Rant/Review: I hate Halo 3

So, now, by this time, most everyone who calls themselves a Halo 3 fan must have picked up the game. That’s nice. Really. Please, enjoy your game. From what I’ve been reading, it seems to be a solid game. Cool. Now, here’s my gripe. Just, please, play your damn game and shut the fuck up. For the past 3 months, Microsoft’s Marketing Department has been making sure that people like me (Retail Employee/Blogger/Average Gamer) have been ANALLY assaulted with marketing for Halo 3. I’ve played the game TWICE and I’m so fucking sick of it already. Game reviewers are tossing “Perfect”scores at the damn game like they’re candy being hurled at small children in funny costumes around this time of the year.

Now, my take on the game, which I have been with-holding for quite some time now due to the fact that I’d rather not face down the absolute hell of a shit storm that would occur by Microsoft fanboys making an attempt to justify that “but..but..but…you gotta play the multiplayer”. Listen, the game is screamingly average. It doesn’t do much to improve on the FPS genre. This is not the genre defining game you’ve all been looking forward to. Considering that the marketing beast behind this game claimed that you “finish the fight” doesn’t go for a whole lot. The story mode lasts for maybe 6 hours (8 hours if you actually try to shoot things). It’s funny really. I sat down with a friend to play legendary and we found ourselves moreover running like mad rather than shooting, because when you actually try to kill things, more times than not, you take a brute shotgun to the face which is instant death. The friendly AI is nothing to write home about either. I have no idea what the friendly units are trying to shoot at half the time (maybe a fucking rock, I dunno) or even if they’ve had proper driving instruction (hell, they probably couldn’t get a driver’s license in California, and THAT’S impressive).

Now, onto the multiplayer. I found myself having deja-vu half the fucking time because, suprise suprise, it’s essentially Halo 2’s multiplayer with new maps and a few new guns and the level editor from Marathon thrown in (And I use the term level editor loosely. The ability to move around spawn points and weapon spawn point does not make for a level editor). This leads me to believe that Microsoft has pulled the greatest con of all time by have over 1 million people pay $60+ for a expansion pack to Halo 2’s multiplayer. I’m not going to really say much about the multiplayer, because, what is there to say? “OMG, LIEK HALO MP IS SOO FUCKING AEWSOEM!!!11111 HUR HUR HUR” Sorry, but I’m not going to stoop that low unless I get some “incentive” to say such things. (You know where to send the check to, Microsoft).

In closing, Halo 3 is….average…very very average. Rent it or play it at a friend’s house. If you really want to buy it, wait another month before picking it up used.

Drew’s Reccomendation: Meh….if you want more Halo multiplayer and have $60+ to toss out the window…it’s your loss. Otherwise, for new players, don’t bother.

The Internet has Desensitised Me. Now Nothing Shocks Me.

My friend said to me the other day that he was worried and I asked him why. He replied he was worried that after seeing so much weird, perverted, violent stuff on the internet from when he was a teenager he now no longer is shocked by it. The example he gave was that in 4chan there is a Hentai Section with normal Hentai in it and a Hentai/Alternative section with tentacle rape, dick girls and other strange Hentai related images. He didn’t realise that the Hentai alternative section wasn’t the normal Hentai section for ages. He didn’t even realise there was a normal Hentai section. To him this was just normal, he didn’t find it shocking. When he said that I realised that I too thought that /d/ the Hentai Alternative section on 4chan was just for normal Hentai too. Is it really like that? Is the fact we have been exposed to things like goatse and tubgirl and really weird Hentai from a young age mean that things that shock everyone else are just the norm to us now? I had to investigate why and how this happened.

4chan is the first thing we need to look at when thinking about why Geeks and Internet Addicts are desensitised to the horrors of the Internet. I mean it’s not the worst site on the Internet by far but like there are things in /b/ that would disgust any normal person. I don’t go in /b/ but I have been a regular on an IRC chat channel since I was about 17 that loves /b/. It’s an anime related IRC chat channel that never talks about Anime. It’s all rape, sex, violence and gross outs mostly. But the thing is every time something disgusting from /b/ was linked, or something totally racist or something about rape or Loli I never batted an eyelid. I was just like *click**look**lol**close*. Is this bad? Because I know I’m not the only person out there with a sense of humour so much in the gutter. I know many people who find things that I find funny that a lot of people would just be grossed out by. Have we crossed a line or are we just a new kind of culture? Forget the MTV Generation we are the 4chan Generation.

Another friend of mine finds Anime quite disturbing. A few years back we were sitting in Borders and I was going down the Onegai Teacher art book and squeeing at the goodness inside. He pointed out that one of the girls rolling around in her underwear very much exposed looked like she was about 14 years old. I said “No no she has a condition that makes her look that way. Like the boy doesn’t look his age. She’s actually 21 or something”. He looked at me funny because I had quite calmly explained why the fact she was an obvious Loli wasn’t actually that bad because of the story of the Anime. He responded with “But she still looks 14. That doesn’t change that” and I shrugged and told him he just didn’t understand Anime. Anime is a strange medium I think because there really are no boundaries. It’s like.. anything goes. So we watch things that you would never ever see on TV in the West and then just think nothing of them after that. Like they banned an episode of Pokemon in the West where James was in a Bikini and had huge breasts. It was ok to air in Japan to the kids but here it was too controversial.

I think now that everyone has access to the internet its pretty hard to not become desensitised to things. They worry about violent films on the TV making their kids desensitised to things but to be fair it’s probably seeing photos of people smashed against trains or the after math of car crashes on the internet that’s doing it. I don’t know if it’s such a bad thing. I mean I am hardly a bad person, I have a good moral conscience and know right from wrong. So I laugh at things some people would think are sensitive areas or couldn’t find funny. That’s hardly making me evil. I think I am hardly alone in my being desensitized to a lot of bad things and therefore that hardly makes me a freak on nature.

You never know though. I may find something shocking one day and not laugh at it.

Gendo Ikari: Motherfuckin’ PIMP

NOTE: I didn’t write this. It’s written by my friend Vampire_killer. I thought it was funny so cross posted it here ^_^
A while back I was partaking of another A4 discussion, regarding which anime character was the biggest player. As I say, forum discussion threads tend to be overrun by 12-15 year old kids, and not very original. However, something was said in that particular reincarnation of an older thread that got replaced by someone else posting a copy of the same thing those damn kids can’t seem to get enough of. Something that, in my mind, completely warrants further analysis, and a good deal of poking fun at.

In that particular thread, someone mentioned that he considered Shinji Ikari of Neon Genesis: Evangelion to be the greatest and best anime pimp. Now, I’ll repeat that, because I know that, as I did, some of you might have a hard time believing that you might ever actually see these words typed or in print: he said that Shinji Ikari, from Neon: Genesis Evangelion, was the greatest and best anime pimp. This is the sort of thing that comes off as so utterly nonsensical, that when you hear it, you actually laugh so hard, that you don’t even make a sound at all. And if you’ve never done this yourself, or seen it happen to anyone else, then you’ve clearly never spent very much time on an online message board. That is not necessarily a bad thing.

But to get back to the point of the matter, after collecting my senses enough to the point where I could actually breathe again, I asked this person exactly why he considered Shinji to be a player of any magnitude. His reply was that it was for the fact that Shinji shared a room with 2 hot women, Misato Katsuragi and Asuka Langley-Sohryu. That was the basis of his whole argument. Let’s take a look at Shinji’s interactions with each character, shall we?

Although Misato is rather friendly toward Shinji and even sent him a photograph of herself that was very clearly a cleavage shot, she isn’t exactly under his thumb. In fact, she shuffles off most of the housework in her own damn apartment on him, plus the fact that the only time Shinji ever took off all his clothes in front of Misato was itself a freak accident. Clearly it’s Misato who’s in charge of that crib.

Now let’s look at Shinji’s association with Asuka. Actually, screw it. This one requires no explanation. It’s so glaringly obvious that even an overblown satirist like me has no clue where to begin with it. It’s like trying to make fun of a clown, for Godsake: how can you possibly strip away the dignity even further? So let’s just say that we know with at least 200% certainty that if anything, Shinji was Asuka’s b-tch, and leave it at that.

All the above arguments fall apart after taking End of Evangelion and the rest of the Eva movies into account, but come on, those movies motherf-ckin’ suck anyway, so they don’t count.

So, clearly, Shinji ain’t the dom in that household. But now this gets me to thinking. Clearly it isn’t Shinji Ikari that’s the daddy-mac of the show, or any show for that matter. But then it occured to me that this kid, he had the right series in mind, he even had the right surname, he was just getting the generation wrong. There really is a pimp in that series, and with the family name of Ikari. It’s Gendo.

Think about it. Sure, the man dresses more like he’s going to a funeral than like he’s going to f-ck, but platform shoes and a cape alone do not a big daddy make. There’s more to it than look, way more. Let’s first consider the women. It all starts with Yui Ikari, his legitimate partnership. Of course, we all know better than that. It was obviously a plot merely to throw down his seed and continue the lineage. Plus he was after all her biological breakthroughs. Some might say it was to further his own work in the field, but that was only what he wanted people to think. More on that later. Anyway, after Yui Ikari met with her unfortunate [but totally staged so that Gendo could enact the rest of his fiendish plot] accident during the 1st Impact [or was it 2nd Impact? I'm not too sure], he started getting with Naoko Akagi. A lot. And then in true pimp style, when he was done with her and her ass started sagging, he had her capped. And get this: his next woman? Naoko’s daughter. Ritsuko Akagi was next in line to get bent over by Gendo.

He threw his thing down with a woman and that woman’s daughter. You can’t beat that. And as far as anime pimps go, no one else has ever managed to pull off anything as downright criminal as that. It takes some smooth talking and some cool walking, some straight smoking and some fire stoking to be able to convince the daughter of the woman you knocked up and then knocked off that it’s a good idea to ride your shotgun, and Gendo did that. The man’s a wizard.

Also consider the fact that every single woman above is on his payroll. They all work for him, along with all the other as yet unmentioned women that make up the Nerv staff. They all work for him, taking his orders, and they all love it. Although to Misato’s credit, she never actually had sex with Gendo and she stopped trusting him at the end. But all those women, working in the field of biomechanics and computer science and engineering and so on, it wasn’t so Gendo could lead the fore in exterminating Angels. No, it was so he could build himself a happenin’ mad hood. The big guns were just there for his amusement when he got bored with ho sale and taking hits off the LCL cannisters.

Now let’s look at Nerv itself. It’s like looking at the Emerald City from The Wizard of Oz, just underground. It’s extravagant, well-designed, architecturally stable and well-fortified. Because every pimp knows that you got to kick it in style, and have the place well-protected should the Feds come calling. The man has an entire city as his base of operations. He’s got the territory.

And he’s also got the hook-up. He’s like, “yo, these Angels be wreckin’ mah game an’ sh-t, makin’ all that noise outside so I can’t hear my old lady tell me how she wants it. You dig?” And then the U.N. is like, “I feel ya. Tell you what: we’ll give you access to all the electricity in Japan so you can blast that sucker outta here.” And then Gendo is like, “Word, G!”

He’s got the women. He’s got the shag-shack. He’s got the territory, and he’s got the authority, so who cares if he dresses like an FBI agent. Gendo isn’t that kind of a straight-shooter. There are anime characters who are more powerful, there are certainly anime characters who have had more women, there are anime characters with bigger and better houses and there might even be a few anime characters that are more devious and dirty with their tactics and manipulations. But by God, Gendo’s a man who has all of that. He’s a pimp, and you can b’lee dat. XD

I’m an Ex-Girlfriend. Get Me Out Of Here.

The Trials of Being an Ex-Girlfriend/Best Female Friend

I’m a girl, a sociable girl. Or should that be woman? I’m getting on in years now so maybe I should say I am a sociable woman *laughs* Either way I have a lot of male friends and at least one ex-boyfriend who I am very very good friends with therefore I have always had issues with jealous Girlfriends trying to exclude me from their boyfriends lives. You would think, due to the amount of girls who have tried to do this to me, that I was the very worst of whores who loves to steal peoples boyfriends away. I am not. Seriously, I am the nicest person and would never dream of stealing away people who are already in love. That’s just downright bad. So why do I pose such a threat to these girls? I mean am I crazy to think that if you are dating someone that you should trust them and therefore shouldn’t really be worried that they will go off with their ex-girlfriends or their close female friends. If someone loves you then they only want you and you should trust and respect them instead of causing Drama. Let’s look at the facts here about why this happens and why it’s stupid that it does.

I used to have a best friend who we refer to as Boy. Boy and I were like brother and sister, that’s literally how close we were. For a good year or so you could hardly separate us, we’d go out together and get into the most stupid situations and have a great time. Boy was dating this girl who I was also friends with, Girl and me had been friends for a while having met through one of her housemates. When her and Boy got together I was genuinely happy for them. I thought it was great! It was just after a while Girl used to confide all her worries and complaints about Boy in me. She used to say things to me that seriously scared me for Boy’s sake. She was obsessed with getting married, she was obsessed with having complete control over Boy and running his life and she was just a bit scary. The things she said to me made me seriously think Boy should not be dating her. After talking to some of my friends and asking for their advice I decided that I had to tell Boy all that was going on. I mean he was like my brother and I didn’t want him to make the biggest mistake of his life. Essentially it was up to him if he wanted to be with Girl and if he did after all the things I had to tell him I wasn’t going to be angry at him, I would have respected his decision. So I tell Boy everything I know, I tell him that I wouldn’t tell him unless I thought it was bad if he didn’t know and I really did think he deserved to know what his Girlfriend was actually like! A few months after I tell him me and him are still very good friends and so I think nothing of it. Life goes on but I don’t hear from the Girlfriend at all anymore, but by then she lived pretty far away and I just put it down to her being busy. I wasn’t too bothered. One day me, Boy and our friends go out for the day, I was meeting someone who I was crazy in love with a bit later and I needed a bit of a confidence boost. For some reason I txt Boys Girlfriend and she txts me back saying to me that I’m a liar and bitch and how dare I even contemplate texting her. She goes on to say I’m a whore and steal everyone’s boyfriends and am obviously in love with hers which is why I am trying to break them up. She says I live my life with my knickers round my ankles and the only way I can get boys is by stealing them from other girls. I am gobsmacked to say the least. I can’t believe she thinks I love Boy. That’s insane! As I said before he is like my brother. I txt her back to say so but she doesn’t listen. It’s fair to say that Boy and me don’t talk so much anymore, not that I don’t want to talk to him it’s just he now thinks I’m a liar and am in love with him because that is what she told him. At least I assume he does, we never got a chance to talk about it and now I doubt we ever will.

This is what I don’t understand. Why would that Girl think I love Boy? It’s a well known fact amongst my friends that at the time I was crazy for someone and there was one person I was interested in and Boy knew this. He had listened to me talk about the guy I was after for ages and ages and seen me try and figure it all out in my head. His Girlfriend had also heard the stories about the boy I liked and therefore KNEW I was not interested in her Boyfriend but this seemed like a good point to get me out of his life. Was I that much of a threat? I used to go out with her Boyfriend and have fun and he enjoyed being around me and my friends. We didn’t really ever invite her because she was a right mood killer but she should have trusted him to not pull any of us. Which he would never have done. Whenever I date someone I know that I have to trust them. If I don’t there isn’t much point in us dating. I can’t be all stressed because he has friends that are girls or because he has friends that he has dated because to be fair so do I! How hypocritical would it be of me to demand him to not talk to his female friends when I am still talking to my male ones? Would I want to make him feel like he has to not talkto any girls or I will punish him? I would never dream of it. I think girls that do this are setting a really bad name up for Women across the world.

I see these situations time and time again though, Girlfriends being paranoid of ex-girlfriends and close female friends of their boyfriends because they feel them a threat. They are obviously close to the boyfriends in a way these Girlfriends may never get to and they feel jealous that these girls may know things that they may never find out. Being a Girlfriend and being a Friend are two different things. If your relationship really is perfect you will probably have the best of both worlds, you will be his girlfriend but he will confide in you like he would a close friend. But for a lot of relationships I see and hear about and advise on this type of relationship hasn’t been achieved yet. It takes work you know. Being jealous of your Boyfriends close female friends just makes you look petty and clingy in his friends eyes and to be fair I think you need to make a good impression on your Boyfriends friends. If they like you then things tend to be easier! Don’t see them as a threat, try and make friends with them back! Surely if you are on good terms with them you will feel more comfortable about his having close female friends because you will know exactly what kind of girls they are and will be able to relax more when he goes out with them. That is if you HAVE to be jealous of them it is better to be jealous and try and get on with them, in an ideal world you wouldn’t be jealous at all. This brings me along to the next type of girl who gets the Girlfriends wrath, The Ex-Girlfriend.

Being an Ex-Girlfriend who is still really good friends with her Ex-Boyfriend is a rare thing in the world it would seem from what I have seen. To be able to put your past aside and to get on with things and recognise that you both actually do get along really well, love hanging out with each other and that it really would be a shame if you weren’t in each others lives after you’ve had a pretty serious relationship with someone is something that isn’t seen very often. Out of everyone I’ve date I am only really good friends and on speaking terms with one of my Ex-Boyfriends. That’s pretty pathetic right? *laughs* But from what I see having one still around is an achievement! But it’s hard work to keep him as a friend. You are forever branded “THE EX GIRLFRIEND” to anyone he gets around to dating after you, which means they instantly hate you. No matter how much you explain to your other half that the relationship you hold with your Ex is in the past and now you’re just friends they will never ever actually believe you enough to be ok with you seeing your Ex. Mine have all despised my Ex-Boyfriend who I am good friends. They have always been jealous of him and you could see it when me and him would meet up that whoever I was dating at the time would suddenly get very possessive over me and suddenly become very affectionate when my Ex was looking. I assume it was mainly because me and my Ex get along so well it makes most boys I date feel like I don’t like them as much as I like him, which really isn’t the case at all! You have to accept, especially when you date people as you get older, that they will have histories and pasts and that you have not been their only love. You have to accept that just because you don’t have any contact with your Ex’s that your new partner may really have got along with his and that you need to try and be as accepting as that as you can. Fighting over an Ex is pointless and needless drama at the end of the day. Usually what they have is in the past and as I said before, if he loves you then he won’t be looking at her and thinking about recapturing the old days. Just chill out!

My advice to anyone stressing about anything I’ve said in my post is CHILL OUT. FOR THE LOVE OF GOD CHILL THE HELL OUT. Relationships are not easy, I have said that before and I shall say it again but you make them harder on yourself by causing so much drama that isn’t needed. Don’t be clingy, don’t be possessive and ACCEPT that your girlfriend or Boyfriend will have friends of the opposite sex that are really close to them and they will have Ex’s that are good friends too. You have to deal with this in a mature manner and not throw a fit about it! Listen to Nayuki, she knows the score!

Don’t Blame Your Lack Of Sex On Women.

*NAME TAKEN OUT* says:
the only thing im serious about is not dating anyone
*NAME TAKEN OUT* says:
women are tramps ^^
Nay-Chan says:
…. ooook if you say so
*NAME TAKEN OUT* says:
that i do

I hate boys like this. Who complain that all women suck just because no woman wants to date them. This boy who said “all women are tramps” is particularly bad and particularly annoying. He seems to think that if a girl likes him she can only like him. They aren’t dating or anything, she is in no way tied to him but he wants her to act like she is. The only time you need to be absolutely faithful to someone is if you’re dating. To be fair if you do really like the guy you WON’T go off with someone else because you want to be with them. He thinks girls should be obiedient and good and do what they are told. That women can’t actually date around and fuck around because that makes them WHORES. OH FOR GODS SAKE. NO WONDER NO WOMAN WANTS YOU xD

Chill out.

That is my advice to all men with these stupid expectations of having a girlfriend who dotes upon only them, who was saving herself for them and who has aspirations of being with him and marrying him and having his children and cleaning up after him. Very few women I know go into realtionships and plan the wedding. It’s scary, so why on Earth do you think about marriage before you’re even dating her? CHILL OUT! See how things go, have some fun. That’s what good relationships are like. Chilled out, free of drama, full of trust and fun.

Have you ever thought its you that is the problem and not the Women? You can’t use your past disasters against all women kind and you can’t hang on to your heartbreak. You don’t get ANYWHERE by assuming all girls will cheat on you because one of your girlfriends cheated on you. You move on and you forgive and you learn from what happened. I have very few trust issues because I deal with the problems I have head on and get the out of the way. That’s why me and James are good friends now, that’s why I don’t have issues with thinking everyone is a pathological liar, that’s why I don’t think every man is out to control me like Rob wanted too. You have to be secure with yourself to have some sort of a decent stable relationship.

Relationships aren’t easy and you have to work at them but if they work then its great. If you have something special with someone don’t fuck it up by being stupid and clingy and worrying. If your other half loves you half as much as they say they do they will not cheat on you, they will not hurt you and they will not lie to you. There are few exceptions to this though, from what I understand. Sometimes things just go mad and neither of you can help what happens. What I’m saying is don’t stress about women and love. Let go and just go with the flow. You will be so much better mentally for it.

Your lack of sex, lack of girls, lack of girlfriend is YOUR FAULT not Womankinds fault. Grow up and sort yourself out.

A Rebuttal: Madden, from a different perspective…

So, I was undercut in my article. In my defense, it was a WORK IN PROGRESS. Anyway, turns out Madden this year turned out to not be a carbon copy of last year’s game with a roster upgrade a decent (American) football game. Within my company (rhymes with “LameStop“), Madden is absolutely fantastic. One of our yearly best sellers for the company overall.

Overall, yes. However, the numbers show that Northern California (where I work) has some of the WORST sales numbers for this game. It’s even worse my my store. For some reason (I seriously had absolutely NOTHING to do with this…well…almost nothing), our top rated games are as follows: RPGs, First Person Shooters, and Guitar Hero. So, the week of a new Madden game launch is typically one of our worst sales weeks. The main highlight of this week has been Shin Megami Tensei Persona 3 (which I will have a review up in a few days). So from a retail perspective (at least within the conditions I have named) Madden is terrible.

Of course, there is another side to this story. I have never been one for sports games. They never have really interested me (aside from the more arcade-y stuff. Such as Mario Strikers Charged.) and more than likely never will. I have tried the new Madden game and have come to the conclusion that, yep, it’s football. Of course, I hate to bring this up, Madden does attract that certain type of gamer (no offense to gabexmosh or anyone else who enjoys Madden. I’m implying that there are these kinds of people out there, not saying that you fit into this category.) that I have lovingly dubbed:

“The Bro”

The Bro is a type of gamer who usually sticks to one or two games (usually the current Madden and some iteration of Halo and/or Counter-Strike) and doesn’t stray much from those two. Occasionally, they will venture outside those boundaries to play games such as Guitar Hero or some classic game to bring back memories of the “good old days”. They have a tendency to refer to a fair amount of other games (read as: Adventure games, RPGs, Fighting games, etc.) as “gay”.

These types of gamers irk the living shit outta me, moreover because I have to deal with their “ilk” on a weekly basis. But, back to my original point. I don’t have anything against Madden. It’s just that I don’t play sports games and other unfortunate circumstances. It may be a great game, it may not be, but that is not my place to decide. Now back to my jRPGs and scrounging up info for more reports on what’s coming up next.

Sorry kids Superman is dead, Cosmo mag killed him!

Apparently I have a third arm growing out of my head. I must do, its the only explanation to why everyone stares at me when I read a comic in public……no wait. The latest edition of my monthly comic has just come out so I leg it down to my local comic book store to buy it. This being an once a month treat I wanna enjoy it, so I buy a smoothie and sit on a bench in the town centre enjoying my comic in the sun. Then my spider sense starts to tingle; I’m being judged for reading my filthy comic out side the confines of Forbidden Planet by strangers!

Usually its single, slightly weird teenage boys that enjoy spending way too much time alone in their bedrooms that are known for reading comics. Well being a non-single female I take great pride in reading comics! I want to know if Catwoman saves Holly or see Ichigo kick the crap out of another Hollow but no, I should be reading “8 ways to find out if he loves you more than his ex” in Cosmo mag. For some reason the people in the UK have never taken to reading comics like the Japanese have. We dismiss them as childish and irrelevant. But the Japanese can read Yuri on a packed out train and no one bats an eye lid. I pull out the latest copy of Birds of Prey and I’m slapped with a literary ASBO.

I’m not reading a ‘proper’ book therefore its crap. I do enjoy reading novels but I get so much more enjoyment from comics. Each window is basically a small peice of art that could tell a thousand stories. The detail and colouring requires a talent that I could never posses and I take such delight in seeing something new every time. People say they are pointless stories about superheros and magic with no relevence to todays society. Once again I disagree. In one particular comic series, Batman:No Man’s Land, is set when Gotham is hit by a earth quake and declared ‘No mans land’. The stories demonstrate the extent people will go to survive and make a profit. The similarities to current situations around the world gave me a bit of a chill as it was written a few years ago. Go and read it, if you instantly see which disaster it is mirroring, I’ll give you some sweets ^_^.

So please dont snuff at comics because they aren’t ‘cultured’ enough. If you read one you might find it has more culture in one page than 100 copies of The News of the World you read every week.

Fangirls and Why We Find Anime Girls Hot

I am a girl and I have a substantial image folder full of Anime girls. I have never been able to explain why this is, it’s hardly to do with my Sexuality, I can say quite easily I find girls IRL sexy but I don’t have a big folder full of them in bikinis or echhi of them. I have some good stock images of my fav hot celebs for use in layouts and such but that’s hardly new. It’s this huge folder of Ecchi girls that always makes me think. If Anime debases women so much and makes them into objects to be lusted after with huge breasts and perfect bodies and bukkake then why do I, and most girls into Anime, find them just as great as the fanboys?

Women are objects of desire in some Anime (not all Anime. Its a huge form of media so I shall not restrict it all here). I mean you can look at some characters and they have full breasts and amazing figures and look hot. There are endless fanservice shots of them in their underwear or closeups of their asses. But usually a hot anime girl comes with a firey, headstrong attitude. It is very rare to see her give in to a man or lose herself around one. It is more likely to see her punch his lights out or hit him. Strong and Sexy, surely thats a great thing to be? Christina Aguilera, The Spice Girls, Beyonce.. they all are strong and Sexy. They are also all objects of desire for men and sell more records/get more publicity because of it. I don’t know. Does that make up for the fact they are obviously there to turn the male viewer on. I don’t know. But the fact it gets the female fan saving images of them and watching the Animes and rooting for them or hating them is always good.

Anime girls are hot. I’m not losing myself in this by the way, I also know they are NOT REAL. *laughs* It’s always sad to see someone who is watching Anime Girls more than Real Girls and fails to have another half because noone in Real Life actually looks like BellDandy. But you get drawn in by an amazing anime style picture thats really well drawn, really well coloured in and just looks amazing. Its a fact. So me, assuming I am the standard anime fan, having a folder full of images that I think are amazing (a lot of them Ecchi xD) is hardly surprising. I used to say that Anime fans tend to have a lax view on Sex and stuff since you are exposed to so much of it in Anime that you just don’t realise it’s there anymore. So all these images I have I don’t see as being Ecchi, or racy I just see them as awesome Anime images to add to my collection.

Perhaps it’s also the fact that Anime women are like… not like normal women. I mean they are like Normal Women obviously but they are also Cat-Girls, Fox-Girls, Bunny-Girls, Elves, Witches, Fairies, Magical School Girls, Girls with Huge Guns… All these things that are interested to watch and things we try and emulate through Cosplay. I know girls that wear Cat Ears and Cat Tails now as part of their daily wear and feel weird if they don’t have them on because they love CatGirls so much. I think that girls love to Cosplay as Sailor Moon, who wouldn’t want to be a hot, magical girl who kicks ass? They may not be the best figures to look up to sure, but you know they are pretty damn cool. I like that anyway, the fantastical and the unreal. Makes things more interesting. Also the people who draw girls like this well make some captivating art that you can’t help but save or buy in poster form to stick on your wall!

I think Women in Anime are misunderstood, but I’m not going to get into that subject here. I don’t think they are treated any differently than they are in any other. They show off their lady lumps in Film, Music, on TV so Anime is no different but I find it funny that it is seen as such a big deal in Anime. That if you say to someone you like Anime they immediately think of some obscure Hentai that was no doubt created in their imaginations with aliens and every hole being filled. If people got over this misconception and actually sat down and watched some Anime without prejudging it then they would love it I reckon. Even the Ecchi High School Comedys (because let’s face it WE ALL have a weakness for them).

God Bless the Hot Anime Girls. Let’s hope they draw more!

Heres the bigger image of this for you <3

Anime Magazines AKA Why I don’t Need to be informed About Anime I Have Already Watched.

I dislike Anime magazines.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not because I dislike reading about Anime. I love reading about Anime, hell I wrote my dissertation on Anime and the representation of Gender and Sexuality in Anime. I have books on Anime theory (from when I was writing my dissertation) and read Anime blogs. HELL THIS IS AN ANIME BLOG. But Anime Magazines just seem to be behind the times. They are expensive and noone wants to read about series released a year or more ago that have just got their way onto DVD now. Seriously it’s just common sense.

The majority of Anime fans download their anime. That’s why so many subbing groups exist. We do not want to wait ages for us to watch a mere selection of the Anime availiable in Japan. We want to be able to watch whatever we want when we want to do so. So god bless bittorrent and sites like Boxtorrents and Animesuki who provide us with Anime as it happens. I am currently watching Lucky Star, Lovely Complex and School Days. All airing in Japan and I download a new episode once a week as they come. No matter how you feel about downloading you can’t deny that Anime needs things like bittorrent to help it along. The fans would get so bored had they not had the ability to download things as and when the air in Japan and to have the ability to watch the brand new seasons Anime and the old Animes from seasons gone!

Today I picked up Total Anime, its on it’s second issue so it’s still pretty new. I’ve read most of the other Anime magazines availiable to me already such as Newtype and Neo. Newtype is full of Gundam stuff, everytime I buy it it’s telling me about Gundam. I hate Gundam. It bores me. I want to hear about Tengen Toppa Gurren Laagen not Gundam bloody Wing. Neo I just didn’t get into, I’m not sure why but it wasn’t that interesting for me. Total Anime however had articles in it that I did like. Things about the Anime Industry, Blogs, Things about Video Games and Anime interlinking and why opening credits matter. I like reading things like this that are about Anime as a whole. They had a great bit on how Anime is misunderstood in the Media which I loved! I’ve been writing a piece like that for Pink Domino so it was great to read what other people think. Sure Total Anime still told me about animes I already know and had a DVD listing that was full of things I’d already seen but the majority of the Magazine wasn’t about old Animes that have just come out on DVD here so they are making them seem new. It was about the Anime Industry and Culture and I liked that.

My ideal Anime Magazine? One that focused on Anime Series in Japan so we didn’t have to read about how they think the Haruhi Dance will sweep across the West NOW when it has aleady done so like A YEAR ago. I would like to read about all the new seasons anime when it came out you know. I would also like to read things about Anime Culture and the Industry. There should but a pull-out poster section, an art section and like some sort of manga running through. That would be a great Anime Magazine. Perhaps link to some Japanese Music, some JRock and Jpop. It doesn’t have to encourage people to go downloading, it doesn’t even have to mention downloading all it has to do is follow the Japanese Anime Schedual rather than the shitty UK/USA one. Then we would find these magazines fresh and exciting!

Hell. They should just let me make a Pink Domino Magazine xD Gaming, Anime and Internet Culture all at your convinience!

4chan: KILLING YOUR LIVES!

I bring your attention to the following report that was on FoxNews about 4chan:

This is why you should not watch news stations like Fox who think THE INTERNET IS SERIOUS BUSINESS. I mean look at this thing they claim 4chan users are HACKERS ON STEROIDS, DOMESTIC TERRORISTS and how 4chan is THE INTERNET HATE MACHINE. I mean come on, who is retarded enough to believe this rubbish?

Here are the facts people, 4chan is firstly NOT A SECRET WEBSITE ITS NOT! You can go to 4chan easily enough xD Its got cult status. If you ask most people where 4chan is they will tell you exactly where to go. People know 4chan, its infamous! Secondly THE INTERNET IS NOT SERIOUS BUSINESS. OH COME ON! I think I have said this a million times before but YOU CANT GET HURT ON THE INTERNET. All you have to do is ignore what is going on. OH NOEZ MY MYSPACE PAGE HAS BEEN HACKED OH NOEZ OH NOEZ I AM GOING TO DIE. Stop being so goddamn over dramatic! So they posted some Gay stuff on your MySpace, make a new one. Its not the end of the world. Why doyou have a MySpace anyway? My Space is gay in iteself.

So they say they are going to rape you, kill you and send death threats. The fact is they do not know where you live and unless you are stupid enough to post your address or phone numbers on your My Space accounts or anywhere else online they will NEVER be able to find you. For gods sake. To the mother who says her family were attacked by Anonymous so she bought a Dog, HOW THE HELL IS A DOG GOING TO DO ANYTHING? That’s just idiocy. The fact is you can choose to go on 4chan and you can choose not to go on 4chan. You can choose to ignore if /b/ comes after you or you can shout, argue and spam back. They can’t really hurt you at all via the internet.

THERE ARE MORE IMPORTANT THINGS GOING ON IN THE WORLD THAN 4CHAN! THE INTERNET IS NOT SERIOUS BUSINESS AND BUYING A DOG WILL NOT PROTECT YOU FROM IT. STOP WHINING AND JUST IGNORE IT YOU BIG BUNCH OF IDIOTS.
The people at /b/ don’t take anything they say seriously, it is all for the lulz. The report says in shocking tones that they use anti-semetic and racist remarks. To be honest with you I’m sure most of us make racist jokes every now and then, we don’t mean them. My friends call me the Tinted one and Brown Town all the time, but because we know its not serious none of us care. I don’t think anyone on /b/ takes anything said there seriously and therefore don’t take offence. If you do take offence noone is telling you to go there and read whats going on. Why create hysteria about something that is really not doing anything to cause alarm about?

There is news out there that goes unreported. Injustice, death and atrocities that never get the airtime that they should. I am not surprised at FoxNews for doing this I just feel sorry for people who actually believe 4chan is something to worry about when there are so much more important things in the world. I feel sorry for those who think the internet is serious business.

4Chan

420Chan

ITS ALL FOR THE LULZ! THE LULZ!

xD