Aino Minako-chan

Question for work (and I am unfortunately not even kidding you, this is actually for work):

What anime, manga, or cosplay-related sites (informational or sales related) that are only available in Japanese would you like to see in English? (Or any similar sites that just have, say, an incomprehensible English HP would be fine, too.)

(No seriously, this is for work. Don't ask.)

Wow, I haven't talked about my books in a very long time, but I swear that I'm still reading! Honest! Here's a roundup, homefully without leaving anything out...

( (7) The Book Thief by Markus Zusak ) Definitely a recommended read for most everyone.

( (8) Victory of Eagles by Naomi Novik ) A great addition to the Temeraire series.

( (9) Soon I Will Be Invincible by Austin Grossman ) A wonderful, wonderful superhero novel.

( (10) Interworld by Neil Gaiman and Michael Reaves ) Calling all Neil Gaiman fans: Stay away. Stay faaaar away.

( (11) Storm Front by Jim Butcher ) To put it in mathematical form: Harry Potter + Harry Lockhart = Harry Dresden.

( (12) The Late Hector Kipling by David Thewlis ) A bit slow in parts, but over all very quirky and quite funny for a slightly surreal read.

FYI, I got a Kindle as an early birthday present, and it's actually perfect for me, because A) I honestly don't have room for any more paperbacks in my little Tokyo apartment, and B) when you take into consideration shipping costs and general markups added to English books is Japan, Kindle prices are honestly a good deal. Plus, it's much easier to cart on the train! I'm honestly not sure if I'd use it if I still lived in the States, but in Japan, it's really great.

For those who are curious, the Japanese parliament is currently starting its debate on reforms to the current organ transplant law (concerning deceased donors). The main catalysts for this change are a combination of A) problems with the current law, especially with the fact that donors must be 15+ years old, thus essentially making transplants for children illegal, and B) changes to WHO rules on transplants in foreign countries (in order to combat the concern of "transplantion tourism" as far as I can tell). I'm not an expert on transplants by any means (although I know people who are!), but it's an interesting debate in Japan, and I'll try to summarize it here.

( Cut for those who don't really care and b/c it's kinda long... )

In short, it's an interesting debate to watch. We'll see what happens.

UPDATE: Surprise! Plan A passed in the first house by a rather wide margin. We'll see how it does in the second house.

UPDATE #2: Plan A passed the second house in mid-July. Hurray! Now if we can only get families to agree to donate...

I had a pretty good weekend to combat recent work/life stress. On Saturday, johnabe took me to see "Terminator Salvation" (just known as the more logical "Terminator 4" in Japan). It was my first ever Terminator movie, and you know what? I quite liked it. It has lots of fun action and explosions and some pretty amazing shots (there's a helicopter crash in the beginning that I thought was really well done... it really DID remind me of being in my mom's SUV when it flipped, only, obviously, longer). Plus, it has MARCUS WRIGHT (played by Sam Worthington), who was totally awesome and I loved him like an awesomely awesome thing. Anyway, for some non-spoiler fun, the credits to the movie turned out to be accidentally hilarious:

1. One poor actor was accidentally credited as "Soilder". I loled pretty hard. Go go proofreading skillz!

2. At the very end, when they had the "Special Thanks" part of the credits, there was one line that went something like this: "Special Thanks to the Department of Defense and the U.S. Air Force, but especially to the Department of Defense."

No seriously, it mentioned the DOD twice. I couldn't stop laughing. I imagine a meeting with the producers and the guys from the DOD went something like this:

Producer: ...and, of course, we will make sure to credit both you and the Air Force for your cooperation...
DOD: But we're responsible for the Air Force.
Producer: Um, yes, but the planes are actually being flown by the Air Force, so...
DOD: Well, sure, you have to thank them... but it's thanks to us that the Air Force even exists! So you need to, you know, thank us double.
Producer: Oh, well. I guess we could...
DOD: Can you print our name in big letters?
Producer: I suppose...
DOD: Or make it flash or something? Like, one of those scrolling thingamabobs?
Producer: Er...
DOD #2: What about sparkle font?
DOD: Oooooo...
Producer: ...We'll just thank you twice.

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One of my friends invited me to a little livehouse on Sunday night. Her boyfriend is acting as the temporary bassist for this comedic three person rock band. Their music was actually pretty good, and they were also very funny as well. They had songs called things like "My name is Bacteria Man" and "Draemon Ash" (a play on famous cartoon "Doraemon" and rock group "Dragon Ash"). Their lyrics were by turns humorous, surreal, and weird, and I quite liked it. I think my favorite song was one that mainly consisted of instrumental music while the lead singer/guitarist Sugawara-san (I've met him a couple of times) talked, giving a short setup to a joke (about current events, politics, whatever) that lead up to a killer punchline. But after Sugawara-san made a few good jokes, he forced the drummer, Endo,  to take a turn, and his joke went like this:

Endo: You know, you hear people talking about all of the horrible things happening to modern Japan, but I don't think people talk about Japanese eating habits a lot. You know, more and more people are cutting back on rice, and they're eating more and more bread (pan in Japanese). And to me, that's the real PANdemic.
Audience: ............
Endo: [attempt to hide behind drums]

I laughed. It was a pretty entertaining show. ^_^

This has been making its way around the internets, but I just hate to think that anyone would miss the hilarity. Disclaimer: I love Bonnie Tyler's song "Total Eclipse of the Heart". It's one of those big epic over-the-top rock ballads. Little Minako-chan used to turn it up on the radio and watch the video on MTV, that's how much I liked the song. Having said that, the video makes no freaking sense. It's honestly just mind-bogglingly weird. There's fencers and shirtless schoolboys and a very literal take on the lyrics "Turn around bright eyes". It's just SO weird.

Which is why the LITERAL version of the video, in which the original lyrics are replaced by descriptions of the video, is so good. I weep with laughter every time I see this video.

( The Original Version )

( The Literal Version )

In conclusion, it's still a great song, but the video, wtf?

I saw him again! As I mentioned twice before, there's an awesome guy at my gym. And today, while walking around in Shinjuku, I think I saw him again! Okay, so I was walking along, and I saw this person from the back. At first, I thought it was a middle-aged woman, but the outfit... yellow turtleneck, yellow socks, Birkenstocks, and teeny TEENY khaki shorts that not only displayed rather significant amounts of ass cleavage, but also appeared to be giving the world's most painful-looking wedgie. As this person also had long hair tied into a side ponytail (with a hairband attached to a giant pink flower) and was also carrying a purse that (although I wasn't close enough to see the entire pattern) would have likely worked as a purse for My Little Pony or Care Bears, I assumed that said person was a woman. But then, as said person turned a corner, I caught a glimpse of this person's profile, and there was a rather significant beard. I couldn't tell for sure if it was actually gym guy, but I'd be rather frightened if there was more than one of him hanging around Shinjuku.

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Some videos I should mention... There's a commercial for Combat (a cockroach insecticide) that never fails to make me howl with laughter:

( Cut for the YouTube embedded version. )

You can watch the YouTube version (bigger but low quality) or you can visit the web site (teeny but high quality). Long story short, it's got the Johnny's-related idol group Butokan doing a very idol version of this insecticide commercial, and it ends with a very dramatic, "Gokuburi (cockroach), to the heaven." Seriously, I WEEP with laughter.

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Also, http://www.dothetest.co.uk/ has a new version of their awareness videos. The original one "Basketball" is still incredible, but the new version "Whodunnit?" is equally pretty awesome.

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Finally, my parents are currently in Hawaii visiting relatives, and they went to my cousin's graduation. Now, Hawaiian graduations are always celebrated by giving the graduate leis. Basically everyone the graduate knows sends a lei, so every graduate can end with piles of flowers. (Even I, when I graduated in Colorado, ended up with two fresh flower leis and a ribbon lei from relatives.) Monday is Memorial Day in the US. (For non-Americans, this is the day for commemorating soldiers who died in battle. A separate day, Veterans Day, is set aside for other veterans.) In honor of Memorial Day, a large veterans cemetary in Punchbowl (Honolulu) asked for donated leis, as they cover each grave in a lei. They needed 50,000 leis. They apparently now have too many leis, but they're still collecting anyway. My mom said that at my cousin's graduation, they had a box near the exit. Anyone who wanted to donate the leis after the pictures and all were over could drop the leis off in the box. Sounds amazing... I'd like to see that.

I literally ran from my dinner when I heard the news so that I could post this as quickly as possible:

SMAP's Kusanagai Tsuyoshi was arrested for public indecency after apparently getting drunk and running around a public park naked.

I shouldn't laugh at someone getting arrested, but I find this to be absolutely hysterical. I'm in tears with laughter after hearing this news. This is the definition of LOLz.

On the minus side, this is Japan, not the States or Britain or somewhere (where this would just be a hilarious story to tell interviewers), and Tsuyoshi-kun's not just a normal celebrity, he's a JOHNNY'S, and therefore technically an idol, and therefore this looks like it's going to be a HUGE deal. There's already been an official statement from Johnny's stating that Tsuyoshi-kun has been temporarily suspended, no indication yet of when he'll be let back in. OH THE DRAMA.

Okay, I've got to ask because I've heard about it on other people's blogs and on news sites and even from my freaking parents... Susan Boyle. Am I seriously the only one who didn't start weeping and having a life changing experience upon hearing her sing? I mean, she's a good singer, and if she were at my karaoke night, I'd cheer nice and loud. But it wasn't exactly the best performance of "I Dreamed a Dream" that I'd ever heard, and I wasn't that impressed, and I certainly wasn't anywhere near tears. (Then again, I was also never impressed by Paul Potts two years ago, either.) It makes me wonder if maybe I'm cold-hearted (although I cry at half of the movies I see), or if maybe I'm some sort of elitist music snob (always a possiblity). So, have a poll!

Poll #1385024 It's like a poll you'd write in middle school:
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

Do you like Susan Boyle Y/N?

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In other news of a video that DID get me choked up, I watched the latest "Harry Potter & tHBP" trailer, and I was doing fine until the end of the trailer when they showed obviously end-of-the-movie Snape scenes, and I started getting teary-eyed. It's just [SNIFF!] all so very sad, and I will likely blubber like a baby at the end of the movie. July 17th in Japan, gotta mark my calendar!!

Holy cow, I'm exhausted. The filming today took no time at all, but I still spent half of the day in either a car or train, so I chugged a very sugary latte in an attempt to wake up. (Note: Backfired big time. Caffeine is a total crap shoot with me: I'm either insanely wired for the next 6 hours, or I immediately want to curl into a ball and go to sleep. Guess what happened. >_<) Anyway, the video was pretty hysterical; it involved me 10 seconds of me pretending to take money from an ATM, and then getting into a tug-of-war fight with my co-worker Miokawa-san (dressed in all black and looking hysterically suspicious) over my bag. It was pretty awesome. After some debate over when I should shriek and how long we should wait until Miokawa-san started attacking, we got it done pretty much in one take, so I went back to work. (Well, I took the train for an hour and THEN got to work.) But luckily, I had plenty to keep me occupied! And with that, here are my three big video game news items (because good things come in threes):

1. Final Fantasy VII (PS3/PSP). They just brought this out on the Japanese Playstation Store, so I was able to download the game. Now I can play it on the go with my PSP (as I did today), or at home on my PS3 (note: FFVII on a large high-definition TV is HYSTERICALLY overkill; each pixel is like the size of my thumb). I played it during my long travel time today, so I just got Tifa in my team and we're about to go off to take down Tower 5. It's pretty darned awesome, and I'm totally excited to get further along so that I can just run around and level-slut on my commute. Good times!
   
2. Final Fantasy XIII. FFVII:AC comes out on Blu-ray on... Wednesday? Thursday? In any case, I've got a copy on reserve with the FFXIII demo, and I'm totally excited. It looks very very purdy and lots of fun and it's going to be pretty hysterical to play it back-to-back with FFVII. ^_^
   
3. Valkyria Chronicles. I had been interested in it when it first came out, and then I forgot about it, but recently I picked it up due to a recommendation from kinomakoto. And, well, I adore it. It's a turn-based RPG strategy game with surprisingly little actually strategy required (lol). Essentially all you need to do is accomplish your goal (normally a capture-the-flag type deal), but you're mainly graded on speed. You can get bonus points for killing leaders and tanks and getting aces and all that, but your main points come from your rank in the battle, and your rank seems to mainly depend on how fast you capture the flag. So while you have five classes of soldiers and a tank, essentially all you really need is about two good soldiers to carve a straight line through the enemies and get to the flag as quickly as possible. And to be entirely honest, plowing through the enemies while attacking like a mad-woman, completely ignoring defense, and focusing solely on the end goal is how I normally play strategy games, so this is a perfect match for me. Add in the beautiful artwork made to look like painting instead of CG and the somewhat hysterical storyline (as Mako-chan described it to me, "It's set in Gallia, a neutral country stuck between warring NotRussia/Germany and NotBritishEmpire. (By location, it would be Poland, but it acts like Switzerland and the people are Austrians. Large plotpoints center on Edelweiss.)"), I really love the game. Two thumbs up so far!
   

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In non-video game related entertainment news, johnabe dragged me to "Frost/Nixon" totally against my will, and would you believe it, it was an awesome movie. I thought it would be rather dry and dull, but instead it's suspenseful and exciting, and despite the fact that it's based on true history, you still spend the movie on the edge of your seat. "It's the final interview... will Frost get a leg up over Nixon!? I just don't KNOW!" It was suprisingly good. Recommended!

Apparently, I get to play "frightened businesswoman A" in a promotional video that we're shooting for someone's security camera product on Monday. I'll be pretending to take money out of an ATM, when Something Scary comes up behind me, and I scream in fright. Seriously. >_< SO HORRIFIC. I don't know know if there's some sort of "after" scene, in which I happily withdraw money from an ATM with said security camera; said scene would presumably involve me happily waving a stack of 10,000 yen bills in the air with glee. "No one can steal from me now that there's a SECURITY CAMERA!!"

This actually marks my third year of trying to read more on my commute, and it still seems to be working! Hurray!

( (1) Holidays on Ice by David Sedaris ) Maybe not a collection that you'd buy for yourself, but a good gift to buy someone else.

( (2) The 47th Samurai by Stephen Hunter ) A book by and for Japan fetish-ists! Otherwise, avoid it like the plague.

( (3) The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman ) A kid's book written for older Gaiman fans.

( (4) How To Talk to Girls by Alec Greven ) A funny little book that makes a good gift for someone.

( (5) The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz ) Good writing with some engaging sections, but overall a bit unfocused.

( (6) Confessions of a Fallen Angel by Ronan O'Brien ) A somewhat underwhelming book that I couldn't really get into.

On a side note, have other people read the short story "The Veldt" by Ray Bradbury? I saw another Bradbury story mentioned somewhere, and now I have an urge to read "The Veldt" again. I actually read it for the first time when I was pretty young, like 3rd grade or so, and it's traumatized me to this day. (lol)

A couple of Daily Show links so I don't lose them:

The one where Al Sharpton didn't show up, but they interviewed him anyway. Classic.
The Banana Episode. If you've seen it, you'll know why it's called that.
The Pancake-and-Sausage-on-a-Stick plus Baconnaise Lite. Come for the political commentary, stay for the gross-out food combination.

On a side note, I was thinking about it, and I realized that I'm actually quite the long-time viewer of The Daily show. I watched The Daily Show back in the day that Craig Kilborn hosted, back when their news stories tended to be gawker-esque weird stories (lots of UFO hunters and foil hats and Bigfoot) and they had classic segments like "the weekend's top grossing films, converted into lira". (Note: It depresses me to think that A) kids these days won't remember this segment, and B) kids these days probably won't remember lira.) I actually remember when Kilborn left and Jon Stewart stepped in; I was SO pissed. Here was this guy who I only knew from a failed talk show on MTV (a talk show on MTV! MTV will show anything and they cancelled his show!) taking over one of my favorite shows. He even stopped asking interview guests the infamous five questions; I nearly boycotted right there. And now look... Oh the irony.

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I realize that this article about online child predators shouldn't be funny, but the beginning of the article nearly made me howl with laughter:

[The special agent, posing as a 14-year-old boy,] claimed he was into weightlifting, AC/DC and muscle magazines.

OMG, and you're wondering why people doubt that you're actually 14? Do you honestly think that the average American teenaged boy is listening to AC/DC?

I apparently forgot to mention this, but last month, I was kinda stressed from work and had a day off on Feb. 11th, so I decided to make red velvet cupcakes for Valentine's Day. I'm really not a domestic type, but I'm Virgo enough that things like cleaning and baking relax me. They were slight failures (I don't have a mixer, so the frosting ended up with small lumps of cream cheese that I couldn't quite smooth out, and I didn't put enough food coloring in (liquid food coloring is nearly impossible to find in Japan, so I just added powdered red color until the batter looked vaguely bloody), so I ended up making plain chocolate cupcakes instead of red velvet). Still, they turned out well. (I assume. I made ALMOST enough for everyone in the company, male and female, but I was two cupcakes short, so I rather apologetically informed my fellow translator Horinouchi-san that neither of us were getting cake. She didn't seem to mind, but I was honestly a big upset. lol)

Anyway, today (tomorrow, technically, but it's a Saturday) is White Day, so I ended up getting swag from the guys at the office: a bag of cookies, four small chocolates (from 2 different co-workers), a little box of 4 truffles, a little box of chocolates (which my co-worker hysterically hid in a work envelope in order to hide from prying eyes), and apparently some cake from the guys in the Engineering department. \(^o^)/ Hurray! I am the winner!



(No, actually to be entirely honest, it's pretty embarrassing. I wanted to bake because I was bored and stressed; Valentine's day was really just an excuse and a good way to make sure that I didn't scarf a sheet cake by myself. Next year, I'm pooling my money with the other women to buy chocolates. If I want to bake, I'll make sure to do it on a non-reciprical-gift-giving holiday.)

( ETA under the cut )

I previously mentioned that Utada's second album is dropping soon. It comes out on March 14th in Japan and March 24th in the States. (The first single is already available.) I'm so excited about the album, however, that I completely forgot to mention the OTHER super-famous Asian singer coming out with a US album: BoA.

Yes, BoA's debut US album hits stores on March 17th. It's supposed to be a hard-hitting dance album, which admittedly makes me blink a bit, because US audiences aren't exactly known for being connoisseurs of dance albums. So far, I've heard two songs from the album: "I Did It for Love" and "Eat You Up".

( See the YouTube videos behind the cut! )

I quite like "I Did It for Love", but "Eat You Up"... Is it just me, or does that song sound like it's running at half speed? It's one of the least danceable dance songs that I've ever heard. Seriously, it's kinda weird.

I have to share this fruit-flavored gum commercial starring Johnny's group KAT-TUN. It never fails to make me laugh:



To translate roughly, it goes like this:

KAT-TUN looks very cool, but inside their mouthes, they're-
Ve--ry fruity!!

That's right! KAT-TUN is fruity in their mouths! I howl with laughter every single time it comes on TV. Talk about meaning getting lost in translation...

Long story short, I passed the Level 1 JLPT (Japanese Language Proficiency Test)! I was busy at work and didn't really study for the test (my studying basically invoved cramming kanji on the train ride to the testing location), but I somehow squeaked a win. Hurray!

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In completely (and I mean COMPLETELY) different news, does anyone remember an April Fool's joke on one of the internet gaming magazines sometime around, say 1998? They printed up a fake article about how FFVII, after being ported to the PC, would be enjoying a new port on the Atari (or something like that) taking up only 64 cartridges. They included a "movie" from the game, which was an animated gif of blocky Sephiroth killing blocky Aerith, climaxing with a single green pixel slowly bouncing away. It was horrifying funny, but I can't find it any more. (I can't even remember which online magazine it was... I believe that it changed names since then?) Does anyone remember this?

ETA: FOUND! Or, the animated gif, at least. It was ironically reposted recently. Enjoy!

http://www.gamesniped.com/2009/02/04/final-fantasy-vii-for-the-atari-2600/

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I'm unfortunately having a falling out with the video game Demon's Souls. And it's not because it's too hard or frustrating or anything... it's because it's starting to scare the crap out of me. I finished the first part of the first area, which unlocked all of the other areas, and two of them scare me half to death. I was doing well with one area, killing slow, stupid zombies, but I could hear banging from the next room. "Hm, wonder what that is!", I thought to myself. The answer came quickly when three zombie doggies burst out of the room. I literally turned and sprinted all the way to the exit while screaming, "AHHHH, EVIL PUPPIES!!!". (Note: this is the exact same thing that happens when I play Resident Evil games. I hate zombie doggies!) And then another area? Is the dungeon area, making it dark, narrow, and filled with torture equipment. It's creepy enough, but what makes things worse is the fact that every so often, you can hear a man's voice calling out, "Oh god, please help me! Someone, save me!" I basically ran from that level, too. It reminded me of when I played Silent Hill 2, a task that I was only able to accomplish by playing in full daylight, with all of the curtains open, while my roommate was home. Without a roommate, I honestly don't think I'll be able to play the dungeon area. (T_T) Too scawy!

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And in final news, Utada's second CD will be dropping in a few weeks. Hurray! You can check out the first single from the album here. On one hand, it's a bit too mellow for my tastes, but on the other hand, I have a tendancy to start singing it to myself at odd times, suggesting that it's surprisingly catchy. Not that I'm sure how people become famous for music these days, outside of T&A or American Idol.

OH HOLY CRAP, GUYS! OKURIBITO WON THE BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE OSCAR!

I loved it when I saw it, but I admittedly never expected it to win anything, especially when I kept hearing about the entries from Israel and France. Holy crap!

Yes, this means that I'm checking the Oscar results at work. Shut up.

I'm attempting to set a record for "topics that you will never ever see together in any other blog post." (^_^)v

High School Musical 3
John and I went to see the High School Musical movie in the theater on Sunday. I thought it would at least be unintentionally entertaining like past HSM movies, but it was also more intentionally entertaining than I thought it would be. Long story short, they apparently spent all of their money on big set pieces and dance boot camp. The choreography was very well done (not a single scene involved running over a golf course!!), so my dancer heart loved it. Plus, it's always fun when you can play "predict the choreography". (Like, "You know what? In this scene, I'd totally do a back roll into the splits. ...And they did it! AWESOME!") My biggest problem had to be one of the new characters, who was so annoying that I had to restrain the urge to leap into the screen and strangle him (possibly while screaming, "And cut your hair, you shaggy freak!!"). Seriously, don't even talk to me about whatshisname.

Demon's Souls
John's video game came out last week! John works for From Software, which put out the surprise hit Demon's Souls last week, so I picked it up. Look! Those wavy effects from my screaming dead soul? John did that!! I keep hearing that it's a horrendously difficult game, but it's really not that bad. I mean, I'm a HORRIBLE action gamer (I need cheats to beat all Resident Evil games, although this is partially because I jump at the drop of a hat and have a tendancy to start screaming when zombie doggies chase after me, at which point Mako-chan tends to start shouting, "You're immortal, Minako-chan! Just shoot them!"), so I was expecting to die right away, but I'm actually doing okay for the first runthrough. I've died twice so far; once I fell down a hole (I assumed that it was the right way to go, so I flung myself over the edge; whoops), and once I just accidentally ran into an enemy at the wrong time. But still! That's pretty awesome for me. I've only played about half of the first level, but I'm enjoying the game so far. Plus, you can customize your character by selecting one of 10 classes, and then using complicated Sims-esque controls to tweek your character's look. Therefore, my character Minako is a sexy, dark-skinned, white-haired holy knight. Go go Minako! (I also put away my shield so that I could just use my halberd two-handed... I'm not very good at blocking or parrying, so I'm just putting my money on strong offense to save the day. The halberd has a long reach, which can get dangerous in close quarters, but it means that I can kill things before they get within their own sword range.) I may change my mind later on, but so far, I honestly recommend it. Nothing like hacking at baddies to lower your stress.

Teriyaki Boyz
I watched the video for their song "Work That" while at the gym on Saturday, and I still can't decide what I feel about it. On one hand, it's a rather catchy song that I've had stuck in my head since then. On the other hand it's, well... See the video for yourself. Warning: Not safe for work. Or children. Or possibly your parents.

Okay, see what I mean? I vacillate between honestly insulted and genuinely amused depending on the time of day. As insulting as I find it, it's SO over the top that it starts to get pretty tongue-in-cheek funny after a while. Plus, the song is pretty catchy. I don't know. Decide for me!

Poll #1347201 More choices than you can shake an ass at!
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All

So, what do you think?

I love my job. I really do! I will not strangle anyone over the proofreading that I'm doing!!

Okay, so my boss is still sick and will (hopefully!) come back tomorrow, which means I was asked to do the last-minute proofreading of an instruction manual before it's delivered to the client. Final check? Fine with me. A little brush up here and there, I can finish it pretty easily.

It's normally cool, but here's the thing. This manual sucks. It's seriously horrible. First of all, the DTP is a horrible experience in eye-strain city, literally using (I checked) 5.5 pt font. That's right! It's a font so small that they don't even offer it as a default option on Word! Charts use an astounding 4.5 pt font. I'm reading this crap on 150% magnification and I'm getting eye strain. 16 pages of sheer printed hell.

And that's not even getting into the actual text. Even beyond the normal spelling, punctuation, or grammar errors, we had baffling errors like +24 V split into two lines after the plus sign (?), the word "short-circuit" hyphonated and split into two lines as "short-cir-cuit" (??), and an entire page where there weren't spaces after the periods at the ends of sentences (...Seriously!?). Plus, the text was apparently a mix of reused text from a previous manual, corrections from the US office, and new text from the Japan office, leading to paragraphs full of sentences like "You should make sure the external device" or "[The wires] is necessary to be grounded." I was seriously near tears trying to get through this thing, but since I figured there wasn't enough time, I tore through it in 2-1/2 hours (for 16 pages!!) and made the most necessary changes and tried not to feel total shame at the fact that the entire troubleshooting section was worded in terms of "You should XXX."

So anyway, the writer (editor/producer, really, since he didn't actually write anything) in charge of the job came over to check how I was doing, and I was only about 11 pages in at the time. Our conversation went like this:

Co-worker: Oh, you're doing it manually. I thought you'd just run a program, you know, perform a spell check and look for missing periods.
Minako-chan: Yeah, but... When is it due, anyway?
Co-worker: Oh, originally today, but I got it pushed back to tomorrow. It's pretty bad, right? Like, the style totally changes constantly [due to the multiple sources of text].
Minako-chan: Exactly.
Co-worker: Exactly! That's why you shouldn't check the whole thing; just run spell check or whatever. If you actually tried to fix the whole thing, like, it'd take you forever! [laughing]
Minako-chan: [jaw drops]

Screw you! Screw you a lot, writer dude! It's called pride in your freaking work! I realize that no manual has "Proofread by Aino Minako-chan" scrawled in big letters across the front, but I know! And the client at least knows that it's the work from our company. If I turn in some shit with weird spacing and words hyphonated willy-nilly, then our client will just assume that we're all a bunch of freaking morons. I should further mention that this particular client is one who's kinda mad at us right now, and that this particular writer is one of the major reasons why they're mad. AND SUDDENLY I UNDERSTAND. If the text that you receive from the client sucks, you FIX it. THAT IS YOUR JOB. I have FOUGHT for translations when the clients didn't understand how bad it sounded. Because that's my JOB. My job isn't to sit here running Bablefish and Word spellchecker for Christ's sake. I'm seriously furious.

In my daily email update today, I am totally complaining to Shachou. Shachou LIKES me. (And he's currently got the flu, too, so he's probably in a pretty crappy mood.) Screw you, writer dude. If our client complains, I am totally laying the blame on you.

Reason that I cried yesterday: I went to see Okuribito (Departures), which is the Japanese film nominated for Best Foreign Language Film at the Oscars. (Fun fact: I looked at the list of Oscars nominees and discovered that I've only seen two other nominated films: The Dark Knight and Iron Man. Isn't that really sad? And this is even an Oscar year that includes movies that I'd actually want to spend money on!)

Anyway, it's a comedic story about the funeral business, or more technically, noukan, which is the traditional Japanese act of preparing the body for burial/cremation. After losing his job with an orchestra, Daigo goes back to the country and accidentally gets a job working as a noukanshi. (He thinks he's getting a job at a travel agency, due to the newspaper ad that talks about helping people with their precious departures. As it turns out, this was a misprint; it was supposed to read "helping people with their precious departed.") It's a very funny story about life and death and family, while still making me cry like a little baby. (Seriously, it was almost funny! There were points in the movie where all you could hear was people sobbing and sniffling into their hankies.) I don't know if it deserves the Oscar compared to the other films, but it is a very good, very Japanese movie. ( Cut for a very minor spoiler from Okuribito, although technically, I have a feeling that this wouldn't be a spoiler if I were Japanese. )

Reason that I'm going to cry today: My boss came down with the flu, so I came in to work only to discover that he'll be gone for the next two days. This means that I'm now in charge of my own work (still slightly behind due to the training session last Friday), plus half of my boss's work. My coworker will likely take on the other half, although she's currently moving and therefore taking a half day today. Seriously, I'm going to cry. Get better soon, Yagi-san! We miss you!!