#there are some other groups probably but these are like. the ones on japanese wikipedia that arent idol groups doing stage shows

[vocaloidfactoftheday]

Have You Seen This Lost GUMI Anime Pilot?

This is a bit of an unusual post for this blog, but I think I may have come across a case of lost media involving an anime pilot starring GUMI. It's possible that it exists on the Internet, and I hesitate to declare this as "lost media," but I cannot find it anywhere, and I figured that a post on this blog was the best way to see if anyone has any leads or extra info.

The anime is titled "Koisuru Dessan Ningyo," with an English title of "Do Drawing Dolls Dream of Love?" I don't know the runtime of the pilot, but I think it was most likely around 5-7 minutes. I believe this could have been the first instance of a Vocaloid being cast in a main voice acting role (perhaps, the first one cast in any voice acting role). I'm not completely sure if they actually used the Megpoid voicebank, or had Megumi Nakajima voice act as GUMI, but the way AnimeAnime (Japanese anime news site) describes it, it seems like it may have been the former. In either case, the character that GUMI portrays in the anime is a character that is clearly made to resemble her.

(These are the only screenshots I could find that come from the pilot, but more may exist.)

The main character is a doll (who I'm not sure is named), who models for a girl's drawings before eventually falling in love with her. I don't believe GUMI's character has a name, but she plays a main role as the girl the doll falls in love with.

Where It Was Seen

The pilot aired on NHK TV on January 9, 2014, during late night (possibly just after midnight?). It aired alongside another pilot as part of the program Aoyama 1seg Kaihatsu. This was a sort of tournament, where two pilots were broadcast once a month for three months, and viewers would vote for which pilot they liked best. Then, the three winners would go against each other in a final round, where the pilot with the most votes would get picked up to become a series. (I think they held this tournament once a year from 2010 to 2014 or 2015, though I don't know if it was the exact same every time.) The broadcast was 25 minutes long for each of the first three rounds, with the first half dedicated to showing both pilots and the second half dedicated to presentations about each pilot. (This is why I think this pilot was around 5-7 minutes, though I'm not sure exactly how much time commercial breaks would take up.) For a few years, including 2014, the program was hosted by the now-disbanded Japanese girl group E-girls (no relation to what you and I know as "e-girls." in their case the E stands for "exile.")

According to the official Tumblr account, karappo-heart, this pilot won the first round of the competition! It probably didn't make it out of the finals, though, since it didn't get picked up for a series. It's also possible that it did win, but some other issues prevented its production. In any case, the Tumblr account hasn't been updated since the first round ended. While this contest was going on, three shorts were apparently available to watch on NHK's website, but they have since been removed. I think at least one of the shorts was web-exclusive. I haven't been able to find info on who actually won the finals, or even what GUMI's short won against.

People Involved

The doll is portrayed by a masked dancer refererred to as Hitori de Dekiru Mon. I can't find much info about him online, but I think his real name is Takemura Ryohei. (I'm not sure because that part on his Japanese Wikipedia article has a "citation needed" label.) AnimeAnime specifically refers to his role as being the doll's "human form," though it's possible he provided voice acting too. AnimeAnime points out the unusual nature of having a human portray a doll, and having a Vocaloid portray a human.

Masanori Okamoto (who also wrote the screenplay and produced the pilot) animated the pilot with the pixilation technique, using time-lapse pictures to show movement of objects and people (this may have included live-action photos of the doll's actor portraying a "human form" of the doll). It seems like it may have blended stop motion/puppetry and live action stills with traditional animation? This is an example of Okamoto's work from around the same time, which seems like it might have been made in a similar style:

The third known person to have worked on this is none other than Vocaloid producer sasakure.UK. He composed the theme song, which of course features GUMI, and a few other songs to be used in potential future episodes. If you're a big fan of his, the anime title may sound familiar to you, as he released 3 of these songs (though both news sites I looked at, AnimeAnime and Anime News Network, say he made 4 total) plus their instrumentals as an EP under the same title. You can listen to the whole thing on YouTube!

I think this EP uses GUMI's VOCALOID3 voicebanks (the first sounds like either Native or Sweet, the second one sounds like Adult or Power (if it even is GUMI--it sounds more like IA to me, but sasakure.UK labeled it as a GUMI song so I kinda have to take his word for it) and the third sounds like Sweet). If that's the case, her V3 voicebanks would have probably been used for the voice acting, too.

Places I've Looked

After some Internet searches only garnered me a few screenshots, I decided to see if there was a way I could ask sasakure.UK himself about the short. I believe he has a contact form on his website, which I used to send a message in both Japanese and English (in case Google Translate was more helpful to him than my incoherent Japanese). This was back in May of this year and I never received a response. (Since I used a website contact form and not a direct email, I don't have the message I sent him anymore. I guess that's lost media now too.)

It occured to me while writing this post that I never contacted the animator himself, Masanori Okamoto. While his Vimeo and YouTube pages don't have the pilot, and his Twitter and Tumblr links haven't been updated in several years, he does have an email address listed. I sent him a message (in English because I was too sick and tired to try to write a coherent email in Japanese and I don't like waiting to do these things). I'm not sure he still checks his email since his social media that I've found has all been inactive for years, but I will post an update if he responds.

I know that this pilot is not on the NHK website, or, again, on the animator's YouTube or Vimeo pages. I also could not find it on the Internet Archive.

Now, I don't expect anyone reading this to have saved this on their computer and kept it there since 2014. But with this post, my goal is simply to make more people aware that this exists at all, and I'd also like to learn more about it myself (such as whether or not the pilot won in the finals after all, how much animation actually exists for it, if any more screenshots are out there, etc.)

Thank you for reading such a long post! Please feel free to correct any info I got wrong, or add on to this post with any knowledge you might have about this lost pilot!

(also sorry for any typos :()

[haru-dipthong]

罠英語・Trap Words pt 1

和製英語（わせいえいご）are Japanese words that have some origin in English, but have been appropriated by the Japanese speaking community. Often, if converted from katakana to English, they won’t be real English words (which can sometimes lead to funny mistranslations on signs).

シャーペン → shar-pen?? ❌ → mechanical pencil ✅

トランプ → trump?? ❌ → playing cards ✅

ベビーカー → baby car?? ❌ → stroller/pram ✅

However, there is a subcategory of 和製英語 which is particularly insidious, as a japanese learner. I’m gonna call them 罠英語 - trap words. They appear to be a normal English word simply converted into kanakana, but although they look like a regular old loan word, they are actually a Japanese misinterpretation or reinterpretation of an English word.

マンション → mansion ❌ → condominium/apartment ✅

The most well known example is probably マンション. Each of these words has a history which explains how they became trap words. In マンション’s case, it was business. In the 1960s, Japanese developers were building luxury housing complexes, but wanted to differentiate them from other housing complexes that had a low-class image, like public housing.¹ As far as I can tell, it wasn’t just one company, and マンション wasn’t a brand name. They created a whole new word, borrowing from English. Since then, the word マンション evolved to have a wider and wider scope, now including not just luxury housing complexes but any housing complex.

ジュース → juice ❌ → juice/soft drink/sports drink/mixer ✅

This one drives me up the wall because of how different it is from English. ジュース is a huge umbrella term which includes Coke, Aquarius, ramune, flavoured milk(!!), and actual orange juice. It does NOT include coffee, tea, anything with alcohol, or lemon juice(!!). Why not lemon juice? Because ジュース kinda means “beverage”. You don't usually drink lemon juice straight, so it’s not ジュース. Instead, you call lemon juice レモン汁. There are plenty of recipes on the japanese recipe sharing website Cookpad for レモンジュース, and most of them involve diluting actual lemon juice in carbonated water and mixing it with sugar or honey.²

Apparently, up until the 1960s (〜昭和40年), the word ジュース was not regulated, which meant Japanese brands were free to label fruit flavoured drinks as ジュース, even if they had no actual fruit juice in them. This changed in late 1967, when, thanks to pressure from consumer groups, the Japanese Agricultural Standard Law (JAS法) was revised to include a regulatory definition of the word ジュース: 「果汁100%のもの以外は、『ジュース』という名称で販売で��ない」(100% fruit juice).³ Even the wikipedia article for ジュース defines it using the JAS definition.⁴ However, the word ジュース had already entered common usage before the law came into effect, and it’s still used today to mean any non-coffee, non-tea, non-alcoholic, sweet beverage, especially ones sold from a vending machine. I believe the prevalence of vending machines may have led to the spread of this word. Another reason ジュース has not been adopted in common use may be that Japanese already has a word for fruit juice - 果汁. Languages dislike redundancy, so it’s natural that one of the two would have changed to have a different meaning. Many native Japanese speakers are unaware of the regulatory definition⁵, (and even then, regulations shouldn’t and don’t dictate how language is used in everyday conversation) so it’s important to be careful!

ノート → note ❌ → notebook ✅

In Japanese, it’s rare that a common word will be longer than 4 kana sounds long (aka morae). Similarly in English, we don’t end to use words that are over 4 syllables long very often. In English, the word “notebook” is 2 syllables, nice and short. But when you convert it into Japanese, it becomes ノートブック, a whole 6 morae! No one has time to say all that! Since English can fit multiple consonants into a single syllable but Japanese can’t, when converting to Japanese, lots of additional vowels get added in, which extends the word. That’s why loan words in Japanese tend to get abbreviated: ビル for building, リモコン for remote control, ティアキン for “Tears of the Kingdom”.⁶ It’s only natural that ノートブック would get abbreviated to ノート. It’s just an unlucky coincidence that “note” happens to be an English word as well. The word for "note" in Japanese is メモ!

This is why the Death Note is called a note, even though it’s not a note, and also gives us this slightly おかしい translation.

I’m keen to post more about these trap words since dictionaries are often quite prescriptivist about the meanings, and it’s hard to get a good idea of what the word means without talking to Japanese people. I also find the histories quite interesting. Let me know if you’re interested! I have a feeling these words (besides ジュース) may be kinda common knowledge, but I hope the explanations were interesting! I think next time I'll talk about some ones that are less commonly known.

[1]: https://www.homes.co.jp/cont/buy_mansion/buy_mansion_00137/ [2]: https://cookpad.com/search/レモンジュース [3]: https://www.meg-snow.com/customer/center/communication/pdf/center12.pdf [4]: https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/ジュース [5]: https://macaro-ni.jp/36654 [6]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_abbreviated_and_contracted_words

[milfstalin]

@chexcastro just wanted to add my thoughts to that ask on assimilated ethnic groups in turkey and their potential wellbeing under a dotp:

we can examine an example of that actually in practice with a ethnic minority that was highly assimilated into the majority (though, the history is obviously not 1 to 1 with turkey's, especially considering the role that the qing dynasty played in china's history + the japanese imperialist manchukuo puppet state)

12ft unpaywalled link

this was published in 2013. ignoring like, the typical anti-communist tropes, monarchist RETVRNism and other weird shit in the article

A few universities have revived the study of the nearly extinct Manchu language, which is more like Mongolian than Chinese. There are culture seminars to study the dance, food and music of Manchuria, even Internet forums. Many people have also begun using their Manchu family names, even if few are legally registered like little Yehenala Yiyi.

Not all Manchus can trace their lineage to emperors, but many have ties to the former imperial bureaucracy. (In fact, a large number of descendants found jobs in the civil service or in state-owned companies, many joining the Communist Party.) In far western China, near the Kazakhstan border, descendants of a garrison of Qing soldiers still speak a dialect of Manchu, among the few native speakers left in China.

Unlike some other Chinese minorities, Manchus are not exempt from China’s limits on family size, although they do get preferential treatment on college entrance exams as part of an affirmative action program for minorities.

actually one of my parents had the option to fill in that ethnic classification and boost their score on the gaokao, but they chose not to bc they didnt identify with it

Courses in the Manchu language are now offered at Ethnic Minorities University in Beijing and at other schools around China. Because the Manchus have no separatist aspirations, they are considered a model minority by the Communist Party, and the government has encouraged some elementary schools in northeastern China, the heartland of old Manchuria, to offer the language so it doesn’t die out.

lmao

Nowadays, fewer than 100 people are believed to be native speakers of Manchu, the largest cluster of them in a single isolated village, Sanjiazi, in northeastern China.

“Only the old people can really speak the language,” said Shi Junguang, a part-time Manchu-language teacher who learned from his grandmother and has about 70 students.

So few people can read Manchu that many Qing Dynasty documents have gone untranslated, scholars say.

Despite their enthusiasm for Manchu culture, little Yiyi’s family has not gone so far as to study the language.

“It is not very useful,” grandfather Ye Longpei said sadly. “Without language there is no ethnicity … which is why our ethnicity will probably die.”

weird thing to say tbh. the cpc doesn't categorize ethnic groups just based off of language alone, that's just one data point of many it used to make those decisions for recognition- they also consider lifeways & location & customs/traditions

+ from wikipedia:

In 1952, after the failure of both Manchukuo and the Nationalist Government (KMT), the newborn People's Republic of China officially recognized the Manchu as one of the ethnic minorities as Mao Zedong had criticized the Han chauvinism that dominated the KMT.[128]: 277  In the 1953 census, 2.5 million people identified themselves as Manchu.[128]: 276  The Communist government also attempted to improve the treatment of Manchu people; some Manchu people who had hidden their ancestry during the period of KMT rule became willing to reveal their ancestry, such as the writer Lao She, who began to include Manchu characters in his fictional works in the 1950s.[128]: 280  Between 1982 and 1990, the official count of Manchu people more than doubled from 4,299,159 to 9,821,180, making them China's fastest-growing ethnic minority,[128]: 282  but this growth was only on paper, as this was due to people formerly registered as Han applying for official recognition as Manchu.[128]: 283  Since the 1980s, thirteen Manchu autonomous counties have been created in Liaoning, Jilin, Hebei, and Heilongjiang.[137]

Since the 1980s, the reform after Cultural Revolution, there has been a renaissance of Manchu culture and language among the government, scholars and social activities with remarkable achievements.[11]: 209, 215, 218–228  It was also reported that the resurgence of interest also spread among Han Chinese.[141] In modern China, Manchu culture and language preservation is promoted by the Chinese Communist Party, and Manchus once again form one of the most socioeconomically advanced minorities within China.[142] Manchus generally face little to no discrimination in their daily lives, there is however, a remaining anti-Manchu sentiment amongst Han nationalist conspiracy theorists. It is particularly common with participants of the Hanfu movement who subscribe to conspiracy theories about Manchu people, such as the Chinese Communist Party being occupied by Manchu elites hence the better treatment Manchus receive under the People's Republic of China in contrast to their persecution under the KMT's Republic of China rule.[143]

if i may theorize: the general uplifting of people from poverty as well as the campaigns to raise literacy and improve peoples' health and keep them fed as well as actively attacking majority chauvinism, on both the base and superstructural level and encouraging ethnic cultural development, coupled as one whole, may indeed lead to de-assimilation or a revival of ethnically cleansed or assimilated minority groups

[deuterium51614]

Boueibu Rewatch Part 10

Onto HAPPY KISS!

Episode One

Love how Osamu, who turned into a bird, shares a VA with Cure Wing. They even have similar hair!

They never changed the spelling to Martha, though I think they did for later episodes after their eyecatch...

Do you think it's Goura or Yumoto chopping wood?

Always annoyed me that they spelled Karurusu as "Karls" since it's an onsen name. (And later in the season he does get a nickname...which I think is Karu?)

The music when the council approached the monster sounded like it had lyrics? Never noticed that before.

Wait. The questioning if there was a Defense Club. Nanao saying the transformations could be a dream. Karurusu saying the thing about their "sentence" but correcting himself. What if HK was a lotus-eater dream with Love boys this whole time, and the movie will lead into it? Like they're being punished for some reason...?

(Anyway, is "boe" the SFX of a voice crack in puberty?)

Honyara Land kinda gave me some Moh continent vibes to the point I thought they recycled part of the castle, but I just looked back at Gekkan Mousou and they didn't. (I was thinking of the dome around the continent, and the castle's dome reminded me of it.)

Episode Two

Love Martha's blushy face at Furanui's human form.

Wait, did Ata tap his chest during the transformation to put the shield on?

So Furanui can read thoughts...

My mom says the ES song sounds like Kashmir. (I'm relistening to both now to compare, and it does lol)

Anyway, we always called the monsters in Love the Loveless (which I realized on my rewatch that they're not actually called that in canon), but I don't think there's a consensus on what we call the HK monsters? The Unhappy?

Wish we got an OST, the song used during this battle after the monster changes forms is a bop.

I always thought this episode's battle took place during the same day as the first episode, but that's probably wrong...

Happy Hour acts as the Love Attack and Love Shower/Fountain... I get they probably condensed it for the longer transformations, but I wonder what they would've called an attack if Happy Hour was the healing move. My first thought was Happy Pill, to fit in with the euphemisms lol

Episode Three

"HAPPY Ice Cream" is an episode I always feel falls towards the end of the series, like episode nine, and unless I'm actively thinking about it, I'm surprised to see it as the third episode...

I feel for Hajime. One of my bosses keeps misspelling my name in the group chat, even after being called out on it 😭

Don't think I ever realized Ata's ice cream was Kyoutarou's colors lol (And since Nanao gave it to him, you know it was deliberate.)

Always found it funny that this monster uses terms for things that I use other names for (brain freeze and bookmarks lol) and disappointed they don't say "bread clip" or "bread tag" (I use those interchangeably). Though looking at the Wikipedia for all of these, the Japanese terms are more on-the-nose. (Like in Japanese, it really is "bag closure" in katakana.)

Part of me I guess feels the lesson could've been tweaked from Hajime not being good at making an impression, and having no one in school know his name, and being told "isn't it better to be remembered for what you do, rather your name?" to having him just not having the effort to make an impression but still expecting people to know him. Then he would use incorrect terminology during the battle and claim it's right, then get corrected every time. The lesson could have been "you should get to know others, because why are they going to remember your name if you don't care to learn theirs?"

And I don't know. I just feel that would've been a better lesson. They still could've had Kyoutarou mess up at the end, with Hajime putting in effort to introduce himself, and Kyoutarou zoning out, since the theme does seem to be he doesn't fully commit to the lessons he's preaching to the monsters. (See: episode one when he makes Osamu run off crying.)

Only realizing it now that this is, I think, the shrine from S2E8? (Which by the way I quickly turned on and played for Yumoto's countdown this New Year. Next time I'll have to figure out the timing to watch the full episode with the countdown lines up.)

Kyoutarou went back and got a brand new ice cream, even though they were out of ingredients lol

Hajime had a lil squeak when he turned back that was adorable.

I like the chill version of Happy Ready. (Would you say it's bossa nova? I'm bad with picking out most genres...)

Anyway, like with episode three, if it weren't for the trailer, I would have no idea the treasure hunting episode comes next. It's weird, I can recite the episode orders for all of Love easily, as well as Fairy Ranmaru and most of Robihachi, but when it comes to Happy Kiss, I draw a blank. (Gekkan Mousou gets a pass, since it came out early 2024 and I haven't done a rewatch yet.)

So next week is the treasure hunting episode and who knows what? (I could go on the Wiki...but I'm gonna go in blind lol)

[felixcloud6288]

Higurashi: Festival Accompanying Chapter 6

I wonder how much new research Takano had done that could turn around people into being interested in her grandfather's research. Did she manage to make some great breakthroughs that opened up interest in behavioral changes caused by parasites. Or maybe she's getting research support because she's made herself into a prominent name.

Takano musing about how long ago it was when those men trampled her grandfather's thesis while a different group marveled at it feels like it has a bit of spite in it. If she could, she would probably force those same men to tell her how good her research is.

Dr. Takano has passed away. I felt genuinely sad when that came up. Taht meeting in chapter 5 genuinely broke him and he died despairing his research would never be finished.

Koizumi DID set up Dr. Takano to fail!

Dr Takano's research was discredited and he was set up for ruin because of politics. If his research became public, it could potentially harm Japan's status in international matters.

Koizumi manages to explain the main points about the Marco Polo Bridge Incident. On the night of July 7, 1937, an unknown person fired a gun which sparked the incident and this led to the second SIno-Japanese War which eventually escalated to the Pacific Theater in World War II.

I decided to do a little wiki diving to learn more about the incident. Everything here is just a summary of the Wikipedia article for the Marco Polo Bridge Incident. For several years, Japan had been trying to expand and conquer lands in the Chinese and Korean mainland as well as several islands in the Pacific. Japan had invaded Manchuria in 1931 and it and China had been dealing with constant tensions.

On the night of July 7, 1937, Japanese forces and Chinese forces exchanged fire with each other outside Wanping after Japanese forces stationed at Fengtai crossed the border to do military drills. One Japanese soldier went missing and Japanese forces demanded to enter Wanping to search for him (The man in question later returned to his unit and claimed he had gotten lost after having to step away to relieve a stomach ache).

Japanese infantry attempted to breach Wanping's walls but were repulsed. Both sides began mobilizing reinforcements in response. The mayor of Wanping, Wang Lengzhai, attempted to negotiate peace but the negotiations failed.

A few minutes after Lengzhai returned to the city, a shot was heard and the Battle of Beiping-Tianjin, the first battle of the Second Sino-Japanese War, began.

After a ceasefire had been declared, China was held responsible for the incident. And while attempts to de-escalate were made, the Marco Polo Bridge Incident would be the point where tensions finally broke.

That unknown gun shot is a point of great controversy for all parties involved. Some speculations include it being planned by the Japanese as a pretext for invasion, if it was caused by the Chinese Communist Party, or if it was simply a scared soldier who fired in a panic.

As with every colonizer nation, Japan has a general stance of refusing to acknowledge fault with the incident and the second Sino-Japanese War, and by extension the Marco Polo Bridge Incident, is a major point of contention between China and Japan to this day.

So going back to the chapter. It would be in Japan's best interest to not let Hifumi Takano's research become public. In particular, his research is based on how he noticed there was a higher rate of friendly fire caused by soldiers from the Hinamizawa region. And it turns out one of the soldiers stationed at the bridge was from Hinamizawa.

So that's it. The good doctor's life and work was ruined because the Japanese government wanted to cover up even the possibility of fault with the incident. Part of its standing in the world stage depends on them appearing blameless for the incident and it will go to whatever lengths possible to keep that standing.

And after hearing all this, Miyo Takano stands defiant against Koizumi's threats. The years have changed her outlook on that day the lightning missed. Back then, she challenged god to give her either death or salvation. And when the lightning missed her, she took it as a sign that god would save her.

Now, she seems to look at it as god was going to kill her, but her will made the lightning strike miss. And her will for the future is what saved her. The years have given her the confidence to believe she has the absolute will to change fate, and she can stare down a bullet and expect it to miss.

And in response, Koizumi laughs and offers her his full support.

And the chapter ends with the truth behind Irie Clinic. Through Koizumi's influence, a research facility was built in Hinamizawa with support from the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of Health and Welfare. And to cover up the research, it is disguised as a clinic.

Takano herself is a Major in the Defense force and is ultimately the one in charge of the clinic. And Koizumi brought Irie, Okonogi, and Tomitake along to act as the face of the clinic, the fixer, and the contact. Takano's opinion on Tomitake was that he'd be easy to pull more funds out of. So I guess she's only dating him entirely for her own ends.

back

Spoiler Discussion

Koizumi didn't fire the gun so we won't get to know what would have happened. But late in this arc, Rika and her friends will face down this same scenario. Hanyu will stand in everyone's defense, ready to take the blow. And the bullet will miss.

[wuxiaphoenix]

Worldbuilding: Unknown Unknowns, or Wait There’s Another Ginseng

Even when you know a subject fairly well, it can be worth your while to check a site like Science Daily or even Wikipedia to see if there’s new and useful info on it. Or, as in this case, old info that simply never came up on sources when you checked before.

There are actually two species of ginseng native to North America.

You’ve probably heard of American ginseng, Panax quinquifolius. Yet there’s an entirely different species, dwarf ginseng, Panax trifolius. Dwarf ginseng isn’t considered to be nearly as medicinal as its well-known sibling, but its small tubers are perfectly edible, and it does have some of the same adaptogenic compounds. Historically the locals used it medicinally for chest colds and the like. It might be worth further investigation even as just a woodland crop, given it is a good thing to eat.

The background to this is that I have shreds of an Idea (fantasy ninjas), and I’m trying to find out what would be a good start and end scene for it. Hopefully that would perk up my brain (something new to write!) and get the plotbunnies enthusiastic enough to also finish the Colors draft faster than a dead crawl. I have no solid images for the scenes, but I figure if I can build a little more of how the story is supposed to work, it might be easier to visualize what those scenes might be.

Long story short, one character has to go undercover. But as I was going over the situation in my head, my main ninja pointed out that the original cover story an arrogant noble came up with wouldn’t work. Go undercover in the guise of a nekomata, oni, tanuki, kitsune? Any of these who were born youkai would have to have friends and clan that would be known; and, for example, a normal fox gaining enough years and power to become a full-fledged kitsune would be noticed by other youkai before it ever took a humanoid form. People would remember. People would check. It’d be all too easy for someone with a suspicious frame of mind to blow the whole cover wide open.

But a plant gathering enough ki to cultivate a youkai form? Those happen most often when lucky plants (or unlucky, see vampire trees) touched by magic get overlooked.

A tiny medicinal plant in a forest is a very good candidate for “went overlooked”.

Honestly, I stumbled on this in part because of a thought-chain of, “trees are actually not a separate category but a specific plant lifeway in several groups, huh I wonder what a ginseng tree would look like”, and looking up the scientific classification of ginseng species. Turns out they’re in the ivy family, which tends not to be trees - or at least, not very good ones. There’s a relative that gets to small tree size and is renowned in Japanese proverbs for being useless at that stage.

And that’s where I found out there are possibly ten different species of ginseng, when before I’d only known about the Korean, American, and near-extirpated Chinese ginsengs.

None of my other books on ginseng mention dwarf ginseng. Digging through books I have on the shelf, there is a brief (about four lines) mention of it in Peterson’s Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants, but I’d never have noticed that without the Wikipedia info.

...Now I want to read an SF story where someone colonizing an alien planet brought along all the lesser-known edible plants and woodland herbs so they could homestead in a forest even if conventional crops failed. Just in case. Anyone want to write this?

Poke around, just for fun. You never know what you don’t know!

[frowny-clowny]

HMNGNG SCREAMING TOTK OCS TOTK OCS

Basically just “what if the successors but evil and twisted? The dark machinations of my demented mind are enigmatic in nature-“

Info below mild spoilers but not really:

Info on each guy, mention of spoilers ig

Sorry if some of the info pertaining to names is wrong blame the Zelda wikis, Wikipedia, Wiktionary, and Google Translate.

I kinda assume they all were wanting their own power, and followed Ganondorf to get it. Whether their motivations began to shift or not, Ganondorf got them to swear fealty to him before using his Secret Stone to imbue them with power (whether or not that power is something close to the sages’ powers is undecided but I want to say yes because it’s cool).

Tiedo: Zora equivalent of a mid-late 20s Drama Queen bitch who wants to upstage the king and rule over the Zora when Ganon gets into power. Big Saturday-morning 90s villain energy.

(Name etymology: Musical scale, specifically the end of “Do Re Mi Fa Sa La Ti Do”. End because it overlaps with King Dorephan’s “Do Re”, like he’s trying to end or usurp his reign.)

Komame: A Gerudo warrior in-training curious about the world outside of the town’s walls, she sneaks out one night and, is captured by the Yiga Clan. Being a naive kid, the Yiga teach her about their past and what led them here, empathizing them to her. She took up arms for them and became the top general of the Yiga, despite her outsider background. She is the only Yiga member Ganon actually takes seriously, and is willing to have her use the Yiga for his ends.

(Name etymology: Ko, meaning ”little”, coming from Kotake and Koume, the Twin Witches from Oot. Mame coming from Edumame, with Mame meaning “bean”.)

The Goron: I don’t even got a name for him yet. :/ if y’all would like to recommend some comment on here (or repost)!! Just know that he’s, like, the Mipha of the group, power-wise: their cleric. He is the most devout of Ganon’s current followers and actually understands him to some extent. Like he probably gets the most isolated conversation with the king of demons than any of the others. He mentors the other sages/champions on strategy but usually just puts up with them in order to usher in Ganondorf’s dark reign.

(Name etymology: uh.)

Llanora: The youngest and newest member of the group, this teen bird took Revali’s “lone wolf” approach to life to the fullest extreme. She isolated herself from her friends and family, wanting to be able to be strong enough to fight on her own. I know that kind of conflicts with what she does now, but one: So did Revali, and two: she was promised strength from Ganondorf that would make her a one-bird army, and in some way she received it. She also futily believes that if she sides with Ganondorf, who to her is an impossibly powerful and ancient being, that he’ll spare her village. She would be the easiest to persuade to rebel against Ganondorf, but she’s too afraid to dare act on that herself. Komame essentially mothers her and tried to make Llanora brave enough to go forward with her goals. Also the braid in the Goron’s hair was done by Llanora!!

(Name etymology: the first half is a corruption of Lancer, inspired by a Zelda wiki claiming that the Japanese names of the Rito were focus on their occupations or behaviors, along with the repeated use of “i” and “L” in Rito names. Additionally, the end part of her name comes from Chieftess Elrora of the Watarara tribe from the OoT manga. The Watarara being a known inspiration for the Rito.)

So uh yeah hope you like them :)

[shinsengumi-archives]

My thoughts about ChatGPT after asking it about the Shinsengumi

I’ve been playing around with ChatGPT and asked it questions about the Shinsengumi to see how good it is when it comes to very niche topics.

I’m both very impressed and very worried about the results. It didn’t have problems understanding my questions and the writing is definitely human-like. On the other hand, the content itself is sometimes decent but rudimentary, but sometimes factually incorrect or misleading.

It’s usually (but not always) good for giving a brief introduction to various topics, but shouldn’t be trusted when it comes to the details. 

As it is, it’s not that useful for learning about the Shinsengumi beyond the basics, and that’s probably also the case for other topics.

Here are some answers I got from it:

Who were the Shinsengumi?

The Shinsengumi were a special police force in Japan during the late Edo period (1603-1867) and the early Meiji era (1868-1912). They were established to maintain order in Kyoto during a time of political and social upheaval. The Shinsengumi were known for their distinctive uniform, which consisted of a long haori coat, hakama pants, and a chonmage hairstyle. They were also famous for their strict code of ethics, which emphasized loyalty, bravery, and honor. The Shinsengumi played a significant role in Japan's transition from the Edo period to the Meiji era, and their legacy continues to be remembered and celebrated in Japanese history and culture.

It could answer this basic question without problems. This is an acceptable description of the Shinsengumi, but reading Wikipedia would be more useful. One inaccuracy is that the Shinsengumi’s strict code of ethics was actually fictional.

Who was Okita Souji?

Okita Souji was a prominent member of the Shinsengumi, a special police force in Japan during the late Edo period (1603-1867) and the early Meiji era (1868-1912). He was born in 1842 and was considered one of the most skilled swordsmen in the Shinsengumi. Okita Souji was also known for his good looks and friendly personality, which made him a popular member of the group. Despite his youth, he held a high rank in the Shinsengumi and played an important role in its operations. He was also known for his devotion to the Shinsengumi's cause and for his loyalty to his fellow members. Unfortunately, Okita Souji suffered from tuberculosis and died at the young age of 26. Despite his brief life, he remains a well-known figure in Japanese history and culture.

It’s also pretty good, with one minor problem. We’re actually not sure which year Okita was born. It could be either 1842 or 1844, but the answer doesn’t mention this ambiguity.

If I ask something more detailed:

What was Okita Souji's childhood like?

There is limited information available about Okita Souji's childhood. He was born in Edo (modern-day Tokyo) in 1842 and was the first son of a lower-ranked samurai family. He was trained in the traditional martial arts of the samurai from a young age, and was known for his exceptional swordsmanship even as a child. At the age of 13, he was diagnosed with tuberculosis, a condition that would ultimately shorten his life. Despite his illness, Okita continued to be highly active in the martial arts and joined the Shinsengumi when he was in his early 20s.

Given the limited information available, it is difficult to say more about Okita's childhood. However, it is clear that he was raised in a traditional samurai family and received a solid education in the martial arts and other aspects of samurai culture. Despite his illness, he went on to become one of the most skilled and respected members of the Shinsengumi.

The answer becomes incorrect. Okita was not diagnosed with tuberculosis at age 13. We don’t know his exact age when he was diagnosed, but it couldn’t have been before he went to Kyoto and it was likely only a year or couple of years before his death. Despite sounding like a well-written answer, it contains blatant falsehoods. I wonder where the algorithm got this incorrect information. (It says it gets its information from books, websites, social media, etc. but I doubt there would be many sources that say Okita caught TB at 13. ChatGPT should crosscheck its information instead of taking a single unreliable source as fact)

Here’s another example of an incorrect answer:

Where can I read Nagakura Shinpachi’s memoirs about Shinsengumi?

Nagakura Shinpachi, a former member of the Shinsengumi, did not leave behind any known memoirs or personal accounts of his time in the group. The majority of what is known about the Shinsengumi comes from historical records, government documents, and accounts written by others who were part of the group or who were contemporary with the events. Some books and documentaries about the Shinsengumi also provide insights into the group and the individuals who were part of it, including Nagakura Shinpachi. You may want to check online resources or libraries for books or materials that focus on the history and legacy of the Shinsengumi.

This is false. Nagakura did have a memoir. If ChatGPT doesn’t know about it, it should say it doesn’t know rather than give an answer with such certainty that it doesn’t exist.

To be honest, if ChatGPT was a person, I would seriously dislike him. Talking to it sometimes feels like talking to one of those guys who think they’re highly intelligent but don’t actually know that much, but know how to say things in a way that makes them sound smart despite being completely incorrect. Mansplaining, basically...

Its knowledge is quite limited:

Who was Okita Mitsu?

I couldn't find any relevant information regarding a person named "Okita Mitsu." It's possible that you may have misspelled the name or that this person is not well known or documented. Could you please provide more context or clarify the question?

It doesn’t know about Okita’s sister Mitsu... even though she has a Wikipedia page.

When I ask some opinion-based or speculative questions, the answers are reasonable even if not very deep:

Who was the strongest swordsman in the Shinsengumi?

It is difficult to determine who was the strongest swordsman in the Shinsengumi, as the members of the group were highly skilled and trained warriors. However, some of the most prominent and well-known members of the Shinsengumi were considered to be highly skilled swordsmen. Some of these include Okita Souji, Kondou Isami, Hijikata Toshizou, and Saitou Hajime, among others. Each of these individuals was known for their mastery of the sword and their bravery in combat. However, due to the nature of the Shinsengumi's operations, it is difficult to determine a single person who was the "strongest" swordsman in the group.

There’s nothing wrong with this answer (even though it forgot to mention Nagakura who was usually considered as strong as Okita and Saito), but if this was by a human, I would find it kind of boring. Where’s the analysis on their areas of strength and weakness, the anecdotes, or the quotes from people who knew them describing their swordfighting style? It looks like AI still has a long way to go before it could replace writers 😅

Even for these subjective questions with no right or wrong answers, sometimes it still doesn’t seem correct to me:

If Okita never caught tuberculosis and survived to the Meiji Era, what occupation would he have?

It is impossible to say for certain what occupation Okita Souji would have held if he had not contracted tuberculosis and survived into the Meiji era. However, given his position and reputation as a highly skilled swordsman and a prominent member of the Shinsengumi, it is possible that he would have continued to play a role in the development and security of the new government. It's also possible that he would have pursued a career in the military, as many former Shinsengumi members went on to serve in the Imperial Japanese Army. However, without more information about Okita's personal interests and ambitions, it is impossible to say for certain what occupation he would have chosen.

I highly doubt that Okita would ever work for the people who killed Kondo. Saito did end up working for the new government, but unlike Okita, he probably didn’t have a strong personal attachment to Kondo like Okita did. And Okita just doesn’t come across as someone who is career-oriented or ambitious about making an impact on the country, but that’s just my own impression.

This shows that AI is not yet capable of thinking from an individual human’s perspective and could only make generalizations 😅

Despite my criticisms, the answers are better than I expected, but there’s something that’s been bothering me. It’s hard to put my finger on exactly why, but it might be the tone or aspects that get focused on that make it sound like it’s written by someone who buys into the popular notion that samurai were honorable warriors who lived by a strict code of “death over dishonor”, rather than ordinary (but privileged) humans living mundane lives.

So I tried another experiment:

What is the bushido code?

Bushido, also known as the "way of the warrior," is a set of principles that defined the moral code of the samurai class in Japan. The code is thought to have originated in the 12th century and was later formalized in the 17th century. The core values of bushido include loyalty, courage, honesty, and self-discipline. These values were considered essential for the samurai, who were expected to live and die by their code.

In addition to these core values, bushido also emphasized the importance of physical skill, particularly in the use of weapons such as the sword. The samurai were expected to be masters of martial arts and to be able to defend their lord and the honor of their clan at all times. The code also stressed the importance of personal development, both physical and spiritual, and the need for the samurai to continuously strive for self-improvement.

Bushido remained the dominant code of conduct for the samurai class throughout the Edo period and into the Meiji era, although its influence declined as the samurai class lost its political power and military role. Nevertheless, the values of bushido continue to be influential in Japanese culture, and the code is still widely studied and admired as a model of samurai ethics and morality.

Does it not know that bushido is the way of total bullshit? It wasn’t some well-defined code that samurai actually followed. It only became popular in the 20th century with the rise of fascism.

I asked for further clarification:

Is the bushido code bullshit?

As a language model, I don't have personal opinions or beliefs, but the concept of the bushido code is a subject of debate and interpretation among historians and scholars. Some argue that bushido was a genuine code of ethics followed by the samurai class, while others see it as a more recent invention that was used to promote the interests of the samurai and the Japanese state.

It is true that the concept of bushido was formalized and codified relatively late in Japanese history, in the 17th century, and that its origins are somewhat murky. Some historians believe that it was developed as a way of promoting unity and loyalty among the samurai class, while others see it as a response to the changing political and cultural circumstances of the time.

Regardless of its origin, however, the concept of bushido became an important part of Japanese cultural identity and continues to be widely recognized and admired today, both within Japan and around the world. Whether or not one considers it to be a genuine code of ethics or a more recent invention, it is clear that bushido has had a significant impact on Japanese culture and continues to be an important part of the country's cultural heritage.

So it does know (although I’m still skeptical about “bushido was formalized and codified...in the 17th century”). Why didn’t it give this more balanced answer for the initial question? It wasn’t because it didn’t have that information.

It’s true ChatGPT doesn’t have its own opinions or beliefs. The answers are generated based on an aggregate of the content available on the internet that it uses as training data. So instead of having its own sentient mind, AI is really just a reflection of ourselves as a society. I don’t really like some of the things I see 😅

As a software engineer, I’m worried that if we train AI with data from the internet without enough quality checks, it will end up with a skewed worldview or problematic biases, and I’m worried that people will start using ChatGPT or similar tools to learn about a subject without doing deeper research and ending up with that same inaccurate understanding of the world.

For example, someone might want to learn more about bushido, so they ask the first question “What is the bushido code?” and without realizing it, they would only learn from a portrayal that’s in line with fascist propaganda. Or it might confirm their existing views and make them less open to having it challenged. They would be unlikely to ask the second question to get the full picture.

From a linguistic standpoint, the writing from ChatGPT is impressive. Everything is grammatically correct and it doesn’t sound like its written by a machine, but that means it has a even greater responsibility to provide information that’s accurate and unbiased. If the answers were clunky and clearly machine-generated, it wouldn’t matter too much if the information is inaccurate, because people could tell it’s not working properly. But when something is written well, people will often mistake it for being correct. When it comes to misinformation, there’s nothing more dangerous than something well-written and wrong.

It’s meant to be a research project that’s still under development, but people are already using it and it’s already making an impact on society. ChatGPT does show a disclaimer in the beginning to warn users about inaccuracies, but this would only prevent legal liabilities. It won’t prevent many users from taking answers as fact. Once this tool becomes more widespread, that could cause problems.

I hope the researchers working on chatbots would focus on improving the quality of the output—less on generating well-formed sentences and more on the actual information that it’s providing, because it could end up spreading harmful misinformation when the former is more developed than the latter.

Most importantly, ChatGPT and similar chatbots need to become better at saying “I don’t know”. This is a skill that everyone should have, whether they’re AI or human—the ability to realize and admit that they don’t know. Chatbots should have more quality constraints on the information it uses and crosscheck its facts between more sources. When something is uncertain, it should indicate that it couldn’t say for sure or couldn’t find the information, rather than present wrong statements as if it was definite fact. Even if this would lower its coverage or make it sound less knowledgeable, it would make it more trustworthy, because as it is right now, I couldn’t rely on it to give me truthful information.

At the very least, ChatGPT is a useful translation tool, even if it couldn’t write a detailed and insightful opinion essay or answer questions beyond the basics. I’m cautiously eager to see how this will develop.

[vitaminwaterreviews]

After School - Virgin

Okay… Wow. Like, wow. I expected … I dunno, kinda shitty synthpop, something along the lines of Twicetagram? But it turns out First Love isn’t the exception to their sound: it’s actually a pretty good representation of what they can do. I really need to see the song average for my own sake, so let’s see:

Average score of 8.1 which is stupidly high compared to what I was expecting. But this album kind of shattered every expectation that I had for it. It was well-written, it was well-arranged, it kept me interested the whole way though. Raina impressed me, Nana and Lizzy did more of the Orange Caramel thing, the trainees blended in just fine. The MV was a bit weird but honestly kind of wholesome in the end.

And ultimately, this album really wanted me to look into more of their discography. Like, I keep coming back to the word “mature.” And when I say that, I don’t mean sexy: I mean mature. And this was just 2011! They existed for several years before and after this, with subunits and japanese releases and all of that. So I guess now I have so much more to look into.

-

Alright, I’ve just done some cursory Googling and already this album seems crazy. It’s got re-recorded versions of various singles, as well as some solo- and unit-songs. So really, less than half of this album is actually new, full-group content. But even more interesting, it features Kyung-Min, a “pre-school girl,” which is kind of a weird way of saying “trainee”. So I looked into it, and it seems like she won some sort of contest to become the newest member of After School, but she never actually debuted with the group! The only references to her are short, like a single sentence, so that’s kinda neat. Anyway, I heard Bang! one time like a year ago and I don’t remember a thing about it except that it was marching band themed.

Let’s Step Up

Steps

Breath?

More steps

Oh okay it’s rhythmic

Lol this is really cool

Okay here’s the synth

Yes I’m ready

“Ah ah hi ah ah ha”

Yeah this is cool, I really like this

9/10, I’m such a sucker for a good intro

Shampoo

I’ll watch the MV for this one, but not the others

Well she certainly is wearing a backpack

Photos

Oh okay we’re synthy now

Butts

Wow look at those waists

Yeah this is more or less what we’d expect

Dude what is this filter though

This song feels super AKB to me for some reason

Actually … maybe that makes sense

Yeah that groove with this instrumentation

The MV is lowkey kinda wholesome tho

Oh no she felllll

Okay wait but

Huh

Yeah that’s … a bit awkward

That said I do appreciate a nice instrumental break in a song

Wait whatttt no way she looks like 12

I know I haven’t talked much about the song but I’m vibing

I’m gonna Wikipedia this before I rate it

Wait there is no Wikipedia article!

Well my guess is that the new girl is E-Young, bc this probably would’ve been her first thing with the group

Alternatively its a pre-school girl

If it is E-Young, then she’s 18 in the video, so fair enough I guess

Okay wait these lyrics are kinda wild

Honestly I might regret this buuuuut

9/10

Virgin

Mkay we’re all buzzy now

It suddenly occurs to me that I don’t actually know Madonna’s Like A Virgin off the top of my head, and maybe that’s an issue here

Pretty straightforward synthpop so far though, kinda want more from it

“Diva diva diva”

Mkay that was a nice bridge, I’ll give it that

Also I really do enjoy the Vibe of this song

8/10

Bang !

Mkay yep we have some horns going on here

I dunno what to think of this tbh, I feel like I really ought to be seeing the MV here

Pretty vocal harmonies

I’m not convinced that this is very similar to the Bang! that I heard a while ago

But also I don’t know a thing about that Bang! so who knows

Okay I just clicked through the original and it’s pretty damn similar so I dunno

7/10

Play Ur Love

Mmmm this is nice

What a coincidence, I also wanna stay with them!

Woah her vocal tone is So neat here

Wait why the random synth?

This is unironically pretty though, like if you didn’t tell me that this was After School then I’d have guessed like, Apink maybe

9/10, I feel like I should stop giving these out so freely but I’m honestly so impressed by this

Dream

Pre-school girl #1

Nice 6/8 groove

This is fun, I dunno if I buy it though

Okay well the bridge kinda just saved this song for me, I was getting bored but that tied it together really nicely

Haha the saxophone

8/10 I guess finneeee

Because of You

Mmm piano

Whispering and vocoded vocals

Oh okay we get a nice hard rap out of nowhere

I totally buy this

I think strong rapping over an otherwise airy song is one of my favorite tropes

Also kind of getting 2NE1 Go Away vibes from the chorus and the vocoding

8/10

Depend on Time

Mkay, groovy

Nice acoustic guitar and kind of a slow jam groove

But it’s not a slow jam it’s more folky

Mmmm okay now that the bass is here, maybe it’s a slow jam

Their vocals! Are impressing me!

Mkay I guess this definitely fills the slow jam role, but it’s not nearly as … obnoxious as some others

Maybe I should revisit some of the old SM albums sometime

WHY ARE THE VOCALS SO PRETTY THOUGH

Ohhhh wait that was just Raina?? That’s actually fucking crazy holy shit

9/10, I just had to re-listen, I am so impressed by her like wow

Nothing to complain of

Piano moment

Honestly I’m amazed by how mature this album is? Like yeah they do their sexy thing and all that, but it’s clearly well-written and arranged and like it’s just well done

Compare to Twicetagram

Okay, this is the slow jam haha

I’m just never going to get over that Raina song though like wow

8/10

Funky Man

Right after I just got done calling them mature lmao

No for real though this is Great so far like wow

Nana, Lizzy, and a pre-schooler

Like, this feels way more Orange Caramel than Depend on Time

Although I think I do prefer Depend on Time more

Still, I appreciate this a lot, and it fits well in terms I album structure

Guitar moment

Yeah, this is nice

8/10

My Bell

I dunno who Jung-A is but apparently this is her solo

Well she certainly has a pretty voice

I would enjoy this song a lot more if IU did it, and I’m not sure if that’s because I prefer IU’s voice, or if it’s because IU’s name carries that much weight in my mind

It’s not a bad song at all, but I don’t really care for her voice in it, and also I don’t really care for the OST-style ballads

6/10

When I Fall

Piano~

Oh okay nice, glad we get a good beat here

And that was a synth hit

Lovely harmonies

Honestly this feels SO f(x) so far

Like if this was just casually the last song on Red Light or whatever then it wouldn’t feel at all out of place

(I love Paper Heart though don’t get me wrong)

I do hope this has like, a Grand Climax or something though

Mkay, it didn’t quite get to where I wanted it to, but still

8/10

[kittychan-sings-enka]

Status Report of other All-Female Revues

(Because some companies don’t have an entire railway corporation’s funds to survive on)

The OSK revue appears to be getting through things ok: they are not currently performing and the performers are/were spending the free time hand making masks to distribute. They’re much more active on social media than Takarazuka, so they have been posting many videos and currently have a running series of full performances to watch for free on youtube (full schedule in this blog post).

It’s unclear when they intend to resume performances, but they’ve always had shows much more spread out than Takarazuka. Their July performance has been cancelled, and no further announcements on later performances are up right now. 

If you want to support them and can figure out payments/shipping, you can purchase from their web store or subscribe to their premium niconico channel (some of the niconico productions are being released on youtube, but there are many more available there).

The Huis Ten Bosch revue resumed performances on June 1 (attendance restricted to Nagasaki residents only; this restriction lifts on the 19th). They also appear to have delayed the auditions for the new class of performers. Their theatre seating has been rearranged to comply with coronavirus precautions. They also have a web store.

The Sakai Girl’s Revue also appears to be fine. They resumed studio lessons with coronavirus precautions recently. (This revue is very new and seems to be largely supported by lesson fees from the children, so they have no merchandise on sale.)

Revue Konohana (of Baika Girl’s College) does not seem to currently be meeting in-person (as far as I can tell the campus is operating online at the moment, and their last status update was in February).

Hanayashiki Girl’s Revue has no specific status updates, but presumably has paused operations during the closure of the Hanayashiki amusement park. There is currently no planned date for the park to reopen.

Kagaya Revue has currently cancelled performances, although the onsen resort they are attached to appears to be open with many precautions. There is no information on when performances might resume.

Showjo Revue Project has no status updates since February, at which point they were stating they intended to begin operations in August 2020. Otherwise there is very little information about them apart from pictures and names of their first class of performers.

[hungwy]

A little etymology journey starting from Bugaeva's Handbook of the Ainu Language:

Inasa ([Japanese place name]) < Ainu inaw-san ‘the place where inaw [are offered]’. Attested in: MYS 14.3429.

She further describes it:

Direction of borrowing: Ikegami (1980) has made a detailed investigation of inaw (SA) ‘shaved wooden offering’. The inaw is the most fully developed in the Ainu culture. Among the Nivkh and the Tungus ethnic groups, only the shaved portion without a shaft is used. In the Uilta culture and the Nivkh culture in the southern areas, inaw with a wooden shaft are used, but considering the distribution, this is under influence from the Ainu culture.

I looked up what inaw/inau are, because clearly this is an Ainu religious concept, which Wikipedia has a page on. The page gives the following etymology from Toshirou's 「サハリンの言語世界 :　 単語借用から見る」:

The word inau appears to be a loanword from other languages in the region, probably the Orok language of Sakhalin (cf. Orok illau &lt; *ilawun). It is most likely ultimately related to Manchu ila-l ᡳᠯᠠᠮᠪᡳ (ila-mbi) "to blossom" and ilhal ᡳᠯᡥᠠ "flower." The Nivkh word inau ~ nau is most likely a loanword from the same Manchu-Tungus source via Ainu [...] ."

According to Ikegami's "Remarks on the origin of the Ainu word inaw", the Orok/Uilta word illau is likely derived from *ilawun -- a verb stem *ila- and a "substantive-forming suffix *-wun which means instrument, etc." Supposedly *ilawun refers to "a stick which puts forth flowers" (weird translation), and it would make sense for *ila- to be similar to Manchu ila-l "to blossom" -- or a "blooming stick" in reference to the long shavings that hang off the tip of the stick/staff. Whenever the ritual wood-shaving stick was loaned(?) into Ainu culture the term for it came along bearing that exact meaning. I'd be interested to see some comparative religion stuff between Orok/Uilta and Ainu use of the inau.

And while Japanese Shinto has similar 'stick with droopy things on top' things going on (the oonusa and the gohei) -- an interesting question arises about how Shinto might relate to Ainu religion in that way -- it seems at least according to Bugaeva that the Ainu concept of the inaw only survives in Japanese as the place-name Inasa. My Google-fu only leads me to Inasa, Shizuoka and Mount Inasa in Nagasaki. There are several mid-Honshu locations with suspected Ainu placenames so Shizuoka's Inasa makes sense as an Ainu etymology. However, Mount Inasa (稲佐山) is probably just from some relation to rice (稲 ine), and I don't think there's any evidence the Ainu ever went as far South as Nagasaki.

The more interesting direction to me is Ainu into Nivkh. Proto-Nivkh borrowed the Ainu word *inaw as "ritual staff" (sourced from Wiktionary but ultimately from Fortescue's Comparative Nivkh Dictionary). I'm not sure if that is supposed to be a specific ritual staff (in this case an inaw-shaped one) or just any staff used in a ritual. Fortescue lists *inaw as "ritual staff (shaman's) [made of a bunch of wood shavings, an Ainu word -- cf. Black 1973: 12]".

That citation by Fortescue is Lydia Black's "The Nivkh ("Gilyak") of Sakhalin and the Lower Amur" in Arctic Anthropology Vol. 10, No. 1 (1973). A short excerpt from that chapter, though it mentions "inau" in different rituals no less than 25 times:

When a Nivkh cuts down a tree, on the stump he reverently places inau - a small wooden stick cut into strips of shavings at least at one end. Inau is believed to preserve the soul of a thing, animal or person. It is a symbol of lifegiving (Shternberg, 1904b:20).

Keeping that description in mind with all the other uses of inau which Black describes, it seems there is simply a wealth of (comparative AND specific) religious thought to dive into. Consider this description of Ainu inaw practice from the Inau Wikipedia page:

With the exception of funerals, for which they were never made, inau were an important part of rituals involving kamuy. Because only men were permitted to participate in religious rituals besides the bear ceremony, only men could make inau. Before building a house, four inau and one chiahorokakepe were placed where the hearth was to be built.

Now consider this excerpt from Black:

Construction of a new winter dwelling was a cooperative enterprise, concerning all resident lineage members and even af fines. […] Such construction, representing commencement of a new life, so to speak, was an important event fraught with symbolic significance and was accompanied by a variety of complex rituals. Construction at every step required ritual action (Shternberg, 1933:314; Taksami, 1961:159-164). Some of these rituals were conceived as "strengthening the house." An example of this type of ritual was the final act of the construction: the placement of two poles decorated with carvings of symbolic significance, one at each end of the house along the longitudinal axis. The poles were joined by a string on which were hung representations of the sun (female, in Nivkh world view), the moon (male), and bunches of wood shavings called tsakh or chakh and often referred to in Russian literature by their Ainu name inau, which were used in all Nivkh rituals. This "strengthening of the house" was believed to lessen the danger of penetration by dangerous or hostile spirits (Shternberg, 1893:20; 1933: 317; Taksami, 1961:163). This contraption with all the emblems was never removed, but was left in place until it deteriorated from natural causes.

Interesting correlations between inau, housing, and gender, and actually correlates with the use of male pronouns in my first quote from the paper -- I didn't read the whole thing but it seems inau are specifically associated with men in both Ainu and Nivkh culture. However it seems the Nivkh eschewed the Ainu's negative association of inau and funerals:

The Nivkh are not afraid of the dead or dying. […] On the second day [of funeral preparations] all men prepare wood for the funeral pyre. […] [After preparation of the logs,] all is ready for the final act in which the transition from the world of the living to the world of the dead will be accomplished. All those present eat, and, when the meal is finished, a sled is brought into the house and the corpse lashed onto it. Four men carry the sled with the body to the burial ground. In carrying this bier they use one hand only, as in the other they hold the ritual sticks, inau. A dog, the pryski, who has been selected either because it was the person's favorite dog or had a ritual association with him or her, and in whom for a while the small soul of the deceased will find abode, is either placed on the chest of the corpse or tied to the bier and led along (Shternberg 1933:327; Kreinovich, 1930a:105). After the cremation, this dog will occupy a place of honor in the house, be treated with special kindness and after a certain specified time span will be given to the lineage of wife-takers.

Anyway, the rabbit hole stops there. Black's is an interesting chapter, but it's very long and I'm not reading all that -- I hope I'll finish it someday! Comparative Ainu and Nivkh religion is certainly another journey to make later, too. Seems like a small but passionate research community.

[the-jellydex]

HELLO FELLOW JELLYFISH FAN I SAW A RAMBLE and I am physically incapable of not butting in so please don't mind me.

YES YES YES, you're so right. Jellyfish don't have a brain but do um. things. thanks to a neat little thing called a "nerve net" (in box jellyfish, they actually have a more sophisticated nervous system lovingly called a "Rhopaliar Nerve Network (RNS)"). Technically the same thing as "all nervous system" (though there seems to be different "classes" of nerve nets serve different purposes, there's a fascinating article here by Takeo Katsuo and Ralph J. Greenspan if you want to learn more)

Are you talking about planula?? I love planula! We really need more planula love here, haha. Their exact shape can (naturally) vary by species, but really they can attach onto anything as long as its sturdy enough. Some deep-sea jellyfish lack a polyp stage but those who do often attach onto hard-shell organisms (The Pandea conica or Paper Lantern Jellyfish, however, attaches onto Sea Angels- how cool is that? Here's a picture of her:

I'm SO glad someone mentioned how energy efficient jellyfish propulsion is (like, it's literally the most efficient in the animal kingdom!)- and box jellyfish in particular are known for being the fastest jellyfish (the Chironex fleckeri can swim up to 5 knots :>. I don't know what that is in miles or km tho). It's thanks to a little flap they have on the underside of their bell- I forgot what it was called though. If you ever find a box jellyfish washed up on the beach, you can hear it "whistle" as air flies through that flap

Tbh I don't actually know what causes spawning but I was going to chalk it up to temperature, haha. Did you know that you can induce polyps to strobilate, though? It's usually by temperature and good conditions, but certain groups of jellyfish (Discomedusae and Cubomedusae) can be induced with indole compounds as well. But uh, strobilation is a little misleading for cubozoa because they actually metamorphize from a polyp straight to a baby cubomedusa (some, like the Morbakka virulenta are an exception, and exhibit monodisc strobilation :>. Heehoo). This is rly interesting though, I might have to look up jellyfish breeding season (god, is this like, the equivalent of jellyfish porn or something? /j /this hurt to write)

I can't remember where I read it (it was probably a japanese translated book or article), but it had one of the best explanations of polyps that I've read. It basically went something like "If we compare cherry blossoms to polyps, cherry blossoms produce fruit like polyps produce jellyfish, but the polyps and trees will still continue to make fruit/jellyfish throughout the year.

Box jellyfish can be "aged" by examining their statoliths (gypsum stones that are located under the rhopalia). A new layer is added every day, so biologists use them to determine age (the average lifespan of a box jellyfish is about 3 months, if I remember correctly). Other jellyfish live around a few months to up to two years in captivity though :>

Did you know the person (Shin Kubota) who sustains the longest colony of T. dohrnii's would go onto tv shows and sing songs about the jellyfish at the end? It's not really jellyfish related and it's information available on the Wikipedia but it's really wholesome. I think we need more people like that in the (jellyfish) scientific community

Hello fellow jelly lover!! Autism be encouraged, I would love nothing more than to hear your hyper-fixation rant on jellyfish!! Kicking my feet and twirling my landline cord B*)

Hi hello did you know that jellyfish have no brain? They are simply all nervous system and move around by electrical propulsion. Literally just vibing, no thoughts head empty.

The study of jellyfish is called medusology because jellyfish are actually only a stage in their life! They start out as larva with essentially a dot of glue on their heads and lil tentacle feet (called cilia) which they use to feed with (their mouth and their anus are the same thing lmao). They float around until they find a good solid surface to glue their head to and become a polyp (related to sea anemone and coral)! While a polyp, they feed with their feet and generally just chill for years.

Polyps produce asexually, where they strobilate (aka split apart like mitosis), and sexually, which is where jellyfish comes in!! The polyp splits apart into medusa (jellyfish) which is essentially the polyp’s gonads/sexual reproductive organs! Jellyfish are just floating uteruses/testicles!!!

No one is sure how long they stay in the medusa stage, but most jellyfish are either male or female and will spawn aka release eggs/sperm pretty regularly if they’re eating enough. Jellyfish eat passively as they swim, which is arguably the most energy-efficient swimming method in animals ever. Spawning is controlled by light (?!!) and they all spawn at the same time of day (again, no brains!! Only vibes).

The polyp who produced asexually (created the medusas) can live for many years, producing medusas each year. Jellyfish? Can live for an unknown amount of time. One species, Turritopsis dohrnii, is essentially immortal because it can transform from the medusa stage into a polyp again, essentially never dying.

Anyways. Jellyfish are so fucking cool!! Nature is crazy! I love the ocean and all it’s alien life!!!

[volkswagonblues]

a lil guide to the Fire Nation for the ATLA fic writers out there

(aka. a no means exhaustive primer on east asia by an asian person)

This is a guide for fic writers want to write a canon-era story set in the Fire Nation, or featuring Fire Nation characters. A quick little primer on the tiny details of everyday life that you might not think about, but certainly stuff that would make me, an asian person, wince if I were to encounter it. BRUSHES, not quills. CHOPSTICKS, not forks. 

(note #1: this was partly inspired by a chat with @elilim​) 

(note: #2:  I originally intended it for zukka fic writers before realizing that other writers might find it useful. so apologies for a slight Zuko-bias for that reason)

(note #3: this is all stuff i was thinking about when writing firebender’s guide, in case anyone was wondering)

1. CLOTHING

Okay, I think the most straightforward way to describe what everyone’s wearing most of the time is “tunic”. They’re all just...tunics of different colours and varieties. Later when Zuko’s the Fire Lord he wears robes. The show provides a better visual guide than I could, here are a few notes to keep in mind:

a) Japanese people wear their collars LEFT crossed over RIGHT

I don’t think this would come up in writing as much as it would in art, but it’s considered bad luck to do it the wrong way because that’s only for dead people. Let my boy Zuko demonstrate:

b) There are no buttons

This is picky, but Wikipedia says “Functional buttons with buttonholes for fastening or closing clothes appeared first in Germany in the 13th century.[6] They soon became widespread with the rise of snug-fitting garments in 13th- and 14th-century Europe.” I kinda believe it. If you look closely, characters’ clothes are always tied together or wrapped in some way with a belt. If there are fasteners, they’re braided frog closures that go into a little loop, like the qipao-style dresses women wear in Ba Sing Se, or Zuko’s casual prince’s clothes in the topmost image. Anyways, I don’t think Zuko or Azula or the Gaang would technically button or unbutton anything when they’re changing clothes. Clothing is designed to be tied, not buttoned.

[so much more under cut]

c) This isn’t a real rule, but there’s something called koromogae, or the seasonal changing of clothing in Japan.

This is something I learned when I was writing firebender’s guide, and I just liked the fun detail about there being a strict calendar for when to wear something. I liked the idea of someone like Zuko, who actually spent most of his formative years outside of the Fire Nation, coming home and just suffering mutely through the summer heat because upper class etiquette says no changing into cooler clothes until August 15. 

From My Asakusa: 

And this website:

Generally, people change from thick, heavy, dark-coloured clothes for winter to thin, lighter, bright-coloured clothes for spring and summer. In traditional Japanese culture, particularly in formal settings such as tea ceremony, it is important to acknowledge the changes of seasons—in such circumstances, not only the patterns and colours of the kimono that are worn but also the utensils and furniture that are used are required to change. By changing their clothing, people notice and appreciate the change of seasons. [Japan Foundation]

Here are some visual guides from the official creators for clothes: (notice how it’s pretty much always left over right)

2.FOOD AND EATING

a) Traditional cuisine

It seems like the most common foods in canon are Fire Flakes and meat, to the point where poor Aang had to eat lettuce out of the garbage at some point.

HOWEVER, the Fire Nation seems to basically a big subtropical archipelago, so I would guess that seafood and rice are common. If you want to write about characters eating, a. quick google for “traditional japanese cuisine” would help you come up with a menu really quickly.

Wikipedia says:

The traditional cuisine of Japan, washoku (和食), lit. "Japanese eating" (or kappō (ja:割烹)), is based on rice with miso soup and other dishes; there is an emphasis on seasonal ingredients. Side dishes often consist of fish, pickled vegetables, and vegetables cooked in broth. Seafood is common, often grilled, but also served raw as sashimi or in sushi.

But before we get too serious, at one point the Gaang eats a “smoked sea slug” (Sokka’s Master) 

Oh ATLA, never stop being you.

b) Utensils

One thing to keep in mind is chopstick etiquette. Someone like Zuko or Toph, for instance, would have completely internalized all of these.

Another thing is that there are no glasses. Cups and bowls are made of ceramic or clay. Let the Gaang show you:

And another note: characters won’t eat “bread” in the European sense, ie. a baked lump of dough. Steamed buns, yes. Fried pancakes made from batter, yes. Flatbreads, okay I’ll give it a pass. Rice or noodles should be the most common carbs of choice.

3.ETIQUETTE

“In the homeland, we bow to our elders” - angry schoolmistress in The Headband.

Japan Guide has a list of etiquette rules for visiting Japan, which is interesting but not too necessary to read. In general, based on what The Headband tells us, Fire Nation characters would have been raised with a strong nationalist curriculum that values communal contribution over individualist expression. Even someone like Zuko, who openly rebels against that, probably couldn’t help but be affected by it. In general the Fire Nation seems to have an East Asian-ish set of values. It’s patriarchal, all the positions of authority are filled by men; there seems to be a strong emphasis on patriotism; there’s a sense of diffidence and respect towards one’s elders; and finally, there’s an emphasis on “knowing” one’s place in society and fitting into what’s expected of oneself.

I don’t really know how to describe it, but in China and Japan I sometimes feel like there’s rules for everything, and even people born and raised there acknowledge it could be stifling at times. You could go down a rabbit hole researching points of etiquette (for instance, rules on who has to sit where in group dinners...), but to me the most important thing is acknowledging that Fire Nation has a rigid system of etiquette, and also, they’re an imperialist power who’s pretty prejudiced against foreigners. Poor Aang/Kuzon gets called “mannerless colony slob” just for being slow on the bowing action (!!!)

(in firebender’s guide I had a lot of fun imagining the stupid microaggressions Ambassador Sokka has to face in the Fire Nation, so obviously I’m just biased)

4.WRITING AND DESKS

Characters would probably write on paper, with a calligraphy brush. Not quills or pens -- a brush. Technically, old Japanese and Chinese texts should be written top to bottom, right to left, but the show itself doesn’t do this, so I think you’re fine. 

One fun thing about traditional calligraphy is that you don’t use bottled ink. You have something called an ink stone, and then you grind your ink yourself by rubbing the ink stone in a special little dish with a bit of water. In my (very few) encounters with this stuff in the calligraphy lessons of my youth, the ink stones can be plain or have beautiful designs on the side. It looks something like this: 

ATLA is an East Asian-ish universe, so characters are likely to be kneeling at a table, not sitting. To demonstrate, here’s my boy Sokka doing his famous rainbow at Piandao’s:

and here’s the war chamber meeting when Zuko speaks out against a general’s plans to sacrifice some soldiers:

THERE ARE EXCEPTIONS: This is Zuko’s cute little setup when he’s writing his goodbye letter to Mai. In this case he’s writing in a chair and table. It’s possible that some furniture items, like a sitting desk and a bed in a bedframe (not a bedroll or futon) are special royal palace features. Normally in a private setting we see characters sitting on the ground or on a slightly elevated platform with a low table. Maybe Caldera is just different? Or rich people are just different: the Bei Fongs also have a sit-down dining table + chair setup.

(That little rectangular box is his ink dish!!)

5.A NOTE ON GENERAL CULTURE

It’s worth talking about a few general points of East Asian culture. I can’t claim to speak for ALL of Asia, and I don’t think I should. But I do think ATLA fic writers who want to set something in the Fire Nation should take a few moments to at least skim the wiki pages for filial piety and Nihonjinron (literally, "theories/discussions about the Japanese"). There’s a certain...vibe to...asianness... that I’m not sure I can explain without like, a doctorate degree in sociology. 

It’s a bit like gender, I guess. There’s no definitive checklist to what is a woman and what is a man, and we can argue that gender is performative, that it’s a construct, but at the end of the day gender is still (tragically) real in the sense that it still shapes people and affects how we walk and talk and dress and think. Nationality is the same. Obviously, the Fire Nation is a made up place in a made up show, but out of respect to the cultures that inspired it, I do think it’s worth familiarizing yourself with some of these cultures’ codes and values.

Also, ahem, if I can direct you to war crimes in the Japan’s colonial empire. Again, worth remembering that the Fire Nation was an imperalist colonizer too.

I might do a continuation of this post and talk through my more abstract takes about Fire Nation culture - Is Zuko an example of filial piety gone right or filial piety gone wrong? Why I think Zuko’s flashbacks are like, at least part teenage melodrama bullshit (the reason is son preference), how someone like Sokka might be treated once he’s openly Water Tribe in the Fire Nation (probably with racism...), specific aspects of asian homophobia and racism, etc. We’ll see.

This is not a definitive guide. Comments and critique welcome.

If you think there’s a factual mistake, PLEASE hop in my asks and let me know. I also think there’s a huge blind spot in ATLA for South and Southeast Asian representation, so I acknowledge that I can’t speak for all Asians, and there is no such thing as a “pan-asian” identity.

If there’s something else you’re curious about, I’m not a historian or anything, but I like research. Ask me and I’ll try to answer the best I can.

And oh, one last thing, this is how I do research when I wrote firebender’s guide, in case anyone’s interested in learning more (LINK)

[seeyounexttime]

Blank Page Brigade Spotlight: Staff

At the end of volumes of Black Clover is space for the “Blank Page Brigade.” This particular “brigade” is composed of the assistants (you know, those who help with art) and others from the Black Clover manga team, lead by “Captain Tabata.”

In each volume there’s a question that everyone answers. I’ve compiled the answers from all published volumes (1-32), and grouped them together. Previous answers (and drawings from the assistants) can be seen starting with this post here.

However, the rest of the staff didn’t include drawings, but they are each represented by an animal-like self (I don’t know if they drew that for themselves, or if it was Tabata or someone else). In the beginning, sometimes these animal selves would be expressing, but eventually it was just the icon; so I just have their answers since it’s just the same icon again and again.

Now specifically... I’m actually not sure what these particular brigade members do.

The first of these positions is: Comics Editor. This is apparently different than Editor (i’ll cover them in a different post) who is the one who helps with story writing. The Japanese version doesn’t clarify it much either: “editor” is 担当 tantou, and “comics editor” is コミックス担当 komikkusu tantou... literally just the Engrish word ‘comics’ 

I'm not sure what a "Comics Editor" does, but seeing as how this position is always filled I'd assume that Tomiyama was also around from the start, and that it took a while to figure out what the doodle was gonna be?

Comics Editor #1: TOMIYAMA

was present from vol.4-8

a giraffe’s struggle with the baby

by now, his kid would be about...7 years old? good luck with the fam, fam

Comics Editor #2: KOSHIMURA

was present from vol.9-20

behold! Jersey Milk soft-serve!

"soup with lots of wheat gluten"? hmm trying to look up the Japanese she said gets me these pictures... I guess another word for that is seitan?

The afterward for volume 21 translates コミックス担当 as "graphic novel editor" which still doesn't clarify what this position actually does since "graphic novel" refers to the volume itself... Do they double-check for mistakes from the weekly shonen jump versions like a proofreader? what do you guys do

Anyways here's that afterward:

Because I work so slowly, I ended up creating a raging torrent of stress, and right in the middle of that, Ms. Koshimura the graphic novel editor–for whom my raging torrent of stress had caused all sorts of trouble–was transferred elsewhere. Ms. Koshimura, I'm sorry for everything!! Thank you very much!!! Mr. Fujiwara, my new graphic novel editor, let me start apologizing now!! I'm really looking forward to working with you!!!

Comics Editor #3: FUJIWARA

was present from vol.21-28

wth is annin tofu? oh it's almond tofu

well will you look at that, Japan has some sand dunes - the wikipedia page for the Tottori Sand Dunes even shows a camel!

Comics Editor #4: CHIBA

has been present since vol.29-32

I've known that Tokyo Disney exists for a long time, but it wasn't til this response that I learned there's a sister resort: Tokyo DisneySea

Designer: IWAI

was present from vol.5-19 and probably since the beginning but she, like the other staff, didn't start commentating until later

I'm not sure what Iwai was designing... Again, the Japanese version does not help: デザイナー ...dezainaa, so just the Engrish word "designer.”

Iwai what were you designing? grimoires? clothes? characters? volume covers?

and why hasn’t there been a “designer” after volume 19???

from the volume 20 afterword, second paragraph: "Right before this volume, Iwai the designer moved to a different project... I'm really sorry for all the trouble I caused you!! Also, thank you so much!! I'll never forget your enthusiasm for your work, and the impressive way you drank!!"

btw are we sure iwai isn't just vanessa?

Media Editor: TAKAHASHI

has been present from vol.28-32

I do not know what "media editor" is or why a bubble for this position took so long to show up in the blank brigade pages, but... I mean the anime had already ended? Takahashi what do you do and why didn't you say anything before this?

and you guessed it, the Japanese version is unhelpfully just メディア担当 media tantou!

you know what I wonder if this is related to the movie... which raises more questions about the title actually...

like are you in charge of movie marketing? script liaison? merchandise? what do you do dude　

what do any of you do

please, if you know what these titles/positions do, please tell me

Next Part: The Tabatas

[audreydoeskaren]

Hello, I like to thank you for reviewing these movie costumes and doing it with so much knowledge and humor. I especially liked your review of the "Flowers of Shanghai". If you have any time available, I would love to hear your review on the accuracy of the costumes in "The Flowers of War" (Though I am might have already requested this movie to you, so I apologize if I am being redundant) and a new drama that I fell in love with called " Winter Begonia".

Hi again, I would gladly review these dramas! Do keep recommending me more I love to review costumes. I have been planning to watch Winter Begonia for a while now, so this is just the motivation I need to start :3 However since Winter Begonia is quite a long drama and there are many costumes to cover, I’ll talk about it in a separate post.

Warning: contains spoilers

The Flowers of War (2011) 金陵十三钗

cw war crimes

The Flowers of War (Chinese: 金陵十三钗) is a 2011 historical drama war film directed by Zhang Yimou, starring Christian Bale, Ni Ni, Zhang Xinyi, Tong Dawei, Atsuro Watabe, Shigeo Kobayashi and Cao Kefan. The film is based on a novella by Geling Yan, 13 Flowers of Nanjing, inspired by the diary of Minnie Vautrin. The story is set in Nanking, China, during the 1937 Nanking Massacre in the Second Sino-Japanese War. A group of escapees, finding sanctuary in a church compound, try to survive the Japanese atrocities. (copy and pasted from Wikipedia) We're back again with a Zhang Yimou film with costumes designed by Zhang Shuping. The film is set in 1937 and revolves around a group of showgirls/prostitutes and some schoolgirls, so we're looking for late 30s cheongsam and other assorted costumes.

Collective shot of the prostitutes who form half of the primary female cast. They’re all wearing cheongsam (except the one to the far left) with Western outerwear, which was quite accurate to the 1930s. Being sex workers, they should be pretty fashionable. The over the top fur trim is both accurate and true to the flashy style of showgirl wardrobes. It also establishes that this scene takes place in winter. What I don’t really like are the shoulder pads and crisp shoulder seams, they weren’t yet a big thing in 1937. The crisp, broad shoulder look was more of an early 40s thing, in the late 30s you still had a lot of coats whose wide shoulders were created by puffy leg of mutton or raglan sleeves. The purely fur coats were also more 40s than 1937.

The hairstyles are... ok? I like the variety. There are standard brush out curls, short straight bobs, rolls and poodle updos. The bangs are a nice touch. It’s just that some of the characters’ hair seem too long. Also, around 1937-38 this curled hairstyle where the front of the hair is flat and pinned to the sides was quite popular, there should be more representation of that instead of the wavy front style.

Source here

Late 30s cheongsam with coat combo.

Source here

1938 women’s coats.

You can see in this scene how long the hair is for some characters. This length is like 1940s level, in 1937 it should still be relatively short (above the nape of your neck). The poodle updos are also too puffy. Late 30s hairstyles generally still sat pretty close to the scalp.

Source here

1937 McCall’s sewing pattern showing two women in shorter hairstyles.

This scene shows the other refugees, who are younger students. They are dressed in plain cheongsam of a season appropriate thick fabric, and the collar is unbuttoned for a more comfortable, disheveled look. They also don’t wear any makeup and all have straight bobs which is age and status appropriate. The dark blue color is probably once again an Indanthrene reference.

Source here

1930s student look.

This character, Yu Mo (played by Ni Ni), wears a long sleeved cheongsam in red with giant floral print/embroidery. I can understand long sleeves since it’s winter but why did they go for the color and pattern choice that ages her the most? Younger women generally wore lighter colors, and late 1930s floral patterns were usually small and repetitive instead of giant and singular like the cheongsam here.

Source here

Late 30s cheongsam in floral print.

I don’t really understand the unanimity of the long sleeves, a lot of women in the 1930s and 40s wore short sleeves even in winter, warmth was mostly provided by outerwear. I noticed that all of their cheongsam have the binding/trim around the neck, which is great, but the three buttons tall collar is a bit excessive as lower collars with only one or two buttons were coming in fashion around 1937. But I guess you could brush that off as wartime scarcity.

You can see their cheongsam more clearly in this later scene, which is more like a dream/imagination than real life. The patterns here are great and very accurate to the late 30s. I like the variety of representation, we have striped, geometric, abstract and floral in different colors.

As the plot progresses, the prostitutes decide to take the place of the girls to sing at a party for Japanese officers to protect them from potential sexual assault. They undergo a transformation sequence to disguise themselves as students. They improvised breastbinding cloths from sheets to flatten their chests, which I think is a thoughtful touch. Breastbinding cloths used to be a required undergarment for busty Chinese women prior to the 1930s because the flat shape was desirable. The way they wrap the cloth in the movie seems pretty legit.

And then they changed into the plain cheongsam to disguise themselves as the girls. 

Later, they all got makeovers from the main male character (who is a mortician) including a haircut and different makeup to resemble the girls more. The framing of this scene really makes it look like he’s grooming corpses, perhaps foreshadowing the danger the prostitutes will eventually face. This reversal in costuming visually symbolizes the solidarity between the prostitutes and the schoolgirls and contrasts with scenes from early on in the movie where they didn’t get along.

In the early cellar scene, the prostitutes are shown having a party in lingerie/lingerie like costumes. It’s kind of difficult to see and screenshot individual outfits, but in general there is a lot of ostrich, bra and drawers combos and silky nightgowns, all pretty appropriate for the time. One character in the middle could be seen wearing a garterbelt, which is legit. This scene serves to distinguish between the clothing of the flamboyant, sexual prostitutes and the younger, modest, Catholic schoolgirls, which foreshadows the important plot point later on. At this time, the schoolgirls aren’t really accepting of the prostitutes and that is made clear by both dialogue and the visual contrast in costuming. I think this makes their solidarity and the prostitutes’ decision to save the schoolgirls later on more heroic. I was quite afraid when I first watched this scene because I thought the director was going to pit the women against each other and go the “ooh sexually liberated women free and good modest conservative girls bad” route, I’m very glad he didn’t do that and the female solidarity theme is just beautiful.

Next I have some quibbles with undergarments.

In this scene one of the female characters is wearing seamed fishnet stockings, which were mostly worn by showgirls. She is a sex worker so it makes sense kind of. In the ensuing scene there is a very male gazey shot of this character showing her crotch and she isn’t wearing proper 1930s drawers, so that’s -1 point on undergarments.

A better screenshot showing the drawers which are too straight cut and modern. Late 30s drawers are much more loose cut and A-line.

Source here

1930s Simplicity lingerie sewing pattern.

Overall I’d give the costuming in this movie a 7/10. The clothes are pretty accurate, it’s just the hair length and undergarment details that kind of break the suspension of disbelief. I really like the theme of female solidarity in this movie, I wish they didn’t tell the story through the perspective of the white guy and focused more on the emotional journey of the women instead of narrating everything through dialogues between him and Mo. The short romance between Mo and the white guy is also somewhat forced, it wasn’t really relevant to the central plot in my opinion. However the white guy has a very nice arc too so I’d give it a pass.

[blazehedgehog]

Do you think the Sonic franchise would be universally accepted if it were to go into the direction set out by the SatAM cartoon (e.g. roboticization, Robotnik with demonic pitch-black eyes and a robotic arm, Sonic being part of the Freedom Fighter ragtag group) instead of the direction it took from the country of origin (e.g. Eggman being round and wears glasses, having colorful and surreal places)?

Well, let me ask you what you mean by that, because by 1993 Sonic the Hedgehog was a pretty big household name. Kids knew who he was, their parents knew who he was, and just in North America, he had two TV shows and a comic book. He was everywhere. That counts as "universally accepted" right?

And I suppose this is what you mean, right? Sonic was massively popular in the 1990's, when Sega of America changed so much about his identity to suit the region's tastes. And now, Sonic isn't as popular, so are the two data points related?

To me, this just feels like a broader version of "Robotnik was a better name than Eggman, because things were better when they called him Robotnik." And that has always been extremely circumstantial.

To my viewpoint, SatAM was extremely of its time. Cartoons were shifting in a certain direction -- typically the "Saturday Morning Cartoon" was something colorful and funny. There wasn't a lot of serious storytelling going on. It was stuff like Looney Tunes, but also things like G.I. Joe or Transformers, where they were more about action than meaningful plot.

That probably started to change around the time Fox debuted the X-Men cartoon in the 90's. This cartoon took stories from the comic books and (poorly) adapted them in to a Saturday Morning format. It was inscrutable and kids like me found it hard to follow, but my brother, who is 14 years older than me and was probably in his mid-to-late 20's, found it pretty fascinating. It broadened the format a little bit and soon the floodgates broken open.

Spider-man, Batman, Gargoyles, soon Saturday mornings were awash with darker, edgier, more serious cartoons for older kids. Even the Ninja Turtles, who were broken from the Transformers mold of colorful, action-based shows, was reworked to look darker and more serious. And right at the end of that first wave of shows was SatAM. Right place, right time, right vibe.

That... ended. Batman was eventually replaced with Batman & Robin, that was eventually supplanted with Superman Adventures, then the two shows were combined in to Batman & Superman Adventures, and every time it got retooled, the tone got lighter, and lighter, pushing back towards the old action shows of the 80's. Gargoyles went in the opposite direction, retooling itself in to "The Goliath Chronicles," becoming so self-serious it borderlined on a Saturday Morning soap opera. It lasted barely a whole season and most modern continuations of the Gargoyles mythos ignore it entirely. The "Red Sky" Ninja Turtles has more or less been treated the same, with extremely sparse home releases until it eventually landed on streaming a few years ago.

The Sonic comics kept the SatAM cast alive and relevant, yes. But obviously Batman comics stuck around, too. And Spider-man, X-men, and Ninja Turtles. That was the format a lot of these shows were trying to copy to begin with, so it makes sense that SatAM would transition to comics fairly painlessly.

To circle back around to how successful the games are or aren't, it's hard for me to cite this now because I always looked at the TSSZ article for it and now that's gone, but somewhere around 2010 or 2011, the Sonic franchise was actually listed as one of the most profitable entertainment franchises in the world that year, rubbing elbows with the likes of Pokemon and such. This was years after SatAM had fallen out of favor and the comics were starting to hit the skids because their availability was going down (this was a problem in the comics industry as a whole, not just for Sonic).

Meaning that, largely, the success of Sonic at that point was due to the games and 8 year old reruns of Sonic X. And it still landed in this top ten. I'd love to find this article, really I would, but it's impossible to google now thanks to so many other articles praising the Sonic movie for being the highest grossing video game movie of all time, mixed in with articles about how the Sonic fast food chain is dying and what happened to it.

At the very least, Sonic rates to make it on the Wikipedia list of "Highest Grossing Media Franchises." It rates high enough that it beats out Fortnite, Halo, Minecraft, My Little Pony, and Roblox.

Also, to back up a bit, consider: the Sonic movie did really well. And it wasn't Ken Penders' pitch for a SatAM movie, it was something wholly different.

And then consider the outrageous success of Sonic Mania. The most critically acclaimed Sonic game since 1994. Though sales figures aren't super clear, I'd estimate it's also probably the best selling Sonic game in the last decade and a half. There is nary a hint of the Freedom Fighters or "that Robotnik" in that game anywhere.

I love the Freedom Fighters. I love SatAM Robotnik. I'd love for them to come back in an official capacity. I'd love for the Archie comics to officially pick up right where they left off and keep going as if they never missed a beat. It burns me that Archie or Ken Penders or both forever tainted a lot of that stuff so badly that it's become an exclusion zone nobody wants to touch anymore. I've talked at length on this blog about how I think a character like Princess Sally was a perfect foil for Sonic and how they played off of each other extremely well. I want that back. I want Bunnie Rabbot back. I want Antoine back. I want Robotropolis back. And Snively. And Ixis Naugus.

But also, at some point, you have to look at the cold, hard truth: Sonic doesn't need those characters, it doesn't need that universe, and the SatAM version Sonic would not exist at all if it wasn't for the original Japanese Sonic first. SatAM was supplemental material to the main version of the thing people already liked. That's the entire reason something like Sonic Mania could achieve the success it did.

And that's all there really is to it.