Aino Minako-chan

And a quick note to translation companies: if you are trying to encourage people to contact your company, you might want to avoid having TWO major typos on the "Contact us" page alone. (Or should I say, the "Contac us" page.) Le sigh. In other news...

( Video Games Part 1: Valyria Chronicles 2 )

( Video Games Part 2: Bayonetta )

( Video Games Part 3: Final Fantasy Dissidia )

( Senshi Gakuen.com )

So things are going... Well, they're going. >_< My monitor blew out during the middle of work yesterday (literally, there was a pop and then it turned black) and so I spent a while carting monitors around and hooking them up. THEN, I found out that we have a surprise work day today (Saturday), which is just arrrrrgh. SO not fair; I really hate 1 day weekends. T_T It's hard to get inspired to get chores done or work out or whatever when you've only got one day off.

But in GOOD news, FINAL FANTASY VIII!!!! Just as FF7 was released as a download for the PSP a couple of months ago, FF8 was just released, too, and I'm soooooo excited. It's really hysterical to think that both video games fit onto my little memory card, but c'est technology for you. I'm about halfway through FF7 and just started playing FF8. I always really liked FF8 and have a special place in my heart for it.

( Eight Things I Love About FF8 and Random Musings )

tl;dr I love FF8 and can't wait to play more.

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!

I haven't actually made a real post recently, so here's what I've been up to for the past month.

• A group of wonderful folks came to visit Japan. We shopped and went to the Winter Comiket and ate parfaits the size of my head and went to the hot springs in Hakone and wents to the Ghibli museum and had dinner with various members of the anime industry. (It was a very amazing night that involved me trying not to pass out when I discovered that I was having a conversation with a guy who worked on animation for Macross 7 and Animaniacs, and then watched a Sailor Moon director down a series of penis themed novelty drinks. Seriously, it was a weird night.) It was an action-packed, exciting New Year's for me.
  
• Unfortunately, I was sick almost the entire time. I caught a cold, which then refused to go away due to long days, late nights, and too much talking and singing. It eventually progressed into a horrible cough that caused me to pull at least two muscles around my ribs and wake up during the night with my general inability to breath. The cold has basically gone away, but I still have a couple of coughing fits every day that sent me gasping for air. It's not been fun.
  
• Oh, and then there was my migraine a couple days ago, which literally occurred less than a week after we exchanged all of the lights in our office for even brighter, shinier ones. I nearly brought my sunglasses out; it was pretty bad.
  
• Work is slightly stressful in general. I had a busy but manageable schedule, carefully planned out through next Monday. Which is why I nearly had a panic attack when my boss informed me on Wednesday that that we'd be having a mini-training seminar for a new translation server system today, lasting from 10am to 5pm. Seriously, I didn't know whether I wanted to cry or strangle someone. It turned out that we finished around 3pm, but I'm still kinda stressed and behind schedule. T_T
  
• On the plus side, I bought "Civilization Revolutions" for my PS3. It's pretty fun, actually, and I've been having a good time blasting through the games. And although I haven't bought anything yet, I've downloaded a couple of pretty awesome mini-games from the PS3 store. I'll probably end up buying them one day when I get bored; "The Last Guy" is loads of fun when you're in the mood to save the citizens of Tokyo from evil roaming aliens.
  
• Oh, also on the plus side, the latest trailer for "Final Fantasy 13" just came out, and I'm extremely excited about it. I'll definitely be picking up the demo that comes with Advent Children on Blu Ray, so I guess I'll get to see some of it for myself in a few months! Doki doki!!

I've been surprisingly busy the past two weeks or so. I'm leaving this weekend for a trip to Greece with kinomakoto, and I'm super excited. My laundry isn't quite done and my apartment probably won't get cleaned before I go, but I'm basically ready. Hurray! Excitement!

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A few weeks ago, I was watching one of the millions of animal related TV shows in Japan, and they showed an edited version of a clip known as ( Battle at Kruger. )

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Before Crisis, the Final Fantasy VII cell phone game, just came out for my current model of cell phone, so I said "What the hell!" and I downloaded it. ( Cut for those who don't really care. ^_^ )

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( Cut for those who actually care about my previous poll... )

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( And in completely random news... )

Well, I watched the final ever episode of "Gakkou e Ikou" last week. Despite the fact that I haven't watched the show regularly for about two years, I've been a fan since 2000, so it was still very sad to have it come to an end. Then again, the show ran 11 years, so it had a good run. They've done some retrospectives over the past few weeks, and it's surprising how many clips I remembered or had already seen before. (Most of the old stuff I remember seeing back in the 5 year anniversary special.) It reminded me of all the good times and why I became such a fan of V6: because they made me laugh.

For those who ever watched the show around 2001-ish, there was one very interesting note in their retrospective three weeks ago: Remember Mackey, the absolutely adorable boy (who looked like an absolutely adorable girl) in the "Minorikawa Otome Dan" segments? He is now a she and she's cute like a button! Suprisingly enough (or perhaps not surprising at all) she looks almost exactly like she did when she was a 13-year-old boy. (Mackey was always a shockingly cute girl.) And she's still got that same nervous half-smile and the same crush on Sakamoto-kun. Awwww! Go Mackey!

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Also, remember when I talked about the totally awesome guy at my gym? Well, I saw him again for the first time in about a year, and he only gets awesomer by the minute. I was walking past the elliptical machines when I noticed him: still solid bronze all over, still solid-but-with-beer-belly, still long wavy hair. But of course, I mainly noticed him because he was wearing lime green sneakers, a black tank top, and teeny black shorts with multicolored stripes. But the best part? The tank top had ridden up a bit and the teeny black shorts had ridden down, so it was very very clear that he was wearing a neon pink thong. I did an actual double-take when I saw him. It was totally awesome.

P.S. No, he really IS bronze all over. ALL over.

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I've been playing Final Fantasy XII International, which has inspired a random poll, because seriously, it's starting to bother me:

Poll #1255626 Parlez-vous francais?
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 35

How do you normally pronounce the word "marquis"?

1. High School Musical 2
   After a somewhat hysterical comedy of errors that was totally my fault ("Where are you?" "In front of your house. Where are you?" "Uh, at your train station."), johnabe came over yesterday and we watched High School Musical 2. I would like to note right now that this was totally not my idea. It was John! I swear to god! But in the end, we were drinking and some of the over-the-top dance sequences were laugh-out-loud funny (the baseball dance-off? oh my GOD the baseball dance-off!!!), so it was a good time had by all.
   
   
2. Shadow Hearts 2
   Completely randomly, I decided to replay Shadow Hearts 2. I was 3/4 of the way through the game, but I hadn't played in probably two years, so I could barely remember who the characters were. Therefore, I decided to just start from the top. Hopefully, I'll actually finish the thing this time.
   
   
3. Final Fantasy (Versus) XIII
   Okay, so I'm obviously very excited about the next FF game. I doubt it will come out in 2008, so I'm placing my hopes on Spring 2009. (But who knows; Square-Enix always likes to surprise me with release dates.) Anyway, Famitsu released some more images for Final Fantasy XIII and Final Fantasy Versus XIII, and they were pretty pretty as always. But the part that made me sit up in my chair? Check out the images for Versus. I know! Hot lead guy has a hot posse! Square-Enix always knows how to snare us fangirls. (FYI, I call dibs on Glasses Guy.) The only thing is that, after playing FFVII: Crisis Core, I'm utterly terrified that they'll all go crazy or start turning into monsters or something, and they'll all be dead by the end. Because if anything happens to Hot Posse, I will CRY.
   
   
4. Zombies
   Completely by coincidence, I have read several stories recently involving zombies. (Really; it's been weird. Weird and hard to sleep at night.) Anyway, it's made me think more about my own personal zombie readiness levels. In general, it's not terribly high (my general earthquake readiness isn't all that great, either), but I've come to the following conclusions that could turn the tide in either direction:
1. Pro: I live in Tokyo, which has plenty of bicycles (for easy, gas-free, faster-than-zombie transport) and relatively good systems in case of emergency (good earthquake readiness should be fairly similar to good zombie readiness... access to emergency food, water, etc = same. access to pitchfork for bashing zombies in the head = different.)
2. BIG Pro: I live a block away from a sword museum. Not even kidding you. A sword museum. It's even shorter if I lept out my window and climbed a few fences. If zombies ever start taking over Tokyo, you'll be able to find me snatching up all the best samurai blades for myself. Let me know if you need anything.
3. BIG Con: I live in freaking Tokyo. The city with dense population, narrow & confusing roads, and no unlimited ammo rocket launchers (if Resident Evil is any indication, this is what I'll actually need to survive a zombie attack). I'm screwed.
   
4. Conclusion? If there's a zombie outbreak in Tokyo, I'm most likely dead meat. But feel free to imagine me defending the local 7-11, sword in each hand.

I finally finished Final Fantasty VII Crisis Core. I didn't mean to take so long, but I ended up finishing all of the missions first. I am a solider fighting machine!  Overall, the game really did remind me of FFVII, especially during the parts when I started shrieking, "Curse you, Square!! Do you know how difficult it is to fight when you're sobbing your little heart out!?" It was... one of the most horribly tragic ending fights I've ever experienced. Zack! Uwwaaaaaaaah!

So in short, I highly recommend the game to everyone. ^_^v

I picked up FFVII: Crisis Core on Thursday, and have been playing it an embarrassing amount ever since. (Note: I still haven't reached the halfway point yet. It's just... there are all of these SIDE MISSIONS and they're taking up my time and I know that it's sad that I haven't even met newbie Cloud yet, but but....) Anyway, this is either the bestest game ever, or the worstest game ever. I can't decide. On one hand, it's an awesome game for fans, and if you're like me, you'll be squealing wildly because OMG Zack is pulling a train job or LOOK it's the Buster Sword or HAHA squat contests! On the other hand, I spent the rest of the game practically SOBBING because NONO Zack, don't protect Hojo or ANGEAL it's okay you have a wing, you're still an awesome hero or CRAP it's a another new character; you're totally going to kick the bucket, aren't you? Seriously, there was one point in the game where I just felt so BAD for Sephiroth because he was sad like a kicked puppy, and I started thinking to myself, "WHY oh WHY was Cloud so MEAN to him!?" before I remembered, "Oh, right. Killed Aerith and tried to smash Midgar into a pulp. Now I remember."

( Cut for random blathering about my first impressions of the game, complete with rather minor spoilers. Although, dude, we all know what happens to Zack and probably suspect what happens to anyone who doesn't show up in the original game. It's kinda like spoilers for the end of Titanic. )

• WTF am I translating? I'm doing some short Japanese-to-English translations of the labels for products that are, not even shitting you, American brands. It's really really bizarre.
• I've been spending time playing "Final Fantasy XII: Revenent Wings" for the Nintendo DS. It's kinda like Final Fantasy Tactics: Light. You go on short little missions and beat things down and it's all good. I'm quite fond of the battle system, which works well with the touch pad. It's very simple drag-and-drop; you just select characters and drag them (or their spells) where they need to be. It's fun and calming until, of course, you hit one of the rare battles that requires you to split your characters into groups, at which point you end up scrolling around the map as quickly as possibly, trying to find those stupid kids again. Anyway, the biggest problem for me is that, quite frankly, I had forgotten how much I disliked Vaan. Oddly enough, he was doing fine until Balflear turned up, at which point Vaan turned into an emo asshat. Don't make me beat you down, Vaan! I'll do it! I'll totally do it!!!
• In somewhat interesting news, several universities have been shut down in Japan due to outbreaks of measles. Apparently, Japan has spotty coverage for measles vaccinations, partly because of a bad MMR vaccine used in the 80's and partly because the measles vaccine has been optional since the mid 90's. Officials and parents scared off by the bad MMR vaccine apparently went, "It's just measles. Like, who gets measles? And even if they get it, it's not like it's a huge deal, right?" And it doesn't matter, apparently, until those unvaccinated kids grow up, start going to college, and start spreading measles amongst themselves. Measles isn't a hugely dangerous disease, so I do find it funny more than anything else. One interesting comment that I heard in the news came from Chiba University. A couple dozen students have come down with the measles, and the president was asked why he doesn't plan to cancel classes. The president simply said, "If we cancel school, it's not like students will just stay at home and rest until they're sure that they're not carrying measles. They'll go out into crowded places in town. At least this way, we'll hopefully help to contain the problem." It's unusual logic, but it kinda makes sense. Especially when the news reporter paired that quote with an interview from some students from another schoold who said that since they don't have classes, they went to an onsen and plan on partying all night.
• I finally bit the bullet and signed up at a gym in Shinjuku. I decided to get a night-only membership, which works because the only free time I have is late at night or on weekends. So far, I've only gone to the little lap pool, which is very relaxing and not very crowded. From what I can tell, at least half of the people in the pool area are guys who just want to lounge in the sauna or the jaccuzi pool while wearing the teeniest speedos you've ever seen in your life, so precariously pulled over their non-existant asses that it would actually be quite dangerous if they ever attempted to actually swim. I can only presume that they thought it was sexy, but personally, all I could think was, "Dear god, look at how teeny you are. I could snap you like a twig."
  
  Anyway, after going through the trauma of buying a new swimsuit and going to a pool, I discovered something very important: I can no longer swim. (lol) Seriously, when was the last time that you actually SWAM, not just floated or splashed around. It was quite depressing that I nearly drowned after 25 m of breast stroke. I learned to swim when I was about 3 or so (we had a pool in the backyard), and one of my schools had a pool so I took swimming semi-regularly in gym class for 4 years, so it's somewhat depressing to know that, hey, it's not just like riding a bike! (Actually, considering how I handle a bike, it's a very appropriate comparison.) I like to think that part of the reason for my failure was that the pool was filled to the brim with chlorine, so even dipping my head under and letting the droplets drip down made my eyes burn like a burning thing. I'll try buying goggles this weekend; hopefully that will give me the ability to stick my head underwater without reacting like the wicked witch of the west.

• So I mainly just relaxed over my Golden Week holidays. It was extremely relaxing. The only thing I even really did was watch "Spiderman 3" with johnabe. It's like 6 movies smooshed into one! John performed his own personality test on me, asking questions like, "Who's sexier, Tobey Maguire or DJ Ozma? James Franco or DJ Ozma?" and seemed slightly disappointed when I quickly answered "James Franco" every time. But the highlight was when we went to karaoke, and John finished off the 2 hour session with the hit single "Don't You Cry" by Steven Seagal. Yes, THAT Steven Seagal. I couldn't stop laughing the entire time as John power-balladed away.
• An actual outtake from work:
  Yagi-san: Minako-chan, I need you to check a Portugese translation for me.
  Minako & Yagi-san: [laugh hysterically]
  Yagi-san: No, seriously, I need you to check some Portugese.
• Another actual outtake from work:
  We received the paperwork for our annual physical. Along with the paperwork was a little device for our urine sample which is called, I'm not even kidding you, "Pee Pole II".
• As seen in this news article, apparently some Japanese viewers of "Babel" began feeling ill while watching a scene with a strobe light. You may remember back in the day when flashing lights in Pokemon made hundreds of kids sick, or at least you've seen the Simpsons in Japan parody of the situation. And I was among those who laughed at the cartoon, but now I'm really wondering. Because, well, it's really weird that you don't hear about this happening in other countries.
• The preview movie for Crisis Core: FFVII is up at the Square Enix homepage. It makes me cheer because, well, Zack! Zack! However, after watching the preview, I have two major things to say.
  • First of all, a message for young happy Zack: For the love of god, WHY would you join Angel and Sephiroth to look for Genesis!? Just... their names are ANGEL, SEPHIROTH, and GENESIS. You should know that there is no possible way that your mission is going to end with puppy dogs and fairy dust.
  • Second, I'm really curious about how, as a game, the story will proceed. Because, well, we already KNOW what happens to Zack in the end. He gets the crap beaten out of him by Sephiroth, he is made a human test subject in biological experiments, and then he is shot brutally. So what's the final battle like? "Hurray, Sephiroth spears you with his sword! You beat the game!!"

The DTP department just handed over two bloody new versions of the same manual in two hours. I'm using TRADOS, a translation program, to translate, so you'd think that getting handed a different version of basically the same thing wouldn't be any big deal, but TRADOS had limitations and so I always do the final check by hand. This will be my third time doing a manual check on chapter 2 today. To put it mildly, I'm getting kinda ticked.

Speaking of angry, this article kinda pissed off my inner linguist, which is surprising mainly because I didn't think I had an inner linguist. While I adored my linguistics classes, my memory is somewhat akin to a sieve and knowledge tends not to stay inside for the long haul. Anyway, the article mainly talks about a book about early childhood language development from a man called Charles Lang. Normally, I would just scratch my head and try to figure out why anyone thinks this is new, except that the article started out somthing like this:

When kids leave out the subject in the sentence "Where going?" they're thinking like a speaker of Chinese, which drops topic words in some contexts. [...] Like almost everything in linguistics, Yang's idea stems from Noam Chomsky's theory that the human capacity for language is innate.

( The following has been cut because it contains nothing but linguistic bitching. You have been warned. If you don't feel like clicking, I totally understand, and the oversimplified version of my complaining can be summed up as, 'Chomsky!? OMFG Chomsky!! Hiss hiss! Spit spit!! And WTF's with that statement about Chinese? Are you a moron, writer lady!?' For those who might be interested, the following will contain highly suspect information pulled from the scraps of my remaining linguistic knowledge that may or may not be interesting. )

Finally, in completely unrelated news, I've finally scratched the surface of Final Fantasy III. Keeping in my personal naming tradition, the four characters have been renamed Fred, Bobby, Roger, and Kiki. Just... because. Go get 'em, Kiki!

So Saturday was my birthday. Happy one year older to me! johnabe came over in the morning before work so that he could give me my present: two bottles of uber-special edition Final Fantasy XII potions. Do you feel energized!? 50 or 100 hit points worth of energized!? (could happen) I was very impressed with the present, although I had unfortunately just brushed my teeth at the time, so the potions had an extra infusion of mint that made it taste even weirder than normal. I went out shopping in the afternoon, bought myself two shirts and a cardigan-type wrap, and played some Tokimeki Memorial.

On Sunday, after getting my nails done (I believe the shade is known as "Streetwalker Red"), my friend Meg invited me out shopping with her in Roppongi. We hit the new Cold Stone Creamery, which debuted in Japan fairly recently and is ridiculously popular. We felt like we had taken a trip to Disneyland: We stood in a winding line for 45 minutes, only to be greeted by cheery workers who all sang ice cream-related songs to the tune of "Hi-Ho". But Cold Stone Creamery! Yum!! We left to do some shopping, only to discover that it was the last day of the Pixar art exhibition, so we raced to the museum to see that. The highlight was a massive, modern, Toy Story-themed zoetrope. Unlike traditional zoetropes, this was made with huge 3D sculptures attached to a fast-spinning platform. They'd start the thing up, rotating it faster and faster until it was just all a blur... and THEN they added strobe lights, and suddenly, the entire thing was animated. It was wicked cool, and apparently based off of a similar invention for the Ghibli museum. And it all comes full circle. [draws circle with hands] Afterwards, we rested in front of a live musical performance by a newbie, unknown band called "Soma" (they were surprisingly good; band to watch for?), and then headed off to a really yummy Iranian restaurant for dinner.

Finally, I bought myself a new birthday present: Final Fantasty III for the Nintendo DS. Hurray!!! Prepare to level slut!! I haven't actually played yet; I've been busy going online and reading through the manual and trying to figure out which jobs for everyone to learn. As I've mentioned several times in regards to RPGs, Minako-chan and magic don't really get along. I always give people magic and summons and stuff... but then I never actually use them. And don't even get me started on status magic... In fact, me being, well, me, I'd rather have a team filled with nothing but Ninjas and Karate experts. We'll see what happens. And I'll keep you updated on my process!

Recently, it has occurred to me that I have money. I still think of myself as a thrifty student, even through I've been working for over a year already. But I've recently come to realize that, hey, I'm actually developing a savings. I actually can afford things if I want them! So long and winding story short, I bought myself a new TV. [cheer cheer] It's technically a second computer screen, which I decided I wanted because I use my computer DVD drive to watch non-Japanese DVDs, but it's got all of the normal hookups for a TV, as well. How exciter-ment!

So, I upgraded to an S-Video cable for my PS2 and finished Final Fantasy XII. Look, how clear! I can read the letters that tell me the name of locations on the map! It's a miracle!!! I didn't finish every part of FFXII, but I did finish up with all of my characters around level 87, so it was a nice, leisurely boss battle at the end. Hurray!

Anyway, the truly eventful part of the day came when I was shifting things around to reconnect everything to my TV. Guess what I found? My lost passport. Yes, I tore apart my apartment in February looking for my misplaced passport, and eventually ended up jumping through every administrative hoop that both Japan and America could throw at me, and it turns out that my passport was in the most logical place: Underneath my VCR, pushed to the very back of the cabinet. Obviously.

I nearly fell over at the news this morning. They showed a clip from Final Fantasy XIII for the PS3. [frantic jumping with glee] I'm well aware that it'll be years before I actually get to play the game, but... [frantic hand waving] It's so pretty!!! It's, like, very very very pretty!!!

I'm the worst daughter, ever. I totally forgot my mommy's birthday. And if I forgot my mom's birthday, then I totally forgot my brother-in-laws' birthdays last month. What the hell is wrong with me? (T_T) Anyway, in honor of a long Golden Week vacation for me, I've got another long post today filled with things that make my fangirl heart happy.

Freedom Project
Do you like Cup Noodle? Do you like the anime Akira? Do you like Utada Hikaru? Have you ever wished that Kaneda would sell you Cup Noodle while Utada Hikaru sang to you? Then I've got the ultimate advertising campaign for you: freedom-project.jp!!! Okay, so it's not technically Kaneda, but it is Otomo Katsuhiro, so it ends up being the story of Not-Kaneda as he races his Not-motorcycle to freedom and eats Cup Noodle. I am not ashamed to admit that I'm totally in love with this advertising campaign. It has not convinced me to eat more Cup Noodle (yet), but it did nearly make me walk into a pole in the middle of Shinjuku station when the posters first went up. "Kaneda-kun!" I shrieked. "Cup Noodle!" Seriously, there's a lot of fun stuff at the web site, so check it out.

Tokimeki Memorial Girl's Side 2nd Kiss
I realize this is important information to exactly one person out there (Minako-chan waves to kinomakoto), but there's a sequal to Tokimeki Memorial Girl's Side coming out in August. HURRAY!!!! You have no idea how ecstatically happy this makes me. Check out the web site here. Who should I woo first? Oh, the excitement!!

And finally, for V6 fans, "Hold Up Down"!
( Because every V6 movie needs a frozen Jesus. )

Oh, and since I mentioned it yesterday, has anyone out there played (or started playing) Final Fantasy XII? I'm slowly but surely gaining levels and merrily slashing my way through the game, but I've got a question: Has anyone found any use for Levitega? It's a type of magic that just makes you float a couple inches off the ground. But.... WHY? It was easier with "Float" magic in FFVIII; people literally ran around screaming, "FLOAT!!! USE FLOAT!!!!" So what does Levitega do? No idea.

Okay, for those who are curious, yes, I'm still playing FFXII. I've played it quite a bit, actually, almost an embarrassing amount, but as noted earlier, I am normally the world's slowest RPG player. "Why run through the dungeon once, when you can do it twice?" is my motto. FYI, my current record is killing 110 skeletons in a row. Don't ask. Anyway, I won't include any spoilers in this post, but here are a couple of quicky opinions about the game, the license board, and gambits.

( And other boring details. )

On a side note that most people could probably figure out, I [heart] Balflear. In some ways, he's the worst space pirate in history. Pretty much everyone who joins the party for any length of time does so because Balflear says, "What the hell. You can come along, too." I think that if Vaan became attached to a rabid monkey in the middle of a dungeon, Balflear would shrug and say, "You're not planning on leaving the monkey, right? Give it a sword and let's get moving." It's not even that he does it because he's overly nice or noble or anything. He just... in some ways, he just doesn't CARE who joins in. It's almost just practical. You want to run through the sewers? I want to run through the sewers. Might as well run together, eh?

[sigh] I screwed up today, and it cost me nearly three precious hours of my life. I went to the magical land of Shinagawa today so that I could visit immigration and renew my visa. After waiting several hours, the super-kind lady looked really apologetic and told me I forgot that I needed proof of employment from my company. Not so much that I forgot, actually; when I picked up the application a few months back, I asked if I needed anything else, and the lady said, "Nope." However, I forgot that logically, you would still need proof of employment. You can't just say, "Yeah, totally still working for my company. Cough." Anyway, I'll have to go back to Shinagawa next week. (T_T) On the plus side, I got to play a whole lot more Kakuro, my latest addiction after Sudoku started getting too predictable. Wai!

And, for those who are curious, yes, I bought FFXII last night and began playing. No, I can't tell you anything about it. Mainly because I'm ridiculously slow when it comes to playing RPGs. For those who haven't caught on, here are my basic characteristics of RPG gameplay:

1) I looooove leveling up. No, seriously, it's way fun. It's addicting like a slot machine is addicting. Sure, running up and down the same stretch of dungeon isn't necessarily exciting, and you always run into the same types of enemies, but every once in a while, they drop an item, or give you extra money, or [gasp] make you LEVEL UP! And then you keep going, because you keep thinking, "Okay, this next enemy? I totaly bet you he gives me a RARE item!!!"

2) I like physical attacks. I can't standing using items, or skills that just increase your own stats, or [shudder] status magic. Ever since FFX, I've developed a grudging peace with black magic, but I still never use it unless there is a very very clear advantage. And I mean clear advantage; I usually just hack Blobs to pieces rather than using magic. It's just... you have the sword for a reason! Use it!

3) I'm cheap. I'm very very very very very cheap. Since I despise using items and love leveling up, it makes sense. Still, I usually end RPGs with absurd amounts of money. I have a wonderful anecdote from FFVII: Red was one hit away from dying a horrible death, and the only attack I had that was guaranteed to take out the enemy in one shot was "Coin". I had millions of gil, but when I selected "Coin" and saw how much money it would take to kill the enemy? I proclaimed "I'm not paying that!" and just attacked like normal instead. Red died; the rest of the party members finished off the enemy without him. I eventually finished FFVII with the maximum amount of gil, and started wondering if I could buy another condo.

Anyway, once the deserts were opened up, all bets were off. I ignored the storyline completely and started running around the desert killing wolves for hours on end. "Save up your LP points to learn more advanced tricks!" your friend advises you early on. "But," I reply, "I've got 80 LP saved up, and it's too early in the game to learn any of these other fun looking tricks; surely Vaan won't mind becoming a magic user, too, right?" Besides, I think I'm close to capturing the flowering cactus, and it might work better if both Panelo and Vaan can use Fire. Stupid cacti, dodging so danged fast [grumble grumble] (Aaaand we're theoretically trying to sneak into the castle but blah blah blah, we can do that later, right?) It's off to explore more deserts for me! Die, wide eyed bunnies, die!!

Dude, I love White Day. For those who don't know of this randomly created commercial holiday, it's the equivalent of Valentine's Day. But while V-Day (Feb. 14) is the day where women give chocolates and other gifts to men, White Day (March 14) is the day where men give back to women. (I've also heard that Korea has Black Day on April 14, which is the day where singles get together and bitch about their single-ness. Now THAT sounds like fun.)

Anyway, while I understood giving presents to loved ones or friends or classmates, even, I didn't realize until I entered the workplace that people give presents to co-workers as well. All the guys at the company got bags of chocolates and candy last month, and today, I got a small bag of candy, lavendar bath salts, and a fairly large box of nicely wrapped, upscale chocolate. "Wow," I decided. "I like this holiday."

In America, of course, this would never happen. Can you imagine what would happen if you gave chocolates to your boss on Valentine's Day? There's a real possibility that sexual harrassment suits would be involved. Adults just don't give casual presents to other adults on Valentine's Day. In a way, it reminds me of the platonic Valentine's Days from elementary school. People who went to an American elementary school probably know what I'm talking about... You made little mail boxes, then you bought cheap little cards with pictures of cartoon characters and messages like "You're Berry Special" or "I think you're Smurftastic!!" Experienced teachers would know that you needed to require that students to bring a little card for every student and to require that any candy or treats had to be distributed equally among the whole class. Still, of course, we were elementary students, not morons, and we knew how to discriminate against kids we didn't like. The packages of little cheap cards always had one message that was more vague and bland than the rest (Share Bear says Hi!). And I still fondly remember searching through the chalky heart-shaped candy, looking for the ones with "Sad Sack" printed on the front. (I think they eventually got rid of the "Sad Sack" message, which is quite a shame, really.)

I was thinking of cutting back on desserts, since I'm starting to get dangerously dependent on a regular cake fix. But, dude, free chocolate!

In other news, I replayed "Dirge of Cerebus" to pick off all of the capsuls scattered throughout the game (these allow you to watch the movie scenes without actually playing). I also picked up the 3rd G Report that I was missing so that I could watch the secret Gackt ending. To be entirely honest, as a fan of FFVII and Gackt, I will say that the overall concept of Gackt in this game was highly misjudged. At first, I thought he would have been playing "Random new character who happens to look like exactly like Gackt," and that sounded like fun. Then, it became apparent that he was just playing "Gackt, randomly stuck in the FFVII universe," which was just very weird. But THEN, if I'm understanding the game correctly, he's REALLY playing "Gackt, aka Sephiroth Beta Version." And to be entirely honest, comparing Sephiroth to Gackt is almost insulting. (I mean, it's SEPHIROTH. NO ONE compares to Sephiroth!) I'm just praying that no one is stupid enough to follow the game to it's logical conclusion (based on the Gackt ending), where Vincent fights Gackt for the fate of Midgar. Someone would get laughed at, and it wouldn't be Vince.

Having said that, Square pulled out all the stops for the animation in the secret ending. It's really beautiful. And I think it helps that Gackt normally looks like he stepped out of a video game, so they managed to make animated Gackt look exactly like real Gackt, and exactly like a Square character at the same time. As long as there's no sequal, I'm overall happy with the results.

[Edit] I just got two cookies, too. This is an awesome holiday.

Just some quick movie news: Have your heard about Clint Eastwood's latest film endeavor, about Iwa Jima? Five second summary: It's about Iwo Jima, AND it's two movies in one: the first movie is from the American side, while the second movie is from the Japanese side. Anyway, the cast for the Japanese movie has been announced, and it includes Hollywood's favorite Watanabe Ken, Minako-chan's best reason to watch Kabuki (although I haven't seen a single one of his movies, either) Nakamura Shido, and Arashi's own Ninomiya Kazunari. Nino!! Good for you!! Johnny's on the international scene!! So proud!

In a computer update, Dell finally agreed with me that Npyu2's DVD drive screwed up, and they're sending me a new one. Wai! In a gaming update, one week until FFXII. Doki-doki! I'm still trying to figure out if I should buy the "Potion" drinks they're selling in convenience stores. On one hand, weirdest product tie-in EVER. On the other hand, the commercial for Potion is very cute. (Let's just say that it involves a battle in the middle of a convenience store for the last Potion... and when I say "battle", I of course mean the kind where the woman pulls off a massive Thundaga.)