Dragon's Crown Art "Controversy" - Fantasy vs Reality

Dragon's Crown Art "Controversy" - Fantasy vs Reality

WARNING: This post contains images of proportionally-exaggerated women. If you aren't comfortable with the portrayal of characters in fantasy compared to those in reality, don't read this. Instead, please try to figure out why you aren't and try to bring yourself to a point where you are comfortable seeing it.

I haven't blogged in a while, but this topic has me so concerned that I just HAD to say something.

Dragon's Crown. This game has ruined my life in a good way for the past week. It's a beautiful 2D beat-em-up game with an addicting loot system, fantastic local and netplay multiplayer action and extremely satisfying gameplay. It also has drop-dead gorgeous hand-drawn 2D artwork displayed gloriously throughout the entire game, as a narrator takes you through the story on your quest to aid the kingdom of Hydeland. It's not an innovative game by any means, but it doesn't have to be.

Just one look at this game says it all:

Immaculate.

This is a highly addicting game boasting over 100 hours of gameplay and potentially endless adventuring throughout gloriously detailed dungeons. Atlus and Vanillaware really outdid themselves for this game and it succeeds in bringing the beat-em-up genre into the spotlight.

Now take a second look at the screencap above, right in the middle. No, not that shiny green burst of light, the woman next to it with the witch hat and long flowing hair. That's Sorceress. She's 1 of 6 playable characters in this game. She also has ENORMOUS breasts.

And now we get to the core problem people have with this game: the portrayal of women. Kotaku's Jason Schreier has taken shots at Dragon's Crown's Sorceress (and it got even more heated), and Amazon has gotten her fair share of critique in particular for showing off copious amounts of her figure. The Elf is a reasonably-proportioned, well-dressed female, so she has drawn little to no fire. And of course, the playable males (Fighter, Dwarf, Wizard) haven't drawn any fire either. Just Sorceress and Amazon, for the most part.

Let's look at these characters more in-depth.

Sorceress

Here's our mystical Sorceress' official art, drawn by Vanillaware's own President George Kamitani. I believe it speaks for itself.

There's little that needs to be said to describe this art. She's all breasts, legs, breasts and butt. And breasts. Did I mention yet how big her breasts are? Oh and they bounce in the game, in every single animation. Even idle animations. She can't even breathe without them rising and falling with slight buoyancy maneuvers. I should know because I've already spent 20-25 minutes playing as her in the game. Sorceress has a figure release planned already, but it's been cancelled, presumably because she is SO exaggerated that even Japan has issues with her.

"Sorceress gives women a bad name in games, and in fantasy. Her sole purpose in this game is to make males play this game with drool dripping down the sides of their mouths, and their pants down. She's a sex object and a sickeningly terrible representation of women, so much so that female gamers won't want to play this game. She's something straight out of an erotic Japanese visual novel and is just begging to be ravished and loved, used only to bear children and provide fanservice."

The above paragraph is a collection of opinions I've collected from many online sources who baselessly attack this game because of her. She has ridiculous proportions and a very dainty "I need protecting" portrayal, just based on what she looks like and what poses she's in. All they see is her artwork, her breasts, her breasts some more and some screenshots maybe. Then they draw conclusions. Some have even called this game sexist because of her.

Okay. OKAY. Hold on a minute. Sexist? Really? REALLY? Let's analyze her a little, shall we?

The Woman Behind the Breasts

Sorceress character in games are most often depicted as mystically alluring but cunning female mages with a penchant for defeating enemies using crafty, unfair or confusing methods of combat. They usually aren't the strongest of characters, nor the most robust, but they are very strong and sexy in their own right. Sorceresses in Warcraft were not the strongest offensive units in the Human alliance, but they were able to significantly cripple enemies, even turning them into helpless sheep. League of Legends features Emilia LeBlanc the Deceiver, a scantily-clad magical powerhouse who specializes in trickery and darting around in combat. She is particularly powerful, tricking opponents with a clone of herself and blinking all around the battlefield.

Sorceresses dress very revealing and usually have appealing bodies. Dragon's Crown's Sorceress doesn't stray from that stereotype, but her body proportions (the "hourglass" figure) are even more exaggerated. She has extremely healthy breasts, a dangerously skinny waist, and very wide child-birthing hips. Why? George Kamitani has released a statement explaining why he's made the characters so exaggerated: they wouldn't stand out amidst all the other fantasy designs in various media. He's got a point: no other game is like Dragon's Crown, at least not yet, because of how exaggerated it is.

But the Dragon's Crown Sorceress has much more up her nonexistent sleeves than just her appearance. For starters, she can inflict every status condition in the game: petrifying and polymorphing enemies into helpless frogs; she can inflict freezing, burning and stunning with her various magically elemental offensive powers. She can restore allies' health by creating food out of thin air, and she can instantly bolster the entire party's defenses. With the ability to fire homing magic shots in the air, teleport instantly a short distance away multiple times and the power to fly temporarily over great distances, she is easily one of the most nimble characters in the game. Not bad for a woman who would have a hard time maintaining her balance standing up in reality.

But her abilities don't end there. She also has powers of necromancy. She acquires the ability to animate bones of dead adventurers found very often throughout the dungeons you explore in the game, turning them into fierce skeleton warriors that fight for her behalf. Sorceress has control of life and death, and this brings up a very key point in her origins. Previous Atlus/Vanillaware games such as Odin Sphere have featured similarly themed characters. For example, here's Queen Odette from Odin Sphere:

Notice any similarities? The healthy chest, the slim proportions, the flowing mystical attire? Odette is the queen of Netherworld Endelphia in the world of Odin Sphere. In other words, she's the queen of the underworld and holds jurisdiction over life and death. She's also a strong boss full of surprises who uses an undead army to tire out the characters that fight her. In fact, she's part undead herself as is apparent in her artwork...and MUCH creepier than she seems on the outside (she hides gigantic creature-infested spider legs under that dress, let the nightmares commence).

Wow, she's so similar to Sorceress! We can see that our buxom witch has actual significance in her design, which is not noticeable if she is merely looked at.

Now as I mentioned before, I've played Sorceress almost exclusively since I bought this game. Dragon's Crown does the player a favor by not only assigning statistical ratings to each character, but also recommending certain characters based on how difficult they are for the player to use. Fighter is the easiest, Dwarf and Amazon are moderate difficulty, and the last three (Elf, Wizard, Sorceress) are for expert players. Since I usually prefer finesse characters, I figured I'd give Sorceress a spin because she can do so much. Within minutes I had gotten focused onto the action, forgetting the ridiculousness of the bouncy babe I was controlling. I was locked in a dangerous battle, a 1v1 fight against the boss of the first stage, the Harpy. I barely managed to defeat it without dying. Sorceress wasn't just sexy, she was AWESOME.

Hours later, I beat Normal mode with her using AI partners, and came to the conclusion that she is very strong, evasive and versatile. She gives off a very strong "You can only look, not touch" vibe, because she is immensely fun to play as. When you solo entire dungeons with her, you feel a sense of accomplishment, like "hey, I outsmarted EVERY enemy in this entire stage" and you're proud of it. Every so often you come to terms with how exaggerated she looks, but by the time you're into the thick of the game (the first few hours of play) it's just grown on you as a part of the game. Sorceress just IS. She is who she is. Unlike in other games that often explicitly poke fun at a female character's body (via character interaction/side quest dialogue), the game doesn't emphasize hers in any way other than letting the art and animations speak for themselves. She represents powerful but delicate beauty, someone that feels so close yet is always just out of reach. Also she holds skeletons to her bosom. IT'S SYMBOLISM No but seriously, it actually is.

Sorceress is bewitching, enchanting, untouchable, powerful and everything else a sorceress (and just about any other powerful female archetype in fantasy) should be, just with bigger proportions. When I play as Sorceress I feel extremely invaluable and effective, aiding allies and trashing enemies with a variety of spells and attacks. I can't imagine a female gamer having problems playing as her. Yes she has great flopping baggage but it clearly isn't something that should be compared to realistic proportions BECAUSE IT'S FANTASY. And apparently having even bigger-then-normal breasts is grounds for calling Dragon's Crown sexist, among other things. Because logic, right? Let's just completely ignore the entire theme of the game, okay.

Now I can see why she may seem grossly over-exaggerated as a fantasy woman overall, built to "cater to males only", and drive away female gamers. But there are two logical errors with this argument. One, IT'S FANTASY. Don't even try to compare this to real life. This game is so over-the-top that no one (except people who want an excuse to run their mouths without using their brain) can reasonably say that this game should do a better job of representing women. That's not the point of fantasy! Fantasy doesn't have to cover up the problems present in reality (women are hourglassy beautiful delicate creatures, men are savage muscular prideful powerful ones). That's not fantasy's job. That's a problem with censorship and lack of acceptance of various body sizes and shapes in reality. If you have a problem with the way the women in Dragon's Crown are represented, YOU are insecure. Fix yourself, don't blame the game's representation for your own ineptitude. There is a difference between fantasy and reality. The two are not to be compared to each other. There's even one video out there that suggests that Dragon's Crown does a terrible job of representing civil rights. Like...what? REALLY? What does that even mean? Is that really what people these days are suggesting, that video games should do a good job of representing--you know what, it's so stupidly misinformed and irrelevant that I won't even go into more detail on it.

Two, what the actual hell? Why would women be afraid of this kind of representation of females? Sorceress is powerful, she is good-looking, she can be supportive or offensive and do anything in-between. The Amazon is even MORE powerful and powerful-looking, as will be shown and discussed very soon. Why draw a baseless conclusion without even having played the game? This is a GAME too, you know. It has content, it's not just an animated artbook featuring nothing but Sorceress walking and bouncing her breasts all over the screen. I'm not a woman so maybe I don't quite fully understand, but I don't see how this logic isn't firm. And you know what's funny (but not really)? There is so much violence that is apparently acceptable in movies and video games...but the moment an overly large pair of breasts appears, people get out their pitchforks and torches (the latter of which is an actual expendable weapon found in dungeons in this game). Censorship (at least in the United States) is so nonsensical that it hurts my brain. Heaven forbid a character like Sorceress is incredibly powerful but has a huge rack, as opposed to the so-often-used stereotypical portrayal of women (dainty, put in the back of the party, soft-spoken, does almost nothing but buff and heal) in various media that we're all honestly sick and tired of. I guess we can't really enjoy something new, now can we? Gotta ATTACK IT.

And as far as this game being made mostly for males, guess what the gender percentage of gamers mostly is? And guess how games targeting females in particular have fared? Sure, Dragon's Crown depicts saving mostly if not completely helpless females and shows almost TOO much of their bodies sometimes, but it's reminiscent of the more knightly, romantic time periods in history. It's thematic. Besides, the three playable females are certainly powerful in their own right, and more than enough to make up for the lack of power shown by female NPCs in this game. Everyone should be appreciating how extremely loyal (and extreme, period) this game adheres to its theme.

Why then do people jump so quickly to attack this game? Before answering that (even though I kind of already have), let's look at the other half of the glaring problem: Amazon. And I don't mean the company.

Amazon

Amazon is also one of the six playable character classes in Dragon's Crown, and she is the only melee/physical character of the three females. She also outputs the most damage of all six, although she's a bit more fragile than the other two melee classes.

Here are the two official portrait art pictures of Amazon:

Here's a still of Amazon's in-game idle animation:

Two words: dat booty. Look how chiseled it is! Good thing it's so solid, because she uses it to beat the crap out of her opponents with a bone-shattering hip drop. When she jumps, her butt transforms into the most perfectly spherical, flawless, "I wanna reach out and grab it" backside you've ever seen in 2D. And it's fully exposed. She may as well not even wear armor--a key point in tracing her roots as will be discussed later--because you can't even see it half the time. She actually has rather large bouncy breasts too, but THAT MUSCLE attracts all the attention (also dat booty does too). Her legs are even more dangerous than Chun Li's and can easily snap enemies in half (she doesn't do this in the game though, unfortunately) and she uses them to deliver a series of fierce, swift kicks to knock opponents out cold. Lightning fast on land and incredibly potent and controlling in the air, Amazon can potentially deliver the highest amount of damage in the entire game out of all the characters. She also wields a gigantic poleaxe, scythe, and other large cleaving weapons. That's pretty important to note too, I suppose.

If anything can outdo the ridiculousness of the Sorceress, it's Amazon. Sorceress has an entire body behind worthy of being worshiped, but it's completely covered up so its actual anatomic shape is left to the player's imagination (contributing more to the alluring-yet-enigmatic theme Sorceress has, see how logical this is all becoming?). Amazon bears it all out in the open, even using hers as a powerful weapon (Sorceress instead has a weaker hip bump dash attack). What's more, Amazon wears the least clothing out of all the characters (apparently she doesn't need it, yet she takes less damage from attacks than Sorceress. Go figure). When she gets stunned, she lays on the ground with her backside directly facing the camera, and during her stunned animation it even wobbles a bit. It goes without saying that Amazon has nothing to hide. There is even unlockable in-game artwork depicting three amazon warriors--wearing next-to-nothing, of course--after an orc hunt. So it's not just her, it's the entire Amazon population.

But surely there must be good reasons for this character design, right? Right. Let's journey back in time a little...

Ancient Amazonians

The Amazon of Dragon's Crown is clearly named after and physically represents strong, powerful women that are also more primitive-looking and fundamental. I speak of course of the amazons (duh). if you're feeling lazy I'll sum up the important parts of that link in the next paragraph.

In Greek mythology, the Amazons were an all-female warrior nation that specialized in more hunter-gatherer kinds of activities, as well as warfare. They were so hardcore that they would often resort to using extreme methods to get rid of their right breast so they could throw javelins much easier. Naturally an all-female nation would have trouble keeping its population up, so they would procreate with men of other nations every so often. Depending on which version of the Amazonian myth you look at, they would sometimes keep men as slaves for procreation purposes or kill off all male babies born as the result of said procreation engagement. Yikes!

During battle they would often paint their bodies with 'war paint' to appear more imposing. This, of course, comes at the cost of wearing less clothing...and they didn't seem to mind! Dragon's Crown's own Amazon utilizes the War Paint ability as a skill--it creates clones of herself to perform extreme damage at the cost of some of her health. Some of the more Amazonian-like women in history, such as Xena the Warrior Princess, are far more armored but also emit this type of wild 'battle frenzy' behavior in battle, shouting battle cries to the tune of slaying foes. Amazon also does this as she takes a large step back, showing off her entirely muscular body in the process--and then SLAMMING her weapon down in front of her, absolutely obliterating anything unfortunate enough to be in front of her. She is wild, reckless and POWERFUL. But at the same time, she is also more vulnerable due to her lack of wearing...well, just about anything really.

Amazon also has some similar moves to the other Dragon's Crown melee characters, and shares a spinning aerial attack with Cornelius from Odin Sphere, but these are besides the point. Amazon is strong and shows off her entire body, and with great care she can become the true powerhouse in the player's hands. I played Amazon for a few hours and she is very satisfying to use, possibly the most satisfying of all the characters but at the cost of being less effective or reliable overall. She is no dainty Sorceress, and can easily brawl with the big boys. Also I believe she has the fastest dash on the ground, and gives you complete control over aerial attacks (later you can even upgrade her spinning aerial attack so its horizontal velocity can be completely controlled like Cornelius' can). Amazon is quite the woman of action, with powerful feminine beauty to boot(y).

Now, some people believe her muscular body is gross. Just like the Sorceress' body was explained above, it's just fantasy. Amazon's body build and attire represent something. A few hours into the game with her and you won't be concerned at all about her appearance, you'll be busy comboing and carving enemies in half with lightning speed, reveling in the satisfaction of her destructive moveset. Dwarf is just as if not even more muscular, which leads me to my next point...

The Male Characters

Just like how Elf is the exception to the 'exaggeration' theme for the female playable characters, the Wizard is the exception for the males. Now let's look at the two other male characters: Fighter and Dwarf.

Here is Fighter.

Here is Dwarf.

Look at how topheavy Fighter is! How does he even stay standing with those barrel-boomin' arms, scrawny legs and all that armor?! And Dwarf sports so much muscle that it's a wonder how he can swing his weapons at all. I can just imagine Dwarf being unable to even stand up, so the other party members have to take turns rolling him everywhere they need to go. It's hilarious but it's also RIDICULOUS. The male characters don't escape from this 'exaggeration' theme either. But it's okay that they look like this, because that's the accepted appearance of males in video games. Do you see where I'm going with this?

It makes absolutely no sense that the Dragon's Crown females are drawing so much negative attention, but the males don't. Both are exaggerated to the point of being unbelievable...but this is all fantasy, so why SHOULD it be believable? Why should people feel threatened by the character representation in this game, regardless of gender? What's more, the majority of gamers are male. Why would they care so much about the female "misrepresentation" in this game and not the male misrepresentation, when every single game out there has the same depiction only a bit less emphasized? In fact, why would they even care about the male misrepresentation to begin with? It's not like most of the gaming population is female anyway, so their potential mistaken perception of how males look in fantasy vs reality isn't going to become widespread to begin with. To top it off, this game doesn't toy with the idea of poking fun at a character's body like many other games have done in the past--it crosses the line and implements that idea completely, and as a result generates a nice refreshing experience.

The game is sexist? The game misrepresents females? None of these arguments make sense. So why do people run their mouths and say that stuff to begin with? Why do they start flame wars and bring up things like sexism, instead of trying to figure out why the game is made as it was like I have attempted to do in this post?

Conclusion: It's Just Fantasy. Accept It As Different.

The answer is simple. People value validity, a sense of purpose, over the truth. This could be the result of laziness, or simple immaturity. They believe what they want to believe without a need for the truth and that is sufficient for them, but it only pollutes arguments with pointless baseless accusations. The moment people laid eyes on Amazon's and Sorceress' official art and deemed it grossly over-exaggerated and therefore concluded that the entire game was ugly, or that it was not worth playing, they had to do something to compensate for an actual rationale behind their statements. So they hide behind shallow statements like "this game is sexist" or try to bring up the fact that this game does a terrible job of representing our civil rights. I say that's a bunch of hooey. They just want to feel justified in their disdain for this game (not even the game itself, just the way one or two characters are depicted) without delving into the issues behind censorship and character exaggeration. What's more, people are okay with 

There is no logical reason to make these kinds of comparisons between fantasy and reality. Saying things like "Sorceress was designed by a 14-year old boy" is completely ignoring the themes that this game embodies, and instead drawing a conclusion off of an assumption. Because we all love being right SO much that we will throw something amazing like this to the side and trash it completely, right? We love to talk and share our opinions and show how we're right (read: how we believe we are in the right) because we seek validation. Unfortunately, using immature means to do so with no facts or evidence to back it up gets us nowhere.

If you think Dragon's Crown is gross in any way via its character depiction, then I don't know how else to put this: grow up, accept that there are not only different body types but a non-comparable difference between fantasy and reality, and move on. Accept that Sorceress has giant flopping breasts, and Amazon's got a butt hangin' out, and the rest of the ridiculously fantastical things Dragon's Crown has to offer. It's fantasy, extreme exaggeration at its finest. It's a thing of beauty. Nothing else is like this. People should be treasuring a game like this, one that took risks to intensify a player's experience.

Also the game is amazing, so give it a try if you haven't yet. It's too breathtaking to pass up.

Windows Woes: Window Focus Debauchery

Importance is one thing, but focus is another.

Okay, I've been sick and feeling rather unwell for over a week. Now it's time to get back into the game. And what better than to do so with a short but sweet rage post on how Windows is terrible? This time, I'm after Windows' tendency to steal window focus.

So you're typing/clicking/going about your normal business in everyone's favorite operating system then suddenly...

OH MY GOD, JUST LEAVE ME ALONE!

Okay, it may be over-exaggerating the situation just a bit, but the point is that there are some very devious things that Microsoft Windows is known to do (and versions past XP have done a bit to fix this issue). This particular issue is focus theft.

If you are typing in or otherwise using a program in Windows and one of Windows' services wants your attention, it doesn't have to scream and cry. It makes you listen to it. And it does so by using one of the worst attention grabbing mechanisms ever: not silently opening another window or service, not even blinking in the task bar to steer your eyes to the situation, but putting you in its context.

What can this lead to? If you're calmly and innocently minding your own business trying to do your work in Microsoft Word, and you just let Windows Update start its updating 10 minutes ago, well...Windows Update just finished. And it wants your attention. So it grabs it, and you accidentally hit that dreaded 'n' key. Look at the image above, and look at a single instance of the window. IF YOU HIT THAT 'N' KEY, THEN BABY, YOUR COMPUTER IS ON A ONE-WAY TRIP TO RESTART REALM. It doesn't matter if you were typing innocently in Word just mere nanoseconds ago, you hit Enter or you hit the 'n' key, you just sent a message to Windows telling it to restart now.

I swear, I have had this happen to me more times than I have fingers on my own two hands. I've been mere moments away from a restart, then quickly realized what was going on and cancelled it before Windows could enter shutdown mode. It happened today, even. It closed all of my programs and brought up the "still waiting for slow as hell services to slowly close...slowly" screen. I stopped it, but had to reopen everything I was working in. Fortunately I have Chrome and Firefox set to remember my tabs, so not too much was lost. But still!

It does it when you don't want it to, and more than just in cases of Windows Update. For example, Windows Live Movie Maker will, upon finishing its movie processing, steal the window focus from you and demand that you answer it ("Would you like to play the movie you just made?"). And this is just the icing on the spoiled cake for the equally spoiled operating system.

Please get it right, Windows. Don't steal focus, it's bad practice. And being an attention whore isn't good for your reputation.

Musical Mystery Tour: K-Pop

Until recently, K-Pop has been behind the US in terms of style and genre evolution...for the better.

I mean, just look at what it is now: PSY's now infamous, viral Gangnam Style song and video (including addicting, intense memetic dance).

Oppan Gangnam Style!

 
Want to see just how popular it's become? Check out its Wikipedia entry about the video's Youtube popularity. An average of over 6 million views per day and 1.6 million likes within just 2 months? That's insane.

Suddenly, K-Pop is all around the world (even if it's just primarily one song for now). That's really what it boils down to. Has K-Pop been cool worldwide? Sure, in League of Legends we have two Champions (Ahri and Syndra) that have dance animations that are taken directly from K-Pop songs (in this case, Run Devil Run and Hoot respectively). But what other things make K-Pop big all around the world? What else is mentioned on the news or publicly showcased in iTunes/Amazon/other music retailers? Not really anything, unless I've been living under a rock. Nothing else is really advertised or promoted. Sure, Gangnam Style has taken the world by storm, and PSY was even featured on the Today Show where he performed Gangnam Style live. Twice. The song, the video, the dance: they're fiery, catchy, sexy and shameless.

K-Pop in general is just...catchy in a different way. It's an entirely new flavor of musical delight for entertaining the ears, eyes and feet. It sounds similar, yet foreign. But now most people worldwide are aware of PSY and his Gangnam Style. What else is out there? One glimpse into K-Pop is simply not enough: from Super Junior to T-ARA to SHINee to Girls' Generation to TVXQ, among many other groups (each with their own official fan-represented color), there is much more out there then at first glance. When the Korean wave hit in the 90s, it mostly took Asia by storm, but it never really filtered out much further. Now we'll hopefully start to see much more K-Pop sweep the world off its feet.

These K-Pop artists are HUGE in Korea and most of Asia, and now (hopefully soon-to-be) the world. What makes their music so addicting, refreshing, unique and captivating? Is it the music video style? Is it the way the Korean vocals sound? Is it how they look when singing and dancing?

It's all three, and more. The following sections will be mostly conclusions drawn from my opinion and observations as an American, and attempt to dive deeper into why K-Pop in its entirety is a worthy distraction.


Foreign Appeal
PSY's Gangnam Style features a well-known Korean singer and dancing star from 4Minute named HYUNA (they even did a studio version with much more emphasis on her).

She sounds like Pikachu in the studio version? Better make a picture of it!

HYUNA is sexy, cute and saucy, but there are a lot of women in US musical productions that fulfill those criteria as well. So what makes HYUNA so appealing? It's a combination of two factors: she has a deliciously slender and clean body (duh), and we can't fully understand what she's saying. Because we as Americans mostly just speak English (and certainly don't specialize in understanding Korean as a second language), we can sit back and listen to the music and vocals as they sound instead of trying to weigh in what they mean. Music is not something that needs to be understood down to the language level to enjoy. Because of this, we can focus on things aside from what the lyrics may mean up front, watching body language and gestures in the music videos...and sometimes catch bits and pieces of English that we may hear in K-Pop songs. An analogy would be if you were unable to see; in theory, all of your other senses get heightened. In the same way, being unable to understand what's being said allows for our attention to go elsewhere.

This means we zero in on all of the other important features of K-Pop songs and music videos. Take GEE by Girls' Generation (SNSD) for example. This is a group of 9 prominent performers and vocalists, and they are about as girly as you can get without going over the top. Gee, now the second most viewed K-Pop music video on Youtube (second to PSY's Gangnam Style), demonstrates it all: plentiful yet subtle colors, beautiful women, flawless hair and fashion, femininity, an addicting beat, truckloads of happiness and yearning emotion...and the only parts us English speakers can understand are the first few lines of the song uttered by SNSD's Tiffany and the ever-repeating "Gee Gee Gee Gee Baby Baby Baby~". You don't have to know what they're saying, the song is plenty enjoyable enough without knowing what 95% of the lyrics mean. This is a song you want to dance to. The music video and overall presence of the song speaks volumes; it's little wonder why this song/video combination is so popular (and if you want feminine overload, continue on to Oh!. Cheerleader screenshot below). But while on the topic of portrayal...


Refreshingly Emotional, Clean and Positive
If you look at music that's trending in the United States, you see a lot of skirting the line. You see many music videos that show women dressing skimpily and/or acting lewd or otherwise dangerously flirtatious or willing towards the strong men with earrings/tattoos/six pack abs and the whole tough guy act going for them. Like, okay. I watched Chris Brown's Don't Wake Me Up music video recently and the blatant auto tune just put me off. It's not subtle. It's not really a way to convey emotion or get you psyched up. Sure there's a beat and you can dance to it. But I just...I wouldn't want to. The song does not click with me (not to mention that Chris Brown overall is just downright awful, but I'll quickly digress). The inflections sounds wrong, especially when he repeats the same word over and over again. Combined with the auto tune it doesn't sound as good as it could. In fact, listening to most rap is not really emotional at all. It might be designed to get your blood pumping sometimes, but for me it just does not do the trick.

Now let's make a quick jump over to Owl City's Good Time feat. Carly Rae Jepsen. This song is entirely positive and is bursting with emotion! The lyrics are all about having a good time and rebounding: Adam sings about sleeping in all of his clothes in bed, taking a taxi elsewhere to have a good time; Carly sings about dropping her phone in the pool (again) but still expressing interest in having a good time. "It's always a good time", "Doesn't matter when", "Good morning and good night", "It's gonna be all right". It's a very happy song. It makes you feel better, it sends a message without having to overly abuse auto tune or sing about how heartbroken someone is, or how love is unrequited, or how hot/sexy guys or ladies look in bikinis or with six pack abs. Frankly speaking, I'm tired of that.

Well, K-Pop delivers yet again. Compared to many US artists, K-Pop artists don't really need to rely on showcasing super-buff pimp-like male singers with stripper-like women fawning over them, ready to do what they command (PSY's Gangnam Style may be an exception). K-Pop vocalists and dancers in general just do not need to have the biggest biceps, or the largest breasts. In fact, they're all incredibly skinny with little muscle or fat to be seen. The men are snappily dressed (just watch Super Junior's Super Girl for an idea) and the women are not scantily clad or they are scantily clad enough to not overly emphasize it (Girls' Generation has Run Devil Run, in which all 9 members are all incredibly well-covered but still look very shapely and attractive in their skintight garments). These songs are not saddening songs either, they're at the least neutral and usually bursting with emotion (particularly Girls' Generation with their sweet, delicate tracks).

Super Junior members at your service. Stay classy, South Korea.

Sure, there are songs like T-ARA's Bo Peep Bo Peep that are incredibly sexy in general and portray lustful women, but in this case said portrayal is tied directly to the Korean legend of the gumiho, a nine-tailed seductive fox creature that can transform into a beautiful woman that lures in men and then consumes their life essence (and sometimes their livers). Said song includes specific lyrics in English that drive home a feeling of desperation and desire ("I'm so sorry" and "Not amazing").


Asians are Attractive
Ah yes, now we hit one of the clear physical winners here. Asians are well-known for being good in school, good at sports, good at playing instruments, and they are just an all-around excellent, attractive and/or intelligent ethnicity. Just take one look at the comments on SHINee's LUCIFER video. And that's just the beginning! Go to any K-Pop video and I guarantee there will be either loads of ♥'s in the comments or names mentioned repeatedly with much enthusiasm and love for these artists...or both. It's insane!

Being half-asian myself, I used to be big on liking caucasian women (since that's predominantly what I saw in my growing-up years up through high school) until I saw Girls' Generation (in particular Sunny, Yoona and Tiffany). My goodness, these women are beautiful. They come across as friendly, attractive and clean. It's like an entirely new superior species of woman lives in Korea. The way they dress, the way they swing their hips and the way they smile nonstop just leaves me feeling happy, bouncy and breathless.

Want.

Needless to say, I have become more attracted to asian women in general since then. By the way, you can tell I'm incredibly biased towards Girls' Generation.


Conclusion
PSY has branched out, and now the world of K-Pop can be breached by all thanks to his incredibly viral Gangnam style. But how will it go? Will a new Korean wave hit the rest of the world, or will the relatively undiscovered greatness of what already exists be eaten up by the public? Only time will tell.

Now excuse me, I need to take a cold shower.

Oppan Gangnam Style!

I want YOU to check out K-Pop, sexy lady!

First World Problems: Strong Soap & Weak Water

Washing hands is an under-appreciated thing.

First World Problems will be a category of my posts in which I highlight and/or rant about a particular issue that bothers me and likely others, but is relatively minute and unimportant...more annoying than actually a problem, and certainly not serious. It will almost always be a problem that is more of an "American" thing to complain about (unnecessary compared to third-world problems like children starving in Africa, but we do it anyway because we're Americans and we love to complain), hence the first-world problem title. I may or may not discuss an easy way to solve it.

Now then, what's this about washing hands?

Every now and then I get up from my computer to wash my hands. It's satisfying to return to typing at my computer with clean hands ready to continue whatever I was doing. But you know what's really lame? When the soap you wash your hands with absolutely refuses to come off.

I was in the hotel my family and I were staying in yesterday before I moved back into college. San Luis Obispo has much thinner water than my hometown of Antelope does. We get water from a well back at my hometown. Here in SLO, we enjoy much thinner, more refined water. It's amazing to drink in comparison.

But the stupid stream refuses to rinse off any soap even moderately well!

It's honestly a seesaw. On one hand, you have amazingly soft water which feels great to drink and shower with. It's very quiet coming out of the tap, and tastes good. But on the other, I sit at a faucet wasting tons of water trying to get soap off of my hands that just clings with all its efforts and refuses to be removed from my hands and flushed down the sink. Even in a hotel where you don't usually pay for water usage, I'm too bothered by the fact that it takes a millennium to rinse my hands off. You don't want to get the hand towel dirty, and you don't want to waste paper drying it off (this is more a restaurant restroom thing).

It wouldn't be a problem if it didn't waste so much water. Either you lose lots of time and water (or kill trees, or get soap all over towels) to get the soap off, or the soap just...stays on your hands. So how do we solve it? The only way I can see is to have a designated towel that can be washed later on, either that or just bite the bullet. I mean, we can't have our cake and eat it too, I really don't see how that's possible in this situation. We certainly don't all have quick access to air dryers in times when this situation may arise.

While on the subject, I still find these a bit awkward to use...

 So as Americans or those with similar mindsets, what do we do? Wash our hands of the situation?

...okay, that was bad and I should feel bad for making that pun. But it seems that the best thing to do would be to use warmer water. If that doesn't work (or if you're more sensitive to quite warm/hot water) then wipe off the soapy residue after a quick rinse on something that you know will be washed in the near future, either that or just live with soapy hands for a while.

It's just annoying. As a twenty-something tech-oriented American, I find it a waste of time and resources to have to stand there and wait. And wait. And wait. And wait for the soap to finally come off after thorough rinsing and rubbing.

Get It Right: "Mac" and "PC"

For years there has been a battle between Macs and PCs, and a clear separation between both.

Apple recently revealed the new iPhone 5 and new iPods. While catching a glimpse of the story unfolding on CNBC's Fast Money, I heard one of the so-called techie reporters mention a comparison between the new iPhone and PCs.

 Okay people. Let's get this straight.

Macs are Macs. Windows machines are Windows machines and have since been designated as "PCs". The battle raged on since home computers were popularized and cheap enough for most families to own them, and is still raging. Apple and Microsoft are still at war with Microsoft still holding quite the computer operating system monopoly, but Apple seems content with doing its own thing.

Now, part of what helped this along was a series of advertisements put out by Apple a few years ago. These ads revolved around putting Macs against PCs, where each was represented by a different person capable of doing different things. The bias in said ads was obviously towards Mac computers, and the ads showcased not only various applications and functionality that a Mac computer was capable of running and supporting, but also the general mindset of Mac users vs PC users. The guy representing Macs was more modestly dressed with a button-up shirt and hands in pockets. Likewise, the guy representing PCs was more formally dressed with a suit and tie and had neatly combed hair. The former seemed to be much more capable, and the latter more flamboyant but not having the credibility or capability to back up what he said.

Of course, I prefer a more truthful, relevant (and of course biased) representation of this rivalry:

Ha, take that! No one expects the gaming compatibility inquisition!

This whole separation is both a cause for concern and not a concern at all. The problem comes from the fact that, by and large, Windows machines dominated in the 1990s as they were cheaper and just as efficient as Mac computers then. Only when the iMac (which ironically used the PowerPC G3 processor at first) came out did Apple start to gather much more momentum as far as personal computing goes, and now they're doing a fantastic job in the computer market by capturing all levels of computer users. However, Microsoft still holds the home computing monopoly and thus you are much more likely to find a computer running Windows in an average household than you are a computer running MacOS.

So why is this a problem? There are many computer users who don't need to use computers much, or don't need to know a lot about the computer and operating system they use. Many even probably think that their computer and operating system are one and the same, and the scale slides up from there. In fact, let's look at MY estimate of how computer knowledge goes as far as the levels of computer competence go:

Farther down is more computer-savvy. This is purely my opinion. I know, how dare I.

It should be pretty obvious that the above flowchart is speculative and observation-based. And really, who can blame me? Some people just aren't good at using computers. Most of them are products of a different era.

But I digress.

For some reason, computer users started collectively distinguishing between Macs and Windows computers (or rather, Macs and everything else): The catch phrase "I'm a Mac. And I'm a PC." says it all. Macs were Macs, and everything else was a PC. Even now it's fairly obvious that there's a dividing line with the general population, and reasonably so: Apple doesn't want to be compared to the lot of most personal computers.

Aha, there's the term again. Personal Computer, or PC. What exactly is a PC? It's a computer that is used for personal reasons like checking email, chatting with others, playing games, surfing the web, watching videos, listening to music, what have you. They're in places ranging from the average household to the palm of your hand on the go with smart phones and tablets, among other devices. Wikipedia has a definition of it right here.

Now I must ask: where does it say that Macs are not PCs? Guess what: they are. Macs are PCs too. In those Apple-biased commercials, they distinguish between Macs and "PCs" because saying three and two letters respectively is a hell of a lot shorter than saying "I'm a computer that runs the Macintosh operating system. And I'm a computer that runs the Windows operating system." Because heaven forbid they say something that has a risk of not being understood by most TV viewers ("durr, what's an operating system?").

Conclusion

So where does this all lead to? With all this talk about Linux and Windows and Mac OS, what does it mean?

It means use your own computer for whatever the heck you very well please. But if you're using your own computer, you're using a PC. Macs are PCs too. This has nothing to do about which OS is superior. They're all--

--whew. I almost didn't stop myself there. Except for Windows, all operating systems are pretty good at fulfilling the capacities that they offer (and despite being slow, bug-infested and generally restrictive, even Windows has loads of compatibility due to its frequent usage, to its credit). I own several dual-boot Windows/Linux machines, all of which run Windows 7 and run a mix of Fedora, Linux Mint and Ubuntu Linux distros; my father owns several Apple computers including an iMac and a Macbook Pro, and he has an iPhone 4 to counter my Droid 3. Honestly it's operating system potpourri all up in this...house. Sure we jab each other about superior/inferior operating systems, but it all boils down to two facts:

1) No operating system is just plain bad. Windows may possibly be an exception, but they all let us do so much. Each person has their own uses for computers, and many reasons overlap.

2) People, you use PCs. Accept it. Yes, even you Mac junkies who think you know everything (or lack thereof). I'm especially talking about the ones who sat in the back of my introduction computer science courses at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo arguing about how Macs are superior. Get outta dodge, seriously.

This issue really boils down to people thinking they know what their computers do and how to label them, but they don't. Most people don't even know what Linux is (I've heard someone ask me if you can rent it on Netflix), but should it matter? Yes, but only to the extent of bare minimum knowledge. Not everyone needs to use Linux, but being aware of it is a good thing. And same for the other operating systems.

Except maybe Windows.

No wait, who am I kidding--everyone knows what Windows is. Unfortunately.

Windows Woes: Windows Update Updates & Text Selection

The Windows operating system is and probably always will be an untamed beast of a problem.

Being a Windows user, one who spent money on a copy of Windows and use it often, I believe I have the right to complain about it. Windows Woes will be a category of posts that should be very self-explanatory. I will (usually) rant about some poor or unconventional feature of the Windows OS.

This first one is a twofer; I'll highlight two issues that just straight-up bug me this time, but usually each Windows Woes post will just contain one.

Windows Update...Update?
Windows Update. Update this, update that. Windows loves updates, and usually Microsoft releases new updates every week or so. Lots of fun with restarting and configuring your computer, and then restarting again, and then updating again, then restarting yet again, etc.

But what if you can't update, period?

This problem was amazingly unfun and stupid to fix.

If you can't update at all, what do you do? You try to fix it. I did everything I could look up and find for fixing this issue: restarting all the proper services, running the Windows Update troubleshooter (located at Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\Troubleshooting\System and Security), restarted five times in total...problem still remained.

So I start trying random things. I go to change my settings for Windows Update and switch my updating to "Check for updates but let me choose whether to download and install them" from "Install updates automatically (recommended)" and apply the settings.

Suddenly I can use Windows Update again! My random tweaking worked, thank goodness.

But what's this?

Yeah. You read that right the first time.

What the hell? Windows Update needs an update before I can even update Windows? And to make matters worse, I have to restart my computer before I can do anything?

Oh no you don't. What an awful operating system mechanic. In Linux I don't have to restart my computer to do anything involving update manager updating (not like it matters, Linux is lightning-quick every day, all day). Why should I have to go through yet another restart/configuration sequence just to update Windows Update?! It's stupid!

Open/Save File Name Selection

This one is more hidden. It's very specific and more of an annoyance than a bad problem. You know those Open... or Save As... windows that pop up? Here's an example for context:

See that "File name:" field?

Yeah, you know what this is. You see it all the time when saving and opening files, among other things.

But you know what's annoying? If you click in the "File name:" text field, Windows automatically highlights all of the text.

I click in it once, this happens.

If I want to rename the entire document, I'll select all the text myself! I want the cursor to go to the spot I click at without highlighting anything. It's simple to select all the text in the text field anyway: Ctrl+a, Home+hold Shift+End, End+hold Shift+Home. It hardly takes any time and it isn't difficult to do.

This is especially annoying if I'm in Photoshop and I want to name a series of images the same with numbers at the end of each image's file name such as windowsisbad1.png, windowsisbad2.png, etc. I just want to save each image with a similar name, but change the number at the end. I should be able to click at the far right end of the file name, hit Backspace and then put the new number. But no. I have to click twice, once first to select all the text as Windows stupidly defaults to, and then a second time in the same spot to deselect all of the text and put the cursor at the end of the text line. And you have to wait a brief moment in between the first and second clicks, otherwise Windows will deny the latter.

Conclusion

What other conclusion is there? Windows is annoyingly full of flaws. Microsoft is lucky that I basically have to play and emulate games on Windows, otherwise I would burn every copy and remove every installation of it that I own.

Then and Now: Boy Bands & Bieber ft. Featured Artists

Back in my day, boy bands were both adored and ridiculed.

Nothing has changed. Boy bands are still adored by fans and ridiculed by critics.

But I think there's a difference in what boy bands are nowadays, as well as how they sound. Then again, music in general has just overall shifted over the past few decades.

What is a boy band? Wikipedia to the rescue. It's basically a group of young male singers, mostly (but not always) focused on vocals/lyrics.

The Then
Some of the boy bands I remember being popular in my middle school/early high school years were 'N SYNC, 98 Degrees and Backstreet Boys. Recently I revisited several of said bands' songs and I must admit, songs like Bye Bye Bye and It's Gonna Be Me have never sounded so refreshing compared to music being put out and popularized now. The music videos are very solid and relevant as well, in general. I personally prefer the sound of boy bands back in my middle/high school days, but I can't really complain because I can listen to them if I want to...plus I'm probably quite biased.

The Now
Now we have One Direction and The Wanted, among others. But what's the difference? I listened to several key songs by these artists, in particular One Direction's One Thing and The Wanted's I'm Glad You Came. Today, boy bands don't sound the same when compared to others, that's for sure. One Thing sounds like something out of a musical one-night stand between Carly Rae Jepsen and Owl City's Adam Young (aside from that one-night stand already happening, the chorus and beat of One Thing even sounds very similar to Owl City's Deer in the Headlights chorus). Horrible song title innuendo aside, I'm Glad You Came is more of a song to dance to and sounds more consistent throughout the entire track; it's a bit repetitive but otherwise not a bad song. Both of those had less relevant, thorough music videos; that's one thing I found lacking.

The Bieber
This post now contains Justin Bieber. How could I leave him out? He deserves his own special section.

The old Bieber was preteeny and sounded ridiculously young. I listened to some of his stuff recently. I started with one of his "younger days" songs, One Time (first One Thing from One Direction, now One Time). My goodness, that is just awful music. I won't even bother commenting on it further, aside from saying that the sound and music video were terrible. Baby wasn't a bad song, it just sounded relatively immature. And did I mention how great it is for spoofing?

Now Bieber is older, sounds older, and definitely looks older too (his hair is still annoying to look at though). Some of his newer stuff like All Around The World sounds like something that belongs in an Abercrombie & Fitch playlist alongside artists like Kaskade.

But for the love of all that is holy, why why WHY do these artists keep featuring rap artists in their songs? In All Around The World, I'm actually enjoying the song. I'd go so far as to say that it's a great song. Then BOOM, LUDACRIS OUT OF LEFT FIELD ruining the rest of the song for me. It doesn't even sound good, Ludacris should be rapping not singing lyrics in a tone that should be left to Bieber. Ludacris is even in Bieber's Baby song. I don't care if featuring other artists in songs is better for publicity, it almost always sounds like garbage. So stop doing it. I'm probably going to make another post later on about how stupid featured (mostly rap) artists in songs usually is, but I had to mention it because it really grinds my gears.

Horrible featured artists in otherwise decent songs!

Conclusion
So what happened? Everything sounds very different. Is it bad? Not really, it's just different. Music  has shifted, and as such so have boy bands. For the most part, boy bands fit into pop, and since pop changes over time so have they.

And featured (usually rap) artists that ruin otherwise good songs suck, and I still hate Bieber's hair.