psp browser mail! :D mom got us lost, lol. everything is so beautiful, different for sure, but beautiful none the less. one of the locals drove us hot sweaty idiot foreigners in her car when they realized we were lost...lol. kept pointing to the map saying “kuruma, kuruma”...car, car. i knew what they meant but it didnt hit me till they grabbed their keys. this residence-turned-inn is amazing. four genuine rooms, two gracious hosts, some french guys, a cool dude from oregon and us. pics soon i hope
Upload test of a couple of pictures shot at home in preparation for Japan. I'll probably shoot video at some point too, but that'll have to wait for when we get back.
I've got Posterous set up through my email, and Posterous should forward everything on to various sites. This way I can spend as little time as possible updating while in Japan -- I probably won't be able to respond to much if anything and won't be checking Facebook, so if I must know something follow the links back to Posterous and leave a comment there, or @ me on Twitter. It'll be 100￥per minute to use a computer pretty much wherever we go, and accessibility will be limited while we're in Kamakura hiking...so time is quite literally money in this situation. I won't be putting up all of the pictures we take, but hopefully I'll be able to make small notes and a couple of image uploads while we're on the go.
It'll be interesting, we'll have my 3G AT&T phone (which may or may not work, I'm guessing not), Mom's Kindle, and...that's pretty much it. Might rent a cellphone there or get a prepaid or however we can find something that works...in case of emergency, I guess? We leave July 5th, back on the 20th. Not really hyped up or excited about going just yet, just ready to quit painting the house and start leaving already. Alas, another week away. A certain someone wanted an Arcanine doll so I may have to scour Akiba or figure out where the nearest Pokemon Center is during the two days I'll even remotely be near one. I kind of hope that's the nerdiest thing I do, if only because I don't want to be another filthy American fat nerdchild...but my own wishlist is far worse than some Pokemon stuff.
Gotta get back to painting. Lunch breaks can only last for so long. :'(
Edit: surprisingly quick responses from Crecente himself (!!!) prompted a few changes.
Normally I open doors for women, eat all of my dinner and respect my elders. I've got no problems with authority or people that are simply above me for no other apparent reason than experience and effort, and I respect those people for those very reasons. That said, I also have no problem with making sure credit is given where credit is due, and believe in having decent games represented fairly and professionally.
For that reason, I should--no, I must--raise issue with Brian Crecente's coverage of Sengoku Basara: Samurai Heroes. It's completely underwhelming and has given Kotaku's readership a terrible impression of the upcoming game. My issues are not completely trivial, nor am I just needlessly hating on Crecente, nor Kotaku for publicity, click-through traffic or just to whine. I realize that the business of journalism is a business: money gets passed around, favors are pulled, and so on. While I will not make any presumptions as to whether or not that is even remotely relevant to Kotaku's coverage of Sengoku Basara: Samurai Heroes, I believe that games should be represented fairly when they deserve to be, especially on one of the most trusted and most widely-read outlets for video game journalism on the internet.
Now, for a trusted professional who is "fascinated with Capcom's upcoming button-smasher" and has posted at least four articles about it personally, it's somewhat embarrassing to misspell the game's title in your attempts to write about it. Twice. This is a simple mistake, however, and one that undoubtedly will be easily and quickly rectified if this story makes it to the proper outlets.
In the grand scheme of things, I really don't care about simple misspelled tags. Before I go any further, I should clarify I'm not so much calling out Crecente as I am calling out gamers in general. Were it not for him and Kotaku, none of us on the fringes of the internet would have near as much of an inspiration to write about video games as we so vehemently and enthusiastically do. For that I must give the man his well-deserved credit: he has my respect and admiration regardless of these shortcomings. In plain English: I ain't hatin', aight? Bear with me for a second while I lay down some science.
In his initial editorial, "Can Americans Love A Dreamy Samurai Game?" it isn't hard to tell that the usually-emphatic Crecente comes off a bit...lackluster in his description of the game. He states the facts, makes it sound alright, and wraps it up nice and neat. The enthusiasm we've come to expect from the man falls a bit short. It's interesting that he's touched upon how strange it is that the series did not catch on overseas, despite its rampant popularity in Japan, however. This is something I've written about at length already, and although my previous take on the whole Sengoku Basara fiasco is rather critical, I've since completely forgiven Capcom now that Sengoku Basara 3 has been confirmed for international release. They're giving it a shot this time, and I personally believe it will deliver in spades, but I digress.
What I really take issue with, and the point of all this so far, is something that Crecente can't be faulted for individually. It's more a mistake made by all Americans, or really all non-Japanese gamers not familiar with Sengoku Basara previously: by compwharing it to what you already know and regarding the style of the game with a resounding "meh," you're not giving the game a fair chance. Crecente mentions in a funny little article, "A Look At the Real, Not-So-Sexy Samurai of Capcom's Latest Game" how remarkably different the characters in Sengoku Basara are to their historical counterparts. The comparisons he makes are largely aesthetic, with a few historical tidbits scattered here and there, along with some quotes of dubious legitimacy attributed to (from how I read it) the historical counterparts of the game characters. These comparisons to history are as humorous as they are informative, but the "Not-So-Sexy" title makes it appear to be a bad thing, as if these comparisons are somehow a disservice to history. Fans of Koei's Warriors franchises love their ancient Asian history as much as they love mashing the X button, so you're automatically disenfranchising this key demographic by saying "look how inaccurate these characters are!!" I'm not trying to suggest that Dynasty Warriors Strikeforce, Warriors Orochi, or even the Dynasty Warriors or Samurai Warriors franchises are any more or less realistic...but they aren't pitched to their respective audiences by their historical inaccuracy.
For all of its similarities, Sengoku Basara is often compared to Koei's Warriors series, as Kotaku's commenters have been quick to do recently. Despite the perceived similarities between Koei'sSamurai Warriors and Capcom's Sengoku Basara, they are surprisingly different. The gameplay mechanics are indeed similar, I'll concede that much. When you establish this similarity--as Kotaku and literally every other gaming outlet ever has done far too many times in the past--the only aspects left to compare between the two are the games' critical content (story, characters, etc.) and the their respective publishers' track records. By completely removing the simple comparisons of how the game looks, feels and handles, all you've got left is the abstract stuff: characters, story modes, plots, voice acting, etc. This is where Kotaku has fallen short. Their wholly unenthusiastic delivery of descriptions for "not-so-sexy samurai" characters, blatant unfamiliarity with the franchise or the press content, and their blatantly negative criticism of the game's admittedly-cheesy dialogue by pointing it out with a tongue-in-cheek comparison to quotes from soap operas all works to paint an incredibly negative image of this game: comparisons made after Crecente very clearly states that he simply doesn't like this game:
Sangoku [sic] Basara Samurai Heroes may very well find it's followers here in the U.S., where strong ties to culture and local history won't have the same play as in Japan, but I can't say I will be one of them.
Furthermore, Samurai Warriors and Sengoku Basara--the latter of which is often compared as an identical knockoff to the former--are far different in regards to their actual content. Samurai Warriors holds the gamer's hand through the events of Japan's Sengoku Era, the Period of Warring States. As you progress through the game, you follow the history of Japan and fight battles that were highlights of your chosen character's military career. Though the character designs are a bit exaggerated, deviations from the actual historical content are rarely taken. The end result is that you are more or less playing a summary of Japanese Feudal Era history, which is absolutely great if you like Dynasty Warriors-style button-mashing and Japanese history!
Sengoku Basara is far different in this regard. The previous games (Devil Kings, Sengoku Basara 2, and Sengoku Basara 2 Heroes in particular) allow you to take up arms with any one character loosely-based on their historical counterpart. Their designs and attacks are absurd and extraordinary, and the overall style of the game is part action movie cheese, part Japanese over-the-top anime-style enthusiasm. Original playable characters are brought into the mix to spice up the roster, and there are many interconnecting relationships between characters that give the game an even further sense of engaging, captivating originality, despite being loosely based on Japanese history. "Loosely" is truly the operative word here, as it essentially uses history as a starting point and becomes complete fiction from then on. As you progress through the game's Conquest mode, you fight other warlords for their territory, gradually taking over the Japanese mainland in the process. Whereas Samurai Warriors simply guides you through the Warring States period, where every warlord was out to get his neighbor's land in order to unify Japan, Sengoku Basara lets you rewrite Japanese history every time you play. You, the gamer, get to unify Japan under the banner of your chosen character. There are no unexpected developments that suddenly make your victory seem completely pointless; there are no concessions made to history to try and make it historically accurate: Sengoku Basarais about you, your player character and your epic single-handed conquest of the entirety of Japan. In that regard, it couldn't be farther from Samurai Warriors.
Do you really want to know why Sengoku Basara has yet to succeed outside of Japan, Brian Crecente, Editor-in-Chief of Kotaku.com, "The Gamer's Guide?" Because of reviews, editorials, and previews like yours: wholly disparaging opinions, obvious disinterest, and completely inaccurate, uneducated comparisons; all reported as unquestionable, solid fact. If Capcom has recently provided Kotaku ad copy to reprint in order to give good publicity for this game, then I suppose I can understand the lack of enthusiasm, but I hope they didn't pay Kotaku for it because they certainly aren't getting their money's worth. Not all publicity is good publicity when it comes to video games, and Kotaku has more or less bitten the hand that feeds them in regard to this title. I doubt many of Kotaku's readers will be particularly moved to buy this game any more than they already were after reading Kotaku's coverage of it thusfar. Why?
Not because it looks like a fun game, it doesn't, but...
I see.
To make up for a lackluster preview for Sengoku Basara, I'd like to do Capcom, Kotaku's readership, and the gaming community at large a favor by giving you a fair and educated preview of what to expect from Sengoku Basara 3--the same courtesy Kotaku gives games they are actually familiar with and enjoy playing. Am I qualified to give this preview? As someone who has played both Devil Kings and its Japanese counterpart, the original Sengoku Basara;Sengoku Basara 2 Heroes and Sengoku Basara X Cross, I hope I am!! Some of the details below may have been stated above already, but they are just as relevant and worth reading the second time around.
Sengoku Basara turns the idea of "historical games" on its head by taking two elements we've all learned to love over the years and unapologetically cramming them together. It blends a uniquely Japanese sense of attitude, artistic flare and aesthetic finesse gamers have come to love from series like Devil May Cry, Bayonetta, No More Heroes, Viewtiful Joe and plenty of others, with the classic button-mashing one-versus-one thousand combat system made famous by Koei's Warriors franchise: Dynasty Warriors: Empires, Dynasty Warriors: Gundam, Samurai Warriors, Warriors Orochi and so on. In the previous games, you play a highly exaggerated character inspired by their historical counterpart from the Warring States Era of Japanese history, a bloody period of history where many powerful generals and rulers felt it necessary to unify Japan by conquering and subjugating all other generals, rulers, and people of Japan under the banner of their own familial clan. It goes without saying that there were many generals and rulers of small regions across the Japanese mainland, and as such, there was a lot of fighting: the Warring States period carried on for 200 years before the entirety of Japan was eventually united under the rule of the Tokugawa shogunate.
Sengoku Basara kiiiind of ignores that historical stuff, except for the whole "everyone is fighting" part. After selecting your character, you began your conquest out of one tiny region of Japan to retake the entire Japanese mainland by fighting other generals for their land--somewhat like Risk, you might say. If you win, you add the contested turf to your own, and both your sphere of influence and your options for which area to take next grows. If you lose, they take the contested land, and if you lose all of your held territories, it's game over. The land-grabbing strategic aspect of the game is done in a menu featuring the entirety of Japan, while the actual battles take place in the classic button-mashing combat you've seen pictures of. Sengoku Basara isn't just a simple button-mashing brawler set to a historically-based plot: in the previous games, you write your own history, and you are responsible for the strategy involved in choosing where to attack or defend next. There are plots for each character but they are lighthearted and often humorous, such as the love triangle between Sasuke, Kasuga and Kenshin (Talon, Venus and Frost in Devil Kings, respectively), the manly father-son admiration between Yukimura and Shingen (Scorpio and Red Minotaur), and so on. These games can be serious at times, but they don't really make an attempt to take themselves all that seriously: they're meant to be fun and entertaining, and they have continually proven themselves to be just that since 2005.
Technically speaking, if you've played Koei Warriors games, the combat should be nothing new to you, and in this regard I will concede that the game is often said to be "stale" or a "copycat" of Koei's popular franchise. Two attacks, a special/Musou/Ultra/whatever you want to call it, jumping and blocking are fairly standard issue for these games, and you run across wide, expansive battlefields from guard point to guard point taking territories and bulldozing enemies. Combat is fast and frenetic, you can knock entire swaths of enemies into the air with a sweep of your weapon into an aerial combo. One unique combat element unique to Sengoku Basara was the concept of "Priming" -- hitting your enemies with a certain attack would put them into a "primed" state and turn their health bar yellow. While primed, for every hit you got on them, they would take two. Essentially you're doing double damage, and it counts two-for-one in your combo gauge as well: insane combos numbering above 400, 500, and even 600 hits are not only possible, but perfectly possible--difficult, but possible--in many situations. The catch is that you can only prime enemies with one of your two attack buttons, and the "primed" state wears off after a few seconds.The end result is that you're able to better handle smaller groups of enemies, but when you're overwhelmed, the sense of danger and urgency to kill absolutely everything is all the more heightened, and you start to think about how to best go about taking everyone out. For a seemingly simple game, it provides a surprising level of depth in gameplay, and will often surprise even the most hardened Dynasty Warriors fan with just how challenging it can be sometimes. Sengoku Basara: Samurai Heroes seems to take the series in a new direction. There were indeed story modes in the previous titles, and especially in Sengoku Basara 2 Heroes, but they were never as much of a focus as was straight up, simple Campaign mode.
Sengoku Basara: Samurai Heroes seems to focus more on the storyline, but instead of simply giving individual characters story arcs as in Sengoku Basara 2 Heroes, the game follows an overarching plotline that involves all of the main characters in some form or another--not to mention one that seems more serious than the lighthearted plotlines from the earlier games. From the previews we've seen so far, the raw combat will remain the same as from the previous games: lots of enemies, tough one-on-one fights with opposing warlords, and insane attacks. The Priming system may or may not be there, I haven't personally seen enough promotional video/images to tell. (If enemy HP bars glow yellow after a hit, then Priming is back!!) There seems to be a new resource system built into the map system that ties into the progression of your character's and your army's items and capabilities, which will inevitably add a new level of strategy to your conquest of Feudal Japan and encourages strategically choosing character upgrades based on your available resources. On top of all that, it's delivering the same brand of over-the-top, ridiculous Japanese style and attitude fans of the previous games love, and all with a shiny new current-gen graphical update.
Bottom line? These games are just fun. If you have a PS2 or a backwards compatible PS3, go look for Devil Kings at your local retailer. Last I heard you could find it at Gamestop for about six bucks--a small price to pay for something as fun and as surprisingly unique as these games are. Not to mention fun. And straight up ridiculous. If you even remotely liked Devil May Cry, Bayonetta, or any of the Koei Warriors games, you owe it to yourself to give Sengoku Basara: Samurai Heroes a try.
Capcom will be bringing Sengoku Basara: Samurai Heroes to the US later in 2010. Get ready to put your guns on!
[The following was written for a Literary Criticism class. We talk about themes and literary canon and stuff. English major stuff.
Now it's ANIME STUFF. YEAAAAAAAHHHH!!!!]
The Taming of the Tsundere: Japan’s Fascination with Obstinate Women
When we are introduced to Kate at the onset of Taming of the Shrew’s first act, her very first lines are used to threaten any men that might undermine her pride or treat her lightly. From the very first moment, it is obvious what Kate is supposed to be: the shrew. Resistant, prideful, and strong-willed women that fell into this archetype were a hot topic when Taming of the Shrew was first written:
Ballads, folktales, jokes, and plays about outspoken, assertive women suggest that the English found disorderly women simultaneously threatening and fascinating; stories of their taming were, apparently, reassuring and amusing. (Dolan 3)
It is this fascination, this “amusement” with the idea of an assertive woman that captivated audiences then, and though more serious debates have long since been established around the play, it does not require a great stretch of the imagination to claim that it is what continues to captivate audiences to this day. The story of tenacious Kate and persistent Petruchio has lived long after Shakespeare’s time, and remains a timeless classic that explores the universal ideas of social gender roles.
Adaptations and revivals of Shakespeare’s classics have become fairly common in our modern age, and have been more or less so since Shakespeare himself drafted the original works. They come and go as stage plays, movies, primetime TV specials, and so forth; always using clever allusions and subtle references to make sure the audience is still aware that whatever it is they are partaking in is indeed modeled very closely after an older, far more famous work. Consciously referencing Shakespeare in media modeled after a Shakespearean work, interestingly enough, confines the work to the same conventions, debates, conclusions, and theories Shakespeare’s works are subject to. In doing so, questions concerning theme, motives, character attributes or plot developments are overlooked; written off as if they have already been answered: the media in question is Shakespearean by design, ergo it must be Shakespearean in nature. Why we are continually drawn towards these adaptations is handled similarly as well: it’s Shakespeare.
What, then, can we say about media that shares similar themes, concepts, and ideas with Shakespeare, yet is not intentionally modeled after Shakespeare? Might we derive legitimate, profound insight into Shakespeare’s motivations for writing Taming of the Shrew from modern media modeled after Shakespeare, let alone from modern media completely removed from Shakespeare’s works? To answer the latter question, we must look no further than Japan to find an entire genre of media that, while borrowing seemingly fundamental concepts from Shakespeare, are by and large completely removed from the playwright and his legacy. Japanese animation, referred to internationally as anime, has of late adopted the trend of exploring relationship dynamics much like the one between Kate and Petruchio’s in Taming of the Shrew. If the idea of a significant female figure playing the “shrew” is not unique to Shakespeare nor the time during which Taming of the Shrew was written, then this archetypal character must be culturally and universally significant for other reasons. In this essay, I intend to explore what exactly makes the “shrew” a captivating character through comparison between its classical use in Taming of the Shrew and its modern use in Japanese animation, and in doing so, hope to reveal new insight into the culture behind Taming of the Shrew’s creation.
Anime has existed, more or less, since the dawn of the 20th century. It took root in Japan as an alternative to live-action, filmed storytelling in the 1930s, drew inspiration from Walt Disney Company’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarves in 1937, came into its own right in the 60s and 70s, and has since evolved into an internationally-known art form (Schodt). Its characteristically exaggerated depictions of characters with large eyes; small mouths; stylized features; acute, two-dimensional edges; and sharp colors have intrigued audiences with unique storytelling devices and aesthetic techniques unique to the medium. Anime has continued to explore everything from Japan’s feudal, unique past on into visions of the far future, and has been responsible for innumerable critically-acclaimed titles over its lifetime. Its printed cousin, manga, Japanese comics, borrow heavily from its audio-visual counterpart and are equally significant.
Understandably, the unique medium has built up a wide fanbase both in Japan and abroad; fans that have gone from watching children’s cartoon on Saturday mornings to commanding the direction of the medium as artists, producers, directors and writers. Because of this, anime production studios and the content they produce are both very self-aware. This acute awareness has contributed to a recent production trend to cater very specifically to their core audience’s tastes, likes, and dislikes, resulting in many common character types or scenarios that the core fanbase enjoys being reused in countless works. Among the character types Japanese fans have learned to love over the years is that of the tsundere.
To best summarize tsundere, it is only fitting to borrow from Patrick Galbraith, a Tokyo University scholar who wrote his doctoral thesis on Japanese female character archetypes found only in anime:
Tsundere is a Japanese character development process which describes a person who is initially cold and even hostile towards another person before gradually showing their warm side over time. The word is derived from the terms “tsun tsun,” meaning to turn away in disgust, and “dere dere,” meaning to become 'lovey dovey'. (Galbraith, Otaku Encyclopedia)
To further describe how this character type has grown and evolved, one might look to anime itself, specifically to a monologue delivered on the popular title “Lucky Star,” a series that was critically acclaimed in Japan for often breaking the “fourth wall” and being comically critical of the anime industry and its fans:
MINORU: …unfortunately the word tsundere has suffered misues and decay, and one could say that the definition has evolved. To begin with, the word tsundere was born in the year 2002 [as] an internet term, but the original definition a character who starts off tsun tsun and eventually becomes dere dere. Yes! In other words, it was supposed to describe a change over time!
AKIRA [sarcastically]: Do you really understand?
MINORU: …and now, it is used to describe the multiple faces of a character. In other words, hostile on the outside and affectionate on the inside would be how the word is currently understood.
This monologue is delivered by fictional variety show host Shriaishi Minoru, an anime characterization of the real Shiraishi Minoru, a famous anime voice actor and the voice of his own namesake in the show. Minoru goes on to declare this misunderstanding a cardinal sin of a “depraved nation,” referring with mock resolution to Japan and anime fans as a whole. The whole diatribe is given during a joke segment at the end of the episode proper. Self-aware, indeed (“Desires”).
Self-referential jokes aside, the tsundere character archetype is one that has appeared in countless anime by chance since the 70s, but only recently has become exploited as the defining aspect of many female characters due to popular demand (Galbraith, Otaku Encyclopedia). To say a character is tsundere, by both Galbraith’s and Minoru’s “original” definition of the term, would mean that she is cold, uncaring, aloof, or even hostile towards a male protagonist in the beginning, but gradually comes to appreciate, and often love, the very male protagonist she was wholly at odds with in the onset of the series or story.
The very definition of tsundere lines up surprisingly well with Kate’s character in Taming of the Shrew: where the tsundere might be cold and aloof to her potential love interest, Kate is cold, aggressive and uncaring towards all men. As arranging her marriage is by and large her father’s responsibility, one might argue that Kate is aggressive towards men in general because they are all potentially her candidates for marriage, whether she likes it or not.
In order to better link Taming of the Shrew to anime and the stereotypical tsundere, there must be an equivalent character or series to adequately compare to. Kaichou wa Maid-sama!, “The Student Council President is a Maid!” best exemplifies the themes found in Taming of the Shrew as well as the stereotypical tsundere. This particular comic series begins immediately after highschooler Ayuzawa Misaki becomes the first female student council president in a predominately male high school. She is very violently against having to interact with men by any means, believes them to be filthy and disgusting, and initially vows to user her power as student council president to “rule those boys with an iron fist!” (see Fig. 1). Every boy in the school is beneath her for any number of reasons: throughout the series she cites her ill behavior as a response to inconsiderate men, misrepresentation of the few girls that attend the school, her temper, or any number of situational excuses. She is caught off guard only by one boy: Takumi Usui—resident heartbreaker, pretty-boy, and genius wonder child—after catching him “making a girl cry for no reason,” as Misaki so vehemently asserts (Fujiwara 6).
Misaki’s part-time job is waitressing at a maid café: restaurants popular in metropolitan areas of Japan that have become famous for having their employees dress in French maid costumes and address their customers politely and courteously, and using honorifics such as “Master” or “Mistress” in place of sir or madam (“Cosplay restaurant”). It is both ironic in that the personality of a submissive, courteous maidservant is entirely contradictory to Misaki’s character, and in the sense that the tsundere character type has very recently begun to extend itself into maid cafes themselves (Galbraith, Moe). Misaki’s workplace is both a compliment to the cultural aspect of her work, and a contradiction to her personal disposition.
The plot is further complicated when Usui discovers her “secret” part-time job and begins to harass her. He constantly makes blatant romantic advances on her, lends her a hand when he sees fit, and makes public statements that they are both deeply in love—statements that are immediately refuted by Misaki, much to her embarrassment. These constant advances are Usui’s expressions of true love towards Misaki, which she very quickly figures out and refuses to accept at first. As the story progresses, Misaki reluctantly comes to appreciate Usui and becomes less resistant to his persistent affection, ultimately ending in him winning her over (Fujiwara).
The similarities between Maid-sama! and Taming of the Shrew begin with the analogous characters of Misaki and Kate. Both women are incredibly hostile towards their male counterparts and potential suitors, both suffer (to varying degrees) at the hands of their respective men, and both are eventually “trained” in the end. The comparisons do not, however, end here. Though not nearly as brash or crude, Usui’s tactics for “taming” Misaki are quite similar to Petruchio’s. Just as Petruchio insists that he and Kate are happily wed, Usui insists to anyone willing to listen that he and Misaki are lovers. Petruchio domesticates Kate by forcing housework upon her; Usui forces Misaki to serve him at her restaurant. Petruchio purposefully lies to convince Kate he is smarter than her, and Usui constantly proves Misaki wrong when she is faced with a difficult decision or situation.
More interesting, however, are how their tactics differ, and how equally effective they are interpreted to be: Petruchio belittles Kate, subjects her to ridiculous amounts of stress and strain, and deprives her of food and sleep—for all intents and purposes, he may as well be torturing her into submission. Usui’s “torture” is far from deprivation: he goes out of his way to profess his love to her, steal kisses from her, help her in any way he can when she becomes overwhelmed or exhausted from all of her responsibilities, and does not hesitate to outdo Misaki in feats of mental, physical, or emotional strength: he takes the position at the top of the class from her with ease, bests her in sporting events, and takes her place in a game of chess when she herself has no idea how to play. He also serves to provide her bits of wisdom contrary to Misaki’s old, typical way of thinking, which she immediately applies to her life and conveniently learns from—asserting that he is smarter than her by constantly teaching her the error of her ways.
Even the texts themselves are supported a history of contradicting works. Taming of the Shrew was written and produced during a time when handbooks on gentlemanly conduct and how wives and mistresses should behave—books written by men, specifically catering to men’s needs and desires, even when they were “written for” women. Maid-sama! is backed by an extensive catalog of similar comics and anime considered by fans to be shoujo titles: anime and manga specifically targeted at a female audience between the ages of 10 and 18 (Thorn).
Despite monumental differences between the two media, there are still fundamental similarities between the two. This begs the question of where, then, do they take their shared themes and concepts? Where does this concept of the hostile, abrasive “shrew” come from? Though the subject of the husband’s pride and honor in marital affairs was indeed a serious topic of Shakespeare’s time, this is not an idea unique to Shakespeare. There are the obvious ideas of male dominion, female servitude or weakness, and even an obligation on the woman’s behalf to serve men: this is a common concept that goes back as far as the Bible itself. There is something more cerebral to the parallels drawn between these two examples, however: both instances are related to romance. Though Petruchio’s motives are purely aimed to Kate’s dowry, he must attain it through pursuing marriage, and his “taming” is more or less complete only after taking his miserably-married wife to bed: feigned romance, but romance nonetheless. Likewise, Usui’s advances on Misaki are very obviously steeped in romantic attraction. As The Taming of the Shrew is certainly not the only story of a shrew being tamed and married (in no particular order), so too is Maid-sama! equally common: there are hundreds of shoujo manga and dozens of animated series where the tsundere female lead character eventually falls for the male protagonist.
Might, then, these similar romantic underpinnings be a part of what made Taming of the Shrew so alluring when it was first written? Though the times have changed significantly, the concepts of love and romance are very obviously universal. So too is the knowledge of the feminine disposition, a mysterious thing men have attempted to perfect and master since time immemorial. One does not have to look far to find ill-behaved women throughout history, and though they appear frightening and threatening to English gentlemen at the height of Taming of the Shrew’s creation, one cannot discount the possibility of even the most resolute gentleman loving the shrew. This very possibility is explored in an alternate ending to the play, revised in 1756:
PETRUCHIO: My fortune is sufficient, here’s my wealth:
Kiss me, my Kate, and since thou art become
So prudent, kind, and dutiful a wife,
Petruchio here shall doff the lordly husband —
An honest mask, which I throw off with pleasure.
Far hence all rudeness, willfulness, and noise.
And be our future lives one gentle stream
Of mutual love, compliance, and regard. (Garrick 159)
Though this revision is made just short of two hundred years after the play was originally thought to have been conceived (Dolan 2), it is not hard to imagine that the possibility of the supposed “shrew” being, even in some private, unspoken manner, an object of desire. Although it may sound somewhat ridiculous, the idea is not entirely implausible, nor does it contradict commonly perceived roles of women at the time: the tenacity of the shrew would still technically satisfy male desires if she were secretly, even as a shrew, an object of desire to begin with.
This idea of the shrew as both an object of desire would only further connect the use of tsundere character types in anime and the use of the shrew in Shakespeare’s play. Though Maid-sama! is not one such series, tsundere characters and the series that feature them are often purposefully meant to satisfy, to some degree, the whims and fantasies of a primarily male audience. Other wildly successful series featuring tsundere women, even those that share a remarkably similar premise as Maid-sama!, fall into the category of boys’ manga rather than girls’ manga usually due to comparatively shallow content and remarkably lewd depictions of both male and female characters.
Though The Taming of the Shrew and Kaichou wa Maid-sama! indeed share likenesses between one another in their thematic structure as well as the development of both plot and characterization, it is in the idea of the shrew as an object of desire that Shakespeare’s classic work finds new cultural meaning. This idea makes the English fixation on the shrew all the more interesting, as it contributes to the ridiculous chauvinism of the time at least a sliver of humanity. Might Englishmen simply have been so frustrated by not being able to obtain easily the women they wanted that they resorted to a wholesale dehumanization of the objects of their desire? Might it have been this wholesale objectification that enabled them to be so cruel in the first place? Whatever the explanation, evidence that this behavior is indeed universal begins with tsundere, its myriad portrayals, and its significance to Japanese media and its highly-specialized character types as a whole.
Works Cited
“Cosplay restaurant.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 15 Mar. 2010.
“Desires.” Lucky Star. Prod. Kyoto Animation. Chiba TV, Chiba, Japan. June 10, 2007. Clip found at .
Dolan, Frances E. ed. William Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 1996.
Galbraith, Patrick W. "Moe: Exploring Virtual Potential in Post-Millennial Japan". Electronic Journal of Contemporary Japanese Studies. Accessed 22 April 2010.
Galbraith, Patrick W. The Otaku Encyclopedia: An Insider's Guide to the Subculture of Cool Japan. Kodansha International, 2009.
Garrick, David. “Catharine and Petruchio.” William Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew. Dolan, Frances E. ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 1996.
Schodt, Frederik L. Manga! Manga!: The World of Japanese Comics. Tokyo, Japan: Kodansha International, August 1997.
Shakespeare, William. “The Taming of the Shrew.” The Complete Works of Shakespeare, ed. David Bevington. 4th ed. HarperCollins, Inc., 1992.
This is a Japanese children's song that accompanies a game, one that's like a cross between Duck Duck Goose, Red Rover, and Musical Chairs. A child sits in the center, blindfolded, and the other children form a circle around the center child and rotate around them, singing this song. When the song ends, the person in the center tries to guess who's standing behind them...without looking. If they get it right, they swap with the person standing behind them, and the game goes on. Now, I've heard a version of the song sung by children before where the lyrics are shortened to the first line, the first half of the second line, and then the last line; essentially making it "Kagome Kagome/The bird in the cage/when will you get out?/who stands behind you now?" but for the sake of splitting hairs we'll stick to the above lyrics.
When you look at the full song, though, it's pretty...sinister. The crane and the turtle are both signs of prosperity, longevity, innocence, and prudence. The English translation doesn't quite do this justice, but in Japanese, this song identifies the "who" in "who's behind you now" as being responsible for the crane and turtle's accident...essentially toying with the song's subject, and eerily so, as it asks them to identify someone that could be interpreted as their backstabber. It goes even further with the "evening of the dawn" phrasing, suggesting that the subject's attacker will most likely do it when you're most vulnerable: asleep, at the final moments of the first light of dawn. (This is even further emphasized by the kid in the middle being blindfolded.)
When taken to extremes (or in a much more sinister context and removed from the common children's game) this is a pretty creepy song, one that teaches caution, vigilance, and awareness for any potential traitors looking to knife you when you're most vulnerable. Sleep with one eye open, all that jazz. Creepy, but hey, we English-speakers have our "Pocket Full of Posies" children's song: it's about the Black Plague in England. Look it up sometime. We aren't without our morbidly entertaining children's games.
This is all shamelessly stolen from the Wikipedia article and to my credit I knew a good bit of this beforehand. Hit the link for (bad) audio of the song and more analysis. Just thought you'd like to know~ :)
This is a great critical evaluation of the iPad. I can see why people say their iPhone, or to a lesser extent iTouch, is an invaluable asset to their lives. College students will be the first to tell you they are completely addicted to theirs. In all fairness, though, the iPhone does allow people to do a whole lot more with a whole lot less -- gone are the days where productivity only came with a bulky laptop in tow.
That said, Doctrow brings up a number of good points as to why one should consider buying -- or rather, not buying -- an iPad: it's both a question of necessity and a question of practicality. Are you an iPhone/iTouch owner so enamored by the system that you need a larger, tablet-sized device that works just like it? Do you find yourself needing more real estate on your iPhone?
Beyond the physical questions, though, Doctrow brings up some good points as to the psychology behind the device, and the implications it carries:
"The way you improve your iPad isn't to figure out how it works and making it better. The way you improve the iPad is to buy iApps. Buying an iPad for your kids isn't a means of jump-starting the realization that the world is yours to take apart and reassemble; it's a way of telling your offspring that even changing the batteries is something you have to leave to the professionals."
One might argue that this era of hands-off computing really started with laptops, but those are not nearly as proprietary and safeguarded away from consumers' prying hands and eyes as Apple products are. Overlooking that, this may very well mark the beginning of an uncomfortable time for more hardware-oriented PC engineers and retailers, who risk being further marginalized from an incredibly large market share lest they enter the market with a competing product. The number of future hardware engineers will probably dwindle with the influx of hands-off product development. For every 30 kids that enter into some sort of computer science field for college, the number of kids that will want to work with hardware -- embedded systems, microprocessors, all of the physical attributes of what makes Apple products so desirable -- could continually drop due to a lack of exposure to physical systems. Many of them may know multiple programming languages before they even show up -- some of them could even be already-successful iPad developers -- but their knowledge of hardware will continue to steadily decline as they are exposed to products that protect them from the very systems they would like to make careers out of manipulating.
Not to mention the software development groundswell that has all but turned into a flood, with thousands of iPhone apps fully compatible with the iPad as well as over 3,000 apps currently available exclusively for the iPad with no signs of stopping. Is this developing craze of making individual components of a veritable all-in-one tool going to become a bubble, careening headlong into bursting itself further down the line? Is there really a limit to the kinds of apps one could make if the marketplace is immediately international, and your distribution and storage channels are taken care of for you? If you hope not and say no, respectively, keep going.
The issue then, with applications for the iPad/iPhone as well as other platforms (Droid, Blackberry, etc.), is not the distribution of your product, but rather raising awareness: if the playing field is completely level when it comes to distribution, your competitive options are limited to how much your service offers over another competitor, and how much awareness is raised for the app itself. This is why I insist now -- and will continue to insist -- that a vital role for any app developer, if not one of the most vital roles, is on the creative end. Because, let's face it: apps are a social experience now. Sure, you can have your Twitter account and your Facebook page and your news leaks to tech blogs, but the absolute best advertisers you have are your customers, now moreso than ever. People download your app, show their iPad/iPhone-equipped friends how much they like it, and boom: more guaranteed downloads. The aforementioned services give you an international presence, but only online: by mounting your software to a mobile platform, you essentially make your product tangible, and with that, offline word-of-mouth becomes much more viable. The best programmer in the world will hold a small stake in the app market if they don't have a strong social presence, and it works both ways: a mediocre app with many legitimate, technically-stronger competitors may win customers over simply because of a stellar social campaign. In order to move an app into the spotlight, you have to not only be aware of how valuable each customer is, but you also have to make a concerted effort to become the facilitator of that "hey, that's cool!" word-of-mouth advertising. Simply tossing your apps to the wolves with no social presence is like removing the McDonald's from the Big Mac: it's just another burger, and one that the Big Mac's competitors would like you to compare to their equivalent product and will actively pursue making you do so. It's easier than most think, especially with how common blogs have become and the advent of Twitter. It's sometimes astounding how often social presence is neglected, overlooked, or underestimated.
So if, then, the app bubble is indeed a bubble, there's nothing to suggest that it would stop growing for years to come, nor may it ever burst...until Apple once again makes its own product obsolete, at least. Until then, the best apps--both old and new--will either dominate their line of service, or have a stellar social campaign supporting them. Or, as many successful apps have already proven, both.
So I guess while I figure out what I should bring in from older blogs and how I'll go about doing it -- since Posterous isn't importing some blog content correctly and other pieces I've gotta import manually -- I'll go into a little more detail about this whole Japan thing.
Basically over the past week the possibility of going to Japan over the summer has gone from "wouldn't it be cool if..." to "LET'S DO THIS SHIT, YEAAAAHHHH!!!" The current itinerary is looking like the first two or three weeks of July, hopping from Tokyo, Nikko, Kamakura, then there's a big week of question marks, then back to Tokyo and departing out of Narita. We're gonna be doing a lot of hiking and have a couple of trail guide books that talk about neat trails in the back country that travel through farms and along smaller, less traveled roads.
I dunno about everyone else, but that's my ideal vacation -- taking the roads less traveled, seeing the stuff someone bunking in Tokyo for a few days wouldn't possibly get to check out. Dunno if Fujiyama is even on our radar, we're just that cool. B) I'm penning in an obligatory nerd pilgrimage to Akihabara; that'll probably be an endeavor taken on the last leg of the trip out rather than in the beginning. I imagine hiking with five pounds of plastic anime figurines and folded-up french maid costumes is difficult, not to mention awkward.
I'll be wearing my FiveFingers...or at least I'd like to. It would be nice to get at least a little notice from vibram, but a few pictures of "I'm wearing your wacky toe shoes at/under the floating torii at Miyajima" should at least get someone's attention. They're great shoes. They feel magical. /unpaid advertisement
Anyways yeah. Easter weekend family dinner calls. I wanna see if gmail emoticons work in crossposts, so if you see a wakaba here
then it works. If not...well, that's a shame.
edit: it works!! probably saves the emoticons as a new image on their servers each time I send one. I won't hassle Posterous with hosting Gmail's emoticons too terribly often.
So now everything is linked up to Posterous. I'm pretty much cramming my entire online identity into this one service so we'll see how that goes. Convenient service, or security issue? Guess we'll find out. This is all part of a shift in how I use my computin' time: I've moved to Google Chrome from Firefox mainly due to the bloat. I'll still use Firefox until the Rikaichan extension is fully imported and functional in Chrome (Rikaikun for anyone looking for it), but pretty much everything else I use Firefox for is either easily transferred (bookmarks, read later ext., etc.) or expendable (bookmarks i'll never look at again, built-in mp3 player as if it was really necessary, etc.).
Syncing everything up into Posterous serves multiple purposes. I'm trying to figure out ways to send as much info as possible out with as little tech as possible while I'm in Japan this summer. I figure we can send voice posts via tumblr for call-in posts and the like, and posterous for images/text/etc. for when we stumble upon internet access. (Lol as if internet access in Japan will be hard to find.) Plus, the more I do, the more I'll want to do, and right now I really should be writing for other things. (www.fanserviceftw.com and www.flashfictiononline.com specifically.) I guess in struggling against the spectre of "english majors have shitty job opportunities," it's only natural that I'm looking for self-publishing platforms. If I don't publish me, who will? At least I know what I'm doing, I guess.
That said, I suppose the issue of personal vs. professional posting comes into question. I figure, welp, I'm not getting paid to post any of this, so it's all technically personal now matter how professional it is or isn't sometimes. So I guess the best answer to that is...*puts on coolshades*...deal with it. I most certainly could go for professional articles only, but that would be boring, and I would look like a huge tool. A wise PR blogger once said "the more you talk, the less you're probably getting paid for it." True!
That and maybe now I don't have to mash refresh on Twitter and Facebook and Tumblr every ten seconds hoping for replies and mentions and talkie-time.
“That is one fast-ass fat man, dude what the hell, quit that Snake Strike shit. Snake Strike, EX Messiah, Space Opera Symphony. Every time. Every goddamn time. You know how to do anything else?” “Haha why, it works every time on you.” “Naw shut up whatever man, whatever.”
“Yo check this shit out. Roundhouse, fireball, FADC, Ultra. Boom.” “The fuck dude that’s simple as hell.” “No no no like okay the roundhouse makes the fireball hard to break and the fireball combos into the ultra. There’s like…probably a 97% chance this is gonna be in the new game.” “That’s some shit, that’s broken man…”
“Roman cancel, yeaaah okay. This is Street Fighter, get the fuck out with this Guilty Gear Japanese Daigo bullshit like you know things about fightin’ games.”
“I don’t even play this game and I was in like the top ten at Final Round. It wasn’t even a challenge until the quarterfinals. Yeah I dunno, I guess I’m just that good.”
“Yeah, Psycho Crusher? Quit doing that shit. That’s a bad habit and everybody can punish the hell outta that move if it whiffs.”
“I keep tryin’ to get an EX Lariat out and it doesn’t come out, what the hell dude. Your stick is dumb.” “Naw whatever, you’re dumb, sorry you ride the gate like some scrubby Gief…maybe you should just…deal with it.”
“Dude you were lookin’ hype as hell gettin’ ready to fight JWong. You were in the zone and there’s his fat greasy ass lookin’ like he just crawled outta bed or some shit and he still stomped your ass! But naw seriously that’s awesome.”
“Shit man look at this, Ibuki crossing up with an air knife. She has a legit aerial crossup. My mind is blown, dude seriously. Look at that shit! I’m maining the hell out of her when this shit drops.”
“Yea okay Hakan is more pro than you. Look at that shit. Beats the hell out of you up close, baits mid with supers and his ultra—oh shit, his ultra, man—and then oils up at range, and he looks goofy as hell on top’a all that. Anybody that mains him is gonna have so much fun, no lie.”
We were asked to write down natural dialogue for a few weeks in fiction writing, instead of our usual images. This was my longest—and my favorite. Nobody knew what the hell I was saying when I read it, but that just made it funnier.
