My History with Anime

I know some people (especially those from the West) have an aversion to anime and manga, but I’m not one of them. I’ll even admit that at one point in my life I was a huge fan. It probably helps that anime and manga (which I’ll simply call “anime” to consolidate the two words henceforth) are so ingrained in the Taiwanese culture that I got affected by them, going far enough to qualify as an otaku. I’ve been watching anime before Dragonball Z even reached America’s consciousness. Doraemon and Yaiba are just examples of what I followed in my formative years, and I even bought every Slam Dunk manga using my own allowance.

But since college, I’ve stopped being a dedicated follower of everything anime. I could blame this to the lack of free time, but the more I reflect on it, the more I see the possibility that my interest in anime was also dwindling. It didn’t help that the stuff I saw in my freshmen years weren’t exactly golden: Gundam Wing, Vandread, and Hellsing, while interesting in their own rights, did not engage me the way most of the animes I’ve seen pre-2000 did. Those two, plus the glut of unoriginal shounen anime (i.e. the action-packed ones where a fight scene can go as long as 5 episodes with only 10-minute of actual time progression) and harem anime (i.e. one loner surrounded by 5 quirky attractive women who all fawn for him) wore me out. And while I occasionally complete a few series, I just did not bother to keep abreast to the new releases anymore.

2007 was a special year for me, because that was when I successfully rekindled my love to two hobbies I had while growing up, namely RPGs (you can thank Persona 3 for that), and animes. I heard of Death Note earlier, but only then did I manage to read the manga and watch the anime to completion, and I loved both (the manga more than the anime, though). Battle Royale’s manga, while not my favorite incarnation of the franchise, rocked by giving more backgrounds to the characters that the original novel merely glossed over. Nodame Cantabile’s, despite its flaws, had an energetic depiction of life as music school students, and was refreshing in an industry marred with too many me-too hackjobs.

Returning to Taiwan, I got overwhelmed by their enormous anime shops. Plenty of stuff on their shelves had me curious, and finally, I couldn’t help but regret just how out of loop I’ve been about the industry.

So, I have a new goal for this year. This won’t be anything as crazy as my attempt to finish 52 books last year (I eventually only finished 45) but I have a list of anime series I’m going to watch from start to finish. Some of them are old titles, but most of them more recent. Expect to see impressions/reviews from time to time, although I don’t expect the time intervals for those posts to be short. You can also suggest a few other titles.

See what I have planned so far, after the jump. Their opening movies are included too, just so you can get a preview.

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Taiwan Thingy

…but I don’t want you to think that everything has been gloomy in my weeklong Taiwan trip.

One of my younger cousins could at least carry on a decent conversation with me, or at least how much my limited grasp of Chinese permitted for decent conversations. As another confession - it’s in vogue lately, last I checked - I’m not really the best Chinese speaker you’ll encounter. I speak English a lot better than Chinese, and since my English is already clumsy, just imagine how much worse my Chinese is (I’ve never read a Chinese book from start to finish; the farthest I’ve gone was finish entire volumes of Chinese translated manga, like Ruruoni Kenshin and Slam Dunk). Anyway, back to that cousin. Having never been to the Philippines, she asked about how it’s like here. I told her about the weather, which can go as hot as 37 degree centi-grate-on-my-nerves. I also told her that you can buy firearms in some malls. She was shocked beyond imagining. I guess Taiwanese have their life way smoother than here, though it’s still funny how some people there whine about how their country is ultra-dire.

Also, a Taiwan citizen will receive cash coupons worth $100. My family received $400, and I used that money to buy my mom an ASUS Eee PC, and then to buy myself a few mangas and computer books. Btw, there are way too many computer books in Taiwan, more than in USA, and cheaper too. The only caveat is that they’re mostly in Traditional Chinese. I’m bummed by that, but I did eventually buy a few of those Chinese computer books to motivate me to polish my Chinese while simultaneously learning Illustrator and CSS.

The one thing I’m much bummed about with coming back to Manila is with how monotonous the sceneries here are. Every-freaking-where, I only see identikit malls. The bookstores are not big enough, and there aren’t as much computer shops here as there are in Taiwan (plus the technology lags, despite being pricier. That’s understandable, though, since Taiwan is one of the leading manufacturers of computer technologies. Acer, ASUS and BENQ are just some examples of companies from here). At least in Taipei, there are more things to do, like going to museums that actually have visitors in it, or to parks that actually give you senses of serenity. And if I grow tired of Taipei anyway, and crave for a more nature, I can always take the train. For just an hour, I’d already be by the mountainside or the riverside or both. In Manila, there’s no way to go to the mountains or beaches without using up more than 3 hours of travel time, much thanks to our lousy transportations.

With all these said, I’m going to put aside thoughts about my Taiwan days for now. Carpe diem, I hope.

Worlds Apart

My head’s still dazed from my trip to Taiwan, which has already ended for 5 days. I guess this happens because seeing the differences of the culture here (in the Philippines) and there can be a bit of a sensory overload.

I guess I never wrote this part about myself in any of my blog posts, but I’m a Taiwan citizen who has lived here in the Philippines for more than 20 years. Though most of my friends here are Filipinos or part-Filipinos, my parents are Taiwanese immigrants born and raised in Taiwan. Growing up this way, I’ve often been confused by the clash of ideals stemming from Filipino and Taiwanese culture, and by the not knowing of which one I prefer. As a result, I’m chronically laden with crises of identity, and somehow I’m a bit resigned to believing that I’ll never really belong to either, so I get my inner peace by observing their cultures’ strengths and weaknesses.

My father and his siblings (along with their spouses, so that includes my mom) have for long lived apart, but few days ago they returned to their hometown in Shuangshi, Taiwan. Some of their children - me included - also went to that place, but I only saw all (my father side’s) cousins on the day of my grandfather’s funeral. The last time I saw all of them together was also the first time I ever saw all of them together, and that was 3 years ago when it was my grandmother’s funeral.

It is funny how in all of my 25 years, I’ve only seen some of my cousins twice, even if the youngest among them are already on the fifth grade. I couldn’t even recognize some of them (as an aside, I actually have a friend who was on a similar situation, and it led him to having this awkward monologue: “Hey, [he/she] is cute! Wait, WHAT?! That’s my cousin?!?!?”). I was already 22 when I was first called 哥哥 (“ke-ke”, the Chinese word for “big brother”) by anyone related to me by blood. As of now, I’ve only been called that twice, despite having 5 younger cousins (and 4 older ones). It’s kinda obvious how much of a stranger I am to them.

Every time my older cousins open their mouth, they talk about work, such as how they get paid enough to own secondhand cars and apartments in the suburbs. What was really disheartening was their reluctance to connect with me on a personal level; instead the vibes I get from them is more like that of two job applicants haughtily comparing resumes - whatever happened to kinship? And maybe this is just my foible, but I could not bear watching them being so workaholic when the situation wasn’t calling for it: my cousins left our hometown - if they’ve even visited - immediately after the funeral was over. The same thing happened after my grandmother’s funeral, and some of them never came to visit in the interlude between the passing of grandma and grandpa. For goodness sake, my grandparents took care of them back in the days, and this is the homage they receive?

Yet this is the microcosm of what typically happens in Taiwan’s households. I see parents working the extra mile to secure brighter futures for their children, and I see children become ungrateful youths who can’t even be bothered to go out with their parents. Outside of Chinese New Year (that’s today, by the way) you won’t see Taiwan youths together with their parents. In some cases, it is already considered an achievement if they visit their parents a day a year. I once heard from my uncle that in the past 10 years, he saw my father, who lives in a different country, more often than his own daughter, who lives an hour of train ride away.

Whenever I’m in Taiwan, I’m happy to see that even people of lower-income ranges can enjoy much of the privileges that their elites enjoy, yet I grieve for the disconnect of the old and the young. In the Philippines, I’m glad that most people keep their families close, but I’m disgusted by seeing our elites living the “first-world” life while the proletariats become homeless. That gap between Taiwanese generations is the same gap between Filipino social classes. I do not know which one I prefer; hence, I just watch behind fences.

My Return

So I just came back from Taiwan. My head is still spinning because of all the things I went through in the past seven days. The trip overwhelmed, and it didn’t help that its purpose was to get me to where my late grandfather would have his funeral. It was a sad week. Tiring, too.

I have a bunch of stuff I am trying to post about, but it’s getting late, and I need a good night’s sleep. So, for now, I’m gonna show you some pictures of hilariously bad English.

Here’s a sign on top of a urinal:

When I first read it, I thought it was supposed to be a poem, then I saw the Chinese characters and understood that what it was really trying to say was to “stand close to the urinal”. Which raises this question: Are men so stupid as to forget to pee close to the urinal when there are no signs (actually, nagging women) reminding them to do so?

How about this gem of wisdom above a hand-dryer?

The Chinese characters state that this dryer uses infrared, but I don’t know of anyone who actually gives a damn about such a thing.

My 10 All-Time Favorite Videogame RPGs

It’s been a while since I last sought the time to write, and I don’t want to keep disappointing my few readers (whoever they are) with lame placeholder posts. So, after a month-long slump of productivity, I’m now going to churn out something not-so smart, but fun anyway.

This post is about my top 10 Videogame Role Playing Games (RPG). I’m not going to discuss what makes a videogame an RPG, so if you’re interested in that, read the wikipedia entry. If you want to know what videogames I am qualifying as RPG, go to rpgamer and you’ll find that all games I included in this list are archived there. Just so we don’t split hairs over the definition, okay?

Btw, this is in any order of preference, because I’m too fickle to decide which one I like over the other.

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Thought for the Day

It’s a universally accepted truth in life that all vacations are too short.

Seriously, that’s all I can say. I haven’t really gotten to the frame of mind of regularly updating my blog yet (as you may have concluded from the recent lack of new posts) but I’m hoping that by next week I’ll be all ready to start galloping.

Well, then again, I have to go to Taiwan by then.

Hung Over Again

I’m five days late from all the greeting, so before this becomes as out of place as saying “Merry Christmas” on a February, I’m wishing you all a Happy New Year now.

Right, I finally had that out of the way.

This blog had been inactive for a week. I was on a vacation, although unlike last Christmas when I went to Shanghai, this time I just stayed home playing videogames - I rarely play for more than five hours on other months, trust me. I hadn’t finished reading one book, and I only accomplished 10% of the more productive stuff I originally planned to do then. Oh well, the week passed was lazy indeed.

I’m not prepared to meticulously write about pointless stuff now, so I’m going to talk about videogames again, because videogames seem to be the topic I can be most at ease with (that’s not to say I write well about it, though). There were plenty of games I had been rotating with then.

First, there’s Mirror’s Edge. It’s sort of a platformer (meaning the player jumps around a lot) in much the same vein as Prince of Persia and Tomb Raider, but what sets this apart from the rest is its taking the first person view, and this is not always a good choice because fit never give the most accurate field of vision unless, of course, you’re a guy who wears the eye protectors horses wear (I’m sure some people wears those). Running and jumping is supposed to be done fast, and a field of vision this limited often hampers the flow of the game. That said, though, I think I liked Mirror’s Edge. It’s not the best game I’ve played, but it does manage to be exciting since it always forces you to move really fast, plus I just gotta admit that leaping from one building to another a la The Matrix is always exhilarating.

It’s not only in Mirror’s Edge that I’ve been having my share of challenging jumps, though. N+ is even more brutal. It’s a Flash-based game with very minimal presentation, and I merely play as a stick figure. All stages only have one goal, and that is to reach an exit before the time runs out. The only thing to do here is to jump and to avoid obstacles. Yes, it should be boring, but it never is thanks to the wonderful level designs. Or maybe because it plays on the players’ inherent desire to get through all challenges, no matter how frustrating. I dunno.

Other games include Lost Odyssey, which is sort of the Final Fantasy for X360 – right down to the sprawling plot and the fully-orchestra’d soundtrack; Far Cry 2, which is an FPS where the player is tossed in a huge world and left to decide what to do and what missions to take. Mass Effect, a sci-fi RPG with epic plot, customizable weapons, and alien lesbian sex.

But the game I’ve been the most fixated wtih is Persona 4. I can rave on and on about it, but I’m putting that off for another time and for a more focused post (I hope).