(Actual Anime Festival Asia-related stuff here.)

I had a long post planned out, but circumstances and the demons of technology have conspired against my posting it. Therefore, this report shall have to do.

What is not shown there are the myriad photos of us wandering around the festival, before it is a festival. We have witnessed a sort of prepatory state. (Also not shown: the buffet lunch we may or may not have intruded on. And the bit where, by pained expressions of abject embarrassment and lots of bowing apologetically, I managed to convey the idea of These Noodles Are Good to Mr. Mamoru Hosoda, director for The Girl Who Leapt Through Time and Summer Wars.)

Pictures are appended without commentary or editing. There shall be no commentary this time; not if I want to remain in any sort of useful shape for tomorrow.

Every picture inside was taken by Kindaichi17, co-blogger for AnimeNauts. Every one of these seventy photos.

Now you know.

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Apparently tomorrow is Anime Festival Asia 2009. I do not blame you if you do not navigate a great portion of the site, since, coding aside, the thing is not particularly user-friendly. It's a very busy site, full of flashing and pulsating signs; the sort of site one tends to feel inexplicably sullied after visiting, and making sure that one's anti-virus is up to date.

My curious lack of enthusiasm can be traced back to my previous posts on the 2008 version, where I rail in my typical passive-aggressive and inevitably futile way against conventions made For Fans, By Companies, which end up turning into a merchandise display, without anything for the fans to do other than Buy Stuff. This may have been intentional.

Nevertheless, I will still be attending AFA09, this time with something resembling a media pass, except for that murkily ill-defined area of "online journalism". Since bloggers in general are not entitled to said media passes, I can only assume that more is expected of me. I may have taken a Step Up, but the added responsibility is crushing me back down.

Before you ask, no, the media pass is not for this blog. It is for another. I may crosspost, or at least cross-link the report.

And yet, to get the new site acknowledged as a legitimate "online journalism" site, the webmaster of the New Site needed site hit numbers. Which were obtained from this blog's Wordpress Stats.

There may or may not be some form of irony here.

Lest one might be mistaken in believing that my life is naught but fun and games, I should mention that since this blog is a hobby blog, it shall therefore only focus on hobbies. Real Life stuff that are Not Fun and Not Hobbies don't get time here. (Or most of anywhere, since I'd rather not get in trouble for blogging about stuff I shouldn't.)

In any case, I picked up Devil Survivor, mainly because I heard that it was more "character-driven" than the bizarre translation of the only other non-Persona game in the Shin Megami Tensei series I've played: namely, SMT1 on a SNES emulator. I quit that due to the bad translation leading to an incomprehensible plot devoid of any reason for me to care about whatever was happening in the game. Also, the first-person perspective making everywhere look the same; Doom was never that bad.

After that, it was Persona 3 and Persona 4. I liked the latter game mostly because it was happier, although I did miss the big-city setting of the former. Considering I played the games for stuff like Operation Babe Hunt and King's Gaaaaame respectively, I may not be the core audience for these.

Thus far Devil Survivor seems to be going through the whole "we are all going to die and the world is doomed, ZETSUBOUSHITAA~" angst-panic phase. I've been having a bit of fun pairing off the main character (named, in a fit of fancy, Raidou "Light" Yagami, for no reason other than my own personal amusement) with his Childhood Friend Yuzu Tanikawa. Because despite the Doom and Gloom, I will have my romantic comedy hijinks, even if they are only in my own twisted mind.

I have to admit that Yuzu is very, er, large for the typical Childhood Friend archetype, who is supposed to be jealous of the other girls with more… tracts of land. I'm a little worried about what's going to happen to her later, since games (and indeed, stories in general, as in anime) like these love to Pull The Heartstrings by causing Great Tragedies to characers I like. It's a cheap shot, I feel; Drama should be a natural evolution of the story, not because The Writer Says So.

Do people in Real Life actually play that Pocky game? I know there's the whole Lady and the Tramp spaghetti thing, which seems to be a sort of cliche by now; I don't think I've seen it truly played straight, or at least played straight without a mention of the original.

But the Pocky thing seems to turn up whenever a romantic comedy anime, or even any anime with a hint of both romance and comedy, enters a scene which has party connotations. Two people are paired off by in-universe random chance, which happens to be something completely different beyond the fourth wall, concentrating on maximum hilarity potential. Some plot may even be progressed.

The only other party games I'm aware of with more harem romantic comedy anime screentime are Twister and what I've seen translated as the King's Game, which is the one with the numbered sticks and the one marked for the King, but which I can't seem to find on Wikipedia. For some reason Spin The Bottle is popular in fanfics, but I don't think I've seen an occasion in an anime itself. (Or if I have, it was quickly forgotten.) Twister makes for an excuse to entangle limbs of opposite genders, while the King's Game is straight in-character sadism.

This could be like the beach activity of splitting open watermelons by brute impact. We see it referenced in many places in anime, but as the girls in Lucky Star comment, only rich people can afford to do this, and rich people tend not to be the sort to do it. (Except for Haruka Nogizaka.)

I'm also assuming that I don't need to put a trademark sign after every mention of Pocky, since I don't know how. I know it's registered under Glico, but I'm hoping I don't get sued or anything for this, especially since strawberry-flavoured Pocky remains my favourite snack.

Why are most of the customers in the Maid-ish Cafe female? Fushigi mystery.

Contrary to what Kaede and apparently most of the NPC cast says, I don't really think Natsuru's Special Maid Outfit is all that attractive. It's too showy, and makes her look like she's Trying Too Hard to be sexy. Well, okay, she's not really; presumably it's the fault of the class rep and her cronies.

Thanks to the opening and ending animations, the identity of this New Kampfer is no surprise. What I did find refreshing was that the Obvious Questions asked in the usual fan-speculation manner are, if not answered, then at least acknowledged: where do Kampfers come from? Why are the Messengers all from the same toyline that apparently only Kaede likes? Is Kaede involved in this somehow?

I'm not actually expecting much by way of revelations in this season. If Kampfer gets extended for another season it would be nice, but for now I'll just enjoy this guilty pleasure without guilt, of cute girls in cute costumes, despite one of them only doing it part-time.

I have a rather bad temper.

This really should be no surprise to anyone who knows me. I think what does cause confusion among people who only read my forum postings or my blog stuff is that I have somewhat different triggers for what sets me off.

One of these, and indeed a major one that will cause me to fume impotently behind my computer screen for hours on end (if not days), is people assuming motives for me. Stuff like "You're doing this to look cool" or "You're just trolling for attention" make me want to scream at the other person: "Don't you dare pretend to know why I did what I did!"

I can't help it. I think it's incredibly rude and unwarranted; I also know that I'm in a very tiny minority who thinks like that, especially on the Internet. I know that it doesn't matter what some random person out there in the world thinks of me.

But there's a difference between knowing something, and accepting something.

I always assume by default that when someone says something, or more likely posts something on the Internet, if it's not an obvious joke (and it usually has to be quite obvious, because of the text-only nature of communication on forums and blogs), that person actually does believe what they're saying, and they are welcoming of honest, polite, and friendly discussion on the matter. This is because that is exactly my state of mind when posting; it's always a major wrench in mindset to realize that this is not the case for everyone.

If I get my facts wrong, I will try my best to acknowledge it, in the comments if nothing else. (I don't like editing posts on this blog because of some really annoying problems that crop up occasionally due to conflicting Wordpress plugins. On Livejournal it's a simple matter, but here…)

So with a comment like that, I see "OP not cool", and think "well, that's true, I never said I was".

Then I come across "OP just wants attention".

NO. BAD. WRONG. COMPLETELY INCORRECT. A TREMENDOUS AND HEINOUS INACCURACY.

Yes, for that post I would welcome further discussion, and this is obviously impossible without some form of attention. But to say that I wrote that post for attention itself is just wrong. That post came about through some stitching together of disjointed notes and thoughts, and put up because I had nothing else prepared for my Two Posts Per Week. The sum amount of thought put into that post may be substantial, but it's all disjointed; actually posting the thing was a result of "hey, what do I have in my drafts Notepad file? Here's something substantial, let's go grab a tangentially-related pic from my collection and post it up before midnight."

And the anger that arose from that comment is not because of the content, which, when I got past the beginning, I found to be a valid contribution to the discussion (unlike the constant advertising spam), but only because of the pretense at omniscience, of attributing a motive to me that was entirely, thoroughly wrong.

Seriously. If it had been "OP did not think this post through at all", it would be accurate, and I would have cheerfully accepted it. But since it's seldom obvious which possible motive I might have had in doing whatever I did (I usually think it's obvious, but I am not Everyone Else), it's best not to guess.

I'm posting this here because I just realized that This Is My Blog, and I can actually say something about it. This is kind of a buildup from other comments on various forums, which cast aspersions on my reasons for doing this blog. I know of these comments thanks to the Incoming Links feature of Wordpress Stats, and so I am exercising Right of Reply.

I am currently writing for this blog mostly on sheer bloody-minded stubbornness. That is what informs the posts I have been making; not because I have Something To Say, but because I have Nothing To Say, but Need To Say It Anyway.

And I am afraid of declaring burnout, not because of what it means, but because of what it may result in.

The last time I burned out resulted in something that I've seen linked to in very many places, resulting in an even greater need to maintain a certain standard that I did not even know existed. I've seen GamerS critiqued and analyzed as though it had been planned, something that I sat down to sketch out at least the broad outlines thereof and had some sort of goal in mind, and I don't know why.

This is fairly stressful. The longest I've ever planned the content of a GamerS comic for was half an hour, and it's apparently one of the weaker ones. The "good" ones (which seem to get linked to a lot) are those which I came up with pretty much on the spot.

I came up with GamerS as an escape from responsibility, not as an additional burden.

I'm obviously still going to continue GamerS, since it does relax me, and if I'm in the mood, I can churn them out like nothing. Contrary to the belief of many, I also have not forgotten about the CCS Episode Summaries, but I am carefully not doing them because, as I may have mentioned before elsewhere, I have no more time to watch anime for fun; not without dropping this blog.

I'm not whining about the blog taking up my time. I am complaining about the way people keep misunderstanding why the posts on this blog are the way they are.

And the motives for this post? Quite simply, I'd like something to link to the next time someone else does something on my blog that makes me reply in a snippy and annoyed manner.

I'm not sure that I would have done better if I had been in Natsuru's place. On the one hand, girls seem to get a lot more cosplay opportunities. On the other hand, having to keep in shape has to be a lot more difficult. Presumably part of the advantage of Kampfer-ism is the ability to keep a svelte figure no matter what the circumstances.

Gender-benders with the character in question switching back and forth have that extra risk involved of embarrassment when the transformation wears off somehow with the male character now in female clothes. This doesn't often apply the other way, apart from the character shrinking a few sizes, and the Clothes A Few Sizes Too Large thing can be pulled off as a fashion statement anyway.

So far Kampfer has not gone down that route, but I find it interesting that I seem to have this reluctance to see such a thing happening anyway. It's the equivalent in embarrassment quotient of those cliched dreams (which I've never had myself, although it must be a matter of time) where one is not wearing any pants. It's a level of schadenfreude that is quite beyond my tolerance.

This, even though I am perfectly happy to see a man (be he transformed into a pretty lady) caught between several women, and the dispute is not laced with Drama and Angst, but instead Wacky Comedy Hijinks. It's not serious, the show tells us. It's okay to laugh.

Hearing Yuko Goto as the perverted assistant class rep, especially using her Mikuru-voice, probably helps in that.

I know it's not actually a good show, and honestly speaking I can't think of a reason why I'm even watching it other than "it's good blog fodder". Or rather, blog fodder to talk about, in the sense that I can kind of discuss the stuff around the show without actually talking about the show itself.

The second season of Nogizaka Haruka no Himitsu, oddly subtitled Purezza, is the sort of show that I'd be happy to watch, but do not exactly watch to be happy. It's somewhat lower than the comfort food of anime I watch; overall, it's suitable for background noise, both in the visual and aural sense.

It is not offensive to my tastes, which I admit sounds like damning with faint praise. It's not, honestly. It's kind of a non-recommendation, in as neutral a sense as I can engineer. It is not alien to me as most mecha series are, and it is not directly insulting as many anti-moe shows feel like. It simply rests in the surprisingly small pool of Okay-ish. It's there. I don't have anything else to say about it.

And yet I watch it anyway, because it is not offensive. When you want to watch something, anything, that you haven't watched before, and you're surrounded by stuff that are incompatible to your tastes, then you take what you can get.

Perhaps, if I were in another mood, I'd be more ebullient in my praise. But for now, all I can say about Purezza is that I do not dislike it. And for now, that's all I can ask for.

Publisher link for the whole set, at a discount to boot.

There's something about putting entertainment and education together that seems to boggle the mind. Entertainment is supposed to be fun, and education… isn't. Therefore, "edutainment" is usually seen to be Trying Too Hard, and only the really effective ones survive.

What is effective may be a difficult question to answer. Something that is great for one person may be horrible for another, and so when I say that the Manga Guide books are Effective Teaching Materials, I can only speak for myself.

The books are set at a secondary school level: if you've studied the subject then, you probably already know all of this. In Singapore, secondary school is age 13 to 16 (you start on the year of your 13th birthday, so technically age 12), so I suppose this would be high school in US terms. Most of this stuff will probably be learned in Secondary 3 and 4, at the depth that will generally be taught at that level: you'll be introduced to, say, Newton's Laws, and learn how to apply them in simple situations, but all the little niggly details that tend to trip people up when they revisit the subject at a higher level are brushed aside, because that's not what the books are for.

They also obviously do not teach everything you're supposed to learn at that level. The one for Physics deals mostly with the whole force-and-motion thing, which leaves out stuff like circuitry and electromagnetism and thermodynamics and whatnot. (Presumably the electromagnetism bits will be under The Manga Guide To Electricity, which upon browsing I am sad but unsurprised to note does not include any form or mention of Biri-biri-san.)

For my first round, I got The Manga Guide To Physics and The Manga Guide To Databases. I did study physics in secondary school (didn't do too shabbily then), but it's been over a decade since then. I've never formally studied databases (or at least not databases as is, rather than being attached to MySQL or whatnot), but being Le Geek on the Internet means that I'm largely familiar with the hows and wherefores. So the books did not actually teach me anything new, but they were good refreshers.

And, of course, the manga portions were fun.

Each book is illustrated by a different artist (or set of artist-and-writer). There's the manga sections which deal with some situation arising which requires knowledge of the subject to solve, and there's the big explanatory blocks of text-and-equations after the manga bits which go further into the concept. The manga is read left-to-right, which caused me a small amount of difficulty at first.

MGTPhysics deals with one Megumi Ninomiya, who is not very good with the subject in question, and her role as Simplicio is further reinforced in my mind by her mild resemblance to Yui Hirasawa. Megumi has been beaten in tennis by Sayaka, who is pretty much the ojou-sama tsundere archetype, due (somehow; it's presented as "it bothered me during the match, so I couldn't concentrate") to the counter-intuitive nature of Newton's Third Law (the one about equal and opposite reactions). So she enlists the help of her classmate, "International Physics Olympics Silver Medallist" Ryota Nonomura, to figure out the mysteries of Physics. It's done in a school-life slice-of-life kind of way, with Megumi occasionally flirting with Ryota, presumably just to break up the tension and Walls of Text.

Meanwhile, MGTDatabases is set in the Kingdom of Kod (somehow), a fantasy kingdom deriving its revenue from sales of fruit (somehow), and Princess Ruruna and her personal assistant Cain are visited by the Database Fairy Tico to help them organize their kingdom's fruit sales. Somehow. It gets a little odd, with various NPCs dressed in medieval court clothing typing away at modern computers. There's also Prince Raminess from a neighbouring kingdom, who is FABULOUS enough to probably be voiced by Daisuke Ono. It's a more shoujo art style than MGTPhysics.

The MGT books are probably not the most efficient way to present information, but by going back to the dialogue method of instruction and adding the familiar anime-esque style of humour, it's a lot less dry than a textbook, at the trade-off of taking up more pages to explain stuff. This is perfect for revision, rather than teaching; the books appear to be for reading on your own, and maybe asking a friend for help if you get stuck, but in a classroom it's basically the teacher's job to do what the manga sections are doing: give examples and explain the concepts in a more interesting manner. (The fact that this does not happen very often is kind of sad.)

Should you get it? If you are taking the subject at that level right now, certainly. If you want to brush up, it's great. If you already know all of this, though, then the only appeal will likely be the manga sections, which are good for a few minutes of entertainment, but probably not worth the price.

Personally I'm happy with these because I have learned that when writing fiction, you never turn down knowledge of any sort, and revising always helps. Also, I am an inveterate fanfiction writer, meaning that already I am speculating on the possibilities in the characters.