Moving In, Making Friends

I live in Wakayama prefecture, on the southern part of Japan's main island. To put it lightly, Wakayama leans much closer to the "stately natural beauty" image you might have of Japan than to the "flashing neon futuropolis" part of the spectrum. On the very low end of the country for population with only one city above 100,000 people, Wakayama has much more to offer for the woodsperson than the weebperson. You will not see many giant arcades (a single Round One in the capital city) or any 7-11s (the superior conbini in the minds of all right-thinking individuals). Instead, Wakayama offers gorgeous mountain trails, luscious views of the sky, and seemingly infinite vasts of rice paddies and other agricultural domains.

After training had finished, I took the Limited Express train, the Kuroshio, to Kii-Tanabe Station. The Kuroshio is not like riding the Shinkansen at all; you have to be extremely lucky to get a seat with a power outlet, and despite its status as an express train it doesn't exactly make for a short journey. Travelling the full length of the Kuroshio's route would take considerably longer than riding the Shinkansen between Osaka and Tokyo. From the middle of Osaka to Kii-Tanabe takes about two and a half hours. As the cars went past Wakayama City, the prefectural capital, I pondered how frequently I would be visiting this decaying metropolis to play music games. As they passed the Gobos and Kainans of the ken, I started pondering if I'd die of loneliness before I had the chance to return north. Finally, I arrived at the station, walked off the train, and began my true Japanese residential experience.

My apartment wasn't ready for move-in that night, so I had to stay in a hotel room provided by my company. I started following the roundabout directions to the hotel that my employer had printed for me off Google Maps, first walking left along a small road, heading past a pachinko parlor and some barbershops and restaurants. The road bent to the right, and at some point I felt like I was basically making a big circle, when suddenly I stumbled across a classically styled Shinto shrine and some sort of festival. There was a a small costumed cutesy samurai character, and little kids were having their picture taken with the mascot. I peeked at some of the small vendors before heading back along the route I had been given, and when I arrived at my hotel a few minutes later I realized that the ambitious route Google had plotted could've been avoided by simply walking out of the station in a straight line for three minutes.

It was a very small hotel room, but comfortable enough, and anyways I had more important things to do than sit around using mediocre free Wifi. I needed to know where the arcade was. Google Maps informed me of not one but two arcades in the city of Tanabe, so I walked to the one that was closest. When I got to the "arcade", I was looking at a Daiei supermarket. I walked inside, and saw nothing resembling an arcade. There was a grocery store, of course, but also a small food court (well, one fast food joint and some tables), a massage parlor (?), a book store, a shoe store, and a cell phone store. I took the escalator to the second floor and saw a hyaku-en store (a dollar store, essentially) and a department store with everything from clothes to dog food, but still no arcade. On the third floor, there was a cafe and a music shop, and I thought that was all, so I left disheartened. Walking back towards my hotel, I settled on a fancy looking restaurant with a nice looking selection of sushi.

In the morning, my apartment manager picked me up from the hotel and took me to the "apaman shop" for a debriefing. After signing some papers and getting my keys, we drove to my landlord's place to say hello to her and then to my apartment in Kamitonda. Kamitonda (basically "upper abundant rice field") is a small farming town, wedged between Tanabe's vaguely metropolitan aesthetics and the decaying yet still tourist-friendly beach resort of Shirahama. Kamitonda spans a fairly wide range of turf, but my apartment is about a five minute walk from our only train station, in the neighborhood of Asso. I live in a small yet comfortable studio apartment on the third floor of a three-story "mansion", the outside of which was swarming with spiders and their webs for most of the spring and summer months.

My apartment manager was preposterously friendly from the outset, and I regret not spending more time with him. He is from Gobo, a good many stations away, yet committed himself to driving me around town so that I could buy a rice cooker and begin the process of setting up internet for my apartment. When the store didn't have my rice cooker in stock, he agreed to pick it up for me at a later date after he got done with work. On the night he brought my rice cooker, he also brought over a large bag of rice from his father's farm as a gift. A month later, after weeks of harassing the ISP to come, he sat with them and patiently installed the internet while I was at work, then cleaned my apartment for me after I had to leave while the finishing touches were applied on my router. This sort of generosity and devotion to good service isn't entirely uncommon in Japan, but he took it to another level and has been a great friend.

The next morning, I went to the town hall and registered my address, then set up my bank account through Japan Post. Although it seems inevitable that I would've eventually befriended my fellow local gaijin, the trip to the town hall expedited the process significantly. The only person who spoke enough English to help me through the process of registering first introduced me to a man named Yasuo ("a very strange name you might not know," she said, as I pulled up a picture of the LoL champion on my phone) and then gave me the LINE ID of my fellow Kamitonda ALT, an Australian named Ben. After some initial discomfort, I got up the courage to message Ben, and he invited me to dinner with another teacher named Peter. As it turns out, Peter is a fellow Floridian and went to FSU with my friends David and Hudson, and this first night hanging out snowballed into meeting the whole gaggle of local JETs.

After having my most important adulting matters solved, I set to work on buying a clothesline to hang my laundry. This gave me the opportunity to walk past all of my schools, as it seemed the closest place to find such a thing was a store called Konan, pretty much our local Home Depot. Konan is about an hour's walk from my apartment, and walking back with a giant metal pole in one hand and a small shelving unit in the other made me reconsider buying a bicycle. I eventually did buy a bicycle, and after riding it about three times some asshole locked my bike and I have no idea where the key is.

Before losing use of the bike, I did manage to haul my ass to THE BIG U a handful of times. Located near the really great Kii-Shinjo park, THE BIG U is a branch of Wakayama University (I guess) with a library and some classrooms and cafes. Most importantly, THE BIG U is a source of free Wi-Fi, so before I had my internet installed I would go there to Skype friends, play games, watch YouTube, etc. THE BIG U is shaped in a BIG U and it's pretty cool, I guess. One day I walked all the way to Shirahama from THE BIG U and did some sightseeing. Along the way I passed a family having a BBQ on their front lawn. They were grilling meats and veggies and having some beers, and asked me to join them. After a few minutes, they offered me the chance to drink some of their homemade umeshu, plum wine, which I greatly enjoyed. Leaving their company, I was no longer afraid of a lonely future. Language barriers could not keep me from achieving happiness.

Training Days or: How I Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love Awkwardness

I've spent nearly twenty-nine years being awkward and clumsy, seemingly incapable of controlling where my mind wanders or how my body moves. In middle school, I walked into an air conditioning unit on the side of a portable and was gushing blood from my head for a good five minutes before Mrs. Neelands let me go to the clinic for help. Despite playing basketball on and off for nearly two decades I can still barely dribble with my right hand (or my left, to be honest). I sweat in cold weather like I'm in a sauna, and in hot weather like I'm on the surface of the sun. Even with years of practice in public speaking, and even with my boatloads of put-upon confidence, I was not prepared for this job training.

Imagine being sat in a room and told that you are about to undertake a magical journey. You will experience a beautiful new world, unlock a hidden potential lurking within, and make myriad new friends, all while enriching the lives of young people and their communities. But there's a catch, and it's that first you have to be repeatedly kicked in the genitals while feeling silently mocked for their shape or size. So to prepare, you watch some videos of other people being kicked in the genitals, except they are experienced pros, so it's more like you're watching a video of someone's genitals being gently massaged while the giver lavishes them with praise.

Now it's your turn, and it's back to the steel-toed boots. First you will demonstrate a basic self-introduction, and never will you feel so uncertain about the words "Hey everyone, nice to meet you, my name is so-and-so and I'm from this-and-that!" because maybe you're saying it too fast or too loud or nobody has ever heard the name 'so-and-so' so would you mind repeating that first? And really, why would you lead with your name and hometown first, when you could instead give a bright and cheery "Good Mornin' Y'all!" with a big exaggerated hand wave? Words become a precious resource, to be used sparingly and yet with all the joy you'd typically reserve for the first time you tick a really great new Kellerbier. Quickly you pick up an entirely new version of your own tongue, modified and adapted for the audience, and just as quickly you are told that this new version is not good enough, so there's another jab, this time lighter yet with a bitter sting.

Feelings of hopelessness start to become the norm, and you wonder if the lashing is worth the reward. Fortunately you find solace in the shared misery, or at least discontent, of your peers. Some are veterans, perturbed by and disinterested in the methods being taught (and the methods with which the methods are taught). Others are like yourself, bright-eyed newbies with big dreams for their new domain. You grab lunch, sometimes foods that are entirely new to you, occasionally a stab at some foreign attempt at food from the motherland. There are burritos which mostly resemble those from home, and pizzas which mostly do not. This time you return to practice playing a game, except nothing about the game seems fun and the lesson behind the game seems ill-conceived at best, actively harmful at worst. Again you are told that you speak too fast, again you go to sleep wondering if you'll even make it past the torture.

Finally the last day arrives, and it is startlingly painless. So much has changed, and so fast, and you feel like everything is easy. Sure, you still suck at arranging things on a board, and you might occasionally forget about an entire part of the lesson, and you might accidentally make a wrong gesture or say a word that goes right over everyone's head. But at least now you're just being chastised for the underwear you've worn over your privates, and told that if you just switched to a simpler pair you'd probably get along great. All told, you've lived just a handful of days, but they felt like a lifetime of optimism, and struggle, and hope, and setbacks, and, ultimately, real development.

In two weeks, you will be kicked really, really hard. Time to live another life.

Post-Script: If you're into pain, this metaphor probably failed for you. This post is not meant to discredit or disenfranchise the lifestyle choices and brain wiring of any other humans. Thanks to Chris, Philip, Bryce, Kelsey, Kevin G., Kevin B., Akeem, Dennis, Sarah, Yanique, Kelsey, and Johnathon for the lovely companionship we shared, and to anyone else who I forgot as well.

One Year Anniversary, Japan Post Number One

It's just turned to August 1st over in Florida, but here in glorious Kamitonda it's nearly 3 in the afternoon already. It's crazy to think where I was at this time last year; on the couch at Paul's apartment, dripping with sweat from the nerves of my biggest interview yet. In about 16 hours I'd be done, at Joe's house flailing horribly on 1950 S25, convinced that I'd completely killed my interview and still unsure whether I'd get the job. That day I got to hang out with so many of my old friends from the Reitz Union, and eat cupcakes, and drink diet soda, and now I'm here in the land of Coca-Cola Zero and baumkuchen. Yes, August 1st, 2015 was a fun and important day in my life to be sure, and now August 1st, 2016 has mostly been spent playing Civilization while everyone in the office ignores me.

I thought that I'd post about my experiences in Japan almost every day, but truth be told from the minute I got off the plane I realized that was less likely than I'd assumed. I landed in Osaka on March 21st at Kansai International Airport, and wandered around the bookstores, restaurants, and clothing stores in search of something to ground myself. I found that in a pair of wrestling magazines, one the country's major publication (cover depicting Naito) and the other something like an indie publication with a picture of Shinsuke Nakamura celebrating his arrival in Florida. Here it was, a country with pro wrestling magazines just waiting to be examined, sitting on a shelf in a common airport bookstore! Then I looked left, and saw it, the gaudy reminder that in fact I was so far from home: a vast array of nudie mags, ranging from busty mature women to waifish Europeans. 

You probably know a bit about the Japanese smut industry if you've ever looked at a porn streaming service. The naughty bits are almost always censored (if I'm not mistaken, anything with Japanese stars that isn't censored was shot outside the country) and the starlets myriad. I won't go too deep into the cultural underpinnings of Japanese sexuality here, because there will probably be a better time and place for it, but needless to say racks and racks (pun intended) of porno mags at chest level was unexpected even for me. It's not just the explicitly pornographic magazines, either. Lots of the manga weeklies feature bikini models on the covers and advertisements for...sex hotlines, maybe(?), in the back. Anyhow, I haven't actually looked at any of the more adult magazines myself (yet) as the porno mags come bound from prying eyes. Reading in the aisles is something of a national pastime here, as I discovered soon after leaving the airport.

Having collected my bags, exchanged some of my dollars for moonbucks, and shuffled off to the train station, I was soon confronted with the reality that I'd have to buy a train ticket. Fortunately every train station in the country has translation options including Chinese and English, so once I understood where I was going I confusedly put my ticket through the machine, recollected it, and avoided getting batted in the legs when I reached my destination. I got lost leaving the station and a nice policeman excitedly ran up to me to practice his English and direct me towards my hotel. It was a hilariously tiny hotel room, though it was comfy enough and I did fit into my bed, so I considered it a mild victory. The shower was tiny and weird, and used the same water source as the sink with a nozzle to toggle between the two. An alarm clock was built into the bed and worked quite nicely. One morning I could see the room shaking from a very weak earthquake, and after moving to my apartment I experienced a pretty strong one that rattled all my items across my desk.

Though my lovely girlfriend would dispute this observation, I find that Osaka is quite a wonderful city. I was lucky enough to have Joe Ledesma accompany me around town for my first day in the country, and while he knows only a modest bit more Japanese than I do he knows the must-visit arcades of Osaka quite well. Joe is an awesome dude, an autodidact with a high competitive drive and a very good approach to self-improvement. He's really fun to talk to and I have never gotten to spend as much time with him as I'd like, so it was cool to see a new world with him as my guide. We mostly went to arcades, but he also showed me electronics stores, restaurants, and shopping districts. The bookstores in major cities are crazy, packed wall to wall with people reading manga and light novels. They also frequently sell games, movies, and music, and some even have large varieties of strange used games (like the copy of Diablo 1 for Japanese PSX that I saw in Tokyo).

The Japanese arcade as you might imagine it: old, musty, and littered with Super Turbo cabs and pudgy otaku slaving away at their Guiles and Ryus, is largely dead. Instead you see lots of Round 1s and Sega Arcades and Taito Game Stations, shiny and loaded with UFO Catchers and trendy new rhythm games. Entire walls of MaiMai are common, and there are possibly more One Piece figurines in a single Round 1 than an entire United State, any United State. Don't be mistaken, there are plenty of fighting game cabinets, but there are plenty more machines that require a large collection of cards to fuel a naval army, an old-school military battle, or a soccer team. These places are loud but fortunately most come equipped with headphones to play otherwise inaudible Pop`n or JuBeat cabinets. I wish we had one anywhere near my hometown.

I had an excellent time going around town with Joe on my first day, and I was sad to see him go. I retired to my hotel and got ready for my first day of training. I took a suit out of my bag, shaved down to a clean look, set about thirty alarms, and listened to some music as I fell asleep. I was in a new country for the first time in a long time, and not just as some transient visitor but a newly minted resident. My first real day of work, ever, was on the horizon. Suffice it to say, the nerves I had felt on August 1st, 2015 paled in comparison.

Ping Pong Episode 2 "Smile is a Robot"

Last time on Ping Pong, Peco had his soul crushed into a fine powder by Wenge's superior play. The arrogant young man had no answer for the well-rounded play of his would-be rival, and Wenge skunked Peco before banishing him to the Shadow Realm with Yugi's grandfather. Perhaps that last part didn't actually happen. This week, will Katase's other star player fall victim to a nemesis of his own?



The answer is "not quite" but man oh man do I love how funny this episode is at its best. First of all, there's this guy:

And this:

And last but not least this:

The idea of Spring love emerging for a man approaching his own personal Winter is beautifully played upon here and in later episodes as Jo and Smile grow closer through their trials and tribulations. Jo sees himself in the young Smile and wants him to see heights that cannot be found when great natural ability isn't cultivated into great practical skill. The love letters, the wistful glances, and the classroom courtship complete with homemade lunchboxes, each staples of romance anime, are turned on their head when it's the English teacher himself giving a lecture on how learning English is pointless in the face of Ping-Pong. Eventually, Jo decides to push his tough love to the brink and forces Smile to confront the reality of his own talent.

As of January 6th, 2016, living humans still don't have the ability to go back and forcibly alter their DNA to give themselves LeBron James's physical ability. We can all work our absolute hardest at the gym, practice running and jumping and lifting and throwing, and never even make it to the NBA. It takes a tremendous string of fortune to get the right genes to become an elite athlete, and when we see talented athletes wasting their potential with drugs or perceived low effort it often feels like an outrage, an injustice. Why should these unappreciative people be so fortunate, when others so badly want what they have but will never know that power? This is the idea that forms the backbone of underdog stories; the audience lives vicariously through the actions of the less talented and indulges in the fantasy of taking the top with their own meager gifts. 

Is it fair, though, to ask of the talented that they do their absolute best to maximize those natural gifts? Should we really expect every tall, graceful man or woman to play basketball? Would it be unfair to force Einstein to study science if he just wanted to make oil paintings for his whole life? These are questions that Ping Pong wants to investigate, and Smile and Jo's relationship is perhaps the core of that investigation. For Jo, it's a grave injustice to waste a gift like Smile's. "You don't chase the ball, the ball chases you." For Smile, who has been bullied all his life, being told that he needs to cash in on his gift is just another form of bullying. In order to stand up to the bullying, Smile has to do the one thing he doesn't want to do. To Jo, talent is a tool for liberation, but to Smile it is a prison with no escape. When Smile embraces his "robotic" side and earns the victory, his only joy is in a temporary escape from being bothered, not any sort of competitive thrill.

While Jo and Smile's arc takes up most of the episode, a few other interesting things happen here. Episode 2 introduces Kaio academy and its captain, Ryu Kazama, while also showing the aftermath of Peco's fall from grace. Kaio and its students will take up a bigger part of the show from this point forward, but here Kazama is introduced in a manner that is fittingly stern and powerful. All business in the form of a teenage boy, Kazama's strong features and bald head give him a great end boss appeal right out of the gate. His clear admiration for Smile is only outstripped by his blatant dismissal of any real threat to his chances. You already know you want to see this guy get his comeuppance. I really love how when Jo and Kazama are walking they use the split-screen rather than just showing both characters in one frame. It creates a great contrast between the weary yet wise veteran and the youthful but brash prodigy.

I really like the next gif because honestly it just looks cool as heck. The zoom is disarming and becomes more and more uncomfortable to watch the more times you see it. Is the camera accelerating or staying the same speed? Why are all the tables so uneven? Its just great to watch and I kinda want to make a loop where it zooms forward again just because I like it so much.

This episode doesn't venture into too much new ground visually, but it's filled with great moments regardless. I think the sound design is also totally on point. I really love when Jo falls to the ground, and Smile takes off his glasses to clean them. The sound is like a robot using its arms, followed by that neat clicking sound that robots tend to make in the movies when they're scanning an area with their eyes. The image of Jo gliding around the table with the serenity of his beautiful "serious" theme playing is indelibly etched in my brain. I like the song so much that it's my phone ringtone. It's actually got a nice sort of darkness to it after the opening bit. It provides a nice contrast to the sort of goofy, flowery theme of his that plays during the early "courtship" part of the episode. I also like the tribal drumming theme that accompanies Kazama's arrival. It fits especially well with his character as we understand him to this point. He is an intense ping pong warrior with a fittingly intense theme.

Overall this episode is probably on the lower end of the series for me, as it doesn't involve nearly as wide a range of characters as most episodes and serves mostly to lay the groundwork for relationships that will be more thoroughly examined in the middle of the season, namely Jo/Smile and Kazama/Smile. It's still really good, and every time I rewatch the battle between Jo and Smile I find something new to appreciate. It also subtly sows the seeds of bigger plot things that I don't really want to spoil right now.

Ping Pong Episode 1: "The Wind Makes It Too Hard to Hear"

I initially planned on writing my Yuasa series in chronological order of his career, moving from Mind Game up through Kemonozume, then Kaiba, The Tatami Galaxy, and finally Ping Pong. It makes a great deal of sense to see how an auteur's work evolves over time, as the maker's attitudes adapt to the world around them and as their abilities improve (or decline!) with experience. Jean-Luc Godard is a great example of a filmmaker whose career follows a neatly traceable trajectory as he moved away from narrative-driven film and towards an increasingly experimental style as his politics became a more essential element of his style. Akira Kurosawa, on the other hand, went from political propaganda filmmaker to world-renowned Shakespeare adapter over the course of his fifty year directorial career. Yuasa, by any reasonable accounting, could merit a similar attempt at linear scrutiny of his brief but impressive career.

Reason, however, does not factor into my feelings about Ping Pong and the attention it deserves. If there is one goal behind my postings about beer, film, anime, or anything else, it is to spread my love and appreciation so that other people might find something they too can love. Ping Pong is the most lovable thing on the planet this side of adorable puppies and kittens. It oozes joy and secretes an aroma of sadness and empathy and optimism all at once. It loves you and wants you to find pleasure not only in watching its wonderful images and hearing its terrific sounds but in reflecting on the parts of you that you want to change and then changing them because of a goddamn sports anime. Ping Pong is a gift that keeps on giving, and if I can convince even one more person to give it a chance the screencapping and gifmaking and writing will all be worth it.

Now that I've totally hyped you up, and without further ado, Episode 1:

There is a school of thought about Ping Pong which says that the show is "ugly" because it looks weird. Ping Pong may not have an artistic style that appeals to everyone, with its mostly deliberately unattractive cast and strange line work, but its drawings show an intensely individualistic style that fit perfectly with the show's motifs. At least until the story reaches a later arc, each character has plainly identifiable traits which mark them as their own person. From the impish Peco to the handsome and stylish Wenge, the main cast is memorable and distinct from the very first episode. Even the more minor characters get their own trademarks, from Ota's enviable hairstyle to Jo's bushy brows and wrinkled, weary face. Oddball camera angles, tricks of perception, and simple yet colorful backgrounds force the action to feel alive even when the animation slacks.

Yuasa also revels in reminding the audience that what we are watching was once a manga series printed on real paper, with all the limitations and virtues of that medium on full display. I suppose the word to describe these sequences would be collage, but they feel like more than that as the brief frames of animation contained within give an already profoundly kinetic series an almost unfair boost. This episode also ventures into the realm of the unreal, during the climactic battle between Peco and Wenge. It is the dark yet playful touch of Peco flying through the abyss that really seals the deal on the gravity of his defeat. It's not much of a spoiler to say that this sort of thing is sprinkled throughout the series yet never feels old or overused.

The scene from which the episode takes its name offers one of my favorite moments of the entire series. The entire sequence is just fantastic, as it confirms the dynamic between Peco and Smile as players hinted at when coach Jo watches them play earlier in the episode. It also demonstrates for the audience that the mysterious player from China is a serious threat before he's ever swung a racket. But what really cinches the scene as brilliant in my mind is the establishing shot, after Peco and Smile arrive in the gym and Wenge and his coach are shown on the roof.

As Peco and Smile prepare to play a game, the camera floats from a high angle near the basketball rim, through the gymnasium walls and into the sky above the buildings. It floats there, wandering and flitting about like a kite in the wind, before arriving at Wenge's face as he leans in to hear their play. Flight is a prominent motif for the whole run of the series; here we already have the opening scene with the robot and the witch, as well as Wenge's arrival on a jet plane and subsequent vision of a plane flying overhead as the ball sails off Peco's racket one last time. Yet it's this boldly cinematic shot that I feel best encompasses the show's ambitions. It actually reminds me a bit of an iconic shot from Godard's 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her, during a rooftop monologue by Marina Vlady. Whereas that 360 degree pan gains from the drabness and repetitive imagery of the banlieue rooftops, the Ping Pong shot's dancing motion conveys a great vastness between the two groups of players despite their actually rather close proximity.

I haven't talked too much about the bits of the episode that I imagine most people tend to focus on, like the characters themselves or the plot arc contained within. It's not that those bits are insignificant; to the contrary, one of the show's strongest elements is the flesh and blood. But that's stuff that comes even stronger later, and the sort of thing that anyone with experience watching quality serial drama can probably notice without too much help from my end. What I will say is that I love how this episode builds up both Peco and Wenge as elite players and then immediately pays off the audience with their match. The entire run of Ping Pong is only eleven episodes, so there's no time spent dragging out arcs or individual matches for filler. Characters with less than five minutes of total screen time will feel complete, because so much attention and care is paid to their brief time in the spotlight. I also really love the soundtrack of this episode, because it contains several of my favorite songs from the whole show, including Wenge's futuristic, Metal Gear Solid-esque (in my opinion!) theme song.

It's my belief that the greatness of Ping Pong can stand on its own from Episode 1 all the way to the conclusion without want of any justification. I hope you liked this episode enough to stick with the show. If you enjoyed this episode even before you read my musings, go right ahead to Funimation's YouTube page and watch the whole show in a couple of sittings, as I've already done several times. If you think that reading my musings is worthwhile to your enjoyment of each episode, or you actually have things to do in your personal life that make marathon viewings of anime impossible, then I hope you stick around and come back to check in every day or three. I plan on trying to make one post like this a day, to finish the whole series in a little over a week and a half, and there might be days where I try to put two episodes together when it's not super important to highlight particular elements.