Baroque Antiquity

Casshern Sins is an anime that uses that older style of physicality in Japanese storytelling.  Something that bothers me about a lot of contemporary action anime is the idea that the powers themselves are cool, so there is no need to do anything beyond enumerating them.

But, in anime like Casshern Sins, Akira, Karas, and many others, this kind of exaggerated power is used as a metaphor, not simply something that was a cool idea.  It’s not just that I abhor shows like Bleach and Naruto; I am offended by them because I think that so much deeper concepts can be portrayed by the idea of superhuman powers.

There is a tendency for anime, and western media as well, to create a concept and then milk it for as much as it is worth.  To keep the product alive for as long as possible.  This creates the storytelling anti-arc.  Because there is no clear conclusion, even the seasonal endings, or the vague kinds of endings seen in a lot of shows don’t really wrap up the fiction.

I don’t like the idea of watching a show just because I enjoy a world or setting.  I think that the power of storytelling is so much greater than escaping to a specific state of being.  When that clear arc is sacrificed for the sake of length, or when that arc was never really there in the first place, it is almost like it exists in disdain of much better fictions.

Momentum, et al.

I have a very slowly-growing stack of 360 and PS3 games on a shelf.  There are 9 or 10, and they are all 100% completed.  Achievements, trophies, and the other miscellanea that aren’t recorded in those things (max levels, items, etc.).

I enjoy 100%-ing games, but not because I am obsessive about it.  I think it has more to do with the older console JRPGs like FF6 and Chrono Trigger, wherein finding all those small secrets and maxing out your party were usually difficult to do, and required a lot of knowledge of the game.

It’s definitely much easier nowadays, with FAQs and just the general structure of games, but I still find enjoyment in it.  I don’t like to permanently retire a game until I have exhausted it.  I usually go through 3-4 games at a time, jumping between genres and play styles based on what I feel like playing.

I do the same thing with books, though.  I usually read at least one fiction and one nonfiction book simultaneously, because sticking to only one for days or weeks can be trying.  The moment when I lose interest in what I’m reading and am merely trying to slog through something is when I know I should give it a temporary rest.

The structure of my playing and reading is amorphous and largely based on my mood at the time, and that is also what I need to do apply to my writing.  When I tried to force myself to start blogging again, I created 3 or 4 blogs, had a definite and strict method for writing on each, and it lasted all of a week.  Imposing structure on motivation has always been very hard for me, and I should have realized how futile it was much earlier.  I have always done my best writing when I was inspired and just trying to get something out in text.

So, I’ll just stick to one, and actually use those stupid category tags that I despise so much.  While it will make this singular blog very scattered and tangential… I’m pretty sure my soul itself is just one lifelong series of tangents.