On anime and video games

I've got about five torrent windows up and running right about now. I probably shouldn't have so many open, because, much as I love this computer for being mine, it doesn't have enough RAM to hold up with too many things open. Plus, I'm also using Firefox, which is a total RAM hog, despite being miles and miles ahead of IE (and most other browsers). I guess you could argue that Opera might be better, but I doubt that. That, and I need harddrive space for music and for what my torrent windows are downloading.

Anyway, I happen to be downloading season two episodes of Tsubasa: Resevoir Chronicles. Sadly, I missed the last episode of the first season, because it got licenced recently. And, the policy that these online anime subtitlers' (known as subbers I think), is to take down a project as soon as it's licenced. 'Course, anime like Naruto is still being subbed, but that's because they're about a million miles ahead over in Japan (just like the comics). I don't usually bother downloading anime, or buying it, or watching much of it anymore. I was motivated to start on this one last year because it's based on one of my current favorite mangas (same name). On the whole though, I will be one of those to tell you that nowadays, a good eighty to ninety percent of anime sucks. The bad kind of sucking too.

The problem, first, is that a lot of anime that gets done is based off manga. Look, I dunno about most Japanophile kawaii-wai jackasses out there, but for the most part, I'm really just not interested in anime adaptions of series' that I could easily either buy for much cheaper at Borders, or download with a lot less hassle (because some pages of manga is a lot smaller than an episode of anime in terms of megabytes...each episode of Tsubasa I'm downloading is about 172 MB each). Also, a lot of the time, the quality of the animation and of character design is extremely subpar when compared to the manga.

And that's another problem in and itself. Anime gets rushed out too fast, the animation is terrible sometimes, and it just leaves a sour taste in my mouth. Of anime studios out there, the only one I have a little respect for is Gainax, because they brought out two of the greatest original anime series out there: Neon Genesis Evangelion and FLCL. Neither are based on anime, and both became extremely populer. Evangelion especially, there are a heck of a lot of nerds out there who love the series. Evangelion's animation quality ain't that great, but its subject matter completely makes up for it. FLCL is in a class of its own, I'd need to devote an entire entry to explain its brilliance.

Finally, more than the anime itself, I hate the fans of it on this side of the world. They think each and every series that gets licenced here is ten times better than anything that could be released from here. They get a warped idea about what Japan might be like based on some animated cartoons about a big-breasted robot girl living with a loser in high school with the power to grant wishes at the expense of said loser's limbs. Japan is not like that at all. Japan has both its good and its bad stuff, just like any other damn country in the world. You go try living there, go ahead and see if you can handle that fucker of a culture shock when you realize that there ARE no robot girls out there waiting to grant wishes for you if you sacrifice your arm. And while I'm at it, American people should stop trying to draw their own manga and stick to American style comics. Manga is JAPANESE manga. You're not Japanese, you're AMERICAN.

But you know, something I find mildly amusing is the fact that Japanese stuff can sell so well on this side of the world, but the Xbox 360, a Microsoft product, is doing terribly in Japan, just like the Xbox before it. Still, as much as I hate anything Microsoft (I'm sorry, but the Xbox systems have absolutely no games that interest me, at all), they might gain more ground when the PS3 is released. God, $600? What the hell is Sony thinking? People will still buy it sure, but goddamn, that system had better have games so awesome they make me cream in my pants. I don't have $600 to waste on a goddamned console. If I had that kind of money, I would've been out of here and in Chicago right now. No, if you ask me, Nintendo honestly has the right idea this time around (finally). They have the cheapest console, and they're out to get normal, non-gaming people (wich is a huge market in and itself). Plus, that control of theirs looks mighty interesting. A lot of cool games could be made taking advantage of that. Pricewise, $250 > $400 > $600. Yeah, Nintendo has the right idea.

Anyway, back to poking my torrents. Oh good, one's finally done. Four to go. By the way, I'm still stuck sailing in Wind Waker. Dear God. Yeah, I'm a nerd. And damn proud.



The Amazing Spider Man, doing what a spider can to...combat illiteracy. Okay, I can see the point, but kindly take out War of the Worlds. I'm sorry, but there's just no making me forget that horrible movie with that bastard Cruise.