Switching Your JP SEM to the Square-Enix Account System

As of December 14th, 2009, you need a Square-Enix Account to log into the Japanese Square-Enix Members.  Below, you will find a tutorial explaining in English how to make the switch. I will write the tutorial from the point of view of someone who does not already have a Square-Enix Account (because I didn’t when I made the switch). Registration is FREE and you don’t need a Japanese address to make the switch. If you were using the Coins system, that’s another matter; but if you were using that, well, you must have a Japanese address one way or another, eh? ^o^ Anyway…

First, go to JP SEM and try to log in to get the following window:

Click on the box on the right to begin creating your Square-Enix Account

You’ll go to this (redundant) page:

This time, click on the box on the LEFT to beginning creating your SE Account. For real this time.

Next, you’ll go to a page with the Terms of Service.  I make no claims to knowing legalese in Japanese (lol), but I read the English version of the ToS (for an SE Account in North America, which is close enough but it doesn’t include the part about Crysta) which can be found at this page. From what I skimmed of the ToS in Japanese, it’s the usual stuff: protect your password, there are third parties involved, the account is run by Square-Enix Holdings, blah blah blah, and I’m sure somewhere in there there must’ve been a clause about indemnifying and holding SE harmless.

If you're 20 or over (20 being the age of adulthood in Japan), you can agree to the ToS yourself, but if you're 14-19, please get your parent's/guardian's permission. If you agree to the ToS, check the box, then click the button to continue. If you don't agree, well, no more JP SEM for you.

Next, you get a pretty self-explanatory window where you have to input your email address, and input it again in the box below to make sure you did it right, then click on the blue button.  To paraphrase the warnings at the bottom of the page: you CANNOT use your PlayOnline email, nor a cell phone email address, so make sure you input a computer email address.  Also, before registering, make sure that the window is an SSL window. (I like how they put this one at the very end, lol.)  The legit page has the VeriSign Secured logo.

Once you click on the blue button, you’ll go to a page telling you an email has been sent to the address you input. It looks like this:

Make sure you put in the correct email address, then close this window by clicking on the button. The warnings at the bottom of the page are translated below.

Again, to paraphrase the warnings: it can take a bit of time for the mail to reach you, so please understand.  If, after waiting a good while, you still don’t get the email, you probably put your address in wrong, so try again with an email you’re using. The URL in the email you receive will only be valid for 24 hours, so please complete registration within that time.

The email you receive will have the subject line [スクウェア・エニックスアカウント]アカウント登録用メール送付のお知らせ. Click on the first link in the email (copy & paste if it doesn’t go automatically) to open a new window/tab and continue the registration process. You’ll get the following window:

This is very IMPORTANT so please look over it carefully and read the expanded explanation below.

Okay, so the first thing is to create an SE ID.  It should be English characters only, and can be alphanumeric with symbols.  It should be 4-16 characters, and upper/lower case do NOT matter. You CANNOT change your SE ID once you register it. Click on the button to check the availability of your ID.  If that ID is available, above the box where you type it in it’ll say something like このIDの利用可能がある。I don’t remember exactly and didn’t screencap that right, but the key characters are those in bold and those definitely will be there just like that if the ID is available.

Next, create a password. It should be 8-32 characters, English characters only (letters, numbers, and symbols).  Upper/lower case DOES matter here, plus, you CANNOT use the following for a password:

• A password made up of ONLY letters, numbers, or symbols. In other words, it should at least be alphanumeric.
• The same thing as your SE ID
• The same thing as what’s in front of the @ in your email address
• Something that has the same 3 characters in a row

Input your password in the first box for it, then input it again in the box below.

Next, input your Date of Birth in Year/Month/Day format.

Alright, now, in case you forget your password, choose a secret question from the choices above. The answer HAS TO BE in full-width JAPANESE CHARACTERS.  Please don’t write to me asking me how to say something in Japanese if you don’t know how to answer.  If you don’t know how to write in Japanese, I suggest copying and pasting from an online dictionary such as Jim Breen’s WWWJDIC.  Of course, remember to paste your answer somewhere into your computer so you can input it again should you need it. Anyway, your answer can be no more than 16 characters.

Then, click the button on the left to review your choices, or the one on the right to cancel (I’m still talking about the screencap above!!).  If there’s something wrong with something up input, you’ll get a red warning over the offending item. If everything goes well, you’ll get the following screen (just that with your info, of course):

Did you really think I was gonna let you see my info? ^o^

If you wanna make changes, click on the button to the right, or click on the left button to send your info as is. Once you do click the left button, you’ll get the following page:

You're halfway there!

What this page says is that you’ve successfully completed registration! Yay! Now, if you want to use the Crysta system (which replaces the Coins system and therefore involves using real money), click on the upper left button that says 利用する. If you want to go back to JP SEM, click on the big yellow button. Now, I suppose you can skip the next one step I’m about to do by clicking on that to begin the process of migrating your JP SEM account, but I wanted to see what this new SE Account was about, so I clicked on the upper right button that says トップページへ (“Back to Top”) and got the SE Account log-in window.  Pretty self-explanatory; input your SE ID in the first box, then your password.  Now, the third box is for a “one-time password” that’s used to nullify key-logging spyware.  However, even though I clicked on the explanation link, and tried clicking on the picture next to the box, I didn’t find what I assume to be an online one-time password generator. But, since I’m on a Mac I proceeded without it. ^o^ If you want the computer to remember your ID, click the box that says スクウェア・エニックスIDを記憶する. Again, you should see the VeriSign Secured logo. Once logged in, you see your homepage.  If you can somewhat read Japanese, get familiar with it. If at a later date you decide to use Crysta, you can input the relevant info from the Crysta tab on this page.  Also, you can make changes to your account from here.

Alright, let’s try to log into JP SE Members again.  This time, when you get the window telling you about the change to SE Account, click on the button to the LEFT:

Now you get to click on the "People with SE Accounts" button! Don't you feel privileged?

If I remember correctly, even if you were already logged into your SE Account, you’ll have to input your ID and password again when you try to log into SEM.  Then, you’ll get this window:

Please read below before clicking on the left button.

Okay, now we begin the process of migrating your JP SEM account to the SE Account system.  The warnings on this page are very important:

• You can only migrate/attach ONE JP SEM Account to your SE ID. (In other words, if you have a sub-avatar, you’ll have to make another SE Account for it if you want to keep using it.)
• Once you’ve attached that account, you CANNOT undo it.

If you’re okay with those terms, click on the box on the left. You’ll then get a window where you input your ORIGINAL log-in and password to your JP SEM account.  Then, click on the button to the right of the input boxes. You’ll get a window with the details of your JP SEM Account:

Look over your info, and when you're sure everything's as you want it, click on the bottom left button. You CANNOT undo this, so be sure that's the Members account you want to merge with that SE Account.

Once you click on that left button, you’ll get a page telling you about all the fun things you can do on SE Members.  Click on the メンバーズトップへ戻るbutton to go back to the top page of SE Members, and enjoy JP SEM. ^_^ So remember, from now on you will be logging into it (and other SE online services) with your SE Account ID & Password.

Turning Into a Fanatic?

Don't hate on my leopard-print kotatsu futon. I bet you GACKT likes it!

Yay, Week 2 of Three Straight Weeks of GACKT Releases That Aren’t Singles! ^_^

I picked up 「雪月花ーThe end of silenceー」today, and couldn’t help snapping up these issues of FOOL’S MATE and Arena 37 SPECIAL with GACKT on the cover. It’s a good thing I keep a detailed spread sheet of my expenses, otherwise this could get out of hand. ^o^;;;; Actually, I showed self-restraint by not picking up the issue of Rock Star which also featured GACKT (though not on the cover). I think I can stay in the just a “fan”, not a “fanatic” zone for a little while longer.

The black thing that says “GACKT 10TH ANNIVERSARY” in the upper left corner of the photo was actually a free sticker from Tower Records that I got for picking up the single on release day. They’re also having a promotion for the postponed release of the VISUALIVE DVD; when I picked up RE:BORN I got a coupon to get a GACKT aluminum water bottle if I buy the VISUALIVE DVD. Lol.  I wasn’t planning on getting it, but…GACKT aluminum water bottle is random enough to pique my interest.

GACKT RE:BORN Regular Edition Unboxing

Well, with just three photos perhaps “unboxing” is a bit grandiose. ^o^

Anyway, I popped into Tower Records before Japanese class as is my wont to pick up this week’s GACKT release: RE:BORN.  The regular edition comes with 2 CDs; one is a drama CD, and the other compiles the songs from GACKT’s 4 anniversary singles + the GHOST single for a total of 13 songs.　First, the pretty pictures, then, a more in-depth review. Click the pictures for the full size!

At left is the case that holds the trifold CD case (at center), at right are the liner notes.

The inside of the trifold case. The leftmost CD contains the hour-long drama, and the CD in the center has the songs. And yes, that is my Sephiroth figure, modeling the case for you (even though I cropped most of him out). ^o^

*drool*

So, I admit I was a bit mad at GACKT for pulling his “a slew of singles instead of an album” stunt.  Now that he’s released this compilation, I can forgive him a little, though I figure anyone that actually bought all the singles might be a bit ticked off if they aren’t the obsessive collector type.  Luckily, I had only bought 8 tracks from the iTunes Store, so now I can have all of them.

The drama is called REBIRTH TO RE:BORN “ZERO’S MAIL”. If you don’t understand Japanese at all, I can’t recommend making the 3800 yen investment just for it.  However, if you’re learning Japanese, I think it is an AWESOME thing to have, because get this: they talk RELATIVELY SLOWLY! I’m listening to it as I type this, and can understand a good portion of it.  I transcribed the sentence it happened to be on when I got to typing this, near the end of Track 11, to give a small sample of the level of the language used on this CD (I’m not sure about the part in gray):

日本人のリュウイチがどう手を尽くしたって、そんなことはできなかった。俺を出迎えたのは、アルカイスト技術大佐とあればいえるはかせて。

Of course, there are also much easier parts, stuff like 「死なないで！」、「あなたを忘れはしない」and, well, non-word things like crying and gasping.  I’d never listened to a drama CD before, and radio dramas were a little before my time, so I was dubious about how enjoyable it would be, but it’s actually pretty good! Besides the acting and sound effects, there’s music, both new music and previous GACKT songs, including at least one from outside the Requiem et Reminiscence arc (“Saikai~Story~”).  It’s kinda funny for me to hear them yelling out “Maria! Maria!” because I can’t help but think of novelas. ^o^ (Oh Lawrd if GACKT acted in a novela! ROTFL!)

*Ahem*

The liner notes, while obviously not the comprehensive telling of the world of ЯR that went with the DEARS version of RE:BORN, does give some details into the story.  There’s a page of short profiles of the main characters.  At first I was a little WTF?! over the German, but I think I got it. (“Ein voller Name” is some sort of name, and I’m guessing “heimatstadt” means “home country” or “home state.” Any of you random readers know German?)  There’s also a page with a timeline of the story, starting in July of 1913 and ending in April 1945.  The rest of the liner notes are taken up by the lyrics.  There are only two photos inside.

The only other thing is the 13 songs, but since those have all been out for a while, I don’t think I really need to say much about them.  I think this is a good album to have if you’re a big GACKT fan and you didn’t already buy all of the singles.  I think if I had already bought all of the songs, I wouldn’t have bought RE:BORN.  Sure, the drama CD’s nice, but…I’m not gonna listen to it over and over like the songs, nor do the drama in karaoke.  (Wouldn’t that be funny though?! ^o^)

EDIT: There are some small differences between the tracks as presented on RE:BORN and those in the single releases that were put on sale in the U.S. iTunes Music Store. It could be that these versions had already been released in some other version of these singles.  So, I will talk about the differences between the RE:BORN versions and the iTMS single versions.

Some tracks are a few seconds longer, with different intros and outros, on either of the releases.  For example, the single version of “BLUE LAGOONー深海ー” has a 10 second intro of beeps and chirps before the guitars come in, whereas the version on RE:BORN starts straight off with the guitars.  I assume that all the songs marked with “-ЯRII-” on RE:BORN are different from their single versions; I assume the RE:BORN versions are the way these songs were performed in concert.  While I can’t confirm it for all songs marked thus, the difference between the single and RE:BORN version of “JESUS” isn’t that big; the ЯRII version has a 30 second outro of various guitar and drum nuttiness. The difference is quite noticeable, however, on “FLOWER”: the ЯRII version on RE:BORN has a 50 second intro the single version does not, consisting mostly of GACKT doing a voice-over, so to speak.  [End of EDIT]

Anyway, I hope this review has been helpful. I’d like to end on the same note GACKT ends the drama.  It’s not a spoiler for the story, but I thought it wrapped up all the shooting I just heard pretty nicely:

この世界にいつか戦争のない平和が訪れること心から祈る。

I pray from my heart that a peace without wars will someday come to this world.

Accidental Halo

I'm a good BOY, YES (=^o^=)

Can you tell that that’s my lame attempt at making fun of “Koakuma Heaven”? LOL

Tonight, I got to see GACKT on TV again for the first time in a long while.  It was on the show 「チューボーですよ！」(“chuubou desu yo!” or “It’s Chuubou!” – whatever the hell chuubou is).  GACKT helped to cook pollo alla cacciatora (if I remember correctly), which was also cooked by 3 chefs from different restaurants.  While they showed the food being prepared, they randomly played various GACKT songs, including “Vanilla” and “Koakuma Heaven.”  They even used the Fuurin Kazan Theme! ^o^ At some point GACKT belted out some lines from his upcoming single 「雪月花〜The end of silence〜」and said that the song “ZAN” is “the thoughts of the men who set off for battle” and that “Setsugekka” is “the thoughts of the women who live on.” Or did I flip the two? Either way, he said those things. A lot of the other stuff he said was stuff he said before on other shows, such as that he got a waterfall in his bedroom but then couldn’t sleep because of the noise. He also spoke in Chinese and French.  All I could catch of the French was something about “ce soir” (“tonight”).

Anyway, as I ghettoly (new adverb y’all!) photographed the TV screen to have a memento of GACKT laughing while wearing clear-lensed glasses and sautéing mushrooms, I accidently ended up with this shot where he seems to have a halo.  The halo is the reflection of my circular flourescent light fixture. I just couldn’t help making the little joke up there.

So Much for Sovereignty

In the last article in Mainchi Shinbum’s series on the Japan-U.S. (or U.S.-Japan as it suits you) relationship, I found this gem of a sentence :

China is paying close attention to such relations between Japan and the United States as it is seeking to form a Group of Two — a framework in which China, a major emerging country, and the United States, a major developed country, will jointly manage the world. [Emphasis mine]

ARGHHH! *rips hair out*

Realistically, I don’t think there will ever be equality among nations.  I don’t think equality is something all humans really want, and I’m not just talking about the minuscule percentage of humans who sit at the top, making decisions that affect everyone, who desire to stay on top.  Through trivial daily interactions, human beings show their desire to have something, anything, over the next person.  Maybe it’s a bigger house, a higher score, a more expensive dress, a bigger chain, a deeper familiarity with Star Trek trivia, whatever.  But seriously, two nations ruling the rest of the world, with which they have little familiarity?

It’s like the phrase “Leader of the Free World.”  If the Free World has a leader that it did not elect, it is inherently not free. Yet there are people who believe this bullshit rhetoric.

Perhaps there will never be equality, but can powerful nations please be a little less vainglorious? And can we all be a little bit more honest about the dynamics of power that exist?

*Sigh*

GACKT’s Real Age Confirmed

I had an unusual amount of time today due to a schedule change, so I translated this article from Mainichi Shinbun about the press conference for the stage adaptation of “Nemuri Kyoushirou Burai Hikae” where it was confirmed that GACKT’s real age is 36 years old.  There are some parts I’m not sure of, those I put in italics. I estimate this translation’s accuracy to be at least ninety percent.

Interestingly, if I understood this correctly, GACKT didn’t mean to carry on with the vampire biography, it was a bit of an accident.  If I did understand that correctly…well, I find it hard to believe. ^o^  Anyway, here’s the link to the original Japanese article, and my translation. (EDIT: After watching this video of the press conference, I can confirm that GACKT said the 1540 birth year was meant as a joke.)

http://mainichi.jp/enta/mantan/entama/graph/20091105_2/?link_id=REH05

~~~~Translation:

At a press conference on the fifth [of November] at SHIBUYA A-AX in Tokyo’s Shibuya district for the stage production of “Nemuri Kyoushirou Burai Hikae”, based on author Shibata Renzaburou’s swordsman novel from which came the master swordsman hero “Nemuri Kyoushirou” who will be played by GACKT, it was also announced that GACKT, whose age up till now had not been released to the public, will turn 37 years old next year.

The late Ichikawa Raizou, who had formerly played Nemuri Kyoushirou, died suddenly when he was thirty-seven.  When it was revealed in a video at the beginning of the press conference that next year GACKT would turn the same age Ichikawa had been at his death, there arose an anxious stir from all the fans in the hall. GACKT smiled wryly as he said, “It’s not that I didn’t release [my age], it just so happened that at a live show the MC said ‘[GACKT] was born in 1540′, and suddenly that ended up spreading all over the world. For the sake of appearances, it wouldn’t do to change from ‘age unknown.’”

“Nemuri Kyoushirou” is the protagonist of “Nemuri Kyoushirou Burai Hikae,” a period novel that began serialization in 1956 in “Weekly Shinchou.” The 1963 movie version with Ichikawa in the lead role as the nihilist swordsman hero with mastery over the 無双円月殺法 {Peerless Full Moon Killing Technique???} was a big hit.

Asides from this stage production, GACKT plans to act as and give expression to Nemuri Kyoushirou in various media for his “NEMURI x GACKT PROJECT.” The stage production, which is the first part of the project, will begin next year on May 14th at the Tokyo Nissei Theater. There are plans for performances all over the country.  The draft and script will be handled by scriptwriter Koyama Kundo, who wrote the script for the movie “Okuribito” [English title: "Departures"].

“I’m grateful that I came across this character,” GACKT said.  “I read the original work. Because Nemuri Kyoushirou is a Half [half-Japanese] who tries to mimic the Japanese, he is full of nihilism and dandyism…I thought, this book is for me.” GACKT told the crowd that to prepare for his first leading stage role, he wanted to drop 5 kilograms [11 pounds] in addition to the 5 kilograms he’d already lost from this past summer’s tour.  “I want to play a swordsman [who is] like steel…you could get hurt just by touching him.” Showing such extraordinary desire, GACKT sent his fans the message, “Please look forward to the Nemuri Kyoushirou played by a GACKT who is completely different from the one you’ve known.”

–By 栗原拓郎 [There's more than one possible pronunciation for this name, and without hiragana I don't know which one it is.  All I can tell you is the author is a dude.]

November 5, 2009

~~~~

GACKT, GACKT, GACKT…will you not be satisfied until your body can double as a medical student’s anatomy chart?  Are you trying to be able to see your liver, kidneys, lungs, and other internal organs? *Sigh*

In case it’s unclear, the actor who portrayed Nemuri in the 1960’s died back in 1969.  When I reread the sentence I realized it could be taken as “he suddenly died recently.”

Oh yeah, I didn’t translate “Burai Hikae” at all because I’m not sure how to take it and the English releases of Nemuri Kyoushirou movies have titles that are renamings (that is to say, not simple translations).  “Burai” means “villain” or “thug,” “hikae” means “restraint” or can be used in the sense of “chronicles” or “memoirs” in other compounds.  But I’m not sure it can be taken as “Villain Chronicles” or something like that.  Maybe I’d know if I’d heard of this series before, but oh well.

Honestly, if I’ve understood what I’ve read about this Nemuri Kyoushirou character, I can’t say I want to see GACKT playing him.  To say nothing of the rhetoric about what it “means” to be Japanese.  But maybe I should hold judgement until I’ve seen more Japanese sources about it.

The Wrong Impressions

I’ve been living and working in Japan for nearly 3 months now.  It feels like longer, probably because I adjusted relatively easily.  So easily, that I sometimes wonder if there’s actually something wrong and I just don’t realize it. ^o^

Anyway, the topic of impressions has been on my mind lately.  Besides teaching young Japanese students another language, the point of the JET Program is to further internationalism and teach students about participants’ home countries.  But in the case of the United States, is that a fair thing to expect?  I’ve lived most of my life in Michigan.  Been to a handful of other states, but nothing deep.  Whenever students, other teachers, or neighbors ask me something about how things are “in America,” I can’t help but hesitate, because I’m all too aware that I don’t know what things are like in an entire country.  It doesn’t help that Japanese themselves tend to talk about Japan as a whole.  For example, one person asked me, “Is Japan a convenient place to live?”  I said, “F. is a convenient place to live.” (“F.” representing the name of my neighborhood.)  The person seemed confused by my answer.  And it really, really doesn’t help that all too many Americans are ready to answer such questions with “In America, such and such is this way.” Or even worse, when English-speakers feel it is their place to “educate” Japanese about other English speaking countries, regardless of their level of knowledge of those countries.

Sure, we can make some generalizations.  If it were only about geography, it would be easy.  But here comes another sticky point: it seems to me that the American participants on JET are, by and large, from middle and upper class backgrounds, and they are overwhelmingly white.  The “America” that they present to Japanese is very different from the “America” that I (an immigrant from a family that was not well off, and someone who grew up in Detroit proper) know.  It’s not just JETs either.  There’s currently a foreign exchange student from the States at my school. Let’s call her “Cathy” for simplicity.   For one assignment, most of the class did presentations about Japanese language and culture, while Cathy’s group presented American culture.  Cathy presented many things as facts that are not facts for the average American.  For example, she showed one slide that had a very large SUV on it and explained that that was her car, and that most American families have at least two cars. She even talked about this dance–I forgot what it’s called. She didn’t say “debutant ball,” but it’s the same thing. In my mind I couldn’t help but scoff.  Meanwhile the students were left in awe at such a display of wealth (and by extension, power).  Of course, they wouldn’t be in awe if they realized that the average American is, despite what they are shown by a handful of Americans, not rolling in the dough.

Another wrong impression is not directly the fault of Americans themselves.  There’s a friendly takoyaki lady in my neighborhood. Most of the neighborhood foreigners stop by her shop, and she likes “English Talk,” as she calls it.  On more than one occasion, she has commented to her Japanese customers, “Americans are amazing!  They can speak so many different languages.  But Japanese people only speak Japanese.  That’s a shame, isn’t it?”  Sometimes the customers will answer something like, “Yes, it’s embarrassing, isn’t it?” I’ve tried to explain to her on at least three separate occasions that such is not the case.  But she thinks it is because all the Americans she has come into contact with happen to at least speak a little bit of Japanese if not 3 or 4 languages.  In my case, I told her, I speak several languages because I was an immigrant.  So, my native language is Spanish, I had to learn English at a young age, I studied French but it was so similar to Spanish that it was too easy, and I studied Japanese for the challenge.  I also told her, the other Americans she meets are probably more cosmopolitan than the average American, evidenced by their choosing to live in Japan, so they cannot be taken to stand for all Americans.  Now, I suppose it’s possible that the takoyaki-san is just saying those things out of politeness.  But I doubt that, given that most of the times she has said these things, she wasn’t talking to me, but to her other (Japanese) customers.

Epilogue ~The Things I Miss~

Related to the topic of class, but not necessarily to the topic of wrong impressions…I miss being able to speak ghetto.  People who only know me through this or my other blog may find my saying that strange, given that asides from geeking out and using emoticons, I write in very proper English.  To me, writing is a formal thing.  But speaking is fluid, changing with the situation.  Given the racial and socio-economic makeup of JET participants, I automatically had been using completely standard English.  After a while though, things started slipping out.  I said “I’m straight” to mean “No, thanks” to a friend from Hawaii and she didn’t know what that meant.  Sometimes I’ll drawl things out.  That’s another thing about the way I speak: it’s not completely of one place and one place only.  It used to annoy me, as a teenager, when one of my brother’s friends would say I spoke “country.”  When I got older I could understand what he meant, and as other people pointed out to me instances where I randomly spoke with a slight Southern drawl.  Where did that come from?  Was it from the first six months in the States, spent in Louisiana? Even though I didn’t know English at the time? That’s what I think.

Several weeks ago, hanging out with some other JETs, a black JET said to me, “I love how you’re ghettoer than I am,”  the implication being that a black person should be ghettoer than a Hispanic person.  But she didn’t grow up in the ghetto, so why should she be ghetto at all?  That’s the thing: while describing people as “ghetto” is largely associated with black people in the U.S., a wealthy black person is not going to speak like one from a poor region and a poor family.  To me it is then a matter of course that someone who is not black, but who is poor and growing up in a predominantly black city, will end up speaking like they do.  In other words, “ghetto.”  Of course, not every black person in the ghetto chooses to speak that way, in the same way that not everyone in the ghetto chooses to speak that way.  But one can’t ignore that where one comes from has a very strong influence over how one speaks.  While I’ve always known that I have to use standard English in certain situations, to me that never meant that I couldn’t use slang or speak ghetto in other situations.  I never felt the need to take on mannerisms that were more highly associated with the black experience, such as all-out Ebonics terms like “finna” for “gonna,” but I didn’t force myself not to speak like everyone around me just because I’m not black.

There’s a fair amount of Hispanic people where I live.  Well, I wasn’t expecting any, so that there are 2 Hispanic JETS in the same apartment complex as I, and another one in a nearby building, seems like a lot. For the most part, I feel happy being around other people who know what semitas are.  But there’s still that major difference: they were born in the U.S.  They seem to come from relatively well-off families.  If they grew up in the ghetto, they’re doing a very good job of hiding it.  I think one might’ve grown up in a relatively poor Hispanic neighborhood. But while I largely grew up in Mexicantown, since I didn’t go to my neighborhood schools for grades 6-12, outside of my immediate family, I grew up more around black people than Hispanic people.  I didn’t have a really good Hispanic friend until I was 23 years old!

I honestly feel more out of place with other foreigners than I do with Japanese.  With Japanese people, I already know that they will most likely never consider me a member of their “in-group” no matter how much Japanese I can speak.  And that’s okay with me.  But while in the States you’d never think “I’m gonna get along great with ALL my fellow Americans just because they’re Americans!”, here, with a limited number of other foreigners around, I think subconsciously, I at least, had been thinking, “the other Americans are my in-group.” But for the above reasons, they are not.  Don’t get me wrong, most of them are cool people.  But they are no more “my” people than any random Japanese person.

Well, I really don’t have a witty way to end this, and I’m tired. ^_^;

By the way, “The Things I Miss” is a song by My Bloody Valentine.  It’s one of their more tripped-out pieces.

Spreading Chaos

Square-Enix Members is having a promo where you recruit people to join Members.  In conjunction with the release of Dissidia: Final Fantasy, they’ve made a special page where you pick which side you want to “fight for”: Chaos (bad guys) or Cosmos (good guys).  There’s a fan kit with icons and sigs.  I can’t figure out how to put this stuff in the sidebar, so I just made a post.

*drool*

Go join Square-Enix Members!  If there’s more people, maybe they’ll make the site as spiffy as the Japanese Members page!

Even though I know the bad guys can never win…T_T

Watching the Tele

I really prefer to say “tele” like Brits do instead of “TV.”  Well, in Spanish TV is also “tele” but pronounced teleh not telee. ^o^

Anyway…

I don’t have cable TV, and as yet don’t plan on getting it.  But over the weekend I saw that analog broadcasts in Japan will end in 2011.  I don’t know if then they’ll have free digital like in the States.  Maybe they have free digital now.  I don’t really know.

Anyway (again)…for real this time…

I watch TV in the evening and a bit in the morning while getting ready.  I think in the States when we hear “Japanese TV shows” we only think about all the crazy game shows.  I haven’t seen any of those yet.  I did see a pretty funny comedy show this past weekend.  There was this huge samurai helmet that concealed the comedians until they performed.  One of the stranger acts (or maybe I should say, acts I didn’t really get) was a pair of body builders who would flex in time to Bon Jovi’s “It’s My Life,” and when the chorus got to the word “life” they would go “LAIIIIIII!!!”  At least, that’s what it sounded like.  Their two performances were about dumping one food ingredient on another and yelling “LAIIIIII!!!” at that particular point in the song.  Sorry about the crappy pictures, it’s not easy to photograph this kind of TV.

First, they dumped cheese on spaghetti. Here, they dumped the syrup on shaved ice.

Another interesting show I saw was 「思い出のメロディ」or, “The Melodies of Memories.”  At first I wasn’t really watching it because they had the original singers of songs from 30+ years ago singing and…well, some people’s voices just don’t keep that well, and the quavering of enka is almost grating with such a voice.  (Enka is sort of like Japanese folk music.  Most of the enka I’ve heard is sung with a quavering voice.) I felt a bit mean for thinking that but, it’s the truth.  But as they got into the 80s, the singers got younger.  It was really funny to see the Mazinger Z theme song, performed by Mizuki Ichiro himself.  It’s such a disco-bombastic song!  I know the lyrics, not because I’m a particular fan of Mazinger Z, but just because it’s so funny to me.  The original Gundam had disco-bombastic music too, and I also find that hilarious for seeming somewhat incongruous.

"sora ni sobieru kurogane no shiro" (^o^)

Also on this show, I saw the singer Jero.  He dresses like a rapper, so I thought that he was on this show singing enka because maybe the original singer couldn’t or was dead.  But when I read up on him, I learned that he actually is an enka singer!  The Wiki article says that he felt an enka singer’s usual garb, the kimono, would not be appropriate for him.  I’d like to read more about him, and find out why the kimono is the “threshhold” so to speak.

No, he's not singing about being so fresh and so clean clean.

On a morning show, I saw an (too in-depth?) investigation into some fox and panda posters that appeared around Tenjin.  They even went to a university professor who specialized in street art to discuss it, interviewed people about it, and showed where the posters were on a map.  I know graffiti and street art aren’t as common here, so that’s why it gets a 15 minute infotainment bit devoted to it, but I still thought it was kinda funny that they were so serious about it.  They were saying things like “Who could have done this?” and “What message is this person trying to send?” LOL!

Mysterious Fox Posters on the map!

On this same show, I happened to catch…GACKT! Woo-hoo!  I didn’t know he was going to be on, I just happened to be watching.  First they talked about the Kamen Rider movie and GACKT’s role in it.  He talked about what movies he liked.  Primal Fear was one.  He also talked about working with the late Ken Ogata on Fuurin Kazan.  There was a point where he used a word the young interviewer didn’t know and she was like, “excuse me, I don’t know what that means…” GACKT just explained it, I don’t remember what it was, but I thought GACKT seemed kinda old in that moment. Like he was a grown-up explaining something to a child.  Then again, he is over 400 years old, so I shouldn’t be surprised. ^o^

^____________^

Lastly, on HEY! HEY! HEY! I saw the Korean rap group Big Bang.  One of them (who kinda looked like Adam Lambert, now that I think of it) introduced himself and said “I’m good at Japanese.”  But then he looked at his sheet were he’d written his intro down. ^o^  I thought the English they threw in the song was too funny.  It was stereotypical hype/dance rap lyrics, talking about how freshly dressed they were, and ladies this and rockin’ the night that, and they even said “fo sho.”  Aahhhhh….

Big Bang rocks the night fo rizzle

More Square-Enix Geekiness

Mwa ha! First post at Scales since I’ve been in Japan!

So what shall I blog about?  Well, that which I didn’t go into detail over at Lucky Hill: My “pilgrimage” to see Sephiroth.  ^o^  Yeah, I’m THAT big of a geek.

So, Square-Enix has a store in Tokyo called the Square-Enix Character Goods Show Case. (You can click on “English” to the left on their page.)  I Google-mapped it before leaving for Japan, but it seemed kinda complicated.  I was confused about why it was giving me a long, funky looking walking route when the mass-transit route required that I get on a train and get off after one minute.  It did help, however, since I learned that I would be getting off at Hatsudai Station, I was able to use the much simpler Shinjuku area map all JET participants recieved. The store was a mere 15 minutes from the hotel!  It’s kinda tucked away, under an overpass, so it’s easy to miss.

I asked the clerk if it was alright to take pictures, and he said it was fine.  Now, the very realistic Sephiroth statue is actually in the floor (in the Premium Goods area, of course), so I couldn’t get a shot of the whole thing.  They also have the original Genesis outfit on the display, like the one GACKT wore in the video to “Redemption.”  Click the pictures for the full size!

Welcome to my Reunion…wait, I’m not Kadaj…

This one's blurry, but you can see more of it.

"折れた翼を羽ばたかせ、全てを消してみせよう〜" ♪

Whew, that’s quite a bit of geeking out there. >P

In slightly related news, I bought an Arena 37 Special that featured GACKT for the poster. It is the second decoration I’ve bought for the apartment. (The first was one of those Japanese summer-not-quite-a-windchime thingies.  I’ll add pics when I take them.