I love giant robots. But sometimes, you have to step back and think about you’re watching when you watch giant robots beat the ever-living crap out of each other. And at that moment, you realize just how silly and stupid the giant robot genre is. Not that I’m complaining, of course - the sillier and stupider a show gets, the more enjoyable it can be (I liked Sousei no Aquarion, that’s about as stupid as you go).

One of my favorite mecha anime traditions, one that truly screams “Yes, this is at once cool and totally ludicrous,” is a wonderful fictional weapon known as the pile bunker.

It exists almost exclusively in giant robot fiction, and is nothing more than a large, sometimes exposively or electrically powered spike. It’s usually stuck onto the arm of a robot (though in a few awesome cases, it comes out of the robo-crotch) and is used to deliver giant robot gut punches. Its first appearance was in Armored Trooper VOTOMS in the ’80s, and it caught the imagination of enough mecha designers that it’s lived on in the 25 years since VOTOMS first introduced the concept. You can find pile bunkers in everything from Armored Core to Final Fantasy VII and Guilty Gear.

But why is it so popular? Its not a particularly stylish weapon. It’s the technological equivalent of a plank with a nail stuck in it. If a society has mastered bipedal mechanics, laser weaponry, and other highly advanced technologies, you’d think they could give their robots laser beam eyes, particle cannons, heat rays, or at least some Macross-style beer can rockets. And yet, people’s imaginations get fired up at the thought of a big ol’ nail on a stick.

I figure that the pile bunker owes its popularity to its primitive nature. Sure, people can appreciate outer space dogfights with beam rifles and drunk missiles, but when you get down to it, people like the hands-on approach on a visceral level. And when firefights start to look the same, the most satisfying thing you can possibly watch is a good ol’ punch to the breadbasket.

Take the Baldr series as an example (I won’t blame you if you haven’t played it, it’s never been translated and never will be, what with the porn and all). In Baldr Force, combat takes place entirely in cyberspace, so Shumicram weapon loadouts are a matter of whatever you want to assign a button to. Wave motion cannons? Satellite lasers? Anti-air missiles? They all just materialize on your robot when you need them, ready to wreak havoc. But the pile bunker gets special treatment in that game: the action starts to move in slow motion, the camera zooms in, and the screen freezes at the moment your giant metal spike comes into contact with the enemy with an oh-so-satisfying “CLANG” noise.

The Super Robot Wars series makes the pile bunker seem even more ridiculously outdated and savagely satisfying. The Alt Eisen comes equipped with a pile bunker attached to a giant revolver, and even its pilot admits that the whole setup looks pretty stupid. You can see the results on this convenient Youtube video, starting at 0:36.

Does it look silly? Of course it does. But is it fun to imagine driving a giant stake into someone else’s robot, hearing the crash of heavy metal and a few gratuitous explosions?

Hell yes.

Tell me what your favorite “this has no business being here but it feels SO GOOD” weapon is in fantasy or science fiction - next week, I talk about another ludicrous fiction, the osananajimi.

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You know the old saying “if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all?” That philosophy may be a bad one in the real world, but in the world of webcomics I believe it to be downright damning.

Bad reviews are necessary for things like books, movies, comics and video games because they serve to warn us not to spend our money on something that’s crappy. I can’t even begin to tell you how many times I’ve been swayed away from buying a comic or a movie ticket because “I heard it wasn’t supposed to be very good.”

That sort of thing doesn’t work in webcomics because a bad review is still a review, and a review of any kind directs attention to a webcomic, and attention is what webcomics need to survive. With a metric ton of webcomics floating around the internet it’s so very easy to go unnoticed, but with someone going out of their way to single you out and talk about your work, good or bad, it generates interest. Most bad reviews of webcomics provide links to the strip they’re trashing, and it takes very little effort for someone to just drag their mouse over the link and click it, and with every visit that webcomic has a chance to get a new reader. Bad reviews may actually be helping webcomics in that regard.

Ninety-five percent of all webcomics are free anyway, so there’s no money to be wasted in checking out a bad webcomic. A bad review isn’t going to deter someone from at least reading it. It may prevent people from buying merchandise, but there are lots of webcomics I love that I’ve never spent a dime on.

If you really want to deter people from a webcomic you think is awful, don’t say a word about it. Lack of interest on the internet is death. If there are no links, no mentions of a name, no nothing, there will be no readers. I’ve been doing Dominic Deegan for five years and I have a pretty substantial audience, and hearing “your work sucks!” doesn’t hurt at all, but hearing “I’ve never heard of you” can be discouraging.

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Due to feeling ill and a boatload of work, I will not be making a full post today.

However, Player 2, a.k.a. Crybringer, will be! He’s going to be joining me on Tuesday with posts, art, and the occasional team up.

So please welcome him when he posts!

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Like Mookie last week, life caught up to me this weekend. I closed the show I was working on, and then started to tear it all down. This, for those of you who don’t work in the Wonderful World of Theatre means looooooooooooooooooong hours and not enough sleep. So. I now present to you a fantastic photo of me at work. At 3 am. Yes, I got back up and went back to work after. I’ll post for real next week, after I’ve had some sleep.

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Now that I’ve completely embarrassed myself with my wildly inaccurate and baseless dating guide for teh geeks and nerds, I thought it’d be best to open it up for questions from you, our readers. We’ll take all questions from everyone on whatever dating or relationship topic you’d like us to tackle. Drop me your question at azmnews@gmail.com and we at Spwug will give you our honest and completely biased opinions!

And now for something completely different.

SPXPO 2K7

Small Press Expo starts today a block away from where I live in Rockville, Maryland. It’s a great event to meet your favorite indy comic creators. And if you’re going to go, bring a large bag of money with you. All your indy faves will be there and they will all be selling piles and piles of awesomeness.

The Expo is quite nice because it features artists that you might otherwise miss. Some can’t afford to make it out to ComicCon and some don’t have access to distribution channels that would get their books to your local comic shop. The Expo gives them a chance to get exposure and to make a little money. Win win on both fronts.

Tables notoriously sell out very quickly so if you have an inkling that you might want to go to the Expo to show your stuff and sell your merch, you’ve got to keep an eye on their site and book at table as soon as they take reservations. Lots of indy creators are out there fighting for every bit of exposure they can manage. It can get downright brutal.

Most of the creators I’ve ever met at Expo have been really nice and not terribly pushy. By and large it’s a friendly crowd, attendees and guests alike. It’s a great place to meet new creators and make new friends and get exposed to a lot of excellent work.

If you happen to be in the Metro D.C. area and are looking for something to do this weekend, I highly recommend Small Press Expo.

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I feel this strange urge to apologize for writing my column on time, but I will resist and dive straight into it.

As I mentioned last week, the Japanese anime and game industry has learned over the last few years that adding some random Sprouting-moe girls to a work will draw more fans. It doesn’t matter if the girl even fits the mood of the work at all - shoehorning a maid or a spunky childhood friend into your show will guarantee that some fans of that particular Sprouting type will give you their money.

There’s no better example of this kind of shoehorning than The SoulTaker. SoulTaker is a dark but generic action story (you might even call it Burning) which would have been forgotten quickly under normal circumstances. However, it was given extra shelf life by the insertion of a pink-haired, squeaky-voiced nurse named Komugi.

Komugi was a huge hit in the Sprouting crowd, spawning her own series and salvaging some measure of profitability for SoulTaker. She was also an extremely minor character. But her success wasn’t at all isolated.

Other studios took note of the sheer amount of money to be made from the Sprouting market, and the various Sprouting character archetypes became increasingly prevalent in Burning-type shows in more and more overt ways.

For example, maids started popping everywhere, whether they fit the setting or not - the bridge bunnies from Macross were replaced by bridge maids in shows like Gravion and Demonbane (admittedly, Demonbane started out as an adults-only visual novel, so it was meant to appeal to the Sprouting-obsessed male crowd from the very beginning, despite the giant robots). Capcom even added a useless little girl to the Devil May Cry anime to try and extract some extra money from a fanbase not usually inclined to watch a shirtless man perform over-the-top stunts while fighting demons.

What I term the “moefication” of anime doesn’t seem to be slowing down at all - fans vote with their wallets, after all, and the rewards for hitting the right chord with a moe-obsessed fandom are great. Every company is looking for the next Komugi-style gold mine to be merchandised and exploited, like the Shuffle! franchise or the Haruhi crew.

What do you think about the perceived need for any given show to have at least one girl who is made for the moe crowd? Is it annoying? Does it make a show more enjoyable? I’m curious about other people’s opinions on the matter. Personally, I’ve learned to accept it as the norm, though the more blatant the moe money grab, the less I enjoy watching a show.

See you next week for Feel the Burning, when I talk about a subject near and dear to my heart: the pile bunker.

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Real life caught me off-guard this week.

No real post today, folks. My humblest apologies.

But here is a picture of my ridiculously cute cat, Rascal, to make up for my blunder.

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My chosen profession, for many years now, has been translation. I specialize in Japanese to English translation, and generally work on entertainment media. This means that I can say, with a straight face, that I read comics, watch cartoons, and play games for a living. Granted, there are many other aspects to the job as well, but explaining it all ends up taking way too much time.

The main reason I’m writing this article is to give some quick advice to any future translators out there, and explain a few principles.

First, keep in mind the distinction between “translation” and “interpretation.” 

Translating is taking pre-recorded media, be it text, pictures, audio, or video in one language and conveying it in another in the same form. This is where you get subtitles for anime and movies, novel and comic adaptations, etc.  

Interpreting is conveying what is being said, right then and there, from the origin language into the target language. This is what the people who work with diplomats, businessmen and the like do at meetings and such.

Between the two, I’ve always found interpreting to be harder because it’s immediate, and there’s no room to back up. Once something is said, it’s hard to backpedal and say “oops.” 

Why do I bring this up? Because while most translators can interpret, and most interpreters can translate, most people in our industry choose one or the other to focus on. They are NOT the same, and it’s better in many people’s opinion to specialize.

Now, the advice. For the sake of brevity, I’ll assume you have a reasonable amount of skill in the two languages you’re working with. (If you don’t – you’re in the wrong industry) 

First, if you want to be a translator, be prepared to learn about anything and everything. Unless you become a very specific type of translator (medical documents, for example), you will generally end up covering a variety of topics. While the internet makes on-the-fly research much easier, it’s never a bad idea to learn whatever you can whenever you can. It might come in handy. 

Second, and this should be obvious, but is often not, practice. A lot. Even when you’re a “pro” and don’t think you need it any more. In lulls between jobs, read a novel in your source (i.e. the language you usually translate from) language. Watch some TV or a movie. Whatever you do, though, do it with the mind set of “how would I translate this?” You don’t have to take notes, but it can help.

Third, proofread, proofread, proofread. Unless you’re on an extreme rush job (which can happen), go back and reread your work. Typos happen. So do missed words and lines. And sometimes you’ll find that a section you’ve done could use a little polish. It rarely hurts to reread your own work. Having a friend who’s willing to help is good, too. 

Finally, know the culture of both of your languages. While you don’t have to be an absolute expert, it’s good to know modern trends, recent slang, and the history of the places your languages originate in. This will come especially handy in entertainment media translation, where you’ll have to, at the very least, explain a joke or reference made in the original document/media. Again, while you can look it up, it’s easier and better to know what’s going on yourself. 

If people like this enough, I will probably write a bit more about translation, and interpreting, too. (I have indeed done both, and I lean more towards translation.)

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Gentle readers, please forgive me my lack of real post. I have been particularly busy and not sleeping this past weekend, and none of it was particularly fun. Thus I will simply remind you of the Great Comedity Book for sale, and treat you with some cover art.

Please enjoy the article below, instead. Thanks Santineao!

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Early October brings…

Fall is in the air and affordable fishnets are at your local mall!  Early October brings a lovely advantage for us cosplay addicts in the form of seasonal Halloween stores and the resulting post holiday blow out sales. Normally finding the perfect costume accessory is a potentially traumatic ordeal, but Halloween stores and sales make it a great deal easier, and often far more affordable. While not EVERY accessory can be found at such a store, enough can that its worth the look.

The seasonally established Halloween stores usually start to go up in late Sept or Early October (and they seem to be getting earlier and earlier with set up each year). The main advantage to such a store for cosplayers great and small is that you can go and browse, and then buy things, all without having to pay shipping charges. True costume stores are few and far between, so normally looking for even things as easy as exotic eyelashes and fancy fishnet tights would be a difficult feat, and would likely involve the aforementioned shipping charges. During the pre-Halloween extravaganza, its easy to find variety at your local seasonal store. Halloween stores are great for tights, gloves, makeup, hats, shoes, masks, props like swords, fake body parts, fake blood, fake scars, and body makeup mods like non-pierced but pierced looking jewelry, pointy ears, fangs, and funny noses. Oh yes, and wigs. Cheap wigs usually, but wigs non the less. And there are times when our budget is more important than our pride… right? (Some fake wigs actually don’t look that bad though, they just aren’t as likely to last as long or be as able to be styled.)

Every Halloween I generally go to my local mall seasonal store and stock up on fishnets (admittedly a habit I picked up when I was on my college cast of Rocky Horror- and if you don’t know what this is, shame on you, go look it up)  and other stockings, things that you really can’t have too many of and that generally get trashed pretty easily at conventions. Anything that fits this description is a really good idea to pick up when its local and shipping free, not to mention possibly on sale. There are sometimes pre-Halloween sales if you go to these stores really early, and there are most certainly post-Halloween sales. The only problem with the post-sales is that you have only what’s left to choose from, and what’s left may or may not be slim pickings.

If you’re becoming an avid cosplayer, its often a really good idea to write down a list of things you need for your cosplay costumes for the next year or so, with the deadlines you’d like to finish each costume. Write all the stuff you’ll need to get, and whether you think you’ll make it or buy it. It might make sense to buy one thing, but build another. Keep the list of what you’ll want to buy with you when you go shopping, and you may be able to pick up your accessories throughout the year as you find them on sale, rather than buying them last minute at frantically overpriced or overnight shipping cost levels. If you know what you’re going to need, take advantage of the Halloween sales, it will help your budget immensely in the end, promise.

-Santineao

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