nanashi

Apparently in ’98 the MTV programming in the US was already as bad as it is now over here.

But why were you complaining about it?

The original title of The World Ends With You was Subarashiki kono sekai, which basically means what its English subtitle says, It’s a wonderful world. So why wouldn’t It’s a wonderful world have worked as a Western title? It’s not exactly bad or funny English. The problem is that it doesn’t adequately transports the feeling of the title to the English player.

When we talk about the world in the context of games, it doesn’t mean the world. If you played SMT III Nocturne and you remember the scenes where you meet your classmates to make your decision regarding your alignment towards the ending of the game, you might remember Chiaki or Yuu talking about there being so many worlds as suddenly a scene from the old Tokyo before its destruction plays out around you, people walking on the street passing each other by. World doesn’t mean the world we all live in. It means the world as reflected in our mind. World means person.

So when a game title tells you that the world is wonderful, the game as your electronic mother actually tells you what a wonderful person you are, what a nice reflection of it. It tells you how much it loves you. Obviously, The World Ends With You much better relates this idea of you and the world being one, and you and the world being wonderful much better than the original English title which is understood by a Japanese player but will leave the Western gamer puzzled. Game culture is just too different between these two players.

On the other hand, World Destruction is an awesome title no matter how you look at it. It so contradicts the idea of the save the world kind of game school and immediately relates this to the recipient, Sands of Destruction is just bland and meaningless in comparison.

Of course, World Destruction is just more honest from the start about what you actually do in every game. By clearing the game, by bringing it to an end you stop spending time in its world. You end it, destroy it. Surely you have played Link’s Awakening. Same thing.

So why did the title need to be changed? Censorship. Some players don’t want to be reminded that they’re destroying the world, the literal one even more so than the metaphorical one. They don’t want to play themselves but someone good, some great hero. Poking fun at the hero? Revealing that the hero is actually a villain? Can’t have that. At least not before we tricked them into buying the game. Marketing chooses the bland title to sell more copies.

There’s a spoiler urging to be written but I will restrain myself.

At the Dead German Poet Institute’s Germans and German learning Japanese meet to speak German and Japanese meetings I met M-ko and Y-yo, one of which was holy and the other a cute nurse. I attended those meetings because I used the pcs at the geete to post on 2ch, which wasn’t possible from the uni library terminals and a note left beside the pcs asking the guests using them to join those conversational meetings to return the favor of using the pcs for free convinced me to take part in these meetings. Which of course weren’t intended to create the opportunity to meet with nanashi in person at all, who would ever claim such a thing.

M-ko, who is also divine (according to her mobile phone email address I scored later that night), was actually learning German whereas Y-yo had only come along with her friend out of sheer curiosity. Which she expressed by bombarding me with lots of questions, in rapid succession. Being the attention whore I am I didn’t really mind. Her looking a lot younger than her actual age only added to the appeal. For M-ko it must have been disappointing that she so easily proved her suspicion she was probably hoping I’d at least pretend to not be true.

Does she look like she's in her early 30-ies? Well, she is. And she's also the childhood friend of your mother. So she's basically the milf that looks younger than you while you're still in high school. I never read this manga but it sure sounds like an interesting variation of the lolicon genre.

Y-yo also had some good advice for me which she commented must make her sound like an older sister even though she was a few years younger than me. Yes, I do love contradictions. Did I mention that my mother wanted to become a nurse when she was young? Anyway, Y-yo tried to get me to talk more to M-ko as well but then it was pretty much already too late.

We went to Kamogawa river after the meeting to talk some more and also ate some karaage there, since I mentioned it was one of my favorite foods. We shared a serving and there was a small piece of parsley which I grabbed for myself, much to the surprise of Y-yo, as she had just explained to me that it was paseri and that it had a bitter taste which I apparently shouldn’t have liked according to her image of me. Well, if you’re a manga and game loving otaku manchild you cannot like food with bitter taste I guess and I am of course a liar for liking it regardless.

I really enjoyed that night and when they had to take the train back to where they lived I did something I rarely have the courage and/or the necessary goal oriented way of thinking for, I asked them for their mobile phone numbers. I got the mail addresses as well which of course was even more useful.

The next day or some days later there was a post at 2ch about rather not wanting to have a child with a foreigner as it’s tough for halfs in school, some teachers being openly racist towards these children. I never really had given much thought to having a child, or it going to school, or having it with a Japanese woman for that matter, or it going to a Japanese school. But well, when something like this is brought up, and especially since you can imagine who posted it, I was kind of upset and I think I made an angry response post about it. I have no idea anymore what exactly my thoughts on it were that time and I won’t go and look it up, but it was really a reaction to something I was getting upset about on principle rather than because I saw my hopes shattered or something.

You still don’t believe me when I say something like the above, do you? I really didn’t lie when I was seventeen. I just expressed myself rather clumsily.

Seriously, is that all you got? Doesn’t impress me in the slightest.

So weight watchers: what exactly are they watching anyway? All the weight ever does is go up. Just like my cock. So I’m asking you wet weight watchers, what would be a good way of putting this increase in volume to good use? You need to take responsiblity.

They say to write good H manga you have to remain chaste. Because, who could sing a more beautifully perverted song than holy hysteria?

You reminded me of a certain someone from the very start, and this impression got stronger with every time I was lucky to become a bystander overhearing conversations with the other translators you worked with. When I entered the meeting room which then was only occupied by you and , the moment you looked my way you had a smile very much like the one of , that time in Kyoto when the students and the professor of our seminar had gone for a drink after a colloquium or something of that kind. I had just been dumped by another girl which may or may not have known and , sitting next to me, already a bit intoxicated and asking me quite a lot of questions, overcoming her usual shyness and my own at the same time, was positively glowing, her smile betraying a keen interest in me. It was a very uplifting experience, having just been dumped I was really happy to learn that I wasn’t as appalling as my earlier experience had made me believe.

We went to drink some tea together very soon after that and I showed her a book I had just lent that day from Seika University and it was obvious she was struggling with herself if she should out herself that very moment. I still managed to mess up all of the numerous chances she was giving me the following weeks and months and it must have been very frustrating for her. I coped with my own frustration in a way that made things a lot worse, probably.

Anyway, coming back to the more recent past, the scene with in the meeting room repeated itself when you came to ask  a question and I was sitting next to him, again overhearing your conversation. Again, when you looked my way for a short moment I felt that same feeling when I saw ‘s glowing self that time in Kyoto.

But what really drew me to you of course was your bold attacks via messenger status tags. It made me realize you were the fujoshi to take revenge in place of all fujoshi for that aborted troll thesis of mine that resulted from my encounter with in Kyoto.

Now imagine how my feelings intensified when I learned you were the granny I stalked and kind of molested when she was only 114 years old (eXXXXXXXaggerated eXXXXpression™). I felt/feel attracted to a lot a lot of girls and looks always play a decisive role in that, which in fact they do in your case as well, but you also make me feel alive like no one quite could since parting with Kyoto. Because you emanate strength and determination which I can’t shake loose from.

It’s the world’s longest word!

What you want me to do with it?

Don’t matter just don’t bite…

When we talked about early Japanese feminists in one of our university seminars and I repeated the notion that this first wave of feminism was mostly made possible by the encouragement of their male mentor I could tell from the hurt look on the face of the lecturer that she’d taken an offense I hadn’t intended. But well, that was after I had written my infamous analysis of a certain video game, born from hate but not anywhere hateful.

When I talked to my gay friend B about slash and how it can be a way of coming out of the closet for gays on the fence, not yet sure of their sexuality, basically them being led by the encouragement of the female slash detectives, his look wasn’t all that different from hers. This notion also was conceived from studying Japanese culture and the reactions of male otaku to yaoi.

Anyway, closet gays and enslaved women helping each other out is nice and all, but too much unwanted/unneeded help can cause a lot of bad blood and people may start trying to outdo each other in being helpful even if you never intended to be helpful in the first place.

My well-meaning lecturer never quite understood the notion of BDSM and that it is not the same as wanting to be a child again. If you want to remain a child then it’s not BDSM but something else. So locking me up in the library to make sure I actually write my papers wouldn’t have been a good idea in the first place. Because it is not sexually fulfilling. It is not a fetish.

Look what I discovered this morning while showering!

Lalala

Now I definitely have to do this again.

B was never in the same class as me, not in elementary school and certainly not in gymnasium, when we went to different schools. The closest friend I found at my new school, M, was living too far away for me to hang out with him all the time but all the kids from our class went to the same parties of course and there were still opportunities to meet outside of school.

M’s first girlfriend was quite a bit older than us and she had a cool accessory, a character from a popular German children’s book. Actually it wasn’t really a character but a toy modeled after a duck, with a tiger pattern, that was treated by its owner in the book like a living being and good friend. She had a small replica of that duck attached to her backpack and M and I imitated that and attached one to our shirts or sweaters. I remember wearing it from my scarves for many years, long after M had given up on this habit.

T wasn’t exactly a big fan of it and when I argued that it was really original and individual and that not many people wore something like this she countered that she did in fact knew some people who were even dragging it behind them all the time, with the attached cord, like the toy it’s supposed to be. She was of course kidding and implying that I was such a baby for wearing that toy.

T and M also met at some of our parties and at one of the local swimming pools in summer, for example. I didn’t go to the pool very often for which there were several reasons but once the three of us went together. I didn’t properly learn to swim until very late which is why I never really swam but only floated where it wasn’t that deep and I also had an aversion against jumping into the water.

The two of them tried to convince me to try it and the only way to get them off my case was to crack a joke which is really hard to translate though. I said, “das springt mir nichts” which you intuitively take to mean “das bringt mir nichts”/”I don’t get anything out of it” but since the word corresponding to “get” is replaced by “jump” it was a clever way of saying “I don’t get anything out of jumping”. It’s really not funny when you have to explain it but T and M laughed and stopped trying to talk me into it. My funny got me out of being pressured to do something I didn’t want to do.

Don’t you love cliffhangers? Can’t wait to read/watch the next episode. But what if for some reason you never get to see/read the next episode? What if someone brought you the first one but the second one is nowhere to be found?

That really sucks, let me tell you. It happened several times to me in my childhood. One of these cliffhanger stories where I never got to read the continuation and that I could never forget was an Uncle Scrooge story where he was looking for Circe’s treasure. Magica De Spell had turned Huey, Dewey and Louie into pigs on the last page of the episode and I was forever denied of the closure of them getting turned back.

Of course, these stories always end in everything restored to how it began. Of course I had read so many stories where the triplets weren’t pigs so it was safe to assume that they would be restored to their former selfs in the end. But it still bothers you not to know how the story ends.

Actually, even in the Duckburg stories I did get to read completely I was always bothered by the ducks, especially the triplets, getting caught and tied up, imprisoned and stuff. I always invented a hero that would save them on the spot which of course ended all those stories prematurely. As I grew older I understood that I was taking out the best part of the story and that these thrilling situations were in fact necessary for the stories to create their impact.

I understood that a story is not real and that whatever happens in it does not affect me as a person in real life. That’s when I began to enjoy these stories, which when I was younger I often switched off the TV because I didn’t trust the fearful situations to be resolved by happy ends. It’s funny, I craved for closure for the Oddball Odyssey story in which the triplets where transformed into pigs but I denied myself the happy ends in TV series because I never believed they would come.

Until I mastered this awesome technique, differentiating between fiction and reality. Really, I recommend it to everyone. Fiction becomes a safe haven, where everythings is possible but nothing can ever hurt you. Maybe it’s a bit too safe though.

When reality was stolen from me and stories invaded it, treacherous at heart though, dirty traps that waited for me to lose grasp on my special ability, being able to distinuish between fiction and reality, those storyweavers, they tried to force their image of me on me, proving that I in fact could not differentiate, that instead of analyzing the images in stories as products of reality, I was confusing story and reality, well that ended in me being imprisoned like the triplets in my childhood stories. But my imaginary hero never came. Retroactively I became Seta Soujirou, the character I had felt moe for years before. Well, my hero didn’t come that other time either, when I was death years old. So it wasn’t retroactive but a remake maybe.

Remember the truth or bare post? I once played a board game with the same girl and boy (let’s call them by their names’ initials, T and B) from that post, at his house. I kept throwing the die into the neckline of her t-shirt. Which wasn’t the point of the game of course but still lots of fun and I think she felt the same way as she giggled each time the die found its way down her shirt. I usually don’t aim well when I throw stuff, I also sucked at most ball games in school for that reason, but I hit it that day perfectly twice at least.

Like I said before there was a lot of sexual tension between her and me for which the above episode is just one more example of but she did envy the intimacy of the male friendship I shared with B. I don’t remember exactly what it even was, but when I refused to tell her something I wanted to keep secret from her but revealed that B knew what it was about she insisted she would be able to get it out of him. I was sitting next to her on the bus like always and she was going to meet him at school later that day.

After school was out that day she had to admit that “I had ‘trained’ (an alternative translation might be ‘raised’ but I think ‘trained’ is closer to her intended meaning) him very well” as he wouldn’t budge in keeping the secret. I explained that it had nothing to do with training but that it was pretty much normal that we as boys kept each other’s secrets.

I went to a different school but we still met a lot after school and at parties. I always hung out with her and some of my classmates who lived in the same neighboring village as her and I was already very nerdy then, but not yet combined with the confidence I have today. Basically my attempts to be cool always ended in total disasters and she had issues with some of my style choices as well but we got along more than well and the relationship should easily have gone to the next level if had had the courage to take the next step.

This lack of courage had something to do with me proclaiming that I’d “never hit girls” but still hitting my younger sister when she annoyed me which T appropriately called me a hypocrite for. It also had something to do with me liking the French movie The War of the Buttons from 1962 and imitating one of two important concepts from that movie, playful war, when I was still in elementary school, before I became friends with either B or T. Unlike the movie it wasn’t one gang of mostly boys against another gang of mostly boys but a gang of all boys who all tried to steal kisses from the girls of our class. I was the leader and founder of a sexual assault unit made up of 2nd graders. Our girl victims (unknowingly) imitated the other important concept of the movie, utilizing grown ups to punish the other side. They didn’t even have to cut off any buttons but had our teacher castrate us instead and put an end to a game that was ill conceived in the first place.

Not being able to admit to what I had done I couldn’t let the teacher’s claim of us “trying to make advances on our female classmates” stand as they were and had to prove that the kisses were nothing but a weapon and not an expression of affection at all. This was the beginning of me becoming a hopeless clown throwing kisses around from which I only barely recovered when I got the chance to start over advancing to gymnasium, a new school with a new class and mostly new classmates. In the meanwhile I became friends with B in 3rd grade from another class who entertained himself with healthier games, acting as the characters from Masters of the Universe during the breaks inbetween classes.

In gymnasium I again imitated a French movie, this time La Boum, and kicked off the age of teen parties in my circle of friends. I wasn’t as uncool anymore as in elementary school but still haunted by the fear of being uncool and denial was my main defense against all the pitfalls caused by my own clumsiness. One was literally a hole in the ground into which I rode my newly bought mountain bike (which were all the rage at the time). This was when I learned that following peer pressure did not really pay off.

Sex was my best weapon in the race for coolness because my mind was definitely dirtier than anyone else’s and my drive to establish parties gained me cool points with my friends. T was one the few who was never intimidated by my sexual bragging but she was soon to be disappointed, as my boldness was betrayed by my inhibitions. Inhibitions born from me always going overboard and getting my fingers burned repeatedly in the process.

The day after one particular party T wanted to continue partying with a smaller number of friends the next day. I had of course enjoyed the party but ‘autistic’ as I was I came up with stupid reasons why I couldn’t come that day, like having to take my sunday shower. She was really mad and asked me why I couldn’t skip my masturbation (I was pretty open about my habits in that regard) to come to party some more at her place. I was so stupid.

I kept using symbolism to further our relationship like sending her a letter that had the stamps angled in a certain way which had a hidden meaning. She replied in kind by sending me a letter written in a code I had to decipher. It was very funny and we were meant for each other but I had formed very strong inhibitions by then which always kicked in when I approached a certain line that when crossed had ended in disaster before.

My present for her (I think it was her) 15th birthday was a sexual education book and even though she had ridiculed me weeks before for “waiting for love to come seek me” instead of the other way round (which of our friends only B found a reasonable idea to have) she took the initiative and put the pressure on me to give up my refusal to dance, which I usually considered myself to be too cool for, and dance with her to a slow song. You know, the kind of dance they always did in the La Boum movie, hugging and slowly turning, enjoying the intimacy of touching each other’s body. Afterward she commented I had gotten her dizzy by moving too fast. I was supernervous and neither of us could really enjoy it.

I ended up not being T’s first boyfriend. Instead that was someone from my class, also taking the same bus as us. I ended up not being her second boyfriend either. She wasn’t going to wait for me, because as she said, the dirty books I lent her (compared to which the education book I gave her for her birthday was a harmless joke) were never followed up by appropriate action.

Earlier, at one of my birthday parties she had spilt a drink over her t-shirt and asked me if I could lend her one of mine. It wasn’t the first time she came to my room of course but maybe the first time we were there just the two of us, and then she was alone in it as I let her change her shirt. I didn’t think much of it then and I’m probably thinking too much of it now. The t-shirt, btw, was one of my old ones and already too small, even for T.

At one of B’s birthday parties T suddenly had the need for something she hadn’t thought of bringing to the party. B’s mother was kind enough to lend her some of hers though.

While in elementary school I was a frequent target of bullying but in gymnasium I was smart enough to become friends with the bullies. One time I argued that (on a subjective level) not all people are equal in ‘worth’ but that we value people we like more than those we don’t even know or those do know but don’t like. It was just supposed to be an argument in favor of subjective reality versus idealistic theory but nevertheless a very dangerous idea to have, on a rhetorical level. Especially since the reason I raised this subject was a guy who was frequently verbally abused for his overweightness by almost everybody and T got very angry at me for my lack of idealism and for providing fuelwood to a flame not quite extinguished. I didn’t think much of it then but now I think there was a deeper meaning to her strong reaction.

This post has gotten much too long already, and I should probably have cut it short before it became convoluted so badly. It could have become several posts instead of just this one but I wanted to summarize as many things as possible about T, the girl that should have become my first girlfriend. I often asked myself how my life would have been different if I had asked her to go steady then and hadn’t let this opportunity go by.

It was the major turning point of my life and I’m still spinning even today.

yesterday I set the challenge level too high. And ended up escaping, as always. Then I spent the evening doing meaningless things instead of what I had rather done.

When I was going to end the day with my usual routine it didn’t feel right anymore. Maybe some pent up energy will help me next challenge. It will be a modest one.

My sent folder, it goes back to 1998. When I recently browsed through it to check the oldest mail I had sent to someone other than myself I ended up first reading the numerous mails written to a certain troll friend who I fed too much of the wrong food. But he never seemed to get fed up enough to stop trolling me back.

Even though I consider myself a better cook today I still approved of my general approach and thought, I wouldn’t have wanted it any other way. It confirmed my ideas, which while more developed, are still the same today. And I still think he’s to blame, not me.

We might, if you’d try a more direct approach.

Also, one of my mails in particular reminded me of a certain online crush. I had started to sound just like her. Seriously, when I reread that mail I thought she could have written it. I must have had drawn from her magic.

When Vanilla at work was baiting me to swing my ban hammer at her cheeky pirate ass I felt an aggro fist fuck brewing. When small girls started growing an emancipated black vagina her fist entered me fiercely.

My first online crush had never answered my oldest mail sent to the outside. I understood that my invading her unlinked pages had crept her out and I thought I must give her a chance to get to know me better, so maybe she would give me chance. I gave up lurking and displayed my usual ethic troll behavior.

If the mountain won’t come to the troll, the troll must go to the mountain.

It must have made quite an impression even though it was frustrating and made me quit AGFF altogether.

I always thought Mack Daddy had come to get revenge for her slain pal but since the retarded detectives keep accusing me of having more than one active handle on the same forum I also started to entertain the thought the mountain might have been the slut’s alt. I guess if I really were a slayer I would know for sure. But my better guess is your moe mojo is as strong as mine.

You can be my Ranma, too. Ramming it you will, for sure.

I’m not a slayer but a player. A super player. AGFF was advertised at Vestal’s site, the first net celeb I retroactively became a borderline stalker of, as he kept involving himself in websites worth reading. Vestal’s site was advertised in a certain British games mag. Another red shell itching to be let loose.