zombie nerdrage of doom

The sheer amount of unfathomable contempt I am currently feeling has driven me to dig this blog out of the grave in which it has been quietly rotting. I am feeling petty and cruel and nerdoutraged.

Over the past few months, I've become a regular follower of ANN. It's a very convenient place to get narrowly-targeted otaku news, and I'm pretty fond of the House of 1000 Manga and Answerman columns. Occasionally I read the reviews as well. I have Strong Opinions about anime, and it's interesting and at times kind of refreshing to read someone else's view that is more coherent than pseudo-readable tumblr mob babbling and gifs. (Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I do like consuming full sentences every now and then). Also, not going to lie, it feels nice to have my own opinions vindicated by someone who actually bothers to write their shit on the internet.

But. Today, one ANN reviewer posted their review on Hoozuki no Reitetsu Episodes 1-7 Streaming. And. Ok, you don't find the humor appealing. I can let that slide. I am personally enjoying this particular season immensely and Hoozuki is contributing greatly to that. To me, it is an unexpected delight of a show, given that I'm not usually fond of office/gag comedy, even if they are supernaturally themed. Alright, but humor is always hit and miss, and to each their own. If you didn't like the show very much, then it has nothing to do with me.

But let me quote these parts of that review, this thing that I cannot forgive:

"There are precedents for Hozuki of course. Bumbling King Enma, ruler of the afterlife, has his roots in Dragon Ball Z's version of Enma—a big bluffer seated perpetually behind his desk."

....I'm sorry? What was that???

"Hell as a harried bureaucracy drowning in paperwork was an invention of Yū Yū Hakusho. "

....are you fucking kidding me.

"There's Momotaro and his entourage, various traditional Japanese monsters and occupants of Hell, a mythical Chinese beast of some sort, and many more. None of them are amusing, except in passing (Momotaro's dog, pheasant, and monkey take to torture with disturbingly happy enthusiasm), and some are downright awful (the man-crazy, bodybuilding horse and cow women who guard Hell's gates)."

You aren't even trying, are you.

"It's possible they'd be funnier if we were more familiar with their original myths, but the treatment of mythical figures we are familiar with argues against that. Satan is a cruelly unfunny parody of the blustering American and Beelzebub is equally devoid of laughs as a parody of European aristocrats."

I don't even know what to say to this. I really don't.

Seriously, a reviewer who can't be assed to realize that King Yama and the Infernal Bureaucracy do not, in fact, originate from Dragon Ball Z and Yu Yu Hakusho shouldn't be publishing reviews on anime, especially on a series as strongly derived on Japanese culture like Hoozuki. How can you even claim to be a fan of anime if you simply watch and watch and not put forth even the slightest fucking effort into actually absorbing and digesting what you consume? I can't even call this willful ignorance anymore; you are just a stupid fucking asshole. You are literally one fucking google search away from not making a complete dumbass out of yourself. (Also since you're actually a proper staff reviewer that ANN has hired, your name is permanently attached to this dumb article for all of posterity. At least try to cover your ass a little bit when you write, why don't you?)

And I really don't even want to get into this, but the sheer amount of egocentric ethnocentrism in the comments about western Satan and Beelzebub make me really mad. If you don't give enough respect to Japanese and other East Asian cultures to acknowledge that they actually exist outside of media that you consume for you pleasure, you don't get to criticize how they choose to parody elements of western culture such that they appeal to their own tastes and sensibilities, alright?

You know what else makes me unhappy? There are 22 comments about this article while I'm writing this, only one of which pointed out the sheer factual incorrectness of attributing relatively accessible parts of Buddhist mythology to Dragon Ball Z and Yu Yu Hakusho (no, I will never get over this). This means that there are scores more of dumbasses who think the same, or aren't willing or able to make the logical conclusion that these things are recurring cultural allusions instead of a goddamn anime reference. I freely acknowledge that I am a fucking weeaboo; it is something I simply cannot deny at this point in time. But I have rarely felt so utterly contemptuous of these-things-that-are-supposedly-of-my-kind but are kind of just narrow-minded, culturally ignorant trash. Are you lacking in a brain, or could it be that your head is shoved so far up your ass that the only things that could ever possibly cross your field of vision are the things that you shit out yourself?

I'll admit that I'm just being incredibly petty and vindictive here. Ranting is what a private blog is for, after all, and just as Kathryn has her thing about anatomically incorrect skeletons, Chinese mythology is something I hold near and dear to my heart. I've been utterly charmed by the Infernal Bureaucracy ever since I got my grubby, twelve-year-old hands on an English translation of Journey to the West. This cruelty is the cruelty driven by intense nerdrage.

But, you know, actually attempting to know source material will never hurt you. You learn something and expand your worldview! And at the very least, you'll certainly get a lot more of actually watching this:

than you ever will out of watching this:

Nerdrage Problems: Kathryn Style

And now it is time to showcase my special nerdrage problems, in a segment I like to call "I took way too many anatomy classes in college and this is what I have to show for it."

Zetsuen no Tempest (spoilers) is a show about this girl who dies and her brother who is creepily way too attached to her and his friend who was secretly dating that other dude's sister and some sort of apocalyptic death tree and a guy that dresses like Inspector Gadget with a trident and a mage on an island whose breast to waist to hip ratio is a little disturbing and who may or may not be dead already.  And Shakespeare quotes.  Yeah.  So what we have in episodes 7-9 is, for all intents and purposes, Hakaze Kusaribe's skeleton, which we examine while the characters are talking to her from some sort of inter-dimensional wooden voodoo doll.

Hakaze Kusaribe's magical size-changing breasts, meet inter-dimensional wooden voodoo doll.

This episode, while being dreadfully boring, gave me a chance to concentrate more on the actual skeleton.  Part of the story hinges on the fact that this is definitely Hakaze Kusaribe's skeleton.  Now, it is fairly easy to determine the sex of a skeleton given the right information, i.e. landmarks on the pelvis and skull, so in my obsessiveness, I started screencapping pictures of the skeleton in order to do just that.

So, determination of the sex of a skeleton from the pelvis alone involves:
1) width of the greater sciatic notch
2) subpubic concavity (basically how wide/narrow the angle at the front of the pelvis is, underneath the pubic symphysis)
3) ventral arc
4) pelvic inlet (how large or small the hole through the pelvis is - i.e. baby head size or no)
5) size/shape of sacrum (shorter and blunter in females, you know, so it doesn't get in the way of the baby's head)

Kinda like this, but drawn better and less exaggerated 

The detail on the skeleton in Zetsuen no Tempest is very inconsistent.  The ribs are drawn very well, and surprisingly, the correct number are present (12 total, with 11 and 12 as "floating ribs" not attached to the sternum).  From a distance the appendicular skeleton (limbs) appear to be well drawn.  But in the skull and the pelvis, the only two areas that are consistently reliable in sexing a skeleton, the detail is severely lacking!  Coincidence?  ...Yeah, probably.

WHERE IS THE DETAIL ON THE SACRUM!?  I SEE NO SACRAL FORAMINA!

Look at this gloriously detailed (male) pelvis!  WHY CAN'T YOU DRAW IT LIKE THAT

However, it does appear from the screencap that the subpubic concavity is fairly wide, an indicator of a female skeleton.  Off to a good start!  

Wish all you want, those sacral foramina won't just draw themselves...

From here we seem to have a decent view of the greater sciatic notch, which is very wide (notably female). and the ventral arc, which also appears female.  Most of the landmarks indicate that the sex of the pelvis is female, except for the unusually long sacrum, which narrows the pelvic inlet considerably.  It would be difficult for a baby's head to get out of that hole without breaking her coccyx, let me tell you.  All in all, though, even with the lack of detail, the pelvis does appear to be on the female side of the spectrum.  Bravo, anime.  You have validated my nerdiness.

WHY CAN'T YOU SEE MY SPHENOID BONE.  AND CHINS DO NOT DO THAT.  DON'T LIE TO ME.

HOWEVER.  The skull is just dreadful.  Beyond dreadful.  There aren't the proper words to describe how dreadful that skull looks.  The skeletal landmarks are all wrong and/or completely missing (WHERE IS THE MASTOID PROCESS).  It would look so much better with a little more detail!  ALSO.  Why does everyone draw skulls with completely black holes for eye sockets and the nasal aperture?!  They are not black sockets!  In fact, the orbit is backed almost entirely by the sphenoid bone, save for the passage for the optic nerve!  And the nasal aperture almost always has a line of bone down the center (vomer) and sinuses can clearly be seen on either side!  No more black pits!

Yes this is a replica but it is a DAMN GOOD REPLICA

And then this happened.  Close up of the hand, what?  What even is this? What are those distal phalanges!  It looks like a doll's hand!   UNACCEPTABLE.

No.  Just NO.  WHAT HAVE YOU DONE. THEY LOOKED FINE BEFORE.  LOOK AT THOSE CARPALS AUGH

Really.  I can't.  

But in the end, everyone knows the absolute best way to tell the sex of a skeleton... from the boobs!

Skele-boobs.

The next one will be an actual review.  I promise.  Maybe.  We'll see.

~Kathryn

Nerdrage problems

You know you have nerdrage problems when, more than the occasional WTF plot, more than the increasingly boob-exposing outfits, more than generic shonen dullness, this is the single most irritating thing about One Piece.

Seriously, what is that even supposed to mean??????