Hoshizora no Memoria and the Value of Tradition

While video games have many capacities for both entertainment and supplying the gamer with new perspectives, the ability of video games to depict tradition is especially compelling.  One famous example is Okami, which tracks the Shinto goddess Amaterasu. Another game rising in prominence is Never Alone, which displays Inuit culture. The game I am writing about, Hoshizora no Memoria, does not focus on tradition explicitly but shows its role in modern life. In particular, Hoshizora frames tradition through a few of its characters who are intimately tied with traditional life – in particular these characters are tied to the Seitenguu shrine near Hibaragasaki, the town that is the setting for most of the game. These themes regarding tradition are best depicted by Komomo Hisakaki’s Shinto performance (as shown below). Specifically, Hoshizora no Memoria displays the importance tradition can play in lives in addition to its role in a modernized world.

Figure 1. Komomo Hisakaki performing the Kagura Dance with a naginata.

Clad in elaborate dancing costume and with her eyes closed, Hisakaki dances elegantly with a spear, called a naginata, which symbolizes cloth to be weaved. This act is called the Kagura Dance, reflecting local ancient tradition – its purpose: to exercise insidious spirits through bodily expression.Throughout, she has a serene expression, creating a mystical atmosphere, Given Komomo’s role in drawing in spirits and appeasing them before their release, her attitude is appropriate. She must maintain this state of mind to tackle these spirits; otherwise, they would be far too evasive. Her movements vary from violent to calm, reflecting her engaging these spirits. Traditional music plays in parallel to the stirring performance, adding to the feel of authenticity.

Asides from being cool, the performance conveys Japanese tradition succinctly and in a very visual manner. At the same time, Komomo is enhanced as a character from beyond textbook tsunderedom. This performance transforms Shinto tradition into a powerful feat of nature deserving awe, which is well-equated with how ancient cultures usually regard nature. 

Despite holding a heavy weapon, Komomo deftly maneuvers – in this instance, she seems powerful and dexterous to a degree surpassing most other humans. Her level of preparation, combined with the aforementioned strength and capability, suggest the importance tradition plays in her life. A duality exists between the expectation that Komomo is ready for her role following years of practice and the reality that she exists outside of this traditional world; after all, she is not a shrine maiden when she goes to school. That other identity still plays a role in her life, especially based on the game’s musing that perhaps she has keen supernatural powers even outside of the shrine. Through showing a Shinto shrine maiden exorcising spirits, Hoshizora demonstrates both the value and shifted role of tradition in modern times. In the process, Japanese tradition is both praised and questioned in a nuanced manner. Similar to the Eskimo game mentioned earlier, this game serves to preserve cultural tradition in a unique manner. These cultures long predate recorded media and their inclusion in games must involve some form of transformation. Then, the goal is not simply preserving tradition from the forces of modernization and globalization but also displaying its unique value through manipulation of various media. In particular, ancient culture is instructive in manners separate but linked to modern culture, so its importance should be emphasized. One important theme that comes from the cultures of the Inuits, Native Americans, the Japanese, and other groups (especially non-white ones) is the value of coinciding with nature. Again, Komomo’s shrine maiden performance highlights this fact. Furthermore, such endeavors are worthwhile because studying other cultures is on its own quite cool. As a result, introducing traditional culture into video games is quite far from blasphemy if performed well. That is why, in part, Okami resonated with me.

ClariS' "Orange" Is Quite the Symphonic Spectacle

Beginning with a clean keyboard sound, the song elegantly takes off with soothing and graceful vocals. Percussion and woodwinds then leap in, escalating the effort presented by the other instruments. This song is ClariS' most layered song with the presence of many instruments working seamlessly together, creating lushness. "Orange" manages to sound large while being intimate with the listener. Truly a ballad, the song never stretches thin in its 5 minutes thanks to its shifts in complexity. Though a lot of the song features many simultaneous instruments, there is a section drawn around the vocals and pianowork, adding to the intimate feel. Coming at the end of Party Time, "Orange" both fits in well with "Step" and "Colorful," but contrasts pieces such as "Drawing"; "Orange" represents a band growing beyond their original sound by drawing from their symphonic pieces such as "Connect" while still drawing from toned down yet still poppy moments from their sophomore effort. Truly, "Orange" is great.

A Test To Estimate How Empowering a Work of Art is in Its Representation of Disability, or the Nagisa Furukawa Test

Currently, art is in a state of relative cultural flux as more cultural perspectives become recognized, driving the need to understand if a work is truly empowering. In particular, the Bechdel test is used to estimate how empowering a film can be with respect to gender representation (Romano 2013). A variant has been used to assess racial representation in films.  This test does not and cannot affirm how feminist a work is – it focuses on the presence of multiple female characters who talk to each other about something other than a man. Naturally, this standard must be improved because it does not include whether female characters ought to play a driving force in the work. The Mako Mori test adds this additional layer by stipulating that at least one female character must be present and get her own narrative arc that is not about supporting a man’s story (Romano 2013). This way, the importance of the character to the plot is included. Neither of these tests, however, aim to establish framework for empowering representations of women. Their use does, however, highlight great disparities; not many movies truly pass either test. I would like to propose an analogous test that determines if a work of art contains empowering representations of disability.

One major limitation of the test is that the character may still fall prey to clear stereotypes of people with disabilities but still pass the test. It cannot rule out ableism for a work of art but does provide a means of assessing the presence of empowering representations of people with disabilities. This test cannot be used in place of an analysis of the work of art as a whole but it does provide a quick indication of respect towards those who have disabilities. Naturally, works of art that lack disabled characters altogether should be completely excluded from this test – evaluating such pieces of art with this test would be pointless and offer little insight into representations of ability. 

The proposed test, which I dub the Nagisa Furukawa test, is shown below:
1. At least one character with a disability, whether invisible or not,
2. Who is able to successfully overcome a limitation exacerbated by the character’s condition on his or her own
3. And plays a major role in the overarching narrative.

This test is intended to be used similarly to the Bechdel and Mako Mori tests but for disability. That also includes the limitations presented by both tests.

The first criteria of this test is modeled after the first criteria in the Mako Mori test. Disability can be defined in many ways, so the the Americans with Disabilities Act's definition or my own definition should be used. Most importantly, invisible disabilities should be included. Lucia and Shizuru from the visual novel Rewrite, for example, have not-immediately-apparent conditions. Only one character is called for because, quite frankly, enough works of art would fail this test as-is. Furthermore, disability can still be relatively uncommon, depending on condition. 

Though the third element of the test is important, its role is mainly to ensure substantial inclusion of the character with a disability. If the character only gets thirty seconds of screen time, does that count? I would reckon not. The second criteria is the most important criteria because it is where works of art tend to go wrong with portraying disability. Ableist notions and stereotypes often depict people with disabilities as stuck behind barriers. The strength of a human is not based off some fallacious physical standard. Rather, the capacity to overcome travails truly reflects strength. In this case, the ability to overcome travails exacerbated by one’s particular condition reflects strength. Evaluating the strength of a person who uses a wheelchair based on ability to walk, for example, would be ludicrous. So their strength is measured through more abstract means, which is reflected in the second criteria. Works of art tend to display societally-upheld messages such as these, so it is important to bear this result in mind.

Below are some works that pass the proposed test and some that fail the proposed test (but feature persons with disabilities).

Pass:
Frozen
Mawaru Penguindrum
Rewrite
Clannad: After Story
Nagi no Asukara

Fail:
Mulan
Buddy Complex
Hanamonogatari
The Little Mermaid
Rain Man

Works Cited

"The Mako Mori Test: 'Pacific Rim' Inspires a Bechdel test alternative." Romano, Aja. 18 Aug 2013. TheDailyDot. Web. Accessed 24 March 2013.

Hikigaya Hachiman, Loner Extraordinaire

Hikigaya Hachiman (Hikki for short) is one of those fabled loners, those unfit for company by anyone, let alone people who normally fit into society’s mold. In OreGairu, he takes the role of observer with unique insights gained from viewing people from afar. After all, such social interactions are clearly tiring and dull. But, more than that, they are for the normal and even the sub-normal under certain circumstances – a loner has no true position in such a hierarchy, except transiently at the bottom when noticed. And a loner trying to enter such a field will simply result in being cast out, at least ordinarily.

Episode five of the series illustrates this concept of social exclusion as power through Hikki’s return to his domain as a loner. After his efforts to help Saki with the Service Club, Hikki realizes that he and Yui had met before – he had saved her dog on the first day of school, leading him to break his arm. Towards the end of the episode, Yui waits for Hikki as they go to finish the request for the Service Club. Hikki suddenly tells her, seemingly out of context except to himself and his little sister Komachi, that, if she is being nice out of guilty, she should just stop. Then Hikki delivers a very bitter monologue about nice girls. Talking to them makes him happy but in the end, if they are nice to him, they are nice to others. And each time he is forced to realize that he misunderstood the kindness; it was just niceness, not something meaningful. And so, the loner returns to his domain, away from the people who fit into such a scheme, as suggested by Episode 6’s title – And Again, He Returns From Whence He Came.

Hikki’s monologue conveys a bitter attitude that conveys a strong feeling of isolation. Being in that position means conditional acceptance at best, hence his comment about Yui being nice out of guilt; in his mind, her friendliness cannot indicate anything other than that. This situation which causes him to feel he just misunderstood again, testifies to the power of social exclusion, which need not be performed by any individual but simply anyone and everyone. Though such efforts often come out of more overt forms of bullying, simple exclusion is more generally applicable in its ease of use. Thus, kindness seems akin to either a pure lie or something transient – the nice person then appear as someone who will inevitably play a role in that exclusion despite their niceness. Such an effort, in this view, will become undone the moment that other person stops acting that way. Hikki’s claim that kindness is a lie stems from the view that the kindness is out of guilt or pity that will end soon, which again leads to furthering of the isolation. His dejected tone at the end of Episode 5 reveals this expectation. Yet kindness is expected by humans because of the desire to be included. Therefore, Hikki’s expectations of it are not unreasonable but he is led to this perspective based on how he is treated by others. In particular, his comments and insights are seen as upsetting the normal balance and are therefore unwanted and unworthy of positive attention. Hikki is thus stuck in a difficult situation.

In particular, few people are nice to him, so he gloms onto kindness, creating misunderstandings – except in the case of the angelic Totsuka Saika, who is of course always genuine. As a result of his overt exclusion, Hikki is led ot these bitter observations that, when he is involved, niceness is likely fake. Though this exclusion obscures his self-worth, Hikki has the capacity to grow beyond this perspective. Despite the power of social exclusion, it can still be perfectly undone. Later in the show, he resolves his conflict with Yui and their friendship further grows, rather than seeing a maintenance of the status quo.

And, Another Copout

Below is the final abstract for my paper (same name), and I can say that I am completely relieved to be done with its 27 pages. To be fair, it would be closer to 25 pages in terms of actual content; as in, there are some large blank spaces that had to unfortunately exist due to graphs and tables being too large. 

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Two distinct mutants of HPII catalase were made by incorporating Aminophenylalanine and O-methyl-L tyrosine respectively at site 392, thus creating novel interactions, to investigate the structure and activity of HPII catalase. The oxygen generation rate was measured as a function of initial hydrogen peroxide concentration for wildtype catalase and translated into catalytic constants using Michaelis-Menten kinetics. The catalytic constant  was 6.25 s^-1 whereas the Michaelis-Menten constant  was 330 mM, which is inconsistent with literature values (  and   = 100800 s^-1).  The O-methyl-L-tyrosine (  =  s^-1 and ) and Aminophenylalanine mutants (  =  s^-1 and  feature substantially lower activity and affinity for hydrogen peroxide than wildtype catalase, which is consistent with previous site-directed mutagenesis studies on this site.

In particular, the increased steric hindrance, which can be approximated using molecular size, presented by both UAAs likely resulted in the knockdown of catalytic activity by preventing the His392-Tyr415 linkage from forming. Performing a subsequent denaturation assay with 3.6 M Guanidine Chloride differentiated the AF mutant and the OMT mutant, which have a similar molecular size, on the basis of activity, suggesting that steric hindrance in conjunction with the presence of reactive side groups such as AF’s nitro group drives activity.

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 On that note, I intend to edit and upload a blog post I wrote a few days ago. I hope to actually get to writing another blog post. Wednesday at 8 pm is that magical time that I will be free to do as I wish. So, blogs!

Another Short Update To Keep Everyone Eager In Anticipation

My writing of the blog variety has suffered blows to its prowess because I have been focused on my site-directed mutagenesis paper on HPII Catalase. I wish to correct these deficiencies.

Out-standing posts (as opposed to outstanding):
1. Nisekoi and False Love (however I group this)
2. The big Rewrite post
3. Analyzing Biomedical Stuff and Art (Inaho)
4. Penguindrum and Ability, and Fate
5. The Legend of Zelda environmental analysis (Likely a short series)
6. The Saekano post
7. The Hoshizora Post*
8. The OreGairu post
9. NagiAsu and the Little Mermaid comparison: On Ability
10. Something about Okami
11. Something about Sound Euphonium
12. Something about something

I am staying intentionally vague, so tune in! Or something. And this update post is basically gonna get recycled.

Site-directed Blog Posting

If you're wondering why I haven't been posting....you can see below for why. I will get to writing new posts and stuff soon, I promise. (Below is the abstract for "Site-Directed Mutagenesis of His392 with Non-Canonical Amino Acids To Analyze The Structure and Activity of Escherichia Coli HPII Catalase’s Heme Active Site," which I am writing for a class.)

A site-directed mutagenesis investigating the structure and activity of HPII catalase was performed. Two distinct varieties of HPII catalase were made by incorporating aminophenylalanine and O-methyl-L tyrosine respectively at site 392. The oxygen generation rate was measured as a function of initial hydrogen peroxide concentration for wildtype catalase and translated into catalytic constants using Michaelis-Menten kinetics. The catalytic constant  was 6.25 s^-1 whereas the Michaelis-Menten constant  was 28.7 mM, which displays strong disagreement with literature values (  and   = 100800 s^-1).  Though these results appear inconsistent with literature, they may still provide valuable insight into the relative change in activity observed with the mutant catalase (OMT392 and AF392). Experimental conclusions that answer our hypothesis cannot yet be made due to inconclusive results.