1513: Take a Moment

As you probably gathered from yesterday’s entry, I haven’t exactly been feeling on top of my game, so I had today as a quiet day of rest to try and recuperate a bit. I’m not quite sure exactly what has been getting me down — some combination of stress, exhaustion and achey muscles from overdoing it a bit in the gym, I think — but whatever it was, it pretty much knocked me out of action for most of this morning and I spent most of the day sitting on the sofa not doing very much.

Actually, that’s not quite true; a quiet day was the perfect opportunity to get stuck into The Witch and the Hundred Knight, which I’m reviewing later in the month and as such won’t be talking about on here just yet other than to say I’m enjoying it so far.

A quiet day is something we all need now and then, regardless of whether or not we’re actually feeling ill, run-down or some combination of the above. Weekends aren’t quite the same thing, because weekends often turn into “let’s do all the things we couldn’t do in the week”. You have to make a specific effort to have a relaxing weekend, otherwise you’ll magically find yourself at the shop, walking around town, digging the garden or something equally both banal and tiring.

The trouble with modern life is that it’s all too easy to fall into “the guilt trap” — feeling that doing “nothing” (i.e. taking the time to relax and recharge a bit) is somehow a waste of time. Different people feel this to varying degrees — I have one friend who feels guilty when he sits down to play computer games, for example, while I tend to feel it when I take a day off from work, as I did today. In my case, the guilt from taking a day off work stems from my time working as a teacher — there, if you took a day off, there was absolutely no doubt: you were negatively affecting someone else’s day, because they would have to cover your lesson. Not only that, but you’d still end up having to do some work even if you were on your deathbed; most schools expect you to provide some sort of cover work for you while you’re off. A more organised teacher than myself would have a bank of cover work already available but… yeah, no.

Anyway, suffice to say, despite feeling seriously grotty for pretty much the whole day, a restful day has done me the world of good. And while I’m not exactly feeling quite 100% again just yet, I at least feel a little more ready to face the world than I did this morning, which was, frankly, not at all — not helped by the fact that my coffee machine is presently broken. Boo, hiss and so on.

Anyway, that’s that. Off to bed for me, and back to the daily grind tomorrow.

1512: Fatigue

I joined the gym again yesterday, and got up early to go this morning. Now I feel like shit. I feel the two things are not coincidental, though the “feeling like shit” part, to be fair, was lingering in the background before the “going to the gym” part, so going to the gym probably did not help matters.

I am in a frustrating situation in that I clearly need to do some exercise — I’ve been feeling super-crappy recently, getting out of breath far too easily, and something I’ve done somewhere along the line feels like it’s knackered my left knee — but actually getting back into a good routine looks like it is going to be difficult. It will, of course, get easier over time assuming I keep it up, but it’s getting that initial burst of motivation going that is going to prove challenging, I feel.

My most positive experience with fitness was back when I worked at the Apple Store in WestQuay here in Southampton, and the gym and pool complex was both practically next door to where I worked, and on the way home. Consequently, it was pretty easy to just drop in, do some exercise either in the gym or the pool, then head home and have my whole evening ahead of me. It got me into good habits and made me feel reasonably good about the effort I was putting in — I’m not sure whether or not it actually helped me lose any weight, but part of it was just the mental wellbeing it brought about. I still wouldn’t have described myself as particularly “fit” but I was certainly a whole lot better than I am now.

The difficulty with being unfit is that it makes the process of actually getting fit infinitely more difficult to get started with. When it’s uncomfortable and painful to engage in exercise, the idea of voluntarily putting myself through that is not at the forefront of my mind. But I need to; hopefully it will be something that gets easier relatively quickly and helps me improve my motivation. Because right now there’s not a lot of it there — though some of that may be due to the fact that I don’t think I’m very well.

Going to get some good rest and then hopefully kick this thing off in earnest at some point in the next few days. I’m looking forward to having a swim, actually; it’s been quite a while since I had a good swim, and while I’m not very good at it — I’m painfully slow, even when doing “fast” strokes — I do find it to be quite a relaxing experience, so that could be the ideal thing to ease myself back into things.

Anyway, for now I’m off to bed. Apologies for the self-pitying nature of today’s post but, eh, you’re probably all used to it by now. G’night.

1511: Read This Post and I’ll Give You £1,000

No I won’t. Because… come on, fucking seriously? Do you really need me to explain why that is never, ever going to happen?

Apparently so, because last night’s #AskHannaForCash travesty on Twitter proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that social media is turning people into dribbling idiots.

For those not on Twitter, or who somehow missed this debacle while it was unfolding, here’s the gist.

Twitter user @princessthot posted that she was, for some reason, pissed off with her father, and promptly posted a screenshot that she claimed was his his PayPal account, which supposedly contained in excess of $23 million. She then offered to send money to anyone who retweeted her message or helped spread the word — an offer which would appear to be backed up by a number of people (who, it later transpired, were her followers) who offered messages of varying amounts of exuberance claiming that yes, she “really was” sending out money to anyone who asked for it.

The moment I saw this, I knew it stank. For one of just so many things wrong with this whole situation, who the hell keeps $23 million in a PayPal account — an unverified one, no less?

And yet, very few people — including, I was disappointed to see, some people I follow — seemed to think this was worth questioning, instead engaging with the situation on the grounds that it “couldn’t do any harm” or that it was “worth a try”. One person I follow said that they were “pretending it was real but staying out of it, because [they] want to think humans are awesome instead of terrible.”

Via the Daily Dot, here’s just how easy it is to fake a PayPal balance, incidentally:

Uh-huh. Okay. Still believe it? Still want to believe humans are awesome?

Humans are awesome, is the thing — just this week, two separate crowdfunding efforts paid for a little girl’s headstone and an indie game critic’s cancer treatment. But humans are also terrible, and social media is, regrettably, the natural habitat for some of the worst examples of everyday (i.e. not psychotic dictators or outright psychopaths) scumbags on the planet.

Anyone who’s used Facebook at all in the last few years will know that there’s an epidemic of blindly resharing things without checking to see whether they stand up to scrutiny. If something uses enough exclamation marks and capital letters, many more gullible users are convinced of its urgency and authenticity, and go on to spread it to their social network — and from there, the more gullible users from among their group of friends then spread it further and further and further.

#AskHannaForCash wasn’t as obviously harmful as claiming that Red Bull gives you brain tumours or that a non-existent breed of snake is going to freeze your blood (and, aside: please direct anyone who shares shit like that on your Facebook news feed to those two links and indeed the rest of Snopes at every opportunity). But it’s still harmful in its own way; the person behind the Twitter account, whoever he or she is, was purely seeking attention and validation through retweets and favourites — attach a number to anything and it is seen as social currency by some people, particularly those in their teens — and now, unsurprisingly, having revealed that the whole thing was a hoax (sorry, “social experiment” — the usual getout clause) they have come in for a torrent of abuse. That can’t be good for their mental wellbeing — something which I’d assume is already in something of a fragile state if they felt the need to pull such an elaborate ruse on the less discerning members of the social media sphere.

You my call it cynicism, but the attitude that “if it looks too good to be true, it probably is” will serve you well in the long term. Would you respond to an anonymous email claiming that you could come into possession of a huge amount of money just by providing some simple details? No — at least I hope not. Would you respond to a suspicious-looking Craigslist ad offering you a vast amount of cash for something simple? I imagine not. Would you let a random stranger into your house just because they promised to give you something amazing? I really hope you wouldn’t. So don’t do it on social media.

And come on. Do you really think an obviously bitter and twisted teenager “getting back” at their father by doling out their cash to random strangers is an example of humanity at its finest? Would you really trust that cash? Would you really trust that the details you’d have to hand over to obtain that cash wouldn’t find themselves into inappropriate hands?

If you would, then your Internet license is hereby revoked. Go and read a fucking book instead; it’ll be safer for everyone involved, including yourself.

1510: Hidden Ninpo

Been playing a bunch more Senran Kagura Burst over the last few days, and the more I play, the more I like it.

This is partly because of the interesting, well-told story that actually bothers to explore its characters in some degree of depth thanks to some lengthy visual novel sequences, but that’s not what I wanted to talk about today. No, instead, today I wanted to talk a little about how what initially appears to be a simple, straightforward brawler grows more and more interesting to play as you progress.

Senran Kagura Burst gives you five playable characters on each of the two “sides” of the story, plus some secret characters, I believe — haven’t unlocked them yet, but there’s a conspicuous question mark on the character select screen. Initially, these characters all have their own distinct characteristics — from the Hanzou path, Asuka has speedy attacks, Ikaruga has a long reach, Yagyuu hits hard, Katsuragi fights without weapons and Hibari hits lots of times — but they all “handle” fairly similarly. In other words, at the outset of the game you can pretty much button mash and get some good results.

Thanks to an RPG-style levelling system, however, the characters evolve as you play them in several ways. At various level boundaries, they unlock new “arts”, usually in the form of extending their usual combos, but as you play levels in one of two modes — Yang, which is “normal”, for want of a better term, and Yin (or “Frantic”), which sees the girls stripping off all their clothes (and defense) in exchange for a massive damage boost — you build up power in your Yang and Yin stats. Separately from your experience level, you unlock new Yin and Yang abilities as these statistics build up, until eventually fighting in Yin and Yang are as different as… well, you know. Playing a level in Yang sees you chaining together massive combos and getting ridiculous hit counts — potentially well into the thousands if you’re good at chaining knockouts together — while playing in Yin sees you steaming through, obliterating everything in your path. I finished the first boss level in the game in two seconds earlier thanks to a level 30 Asuka with a fully buffed up Yin stat.

The game doesn’t start with these two “modes” feeling different, however; no, it takes some time until the differences start to take effect — initially the only difference is in what the girls are wearing as you fight. But as you gain levels and increase the Yin and Yang stats, more and more depth is gradually added to the game until you’re playing something a lot more technical and interesting than what initially appeared to be a fun but fairly mindless button-basher.

This becomes particularly apparent as you work on several characters at once — the story often forces you to use specific characters the first time you take on a level, and so you’ll get some experience with all of them while undoubtedly finding favourites. Again, initially, all the characters feel very similar outside of their obvious differences in weaponry, but again, over time, they start to become more and more distinct. Asuka, for example, becomes a whirling death machine able to hit lots of enemies at the same time with a spinning attack, then launch them all into the air. Katsuragi, meanwhile, actually changes significantly from her low-level incarnation; rather than being able to launch enemies simply by hammering the Fast Attack button and unleashing a combo, Katsuragi begins requiring Heavy Attacks to be in the mix in order to successfully launch them. This forces you to play Katsuragi noticeably differently from the other characters — and I’m sure the others are different again, and I’ll come to discover their own quirks over time.

The pace at which all this happens is really good, too; you start getting additional techniques and new moves just as hammering “Y” repeatedly starts to get a little tiresome and you start wondering whether there’s anything more to it. It’s not long after that your rate of pressing the attack buttons slows down from the frantic pace it almost certainly begins at, and you start actually counting how many attacks you get in in order to use the moves you want to. In a funny way, it reminds me a bit of Bayonetta, which I still regard as the benchmark of 3D action games — there was never a moment in Bayonetta where I didn’t feel in control of the character, and that, likewise, gradually grew in complexity (and, consequently, in how rewarding it was to play) over time. Bayonetta is probably a superior game with more variety than Senran Kagura, but to get a similar vibe from it is testament to the latter’s satisfying brawling.

Anyway, if you’ve been hesitating over picking this up — perhaps you’re an American holding out for a possible physical release? — then, well, I’d strongly advise you to grab a copy if you enjoy a good brawler. And then help me bug Xseed to bring the Vita game to the West, too.

1509: Love Trouble

Having finished Clannad a while ago, I needed my next anime fix. So the logical thing to do seemed to be to ignore all the things I’ve bookmarked and queued on Crunchyroll, and the DVDs I’ve bought but haven’t watched yet, and instead check out something that I’ve often seen mentioned (largely by J-List, which tends to be my main source of “have you heard of…?” content when it comes to anime) but didn’t know a whole lot about: To Love-Ru, alternatively known as Toraburu (which actually makes a little more sense, as it’s supposed to be a pun on the word “trouble” — hence the title of this post — and “toraburu” is how you would pronounce the English word “trouble” using Japanese syllables).

As I say, I didn’t know much about To Love-Ru before I watched it other than it involved a cute pink-haired girl with a tail and was a tad fanservicey. Frankly, I stopped being ashamed of enjoying fanservicey content a long time ago — why deny that you like something? — and so, unlike many other people when confronted with the prospect of fanservice, didn’t see the latter aspect as a negative thing at all. Beyond that, I knew nothing. It looked and sounded like enjoyably lightweight fluff, though, and after the emotional turmoil that Clannad put me through, that’s exactly what I wanted.

Shh. Don't tell anyone Pete admitted to liking fanservice. — Shh. Don’t tell anyone Pete admitted to liking fanservice.

I’ve learned one thing in the few episodes I’ve watched so far, then: the “alien girl visits Earth” trope I was introduced to with the excellent if ridiculous Haiyore! Nyaruko-san is apparently widespread enough to be a genre in its own right. To Love-Ru has a lot in common with the aforementioned Nyaruko, as it happens, primarily in terms of the dynamic between the hapless protagonist Rito and Lala, the pink-haired, tail-sporting cute girl.

Rito, much like Nyaruko’s protagonist Mahiro, is a boy in his mid-teens who is clearly at the age where he’s just starting to get interested in girls. He’s had his eye on his classmate Haruna for some time, it seems, but just as he thinks he might build up the courage to talk to her, Lala bursts into his life in explosive fashion, and subsequently begins a chain of increasingly ridiculous events.

Lala is from the planet Deviluke, and through an unfortunate series of coincidences — her running away from home to avoid an arranged marriage, her ship being shot down over Earth, her teleporting herself free of the wreckage and ending up in Rito’s bathtub — ends up engaged to Rito. (Deviluke custom dictates that grabbing a woman’s breasts is a proposal; something that Rito did completely accidentally while his bathtub appeared to be exploding around him as Lala made her entrance.) What then follows is an increasingly farcical comedy as Rito attempts to come to terms with being engaged to a perpetually energetic alien princess with a habit of getting herself and everyone around her into trouble, and whether or not he has finally had his last chance to confess to Haruna.

Somewhat like Nyaruko again, there’s a fair amount of sexual tension between Rito and Lala, though this is largely due to the fact that Lala is completely unashamed of her body and appears to be completely lacking in the ability to feel embarrassed, even when, for various reasons, all her clothes fall off. Rito, meanwhile, seems to constantly find himself in compromising positions with Lala just as Haruna is walking around the corner, leading to plenty of comic misunderstandings (and embarrassment on Rito’s part) along the way.

Like many shows of this type, incidental characters often get some of the most memorable moments, and Lala’s personal bodyguard Zastin, an imposing figure clad in spiky armour, speaking in that stereotypical “badass” anime voice, is a particular highlight. After an initial misunderstanding when he first meets Rito, he subsequently has a habit of dropping in at unexpected moments; it’s always amusing when Rito shows up home from school and Zastin is there in full armour happily drinking tea with Rito’s younger sister.

The main draw to keep coming back, though, is Rito’s relationships with the various women in his life. It becomes clear very quickly that despite his protestations and his constant reassurances that he is in love with Haruna, he cares for Lala very deeply, even though she is a constant pain in the backside for him whenever she’s around. Likewise, Lala treats Rito with genuine affection — though being from a literally alien culture, she sometimes doesn’t treat him with the same degree of consideration that we humans typically expect from one another. And then on top of all that, it gradually becomes obvious that Haruna has feelings for Rito, too, but that Lala is constantly getting in the way between these two apparently star-crossed lovers.

Will they ever get together, or is Rito doomed to an admittedly fun-looking life with the overly energetic Lala? I have no idea as yet, since I’m only a short way into the series as a whole, but I’m looking forward to finding out.

1508: Learn Through Play

Learning through play is not just something for pre-schoolers; it’s something you can continue to do throughout your life, and I absolutely love it when you twig that it’s happened.

My earliest memories of genuinely learning something from a video game that wasn’t explicitly an “educational” title came in the mid-’90s when MicroProse was on top form churning out flight sim after flight sim. I learned that the F-19 wasn’t real and the F-117A was; I learned how aircraft carrier takeoffs and landings worked; I learned about the physics of flight — though admittedly, most flight sims that weren’t made by SubLOGIC and subsequently Microsoft didn’t have particularly accurate flight models — and I learned about real-world conflicts around the world, primarily in Libya and the Gulf.

More recently, my love of Japanese games has equipped me with a surprising amount of knowledge about Japanese culture and how people go about things over there. Shenmue taught me to take your shoes off when entering a Japanese person’s house; School Days taught me about saying itadakimasu before starting to eat; Persona taught me about national holidays and the way schools work in Japan. Granted, relatively little of that is what we might term “useful” knowledge (unless, of course, you’re going to live or work in Japan) but it’s still pretty cool to learn it.

My Japanese class this evening showed me that even Final Fantasy XIV has successfully taught me things, primarily through its seasonal events. Currently running, for example, is an event called “Little Ladies’ Day”, which I discovered is actually a real-life Japanese celebration in March known variously as Girls’ Day, Doll’s Day or hinamatsuri. In the questline for the seasonal event in the game, you’re tasked with taking a doll around and showing it to people, and references are often made to it being far too expensive for most people to afford. Coincidentally, the real-life dolls displayed as part of hinamatsuri celebrations are often elaborate creations that are well out of the price range of casual collectors.

This isn’t the first time Final Fantasy XIV specifically has taught me something like this; last month, the Valentine’s day celebrations had a distinctly Japanese flavour about it, too, particularly when it came to the whole “exchanging chocolates” thing. That and the costume you received as a reward for completing the questline there made you look like you were heading off to work at a maid café — no bad thing, indeed.

I find it pretty fascinating to consider video games being used in this way — to passively impart knowledge without you realising it — and am particularly inspired by the prospect this raises of my favourite entertainment medium being a brilliant means of encouraging understanding and empathy between different cultures. The industry as a whole still has a very long way to go with regards to diversity, of course — while it’s possible to learn a lot about Japanese culture through games, you’re less likely to be able to interactively immerse yourself in, say, Middle Eastern or African culture, or even subcultures from closer to home — but I have faith that over time, we will start to see more and more interactive experiences that genuinely have something to teach us, whether that’s knowledge we can actually apply in the real world, or simply a means of better understanding our fellow human beings. That’d be nice, wouldn’t it?

1507: Why I Went Back, and The Fear

I was going to write about something else today, but after Mr Russ Pitts kindly linked to a piece I wrote this time last year in an excellent article regarding online abuse and trolling, I felt I should probably elaborate on some things that have happened since then.

Firstly, despite what I said in that piece, it transpires that I did eventually go back to Twitter. Why? Because, to be frank, I was lonely; I have a lot of friends on that social network, and it was difficult to stay in touch with them via other means. It’s also a particularly convenient means of reaching out to people for my current profession.

So I went back. However, I did so under a new username and a new email address — and being much more mindful of what I shared in my 140-character bio.

This is in itself kind of silly, really; I have to effectively “silence” an aspect of my personality based on my previous experience, and cannot be fully open about the things I enjoy or love, because it might attract organised bile and vitriol not just towards me, but towards people close to me, too. Thankfully, on the few occasions I have happened to mention ponies recently, things have passed without incident — I suspect the charmers at the “GNAA” have moved on to new victims by now.

Thinking of all this brings up an important consideration that I don’t believe a lot of Internet commenters stop to think about before spraying vitriol over an article they disagree with: the fact that the words you read on the Internet are, for the most part, written by an actual person with a brain, a heart, a soul and, you know, feelings. People disagreeing over various things is a fact of life — the world would be a boring place if everyone felt the same way about everything, as The Lego Movie suggested in a somewhat hamfisted way — but it’s the way you go about those disagreements that is important to consider, because arguing your case in the wrong way — or wilfully misreading or misunderstanding something someone has said — can have a severe impact on their mental health.

I’ve been fairly open on this blog about my own self-esteem issues and occasional feelings of “imposter syndrome” — the feeling that one day, you might be “found out” and have everything taken away from you. I consider myself hugely lucky to have the job I have, working alongside people I have respected enormously for many years — since childhood in at least one case. There are days when I feel like I’m even quite good at what I do — but there are also days when I seriously consider throwing in the towel and going to do something “invisible” with the rest of the drones in the daily workforce.

The difference between those two types of day can often be just a single comment. Just one, regardless of how many otherwise positive or supportive comments you might have that day — one single, unpleasant, negative or abusive comment can completely ruin the day of someone like me.

I’m not saying all games journalists are like me — though from some conversation during the establishment of TakeThis.org, which Russ mentioned in his post, mental health issues of various descriptions are alarmingly widespread in our profession — but it’s surely just basic human decency to not, in effect, walk up to someone and start hurling abuse at them. And yet it happens. And not just from inconsiderate gamers angry about the score you gave Titanfall, either; sometimes even people who claim to be fighting for worthy causes can be needlessly aggressive, confrontational or even abusive, too. It’s a plague across the whole Internet.

This leads to what I call The Fear, which in turn leads to what Russ talks about in his post: the assumption that “do not engage” is the only way to deal with bullying, abuse or even just plain unreasonable comments. There are days when I write things and I’m genuinely afraid to look at the comment section — it’s an irrational fear, I know, but it’s what this age of anonymous abuse has wrought.

And what a ridiculous situation that is, when you think about it. People who write for a living — many of whom are considerably more talented than I am — are subject to The Fear on a daily basis. You never can tell what it is that’s going to attract the next batch of abuse, or death threats, or defamation, or simple spitefulness. It’s a horrible feeling.

And yet we still stick around, for the most part. Why? Because even amid all this, we love what we do, and we love engaging with those people who like to have a reasonable discussion about things without necessarily agreeing on everything — those people who, if we’re honest, make up the majority of our feedback. Sometimes we even become friends with those people.

But as I say, it only takes one nasty comment to undo all the good those people do for us. Just one.

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could live in a world where we could just love what we do without having to worry about The Fear ever again?

One day, perhaps. But there’s a long road ahead before we get there.

1506: A Girl Who Lives in a World That Has Ended

Did I say that I finally finished watching Clannad all the way through? I’m not sure I did. Anyway, yeah; I finally finished watching Clannad all the way through. And what a fantastic series it was.

Its reputation as “the crying anime” is well-earned, particularly during the second “After Story” season. After Story is just made up of moving scene after moving scene, delivering frequent emotional gutpunches without a moment’s remorse, though the first season certainly wasn’t averse to all this.

I particularly enjoyed it because it didn’t feel the need to spell absolutely everything out. It was mostly realistic and down-to-earth, but there were occasional subtle suggestions that there was something peculiar or possibly supernatural going on. It never took over the story — and, in fact, it was never truly explained conclusively — but it was there. It gave the whole thing a very strange atmosphere throughout; as I’ve mentioned before, even during fairly happy, joyful scenes there was a strange undercurrent of melancholy about the whole thing.

It helps that the show is held up by a strong, interesting cast, each of whom have their own stories to tell. Stars of the show are, naturally, protagonist Tomoya and heroine Nagisa — Tomoya is relatable and empathetic without being bland, while Nagisa has a few moe appeal elements without taking things too far — but the supporting cast are worthwhile additions, too.

Tomoya’s friend Sunohara provides some often-needed comic relief while dealing with his own personal struggles. Twin sisters Kyou and Ryou make up the tsundere and “sweet, shy girl” part of the cast nicely, with the twist that both of them may or may not have their own interest in Tomoya. Tomoyo, who is disappointingly absent from the series after it moves on from the cast’s school life and into adulthood, is an ass-kicking student council president-type who doesn’t take any shit from anyone. Kotomi is a wonderfully flawed genius with an airheaded personality (and a total inability to play the violin) but a keen mind.

Even the characters who are seen even less frequently are well-defined and memorable. Particular highlights are Nagisa’s parents Akio and Sanae, who are polar opposites in almost every way, and Sunohara’s sister Mei, who is simply adorable, but who also cares for her brother without getting into the incestuous territory that many shows stray into.

In a way, the manner in which various characters drift in and out of the “main” cast of the show is reflective of real life. After all, how many people you knew at high school are you still in touch with? Relatively few, I’d guess, but you’d still have a good catch up with them if you happened to be in the same place, I imagine. The same is true of Clannad’s cast and unfolding story — it’s Tomoya and Nagisa’s tale primarily, but people come and go as their respective lives grow and change.

Interestingly, one of the most interesting things the series does is outside of the main story arc, and it betrays the show’s roots as a visual novel. At the end of both the first and second series, there’s a “bonus” episode in which we get to see a “what if?” scenario where Tomoya gets together with someone else — Tomoyo in the first series, and Kyou in the second. Kyou’s was a particularly good episode, and it actually made me want to see more of her; she was one of my favourite characters throughout the show, and should I ever get the opportunity to play the original visual novel in English — I’m not entirely sure if the fansub project was ever completed — I have a sneaking suspicion she’d be the route I went for first of all.

Anyway. It was a sometimes painful, emotional struggle to make it through the complete series, but it was excellent. Memorable characters, touching moments, beautiful artwork and a satisfying conclusion; it’s an anime well deserving of its “classic” status, and if you think you can deal with All the Feels, I’d recommend you check it out when you get a chance.

1505: Farewell to Lucy Rat

We had to say goodbye to the late Lara rat’s former cagemate Lucy today.

She’d always suffered to a certain degree with respiratory issues — she was a very sneezy, snuffly rat — but she had never let things get on top of her, and had always been full of energy and life. Even well after she was out of her “childhood”, I continued to think of her as “the childish one”; “the silly one” while Lara was “the mature one”.

This is silly of course, since they were both rats and both consequently prone to acting like little furry psychopaths at a moment’s provocation, but still I couldn’t escape the personalities that I’d ascribed to them.

We first got Lucy shortly after Lara’s first cagemate Willow died very young. We didn’t know much about keeping rats at that time — still don’t, probably — but it was abundantly clear very quickly why people said that rats were sociable creatures, and that you should keep them at the very least as a pair. Lara was very lonely after Willow died, losing nearly all of her energy and spending most of her time just sitting in the plastic “house” we hung from the cage’s ceiling, staring out at us. It was heartbreaking, so it wasn’t that long before Andie came home with another little box from the pet store, and Lara had herself a new cagemate.

Lucy was incredibly shy when we first got her. She spent her first few days in the cage attempting to hide in the corner, burying her head in the bedding on the floor. This didn’t stop Lara fussing around her, though; we were worried that the two might not get along, since they weren’t from the same group, family or whatever, but it turned out it was the opposite that was the case — Lara cared for her a little too much if anything. Eventually, we put Lucy in a carrying box but still inside the cage so she could have a little peace from her doting cagemate — Lara, meanwhile, became adorably frantic with worry, trying desperately to get into the box and to her new friend.

Over time, Lucy came out of her shell — though not before she gave us a scare one day by playing dead very convincingly — and started to take on the cheeky personality we came to know her as. She’d harass Lara, occasionally giving her a playful nip on the ear or getting in her way when she was trundling around the floor, but it was clear the two of them cared for each other very much. When Lara hurt her leg and was limping for a day or two, Lucy laid off her a bit and instead stayed with her, huddling around her for warmth and looking to all intents and purposes like a little furry nursemaid. As soon as Lara was back on her feet, however, it was business as usual once again.

When Lara died, we saw Lucy start to behave in much the same way as Lara did when Willow died. She became uncharacteristically lethargic, retreating into the hiding places in the cage and not coming out unless we specifically poked her. We tried to give her as much love as we could, but it was clear that while she appreciated our attention, it was the companionship of her own kind that she was looking for.

So it was that we came into ownership of Socks and Clover, two much younger rats. Again, we were a little worried that Lucy might not take to them, but they became friends very quickly. Socks in particular took to following Lucy around and copying her; it was very cute indeed.

A few times in the last couple of months, Lucy had become very wheezy and was obviously having trouble breathing. It worried us each time we saw it, but it usually passed in an hour or two and was normally a sign that she’d simply been overexerting herself — she wasn’t as young as she used to be. Last night, she had an episode that worried me; with good reason, since she was still puffing and wheezing today, and clearly didn’t have a lot of energy at all. We took her to the vets — tell them your pet is having breathing problems and they tend to magically have a same-day appointment available, it seems — and sadly we came to the conclusion that Lucy was in pain, miserable and unlikely to get better, even with treatment.

And so we said our goodbyes and put her to sleep. It is very sad, as always — both Andie and I have had several good cries over our dear departed little furry friend — but it’s better that she’s released from her suffering rather than being forced to live on in obvious pain and discomfort. Besides, now wherever she is, she can catch up with Lara and get back to biting her ears for all eternity. Won’t that be nice, Lara?

Lucy now joins Lara buried in the small patch of garden behind our building. In a way, I’m glad they got the chance to be together, but it’s still sad we had to say goodbye to her the way we did. As cute and friendly and curious as rats are — they’re wonderful pets; I would have never considered them before we got Lara and Willow, but now I’m a total “convert” as it were — their time on this Earth is tragically short, and so before long you find yourself having to say goodbye to them.

Goodbye, Lucy. Andie and I will treasure the happy memories you gave us, and we hope you’re in a happy place now. Say hello to Lara for us, and we hope we brought you as much joy as you brought us.

1504: Life and Hometown

As promised (well, suggested) I booted up Senran Kagura Burst for the first time last night, and I’ve felt a strong urge to keep going back over the course of today. The reason? It’s one hell of a lot of fun. Who’d have thought it?

The reason I like it so much is not, as you might conjecture, all the bouncing boobies (though I won’t lie, the various members of the main cast all push my buttons in various different ways — why deny it?) but rather the fact it plays like a modern-day brawler. Streets of Rage at turbo speed, if you will; the only thing that’s really missing to make it into a truly authentic arcade brawler is a cooperative two-player mode, which appears to be sadly lacking.

Still, this isn’t a massive omission on a handheld game, and particularly not when there’s seemingly so much to work your way through. There are two hefty stories to play through, each with five different playable characters, and when you’ve completed each level you can go back and replay it with any of the other characters in order to earn rankings and experience points for them. And then you can play it with each character in “Frenzy” mode, whereby they do 750% more damage but take considerably more damage on account of the fact that all their clothes have fallen off and they’re fighting in their swimsuits. In other words, you can play each level up to ten times altogether — five for each character normally, then again with each of them in Frenzy mode — and have an enjoyable experience each time.

Like the classic brawlers of yore, Senran Kagura’s controls are simple and straightforward, but can lead to satisfyingly ridiculous combos. Senran Kagura’s main contributions to the ridiculousness are the “Aerial Rave” skill, whereby landing a combo on enemies makes a green circle appear, and tapping the A button at this point launches them into the air for further punishment, and the Hidden Ninja Art attacks, each of which are themed around an animal and cause varying amounts of disaster for the enemies around or in front of you depending on which one you unleash.

There’s some lightweight RPG mechanics in there, too; completing levels earns you experience points, which levels the girls up, and new Hidden Ninja Arts become available every so often. Moreover, “Yin” and “Yang” bars build up depending on how many levels you’ve played in Normal or Frenzy mode, with various benefits (and potential shortcomings, particularly in the case of Yang) becoming available to you as these bars increase. It looks, then, as if the game will gradually grow in complexity as it progresses — though from the look of things, it will still remain pleasantly accessible.

I haven’t got that far into the game’s story yet — I’ve been having too much fun challenging the first few levels with all the characters — but so far the cast seems to be a loveable bunch, each with their own distinct personalities. Many of them are anime trope-tacular, of course, but I have no problem with this whatsoever; tropes become popular for a reason, after all — and I’m particularly intrigued to see how their personal stories unfold over the course of the game, as I know that those who particularly enjoy the series see the character development as a real highlight of the whole thing.

Further thoughts to follow, I’m sure; for now, I’m off to kick some Shinobi ass!