I got a new package of toys from japan today, so I wanted to do a post about that.  I will later today, it’s just that my camera’s batteries are dead, so I’m writing while waiting for them to recharge.

I really want to play No More Heroes 2 more, but I feel like it’s such a good game that I want to be able to sit uninterrupted so I can play it without worries.  I haven’t really had that kinda time.  Well, there was a lot of snow here in Pittsburgh last week, but I was feeling too cold to game and wound up watching videos of other things instead.  Rest assured, once I complete the game, I will give you my full review of it.  I feel it would be irresponsible to give a review after only playing partway.

I got accepted to a graduate program recently.  I’m terribly excited about that.  It’s a place I’d like to go to, too, so even if my other applications wind up duds, I’ll be happy.  However, the deadline for 3 schools I applied to were just this monday,  and one deadline has yet to happen, so I don’t imagine those schools are very far in reviewing my application.  I want to give them ample time to make a decision, so I have a lot of options.  While it’s nice to have options, nothing relieves you more than that first acceptance.

Speaking of acceptances, my friend ‘The Japanologist’ got accepted to one of her top choices recently as well.  Terribly happy for her.

There are two reasons that today, of all days, I’m finally blogging again.  One is, just a few days ago, I read a terribly spirited and informative blog post that I had been linked to at random:

http://fuzakenna.com/2010/01/06/stop-using-the-term-tsundere-you-fcking-assholes/

I’m not a fan of Tsundere or the sorts of shows referenced, but I know what the word means and have heard of the shows.   At least, I have an idea of what the word means.  Apparently my definition is dated.  But that isn’t what I find important.  I was just inspired by it, I don’t know why.  It kinda just popped at me like a good quality post.  An honest explosion of emotion of something important to the writer, with facts to back it up.  And being wrong or right didn’t matter either (like, my definition of Tsundere differs, for example), because hey, it’s a blog, you don’t have to be universally right.  I guess I kinda forgot that, built up blogging as a big idea in my head, felt I needed to get a bunch of facts and not tell people stuff they already know.  I guess I forgot what the spirit of blogging was, and this article just showed me the way.

While I read a lot of other blogs and am regularly impressed by Oguie Maniax, ( http://ogiuemaniax.wordpress.com/ ) and talk to the author a lot about his blog posts,  it always makes me feel rather daunted, because of how regularly he is able to provide such high-quality content.  Maybe by looking up to him so much I am holding myself up to a high standard.  But, oh well, I’ll forge my own path and not worry so much.

The other reason is, well, content.  There’s a lot of things I’d been thinking about writing, and in the long time since my last post I’ve built up so much I don’t know how to space it.  But today, I received a package  I ordered from japan.  I’ve taken pictures of older things too, in the off-time, and will post those eventually, but I might as well blog about what’s current with me.  And I just received some new paraphernalia from my favorite shows.  So, gonna blog about it!

Still a while before that battery reaches full charge, but I think I’ve kept you all waiting more than long enough.

As you can probably tell by checking the dates of my blog posts, I haven’t written anything for a while before this.  I have half a post saved on my computer, and a lot of ideas in my head, but nothing has been happening.  Part of this is that I hold myself to a high standard, another part is that I’ve been in a bit of a depressive funk thanks to stuff going on lately, and the last part is just plain lazy.

I mean, I’ve been talking about anime-related stuff, but no science, but the goal of this blog was to be a hybrid.  So part of why I have been avoiding posting is I’ve been feeling bad that there’s no math/science content.  Like, for a long time now I’ve been intending on declaring that Cantor was a Jerk, and stating the reasons why.

But my funk has put me in a mood where I don’t want to talk about Cantor and infinite numbers and such, so nothing gets done.  I feel like I’m somehow not academically proficient enough as of late to want to talk about things of an academic nature.

Anyways, now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, I feel like I’m going to be more able to write stuff.

At the very least, I’ll try to put some effort into photogalleries soon.  I haven’t quite determined how I’m going to mount my lamps around my lightbox, as while I could rig together something really quickly for just one shoot, I want an easily repeatable mounting system for consistent lighting.

tl;dr ver:

Sorry for not writing anything.  Will work on it.

I have a friend, whom I shall occasionally refer to as a “Japanologist”, who is at fault for yesterday’s experience. She’s an Asian Studies major with whom I’ve been friends with for quite a while. Before she was an Asian Studies major, she was in Physics, and got a BS in physics, and also a BA in Japanese. She’s more or less abandoned the physics, but I still consider her a peer. As such, I have decided that as she’s a scientist she should be pursuing everything in a scientific manner, so since she’s studying Japanese and other East Asian things, she must be a “Japanologist”. Just the usual poor attempts at humor, and an odd nickname, from me, really.

The Japanologist friend of mine is an Asian Studies major at Pitt. She informed me on Friday night of a symposium I might take interest in. It all looked pretty boring, for I have no interest in Noh Drama and things like that. There was a segment devoted to videogames, but I’ve never thought highly of ‘professional’ interpretations of the video game industry, being a longtime gamer myself. Usually I find myself disappointed, so I decided not to go, to avoid such disappointment. I was about set on not attending the event at all until I noticed Goichi Suda, aka suda51, was attending. I was amazed, and decided I would go.

I arrived at the 2009 Toshiba International Foundation Symposium just after the segment prior to the video game segment, so I had time to sit down next to the Japanologist, and catch up with an old Japanese teacher of mine who happened to be sitting in the row in front of us. Then, the segment “International Influence of Videogames” began. Two associate professors and a PhD candidate did presentations before Suda51′s turn. My memory of the presentations is still a little hazy, so I’m getting the Japanologist to help me out in describing them. All in all they weren’t bad, and I regret not having brought material with which to take notes.

The best of the three presenters, probably, was a professor from MIT and Ohio University, Mio Consalvo. The first sentence spoke well of how relaxed she was as a presenter. I forget the exact line but she apologized for being a “noob” to the Japanese side of things, instead being someone who researches games. She talked briefly on how games are viewed differently in japan in terms of how they fit into the story, using the box art of a Gundam 00 game for the DS as an example. She didn’t really get into this in very good detail and didn’t talk much about the direct relevant of Gundam aside from claiming it was relevant, which I found disappointing. She then talked about how Japanese companies are working on globalizing games, how Japanese companies aren’t doing as well as they used to be in foreign soil, etc. Then she talked about games themselves. Final Fantasy XI was a key focus, due to the co-mingling of users from different continents on the same server, which contrasts with how other online MMOs do business. Positive and negative consequences of this were discussed, like the opportunity for a thriving cross-cultural community but also issues with players taking offense at people from other countries not following the unspoken rules of parties. Quotes from real gamers and other anecdotes abounded.

She then went on to describe some of the practices of Western Otaku and how it relates to this. Some examples were the hacks made to turn off the autotranslator, and more general things like what sorts of things cause people to take interest in Japanese stuff. I know of at least one project of people trying to translate a game, Super Robot Taisen J, so that people who don’t know much Japanese can appreciate it. This was more or less in line with what she was saying, about how fans want to be able to give back to the community. Another point which rang even truer with me was that interest in Japanese games leads to more interest in general in Japanese culture. I have a copy of “Rockman & Forte” for the Super Famicom that I bought in 1999 because I was terribly dissapointed in the fact that the early death of the SNES in America killing its chances of being released domestically. It’s been so long I forget where exactly this event was in the history of my interest in Japanese products and culture, but this spurred on interest somewhat. So, the segment related to this wasn’t exactly news to me, but still a clear sign she was doing something right.

Next was Yuko Aoyama from Clark University. This was a somewhat dry, historical look at the evolution of the videogame industry in three different cultures and how the industry has been evolving up until now. It was very enlightening, more so than the first presentation, though not as upbeat. The basic breakdown was that Japan’s comic and film industry had a lot more people in common with the upstart videogame makers in Japan, while in America these groups were distinctly disjoint, instead sharing only people with consumer electronics and computer-background people, and that the UK was somewhat similar to America. She then talked about the evolution of the industry, the times it almost failed, and that user-created content is up and new, whereas the Wii seems to take the philosophy of “The Consumer doesn’t know what’s good for them”, using an old quote from someone else as an example of where this philosophy comes from, and that they abandoned the Hardcore.

I found this amusing, that she was saying this in the presence of the maker of No More Heroes.

(I don’t full agree with that being Nintendo’s objective, but it should be pointed out that they’re walking their own path because they’ve been pretty successful so far. They outlived Sega, and manage to still survive after the terrible setbacks the PS1 set for them, to be alive today. I think a quote that sums this up comes from the times of some new Zelda’s (I think it was Twilight Princess) early development. There was some question as to whether or not a Zelda game needed voice-acting. Reggie Fils-Aime said in response about one criticizer “Matt said Zelda won’t be epic without voices. I remember the last time Matt made a critically acclaimed game. It was called the Mailbag.” It’s not that Nintendo doesn’t care, but they’ve been in this business long enough to think they know what’s best. How true this is remains to be seen.)

The third presentation was given by Rebecca Carlson, a PhD candidate from the University of Pittsburgh. The project and potentially presentation slides were done by both her and Jonathan Corliss, but only Carlson did the presentation. While Consalvo was relaxed and confident and Aoyama was serious and confident, Carlson came off distinctly less confident than the other two, and maybe a little under pressure. Given that the other two are established Associate Professors, it in retrospect seemed natural for a prospective PhD to not be as experienced in presenting. Still, this sort of effected how well I remembered the material and how well the various parts seemed to flow together. The general theme of the talk was about the man-machine interface, using pictures from Ghost in the Shell and asking about where, in high technology, humans end and technology begins. In videogames, there’s a similar degree of immersion, in both the immersion of the world and forming a bond with your character, and that the videogame interface becomes a part of you as you explore these virtual worlds. Then, she moved on to discuss the more immersive games having very unique worlds that are often damaged by localization. This bit was hard to follow; while the individual points made sense, the linking between them felt like it could’ve been more clear. She did use killer7 as an example, I believe being used as showing how a game can cross cultural borders. Again, interesting since Suda51 was there.

Finally, after all that, the moment I had been waiting for occurred.  Suda51 got up to give a presentation. As he began to speak in Japanese and his translator translated, my heart dropped a little bit. There was, perhaps, a countably infinite number of things I wanted to talk to him about or ask him about. However, my knowledge of Japanese is a little weak, and I realized that I was unable to articulate most of what I wanted to say into Japanese. The previous presentations had run longer than the folks at the symposium were expecting, so Mr. Suda dropped a lot of material from his presentation. He had planned to talk a lot about different game types in different regions, judging by the omitted slides. I would’ve liked to hear his take on it, but oh well. He talked about his time at Human Entertainment, and how the games he made during that time were only for Japanese audiences. Then, he talked about his time in Grasshopper Manufacture, and focused chiefly on his experience in making killer7. A picture of the game’s box, and of No More Heroes’ box both appeared on the screen behind him as he discussed killer7. killer7 was his chance to make a game entirely the way he wanted to do it, so all the inspiration came from himself. For NMH he wanted to make it a bigger hit internationally so he looked to other forms of media for inspiration, and thus it was difficult. According to his translator he said that “making a game is a lot like taking a dump”. Generally, a lot more time was spent discussing killer7, however. This was probably due to time constraints, but I’m just guessing. He then discussed how he ran things at Grasshopper Manufacture. He closed with a picture of No More Heroes 2, and said it would be coming out in January.

So, after things wrapped up, there was where the excitement began. Let me say this to start; I’m quite bad at talking to people who I feel are seriously important. Combined with having to carry out the discussion in a foreign language, I was terribly nervous. I asked my Japanologist if she’d translate for me, but she was quite rusty when it came to Japanese as well, given that she’s been taking a lot of courses focusing on Asia as a whole. Also, I didn’t know what I wanted to say, which of course makes it hard to translate. I waited patiently as another pair of students with rusty Japanese talked to him. He’s very patient with this, which relieved me. I told my friend a few things that I planned on saying, to work it out in my mind, in case I stalled up. So, eventually, I talked to him, shook his hand, and tried to speak to him in Japanese to tell him that I was a big fan of No More Heroes and that I was very grateful he made the game. I perhaps spoke Japanese faster than I ever had before, traveling through filler words (ano, eto) at an amazing rate. Somewhere along the line I stalled up and had my friend explain for me. She was stalling too. I ended with an incomplete thought, that I was glad he had the courage to make such a violent game for the Wii. Were I speaking in English, I would have elaborated on it, but he seemed to get it. I then tried to say that I was looking forward to the sequel, only to flop at the end by forgetting how to say “look forward to”, so the Japanologist offered a few words, one of which was “look forward to” and the other of which was “buy”. I almost forgot that I had asked my friend to take our picture, only remembering when she asked him if she could take a picture of us.

And then we left. I was terribly excited afterwards. I regretted not having brought my copy of NMH for him to sign. My friend was pretty freaked out as well, largely by me putting her on the spot to speak Japanese. But aside from that, it was amazing.

If you’re gonna take it, don’t freak out. I totally freaked out at first. Someone told me that how I scored on the exam would be a key factor in determining what grad schools I can get into. While this is still more or less true, supposedly a good record in research (represented by good letters of reccomendation from the people you do research for) can make a lot of difference. After all, they want to know you’ll be able to do the research even more than they want to know you’ll be able to keep up with the course work. Also, based on what I hear from people and from looking at websites, if you get above the 50% percentile, you still have a chance of getting into places, just maybe not all the places you’ve dreamed of. Of course, the only way I can verify this is to see my score and how many places accept me, so the answer may be a while in coming if at all. Furthermore, they say that if you take the test twice, graduate institutions will be more likely to overlook the worse of the two scores. In my panic, I signed up for both the October and November tests. After my relief when taking the test for real, I’m not sure I need the second one, but it couldn’t hurt. If I really wanted the money back for the second one, I believe I could get it.

The test itself wasn’t all that bad. Based on my practice exam scores I’d say it’s not all that bad to not answer all of the questions. I got a worse score on my second practice by trying too hard to guess at things I only remembered vaguely. The problems actually seemed easier than the one on my practice exams. Plus there are a lot of tricks to make it easier. I’ve always been told good things about using dimensional analysis (seeing which answers are in the right units and selecting based on that), but I get the feeling the ETS is on to that method because it didn’t apply in terribly many problems. Still, it’s a nice tool to use. Based on the grading system, guessing when you’ve gotten it down to 2 seems pretty worthwhile. Sometimes I can’t remember if a particular equation used a sine or a cosine, so I guessed on at least one question where this was an issue. A wooden #2 pencil can make an excellent and subtle random number generator for guessing. I still only used this method when it was down to 2 possible answers.

I was at least somewhat under-prepared for this exam, despite my confidence in it. Opting to take the exam after college was over was a bad idea on my part. At the time, I thought I had too much on my plate to handle studying for the exam, but a lot of the material was that which was covered in my first 2 years of college, and covered again in more rigor in my junior year. Anyone looking to take the test should keep this in mind. There were a number of questions that I left blank because it had been far too long since I last touched upon the material with enough thoroughness to feel comfortable. I didn’t hit the books until about august, my summer wasted being glad I was done with college. I probably would’ve taken the GRE during college if I had landed a tutoring job due to the nature of the material. I had the chance to, but I was on the fence between tutoring and lab grading, because it would be my second year as a lab grading, which would make the job a little less painful. Ultimately I decided to tutor, but the indecision made me miss the time window for the job. Our department was small, so positions were fairly limited.

Despite these mistakes, hope is not lost for me, and we’ll see how this all bodes for me in the future. There’s still plenty of time for me to get in better shape for next time.

Most institutions offering a PhD in physics seem to require the GRE. I think in theory this is a pretty good idea, because not all grad schools are familiar with the amount of rigor in each college, and a B in two different, supposedly equivalent physics courses may represent a different level of mastery of the material. However, it’s sort of a pain that it’s the only people to go to for this, because they have no competition and can name their own prices. It’s $20 to have the people from the GRE send your scores to institutions you’re applying to. And that’s not even for a full official document; they send an electronic copy. That’s pretty crazy. if it was a full official-looking piece of paper that had to be snail-mailed over, I suppose $20 is justified. However, they’re willing to automatically send your scores to a select number of instutuions automatically when you take the exam, no extra charge. The problem here is knowing ahead of time where you want to go. I picked some places I was interested in, but I still haven’t made my whole list. If you’re strapped for cash and looking to apply to grad school, value these bonus sends they’re giving you.

I hope this was helpful for anyone looking to take the GRE in the future.

Originally aired in japan in 1997, fansubbed somewhere near the early 2000s, released in 2006 and 2007. It’s truly an awesome show, but its English release is such a shame. The first half of the series was released in its full glory, with a pretty good English language cast, but poor sales caused the second half to be released only with the Japanese audio track. It is highly unlikely that we’ll ever see its sequel OVA.

Rumor has it that ADV’s release of GodSoul Merged Godannar lead Media Blasters to believe that the market was ready for this sort of show. Well, that would be half-true. Both are good mecha shows that attempt to revive the spirit of the 70s robot anime while giving it a slightly more modern approach, using the animation style of their time. Godannar, however, is rife with fanservice, so it appeals to a broader audience. Furthermore, Godannar is inherently faster in pace; GaoGaiGar takes a good number of episodes to really get started with the awesomeness. Also, there was a stark difference in the advertising campaign. Maybe I missed something, but what I saw from GaoGaiGar’s marketing was incredibly lackluster. Most of the trailers were just clips from the show, the playing of the theme, and text on the screen talking about how it was better than Voltron, etc, (this company was also working on the re-releases of voltron). Godannar had a fully-voiced trailer talking about all the things that were going on in the first episode, how zany it was, and emphasized the fanservice elements. It made it a lot easier for a person not knowing anything about the show to tell what it was about, and whether or not they would like it. GaoGaiGar was being sold entirely as another super robot show, and rather a bland one at that which people were rather generically telling you was good. Furthermore, fans of the original Voltron are not necessarily the same as modern super robot fans or vice-versa. There’s a strong nostalgia factor within Voltron thanks to its release so long ago.

Let’s move on to why I like it, though. The reasons are many and disconnected. The show is all about the power of courage and not giving up. After all, it was made as a kids’ show while trying to have an older audience appeal. So, there are two main characters, to match this. 8-year-old Mamoru is intended for the children to relate to, while 20-year-old Gai Shishioh is an all-around awesome and courageous fellow for the older audience to relate to. Gai is a pilot, and does the fighting, so anyone who ever thought “man, I’d like to drive a robot” would even further relate to Gai. However, Gai is a cyborg, but it gives him good motivation. Sure, there are pilots who want to save the world because the world needs saving, but two years before the beginning, the boss nearly killed Gai. So, there’s both a revenge factor, and the fact that since he was given a further lease on life, he wants to use it to fight to protect people. AI-driven robots made by mankind aid Gai in his fight, and they’re all individually pretty awesome. Of specific note is the ninja robot Volfogg and the American-made rock-and-roll sound-based-combat robot Mic Sounders. The enemies are decently well-developed characters as well. In each story arc there’s a leader and several generals along with the monsters of the day. You don’t terribly get a feeling for the generals’ motivation in a way you can identify yet, but they are unique and impressive.

The show just seems simple at first, like it’s just another show, but as it goes on in episodes it just begins to feel more complicated and unique. The awesomeness and epicness factors increase over time as well. I really don’t want to spoil it for people, so I’m sorry for being vague here. I’m not sure I’d go so far as to call it more mature later on, but it’s neither immature nor mature. There are immature moments, of course.

The message of the show is that courage and guts can change the balance, that friendship can conquer, etc. The emphasis on courage is pretty high. You could call it unrealistic in its optimism, but it should also be noted that this was made two years after Evangelion, which put a very gloomy and depressing spin on the show. This show sort of stands in the face of that. Evangelion was trying to create a revolution compared to how giant robot shows were in the 90s, bringing back the angst and seriousness that were had in the mid-80s, and I feel like GaoGaiGar tries to combat that new wave by calling back to the good old days of the 70s

I like how things are organized and presented in the show, from an aesthetics point of view. The organization in charge of the good guys works under the approval of the UN and has several branch bases. This isn’t just some crazy Japanese scientist with a research center. They try to be scientific about things too, not just leading us to imagine there’s some science behind it, and they are also practical. In order to reduce damage to the city, GaoGaiGar has a tool which uses dimensional warping to create a subspace to have a battle limit in. It certainly sounds scientific when presented, even if it’s all pseudo-science. Also, the subspace has a time limit of 30 seconds, and the enemies try to exploit this. And I’m sure everyone wants to know, as it’s a combiner, why the enemies don’t attack while it’s combining. Well, the first step to this process is the creation of a sort of protective typhoon to force enemies away. If the combination takes too long, there’s a chance that the enemy will force its way in, and will need to be pushed back out before the process is over. You can tell that a lot of thought was put into everything going on.

Before I finish, I am going to speak a little about the English dub. First of all, Mike Sinterniklaas is amazing as the main character, Gai, and really feels like he’s giving it his all. When he yells attack names it really feels authentic. He also gets props for being the only person in the series to be able to properly pronounce the title robot’s name. It’s more of a gaoGAIgar, where most of the rest of the cast goes by GAOgaiger. Dan Green, playing commander Taiga, is mostly doing the Yami Yugi voice, with a little alteration, but it’s enjoyable and fitting for his character. Everyone else did a fine job, too, of course. I almost feel bad for singling him out, but the narrator was just meh. I mean, the voice of the narrator in Japanese felt truly epic, and the English voice just didn’t try to emulate that. I can’t blame him either, for it’s a voice that’s difficult to compete with. Some voice talents are just that unique. It’s really a damn shame that it was never completed, but budget issues are budget issues and the industry has been rather down as of late.

This is an element of the suspension of disbelief. You’re looking at a world you don’t have full access to, and assuming that because it looks like it works, it must work.

Another way of thinking about this is in Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion. In the first season, every time Zero comes up with a stunning and amazing plan, you see a lot of the groundwork and preparation for that plan. In season 2 (known as R2), sometimes he’ll just arrive on-scene with a plan, and you never get to see how he came up with it. An example that immideately comes to mind is in episode 8 of R2. A friend of mine had complained that it’s less good this way, that he wants to see all the planning steps. I think that this is better, because by this point we know how Zero’s powers work, it’d just be boring to see him use them again because it wastes time that could be used on action. It just feels like a reasonable assumption that he has the capacity to perform such a task.

So when Professor Saotome of the Saotome Institute says he knows how Getter Rays work and he knows how to utilize them, it’s safe to believe him. It’s thereby safe to say that Getter Rays work in such a way that they can be used because this scientist says he knows. And it’s safe to say he’s a scientist because, in his show, his institute is famous, and he has a lot of people working for him. You’d think if he was a quack that some other scientists would come down on him, his reputation would be ruined, and nobody would work for him.

So dispite the fact that Getter Rays are among the more crazy fictional energy sources out there, it can be believed, to an extent, that things on the show are made possible thanks to them.

Now, of course, this sort of thing will always hinge upon at least one or two leaps of faith. In the above example, the leap of faith was that this magical energy source even exists. So, as scientists, we could start scrutinizing at this, looking at how getter rays work, determining that they could never exist, etc..

Or we could not. Because that just makes the show unwatchable. It’s important to be able to, when necessary, separate our personal and professional lives. That doesn’t mean we should do so always, or I’d be a hypocrite for making this blog. But, without being able to sit down and not worry, we can’t enjoy the shows. Shows try to have meaning and give messages, and anyone who gets stuck in the details is missing out.

Scrutinizing over how science is portrayed in fiction is certainly allowable, and interesting and creative discussions can stem from it. But, fiction is meant to be enjoyed, and if you can’t suspend disbelief at least for long enough to enjoy it, you’re missing out.

This paradox held within is, of course, in reference to the content this blog will someday hold.  My professional interests lie within physics.  I hold a Bachelor of Science in Physics (and also one in Math).  However, my hobbies are, almost entirely, about science fiction and the physically impossible/implausible.  Many see a problem in this, though there are some who are not.

After all, as a budding physicist, I should know better than anyone else how impossible what I watch is.  At least, this is what some people, scientists and non-scientists alike, tell me.

But that’s not the point.  I can recognize the difference between fantasy and reality; I know the definition of the word ‘fiction’.  In the context of video games, giant robot shows, superhero shows, and other works of fiction, physics is placed in a secondary role to the story, and dramatic embellishment is applied liberally.  And that’s fine.

But it’s fun to imagine.  It’s a great diversion from your everyday life to look at something physically impossible and imagine what the implications would be in a world where such things existed.

But I digress.  The point of the name is that this here blog is a composition of my work/lifegoals and my hobbies.  Being that those are physics (which Quantum Mechanics is a sub-field of), and sci-fi (which Giant Robots are arguably a sub-field of), the name felt appropriate.  I intend to talk about both subjects at length, both separately and in a connected sense.

I hope you enjoy it, whether you like sci-fi, science, both, or neither!

The result is what you will see after the jump; the best non-thesis essay of my college career, rivaled only by my paper on Hawking Radiation for laymen:  How Kamen Rider Kabuto, the series, demonstrates themes discussed by Friedrich Niezstche.

((Note:  Contains mild spoilers for Kamen Rider Kabuto.  You’d best avoid this if you intend to see the series already)) In Nietzsche’s writings, “On the Genealogy of Morals”, he discusses the ideas of Ressentiment and Creativity, and the origin of the notion of ‘good’. The conflict between Creativity and Ressentiment can be seen in many TV Shows and Films, but I find Kamen Rider Kabuto to be a particularly good example. In addition to discussing this conflict, the show also touches upon the idea of the Ubermensch, another product of Nietzsche’s philosophies. I will now attempt to show just how illustrative this 21st-century Japanese show is of the thoughts of this 19th-century German philosopher.
When describing his own ideas of the origins of morals, Nietzsche is quick to reject the traditional origins of the notions of Good and Evil. Rejecting the claim that “good” was given as a name to actions that were desired by society, he suggests that the idea of Good was made by the nobles. As it is the nature of noble people to distance themselves from the ignoble, they refer to themselves as good, or pure, while the ignoble are pitiable and bad. This forms the basis of the Master Morality, which the strong abide by.
On the other hand, the weak and downtrodden hate their oppressors. They hate their superiors because they use their power, usually hurting the weak as a consequence. Instead of growing out of weakness, they create their own morality to villianize the strong. As Nietzsche put it, they “make the bird of prey accountable for being a bird of prey. ”(Nietzsche) So, then, the situation becomes reversed, and the strong become bad. The morality of the downtrodden, or Slave Morality, goes further than that, and qualifies the strong as ‘evil’, as opposed to the Master version of bad, which means pitiable. Nietzsche uses the conflict between the Jews and Romans around the time of Christ as an evidence for this. Then, of course, the weak become ‘good’. The idea of weakness as a ‘good’ quality makes the weak happier about their own situation. Since the weak are coming up with this morality, of course they want a morality which comforts their own situation.
This brings us to the conflict between Ressentiment and Creativity, which is an extension of the conflict in moralities between the Slave and the Master. Ressentiment is the essence of the slave morality, and it is what keeps the slaves as they are, unable to advance. Ressentiment is the feeling of dislike for those ‘better’ than ourselves, compelling us to paint the noble in this negative light. The weak build a morality in which they “compensate themselves with an imaginary revenge. ” (Nietzsche) Rather than driving themselves to be stronger, they tell themselves the state they are in is good enough, and paint up some sort of karmic revenge to damage the prosperous, making their prosperity not seem to be worth it. In short, Ressentiment is about being convinced one is fine as-is, and that those who are not like us are bad and will suffer for it.
Conflicting with Ressentiment is Creativity. Creativity is described as a ‘will to power’, in other words, the mental resolve to become stronger. Rather than be complacent, the strong posses the drive to become stronger. In fact, this is how strength is gained in the first place, by having the will to take it. The complacency of Ressentiment prevents the weak from taking strength, which is why they remain weak. This isn’t to say that strength is easy to obtain. In fact, Creativity represents the mental fortitude to overcome the challenges preventing one from gaining strength. The Master Morality is related to Creativity largely because of seeing weakness as negative and pitiable. Those who have Creativity see their own weaknesses as negative, thus wishing to surpass them and become more good.
The culmination of Creativity is the Ubermensch. While the Ubermensch is not a topic discussed in “the Genealogy of Morals”, it is very relevant to our analysis. Ubermensch can translate as “Superman” or “Overman”. It is a person, or set of people, that are simply Superior. The Ubermensch is ‘over’ us; on a higher level. So, the goal of society should be to reach that state, to become the Ubermensch. This requires great Creativity, and can be seen as a goal to which all Creativity is the means to. When you better yourself, you surpass what you were yesterday, passing over your previous self. You’re able to do more, or do it better. To Nietzsche, the Ubermensch represented the absolute peak, but in fiction we think of anyone who is sufficiently above what normal humans can do. On the subject of idealizing the strong, we move to our analysis of actors in rubber suits.

Japanese Culture is, more so than the United States, rife with Ressentiment. In the United States, it almost feels natural to see someone come up with their own morality such that whoever they are is fine enough, on an individual basis. The fact that this behavior is seen as acceptable is the manifestation of Ressentiment. However, in modern Japanese culture, going against the flow and being different is ‘bad’ and looked down upon. The mediocre masses are considered ‘good’, and anyone who disrupts the flow is generally ignored. In any society, the youth are prone to rebellion from the morals of their parents. Thus we find that a lot of media oriented towards the youths and young adults of Japan have their fair share of individualist overtones. In one particular series, Kamen Rider Kabuto, we find a clash between the individualist and society with plenty of symbolism Nietzsche might be able to appreciate.
Kamen Rider Kabuto is a live-action show for children, teens, and young adults made in 2006. It shares similarities to Super Sentai (better known as Power Rangers in the US) in that it relies largely on people in jumpsuits fighting against monsters, with lots of special effects placed in. However, instead of a team, Kamen Rider usually features a singular protagonist, or small group of independent parties. The series starts anew each year, with a completely new cast and new story. While Kamen Rider and Super Sentai both air within the same hour, Kamen Rider’s targeted age demographic is significantly higher, ranging into young adults. The stories of these heroes in Japan are considerably more deep than the Power Rangers programs we in the U.S. Have been accustomed to. Despite the story having several levels, only the major premise is necessary for an understanding of Nietzsche’s relevance. Basically, seven years before the series starts, a big rock fell from earth, messed up part of Japan, and brought with it insect-like monsters that can also shape-shift into humans. The secretive paramilitary organization, ZECT, combats these aliens, but has also prepared a special system only a select few people can use, allowing them to turn into Kamen Riders to fight the bugs.
The protagonist, Souji Tendou is the essence of what Nietzsche refers to as the Ubermensch. He lacks the modesty of the common Japanese man, and sees himself as highly important. His personal catchphrase, a possible interpretation of his name, is “He who walks the path of heaven, the one who will rule over all.” This arrogance is not unwarranted; he is an exceptional human being with a wide variety of skills. The arrival of a meteorite seven years before the series motivated him to be something better, for he knew he had a great destiny to fulfill. During those seven years before the series, he passed up on post-highschool education to better himself and become the best he could be. This is also in line with Nietszche’s idea of an Ubermensch, in so far as having the desire to go above and beyond what he was yesterday. We begin the series with this very confident, skilled man as the protagonist.
The idea of the Ubermensch further takes form when you take into consideration the fact that the show is, more or less, about superheroes. The ability to transform into a masked hero in a high-tech suit can be superficially seen as akin to being an Ubermensch. Through means unknown to us through most of the series, Souji has possession of an object called the Rider Belt. When Souji calls forth for it, the high-tech ‘Kabuto Zecter’ flies to his location, and when he attaches the Zecter to his belt, he is immediately wrapped in high-tech body armor, becoming Kamen Rider Kabuto. In this state he is able to properly combat the ‘Worms’, the enemies of the show, on a one-on-one basis. This is not a task just anyone can do, which is why this system was developed in the first place. The organization who built the Kabuto Zecter, ZECT, has made mass-production suits for their personal army, but their efficiency in fighting Worms is severely less-so. Just by having the ability to become Kabuto, Souji is on a higher level than normal people.
The ability to become a Kamen Rider is limited to a small group of people, further distinguishing the status. As it is revealed in the supplemental piece “Kamen Rider Kabuto Hyper Battle Video“, the Zecters respond to certain people based on their excelling in certain emotional characteristics. Kabuto Zecter resonates with Souji’s self-confidence and skill, which is why it comes when he calls for it, allowing him and no others to become Kabuto. The audience is given an inkling of this concept earlier in the series when TheBee Zecter stops responding to Sou Yaguruma when he abandons philosophies of teamwork (to which TheBee responds) for selfishness and anger at Souji. So, for being exceptional in his greatness and self-confidence, which are inherently signs of his creativity, Souji Tendou is able to reach this Ubermensch state. But, Souji’s creativity is openly countered by other characters, so it is necessary to stop and inspect the character who serves as a foil for our protagonist, Arata Kagami.
Compared to Souji, Arata is a much more normal individual. In many ways, during the early series, he personifies the slave morality contrasting to Souji’s master morality. Arata sees Souji’s high level of confidence as arrogance. Souji insists on always doing things his own way, and Arata sees this as a bother. Souji’s egoism and showiness, even the mere fact that he’s good at something and can display such a skill (like cooking) prompts Arata to complain. Furthermore, the two are not friends, at least not until the end of the series. Souji specifically refuses to be Arata’s friends, for the sake of Arata’s own growth. It is for this reason that, during the series, Arata and Souji always speak to and about each other on a last-name basis. In Japanese this signifies a more distant, formal relationship. When Arata doesn’t want Souji’s friendship, he says things like “Who’d want to be friends with that stuck-up jerk”. At other times, however, Arata badly wants to be friends with Souji and dislikes how distant Souji is, despite the fact that he will frequently exchange this distance. In all of these examples, Arata displays Ressentiment for Souji.
However, Arata himself is not completely bound to Ressentiment and the Slave Morality. He is more of a self-repressed individual. This is most easily seen by his shaky relationship with Souji. Arata envies Souji’s creativity, his willingness to take power. He wants power for himself, and to be independent. Several times in the series, Arata’s father, a police chief, requests his son join the police force or ZECT’s military division. Arata rejects this, preferring to do things his own way, having a part-time job with ZECT’s intelligence team, and another part-time job at a cafe. At the Cafe, he usually finds himself unable to properly express his affection for a chef working there, despite that being why he’s working there to begin with. He also has a strong sense of justice, and wants to be of help fighting the enemies plaguing Japan. The first time Souji becomes Kamen Rider Kabuto, Arata had acted on his own in an attempt to become the hero himself, only to have this opportunity stolen by the more-worthy Souji. This serves as a key point for their relationship, and why the idea of slave morality does not completely apply to Arata. Because of his envy, Arata can only think of Souji as ‘bad’, not as ‘evil’ as the slave morality dictates. Souji represents the greatness Arata wishes he could achieve, so Arata cannot truly hate him.
Eventually, Arata is able to overcome himself; able to become an Ubermensch. In order to combat the aliens, Arata attempts to harness the power of the so-called ‘strongest’ rider, Kamen Rider Gatack. His first attempt is unsuccessful; and he gets beaten up by the Gatack Zecter in the process. Despite this, he insists on continuing to try. Whether you see his goal as altruistic, or as branching from a desire to surpass Souji, the process is about bettering himself, and becoming more than he was before. By surpassing his limitations, Arata eventually becomes Kamen Rider Gatack, the Gatack Zecter responding to Arata’s desire to be straightforward in his actions. Arata isn’t mimicking Souji, nor does he try to for most of the series (with a few exceptions). When becoming his own Ubermensch, his own Kamen Rider, Arata follows his own path in life, and continues to conflict with Souji, even when both are working toward a common good. However, Arata has overcome his sense of Ressentiment to reach this point, for the Ubermensch represents Creativity. Despite everyone having told him to give up when pursuing the Gatack Zecter, he refused to give in to the societal Ressentiment that had been holding back his actions earlier. Instead, he has embraced Creativity, making Arata himself, without Souji, a character representing a clash between Ressentiment and Creativity.
The only inherent problem with the story, from a Nietzscheian perspective, is the de-emphasis of Slave Morality and Master Morality. Souji takes himself to be Noble and Good, but he does not look down on those beneath him. Furthermore, as we have shown, Souji is not painted as ‘evil’ by those ascribing to Slave Morality, at least those whom we see. The hate felt for Souji by Sou Yaguruma is related to a direct interference, and Sou takes matters into his own hands rather than spend time painting his opponent as evil. Aside from that, Ressentiment and Creativity are both well-represented by Arata and Souji, the two focal characters. Furthermore, the idea of the Ubermensch is tackled on multiple levels, making Kamen Rider Kabuto (the show) a good example of Nietzsche’s ideology.

Works cited:

Kamen Rider Kabuto Prod. Atsushi Kaji, Shinichiro Shirakura, Naomi Takebe, starring Hiro
Mizushima, Yuuki Sato, Ishinomori productions and Toei, 2006. Retrieved from www.veoh.com,
translated by TV-Nihon.

Nietzsche, Friedrich. “The Nietzsche Channel – On the Geneology of Morals: Preface and first Essay.”
The Nietzsche Channel. 2009. 24 Apr 2009 <http://www.geocities.com/thenietzschechannel/onthe.htm>.

Information about Ubermensch gathered from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubermensch

Original work created/submitted 4/27/2009