionable, fiesty, not-otaku, not-moe Saki Kusakabe-- has finally been dealt with.
Genshiken is basically a new series now: aside from Madarame, the previous members are rarely seen because they've moved on to new lives. Most of the Genshiken guys turned their passions into their careers. Madarame's working, he's certainly more mature, but his general condition is another matter. Though he's changed, he's a guy who really can't leave the Genshiken behind. Obviously a lot of that has to do with his feelings for Saki. He's suffering in limbo because he can't bear to put himself out there, to do something that's going to hurt.
The confession had to be forced, of course: Madarame had to be tricked into a room where Saki waited, and then she had to drop obvious "let's please get this out of the way" hints one after the other. Ultimately, Madarame was just barely figure out that the gang was trying to get him to say what everybody knew he had to say... and he still didn't really have it in him to say it. The confession itself was a punchline. But, despite that, the air was cleared between these characters. Madarame confessed, and was rejected, and everybody involved can now move on with their lives.
I love how they handled this. I wouldn't be making a post about this if I wasn't really happy with the resolution: I mean, you can read Carl's blog for your Genshiken sum-ups. I like both of these characters a lot, though, and I'm happy with the ending this part of the story got.
The interesting thing about their relationship at this point is that, yeah, this scene is a rejection, but it's a rejection between close friends. There is a lot of warmth and affection that displays how complicated these characters are and how far they've come. (Though it was on hiatus for years, Genshiken started running ten years ago!)
Saki gives the first impression that she's just mean. She wouldn't be caught dead in this social circle, she's only there on account of her boyfriend, et cetera. But it becomes clear very early in the comic that she enjoys the company of the group and she legitimately cares about them. She still can't be caught dead with them, but she's fond of this circle of friends.
And Saki and everybody around her knows that Madarame is the sort to be hung up on this shit forever. Really, for a thousand years at least. She wants to avoid hurting this guy... but nothing's going to happen between them. Definitely. But that doesn't mean she hates Madarame. And that kind of situation-- certainly you've seen it yourself at some point-- takes a toll on the crusher and the one crushed upon, you know? As much as you can read Madarame's feelings on his beet-red face, you see Saki anxious, expectant. At the end Saki gets sniffly because she's so relieved that she didn't traumatize this guy with her rejection. People complaining about the "friend zone" is horse shit. It's not like that. Anyway!
(Even Kohsaka, Saki's boyfriend, is on the same wavelength about this: Kohsaka says, knowing Saki and Madarame are having this conversation, "I love Madarame too." This is probably the only profound character moment Kohsaka has ever gotten.)
So we see these two characters in a room-- as they were many years ago-- very awkwardly and gently try and establish this. I was touched. I'd really like to see this section animated, just because I want to hear Hiyama play this scene.
If you wanted to see the Saki and Madarame thing go the other way, the author was curious as well. Read Shimoku's Spotted Flower, in which he casts two characters who are very clearly the same people as Saki and Madarame as a newlywed couple in a few short stories. "There might have been a future like that."
A lot of people I follow on Twitter are a little upset. Remember Read or Die? It was a really fun OVA series from the early 00s about a bibliophile secret agent who could manipulate paper.
It's still fondly remembered, in part due to the obvious nerd-fantasy appeal of the protagonist: she's the "cute, meek librarian" type to a tee.
So here's the Yomiko from the new ROD manga. Everybody's really pissed off about it, even though this is the only image that exists, because it's such a tremendous departure. Yomiko was one of anime's only reasonably dressed heroines, you know. I consider the new Yomiko offensive myself, but mostly because of how blatantly unoriginal this new character design is: the guy who drew Black Rock Shooter should sue!
They're trading common nerd fantasy X (the librarian, old Yomiko) for the new cutting-edge nerd fantasy straight off the Nicovideo weekly top ten. I bet the new Yomiko will be aloof, depressed and robotic. But you know, as bad as it is in cartoons, it can always get worse. As such, I decided to write a little something.
"Taro Toshokan is just an ordinary Japanese high-schooler-- until a girl falls from the Sadness Dimension into his life and changes everything!
"Are you the one who will call me into a new, ecstatic despair? Read it slowly and gently... Yomiko's heart."
This girl wants to organize Taro's shelves, literally and figuratively! But the movement of books is the least of Taro's concerns, because when a new twintailed menace appears from the Gate of Disenchantment, Taro's going to find out fast that he's got to read... or die!"
So be glad you aren't watching that anime I just made up in ten minutes. Japanese media companies, if you're paying, I'll write it.
So I became a webcomic author this past week. Of course, I've no artistic talent and no hope of being as good as the webcomics I like. But never mind all that. I realized I could do a webcomic, and moments after that realization came the comic itself. It's only been a week but it's drawing a tiny Tumblr audience, and these comics are easy enough to make that hey, sure, I can do this for a while. Let's see what happens, right?t The plot summary follows.
"MASAKA THE YOUNG LADY OF HIGH SPIRITS. MAJIDE THE KNOWING OF MYSTERY. THEIR ADVENTURES IN GAMING KINGDOM IT BEGINS TO MOVE WITH LAUGHTER AND E KIMOCHI"
The program I'm making this in is called Comipo, and make no mistake, it's a toy. It works for my purposes-- because I'm making an absurd 4-panel gag comic written in Bad Scanlation English-- but this program isn't going to magically crank out pro-quality work for you. That's not what it's about. That's kind of why my comic is the way it is. Play to the tool you're working with, right?
The fundamental idea of Comipo is that rather than drawing characters (which we all know is totally hard and stuff), we manipulate 3D models and 2D images into the comic we've had in mind. Really simple images like the print club-style avatar I use for the Tumblr (seen above) come out in minutes. All this one involved was picking out facial expressions from a menu, and a little tilting of the models to make it look natural. Working with the models is easy and smooth and fun: you just have to be careful with zooming and expanding the models, as the black cel-shaded lines can come out looking rough and choppy depending on how the character is posed.
You can import any image you like into the comic, but Comipo's very extensive library of premade backgrounds and sound effects actually cover quite a lot of ground. I don't use the many supplied photo backgrounds, for the most part: I think the clash between 3D models and live images is too distracting, especially when they're supposed to be directly interacting with those backgrounds. I use effects and patterns, and Comipo also has a truckload of those.
The characters I'm using for the comic are the exact same as Comipo's default characters. The thing is, you see... you really can't get very far from these defaults. Comipo uses just two base bodies, a male and a female. The two characters you see above share the same body, and there's no adjusting body type or other physical features. The second female model, meant to be a teacher, is the same girl body in a schoolteacher's outfit. The male models are the same way.
In short, in the world of Comipo everybody is made of different parts swapped onto the same two doll bodies. And they're all moe-style highschoolers with only hairstyles and eye colors to separate them. (The guys are really half-assed: imagine a "make your own boring, nondescript lead of a harem anime" generator.) Again, there isn't a huge variety of those distinguishing factors either, and the more characters you try and make with Comipo the more obvious it is that they all look just like each other.
Poses and facial expressions are better, but here there's interface trouble as you have to slog through a long list to get close to the one you need. I've already started to make note of the numbers of useful poses (like the above). While time-intensive, a manual posing option would be nice for people who really want to work this program hard.
Your subject matter is pretty severely limited by all these factors: it's cutesy high-school comedy or go home. The more strenuous the posing you put these models through, the weirder they start to look. Obviously the biggest request by Comipo users has been the ability to import other 3D models into the program-- the vast world of Miku Miku Dance models will make this very interesting when it finally makes its way into the English version of the program.
As it stands, Comipo is absolutely not worth $50 unless you're just that curious, which I was after toying with the free demo. $25 is the absolute highest this should be going for. With a little more variety and freedom this toy could be a vast playground, but as it is it's a walled-in high school. Of course, that doesn't matter much to me: I already have more than enough here to make the Kawaiikochans go on for a decade or three. But then, I never said I was an ambitious creator!
For the last few months we've been hearing from Japanese manga publishers that they're going to try and stem the massive (and very profitable) tide of online manga piracy with a legal solution of their own. This sounds good in theory, but then jmanga.com was unveiled. I wanted this to work out, but I'll put it bluntly: this system isn't going to fly.
Jmanga offers online manga in English at steep prices: on average $2 a chapter a la carte, with full books coming out to anywhere from $8 to $11. These are the same prices we would pay for a brand-new manga volume in a US bookstore, and double to triple the cost of the average small Japanese volume. In exchange for that high price, Jmanga offers no actual advantages. You can't actually download the comic-- it must be read at jmanga.com and at jmanga.com only-- so it's hard to say that you even really "own" the book you bought. If jmanga were to ever go down, and it's hardly guaranteed that this site will stick around long, you wouldn't be able to enjoy any of the stuff you'd paid for.
What's worse is that you can't even "buy" manga right away. First you have to become a subscriber. $10 gets you a one-month subscription and 1000 "points" (since it's launch, you get 1500 right now): basically jmanga's Fun Bucks that correspond directly to dollars and cents. Once you're subscribed, you're treated to the option of buying more points, in case you want to read more than one book in the month.
Free members have a small amount of free content available to them: however, "free previews" of titles are strictly limited to under ten pages. This includes the cover, table of contents, and so on. I kid you not. As such, the previews are completely unhelpful: one I read (Gokudo Meshi) was over before anything even happened. jmanga claims that free members will be handed out small amounts of points, but I can't imagine theyd be able to do much but save up for weeks until they could read a single chapter of a title.
Keep in mind that just next door to this stifling system are at least four or five major, free manga reader sites that illegally provide more manga than you could read in a lifetime and rake in the cash via advertising. Jmanga does not have a chance against these sites, and they've proven that without major legal action, they're not going anywhere. Hell, Mangafox is so flagrant that they've even opened a bootleg merchandise shop.
Plus, yes, a lot of fans fundamentally aren't into the idea of supporting what they like. Hanging out at the Vertical table at Otakon, a girl came by oh-so-excited that Chi's Sweet Home was on the table. She gushed about how cute it was and that she loved it and so on, but when it came to "great, wanna buy it?" she started to waffle and told the folks manning the table that, well, she was saving up for something else at the con, you know how it is, etc. Finally she let it out: "I just read Chi online! But I'm so happy to see it here! Bye!" And she bounded away. She probably didn't even know she was saying "fuck you".
In this market, with this audience, a model like jmanga's isn't going to work anymore. Not in the West, not on the Internet, not in 2011. Even if we're talking about legal choices, Netflix gives you a library of media big enough for several lifetimes for $8 a month. Crunchyroll gives you a massive Japanese library for $8 a month. And people are going to pay $10 for a single volume of Japanese comics in this age of infinite entertainment for anyone with an Internet connection? It doesn't make any sense.
Unfortunately for me, there's a lot of content on jmanga that is exactly what I am interested in. The site boasts healthy selections well beyond just the shounen and shoujo stuff that dominates the racks at Barnes and Noble: really unusual stuff, like manga about a woman who finds herself as a pro dog-walker and a guy who goes around eating bento boxes at different Japanese train stations. It's material so niche you could only sell it digitally... but unfortunately, they want to do it at $10 a digital book.
Did I mention that there's a huge amount of decades-old work from Golgo 13 author Takao Saito?
It's really frustrating to be an manga/anime fan who actually gives a shit about supporting the creators and their work, because Japanese companies go through so much to make that difficult for us. Time and again we've seen Japanese companies attempt to enter the foreign manga/anime markets their way, sticking to high prices and premium membership plans: strategies that are proven not to work in the West. When $50 DVDs and "spend even more!" point programs don't work, the companies in charge say "Well, they just weren't interested" and walk away.
But we know it's not that, because I was just in Baltimore with 30,000 people (of whom I'll charitably say 20,000 actually cared about manga and anime) who paid out the nose just to be with other people who shared that interest, just to share a space and be passionate. So don't give me this "they weren't interested" shit, Japan. We may be some of the problem, but we aren't all of the problem. If nothing changes, Jmanga will simply wind up the next Raijin Comics. I loved Raijin. It still failed.
Since I became infatuated with Japanese mahjong about a year ago, I've just been digging and digging for related material. I've got bookmarked searches on Nicovideo, I'm always clearing out the $1 Kindai Mahjong manga section at Book-Off, and I often find myself looking for mahjong videogames despite the fact that the best online MJ client is just a click away. This kind of thing is just what otaku do.
Anyway, there was a website a couple years back called Mahjong in MAME. The arcade emulator constantly adds new stuff, and there must have been a severe glut in the 80s and 90s, because in almost every update MAME used to add a bunch of mahjong games. They were mostly incomprehensible to the audience, so this site saw and filled the "educate the masses on mahjong videogames" niche. Now it's been a long time since that site was active, and as I find myself digging though mahjong roms in MAME these days, I thought I'd give writeups a shot.
For those of you who maybe were at our panel (I plan to run it again at a certain upcoming convention, but Carl's far, far away) or stumbled upon my old "help with learning" posts, I want to make a note. Do not learn mahjong on arcade mahjong games (unless you're in Japan and on Sega MJ or Fight Club in which case you don't really need me, do you?). Use proper simulations instead: there are plenty. These arcade games are strictly curiosities, and those who know me know too well that I am a curious man.
So, that said, here is Usagi. This is a game by Warashi-- if they're known for anything it's probably for their shooters, like Shienryu and Trigger Heart Excelica-- based on the manga by Makoto Itou (no relation), a regular $1 Book-Off pickup of mine. I will allow the English blurb on the back of the book to explain for me:
FIGHT LIKE A WILD ANIMALS! A MAHJONG GROUP "ZOO" BY HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS GOING INTO ACTION!!
So that's what it's about. You play standard mahjong rounds (East-only) with a few twists. First, this is a team match. The character you see in the middle of the screen is your partner, and likewise the players to your left and right are allied against you. This creates some interesting dynamics. For example, dealing into your teammate is not a disaster. All the points go to them, after all, and that just means you've exchanged points amongst yourselves for no actual gain. It's also a way to end a round quickly when you get the feeling the other team has something good and you want to deny them their points.
Second, the characters are all nicknamed for animals (the title Usagi is the name of the protagonist, who is in the above screenshot) and as such they have certain in-game powers that seem to come up at random. If you're playing the title character, for example, the game will tell you what tiles are dangerous. I recommend picking Jackal (the blonde girl) as your partner. She'll probably win for you!
There are two Usagi arcade games which I haven't bothered distinguishing between: MAME runs the first, which runs on PS1 hardware, but I've taken my screenshots from the sequel, which runs on the Naomi board. The game has weird input problems on my setup (the D and L buttons just do not work for some reason and there's nothing I can do about it) but I used it for screenshots on account of the beautiful high-resolution art. As always in the grey area of emulation, finding the goods is 100% your responsibility. Happy Googling!
(I didn't realize the Manga Movable Feast was going on until a few hours ago, so this is going under the wire. I will begin with the words of a great man.)
"The emptier your head is, the more room there is for dreams!"
-Hironobu Kageyama
There is a mindset that runs throughout Kiyohiko Azuma's Yotsuba&!. It's a simple comic about a strange little girl (she says she comes from "the left") who, every chapter, experiences something mundane and injects it with joy.
And that's it. There isn't a central plot to concentrate on, and the only real mystery-- the green-haired Yotsuba's origin-- is ignored. If you need to know where Yotsuba came from or what things will be like in five years in the Koiwai household, your mind's not in the place that Azuma wants you to be.
The tagline of Yotsuba&! is simply "Enjoy everything." Stop for a second. We're all overloaded with stimuli: the first piece is gone and replaced with a fresh signal too fast for us to appreciate it. Allow yourself to be impressed. One doesn't have to regress towards childhood to simply remember joy, to try and look at the world through its eyes.
Since Yotsuba&! runs in an explicitly otaku-targeted magazine, and because this is an otaku blog, and because if you ask me, the world is going otaku, think about your relationship with media. Geeks of all stripes are in a unique place in this decade: the Internet has absolutely exploded our access. Between a Netflix subscription, Hulu, online retailers, and my hard drive, there is far more video content immediately available to me, right this second, than I can ever possibly finish in my lifetime. My videogame collection contains another several lifetimes.
And that's if I just plopped down on the couch (or perhaps, in ten years, some kind of gigantic, soundproof Facebook-compatible media bubble) and spent the rest of my time as a terrible mockery of life, a media glutton. If our theoretical couch potato's mind is just on getting through it, will the poor spud ever actually get any happiness out of the images flashing in front of his eyes? Isn't beauty worth a pause?
This is one of the reasons I started blogging, actually. I realized how much time I was spending on things like this, so often without really appreciating them. I felt that without pulling anything back out into the world from the experience, without engaging in a conversation, I was just wasting that time. So now otaku culture and I have this friendly arrangement where I try to look deeply and contribute. I think I get more out of the things I love now than I ever did before.
When a new volume of Yotsuba&! comes in, I'm enthusiastic but I try to take it slow. I let my eyes linger on the average, beautiful places Azuma wants to show us. I let myself laugh: at the end of the chapter about making a cake, I just put the book down and fell down laughing for a few minutes. It was all I could do. Yotsuba&! may not have a plot, but it does have a message, one it shows much more often than it tells. It is contagious, and it is something we need to remember.
Recent Comments