The Value of Anime

Posted on April 22, 2017 by Adam Randall

At the start of this year, I decided that I should try to watch more anime. My reason for doing this was simple: I have a lot of close friends who enjoy it a lot and I felt like I was missing out. And, having tried my hardest to consume more of it since the start of the year, I can firmly say that I was missing out.

I feel like, if you haven’t seen much anime, it’s easy to discard it as just being a different art style or as all being the same. This is completely untrue. Not only does anime cover quite a selection of different genres, but it reflects several stylistic choices beyond simple art. There are certain types of music you’d expect to see in anime, a certain level of emtionalism, aspects of Japanese culture and values and lots of other small things which set it apart from types of animation made outside of Japan.

Don’t get me wrong: I am by no means an expert. Since the start of the year I have only watched the entirety of Assassination Classroom and the film A Silent Voice (and a couple of other films in the past.) These two things are very different, but the more anime I consume the more I begin to understand what it really is. It’s been a useful and enlightening experience for me and I will continue to watch as much as possible. It’s a shame that anime is much less mainstream than western animations. I guess the fact that they are international productions is the only thing that stops them from being so widely enjoyed here.

I’ve grown to view anime as a unique medium for storytelling. To discard it would be to discard a wealth of stories. Not watching anime would rob you of a number of fantastic experiences, just like not play video games would do. Or not watching TV shows. Not reading books. Not watching films. Of course, everybody has their preferences, but I would definitely suggest dipping into anime every now and then if you can and I would certainly advise that you don’t ignore a piece of fiction simply because it is anime. Anime is an art form like any other.

(Don’t miss today’s Finger Puppet Show!)

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PiCOPiCT

Posted on April 19, 2017 by Adam Randall

This review is going to be a little different from others. Usually I won’t write a review until I have completed a game, but I haven’t completed PiCOPiCT and that’s not because I don’t want to, but because I don’t think I can – and that’s not due to difficulty…

PiCOPiCT is one of only a few games which were made exclusively for the Nintendo DSi. It is a download-only puzzle game. How it works is that you have a selection of different coloured blocks at the bottom of the screen and then shapes of different colours start to descend from the top. You take blocks from the bottom and then add them to the falling shapes in order to make squares and rectangles so that they will disappear. As these shapes disappear, the blocks that made them up go up onto the top screen and start to form pixels of 8-bit NES characters, which come to life once formed. There are characters from Super Mario Bros., Balloon Fight, Ice Climber, The Legend of Zelda and other NES classics. The music is remixes of the music from these games.

In writing, it sounds exactly like the kind of game I’d really enjoy. So what’s wrong with it? The problem is that this game is not colour blind-friendly and as I am colour blind, this was very annoying. I was okay for the first few levels (other than the odd mistake) but I eventually got to an Excitebike level and there were lots of different shades of yellow and orange and I just couldn’t differentiate. Every time I thought I was doing very well, I was actually just mismatching the blocks and doing badly. Then I’d lose. I have had occasional frustrations with games because of them not accommodating colour blind players before, but this was the only time that the game had essentially been made unwinnable because of it.

So, if you’re not colour blind, I am sure you will have a lot of fun with PiCOPiCT but if you are, don’t buy it. It was quite disappointing, because I was having quite a lot of fun with it at first and I am the kind of person who always has to play a game through to the end – even when I’ve hated games, I’ve stuck with them until I was finished. Being unable to get to the end due to things which are entirely out of my hands is very frustrating.

I guess I can’t really give this game a score, like I usually do. I hope that I won’t encounter a game like this again, but I am sure there must be others out there (unfortunately.)

(Don’t miss today’s Finger Puppet Show!)

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Three Fictional Teachers That I Like

Posted on April 18, 2017 by Adam Randall

One goal which I have had for a long time is to become a teacher. While I am not necessarily working towards it at this point in my life/career, it’s still something which I’d like to do eventually. What I really like, is the way that teachers can have a positive and significant impact on the lives of others. Recently I’ve been particularly affected by a few teachers in works of fiction, so I decided to write about each of them and why I appreciate them so much as fictional characters.

 

Rosemary Hunter
Miss Hunter is the teacher on The Waltons who appears from Seasons 1 to 5. There are one or two others who come after her, but none of them were really all that memorable. Miss Hunter taught John-Boy and did a lot to help him discover his potential as a writer. I really liked how John-Boy and Miss Hunter were actually friends too and really cared about one another outside of the classroom.

In one episode, “The Fire” she is particularly admirable where she stands up to a violent creationist who insists that she stop teaching evolution and then continues to teach, even after he burns down her school. Her progressive views are very appreciated in the 1930s world of The Waltons and her calm, reasoned approach to everything makes her a very likeable character. What helped to make her even more likeable to me was the fact that her character fondly reminds me of an English teacher I had while I was in Sixth Form who did a lot to encourage me with my own writing. It’s a terrible shame that Miss Hunter got written off so casually in the first episode of Season 6.

 

Albus Dumbledore
I was a little late to the party (as they say) when it comes to Harry Potter but over the last couple of years I’ve really gotten into it. Professor Dumbledore is the head teacher at Hogwarts, a secret, magical school. While he may teach a subject which does not exist in reality, I do believe that many aspects of his personality reflect desirable qualities for real life teachers.

Not only does Dumbledore clearly know a lot about the subject that he teaches, but he is also constantly encouraging his students while not being afraid to tell them when they are wrong or out of line. Meanwhile, Dumbledore also provides his students with a perfect role model. Not only does he teach them about magic, but about how to behave as sensible, mature adults. He has a very trusting nature and he always remains calm and polite when faced with conflict. I was extremely touched when a friend of mine said I would be Dumbledore, if I were a Harry Potter character. He plays a larger role in The Half-Blood Prince and what happens made me feel extremely emotional.

 

Koro Sensei
Oh my. Where to begin? Koro Sensei is the teacher in the anime and manga, Assassination Classroom. The story behind him is actually very complex and it’s very hard for me to explain if you don’t know anything about it. Essentially, he’s a superbeing who is going to destroy the Earth but has asked to be able to teach a class of under-privileged children in exchange for allowing them to try and kill him (and save the Earth.) Please do watch/read Assassination Classroom so you can find out what it’s all about – there’s so much more depth to it than there first might appear to be.

Koro Sensei cares for his students very much indeed. He identifies their strengths and tries to encourage them so that they can flourish. Meanwhile, he identifies their weaknesses and also helps his students to overcome them. He has a big yellow smiley face, which helps to make him seem friendly and approachable. He sometimes intentionally makes himself look silly so that his students can laugh at him, but he is completely serious when he needs to be. He even goes out of his way to help his students to overcome the issues they face outside of the classroom. He’s simply amazing and his story is one of the best and most emotional pieces of media I have ever consumed.

 

I am always going to be very fond of these characters and their stories will always be ones which touch and move me. I think that we can all appreciate teachers in fiction, because most of us will have had that school experience and all of us will have filled the role of the student and of the teacher at different points in our lives.

I feel like being able to influence and encourage others is a highly valuable quality and something which a lot of good people do, even if they don’t become teachers. I’ve learned a lot of important things from many of my closest friends and it helps to strengthen the strong feelings of respect that I hold for them. As we move through life, we’re always going to encounter new ideas and we’re always going to meet new people in whom we can see potential which they have not realised. Teaching and learning are not limited to childhood.

Isn’t a world where everybody does their best to encourage and inspire the people they care about a very beautiful one? Yes, it is and I feel like all of the people I like the most help to make that sort of a world a reality. Whether somebody officially holds the title of “teacher” or not is irrelevant,

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Passport Interview

Posted on April 15, 2017 by Adam Randall

I recently applied to get a passport for the first time, this involved having to attend an interview. This interview was held in Yeovil, a place fifty miles away from my home town of Corsham. Of course, I want that passport so I went down there to get it. Not only did it take a long time to get there on the bus and train, but once I arrived at the train station there was still a three mile walk to go. I found it strange that it was located in such an inconvenient location, but of course, I wasn’t going to ask any questions.

Once I had travelled all of that way (which was quite a long journey) I arrived at the building ready for the interview. The interview was then held over a video call. I couldn’t help but wonder why they couldn’t just do it over a video call from my home, saving me a lot of time and money. I wouldn’t want to complain too much, because it was nice to get a chance to visit Yeovil, but I am sure that other people in my situation would have been much less happy about it.

In terms of what was asked in the interview, the questions seemed very curious to me. I was asked about work routines and how I used to get to school. I was asked about bus trips and how long they take. I was asked about what I like to do in my free time and how often I go to the gym. There were some other questions, which I expected, about my family and dates of birth and so forth, but overall I have no idea what purpose my answers to these questions served because I don’t know how they’d confirm their accuracy.

The whole passport interview process was very weird. But I guess one bright side is the fact that all the staff were very pleasant people. I couldn’t fault them at all.

(Don’t miss today’s Finger Puppet Show!)

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Batman: The War Years by Roy Thomas

Posted on April 12, 2017 by Adam Randall

Not everybody will know this, but Batman has actually been around for a very long time indeed. The first Batman adventure was in 1939, which of course was also the year that the Second World War started out. Not that America was involved in it at that point. Batman: The War Years is a collection of Batman strips printed at the time and they show how Batman’s life was affected by the war and what he did in order to aid the home front.

The collection includes quite a large number of strips – some have Batman directly fighting against the Nazis, while others tend to focus on his struggles with spies and people who are disrupting war efforts for their own personal gains. What I quite like is that Batman is always spreading a message of cooperation and acceptance of other peoples – this was, of course, to contrast his worldview against the Nazis, but it’s refreshing to read in 2017 when prejudice and discrimination seem be on the rise as people forget the lessons from history.

The collection includes the very first Batman strip, which is quite an interesting thing to read. I was disappointed, however, that the very first appearance of Robin was not included. Some of these really fantastic, whereas others were just lighthearted “Batman fights wacky criminals” affairs. There were a very large number of strips in this collection, so I won’t go over all of them, but I shall mention a few of my favourites.

“The Strange Case of Professor Radium” doesn’t really tie much into the war (other than with the subject of nuclear experimentation) but it features a villain I found really interesting and particularly tragic. “The Two Futures” has Batman and Robin meeting with scholars who paint them two pictures of the future, one a very grim one where the Nazis have conquered America and Batman and Robin continue to try and fight them. This one is surprisingly dark considering the tone of the rest of them. “Atlantis Goes to War” is a really bizarre story about the Nazis teaming up with a forgotten race of people living at the bottom of the ocean in Atlantis (which Batman and Robin get caught up in) – I liked it for how strange it was. “The Year 3,000” is another weird one which shows what life is like in the year 3,000 where the legacies of Batman and Robin (and the Second World War) are not forgotten. Finally “Batman Goes to Washington” sees Batman trying to make it illegal for employers to discriminate against ex-convicts when hiring people after he realises that this is an issue. I love it in its simplicity.

As well as the comic strips themselves, there is also a selection of essays written by Roy Thomas, the man who chose the comics for inclusion. These offer an interesting historical context to the strips and help to make sense of any things which modern readers might not understand. You don’t really need to read them to enjoy the comics, but I recommend doing so because they’re not too long and are quite informative. There are also lots of comic covers which don’t tie into any stories, but which show Batman and Robin assisting troops and taking part in other patriotic activities. I found them amusing.

Overall, it’s a very interesting collection and anybody who is a fan of Batman is sure to appreciate this collection. The 1940s incarnation of Batman has a rather upbeat charm to him and its interesting to contrast this against the more brooding behaviour of modern day Batman. Some of the strips may lack the depth that you’d find in more recent comics, but I still think that it’s worth reading them and I had a nice time doing so.

Rating: 8/10

Buy it here.

(Don’t miss today’s Finger Puppet Show!)

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Renewed Creative Energy

Posted on April 11, 2017 by Adam Randall

Over the last few days, I’ve found that I have had quite a renewed level of creative energy. This is excellent because it means that I have been able to advance my fiction writing projects, which I’ve honestly been making rather slow progress on lately. I notice the irony of talking about a renewed creative energy when I didn’t actually update my blog yesterday (when I should have) but I was up quite late writing something else and I decided that it wouldn’t be too much of a big deal to hold off the blog update until today. It certainly wasn’t that I’d forgotten or that I didn’t have any ideas.

I’ve been thinking about what may have caused this boost in creative energy and I think I have the answer. I work as a freelancer and I write 6,000 words of web content every day, but recently I’ve taken a temporary break. I think the fact that I’ve gotten used to writing every day, means that I have residual energy left over to do writing for personal projects. As I go through the work day, I find myself thinking that I wish I could be working on personal projects. Now that I have that time, I do work on personal projects. It’s pretty good.

If I end up being a freelance writer long term (rather than looking for a contracted position) then doing this every so often will be a nice way to ensure that I am still able to push forward with my personal, more creative endeavours too. I think a lot of creative people struggle to find the source of their creative energy and to identify the best times to work, so I am pleased that I am starting to get an idea of my own capabilities.

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Misgendering in Dreams

Posted on April 8, 2017 by Adam Randall

I like to think about the patterns that recur in my dreams. Most of my dreams are just about me spending time with my friends, usually at their house, but sometimes out in restaurants and out in the city. It’s nice to enjoy a social event when you go to bed, even if it’s not quite real. Sometimes I wake up from a lovely experience and can’t wait to do something similar in reality.

Anyway, what I wanted to talk about was the fact that sometimes I dream about my friends being a different sex or gender than they are in reality. Sometimes female friends are male and male friends are female. In my dreams it’s not a case of “Wow, this person has changed gender” rather, I don’t notice any change and neither does anybody else. Only once I have woken up, do I realise the discrepancies with reality.

I wonder why I dream that my friends have been gender swapped? If dreams are always a reflection of the way that we think of things and so forth, what might this reflect about me? Well, I suppose it could be because gender plays a relatively minor role in the way that I think about people and therefore when my brain is throwing together an image of my friends, any gender will do. Not to imply, of course, that I am not respectful of people’s gender identity, just that I dream about sharing company with friends and gender is not a factor in my enjoyment of this activity. That’s the best I can come up with.

I don’t really know anything about dreams or the psychological implications of them. A quick internet search didn’t really bring up anything about friends changing genders in dreams, so perhaps it’s not very common. Indeed, perhaps it’s a complete coincidence that I’ve had it happen a few times, but I still find it rather interesting. What are some strange patterns in your dreams?

(Don’t miss today’s Finger Puppet Show!)

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3D Sonic the Hedgehog

Posted on April 5, 2017 by Adam Randall

There were several classic games rereleased on the Nintendo 3DS with added polish and 3D visual effects. These were mostly NES games, but Sega got involved too and since Sonic the Hedgehog is probably the most well known game that Sega has ever made, it’s no surprise that they chose to give it the 3D rerelease treatment and so 3D Sonic the Hedgehog was born.

If you’ve read my review of the original game (and it’s linked in the above paragraph, if you are interested) you’ll know that I didn’t actually like it very much. With this in mind, you might find it strange that I would then buy another version of it. Well, my reason for doing so is that a good friend of mine had recommended it very highly, claiming it was one of the best ways to play and then, some time afterwards, I saw that it was on sale and very cheap. I thought I may as well.

So I downloaded 3D Sonic the Hedgehog, I started playing and I loved it. The controls felt much more tight this time. Everything that had frustrated me when I played the original didn’t seem so bad this time around. When I played the original I began to question why it was regarded as a classic and thought that nostalgia must be one of the largest factors. When I played this version, I could easily see it as a classic.

So I did some research. I assumed that there must have been some significant changes to the game’s engine and physics. It must have been tweaked to be brought up to the standards of modern games, I thought. It turns out that it’s pretty much the same as the original. There are essentially only three additions: Sonic can do spin dashes now (which makes certain parts a bit easier), effects have been added so that you can play the whole game in 3D and save states have been added so you can save and reload at any point.

I was amazed by that, because playing it was a completely different experience to playing the original, even though, really, it should have been the same experience. Could it just have been because I was playing on the Nintendo 3DS which is one of my favourite consoles? Maybe it was because, by this point in my life, I had a lot more experience of playing classic Sonic games. I don’t know. There were probably a wide range of things effecting my enjoyment, including the fact that I played the original during a much worse period of my life.

I guess it just highlights how subjective our opinions of video games (and, indeed, all art) must be. Is my original review now invalid? No, I don’t think. It captures my thoughts and experiences of playing that game at that point in time, just as this review captures my thoughts and experiences at another point in time. The appreciation of all art is subjective and we can only ever explain our own impressions of something and even these impressions will change over time.

Rating: 8.9/10 (but, really, it could be any score at all.)

(Don’t miss today’s Finger Puppet Show!)

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Never Missing Social Events

Posted on April 4, 2017 by Adam Randall

One rule I’ve adopted as I’ve gotten older is that I will never say no to a social event. I remember, about ten years ago now, I did turn down a lot of social events. Looking back, I think that was a mistake as I realise I have missed out on shared experiences with friends who I no longer get the opportunity to see.

Today, unless I am already meeting somebody else at the same time, I will always say yes when invited to do things with friends. I usually do at least three social events a week and I love it. I feel like the more social events you say yes to, the more social events you get invited to, because you form stronger bonds with people and become known as reliable.

It was in late 2014 that I decided to adopt this rule and this was at a point in my life where my social interactions were at their lowest point. Since I’ve started always saying yes, my social life has increased significantly and it allows me to experience things I’d have otherwise declined. Coincidentally, it’s a little similar the premise of the book/film Yes Man – just with a dash of logic and reason added in.

I know it’s a simple idea, but I think it’s good to push yourself and to try new things. Making yourself leave your comfort zones just means that your comfort zones eventually start to expand.

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Differently Sized Bodies of Work

Posted on April 1, 2017 by Adam Randall

Two things that I like a lot are Doctor Who and the Mother video game series. Beyond these, there are very many other things, but I wanted to focus on these two for a comparison. With Doctor Who the TV series started in 1963 and in the many decades that followed, there have been countless episodes, books, audio dramas, comics and more created. I may consume a lot of Doctor Who media, but it’s unlikely that I’ll ever have consumed it all. Mother on the other hand, is just three video games (with the characters making cameos in other things occasionally.) I have played them all.

One the one hand, I’m sad that there’ll never be more Mother for me to play; on the other, I’m sad that I’ll never get to enjoy every Doctor Who story. It’s hard for me to decide what the ideal size is for a body of work. There’s something about a fictional universe made up of very many stories that appeals to me a lot. On the other hand, having just a small number of pieces of the highest quality also helps a fictional universe to have a high level of integrity. I’m sure some people would call it quality over quantity, but a body of work made up of very many things could still have a lot of top notch stuff, even if some bad stuff gets in too.

I flip flop on what I prefer. I know that by making all of my own writing interconnected, I am definitely leaning on the side of a very large body of work, but that doesn’t mean I necessarily think that’s best. I really like knowing everything there is to know about something and that’s easier to do with a smaller body of work, but then I also like to regularly enjoy new things and with a larger body of work I can enjoy the same thing in new ways over and over. It’s interesting to contrast and compare the two approaches.

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