Gripe#5 Am I Jaded?

As an anime fan, I mean. Well, not so much jaded as I am a little disillusioned by things. I've only been watching since the Robotech days and even then, only sparsely but I never seem to catch on with what's popular.

Take Naruto, for example. I loathe it. I despise it. Why? Because it feels bland to me, low on entertainment value, uninteresting. It's a big hit to everyone but as far as I can tell, it's DBZ with pre-puberty ninja-wannabes. I don't see the appeal, especially with characters that are plain poorly done or rather dull. I don't see any depth to them, nor do I see any depth suddenly being added believably in their foreseeable future. I'd seriously rather watch paint dry of grass grow than watch Naruto.

A lot of anime fans in the Philippines have limited knowledge of the medium and it's, sadly, limited to mostly what's on TV or what's popular. Right now, it's stuff like Naruto, Bleach, Gundam Seed and their ilk. While I suppose it's to each person's own individual tastes, I've dropped out of the segment of anime's target audience that actually enjoys those sorts of shows. Not to say I don't go into the odd shounen-binge every so often, dabbling into shows like Mahou Sensei Negima or Midori No Hibi but by and large, I don't feel like watching much of the stuff at all.

I've sold my once extensive and expensive collection of anime VCDs, manga and DVDs not for the money (though that was a nice bonus) but because I lost interest in them. I tried to re-watch them but somehow, I just couldn't watch them anymore. I've hung on to stuff that while I don't really find too appealing anymore, I do have some sentimental attachment to. Love Hina (the manga) I keep because it's the first manga I actually bought and completed, taking close to a year to do so. Neon Genesis Evangelion (the anime) I keep because it's Eva and every so often, everyone needs to get a mind-warping; me especially. Ruruoni Kenshin I keep because it's an excellent show up until the end of the Shishio Arc. Midori No Hibi I keep because it's slightly different from the rest of the harem genre, albeit I found the end disappointing. Galaxy Angel I hang on to because, once in a while, it's good to see absurdity become commonplace, even if it isn't real. Among the full series I keep, only Robotech/Macross, the Vampire Princess Miyu OVA and Card Captor Sakura really still hold an interest for me. The rest...

It's not that I don't like the medium or that I've grown out of it. I still love the style, I still love the way it looks but a lot of the new stuff feels boring, uninspired and contrived in such a way as to be...rather uninteresting. I've come to want to see more than just big machines ripping each other apart, people being reduced to gooey messes by blasts of incredible power and fanservice. I don't expect anime/manga to become equivalent to the level of quality found in really, really good cinema or novels but at least something that won't become dull once the initial novelty of them wears off.

Right now, the one manga I've become truly interested in as if I was discovering it for the first time is Maria-sama Ga Miteru, and not even for the reasons that guys typically watch the show for. I see the lesbian subtext but I don't watch it with the back-of-the-mind hope that somehow they'll all come out of the closet. Satou Sei is a given lesbian, Rei and Yoshino practically are and Shimako strikes me as close to being there but the rest strike me as straight girls, not particularly interested in men. I enjoy the show because it reminds me of happier days spent observing the girls in high school and how their networks of friends, relationships and close ties work. I was as happy as an outside observer can be then and Marimite takes me back to those days.

I don't know. Maybe I'm starting to outgrow anime and manga. Maybe I'll eventually look back at Marimite and tell myself it was so silly of me to like that show. Who can say? I seriously hope not, as Marimite and the shows I still love are works of art to me. In a few years time, I can imagine myself thinking of anime as little more than some childish fascination of mine, though a mere year ago I would have called it a life-long hobby. Maybe I'll dabble into it bits and pieces here and there, nothing too extensive and nothing remotely similar to my current habits, just for old time's sake.

Or maybe I'm starting to evolve in my tastes. I admit to liking DBZ once upon a time but I quickly cast it away in favor of the superior Yuu Yuu Hakusho, which I am still a moderate fan of. I came to like stuff that delved into themes that make you think, like Evangelion or Metropolis. I've come to really sink into stuff that has engaging characters that, while not wholly realistic, are at least believable and aren't just 2-D figures or stereotypes, like Vash from TriGun or practically the whole cast of Love Hina.

Whichever the case, I guess the best thing to do is to look at the present and see what it has to offer. I'm taking this slowly waning interest in anime one step at a time for now. Though truth be told, a lot of the new stuff really isn't up to the standards I have now (standards set by much reading of books from both contemporary and classical authors). Anyways, that's my rant for the month (or something).

===End Rant===

Currently Reading:
Maria-sama Ga Miteru (manga and a translation of Vacation of the Lambs)
Pretty Face (just to finish the damn thing)
Hannibal by Thomas Harris
Belinda by Anne Rice

Currently Watching:
Star Wars (Episodes I to VI)
Interview With The Vampire
Shikoku

Currently Playing:
Nothing

Current Project:
Marimite-ish concept, setting is a girl's boarding school, main cast are a group of close friends. And, since I am the one writing it, the traditional absurdity-to-be-accepted-as-normal (several were in Shinjo No Aijo such as the existence of the AFs like Minako and Hodaka, as well as Kana the talking snake, the entirety of Yuki's Diary fit the bill as did the entirety of Kasumi Inn) for this story is that one of the students is Death herself. Shoujo-ai plans are, for the first time in a long time, non-existent, mild subtext is planned but nothing actual. They're all straight, except for one but she's not actively pursuing any of the others.

You Yet Live?

What can change the nature of a man?

I personally think it is quite a good question. But we are not going to attempt to answer that for now. That is way too complex an issue to get into right now. For now, I am going to rant and whine about my work and other little things that are quite insignificant to other people.

First things first. Work is not my thing, as I am rapidly finding out. I really am just not quite suited for this sales thing. I lack the “sales drive” needed to push (or nudge or bamboozle, whatever) people over the proverbial edge and hook a sale. Sure, there are easy sales out there and the pleasure of getting a caller that knows what he/she wants and isn’t going to beat around the bush is great but they’re a rare breed. Most of the time, the idiots tend to be price-shopping or (more often than not) are incapable of performing the menial task of actually making the purchase on their own!

A lot of callers are damn bloody fools. They are wholly incapable of understanding even the simplest lines of reasoning or contemplating just how idiotic they are when quoting a competitor’s price that isn’t just out-dated, it also tends to be erroneous as well. These people can’t seem to really see what’s right in front of them.

Of course, I’m not particularly leaning towards the sales side of things myself. I just don’t have it in me to push someone to buy something that they either don’t want or that even I wouldn’t buy given the circumstances. If they don’t want something, why push them? Even if we’re not doing any hard-selling, I get on my own nerves just making a single attempt at obtaining a sale.

Main complaint of mine, work-wise, is that I don’t particularly see the point of my work when they can do it themselves on-line. I also can’t really grasp the reasoning of why we’re using the client’s website as our main system. It poses such a huge risk in a worst-case scenario. What if the server crashes? That means that we are screwed. There appears to be no clear line of reasoning as to why we are limited to such a system.

Now, my co-workers are fine since most of them were not my co-trainees. The few co-trainees of mine that are on my team I get along quite well with. It is pleasant for me to be able to listen to those agents that have been there longer and pick up tips from them while they also pick up tips and trivia (on some tech stuff) from me. I won’t say that we’re at all close but we get along well enough and I feel I can befriend them over time.

Moving on then.

I’ve come to terms with some personal matters. I’ve decided to get back to writing again but unlike previous projects, I don’t plan on spreading this one out for anyone to read. This one is a strictly personal project, one that I’ve never actually thought of before, nor have I ever wanted to cook up something like it. I don’t have any hopes for it, nor do I have any delusions that it will be fit for public reading if and when it is completed. All I know is that there’s a chance that it might be something I can find some moderate degree of comfort and escapism in writing. Too much reality in all my recent attempts, too much of what’s really around me instead of what I want to have around me or some such.

For those of you who are interested to know, it’s supposed to have a heavy martial-arts feel to it. Inspired by Tekken 5 as it is, I actually don’t know enough about the countless variants of martial arts in the world to write them accurately or properly, so I’ll stick with the lies and fabrications that I know so well and create new styles as necessary and rely on wikipedia and other resources for those times when I do need to use a real martial art.

I’ve been reading a lot more lately. Recently finished some interesting books I found off the internet, along with Thomas Harris’ Hannibal and I also re-read Anne Rice’s Belinda. I’ve been looking to buy more of Murakami’s books, burning Rowling’s books and digging into some of the older pieces in my collection. Books and writing seem to be the only things that give me some level of satisfaction nowadays, aside from competing in Tekken 5 and Soul Calibur 2 games at the local arcade every so often. Aside from that, I only seem to find some semblance of solace and enjoyment in knowing that…no, actually, I don’t.

Not that such a state of mind is much of a change for me, mind you.