I write about why you should have a greater appreciation for wacky Japanese cartoons and the otaku culture revolving around it.
I also co-host a Black Nerd Empowerment podcast with my friend The TV Guru over at http://swarthynerd.libsyn.com/ and create off-color memes about crap tier anime over at https://www.facebook.com/yukithesnowman/
Despite COVID-19 shutting down the world and forcing life for many to slow down, there are some people in this world who are still busy working at home. Oftentimes they may not be able to enjoy multiple, 20-25 minute an episode anime series a season. Sure, you may have some who can squeeze in a few anime a week, but for most of these busy people finding time to consume anime can be a chore all in itself when it comes to balancing work life and otaku entertainment.
If you, dear reader are one of these busy people who may not be able to catch up and watch currently airing anime, may I suggest an anime that is only one minute long and simple to enjoy? Do you own pets or at the least love animals? Then I have the anime that is right for your busy life: With a…
Growing up, I always thought that finding fellow Black nerds who shared the same passionate energy towards anime that I had was hard.
I don’t mean simply watching what was on Toonami or [adult swim] at the time. That was easy; everyone and their mothers watched anime on those two programming blocks.
What was hard (and I must repeat myself) was finding fellow Black nerds who were really passionate towards anime.
The ones who would spend countless hours browsing online researching and studying the studios behind such hits such as Gundam Wing, Sailor Moon, and Dragon Ball Z.
People told me that being a passionate anime fan doesn’t matter. That I was too invested into anime. Discouraged, I kept my passion to myself (or on the wild wild west of the internet of the early 2000s with fellow outcast weeaboos who were discovering themselves) for years. It wasn’t until…
Salutations fellow weeaboo’s, we hope your anime watching is as fulfilling as our commentaries, now let’s get right into this new must watch list!
Ikebukuro West Gate Park (IWGP) In Ikebukuro, both violent street gangs and the Yakuza roam freely in its streets without fear. As it is with the nature of both street and organized gangs, war is inevitable between rival factors. Makoto Majima, a youth who makes Ikebukuro his home, serves as Ikebukuro’s street mediator between gangs. Makoto aims to resolve disputes with rival gangs in effort to protect his love ones and friends involved on the square side and the street side of the game. Makoto works alongside with G-Boys, perhaps Ikebukuro’s largest color gang ran by the sharply dressed gentleman Takashi “King” Andou; Makoto’s old classmate. Takashi may comes across as a goofy and joyful man with an affinity towards high end suits …
This is a collection of notes I’ve written down in my notebook about my thoughts of the Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light Nintendo Switch port that due for release on December 4th, 2020. Given the nature of sudden shadow drop of the reveal as well as me working on an article for a news website, I did not have time to properly organize this post like my past articles. I did my best to fix more grammatical errors, but if there are any lingering please forgive them.
NINTENDO’S BULLSHIT LIMITED RELEASE PRACTICES
Once again, Nintendo has pulled their Limited Release practice with another of their beloved franchise: Fire Emblem. On October 22nd, 2020, Nintendo shadow dropped a trailer of their latest retro re-release: Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light. If you want to learn more about the release, you can check out this link because I do not have the time to explain every little detail about the digital release and the physical special edition collector’s package at the moment.
As with Super Mario 3D All-Stars, Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light will have a limited release time window starting from December 4th, 2020 to March 31st, 2021. It is unclear why Nintendo chosen March 31st, 2021 to end production of both Super Mario 3D All-Stars and Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light, but people have theorize that the March 31st 2021 deadline relates to Nintendo’s ending of their fiscal year on the same date.
Some believe with the March 31st, 2021 date, this will give investors and stock holders a chance to analyze the market to see if there are enough customers to justify doing normal runs of video game re-releases or to continue with the trend of limited run releases. Others view this as an ill-will form of pseudo scarcity: purposely creating a limited amount of copies of Super Mario 3D All-Stars and the collector’s edition of Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light to claim that they sold out of copies where they can easier make more or keep the digital copies of both games online.
With that said, we as not only fans of Fire Emblem and Mario, but as customers must be vocal in our demands with Nintendo being more open and transparent about their Limited Run practices.
We have the right to know if March 31st, 20201 means that Nintendo will no longer produce digital and physical copies of Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light and Super Mario 3D All-Stars ever again, or if there will only be digital releases Super Mario 3D All-Stars through the Nintendo eShop/Switch Online. The same apply with the new Shadow Dragon English release. This in turns creates a scalper culture of sorts.
Now, I have nothing against scalpers and hustlers who purchase 2-4 copies of Super Mario 3D-All Stars to resell at a premium. I won’t have any issue with Fire Emblem fans doing the same with the collector’s edition. We live in a capitalist society and we are free to make money by almost any means (as long as nobody is getting hurt, killed, trafficked, abused, etc.).
Hell, even I plan on doing some short term flipping with these limited run items myself so I can take advantage of all these feeble-minded Fire Emblem and Mario fans with their fear of missing out. What I do have a problem is with Nintendo enabling people to do these moves rather than producing more games for “quality control” of their products.
Nintendo, listen: creating pseudo scarcity doesn’t make for a thrilling gaming experience. It only creates a situation for morons with fears of missing out to do fuck shit with your limited releases because they’re mentality weak men and women.
SAMMY SMARTASS KNOW IT ALLS
If you go on twitter right now, you will see people who I like to call “Sammy Smartass” ranting about how it’s pointless to purchase a digital copy of Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light. In their pointless, uneducated opinion, because we live in the a world of advanced technology where smartphones can play the Famicom version of Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light or the remake of FE1 through the way of Mystery of the Emblem or the re-remake of FE1 through the way of NEW Shadow Dragon and Sword of Light via emulation.
I will say to you that is yes, little Sammy Smartass, people could (keyword: could) play FE1 through emulation. Hell, we can even go as far as to say that they can buy a physical copy of Fire Emblem: New Shadow Dragon with a DS or 3DS console. However, there are a few issues with your “counterpoint”, Sammy Smartass.
First, the average consumer may not be into playing a game through an emulator on a computer, phone, or console separate from the game’s original console. Sure, you have some outlier normies who may know how to download and operate an emulator and a rom file of any Nintendo Entertainment System or Famicom game on their phone or computer without destroying their device (because they know a safe rom and emulator hosting website).
But again, that’s an outlier.
Now, I know what you’re going to say next, Sammy Smartass. “Yuki! Emulating a Famicom console is much easier than say emulating a Nintendo 64 console. A five year old can put a Famicom console emulator on his iPhone in less than 3 minutes.”
Correct.
But again, the five year old ain’t the average consumer. And emulating Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and Blade of Light isn’t an average task when you consider having to find a stable, complete (perfectly translated) English patch to even enjoy the game (as FE1 is text heavy).
Following that, you have people and their legality fears. Keep in mind that downloading roms of official Nintendo games is still illegal unless you own a copy of said game physically.
While the Nintendo Ninjas aren’t going to go to every person house that download roms of their games and slit their throats in front of their children or parents, some consumers are going to have that fear in the back of their minds. Because of that fear, they won’t mess around with emulation.
Speaking of fear, some rom and emulation websites are littered with viruses, spyware, adware, Fire Emblem hentai porn, whatever. If you don’t know what you’re doing, you can easily run into one of these shady rom websites with those things on said website and destroy your computer/smartphone.
Best case situation you just get flooded with hentai ads and your computer and/or smartphone will be safe. However, nobody wants to explain to their boss or parent why Marianne off Three Houses is giving her favorite horse Dorte a handjob in a hentai website ad on a rom website because they wanted to play Genealogy of the Holy War that badly on the work or family computer.
“But Yuki! If they are scared of viruses and their boss walking on them looking at a hentai ad of Marianne jerking off Dorte and making her face a baby horse daycare center on a rom website, why don’t they just buy an original copy of FE1 and a Famicom console? Better yet, they could either buy a copy of FE1’s two remakes, Fire Emblem: New Shadow Dragon on the Nintendo DS AND a (3)DS or buy a copy of Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem on the Super Famicom with a Super Famicom console. The remakes are clearly superior!”
Sammy Smartass, please listen; because you’re have become more retarded than your friend Ricardo the Ritardo.
Nobody, unless they are a hardcore collector, a hardcore Fire Emblem fan, or a gaming historian, is going to go out and buy an original Famicom – an obsolete console from the 80s, an original copy of Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and Sword of Light that came out in 1990. Nor will they go out and buy a copy of the 1993 video game Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem for another obsolete console, the Super Famicom.
Now, you may have an argument with New Shadow Dragon on the DS as the Nintendo 3DS, despite Nintendo stopping production of that console as of 2020 (the year of this blog post), is readily available at online and brick-and-mortar retail stores.
However, let’s do some math and logical thinking:
A brand new New Nintendo 3DS XL runs at average about S145.99 on Amazon. Fire Emblem: New Shadow Dragon ranges from S21.99 for the game alone to about $120 if you want the game new and sealed. $145.00 + $120.00 = $165.00 before shipping and taxes. For an extra $50.99 or so, you can buy Nintendo’s current console, Nintendo Switch Lite (a modern console that still being supported) and Shadow Dragon and Blade of Light as opposed to a remake of the first game and an console that has been discontinued and won’t have any games made for it again.
You can apply the same logic with buying a Famicom or Super Famicom alongside FE1 and FE3.
Therefore, with all of that stated, the average consumer who isn’t your outlier normie co-worker or 5 year old cousin is going to want ease of access to FE1; even if it means paying $5.99 on the Nintendo eShop. They would rather pay the money for an official localization copy of FE1 than go through unnecessary extra steps to enjoy a simple old Famicom game from 1990 that nobody besides weeaboos who enjoy their little precious weeaboo chess game with RPG elements.
Also, it’s natural for people to look at the origins of the things they love. Just like with new Spider-Man fans want to read Amazing Fantasy #15 to see the origins of Peter Parker’s alter ego, people are going to want to play the game where Marth first came from.
Humans are curious after all.
ON COLELCTOR EDITION SCAPLERS AND SPECUCLATORS
With a fantastic collector’s edition package for Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light, nobody in their right mind should be shocked that collectors and speculators are drawn to this product. Like with all things in the realm of limited edition video game collectables, Nintendo limited run practice with the latest re-release of Shadow Dragon has drawn criticism from not only the Fire Emblem community (who may not know how capitalism works), but form the general gaming community as well.
Limited produce copies/pseudo scarcity means speculators and scalpers are going to purchase as many copies of the special collector’s edition as they can and re-sell said copies online for a profit. Naturally, this causes fans that may not be lucky enough to get the collector’s edition to become piss off at these online hustlers re-selling the package at a premium price.
I must say to you guys is that don’t hate the hustle. Hate Nintendo for their bullshit practices.
If you do plan on flipping the special edition package of Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light on Switch, you must study the market, think logically and realistically, and plan your flip out on paper. Go on ebay and see how often and daily pervious Fire Emblem special edition packages have been sold. Check the average prices that reseller are charging for each special edition. This will tell you if there’s a market out there for those who are willing to buy a special edition package of Fire Emblem.
With thinking logically and being a realistic about flipping the Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light special edition, you must ask yourself a few questions:
Is it possible that Nintendo will come out with a reprint of the special edition package months after the March 31st 2021 cutoff date; therefore, lowering the value of my sealed copy of said game?
How long am I willing to hold on to my copy to make a profit?
Is there a cut-off date for me to use the digital code that comes with the special edition?
Who can I realistic sell this to?
What can I realistically get for this game in terms of making a quick profit?
Why do I want to re-sell this special edition copy of Shadow Dragon for profit?
What will I do with the money once I sell at a profit?
Will this collector’s edition increase or decrease in value over the next 2-5 years?
If you can answer each of these questions truthfully and remove all emotions, you will do well in re-flipping the special edition. Now, if you’re one of these Sammy Smartasses from earlier who think holding on to the special edition version of Shadow Dragon for the long term (15+ years) as a viable investment, please do not waste space in your closet through the way of 5 copies of the special edition package.
WHAT THIS COULD MEAN FOR OTHER JAPANESE ONLY FIRE EMBLEM/NINTENDO GAMES?
If the official English localization of Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of Light is a success, this will open doors for other Japanese-only Fire Emblem games to be officially translated by Nintendo with major quality of life changes. Just imagine if Western Fire Emblem fans could finally experience Shozou Kaga’s masterpiece Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War with Nintendo providing quality of life changes as well as fix all the issues that Genealogy of the Holy War is plagued with. If Nintendo sees that fans want this, there will be more releases in the manner of Shadow Dragon. We could get an official English localization of Famicom Tantei Club: a Nintendo visual novel on the Famicom Disk System. Mother 3 may get an official translation. Hell, Nintendo did it before with Earthbound Zero/Mother 1.
Who knows? There’s so many possibility to think with these Nintendo Japanese-only English re-releases. So, let us hope that Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon and the Blade of the Light have that much success.
Just please Nintendo, stop with these Limited Run release shit.
Fall is finally here and you know what that means…
It means that you’re staying indoors like the perfect little weeaboo N.E.E.T (Not Employed, in Education, or in Training) that you are.
What? Thought I was going to say having bonfires with your friends while you guys sip on hot coca and eat S’mores? Now, you know good and damn well you don’t have any friends.
So, what you’re going to do instead my N.E.E.T friend is watch some currently airing Fall 2020 anime for the next 3 months! With over 35+ anime shows including both original newcomers such as Akudama Drive and returning hard hitters such as Attack on Titan, you may be overwhelmed with the choices of anime to watch this fall as you sink further into your seasonal depression and escapist fantasies in hopes that 2020 will get better! (spoilers: it won’t.)
We as Foundational Black Americans (FBAs) needed this conference.
Nowhere else on this planet could you find a gathering of like-minded, on code Black individuals that could politic, network, build, and create without the overbearing shadow of white supremacy lurking in the background trying to disrupt Black progress. For almost ten hours, FBAs transformed the Georgia World Congress Center into a sacred place where we can be our true, proud selves without neither the dominate society questioning why are we expressing our heritage with boastful pride, nor non-FBA goofy Black immigrants sambo coons trying to stop us.
For too long, we as Black Americans have grown comfortable in allowing outsiders to get into our think tanks; thus making us to ponder why our progress was halted by invaders and why our movement was hijacked. The historical first anniversary of the Foundational Black American Conference 2020 (FBAC2020) stopped that.
Fake Otaku Outrage: Artificial, baseless outrage generated by those of the anime community to stir up and create conflict, “controversy”, and complaints over and from petty superficial topics and subject matter. Certain otaku will find the most minor thing to complain about as a way to create gossip and discourse that do not lead to anything tangible overtime.
Why is there fake otaku outrage towards Uzaki-Chan and how do you prevent yourself from being swept up by fake otaku outrage?
The 2020 anime con season is dead. COVID has killed it. So, let’s get prep for the 2021 season instead.
In this video, we will go over why and how to get ready for the 2021 anime con season ahead of everyone else who are crying that they can’t travel to go and play dress up with other weird nerds.
Join me as I break down how being gameless and having a lack of self-awareness can cost you big in this world by using the hit romcom Summer 2020 anime “Rent-A-Girlfriend”. What is game? Why do you need game to better yourself as a person? How do you value yourself as a person? What could Kazuya could done to better his situation?
If you’re involved with the Fire Emblem fan community in any fashion, then you may be aware of the recent controversy that has plagued the community for a week dealing with a major Fire Emblem streamer accused of allegedly grooming minors and sexually assault a woman at an anime convention.
As such, there has been various blog/social media posts and YouTube video on the controversy from members of the F.E. community: ranging from fans within community expressing their concerns of the incident, revealing their own ill encounters with the accused, and calls to improve the community to make fans feel safe. In fact, there has been a lot of posts and videos of people talking about wanting to improve the community and welcoming new content creators into the fandom.
That is all fine and dandy. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to see your (fnadom) community better itself after such an event. However, (and this is no disrespect towards anyone who have spoken on the subject) I have yet to find anyone talking about how to use the controversy for the better of the community content creation wise. There’s talk about welcoming in new faces to this scene, but there’s nothing about how to go about it (in terms of networking with other Fire Emblem content creators, putting your work out in the community, promotion your work, etc.)
It’s not to say there not out there, but I feel that as someone who has been in this community for 15 years, and as someone who has been on this Earth for 30 years and seen his share of controversy in many nerd communities, I want to use my information and knowledge to inspire those who may want to create their own Fire Emblem content as well as be a service for the community (or for any other fan community for that matter).
So, here are my ways that you can use to make yourself known as a Fire Emblem content creator.
FULFIL/FIND A CREATIVE NICHE WITHIN THE FANDOM
Before entering the Fire Emblem’s creative community, ask yourself this question: “What do I do and bring to the table that is both unique and beneficial to this fandom that will make people want to pay attention and support me and my content?”
Do you have an (actually funny and not tryhard edgelord) dark sense of humor will make people laugh at a disturbing situation in a Fire Emblem game that they normally wouldn’t laugh at while other Fire Emblem content creators tip-toe around it? Can you use your bright, yet laid back personality to attract new viewers with no knowledge of who you are? Can you offer a service such as Fire Emblem fanart for another content creator for their YouTube channel, podcast, etc.?
How can you use your knowledge of one unrelated subject matter that nobody would have thought of to create content and make it not only interesting, but in relation to a Fire Emblem subject? Can you fulfill a niche that has yet to been targeted?
Example: Let’s say you’re into and have a passion for etymology, or the study of word origins and history. Combine that passion with Fire Emblem and create a Fire Emblem YouTube channel solely dedicated to breaking down the name origins of Fire Emblem characters, nations, weaponry, and so forth.
If you know that Sothis’s name originates from the Greek translation of the ancient Egyptian/Kemet goddess of fertility named Sopdet, then you can create a YouTube video breaking down Sothis’s name and who was Sopdet in ancient Egyptian/Kemet mythology. You can do the same for any Fire Emblem character and game that you please. And who knows? Your knowledge on etymology – a subject seemly different from Fire Emblem – could inspire a young Fire Emblem fan to get into etymology.
For my fellow musically gifted/inclined Fire Emblem fans: you can take the beaten path of covering songs from the series on your instrument of choice for people to listen. Everyone loves musical covers (for the most part). However, if you’re truly talented, you could go one step further and create a remix or new arrangement of a classic Fire Emblem song.
A classically trained jazz musician could take Divine Dragon from Mystery of the Emblem and turn into a Miles Davis inspired jazz track and post it on the fan-ran video game music arrangement website OC ReMiX. Someone versed in sampling songs could easily take a song like As Fierce as Fire from Three Houses and make it into a bass heavy trap beat. Take something already established and make it new again.
Finally, we’ve come to what is perhaps one of the largest creative circles in the Fire Emblem community: the fan visual artists. The fan visual artists have it best when it comes to creative scene of this fandom, thanks to how many artists there are in the community. People are willing to pay artists to bring their wild Fire Emblem fan-art fantasies to life.
Wild fantasies such as fanart of Edelgard as a cheating alcoholic housewife regretting her marriage to Byleth because Byleth has a cocaine addiction. We would love to see someone create a fan comic of Anna laundering drug money and running a prostitution ring with Tiki and Ceada. Someone out there in this great, big, wide world wants fan animation of Flayn having a nice, fun little visit to the abortion clinic because Flayn almost ruined her life by wanting to do more than just hug Ferdinand.
If you can use your artistic talents to bring those ideas to life, people will love you for it.
(And by “we”, “someone”, and “people”, I mean me, of course.)
If you can fulfill a niche within this community and put yourself out there, eventually, people will come to you. Look at what the community lacks in terms of (original) content, take advantage of that lack of, and build upon it. However, the only way to achieve this is through networking with other F.E. fans and promoting yourself online.
NETWORK
Look, the internet isn’t just for you sick nerds out there that enjoy downloading a ludicrous amount of L’arachel hentai because you have a thing for holy women doing unholy things and/or having unholy things done to them. Social media isn’t just a place where you can troll all day because you think trolling others to make them feel bad about themselves will cure your crippling depression (it won’t).
Use the internet and social media to your advantage by networking with fellow Fire Emblem fans and content creators. Follow a couple of artists online and talk to them. Share and comment on their art. Chat it up with fans on Fire Emblem Facebook groups or message boards. If you’re into the cosplaying and traveling to conventions, share Fire Emblem meetup cosplay events at major conventions as a way to find people who also love to dress up as fictional characters to escape your lowly reality.
An average discussion in the Fire Emblem community.
Commutate! There’s no other way to find fellow Fire Emblem fans to talk to, learn game and information from, and share you creation with other than commination. Plus, if you want people to support and share your works, you got to let them know who you are. If they see you putting in work – solid work, mind you – into the F.E. community while building your brand up, then the people will grow to trust you.
Another benefit of networking with fellow F.E. fans is collaborations. As you build your brand and continue to network with others, fellow content creators will take notice. If they enjoy your content and work, they might offer to do a collab with you for their channel, podcast, or art project.
By collaborating with other F.E. content creators, you’ll create a new network of creative types whom you can bounce ideas off of, exchange news relating to the series, and capture their audience and fanbase; adding them to your own.
Never neglect the advantage of networking and commutation. They’ll always be key in doing business, forging bonds, and personal growth. Nobody will do watch and support a content creator who is unknown, which leads to my final point:
PROMOTE YOUR WORK!
You must promote yourself and your work in order to gain followers, fans, and traction. If you believe that your works should be viewed by others, then put it out there.
So, how do you promote?
It’s simple. You go wherever Fire Emblem fans hang out: may it be on Serenes Forest, GameFAQ, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, whatever. Post your works there, ask for feedback, subs if they like your work, and engagements. When somebody comment on your video, fanart, Podcast, or whatever, reply back to them.
Thank them for viewing your work and listening to your content. Keep it at and eventually people will promote and share your works for you on their page, groups, etc; organically growing your brand through word of mouth.
In order to gain what you want from this community, you must spread your name, content, brand, and products. Spread ‘em like how Manuela used to spread her legs on the casting couch for creepy, shady, corrupt stage producers for Opera roles in her prime.
Now, there is one thing you must know when you’re promoting yourself: Not everyone will rock with you and your brand. There will be those who will be turned off by what you’re offering, saying, or producing.
Let’s take me for example. I know I just lost readers and listeners with my low-brow comments on Manuela being a ho-for-a-role nature (even through it’s the truth why you think she sleep around with young men so easily and often). If Manuela is their favorite and they lack a sense of humor, or they take virtual world people seriously because nobody in the real world take them seriously, they’ve already left the blog or my channel. They’re not fans of low-brow humor and commentary.
And that’s alright because there’s going to be people who appreciate someone who can approach Fire Emblem characters with low brow commentary. You have to be like that with you works and say to yourself “I know there will always be those who will never rock with me or my style. That’s cool: there are countless others who will regardless.”
Focus on netting those who you know will like your style of showing love to Fire Emblem (or anything else you do in life). Don’t waste your time on those who will never get with you.
The Fire Emblem community needs more people to create content around this wonderful and amazing series. We need more folks to show their love and respect to Fire Emblem by the way of the arts, dialogue, romhacks, whatever! Hell, myself included, as I’m planning to create Fire Emblem content on my YouTube channel in the near future. I hope this video/blog post inspired you to do the same if you’re a fan.
Until next time, take care
-Yuki
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The Swarthy Nerd Podcast
A Black nerd empowerment podcast where Black nerds (well, all nerds, but Black first and foremost) can get together and talk freely about nerd culture while also acknowledging systematic white supremacy and racism in the nerd and Eastern otaku fandoms. Every Tuesday join @superlostfan108 and @weebtrashyuki the founders of http://www.swarthynerd.com for there very informative podcast talking about all things nerdy. No desperate boot licking self hating negus who were never accepted by Black norimes for being too weird for their love of anime and comic books by the Black community allowed. Go drink bleach.
Check out our first impressions on Fire Emblem: Three Houses here.
Note: The following is a text version from episode 65 of my friend and I podcast,The Swarthy Nerd. It has been edited for this blog. You can listen to the episode in full by click the link above.
Please enjoy!
*****
We all need a sense of security: may it be for home defense, personal space, finances, etc. Security allows us to have a sense of safety and the confidence that no harm will come to us. With security, we won’t be able to subscribe to ill thoughts and of being violated, unprotected, and insecure; as long as our security doesn’t get compromised. Fandom in nerd culture could be considering a form of security.
Nerds use their fandom to protect themselves from outsiders and anyone else who may try to enter a fandom will ill intent. Acting as a security device, a nerd’s fandom can serve to help one escape the harsh realities of the world (crime, violence, systematic white supremacy, etc.). While using fandom to escape and defend you from this world has some benefits, there are faults to relying on it.
To quote the late film critic Robert Ebert in his review of the 2009 film Fanboys,
“Extreme fandom may serve as a security blanket for the socially inept, who use its extreme structure as a substitute for social skills. If you are Luke Skywalker and she is Princess Leia, you already know what to say to each other, which is so much safer than having to ad-lib it. Your fannish obsession is your beard. If you know absolutely all the trivia about your cubbyhole of pop culture, it saves you from having to know anything about anything else. That’s why it’s excruciatingly boring to talk to such people: They’re always asking you questions they know the answer to.”
Harsh, but truthful.
In today’s episode of the Swathy Nerd Podcast, we will break down the security blanket that is fandom, why lonely loser nerds use fandom to escape from reality, and why it’s too easy to use somebody else work to build your own sense of self and security.
PART ONE
HOW FANDOM SERVE US
Fandom as a security blanket serves us through three means:
1. Creates a culture
2 A sense of self
3. A sense of protection
It’s no secret that most nerds don’t fit into other groups due to their quirky, obsessive nature. They (usually) cannot relate to mainstream topics such as the latest celebrity gossip, sports, pop music, and so forth. Therefore, they seek to find comradely with like minded peers: building a culture and support system around their love for pop art and culture. With this, a nerd could use this newfound comradeship to form social circles that otherwise would be “impossible” to obtain outside of using pop culture reference and fan familiarity
Less energy and effort can be exhausted on staying within one’s comfort zone. Why expand your mind and broaden horizons by going out of your way to do something new and meet people outside your normal social circle when you can use your endless supply of The Office quotes with those who too quote form overrated T.V. series? You don’t have to think on the fly like a smooth, charming player if you remind within known topics.
However, there’s one major drawback to relying on that trick: Things will get boring quick.
How long will it take for the other person you’re talking to until they wind up getting tired of your pop culture references? Why do you refuse to let go of a topic that nobody is interested in other than to stroke your own ego? People are drawn towards those who know about more than one topic – especially if it’s outside the realm of pop culture. Not everyone loves and operate on the same level of stableness and security you run on (pop culture). Eventually, you’ll need to disrupt that sense of security if you want to attach others to you.
Nerds believe that their hobbies, attractions, and interests are small bits of the larger picture of who they are as a person; a sort of sense of self to say. There’s some truth to this. I do believe that what you’re into have an impact and reflect on your personality and psyche.
Example: A Black nerd may relate to the comic series X-MEN due to the elements of racism within the series. That black nerd understands to the X-MEN being treated like outsiders because of his racial background. They might collect figurines of characters such as Storm, Gambit, or Wolverine because to that Black Nerd, that’s a form of self-empowerment.
It’s not to say that these nerds couldn’t tap into their spirit for self-empowerment nor do they don’t, BUT, you must admit that it’s goofy for a grown ass man to be empowered by fiction and fiction alone. Of course, it’s much easier to use somebody else’s work to empower yourself than to get off your ass and work on yourself and your purpose to empower yourself without external influences.
Finally, fandom creates a sort of protection. Most nerds (who don’t have a pair of balls/ovaries), have been bullied for their interests. Therefore, they create walls and barriers to protect themselves from outsiders. Other nerds have struggle with dealing with real world issues, or dealt with hardships in life (child abuse, absent parent, social struggles, etc.), so their fandom is the perfect tool for defense. It’s all-to-common to hear a female felt empowered by magical girl series such as Sailor Moon and Card Captor Sakura in her troubling youth.
We all heard tales of men (who only watch entry level Shounen anime) whose favorite anime is Dragon Ball Z because somehow, a cartoon show them what an alpha male is supposed to look like. They may not actually put in the work to be as alpha as the fictional characters they admire (hell, they even hate on anime fans who don’t live vicariously through shounen anime and put in hard work to become greater than their fictional icons).
They rather live through their heroes than to like them.
PART TWO
DISRUPTING SECURITY
Let’s visit an earlier statement from this “essay”: “Not everyone loves and operate on the same level of stableness and security you run on (pop culture). Eventually, you’ll need to disrupt that sense of security if you want to attach others to you. ” Sooner or later, security will get violated. It will get disrupted it; causing you to be on edge.
We’ve seen this with COVID-19 forcing pop culture conventions to cancel their events this year. Stores catering to nerd culture, such as Japan LA and Uncle Hugo’s Science Fiction Bookstore have been torched by protesters seeking justice for the racial murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and countless mores. Nerdy brands have shown solidity with Black Americans (if they’re being sincere or just doing this for money is up for debate). 2020 has proven that you can’t use your fandom as a shield to protect yourself.
You will need to embrace that. Hiding from it not only makes you childish – it makes you weak and a coward.
We don’t even need the onslaught of chaos that 2020 given us so far to destroy your sense of fanboy security. Remember: a madman in July 2019 decided to burn down Kyoto Animation. You know, the same anime studio that produces media to help keep otakus and weeaboos globally distracted.
You couldn’t go anywhere online or offline without being reminded that Kyoto Animation was burned down and 35+ of their employees were murdered. This is no means a form of disrespect towards those who lost their lives in such a senseless way, but it’s a grim reminder that your distractions can be taken away from you.
Look, what I’m telling you guy is this: you have to accept the fact your hobbies and passions will never protect you in the long run. Reality always has a way to rear its ugly head into your fantasy, la-la land (or even in the real world itself). We’ve heard stories of Black nerds going to nerdy conventions thinking they can escape racism for a few days only to experience it by racist white nerds. You always have these racist white nerds who will attack Black nerds for cosplaying outside their race or simply being at a convention.
My fellow black nerds: if you think your geekiness will override your Blackness, you are fucking retarded and deserve a Negro wake up call.
Logging onto Animal Crossing or whatever the latest distraction is won’t fix nor lessen your issues. How the hell you’re more concerned about some fictional tanuki motherfucker breaking your kneecaps if you don’t pay them rent, and yet, you haven’t pay rent to your real landlord?
It’s so wild that we have people out here who have all the courage in the world to solve the problems of fictional characters, but somehow, they can’t be bothered to fix their own. Guess it’s easier for some socially awkward nerd fuck to solve worse girl Futaba from Persona 5 or worse girl Bernadetta from Fire Emblem: Three Houses social disorder issues than for them to solve their own to better themselves as a person (it’s also easier for fans of those two to smell like corn chips, hot dog water, and ass like those two shut-in losers as well, but that’s for another essay).
In conclusion, I say this: You’re not Linus from Charlie Brown. Stop relying on such a pathetic security blanket such as your precious little fandom geek shit to guard you from the realities of this world. You need to grow beyond it so that you can have more friends or whatever. Learn to embrace that this world is horrible and bad things will happen. It’s not to say that you should be horrible in kind, but you have to deal with it to grow as a better person.
You cannot escape life.
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The Swarthy Nerd Podcast
A Black nerd empowerment podcast where Black nerds (well, all nerds, but Black first and foremost) can get together and talk freely about nerd culture while also acknowledging systematic white supremacy and racism in the nerd and Eastern otaku fandoms. Every Tuesday join @superlostfan108 and @weebtrashyuki the founders of http://www.swarthynerd.com for there very informative podcast talking about all things nerdy. No desperate boot licking self hating negus who were never accepted by Black norimes for being too weird for their love of anime and comic books by the Black community allowed. Go drink bleach.
In celebration of the 30th anniversary of the Fire Emblem series (with the release of the first game of the series, “Fire Emblem: Dark Dragon and Sword of Light released on April 20th, 1990), I will be doing a bit of a low-brow, personal “retrospective” of the games I played from the series. Join me as I talk about my first experience with the series through my first and second favorite Fire Emblem game: “Genealogy of the Holy War”.
[Warning: Foul language, low-brow commentary, and crude remarks on the characters of Fire Emblem. Go watch some boring elitist cornballs with no real talent who think talking about video games on YouTube is a real, viable job on YouTube if you want a serious retrospective on the series]
As with many of my peers who grew up playing video games throughout the 90s, I played such classics from that era such as Super Mario World., Street Fighter II, Sonic, Gran Turismo, Final Fantasy, and Pokemon to name a few. It was thanks to the 1996 capsule monster catching RPG that I would find love within the RPG genre. As my first RPG, I loved the idea of capturing and raising monsters to dominate the world of PokemonBlue. Later, around the early 2000s, I was introduced to two of my top favorite RPGs of all time: Paper Mario and the original Final Fantasy 3 on the Famicom; which happened to be my first Final Fantasy game.
(For those wondering how and why Final Fantasy3 was my first FF game: grew up in Nintendo dominate household and my Pentecostal mother thought RPGs were the devil because Christians, especially Black old-school Baby Boomer Christians, live in fear of thinking for themselves and questing religion; so emulation was the way for me.)
I loved the idea of taking a traditional 2D-platformer Mario game and reimagine it as a turned- based RPG spanning across the Mushroom Kingdom as Mario, once again, must save Princess Peach from the clutches of Bowser. As for FF3, the 8-bit charm of four young orphaned youths being the chosen ones of legend to save the world from darkness. While both games’ story could be consider “basic” to some (which, to a degree, they’re sort of right especially on FF3’s front), I enjoyed and loved them.
I would continue my RPG journey as the early 2000s progressed with classics such as Chrono Trigger, Shin Megami Tensei II, Final Fantasy IV, V, VI, and finally VII (mostly 16-bit emulation because, again, scared Pentecostal Christian mother). They told such amazing stories of their worlds. Time travel. Nuclear holocaust. Tales of hope, life, and death. Yet, despite all of that, there was something missing from those games. Something that I could say in confidence would impact me for life.
Don’t get me wrong: it was a shock to see teen pregnancy used as a narrative theme in Final Fantasy VI with realism as Katarin struggles with the fact of becoming a teen mother in an world of ruin. Katarin, along with her lover and baby’s fathers Duane, the oldest member of the destroyed village of Mobliz in the World of Ruin. Chrono Trigger made me thought about my own existence in the universe as I watched Crono and crew ponder about how the universe and its inhibitors became to be during the campfire scene.
Chrono Trigger campfire scene
Yet – those things didn’t fulfill a certain need of true, down-to-earth realism. I needed something more grounded. Something that would make such sense to me as a young man. Something that I could relate to with absolute:
Super Smash Bros. Melee. for the Nintendo GameCube!
2001:
Through a summer school event, I managed to get my hands on a copy of a Nintendo GameCube demo disc for the PC. Featured on the disc were video demos of upcoming launch titles for the GameCube: including Luigi Mansion, Star Fox Adventures, NBA Courtside 2002, and of course, Super Smash Bros. Melee. Super Smash Bros. 64, the game prior to Melee, felt dwarfed compared to the raw graphical power and scale of Melee. I was aware of and hyped for Melee being created by Nintendo through elementary schoolyard conversations and magazines. Seeing a demo of the preceded flawless game’s action and mass scale drove my desire to get a GameCube and Super Smash Bros. Melee for the 2001 holidays season.
So, did I eventually get Super Smash Bros. Melee for the Nintendo GameCube and the GameCube for Christmas of 2001 like every other good little boy and good little girl?
Of course fucking not! My parents went bankrupt after buying a new house, having to bury my mother’s parents who both died a month apart from each other, and finally — said new house’s kitchen catching on fire; thus, causing us to living in a downtown hotel then a temporary luxury apartment because we all have shit lungs (asthma). I was lucky to get a DVD/VCR combo for Christmas with a few DVDs.
2004:
For three years, I had to live the Melee (and by proxy, the early 2000s gaming) life vicariously. One day, while working on a paper on the history of video games in 8th grade (2004), I discovered the MIDI (Musical Insturmental Digital Interface) video game vgmusic.com. Musically inclined fans could upload their recreation, remixes, and close-to-the-original MIDI files for the nerdy gaming massive to indulge in. Being curious about how the music of Melee sounded, I led myself to the Super Smash Bros. Melee section which had an impressed library of fan made songs from the game.
Scrolling through, there was one track that caught my eye: Hyrule Temple: Fire Emblem. “I don’t remember a Fire Emblem in Majora’s Mask, OOT, nor Zelda II. Maybe I missed something like a secret item named ‘Fire Emblem’ when I had played those games.” I ponder to myself.
Curious, I clicked the link to the song.
Four taps on the artificial hi-hats rang out followed by Latin-like horns, a heavy bassline, and drawn out bass strings and horns building up to the meat of the song.
“Okay, did Link went to Mexico and fight Zorro in a Zelda game because this song sounds super Mexican as hell.”. Rather than do the incredibly smart and not racist thing and Google search Fire Emblem (because I was too busy googling Princess Daisy, Terra Branford , Ayeka Jurai, and Sailor Pluto hentai images and doujins) I just assumed that it was some a weird Zelda thing.
Months later, after my parents recovered from their bankruptcy, they gifted me a Nintendo GameCube for Christmas (they couldn’t find Melee in any store sadly). No worries. I was given a Blockbuster gift card by a family member for Christmas, so I decided to rent Melee the day after Christmas. Wanting to know how to unlock everything, I went online for answers when I came across two Nintendo characters whom which I’ve never heard of: Roy and Marth.
Again, rather than doing the smart thing and Google search “Roy and Marth” (I was googling how to torrent anime illegally this time instead), I decided to play Melee for my answers. After defeating the original 13 fighters, I was alerted with the “Challenger Approach” alarm. A shadowy figured appeared with a male wielding a sword. We’re transported to Kirby’s stage with me wondering who I was going to face off against.
Then, that familiar Mexican sounding melody starts to play.
“Okay, this song sounds ever more Mexican than before now I’m hearing it how it meant to be heard. Why is this white boy speaking Japanese to some Mexican sword fighting music? Is this Zorro’s cousin? Kirby’s friend?”
After defeating Zorro’s half Japanese/Half Mexican cousin from Kirby (I assumed) I’m greeted with the following message:
“Direct from Fire Emblem, it’s Marth, the swordsman supreme!”
“Okay, what’s Fire Emblem, who’s this Marth dude, and why he’s a white boy speaking Japanese to Mexican music?”
Upon unlocking Marth, I ran him through his Classic Mode route to unlock Roy. Fought Roy. Figured out why I thought Fire Emblem was Zelda related after a year (you fight Roy in Hyrule’s Ruins because I guess Roy was sleeping with Zelda behind Link’s back after she slept with Gannondorf). Whoop Roy’s ass and got Marth’s trophy. Wanting to learn more about Marth, I deiced to check out his trophy.
“MARTH
The betrayed prince of the Kingdom of Altea, the blood of the hero Anri flows in Marth’s veins. He was forced into exile when the kingdom of Dolua invaded Altea. Then, wielding his divine Falchion, he led a revolt and defeated the dark dragon Medeus. Afterwards, Altea was annihilated by King Hardin of Akanea.
Fire Emblem
JAPAN ONLY”
“Wait, he saved his kingdom only to have it annihilated by another king? So, a Nintendo hero failed at saving the day for once? That’s interesting.” Reading Marth’s bio deepened my curiosity towards Fire Emblem. “Why was Marth forced into exile? Who betrayed him? How did he escape it? Who’s Medeus and Hardin and how did they manage to destroy his kingdom?”
There was only one way to find out: download Fire Emblem through emulation. But, which one? Visiting my preferred emulation site at the time, Emuparadise, I sought answers through the form of three Fire Emblem games: Mystery of the Crest (FE3), Genealogy of the Holy War (FE4), and Thrica 776 (FE5).
First Try: Mystery of the Emblem
The game boots up with a shield with five circular groves and a flame crested embedded in the middle while a trumpet and French horn fanfare plays for a few seconds. Next, I’m treated to a tapestry with scrambled text. However, the imagery of men burned alive by dragons, sages praying to the heavens, a god armed with a mighty sword and shield descending to earth from the heavens to slay a dragon, and humans giving praise to their savior to a medieval musical motif told the tale for me.
Following, the intro ends with three strikes of lighting; causing the screen to flash. A known fanfare plays as the words “FIRE EMBLEM: MYSTERY OF THE EMBLEM” fades into the foreground as the Falchion pieces through the text. Finally, I’m introduced to the playable classes and their stats through the game’s attract mode.
Due to the state of the game’s translation, the pre-chapter’s screens were an unreadable mess (a most common issue of Fire Emblem early fan translations days). For all I could had known, this could had been Roy’s game, which I would had been cool with, but I wanted to know Marth’s story.
Skipping past the mess of the “translation”, the game starts.
Axe-men swarming a lone island: pilaving and killing. A young woman on a Pegasus flies away from the carnage to a castle. It is here I’m introduced to Fire Emblem’s first ever characters: Jeigan/Jagan, Ceada/Shiida, and the poster boy of the series: The legendary Prince Mars!
“Yo, who the FUCK is Mars? Where’s Marth?” I asked myself in confusion. I mean, he had blue hair like Marth. Wears a tiara like Marth. Look like a chick like Marth. But, he was clearly Mars. Not Marth. Disappointed (and utterly unaware that Mars is Marth and the translator took the Marusu name too literal), I stopped playing I FE3 and booted up FE4.
But MAAAAAAARRRRRRSSSSS!
Second Try: FE4 (or, my true first Fire Emblem experience)
Immediately, I’m blown away by audio/visual presentation. While the opening text aren’t a jumbled mess unlike the “translation patch” of Mystery of the Emblem, they were in Japanese; a language which (at the time), I lacked understanding of. Regardless, I could understand the story though the art and sound.
Dreadful music plays as the red and black hellfire serves as the background while mighty warriors and fearsome dragons engage each other in brutal combat. Twelve flames, representing the twelve holy gods of Jugdral surrounding a lone tower. As the music reaches a peak and fades out, A dragon of darkness and a dragon of light entangled in a fierce battle and the screen goes black. Silence. Then, a golden wheel fades in with slow strings building up. The wheel is surrounded by glistering weapons in a celestial blue shade before flying off.
Finally, this specular ends with the Japanese Fire Emblem logo proudly appearing as the theme of the series plays in vigorous pride: as if it was an anthem for a militaristic nation.
Even if this wasn’t Marth’s game and even if I lacked the knowledge to understand the Japanese language, the ominous scene displayed for me alongside with the introduction of the actors and players of the world of FE4, I wanted to dive deep into the blood soaked tale of Jugdral.
After the marvelous introduction, I created a new file, got hip to the story of Jugdral thus far, and proceeded to play.
“Finally! That’s Mart- no, who’s the hell is Sigurd and why does he looks like he could be Marth’s older cousin? If that’s Marth’s cousin maybe Marth will show up in this game.” I proceed to play FE4; impressed by the scale of the map compared to FE3’s Book 1 first’s map. FE4’s first map felt like a long-standing war was about to take place while FE3’s first book seemed like a meek, short skirmish. In a way, this set the tone of the overarching theme of FE4’s maps: large armies clashing with one another non-stop.
Needless to say, this was going to be a long, uphill battle –and I was going to love it. By that detail alone at was then that I knew that not only Genealogy of the Holy War was going to be something special for me, but the Fire Emblem series in general.
*****
Three turns passed. The blue hair axe dude, Lex, wasn’t Marth. The other blue hair guy, Finn, wasn’t Marth neither. At this point, I realized two things:
1. I’m racist against blue hair mid-90s anime-inspired fantasy characters.
2. This wasn’t Marth’s game.
In any case, the first few minutes of gameplay impressed me. How should I move my units? Which weapon is best against the enemy’s? Should I keep Arden guarding the castle or should I be bold and reckless by leaving the castle defenseless? Midir wasn’t a girl? Azel have a thing for cute young nuns and so do I.
Hooked, I spent an entire weekend getting through the first three chapters of the game (Birth of the Holy Knight, Maiden of the Spirit Forest¸ and Disturbance in Augstira). By the time I reached Chapter 2, I realized something: I suck. Ethlyn (Sigurd’s sister) got wounded, so these left the game alongside her husband, Quan: causing me to lose two units at once.
I accidently killed Ayra with Alec and my dumbass saved my game after the fact. I also got Jamke killed because Adean, the priestess whom was supposed to talk to him so he could join your cause, was at the other side of the map. I made Azel kill him. But, it didn’t matter. All it matter was that I was having fun with the game and I kept at it.
Why?
Well first, I simply fell in love with the game’s story. Who would had known that Sigurd recusing his friend Aidean from the savages of Verdane was actually a part of a much more diabolical plot orchestrated by the underground cult, The Loptr Church and their leader, Manfory to control the world.
Manfory was the man running the show behind the scenes in an attempt to find the last two surviving decedents of a twisted, dark, demonic dragon god (Lopotsu) in order to revive said dark dragon to plunge the world into disarray, death, destruction, and darkness. Using his pull and promise of power to politicians throughout the land, Manfory was able to install his plan of bringing the world into darkness.
Second, as a teenager, I wasn’t one for politics. It was a topic that bored me to no end. Yet, Genealogy of the Holy War opened my eyes to how brutal and ruthless politics can be. No. Inferior words such as brutal and ruthless are understatements. Cutthroat fits better. I was filled with disgust with Chagall killing his own father, King Imuka, to gain power in Agustria. I took note at how one set of dukes and lords of Agustira bid their time as Sigurd cross blade against the other dukes and lords of their land. Levin’s uncle was willing to kill him and his mother if it meant controlling their nation.
(As Leptor told Sigurd: “Politics is all about power!)
Now, let it be known that politics alone wasn’t the sole reason why I fell in love with Genealogy of the Holy War despite it being the driving force behind why I loved the game. The countless tragedies after tragedies that transpired throughout Sigurd’s tale got me as well. To understand where I’m coming from, let’s go deeper into what I mean by this.
Towards the end of Chapter 1 (Maiden of the Spirit Forest) we’re treated with a touch of “love at first sight” story narrative. Upon conquering Marpha Castle, Sigurd encounters the beautiful and alluring maiden, Deidre, being harassed by a brigand. After running the thug off, Sigurd and Deidre exchange a few words; with Sigurd being shocked that Deidre knows his name (through Aiden) and admitting that he’s everything she imagine him to be. Sigurd ask for her name, which Deidre asks for his pardon for not revealing it before running off loves struck.
Curious about her (and not being able to shake off the feelings of love) , Sigurd asks a local elder about her. The elder informs Sigurd of Deidre’s name, background, and warns Sigurd not to engage in any sort of relationship with Deidre; least disaster shall befall upon the world if she left the forest and found love. Not wanting to believe in such superstitions, Sigurd sets out to find Deidre. They encounter one another and admit that they had fallen for each other…
…And like any good woman and man who fall for each other upon a chance, first meeting, they both fucked later that night. This isn’t me being lowbrow (for once): that scene is in the official Fire Emblem 4 manga written and drawn by Mitsuki Oosawa. Deidre totally fucks on the first date (must be due to of all those years of living a sheltered life).
Without context, this scene can be taken completely wrong…
Anyway, after conquering the Kingdom and Verdane, Sigurd and Deidre got married. From their marriage, Sigurd started to change. His sister, Ethlyn, notes how much Sigurd changed thanks to Deidre. He’s no longer a slob. His hot-headed attitude has all but disappeared. He became more upbeat. From their love and marriage came their first and only son, Celice, whom they both loved dearly.
Sigurd was happy.
Deirdre was happy.
And then, Chapter 3 hits – hard.
After receiving news of Sigurd subduing Madino Castle, Deidre decides to leave their army’s home castle to check on her husband. Despite pleas from Shanan (Prince of Issac, his backstory on why he’s in Sigurd’s army is a tad long for this post for me to explain) to ensure that Deidre do not leave the castle as per Sigurd’s request, Deidre leaves; assuring Shanan that she’ll only be but just a second. As Deidre walks outside, she is attacked by Manfory, brainwashed, and taken away by the dastardly villain.
(Keep in mind: Sigurd is prepping to engage in combat against his own best friend, Eldigan)
After subduing Evans Castle, Sigurd is alerted by Shanan that Deidre went missing (in the manga version, Shanan engage in combat against Manfory and fails to rescue Deidre). Sigurd, still stressed out due to discovering the beheaded body of Eldigan in Silvali Castle, sets out to find Deidre.
To worsen matters, Sigurd hears that he and his father Vylon are accused of murdering Prince Kurth of Grannvale (in truth, Vylon’s rivals, Lombard and Leptor, murdered the prince as an attempt to frame Vylon and take Castle Chaply from him).
Sigurd and company are forced to flee to the faraway frigid mountain lands of Silesse. Despite his justified anger/desires to storm Grannvale and expose Lombard and Leptor for their crimes, Sigurd is forced to resolve the civil conflict of Sileese while living as a refugee.
Once the civil conflict in Sileese subsides, Sigurd sets off to Granvale to combat against Leptor and Lombard. He revives his family heirloom, the Holy Tyfring from his father, who has been morality wounded by Lombard’s squad. Sigurd is helpless as his dad dies in his arms and promises to rain wrath and revenge upon Lombard and Reptor for their crimes against the Chaply family and the land of Grannvall. Keeping to his promise, Sigurd successfully slew Lombard and set his sights against Reptor and his unit.
During this time, Quan and his Ethlyn, along with Leonster Lance units, are to aid Sigurd and his army. However, King Tribant (introduced in Chapter 3) ambushes their squad: killing them and leaving behind no survivors sans Cuan and his Ethlyn’s 3 year old child, Altena. Sigurd hears of this news and is devastated by yet another tragic event in his life.
Following, Sigurd eventually take the battle to Leptor, effortlessly defeating him with the help of his army. Sigurd is greeted by Arvis’ aide, Aida, who tells him that Arvis and Kurth’s father knew Sigurd and his father weren’t involved in Prince Kurth’s death. This relives Sigurd, a man who for the past two years dealt with soul-crushing pain. For once, Sigurd is able to take a break and repay his allies for their work.
Yet, all isn’t what they may seem.
While Sigurd and company are welcomed to Belhalla by Arvis in a faux celebration party, Arvis reveals to Sigurd that everything that has transpired within the past three years of Arvis’s doing. He doesn’t pardon neither nor his father for crimes to conspiracy to usurp the Grannvall throne by murdering Prince Kurth. Sigurd is sentence to death. Sigurd, now in absolute disbelief and believing that Arvis is joking, asks if this is a cruel joke, to which Arvis replies that he is not. Before killing Sigurd, Arvis reveals something that Sigurd has been looking for the past year:
Deidre – now recognized as the wife of Arvis.
Arvis insists that Sigurd must be confronted by the daughter of his victim. Deidre, lacking any sort of recollections of her (true) marriage with Sigurd, questions if Sigurd murdered her father. The man snaps, yelling at his wife that he’s married to him, not Arvis, and that he did not do such a horrible thing to his wife who, he loves dearly by killing her father. Deidre is confused. She ponders why Sigurd, the man who supposedly murdered her father, is speaking to her as if he was her familiar. She requests to Arvis that she is given more time to speak with Sigurd to clear things, only to have that requet deny by her new husband.
As Deidre is courted away by Arvis’s royal guards, Arvis believes that Sigurd has said more than enough and orders the execution of Sigurd and his army.
My jaw dropped as I helplessly watched the army whom I raised and the characters I grew to love lives come to a brutal end.
“Nintendo a company for kids and family…Did they just really let one of their main characters die so violently like that?” My teenage mind couldn’t compheren that Nintendo allowed the death of a main character (among many other controversial things) in one of their games.
Continued in Part II.
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The Swarthy Nerd Podcast
A Black nerd empowerment podcast where Black nerds (well, all nerds, but Black first and foremost) can get together and talk freely about nerd culture while also acknowledging systematic white supremacy and racism in the nerd and Eastern otaku fandoms. Every Tuesday join @superlostfan108 and @weebtrashyuki the founders of http://www.swarthynerd.com for there very informative podcast talking about all things nerdy. No desperate boot licking self hating negus who were never accepted by Black norimes for being too weird for their love of anime and comic books by the Black community allowed. Go drink bleach.
Everyone needs a Sayaka Kanamori. Everyone. From couples to best friends. From bosses to employees. To businesses both massive and tiny. We all need a Sayaka Kanamori. Sayaka’s fellow cast mates Midori and Tsubame; the former who’s an anime fanatic and aspiring animator and the latter; a teenage socialite/fashion model who seeks to escape from the limelight through her artistic skills, both need her.
Why you may ask? It’s the same reason why your grounded friend has to anchor you when you start to daydream or steer away from a placed goal. Sayaka brings guidance to those without guides. She provides realism to friends who’re (too) fantasy-like in their thoughts. While everyone else is crying over a difficult situation, she can shut her mind off and tackle the problem head on with laser focus. We all need somebody who process the ability to focus on the bigger picture without distractions.
She doesn’t allow herself to be emotionally attracted to things easily. It doesn’t means that she’s callous, cynical, and cold. In fact, she’s quite the opposite. She truly cares about her friends’ passion for the arts. She wants to see them become successful. However, due to her high levels of emotional intelligence combined with her cool, calm nature, it only appears that seems callous, cynical, and cold. And that’s okay; somebody who’s always calm in any situation is always welcome in a group.
Finally, Sayaka pushes her crew to strive for both excellence and self-betterment. She quickly reprimand Midori and Tsubame after the artist duo were beating themselves up over minor issues (such as Tsubame’s parents forbidding her to join an anime club and Midori believing her art isn’t good enough). She reminded them both that they had youth on their side and the power to take chances/risks. We all need somebody like that who can bring us back to reality and build us up when we speak lowly about our skills.
Without Sayaka, there wouldn’t be an Eizouken…even if some of her intentions to build Eizouken revolved around gaining money.
-Until Next Time,
Yuki The Snowman.
FOLLOW ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA:
The Swarthy Nerd Podcast
A Black nerd empowerment podcast where Black nerds (well, all nerds, but Black first and foremost) can get together and talk freely about nerd culture while also acknowledging systematic white supremacy and racism in the nerd and Eastern otaku fandoms. Every Tuesday join @superlostfan108 and @weebtrashyuki the founders of http://www.swarthynerd.com for there very informative podcast talking about all things nerdy. No desperate boot licking self hating negus who were never accepted by Black norimes for being too weird for their love of anime and comic books by the Black community allowed. Go drink bleach.
You know, it’s amazing to watch the growth of otaku culture and anime as a medium. I remember nearly twenty-plus years ago when anime was treated as, as my friend “H.H.E” puts it, an exotic art wonder from this mysterious faraway land called Japan. If you were a kid during the 1990s, you knew that the only way to view anime was on Kids WB, Fox Kids, Fox Family, Toonami (Cartoon Network), or – if you parents or older sibling had the money – buying an $30+ VHS tape of an anime series at a geek or video store at your local mall. Commutations between otakus, as well as sources for anime news and anime conventions were limited. If you wanted to talk with fellow anime fans online, you best knew how to use a BBS (Bulletin Board System) or know about websites such as Geocities/Angelfire or Anime Turnpike.
Snapshot of Anime Turnpike
The New Millennium brought innovation and advancement in internet technology. With broadband internet slowly killing the inferior and soon-to-be obsolete 56k dial-up internet, it was easier for anime fans to upload fanart and fan animation based off their favorite series. One would be pressed not to find a Dragon Ball Z fan Flash animation on a NewGrounds page. Infamous otaku images boards 2channel and 4chan provided a space for anonymous otakus globally to talk about anime. Although still going strong in the early 2000s, Geocitites and Angelfire would give way to anime related message boards, indie websites, anime internet databases, and blogs. In the real world, Sci-Fi, Tech TV, and Cartoon Network would air anime geared towards older demographics; exposing a generation of anime fans to more “adult” anime series.
Still, despite the growth of anime in America, anime was still treated as a weird exotic trendy commodity for children, degenerates, and perverts.
Fast-forward to the mid-2000s. Further achievements of internet technology gave birth to YouTube and Nico Nico Douga: two websites that allowed users to upload video content. With this, otaku had near superior space to share their interests and creativity relating to Japanese pop culture. It was common to find teenagers and young adults from both America and Japan to dress as SOS-Brigade performing the Hare Hare Yukai dance from The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya at schools, a friend’s house, or at an anime convention. You didn’t have to look hard to find otaku performing and covering songs from otaku driven media. Social media platforms such as MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter helped created spaces for anime fans to find and connect with one another. As a much needed bonus, anime slowly became popular with the mainstream; causing the medium to lose its unfairly earned stigma.
The 2010s is what I like to call the “Golden Age of Anime”. Anime massively boomed. No longer did you have to go online to talk and meet up with anime fans: finding an anime fan in your city was a easy as finding a sports fan. Internet video streaming media companies CrunchyRoll , Hulu, and Netflix made it easier than ever to access anime with their on-demand video services of anime. Two unlikely companies, Arby’s and Wendy’s, marketed their products to consumers of anime with anime-related ads and social media posts. Dominos ran a collab ad campaign Vocaloid with Hatsune Miku as the face of the company. Speaking of the cyan hair virtual idol, she infamously appeared on the David Letterman Show (it was awkward for everyone). Established anime conventions saw an unexpected rise of attendees while newer ones spout up nearly every week in major cities.
Anime characters and characters from iconic otaku driven media would appear in mainstream news. An image of Suika, the alcoholic oni girl of Touhou Project fame appeared as a drunken camerawoman in an ESPN reporton the infamous Floyd Mayweather and Manny Pacquiao fight. An printed photoshop image of Zombieland Saga Lily holding a gun threatening feminists was shown to the U.K Parliament in May of 2019.
Suika drunk on the job.
Memes relating to anime were a driving force during the 2016 elections and could have inspired Donald Trump’s presidential win. At the end of 2019, Taiwanese politician Lai Pin-yu started cosplaying as Asuka Langley Soryu hit classic anime series Neon Genesis Evangelion.
It’s safe to say that anime has found its place in the mainstream and lost its unearned stigma.
*****
We are now in the 2020s. It’s a bit early to say what changes, trends, and shifts we will see with anime and otaku culture. Of course, I could comment on how anime fans are using anime characters as memes to cope with the possible start of World War III between America and Iran after American air bombed Baghdad: killing top Iranian general Hossein Salami. Of course, that is to be expected in this era of anime pop culture and memes.
Outside of politics, we’ll see anime shining strong in the mainstream limelight through collaboration with major companies in various fields of entertainment. Example: Hatsune Miku, the virtual idol of Vocaloid fame will be performing at Coachella this Summer 2020. Something like this could open the door for Japanese virtual idol music producers to collab with Western artists. Perhaps one day in this decade we will see Miss Hatsune actually performing alongside Big Boi, Killer Mike, and Jeezy at a concert this decade (hip-hop artists sampling from otaku related media is nothing new of course).
The mainstream entertainment industry won’t be able to deny the presence and power of otaku culture and fans – especially given the children of the 90s and 2000s anime fandom are entering the entertainment industry itself. Soon, it’ll be consider normal to see anime characters and otaku culture used and seen in mainstream culture. Yes, there will be bitter soy milk drinking otaku cornballs who believe that Shinji Ikari and Tatsuhiro Satou are personality types that will be upset that anime has become popular.
I say this: fuck them – let them be bitter while you capitalize on anime’s everlasting growth this decade.
New decades bring forth new trends, ideas, and themes that will define them. Anime and the culture surrounding it are no different. What will never be different are the fans of anime willing to see and help this culture grow. What will always be the same are the fans whom seek to find other fellow anime fans, may it be online or in real life. Regardless if this is the 2010s, 2020s, 2030s or 3030s, people will always love anime. People will always be otaku. People will always be willing to bring forth change to this medium.
If you’ve been following me for these 25 days of blogging goal, then you may be upset that I’m ending it today. As much as I wanted to tackle this goal for myself, I’ve missed my personal deadline for achieving this it: produce 25 blog posts within 25 days starting on December 1st and ending on December 25th. I did not hit this deadline. Reason being is that I foolishly picked a time in which I would be incredibly busy at my restaurant gig; which didn’t allow me the free time to work on 25 posts within 25 days. Working overtime during the Holidays means I only have time to eat and sleep. For most, some would see this as failure.
But, I don’t see it as failure; it’s a step in a different direction.
I realized that it would be better for me to take my time tackling a single subject for maximum impact is much wiser. Creating a post is like cooking stew or broth: you must take time to prep the ingredients before putting it in the pot for a long boil. Once you put the stew or broth on the burner, you must wait until it’s ready.
If the stew or broth isn’t ready, don’t take it off the burner.
This is what I felt as I was creating topics and drafts for my content for this 25 days blogging goal. As I was coming up with drafts for the project, it dawn on me that it would be best to treat each topic as cooking stew: write notes and ideas around the topics, create an outline, write/edit 3-5 drafts, post online, repeat. If it’s not ready, I will not post online until it is. I would rather much give you the product when it’s hot, hearty, and ready – not when it’s still a cold, unseasoned mess.
I rather much have you consume a long, yet informative thought provoking post from me that will make you say “damn, I can’t wait for his next post” then for me to post a short, bare topic each day for you to read and forget about the next day with another short, bare topic that’ll be soon forgotten about (plus, it helps my SEO ranknings).
So, until I quit my job and do my own thing (which is one of my early 2020s goal), I won’t do something as foolish as make 25 blog posts in 25 days. I rather focus on one at a time and produce that then to tackle a challenge like that again. Once I free myself from working for somebody else at a 9-to-5 plus overtime, I’ll do the 25 Days of Blogging again.
Do you have game? Are you a student of the game? Perhaps a master of it. You might be asking “what is game”. Or, you do “know” what game is, but you have the wrong idea of it. To start, despite popular belief, game is not the act of manipulation (of others). Game isn’t just about trying to pull as many women as you can at the club to sleep with (although that also is a type of game). Game is simply the mastery of oneself (emotions, money, self-improvement, uplifting those in your life, etc.). Game is awareness of the world, the rules of it, and the different levels.
Think of this game I’m talking about as a role-playing game. You, the main character, must level yourself up through grinding for experience. You net experience points so that you can level up. You level up so you can upgrade yourself. You upgrade yourself so you can tackle different scenarios without issues.
Rather than being a worker, you learn the game of your industry so you can become your own boss within that industry. Rather than be a consumer of podcasts and YouTube shows, you learn the game of podcasting or YouTubing so you can produce your own podcast or YouTube channel show.
Having game is incredibly important as life itself is a game. Like a game, there’s rules, levels, players, and experiences in this world. If you don’t have game, then it’s easier for others to take advantage of you. If that does happen, you’ll get game, but by the hard way – and by that time – it’s too late.
So, how do you get game and why do you need it? Let me explain.
“Once a motherfucker get an understanding on the game
And what the levels and the rules of the game is
Then the world ain’t no trick no more, the world is a game to be played”
–Tupac, Starring At The World Through my Rearview
You must get game because in life, you’ll deal with different people and situations. You must be able to read people and have an understanding of human nature. We live in a world where, unfortunately, people are utterly selfish. They do not care how they obtain their goals – even if it means through manipulating others. Somebody might trick you into doing something for them in exchange for a payout. They fill your head with grandiose visions like a lead role in a film, a luxurious lifestyle, beautiful women, whatever they can to get you to do it. You wind up doing it only to realize they were lying to you to get something out of you without a return from their end.
However, if you got game, then you could had read through their lies. Something in your gut would had went off telling you “hey, this don’t sound right.” That gut reaction would had led you into avoiding that situation.
Game is especially needed when you’re growing in your career. As you grow, so does your income. The higher your income, the more likely that you’ll become a target to others who want what you build for yourself. Family members who haven’t talk to you in years trying to weasel their way in your life. Gold-digging women who attempt to get into an relationship with you for your cash. Fake friends who try to latch onto your riches and hang on to you until they can drain you dry. You’ll know when people are coming up to you just for their selfish reasons.
Being laced with game means leverage. You can set yourself up to receive the best outcome of a state of affair(s). People won’t try to have you sign a messed up contract. Instead, you use contract negotiations skills that you learned overtime to get the best deal possible. You go straight for your money in the highest value.
Developing game is a great confidence builder. Being aware of who you are as a person can not only help you understand both your flaws and faults, but even embrace them. In addition, awareness and the handling of your weakness means people can’t take advantages of them. If one of your weakness is that you react emotionally when somebody says something negative, learn how to react logically. Cold-hearted if you must. Why? Because when you’re emotional, people can get one over on you (plus, being emotional makes you weak).
By knowing yourself through game, you will know of your strengths. Strength give you an edge over others who are weak in certain areas. If your biggest strength is your verbal and communication skills, you can use that skill to draw others to you; especially since we live in a world where everyone is stuck to their smartphones and can only communicate through technology. Let these idiots be absorbed by their social media apps while you’re living better through real human interactions
Finally, having game helps you grow into a better person.
As a better person, you feel more confident with yourself. Others will see the high levels of confidences within you and will approach you. They want to know why you’re so confident. Maybe your high levels of confidence will rub off on them. People want to be around those who exhibit high self-worth and self-esteem because it’s attractive and sexy. You are much more happier with life due to you becoming a better person. There’s less stress with more game obtained. You are unknown to fears because you know fear will hold you back. The better your game, the better you are as a person.
Now, how do you get game?
There are three ways. First, learn from those who are experienced with the game you want to learn. Spend time with them and see what they know. Example: If you’re a podcaster who wants to improve their audio game, spend some time with an audio engineer. See what microphones he or she are using to produce radio quality audio on the airwaves. Ask questions such as “Why is such-and-such audio mixer superior over this one for podcasting reasons?”
Hang out with podcasters in your city – even if they don’t cover similar topics as you. Just because you talk about anime on your podcast while the other guy covers financial topics doesn’t mean you can’t learn from him. Who knows? One day, your anime podcast might blow up to the point it’s your main source of income. You will need to know how to manage your money and up your financial know how In return, he might discover new anime that he’ll sit down and watch on his downtime.
Second, there are tons of resources out there in the digital and real world that will help you get game. Schools. Tutors. Books. Libraries. Online tutorials. You name it. If you want to learn Japanese and Spanish because you notice your blog have viewers readers from Japan and Mexico, go for it. Look up how to speak Japanese on YouTube. Listen to Japanese podcasters. Go on Cragislist to see who can tutor you in Spanish. If you want to learn about the law, you can go to the local library and pick up law books so the criminal “justice” system won’t screw you over.
Finally, the last and best way to learn game is to go out in the world and experience the game for yourself. Scared of talking to girls? Grow some balls, go to a bar – by yourself – and approach a girl sitting alone at the bar. If you truly want to learn Spanish, work at a kitchen where the workers speak nothing but Spanish. Instead of living vicariously through vlogs of people experience a major convention like Anime Expo, Comiket, or Dragon*Con, you can go there yourself.
Sooner or later you are going to have to leave your comfort zone and experience this game for yourself. Trust me: It’s much better. You learn how the world works by being in it – not by sitting at home and analyzing situations. So please, go out there and get some game.
Because…
THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU DO NOT HAVE GAME
People will take advantage of you. If there’s a naïve air about you, people will manipulate it for their ill gains. Being gameless means that people can run their game on you and you wouldn’t even know it until it’s too late. You’ll always be stuck at the bottom with no chance of growth.
So please, learn some game.
Until next time
-Yuki The Snowman
RESOURCES ON GETTING GAME:
Tariq Nasheed: Get The Game or The Game Will Get You (video)
Alpha Male Strategies: How Important Is “Game”? (video)
Yuki The Snowman 