Category: Amish Otaku

All the stuff I published when I ran a nerd blog

Amish Otaku, Features, Kosher Kuts, Nintendo, SNES, Video Games

Kosher Kuts: Super Mario RPG

When I was eleven, I really did not like RPGs. Chrono Trigger’s plotline was too confusing and Final Fantasy seemed too complicated. I just couldn’t wrap my head around the genre. A glimmer of hope resurfaced when I heard about a new RPG starring Mario. Not only Mario, but also a few new characters were present … and Bowser was a playable character? I read about it in Nintendo Power, rented it at Blockbuster, and brought it home soon after returning the rental. Long after I have sold many other Super Nintendo games and moved on to other systems, Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars has remained ingrained in my memory. With the recent introduction of the Wii and its Virtual Console line-up, this game is now available to a whole new generation of RPG fans. Does this eleven-year-old RPG withstand the test of time? Continue reading “Kosher Kuts: Super Mario RPG”

Joshua Goldberg
Amish Otaku, Convention Coverage, Features, Interviews

Interview: Brendan Becker on MAGFest

Brendan Becker, the ringleader of MAGFest, at his finest

Amish Otaku: Do you have an exact number on attendees from this year?

Brendan Becker: Pretty close to 1,000. I don’t think we went over, but essentially that was our target and I’d say we hit it.

AO: How long have you been organizing conventions?

BB: I’ve been organizing videogame events and parties and stuff on a small scale for, uh, quite awhile. But on the order of MAGFest or something with several hundred people, we’re looking at about six years. Continue reading “Interview: Brendan Becker on MAGFest”

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Amish Otaku, Comics, Image

Wonderlost: Love and Angst

 
 

So I was facing another friggin’ deadline, even though I started planning out my stuff for this month’s edition over 3 weeks ago. I had several things written and ready to go and was just waiting for a good night’s rest to clear my head so I could wake up, do a final edit and get everything ready for this issue.

But that night, I read a copy of Wonderlost that I picked up at the comic shop earlier in the day. The deadline was going to have to be pushed back, because more than any other, this is the book I wanted to write about this month.

Wonderlost is an autobiographical anthology about teenage love and loss, raging hormones and broken hearts, and the friendship that remains throughout it all. The book is broken up by Cebulski into six chapters, each illustrated by a different artist. Breaking the book up this way provides for a wonderful shift in tone, not just by the story Cebulski is telling but by the artistic stylings. Continue reading “Wonderlost: Love and Angst”

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Amish Otaku, Comics, Marvel

Civil War

 
 

If our country’s police officers and soldiers need proper education and training before we let them go out and defend our nation or police our streets to keep them safe from danger, why should super heroes be any different? A man with the ability to stick to walls and shoot webs can do so unsupervised? What about someone who can grow to the size of a small building? Or someone who wears a suit of armor with capabilities rivaling a nuclear warship? Why should they be allowed to go about their business in total anonymity without any rules or regulations or consequences? That’s the question raised in Civil War. The answer merely tears the Marvel Universe apart.

The mini-series opens with a group of young, attention-grabbing heroes launching their own raid on a house where a team of super villains is hiding. In order to gain maximum publicity for their captures, the heroes have enlisted a reality television team to capture every moment. Unfortunately, the villains were more than capable of holding their own against the heroes and one of them, Nitro, blows up the city of Stamford, CT, killing hundreds of innocent people. Continue reading “Civil War”

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Amish Otaku, Features

Eastern Culture: Common Suffixes

To be an otaku, one must know the proper suffixes to use—and how to use them. How can you tell when someone is using a suffix? Well, let me introduce “Jane Smith” and “John Brown” for the sake of clarity. In general, Japanese suffixes can be used with first names or last names, unlike “Mr.” or “Mrs./Ms./Miss” in English, which are usually used only with one’s surname.

In everyday life, “-san” (as in “John-san”) is the most common suffix and can be used whenever there is doubt about other forms, although I’ll be covering others in this article as well. Continue reading “Eastern Culture: Common Suffixes”

V.E.
Amish Otaku, Features

Eastern Culture: Manga and Anime Culture Part 1

This semester, I’m conducting an independent study with Franklin & Marshall College’s new Asian history professor, Dr. Richard Reitan. Using the anime Sailor Moon as a keyhole into something deeper, my research will focus on understanding why Japanese popular culture seems fixated on heroines and heroes with Western (Caucasian) features.

In the late nineteenth century, Japan actually looked down upon most other nations as less civilized. Indeed, the Western version of “civilization” in Japan was met with resistance, and in the early twentieth century many Japanese scholars and elites began to profess their belief that Japan and its people had something to offer the Western world without having to conform to its ways. Japan’s collective identity—highly militaristic and male-dominated—remained proud and strong until the end of the Pacific War with the United States and Allied Powers. The nation was truly traumatized after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and their unconditional surrender to the Allies a short time later. Continue reading “Eastern Culture: Manga and Anime Culture Part 1”

V.E.
Amish Otaku, Comics

Lost Gems: Some Comics You May Have Missed the First Time

Shade

Peter Milligan and Chris Bachalo took the Steve Ditko character, completely twisted him around and came up with something totally new, brilliant and original … for the first 50 issues, at least, and then it went down the tubes.

Rac Shade is sent to Earth from the planet Meta in order to track down and fight Madness, which has invaded America as the Scream. Shade used his Vest, which allows him to turn thoughts into reality, to take over the body of Troy Grenzer, a murderer in the electric chair. But the only one he has a chance to convince to help him is Kathy, the daughter of the couple Grenzer killed. In a beautiful twist of type at which Milligan excels, when Kathy finds her parents freshly murdered, her boyfriend Roger wrestles Grenzer and is killed by the police because he’s black and the cops automatically assumed he was the criminal. Continue reading “Lost Gems: Some Comics You May Have Missed the First Time”

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ADV, Amish Otaku, Anime

Utawarerumono: Wait, Excuse Me, He’s Not the Father . . .

 
 

Just in case you’re wondering, it’s Ooh-tah-wah-ray-roo-mo-no. Utawarerumono. Like many of the words in this show, it’s something you’ll have to learn a bit about via outside sources, thanks in no small part to our friends at ADV films.

But I get ahead of myself. For those of you who watched this show on fansub, you’ll know that it has an interesting plot that develops gradually, with characters ranging from unique to tediously archetypical. It’s got attractive, if at times generic, art and the character designs are actually fairly interesting.
For those of you who didn’t… Well, the art is the same, at least. The plot is largely unchanged as well. However, the ADV subtitlers have (in the first volume) managed to severely damage any credibility they may have built up over the years (or at least, this subtitling team has). Continue reading “Utawarerumono: Wait, Excuse Me, He’s Not the Father . . .”

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ADV, Amish Otaku, Anime

Le Chevalier D’Eon: Extravagant and Overrated

 
 

I was given the chance to watch the first episode of Le Chevalier D’Eon before its US release. A 24-episode series based on Tow Ubukata’s historical fantasy novel of the same title, D’Eon was produced by Production I.G., licensed by ADV Films, and previously serialized as a manga.

Unfortunately, unless you like Louis XV, Versailles, and France in general, D’Eon seems bound to disappoint. Aside from the Japanese fascination with all things French (which is inexplicable to me), the first episode has too much voice-over and too little everything else. The title character, D’Eon, is a French noble who joins the king’s secret police after his sister is killed. Her body was filled with mercury so that it wouldn’t decompose, which forced the (Catholic) Church to deny her a proper burial—which, in turn, forced her spirit to wander and periodically overtake D’Eon’s body for her own vengeance. If you don’t understand all that, it’s all right—I don’t really get it either. Continue reading “Le Chevalier D’Eon: Extravagant and Overrated”

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Amish Otaku, Anime, Geneon

Fate/Stay Night: Another Way to Look at Things

It’s a story you’ve seen countless times before: Five powerful individuals are called together to battle for a magical object that will grant them incredible power. With such a “creative” plot, and promises of action, magic and a forgettable protagonist, the overall prognosis for Fate/Stay Night would seem rather dim.

And, to be fair, if you absolutely detest fighting anime, it will probably remain so. If there’s more than one episode that doesn’t include at least one fairly major battle between two or more of the magicians and their “servants” (summoned spirits that take the form of heroes and villains from various mythologie), I can’t recall it. Continue reading “Fate/Stay Night: Another Way to Look at Things”

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