notdotq » author:ghostlightning

Endless Eight is the Longest Epic of Virginity EVAR

ghostlightning — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 08:00:50 +0000

lolikitsune must watch these episodes at least thrice to take less time than it takes Kyon to get rid of his virginity.

This is not an endorsement of the second and currently airing season of Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu. It doesn’t say here that this show is good, and that anyone is missing out. Rather, I agree with Pontifus when he says [->]

All the weight/meaning in the world means nothing if you find the experience regrettable or a waste.

So I am not apologizing for the currently airing second season of Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu. I will entertain no such folly, never mind the delicious Macross references. What I am saying is that I have pierced the barrier of boredom with my drill of personal enjoyment, and I’ll tell you how I did it. Consider it or not at your leisure. The main problem of the Endless 8 arc is that every episode after the third one is a copy of the same show essentially. The TV format may not even be the ideal way to do it. From the archives I retreive two posts:

Both posts by mechafetish, where he looked into our common behavior of rewatching shows we like. The first post measured a show’s subjective rewatchability ratio. Using the tools in that post, I would give this current season 2/6 (current episode count) = 0.33. This does not account for the recency bias; this ratio, as subjective as it is, may not hold over time with me, since I gave the clearly superior first season a 2/13 = .15 (the one with Lost my music, and Haruhi & Kyon’s preview leading to that episode: “LISTEN TO MY SONG! BOMBAAA!”). The second post, references the idea of eternal recurrence proposed by Friedrich Nietchzche as presented by Milan Kundera in his novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Mechafetish says,

This behavior fundamentally alters the way I derive utility from anime I watch. Generally, I tend to have fonder memories of anime that provide me with rewatchable moments simply because I generate more utility per minute due to selective rewatching. For example, I actually love Brain Powered (an anime generally agreed upon to be atrocious) because of exactly 2 moments in the later episodes that I watched more than all the episodes of the entire series combined.

Crappy anime, but with rewatchable moments. I felt that I was onto something here. There was almost this independentutility in rewatching a particular moment that is distinguished from the show, but not apart from it. The context is still decisive in appreciating such moments, but this enjoyment does influence one’s affinity for the show that made them. So this comprises the first part of the premise of my enjoying Endless 8. The second part is very much related, otou-san put it thusly,

Re-watching anime, like any visual entertainment, can give you new perspective on it just from the plain and simple value of seeing things again. We tend to see plot, character development, and visuals the first time around (and considering anime means watching with subtitles for most of us, even the visuals can be secondary at times). But that second viewing can reveal details of reference, symbolism, and detail. If you only watched The Holy Mountain or, yeah I’ll say it, FLCL just once, you missed something.

–otou-san, Welcome Back or: what color are your glasses now?

While never close to insane levels of rewatching the way mechafetish does, I rewatch anime and reread manga a lot. And yes, I often feel that I discover new things every time I see the same show again.

Kyon is technically the oldest male virgin ever. I bet Koizumi has hit it both ways even before transferring schools. Kyon = 0, lolikitsune = 0.

The way I ended up enjoying Endless 8 episodes 4, 5, and 6 is that I related to them as rewatch adventures for episode 3.

But episode 3 was just a few weeks ago, it’s too soon for an appreciative (as opposed to a data-mining for articles) rewatch. Yes, that is true. It was a solid wall that would’ve stopped my enjoyment frozen. But it didn’t. It was a wall? I smashed right through it. The difference is, that there are definite, obvious, subtle and new things to discover, not only because I missed them the first time, but rather there were changes by design.

Maybe this only works because I don’t have the best short-term memory, maybe I find the episodes interesting because I skipped chunks of it. I’m not the biggest fan of Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu, but I like it; and I wasn’t enjoying myself at all watching the same episode over and over again. Until, I realized how often I do this for singular episodes of other shows (list does not include the constant rotation of random episodes from the Macross franchise):

Honey and Clover 2 Finale, where a sandwich is deliciously and beautifully cruel [->]
Interstella 5555, where I remembered digital love! [->]
The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, where the ordinary is more magical than time travel [->]
Turn A Gundam 50, the epilogue that kills me every time (featuring “Tsuki no Mayu” full version)
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann 27

Now, I’m not saying the Endless 8 recursion of the 3rd episode deserves a place on this list, but as for the episode itself – there was much to enjoy within it. It’s the recursion that bothered me, not the content it is based on. So basically, I found a way to enjoy this (and it’s not like I’m jumping up and down screaming how awesome it is, that happened in episode 02 during Kyon’s ‘Kakizaki Requiem’ with matching Itano Circus).

Very similarly, I do reread books; and even blog posts. Here are some that I’ve revisited very often (aside from the regular The Animanachronism posts I reread in my usual rotation):

otou-san, “It takes a fanboy” (Validates my way of life)
Lbrevis, “Nana Rocks, This is How You do Drama” (Introduced me to one of my most loved manga)
Omisyth, “Lest We Forget” (delicious meta)
Sakura, “My Super Spectacular Shounen Power” (We Remember Love for THE POWER OF TEAM BLOGGING)
maggeh, “Insert Food-based Pun >Here<” (fooled me into thinking OH! posts will be this substantial)
Xephfrye, “Rage Over 2D Sometimes” (RAEG is LOL, yes I really think so)
Baka-Raptor, “Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Epic” (To me, EPIC is just a four letter word, but so is LOGH and both are awesome)
coburn, “Anime of the Year 2008” (needs to be read to be believed, the sphere needs more coburn)
21stcenturydigitalboy, “I want to be like Takasu Ryuuji” (bad ass)
lolikitsune, “vocab lessons, part 1” (because this faggerjackerry of OH! alumni wouldn’t be possible without the very concept of being a faggerjack)

So this is how I inadvertently found myself enjoying episode 06 after I thought I’d given up after episode 05. Take this as you will. I just happen to think that ‘who enjoys, wins.’

A Brief Respite

lolikitsune — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 16:44:47 +0000

Today, I went to the admin panel of notdotq. I logged in as lolikitsune, clicked ‘Add New,’ and pasted the full text of my Endless Eight post into the text box on the New Post page. I changed the title to ‘Endless Eight is Endless Lulz,’ added the appropriate tags, threw on a handful of tags like so many splotches of paint on an unfinished wall, and then I said to myself, “not this time, Ghastly Crucifier!”

And I clicked, ‘Delete.’

Never again, quoth the phantomflash, Never again will I desecrate lolikit’s sacred Jasonian (pronounced JAY-SOH-NEE-UN) shrine with my tomfoolery of a trolling attempt. Never again will I trick people into thinking that lolikit is the one posting these posts. Never again will I so much as think of outdoing Kyoto Animation, henceforth, Team Troll.

Never again, quoth the spectralthunder, Never again.

And then a Frosty Hurricane came upon me, and I sampled his scrotal sweat, and I thought to myself, “what a wonderful world.”

Endless Eight is the Eighth Season of Loveless

lolikitsune — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 08:00:47 +0000

lolikitsune may only adjourn this anime for furry buttsex.

All the weight/meaning in the world means nothing if you find the experience regrettable or a waste.

This behavior fundamentally alters the way I derive utility from anime I watch. Generally, I tend to have fonder memories of anime that provide me with rewatchable moments simply because I generate more utility per minute due to selective rewatching. For example, I actually love Brain Powered (an anime generally agreed upon to be atrocious) because of exactly 2 moments in the later episodes that I watched more than all the episodes of the entire series combined.

Re-watching anime, like any visual entertainment, can give you new perspective on it just from the plain and simple value of seeing things again. We tend to see plot, character development, and visuals the first time around (and considering anime means watching with subtitles for most of us, even the visuals can be secondary at times). But that second viewing can reveal details of reference, symbolism, and detail. If you only watched The Holy Mountain or, yeah I’ll say it, FLCL just once, you missed something.

–otou-san, Welcome Back or: what color are your glasses now?

The way I ended up enjoying Endless 8 episodes 4, 5, and 6 is that I related to them as rewatch adventures for episode 3.

Code Geass, The Battle of Narita [->]
Lucky Star OVA, where volleyball is Gundam! [->]
Detroit Metal City 07, where a giant penis gets raped [->]
Turn A Gundam 50, the epilogue that kills me every time (featuring “Tsuki no Mayu” full version)
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann 27

So this is how I inadvertently found myself enjoying episode 06 after I thought I’d given up after episode 05. Take this as you will. I just happen to think that ‘who enjoys, wins.’

But wait–the loop is broken tomorrow!

Endless Eight is Endless Fun if You Know How

ghostlightning — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 08:00:01 +0000

lolikitsune must trade fapping to Kaiji hentai or whatever else he’s failing at doing in life to enjoying every second of this season’s star show.

All the weight/meaning in the world means nothing if you find the experience regrettable or a waste.

This behavior fundamentally alters the way I derive utility from anime I watch. Generally, I tend to have fonder memories of anime that provide me with rewatchable moments simply because I generate more utility per minute due to selective rewatching. For example, I actually love Brain Powered (an anime generally agreed upon to be atrocious) because of exactly 2 moments in the later episodes that I watched more than all the episodes of the entire series combined.

Re-watching anime, like any visual entertainment, can give you new perspective on it just from the plain and simple value of seeing things again. We tend to see plot, character development, and visuals the first time around (and considering anime means watching with subtitles for most of us, even the visuals can be secondary at times). But that second viewing can reveal details of reference, symbolism, and detail. If you only watched The Holy Mountain or, yeah I’ll say it, FLCL just once, you missed something.

–otou-san, Welcome Back or: what color are your glasses now?

The way I ended up enjoying Endless 8 episodes 4, 5, and 6 is that I related to them as rewatch adventures for episode 3.

Honey and Clover 2 Finale, where a sandwich is deliciously and beautifully cruel [->]
Interstella 5555, where I remembered digital love! [->]
The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, where the ordinary is more magical than time travel [->]
Turn A Gundam 50, the epilogue that kills me every time (featuring “Tsuki no Mayu” full version)
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann 27

So this is how I inadvertently found myself enjoying episode 06 after I thought I’d given up after episode 05. Take this as you will. I just happen to think that ‘who enjoys, wins.’

Endless Eight is More Entertaining than lolikitsune’s Boring Life

ghostlightning — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 08:00:23 +0000

lolikitsune must put this show on the top of his MAL favorites to gain any credibility in the sphere.

All the weight/meaning in the world means nothing if you find the experience regrettable or a waste.

This behavior fundamentally alters the way I derive utility from anime I watch. Generally, I tend to have fonder memories of anime that provide me with rewatchable moments simply because I generate more utility per minute due to selective rewatching. For example, I actually love Brain Powered (an anime generally agreed upon to be atrocious) because of exactly 2 moments in the later episodes that I watched more than all the episodes of the entire series combined.

Re-watching anime, like any visual entertainment, can give you new perspective on it just from the plain and simple value of seeing things again. We tend to see plot, character development, and visuals the first time around (and considering anime means watching with subtitles for most of us, even the visuals can be secondary at times). But that second viewing can reveal details of reference, symbolism, and detail. If you only watched The Holy Mountain or, yeah I’ll say it, FLCL just once, you missed something.

–otou-san, Welcome Back or: what color are your glasses now?

The way I ended up enjoying Endless 8 episodes 4, 5, and 6 is that I related to them as rewatch adventures for episode 3.

Aria the Origination 12, “Chotto ureshii dake da yo” [->]
Shin Mazinger Z 03, “Its name is… Its name is…” [->]
Black Lagoon 07, where Rock grows a pair [->]
Turn A Gundam 50, the epilogue that kills me every time (featuring “Tsuki no Mayu” full version)
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann 27

So this is how I inadvertently found myself enjoying episode 06 after I thought I’d given up after episode 05. Take this as you will. I just happen to think that ‘who enjoys, wins.’

So, Endless Eight is Unlimited Faggotry Works

ghostlightning — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 08:00:30 +0000

lolikitsune must watch every second of this anime to improve the quality of his sad-sack life.

All the weight/meaning in the world means nothing if you find the experience regrettable or a waste.

This behavior fundamentally alters the way I derive utility from anime I watch. Generally, I tend to have fonder memories of anime that provide me with rewatchable moments simply because I generate more utility per minute due to selective rewatching. For example, I actually love Brain Powered (an anime generally agreed upon to be atrocious) because of exactly 2 moments in the later episodes that I watched more than all the episodes of the entire series combined.

Re-watching anime, like any visual entertainment, can give you new perspective on it just from the plain and simple value of seeing things again. We tend to see plot, character development, and visuals the first time around (and considering anime means watching with subtitles for most of us, even the visuals can be secondary at times). But that second viewing can reveal details of reference, symbolism, and detail. If you only watched The Holy Mountain or, yeah I’ll say it, FLCL just once, you missed something.

–otou-san, Welcome Back or: what color are your glasses now?

The way I ended up enjoying Endless 8 episodes 4, 5, and 6 is that I related to them as rewatch adventures for episode 3.

Code Geass, The Battle of Narita [->]
Lucky Star OVA, where volleyball is Gundam! [->]
Detroit Metal City 07, where a giant penis gets raped [->]
Turn A Gundam 50, the epilogue that kills me every time (featuring “Tsuki no Mayu” full version)
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann 27

So this is how I inadvertently found myself enjoying episode 06 after I thought I’d given up after episode 05. Take this as you will. I just happen to think that ‘who enjoys, wins.’

Ephebophilia, here I split hairs

ghostlightning — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 15:02:26 +0000

One of the central themes I intend to explore in my blogging is the concept of the guilty pleasure.

In the more common contexts, guilty pleasures are negatively valued/low-culture activities and pursuits relative to high-culture media. For example, a person with a ‘cultured’ self-image may feel guilty taking pleasure in a lot of reality TV programs as opposed to watching classical theater or the ballet.

I am not interested in this particular context. I don’t make value judgments, or subscribe to the high/low culture binary. It’s all deculture to me. But as should be clear in my first meditation on this, there is such a thing as a guilty pleasure. But taking pleasure in what things exactly?

In the aforementioned post I confessed to an attraction to and an appreciation for evil characters in anime. Here the guilty pleasure is thinking dirty thoughts about 2d females in fictional high school age. The freshman high school student in Japan is 16 years old. I will be 32 in less than 3 weeks.

Every year, it gets worse and worse. I get older and older, the girls stay the same age. I’m even attracted to a particular subset of 2d high school girl: the loli.

Like Izumi Sou, Konata’s dad, I too, am also a lolicon. However, according to the source of all that is good and true, there’s nothing wrong with me:

Some level of sexual attraction to late adolescents is common among adults of all sexual orientations.^[8] The term ephebophilia is used only to describe the preference for mid to late adolescent sexual partners, not the mere presence of some level of sexual attraction.

I’m actually married to an older woman (though I admit she looks younger than I am and is often described as more girly than womanly). But if there’s nothing clinically wrong with me (I am neither a pedophile nor an ephebophile), why do I feel guilt? A clinical psychosis would actually absolve me of guilt because it takes away my freedom. But I am well, and I am free. And I use this freedom to indulge my attraction through the consumption of media that allows for a certain level of wish-fulfillment: I get to pursue thinking dirty thoughts about these underage females.

While I get to see these characters in a large number of anime, and the experience is quite voyeuristic especially for slice-of-life shows watched in marathon sessions, I don’t feel as guilty as I do now. What’s different about now? I’ve discovered eroge, having started playing Fate/stay Night. The difference in the experience is that the eroge is so much more immersive.

I feel like I’m living with these girls. After hours and hours of play, which is weeks in ‘anime time’ is merely a day or two in the game. The frequent breaks the text-based medium allows also gives an added ‘lived-in’ impression. Mind you, at this point in the game, I have yet to encounter a hentai moment. So I’m really confronted with the guilt only freedom allows.

How so? It’s because I’m free to stop this at any point. I don’t have to pursue this pleasure. Only that I most probably will. It’s this exercise of freedom that makes me feel the guilt. Nobody’s forcing me to perform vile acts on these girls, as vile as the thoughts I have tell me I’m so ready to do.

I’ve theorized in the recent past that there are two broad categories of otaku behavior: the amassive, and the expressive. My immersion in Fate/stay Night has led me to some amassing activities:

These toys aren't cheap, hence some of the guilt.

Fraulein Revoltech Toshaka Rin (in previous photo, Revoltech Enoki Tomohide-sculpted Saber)

However, being the expressive person that I am, I put together the ff. images. Like I said, nobody’s forcing me to perform vile acts on these girls. I put these images here (NSFW) not because I underestimate your imagination of what I am capable of doing, only that I’m very fond of my own imagination thank you.

Click to Reveal [NSFW]

"Let's buy ALL Revoltech": Toshaka, Gurren-Lagann, Eva Unit-01 Test Type

Going beyond the impossible

The heavens are being pierced, WITH HIS DRILL!

Acceptance Through the Replication of Mistakes

ghostlightning — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 21:30:07 +0000

Comrade ghostlightning proclaims:

In this post I track the development of a meme. I may sound theoretical and profound, but the entire framework of this exercise is only based on an excerpt from this guide to some fruity way to live life at a higher level.

The excerpt:

6. Like all things, memes fit better with some things than others. Some memes naturally fit better in people’s minds. Some memes naturally fit better with other memes. When a group of memes fit well together and pull the strings of someone’s mouth and vocal cords so that they pass them on to others, a new, self-replicating thing gets created. The new thing is called a memeplex.

Self-replication is the most powerful force in the universe. One person tells two, two tell four, four tell eight, and pretty soon the whole universe is full of people sharing the memeplex.

Sometimes a self-replicating memeplex makes a mistake in copying itself. The memeplex with a mistake in it will either be better, worse, or the same at making copies of itself. If it’s better soon there will be more copies of the new memeplex than the old in the universe.

The only way for a new idea to gain acceptance is by a series of copying mistakes that turn out to be better after all.

And,

8. Every new idea we think of immediately becomes transformed by copying mistakes that change it into something that is better at making copies of itself after all. A key part of the idea may be sacrificed to something better for copying.

The only control we have over the spread of our ideas is in making them as resistant to copying mistakes as possible.

Okay, so let’s pretend that the quotes above are actually true. Now let’s look at this meme that I’ve been following, and have used in a few occasions:

“coming harder than omo”

It contains the ff. elements:

An orgasm (the objective of most sexual activities)
Omo (the blogger from the Omonomono blog)

The context for the meme developing finds its genesis in the comments section of this post on Owen’s Cruel Angel Theses blog, which accused omo of being a poseur for playing games and watching anime raw (unsubbed). Big drama in the comments section. Lelangir caught on and gave us this:

See the full comic here. Epic aniblogger metacomedy is epic. The statement actually reads “I already came.” However, the elements are the same: 1. Orgasm, 2. Omo. This gets copied, in sequence, several times:

1. 21stcenturydigital boy, no stranger to aniblogger metasex (lelangir documents his tryst with Omisyth here) posted some pornographic Toradora! fanfic which elicited a comment from lelangir himself:

lelangir Says:
December 15, 2008 at 8:21 PM

I came harder than omo.

2. These came out on the same day.

1st example:

Everyone came harder than omo.
ghostlightning — 12/16/08 @ 5:43 am | #Link | Reply

Have you Come Harder Than Omo Yet?
lelangir — 12/16/08 @ 6:13 am | #Link | Reply

@ghostlightning: best aniblog meme to date, gotta thank all the good folks involved for that.
@lelangir: I’m going to have to find some way of putting that into KYOUSORA.COM as a tagline or something. It’s too genius.

lolikitsune — 12/16/08 @ 7:14 am | #Link | Reply

2nd example:

ghostlightning Says:
December 16, 2008 at 9:10 PM

MOAR porn. I didn’t go where you went with Ryuji and Taiga, but you know I boned the shit out of Kinon.

Mix anime characters and add bloggers into it. That’ll mess things up quite nicely and everyone can come harder than omo.

Now it can be argued that the repeaters of the meme are forcing it. It doesn’t matter for the purposes of this post that the meme is forced. Looking back at the fruity guide to meme development: in copying the proto-meme, we were all doing it wrong. It is mistakes like this that stick. We now end up with a meme “coming harder than omo” that means what exactly? Not quite sure yet, but I’m very interested to find out.

Dr. lolikit sez:

If we apply lolikitean cryptology to “came harder than omo,” well, we come harder than omo. And because I’m a practicer of schadenfaggen, I don’t intend to share that with all of you. Gweheheh.

For now… go stand in the hallway.

P.S. Here’s to looking at a small blue bird, kid.

Madame lolikappa moans:

Furthermore, we are already beginning to see the way the meme is evolving. Originally it only applied to single people coming harder than omo, but is now increasing in number, spreading to meta-omogasmic aniblogger orgies. Clearly, the meme is well on its way to self-sufficiency, as it strives to find the form of maximum repetition. By switching to a multi-aniblogger mode, it broadens its potential contextuality; anibloggers can refer to entire teamblogs of anibloggers coming harder than omo simultaneously, in a single instance of the meme.

In conclusion, fuck you all, you’re all just goddamn membots, completely co-opted by the meta. You’re one epicly stupid meme away from being memeoids. Watch your asses.

Comrade ghostlightning Re-claims, In Conclusion:

Had to be done, after such an inconclusive attempt at a conclusion. That said, lolikappa’s use of a maho shoujo wand and a dance sequence turning all of you into memecha titillates me into hoping for another memetic neon genesis. See what we did here! In tracking the development of a forced meme we’re forcing an entirely new one! I think I just came harder than omo. This post is omosexual.