More Thoughts on Final Fantasy XV

I finished Final Fantasy XV a few days ago, and I still like it a whole lot. This blog isn't meant to be a full review of the game - instead, I want to focus on something that I brought up in my last FFXV blog post, something that came to much more of a head the further into the game I got.

I'm not going to spoil anything for those of you who still haven't played it, but once you're a decent way through the game, you leave the main continent where you've basically spent all of your playtime thus far. From that point until the end of the game, you stay away from that main continent - there is a way for you to go back if you want, but really, once you're there, you do all the remaining main quests, one after the other, until the game is finished.

I always thought this felt a bit odd, and after giving it a bit of thought, I figured out why. This was literally the exact opposite of what I was used to with my RPGs. With most RPGs, you started, honestly, with very few side quests you could do, if any. Once you're a bit further into the game, though, more possibilities open up, and by the end, when you can travel the entire world freely, you can do even more. Final Fantasy XV, in opposition, started you off with so many different side quests you could do, but once you got to the end, it was essentially nothing but the main story.

It's not just Final Fantasy XV that's doing this - I feel that this has become the norm with many RPGs. Xenoblade Chronicles, famously, has more sidequests than you can count. Bethesda-style western RPGs like Fallout or The Elder Scrolls make this their raison d'etre. For so many of these games (I don't feel Final Fantasy XV is one of them, at least not to an Elder Scrolls level), the side quests seem almost more important than the actual main story. Why the hell is this the case?

If I were to venture a guess, I think game designers today are afraid of linearity. Since Grand Theft Auto III introduced us to the notion of a massive open sandbox-style world, the idea of strict linearity in games has lost a lot of appeal, and I think RPG designers have taken this hard. Final Fantasy XIII had a lot of issues, but one that so many reviewers brought up was it was far too linear. After that, it seemed as though Square went out of their way to subvert linearity in Final Fantasy games - even the sequels to XIII were noticeably less linear than the original. The most noteworthy RPGs of this decade (see above) are all non-linear. More linear RPGs (I'll call them traditional RPGs) are being made, sure, but they're not getting the attention anymore.

As you can probably tell, I don't necessarily think this is a good idea. Perhaps I'm a traditionalist, but I grew up playing '90s RPGs, and I don't want to see that style die out. I feel there is a lot of merit to that style of game design that modern RPGs just don't take into consideration.

Introducing non-linearity early in the form of massive amounts of side quests may, to some, be more realistic - after all, in the real world, one is not limited to what you can and can't do. I get that. But at the same time, when I see it, I can't help but think the game designers are more or less waving their dicks at you, saying "look how much extra shit we put into our game!" Massive worlds are great, and it takes a lot of thought to build the kind of setting like we see in Skyrim. However, designing a game like that more or less tells me that's where they put all their effort. Or most of it, anyway. I don't care how massive your world is, or how many things you can do in it - if you don't have a solid story for it to fall back on, it's all for naught.

Traditional RPGs, at least the very best ones, were able to achieve a harmony - you had an expansive world (not Skyrim expansive, but still, expansive enough), you had great stories, and you had a balanced amount of side quests. I'm going to use Chrono Trigger as an example here - Chrono Trigger being a traditional RPG as well as being, quite honestly, one of the greatest video games ever made. What do you do at the very beginning of Chrono Trigger? You show Marle around the Millennial Fair, before finding Lucca and volunteering to test out her teleportation machine. The focus is on character, story, and setting introduction - we're supposed to get acquainted with Crono, Marle, and Lucca, and by extension learn a little about the kingdom of Guardia. And we do. But in the middle of all that, there are a few little bonus games we can do to add flavor to this new world. We can hit the bell, we can do the soda drinking contest, we can fight Gato, he has metal joints, and if you beat him you get 15 silver points.

The point is, there are still side quests here, but they're small. They're also appropriate to what's going on in the game thus far - you're just a couple of kids wandering around a fair, so it makes sense for the side quests at this point to be games you'd play at a fair. As the game progresses, naturally the scope and intensity of the sidequests increases, to the point where, at game's end, you're literally traversing through a doomsday fortress commanded by the evil Queen Zeal. But again, this makes sense, considering by this point you've got command of a flying time machine and are the only force in the universe capable of stopping a massive alien parasite threatening to destroy the world.

See the progression? The game started off very straightforward and became more nonlinear by the end. In the context of not only Chrono Trigger, but many other RPGs as well, this makes sense - you start off naive and inexperienced - the world is a big, scary place, and exploring it all at once, right from the beginning, is a bit much. The context in the game itself meshes with the context of the player - even if you've played hundreds of other RPGs (like myself), each game is its own world that will be immediately unfamiliar at the start. You, the player, grow with the characters, so by the time you've progressed in the game, you've got the experience to tackle the complex side quests, and can more or less focus on those almost exclusively if you choose to. To me, designing a game like this just makes sense.

Final Fantasy XV attempts, I feel, to try and combine the feel of both the traditional and the modern. You can, from the very beginning, have access to a number of side quests, but those are limited, because the area on the world map you can traverse is limited (there is actually a story reason behind that limitation). I appreciate that attempt, but I still feel the side quests far outweigh the main story from the outset. I'm not saying this makes Final Fantasy XV not fun - I wouldn't have put around 40 hours into the game if I thought that. But I do wish the game would have focused a bit more exclusively on Noctis' immediate story before getting into all the other stuff. I actually quite enjoy Final Fantasy XV's world-building - it's not as extensive as, say, Final Fantasy XII's is, but a lot of careful design and planning was put into it, that much is obvious. I wanted to enjoy that more, but the emphasis on side quests and nonlinearity kept pulling me away.

I think what we all need to understand, in video games as well as virtually every other aspect of life, is nothing is good in extremes. To find a balance is the ideal situation, and what modern video game designers seem to have lost is the desire, or ability, to retain that balance. It may, honestly, be an issue of novelty - the power to create the massive worlds that we see in modern RPGs did not exist in the recent past, and so designers may be so intoxicated by the freedom they possess that they are simply forgetting to balance their games out. Things will probably correct themselves in the future, and I hope they do, quickly. Just because we're given heretofore unheard of potential for the future doesn't mean we have to abandon the inheritance of the past.

Anime Roulette #4: Kaze to Ki no Uta

One of the shows I've been keeping up with during the current anime season is Yuri On Ice, the very popular drama about ice dancing. I figured, I really liked Free, which is a sports show ostensibly made for a fangirl audience, and Yuri On Ice seems much the same, so why not give it a shot? Like Free, I ended up enjoying Yuri On Ice quite a bit - I won't go into all the reasons why, but there's one aspect of the show that really impressed me. With most of these sports shows, there's usually a lot of homosexual innuendo - the characters aren't actually gay themselves, but hinting at homosexuality is an effective method of fanservice for the female fanbase. Yuri On Ice seems to be transcending that - the potential romance between Yuri and Victor has become a focal point of the show, one that is refreshingly understated and unsensationalized.

I can think of very few anime that is willing to tackle the subject of homosexual relationships on that level - manga, yes, but anime is very much lacking. Perhaps gay romances don't have enough mainstream appeal to ensure a successful anime series, or perhaps its easier to just churn out another fanservice show instead. Whatever the case, there are a few shows that have examined the idea of gay relationships, and I can't think of any that's more important than Kaze to Ki no Uta, or The Song of Wind and Trees.

Kaze (I'm just going to call it Kaze from now on, because typing Kaze to Ki no Uta is too damn obnoxious) began its life as a manga series written by Keiko Takemiya, one of a group of women collectively referred to as the Showa 24 Group. To put it bluntly, these women revolutionized shojo manga. They raised the level of storytelling in the genre to that of high literature. Their artwork was elaborate and set the standard of quality that continues to this day. Most importantly, however, was that they were unafraid to tackle controversial social issues in their works, whether it was examining gender roles (still a big social problem in Japan) to, most relevant for this post, homosexual romances. Without the Showa 24 Group, what we now call Yaoi or Shonen Ai in the west simply would not exist.

Despite their undeniable quality and importance, the works of the Showa 24 Group are, sadly, still very much unavailable to us in the United States. We only recently started getting Moto Hagio's major works. We have the fantastic Rose of Versailles anime series, but absolutely none of Riyoko Ikeda's manga has been translated professionally. Even Keiko Takemiya is represented in the US by only two works: To Terra and Andromeda Stories, and both of those are actually shonen manga. Needless to say, the Kaze manga hasn't been officially licensed by any American manga company - there is one group of fans scanlating the series, but their release schedule is inconsistent, and so I haven't read any of it because I'm not confident it'll actually be finished. Thankfully, there is an OVA adaptation of Kaze which has been translated and is widely available on the internet, so that's what I'm going to be taking a look at here.

License this shit, goddammit!

Now, I admit, I was a little worried going into this one, for a few reasons. First of all, Takemiya's manga ran for 17 volumes, and this OVA is only an hour long - there's literally no way to tell the entire story in one hour. Secondly, the fansub that I downloaded began with about five minutes of explanatory notes which basically served to ensure the viewer isn't totally lost at the start. This adaptation of Kaze, then, is one of the millions of OVAs made specifically for fans of its source material, to the exclusion of basically everyone else. Since I've never read a single page of the manga, I was wary - am I even going to stand a chance at enjoying this?

Thankfully, my faith was renewed when I saw that, of all people, Yoshikazu Yasuhiko directed the damn thing. Yas is most famous for doing the character designs for the original Gundam series, but in the 80s he made it big directing awesome movies like Crusher Joe and Arion. How and why a director who more or less exclusively works on sci-fi and fantasy stories ended up directing an adaptation of a '70s shojo manga is beyond me, but I was happy to know such a talented artist was responsible for bringing the story to life.

So let's actually get into the story - it begins, taking a page from A Separate Peace, with the main character, Serge, revisiting the boarding school he attended as a teenager. I don't know if that's how the manga began, but it's honestly a good way to set everything up. The rest of the show is more or less a nonstop flashback to Serge's youth, and right away, we know that whatever follows is going to be some heavy shit.

Who is this Gilbert Cocteau that Serge is literally waxing poetic about? He was his new roommate when he started school, and boy, does he have some issues. He more or less never goes to class, yet he continually gets good grades because he sleeps with other guys in exchange for his exams. And honestly, his personality is quite turbulent on its own. Of course, Serge doesn't have any indication that his new roommate is so tumultuous - I have to say, the OVA more or less beats you over the head with his relative optimism and innocence.

As soon as I saw that scene, I knew that something crazy was going to happen almost immediately, and hey, I was right. Gilbert storms in to the room, violently ill and in the throes of passion. Serge is quite taken aback, though he seems to be the only one on his floor who has any sort of reaction - that reaction intensifies when his floormate Pascal fills him in on what's going on. This all comes to a head when Jack Dren, one of Gilbert's jilted lovers, comes into their room at night, tries to strangle Serge to make him pass out in his bed...

...and then rapes Gilbert. It's an absolutely unpleasant scene, but it works - we aren't told anything of Jack and Gilbert's past, we see only the aftereffects. And those aftereffects make us question everything - what really is going on with Gilbert? Why is he drawn to these frankly homicidal men?

We aren't given any quick answers, but instead we're treated to a side of Serge we've never seen, and honestly were never expecting. Upon waking up from his impromptu strangulation, he fights with Jack until he flees the room, and then, even more unexpectedly, starts barking orders at Gilbert in an attempt to make him feel better.

Not only is his assertiveness completely new, but so is his attitude of care towards his new roommate. Obviously, we can understand that he's horrified by what's gone on, and we already know that he's a pretty good guy to begin with, but this all begs the question - is Serge, who up to this point was horrified by Gilbert's lifestyle, actually developing an attraction for him? That question comes up again and again, and even Serge's other classmates pick up on it, albeit in the most offensive and dismissive way possible.

Though we aren't told explicitly, the impression that I got is that Serge has virtually no romantic or sexual experience whatsoever, so the struggles he has are that much more complicated. This gets even more complicated when, eventually, Gilbert seems to put the moves on Serge himself.

What does Gilbert see in Serge? Like so much else of Gilbert's past and inner thoughts, we aren't told, and again, it works - we want to watch more and find out what the hell is going on in this guy's head. But, sadly, at only an hour running time, it ends before it answers much of anything. Though, I'll be honest, it works surprisingly well here.

Kaze's story, though incomplete and leaving much for us to read in the manga, feels complete in itself. Perhaps the Kaze manga, in its 17 volumes, gives us the entire panoramic view of Serge and Gilbert's relationship, but the OVA gives us only the prelude to that relationship, and it's satisfied with that. It doesn't feel random or arbitrary - Yas was skilled enough as a director to pick one small part of the story and make that feel complete, and he did.

There is a lot left unsaid - we only know Gilbert on the surface, and we only know a tiny bit of his relationship with Auguste, which, from what we're seen, seems to be the determining factor in his violent life. We're given suggestions, though, and those suggestions help us at least come to some sort of understanding of his character. Granted, I was helped by the wonderful notes presented at the beginning, but I feel that even if I didn't have them, I would have understood, and enjoyed, this show just as much as I did.

I did very much enjoy this show, and I think anyone who enjoys tragic love stories or character dramas will get something out of it. It probably was written primarily for fans of the manga, though I think it was well done enough for even someone who hasn't heard of the manga to enjoy. I now very much want to read the manga, and can only hope the scanlation group actually does get around to finishing it - this story has too much potential to leave unfinished.

First Impressions of Final Fantasy XV

Like Power Rangers before it, I can't understate how important the Final Fantasy series has been in my development as the person I am today. I vividly remember the first time I saw one of my friends play Final Fantasy VII back in 1998 - this was my first encounter with any Role Playing Game, so I had literally never seen anything like it. The world was expansive, the story was epic and cinematic in scope, the music was unbelievable, and the graphics, silly as they may look today, completely blew me away.

Yeah, that's about right.

I could honestly write an entire post just about my history with the Final Fantasy series, and perhaps someday I would. But in the interest of keeping this simple, right now I'm just going to talk about my first impressions playing the newest entry in the series, Final Fantasy XV, which was released last Tuesday. I wanted to have this out a few days ago, but I've been playing it so much that I haven't had the time to write. Let that be an early indication as to how I feel about the game at this moment.

In the game, you play as Noctis, crown prince of the Kingdom of Lucis, and candidate for the worst haircut in the history of the human race. I refer to it as emo bitch boy hair.

Lucis is for lovers.

Anyway, Noctis and his entourage are on their way to Altissia, where he will marry Lady Lunafreya, Oracle and princess of the kingdom of Tenebrae. Things don't quite go as planned - the EVIL EMPIRE of Niflheim breaks their pact of nonaggression with Lucis and destroys the capital city of Insomnia, killing Noctis' father, king Regis. In the aftermath, Noctis and Lunafreya are pronounced dead by the empire. As the sole heir to the throne of Lucis, Noctis and his friends must both find Lunafreya and somehow restore peace to their homeland.That's the basic story in a nutshell.

Of course, since this is a role-playing game, there's a lot more going on than just the main plot. There are an incredible amount of side quests in this game, with many of them requiring detailed exploration of the game's world of Eos. This is not a bad thing - Eos is an incredibly detailed, beautifully designed world that, more than any other Final Fantasy world (VIII is probably the only other comparable one), feels like our own. Sure, there's kingdoms run by magic and giants sleeping in caves of fire, but there's also quaint forest villages and outposts settled in the middle of open fields, complete with colorful locals you can talk to. In a way, exploring Eos feels as though you're taking a road trip through the United States.

I saw road trip purposefully - one of the main things people talked about before this game even launched is the fact that you spend a lot of time driving around, in a very 21st Century looking car. I think some were turned off by that, which I found really dumb. First of all, you drove cars, and trains, in Final Fantasy VIII, and I've never heard anybody complain about that. And unlike Final Fantasy VIII, driving in this game is fun, if for no other reason than you can admire the architecture of the game's world.

Let's not talk anymore about the driving - let's discuss the characters instead. Noctis is the most fleshed out so far (of course) - he's a good guy, but being the prince of Lucis, he can come across as very privileged, especially when wandering around what may as well be Eos' version of southern Illinois. His privilege doesn't make him annoying, though, which I feel is hard to pull off. Now that his father is dead and he's effectively king of Lucis, he has to do a lot of growing up, very very quickly. Thankfully, he has his advisors, Ignis (the soft spoken smart guy) and Gladiolus (the tough talking bodyguard) and his friend Prompto, who reminds me of both Tidus and Zell from Final Fantasy X and VIII, to back him up. The four characters are built on fairly reliable character archetypes, but they work well and are effective when played against one another. We haven't gone too far in depth with the other three party members yet, and I'm looking forward to seeing where they come from.

Combat-wise, it's actually fairly similar to Kingdom Hearts, in that everything is in real time, you can only directly control one party member (Noctis, in this case) and it's chaotic as hell. Unlike Kingdom Hearts, thankfully, enemies don't fucking hit you a half a second before you heal yourself and kill you and make you have to fucking watch that cutscene with Riku for the five-hundredth time and...oh, maybe I'm getting off track. But anyway, it's a lot more manageable than Kingdom Hearts, and it gives you plenty of opportunities to retreat if you happen to walk into something that's too far above you.

Honestly, I don't really have too much to complain about (not that I feel bad about that). If anything, Final Fantasy XV has the same problem that similar modern RPGs, like Skyrim or Xenoblade Chronicles, has in their structure. There are so many side quests that the main story can be left by the wayside for hours upon hours - this can drastically reduce the tension provided by that main story. To be honest, I don't know how to fix that - though I will say that I found it more tolerable than Skyrim, since unlike that game, the main character isn't a complete blank slate.

I do have to take away some points for Noctis' hair, though. Anyone who thinks styling yourself like that is a good idea must be insane.

So yes, maybe this blog went on a bit longer than I wanted (it's a recurring trend), but that's what I feel about Final Fantasy XV. Honestly, it's my favorite entry in the series since X was released in 2001. I don't know if I'm alone in that - I don't read reviews for Final Fantasy games anymore, because ever since IX was released, the fanbase has been impossible to please completely, with every game getting mixed reviews. So just do yourself a favor and play it.

That Damn Ghost in the Shell Trailer

As of now, the most popular entry on the blog is where I talk about the trailer for the upcoming Power Rangers movie. Because my ego demands more blog views, I thought I'd boost my view count by discussing another trailer for a movie whose existence confuses the fuck out of me, Ghost In The Shell.

Ghost in the Shell has been a bona fide phenomenon among American anime fandom since the first Mamoru Oshii film was released in 1995. This is, to me, a completely bizarre fact. Granted, anime fandom in the mid '90s was still largely comprised of uber-nerdy, twenty and thirty something computer science majors - this would be beneficial for Ghost in the Shell's success. But Oshii's film is, even for that audience, seemingly inaccessible. It's an art film, pure and simple - a philosophical treatise that occasionally masquerades as an action thriller. There's no rhyme or reason why this movie should have been as popular as it was, and, in many respects, still is. I'm not complaining about this by any means - it's a great movie that deserves its accolades. But so many people seem to categorize Ghost in the Shell as this epoch-defining work of '90s anime - I can't help seeing it as a very, very lucky fluke.

Moving into the 21st Century, the Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex TV series was another massive hit when it debuted on Adult Swim in 2004. This I can understand a bit more - it retained some of the philosophizing of the Oshii movie, but balanced it out with generous portions of procedural drama, political intrigue, and a lot more action. It achieved the rare balance of being both cerebral and accessible, and is hailed, as it should be, as one of the greatest anime TV series of the 2000s. That same year, Oshii's sequel film, Innocence, was released, and can be described as being like the first film raised to the tenth power. It was also successful, despite almost going out of its way to alienate the average viewer.

I'm not going to discuss the original Ghost in the Shell manga, because Masamune Shirow is a complete hack whose success rests solely because his works have been made into animated features that are infinitely superior. I'm also not going to discuss Ghost in the Shell: Arise, the newest animated adaptation, simply because I haven't seen it yet. I've heard good things, though. Either way, the point of all this is to establish the presence Ghost in the Shell has made for itself in the US. Its success is above and beyond 99% of all other anime to have ever been released here.

Which brings us, finally, to the upcoming Ghost in the Shell film.

I'm not going to mince words: the existence of this movie is nothing short of baffling to me. To my knowledge, Hollywood has been trying to make this into a film since the late '90s, after the success of Oshii's film. It wasn't until 2008, when Dreamworks snagged the rights, that it became a concrete reality. Such drive to make a live action adaptation never made sense. I mentioned before that Ghost in the Shell is a phenomenon in American anime fandom. Even if we're to discount my notion that its success is a complete fluke, notice how I said it's a phenomenon in American anime fandom. We may have big conventions all over the country, but the fact is we're a pretty small percentage of people - outside of our fandom, very few people even know what Ghost in the Shell is. If they do, it's probably in the context of being one of the inspirations for The Matrix Trilogy. I'm guessing the decision to produce this movie is based on a mix of all that: anime is a fairly popular thing, and the Matrix movies made a lot of money once upon a time. This is still pretty risky, considering A) The Matrix is nearly 20 years old, and kind of fell from grace once the two sequels were released, and B) most anime movies released thus far have neither been successful nor good. In spite of everything, I guess I'm glad they're taking it though, since, if done right, a Ghost in the Shell movie could be great, simply because the source material itself is great.

The key is "if done right." There have been a lot of different versions of Ghost in the Shell made over the years - which one is the movie going to model itself after? Shirow's manga is so shitty that it's almost guaranteed to be out the window. Oshii's movie, as great as it is, simply doesn't have the mainstream appeal to translate into success - and, quite frankly, without an Oshii caliber director at the helm, it would be a complete disaster. I would assume a Stand Alone Complex-like adaptation, with its blend of cerebral futurism and intense action, would be the most successful. It would probably be the most satisfying, as Stand Alone Complex is arguably the best version of Ghost in the Shell to have been made thus far.

Even if it takes such a foundation, looking at the creative team behind the movie, I, unfortunately, have very little faith. Rupert Sanders is directing the film - the only other movie Rupert Sanders has ever directed is Snow White and the Huntsmen. That's a terrible resume, and it honestly makes me wonder how he managed to get the gig directing this movie in the first place. The main screenwriter, Jonathan Herman, was the screenwriter of Straight Outta Compton. That's a good movie, don't get me wrong - but that's also his only other film credit, and one wonders if the subject matter of Ghost in the Shell is too much for him to handle.

With all that being said, let's move on to the trailer itself. Here it is for those of you who want to watch along with me.

We start off with a short sequence of someone (we're not told who) walking inside a fancy Japanese-style office dressed in a bizarre geisha costume.

I don't know if this image is supposed to make me feel unsettled, but that's exactly what it did. Meanwhile, The Major, played by Scarlett Johansson, waits on top of a skyscraper, ostensibly the same one the office is in. Both scenes descend to chaos immediately, and both need to be taken in detail on their own. In the office building, a massive firefight breaks out, and this entire firefight is, I shit you not, shot in bullet time. It's extraordinarily bizarre, in 2016, to see a firefight shot in bullet time without a hint of irony. Let me go further with this - I mentioned earlier that Ghost in the Shell was a major inspiration for The Matrix Trilogy - is the cinematography intentionally trying to mirror that, in an attempt to do some sort of full circle, it's like poetry sort of thing? Just watching the trailer makes it impossible to know. All I know is the fight scene didn't impress me - primarily because so much of it was filmed from above the actor's heads, like it was Grand Theft Auto 2 or something.

Let's go on to the parallel scene. The major stands on top of the skyscraper, slowly turns her back to the edge, leans back, and falls.

The problem with this scene won't be clear to you if you haven't seen Oshii's film. This scene is a more or less shot-for-shot recreation of the first scene of the 1995 movie. Even if you haven't seen Ghost in the Shell, if you're an anime fan, you've probably seen footage of Major Kusanagi's fall. It's one of the most iconic scenes in anime history.

I'm wondering: why the hell are they recreating this scene from Oshii's film? Are they trying to actually remake that film? Are they just borrowing the scene as fan service, because it's so iconic? If that's their philosophy, it's a pretty lazy way to make a film, and I'm concerned the movie will just become an assemblage of fan service, kind of like how some people criticize JJ Abrams' Star Trek films as being much the same. If their philosophy is trying to remake Oshii's film, all I can say is good luck. But I don't think that's what they're doing - there's simply far too much action for that to be the case.

What makes this trailer so hard to talk about is that they really don't give away ANY of the plot. We would expect that to come next, but no - instead, we're given a series of, again, unsettling images of the city, with Johansson narrating cryptically in the background. I'll give them credit - some of the images are genuinely uncomfortable, like this one of a massive apartment complex.

The sprawl, the claustrophobic intimacy of the buildings - this is a wonderful image of the kind of cyberpunk dystopia that Ghost in the Shell has brought us since 1989. The other images of the city are also pretty cool, though I will say - unlike Blade Runner, which more or less took place entirely at night, this movie seems to take place entirely before a rainstorm. The sky is nearly always grey - I don't know if this is supposed to add to the atmosphere, but I just found it boring.

Moving on - I need to talk about Johansson's performance. I know she's supposed to be a cyborg going through some sort of existential crisis - that warrants an understated performance, sure. But Johansson's delivery - it's robotic in the worst way - I don't feel anything listening to her monologue. This doesn't bode well for the finished product. If the trailer is anything to go by, Johansson's character is going to dominate the film's run time. Having to listen to her drone on for however long this movie's going to be will be nothing less than a chore.

The rest of the trailer more or less consists of two things - action scenes, and more borrowings from Oshii's film. There's a very long and detailed recreation of The Major's awakening, again from the opening of the 1995 movie. Those of you who have seen it will no doubt remember this:

Yeah, it seems that entire scene is going to be included in this movie. I won't spend much time on this, since I'll likely repeat what I've said previously - all I'll say is that it doesn't make me feel any different about the idea of composing an entire film using nothing but fan service.

This part of the trailer requires the least amount of discussion, since it's more or less action, action, action. Some of it isn't bad, but there isn't a ton to write home about. A few things, though. The one other main character we get a real glimpse of is Batou, and I have to say, I cannot fucking stand how he looks in this movie. He literally looks like a third rate cosplayer who started crafting his costume a night before the start of a convention.

He's also a white guy, playing a character named Batou. That's all I'll say of the matter.

Another thing - the song they chose to play throughout the entire second half of the trailer is an absolutely atrocious cover of Depeche Mode's Enjoy The Silence. Seriously, the song reminded me of all those horrible nu metal covers of classic rock songs that seemed omnipresent in the early 2000s. Remember when Limp Bizkit decided to cover The Who's Behind Blue Eyes? Or Korn covering Another Brick in the Wall? Fuck, what a horrible time for music that was. In any case, if that's the kind of music they think best fits the trailer, are we to expect a similar atmosphere throughout the movie? If there's one thing Ghost in the Shell should not be associated with, it's shitty Middle School Metal - simply living in a dystopian future is dark enough to not require it being punctuated by this trash.

You may have noticed this blog went on a bit longer than usual. That's because this trailer raised in me feelings I've rarely felt while watching a goddamn film trailer. Usually, one of two things happen: I either decide I want to see the movie in question, or, in the case of the Power Rangers Movie, I decide I don't. I came into the Ghost in the Shell trailer confused and not knowing how to feel - coming out of it, I feel the same, only amplified tenfold. There are good facets that shine through on occasion, but so much of it is a mishmash of different things that may very well refuse to join together cohesively. Part of me thinks that this movie could be a disaster on the level of Battlefield Earth. Yet another thinks something in it is salvageable. I don't know, and the trailer did nothing to help guide my feelings. And that's fucking infuriating.

I'll end this entry the same way I did for Power Rangers: based on this trailer, am I going to see Ghost in the Shell? I feel like I need to, but not because I have any genuine faith in the final product. This movie fascinates me, and I need to know just how it's going to end, for better or for worse. Thankfully, Ghost in the Shell's pedigree in the US is so prestigious that, even if it does become the first bad Ghost in the Shell adaptation ever made, it won't damage the franchise one bit. It could, however, easily destroy Rupert Sanders' career. But maybe we'd be better off that way.

Anime Roulette #3: Chronus

When I started this blog, I didn't necessarily intend for it to focus on one terrible thing after another. It's no surprise that I'm a fan of terrible things, but hey, I'm a well-balanced guy, I like awesome things too! But when looking over the posts thus far, I came to the horrible realization that THE BEST THING I'VE TALKED ABOUT SO FAR IS THE FUCKING STAR WARS PREQUEL TRILOGY. You know, these movies.

Yes, this clip is so important that it needs to be featured in two of my posts. Anyway, I realize I'm probably overdue for talking about something good for a change. So I was pleasantly surprised when, as I chose a new movie for Anime Roulette, I actually landed on something pretty cool, a short film from 2014 called Chronus.

Chronus is one of the entries in something called the Young Animator Training Project. This is a cool project, funded by the Japanese Government's Agency for Cultural Affairs, that helps train new generations of leaders in the anime industry by giving them the opportunity to create cool little short films. In a sense, it's an ongoing anthology film bankrolled by the government. Chronus in particular was animated by the guys at Studio 4C and directed by Naoyuki Onda - this is a guy who's been around for decades, working on animation and character designs on everything from the To-Y OVA to the new Berserk film trilogy, but this is the first time he's actually been given the opportunity to direct a project of his own.

Giving a basic plot synopsis, Chronus kind of sounds like a rip-off of Bleach: we have a guy named Makoto, who, for some reason, has the power to see grim reapers. This more or less means he's able to see who is going to die before they actually die. Such a power necessarily means that death more or less follows him everywhere, which can lead to some unintentionally funny visuals.

Look in the corner. I feel horrible for laughing at this, but I can't help it.

While many people would probably break down by being unable to escape death, Makoto develops into a kind of stoic: since he's unable to do anything to control death, he more or less stops caring and just lets it happen. This, as can be expected, gives him a rather cold disposition, for better or for worse.

Aside from Makoto, the other major character we're introduced to is his childhood friend Hazuki. While it's implied that the two were fairly close as children, at this point in their lives, Hazuki has done quite a bit of personal growth - she's being actively recruited by NASA (even though she's still in high school - honestly, this seemed a bit more unbelievable than Makoto's ability to see grim reapers) and, most importantly, she's casually seeing a college guy. Even our stoic hero isn't able to keep his cool while thinking of Hazuki dating an older guy.

The bathtub: the best place to let out your bitterness.

We're given a scene of our two heroes having a long discussion - their first, it would seem, in a fairly long time. We see just how far the two have drifted - the two used to hold hands when they were kids, but hand-holding is now discredited as childish and embarrassing. More than anything, we see that the two of them are now living in two very different worlds - we hear so much about Hazuki's accomplishments but next to nothing of what's going on in Makoto's life.

I was, at first, somewhat at a loss regarding why the movie is called Chronus (the name comes from the Greek personification of time), but after watching this scene, I think I have a better idea. Because of his curse, time has more or less stopped for Makoto. Not only does he not see the point in intervening with regards to death, but that seems to have carried over to all other areas of his life as well - he has no prospects, no dreams, no thoughts of the future at all. Hazuki, in opposition, is living a full life in the present and has her future more or less fully mapped out ahead of her. She has seemingly infinite time - Makoto has next to none.

This makes what happens next all the more ironic. While it doesn't seem like Makoto can survive for much longer given his attitude, it turns out that one of the grim reapers has targeted Hazuki for premature death. In what seems like an instant, the girl falls into a coma, with her prospects for survival growing smaller and smaller. Suddenly, Makoto needs to make some tough decisions - if he continues on his stoic path and refuses to speak truth to the power of death, his childhood friend and love interest is going to die in front of him. His tough exterior actually crumbles instantaneously when faced with the prospect of death.

This is the real heart and soul of Chronus, and I was surprised it went in the direction it did. After thinking it was going to be some sort of meditation on fate and death, it rather suddenly shows its true colors: it's a love story, and a story of personal self discovery using death and fate as the impetus for growth. This, perhaps, makes the story more simple (or in the eyes of some, gasp, more typical), but honestly, I think it was a good decision. At only 30 minutes, I don't think there was enough time to develop the story into some in-depth examination on death. However, there was just enough time to turn it into a rather surprising story of young love.

If there's one thing about the story I didn't like, it's the ending, and how long it took. There's one scene in particular where Makoto is forced to travel through this spirit world in order to reclaim Hazuki's soul.

It's a cool looking scene, but honestly, we more or less know what's going to happen at this point, so there isn't much point in drawing it out for as long as they did. That just serves to take away from the natural suspense of the plot. In any case, it's a minor point, all things considered, and can perhaps be chalked up to the fact that this is Naoyuki Onda's first film.

With regards to the look of the film, it's honestly relatively simple, some may even say minimalist. This makes it someone in opposition to the metaphysical and supernatural aspects of the plot. Perhaps this was a way of focusing our attention where it really matters. Even though there are ghosts and portals to other worlds all over the place, at it's heart, Chronus is a down to earth story of love and self discovery - to give it some sort of ultra-stylish aesthetic (kind of like Bleach, honestly) would make it feel like something it fundamentally isn't.

Though it isn't my favorite thing in the world (honestly, I wasn't expecting it to be, anyway), I walked away from Chronus liking it a lot more than I assumed I would. One of the reasons I like anime anthology films is because they're able to tell so many different kinds of stories, and so many of them are able to give you something surprising. Chronus is both able to surprise you and do a good job at telling a conventional story, which is a fairly rare combination. If this is the kind of talent the Young Animator Training Project is churning out, then the anime industry will be in good hands for years to come.

When Infomercial Hosts Go Insane - Ramen Joy

I wanted this post to be about something that would make everybody laugh. But more than that - I wanted it to be about something so ridiculous that everyone who read it would basically have an aneurysm when they were done. Luckily, as I was browsing through my folder of bad infomercials (yes, this is a real thing that I have), I discovered what can only be called the perfect subject. And it has to do with "America's Foremost Cooking Product Expert" (their words, not mine), Cathy Mitchell.

Those are the eyes of Satan.

Cathy Mitchell has been peddling her wares on TV since at least the early '90s, with things like the Snackmaster, and Microcrisp, which is some aluminum foil-like thing you wrap your food in that basically turns your microwave into an oven. Ladies and Gentlemen, the future is officially now.

Despite the obvious kitschy nature of everything she sold, I always kind of enjoyed watching her infomercials. Unlike Billy Mays, whose entire persona consisted of screaming at you, Cathy Mitchell came off like you were watching your grandmother: she was warm, comforting, and a little bit white trash.

The thing with Cathy, though, is that she was already kind of up there in years when she started, so when we got into the 21st Century, I think dementia started to kick in a bit. A few years ago, she released a new cookbook called Dump Cakes, which achieved minor meme status due to its rather unfortunate name and the fact that she more or less just throws a bunch of shit in her pot without a second thought. Here's the video for reference.

Definitely a bit ridiculous, especially the agonizing way she says "AND FINISH WITH A CAN OF SODA!!!" Fucking hell, ordinarily you need the assistance of Columbia's finest cultural export to get that much energy. In any case, when I saw that video I assumed that good ol' Cathy couldn't get any more bizarre. Oh, how wrong I was. Soon afterward, I discovered another of her new cookbooks that, to me, nobody else in the world knew about. The infomercial for it wasn't even on YouTube. I need to spread the word about this - it's just too fucking weird to keep to myself. I present you with Ramen Joy.

Yes, this is an entire cookbook based around how to make full meals and desserts using Ramen as the primary ingredient. I'll give her one thing: it takes an almost fathomless amount of creativity to think of an idea this profoundly stupid. She may chuckle slightly at the notion of her new book, but shit, this woman is earnest about it. Look at this picture.

She bought an entire fucking laundry basket full of ramen! And it cost her under $10! And apparently, with all that ramen, you can make enough recipes such that your family can eat a different meal for the next 30 days. We see a bunch of those recipes, including ramen-encrusted shrimp and ramen tacos. But the most mind-boggling has to be the ramen sliders, which you can see here.

There are about seven billion reasons why this is wrong. I mean, it looks like you just take a hamburger, and replace the buns with...ramen? Like, I assume it's not just the uncooked ramen, because why would anyone do that. But how in the silver fuck is pasta an acceptable substitute for bread? Seriously, can you find anyone who's ever thought, "man, what would make this reuben so much better is if I exchanged the rye bread with fucking fettuccine alfredo." No. Absolutely fucking not.

We're then given a few quick recipes in rapid succession. Full disclosure: because I was so morbidly curious the first time I saw this video (and more importantly, because I happened to have all the ingredients in my house at the time), I actually made one of the recipes. It was the one with the ground beef, ramen, ketchup, and the can of cola. I substituted the ketchup for marinara sauce, because that was a bit less trashy, but yes, I made that. And how was it? You know, that fucking can of cola ruined it - the entire thing had an aftertaste of Coke. Maybe it would have been alright without it, but it seems like Cathy Mitchell is contractually obligated to insert cans of soda into every one of her recipes now.

So, the other recipes. The ramen pizza is just as bizarre as the ramen sliders, but aside from that, I see a common thread running through all this shit. Honestly, all these recipes are kind of just normal recipes that happen to have ramen added to them. The chicken casserole is more or less a chicken casserole...with ramen. The ramen mandarin salad is the biggest insult in the entire show though - it's literally, literally a salad with uncooked ramen sprinkled on top. Look at this shit!

This brings up an interesting, almost existential point. Are these recipes supposed to save us money? I don't see how they can - I mean, you have to buy all the other ingredients, and there are a whole lot of other ingredients. If they're not supposed to save us money, then I suppose we're supposed to be impressed by the novelty of using fucking ramen to make all these things? If that novelty even exists, it wears off pretty quickly. Honestly, I don't think that it does. I think most people are in my boat - they take one look at these things, and they think, this is a goddamn abomination.

Nothing makes that point clearer than by looking at the desserts. Ramen truffles! And my favorite, GRANDMA'S RAMEN APPLE PIE.

Alright, first of all, how dare you assume to know anything about my grandma. Furthermore, what grandmother in these United States would ever, ever even consider, for one goddamn second, to make apple pie out of ramen? Instead of, oh, I dunno, maybe making pie crust from scratch, like normal old people do? For the fuck's sake, I don't even know how to continue without sounding like a lunatic.

I have no idea how successful this book was. I can only assume it was a colossal failure, and that explains why I've never seen it mentioned anywhere. But this isn't the kind of failure that should be buried forever - this is the kind of failure that needs to remain at the forefront of our consciousness for a long, long time, one that will constantly remind us that when human beings really apply themselves, they can not only produce bad ideas, they can produce ideas so bad that it causes those of us that have been blessed with the gifts of common sense and sanity to question whether we have indeed made any progress in the few thousand years that we've been masters of this planet.

I Can Edit Star Wars Better Than George Lucas

Sometimes I forget that I occasionally do cool shit.

Recently, I was reminded of a cool little project I did a little over two years ago, called Star Wars: The Fall of the Galactic Republic. Basically, I edited together the three films of the Prequel Trilogy, in order to cut out all the really shitty stuff and to make them a bit easier to watch (read: better). Apparently, it was somewhat of a success - it received millions of hits on YouTube.

How was I reminded of it? The other day, I got an email saying the video had received another comment on YouTube. This was impressive, seeing as how the video was taken down in February due to copyright issues (I'm not bitter - honestly I'm surprised it lasted as long as it did). Either way, I still have a master copy, and so I took the opportunity to rewatch and reflect.

One of the biggest complaints that the Prequels received was due to the inclusion of C3P0. Most people found the idea that Anakin had built C3PO to help his mother was just stupid, and his role in the film was more or less just fan service (in the worst sense of that term). I agreed, and took it upon myself to purge him entirely from the film. This was surprisingly easy - editing his scenes didn't interrupt the narrative flow of the movie at all. In fact, from an editing perspective, it seemed like his scenes ware more or less all thrown in haphazardly, without regard to what was going on around them, which to me just gives more weight to the fan service theory.

Another thing I was seriously proud of is the change I made to Anakin's character development. The Plinkett Review of Attack of the Clones hit the nail on the proverbial head: Anakin is an asshole from start to finish, which kind of diminishes the impact of a series of films designed to trace his fall to the dark side. The notes I made while preparing for the edit says it most bluntly: "Make Anakin less of a douche." So I did - I had to cut out quite a bit of some of the incendiary dialogue in Attack of the Clones to make it happen, but I think it worked pretty well.

Speaking of that fuck-nut Anakin. Everyone remembers his love scenes from Attack of the Clones, and how incredible they are. If not, here's something to remind you.

Yeah, how could you possibly forget? All that shit is taken out. In the official movies, they kind of just fall in love, really really awkwardly. In my edit, I left in a few scenes of flirtation, which culminates in their first kiss when they're dragged out into the coliseum to be executed. I don't know if it's actually good - all I know is that I like it a whole lot better than what George Lucas shat out.

If there's anything I wish I could change, it would be with regards to the music. Editing around John Williams' score was more or less impossible, which means that there are some kind of abrupt changes to the background score. I tried to make it as seamless as possible, but honestly there wasn't much I could do. Maybe if I knew more about advanced video editing techniques, I could think of a way to better edit around all that. Either way, for what was essentially a hobby project that I did before I went off to grad school, I think it's pretty cool.

Now, if you want to watch it (and I know you want to stroke my ego and watch it!), even though YouTube has it taken down, I put it back up on my Google Drive account, which you can check out here. Have fun!

Blockbuster University (Or, How To Sell Video Tapes Through Mass Psychosis)

I seem to have stumbled upon a thread of commonality regarding the most recent entries in my blog. In my last post, I talked about a terrible TV show, made in 1990, that found a second life thanks to the internet. And today, more of the same, except instead of a TV show, it's a training video made by Blockbuster.

Blockbuster, you may remember, was a terrible, terrible place that, thanks to Netflix, no longer exists. It also is Exhibit A in my argument that nostalgia is basically a prelude to fascism - go on YouTube, and in the comments section of any Blockbuster related video, you'll undoubtedly see people waxing poetic about how they miss going out to Blockbuster and renting movies. As if spending six dollars on a scratched DVD copy of The Patriot starring Mel Gibson is anything we as a culture should aspire to return to.

HE IS PROVOCATIVELY DRESSED, ALL THE TIME.

Anyway, I'm getting off track. In 1990, Blockbuster produced a training video to train their new employees in the fragile art of selling movies to their customers. Long story short: it's fucking awful. And I'm going to talk about why.

Now, I understand training videos are very hard to do well - I've seen plenty that are entertaining in an ironic way, but never have I seen one that I actually consider to be "good." I'm guessing the reasons for this are because training videos are meant to teach people rather mundane and boring things, like how to operate a cash register or how to make a hamburger. Furthermore, though I don't have any evidence to back this up, I'm guessing the scripts for these videos are all written by people at the corporate level who have no knowledge or training in creative writing - despite my wishes, they aren't going to get Thomas Pynchon to write a script about what good customer service is.

"A screaming came across the Blockbuster..."

This, I'm pretty sure, is the main issue with training videos. When I was in school, I had professors that could entertainingly and humorously discuss things like Moby Dick and The Five Points of Fucking Calvinism - if it's possible to do that, then it's theoretically possible, at least in my view, to create a training video that's genuinely funny. But it doesn't happen. All we get are embarrassing attempts at trying to be entertaining that only serves to demonstrate how out of touch company executives are with the very consumer base they're in business to serve. Blockbuster University is one of the most bizarre examples of this phenomenon. Here's the video, in case you want to watch along with me.

The video centers on Marie, a new Blockbuster employee. She runs into Mrs. Harris, the mother of a guy who she wants to have sex with - after awkwardly trying to help her in her movie search (and failing), a mysterious man appears on one of the store's TVs and starts talking to her.

This is Buster Sales, who, as his name, appearance, and voice seem to suggest, is right now probably serving a five to ten year sentence for raping a sorority house. At this point, however, he's basically Marie's spirit guide - he's come down from TV heaven to share the gospel of "Listening, Thinking, and Acting" to help Marie better service her customers. The rest of the film is more or less Marie doing just that.

What makes this film so bizarre is the ways in which it tries to be funny. Other training films are content with more pedestrian forms of humor, like parodying Michael Jackson or, my personal favorite, having a strange black man suck a kid into a microwave.

Oh, I'll be getting to you in good time, my friend.

This film, on the contrary, seems to get its "laughs" (if I could put five million pairs of air quotes around that word, I would) from poking fun at the mentally ill.

Let's not mince words: Marie is a girl who thinks people in the TV talk to her. Buster Sales can't interact with anyone except her, as he explicitly says at one point in the video. Furthermore, we can't forget about the most obnoxious scene in the entire film - to get Marie's attention, Buster appears on one of the TVs and starts banging like crazy on a pair of cymbals.

While Buster sits there with the biggest shit eating grin on his face, Marie has a full-on meltdown in the middle of the store, with every customer looking on in horror. We're supposed to laugh here, but how is that possible? The cymbals are obnoxious as hell, Buster's face makes you wanna punch it until he needs major reconstructive surgery, and Marie's reaction makes you want to call a hospital.

If you think this is just one scene out of many, think again - near the end, we're treated to Marie doing her damnedest to help a woman named Marge Simpson, who's shopping with her son Doug.

Alright, I need to rant for a second. Look, just look at how out of touch these writers are: this film was made in 1990, when The Simpsons was a bonafide cultural phenomenon in the US, and they include a character named Marge Simpson, and do nothing with her. As astonishing as it seems, the """"""Creative Talent"""""" responsible for this film seem to be the only people on the planet who don't know who the fucking Simpsons are. Alright, end of rant.

Getting back on track, this Marge Simpson woman has a son named Doug, and she wants to set him up with Marie. Marie calls Doug a nerd, but when we see him and hear him, we understand that "nerd" is code for "developmentally disabled."

At least Marie has the common decency to treat him like a human being. The same can't be said of asshole supreme, Buster Sales - when he sees him, he basically starts snorting like a pig and making fucked up faces.

Fuck this guy.

I mean, this isn't funny - this is straight up bullying. Remember last post, when I said you have to be really, really good at what you do if you want to do offensive humor? Well, clearly, the guys who wrote this piece of shit aren't quite up to tackling anything offensive. Also, I have to ask, if Buster Sales is supposed to be Marie's delusion, are we supposed to understand what he does as Marie's unconscious feelings towards Doug?

Of course, that's what we think in the moment, but then at the end, we're thrown this curve ball. Marie has learned the gospel of "Listening, Thinking, and Acting" and was able to help all her customers. So we end by being introduced to another new employee, who, just like Marie, is seen talking to the TV, getting the exact same advice!

So I guess every employee is suffering from the same delusion, and this Blockbuster is basically the equivalent to Salem, Massachusetts in the 1690s. Only this time, instead of being lead to accuse innocent people of witchcraft, this delusion causes them to, um, be good employees? So in order to excel in customer service, you need to be schizophrenic? At this point, I don't even know where to begin, so I'm not even going to try.

This film is, undoubtedly, the most offensive thing to come out of Blockbuster's checkered history, and considering that this was a company that was too holier-than-thou to carry any X-Rated films, was owned by one of the biggest environmental polluters in the country, and at one point tried to boycott widescreen DVDs, that's a hefty statement indeed. I'm literally in awe of how awful this film is, and that it was actually shown to other human beings with the goal of teaching them how to be a good employee. I'm so happy they went out of business - I plan on celebrating by recycling and watching the widescreen release of the greatest film of our generation, Boy Band.

I can't believe this blog post, it's macabre!