#another mood from earlier in the episode “Narrator 2: But he is TRYING.” | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

rigelmejo · 4 years

Text

march 3/15/2021

im trying to read through tae kim’s grammar guide right now because i’m officially further in the nukemarine LLJ memrise decks (there’s tae kim grammar guide sections in there) than i am in actually reading the grammar guide. And obviously these example sentences in the memrise deck would teach me more if i CLEARLY understood why they’re like how they are. which i... need to read the grammar guide section to understand lol.

my goal rn with japanese is? to get further in the nukemarine LLJ decks than i did last time. I’ve already mildly accomplished that (have done officially MORE of the tae kim section than before, have NOT redone the 190 common words i did last time i did this though). there are about 400 more cards in this tae kim section (LLJ 4) and then 1000ish cards in the common word section (LLJ 5). I would love to get them done.

it would be sweet if i could get them done before April 22?/24? whenever Nier Replicant comes out because then I could play that baby in english and japanese! Then Nier Automata! ToT The Entire thing that kicked me back into wanting to study japanese was my old love for certain video games and desperately wanting to know what their stories/characters are like before translation/localization. So it would be cool if I could play them a little ;-; or at least check out lets plays.

(which, checking out the kh2 lets play has been going pretty well so far... also that part where namine says “we aren’t meant to exist” and roxas says “how could you say such a thing? even if it were true” he says in japanese like “thats brutal/harsh to say. even if its true.” ...great to know that line is equally raw and heartbreaking in japanese lol. KH2′s localization did real good on like equal vibe to original just like ‘less nuanced’ if that makes sense. also thanks to the chinese hanzi i know now watching the KH2 lets play means i can figure out a lot of noun’s writing even though i don’t catch the pronunciation... also i’m catching a lot of words that mean like ‘beautiful/good’ as in like ‘great move’ and ‘dang’ lol.)

i had to stop myself from redoing the chinese flashcards i’ve done in the past! because i get ‘into a zone’ lol. And i really don’t need to waste time redoing those 2000 cards. i also needed to stop myself from doing the hsk 5-6 cards. because realistically? i know half of them, i should just set a lot to ‘ignore’ on the computer but im too lazy, and i’m learning a lot of vocab from reading right now. i don’t need hsk words to pass any test. The words i’m learning right now in reading are a lot more applicable to the actual shows i watch/things i listen to/things i read. its more useful to me to keep reading. and also to not sidetrack my japanese lol. i have read... 39 chapters this month... this month is only half over! hanshe is truly motivating ToT it also helps the story CONSTANTLY ends on cliffhangers so i keep clicking next chapter. who knows, maybe hanshe will help me kick up my reading speed. it already shaved off 10 minutes per 20 pages - now my 20 pages are down to 30 minutes to read, which is better than a few months ago. hanshe has 155 chapters so i HOPE it speeds up my reading lol.

hanshe is increasing my vocab though, its definitely noticeable over time. and hanshe has really good repetition of vocab which helps with learning and later the payoff means i never have to look up the word in future once its learned while it remains useful to me and i keep being reminded of it. after i get bored of hanshe OR i finish it, whichever comes first, its either back to a priest novel or into another pingxie fanfic written by hanshe’s author. The author did one fanfic that’s only 33 chapters so that would be NICE to do after this one lol ToT

summary of what’s turned out to be my studying methods this month:

Japanese:

reading through grammar guides (the one yue-muffin made and tae kim’s). so just grammar explanation reading.

doing nukemarine LLJ decks (in the ACTUAL order they are in the deck to completion - last time i did like 3 per time and never finished any lol. this is bolded because it’s the primary activity i’m prioritizing). so SRS flashcards. it’s working well right now because i can just put this activity in anytime i have downtime, like when i pause shows (since we know me i gotta take a break from a show every 20 minutes lol). i am bafflingly in a flashcard mood and i’m trying to take advantage of it while i got it.

*when i feel like it: watching kh2 lets play. so some immersion where i look up words. (and when Nier Replicant remaster releases next month I’m likely to at least a tiny bit try to play it in japanese ToT lol we’ll see)

so grammar reading, srs flashcards covering some grammar/listening/reading/vocab, and some optional immersion.

(a note: i gave up on the japaneseaudiolessons for now because i got bored. its a great resource! i just don’t feel like it right now. and from an efficiency perspective, nukemarine LLJ decks cover vocab, grammar, audio, reading - so I don’t need another resource for that right now).

Chinese:

reading through hanshe. so immersion reading, intensive reading looking up unknown words. (unknown words are happening less so its getting less ‘intense’ lol)

listening to Chinese Spoonfed Audio. so listening to audio flashcards. for building up listening comprehension/repetition to pick up some more common words. (i’ve been doing this during daily walks making it much easier for me to consistently do, doing it mainly to supplement the Reading Heavy study i’m doing, i can drop this and pick it up later if i want since its mostly easy background listening)

*I am slowly rereading the grammar guide on www.chinese-grammar.com for explicit grammar clarification. but this is not a high priority, since I sort of implicitly understand a lot of this and i’m not working on fixing production mistakes yet. i just... miss knowing wtf is going on in the grammar lol.

*when i feel like it: Listening Reading The Glass Maiden/Love and Redemption Novel. I’ve done 2-3 hours of it this past week, but i don’t know when or if I’ll just stop. Thankfully l-r is beneficial somewhat even if i switch up books later. i WANT to L-R you have no idea (to Silent Reading and Guardian REALLY badly lol). But its so time intensive, and requires a lot of focus, and i have to really plan to do it for an hour at a time usually. I am so bad at doing stuff for that long consistently. I was in the mood earlier this week! ToT

*when i feel like it: watching chinese shows raw. I was super in the mood this month because Word of Honor came out, and Killer and Healer came out, and Rattan came out, and I didn’t want to wait for subs. As a result I watched a LOT of raw episodes this month. However, english subs have caught up and since I’m lazy I’m inclined to just watch the subs - especially since youku ITSELF just put english subs on their most-ahead viewing schedule version of the eps on youku vip. so guess who’s buying youuku vip today? -3-)/ That said... even if I stop for a while, if Rattan subs move too slow I’ll probably watch those raw. And as SOON as 2ha’s drama Immortality drops I am highly likely to watch the raws for that since I likely won’t be able to wait. Watching shows is pretty highly dependent on how much I want to watch something and if subs take a while lol.

so reading, and listening. and a little listening-reading method too. mainly just working on reading, listening, vocab acquisition. chinese is going good - for a few months now i’ve just had the plan ‘read often while looking up unknown words, and add some listening study activity when i have time.’ It’s simple, and its been working well. later on down the road i’ll need some explicit grammar clarification again, but this is bare bones enough of a study plan at the moment. i’m clearly picking up words and phrases and hanzi at a reasonable pace. its not the Fastest obviously, but it is causing improvement over time and since i’m enjoying it i see no reason to change it up.

ending things

...who knows WHY i am so well focused this month with so much energy... tbh... i track how many chapters i read a month/audio i listen to/show episodes i watch etc, and this month is like as much as 3 other of my usual months combined. also my japanese has been basically ‘dabbling only’ prior to this month.

although... maybe in part its how i’ve gotten better at reading hanshe? Reading being easier certainly motivates me TO read more. And watching shows was MUCH easier this month (still not ‘easy’ but following the main plot is) which definitely makes me Want to watch more. Also i am... unbelievably motivated by a challenge. I think i got it in my head that i ‘really want to do more of Nukemarine’s LLJ courses and see how much i understand after them’ and now... i really want them DONE. so maybe the current things motivating me will hold out for a while.

(On the listening-reading front meanwhile, that activity takes SO much concentration its hard to do if i’m tired, BUT i have so many TRANSLATED novels i want to read recently and honestly its fun hearing the chinese narration and audiobook actors so like... i very much Want to do l-r so i can hear them as i read the translation... immovable object of me tired versus how much i’m interested in them lol ToT).

also thank u thank u @a-whump-muffin for sending me those lets plays because honestly it got me so excited again and its so cool to see them!!! <3 <3 and its so much easier to watch them versus committing to playing a whole game myself just yet ToT

#rant #march progress #march #it is wild how much i've already done this month #i really have done a Lot?#maybe my reading kick from early this month is just transfering to chinese #from january on i read 11 books in english? or 12 #and now hanshe i'm speeding through? i think maybe hanshe just got easy enough to feel like reading a hard english book #and since i was reading english like non fiction i am already in a 'can handle takes a while per chapter' zone #since non fiction takes me like 1 hour for 20 pages or something horrific like that lol ToT

5 notes · View notes

rachelbethhines · 4 years

Text

Tangled Salt Marathon - Under Raps

My feelings on this episode are pretty neutral. It’s not anything amazing, but it’s not the worst thing ever either. It’s just there, I guess.

Summary: During a love festival, Corona displays a book full of signatures of lovers in honor of an old ruler's falling in love with the leader of a rival kingdom. Cassandra suddenly turns very secretive; Rapunzel learns it's because she's been seeing a guy named Andrew. Cassandra doesn't want Rapunzel's meddling, but the princess suggests a double date and they all go off in a hot air balloon. However, Andrew turns out to be part of an old faction that didn't like the unification of Corona and wants to steal the book.

This Backstory Doesn’t Add Up

So we open up with Big Nose narrating about the history of a war between Corona and a group of people called the Saporians. This is important for two reasons. First, because the Saporians are reoccurring villains in the show, and secondly, because it reveals where the underground tunnels running between Old Corona and the Island Capital come from. These tunnels are a reoccurring plot device in the show, along with the book that maps them.

The problem is that what the story tells us doesn’t match the other information we are given. If it was only the Saporians who invaded then why does an Old Corona, with its own castle, exist to begin with? Why do the tunnels extend from both if King Herz Der Sonne made them? What purpose did they serve if he was only defending the island? Why are the Saporians led by a general and not a ruler? Why would marrying only a general unite the two kings and where was the Saporian kingdom to begin with? Why did they invade? Why are there still Saporians who haven’t accepted the merger centuries later and why do they live on the go outside the kingdom? If Herz Der Sonne is such a good guy then why did he curse his grave with a zombie apocalypse? Ect.

We keep getting hints throughout the show that Herz Der Sonne isn’t all he was cracked up to be, and you keep expecting a reveal that it was the Coronaians who started the war and oppressed the Saporians and then rewrote history, but it never comes. The show wants us to accept this very black and white conflict at face value even as it constantly undermines itself and muddies the waters.

Pointing Out That Something is Stupid in the Show Itself Doesn’t Make it Any Less Stupid

As I stated back during Rapunzel’s Enemy, the show has a real problem with tone. Constantly showing us festival and holiday after festival and holiday only undermines the more serious elements in the ongoing story and creates mood whiplash. Also anything that reminds me of Cinderella 2 is not a good thing.

Ahh Friedborg, You’re Such a Wasted Opportunity

So she actually first appeared in Cassandra V. Eugene but I forgot to bring her up there. My bad. Friedborg is something of a fan favorite in the TTS fandom, and I like her too, but she adds nothing. She’s a joke character in a tv show already oversaturated by joke characters. More over the joke is actually offensive on some level since it all hinges on her being less conventionally attractive then the other female characters and the mains finding her weird because she never talks.

The show tries to justify her existence by making her Big Nose’s girlfriend, but she’s not who he ended up with in the movie. And once again it’s kind of offensive to imply that only people who don’t match society’s contrived beauty standards can only find love with those that look like them. Thereby completely missing the point of Big Nose’s character arc.

I’ll say it right now, Friedborg should have been Zan Tiri, or Demantius. Take your pick. I think ZT makes more sense, but etheir way she should have been a setup for something more important to the plot rather then just be being a vauge oddity that just pops up from time to time.

I Miss This Version of Eugene

Throughout the first two seasons, Eugene and Cassandra were willing to point out Rapunzel’s BS. Forcing her to confront her flaws and re-examine her positions.I would argue that the show could have pushed this even further but at least it was there. By the final season no one was doing this. Rapunzel is allowed to be as awful as she wants to be without consequence. Meaning she never learns anything and stops growing as a character and the show acts like this a positive thing. It is not. In fact, it is the biggest flaw of the whole show as it fails to achieve the one thing it originally set out to do; which is to tell a coming of age story with Rapunzel.

It also has the added effect of making Eugene a doormat to Rapunzel’s bulling, thereby regressing his character as well and presenting an unhealthy relationship as a goal to be achieved to younger viewers. I can not stress enough to young girls and young men in particular, that Rapunzel and Eugene are not ‘relationship goals’ in this show. Not after season 3.

Xavier Doesn’t Get a Proper Introduction

So Xavier is actually pretty important to the ongoing plot. He’s more or less the exposition fairy for the show, but he’s not really established. He just suddenly appears here with no prior meeting and he just so happens to know what the main characters need to know with no explanation as to how he knows.

His part here is so forgettable that I legit forgot who he was when he reappeared in the mid-season finale. I had thought that the writers just threw in a random character for plot purposes. And to be fair they did. Just they did it here instead of in Queen for a Day.

If the showrunners wanted Xavier to be historian who knows everything and tells stories, then he should have been introduced as the narrator of the history of Hearts Day instead of Big Nose.

Another Lesson Not Learned

We get this big heart to heart moment of Raps and Cass coming to an understanding, with Rapunzel promising not to intrude and Cass promising to being more honest about her feelings. This is walked back on several times and made part of the core conflict of the last two seasons.

Once again, any problem that can be solved in less then five minutes of talking isn’t a strong enough conflict to drive multiple seasons. If this had been a show without an ongoing narrative, like say The Rescue Rangers or even Batman the Animated Series, then the repeated lessons wouldn’t be a problem. We expect characters to be static and to reset after each episode since they’re not shows that you watch in order.

But if you do go the overarching arc route for a story, then people expect lasting character development. Even in shows like Gravity Falls or Steven Universe, where the change is more gradual and the characters do repeat mistakes occasionally, there’s still a marketed change by the end. One that indicates improvement by the characters, and the inter conflicts are never exactly the same each time with exactly the same lesson over and over again.

Oh Look, Cassandra Once Again Achieving her Goal of Validation

Cass is awarded a medal by her father for stopping Andrew. Don’t expect her or the show to remember this.

Also more Cass and Cap interaction that we don’t get to see.

Can We Not Imply That Cassandra Still has a Crush on the Guy Who Lied to Her and Then Almost Killed Her, and Can We Not Act Like This is a Good Thing?

So this flower was given to Cassandra by Andrew and her keeping it makes zero sense.

First off lets not have one of our few strong independent female characters crushing on the show’s stereotypical ‘nice guy’, okay? That’s all kinds of gross. Secondly, if the intention was to show that Cass was now more willing to open up about her feelings, then wouldn’t her keeping one of the gifts Raps made her earlier in the episode make more sense? After all, that’s the relationship that actually matters to Cassandra and is the basis of the whole show.

But this all boils down to the fact that the creator sees Cassandra as straight, always has, and thinks her crushing on the guy who manipulated her is somehow better than ‘no-homo’. Now you can headcanon Cass as whatever you want and ship her with whomever you want, as canon doesn’t matter. But I find it hilarious that most of the head showrunner’s biggest supporters are mainly Casspunzel fans and yet he’s the one who made them ‘sisters’ and sees them as such.

Like I hate to break it to you guys, but a Cass led spin-off headed by Chris won't be the lesbian rep that you’ve always dreamed of. You’re better off just watching the She-Ra reboot.

But things gets even worse when Rapunzel approves of this stupid ‘crush’ ...

Don’t Ever Tell Someone That You’re Proud of Them For Going On a Date

Dating is just something some people choose to do together and some people choose not to engage in that. It’s not an accomplishment and it shouldn’t be treated as such. This is insulting to both people who don’t date, for whatever reason, and to women who hate being being defined by their relationships, which is most of us.

Even if you’re being charitable and try to make this about Cassandra self esteem and her learning she’s worth ‘loving’, which is the reason some people have offered up for this scene, it still falls apart when it’s not established that Cassandra ever had such self esteem issues to begin with and was not looking for romance anyways. And if that is what the show is going for then it’s still problematic to suggest that being found as attractive by someone else is need for self esteem. In fact, that’s kind of the opposite of what self esteem is.

Conclusion

Overall this episode was ‘meh’. Like most season one episodes the problems stem from the ongoing narrative and lack of follow though in later seasons. However there’s enough stuff in here on it’s own to rub me just the wrong way that I can’t actually call it good either.

It doesn’t help that I don’t see the appeal of Andrew at all. Watching the character is just a cringefest for me. He’s too similar to real life men I’ve unfortunately met and therefore sends alarm bells ringing in my head. And I agree with Eugene; he’s not all that handsome.

#tangled #tangled the series #rapunzel's tangled adventure #anti-rapunzel #anti-tangled #rapunzel #cassandra #andrew #anti-andrew #eugene

44 notes · View notes

weirdandpissedoff · 6 years

Text

Rian Reads: X-Man #2

Writer: Jeph Loeb Artist: Steve Skroce Inker: Mike Sellers, Bud Larosa & Kevin Conrad & Scott Hanna Letterer: Richard Starkings & Comicraft Colorist: Mike Thomas & Digital Chameleon

Cover Date: April 1995

As X-Man #2 opens we catch up with Domino, who was tasked by Apocalypse with tracking down the source of great telekinetic energy that he’s been sensing (psst! It’s X-Man). Along with Caliban and some big, red guy named Grizzly, she tries beating information concerning their prey out of a big Russian mutant named Rossovich who seems like a combination of Omega Red and Dr. Octopus. A quick trek down Google Avenue informs me that Grizzly is a member of Wild Pack/Six Pack in the 616 Marvel Universe while Rossovich is, indeed, the Age Of Apocalypse incarnation of Omega Red. So, there you go.

Inevitably, Domino kills Rossovich without gleaning any useful info from him and we move on to see Nathan Summers (aka X-Man) training with Forge. After Nate has a temper tantrum he wanders off in a bad mood because he feels that Forge still treats him like a child, which is the perfect frame of mind for him to be in so that a less-than-ethical guy like new member of the group Essex can take advantage of him. Despite Forge’s orders for Nate to keep his power usage to a minimum so as to avoid detection, Essex is like, “Hey boi, can u fly, tho?” Then Nate’s all like, “Dunno, son. Let’s give ‘er a go, eh?” X-Man then does a few aerial laps around the forest clearing they’re in, after which he and Essex decide to keep this little experiment to themselves.

Later on the group is discussing what their next plan of action should be when Essex pipes up and tells everyone that he just so happens to know about a lab that is integral to Apocalypse’s plans that they could go and try to sabotage. The group hesitantly agrees to at least go check this place out and where they end up is the facility where beast performs all of his twisted mutation experiments and creates Apocalypse’s army of homegrown goons. When the group spots some members of the Madri (who, to recap, are one of the many groups of particularly dangerous mutants in Apocalypse’s employ, all of whom I find it hard to keep straight from series to series and issue to issue), the consensus is that they should peace out, but X-Man has other plans. And those plans consist of diving into a fight head first to destroy some of Beast’s equipment.

Following the obligatory fight scene of the issue during which X-Man substantiates Forge’s concerns about him not being ready for a real fight, the team retreats to an abandoned farmhouse to get some rest. Desiring answers, Nate sneaks away and, with new girl Theresa (who now goes by the codename Sonique because of her sonic scream powers, and also because Jeph Loeb can’t help himself when he has the opportunity to give characters unnecessarily weirdly spelled names) in tow, takes a little trip through the astral plane to the would-be X-Mansion in Westchester, New York just as he did in the previous issue. There he once more observes Magneto, who can’t see or hear him and Theresa in their astral forms. As it turns out though, Magneto’s young son Charles CAN see them and, freaked out by all this, Theresa somehow breaks their “psi-link,” sending them back to the farm.

Finally, Brute, the biggest, strongest and dumbest member of Forge’s little band of merry men, has an epiphany about where he recognizes Essex from and confronts him in a barn. Just as Brute calls Essex out as actually being Mr. Sinister (which, I mean…we all knew that’s who he was, but they hadn’t come right out and said it until now), Domino and her gang show up and pose menacingly for some of Jeph Loeb’s overbearing “Hey, it’s a cliffhanger!” narration.

I enjoyed this issue of X-Man much more than I did the first one, which is due in no small part to the fact that there’s nary a mention of Shakespeare nor traveling theater troupes this time around. Steve Skroce’s art, while, as I mentioned before, would get much better in subsequent years during his Marvel tenure, is still a welcome addition to the line-up of AoA artists. Conversely, if you couldn’t tell from the amount of jabs that I took at Jeph Loeb’s writing in the preceding review, his dialogue and narration hasn’t grown on me at all.

This issue marks the official halfway point of my journey through the Age Of Apocalypse. Part of the reason why I began reading Uncanny X-Men starting at #300 all those months ago was that I wanted to experience an era of X-stories that I’ve always felt I’d missed out on. Another part of the reason for starting this little project of mine was that, while I love the X-Men, I haven’t been able to get into any of their recent runs or stories. So many mainstream superhero comics these days seem to have a “every story arc has to be 5-8 issues long so that it neatly fits into a trade paperback for the aftermarket even if the pacing and storytelling suffer as a result” vibe to them. Those earlier days of superhero comics rarely worked out into neat little story arcs and flowed more naturally as episodic, ongoing stories, which is a style of superhero comic storytelling that I sorely miss these days.

While I’m glad that I’m finally taking the opportunity to scratch the Age Of Apocalypse off of my bucket list of comics that I’ve been meaning to get around to reading for years, I have to admit that, even though I’m largely enjoying it, AoA does have a bit of that larger storyline stink to it that I was hoping to avoid. The experience has been largely positive though, and while I’m excited to move past the Age Of Apocalypse and tackle some more of the random issues and stories beyond it, I am very curious to see how this whole crossover event is going to wrap up.

Onwards and upwards, true believers!

- R.

#Rian Reads #Rian Reads X-Man #X-Man #X-Men #Age Of Apocalypse #Forge #Grizzly #Caliban #Domino #Sonique #Brute #Soaron

1 note · View note

shanedakotamuir · 5 years

Text

On Frozen 2 and Disney’s nostalgia problem

Elsa’s back. | Walt Disney Pictures

Disney used to always be looking forward. These days, it increasingly only looks back.

Nobody was more nostalgic than Marcel Proust.

The French novelist’s six-volume masterwork In Search of Lost Time is narrated by a man who’s remembering his youth, and it explores how strange and unreliable memory can be. Throughout the series, the notion of “involuntary” memory is a recurring theme, but it’s particularly important in the famous “madeleine” scene.

The scene comes early in the first volume, Swann’s Way, when the taste of a madeleine dipped in tea immediately plunges the narrator into a vivid childhood memory. It’s so well-known that it remains a cultural reference point even today, more than a century after Swann’s Way was published: To say that something is your “madeleine” is shorthand for any sensory experience that brings back a flood of childhood memories (even though mounting evidence suggests that Proust’s version may have just been soggy toast).

That sensory experiences can trigger powerful memories, particularly of youth and childhood, was not a particularly earth-shattering insight on Proust’s part — lots of people have had similar episodes. And while not all of his narrator’s recollections are fond, a lot of them seem presented through a haze of affection — the reliability of which, as the narrator us himself, is a little suspect. “Remembrance of things past is not necessarily the remembrance of things as they were,” he writes.

Maurice Rougemont/Gamma-Rapho/Getty Images

Marcel Proust famously wrote about madeleines as he explored the ways our memories are triggered.

Proust aptly describes the concept of nostalgia: a sentimental yearning for the past, which Merriam Webster defines, succinctly and evocatively, as “the state of being homesick.” And while we periodically recall certain moments as being worse than they actually were (I think of the 30 Rock episode in which Liz Lemon is shocked to discover that her memories of being bullied in high school are faulty, and she was the one doing the bullying), the past often takes on a rosy hue.

Time, distance, and the occasional dash of willful ignorance are effective modifiers. They’re why societies collectively hallucinate Golden Ages, and why so many people find the idea of making America “great again” appealing. It’s less about conserving the good of the past, and more about rejecting the present.

Nostalgia is not, as a mood, inherently bad. Sometimes, feeling a bit homesick is good. But when that feeling becomes our default posture, our guiding light, it starts to become ... troubling? Inhibiting, maybe? Stifling? If the past was when things were good, why bother to build a new future? Better to just keep reinventing the past.

Which brings us to Disney, and to Frozen 2.

Disney used to be a company that looked forward. These days, it seems more interested in looking back.

Disney now controls the lion’s share of the movie industry. In 2019 so far, five of the six highest-grossing films worldwide have been Disney properties; the sixth (Spider-Man: Far From Home) was a joint endeavor between Sony and Disney-owned Marvel. The company’s reach is staggering: It owns, among scores other entities, Pixar, the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Star Wars, and as of earlier this year, the film and TV assets formerly held by 21st Century Fox — in addition to its own extensive and much-beloved back catalog, lots of which is now available to stream via the just-launched Disney+ service.

Disney is in the entertainment business. But what it’s selling isn’t entertainment, exactly — that’s just the vehicle for its real product, and that product has shifted and morphed over time. At one time, a big part of what Disney was selling was a vision of a utopian future, as you know, if you’ve been to Tomorrowland or Epcot at Walt Disney World.

In his speech at the opening day of Disneyland in 1955, Walt Disney himself pointed to his vision of the park as a place where nostalgia and forward-looking inspiration could coexist: “Here age relives fond memories of the past, and here youth may savor the challenge and promise of the future.”

Allan Grant/The LIFE Picture Collection via Getty Images

Walt Disney at the Disneyland grand opening in 1955.

But as we come to the end of this banner year for Disney, it’s clear that what the company wants to sell us, going forward, is a seemingly infinite heap of Proustian madeleines. Certainly the warm fuzzies have been one of Disney’s main exports for a long time, but some kind of tipping point was reached in 2019. Now, it seems evident that Disney sees provoking existential homesickness as its main job. Nostalgia is its real product.

Consider Toy Story 4, the fourth film in a series that debuted in November 1995. If you were 8 years old and saw Toy Story in theaters when it opened, you might have brought your own 8-year-old to see the new film earlier this year.

That’s a remarkable stretch of time, and the Toy Story series has stayed remarkably thematically coherent over that time. It’s a set of stories about the passage of time, about how nothing stays the same, about the fact that kids grow up and leave home — that’s why Toy Story 3 left parents bawling when Andy finally grew up and didn’t need his toys anymore. The toys, in a sense, are the parents’ stand-ins. And Toy Story 4, in which some of the toys opt to live a child-free life, feels an awful lot like a movie about being an empty nester, something that could render a parent munching popcorn with their third grader a bit verklempt, thinking about their own now-empty-nester parents who once took them to see Toy Story.

That’s the good kind of nostalgia. And the Toy Story series has successfully refreshed its basic premise over two decades — toys get lost, toys get found — in part through its willingness to surprise viewers, to crack jokes and be a little creepy and think outside the (toy) box with its narratives. So when we find ourselves feeling homesick, in a story about the passage of time, it works.

I think of this approach as generative nostalgia. It’s a way for Disney to use memory, to tap into the audience’s particular madeleines, to bolster the storytelling itself (and make an enormous wad of cash, too). Not every attempt lands, but when movie studios try to tap into nostalgia in order to generate fresh new stories with universal themes, to get creative with the familiar, it’s a good thing for art.

Pixar Animation Studios / Walt Disney Pictures

From Toy Story 4, we got Forky.

If Toy Story 4 was an example of Disney harnessing generative nostalgia, however, its so-called “live-action” remake of The Lion King was just the opposite. The film was never meant to be a standalone movie; its success was always fully dependent on the long-entrenched popularity of the 1994 animated film it recreates, in some cases shot for shot. It’s an entirely unnecessary movie — a way for Disney to test-drive high-end, lifelike CGI and get people to pay for it. And without the imaginative, sometimes visually wild artwork of the original, it falls very flat, with no new perspective on its source material.

Call it derivative nostalgia: For most audiences, The Lion King and Disney’s other live-action remakes (Aladdin was another huge hit this year) are interesting only insofar as they promise to deliver a (slightly) new spin on a beloved classic, without straying too far. We still get “Can You Feel the Love Tonight,” but it’s Donald Glover and Beyoncé. A copy of the original with some of the details tweaked. That’s the appeal.

And while derivative nostalgia has its place — we rewatch our favorite movies for a reason, because we like the feelings and memories they provoke — Disney seems intent on adopting it as a modus operandi, judging from the number of remakes the company has announced. It will depend on the built-in audience of people who loved Lady and the Tramp or 101 Dalmatians to pony up for a ticket or subscribe to Disney+ and ensure these projects’ success.

But I’m convinced the urge to use your giant piles of money to endlessly replicate the past can’t be good for a culture. Certainly, human culture is cumulative; we’re always building on what came before. For millennia, storytellers have leaned on the same material, like myths and archetypes, to find new ways to tell stories. But derivative nostalgia stymies the creative impulse, miring us in the same thing over and over again and training audiences to demand the predictable. Vanilla pudding tastes good, but there’s a lot more to food than vanilla pudding.

You can witness the battle for Disney’s soul happening inside Frozen 2

These generative and derivative modes of nostalgia seem to be warring inside inside Frozen 2, which is pleasing and enjoyable even if it’s clearly designed to function as an ATM for Disney, with Frozen’s previously established fanbase acting as the bank account behind the screen. It is, thank God, no Olaf’s Frozen Adventure.

The Frozen films are aimed primarily at little girls and boys, of course — Disney’s long-running core constituency for stories about princesses and talking animals (or snowmen). But, given that the first movie came out six years ago, Frozen 2 is also for older kids. And one of the most notable things about the movie is that it’s also for their parents.

Perhaps following Pixar’s lead, the more traditional Disney Animation studio has caught onto the fact that if you want grown-ups to be happy when they take kids to the movie theater, you’ve got to make something they’ll enjoy, too. So Frozen 2 leans (more noticeably than its predecessor) into jokes the adults will appreciate, and one in particular: While the kids at my screening howled at Olaf’s slapsticky misadventures, the adults were the ones laughing as Princess Anna’s hunky boyfriend Kristoff crooned his very ’80s-sounding power ballad “Lost in the Woods.”

During a recent interview, Josh Gad (who voices Olaf) joked that the song “speaks to all of us that grew up in the ’80s.” And he’s totally right. The voice of Kristoff, Jonathan Groff, says he was surprised when the song was handed to him: “I couldn’t believe that they were going to go there,” he said, calling it “truly shocking” and later saying it has the energy of Michael Bolton. The song is about how much Kristoff needs Anna in his life; in the film, he sings it during a fantasy sequence of finding her, backed by a chorus of singing reindeer. (The official Frozen 2 soundtrack includes a version of the song by Weezer, which kind of says everything.)

As Gad pointed out, it’s definitely a sight gag for the olds in the room — the younger Gen X and older millennial parents who’ve come to see Frozen 2 with their kids, and are now being rewarded with their own extended musical joke. What’s funny about it is that the musical-style “Into the Woods” parodies was already ridiculous by the time most gen-Xers and millennials became adults; what we’re reminded of now is the sheer goofiness that was so prevalent back then, when romantic ballads were sung by guys with bad hair surrounded by unironic kitsch.

Kids born in the 21st century won’t get the joke. But Frozen 2 isn’t exclusively for them; it’s for 20th-century kids, too. In fact, though its action is set just three years after the end of Frozen, it is, like Toy Story, about the passage of time, and what it’s like to grow older. Olaf sings a song about how things don’t make sense to him now, but they will someday; Anna and Olaf reflect on how they hope everything will stay the same, even though — spoiler alert — of course, they won’t.

Walt Disney Pictures

The gang’s all back together in Frozen 2.

So Frozen 2 provokes all kinds of nostalgia. For kids who’ve already spent years dressing up as Anna and Elsa and driving their parents to distraction with “Let It Go,” the new film is a return to the happy land of Arendelle, where they’ve had many adventures. For teenagers who saw the original Frozen when they were 8 or so, but are now in high school, it’s a reminder of how far they’ve come. And for adults, it tugs on decades-old heartstrings — not just the chuckling memory of’ 80s power ballads, which might be the madeleine that reminds some of dancing at prom, but also the Disney princess stories so many of us grew up watching.

Whereas the original Frozen is a bit of an odd film — its plot structure feels a little out-of-sync with Disney’s usual storytelling, and its “true love’s kiss” comes not from a prince but a sister — Frozen 2 is much more conventional. Frozen retained some of the eerie strangeness of the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale it was (very) loosely based on; Frozen 2 goes back to the usual adventure-and-return structure that has made so many classic Disney movies a success. It’s familiar. It’s comfortable.

By my lights, Frozen 2 is still a plenty enjoyable film, even if it lacks its predecessor’s subversive spark. But for me, watching generative and derivative nostalgia spar within it prompted a different sense of the familiar: bleakness about the future of mouse-eared entertainment. Disney, whatever its faults, has often been a pioneer in storytelling; now it’s resting firmly on its laurels, too often electing to spin the wheel again rather than try to reinvent it.

Nostalgia has its place. Remembering the feeling of homesickness reminds us where we came from, that we come from somewhere. But too much yearning for the past without a concomitant attempt to live in the present and push toward the future is a dangerous trap for a culture to fall into, both because it risks becoming stagnant in its art and because it may begin to to worship the past as the only place worth living in. Too much yearning for the past makes us incurious about the world. And if, as Proust wrote, the past we remember is not necessarily the one that existed, remaining stubbornly beholden to it can render us altogether incapable of dealing with the present.

The bigger Disney gets, the more it controls what most Americans — and people around the world — will see at the movies and on their TV screens, and thus it bears enormous responsibility for seeing into the future. Looking backward too much, recycling old content and relying on old formulas endlessly, becomes a snake eating its own tail.

As the endless stream of reboots and remakes and sequels and revivals that currently dominates entertainment attests, nostalgia sells. But it is also the thing most easily packaged to sell. Recycling content is the low-hanging fruit. And when Disney leans into the least creative sort of recycled content, live-action remakes — something nobody’s really asking for — it’s signaling how little it’s interested in originality.

Even when those remakes take a risk — for instance, by casting black actress Halle Bailey as Ariel in The Little Mermaid — it’s worth noting how safe the “risk” really is. Being a creative leader who celebrates inclusivity means daring to build something new, and trusting the artists to draw audiences into a new story. It doesn’t mean casting new faces in old, well-trodden roles with guaranteed built-in audiences because you’re not sure audiences will turn up otherwise. It doesn’t mean defaulting to reviving your past.

Which, ironically, is something Walt Disney was determined to keep his company from doing. As quoted in the 2007 Disney animated film Meet the Robinsons, he pushed for just the opposite: “Around here, however, we don’t look backwards for very long. We keep moving forward, opening up new doors and doing new things, because we’re curious. And curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.”

Frozen 2 opens in theaters on November 21.

from Vox - All https://ift.tt/2OvMLXf

#Vox - All

1 note · View note

gracieyvonnehunter · 5 years

Text

On Frozen 2 and Disney’s nostalgia problem

Elsa’s back. | Walt Disney Pictures

Disney used to always be looking forward. These days, it increasingly only looks back.

Nobody was more nostalgic than Marcel Proust.

Maurice Rougemont/Gamma-Rapho/Getty Images

Marcel Proust famously wrote about madeleines as he explored the ways our memories are triggered.

Which brings us to Disney, and to Frozen 2.

Disney used to be a company that looked forward. These days, it seems more interested in looking back.

Allan Grant/The LIFE Picture Collection via Getty Images

Walt Disney at the Disneyland grand opening in 1955.

Pixar Animation Studios / Walt Disney Pictures

From Toy Story 4, we got Forky.

You can witness the battle for Disney’s soul happening inside Frozen 2

Walt Disney Pictures

The gang’s all back together in Frozen 2.

Frozen 2 opens in theaters on November 21.

from Vox - All https://ift.tt/2OvMLXf

#Vox - All

0 notes

timalexanderdollery · 5 years

Text

On Frozen 2 and Disney’s nostalgia problem

Elsa’s back. | Walt Disney Pictures

Disney used to always be looking forward. These days, it increasingly only looks back.

Nobody was more nostalgic than Marcel Proust.

Maurice Rougemont/Gamma-Rapho/Getty Images

Marcel Proust famously wrote about madeleines as he explored the ways our memories are triggered.

Which brings us to Disney, and to Frozen 2.

Disney used to be a company that looked forward. These days, it seems more interested in looking back.

Allan Grant/The LIFE Picture Collection via Getty Images

Walt Disney at the Disneyland grand opening in 1955.

Pixar Animation Studios / Walt Disney Pictures

From Toy Story 4, we got Forky.

You can witness the battle for Disney’s soul happening inside Frozen 2

Walt Disney Pictures

The gang’s all back together in Frozen 2.

Frozen 2 opens in theaters on November 21.

from Vox - All https://ift.tt/2OvMLXf

#Vox - All

0 notes

murasaki-murasame · 7 years

Text

Thoughts on Owarimonogatari Season 2 [Ougi Dark]

Yet again, this took longer than expected, lol. For some reason I’ve been a bit intimidated by how long this might take to watch and write about, even though it’s only three episodes long. But I’m still genuinely excited to see how it goes.

It’ll probably be another few weeks or so before I have time to get back into rewatching the earlier parts of the franchise, but I’ll try and get back into that sooner rather than later.

Thoughts under the cut

PART ONE:

Ooh boy that was a whole lot of talking. Not that that’s anything rare for this series, but it’s almost draining to get through a lot of plot-important exposition all at once. I’m not entirely sure I got all of it, but I think I did.

Starting from the beginning, I thought there was meant to be a recap of sorts called Araragi’s Story, but I guess whoever subbed this didn’t bother with it and cut it out? That sucks. But it probably wasn’t anything super important.

The beginning narration scene by Araragi was really nice, and helped set the mood for this being the final part of the story. Well, final part of the main story, at least. After this we still have Zoku-Owari, Off Season, and Monster Season to adapt, not to mention anything that comes out after that. But you get what I mean.

The OP was nice, but not quite as good as I was hoping for. I think I prefer the Ougi Formula OP over it. I might like it more once the arc’s done, though, since there’s a whole lot of symbolism that’d probably feel more effective with the full context of this arc. Also, it’s still kinda interesting to me how Ougi’s VA’s singing voice sounds really different to her Ougi voice. I’d be hard-pressed to realize that it was the same VA if I didn’t know it was.

I knew that this arc would start with a whole lot of talking as everyone basically recaps the current situation and their motives and plans, but damn that was still a whole lot of talking in not a long period of time. Wow.

A lot of people seem to dislike Gaen, probably because she tends to exist for the sake of giving lengthy exposition like this, but I like her. Something about her whole character just appeals to me, and I like listening to her talk. Her whole casual punk outfit and her smartphone obsession and whatnot are a really interesting contrast with what sort of a character she is, and what purpose she serves in the story. I also love how half the time when she talks, the sky turns rainbow-coloured. In general I love her rainbow theme.

It’s really cool seeing Shinobu in her complete form. You don’t exactly see it often. I kinda forgot that she’s actually really tall. Her playing around with Yotsugi to ‘get back at her’ for all the insults was surprisingly cute.

I should have figured that we’d get more talks about the shrine and the lake and whatnot since that’s been built up for the last two arcs pretty heavily. And, well, a large part of the entire story, really. It’s nice to get one big recap about the main points on it, even if it was kinda hard to keep track of. But I get it. I’m pretty sure it had already been said before, but I kinda forgot that it was Shinobu who destroyed the shrine at the lake originally, so that actually helps make things click more in my head.

It makes sense that they’re deciding to enshrine Hachikuji as the new shrine god to keep her around in the real world, and to help restore balance more. I probably should have seen that as a possibility. Although I can’t exactly blame myself for not getting all of the stuff to do with slugs and snails. That came a bit out of left field.

I knew that Ougi wasn’t exactly the Darkness, but it’s interesting to hear that she’s still trying to ‘perform the same role as the Darkness’. Well, that’s exactly what she’s been doing this whole time, but still.

I’m PRETTY sure I’ve been told what her true identity is, but I won’t bring it up until it’s explicitly stated. Though with the ‘reveal’ at the end of this part, of Ougi being an apparition, I feel like it’s pretty obvious. But even from before this arc it was fairly obvious. I mean, it was always clear that she wasn’t human. She was always too immediately alien, too inhuman, too strange to not be an apparition of some kind. And the fact that she clearly has some ability to mess with people’s thoughts and memories. And that one time in Ougi Formula where she, like, slithered through the air around Araragi’s head. You get what I mean. And at that point it’s not TOO difficult to guess at her ‘origin’. But the whole Darkness thing does kinda throw things off and make it more unclear. At least before it gets shot down.

The weird thing about this arc is that we know in advance that Ougi’s not going to die. Since she shows up in Hana, which obviously takes place after this arc. So that kinda spoils the fact that things aren’t going to go Gaen’s way. But obviously if Nisioisin allowed us to know that in advance, then it’s not going to be much of a big deal in the end. It does make me pretty curious to see how this arc will actually end, though.

PART TWO:

And so the truth comes out! As I suspected. Or, well, as I was spoiled. But even without being spoiled on it, the truth is pretty to guess.

Before I get into talking about all that, I first want to say that I’m so, so happy we got a section with Nadeko. Seeing her again like this is so great. I’m so proud of her. I love that she’s pursuing what she wants to do. She’s obviously grown a lot as a person, which is immediately visible through the fact that she cut her fringe short, since that was always the shield she used to avoid confrontation. I also kinda like how ‘not cute’ she looks in her outfit there. It feels like she’s accepted that she doesn’t have to stick rigidly to ‘being cute’ at all times, and can just be herself.

The whole section with Ougi and Tsukihi was pretty interesting, and kinda melancholic. I wasn’t really expecting Ougi to be thrown off by Tsukihi’s attitude that much. I’m still not fully sure what to make of Tsukihi as a character. She and Karen just sorta feel . . . not super fleshed out. Maybe it’s just been too long since I watched Nise. But I still liked their conversation. And it also makes more sense when you get to the end of this episode and get told that she was seeking out Tsukihi because of Araragi’s feelings of guilt and uncertainty about if it’s right for Tsukihi to keep living the way she is.

Getting back more to the start of the episode, I liked the whole explanation about how since Ougi’s entire existence is ‘a lie’, since she’s specifically an ‘impersonation’ of the Darkness, then she herself would become a target of the Darkness once her true identity is revealed, and her identity as ‘a lie’ is upturned. It fits the internal logic of the series. I also really liked the visuals and direction of that specific scene. Especially the part that looked a little like that part in Shinobu Time where it has the side-scrolling painting.

Also I kinda had to laugh at the goddamn ‘fan’ pun. Wow. That was kinda . . . on the nose. I forget if it had actually been established that Ougi was introduced to Araragi as a fan of Kanbaru’s, but it makes a lot of sense now that we know her existence is heavily tied with the Rainy Devil and that whole scenario. So I guess this also helps contextualize the fact that we saw Ougi talk with Kanbaru in Hana.

The fact that Ougi was an apparition created by Araragi was something I knew in advance, maybe since before I even saw Owari S1, but I didn’t know the exact specifics of it, so the fact that she’s literally the representation of how harsh Araragi is on himself was a bit of a surprise. It makes sense, though. I kinda want to get the timeline straight on this one, to remember when exactly Ougi entered the scene. I know that we more or less first saw her in Nadeko Medusa, but we know now that the entire first half of Owari S1 happened directly before that, and I think that’s when Ougi was first introduced, chronologically. I’m not sure, though.

I really like this reveal. At least since it really ties the whole story together, and contextualizes the place Araragi himself has in the story, on both a practical and thematic level. Considering how big of a narrative point his self-loathing and indecision has been, it works really well that Ougi is literally the living representation of that. And the fact that she exists for that purpose helps explain her motives for doing what she does. That is, since Araragi deep down thinks that he’s continually doing the wrong thing, that he’s over-stepping his bounds, that he’s upsetting the natural order of things. I wonder if this also implies that he knew subconsciously that the help he tried to provide for Nadeko in the Snake arc wasn’t really fully beneficial in the end, and that he never really understood her to begin with, and was leaving some serious issues unchecked. Considering how Nadeko Medusa as a story arc is basically one giant consequence for Araragi’s poor handling of Nadeko as a person and her issues, it’d be really neat if that arc only existed because of his subconscious doubts about how he acted. It really puts a spin on how self-defeating he is, if something like that literally only happened because he was afraid that he hadn’t truly helped her. For the record, the thing with Hachikuji was related to the actual, real Darkness, right? Even though the story pointed out how he had his own doubts about her general existence.

The fact that the ‘battle’ between Ougi and Araragi is now framed as an act of suicide is pretty morbid, but as I said, this wasn’t going to be a conventional battle. Seeing Ougi openly begging for her life was pretty depressing. It makes sense that she wouldn’t want to simply be killed, especially not by her own creator. Though, as said, we still know that she doesn’t die, so . . . yeah. This also makes Gaen seem even more creepy, with how casually she’s talking about Araragi needing to kill someone that’s for all intents and purposes a part of himself.

This also puts a kinda morbid spin on the fact that this is ‘the end of Araragi’s adolescence’. One way or another, he has to confront this part of him that represents his adolescence, which is also how he described Ougi at the start of the arc. It’s also worth noting how this ties into the ideas this entire season has been setting up. Like how a fair bit of Mayoi Hell was about Araragi having a walk down memory lane and being able to confidently say ‘yes, I would do all of those things again if I had the chance, even if they might have been mistakes’. As time’s gone on, he’s become more and more able to accept his choices and his decisions, and come to terms with himself as an individual. So in a way, he’s already begun moving past the point in his life that Ougi represents. Which is, I think, part of why she’s become more pitiful lately, more vulnerable. I’ll still wait and see how it actually plays out, but I imagine that, since she doesn’t die, Araragi is going to simply end up accepting Ougi as a part of himself that he doesn’t need to kill. I’m not exactly sure how that’d work, and how she’ll be kept safe from the Darkness, but we’ll see.

The way that this whole scenario is being framed as the end of Araragi’s adolescence reminds me a lot of Utena, and how the movie version of that is called The Adolescence of Utena. Though the thing that reminds me more of Utena was that scene of everyone at the park, completely silhouetted as they lean against pillars while talking. That whole scene was 100% Pure Utena, and I loved it.

Also, I forgot to mention it, so I’ll just say here that even though we knew in advance via Hana that Araragi and Shinobu ended up in their pact together, it was still kinda . . . emotional, almost, to see him spell out that he plans to go back to how they were. And of course, Shinobu herself also said that she wants to go back to being a young girl again. There’s something kinda tragic about the way that they got given the perfect chance to end their already tragic relationship, but they both decided to go back to it in the end. In general, the entire dynamic between Araragi and Shinobu is kinda fascinating. It makes me excited to finally watch the Kizu films.

I’m also intrigued by the implication that if Ougi dies, Araragi will easily find Kagenui and Oshino [I think] again, since she was the one tied to their disappearances. I wonder if we’ll see them again by the end of this arc.

Either way, I still kinda feel like the resolution to this arc has been spelled out in advance by Hana, but that’s OK. This might be the end of Araragi’s adolescence, but it’s not the end of the entire story.

I still also kinda wish they could have aired this as a proper TV anime and stuck Zoku-Owari on the end, but in the end I enjoyed being able to binge watch each arc of this, and it would have been slightly weird to get to a big emotional climax and then have 4-5 episodes of what I think is meant to be a silly epilogue story. But still. I hope it doesn’t take Shaft too long to get it out, even though they’ll have their hands full soon.

PART THREE:

OK I gotta admit that even if this ending played out pretty much exactly as I expected, it still hit me really hard and now I’m kinda tearing up. Ugh. This series really knows how to push my buttons at times.

I figured that the ‘battle’ between Ougi and Araragi would end with him accepting her, but I really liked how it played out. The whole scenario of it, with them talking to each other while the Darkness appears as a black hole behind Ougi was pretty intense and emotional. For some reason, something about the focus on the idea of right vs wrong in this entire season sorta confused me on some level, but it kinda clicked at some point as I realized the pretty obvious point that Araragi’s entire deal is that he hates himself, and constantly feels that what he does is wrong, and tries to figure out what’s right. So it makes sense that this is the culmination of this entire arc of his. That he accepts that he, as a person, is right, and that Ougi, as a person, is also right. What he said about how he wasn’t simply ‘saving Ougi’ by pushing her away from the Darkness, but ‘saving himself’, kinda got to me. As he said, this whole time he’s simply spent his time being saved by others, but this was his time to save himself, and in that way he was able to make an ending for his adolescence.

And then Oshino showed up and I kinda had to fanboy for a moment because seriously I’ve been waiting YEARS for this to happen, I’m so happy about it. Seeing him finally say he respects Araragi, and seeing him say that he won’t criticize him because he’s simply saving himself, was pretty fucking great. And of course we got that little moment to show off that Hanekawa is a complete badass who traveled to the fucking South Pole to drag this dude back just in time. It’s still hilarious seeing her get completely surprise Ougi like this.

I really was not expecting this to end with Oshino acknowledging Ougi as being his niece, but it explains why she’s still around. On one level you could call it kinda cheap, but it makes sense that the solution to the problem of ‘the identity Ougi made for herself is a lie’ is to make it so that ‘the identity Ougi made for herself is the truth’. And since the lie was thus cleared up, the Darkness went away. I really like that her own, individual identity as Ougi Oshino was acknowledged in the end. She deserved it.

I also really liked the narration part where Araragi talked about how he had thought that loving others meant not taking care of himself. It pretty much sums up most of how he’s acted in the story thus far, but it also shows how he’s grown, and realized that he has to be able to love himself as a person.

Not gonna lie, I got kinda teary at the scene between him and Shinobu as they talk about how they feel about each other, and their choice to remain together, even if it means going back to that situation of Shinobu being the dregs of a vampire trapped in a shadow, and Araragi not being human and not being vampire. Something about their entire relationship makes me kinda emotional. The way it ended with Shinobu covering them with her bat wings while she presumably bit his neck was really nice, and kinda bittersweet.

I’m kinda surprised we got half of the last episode devoted to the epilogue, but I liked it. It was a nice way to come down from the pretty intense emotions of the first half.

I’m not really gonna comment much on the scene with Karen because uuuuuugh why, but it was nice seeing him tell her that, even though her idea of what’s right is ‘helping others’, she should also figure out how to help herself.

So I guess we now know what the deal with Kagenui is. I’m glad she’s not dead. So it looks like Hanekawa’s going to look for her now. She really has become an adult. Which, in itself, is a really nice thing to see. She hasn’t been a huge part of Owari in general, but I’ve loved seeing Hanekawa grow up and become a confident, independent adult who can accept all of her imperfections.

I liked seeing Hachikuji being the new shrine god. That was a cute scene. Though it kinda ended in an unexpectedly emotional way, with the point about how the shrine is her new home, which I hadn’t really considered, but it’s a really nice way to end her story, since for the entire story thus far she’s basically been homeless.

The part where Hanekawa realizes that Araragi and Senjougahara are on first-name basis, and teases the two about it, was really great. Seeing Senjougahara get flustered about it was cute. As I’ve said, it’s always nice to see her being an awkward, regular person who’s bad at expressing her feelings and gets flustered fairly easily. And then of course they all got on first-name basis with each other, which was really nice.

It was also nice to get that little cameo from Kanbaru delivering flowers. That was nice. I presume it was more or less a reference to the whole meaning of ‘Hana’. Either way, it was heart-warming to see her get a genuine graduation present for him.

I really, really like the fact that the main story ends with Araragi seeing a random girl who’s presumably about to fall down some stairs, and running off to save her, with Senjougahara and Hanekawa happily waving him off. It’s a really nice book-end to the story, and it helps reiterate the point that Araragi would save anyone, and that he doesn’t regret having saved Senjougahara when he did. And now he has people he’s close to who understand and love him for who he is, and know that this is simply the sort of person he is. And of course we got to see Ougi at the end, which was nice. It was a pretty simple line, but I liked the point Araragi made, that he’s changed as a person, but he’ll always be himself. It’s a fitting way to end a story of someone’s adolescence.

And then we got the scene at the end with Shinobu giving a fairy-tale like description of Araragi’s story, saying that in the end they all lived happily ever after, with Araragi thinking to himself that he can hear her telling that story from inside his shadow, and he’s curious to see where the story goes next. That was just a really nice way to end things.

The ED wasn’t anything super special, but it was a nice image to ends things on. It’s kinda cheesy, but it’s always nice to have these sorts of stories end on the note of the characters graduating.

All in all, this was basically the best way the main story could have ended. It wrapped things up really nicely. Seeing Araragi’s whole character arc reach a conclusion like this as he learns to love himself is really great. As I’ve said before, I’ve technically been watching this series for over three years now, so seeing it come to a close, even if it’s just the end of this chapter, is really emotional. Seeing these characters all grow so much as people has been wonderful, even if there’s some really bittersweet elements like Araragi and Shinobu reentering their tragic, dependent relationship.

As much as this series has some serious faults, I still genuinely love it at the end of the day. I hope it doesn’t take me too long to get back into rewatching it, since I still want to slowly get through that.

#murasaki rambles #monogatari series #owarimonogatari #owarimonogatari season 2 #I think this took nearly three hours lmao #but I'm glad I did it #this was a really great arc and now I'm kinda sad

1 note · View note

sonkitty · 7 years

Video

youtube

SonKitty/Kazamacat Tekken 7 Review

Video Transcription:

Greetings, all. I'm Cathy also known as Cat to some people. I'm going to review Tekken 7. If you're unfamiliar with me, I'm a huge fan of Devil Jin and Jin Kazama. In fact, I mostly play these games for those characters. I do not play at a competitive level and mostly practice and fight the CPU in modes provided by the games. I will approach the game from this viewpoint, and a very large chunk of it will be about the story.

In fact, that's where we'll start. I am not going to shy from spoilers, so if you care about that, stop watching now. The story presented to us throughout the trailers over the years is Kazumi asking some figure, we later learn to be a guest character, Akuma from the Street Fighter fighting game series, to kill Heihachi if she can't. He's going to do all these terrible things, he being Heihachi, and the trailers build up this big final showdown between Heihachi and Kazuya with Jin not at all present. Kazumi aside, Tekken players have seen this story before, and it ended with Jin being a big factor-by that, I mean Tekken 4.

Well, in the case of Tekken 7, we got the story that was advertised. I'll say that. And I had a lot of complaints about Tekken 6 not being that, because that was going to be some big showdown between Jin and Kazuya and instead, we got an entire mode dedicated to two crappy expansion characters. Of note, Alisa is one of my mains, but my head-canon of her is extremely different from Namcanon. I even change her name to Melissa to indicate she's my version of Alisa.

I think the story mode was handled better in that I got to be some different characters as opposed to stuck with two expansion characters. Overall, I still prefer the Tekken 5 approach best. In that game, characters get prologue art, a cut scene or two I call interludes with other characters they meet at the tournament, of relevance to them, and then an ending.

The story itself is really bad. Let's start with the voice-over telling us repeatedly throughout the story that fighting is about who's left standing, nothing else. That's it? Nothing about training? Nothing about learning through failure to be better? And while we're at it, “left standing” and “still alive” can mean two different things, but the context of the climactic moment in this game is Kazuya kills Heihachi, which would mean that main theme of the story then is that in order to fight, you should kill the person so you are the only person left standing. I don't think that's a good message. And I think even if the message were that the game seems to confuse fighting with winning and to me, they're not the same thing.

Another bad component of the story is the Jin hunt. There are a lot of characters who should be going after Jin in some capacity: Kazuya, Raven, Miguel, Hwoarang. Nina was having the Mishima Zaibatsu search for him, but when Heihachi showed up and took the Mishima Zaibatsu from her, his logic went that in order to expose Kazuya, he needs Jin and my initial reaction that was, “No, you don't.” And then the story proceeds with them not getting Jin and exposing Kazuya anyway, so that pretty much confirmed exactly what I thought. And do not get me started on Lars. Oh, nope, it's too late, we have to do this. If you don't know me, Lars is my most hated character ever. He goes after Jin under the pretense of, “We have to put everything on Jin. Now my initial reaction was, “I don't know what he means. What, like execute him, put him on trial? What?” And by the way, no, he doesn't.

So let me see if I have this straight. This turd from the last game, last mainline story game, went and took over half of the Tekken Force, as part of some rebellion to the hostile world take-over and then after he gets exactly what he wants in Tekken 6, he still think she needs Jin, that Jin can solve the entire world's problem because Jin was the entire world's problem. Now I have always had a problem with the fact that Tekken 6 includes this “over half” line of the Tekken Force because I don't actually believe some half-baked expansion character can do that and this now half-baked plot point only further convinces me. But anyway, Jin's like, “yeah, the solution for everything is for me to kill Kazuya because I have the Devil's blood.”

Now, they could have made this work better with instead of saying, “We need Jin for reasons that don't make sense, actually, we don't want Jin's body in the wrong hands because the likes of Kazuya or the UN may not simply kill him but try experiment on him, and he's dangerous because Devil.” Oh, and you do not save people from tyranny by killing one person.

I really wish I could be done talking about Lars, I hate him so much, but this story is so, so bad. I hated playing Scenario Campaign, and I especially hated the contrived drama of Alisa's shutdown as some dramatic death and the ridiculous excuse for a friendship these two had and all of this awfulness is shown as, “yeah, we really did that, and we're sticking by it.” Alisa could be so much more and better without him. But anyway, back to that annoying butt-head. The story also says that the only reason Heihachi fathered this turd was to prove that he did not have the devil gene. The story also says Heihachi dropped Kazuya off a cliff to prove it to him that Kazuya had the devil gene. Otherwise, the fall would kill Kazuya. So, based on the game's own logic presented in its own story mode, Lars should be dead because Heihachi would have killed him in trying to prove he did not have the devil gene and yet...what a failure.

The narration is by a man who lost his family to the war, and one of the reviews I skimmed said the deadpan narration was comical though perhaps not intended to be so. I mainly found the opening funny because I wondered what story I walked into that started talking about a son's love for his father. Anyway, I kept wondering if he'd be Gigas or something, but no, and overall, I don't think I cared for it. The story mode focuses on the Mishima family so a lot of characters do not make the cut for having a presence here, yet nameless here does.

Can you believe that I'm still not done in telling you how bad this story is? So, as mentioned earlier, Kazumi asked Akuma to kill Heihachi and, we later find out, Kazuya too. Akuma, he's in this story even though a lot of other Tekken characters aren't, goes to do that, defeats Kazuya, and given that he was asked to kill him, said he was there to kill him, guess what he did not do? He did not check to see if Kazuya was dead, meaning he did not kill him. He just left!

I feel disappointed that Kazumi really was dead because that means we have five Mishima characters throughout the series (Heihachi, Kazuya, Jin, Jinpachi and now Kazumi), and the only woman among them is the one who is so definitively dead, her role in the story is actually a flashback even though she was the arcade boss.

I'm almost done on the story part. After you beat the story mode, you can get endings for other characters by playing their episodes. On the one hand, this made unlocking their endings really easy. On the other hand, most of these endings were not very good and even if they had good points, they were generally pretty short, presumably because of time and effort dedicated to the awfulness of the Mishima story. Devil Jin appears in his own and Hwoarang's episodes. Jin appears in Miguel's. I knew going into this game that I couldn't think of any version of the story that would satisfy me after the debacle of Tekken 6 so my main bar was some good Jin and Devil Jin footage and there was so little of it, I'm overall disappointed.

Onward, to everything else.

Arcade Battle is only 5 matches and left me confused with the ending of Akuma flexing his power and then getting a Game Over screen, thought I'd done something wrong. I haven't really looked back since playing the story mode. Treasure Battle is similar to past Ghost Battle modes, but you do not get to pick from three different opponents and you do have to deal with these gimmicks like turbo battle, double damage, aerial combo and Special Matches against certain characters. They are Kazumi, Heihachi, Devil Kazuya, Jin Kazama, and Akuma. After awhile, these gimmicks are mildly annoying and if I'm not in the mood, I will exit. Rare items are too rare. After awhile, you're mostly earning money and just waiting around to hit the 2,000 battle mark to unlock everything at once. I mainly wanted Jin's Tekken 6 coat and since I'm not very good at using him, I tried Katarina and Lucky Chloe some, that also took a long time.

The practice mode is great. It has the usual elements and maybe past games had this feature, and I didn't notice but you can practice at specific points in the stages that have wall, balcony and/or floor breaks. I've done a lot of practicing. I think because I didn't play Tag 2 much and my mind struggles a lot since November 9th of last year, it helps alleviate stress and maybe one day, I'll be able to do those electrics every time or almost. I can say that I've been doing them more often and even got up to 3 at once.

New game-play mechanics include a Rage Art and Rage Drive. I love using Rage Arts. I usually don't even try for a Rage Drive but if I keep practicing, maybe I'll work them in. Devil Jin starts with a hellsweep, but the one or two times I focused on trying it in a Treasure Battle match, it didn't go well and I guess I gave up on it. I saw this really powerful Rage Drive combo with a Katarina player on Twitter and tried to learn it. I never did, but I learned the first part, and she has since become one of my mains. Hopefully, I'll remember to go back to trying it. My mains this time around include Devil Jin, Jin Kazama, Katarina, and Alisa. To a degree, you could include Lucky Chloe though I admit, it was mostly for manipulating the CPU. I picked up at least one combo. And you know, I wanted to add more mains, but when you start dedicating time to specific characters to learn more. well, it feels like there's only so much room in my brain for them sometimes. I missed Xiaoyu and Lili so played them a little but when I do a rotation of my main characters in Treasure Battle, I don't even think of trying them. Maybe I will, now that I've written this review.

That was quite a tangent but back to mechanics. Bound is gone, and now we have um, a tailspin move, and I don't remember on Tekken Zaibatsu if the “s” stood for “spin” or for “screw,” and the game itself doesn't seem to actually say, so, but it's a spinning move. And the spin can be used in combos. There are also, some moves have new properties called Power Crush, like Jin and Devil Jin have had Corpse Thrust for at least since Tekken 5, no, even longer um, but that is now a Power Crush move. Um, and for someone like me, that was extremely helpful against the CPU in Treasure Battle. The game lacks other usual modes from past games like Survival and Team Battle. Um, I liked Team Battle so I miss it. Survival's nice too, I mainly like miss Team Battle though.

Customizations are again not as good as what Tekken 6 offered. My Alisa customization in Tekken 6 wore a blue best over a long-sleeved black shirt, not an option. She wore shorts with her Battle Boots. You can get the Battle Boots this time but if you want to use them, they are with the bikini bottom. Again for all the tops like in Tag 2, you cannot pick say a specific pair of gloves you want with a shirt or jacket. Gloves either come with it or they don't. The hair options regress even more because I can no longer get the bushy ponytail I used to be reminiscent of Leona from King of Fighters for Alisa. For me, that is a significant part of my vision for the customization I want so that was a loss. I'm thinking about making a video of how backwards customization has gone for another time.

Another thing that's gone is replays. They'd be a few seconds to show what happened at the end of the match, and you could use that time to pick a button for a specific win pose if you wanted. You can still try to get a win pose you want, but the time frame is much tighter, and I miss the actual replays themselves as well.

The game has this cool feature that offers a jukebox where you can customize what music you listen to in the game. You can use tracks from past games, and that's really great. I tend to turn the music off because I concentrate better with none at all in Practice, and then just don't bother turn it back on a lot of time but when I do have it on, I don't like some of the Tekken 7 tracks, so I'm glad I had this feature to set them to other ones.

Moving on, I really, really love that technology has come to a point where we can all so easily share things, especially on PS4. I can show off my customizations and clip some random funny thing that happened. I've even used it to analyze what I might be missing in practice through like a frame-by-frame replay.

Quick remark on customizations. Before Patch 1.03, you could get some really dark black colors on your people and then after the update, many of them turn to a lighter gray that I know myself and others did not like at all. That it was so hard, it was hard to see sometimes, like in actual matches, but I find it hard to believe that it couldn't be better handled.

Anyway, back to sharing. I can see if my PS4 friends liked the things I shared on Twitter. Another perk of technology sharing is being able to watch so much top-level Tekken play so easily, thanks to YouTube and Twitch.

So, all in all, I found some things to enjoy this game, and I do intend to keep playing. Um, but I do kind of feel, that with the long wait, um, and even with my, what I felt, tempered expectations, of kind of saying, I didn't like Tekken 6, I didn't like these things, I know that these things can happen again, and trying to ready myself for what it could be, I'm still disappointed that so many things changed and not for the better. And I do hope that eventually, if this series continues, um, we can go back to a better place, similar to what we had before instead of feeling like the series is slowly stripping away some of the, a lot of the things that we took for granted um, in enjoying what Namco, not gave us, but you know, they put forth for us to buy. And so, you know, hopefully things will get better. Well, let me re-phrase that because I am not an optimistic or hopeful person when it comes to Tekken. Um, it'll be nice if that ever happens. I'll say that. I do not expect it to happen and it is, I do hope, that things do not keep getting worse. At the very least, I can say that.

So anyway, thanks for listening and/or watching my video. Bye-bye.

#tekken 7 #sonkitty

9 notes · View notes

breakingarrows · 6 years

Text

Media Journal Week of July 16-22

Ace Combat X: Skies of Deception

My love for the Ace Combat series is deep. Shattered Skies remains one of my favorite games of all time for its depiction of an occupied city from the perspective of a child who has grown up and is writing about his life during this troublesome time. The Unsung War is one I haven’t played as much or as recently, but I have fond memories of the tight group of fighter pilots you form progressing through its very long campaign. Ace Combat X has a story that has failed to engage me so far, but makes adjustments to gameplay missions that are keeping me interested. A special weapon requires you to keep the target in your reticule until it makes contact, which is suddenly a much more engaging mechanic than the simple lock on system. Missions require you to avoid enemy radar, defend sections of a ground force, eliminate enemies with on and off radar/lock on capabilities, and wipe out the enemy before they can make it to a certain location. This variety has already gone far and beyond above previous entries in the franchise, and make the portable entry feel like it wasn’t held back by the hardware, even if the missions do feel like they contain way less enemies and dole them out in waves during specific ones. The narrative from the civilian perspective this time involves a journalist who seems a bit resigned to his post covering a one sided war that is just now tipping in favor of my playable character’s nation. The journalist discovers the poverty the rogue nation is experiencing is fueled by their leader siphoning foreign aid into the military and pushing war as a means of funding his own production company which, sure, I guess nobody else found that out beforehand. It feels early and that there is still more ground to cover, but it lacks the immediate engagement of Shattered Skies, whose introduction had our narrator treat his parents deaths as passively as Yellow 13 did when he shot down the fighter that crashed into their home.

Demon’s Souls

I still laugh whenever I think about the title. Due to playing Dark Souls with Trevor for a video series I have been itching to spend more time with that series, but can’t with Dark Souls since that is cheating so after watching hbomberguy’s video on Dark Souls 2 and some other ancillary media I ended up booting up a new game in Demon’s Souls whose servers have been put to rest. Nevertheless I found myself enjoying the game and cutting through the early content at a much better pace that I expected, mostly thanks to a two handed Bastard Sword, my latent knowledge from my original playthrough, and the occasional guide hint from my phone. I made it through 1-1 and 1-2 with relative ease, got to the boss of 2-1 after some difficulty and decided to start 3-1 and made much more progress by myself than I ever had before. Something hbomberguy discussed was about playing the game “right” which wasn’t so much a disdainful statement towards those who are playing “wrong” but more about adjusting the way you play depending on what the game is throwing at you, such as when and when not to use a shield, lock on, dodge rolls, etc. This is why I chose a Barbarian class to start out instead of the usual shield and armor focused classes I always gravitate towards. As soon as I found a two handed weapon I knew I wanted to try to take my armor-less barbarian as far as she could go using large weapons and rarely holding a shield up. And its worked out pretty well. Despite dodge rolling sometimes feeling a little cheap, such as getting hit when dodging backwards more often than not, I still have found that I like making my way around enemies for openings more than blocking and attempting parries with a shield. I still have one on-hand in case of emergencies but I would say a large majority of my playthrough has been either two handed or with a catalyst for soul arrows in my left hand.

Final Fantasy VII

This was also inspired by another source, this one being the Abnormal Mapping two part episode covering this PlayStation classic. I’ve always had a fond love of Cloud’s adventure, especially the first disc, and decided to start a new game on my PSP in order to relive that magic once again. The beginning sections are as charming as I remember, and also remind me how silly the game can be. The sprites aren’t exactly the most detailed and rely on exagerrated movement to show emotions. This is mirrored by the dialogue. Wedge, Biggs, and Jessie continue to endear me with their attempts to break through Cloud’s tough guy facade. They’re so genuine in their mission as well as their attempts to befriend someone who, even when I choose the less mean dialogue options, still comes off as aloof. That is what makes their loss so impactful when it happens, Cloud never truly opened up to them even though that was all they desired was another friend for their group. Jessie and her gadgetry, Biggs and his own tough guy facade, Wedge who wore his feelings on his sleeve. These were characters I liked and wanted to learn more about and see succeed in their goals, but instead they get killed off by Shinra and are never really mentioned again, another casualty of Avalanche’s war. It even manages to fit this loss into the tone, which can very often get silly as I previously mentioned. Things like Cloud’s crossdressing quest where he scavenges female clothing items from various individuals throughout the wall market have humor to them, even if the actual crossdressing is treated as just something people do without unnecessary judgement from those aiding you. Barrett punches Biggs into the camera, the weapons shop at the intro has various characters referencing the gamepad and save points and treasure chests talk directly to the player explaining their purpose and function. While a majority of the mood, as supplemented by the music, can be very melancholy, it also makes time for more lighthearted affairs which I really appreciate.

Rage

I finally booted up Rage. I’m not quite sure why. I own it so I guess I should get my $2.99 worth out of it. I think the installation was longer than my playtime overall. I played the introduction and the bandit hideout mission. It was okay. That texture pop-in really is a bitch though. The movement feels good even if the pistol feels like it has no bite to it. I’ll get back to this one eventually.

North by Northwest

Another Hitchcock film where a hapless advertising man gets mistaken for a spy and gets involved in some hijinks. Holds the annoying feature I also didn’t like in Vertigo where some woman instantly falls in love with our male lead for no real reason other than the plot demands it. Even then the plot doesn’t really demand it, it just happens? Despite that North by Northwest is still enjoyable even if it seemingly goes on for so long. We reached what I thought might end up being the wrap up but it just continued onwards. Watching Cary Grant bumble around was a lot of fun, especially considering he didn’t even understand the script which Hitchcock loved apparently. The part early on where he is driving drugged is really hilarious. A Fun Fact TM Catelyn informed me of was that Grant is left of center frame for pretty much the entire film, which I feel has some deeper meaning to it but I have’t found or thought of anything yet to explain it.

Godzilla King of the Monsters

They’re making another Godzilla film and the first trailer released and its, fine. The monster on monster action looks like it will be good, as does the shots showing the size of the monsters when compared to humanity which is neat with current CGI. Something I’m still not a fan of is the continued insistence to place human characters into these monster films. Godzilla (2014) suffered mainly for placing a character I couldn’t give a fuck about as the center lead and not giving Godzilla much time. This one is apparently seeking to rectify the latter problem but I’m not seeing much improvement for the former. For one instead of a generic white guy soldier lead they have a preteen who, wow if you wanted to go in the wrong direction you sure have done it. Also we have some women talking about how humanity is a sickness and the giant monsters are presumably nature reacting to remove us, which, is just them spelling out one of the major themes of Godzilla The Franchise: that Godzilla was nature’s reaction to humanity’s capability for destruction. Shin Godzilla’s interpretation has that haunting last image because it was evolving to become the most destructive force possible: its own twisted version of humanity. As a group working together we are capable of much good but also much destruction, and so Godzilla was evolving to take advantage of that power as well for our destruction, and we just barely managed to stop it in time. Shin Godzilla is so fucking good and I hate that most people focus on the silly looking 2nd form.

Speaking of Hideki Anno

Evangelion 3.0+1.0 teaser

Someone got offhand footage of a short teaser clip for Rebuild 4 showcasing Mari in her Unit with new rotating arms shooting and spinning above a red sea with the Next Time remix music playing. It gives a window of 2020 for its release, which, okay sure. I’ll believe it when I see it and the teaser itself doesn’t really do much for me. The Rebuild movies have been up and down. 1.0 is a good remake of the first batch of episodes. 2.0 does its own thing and I really love the finale for that one. 3.0 diverges greatly and I think is kinda a mess. It has been awhile since 3.0 though so who knows what the fuck Anno has planned for this next one.

I discovered this cut of a Return of the Jedi trailer that imagines a world in which David Lynch directed the third Star Wars film and its great.

I mentioned hbomberguy earlier but I wanted to point out his videos are really, really well done. Great editing and humor skits thrown in the midst of great analysis works on movies, games, and media at large. I especially loved his Serious Sonic Lore Analysis that features a very creepy but also hilarious cosplay.

Goodnight Moon has been putting out a bunch of ASMR videos if you’re into that (which I totally am). Her babblebrook series is fucking stellar and I am super invested in seeing whatever she does next with it.

I was reminded Firefest was a thing Mega64 thankfully attended.

I glanced through that Uncharted fan film and came away with the realization that those characters really are just tropes and whatever could be done with them has already been done over the course of five separate games.

Metric released their first single from the upcoming untitled Album named Dark Saturday and its pretty great.

JJJ in the Sam Raimi Spider-Man films is the best.

#Criticism #writing

0 notes

corneliusreignallen · 5 years

Text

On Frozen 2 and Disney’s nostalgia problem

Elsa’s back. | Walt Disney Pictures

Disney used to always be looking forward. These days, it increasingly only looks back.

Nobody was more nostalgic than Marcel Proust.

Maurice Rougemont/Gamma-Rapho/Getty Images

Marcel Proust famously wrote about madeleines as he explored the ways our memories are triggered.

Which brings us to Disney, and to Frozen 2.

Disney used to be a company that looked forward. These days, it seems more interested in looking back.

Allan Grant/The LIFE Picture Collection via Getty Images

Walt Disney at the Disneyland grand opening in 1955.

Pixar Animation Studios / Walt Disney Pictures

From Toy Story 4, we got Forky.

You can witness the battle for Disney’s soul happening inside Frozen 2

Walt Disney Pictures

The gang’s all back together in Frozen 2.

Frozen 2 opens in theaters on November 21.

from Vox - All https://ift.tt/2OvMLXf

#Vox - All

0 notes

angeladrpalencia · 6 years

Text

Blog #2

An example from pop culture that demonstrates elements of organizational culture is the way that the characters in the show Gossip Girl distinguish themselves from everyone who is not an “Upper Eastsider.” The high class culture of a select group in Gossip Girl uses rites and rituals, relevant constructs, and vocabulary to demonstrate how to fit in with other Manhattanites. Additionally, Upper Eastsiders show a really good example of having a pragmatist approach to culture that is being infringed by a purist approach.

First, the rites and rituals in Gossip Girl are very distinct and traditional. Rites and rituals are events that occur “...partly from a need for organization members to experience order and predictability in their lives” (Mumby, 2013). For example, in different seasons, you see repeat events occuring because of their importance, like the annual debutante ball, New York Fashion Week, summer break, and Thanksgiving. The narrator is the main one leading the show, introducing what will happen in that episode and how important it is to the characters. However, something always goes wrong, which deeply unsettled those who are most compatible with the status quo, like the character Blair Waldorf, a snobby, overachieving socialite who is the daughter of a famous fashion designer. The debutante ball, for example, is a rite of integration into the upper crust of society, which features lavish ballgowns and the daughters and sons of “New York’s best.” New York Fashion Week is a rite of enhancement, as only the most famous and esteemed are invited to sit front row at a designer’s fashion show or attend the after parties. Summer break and Thanksgiving serve as additional rites of enhancement because only the richest high schoolers can go to Monaco for the summer or celebrate Thanksgiving in Paris.

The relevant constructs that are present in the show Gossip Girl include the presence of a “Gossip Girl blast,” being the “it-girl” or “queen bee,” and even brunch. Relevant constructs are “....”(Mumby, 2013). A “Gossip Girl blast” is when the anonymous blogger who goes by Gossip Girl publishes a juicy story about one of the Manhattanites and sends it to literally every student. To be published under her website isn’t exactly an honor, but is a common thing for the main characters of the show because of the drama that surrounds their lives and the audience that yearns to hear everything. Another relevant construct is the idea of being the “it-girl” or “queen bee,” which shifts between the two female leads Blair Waldorf and Serena Van Der Woodsen. Essentially, the girl with this title holds the most respect and authority over the other, less popular socialites. In fact, the queen bee in high school even controlled where everyone sat, what was popular to wear, and what was trendy to eat. In an early episode, the narrator describes brunch as an experience that “comes with champagne, a dress code, and a hundred of our closest friends. And enemies.” These type of experiences controls everyone whos everyone’s behavior and social status. Most know that brunch means a spread of at least a four course meal as well as copious amount of mimosas, because the children of the wealthy are never carded.

The vocabulary and metaphors that the socialites of Gossip Girl use is very exclusive and unique to their culture. Vocabulary, in terms of organizational culture, are words that become “... [a] ‘badge’ signifying membership of the culture, and anyone who doesn’t know the jargon can be immediately identified as an outsider” (Mumby, 2013). We see this primarily in situations where characters of the show are speaking about high fashion designers, restaurants, artists, or even use foreign words to exemplify their high class culture. I, myself, had to Google words several times when characters referred to something so obscure to me that is largely familiar to them. Vocabulary can be used to look down on members of outside groups as well, which we see whenever Blair Waldorf looks down from her nose when she says someone is from Brooklyn or when she speaks about those who go to New York University. The main characters of Gossip Girl also use quite dramatic language in their everyday lives to emphasize the grandiose nature of living as a rich person in New York. For example, the character Blair will often cry about how a certain day is “the worst day of her life” or how Serena, her best friend, is a complete “train wreck” when she kisses someone and is caught on camera. Interestingly enough, a study on Korean viewers of Gossip Girl found that they were using the show to both learn English and create an online community. Through this community, those who were better at understanding the vocabulary and metaphors of the characters, despite the language barrier, were found to have “gained increased recognition and admiration” because information about the series “[served] as a form of… capital among fans” (Lee, 2016; Baym, 2000). Therefore, even the fans were serving into the organizational culture of superiority of Gossip Girl just through the access to the vocabulary that they were using.

A defining feature of Upper Eastsider culture is the resistance to change from those that are outside of the main group. Blair, Serena, and all the other characters with families who make billions are typically against lower class people coming in and changing the rules that have existed among them for what seems to them like forever. It appears that they have a pragmatist approach to their culture because they like to control how people think and behave depending on their moods. There is supposed to be one single culture to attune yourself to or you’re out. Even things that would not make sense to normal people, like bullying the girl you call your best friend because she left to boarding school for a summer and didn’t tell you, makes sense to those in the circle that see it as a fair punishment for not abiding by the rules. When characters like Daniel and Jenny Humphrey attempt to come in and change the status quo with a more purist approach, they are faced with shock, dismay, and immediate disposition. In fact, Jenny was severely demoted after gaining queen bee status and trying to “change things up” to the point where she had to move away. Her brother, on the other hand, adapted to the culture despite his claim in the earlier seasons that he “didn’t get it.”

Overall, Gossip Girl is a great example for creating examples of organizational culture with concepts like rites and rituals, relevant constructs, vocabulary and metaphors, and even showing the struggle of pragmatist versus purist culture. Despite the fanfare and dramatics of many of the show’s characters, it’s easy to see how in any case there can be organizations that will never lose control over how things are done and where things are done, and this is especially true on the Upper East Side.

Sources

Baym, N. K. (2000). Tune in, log on: soaps, fandom, and online community. London, UK: SAGE Publications, Inc.

Lee, H. (2016). Developing identities: Gossip Girl, fan activities, and online fan community in Korea. Participations - Journal of Audience and Reception Studies, 13(2), 109-133.

Mumby, D. K. (2013). Organizational communication: a critical approach. Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE Publications, Inc.

#comm406

0 notes

recentanimenews · 7 years

Text

Nisemonogatari: Fake Tale, Vol. 2

By NISIOISIN. Released in Japan by Kodansha. Released in North America by Vertical, Inc. Translated by James Balzer.

Despite being almost as long as the first in this series, Karen Bee, the second Nisemonogatari book, Tsukihi Phoenix, only got adapted into four episodes for the anime. As you can imagine, therefore, there’s a lot of content that got omitted or severely cut in order to fit it into the timeframe, particularly in the first half of the volume. As such, anime fans will find much to enjoy here. In particular, I think they’ll be amused at Araragi’s description of Senjogahara post-Karen Bee, who he describes as no longer caustic and sharp-tongued at all but now sweet and devoted, and how all of her formerly cruel and spiteful actions (which, let’s face it, the reader is aware were broken attempts at flirting) are replaced with normal girlfriend responses. Anime fans may be wondering what the heck happened, since the next time we meet Senjogahara in the series she’s still much the same.

In fact, Nisioisin seems a bit conflicted about the series getting turned into an anime – there’s a sense he tries to take things too far here in order to avoid having the anime continue, though obviously that didn’t work. Nisemonogatari has a reputation for being the sleaziest of the series, though, and it’s not inaccurate. Most of that reputation comes from this volume, which features the now infamous “toothbrush scene”, where Araragi and his sister Karen have a bet that he can’t brush her teeth for five minutes without her crying out. It’s obviously meant to suggest sex, and in particular incest, which earlier in the book Araragi had been mocking himself. Several times in the book he says that he feels no sexual desire towards his sisters before doing something sexual to them (he later steals Tsukihi’s first kiss, which horrifies her). Araragi is becoming a somewhat unreliable narrator, to be honest, though we won’t really see how much till later books in the series with other character’s narration.

This volume features his “younger younger sister” Tsukihi, who so far has been defined mostly by her temper and her mood swings, which we certainly get plenty of here. It’s also a good introduction to her personality in another sense – Araragi notes that Karen is the one with the actual sense of justice, while Tsukihi “just likes to run wild”, and it’s true – she tends to go along with what others do rather than making her own firm choices. The reader may wonder how much this ties in with the main plot, which suggests that – surprise, surprise – Tsuhiki is not who she seems. In the end, though, this book is about family in the good ways as well, which means that it’s not just about suggestive incest but also about loving your family even if they’re not what you thought they were – and Araragi, as a human who still retains vampiric powers, should know about that. Here he goes up against Kagenui, a “specialist” like Meme Oshino who specializes in eradication, and Yotsugi, a deadpan reanimated corpse who is her assistant. We’ll see a lot more of Yotsugi, not so much of Kagenui.

Speaking of Yotsugi, we can briefly talk translation. The issues are much the same as Karen Bee – dagnabbit mad is still there, and it’s still really annoying, but it didn’t appear as much as I feared. Tsuhiki also sounds like Yosemite Sam when she catches Araragi and Karen brushing teeth, but that’s more clearly deliberate comedy, and the anime watcher likely heard the heavy ‘fake accent’ she was using then, so it makes more sense. As for Kagenui, she too uses a fake, overdone accent, but it’s subtler, and the translator seems to go with “old-time Northern England”. It doesn’t jar much at all, and reminds me how much anime subtitles tend to gloss over accents. Speaking of which, Shinobu still sounds old-timey, as she always does, whether she’s Kiss-Shot or no.

Overall, I was quite pleased with this volume, a few issues aside. It also does sort of feel like he was trying to wrap up the series once more, but he failed again, and now tells us he has two more stories after this to write, about Hanekawa and Hachikuji. In fact, the Hanekawa story grew so large it got split into its own two-part book. Stay tuned for Nekomonogatari Black in November, when we FINALLY see what happened Golden Week.

By: Sean Gaffney

#Anime #News #Manga Bookshelf

0 notes