M Dash 27 - Blog by Hecko X » One-post events

Buddies’ Day Out

Hecko X — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 12:11:38 +0000

So, a few days ago Thursday, three friends and I, who had all been in the same group for the Year 2 Project, went out to celebrate having passed all of our exams. We had long since decided that when we finally finished the year (or “cleaned the year“, as we say in Serbia if you pass all your exams), we’d go to dinner and bowling, so that’s exactly what we did! 8D

We started off going to a burger joint named after a city in Canada, Halifax. None of us had ever been there before, which made it kinda cool for all of us since we all got to test out something new. Considering that it was a burger joint, their selection was fairly limited (5 types of burgers), but you could ‘customise’ them by selecting what kind of meat you wanted in them (e.g. 175g beef, 275g beef, chicken, etc.), what kind of side order, and what type of dip you wanted.

The burgers were absolutely delicious, but the prices were pretty damn spicy. Even the cheapest burger + side order on the menu was 110 DKK and a small drink was like 25 DKK. There are really good places with all-you-can-eat buffets with free drinks and ice cream for 2 hours for almost the same price, so I was a bit D8 about it, but it was pretty good nonetheless, and the waitress was pretty patient with us ^^’

Afterwards, we went bowling. Since we had like an hour and a half until our reservation at the bowling alley, we decided to walk there and had some fun in the meantime. We made it with like 20 minutes to go, so I can imagine it was further away than we thought XD

Anywho, long story short, we could all use some more practice (I’ve added our games to the end of the post)… And I seriously need to get back in shape, I was pretty sore the next morning, lulz XD In any case, it was a super fun day out, so thanks you guys!!

Genki @ Komiks

Hecko X — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 02:47:52 +0000

Okay, truth be told, this event is almost a month old which is why I’m a bit “hnnngh… ;>.>” about posting it, BUT HEY!! I haven’t really posted for ages because I’ve been busy with exams (which are now over), scanlations (which are partially on hold due to either vacation or licensing), and Genki work (which is now far more manageable), so I figured what the the hey~.

Anywho, Komiks is probably the largest comic book convention in Denmark. Compared to the comic conventions in the US or the manga conventions in Japan, it’s not; like comparing an ice cube to the iceberg that sank the Titanic, but here, it’s pretty effing big! Anywho, Genki were especially invited because the Komiks organisers had apparently heard about us (wuuuw) and wanted us to give their participants a taste of the East (mainly focusing on manga, but also other things).

So we essentially had us a miniature Genki convention with a manga lounge, a game room (organised by one of our Swedish partners, Terebi Ge-mu), a chill-out café with drawing and Perle bead making, and even an anime showing. The only thing that sucked is that we had no flyers for Genki to hand out and our banner wasn’t up until Sunday, so PR-wise, we crashed and burned (people didn’t know who organised it XD). But people at least had fun at our little corner of Komiks, so it’s all good.

I myself had buck-loads of fun too; I got the kick-assatastic drawing of Young Flaming Ninja from Kaiki (seen on the left; she gave me the original sketch), met this chick that I’m currently ’seeing’ (it’s a very casual relationship/arrangement, we’re not actually dating), and lost Kurikku to Samir from Sweden in a game of Super Street Fighter IV XD

Kurikku in turn, in a vain effort to win back his freedom, lost me, the chick I’m seeing, and aaaaaall of Genki to Samir, so now, we’re all Samir’s bitches until I get a chance to win everything back in a game of Tekken 6. And I’ll win his girlfriend and cat from him also, JUST BECAUSE!! JUST BECAUSE, SAMIR!!! >:3 /shakes fist at Samir

Oh, and one last funny story about the event: Terebi Ge-mu, the dudes from Sweden setting up our game room for Komiks, had prepared and safely locked away their consoles to get them to Komiks. They get to Komiks, and when they’re just about to unpack, they realise that they never got the keys from the guy who helped them pack their stuff. So now, we had like 8-10 consoles locked away in two red whatevers from IKEA and no key.

Kurikku suggest that they go to the IKEA 45 minutes into town, buy the same “metal cupboard storage”-thingy so they can get an identical key, and come back and unlock the ones they brought from Sweden with the consoles in them. I tell them no, since I can get them open without the key. Kurikku liked his idea better, so off to IKEA they went, and 30 minutes into their road trip, the van BREAKS DOWN in the middle of the highway, leaving them stranded for hours. And guess who had manage to pick open the locks with a hairpin and a screwdriver only a few minutes after they’d left XD

KodachiCon 2010

Hecko X — Mon, 10 May 2010 17:35:27 +0000

Ok, wow. I’m so tired… Anyway, this weekend was when KodachiCon 2010 in Lund, Sweden, took place, and boy was it cool. I actually wanted to take a bunch of pictures, but my cameraphone went into roaming mode as soon as we entered Sweden and the entire battery was drained before I ever got the chance to take pics, so I got zilch. Check out their gallery on facebook though: KodachiCon Gallery

This was actually my first con abroad, so it was big relief to me to have the ’safety net’ of going with a few friends as well as the con being organized by Mangakai Lund, the Swedish partners of Genki. I initially wanted to write two big posts, but I’m tired and busy with exams and such, so I’m just gonna make things short.

All in all, the con was pretty cool and chillaxed. In number of participants, it was about the same as Genki 2009, but they actually utilized the venue space (which I think was smaller than what we had) REALLY efficiently. The only place that ever felt crowded was the 2 metres between the doorway leading to the gameroom and the stairs leading to the lower level.

In terms of events, there was a cosplay show that I unfortunatelly didn’t go to, game room by Terebi-Gemu + game tournaments (I won the Tekken 6 one~ 8D ; got a medal and two games), an auction, a karaoke room supplied by us (Genki), a traditional game room (i.e. boardgames) + contests by S.A.R.Z., two cinemas; one dedicated to anime, the other dedicated to J-drama (they had also planned for an outdoor evening cinema, but it started raining), cool in-between events like Jeopardy and Mafia (which I really wanted to try having read the manga Doubt, but I was just way too tired), and lots lots more.

I got to meet a lot of really cool people, including some of the best Street Fighter and Tekken players in Sweden (I was no match for them in SF, but in Tekken, I whooped ass >:3 ), and in my opinion, their con was super duper awesome!! The only thing I regret was spending too much time in the game room, I wanted to go see some of the other stuff as well D8

Oh, one thing I thought was a bit “… but why?” was that the ‘kiosk/cafeteria’ didn’t really sell food other than snacks/candy and then breakfast during the morning. I mean sure, there was a McDonald’s and a petrol station like 5-10 minutes away so it wasn’t like people were dying of hunger, but since they already had an electric keddle free for use (if people had bought like tea or something, I guess), why then not hook up an extra one and then sell cup noodles or something? I think that would’ve been pretty cool. But then again, it might have been done like that for safety reasons (to avoid people being idiots and scalding themselves or others big-time) or maybe they need some licence to sell that kind of stuff, I dunno.

Copenhagen Film Festival 2010

Hecko X — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 14:58:09 +0000

The Copenhagen Film Festival *aka* CPH PIX has started!! 8D It lasts 10 days (April 15-25), and if it wasn’t for the ICO and the Year 2 projects, I would watch myself senseless with movies.

Even so, I will try my hardest to watch enough movies to justify buying a movie pass without sacrificing project time. Below can be seen a snapshot of my planned movie schedule (I’m too lazy/busy to code a table in HTML…). I’ll consider writting brief reviews if I have time, but don’t count on it as project work takes priority.

Free Ice Cream!!

Hecko X — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 21:47:11 +0000

Today, Frisko had an event where they handed out free ice cream in order to kick off the coming of spring (or something like that). Anywho, since distribution didn’t start until 13:00, which is when I had class, but ended as soon as supply led up, me and two of my friends decided to sneak out of class. And by sneak, I mean make a large commotion to stun everyone, slam open the door, and run out before the teacher could ask what it was all about.

We sprinted to the nearest 7-Eleven (since distribution was from 7-Elevens across Denmark) in order to a) beat the crowd; and b) try to make it back before the company presentation we were having 10 minutes later. By the time we got the however, the crowd was huge, and we ended up spending 15 minutes in line, BUT WE GOT OUR ICE CREAMS IN THE END AND WE REGRET NOTHING!! >:3

We were totally late for the presentation however, so walking back into the class was a bit awkward… ;>.> BUT DUDE, FREE ICE CREAM!!

Hecko’s Great Adventure

Hecko X — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 21:05:35 +0000

Today, I was feeling extremely unwell and even nearly passed out on several occasions on my way to school. The top part of my head felt extremely heavy and tears started flowing for no apparent reason. Because I only felt ill when sitting still and not while moving around, I left the school after having contemplating what to do for about 10-15 minutes.

I decide to walk home and log everything of interest as I passed it by. Below is a map of the route I took. Clicking the blue points will bring up a small text box with info while clicking the green ones will bring up a video I recorded while there. Everything is chronoligical, so please find point 1 (the North-Eastern most blue point) first, if it doesn’t appear automatically, and then just follow the line, clicking the points as you go along.

Maré de Agosto Festival

Hecko X — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 10:19:01 +0000

A few weeks ago, Henry, a buddy of mine from Azores (a Portuguese archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean), told me about a festival that would be taking place on his island. I asked him if he would be so nice as to write a post about it for M Dash, and a few threats and embarrassing negatives later (okay, not really XP), he agreed. So here is Henry’s post with a few videos of the festival added =3

Two weeks ago, the 25th Maré de Agosto festival of world music took place in the island of Santa Maria, Azores. The name comes from the potent tides that usually hit the island around this time, (Maré de Agosto being portuguese for “Tide of August”). This music festival focuses on the different music styles and cultures from the world, however, the DJ’s sound pretty much all the same.

This year Reggae, Rock, Trance, Hip Hop, Folk, Dance, Celtic Rock, Percussion and African sounds could be heard in Praia Formosa (the island’s most popular bay) in the 4 days of the festival, which had its 25th anniversary this year, and if you ask me, it was well planned.

Two stages were set for this festival: The Main Stage, where two main concerts took place until 2:30 am,~when the next concert would take place in the Castle Stage, leaving the main DJ on the Main Stage. Also, activities such as percussion workshops, concerts and shows would take place in the Castle stage from 3 pm until 7.

So, usually everybody goes camping around the bay, either in the camping park (which got full by the first day) or in the surrounding fields. By the second day there was no place to leave a cooler at. Due to bad camping experiences last year, I begged my cousin (wub youz :3) to save me a seat on my aunt’s Nissan.

So, everyday I had a ride to Praia Formosa at 10 pm and a ride back home around 5 am, and stood by the main stage through the whole festival. The first day was cool. The festival was opened in the 20th of August at 10:30 pm by the local scout’s percussion band, BEY JÁ’ TUM (love you ^^). With only one band acting, the Portuguese WOK, the night was reserved to the french DJ Click. Best DJ I’ve seen.

In the 21st, the night started with Lura, a cape verdean singer, and was succeeded by Wolfstone, who I didn’t see, though I completely sorry being on the beach during that concert since it sounded fucking amazing. I returned later and the DJ turned out to be a total piece of crap.

The third day was amazing. Starting with the Cuban Kumar’s Hip Hop (whose band had an extremely hot singer), the show went on with the British band Fiction Plane, who threw one of the best concerts of the festival. For some fucking reason I only remember the last song from that concert, and I usually got drunk in the break between the second concert and the DJ. Stupid memory of mine. >_>

The last day was marked by Warsaw Village Band from Poland, whose concert was hit by a brutal shower, which caused everyone to open their parasols, run to the WC or shelter under the entrance. I picked the latter, and boy was it crowded. All I could move was my head, but fortunately I could reach my friend’s straw and drink his RedBull (]:D). Next came the reggae of Gentleman, from Germany, who gave us one hell of a show as well, specially when he went into the middle of the crowd (I wanted to jump high and scream, but had a beer cup on each hand. Fucked luck >_>).

This edition of Maré the Agosto was by far the most crowded one. A friend of mine who came from another island had to wait 3 hours for a ticket. I could barely move inside the main stage and going to the bar to get some beer and come back was a pain in the ass during the concerts, specially after you drink some of it. That’s why I always bought two beers at a time, since the first would end before I’d find my friends. Also, if anyone had a seizure outside the area, it would probably die, since most of the ambulances were parked at the festival. Same works for firefighters. Parking on the area was also terrible, and once we even had to hitch-hike to get to our car. Huge drug-smelling dogs intimidated everyone, specially those who hid their weed in sensible spots. At least we could drink safely. Amazingly, it rained scarcely, in the final day, which is something uncommon since it seems to ALWAYS rain during festivals and fairs. It’s frustrating.

Overall, this was the best festival ever for me. Great music, lots of fun, all my friends, amazing beach and light hangovers. What do you need more?

Trip to the Zoo

Hecko X — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 19:09:30 +0000

[slide autostart="false" rotatetime="7"]

For the last few weeks, I’d been having this really odd urge to go to the Zoo. So I went there (lulz XD) in the company of two lovely ladies, Nat and Chrissy, both of whom I hadn’t seen for about a year ^^ We had a kickass time with lots of laughs and awesome animals (PENGUINS!! ♥), and I even bought myself a mascot, seen on the right as the default image for the gallery slideshow.

Well, rather than a bunch of really boring text, I’ll just show you all the pictures we took =D Being the only one of the three without an actual camera (other than my phone), my pics are of sucky quality, so sorries XP Nat’s photos turned out really awesome and artsy, actually =3 Aaaanywho, pics galore!! I suggest watching them in full-screen (hover over slideshow, right-most button)

Animania

Hecko X — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 15:02:04 +0000

The always endearing Yuan-chan, whom some of you may recall wrote the Kino no Tabi review a month ago, has written a post on Animania; an Australian convention. I’m not gonna go into further details, as all this is explained in her post, so enjoy.

I’m still unsure about what the Animania mascot actually is…

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of attending Animania in Sydney, which is an anime/manga/cosplay convention in Australia, with a few friends. This was also my first convention, so I was kind of wide-eyed at going O.O. I only found out about the convention the day before from my friend Vicki, who was begging people to come, so all of the planning was rather last minute.

Such a queue…

We caught the train from my city to Sydney, and received many strange looks from people as Vicki had decided to cosplay as Haruhi Suzumiya. A non-Asian Haruhi Suzumiya, but you still looked really good Vicki (so don’t hurt me!). However, we were very silly and didn’t pre-order our tickets, so we ended up waiting for 2 hours in the line. On the other hand, we also got to see all the cool (and… not so cool) cosplays while waiting.

Anyway, once inside, we spent a while looking at all of the stores. There were the usual: figurines, anime, manga, costumes and merchandise, plus some doujinshi artists who did some really neat work for us. I managed to pick up a Yoshitaka Amano artbook (I’m so happy!). I must, however, remember to bring more spending money next time =.=.

Ah! Amano Maten! Maten! Maten!

There was a theatre held during the day showing episodes of anime, as well as karaoke, a gaming room, and an origami workshop. The workshop finished by the time we got down there, sadly, but we got to watch the karaoke and gaming. I hope next time they might have more games – although the gaming area was quite spacious, there were only 3 platforms. I didn’t get to view the cosplay, newspaper cosplay or Chocobo dances (wark!) either: being on the shrimpy side, I couldn’t see the stage in the extremely crowded hall, and decided to go and watch the drawing competitions downstairs instead. I didn’t enter (cursed lack of inspiration!), but it was pretty cool watching all of the artists work in front of us.

We were rather tired after all of that, especially with how chaotic it was. Somehow, I managed to disappear on the way back to the train station (whoops ^^;), but we all managed to get home in one piece. I wish that the venue had been a bit bigger, but overall it was a very good experience. I’m definitely dragging my Japanese class along next time .

Tennis with Frodi

Hecko X — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 13:59:46 +0000

Hellooooooo ladies and gentlemen!! My name is Aiyin Di Skie and I will be the reviewer of the great match we witnessed today at the Danish Open [to Practically Anyone]. Today’s match had brough in not one, not two, but threeeeeeeee people to the stands. Sure, they were the groundskeepers and were just here to water the remaining courts, but let’s not have details get in the way! So without further ado, let’s begin the review of the match between

Frodilolli von Seksappeel		Hecko “Wai me?! D:” Eks
	VS.

The first set was pretty uneventful. Hecko Eks won the ‘racket spin’ (a type of “flipping the coin” used when you’re as broke as these students are and don’t have an actual coin to flip) and chose to serve first. He managed to pull of several service aces and completely dominated the first set with a 6-0 victory. Fans argued that Frodilolli was simply sore from having to dig his way through of the massive mountains of fanmail from female fans in order to leave his appartment and thus needed longer to warm up and loosen his joints.

The second set was however dramatical indeed! Only halfway through the first servce game of the set, Hecko Eks whips his arm during a serve, injuring the elbow joint and sealing his overhead serves for the rest of the match. He somehow manages to win his service game anyway, thanks to the lead he had accumulated before it happened. During Frodilolli’s first service game in the set, it became obvious that the fans had been correct; Frodilolli’s serves had become sharper and far quicker, and he too managed to pull of a service ace. Furthermore, using his far superior physique with the advantage of Hecko only being able to serve underhanded, Frodilolli reigned supreme, managing several return aces and turning the tables with a lead 3-1. However, from that point on, Frodilolli had a series of bad luck with his serves, leading to many return aces, and many outs due to the strong side-wind, while Hecko had some extremely lucky points he only won due to that exact same reason (the strong side-winds). Hecko managed to win the set 6-4. Many of the service games were however decided after the advantage shifted several times, so they were all very close, exciting games.

In the third set, something truly odd happened. During a service return, Hecko suddenly yells “HADOUUUUUKEEEN!!!”, resulting in the return becoming an ace. Similarly, during a later service, Frodilolli suddenly yells “SONIC BOOM!!” making Hecko unable to return the ball. Perhaps we have stumbled upon what it is that makes the pros play as well as they do… Regardless, the set was 5-1 in Hecko’s favour, due to Frodilolli’s streak of bad luck continuing. However, as the true fans cheered him on, he somehow managed to find and bring forth the true power of Seksappeel, and claw his way up to a 5-4 score while losing only one or two points per game. Knowing exactly how devastatingly overpowering Seksappeel can be, Hecko, despite his injury, unseals his overhead serve and wins the set and match with a spectacular service ace! What a game! What a match!! What incredible players!!!! And such ends our review, but be sure to follow the show next time, right here on channel M-27 *wink*

I Made Sushi! =D

Hecko X — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 02:39:10 +0000

Okay, “made” is maybe a bit generous, but who cares? XD Anywho, the ASP (Asian Studies Programme) Student Council were having a bonding event sponsored by Google yesterday, since Google apparently loves what the ASP Student Council are doing for the Asian Studies Programme on CBS (Copenhagen Business School), which is also sponsored by Google, among others.

Before any of us even got there, our host for the evening, who is also a member of the ASP Student Council, had already cooked the rice and sliced the fish and veggies, so all that was left for the rest of us to do was pretty much to roll the makizushi and shape/form the nigirizushi, but that was fine since that’s what I wanted to try the most =3 Obviously, I sucked at it XD But we all worked as a well-oiled machine to make the sushi by splitting up the chores; one team rolling makizushi and cutting it, the other shaping nigirizushi and adding the fish. However being six people in a way too small kitchen led to a lot of accidents, but none so serious that we couldn’t all laugh at them XD

The rest of the evening was spent just hanging out, talking, messing around, eating sushi, listening to Korean pop music, and stuff like that. It was a lot of fun actually ^^ I hope to be able to make sushi again soon some day. Maybe Random and his girlfriend will let me cook for them again and then I can try out some different toppings since I know Random’s girlfriend doesn’t like fish. Maybe bacon or something would be nice, lightly cooked of course =3

P.S. Yuan-chan: me, you, 8 years, sushi-date, don’t forget. DUN DUN DUUUUUN!!! O.o

Party at Madhatter’s!

Hecko X — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 02:33:37 +0000

It’s like 4.30 in the morning and I just got home from a party at Madhatter’s like an hour ago and I’m so friggin’ tired. But it was a good party; I met a bunch of friends I hadn’t seen for like months, so it was really nice to catch up with them. Also met a bunch of new people, which is always nice. One of my cute, little kouhai even showed up, which I really wasn’t suspecting, and she looked so peeeeerty, aaaaw <3 And I think she has a boyfriend now, uuuuuuh XD

Anywho, party was fun fun fun, so I’m glad I decided to go =3 And now, I’m off to bed, cause I’m fucking tired and I was supposed to make a kanji list but I haven’t been home all day and I’m so not in the mood right now… Sorry Cat!! D= Also, I was sober when the picture on the right was taken, imagine how bad it would have been if I was actually drunk!! D=

Visiting MickeyD’s at 5 A.M.

Hecko X — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 00:46:39 +0000

I dunno, it seemed like a good idea at the time. Some time ago, I was chatting with South Korea on Messenger at 5.00 in the morning, as we often do, and being kind of hungry but not wanting to cook, I asked if he wanted to go to MickeyD’s. He probably thought I was kidding, but went along with it, until he was sitting in the bus on his way, at which point he called me to make sure it wasn’t a dream or a very mean joke XD

We meet up at MickeyD’s at 05.35, and according to its opening hours, it doesn’t close until 06.00. We go to the front door and see that a security guard seems to be locking the doors anyway, which struck us as odd, since they should still be open, so I open the front door and ask “I’m sorry, but are yo-“, at which points he goes “We’re closed, we’re closed, WE’RE CLOSED, CLOSED CLOSED CLOSED!!!! MRFMFMRMFMRFM!!!! *foam*.” Yeah okay, he didn’t actual foam, but the rest is true. Talk about PMSing while having roid rage… He’s probably one of the prime examples of the stereotype that security guards are people who failed as police officers because they were either too dumb or were deemed a danger to society should they ever wield a gun.

We of course had a backup plan, since while one MickeyD’s closes at six, the one at the Copenhagen Central Station opens at six (smart smart). We decided to walk around until then, and had not even passed 200 meters when we saw a giant police barrier. While not knowing at the time, I later found out that 20 or so minutes before we got there, two guys had got into a fight and one had shot the other. Talk about dodging a bullet! Well… us, not so much the guy who was shot, since he obviously didn’t dodge it… erm… yeah… *awkward silence* He didn’t die or anything, it hit his shoulder!! O.o

Anywho, we walked around for half an hour until the other MickeyD’s opened, at which time we obviously went there (duuuuuurrrrrr <__>). What we didn’t expect was that not only were we getting foodz for our money, but we were getting a show! While eating, across and to the left of us sat two guys (friends) and next to them, two girls (friends with eachother, but not the guys). Anywho, at some point, one of the guy burps, and I don’t mean one of those little “*Homf* oh, excuse me” ones, I mean one of those Barney Gumble “*BURAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP!!!* OH YEAH, BEST ONE THIS WEEK!!” burps.

The ‘point’ here is, that while most of us ignored it, one of the girls went into MAJOR “What the fuck is wrong with you?! ò_ó“-mode, and start scolding the guy and whatnot. The guy was cold as ice, and just responded with total senseless BS, which made the girl even more pissed, so she began to respond with total senseless BS. This went on for a straight 10-15 minutes. The girl’s friend was laughing her ass off, me and South Korea were laughing our asses off, the girl’s friend would see us laugh our asses off and laugh even harder herself, and the whole thing was better than Comedy Hour on TV.

So keep this in mind: If you ever feel like going to MickeyD’s, do it at 5 in the morning. If someone doesn’t kill you on the way there or on the way home, you’ll most likely have the funniest fucking time that entire month. My only regret is that I didn’t record any of it so that I could rewatch the entire thing XD

Lecture on Japanese Pop Culture

Hecko X — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 19:49:56 +0000

On October 28, 2008, professor Yasuki Hamano gave a lecture on “Pop Culture in Japan and its Cultural Roots,” but I must admit, it did not deliver as much as I had expected. When I think Japanese pop culture and its roots, I think anime, manga, cosplay, music, art, games, and ‘modern’ stuff relative to the youth of Japan, a thought that I believed was supported by the choice of pictures used in the notification e-mail. Instead, it was an hour-and-a-half lecture pitting Japan versus the US. The closes we got to anime, manga, etc., were two short trailers, having every example concerning anime include Hayao Miyazaki, and having an honourable mention of Pokémon.

As not to drag things out, here is a summary of the most important points that were made during the lecture.

American Animation vs Japanese Animation

Professor Hamano argued, that American animation is primarily focused on action and/or music while Japanese animation a primarily focused on telling a good story. He did not explain exactly why this is, though, but one can assume that it’s is because of the different markets and cultures the companies cater to. For instance, many feature length anime would “lose much in translation” since they often deal with themes with roots to Japanese culture, history, and/or politics.

Another thing professor Hamano mention about difference in animation was in the role and credit given to the producer. In Japan, the title of any feature length anime will always be unanimous with the name of the director (and children as young as five years old will know the names of the director), while in America, it is generally unknown among the American populous.

Comics vs Manga

Following a similar concept is the difference between comics and manga. While comics can essentially continue indefinitely, as each new writer brings a breath of fresh air into the story (e.g. Batman has been running since 1939 and Superman since 1932, both having had dozens of new writers through the decades), a manga will end when the story comes to a close or when the writer dies, in which case the story dies with him/her. There’s is no one to “take over”, as this would be greatly disrespectful. This again goes to show the importance of a single person in the production of art in Japan.

Mass Production, Consumption, and Disposal vs Re-use

The third that was stressed by professor Hamano was the differences in commercialism and respect of “items”, mostly in terms of clothing though not exclusively so. The example he posed was “Consider the clothes you are wearing right now. How many items of the clothes you are wearing, are older than you are..?” It went to show a major difference which was mostly present in the many years of the Tokugawa shogunate (Edo Period), and again in the isolated years during the Second Sino-Japanese War. While America had a system of mass production, which led to mass consumption, and mass disposal whenever a newer, better version or clothing line was mass produced (which these years are practically every season), Japan seemed to do the opposite, by passing on the same clothes (kimono) down through generations. The kimono worn by professor Hamano at the time of the lecture was probably 70-100 years old, as it was inherited from his grandfather.

On a slight side note, professor Hamano also mentioned the difference in how the clothes were disposed. In most parts of the western world, disposed clothes is either inherited by a younger member of the family, or simply thrown out (if not donated to Red Cross, which let’s face it, not that many do…), while in Japan, a kimono which after maybe centuries of wear an tear, finally making it to old to be used as a kimono, is cut up and the fabric is used to make children’s clothes, and later even, cut up and made into small pillows and their stuffing, or as dolls and toys; nothing goes to waste. However, with the ‘westernisation’ of Japan, this way of preservation is diminishing, and the younger generations have become accustomed to the mass production, consumption, and disposal of the West. Just look at how frequently any young, Japanese person will change e.g. cell-phones in just a single year.

Aesthetics: Perfection vs Imperfection

The last point that was stressed, though not as much as the above three topics, were the differences in aesthetic points of view. In the West, perfection is usually thought of as something man-made, as total perfection in symmetry in for instance nature is considered an anomaly. In Japan, the view is completely the opposite. The ‘imperfection’ of nature is what makes it perfect, while anything man-made as artificial, and therefore cannot be perfect. This at least is what was commonly believed in the time of our grandparents, great-grandparents, and so on. Whether or not the current generation believes the same is hard to say.

My Conclusion

As one can see, despite the title, there was not all that much of Japanese pop and modern culture, making the lecture, relative to its topic, somewhat of a bust. Had it not been coloured with “Japan is better than America” undertones, it would have been an extremely interesting lecture on “The Differences in Japanese and American Culture of the 20th Century,” but as that wasn’t what people were there to listen about, most would probably call it a boring lecture.

Hecko Talks Next-Gen Consoles

Hecko X — Sat, 27 Sep 2008 14:04:22 +0000

Almost a week ago, I was chosen and invited to a group discussion concerning Next-Gen consoles with nine other people (sadly all guys, as I would have loved to meet a female gamer). The discussion was conducted by Catinét, a Nordic analytical institute.

As group discussions go, it was somewhat uneventful. Of the nine people we were (on guy arrived half an hour late and thus couldn’t join), there were four people representing the PS3, two representing the Xbox 360 (including me), and three representing the Wii. Now, one might suspect that after an hour, the PS3 peepz and the Xbox 360 folks would be at each other’s throats, throwing their massive respective game selections at each other (and obviously, the 360 people would win, since the PS3 guys can only launch one game title per month) while the Wii guys would stand in a corner and frantically move their arms around while pointing a remote at us, hoping to make some hidden “summon Mario to save the day” motion that wasn’t in the game manual. But we were pretty calm about it.

Most of the time, we would just answer questions by the interviewer from Catinét, which would sometimes lead into a lengthy explanation, but people would generally agree, and when they didn’t it was usually just a quick remark and that was it. So we were a pretty mellow bunch, I suppose. Even when someone ‘insulted’ a rivalling console, the people representing that console would always have a counter-remark, and we’d just call it even. Though it would have been fun to see people go at it, if only for a few minutes XD

But we talked about how often people played, what each console’s respective market was, how well it was reaching it, pros and cons of each console, and what we would expect of them in the future. And in the end, we got a gift certificate for 450 DKK (about… $88 US ~ €60) for Magasin, a giant chain of stores owned by some Icelandic people. So all in all, we got payed for doing nothing but sit on our asses, form an opinion from some external input, make guesswork, and actually have people listen to what we say and take it seriously. I’d never felt more like a meteorologist in my life…

Seeing how boring this post actually is, since absolutely NOTHING out of the ordinary happened, I’ve decided to end it with having Yahtzee of Zero Punctuation share his feelings on the matter of consoles, however, since I’d rather not get sued for showing it here, as his video rants are Escapist Magazine exclusive, you will have to go to here to watch it.

Hecko Plays in Mock Tennis Tourney

Hecko X — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 21:33:09 +0000

Earlier this week, I signed up for a mock tennis tourney (duh, title) thinking it could be a potential fun experience. For a mere 70 DKK, one could get breakfast, soda, BBQ, more soda (soda was in great supply and friggin’ free from 09.30 to 16.00), and the chance to have a good time playing tennis against a bunch of people.

I showed up pretty early, despite not really being a morning person. The tourney was set to start at 09.30, but I was there at 09.00 already. On my way out the door, I was reminded of why I never trust meteorologists; I visited DMI’s website (Denmark’s Meteorological Institute), immediately before I headed out, and they promised a sunny day, all day, albeit slightly clouded. When I stepped out my front door, not even two minutes later, it was raining. You could see on the ground it had been raining for a while. In fact, it didn’t stop until about two hours later… Friggin’ metorologists… They get paid to make qualified guesses which are wrong 40% of the time…

Anywho, I got sidetracked there… *ahem* The rules of the tourney were pretty simple:
•Each game is timed and lasts 30 minutes.
•Everyone gets divided into one of three teams.
•Everyone plays double (team captain decides who plays together).
•Try to have fun ^_^
Rules 2 and 3 were changed after an hour, though XD Having the TC decide who should play took too long after the first two games, so it was just decided among team members, and because members of team three left as time passed by, the team members of the team not playing (only two teams at a time played, due to only having three playable courts) would act as substitute players.

About, oh… 15-16 people showed up, and pretty much everyone had some sort of handicap, myself included (shoulder and all that) XD Oh, and the club’s current senior (i.e. older than 18 years old) champion was there also. Nice guy, accidentally shot him down on a service return (BOOM, Headshot! XD), but nice guy… That’s what you get for playing at the net against me XD That would make him the second person to get shot down because of me today, though I don’t take responsibility for the first one!! o.O However, everyone seemed very nice, and I do declare they were a friendly bunch of peoplez with an awesome sense of humour XD

Unfortunately, I had to stop after having played three hours straight because my body simply couldn’t handle it. I seem to have made quite an impression, since everyone were like “NO WAI YOU’VE ONLY PLAYED 2 WEEKS!!! O_O” When I finally left, I couldn’t lift my left arm beyond shoulder level, my right elbow was hurting like hell from some really bad serves I made where I accidentally whipped the arm instead having a smooth follow-through, my right little and ring finger, wrist, and lower arm where shot to hell from all the kinetic energy that were transferred to them (they joints at the knuckles hurt the most, so I’m actually typing this without used those fingers XD), and I was having chest pains so bad I could barely breathe. In spite of all this, playing in the mock tourney was probably the most fun experience I’ve had in months!! XD So yeah, I’m still psyched about playing and getting back in shape, though I must admit, I dread the muscle soreness I’m sure to have tomorrow o.O

D3 – Memories of a Rock Band

Hecko X — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 21:08:58 +0000

Yeah, Rock Band was released just a few days ago in Europe on the Xbox 360 (I feel bad for all our Aussie gamer comrades out there, who have to wait until June 25-ish), and gee golly if I didn’t feel a tad nostalgic. This may sound a bit odd, I mean, how to feel nostalgic about a game released only a few days ago in the continent I live in? But just hear me out

Back in November 2007, Denmark had a gaming expo called “D3″ (a blatant rip-off from “E3″) which lasted a full weekend (November 16-18), where a bunch of the latest games could be played, including some that had not actually been released, e.g. Rock Band. It had a stand on it’s own, or rather, a large circular stage, where everyone could get up and play in front of everybody else. On the last evening, they had a “Rock Band group contest” were several groups entered. My friend, Kimmer, whom I had gone there with sign up with 3 other guys we met at the Expo under the name “Monty Grail” (a reference to “Monty Python and the Holy Grail“).

Bad luck however struck, when their bassist suddenly disappeared during “show time”. Luckily (or maybe not so much), I was spotted in the relatively large audience of 40 or so people by one of the guys we had met and was pulled up as a temporary replacement.

Apparently, we were the most well-liked group on D3, due to our unique “talent” for the game and our somewhat unorthodox styles and dynamic stage performance. Kimmer was dressed in his usual semi-metal, backyard wrestler style and was by far the most talented singer compared to all the singers from the other groups. We had a pop-stylish guy on drums, our guitarist was “regular” (other than being way into playing the guitar), and then finally we had me in my “I just pulled random stuff out of the closet because I overslept” style, playing the Rock Band guitar as if it was a floor bass and on lefty-flip despite being right-handed (Kimmer teases me about this often…).

However, bad luck struck again when my head started spinning and I fell sideways on the foamy thingy I was sitting on. This unfortunately resulted in me yanking out the wire to my guitar, and the game quit before the song had completely ended. We got a “just about” score of 727.000, almost double of the team made up of EA workers, which landed us a number one ranking, not only at the Expo, but in all of Scandinavia. However, when it came time to the encore an hour later, as part of the closing gig of the entire Expo, I pulled a Macaulay Culkin and vanished from the public eye (lulz XD), and gave the bassist spot back to the original guy who then did the encore with the rest of the Monty Grail group. I was never to be seen again… XD

My Rock Band days began and ended with that performance, which someone just happened to have caught on tape (or… cell phone memory, rather XD), but the original members are still going strong and playing Rock Band, so keep an eye out for them. Below, you’ll see the video that landed us the record. I’m sitting behind the singer, playing like Sting from The Police XD. If the video doesn’t appear, please refresh the page.