Because there were a few.
1. Bikes on the sidewalk: Japan is big on bicycles, which is good, but hasn't really caught on to the whole bike lane idea yet. That's okay. What to me is less okay is how fast they feel they have to fly down these side walks, and how quickly they seem to have to stop over and over. This causes their breaks to get incredibly squeaky. They also have the little bells, so basically something I witnessed every few seconds was two bicycles bearing down on each other, ringing their bells in some crazy cacophony before they each acknowledge that neither intends to stop, then they both stop, which causes other random bicycles to stop, and this giant collective break squeak is, when you're within a few feet of it, literally deafening. It really put me on edge when I was walking around, which is historically when I am on the least on edge. Seems like this is a problem that "ought to have some sort of solution".
2. The orange juice. I have just recently finished a glass of Tropicana Pure Premium Not From Concentrate Orange Tangerine Juice, which is in my humble but quite educated opinion, the best orange juice money can readily buy. Sure, freshly squeezed pulp intact stuff in generic plastic containers is a luxury option in some seasons/locations, and it's hard to deny that that captures the essence of "orange" better than any cartoned beverage, but I honestly feel like TPPNFCOTJ is "better than real", if you will. In a process so poorly known it borders on conspiracy theory, Tropicana deconstructs citrus fruit into their basic chemical components, storing them in large vats, extracting the key nutrients that give it whatever healthful properties it has while obliterating the pesky aspects of nature that lead to early fermentation and taste degradation - allowing the juice to boast an impressive refrigerated shelf life of > 2 months - and finally re-engineering a juice-like substance that has been tested beyond belief to be the best possible orange juice taste originating from only oranges and, in this case, tangerines. This process creeps a lot of people out, but look at the punchline: we are totally content with subverting nature in any other way we can to get something we like better: orange juice in any form is pretty unnatural: why do we draw such arbitrary lines in the sand? The Tropicana corporation has worked incredibly hard to make their orange juice the most appealing to our tastebuds, if not our silly sensibilities about the natural way of how our food would be.
I bring this up to dissuade anyone who thinks I take some sort of "moral" stance against Japan's juice when I condemn it for the flavored sugar-water it is. As far as the spirit of it goes, I couldn't have much more admiration. It just isn't for me. I feel like the scarcity of fruits versus the abundance of fruit-flavoured products gives the cultural identity of fruit taste to the artificial flavor instead of the actual taste the fruit produces. Weird, right? But whatever alright. So they make stuff that's straight-up sugar water and flavor it like it was candy. If it floats their boat. Which it would because it has roughly the same density of water. It just doesn't float mine. What I find amusing is that there, the premium orange juice, like, the most premium stuff you can readily buy, is still Tropicana, but they make just like, typical orange juice from concentrate Minute Maid type stuff. Makes me wonder if in some country that is even more fruit abundant than Canada (i.e. Most countries) the premium stuff is even better.
So yeah, good to be home for that.
3. Chicken gizzard and energy gels – these were the two foods I ate here that I didn't like. Both were tastes I figured I liked with textures that I might like in concept but were actually pretty inedible to me in a way that I couldn't really predict.
Buddha
I realized in Japan that I really ought to become more familiar with Tezuka's works. He, along with Miyazaki, are essential cultural pillars, basic elements that anyone with an interest in Japanese cultural identity, Western animation, or, of course, manga/anime should be familiar with. I am many of these supposed people. So today I read most of Buddha, or at least all of what was online of it. Since it was scans of the Viz official localization, which already is sort of weird, I just assume the last volume wasn't out when these people did the scans. The fact that there aren't actual scanlations of a lot of these classics is weird and sort of disappointing 'cause the Viz translations don't have the best reputation (especially for Phoenix, which is the one I really want to read).
Anyways, the series itself. Before this, my only experience with Tezuka has been a few Atom chapters, one Black Jack volume and Apollo's Song. I think a good analogy that I am not the first to make is that Tezuka is the Japanese Walt Disney. The similarities are actually almost ridiculously numerous, and they were a constant source of inspiration for each other. What's interesting though is that it seems like the Disney classics have a sort of timelessness to them that, when seeing them now, gives a sense not of “age” or even “classic”ness, but like, perpetual relevance? I can't really put my finger on it. Anyways it has this I think because we've been raised in a culture saturated with Disney: beyond even the actual iconic characters or anything, but on the level of our basic expectations of how stories work, cultural narrative modes that people commonly associate with the first place they see them (often Disney movies in the Western world, not only are they often adaptations of older folk tales, they're prime examples of our most recurring story archetypes) and looking back, or even looking at the first time at what other artists you enjoy have looked back upon, comes with a sense of not looking at history, not at the row of old portraits in the hall, but down at the foundation of the house.
So, Tezuka cannot do this for me. I have not been steeped in the tea of the fruit of his labour. Although his work has undoubtedly inspired many of the artists, Disney included, of my formative years, his cultural base is not mine and my expectations of him are not Japan's. It's a shame, I guess. The experience I get re: that is that I know I'm seeing something that is very influential and historic and etc yeah but it's like looking at a foundation of a house I'm not in.
With all that said, Buddha still managed to really impress me. I was a big fan of Hesse's Siddhartha and really find the aesthetic of the ascetics appealing. The art and seemingly out of place periodic wackiness (baseball jokes?) seemed very “old-world” and almost intimidatingly dated (just so no one thinks I did this just for the uh assonance or whatever I say “intimidatingly dated” as in “I don't know how to use this punchcard reader but I have such awed respect for this brilliant old machine” which I think is appropriate here for this style of humour and cartoonish art that seems out of place but has a sophistication I can recognize without truly parsing, of course, this is merely) at the beginning, but after a few volumes the cartoonish art style seemed sensible with the freedom it allowed and the wackiness provided a level of humbled self-awareness and undeniably comic flow that I immediately missed when I read something newer. Characters have blobby features and ill-defined limbs, action scenes often lead to unfeasible bone-defiance, and yet, the emotional attachment one can't help but have for them! It isn't storytelling in spite of art, though, it's through this level of simplicity and comedic timing that one strives for a connection in all the right places, nothing is ever reduced to spectacle, you're never just along for the ride: like the Buddha's followers themselves, the reader and Tezuka walk through the plot, allied in an effort of imagination inspiration to divine the ideal form of the comic.
Is that getting too crazy-sounding? Oh well. Basically I read Apollo's Song years ago and I honestly could not tell you what I thought of the art until today, so I'm happy about that. Combine this with flawless progression, timing, character development, world building and some truly beautiful interpretations of Buddhism and ideas about the human condition and it isn't difficult to see why they call him the God of Manga.
Things I'm working on now
-The tactical RPG. We're "committing ourselves" to releasing something on the 12th of June, no matter what's actually done at that point, so that should be exciting. Progress has been pretty good since I've gotten home.
-A few other RPG projects: the Ulysses RPG and a Yume Nikki-esque styled game. These are both being held up by the fact that I can't sprite and the sprites I find online aren't all that good. I had vastly underestimated that aspect of game development, I guess. Anyways yeah these projects:
--Ulysses RPG: Ulysses is pretty much my favorite book now and I think anyone who can should experience whatever they can of it. That's part of the reason I think the comic Ulysses Seen is such a great idea. The Ulysses RPG would be in the same line, you'd experience the events of the novel pretty much by wandering around and talking to people. I'd really try to downplay the novelty aspect here and focus a lot on presenting the concepts and characters. Probably something that no one would really want to play but I'd hope the effort would be appreciated, maybe.
--Yume Nikki-esque game. I've wanted to make this for... maybe four years now? I think I played Yume Nikki in grade 11, so since then. I'd take it in a more direct, uh, direction than most games inspired by it, though, this would have a lot of dialogue, probably more of a "story", etc. Aside from that the gameplay would still be just exploring around, so uh, no actual gameplay to speak of. Also references out the butt. Or maybe "allusions" is a better word. Not really sure how to describe it. Mainly want to do this because I have a bunch of interesting ideas for things and kinda want some place to just dump them all in.
-Video contest. I found out about a video contest in the area with a pretty big cash prize so I want to do something for that. My problem is that I have no idea if this is like, an "artsy" sort of film contest or they want humor or what. Also I don't have access to a lot of the necessary equipment.
Those are the main things right now I guess.
Death Grips - Exmilitary
Believe the hype, if you have any hype you can believe, I don't know what sort of hype this has outside of one of my friends hyping it up for me. Said friend also said it has "aggressive samples", which I think is a very accurate thing to say. Some arguments about whether or not it can be compared to Dalek, I think it's an okay comparison but doesn't really tell you a whole lot since there's a lot of facets of Dalek that could be relevant. The both definitely have the same sort of rap-industrial (rapdustrial?) aesthetic in a lot of their songs, but the subject matter and "ideology" is vastly different. Oh well yeah if you like Dalek I'm pretty sure you'll like this, at any rate. Really cool to see hip hop structure being used with more and more music. 8.6/10
Tyler the Creator - Goblin
I think dissonance between creator and fan can be one of the most tragic things to witness in art. Yeah, I always make the claim that the artist's views of their work shouldn't be any more valid than any given listener, but when this starts to apply to how people view the artist himself, it can get out of hand incredibly quickly. And yeah, there's a lot of ways to avoid or dissuade this and Tyler has done almost none of them. What he's chosen to do is meet the misunderstandings of critics and fans alike head-on, a sharp contrast to many before him. The result comes across as too desperate to be his best work, but still has all the clever lines and heavy beats I've come to expect from him. Fun times! 8.4/10
13 & God – Own Your Ghost
Worthy followup, but nothing spectacular. I mean that in the most literal sense, none of the songs had the sort of crazy spectacle that songs on the self-titled sometimes got. This is just a bit too restrained and I guess simple? There's some other word I can't think of right now that describes it even better. Basic, maybe. Anyways yeah it's like, well, how bad can it actually be with these musicians? And it's still quite good, yeah. “Death Major” is probably the best part. 8.5/10
Beastie Boys – Hot Sauce Committee Part 2
Fun times, but the opening track just seems to dwarf the rest of them for me. 7.6/10
Digitalism – Love You, Dude
Really solid really catchy really house house music. I probably would have loved this a lot more back when I was listening to a lot of house, nowadays I usually go to hip hop when I want to listen to something for catchiness/funtimes etc. Still, very well produced followup that lives up to the time spent working on it, definitely reflects the expertise of the producers. Also nice to see them do what they're good at instead of just doing whatever is popular in electronic music at that second (atm I think it is nowave postdubstep). 8.8/10
Efrim Manuel Menuck – Plays “High Gospel”
Like most GY!BE solo spinoffs, Efrim gives us something undeniably beautiful and haunting and atmospheric and passionate and such but equally undeniably just a detailed view of one facet of another band. I found myself looking for the rest of the band at times, although that is definitely a fault at this end. Other times the music was very adventurous and experimental and I found myself wondering just how far it would go. So yeah. I feel like I should write more about this later because it is very good but I think I need to listen to it a few more times first.
Madoka OST vol 1
Ah, amazing. Pretty darn amazing. “Credens justitiam” is probably still the best but a lot of the other ones really impressed me. It seems almost miraculous that so many things could go so right with this show. Like, where would it be if everything else was the same but the soundtrack was just bad or even standard? So yeah great stuff, can't wait for the second volume to come out.
I guess that's about it, I should get back to doing other things.
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