Journey into Mystery

Happy Hanukkah for those who celebrate it. Happy Winter Solstice in advance :P

→ I feel a little too excited for finishing Ocarina of Time... AGAIN. Now to try the Master Quest (I almost type sword, LOL) mode. And man, the ending has some plotholes that make me wonder... and I don't mean the timelines and time travel shenanigans. I mean, how the fuck are the Kokiris partying at Lon Lon without turning into Skull Kids?! Makes no sense whatsoever.

→ Why the fuck are Hollywood making a sequel for the Clash of the Titans remake? That movie was SO SHITTY, I had to watch it with Rifftrax and it was still dull despite of the memetic one-liners and the MST crew mocking. It's THAT awful. Look, I don't care that you have actual titans now. This is an abomination.

→ Persona 4 anime, I'm just on the wagon still because anime!Teddie is so precious. No idea if Kappei helps with the squeaky moe voice or what. You know, I think I'm going to write a giant post about Teddie because he is my favorite P4 character and he needs more love. And stupid theories. And long eyelashes, apparently! Meanwhile, I shall ignore that guy with the gray hair for my own sanity.

In my eternal search for well-written mythology butchery fiction, I might have stumbled into what might possibly become this subgenre's very own Twilight. Just the description really, really, REALLY annoys me in several areas.

→ They paid HOW MUCH for this?! To a newbie, no less. Man, either this woman writes like a god, or it's very Meyer-esque with Romeo-and-Juliet shit they recognize it's automatic cash cow. I lean to the latter, knowing the YA industry.

→ The Iliad in High School. WHY WOULD YOU EVEN.

→ Making a novel about a reincarnation of Paris/Helen, which is just terrible in general.

→ This then begs the unfortunate question: should she be with the boy she loves even if it means endangering the rest of the world? LET ME GUESS, IT'S GOING TO BE THE CLAMP WAY, ISN'T IT? Instant resolve not to read this ever.

→ pitched it as "a Percy Jackson for teenage girls"

...........................there is SO much wrong in this sentence.

Noonononono. No, dammit. You know what is Percy Jackson for teenage girls? IT'S PERCY JACKSON ITSELF, YOU ASSHATS!! Titular boy aside, this series is filled with amazing and BAMF teen girls to look upon! And there's a balanced male-female hero ratio, so there are many to choose from. And even more amazing? Many of them get love lives too! So being in wars and dating isn't mutually exclusive, and they don't get to risk the world for Soulmate Hottie like this Helen chick who just sounds kinda psychotic if you ask me.

So, um, okay. In the Japanese version of Okami (and Okamiden, I guess? IDK) Amaterasu -and Shiranui for extension- didn't have an actual gender. We can agree on that. Then in the English game, there were hints for female (Waka using French female pronouns and adjectives, Yatsu seeing her as a maiden) so most people think of her as a gal in fanon. Me included, but that's not the point.

So now the English localizators of Okamiden have randomly decided that the Shiranui incarnation is male. "Always remember: it’s people that assign gender to the gods." And by people, we mean us.

No, your reason is utter bullshit. Shiranui might be another incarnation, but she was the original Amaterasu with full powers and memories. Shiranui is the name humans gave her because they didn't know who the fuck the white wolf was, and they used "it" pronouns. Waka thought of Shiranui as Amaterasu. Ishaku called her Ammy. The Brush Gods called Amaterasu their mother, but they were born from Shiranui. No one is seeing a huge distinction between Ammy and Shiranui in the original game. Actually, does she turn into a dude in the final battle to you guys?

Why don't you just say WE FELT LIKE CALLING HIM A GRANDPA or admitting you are afraid of girl fleas cooties instead of using the Japanese lack of gender as a loophole? Mind you, I'm not pissed that Shiranui gets her gender changed to male. It's the inconsistency. If they had changed BOTH Amaterasu and Shiranui as male, I wouldn't agree but I certainly wouldn't complain about it. Then it's just a translation choice. But by doing this picking, it feels just wrong and badly thought. IT'S THE SAME CHARACTER, YOU DUMBASSES.

Sigh. I'm done with my wank. Back to replaying Ghost Trick and uploading Okami fanart on Tumblr.

1. His Apeshitness Hugo Chávez just broke his own records of hypocrisy by banning violent video games. How about banning street delinquency? Or leaving Colombia alone? Jesus in a roller coaster, man. My poor home country. See how everyone will keep buying pirate games to street vendors anyway 8Db

2. Am I the only one who sees this and thinks "oh hell no"? My love for Okami is as vast as the ocean, but I don't want a sequel, especially not one made by different people. Sure, I mean, some series created by Hideki Kamiya worked well without him (Devil May Cry, Viewtiful Joe), but I'm protective of my baby and it's so easy to come up with bad new canon for it. I wouldn't mind that much if it's a spinoff where you don't play Amaterasu, as long as it's good.

I still hope it's just an unrelated game with a similar name, though. I don't even think CAPCOM is even very interested in Okami anyway, when it sort of flopped twice.

3. Ah yeah, apparently they were this close to put Phoenix Wright (and Franzisca Von Karma, maybe) as playable characters in Tatsunoko vs. CAPCOM. What stopped them was that Phoenix's main move would have to be the OBJECTION letters as the attack (fffffff XD) but then they realized that "igiari" and "objection" were different in size and the Western port would've been a bitch to animate. (Why do you even change that...? Let Phoenix throw kanji at people!)

Then I concluded it was a good thing he's not going to be in the roster: that's one more chance for Amaterasu as a West-only character. /asshole

4. I've been reading random manga. Now here are two titles I liked.

4.1 ½ Prince, a shoujo manhwa based in a Taiwanese light novel. It's silly and cracky and set in a virtual reality MMORPG. Nothing spectacular, but it amused me.

4.2 Tegaki Bachi, a shounen manga that I enjoyed for its lack of level-ups and original-ish premise. I think some of you would like it a lot. It feels very DGM at moments. I might watch the anime this fall.