Explaining the canon of Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card (anime), connection to the second film

Sakura is not amused by your ignorance!

Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card marks the return of my all-time favorite magical girl, Kinomoto Sakura (and magical boy, looking at you Syaoran!) into the world of Japanese animation, starting off the 2018 year on a good note. And I’ve returned from the dead to explain some very common misconceptions about the series that has plaguing the minds of fans since the animated version of this amazing sequel started.

Because not knowing may needlessly hamper your enjoyment of the series, when it doesn’t really have to!

Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card Arc – Revival of a classic Magical Girl

As the quintessential Cardcaptor Sakura fanboy around the blogosphere, I felt it was only right for me to start writing about my thoughts on this at some point. A continuation of the series after 20 years is a pretty big thing, after all. You could mess around with Digimon Adventure tri. or Dragon Ball Super to my dismay all you want, but if a new Cardcaptor Sakura storyline isn’t done right, I’d go apeshit.

Support Kodomo no Jikan

About six days ago, the Kickstarter for the Kodomo no Jikan English localization successfully raised enough money to officially bring this manga series to the English-speaking world for the first time ever, since Seven Seas’ failed attempt to bring it over to the US as Nymphet in 2007.

I’m familiar with the series, and honestly, beyond the surface it’s actually a good read/watch. Personally, I think the controversy is overblown, but rather than jumping into my usual rants, I’ll just point you to an article that I feel is pretty much right on point. If you feel like you’re an open-minded individual and aren’t too sensitive to “objectionable subject matter”, I say pick it up when it’s released and give it a good ol’ college try.

Books, no, plenty of stories in general tackle controversial topics and issues. It’s one thing to say no and not buy it, but if you’re actively against the existence of publications containing ideas and subject matter you find uncomfortable, then I honestly don’t know what to say. As a college student, I’m no stranger to the presence of emotional infancy among my own generation, but of course, I never really know how to respond to it because anything people like me say seems to go nowhere.

Fanime 2016 – Experience and Haul

Rider Henshin!

This post is coming a bit… sorta… uh, this post came too late. Fanime was over a month ago, and unlike other years, Fanime 2016 was kind of meh for me. Being surrounded by anime is always a pretty cool deal and the gaming room is always fun, but nothing really amazingly notable happened this year. For one, I didn’t manage to get Matsukaze Masaya’s autograph two days in a row, which was really disappointing, especially because I brought my Shenmue II box specifically for that. Last year I managed to get Nonaka Ai’s autograph! I didn’t particularly care much for the featured Japanese musical guest nor the dub voice actors/actresses enough to go to their autograph sessions.

The con was pretty anal about security this year. Maybe it’s a pervert control problem, I dunno. But unlike other years, they closed pretty much the entire convention center to outsiders besides the first floor/entrance (where it’s just cosplayers and high-as-fuck misfits gathering) and the hotels. Which sucks, because a lot of the fun shenanigans happened when my other friends who are too cheap to buy badges of their own mess come to hang out and mess around the con, and sometimes lending badges to friends who wanted to go into the dealer’s hall/arcade/whatever without inconveniencing everyone else. Another thing to note is the new issuing of “trigger warnings” for the con. Completely idiotic – apparently my generation of morons don’t know how PTSD actually works.

Also, of course, the year where we decide to get our badges directly at the convention center is the year where it decides to be fucking LineCon again. Last few years we’ve been getting our badges at the DoubleTree, which takes (at the most) 15 to 20 minutes, leaving the rest of Thursday for us to do whatever the hell wed want. All of those years, badge pickup at the convention center has purportedly been snappy as fuck. What even happened this year?

I guess one notable event that happened was outside the con on Sunday night, where two of my friends got shitfaced (one more than the other), and being the most sober out of the group, I had to make sure we all got back to the hotel room safely. We met some cool strangers that night, was pretty cool. Anyways, given how much of a downgrade Fanime 2016 was compared to Fanime 2015 overall, I suppose the obvious choices next year are either giving the con another chance or going to Anime Expo instead, depending on how tight my budget is.

I didn’t buy much this year, but I did get some pretty sweet stuff. And the cosplays are always cool, there seemed to be less Shingeki no Kyoujin and Kill la Kill cosplays this year compared to [insert random schoolgirl character] cosplay. I ain’t complaining. I took a ton of photos, but of course I’ll only share some.

「Localization Decisions For Literal Dummies」 Shirou doesn’t care if his body is made of swords

Alright, let’s talk about English dubs.

I don’t talk about dubs much, mostly because I haven’t seriously watched one since Samurai Champloo‘s (amazing) dub. I don’t even bother playing Japanese video games with English audio either (nowadays I don’t really play localized JRPG’s that lack a dual audio option). I do like a few of them, but in general… I just don’t really care for them. Unless they veer into alternate adaptation territory (which hasn’t happened that much after the 90’s), it’s not like I have a deep hatred for them or anything. I just tend to find the typical voice performances and overall Japanese-to-English script mediocre. But I do get curious every now and then and check them out for kicks.

「Localization Decisions For Literal Dummies」 Akiba’s Trip 2 and “weaboos”

Marvelous USA (a.k.a. XSEED) is one of the only localization companies I trust nowadays when it comes to Japanese video games. I particularly commend them for respecting the target audience of the niche games they bring over and paying no heed to our western culture’s increasingly incessant need for political correctness.

Their localization of Akiba’s Trip: Undead & Undressed was far from perfect (considering the use of internet slang/memes in Potsuri/Pitter, the game’s parody of 2ch, it’s understandable), but it’s good at getting the point across for the most part. When the game was released in NA during the later part of 2014, many overly-sensitive Politically Correct Babies criticized one Pitter user’s use of the word “trap”, which was used in place of the Japanese version’s use of the slang “nekama” – net okama, which is essentially a guy pretending to be a girl online. I swear, humanity as a species of primates are losing their backbones just as we lost our tails – if fictional insults (if even considered one, really) used by a fictional internet asshole are to become a source of massive controversy and offense, I’m worried about where millennials will take our society next. We already had that one asswipe causing a shitstorm over a white woman’s hand being featured on Super Mario Maker. Freakin’ putrid.

It’s a fictional depiction of the internet, which is not a nice place in real life either. If people are easily offended by words in fiction without processing the context, intent, and tone of the usage, and confusing it with outright slander, they’re better off staying under the shelter of their parents’ roofs for everyone’s own good (eh, maybe not their parents’ own good).

It’s gotten to the point where it seems people value Politically Correct censorship over an accurate translation, which to be honest, the trap translation is. They could have also used something worse that actually is intentionally transphobic, like “tranny” or something. Although, it’s not like the babies will stop complaining either way. Anyways, the only big problem I had with XSEED’s localization (besides the horrid English dub that’s nullified with dual audio anyway) was this:

「Localization Decisions For Literal Dummies」 Syaoran the Bestie

When Nippon Ichi Software America released their premium edition of the Cardcaptor Sakura Blu-ray collection in 2014, I was obviously the happiest person on Earth finally being able to own the definitive viewing experience of possibly one the cutest anime series in existence, at an affordable price. And everything was almost perfect, especially the video transfer. It’s exactly the same as the Japanese release.

But there’s one thing that went wrong with this release: the subtitles. Now, it’s no secret that NISA translations are really, really bad. True to form, the subtitles are pretty iffy here and there. Naturally, it’s not a bad as Nelvana’s retool hackjob of a dub “Cardcaptors” back in the early 2000’s, which was quite frankly the devil’s incarnate. In comparison, iffy subtitles are incredibly minor and a godsend. But there’s one translation flub present in this release that is rather bothersome. And that is, Sakura calling Syaoran her “bestie”.

「Localization Decisions For Literal Dummies」 Atelier Escha & Logy: Alchemists of the Dusk Sky

Alright, I love the crap out of the Atelier series. Old school JRPG gameplay with adorable characters designed by awesome Japanese artists such as Mel and Hidari, and alchemy management with some minor VN elements thrown in here and there? I’m game, definitely better than your annual soulless first-person shooter series. And I totally appreciate the fact that more and more of the games are getting localized and that it’s becoming a trend. But holy shit, even though the localization’s been getting better ever since Koei Tecmo took over from NISA, it’s not really saying much because the quality control still leaves a lot to be desired. It’s bearable for most of the games, but a lot more noticeable with Atelier Escha & Logy: Alchemists of the Dusk Sky, the game being riddled with mistranslations, bad typography, and inconsistencies with previous games.

Back with new content and a new PC

Alright then… first post of 2016. Sorry about the sudden disappearance of new posts. What was supposed to be a month-long break from the blog for school turned out to be a disaster.

You see, I was going to write a Christmas/New Years post about my 2015 weeb highlights for 12 Days of Anime, but apparently my blog was hacked (hence the new layout you see before you, my old customized Pool theme was infected and had to be replaced because it was no longer supported by WordPress). Based Maestro thankfully fixed the blog for me, kudos for the great service even after all these years. But by then, it was no longer Christmas nor New Years Eve, so I decided to scrap that post entirely and the disappointment made me go on an indefinite break. I did spend some time to rework a newer theme to my liking, but… that was basically it. I think I have an idea as to why my blog was hacked, but I’m not going to get into it. Not worth it.

Here are some of the anime/manga/video game titles you may have seen if I was able to write the post on time: Owarimonogatari, One-Punch Man, Non Non Biyori Repeat, Nagato Yuki-chan no Shoushitsu, Shenmue III, and others. I might probably just give them individual articles one day, however.

But yeah, what have been up to since my last post? Well, my typical normie life aside, I managed to save enough to build myself a new PC during Black Friday, of course for my Design major, digital fan art, HD/1440p PC gaming, console emulation, and XTREME!!111 animu viewing. Here are the build specs.

Processor: Intel Core i7 4790k @ 4.00GHz (with overclock later when I get a better CPU cooler)
Motherboard: MSI Z97 Gaming 5 (the psuedo-sound card audio quality provided by the motherboard is sextastic out of the box)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 970 4GB Superclocked ACX 2.0
Memory: Kingston HyperX Fury Red 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR3-1866
Local Storage: Samsung 850 EVO-Series 250GB 2.5″ Solid State Drive
Secondary Storage: Seagate Barracuda 1TB 3.5″ 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive (should have gotten the 2TB version, but I was a dumbass and got scared by Backblaze’s circumstantial failure rate statistics)
Case: Enermax ECA3253-BW ATX Mid Tower Case
Power Supply: Corsair CSM 550W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply
Optical Drive: Asus DRW-24B3ST/BLK/G/AS DVD/CD Writer (reused, the case leaves room for me to add in a Bluray player, but I already have a PS3 in the meantime)
Case Fans: 1 Stock (Bottom-mounted), 1 Thermaltake Pure 12 LED 41.0 CFM 120mm Fan (rear)
Operating System: Windows 7 Professional 64-bit
Drawing Tablet: Wacom Intuos Pen and Touch w/ Clip Studio Paint Pro
Monitor: Dell ST231​0 23″ Full​ HD Widesc​reen LCD
Speakers: Altec Lansing ATP3 3-Piece Speaker System

Once I get my gaming keyboard/mouse combo and a new mouse pad, I’ll post pics of my setup. Very recently, I also received my copy of The Fruit of Grisaia along with the Grisaia series display box from Sekai Project’s KickStarter (the side I have on display vs. the other side). Can’t wait for the other two to come out.

Anyways, I’ve planned to start off a new year of Mahou Zenkai ~The Otaku Spot~ with a new series of posts called Localization Decisions For Literal Dummies, where I take a piss on extremely asinine localization/translation decisions and mishaps that happen in Official English versions/subtitles of the anime, manga, and games that come over here. Quality Control can be really bad on the translation side because of editors (people taking the translated text and making it sound natural in spoken English) not being familiar with the source material. Generally though, it also probably happens because they weren’t really thinking period or they’re just simply the type of people that like to smear their shit all over foreign works because they think they’re more creative than the original creators. With video games, it also isn’t limited to translation, but also handling the UI and typesetting as well. This series will generally consist of shitshortposts unless the subject matter happens to be really, really stupid.

Just as always, I’ll also continue to update my series of Cardcaptor Sakura posts and continue my recap of the Suzumiya Haruhi light novels. I must say, I am absolutely hyped at what CLAMP has in store for Cardcaptor Sakura‘s 20th anniversary. Cheers to an upcoming fun year.

Why would you censor an M-rated game?

Image Credit: Hiten from Pixiv

Happy Halloween, everybody! Ever since I’ve outgrown the tradition of dressing up in a spooky costume and going doorbell-to-doorbell asking for candy, I’ve instead made a new tradition for myself where I marathon spooky video games; my favorite among them being Japanese horror games such as Zero, better known as Fatal Frame in the west, designed by Koei Tecmo (Tecmo before the merge).

Last year’s (belated) Halloween post was about my fondness for survival horror games like Zero, expressing my wish for the newest installment of the series being localized after missing out on two games on a region locked console. To my excitement, it was due for localization this Halloween season! But unfortunately, the western publishers, Nintendo of America and Nintendo of Europe decided it would be a good idea to censor certain costumes in this M-rated game for adults, treating them like children who can’t handle such content.