Aino Minako-chan

• Have other people seen this? http://www.dothetest.co.uk/ It's a really great video that works best when you don't know what it's about. Just follow the instructions and count carefully. If you do this right, you'll be pleasantly surprised by the results.


• Infinite Undiscovery is an RPG being published by Square Enix for the Xbox 360. It looks like a fairly standard RPG so far, but the reason why I already adore it is the title. It's like the developers went, "We need to make an RPG for the Xbox that is totally not like Final Fantasy. So not 'final'.. It'll be... infinite! Infinite Fantasy! No, Infinite Unfantasy!! No no, I've got it, Infinite UNDISCOVERY!" Seriously, doesn't the title sound like something that was the result of a late night meeting involving way too much beer and someone repeating the phrase "Final Fantasy" one too many times?


• Sakamoto Maaya's latest single Triangular (the "Macross F" anime theme song) has been doing surprisingly well on the single charts, but the reason why I bring it up is because on my morning TV show, they said something about how she's become more and more famous thanks to her musical roles. So I looked it up quickly... Turns out she was one of the actresses who played the roll of Eponine in Les Mis from 2003-2007. Huh, go Sakamoto Maaya! And you mean I missed a chance to hear her as Eponine? Damn.


• As mentioned on kinomakoto's LJ, THEY'RE MAKING A HERE IS GREENWOOD TV DRAMA. Oh be still my beating heart. Greenwood is one of my favorite anime and manga of all time, so I am super-de-duper excited. Having said that... I already disagree with the casting of Shun, and I seriously doubt that anything can change my mind. I honestly think that they should have cast a female actress (for those who don't know the series, the entire joke about Shun is that he looks (and acts, for the most part) exactly like a really cute girl; the lead character Suka-chan rooms with Shun for several days before figuring it out, and that's only because he finally walks in on Shun at a urinal). I'm sure that the guy playing Shun is perfectly nice, but it's tough when you think that they cast a character as the wrong SEX. But the guy playing Suka-chan is cute like a bunny, so we'll see.


• Just when I think that I'm starting to get used to living in Japan... Without talking too much about the show, I was watching this normally funny "talk with celebrities" program, and they were discussing "kawaii" and women being cute. Anyway, they had three examples (sent in from actual viewers) on the topic "Things that I do to make myself seem cuter": Purposely walking slow behind a guy and complaining, before jogging up and tugging on his sleeve; pretending to get caught in clothing while taking off sweaters or whatever; making expressive little hand gestures to emphasize emotions like sadness or shock.
  
  I would just like to say that these are not only all actions that annoy me, these are all actions that actually make me raging mad. Every. Single. One. I was ready to hit something just after watching the little reenactment videos. That, or start screaming, "OMG, it's your fault that women can't advance in the workplace!" My rage almost overwhelmed my desire to start sobbing on behalf of double-X chromosomes everywhere. I felt ill after watching this little comedy program. Honestly ill. Don't make me smack a bitch, Japan! I'll do it! I totally totally will! Minako-chan smash!!


• In better news, Superfly's new album hit #1 on the charts. I adore Superfly. She's this teeny girl with massive vocal power who reminds you more of Janis Joplin or Grace Slick or some other 60's powerhouse vocalist. I quite like her; I have a soft spot for teeny powerhouses (see: TMR). Go go Superfly!

Update on my previous complaint about the company who insisted on correcting my corrections, even though they're wrong wrong wrong:

No matter how many times we tried to explain that we MADE THE CORRECTIONS FOR A REASON, the company refused to accept them and told us that we had to correct the document the way that they wanted.

Minako-chan: But... these were, like, GRAMMATICAL mistakes.
Boss: Yeah, and the spelling mistakes, too. But...
Minako-chan & Boss: [sigh]

None of us can understand it, seriously. So we're making all of the corrections, but we're sending comments for the places that are just plain wrong wrong wrong. That's not counting sentences that are awkward or written with poor style or technically not wrong but not 100% correct either (I could argue that jewelry goes around your wrist or neck, not your wrist and neck [unless, of course, your company is in the habit of producing combination bracelet-necklaces] but I really can't be bothered to nitpick at this stage in the game, so they can keep their stupid "and"). So I'm not entirely happy. But by focusing on areas that are blatently wrong, this will hopefully drive home the idea that, surprisingly enough, we know what we're doing when we make corrections, and hopefully they'll cut us more slack in the future. SIGH.

Last week, the Supreme Court in Japan ruled that children born to surrogate mothers do NOT belong to the biological parents.

Okay, so this convoluded story actually starts long ago, when talent Aki Mukai lost her uterus to cancer. She and husband Nobuhiko Takada wanted a baby, so they used a surrogate mother in the states to give birth to their twins (although biologically, they are the parents). The Nevada court declared that Mukai and Takada were the parents, that the surrogate mother had no legal rights, and that the surrogate mother could not be drawn in to further legal preceedings (I'll explain why I emphasized that later).

So everything was happy. HURRAY! Until... they came back to Japan. The local office would not accept the birth notice (or whatever it's called) with Mukai listed as the mother. They said that the mother, obviously, was the American surrogate. Mukai and Takada, obviously, brought the issue to court, and long story short, the Supreme Court eventually said, "No, Mukai CANNOT be the mother." Obviously. [ETA: Sorry, just wanted to add that this decision overturned the ruling from the Tokyo High Court which said, "They're your kids!" and "C'mon, it's the 21st century!" and "Think of the children!" So it's not EVERYONE involved in Japanese law that's being idiots. It's just the Supreme Court.]

HERE'S where things get even MORE complicated. The government only objected to MUKAI being the mother, not Takada being the father, and told the parents that if they submitted the births legally, Takada had to be listed as the father and the surrogate had to be listed as the mother (which is MIND BOGGLING, but I digress). However, remember the highlighted sentence above? Even if they wanted to declare the surrogate as the mother, they were legally bound in Nevada not to involve her.

So in the end? The couple didn't submit the papers declaring the birth. And therefore, THE KIDS ARE NOT JAPANESE. They are now AMERICANS, being raised as FOREIGNERS in Japan, by their BIOLOGICALLY Japanese parents. Even though their parents are Japanese, the kids cannot vote, they cannot participate in politics, they are not guaranteed education, and they must register themselves as foreigners.

Now, the one positive thing about this situation (if you can really call anything positive) is that Mukai and Takada are famous. (Or, at least, they were relatively famous before, and NOW they're REALLY famous.) As far as I can tell, they have strong public support, and perhaps more than anything else, Mukai-san is PISSED (rightly so, I say) and vows to campaign for changes to the law.

Why do I not have an icon that appropriately expresses my horror at this situation?

(For more details about this case, see http://www.debito.org/index.php/?p=317.)

I needed a stamp, so I made the unfortunate mistake of stopping off at the convenience store on the way home from work. Here is a dramatic reinactment of the event:

Mina-P: Hey, I'd like this, plus a stamp.
Conbini Dude: Like, what kind?
Mina-P: I'm not quite sure... just the kind for a normal letter.
Conbini Dude: 50 yen? That's for a postcard.
Mina-P: Okay. I need the right amount for the average LETTER.
Conbini Dude: 50 yen?
Mina-P: I'm sending a LETTER.
Conbini Dude: [looks confused] [starts checking a list, presumably with stamp prices]
Mina-P: I think it's about 90 yen-ish or so? But it could be 80 or 100 yen; I'm not sure. That's why I'm asking you.
Conbini Dude: [consults with Conbini Guy]
Mina-P: Because I'm sending a letter. A normal letter. An envelope plus 2-3 sheets of paper? Which therefore logically costs slightly more than the postcard stamp.
Conbini Dude: It's different depending on weight. [holding up a postcard] A postcard costs 50 yen.
Mina-P: I'M SENDING A... Okay, you got a 90 yen stamp? Just give me the freaking 90 yen stamp, okay?

Seriously, what's with these people? Why were the conbini guys so determined to sell me a 50 yen stamp?

Just a quick post about two recent news stories in Japan:

Gang Skirmish in Tokyo
Over there past few days, there have been a couple of shootouts between two yakuza groups, the Yamaguchi-gumi and the Sumiyoshi-kai, in Tokyo. It's only been the second day, so we'll see if there are more shootouts. Maybe this will escalate into a full blown gang war! H-hurray!

I do think that it's somewhat hysterial how open yakuza are. On the news segment today, they did some analysis about current and former membership numbers, showed footage from outside the official Kokusai-kai headquarters (a large, modern building), and even topped off the segment by using the official logos from the major players. I bet these guys totally have their own matching stationary. Sometimes, I think that I live in a really weird country. Speaking of which...

Health Minister Yanagisawa Needs to Shut the Hell Up
In short, Yanagisawa is the Health, Labor and Welfare Minister, so he's in charge of determining programs relating to the low-and-falling birthrate in Japan, an issue that is causing some people to flip out. (Some of the problems seem pretty damned obvious to me, as I touched upon back here.) So, faced with this problem, Yanagisawa made a speech a little over a week ago where he referred to women as "birthing machines". Even better, just a few days ago he apologized for this remark and proceeded to comment that his administration simply intends to support all people who are "healthy", i.e. want to get married and have two or more kids. The opposing party is absolutely GLEEFUL about these gaffes, and even women in his own party are pissed off.

( Cut for ranty-goodness! )

[on Saturday, at karaoke, with johnabe]

Minako: ...so my latest translation is kinda kicking my ass.
John: How bad could it be? What is it about, allergies!? Ha-ha!
Minako: [stare]
John: Oh, wow, really?

Worst part is, it's narration work. Which means that I also have to learn how to pronounce things like "immunoassay" or "eosinophilic leukocytes". Dude, is that even a real word? And I'm oddly worried about the strange acronyms, like IgE or IL-4. Are they pronounced letter by letter ("I-G-E"), or is there some sort of weird medical club shorthand that all the cool people use (like "Iggie" or something)? And I'm pretty sure that I pronounce "eczema" wrong, too, so I should probably look that up, as well. Ironically enough, I simultanously developed a cold that has me sneezing every 30 seconds. [shake fist] Curse you, histamines!!!

So, I had a 3-day weekend, which I spent singing karaoke with John (oh WHY did the Utada Hikaru mix use only the highest parts of every single song!?), playing Civilizations II (my Spanish empire has about 60 billion cities, and growing, so it takes a ridiculous amount of time just to play through one year; I'll never finish the game at this rate), and traveling to Minami-Funabashi to go shopping for the first time in about 5 years (Dude, I forgot that the Lalaport mall rocks... and the new Ikea covers about 60 billion square feet). Oh, and I got my hair cut at a new salon, and while the atmosphere and service and technique weregreat, they really won me over the second that Shampoo Assistant Lad sat me down and said "And now I'm going to start on your massage!" which left me in a puddle of goo.

And on a completely unrelated note that will leave you all in awe of my mastery of the English language, I was trying to think of the word "masochistic" over the weekend, and couldn't come up with it. (Nothing kinky, I swear; I was trying to form a sentence like, "Man, I'd never tell myself something so depressing; I'm just not that masochistic!") Anyway, I at least remembered that it started with an "M", but unfortunately, the only word that I could think of was "Mesopotamic". (This was, interestingly enough, why I was in the mood to play Civilizations.) Yeah, my confidence is soaring for the allergy translation. Koff koff.

Okay, so I was reading this article today. If you can't see it or are too lazy to read it, it's about how the U.S. Army dismissed an Arabic linguist because he was gay. Because, y'know, if there's anything the Army needs less of, it's linguists who specialize in Arabic. It's sadly not even the first time I've heard of this happening, but if you read towards the end of the article, you'll see the following wonderful paragraph:

On Dec. 2, investigators formally interviewed Copas and asked if he understood the military's policy on homosexuals, if he had any close acquaintances who were gay, and if he was involved in community theater.

Community theater? Community theater!? You can't be serious. I almost want to know what other ingenius interrogation questions they have.

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 rode the wrong train this morning, and ended up having the most comfortable morning commute ever. Discuss.

How come mothering a child means something completely different from fathering a child?

This is a semi-rhetorical question, but I think it's interesting what it says about English culture and expected family roles. Like, mothers are expected to be a constant, even overwhelming, presence in a child's life, while a father is just expected to contribute DNA? Out of curiosity, is anyone aware of similar phrases in other languages?

Gosperats
( Or, Minako-chan's rant about Japanese culture, stemming from a B-grade pop group. )

I also had some stuff about V6 and Final Fantasy XII to add, as well, but it somehow seemed inappropriate with this post. See, this is why I leave social commentary to other people. It ruins the nice pattern of normal blither found here.

[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!!

For those who are curious about my totally-not-panicked previous post, yes, my passport is apparently gone. (T_T) I'm actually cool with it. Two of my bestest super-hero abilities are probably A) my strange variety of very good luck in crappy situations (like when I made a killing money-wise after my apartment was flooded), and B) my ability to blast through the stages of loss in a fraction of the time (I was genuinely upset about the passport loss for the time it took me to take a shower). Anyway, it's more of a nuisance than anything else, especially since I was born abroad and therefore have an absurd number of papers showing that, yes, I'm still a U.S. Citizen. (My dad always jokes that the first thing my Mom did after she got home from the hospital with me was rush to the American Embassy to get my citizenship... I always thought he was joking and never realized that apparently, no, that's actually what happened.) Anyway, the only actual problem is that my visa is only valid until March 29th, and I need to renew it by then. I'll be fine as long as I apply for the extension by the 29th, but it still means that I have about a month to A) get a new passport, B) get all of the old info pasted into the new passport, and C) apply for the new visa. The timing will be tight, but if anything else, I'm not above puppy eyes and giant tear-filled breakdowns in the middle of the embassy if it means getting my passport faster.

In any case, Mommy and I had a good time in Tokyo, and we saw two good movies: ( Closer and Crash. )