#will's media thoughts / virtual brain repository

[oddygaul]

the REDLINE manifesto

In honor of my second DIY screening of Redline, here is, at long last, a prettied-up version of my most popular reddit post, an unabashed love letter to my favorite movie. Most of this is probably less groundbreaking than it was when I first posted it a decade(!) ago, but whatever, the internet needs more Redline content anyway.

REDLINE Trivia

–JP stands for Joshua Punkhead, and in the very first draft he had 26 children and raced to pay off his child support. Also, the catchy moniker ‘Sweet JP’? English-only… the original Japanese gets the mouthful ‘very sweet weaponless prince’.

–You'd be hard-pressed to tell without looking into the lore a bit, but Miki & Todoroki are damn near the only actual humans in the movie; everyone else is some species of alien. Some are obvious, like Shinkai (Oceanic/Chikulun hybrid) and Trava (Anista tribe), but even the most human-like characters are some other race. Sonoshee, for example, is listed as being half human, half Oceanic tribe (海洋族). 

The most curious case, though, is JP. While it'd be easy to assume he's human, there's a lot of details that don't add up: his unique elf ears, his super-lanky-even-for-a-Koike-character-design physique, the fact that his race is conspicuously redacted on his bail sheet… and his seeming immunity to death. Seriously, bro crashes every single thing he drives in the whole movie, then emerges unscathed with just a fiery flash of the eyes – that ain’t normal. If I had to wildly speculate, and I do, I’d put money that he’s somehow linked to Mikuru and the Giant species, as seen in Trava: Fist Planet. The physique matches, the Giants have displayed some preternatural healing abilities, and Trava lays the groundwork for a few other threads in Redline (namely, the existence of bioweapons and Shinkai & Trava’s past military experience), so there’s precedence. Maybe one day we’ll find out for sure…

–We all know and love Funky Boy thanks to the Roboworld president’s endless tirades. But the giant data-motivated crocodile monster Volton fuses with to engage Funky Boy in thrilling combat? She is a lady, and her name is Wire Girl.

–All of Redline’s vehicle and mechanical designs are nuts – they’re insanely complicated and filled with organic curves and details. Despite the immense difficulty of keeping such complex designs consistent, every mechanical shot is hand-drawn, without the aid of any CG. To help the animators stay on-target while drawing, the team made some sweet-ass production models for them to reference. What I wouldn’t give to own one of these…

–Before deciding on Redline being a film, writer Katsuhito Ishii and director Takeshi Koike considered making a TV series. Initial writers’ meetings saw the team fleshing out a comprehensive story bible about the setting: it included not only a wide-scope view of the universe and its history, but also detailed backstories for each racer. Even after deciding to make a feature film, Redline’s initial script gave each racer as much time and focus as the final cut gives to JP & Sonoshee; all of this was, unfortunately, cut for time. According to Ishii, though, much of this ancillary information made it into the novelization…

one day my Japanese will be good enough to read you ;_;

–Confused about why the movie ends with that sparkly, PowerPoint-ass ~LOVE~? Well, you shouldn’t be – Redline is ‘unabashedly dumb’, after all, per Ishii – but there is a little context. Over the course of the movie’s 7-year production, Koike and Yukiko (a producer on the film) fell in love, tying the knot in Switzerland just before Redline’s world premiere. If that doesn’t justify the ending for you, I don’t know what could.

–This isn't trivia but idk where else to put this stupid-ass Lynchman meme I made

Subtext you may have missed on first watch

–Machine Head is Sonoshee's estranged father?!

Crazy, I know, but hear me out. 

First of all, Redline unambiguously shows the viewer that Sonoshee and Machine Head have some sort of pre-existing relationship, the nature of which isn’t explicitly clarified. 

At the Oasis restaurant, Sonoshee tells JP she's waiting for someone; it may sound like she's simply brushing him off, but the moment Machine Head enters the scene, Sonoshee perks up and waves to him. When the Crab Sonoshee is flipped by missile fire during the Redline race, we get exactly two (2) Dramatic Anime Freezeframes: JP and Machine Head, implying those two, out of everyone, care the most about Sonoshee. During the final stretch of the race, as Machine Head prepares to pop his steamlight, he is not only aware that Sonoshee also has one, he taunts her about it:

“I see you still have your steamlight – got the guts to use it this time?”

JP even draws attention to the fact that Sonoshee’s looks identical to Tetsujin’s. Finally, though this is certainly ancillary, it is interesting to note that the exact moment Godwing loses its structural stability is right after JP declares he’s going to win because he, not Machine Head, has Sonoshee at his side.

So let’s line this up with what backstory we definitively know. As stated above, Sonoshee is a human / Oceanic hybrid; Machine Head, though his body has been modified beyond recognition, is referred to the same way. While talking to JP about the steamlight, Sonoshee says her father is the one that gave it to her, then describes him as a skilled racer who ran a junk joint. In that same conversation, when JP suggests she’s too focused on racing at the expense of personal relationships, she bristles and tries to end the conversation. During the flashback of young Sonoshee racing, her reaction to crashing is intense: she’s clearly holding herself to a higher standard, and is already dead set on racing in the Redline someday.

Now, there’s other plausible explanations for all this; maybe there’s just a romantic entanglement between Sonoshee and Machine Head, with JP barging in as the third vertex of a love triangle. But is that the most likely scenario for two people constantly characterized as putting racing before any personal matters?

No, I think Machine Head is Sonoshee’s father. 

Picture it: Machine Head raised Sonoshee at his junk joint, so she grew up around racing and car modification. After seeing success on the circuits, Machine Head stopped being content with mere victory, and started spending all his time and energy modifying his body, pushing himself farther and farther. Sonoshee, feeling neglected and cast aside, turned to racing, seeing it as the only way to get her father’s attention. This lead to her perfectionism complex; if she’s not the very best, why would the King of Kings ever look her way?

Anyway, while it’s not confirmed in the text, I think there’s so many hints it might as well be. It makes JP and Sonoshee’s romance a lot more interesting, too. Their arc isn’t just two people falling in love, it’s about Sonoshee moving past the trauma of her father’s emotional abandonment and opening up to someone new. After JP explains his match fixing history in the climax, Sonoshee isn’t placated because he told the truth, she’s fired up seeing the strength of JP and Frisbee’s friendship: she sees the folly of chasing approval from her absent father, and that she could instead be forming bonds with friends who support her unconditionally. She can race for herself.

Koike and Ishii said Redline is about adult friendships, after all!

pictured: the most romantic kiss in cinema history

–The Redline race is, in fact, underhanded political maneuvering

Now, this one is sorta just The Plot Of The Movie, but I feel like there’s so much going on in Redline people often don’t connect these dots. 

We all laugh at the Roboworld president’s hammy word salad:

“I wonder if this might be some kind of ploy by our enemies to infiltrate our borders. If that’s true, do you realize Roboworld’s military secrets could be at risk here? We’d be exposed!!”

…but he’s… kinda right, though?

At the time of the movie, the M3 Nebula has just emerged from two devastating interplanetary wars. The galaxy’s superpowers are under a tenuous peace agreement – one of the most important stipulations of which is a ban on the use and development of “bioweapons”, which in the Redline universe are less ‘weaponized bacterial strains’ and more ‘gargantuan synthetic monsters that can be deployed to wreak unthinkable destruction’. Despite this ban, the government of Roboworld has been continuing with bioweapon development unabated… and not only does Planet Supergrass seem to be aware of these violations, it really seems like they’re leveraging all their soft power to expose them.

Now, we know Supergrass is generally involved with the Redline final. As a member of the Redline Committee, they have a reason to be involved; they’re helping out with nuts & bolts logistical stuff, like transporting the racers to the course and prepping the finish line. But when you consider the significant, tangible political blows dealt to Roboworld by the race – Funky Boy and Wire Girl’s presumed destruction, Roboworld’s violation of the bioweapon treaty being broadly exposed to the public, the decimation of Roboworld’s military – the long string of coincidences that got us to that point start to seem a little suspicious.

Who pushed for the Redline final to be held on such a hostile planet? Who knew about Roboworld’s experimental orbital laser cannon – a project so tightly under wraps even their president only learns about it during the race – and hired contractors to sabotage it? Who organized a group of malcontents to attack both Roboworld’s power relay station and Funky Boy’s containment creche, right when such disruptions would be the most impactful? And who decided the race’s crucial middle stretch should go right over the restricted military zone housing said creche?

Supergrass has the motive and the means – plus, the race is already illegal, so what can Roboworld do, sue them about it? No sir, that Princess is on some subterfuge shit, and Secretary Titan, that shady fuck, is her inside man. And you can take that to the bank.

Craving more REDLINE?

Unfortunately, due to the movie’s commercial failure, there’s not much else in the franchise. The Redline production pilot is fucking sick, though, and there’s Trava: Fist Planet, an OVA by Koike & Ishii that predates Redline and focuses on Trava and Shinkai’s misadventures. While Trava never got the continuation it deserved, they did make a trailer for season 2... ahh, what could have been.

If you’re just after more of Takeshi Koike’s mind-blowing animation, there’s only a scant few projects in his trademark black-filled style. His most well-known work is probably the Samurai Champloo OP, or maybe World Record from The Animatrix (can’t find a link for that one, but y’know, do your thing). Koike also contributed animation to two other Ishii films: an extended intro for Party 7, and this aggressively horny dance sequence for Funky Forest. Back at Madhouse, it seems the studio liked to use Koike as a bait-and-switch, letting him direct lavish production pilots to secure adaptation rights then switching the staff up for the full production. Feels kind of scummy, but we got the immense Afro Samurai Pilot and Iron Man Pilot out of it. Finally, he made the series of Love shorts for SMAPxSMAP, the SMAP variety show, which are as dope as they are low-res.

I really wanna know if Koike was the one ballin out to CYNE and Gang Starr for this

—

And finally, as I threatened in my last post about Redline: let’s talk thematic depth.

~Thematic Depth~

In conversations online, Redline is often given this caveat of just being ‘eye candy’, or hit with the classic ‘style over substance’ cliche. Now, the phrase ‘style over substance’ has always bothered me, generally – it feels like it comes from folks who have never tried to make art before, who make light of the painstaking work and dedication that goes into creating anything – but it particularly frustrates me in animation. The process of animation is such an absurd, masochistic timesink that it’s a wonder anything ever gets finished at all; something this ambitious being finished, with this level of consistency and polish, is nothing short of a miracle, and to simply call that ‘style’ massively undervalues the whole endeavor. 

Because, make no mistake, Redline is ambitious as hell from a visual standpoint. The consistent focus on kinetic motion and speed, buoyed by Koike’s masterful use of exaggerated perspective, spatial distortion, and dynamic camera work; lots of moving, hand-drawn backgrounds instead of matte pans; lively crowd animation in most scenes; remarkably expressive, constant character animation that imbues personality to every character and never settles for industry standard lip flap dialogue… and all of this using incredibly complex character & mechanical designs, many of which feature distinct alien physiology, and a rendering style with bold, detailed shadows that would be more at home in illustration than animation. It is truly a singular work.

And the thing is, that wild ambition and unfailing dedication to the craft is the message.

The very first moments of Redline, before we see a single car or alien, are a brief series of title cards. I think most first-time viewers, and even many repeat viewers, immediately forget these words seconds after reading them due to the famously high-octane opening act. They read:

“In the far distant future, when cars are giving up their wheels in the changeover to air-cars, there still exist stubborn fools who carry on a vanishing spirit of racing…”

It’s easy to pass over this narration because, well, Redline simply isn’t about this conflict. We don’t see a single air-car racer, and there is no on-screen depiction of this purported old-school / new-school racing divide. So why is it here?

Because it’s the thesis of the whole damn project. Redline is about a group of old-school animation industry vets coming to terms with a changed industry that doesn’t support the type of art they want to create anymore, and their determination to pour their hearts into one last, stupid, beautiful swan song.

Madhouse was founded in 1972 by a group of ex-Mushi Pro staff, including Masao Maruyama and Yoshiaki Kawajiri. A response to Mushi Pro’s shoestring budgets and spartan timelines, the goal of studio Madhouse was to create production schedules where animators could flourish, rather than choosing the cheaper route; as Maruyama puts it, their mission statement was to ‘create animation other people aren’t interested in creating’. And, well, for decades, that’s what they did – Madhouse consistently gave a platform to idiosyncratic creators and produced incredible results. Their film canon includes pivotal productions like Kawajiri’s Ninja Scroll and Vampire Hunter D Bloodlust, Rintaro’s Metropolis, every single Satoshi Kon production from Perfect Blue to Paprika, and The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, the film that launched Mamoru Hosoda into stardom. While their TV output might be seen as more workmanlike, they were still dedicated to creating original stories. For example, despite his proven track record, Masaaki Yuasa was unable to secure funding and creative freedom anywhere else but Madhouse, with whom he produced Kemonozume, Kaiba, and The Tatami Galaxy prior to the establishment of Science Saru.

Takeshi Koike’s formative years as an animator were during this golden era of Madhouse. Poached directly out of high school by Yoshiaki Kawajiri himself, Koike was taken under his wing – his first job as a professional animator was inbetweening for Wicked City, and he’d moved up to key animation roles just one year later. I think Kawajiri’s intent was for Koike to be his protege; in this boom era of animation, with high-budget feature films and OVAs as the de facto standard, creative vision and a unique style is what you’d look for in an up-and-coming director, and Koike had both of these in spades. For a time, this pathway seemed almost assured; Koike’s big-league directing debut on The Animatrix produced one of its most well-received shorts, even amidst an anthology stacked with superstar creative talent.

Unfortunately, the turn of the millennium brought a lot of change for Madhouse and the industry at large. Budgets shrank, and production schedules started trending towards today’s unsustainable nightmare grind. CGI became ubiquitous not for the unique shots and compositions it allows for, but as a corner-cutting method for complicated actors like vehicles or mechas. A certain homogeneity and tendency toward ‘safe’, appealing designs and premises took hold; what good is your off-the-wall, creative worldbuilding idea when the anime industry revolves around merch sales, and generic moe waifus are outselling your original IP ten-to-one? All these industry vets could see the writing on the wall: animation would survive, but things were changing, and the ideals they’d founded their studio around were becoming untenable.

So I genuinely believe Redline is a parting shot from the old guard, a celebration of the era of the industry they cut their teeth on, one last lush, extravagant farewell before they passed the torch to the next generation. Maybe not from the start, sure, but after years of troubled development, progressing slowly due to the team’s meticulous vision, I think they rallied around the cause, dead set on making a masterwork, no matter what. Just look at the talent they attracted, the staff list reads like a best-of: Shinya Ohira, Hiroyuki Imaishi, Sushio, Yoshiaki Kawajiri, Sayo Yamamoto, Katsuya Yamada, Takafumi Hori. 

And that’s where we come back to that opening message, about those stubborn fools. Suddenly, that movie chock-full of characters putting everything on the line for their passions feels a lot more personal. Koike is JP, the traditional [animation / racing ] purist who’s become an anachronism and just wants to be able to do things his way; Kawajiri as the God of Racing, who JP’s looked up to since he was younger, giving him one last thumbs as he achieves his goals; and Maruyama as Frisbee, putting his livelihood in danger to buy his team the time and money they need for one last gig, who wants to see his friend finish the damn thing on his own terms, just this once. 

In a way, it makes it heartbreaking that Redline performed financially as poorly as it did; Japan’s frosty reception to the movie is at such odds with the fervor of its creators. But you know what? Redline exists, and it exists without compromises. They did what they set out to do. They made it across that finish line.

—

[mehradhruv]

Advantages Of Roadshows & Tips To Organize A successful One

The Internet has been one of the most useful and integral inventions when it comes to technological advancements and human evolution. Be it healthcare, education, infrastructure, or marketing and brand promotion, the internet has its roots deep within the system. It’s hard to imagine what life would be as a business owner without online marketing, client retention, virtual community building services, customer engagement, and all the other benefits that come from the Internet. Over the year’s internet has been utilized extensively for the marketing and promotion of products and services to reach out to a wider array of audiences and grab client attention; however, the conventional ways of brand promotion can’t be neglected. One such way of brand promotion is Roadshows.

Roadshows are a great way to reach out to potential customers promoting a product or service in a fast and effective way. A roadshow can be an effective and affordable marketing game plan that can be put together in the shortest period and with the smallest budget. Amongst other outdoor advertisement services, roadshows have a faster turnover rate as they can be scripted and become an eventual hit with the sponsor involvement. The lively environment of the event and the engaging stream of content both help create a lasting impression of the brand amongst the participants. Roadshows are conventionally an outdoor form of advertisement which focuses mainly on the physical aspects of promotion, but social media can be integrated into the roadshows to make the whole experience more impactful and engaging for the audience.

Streaming the event online on social media handles of the company would help to keep the attendees interested in the brand long after the event is wrapped up.

 Events like these allow the speakers to take the main stage and discuss the latest trends of the industry helping to spread the leadership thought. An event like this is the optimal environment for the sales team to step in and show their magic through words, predesigned templates, and presentations. Moving beyond the conventional phone calls, emails, and social media conversation and striving to create actual face-to-face relationships with the targeted audience and the potential customers amongst them.

Now that we know about the advantages of roadshows over digital ways of promotion, let us see some tips to conduct a successful roadshow:

Focusing on the message delivered not on the facts: Most of the information that goes into the event is of great interest to the speaker and the precious sum of the audience gathered there. They don’t usually need every line and sentence     to be straight from the books as the audience for most of the event is internally battling it out about what it all means. The major focus in any roadshow event must be that the message the company wants to pass on to the audience reaches the attendees without ambiguity.

What your audience craves: The primary focus of any event be it outdoor or virtual is to understand the crux of what your audience is gathered to hear, what they crave. Once you understand the needs of the attendees, the brand identity and goal can be molded and reshaped around that need through marketing and promotion     strategies. This will help the brand to showcase its sincerity and authenticity to the audience. 

Using metaphors: Presenter Richard Hammond once described Porsche's rear-mounted engine as being, "A bit like building a pyramid with the pointy bit at the     bottom." Metaphors are a great tool, to sum up, complex ideas and thoughts quickly. Metaphors help grab the attention of the audience in a much better way and hook them up for longer conversations, speeches, and even sales pitches. This makes metaphors a valuable persuasive tool and a handy weapon in a speaker’s repository. No need for huge and complex charts and graphs, just a well-structured sentence with a bit of metaphor lucidly sums up the whole message.

Use of visuals: Are you able to represent your metaphor with something tangible, something physical that can easily be placed on stage? Something you can interact with? According to psychology in an average human brain, 90% of the information     transmitted is visual. Furthermore, images are processed in the brain many times faster than any textual format. Physical props are much more effective than slides. Think about it, talking about how an organization is losing resources is one thing; but holding up a bucket of water with a leak in the bottom is different. Find a way to show your audience what you mean and they will never forget you.

Slotting a Q&A session at the three-quarter mark: It is a good practice to never end the event or speech with Q&A sessions as there might be a chance the speaker may     end up in a scenario where you might have to conclude the event on a defensive note, back-pedaling and having to justify yourself in the face of tough questions or an unanticipated attack. Q&A should be placed or slotted at the three-quarter mark along with the speech. This helps the speaker to answer all the questions and then wrapping up the event as planned on a brighter positive note.

Leaving the audience with clear instructions: A speaker needs to conclude the event with clear instructions or guidelines to be conveyed to the audience. Now the question arises what should one say? You just need to tell them what they need to do if they are interested in the showcased product or service. If the goal behind your roadshow is to encourage existing clients to sign up for a new product, using the conclusion to be overt about it: "In a moment, I'd like you to stop by the table at the back and sign up. Then we will call you and organize a consultation."

Roadshows are a great idea and an invaluable opportunity to speak intellectually, emotionally, and with human connection, directly to your market. Put thought into how you go about your roadshow and the results will speak for themselves.

Happy touring!

 Dhruv Mehra is an author is this article. For More information on How to conduct Roadshows. Kindly Visit our Website.

[infotainmentplus-blog]

What is Kodi? Everything You Need To Know If you’ve been hearing the buzz about Kodi lately, you’re not alone — it is gaining momentum fast. What is Kodi? In the company’s own words, “Kodi is the ultimate entertainment centre.” It’s probably a fair description if you put that in the context of a media player. What is Kodi? Kodi is a free open-source software media center. It runs on pretty much any platform, including Android, iOS, Windows, Linux, and macOS, so it’s an excellent way to access your media content across all of your devices. It has compatibility with many video and music formats, and it’s handy as a picture gallery. There are some pleasing features, such as the ability to use metadata to organize your music and videos. Posters, fan art, trailers, and video extras can be imported to supplement your movie collection, too. Everything about the display and menu system is highly customizable. What you don’t get is any actual media content. At the most basic level you could just end up using Kodi as nothing more than a file browser on your device, but it’s capable of so much more. What is Kodi offering that other apps don’t? Because Kodi is open-source, there are literally hundreds of add-ons and Kodi apps for Android which can be used to personalize and upgrade your experience. This really sets it apart from most of the media players out there. Your first thought might be to sync your media libraries across multiple devices. This may just be possible over your local network — if not there’s an add-on that supports it. As long as your content is stored in a suitable location, Kodi can allow you to access it from anywhere on any device. You can also watch and record live TV using Kodi. It might be a bit more of a hassle, depending on what you’re trying to access, but there are several available PVR add-ons for watching and record TV shows. Kodi has a growing number of community-driven add-ons for online content like YouTube, Hulu, Grooveshark, and Pandora Radio, as well as extra skins and more. There are add-ons for almost anything relating to video, music, radio, and TV. How easy is Kodi to use? The Kodi interface and menu system is very intuitive — you don’t need a tech brain to use it. Its long list of supported file formats also makes things simple. What is Kodi mainly used for? Despite being available on pretty much any device, the developers behind Kodi actually say it is designed with a home theater setup in mind, using a large screen rather than a monitor or phone. This means it can be controlled by mouse, touchscreen, or Kodi 18 voice, but it’s optimally navigated by remote control. Hundreds of different remotes and gamepads are supported, so compatibility is rarely an issue. Things can get a bit more technical with the add-ons. Given the number available, and the variety of tasks they perform, not all of Kodi’s functionality can be easily explored by the lay user. Thankfully, Kodi has its own very helpful Kodi wiki to walk you through many of the scenarios you might face. Is Kodi legal? If used as intended Kodi is absolutely legal, and officially it requires you to own all of the media content you stream through it. Using Kodi for any illegal activity is not condoned. You’re very unlikely to get into legal trouble for installing or using any of the add-ons from the official repository either. However, given its flexibility, Kodi can’t really prevent all illegal activity like playing illegally downloaded movies or TV shows. There are also add-ons from unofficial locations which allow access to copyright-protected content. Android Authority doesn’t condone using Kodi for any illegal activity. Working out which unofficial add-ons are legal and which aren’t can be tricky. Laws in the U.S. and EU regarding streaming other content can be a little unclear too. Streaming often means the whole file never exists on your device at any one time. This means it can be less obvious if your actions are a copyright violation than downloading a movie via torrent with apps such as Popcorn Time apk. The only surefire way you know you’re not infringing any copyright laws is to only use Kodi’s official add-ons. If you’re going to be more adventurous and try some unofficial offerings, proceed at your own risk. Now I know what Kodi is, are there risks? Accidentally or not, if you end up streaming something illegal, your internet service provider (ISP) may notice. After all, everything you do online goes through your ISP, and it might not take kindly to you abusing its service. It could decide to throttle your connection speed, or even cancel your contract altogether. Law enforcement agencies can also potentially trace illegal streaming back to you as well. Your IP address is regularly logged when you are online, and this can be used to identify your account. Knowing what is Kodi, is not enough to protect you. If you’re worried about who is watching you, you can always mask your activity with a virtual private network (VPN). How does A VPN help? Connecting to the internet using a VPN encrypts your data before it leaves your device. No other party can decrypt it — only your device and the VPN server. That way your ISP won’t be able to read the data you send through it. This gives you a little extra piece of mind if you are conscientious about your privacy. Your traffic is also rerouted through a server in a different location, often in a different country, which changes the associated IP address. In effect the VPN spoofs your location, which be used to stream geo-locked content through Kodi. What makes a good Kodi VPN? There are dozens of VPN providers to choose from, and they vary in quality. Some of them are free, but there are several reasons these are not going to be appropriate for use with Kodi. Most are hugely oversubscribed, and have a small download limit. The best VPNs aren’t free, but they’re not necessarily expensive either. A VPN can slow your connection down, which can seriously affect your Kodi experience. You should look for a VPN with proven fast speeds. You’ll also want to choose a provider that doesn’t keep activity log, and has an built-in kill switch for your connection if the VPN fails for any reason. There are other desirable attributes for any VPN too: Ease of use, good customer support, strong encryption protocols, and having a high number of servers in many different locations. There are some excellent VPN providers out there. ExpressVPN is regularly cited as one of the best all-round VPNs, and we came to the same conclusion with our review. It has all the features mentioned above, and in particular offers excellent connection speeds through most of its servers. Video always streams well, so it’s ideal for Kodi. Now that you know what is Kodi, will you be using it? Let us know. If you want to check out our Kodi VPN pick, follow the link below. Try ExpressVPN , via Android Authority http://bit.ly/2Fe0Kdq

[tremendouslypurplecollectio-blog]

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For Mac our experts would certainly count on to see a consecutive increase in Macintosh unit purchases due to the starting point of the education getting period as well as a latest refresh our team only carried out in the Mac computer Pro line. Carrot" is actually a referral to stick as well as carrot"- the words that distills both manner ins which individuals can be encouraged, either by force or even through will-and Innopage is certainly not the only one to have actually jumped on the suggestion that it may create a snappy name for an inspirational to-do application. This seems like your main incentive for participating in video games is actually very competitive leaderboards.

Cloud will end up being cognitive cloud," an ubiquitous virtual data repository powered through a digital brain" that comprehends human needs to assist our team interact with details effortlessly in job as well as life. The Different colors Influences Body, built by world-renown colour psychologist Angela Wright, determines that while people could possess specific choices for shade, the results of different colors influence people globally. The simpler alternative is going to regularly be actually to disregard, postpone or even decline the ask for, thus decreasing the thought process assists. It's likewise feasible that if you're attempting to imagine intentionally, you might recognize the experience in a different way in comparison to if you're aiming to concentrate on a duty, states Jackie Andrade, a psychology teacher at Plymouth College. If you do not make use of thoughts maps due to the fact that you discover thoughts applying software program troublesome, maybe it is actually time to attempt the good outdated marker and also newspaper course. http://www.invaloaredecumparare.com -seated knowing systems are basically ordered systems, yet they do not possess time.

[allies-of-allies]

Run after the information, Not the IT

I . T .-'IT'-is costly. Every single Chief executive officer, CFO, COO-virtually every director at every level of each and every organization around the world sees that irrefutable reality. It's normally a serious lines product in most firm budget.

For that IT dept, handling the business specialised capability suggests primary getting a merchandise that matches regardless of what have to have the organization has come up with (and sometimes the odd whim of the sole manager), then this invest in, setting up, education, and maintenance of the hardware components, software program, systems, and directories which are with the resource. Then you get to keep worrying about interfaces between the applications, reports, security (the two external and internal), as well as amazing, irrepressible, eccentric, and typically devastation practices in the users despite you've presented full last part-to-finish training about the cool product.

Then anybody changes their head and you get to do it all over for a second time.

I personally trust any urban place need to have a personal asylum for IT staff. This area must occur filled with regions for the briefly insane to execute individual and violent deterioration of computing devices, provide you with them a create of punching luggage built to resemble ignorant (not stupid, just unlikely) organization officers, plus an even more stomping terrain loaded with dummies designed to resemble an assortment of knuckle-headed end users. Plus a unique host to heck for online hackers...

Such a establishment could be loaded to potential at all times.

The madness doesn't halt with the IT dept. For other enterprise professionals, IT changes signifies several hours or days of training, down time and loss in productivity that accompanies IT challenges, problems, or process upgrades.

For sales people, an IT glitch could mean lost possibility, loss in profits, together with a less than stellar picture of the provider that can be in a customer's brain for a long time. Salesmen may in no way conquer an undesirable shopper encounter created by was unsuccessful IT. The saying "your computer is your friend" is simply not commonly spoken concerning sales agents.

But IT is a necessary bad, isn't it? What enterprise could purpose without this?

Nicely, it can be important. Even an resourceful young male or female going into the workforce the very first time mowing gardens requires a means for buyers to reach him/her, methods to manage a routine, possibly even a method to path who may have paid off their charge.

But can it must be satanic?

Imagine if the wicked-ness arrives because we're looking to resolve the incorrect disadvantage in the IT? We're aiming to power a circular peg to a sq . hole, imagining It could clear up our difficulty without the need of really pinpointing what the catch is? We purchase computers, networks, communications, and many types of things you can do another thing-take and take care of info. A basic simple fact that we inherently all know but gloss about-it isn't the IT that's essential, it's what's traversing that it really.

It's concerning the details. Those people modest bits and bytes that define characters that make up details elements that coalesce into information that delivers us knowledge that even more transforms into knowledge that can be used and acted when.

It's regarding the info. Nevertheless we run after the knowhow traveling the info.

But hold on (you say)! We now have our databases. That's aspect of the IT. That's the place our details are placed. We must have the IT to access our information. It's OUR details.

Perfectly, absolutely yes... type of.

Yet not actually. Your small business does store data in to the directories connected with your organization, usually in a proprietary database which can be aspect and parcel with the application you've ordered. Most-or at a minimum a great deal-of the data is replicated in other methods, some inner in your firm, but most clearly in certain other outward strategy. And starting a data bank is hard operate, what with getting things uncovered, parsed, moved into your correct career fields, approved, and the like. It takes time as well as manpower which means money spent.

As well as how simple would it be to get it back again from that data base one time you've wanted to start working on another neat IT product or service? The quantity of IT administrators operate an get out of method concurrently they're establishing their investment technique? If you opt for a exclusive solution, do you realize what facts protection under the law one has and just how you'll get rid of that product whenever the time is offered? Mainly because it will. (Moreover, the correct answer is often 'no'-it's hard enough to acquire the solution all set while revealing your vendor and business control that you're actually organizing (and shelling out resources on) its demise.)

Alright, so who may have the information (exactly where can be your data bank essentially positioned and who controls it? Having entry? Who possesses it (don't make an presumption here))? How might it be provided lower back allowing you to transfer it towards a competitor's system? Must you invest in a amazing (meaning, overpriced) method to draw out the info? Who handles challenges? Who preserves the documentation over time so you essentially know what that repository appears to be and exactly what each one element means that (since that changes way too)? This edges over the geeky but X may well not continually and for good imply X, or perhaps now its X 2. Probably X is already alpha-numeric whilst it began as numeric only. This information is completely essential-what improved when? With out that documents, you have not a way of understanding when your info is comprehensive, whether its actually appropriate or maybe its been damaged.

Really enjoy your data base executives.

So, back in who genuinely has the info. Regardless of whether your imminently clever IT director provides the bases dealt with in terms of database acquisition and everything, does one really unique the details features?

No. You own the intelligence which comes while using the information, or any subsequent storage containers and retrieval of this cleverness, but the truth is don't really are able to decide the details factors that make up that cleverness.

For example, the US Interpersonal Security and safety number. The US Administration holds it-its design and guidelines, as well as the information allocated each specific. Your business has no say with the subject. It will, yet, supply in a variety of methods. Some IT products use all nine personas-with or without the dashes-although some only maintain your previous 4, 6, or 7. Other places have very own detection quantities that look absolutely nothing like the US SSN. What to do now?

Just how long is actually a 'name' and who extends to determine what it really resembles (no system I'm aware about could grab the image Prince made use of for a time)? How long can a name be? What exceptional figures are made it possible for? What number of labels can a person have (primary/final/mid or 6-7 labels, Aliases, Beforehand Referred To As)?

Inside locations, some will say the administration manages a great deal of the opposite individually recognizable facts (often abbreviated to "PII") with the nation (most likely the US among them). There could be also some foreign consortium that trust they 'own' records associated with their subject of expertise (but I wager there's other consortium which would disagree with this spot).

We could go on. The idea is that none of us 'owns' a facts element, at least nothing at all that's arranged internationally, and that's a difficulty.

Why?

For the reason that we have been world-wide beings life as people in a global natural environment. No male (or land) happens to be an tropical island. Details moves around our world in the velocity of consideration as a result of social media marketing and interconnected solutions. It's perpetual-once a 'thought' is out there, it's available on the market completely since somewhere it's been caught by an IT 'system'.

Info is available from almost anywhere and then we can find out one thing about nearly anything with some vital cerebral vascular accidents (despite the fact that we have now no way of knowing the veracity of the items we find).

So, goods has gone out there in various varieties, most of it really is perfect, some of it isn't, and you also demand particular equipment to get most of it.

Just how can we realize whatever we know? Actually, I feel this period could eventually be referred to as the 2nd Darker Age range because we don't figure out what we recognize and possess not a chance to grab (into perpetuity) our information. Or trail of e-mail, remarks, memos, and so forth that instructs how you came to that information, why we created that final decision, why that specific pathway was picked, for example.

Personal computers, computers, cellular phones include an abundance of info that is part of someone or usually, an organization or group. When that machine will go to the truly great Recycling Container from the Sky, often through a fried harddrive which will make the info it contains hard to get at, all that details are lost. Reduce to black color.

I attended a lecture one time regardless in 1900 our information was increasing almost every 50 yrs. In 1950 it was actually each and every 25 yrs, in 1998 (as soon as i observed this) it absolutely was just about every 10 years, and also by 2020 it might be almost every 72 times. Say what? Just how do we take that? How can we recognize everything you know when it's all caught in disparate databases, disparate tools, in numerous develops?

How that is known do we cope with all of this records/data/know-how/intelligence?

We require help. We need the laptops or computers that will help us. Like in, Synthetic Intelligence (AI). AI might help us seems sensible of everything, excluding the 'all of it' is dispersed and parsed all over the world without having any standard kind or organizational construction.

So-can you imagine if we discontinued operating the IT and as a substitute drove the details (which can be whatever we want anyways)? Just imagine we have control over our info, controlled it, and standardized it all over the world?

Envision it-information element X looks like this, indicates this, is utilized by this nomenclature, owned (operated) with that firm and (perhaps) even up-to-date this way. It may do what ever it sought for it so long as it didn't affect the shape from the element!

It wouldn't matter just what it resource we employed-any fitted our demands and budget-due to the fact our data was remain-on their own and controlled such as Borg-collective. IT can not change the shape or concept of the data. Resistance is futile. Companies wouldn't need to shell out huge amounts of money determining and documenting their data source given that it may be standardized. They will only need to identify the info things they're serious about. A provider having a new IT device wouldn't need to customize their device for each and every shopper-your data sessions can be conventional (believe Products and services Focused Architecture on steroids).

Omg! But exactly how? How would be begin locking downward data?

It can get a worldwide endeavor, quite possibly a specific thing below the United Nations.

Presume there is a group that had good care of anything affiliated with Individually Recognizable Material, yet another for knowledge, one more for health and fitness, another for data processing, etcetera and many others etc...

It's imagination-boggling. There'd ought to a team in order to choose which crew a bit of facts ought to be brought to for managing (is 'checking account' part of bank, bookkeeping, private, or business facts?)

There will be disputes.

It's been attempted in advance of naturally, on smaller scales by small companies. None are actually thriving predominantly since the group of people didn't basically individual the info. You can't handle what you don't very own.

I disagree on this site, nevertheless, that it must be no more dependent on option. When we are to keep away from becoming that Secondary Dimly lit Age groups, we have to try to get power over our records and it must be a standard endeavor.

Start small, imagine significant, step rapidly...

Why not focus on a team devoted to individual qualities? Identify these factors. Create the information framework. Outline the equipment to reach, up-date, and terminate that details. Then switch from there.

Think about a society where by firms or individuals can purchase any IT solution off the shelf-minus the recent bureaucracy affiliated with key buys-should they want, with no matter what features they would like, considering that the data it makes use of is widely organised. It might preserve vast amounts of money (right after the Fantastic Info Shape with the Heavens was set up anyways).

Consider a entire world in which information and facts are outside of the IT operating it. You could have a databases however you can't affect the system or interpretation. Some aspects may very well be un-updateable with the exception of by an authorized party (e.g., provider facts like birth date) along with a get good at variant taken at what ever amount considered suitable-maybe nationwide then synchronized along with a community-huge repository. You possibly can coalesce the details into data and knowledge that (could possibly) come to be a different part of data and caught it its own appropriate but you will NOT up-date the 'truth' files element.

Indeed, I understand-get two aspirin and think it by means of... it would hurt the gray issue. It's better to chase the IT than receive a take care of on the files, this is why we go that way. But we will need to begin.

Content Resource: http://EzineArticles.com/9766302

[oddygaul]

Avatar: The Way of Water

You know, not that I have any particular faith that this series will make anything of it, but The Way of Water actually raises some interesting questions about the way consciousness and the transfer of self work in the Avatar universe.

My first watch, I treated Recom Quaritch as just an excuse to bring back the most charismatic antagonist the series had – that he was more or less the same one-dimensional character as before, with a quick handwave for how his return was possible. But they’re honestly doing more than that with his writing. This isn’t Quaritch back from the dead with a new lease on life; his “I am not that man” speech to Spider is not a shirking of responsibility, and his iconic skull crushing scene is not an uncaring show of stoicism. 

Recom Quaritch is terrified. 

When he sees Neytiri’s arrows, he is experiencing primal fear. When he sees Spider, left behind alone on an alien world, he regrets the callousness of his former self. He sees where Quaritch’s bravado led him, sees what the end result of his mistakes was, and decides to firmly reject that he’s the same person as the original. He has Quaritch’s memories in his mind, but he doesn’t feel they belong to him. When he crushes Quaritch’s skull, it represents a refusal to honor the man the RDA assumes him to be: Recom Quaritch is his own man, and he will make his own choices about his future.

I always appreciate it when sci-fi takes this approach towards ‘revival’ via a backed-up consciousness. A lot of my favorites explore its implications – the Culture books, for example, dive deep into the drawbacks of a backup-based system – but all too often, they’re glossed over and treated as a magical solution to death and danger.

I don’t care how thorough and precise your backup is, unless there’s some instantaneous, streaming consciousness-transferring device, if you die and your backup is placed in a new body, that is NOT you. Sure, to everyone else, it might as well be: as far as they can tell, you look and act the same as you always have. But YOU, your stream of consciousness, your awareness, the ongoing perception of the world that defines your life – that has ended, and no amount of backups can bring that back. It only makes sense that the revived’s sense of personhood might be drastically different.

It’s an interesting pivot, because the original Avatar sorta takes for granted the functionally seamless transfer of consciousness used in the Avatar system. Via the link unit, one’s mind can be ping-ponged back and forth between a human and Na’vi body as much as you want, in real-time, with only the sensation of waking up from a nap to show anything changed. Jake’s permanent transfer into his Na’vi body at the end works the same way, just using a big tree instead of the science tube: he simply closes his eyes as a human, and wakes up in his new body like nothing ever happened. The societal implications of this technology are staggering – people could functionally live forever by growing new bodies and instantly transferring over, for example – but it's used only as a plot contrivance.

That is to say, the first Avatar is fully disinterested in exploring the potential nuance of these ideas, and much more focused on really hammering home its comparisons between technology and the natural world; they want you to be thinking about the contrast between the Na’vi queues and the human link units, not some fiddly philosophical quandary. Still, now that The Way of Water has raised these questions, it would be cool if the future sequels – maybe the one set on Earth? – dig a little more into the horror inherent in recreating the minds of the dead.

Being in this headspace for this watch also made me realize how fucked it is to have an Avatar after the human it’s based on has died. In The Way of Water, we see Grace’s Avatar body, and it’s… well, it’s still there. It’s alive, submerged, and kicking… just with no mind inside, empty, a bespoke vessel made for one soul that just doesn’t exist anymore. Brutal.

—

Other thoughts:

The first Avatar relies on its adventure setpieces – Jake’s first bond with the ikran, the montages of running through Pandora by night – more than its action setpieces, which themselves are like, aight. Way of Water’s action, by contrast, legit kicks fucking ass start to finish. Consider:

-the slow-mo train derailing -the Metkayina ducking in and out of the water to avoid gunfire then leaping out to spear RDA chumps -the speedboats, crab mechs, and assault subs, all of which are infinitely more fun than Avatar’s clunky mechs, and the spectacular flips they do as they bounce across the surface of the ocean to explode on nearby rocks -the big whale doing straight-up Action Hero shit -Neytiri shooting a guy through another guy

Seriously, it’s killer. As someone that considers themselves fairly weary of fight scenes these days – so much of it is just noise with no art – I remain impressed after a rewatch.

[oddygaul]

The Half of It

I was expecting this to be a safe, inoffensive romcom after watching the underwhelming trailer, so color me surprised at how genuine this movie was.

So often, the ‘small towns’ you see in a romcom are these idyllic, cosmopolitan utopias, as if you just took a street corner from a large city and transplanted it into the sticks. It was refreshing to see a protagonist’s small town actually feel like one, i.e. dull, insular, and close-minded, with peers bullying Ellie for being Asian and the entire town packing into one church every week.

This sense of place makes the characters feel particularly bespoke, with their personalities clearly a developed response to their circumstances. Ellie’s ostracism from the monoculture has led to her being solitary and introspective; Aster, as the pastor’s daughter and girlfriend of the town’s golden boy, gives off wildly intense medieval-princess-who’s-been-betrothed-against-her-will-for-the-prosperity-of-her-dynasty vibes. 

And the boys, well… holy shit, Trig and Paul are two of the biggest himbos this side of the 2000s. Trig is fully a cartoon character; he’s basically a slightly toned-down version of the infantile quarterback in Bottoms. Paul, on the other hand, is a complex himbo. He often goes full puppydog – this mf has one of the most head-empty smiles I’ve ever seen, and half of the movie is him running full tilt after cars, bikes, and trains – but there’s a quiet loyalty to him, and despite his professed clumsiness with words, he ends up being the one to deliver the movie’s most thought-provoking message.

Paul’s idea that “love is the effort you put in” comes amidst his and Ellie’s discussion about the merits of pursuing someone so unlike yourself that you have to study up in order to talk to them, but it carries a lot of weight, and got me thinking about what in his upbringing must have led him to believe this. I guess it’s not a revolutionary take; it’s similar enough to the oft-reprised ‘marriage is hard work’, when you get down to it. But I liked seeing that idea applied to the initial stages of love, too.

The story of Ellie's dad and how he got trapped in Squahamish also broke my heart

I had some gripes as the movie went on; the talent show scene was truly deplorable, and the cast (especially the extras) are some of the most egregious Thirty Year Olds Pretending to be High Schoolers I’ve seen in a minute. But The Half of It pushes past all that to feel authentic, and really sticks the landing. Likely this is just because my high school romantic experience was composed primarily of missed opportunities, awkward missteps, and naive pining, but it always feels more believable to me when a romcom with characters this young ends this way. Just because a romance doesn’t end in a years-long partnership doesn’t mean it can’t leave a lasting impression, y’know?

[oddygaul]

Common Side Effects

Shit, I’m just glad Joe Bennett (and Vincent Tsui) have another animation gig going. It’s no Scavengers Reign, at least for my deeply sci-fi-pilled tastes, but there’s a lot to love here.

Some of the Scavengers DNA is here; the trippy bits have a similar graceful abstraction to them, and all of the flora and fauna we encounter is animated with loving attention to detail. The character designs, well, they kind of unsettle me, but they’re successful at what they’re going for: they’re undeniably unique, and the enlarged heads allow for lots of expressive character animation.

It’s much more of a straight up-and-down thriller than I was initially expecting. There’s a lot more awe and mysticism than your typical Adult Swim show, don’t get me wrong, but Common Side Effects is firmly grounded in the real world: the conflict between Marshall’s naive idealism and the harsh reality he finds himself in remains the driving force of the show.

Still, it manages to keep the vibes light despite that. The writing is funny without being over-the-top; Marshall’s relentless optimism is refreshing, even if it can be frustrating at times; hell, even the DEA agents break ranks to do the right thing when it comes down to it*. Plus, the end of the season implies things will only get weirder from here: between Jonas’ bizarre overdose-induced birthloop and the increasing ubiquity of the lil grey guys, there’s clearly lots we still don’t know about the Blue Angel mushrooms.

*I mean, I guess that one was a given. No one with shoulder work like that could be evil, right?

Sidenote, a snake though he may be, I did find Jonas’ speech about how a widely accessible Blue Angel might dramatically disrupt the world order fascinating. The optimist in me thinks inequality would be immediately, drastically reduced by releasing a wonder cure into the world. The realist imagines that by necessity, there would still have to be distributors of the mushroom, even if it wasn’t the pharmaceutical corporations, and how much power those distributors would hold. And if everyone had access to what is essentially a respawn, the threshold for violence truly might shift; without the consequence of death or permanent injury, the use of force becomes a much more appealing option to the average person. Could this result in an uprising against oppressive oligarchical regimes? Maybe… or it might calcify our existing social order even further, with the ultra-wealthy’s grip on the world’s power structures now bolstered by on-demand immortality.

It’s a compelling topic, is what I’m saying. Hopefully season 2 sets some time away for it.

[oddygaul]

Fashion Hunter Wilds

Monster Hunter Wilds is quite possibly the best dress-up game I’ve ever played.

The armor not being gender locked anymore is an absolute game changer: being able to mix and match armor pieces to your heart’s content blows the game’s fashion wide open. On top of that, every piece now has two recolor options for coordinating styles! There’s still a few armor pieces here and there with bold colors that can’t be adjusted – looking at you, glowing blue Guardian sets, the single blight on an otherwise perfect system – but the vast majority are fully editable.

Something I’ve always admired about the armor & weapon design in Monster Hunter is that they aren’t just variations within a particular aesthetic; instead, each outfit appeals to wholly different sensibilities. Whether a player gets excited by bulky plate armor, sleek roguish raiments, or pretty butterfly dresses, the team really makes sure to cater to a variety of tastes.

From the design team on the original Monster Hunter:

Fujioka Kaname: Whenever we sit down to design new armor I always say, “Every design doesn’t need to be liked by every player.” As long as there is at least one person out there who says, “I like this one,” then we’ve done a good job. We set out to design so many different kinds of armor that everyone who plays the game will find at least one set to suit their tastes.

Kambe Tomonori: Whenever the opinions of the team split right down the middle between “love it” and “hate it,” you know you’ve got a winner.

While this ethos is commendable, it was always at odds with the games’ tension between form and function. Because armor sets also give tangible stats and skills, the player always faced a tough decision between choosing the armor that speaks to them aesthetically versus the armor that benefits their gameplay. Even in World and Rise, when layered armor started to become the norm, it was fiddly and locked behind inconvenient systems. Wilds does away with this – the layered armor system is the most accessible and straightforward it’s even been. As soon as you get to High Rank, every time you craft a piece of armor, you unlock it permanently to use for aesthetics. No waiting for a title update, no staggered rollout with only certain armor sets available, no specific end-game mode with weird crafting requirements… just hunt the monster, craft its armor, and you’re good to go.

I cannot emphasize enough how happy this makes me. No joke, I think at least a fourth of my hours clocked in Wilds have been scrolling through the armor list, making different sets, testing different color combinations, and playing dress-up with my hunter. The sweaty players’ endgame in Wilds is grinding Artian weapons; MY endgame is creating a different outfit for every single new weapon I build to make sure my hunter is looking fresh as hell.

and my partner's favorite fits, for good measure:

[oddygaul]

Dandadan

I think I got a bit overhyped on this one, both by recommendations and by my own Science Saru-loving self. I walked in here expecting some transcendent Eizouken type shit, but, no, it’s a pretty regular degular shonen: high school setting with plenty of boring interiors, yokai, supernatural powers, extravagant fight scenes, routinely sexualized underage girls, we’ve got it all here… for better and for worse, Dandadan is capital A Anime.

Now, to its credit, there’s a lot that Dandadan does well. The character animation is consistently charming, even in its weaker episodes. When it serves the moment, there’s lots of genuinely impressive character blocking and attention to detail – Momo’s earrings are nearly a character in their own right, and there’s absurd flexes like this cut with hand-drawn fisheye lens – and when things are less serious, we get dumb cartoon shit instead. Truly, what a blessing that the .jpg reaction zoom has become a permanent part of anime’s visual lexicon.

And the romance, well, the romance is pretty fucking cute, and Dandadan is at its best when it leans into it. It’s not that its romantic building blocks are unheard-of: Okarun is your classic low-confidence anime protagonist who gets in his own head and self-sabotages, and we have plenty of sitcom-esque misunderstandings that take multiple episodes to resolve. What sets it apart, I think, is its willingness to set aside its shounen battler guise and devote entire episodes to being a whole-ass romcom, like in episode 5. Sakuga Blog did a great writeup on this episode and its depiction of budding romance, so I’m just going to link to that instead of trying to add anything meaningful.

Speaking of that writeup, wow, episode 7. What a thing. It’s like a snapshot of a different show: gorgeous storyboarding, some singular directorial choices, and a sense of wrenching drama and loss that is nowhere else in Dandadan. Honestly, To A Kinder World’s tender, compassionate treatment of Silky was a surprising contrast in a series that’s bookended by leering near-sexual assaults of its 15-year old female lead. Again, can’t recommend enough a readthrough of KViN’s fantastic overview of the episode and Shuuto Enomoto, the powerhouse creative behind its unique vision.

Anyway, at the end of the day it’s a fun series. When the zany anime battles hit, they hit, even if I have my misgivings and even if the yokai / alien aesthetic doesn’t do a whole lot for me at a primal level. Gotta say, though… if Okarun’s theory that Earth hasn’t been invaded by aliens only because the yokai have been fighting them off for centuries, they are gonna be cooking as the series goes on.

[oddygaul]

Chain Gang All-Stars

Great book.

I sort of hope Chain Gang All-Stars is never adapted into a show or movie. It’s certainly possible that it could be done with proper deference to the tone and message of the book, but I think it’s far more likely that it would end up essentially being what Chain Gang is in the story itself - a hyper-violent spectacle that people tune into because they think it’s cool and action-packed. I think Chain Gang All-Stars is very successful at walking the tightrope line of drawing the reader into the story and letting them flirt with what it must feel like to be a viewer of the program, while presenting enough reminders of its grim reality to prevent you from being totally sucked in. While there were times during the LinkLyfe segments where I was drawn in the way a viewer absorbed in a reality show would be, the battles themselves never give in to ‘just’ being badass. They were tense, certainly, and I was on pins & needles reading them, worried about the characters, but there’s a certain utilitarian brutality to the writing in those sections that keeps them grounded. I’d be worried any adaptation would make everything too stylish and exciting, thoroughly missing the point*.

*To say nothing of any potential dilution of the politics to appeal to a wider audience.

— “All other sport was just a metaphor for this.” —

Chain Gang All-Stars is incredibly good at giving every single character a depth and fullness, even ‘antagonists’, so that even the characters who infuriate us, we understand to a degree. The book doesn't justify evil deeds - there’s no excusing Wil’s dumb ass self - but it shows how easy it is for someone to placate themselves, to keep themselves on a surface level and not dig too deep into their own morality, to convince themselves that they’ve done what they could and that all those who have wrong done to them deserve what they get. The fluid perspective switches it accomplishes this with are fascinating, too. We get chapters dedicated to different characters, of course, be it our leads, our deuteragonists, and plenty of one-off side stories - standard stuff. But Adjei-Brenyah also rapidly switches between multiple perspectives within the same page, hell, the same paragraph at times, which gives us insight into a much wider breadth of viewpoints than we normally would.

By getting to see into the inner thoughts of quite a few Links, we get to see how, while their individual experiences are different, their imprisonment has broken them all in tragically similar ways. From Bishop to Sunset to Thurwar to Staxxx, we see a consistent, crippling lack of self-worth. The A-Hamm chain is unique in preaching a vision of solidarity, accepting one’s past mistakes, and focusing on how they’ve grown and changed as people. Despite this, at their core, none of them can truly find it in themselves to be forgiven, because Chain Gang grinds their lack of perceived value into them unceasingly - ultimately resulting in what is essentially suicide. The carceral system does not allow for or encourage rehabilitation, only suffering and self-hatred.

I thought it was a compelling decision to make the majority of the imprisoned characters we follow legitimate violent offenders. A lot of the abolitionist / prison-critical literature I’ve read often focuses on, or at least begins with, incarceration that is plainly, nakedly unjust, like long-serving non-violent offenders and mandatory minimum sentencing. Conversations about the treatment of murderers, rapists, etc., are naturally more fraught - it’s harder to get someone to imagine an entirely different system, rather than just adjustments to the current system.

Chain Gang All-Stars does not shy away from it one bit. We get self-reflection from multiple different Links, both those who regret what they’ve done and those who don’t; we get conflicted thoughts from family members who recognize that their lives have been fundamentally changed by the imprisonment of their kin, but are still ambivalent about forgiveness; and we get, of course, the fearmongering and appeals to pathos used by government and the media to try and stop any ideas of abolition from even beginning to take root in the minds of the public. The book understands that there’s no easy answers, and instead brings all of these perspectives to the reader, demanding they grapple with the issues themselves.

It does, however, make clear the absurdity of pretending that taking someone whose life has been indelibly touched by violence and putting them into a system that encourages and requires additional violence, by the state, by their peers, is somehow rehabilitation. It’s brought to an extreme in the novel, of course - Thurwar’s overriding instinct that every problem can potentially be solved by violence due to the constant killing she’s done is more reminiscent of a soldier returning to peacetime than anything else - but the message stands.

Some of the most powerful parallels shine through as-is, though. Even when you put aside the horror the Links are put through on a daily basis and the rampant normalization of state-sanctioned violence, the base lack of freedom and personal autonomy is what breaks people. Both during Chain Gang and our looks at other prisons, the regimented days, planned schedule, and inability to spend time or talk with the people they care about are basic human rights that are removed from prisoners every day. Hendrix’s silent prison (an idea I was horrified to find has been enacted before) shows this in one extreme - after being robbed of something as simple as his own voice for so long, Hendrix is willing to risk everything just to be able to reclaim that part of himself. Most heartbreakingly, the morning of the final doubles match, Thurwar’s only desire is to stay in bed longer with Staxxx. Leisure time with your loved ones, one of the most basic luxuries a person ought to have, seen as an unobtainable prize. Don’t need a dystopian near-future novel to see that happening.

Speaking of Hendrix Young, the voice Adjei-Brenyah uses for his sections was absolutely beautiful and oozing with character and I loved it. The way he speaks is simultaneously poetic yet so pragmatic - there’s an idiosyncratic turn of phrase in nearly every paragraph, and his love for the world and its beauty is never eclipsed by his cynicism and the horrible things happening around him. His sections were handily my favorites, despite the looming dramatic irony that overshadows them all.

— “I thought of how the world can be anything and how sad it is that it’s this.” —

As a literary device, the interspersing of worldbuilding notes and Actual Fucked-Up Prison Facts was a genius touch. By priming your brain to expect something more fantastical, the more grounded notes become something of a sucker punch. The first few are all in-universe lore explanations - they’re not entirely necessary, you could’ve pretty much got the gist through context, but the thorough explanation written almost as an ad read pulls you into the mentality of this world… so then, when it drops, say, the net worth and founding members of the Corrections Corporation of America and you get the inkling that this tidbit feels a little too specific to be made up, the lines between the book’s world and our own start to blur.

In addition to the unique cognitive dissonance it invokes, I think it’s a pretty effective strategy to convince or teach a reader who perhaps hasn’t done as much digging about the nightmare that is the American prison-industrial complex. Especially given that the main conceit of the book is a little outlandish, it’s very easy for me to imagine such a reader enjoying the story for its plot, but deflecting or doubting the themes with the classic “Oh, but this is an exaggeration - it would never happen like this! It would never be that sadistic”. In some way, the footnotes feel like the author directly responding with a “Yes, it would, and in fact has already happened this way previously”.

I do wish the footnotes stayed as dense throughout the entire book as they were at the start. In the beginning, they come hard and fast, blending the real and the fictional, keeping the reader on their toes. About a third of the way through, though, they slow to a trickle, becoming a rarity. Adjei-Brenyah keeps experimenting with what the footnotes can convey (“Don’t look down. Help me.” was particularly chilling), but the infrequency starts to make them feel like an afterthought.

— “Just jump.” —

The closer I got to the end of Chain Gang All-Stars, as fewer and fewer pages remained, I was increasingly desperate for something to break. Even as the story continued towards the inevitable, even as it showed me there could be no other way for things to go, I hoped for something else. Anything but what happened.

And yet… the ending gives this book’s message a lot of its power. It’s not a story where things always work out and the good guys always win - it’s a reflection of real problems, and those real problems don’t have such a simple solution. Chain Gang All-Stars is about people living in an unfair world, working within a cruel, unjust, system, and still finding the strength and conviction to believe that there can be positive change. It’s about knowing that progress can be slow, and that the system can feel daunting, and feeling powerless to enact change, and still imagining and pushing for the world to be better anyway. And somehow, that it faces that hopelessness head-on makes it more uplifting than a safer story with an easier ending.

[oddygaul]

Zenless Zone Zero

Well, I’ve been playing the shit out of this game, so fair warning, there will be significant brainrot ahead.

Overall, I really dig it. I’m a huge mark for character action games, and well-done life sims tend to suck me in; Zenless Zone Zero is nailing both those aspects pretty damn well. In fact, it’s nailing them well enough that… how do I put this… it starts to slip into the territory of being A Good Game Generally, rather than just a gacha. And while this is a big accomplishment for ZZZ, this also puts it into direct conversation with other full-price games, resulting in its gacha elements causing more friction than Honkai Star Rail’s ever did*.

*I’ll be comparing this to HSR a lot, because I play way too much of both and they’re made by the same developer. I recognize that it is pretty odd and potentially even problematic to A / B compare them when I could be looking at the game through the lens of, you know, Gaming At Large. But hey, that’s why this is a subjective journal and not a holistic review blog! It is what it is.

So, the aesthetic of this game fuckin rules - it’s like, late 90s to early 2000s VHS-core. The main characters run a Blockbuster, for Christ’s sake. Presentation-wise (and systems-wise, and, hell, music-wise), ZZZ is obviously borrowing a lot from the Persona series, but like… great? I’d love it if more things cribbed that style and made it their own, from the confidant hangouts, to the small but comfy explorable areas, to the dynamic menus with edgy character poses. The character design itself is all superb, all the way down to the crowd NPCs - some the shopkeepers here have cooler designs than the main characters of some other games. Even aside from the designs, ZZZ is doing a lot with lighting and color desaturation that really lends it its own unique vibe. They actually have a cohesive artstyle in here! wild.

The presentation of the story is also killer. Sure, a decent chunk of the conversations are just models lip-flapping at each other - although they at least emote and pose a bit here, unlike the Star Rail dialogue scenes with their demure princess waves. In the main story, though, we get not only a heap of fairly lengthy cutscenes, but also this really cool comic panel-style presentation.

I feel like there was a bit of a trend in the PS3/360 era of games to present a game’s story in this comic panel / storyboard style. I understood the motivation: games increasingly demanded a more involved, consistent storytelling approach, rather than the ‘One big rendered cutscene at the beginning and end’ they used to get away with, and the generation’s increased visual fidelity meant that doing even basic, in-engine cutscenes took a lot more resources to make something half-decent. In Spyro the Dragon on PS1 you could get away with a fun little 15-second gag with a barely animated polygonal yeti or whatever; in the PS3 era, you were going up against tryhards like Metal Gear Solid 4. Amidst this landscape, the pitch of having your illustrators pretty up some storyboards and put them in the game sounds like it’d save a lot of work - plus, consoles were finally outputting a high enough resolution that this sort of flat image wouldn’t be compressed to hell.

Thing is, I always kinda hated that approach. In some cases, I think that’s the popular opinion - I fuckin love Bayonetta, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone defend its weird slideshow cutscenes. Even in games where the execution is perfectly fine, though, it rubbed me the wrong way. I think of Infamous - objectively, the art’s solid and fits the tone of the game, and the motion graphics aim to capture some of the dynamism typical cutscenes would provide. Despite all that, it still feels cheap to me - all of the panning, effects, and graphic imagery feel like they’re trying to polish up something that inherently doesn’t fit.

In ZZZ, though, I’m loving every one I come across. It’s obviously still done for efficiency reasons - there’s already a handful of characters that exist only in these panel scenes, saving the team the effort of having to model and rig them. But the freedom this allows for staging and storytelling is huge; the characters are more expressive here than anywhere else in the game, and we’re able to see situations with huge crowds and new locales much more often than would be possible in typical cinematics. And the illustrations are genuinely good, too - full of character, cool poses and creative compositions/angles.

if everything actually had to be modeled, there's no way we would've gotten Legally Blonde Nicole

Plus, the cutscenes are constant, and boy do I love the animation here. It feels so rare nowadays for a high-budget game to do stylized 3D animation of this ilk. Your biggest budget games are all going for the cinematic look, and pushing realism as much as they can - and while I know an immense amount of work and craft goes into animating something like The Last of Us, boy, I just could not care less about something so lacking in flair*. Even bigger properties that use a stylized artstyle these days, like Breath of the Wild, still tend to lean towards fairly naturalistic animation. Zenless Zone Zero’s cutscenes, on the other hand, spin and stretch motherfuckers around like we’re back on the PS2, are filled with forced perspective, and I am absolutely living for it. It’s not even reserved only for bombastic action scenes, either - we get honest to god character acting-focused conversation cutscenes.

*Seriously, take me back to the Naughty Dog that animated Jak & Daxter. Jak’s hero animation is top tier to this day

Of course, the combat animation slaps too; each of the playable agents is absolutely dripping with character. Even characters whose designs initially left me cold won me over once I saw the amount of care put into their movement and combo strings. It’s honestly shocking to me that this is the same studio that made Genshin Impact, a game I dropped after about 2 hours because of how lifeless all the animation felt*. Unique run cycles for every character, actual non-human designs, the flourishes everyone has when stopping mid-combo to snap them back to idle, the absolute synergistic audiovisual bliss of the parry… it’s really impressive stuff from a young team.

*Same studio in name only, totally different team, I know, but still

Mechanically, I have some mixed feelings about the combat as a whole. Zenless Zone Zero is, without a doubt, aiming to present complexity and depth as a team battler - that is to say, it’s more about team synergy, tag combos, and knowing who to use when, rather than soloing as any particular character. Nonetheless, I really would’ve appreciated individual characters having a bit more depth to their movesets; a jump, a launcher, cancels, anything. As outstanding as all the animation work is, there’s some characters that only have a normal attack string on square and one special attack on triangle. Like, sub-Dynasty Warriors level of complexity here. It’s rough.

This is where ZZZ’s gacha nature gets a bit ugly: so far, more complex kits and skill expression are mostly locked behind rarity, which is kind of scummy. In Star Rail, for the most part, 4-star characters are defined as such due to their numbers: they still have mechanics and complexity, they just aren’t tuned as high as the limited characters. Hell, in some cases they have more complexity. Ruan Mei is an almost incomparably stronger unit than Asta, but Ruan Mei’s play pattern is fucking boring: you use skill every three turns when it runs out. Asta, meanwhile, basically has her own risk & reward minigame that demands more thoughtful SP management.

In ZZZ, on the other hand, the lower-rank characters straight up have less going on in their kits. Nicole has like… one tech, sorta. Anby has one single animation cancel to chain her normal into her special quicker. Lucy’s only skill expression is choosing whether to tap special or hold special. Meanwhile, Zhu Yuan, a limited character, has a normal string that bounces between melee and ranged attacks, can be dodge-canceled at any point in the combo to branch into variations of the string, and a hold-normal attack string that’s completely different and has the same branching dodge-cancel tech.

It’s one thing to lock raw damage and meta viability behind a gacha, but locking the characters that are mechanically more interesting to play straight up sucks. If I hadn’t been lucky enough on the standard banner to pull exactly the two characters I find the most mechanically satisfying, I don’t know that I’d still be playing - and this is the point where ZZZ begs comparison to other, non-live service character action games. Sure, it’s probably not fair to compare a random A-rank’s moveset to Devil May Cry V’s iteration of Dante, a feature-creeped nightmare of a kit 3 console generations in the making. But what about Sengoku Basara Sumeragi, my personal character-action GOAT? By all accounts a mid-budget title, yet it offers 40 full characters chock-full of more unique mechanics and animation cancels than you can shake a stick at.

Fuck, can we please get a new Sengoku Basara? Please? I’m desperate out here. I’ll take anything, y’all.

There’s also the inherent issue that plagues every action RPG (usually deftly avoided by the character action genre), which is the delicate balance of player success depending on the numbers vs actual mechanical skill - a balancing act made even more noticeable due to the gacha genre-standard of characters taking weeks of grinding to level up. This is a topic for another day, but suffice to say, a big part of the reason Honkai Star Rail works for me as a very pretty version of Cookie Clicker is because of the Autoplay option. In Zenless Zone Zero, if you’re not willing to grind out the same mob fight for a week or two, you’re gonna hit an endgame roadblock of doing chip damage to a boss you’ve mechanically mastered because you’re underleveled, and boy, that never feels good.

For all those issues stemming from the gacha, I will say, it’s great that the story missions let you use the characters that are actually supposed to be present for those missions, even if you don’t own them. Aside from how nice it is to have an opportunity to put the whole roster through their paces, it goes a long way for actually getting invested in the story. Honkai Star Rail’s storytelling is a hot mess for many reasons, but it’s always particularly jarring rolling up to a sidequest at like, a local theater troupe with a wanted space criminal, the sitting president of a completely different planet, a ten year old child, and a shirtless cyborg cowboy, none of whom have canonically met each other; ZZZ’s approach sidesteps this issue. The proxy angle even provides a pretty valid diegetic explanation for why agents that don’t know each other might be working together.

Now that we’ve sort of meandered back to the story after talking about animation led us on a long detour - the story is surprisingly solid. In particular, I really appreciate how straightforward the writing is. I don’t know if the issue lies with the original text or the localization, but Star Rail’s dialogue, even in simple missions, tends to be incredibly meandering and overstuffed; ZZZ is a lot better about letting all its characters talk like actual humans. It also helps that the plot so far is a lot more grounded, and spends more time focusing on each faction’s group dynamics rather than the overarching plot. These games live and die by their characters, so leaning into those strengths is a smart move.

Zenless Zone Zero is, unfortunately, fully in line with Hoyo’s weird conservative politics - in particular, 1.0 and 1.1 are absolutely stuffed full of copaganda. With how many safety regulation jokes they made at the construction company, I initially hoped they’d lampoon the police faction a bit, or make a commentary on how comically heavily armed New Eridu’s police force are. In a vacuum, Zhu Yuan shouting combat lines like “Stop resisting!” or “Freeze, hands up!” while blasting someone with her gigantic, ‘JUSTICE’-emblazoned rocket launcher shotgun feels like it ought to be satire. Every time we talk to the officers, though, it’s just line after line about their solemn duty to protect the people of the city, how essential and important they are for the community, and so on and so on.

This wholehearted embrace of the world’s current power structure is something Zenless Zone Zero approaches in nearly the exact same way as Star Rail. In both games, your playable character is someone that’s sort of operating outside the law - in Star Rail, as the maverick organization that is the Astral Express, while in ZZZ you work as an illegal proxy. Despite this setup, any time the protagonists come into contact with a governing body, they are no less than thrilled to help them enforce the will of the law.

In Star Rail, you aid the local governments (one of which is an undemocratic monarchy) in committing massive cover-ups to hide their failures from the populace not once but twice. In ZZZ, you aid the police to an obsequious degree - playing along with them to not arouse suspicion is one thing, but helping them organize a fucking community day on Sixth Street? Fuck that. Hell, said community day is even shown to initially be DOA because none of the local residents trust the police - and you best believe we get two full scenes of the MCs changing the resident’s minds, resulting in them spouting shit about “Oh, it was our fault for judging the police too harshly - they really do have our best interests at heart!”

is it tho

There’s an argument to be made that the N.E.P.S. are a little different, given that they exist in a post-apocalyptic world with monsters popping up every day - and ZZZ’s copaganda is certainly a little less flagrant than something like Spider-Man helping the NYPD install civilian surveillance networks in Insomniac’s Spider-Man. And, sure, perhaps this can help excuse why they post fully armored, rifle-wielding soldiers in the Lumina Square DMV, and provides some justification that their existence is more helpful than the real world’s civilian-murdering property guards.

Thing is, though, at every turn you’re hit with dialogue and situations which make it clear that, no, they’re the normal cops. Every other sidequest seems to involve calling the N.E.P.S. in on somebody or helping with an investigation, and for every time we see them handle ethereal activity, there’s two instances of them being called in for petty property theft or something similarly minor - even the playable character has heaps of dialogue choices threatening to call the police on someone*. Much like Star Rail’s reactionary politics were strangely at odds with the ‘blazing a new path’ ideals of the trailblaze, Zenless Zone Zero’s obsession with the police puts a damper on its underground, counterculture aesthetic.

*Including a case where both options threatened this, leaving me without a non-narc dialogue choice.

illustration by Lv01KOKUEN

And finally… I don’t know where to fit this in, so I guess it just goes in its own little section at the end here. Lots of people, myself included, have touched on the Persona inspirations - and they’re certainly significant. One thing I’m surprised I haven’t seen anyone mention as a huge influence is Yasuhiro Nightow’s Kekkai Sensen / Blood Blockade Battlefront. From its sense of style to its worldbuilding, ZZZ damn near feels like fanfic to me. Hell, it’s right in the name - BBB? ZZZ? And this is on top of the dimensional crossover / big city vibe, the retro fashion, the different factions. Victoria Housekeeping might as well be Libra 2.0 - Von Lycaon is a damn near perfect 50/50 expy of Klaus and Stephen Starphase. And then Belle / Wise, who assist these powerful fighters in a noncombat role just like Leo, also turn out to have some sort of special magical eyes granted to them by untold powers from within the dimensional rift??

I’m here for it, don’t get me wrong - love Nightow. But that can’t be coincidence, right?

[oddygaul]

Mickey 17

I’m so happy we’re in Robert Pattinson’s Weird Little Guy era. His dual performances as both Weird Little Guy and Apoplectic Murderboy are great; it’s truly impressive how distinct he managed to make each Mickey. It’s a good thing he’s so endearing, too, because without him I think the whole movie would fully buckle under its own weight.

Mickey 17 almost feels like three movies stapled together. The intro, with Mickey’s enlistment as an expendable and subsequent abuse by the expedition, is a dark comedic satire highlighting the shameless inhumanity of capitalism; the bombastic final act with the creeper swarm feels almost Spielbergian with its utter lack of cynicism. And Kenneth Marshall, Ruffalo’s white supremacist conman straight out an SNL skit, rapidly expands from ‘fun worldbuilding detail’ to ‘oh this guy is gonna be in every single scene, huh’, sucking all the oxygen out of the room. The movie does manage to be consistently funny, I’ll give it that – the fucking sauce, man – but as someone who was mostly interested in the ‘bleak corporate satire’ angle I was kind of let down.

Especially having just watched Severance, I was surprised at how much the movie didn’t go deep into the philosophical ramifications of multiple selves. It focuses in here and there, for sure – Nasha’s unconditional love of each different Mickey was fresh, and I appreciated the beat of Mickey saying he only realized subsequent copies aren’t actually him once he came face-to-face with one – but it weirdly doesn’t feel like the main theme. 

Also, for a movie whose premise is centered around highlighting the callous, disposable brutality with which corporations treat their workforce, I found it a bit disingenuous that all of the colony’s problems are resolved simply by offing the fucker in charge. I get it, it’s satisfying to watch evil people get what they deserve, and certainly their death helps; if Trump died tonight the world would be a better place tomorrow, I have no doubt. But amidst the world’s grim march towards fascism, it feels a bit saccharine to me to treat the situation so reductively, as if the political climate we find ourselves in isn’t a tangled nightmare with untold numbers of culpable parties.

[oddygaul]

World War Z

Man, when I first read this book in middle school, I thought it was the coolest shit ever. There's so many different viewpoints and real-world political details woven in that my little mind could barely comprehend it, and all of that in service to a really cool zombie invasion? Fuck yeah!!  Reading it again in 2024, well… hmm. Look, World War Z is incredibly ambitious, I’ll give it that. The premise of an oral history recounting a worldwide zombie invasion, replete with interviews and primary sources, is as novel as it is difficult to pull off. And while it’s clear Brooks did a lot of homework for the book, and while some of the individual stories are well done, he just didn’t quite have the chops to nail it.

So, the anthology thing is a really cool idea for a few reasons. First, obviously, it helps capture the documentary / history textbook feel the book is aiming for. Second, it allows for a non-traditional story structure. Instead of following one person or group of people, which would result in a focused story that’s ultimately about emotionally engaging with their plight, we get to see things from a multitude of perspectives, allowing us a window into a worldwide, multi-year zombie apocalypse scenario; this gives the reader a broader understanding of the setting.

Finally, from a pure genre standpoint, it allows for like, twenty different zombie stories in one! We have your classic home invasion zombies, yes, but also cool premises like a fighter pilot downed over hostile zombie territory, a zombie siege against an old, re-fortified English castle, a trainer detailing the accomplishments of anti-zombie K9 units, or what it’d be like to live safely in a nuclear submarine while the world crumbles around you. At its best, World War Z reads like a Zombies: Greatest Hits short story collection, and some entries are strong standalone works: the chilling mystery of what happened to North Korea reads like a classic creepypasta, and Jesika Hendrick’s account of the hordes of unprepared survivors who fled north to Canada and were confronted by the harsh reality of its winters is brutal, believable, and human.

Thing is, though – the whole point of an oral history is that you’re collecting a multitude of different experiences, each coming from unique people with their own voices. And where Brooks runs into trouble is that he lacks versatility, capable of writing only two, maybe three different personalities. If you take away the unique premise of each story, the characters themselves begin to feel entirely interchangeable*.

–Do you remember the story with the sardonic tough guy, put-upon by their peers, who regretfully acknowledges what they could’ve done better, but ultimately accepts the folly of hindsight? –Oh... which one?

Because of this, for every memorable interview, there’s another that’s instantly forgettable.

*Often, in lieu of actually being written like a different person, the characters rely on distinguishing characteristics to set them apart, which primarily consist of paper-thin national stereotypes… but I’ll get into that below.

On the worldbuilding side of things, World War Z is similarly defined by extreme highs and lows. Rather than using the disconnected nature of the oral history format merely to jump between characters, Brooks uses it to jump between entire nations, with the ultimate goal of conducting a thought experiment about how the world as a whole would deal with a zombie apocalypse: how different governments would handle things, how different cultures would react, how even a location’s geography could lead to a drastically different outcome. Once again, it’s a hugely ambitious endeavor, and when it’s pulled off convincingly, it’s engrossing.

It’s clear that Brooks is well-read, and that he did a lot of research for this book. Each story is filled with interesting political or technological tidbits that serve to ground the story in our world; I loved getting sent off on Wikipedia tangents about things like the Three Gorges Dam and its domestic controversies, or AVLBs, a new-to-me military platform whose existence makes sense yet still makes me laugh every time I see it*. And when World War Z’s extrapolations on a country’s actions under pressure hit home, it’s enthralling. In a post-COVID world, it feels almost prescient reading this 2006 novel’s account of the virus originating in China, and the Chinese government hiding its existence from its international contemporaries while internally enacting harsh quarantine restrictions on its citizens – ditto for the American government’s laughably ineffective, downplaying response to the outbreak, and the American public themselves ignoring the severity of the matter until it’s too late.

*These tidbits also make me laugh, by thinking about how much of this book went straight over my head when I was younger. Not that I’m hugely knowledgeable today, but when I was 14 or whatever I had the international literacy of a rock. I didn’t know half the countries mentioned, let alone understand the historical geopolitical relations between them – like, did my eyes just glaze over for half of each page and focus on the zombie bits? I guess so. It also makes me think about what a different experience it is to read with a phone next to me. Constantly interrupting my flow state by looking things up certainly feels like it affects the pacing, but I also feel like I’m getting a little more out of the book, and understanding the author’s intent more fully, when I’m able to follow their offhand references.

The downside is… many perspectives utterly fail at that plausible realism, introducing a sharp contrast in quality that shatters the suspension of disbelief. In particular, while Brooks has a decent grasp of the U.S. and its culture and politics, anything outside of that is a crapshoot. It’s incredibly clear when Brooks didn’t know much about a country beforehand, because the relevant character will be a paper-thin simulacrum built around the easiest stereotypes a nationality has to offer – and due to the short-story format, these stereotypes as character motivations are delivered with the subtlety of a brick. The German soldier who immediately begins expounding upon the deep differences in character and personal responsibility between anyone born in West Germany vs. East Germany, the stoic Japanese Hiroshima survivor whose entire personality is based on societal shame and a deep reverence for the kami… hell, there’s entire nations in this book that are written with the depth of a tourism pamphlet or Wikipedia stub.

World War Z also has plenty of incredibly cheesy fucking moments that clearly stem from dicey deeply-held convictions rather than ignorance. Brooks really lays the American exceptionalism on thick, there’s a lot of boomer-ass ‘war makes a generation of Great Men that will usher in prosperity’ themes, and the fate of many countries is essentially decided by whether they could allow American democracy into their hearts or not. Cuba comes out of the war as one of the world’s new superpowers, for example, because the massive influx of American refugees teaches them that western neoliberal democracy Is Good, Actually. At one point, Brooks unapologetically pulls a “And that man’s name? Albert Einstein.” moment with Nelson Mandela, who literally emerges from the shadows to hug the man pitching a zombie-fueled apartheid plan* for South Africa. 

*The plan, by the way, is basically Attack on Titan’s bait cities. Sorry, Cleveland, you’re Shiganshina District now.

And Israel’s role in the whole thing is, well, mostly just bewildering, to be honest. While Brooks’ Zionist views have become clear from later works and interviews, World War Z instead presents its own mirror dimension, sunshine-and-rainbows version of the Israeli state. It glorifies existing elements of the country, yes – Israel’s intelligence teams are the most smartest, specialest, coolest guys who have everything under control from the beginning – but they also welcome in all Palestinians and Palestinian expats to their Impenetrable Quarantine Bubble during the war, and afterwards cede control of Jerusalem and the other occupied territories to Palestine, leaving Palestine to emerge as free, independent, and one of the most advanced and prosperous nations in the post-war world. Dare to dream, I guess?

As for russia, I initially thought their portrayal was falling into the ‘hopelessly ignorant’ side of things: the first russian POV chapter details a platoon of russian soldiers stationed in occupied South Ossetia who lament that they haven’t had time to learn the local language (ha), nobly refuse orders to kill innocent civilians on moral grounds (lol), then join a larger movement of revolting russian soldiers who stand up to their superiors while making speeches about the importance of individual freedoms and democracy in their country (lmao even).

After this fantasy section, though, the soldiers all fall back in line, and say they regained the freedom to commit heinous acts by absolving themselves of personal responsibility and pushing any blame to their superiors, and that they were “just following orders”. russia then officially declares itself an empire again (under the guise of protecting religious values), turns women into a breeder caste, and begins annexing all of its neighbors while the rest of the world is banding together against the zombies (first Belarus, with Ukraine implied to be next). Our narrator concludes the chapter by saying life is better now, because under tsarist rule the populace no longer has to make their own decisions, and that her and her fellow russians feel safe and ‘feel russian again’ because they are feared and are subjugating others.

So I mean, yeah, sounds about right.

Misgivings aside, World War Z was still a fun read. Like I’ve said, it’s hugely ambitious, and when it works, it’s creative and engrossing – but it’s so deeply marred by its inconsistency I dunno if I'd call it good.

[oddygaul]

Hacks, S3

woof… me and my partner were talking about how much more cozy and relaxing this season was than the rest of Hacks, then we hit the second half. That ending was brutal.

This season is an odd juxtaposition of characters who have clearly learned and evolved, but who can't let go of one particular thing that ultimately undoes all that progress. Throughout season 3, Ava seems more stable, self-assured, and compassionate than she’s ever been. Before, it was sometimes hard to stay in her corner - for every moment I’d agree with her, she’d go and do something frustratingly short-sighted or shallow. Now, she seems to have grown so much. Every time she has one of her little pick-me-up sessions with Deborah this season, I was amazed at how empathetic and understanding she was - and not just using buzzwords like before, but actually understanding what they mean and how to provide support for someone.

At the same time, her rekindling of her relationship with Deborah is essentially a relapse. Even though she’s become wiser, and understands much more of what she personally needs from a relationship, we watch her give up everything she’s built on her own since being fired and crawl right back to Deborah. Honestly, it feels like the series’ backbone at this point is codependent toxic relationships, rather than the gender gap as it pertains to public perception, the workforce, and aging.

It felt like such a backslide that I was expecting Ava to, at some point, realize she deserves better than this and leave on her own terms. I was genuinely pretty shocked that the conclusion was Ava instead embracing the dark side and moving forward as Deborah’s writer. It’s a big, defining character moment, a fork in the road - a deliberate choice to embrace all of the negative traits she’s learned from Deborah, rather than rejecting Deborah’s belief that success only comes from ruthlessness.

In any case, this feels like the moment of the show’s arc where Ava might supersede Deborah. Despite inherently connecting with Ava’s character more due to age and my place in life, I’ve always regarded Deborah Vance as the real main character of this show; her life, past, and psyche are always center stage, with the other characters largely existing to provide impetus to explore them more deeply. This moment, though, may mark a turning point where Hacks becomes more about Ava and her ascension - and about Deborah leaving behind a legacy of not just what she’s accomplished, but who she’s created in her image.

[oddygaul]

Arcane, S2

I feel the same way about Arcane’s second season as I did about its first: absolutely gorgeous, groundbreaking animation and art, hand-in-hand with incredibly uneven pacing & character writing. But I want to be absolutely clear, here, because sometimes I think I tend to emphasize the negative: Arcane is so consistently and gobsmackingly visually stunning that it’s a treat to watch, no matter my misgivings about its other aspects.

Seriously, it’s still hard for me to fathom that this show looks this good, and is this consistent. To produce 8 feature films worth of animation, and look better than nearly every feature film, is a staggering feat. Given that Arcane S1 dropped in 2021, it’d be easy to peg it as another work inspired by 2018’s breakout Into the Spider-Verse – it certainly shares a lot of visual similarities with that style. But while it’s definitely a part of this movement, and has similar aesthetic goals to the Spider-verse films or Alberto Mielgo’s work, Fortiche has been honing in on this style for nearly a decade.

2013’s Get Jinxed already features Fortiche’s trademark heavy 2D effects animation, as well as matte painted environments; the biggest difference is that the models are rendered in a more traditional 3D style, with more realistic soft lighting and less stylized texturing. Their Rocket & Groot shows experimentation with a more saturated palette and flat lighting, while 2018’s Pop/Stars short applies those same efforts to character models more in line with their current style. The music video for Rise, released later that year, stylistically, might as well be from Arcane: the 2D FX take center stage, the cinematography employs a much more dramatic approach, and the compositing work that manages to corral Fortiche’s 3D models, flat environment painting, modeled backgrounds, and effects into one cohesive look has reached its apex. Right on time for production of Arcane to get fully underway!

Anyway, I just think it’s neat that the two titans of this emerging school of 3D animation seem to be a case of convergent evolution, rather than chasing each other's success.

Is there any point to enumerating why Arcane's visuals are so amazing? I can give it a shot, I guess.

All of the models are great, and the flat textures + lighting trick is still unmatched. The layouts are incredibly clean – even in the midst of the thickest action, what’s going on is never unclear. The background work is drop-dead gorgeous, whether it’s the frequent, lavish matte paintings or the 3D environments with some of the best damn compositing I’ve ever seen. The action animation is kinetic as hell, with energetic, exaggerated keyframes and creative choreography; these are further bolstered by Fortiche’s stellar 2D effects work, which is omnipresent and adds a fluid, organic touch to the aesthetic. The impressive action sequences are not done at the expense of the rest of the show, though, as even the most staid dialogue scenes are filled with interesting camerawork and emotive character acting. And as if nailing their own incredible house style wasn’t enough, in S2 the team has decided to take on a whole litany of alternate styles and techniques, from charcoal and watercolor montages, to the duplication realspace glitching of anomaly-afflicted hextech, to the wild galactic vistas and monolithic demon fortresses of Viktor’s subconscious.

This season also really makes me appreciate how much leeway Fortiche was given with the character designs. Viktor, for example, is almost early-2000s-comic-adaptation level different from his source material, but he now fits into the world more seamlessly, both visually and narratively, than the half-baked cyborg mad scientist ever did. Outside of Vander, whose transformation into a pseudo-Warwick feels incredibly forced, all the character designs feel more cohesive and mature than they ever did in the game. Plus, it’s wild to see women from League of Legends that actually have distinct, recognizable faces. Turns out all Riot needed to do to get rid of sameface once and for all was produce a multimillion dollar animated series.

even the background characters are cool as hell! look at this smoldering bat man!

it's unconscionable how hot they made Viktor this season btw. I think it's all the emotional availability that really does it for me

As for the rest, well… as before, it’s a mixed bag. The characterization is better than it was in the back half of season one, at least, in that each character’s motivations don’t wildly vacillate from scene to scene. The dialogue, while not particularly memorable outside of occasional quips like “bitchmittens”, is decent enough. The pacing and plotting in this season, though, holy shit… it’s absolutely lightning-fast, and rarely does any narrative development feel like it’s given the time it needs to make sense.

Entire plotlines are wrapped up without much ado so that new ones can be started. After Jinx and Vi’s big confrontation in Act 1, they more or less make up over the course of an in-universe hour the very next time they run into each other. The pivot from Viktor as wizard Jesus to Viktor as world-ending villain is not sold well at all – this is the sort of shift that, in a typical story, would have an inciting incident or tragedy to prove to all involved parties that he must be taken seriously. Instead, Jayce holds one council meeting and tells the gathered citizens that he was attacked by a single robot; after hearing this, everyone collectively agrees the threat is so dire, they’ll need to forget Piltover and Zaun’s long-bubbling enmity and impending war, and band together. Arcane is simply trying to fit too many characters and too many arcs into too little time; characters like Singed and Vanderwick, in particular, feel like they were included as a reference to fans rather than to serve the narrative.

The wild thing is, despite such slapdash plotting, the big emotional beats almost always land. Even if there isn’t appropriate build-up, even if what’s going on doesn’t make much sense, the story’s most climactic moments are always girded by such strong animation, impactful cinematography, and vibey music that you feel what they wanted you to feel anyway. It’s funny; much has been said about the comical lack of subtlety in Arcane’s music sequences, and while these complaints are totally valid, the simple fact is that often Arcane is at its best when it drops the melodramatic dialogue scenes and just decides to be a music video for five minutes.

Somewhat gallingly, Fortiche also proves that they know exactly how to fix these storytelling issues, if only they had the time to do so: in Pretend Like It’s the First Time, the season’s stellar seventh episode, the pace is slowed way down, the scope is narrowed to just two points of view, and the characters and narrative are given much-needed room to breathe. This is what Arcane is missing, I think. The big moments always land, but it’s the small moments in between, the moments that let us take it easy and get to know the characters during their day-to-day lives, that Arcane could use more of.

Anyway, this show is a visual feast, and I appreciate the obsessive levels of care and craft put into it by the creators. As far as I’m concerned, League’s lore, concept art, and worldbuilding have always been more interesting than the game itself ever was, so it’s nice to see a project that’s finally leveraging those strengths.