John Zeitler

I still haven’t had a chance to catch even the first episode of Stellvia yet– it was on my agenda for tonight, but I got sidetracked and it’s far too late now. However, a pair of curious little notes to tide you over until I can get to that.

The first one ties into the second. The manga ranking charts have been released for Japan today, and topping the list is Hayate the Combat Butler, volume 21. However, here in North America, we’re still waiting on Volume 13, set for early next month. Compound this with the fact that we’re still probably not going to get the dubbed version of the anime for at least another year, if we get it at all, and it all adds up to me wishing I already knew Japanese instead of having to learn it.

So naturally, the classes I’m taking are helping me out immensely. Last night’s class, which covered the beginnings of verbs and sentence particles, was the turning point for me. What once seemed like an incredibly arcane set of rules and hidden formulae for sentence structure and grammar became extremely clear once I realized the relationship between (and I’m too tired to properly kana-ize this, so forgive me) “watashi wa” and “hitori de”. Once I figured out how to map English prepositional phrases, of which I am fond, to Japanese postpositional constructs, it all just clicked.

To wit: previous to last night, I enjoyed “Tori no Uta”, the very beautiful opening theme to Air, as a wonderful piece of music with a sweet singer saying something generically poppish and haunting. It came up on random as I was driving into work this morning and I realized that, unconsciously, I was diagramming the lyrics here and there and trying to pick it apart. Failing to do so, of course, since I really only know a handful of particles and lyrics are usually dressed up poems with odd grammatical idiosyncrasies, but at least it was no longer pretty-sounding gibberish.

Catch you folks tomorrow.

So yesterday held the Big Box Of Anime Love And Variable Nomenclature. I have to confess that it’s not nearly as big as I expected it to be. For one thing, I could give it a hug. The fact that I did probably tells you something. Embarassing situations aside, it contained the last of what was on the original Reclamation List under anime (Excel Saga), the next sets for Hayate the Combat Butler and Clannad, and a couple of prizes I’d thought impossible to claim: The Familiar of Zero… and the tin-box set of Stellvia. Both came highly recommended, and I’m looking forward to Stellvia this coming week. I’m pretty sure I updated the Collection’s Library page. If not, I’ll do it once I’m home from class.

For my next trick… hunting down Gurren Lagann’s dub discs at something approaching a reasonable price. Wish me luck, folks.

All this really needs is Jonathan Frakes introducing it to become the most hilariously geeky in-joke ever.

Oh, and in case it wasn’t obvious, I’m back, and regular posting will continue once I get through the Big Box O’Anime Love tomorrow.

Self Aware Games: “Make up a word that describes Word Ace. Can’t be a real word.”
Me: “QUYZYXY. Not only is it pronounceable and has a quasi-sensical answer (‘possessing the quality of quyzyx’), it is also the single highest-scoring pronounceable word in the game (10+1+4+8+4+8+4, bonus 2+5+20 = 66 points) and stays within the letter distribution (uses all three Ys, the single Z, X, and Q, and one of the four Us).”
Rest of the Internet: “You’re a damn nerd.”
Me: *sobs in agreement*

In my studies of Japanese, I’ve learned quite a lot of things. But probably the most valuable lesson I’ve picked up on thus far, besides being able to tell the men’s room from the ladies’ room, is this: like all languages, Japanese is the creation of the human intellect. It was not given to the world from divine sources, nor was it imparted to us from visitors beyond the stars. At its very core, our languages are rooted in the workings of an ordinary human brain.

Which is why none of them are consistently logical, sensible, or even internally consistent.

You know, sometimes I wait for a certain amount of time to watch a series. Usually this is due to not having access to it when it’s recommended to me, but mostly it’s a result of hype poisoning– basically, it’s come so highly recommended to me that I purposefully avoid seeing it, owing to the fact that it can’t possibly match up to what I’ve been led to expect. I did this for Full Metal Alchemist, I did it for Kanon ’06, and I did it for The Slayers.

Every single time I have done so, I have kicked myself for the delay.

So you can expect that as I wrapped up the last disc of Irresponsible Captain Tylor this evening, beyond the thoughts of “holy crap I did not expect that“, the main thing in my mind was: “This is one of the classic anime series for a damn good reason.” I still have the OVAs to look forward to, but those can wait (particularly because they cut off near a climactic scene, or so I heard).

One thing, though… I’ve said often that we’re spoiled rotten these days with regards to animation quality. Never more was it more apparent while watching this series… it showcased a lot of the cutting-edge late 1980s special effects that were hallmarks of anime back then. Still, looking beyond that was easy when you had a cast and storyline as… unique as this one. It should be readily available in most stores now, thanks to its recent rerelease. I did mention that we otaku are spoiled completely rotten, didn’t I?

Today was pretty quiet– I added a third shelf unit to the Collection’s sprawl, so if you want to take a look at how it’s arranged now the photo on the page has been updated. (The link is at the top of this window.) Beyond that, I got most of the way through Irresponsible Captain Tylor this afternoon and will likely wrap it up tomorrow, before moving on to Hayate the Combat Butler disc 1. I have it on good authority that it brings teh funni. So there’s that to look forward to.

Catch you folks later.

I have noticed that I am far more adventurous now that I have the ability to get myself ridamndiculously lost with no more ill effects than possibly having to pull over to press two buttons on the GPS.

Ladies and gentlemen: I am a f%$#ing IDIOT for not getting a GPS sooner.

So. I had a whole ton of news I wanted to cover, most of it now old by the time you read this. But something else came up. Tekkoshocon– a convention I’ve held to be “my home con”– is expanding to a four-day event in 2010 (Thursday through Sunday). There had always been a pre-preg pickup party on Thursday evening; now it’s an official part of the event.

Mind = blown.

Nothing going on right now, folks. Today was uneventful and I’m too tired to go into too much depth of the game and anime news right now– let’s count on a big post tomorrow.