Exploring the Spectrum of Pleasure: Guilt in Narutaru (NSFW)

[NO SPOILERS IN THIS POST]

Previously I’ve talked about distinguishing the guilt in pleasure from high culture/low culture dichotomies; how one may feel guilty for enjoying say, the fanservice in shows like Kampfer, as if such a one would really prefer to watch Porco Rosso instead (or something more high-brow or culturally significant). This is not the kind of guilt that I prefer to talk about here.

I distinguished one kind of guilt in taking pleasure in empathizing or even rooting for characters who do evil and villainous things — as I have for Ikari Gendo in Neon Genesis Evangelion. This time I want to talk about taking pleasure in witnessing (via media) cruel and terrible things particularly to pre-pubescent girls in Narutaru.

The Stolen Sky of Alto Saotome: Macross Frontier 13 (Memory of Global)

The core motivation of Alto, from the very beginning of the narrative, is to fly in a big sky. Growing up in the Frontier Colony all his life, he’s never seen a sky higher than two kilometers. This is so important to him, that he is perfectly willing to become a soldier (risking his own life, prepared to take others’ away) just for the opportunity to fly.

Sheryl made it happen for him, by requesting him to escort her to her would-be concert at Gallia IV. Sheryl did not enjoy the fruits of her labor, because:

• The Zentraedi malcontents staged a coup.
• Her health failed her.
• Ranka rescued everyone and saved the day by performing her own impromptu concert.
• Ranka ended up going on a date with Alto in the skies of Gallia IV.

It’s starting to really suck being Sheryl. But here we talk about Alto and his sky, and how Macross distinguishes between dogfights and battles in space and those within an atmosphere. It’s pretty cool.

Well Here’s To Us……(An Introduction To Civilization IV And Why It’s Become My Favourite Game Of All Time)

Absolute Power You Say.........

About a month ago I found myself coming into some extra money so I decided to treat myself to something and on a whim I bought the Civilization IV pack off of steam and fired it on up.  Previously I had played Civilization II during high school but was too young and inexperienced in strategy and resource management to be very good at it, and I had tried to install Civ IV on my old PC when it first came out only to watch as it chugged like my mother at bar (basically impossibly slow) and become more or less unplayable after about 30 seconds.  Now with a faster PC I felt I might get to enjoy the experience and felt that Civ IV would be able to give me the chance to do something I’ve always wanted to do…..lead an Empire to glorious victory and total dominance of the globe over an epic period of time while micromanaging EVERYTHING along the way.  It’s all here and it’s proven to be pretty much as close to the perfect game for me in just over a month, far surpassing my previous all time favourite of Fire Emblem:  Seisen No Keifu which stood in it’s place in my heart for close to a decade (I still love you Fire Emblem don’t worry).

With ghostlightning’s blessing I’ve decided to start a short series on Civilization IV and why I love the game so much, and tonight with some spare time (which will also be spent playing the game of course) I figured I’d get things started.  Truthfully I coul talk all day about the intracies of Civilization IV and in 1000’s of words still not totally sum up what it’s like to actually play and experience the game’s depth and scope, but I have other things to do tonight as well so I just want to briefly talk a bit about the things that make the game awesome to me and hopefully in the process convince a few people to give it a try.

My Gundam is better than your Gundam – DKJ’s Top 10 Gundam Moments

I’ve been a fan of the Gundam franchise for about ten years now.  Starting with, not surprisingly, Gundam Wing.  Then during my early years of anime infatuation and mass DVD buying, the Gundam SEED series.  From there came the show that really made me fall in love with the metaverse, Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam.  After that, it became a frantic love affair with all that is Gundam, anxiously trying devour as much media and information as possible. This post is a testament to that.  A testament to all that I’ve truly appreciated in Gundam and all it can be.  The moments that made me cry, the moments that left me in awe and even the moments that made me giddy like a little kid.

It’s a very personal listing as well.  To get on here, these moments had to be ones that I could, and have watched over and over again without losing that feeling that made me love them.  They had to be important, by that I mean that it had to matter not only to the plot, but to the series, that era and Gundam as a whole.  I also wanted to make sure they were all diverse.  Being true to myself meant that not every series series or timeline would be represented, but I believe that these moments are good representations of the best of Gundam.  They’re not ordered in reference to their quality or importance, either.  It’s just a list of the moments I cherish.  And finally, this should go without saying, but there are MASSIVE spoilers involved in most of this post.  Don’t tread any further unless you’re a Gundam veteran.

We Can Only Watch One: Picking Out a Show ONLY by its Opening Credits

We pretend: Flipping channels looking for anime to watch, we see two OPs on two different stations. We know nothing about these shows (we actively avoid researching them; at most, we’ve seen adaptations/dubs/raws in part but this is rare). Based on what we see, we have to pick one show to watch together.

This will be a series of some sorts here on WRL. Our shows for today: Fang of the Sun Dougram, and Sentai Mecha Xabungle. (Note, there will be a broader sample of anime genres in future installments).