Reawakening

...

I would try to say something here.

Perhaps "damn, I've let this sit for nearly a year with no posts."

Perhaps "damn, my writing sucked back then."

Perhaps... oh, screw it.

It has now been two years since I started this blog. This blog has sat unused, dormant, for most of that second year.

Was that a mistake? Perhaps not. I did say that I would post when I was inspired to do so. That is as true now as it was a year ago. And it's only recently that I've been inspired again, only recently that I've had ridiculous thoughts running through my head with no outlet for them.

Until I realized that I do have an outlet. One that I've let languish, yes, but it still exists. So perhaps, in a week or two when finals period is over, I'll go back to that wonderful habit of expressing myself on the Internet for all to see.

I make absolutely no promises. My update schedule doesn't exist, clearly. I'm worse than Megatokyo, because at least Piro updates his website occasionally. I, apparently, don't update at all.

That will change. I've changed in the year I've let pass. Perhaps, even, a title change is in order: I've played a lot less video games lately, and spent a lot more time with anime. My enjoyment of the Japanese language has become an absolute obsession, and I'm studying abroad in Kyoto, Japan next academic year, from September to April. ("An Otaku's Perspective"?)

None of that changes what I'm trying to do here, and what I really should be trying to do more often. I wax poetic about what I've gained from my leisure time. Every time I hesitate before telling someone that I play video games for fun, every time I hear someone lump them, and anime, and any other kind of game into some lower category (like my ethics professor, and discussing the details of utilitarianism, and the distinction between "higher" and "lower" pleasures)... It is, quite simply, not where they deserve to be.

So let me try this activity one more time. I've got webcomics (the aforementioned Megatokyo), games of all kinds (including some truly unusual kinds, for Americans at least), and a host of new anime series to think about. I've been ranting on AIM occasionally with my close friends about some of these things. Perhaps I should share those rants with the world.

Once more, then, perhaps I can try to blog. I would say "hopefully I'll do better this time", but I lost that right the last time I wrote a "Sorry I haven't been posting" post. So, here and now, the only thing I have the right to say is what I said a little earlier: I can make no promises.

So here's hoping you have the chance to read a new post from me sometime in the near future.

Reaching Out

So lately I’ve been watching an anime series called Negima. The premise can probably best be called “insane”, but hardly in a bad way. Ten-year-old Negi Springfield, the main character, is an aspiring wizard (or “Magister Magi”, if you prefer the anime’s title for them) and is in training to achieve that end. But this latest phase of his training involves the young English boy becoming a teacher at an all-girls school in Japan, and as far as I’m concerned, the challenges to Negi’s magical skills are nothing compared to the task of keeping the girls of class 2-A under control, especially when it seems like half of them are in love with Negi.

One of those girls that can’t seem to take her eyes off of Negi is possibly one of the most unlikely candidates ever: Nodoka Miyazaki. I call her an unlikely candidate because at the beginning of the series, she’s all but terrified of men, period. When Negi saves her from a hard fall off a stairway, her reflections later on center around being touched by a boy (Negi, obviously), and she seems to be confused as to why she doesn’t hate or fear the idea.

Nodoka proceeds to spend a good portion of the series trying to work up the courage to even admit to what she’s feeling, much less tell Negi about it. (Well, as far as I’ve seen, anyway; I’ve seen 18 out of the 26 episodes.) Since, after all, Nodoka seems to be just cripplingly shy with everyone, this ends up taking quite a while, even when they do end up on a date in episode 17 by the machinations of Nodoka’s friends.

And yet, out of all the characters in the anime, I find myself rooting for Nodoka and sympathizing with her more than anyone. Even over Negi himself or Asuna Kagurazaka, who practically seems like the second main character of the show sometimes, I want to see Nodoka be successful.

…I guess that makes me one of those crazy fans that goes on and on about the relationships he wants to see in the different shows that he watches. At least I haven’t created any little combinations of their names, like… wait, never mind, where was I?

Anyway, I can see why Nodoka might take some criticism for her general attitude. I know people who would likely tell her to stop cringing and speak her mind clearly. (They’d probably also tell her to cut her hair, especially since she practically hides behind her bangs when talking to someone directly, but that isn’t as important.) And I think that’s emblematic of society as a whole. As a general rule from my own experience, people don’t really sympathize with the shy introverts; they simply tell them not to be shy.

See, part of the reason why I sympathize with Nodoka over the rest of the cast is because I think I’m the same kind of person. As far as I’m concerned, the hardest thing I did this afternoon was to call someone that I didn’t know, looking for a job. It shouldn’t be a difficult thing to do by any measure, and yet I was agonizing over it for a good ten minutes before I actually made the call.

For people like Nodoka and myself, even reaching out is hard to do. Nodoka seemed to be practically terrified of talking to Negi even after she finally told him about her feelings at the end of her little date in episode 17, avoiding Negi for much of episode 18. And I? I didn’t want to feel like an idiot, which as far as that little voice in my head is concerned happens every time I try to do something I’m unsure about.

As a side note, that same little voice is stridently protesting what I’m about to write... it can be quite insistent sometimes. And yet, my more logical side can’t find a hole in it.

Simply put, though, sometimes it has to be done. Nodoka had to get around to the admission of her love for Negi eventually, and I had to make the attempt to find a job. Practically the hardest thing either of us does on a day to day basis is to actually break away from the books (Nodoka) or anime/games (myself) and interact with other people. (I am assuming on Nodoka’s part, but I don’t think I’m far wrong.)

There are miscues, sure. Sadly, my call was one of them. Not that it went badly, simply that I did indeed feel like I should have expected the negative result that I got. Logically, nothing really happened, but I still spent a minute or two after the call feeling like I was an idiot. (I finally decided to write something about to take my mind off it. This is the end result.)

Thankfully, Nodoka had it better off. A side effect of having your entire fate decided by writers that like happy endings, I suppose. While Negi didn’t exactly leap into her arms, they’re now much better friends than they were before, and Nodoka seems to have fully taken in the lesson here about courage when it comes to reaching out. If nothing else, she got her symbolic “I’m not hiding anymore” moment when she brushed her bangs away from her face and looked Negi straight in the eye, something she had had severe difficulty with before.

When all is said and done, reaching out is rarely something that you regret after the fact. And maybe if I’m lucky, I’ll actually learn that one of these days.