Temporal Paralysis

It’s been a long time since I last blogged about anime or post up pictures from my DSLR. My apologies: I started working in the middle of last month, so it takes time to adjust to the timing and tempo.

That said, I’m happy to note that I’ve been updating myself on the latest trends in the anime spring season of 2009, but that’s not the point of this post.

Much of my topic now is about how Hollywood decided to milk the cash cow that is the Japanophilia trend: the rise of the anime/manga/gaming subculture (otherwise known as the ACG subculture). For sometime after the release of Dragonball Evolution, many critics have panned against the movie: the neutrals simply call it "a disaster" while those who followed the anime trends call it "a bad adaptation of the most loved anime series." I wouldn’t agree more with them: Hollywood failed to capture the hearts and minds of the fans, as far as I am concerned, as part of the ACG subculture.

But my worry – and my greatest fear – is that should Hollywood perfected the milking process of milking the cash cow out of the ACG community, it becomes a "junp the shark" situation, where the relevance of the fan community surrounding a hobby whittles down to become nothing more than consumers. It’s like how Nintendo Wii totally changed the way the electronic games industry operates: no longer was the "hardcore gamer" the primary target audience, but the other, more "casual" gamers that really bought those expensive but otherwise useless accessories that Nintendo always bolted out every year or so.

The "elite" status that goes along with being part of a subculture that requires an in-depth knowledge of various kinds of stuff: voice actresses, variety of mecha names and their respective pilots, the insane number of girls you can go out with (from eroge, of course), and the directors and producers that make your favourite anime series. Oh, let’s not forget the mangaka that made those pretty manga that you bothered to buy/read.

For how long this "allure" of the ACG subculture will continue to charm me remains to be seen. I still hold onto my hobby, and knowing the trap that goes along with the "buy more expensive gear to improve your photography" meant that I will still be taking my own sweet time to delve deeper into the photography subject. But anime is losing its charm on me.

Let’s face it: the fan community is fractured now, a particular saga has left me in tatters about supporting an industry that literally bites the hands of their consumers, Hollywood is intent on making more adaptations from anime/manga, threatening to make the hobby "more mainstream", and of course, hitting the quarter-life crisis, which has led me to question my relevance in spending too much time about myself, and more time seeking a significant other. It will be either that, or further my studies.

It’s been particularly painful for me: all the Newtype and Animage magazines I acquired in the last year needs to go now. I will have to sell off whatever remains that is related to anime, and sadly figurines are absent in my collection. I will go to one corner now and cry. T_T

My apologies for the 2 week hiatus. As gordon mentioned, I hit that quarter-life crisis. I’m out of work due to contract positions being as they are; I lost 1 week’s worth of efforts due to computer reformats (as part of my computer maintenance) held back by real life commitments; and I am uncertain on where to go next. (I’ve applied for a university course, which you can find out in my introductory post. Pray that I get a spot.)

So, that out of the way, I’ll present to you my (very late) SOYA 2009 pictures. No copyright watermark needed: you can take a look at my blog footer to see where my permission lies. This is my only time I post up a lot of pictures in one post: I am usually very tired to do such things after attending an event.

A note of caution: Over 50 pictures, so again, dial-up and volume-based subscribers, caveat.

Insert same banner you might have probably seen 1000 times elsewhere here.

SOYA ‘09. Finally, I managed to go down to the one event where I failed to do so previously. It’s also a whiff of nostalgia: Ngee Ann Polytechnic was where I studied. I can still remember Canteen 1, and the bloody hawt Accountancy chicks, the dour of a certain Engineering Canteen where it’s tucked at God knows where, and Lecture Halls 20 & 28, where I usually had my lectures.

I arrived around 11:00 a.m. so I hang around to check out on who’s who in the crowd. I spotted my good ol’ friend from my Yishun JC times (during the 3-month orientation), now an NTU undergraduate. I also spotted one friend of mine whom I used to work with for one of my cross-disciplinary module. (S)he’s now having good business selling cosplay items and accessories.

Of course, I hang around just a little bit to find onii-chan Fariz and nii-chan Fuzzy arriving at the area. Blurmage  and the gang arrived soon after. Feidamu, currently studying in Ngee Ann Polytechnic (押す、後輩！), is tasked with security, so we were informed of the rules and regulation, and of the schedule that’s ahead of us.

Evidently the opening act is to start soon, so I grab the seat in Lecture Hall 26 to witness the opening ceremony.

The Japanese Shiro Tsubasa Club have really outdone themselves. Previously, this club was exclusively a Japanese club for the enthusiasts of Japanese culture, but ever since the anime phenomenon exploded back in 2004, they took on newer roles of incorporating the anime subculture as part of their club repertoire. Nevertheless, promoting Japanese culture is essentially Shiro Tsubasa’s primary objective, and they showed.

My apologies for not knowing the head honcho of the club, but the man behind the club activities made its presence known.

My apologies again, but I can only remember one female character from the Final Fantasy series, and I have problems attaching which name is to which costumes. Anyway, these two lovely co-hosts were sweet and sporting in their emceeing of performances scheduled for the event ♥.

The individual cosplay competition came next. So I decided to take some pictures of the individual cosplayers.

Her medal isn’t to be trifled with!

Sasuke in… OK, I forgot what mode he was in. Nice large shuriken, though.

OK, I might be wrong here, but her name is Freya, no, from Chobits? Oh, by the way, the dress looks to kill, in my opinion.

Simca from Air Gear, correct? Also, zettai ryouiki.

After a while, I decided to go out for some breath of fresh air, in the hopes of probably getting some good pictures out of that day’s event.

Large crowd is large.

The day is lively in the afternoon. However, I heard from the Kyodai guys that there was another cosplay event held at Singapore Discovery Centre. The fact that I did not know about this made me _|¯|° . Anyway, I resolved to stay in SOYA ‘09 because I have committed my free time to this event, and shuttling to Boon Lay isn’t my kind of taste.

The people over at Naka-Dashi brought this game (with grace from CDS) to introduce the people of the game of Weirß Schwarz, a trading card game where you can pit anime characters against one another.

Interested parties are encouraged to leave a note at Naka-dashi or Collateral Damage Studios for requests and enquiries about the game.

Whoever made this picture is pure genius! Like a savant!

I guess I should stop my talking. Cosplay pictures ahoy!

Watch out! Shana’s gonna cut someone up!

It’s Simca!

What are you doing, Mage?! This is a public area!

Interestingly enough, there’s one booth in the event itself, that sells replica of weapons.

In which some people take this opportunity to test out their marksmanship.

On your position!

Ready… Aim…

…FIRE!

OK, enough of manly men for you sissies. Let’s move on.

Oh, please. NO!

Now’’s the time for figurine makers to start making this pose…

OMG! REVERSE YAOI! XD

After much mucking around, I decided to take a break from all the madness, and had a lunch at this newfangled eating area next to the Mass Communications faculty on the hills beyond the Convention Centre. No picture, because I am lazy.

So I returned back to see the madness descending onto another level.

I met him when I got distracted – and in the process, lost my fellow friends – in the photo ops. He’s a common feature in Clubsnap, a local photography enthusiast water hole. I was thinking he was MrMayat, because he did left a comment a while back that he’d be attending this event. He was not, alas. However, with this new meeting I was able to know more about photography in the process, and enriched my learning experience. Too bad, Pentaxians in Singapore are a rare breed.

Time to visit the graffiti wall and more booths one last time.

A graffiti artist in action.

Dollfies! <3

The dollfies are having a conversation with their master. Apparently somebody left a note, but I decided not to eavesdrop further, for I fear retribution…

Aww… sleeping nicely…♥

I returned back to the lecture hall for there was a group cosplay competition. Apparently I missed most of it, so I wind up with the remaining two (or was it three..?) teams vying for the winner-bragging rights.

Gundam 00 vs Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Haruhi. Or rather, STOP TOYING WITH US, KYOANI! NO 2ND SEASON, NON!

Suddenly I am GAR for Tieria, and this is confusing me.

I have aversions to magical girl shows, so I cannot explain fully why Haruhi and her gang decided to go mahou on me.

Unfortunately, I did not stayed further to find out the winners of either the solo or group cosplay competition. You’re welcome to tell me the winners.

For the rest of the pictures, I decided to take on the role of an event photographer, taking pictures as it happens. This is different from the usual cosplay events photography, where everyone hogs to one cosplayer to get good shots of the said person.

Events photography is like this:

WTF?! Why are you taking pictures of a tree?

I may never know who this person is…

An amateur photographer learning her ways to become a great photographer.

This person carries a full-frame digital SLR, meaning he’s got way better optics than the rest of us DSLR GWCs can afford.

Hola! Three Amigos!

For some black and white picture attempts (I did some post-processing for the three pictures below):

“Please support Collateral Damage Studios. Their artworks are very top notch.”

A massive queue for that merchandises you always wanted to buy.

That is a Canon EOS 300. Whether it has a ‘D’ suffix at the end is unknown, because I rarely come across white/grey sets of the low-end DSLRs series.

But of course, this is the picture of the moment I want to keep:

NICE PIC!

Hailing from my alma mater, I’m kicking myself in the butt for not attending last year’s SOY 2008. (That’s because NS stints are… well, stink.) So, in not missing the anticipation of attending the first cosplay event in the year 2009, I’m preparing myself for it.

Unfortunately, contract positions have the undesired ability to kill off your employment terms, so I had no chance in investing in a better flash unit. I’m considering bringing in my 18-55mm kit lens, because what the heck am I shooting long-range for?

This is my preparatory post, so yes, I’m expected to be there soon. A couple of famous figures may also be there. If you are looking for me, I’ll be wearing the infamous HDMW’s NS=Sinkies T-shirt. (Many thanks to winsonkoh.)

As you might have noticed, I’ve not been blogging a lot lately, due to work-related stress, and the simple excuse of being too engrossed in my newfound hobby.

Actually, I had this sense of loss for quite a long time. It’s about where I stand in this chaotic world, trying to make sense of it all. It seems like there’s no one proper place where I can chart a linear approach to my life story: everything else has to be done simultaneously, like a part of an Extreme Programming project.

A major contributor of the confusion stems from searching for my identity; others came from my disillusion towards my passion towards anime, the ongoing "copyright wars" (which was why I highlighted some of the books related to that war) and, lastly, my final stand on my country of origin: Singapore.

As a primer, I come from a conservative family, hailing from the largest minority in Singapore. As such, there is greater emphasis for family unity (which is eroding quite rapidly for a large part of Singapore society), maintenance of a moderate lifestyle, and above all else, a strict observance to duty to God.

It can all be very daunting: much like how the Elevens in Code Geass’ Britannia-era Japan have a loathing grudge against the new government, much of my thinking is influenced by the rhetoric of injustices that are hidden behind the facade of "multiculturalism" and "meritocracy." I had tried adopting a "Kino" approach to thinking, and take on views as they are, without psychological filters.

Yet, this sense of loss is perpetrated by various "pull" and "push" factors surrounding my life.

One was my hobby: anime.

Towards the end of 2003, the sense of anime "as a hobby/lifestyle" only began after a risible introduction to, what else, Naruto. It was only when I began to explore other series that anime became a part of my lifestyle.

The entire lifestyle is centred on the Internet, with the approach towards Bittorrent as the main driving force behind the exploration and a deeper understanding of the hobby. It was pretty much how I got into the subculture behind it: the watercooler conversations on forums, introduction to manga, introduction to various seiyuus, introduction to fan-made & fan-driven culture etc.

It pretty much filled a void in my life, giving me a form of distraction to get through with the monotony of daily grind in the schools and, subsequently, National Service. At the same time, it gave me an appreciation in Japanese mentality and culture, and after exposing myself by visiting the country 2 years ago, I found something to relate to.

So I thought everything was fine and dandy. Until…

Thus, came a series of change reactions that eventually changed my perspective towards my hobby.

In that time, however, I researched on the various issues and topics that was related to the case at hand. One of the topics that was continuously featured was the RIAA cases in the US, the DMCA and the various challenges all over the world in regards to the copyright issue.

It was then that the "copyright war" became my next drive against the oppressive actions by companies. Reading after reading of every article that touched on the sensitive issue pointed out to the need for a push factor in legalizing P2P sharing amongst the business entities.

As time goes on, however, real world finally began to creep onto my psyche. At this time, I’ve come out from National Service, and had begun working as a contract worker (a Diploma in IT does not guarantee you a placement in that line until you are on the Dean’s List). Thus began an exercise in introspection.

For a while now, every action that was taken online would be carefully monitored and scrutinized, ensuring that there wouldn’t be any effect on my personal well-being insofar as it not affecting my physical health. But for one thing that brings me back to reality, it’s my family.

(Serious somber tone ahead. This is serious business.)

For a very long time, my family — especially my parents — had a long struggle in this country.

My father formerly worked in an environment where he was able to see through all spectrums of life. My mother was more direct: if you can personify every single ugly Singaporean — and universally hated — values and traits onto one entity, that’d be her in-laws. (She’s not a Singaporean, by the way.)

The circumstances that my family was faced, culminated in the breaking of the camel’s back with the death of my paternal grandmother. She was ultimately loathed by my mother, for the fact that she had been the key figure in torturing my mother’s psychology to oblivion during her first 5 years of marriage.

Yet, it was her children’s (my father’s siblings’) behaviour before, during and after her funeral that really made anyone’s day. Long story short, an utterly retching behaviour unlike any civilized person would do.

And as such, they had believed that Singapore encompasses everything that is hated, loathed and grudged upon. Thus, they decided they had enough of the country.

Emigration is an aspect of social structure that nobody in Singapore are willing to explore. (Good pointer will be Alex the zebra in Madagascar, at 11:38: "Doesn’t it bother you guys that you don’t know anything about life outside the zoo?") The government had given them a good life, so why should they enter the unknown?

If there’s one blog I would refer to as a guide and hope, that would be KnightOfPentacles’ Singapore Serf blog. (Rest in peace, fellow emigrant.)

(End of serious somber tone.)

As I look at a bigger picture, one thing that resonates all too well for me was this:

I lack a purpose.

For all the circumstances and all the situations that I went through, I lack a true purpose in life. Without an aim or a true dream, I felt like Tatsushiro Satou of Welcome to The NHK!. There is a struggle for me to assert who I am, and what I wanted to be in the future.

But for now, anime has taken a slow train ride for me. Even though I still appreciate the medium, the fan community behind it has devolved into an infantile self-parodying blob. I find the covert soft core pornography in many of the shows really cliché and distasteful, the plot too predictable, the character designs too bland (I grew out of the moé phenomenon) and, in truth, the medium has become too commercialised.

I have nothing against the fans that bought the merchandises, figurines and the DVDs: it’s something that they love. It’s the clockwork of routine "hype the show, broadcast it, sell the merchandises, sell broadcasting rights all over Japan and the world, ???, profit" that made me put off by the constant churning out of new shows. The last time I was pulled into anime was Macross Frontier (and probably Code Geass R2). After that, my interest waned.

I grew out of the hobby, because it has become obsessed with superficiality and materialism. I find it very obnoxious, to the point that I could not be arsed to watch anything special about anime.

And so, while two people are fighting away against Oscar, Delta, Echo, X-ray (in which I shall give my 100% support), I shall chart out a new identity on my own, out of the madness that is Singapore, madness that is the anime fan community, and the madness of a quarter-life crisis.

Sometimes, we may all wonder how long will the road take us to. Along the way, multiple crossroads will overwhelm us, confound us and make us despair. In the end, we will reach for what we desire for and achieve a dream for ourselves. For one thing, my school motto will always be my guide: True to Self.