Pocky

I didn’t know Wal-Mart carried Pocky.

Any anime fan knows Pocky, even if they don’t know it by name.  Whenever they show a group sitting around eating snacks, invariably the collection of snack items will include some stick-like things.  Those are Pocky.  If I recall correctly, Mizuho from Please Teacher* was quite fond of them, although they were called “Pochy” in the anime, probably to avoid trademark infringement or something.

I’ve always wanted to try Pocky.  I had already tried one of the other classics I had seen in anime: Ramune soda, in the Codd-neck bottle.  As a novelty, Ramune is very cool, especially the bottle (which I still have).  As a drink, Ramune was underwhelming, to say the least.

And how does Pocky taste?  I’ve only tried the chocolate ones so far, and they’re…underwhelming.  The chocolate covering is like dark chocolate and not very sweet, not at all like most chocolates I’ve tasted before.

But for 93¢ a package, it was worth it just to see for myself.

*Oh, and Please Teacher is #1 on the “Top Ten Anime That Are NOT Porn But Totally Sound Like It” list.  #2 would probably be Big O.

Revisiting Sylvarant and Tethe’alla…and Spira

With a sequel on the horizon, I decided to play through Tales of Symphonia on the ol’ GameCube a few times.  This is a game that surprised me—as a diehard Final Fantasy fan, i believed no other series could deliver the RPG goodness like Squenix’s flagship series could.  And I was wrong.

Tales of Symphonia shares a lot in common with Final Fantasy X, which was released a couple years before.  In both, a girl (Colette/Yuna) goes on a quest to save the world according to the beliefs ingrained by the local religious organizations (Church of Martel/Yevon), a task that would result in her death.  Both are accompanied by a badass swordsman (Kratos/Auron) and an older-sister type (Raine/Lulu).  Both are romantically entangled with the male lead (Lloyd/Tidus).  The male lead’s sidekick carries a goofy weapon (Genis and his kodama/Wakka and his blitzballs).  In both, they are eventually joined by a roguish young woman who is considerably cooler than anybody else, and hails from a distinctive culture (Sheena/Rikku).  In both, the heroes decide not to go through with the false path that had been presented to them, and instead kick reason to the curb and do the impossible, and save the world(s) and the girl, too.

Opposing religious dogma is a theme in both; indeed, had the heroes followed the instructions their priests and pastors had given them, Colette and Yuna would be dead and their worlds would still fight for a limited supply of mana/be harassed by a gigantic sea-monster suck.  There might be a moral there, but, really, who plays video games for their morals?

The cel-shaded look and more likeable characters really made Tales of Symphonia stand out to me, and I’m having a blast replaying it, and looking forward to Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World to come stateside.

Another similarity: both games have a direct sequel that picks up two years after the finale of the first game.  Hmmm…

Command and Conquer: Red Alert 3

I have always been a fan of the Command & Conquer series; you could probably say that real time strategies are my favorite games. So as you can imagine I am looking forward to playing Red Alert 3 especially the Japanese side. After watching this review I wish that they would do a little innovation because all of the Command & Conquers do feel more or less the same. While that makes each new game easy to pick up and play it also makes them feel a little stale. Also another thing I noticed was they got a different Tanya . I haven’t played the game so maybe the new one does a good job but I like brunets better than blonds.

Kannagi, “Sisters”

Yes, it’s officially a Love Hexagon, with Jin, Nagi, Tsugumi, Zange, Kimura, and the as-of-yet-unnamed person who Nagi mentioned she liked in episode 3. Of course, I know Kimura, as a minor character, does not have a chance, but she still could be used to create a little drama (that, and I just like her character).

Nagi and Zange are incarnations of the same deity, it seems, split into two because the people in ancient times were too lazy to figure out a way to build a bridge to cross the river. In any case, they are not “sisters” in a literal sense, they are different versions of the same being.

…but then again, they’re not that different, either. Both are arrogant and selfish, but Zange, as the imōto (younger sister), seems to be a little more villainous, despite her cute-and-helpless act. Of course Zange is going to latch onto Jin—in a harem anime, if a character is introduced as the sister of another character, they automatically become a romantic rival. It is required of the genre (there are a few notable exceptions, such as Megumi from Ah My Goddess).

Now, in the next episode, they need to introduce whoever it is that Nagi was thinking about when she said she already had someone she liked, and bonus points will be awarded if this mystery man likes Zange and can’t stand Nagi OR instantly falls for Tsugumi.

Of course, it will probably be both.

The Mecha Monogatari: Appendix I – the Ranks of the Rikujō Jieitai

The Rikujō Jieitai (陸上自衛隊, Ground Self-Defense Force) is Japan’s army.  The ranks of the Rikujō Jieitai are as follows:

Rank	Short Form	Translation
santō rikushi	sanshi	private third class, recruit
nitō rikushi	nishi	private second class
ittō rikushi	isshi	private first class
rikushichō	shichō	leading private, corporal
santō rikusō	sansō	sergeant third class
nitō rikusō	nisō	sergeant second class
ittō rikusō	issō	sergeant first class
rikusōchō	sōchō	sergeant major
jun rikui	juni	warrant officer
santō rikui	sani	second lieutenant
nitō rikui	nii	first lieutenant
ittō rikui	ichii	captain
santō rikusa	sansa	major
nitō rikusa	nisa	lieutenant colonel
ittō rikusa	issa	colonel
rikushōho	shōho	major general
rikushō	shō	lieutenant general
rikujō bakuryōchō	bakuryōchō	general, chief of staff

Titan pilot candidates are conscripted as santō rikushi; once they complete basic pilot selection, they are promoted to ittō rikushi and transferred to one of the four titan pilot academies. When they complete academy training, they are promoted to jun rikui. Most titan pilots never gain higher rank, either due to a lack of interest or due to their early demise. Due to this, pilots who are both willing and qualified to take on actual leadership roles are allowed to do so, even if this means they are promoted far faster than non-pilot officers, sometimes even reaching the rank of nitō rikusa by the age of 25.

“Aitakatta” and poor translations

According to the Japanese Wikipedia entry on AKB48 (as translated by the 1.0.4.4 version of the Translator add-on for Firefox), “AKB48 (FOTIEITO EKEBI), Akimoto Yasu a full production by 2005, was born to a woman Idol group. Akihabara, a private theater is a theater AKB48 and performances here are almost daily.” Well, I’m glad that got cleared up.

Among the “Issues and Problems” there is a mention that “Theater BLT, such as CD and DVD will be sold at the theater, you shake hands and the novelty of mercenary participate in the purchase of tickets because, CD and NE BLT and a lot of theater and the surrounding circumstances to be dumped Has occurred.” I don’t know what I’d do if that happened to me, but at least you can buy a handshake and a hug for ¥1,300 (“The sweet-hip (1,300 yen) → purchase of a handshake and a hug from the implementation committee.”). I wonder if they have gift certificates…

Yeah, the Translator add-on is of limited use to me.

Bang Bang Bouquet

For the first time in well over a year, I broke out Shinobu-chan, my Glock 19, and fired off a few rounds…while recording a first-person view with my digital camera, a feat that stretched my decidedly sub-par coordination skills to their limit.  Aiming through the viewfinder of the camera while at 2× zoom is not as easy as it sounds.  Amazingly, it all went down in one take, which is good, because I only had one loaded magazine with me…

Sigh. Now I got to go clean her…

The Dungeons and Dragons of Haruhi Suzumiya

The Mecha Monogatari, Chapter I

Hijū sat in the cockpit of her titan, synchronized with the system just enough that she could accept the visual inputs from the titan’s optical sensors while she ate her ice cream. It was chocolate, and despite it being in a box that had once held a name-brand ice cream, it was not store-bought but homemade by the widowed lady who lived in the apartment downstairs from Hijū’s, who simply reused the cartons.  Hijū knew that her uniforms were starting to get a little tight, but she wasn’t terribly worried. She rarely got terribly worried about anything, even though she risked her life in battle on a fairly regular basis.  Being three or four kilograms over the ‘ideal’ weight was not even worth thinking about.

“Hijū” was not her name but her shikona, her ‘stage name,’ the name she was known as in the community of titan pilots. Her real name was Nagaoka Misaki: a family name inherited from her father’s family, a personal name selected by her mother because it sounded pretty. Very few people called her either, anymore. Only the most renowned pilots had shikona. Any pilot could have a nickname, but to be known by a shikona was one of the highest honors. She was Hijū, the Soaring Eagle who launched herself off of a skyscraper to gain the element of surprise in a pitched battle versus a pair of elite Eschatos during a battle in the Ibaraki prefecture four years ago, when she was only nineteen.

Cowabunga, Dude

NOT BASED ON ACTUAL EVENTS, I SWEAR