I was at a newly opened Mandarake in Omiya today, and I was browsing around and I came upon the Xenogears Perfect Works. I’ve always been a big fan of the game and its lore. So I splurged a bit and bought it. It was 11,000 yen.
I can see why people want this thing. It is massive with so much information and artwork! This thing is amazing. I really want to read a bit of it each day.
Finished the anime and loved it. I thought there was no way modern anime could be still good. You just got to look for it. Seriously need more of this so despite having a huuuge manga backlog already. (In the middle of reading Berserk in Japanese.) I bought the first volume of the manga.
This week for Saturday Anime, I watched California Crisis: Gun Salvo, an OVA that tries to recreate the feel of a cheesy 1970s or 1980s American action movie. On the surface, it has the right ingredients. Sports cars, government agents, UFO fragments, and a fairly strong retro soundtrack. Unfortunately, aside from the character designs and music, it has very little to offer.
The story is barely there. A boy and a girl discover a fragment connected to a UFO, then spend most of the OVA being chased by government agents who want it back. There is a mystery introduced around the halfway point, but it has almost no payoff by the end. The conclusion feels abrupt and unsatisfying, like the OVA simply runs out of time rather than actually resolving anything.
The characters are just as forgettable. There is no real development, no emotional hook, and no reason to care about what happens to any of them. By the end, I could barely remember their names. They are mostly just there to move the chase scenes along.
The animation is also much weaker than I expected. It is minimal and often badly directed, with scenes edited together in confusing ways. At times, it is difficult to tell what is supposed to be happening or where the characters are in relation to each other. Most of the OVA is one long, uninteresting chase sequence, and it never builds into anything particularly exciting.
The music is easily the best part. There are only a handful of tracks, but they fit the intended American action-movie atmosphere well. A few of them are genuinely catchy, and they do more to sell the mood than the animation or story ever manages to.
I have seen people call California Crisis underrated, but I think “obscure and boring” is a more accurate description. The only enjoyable way to experience it might honestly be through the OST, or through vaporwave, city pop, and future funk videos that use clips from it. As a complete OVA, it is not engaging enough for me to recommend.
There is often talk about how negative the teaching-in-Japan subreddits can be, but I do not think talking honestly about frustrating parts of ALT work is automatically negativity.
Last year, I worked with a JTE who had me read the same long third-year New Horizon passages repeatedly in class. Not the short dialogues, but the long readings about environmental issues, Gandhi, and so on.
I would read it normally, then at different speeds, then read it together with individual students. I suggested ways to make the activity more engaging, such as comprehension games, reading relay races, pair work, or splitting the passage into roles, but nothing ever came of it. As an ALT, you can suggest things, but it is ultimately their class.
The teacher also regularly made grammar mistakes that could hurt students on high school entrance exams. I would point them out afterward, but it was usually brushed off as “Whoopsie, I made a mistake,” and then similar mistakes would happen again later.
Today was another example. I had five first-year JHS classes doing speaking tests, so I spoke with roughly 180 students. Each student had one minute and thirty seconds to answer around thirteen questions. For example.
“How are you?”
“What day is it?”
“How is the weather?”
“What sports do you like?”
Because they are first-years, there was not much room to turn it into a real conversation. It was the same short questions and answers for five classes straight. By the end of the second class, I was already mentally exhausted.
The teachers seemed aware that it was tiring, but I still do not understand why the test had to involve so many questions in such a short time. Why not five questions, with students given a little more time to respond naturally? It would have been easier on everyone and probably a better speaking assessment. There was no discussion with me and it was all decided prior. But it's not like the teachers would consult with me anyway.
I am not saying every ALT job is "bad", or that all JTEs are incompetent. But I do think it is fair to talk about situations where activities are poorly planned, repetitive, or make little sense for either the students or the ALT.
Is that really negativity, or is it just being honest about the job?
I’ve had my eye on the Farland Saga I & II Saturn Tribute collection, but I honestly know almost nothing about the series beyond the fact that it’s a tactical RPG.
One of the reasons it caught my attention is that I’m starting to feel burned out on revisiting the same classics. Over the past year and a half, it seems like almost everything I’ve played has been a remake, remaster, or replay of a JRPG I already knew. Don’t get me wrong because I love those games but I’m really in the mood to experience something that feels new to me, even if it’s an older title. I tried Trails in the Sky First Chapter since I never played that but I just got kinda bored after the first chapter…
Are these games worth playing today? I enjoy classic JRPGs and the Sega Saturn is something I never really explored. How do they compare to other tactical RPGs from the era?
Are they more story-focused or gameplay-focused? Is there anything they do particularly well that helped them stand out?
I’m not expecting Final Fantasy Tactics or Tactics Ogre-level depth since the look pretty simple but if they have a charming cast, solid strategy, and that classic ‘90s JRPG atmosphere, that’s usually enough for me.
I’d love to hear impressions from anyone who’s actually played them. Were they hidden gems, or are they mostly interesting as historical curiosities? Avoiding major spoilers would be appreciated.
My father-in-law is 78 and was recently diagnosed with cancer. He lives alone next to our house, while my wife’s brother lives nearby as well. We all live on land that belongs to my father-in-law.
I care about him and want him to be okay, but we are not especially close and do not talk much. My wife often asks me to tell him to do things, such as rest more, go to appointments, or stop working. He wants to keep working, and I feel uncomfortable telling a 78-year-old man what he should do with his own life and health.
I am not saying I expect my wife to handle everything involving my own father or immediate family either. If my father became ill, I would see it as my responsibility to take the lead, while of course accepting support from my wife if she wanted to help. That is why I assumed that the main responsibility for my father-in-law would fall to his own children: my wife and her brother. The brother when he heard of the cancer diagnosed he just gave a simple へいへい.
My wife says it is normal in Japan for family members to be emotionally distant, but she also seems to expect me to take an active role in looking after him. I am happy to help where I reasonably can, but I do not want to overstep, act like I have authority over him, or become the person expected to manage his decisions.
Is there a common expectation in Japan that a son-in-law should check in on, advise, or help manage an elderly father-in-law’s life, especially after a cancer diagnosis? Or does this depend entirely on the family?
I am genuinely asking because I want to handle this respectfully, not because I want to avoid helping.
For this week's Saturday anime watch, I watched Riding Bean, and I came away feeling like I had watched an early rough draft of Gunsmith Cats.
I had seen Gunsmith Cats back in college and remembered enjoying it a lot more. Both have that same American-inspired setting, stylish character designs, gunplay, and car-focused action, but Gunsmith Cats felt more complete to me. Rally and Minnie had a more memorable dynamic, the world felt more lived-in, and the mix of action, comedy, crime, and character moments gave it more personality.
Riding Bean is much more direct. It is basically an 80s action movie in anime form. The tough driver, guns, kidnappings, car chases, explosions, and a plot that exists mostly to keep the action moving. Bean is undeniably cool, and the animation and vehicle work are excellent. The character designs have that polished late-80s OVA look too, and I thought the attempt at an American setting came through well.
Still, the story itself felt fairly routine, and I never got especially invested in what was happening. That is probably less a problem with the OVA than with my own tastes. I watched a lot of classic 80s action films years ago, but I was never really a huge fan of the guns-and-car-chases kind of action movie. Honestly Sci-Fi kind of action stories are more my thing. So while I could appreciate how well-made Riding Bean was, it did not have enough beyond that formula to pull me in.
I am glad I watched it, especially as someone who liked Gunsmith Cats. It is interesting to see where some of that later series’ style and ideas came from. But for me, Gunsmith Cats took a similar premise and made it much more fun, memorable, and enjoyable.
Did you watch Riding Bean? What did you think of it? Did you prefer Gunsmith Cats more too? What other Kenichi Sonoda works do you enjoy?
I just finished the last two episodes of Genocyber this morning, and honestly, I was pretty disappointed.
The first three episodes were at least entertaining in a wow that is violent way. The plot barely felt connected at times, but there was enough blood, gore, chaos, and bizarre imagery to keep me watching. The first three episodes are basically like one of those gory early 90s OVAs where you just go along with the insanity. Episode 1's animation is super detailed too for the monster and and stuff. You could tell they poured the entire budget into that first episode because from there it just goes down, down, and down.
Then the final two episodes suddenly jump forward in time and the plot turns into this “a god is coming” story involving two lovers and a cure for blindness. The world has also become this dystopia or whatever. It really didn't make sense because the jump from episode 3 to 4 felt huge. It felt like a completely different anime for episodes 4 and 5. The pacing slowed down, the new plot did not grab me, and there was not even enough violence or gore left to carry it.
Episode 1 felt kinda like an Akira knock-off and episodes 2 and 3 kinda felt like Lovecraft eldritch horror, but episodes 4 and 5 were just like what did I watch? I hate it when an episode is like 25 to 30 minutes but because of how boring it is that can turn into an hour because I keep pausing and coming back to it.
I mostly found it boring as hell. Genocyber started as trashy, over-the-top cyberpunk body-horror fun, then ended by becoming something much less interesting.
This is something that’s been bothering me for a while, and I’m curious how other ALTs deal with it.
I work at one JHS where I have six classes back-to-back every Tuesday and Thursday I am there. The problem isn’t that I’m teaching six classes. The problem is that in many of those classes I have very little to actually do.
A lot of the time I’m just standing there, trying to look engaged while the JTE runs the entire lesson. I’ll occasionally walk around, check notebooks, or help a student if they ask, but there are long stretches where I’m essentially just waiting. I have to stay alert because I might be needed at any moment, but mentally I’m not engaged enough to feel like I’m accomplishing anything.
By the end of the day I feel surprisingly exhausted. Lately I’ve even noticed myself holding a lot of tension in my forehead and shoulders, almost like I’m mentally bracing myself through every class. It’s strange because from the outside it probably looks like an easy day, but it doesn’t feel that way.
Unfortunately, changing the situation isn’t really an option. I can’t change the teachers, I can’t change how the classes are run, and I can’t really advocate for a different schedule. I’m also not given any free period during the school day other than lunch, so it’s essentially six periods straight.
For those of you who’ve been in similar situations, how do you protect yourself emotionally and mentally?
How do you stop yourself from becoming frustrated or feeling like you’re wasting your day? Are there any mental strategies that have helped you stay present without becoming drained? I’d really appreciate hearing from people who’ve found ways to cope with this kind of schedule.
I just finished up this series and honestly, the subtitles have seemed pretty reliable for most of the show.
But then this came up during a serious political conversation:
>
It really threw me off. I know subtitles sometimes localize laughter or a casual joke rather than translating word-for-word, but this feels bizarrely modern and out of place for the tone of the scene. Especially coming from an older character in a suit.
Was the original Japanese actually that informal, or was this just a translator trying way too hard to make it sound funny?
I have a habit with SRS that I am trying to break. Sometimes I can understand the general idea of a Japanese sentence, but if I cannot explain every part of it clearly in English, I mark the card as a miss.
For example, I might recognize the words and understand the feeling or situation the sentence is describing, but I still feel like I have not really understood it unless I can produce one exact English translation in my head.
I know that is probably not how native speakers process language, and I want to get better at accepting meaning directly in Japanese instead of constantly checking whether I can translate it perfectly.
Has anyone dealt with this? How did you learn to trust that you understood something well enough, even when you could not immediately put the meaning into natural English? Also the point of SRS is to recognize patterns and words but not to reproduce the sentences verbatim, right? Like I am not supposed to memorize what my SRS sentences are?
I remember when I first started and they drilled this into us. When entering and leaving the school, we had to bow before all the staff and most importantly the principal. I did it for a very long time because I thought it was rude not to. How far from the truth and reality it was.
What other nonsense things did you learn that were far from reality?
8 months ago I took Kanji Kentei Pre 2 and now 8 months later I am taking Kanji Kentei 2. Damn I feel so nervous and even more nervous than Pre 2. I feel like so much is on the line this time. I really studied hard. Maybe even harder than Pre 2. I'm so nervous my stomach hurts. I didn't study yesterday and instead went out to Nagano for a day trip. I heard it's best to relax the day before a test but it only made me more anxious and a little tired.
I went to the book store on Friday and I saw they had workbooks and 10 day review books that I didn't even know about. I glanced over the questions and felt overwhelmed because the questions didn't look recognizable to me. I only used one workbook and that was a question frequency book. I was doing fine on the mock exams with just this book. I am so worried they are going to throw questions I don't know the answer to.
But I have been studying for 8 months with 2,646 cards resting at 90% retention. I just can't relax until I see the test.
Edit: If all goes well maybe I passed with a 163 score. I read 155 is the actual passing line? So, hopefully it is a pass. But DAMN that was toooough. It wasn't just one section. It's like one or two misses in a section is going to cost you. Also maybe the book I used was outdated because there is no radical section now and it's replaced with something else. So I lost like 2 or 3 points there. I don't want to get too excited though. I can't be so sure this time.
Time to start preparing for N1 in just a few weeks. But this is more of a test run.
I’ve only played the demo so far, but it left me wanting more.
Maybe I’m getting ahead of myself, but it gave me the same feeling I get when I discover the first game in a series that I can imagine growing over time. Not that I’m expecting it to become the next Zelda, but I can already picture multiple adventures set in the same world.
Part of me wants to see:
Obviously I’m joking with those names, but I’d genuinely love to see the series continue if the full game is as good as the demo has been.
Something about it feels like it has the potential to become one of those comfort franchises where every few years you get a new adventure with familiar characters, new locations, and new ideas.
Has anyone played the full game yet? Does it live up to what the demo promises?
I was thinking of playing this again soon since I want something familiar. I have always wanted to try doing a challenge run with this game. I did a few challenges when I played the Final Fantasy Pixel Remasters like Cecil only in FF4, only white mages in FF1, Terra and Celes can only use espers in FF6.
For Chrono Trigger I was thinking only initial equipment, but I wonder if that would still be too easy?
I wonder if I'm alone but I basically just go to my classes and just do the greeting then take my place standing in the back. It's been getting really stressful to do this day in and out, but I feel so beaten down I just stopped caring. Apparently all my evaluations are fine though...
Anything else treated the same way? How do you deal with it? Do you bring something to do while in the class to make it go by faster?
I live in Japan and I grew up playing the 3D Goemon games on the N64 but never played the older games. I was thinking of getting the collection, but I wonder what kind of trophies it is going to have. If they're too hard to get I don't know if I want to spend the time on it. I hope they are more on the casual and fun end.
Studying for Kanji Kentei level 2 and there have been a few Kanji that have giving me trouble remembering the readings. They're mostly verbs too. I used spoiler tags just in case you want to test yourself.
嘲る >!あざけ!<る
貪る >!むさぼ!<る
蔑む >!さげす!<む
装う >!よそお!<う
Do you think up some kind of memorization device or just brute force memorization? I just brute force it.
For this week's Saturday anime watch, I finally revisited Gall Force: Eternal Story. I originally saw it as a kid during Sci-Fi Channel's old anime morning block. Back then I barely understood what was going on. I remember wondering why the entire cast seemed to be girls, why everyone had strange names like Rabby, Catty, and Pony, why one character suddenly ended up with a baby, and what exactly the ending was supposed to mean.
Watching it again as an adult, I have to say that Gall Force is a pretty average experience.
The first thirty minutes feel like an endless stream of military orders, ship reports, and sci-fi jargon. Characters spend so much time announcing tactical information that it becomes difficult to connect with any of them. Most of the cast is defined by a single trait: the leader, the aggressive one, the cute one, and so on. Since some of these characters are inevitably going to die, you'd think the film would spend more time developing them, but many have only been around for fifteen or twenty minutes before they're gone. As a result, their deaths don't carry much emotional weight.
What surprised me most is how little actually happens despite the nearly ninety minute runtime. The movie starts as a space war story before suddenly shifting into something that feels heavily inspired by Alien, and then turns into 2001: A Space Odyssey level plot twist.
At one point I even found myself wondering if Gall Force was an early precursor to the idea of "cute girls doing cute things." The cast is almost entirely female, but unlike modern examples, they're placed in the middle of a military sci-fi conflict rather than everyday situations.
The animation and music are decent enough, though neither really stood out to me. The biggest highlight is probably the character designs by Kenichi Sonoda. Unfortunately, the relatively crude animation often undermines the appeal of those designs.
Maybe I'm being a little harsh, but I found Eternal Story surprisingly dull. I don't know if the later Gall Force entries improve on the formula, but I wanted to start from the beginning since I'd never seen the rest of the series before.
For those who've watched the entire Gall Force saga, do the sequels get any better?
Maybe I'm just getting old, but it feels strange that so many JRPG series have gotten collections, remasters, remakes, ports, or at least some acknowledgment, and yet Breath of Fire is still sitting in limbo.
The older I get, the more I realize that the series wasn't just a collection of games to me. Each one ended up being tied to a different stage of my life.
Breath of Fire I was something I discovered when I was still pretty young and just getting into JRPGs. I could never get very far because of that one boss the goblin guy inside the stone golem. I swear I could get him down to a sliver of HP every time, but I could never actually beat him. Years later, while I was in college, I finally finished the game and got the best ending thanks to guides and save states. Looking back, the encounter rate was ridiculous, and some of the things you had to do to progress were incredibly cryptic. Still, I loved the game's sense of adventure and its large cast of characters, many of whom weren't even human.
Breath of Fire II was basically Breath of Fire I but even harder and somehow even more cryptic. As a kid, a lot of the story went completely over my head. When I revisited it later, I realized just how dark and emotional parts of it actually were. I remember getting completely stuck because I had no idea you were supposed to use Katt to smash the wooden fence to progress the story. I spent ages wandering around before eventually finding out years later what I was supposed to do. I did eventually beat the game and get the best ending, but the encounter rate was every bit as brutal as the first game if not worse.
Breath of Fire III is probably the one I associate most with my teenage years. Something about the soundtrack, the fishing, the desert crossing, and watching Ryu grow up made it feel different from every other JRPG I was playing at the time. It had a unique atmosphere that has stuck with me all these years. I wasn't always a fan of the puzzles, and some of the bosses were genuinely difficult for a turn-based RPG. The ending never really worked for me, but I guess Breath of Fire III was more about the journey than the destination.
Breath of Fire IV came along when I was a little older and was probably the point where the series became exactly what I wanted from a JRPG. It's still my favorite entry. The sprite work was gorgeous, the music was fantastic, and Fou-Lu remains one of my favorite characters in the genre. The dual perspectives and overall presentation felt special then and still hold up remarkably well today.
Then there was Breath of Fire: Dragon Quarter, which I actually own but have never really gotten into. Maybe one of these days.
What makes me sad is that newer JRPG fans barely have a chance to experience any of these games legally and conveniently. If someone today asks where to start with the series, the answer usually involves old hardware, emulation, or tracking down increasingly expensive copies.
Meanwhile, we're seeing collections and remasters for series that sold less, had less influence, or have been dormant for just as long.
I'm not even asking for remakes.
Just give me a Breath of Fire Collection.
Put Breath of Fire I, II, III, IV, and Dragon Quarter on modern platforms. Add save states, artwork galleries, music players, concept art, and maybe some developer interviews. That's it. I'd buy it on day one.
Maybe the audience isn't huge anymore, but there are a lot of us who grew up with these games. For some of us, they weren't just JRPGs. They were games we played during different chapters of our lives, and revisiting them feels a little like revisiting old versions of ourselves.
Capcom keeps finding ways to bring back so many parts of its history.
I just wish Breath of Fire wasn't the exception.