STRANGE LOG: Where Are We?

So where are we in terms of what's going on in The Strangeverse, there isn't much and yet there is much going on behind the scenes, none of which I'll be talking about at the moment but I'll be talking about some other stuff. Let's dive in;

Let's talk about my gaming PC and what I've been up to. As I've said before I've been mostly playing a Playstation 2 Emulator, "Xenosaga", not much else but I've finally gotten around to reactivating my Steam account and that means I have access to Triple-A titles. Lately, I've been playing "WWE2K23" and I stupidly purchased that before "WWE2K24" was released...which I refuse to even look at...lest I feel more foolish...But now being mostly free from the console wars I've found myself in a bit of a holding pattern in terms of waiting for games. I've never considered myself a gamer, as in someone who is very much so involved in the culture of gaming, I'm a casual and I have very niche tastes. As I've said before the only game that I'm looking forward to at the moment is "Control 2" which will be a game that will test my PC completely and whatever the next "Persona" game will be.

Since we're on the topic, "Persona" I'm wondering what features will be returning in the next installment of "Persona". I'm guessing the color scheme for the next game will be either green or purple (hoping green). I was originally gonna make a list of features I hope are returning but I hate list articles so I'll just talk about a few of them here. I'm hoping Shuffle Time makes a return although in a different capacity than in "Persona 3". I like negotiating with Shadows ala "Shin Megami Tensei" to join the ranks and I hope that's a mechanic that continues, HOWEVER, for Shuffle Time, I like the idea of it offering bonuses like extra EXP, full heal, going up a level, learning a new skill, etc. and I'd like Shuffle Time to be accessible only through certain conditions, like performing combos, baton passes, Showtimes, etc. If this is done that'd make players actually play strategically rather than "By The Myriad Truths!" especially if exclusives are offered in Shuffle Time.

Likewise, I hope the Baton Pass or something similar returns BUT there are 2 things that I'd really like to see in the upcoming "Persona" game and that is, to a lesser extent I'd really like to see the team fight something other than a god OR if they do I'd really like the god's influence to be on the forefront rather than in the shadows. In my initial playthrough of "Persona 5 Royal", Yaldaboth (at least in my opinion) kinda came outta nowhere, however, in my 2nd playthrough I could kinda see his influence, same goes for "Persona 4 Golden", although Ameno Sagiri made sense, Izanami more or less completed the story, same goes for Erebus in "The Answer" portion of "Persona 3 FES", but having more villains like Dr. Maruki really made the "Persona 5 Royal" POP, in my opinion as a human and fellow Persona user would bode a more formidable challenge than a god and would make more sense as a central antagonist. Getting to spend time with Dr. Maruki really made the story more personal and really dug deep into motivations, character, and the theme of the series (ie, choosing your own fate, not being a prisoner to an external force).

This was freakin' amazing.

The 2nd thing I'd love to see is (and I agree with a lot of people) a feMC, a female main character. With The feMC from "Persona 3 Reloaded" strangely missing (although I get why) past 3 titles have all been male main characters, this isn't a problem for me and I'm not saying it is but I'd like to shake things up a bit and have a feMC in the lead role OR duel protagonists (ala GTA) where you control both, I could really see a lot of potential in that direction. I hope perks from Social Links stick around, and if they release a deluxe version like they did with "Royal" and "Golden" I'll definitely be picking it up, hence why I'll be waiting a year or 3 after the next "Persona" game drops. Moving on...

Did I mention my growing interest in visual novels? Yeah, I have a growing interest in visual novels. The concept isn't entirely lost on me but the appeal...I'm not so sure, all you're doing is cycling through walls of text and getting told a story but there really is no game aspect...at least not in the sense of winning or losing. That being said the idea of telling a story with potentially branching narratives seems like a challenge I'd thoroughly enjoy and in the future when I have the time, I do plan to undertake the endeavor of actually making one, I already have an idea in mind...I'll just leave that there.

Speaking of which I'm planning a comeback to Youtube, don't call it a comeback like the song says I'll whoop yo' ass. That being said I'm cautious about my return mostly because I'm not certain if I have anything new to add to anything. I refuse to hate-watch things or watch things I'm not interested in and there are reviewers a-plenty out there. My return will mostly be geared towards things left unsaid or rather takes that I haven't heard from anyone else that are uniquely mine. I'm hoping to have a backlog of at least 10 videos before I start uploading. Now that I have 2 kids this will take a considerable amount of time and in the while, since I've been away I've forgotten how long it takes to make a Youtube video these days. Whether or not anyone will tune into the new UgoStrange channel is anyone's guess but it'll at the very least give me something to do on my days off rather than play video games and watch TV.

Speaking of TV now we're moving into things that piss me off and my friends it has come to my attention that anime has already been invaded by The Woke. Long ago I thought anime was untouchable by The Woke because anime must be translated, you can't translate something that isn't there...lo and behold my naive mind didn't possibly consider that localizers would insert something that wasn't there...and yet...here we are. In the long-standing war of Subs vs. Dubs I've been strongly on the side of The Dubs, for no other reason than I am a native English speaker and my brain processes English much faster than any other language therefore I'd be able to understand wasn't being told to me 100% faster than I would from reading it. The audio and visual disconnect will take a while to sync up and frankly, I'd prefer not to have to focus on something I'm trying to simply enjoy. Not to mention I have children who require attention and if I can turn away from the screen for a moment and still get what's going on as opposed to having to focus on the screen I'd much rather do the former. But now based on recent evidence I can't even be 100% sure I'm getting the same story these days as Localizers have bastardized characters and thrown the whole concept of translation outta the window for inserting nonsense and current-year politics into anime.

"Prison School" is an example I'm most aware of as it mentioned "Gamergate" and this raised several eyebrows with me because Japan wouldn't care about such a thing and had no such context for the scandal and yet somehow it found its way in this anime. Come to find out in "Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid" another insertion was made such as references to "patriarchy" and "slutshaming", once again concepts Japan wouldn't care about nor have context for. Now you might ask yourself why this is important, it's VERY important because you're messing with the translation and thus changing the context of what the character is saying. Translating is taking foreign words and interpreting them to their actual meaning, leche is milk in Spanish, that is a translation, I took the foreign word found its meaning, and translated it into English. What's happening now is that Localizers are adding context to scenes where the context was not explicitly stated. In the case of "Miss Kobayayashi" here's the main example;

Now some context, Lucoa is a Dragon Goddess that is not from Earth and therefore wouldn't have any concept of nor care about the idea of "The Patriarchy" let alone what a society in which she has no real connection cares about her manner of dress BUT for the sole purpose of blending in as much as she can she decided to change clothes, and Tohru's response is that she should try changing her body, noting that despite the clothes she's wearing she's still very much on display, that much is made clear is The Sub. However, in The Dub, Lucoa's motive for changing is because she was affected by society's demands so much so that she changed her clothes and Tohru's response is that they'll be begging her to change back...which means that The Patriarchy demanded she cover herself up but The Patriarchy will be demanding she wear more revealing clothing later...which is it? Was the demand for Lucoa to be more revealing so she covered up or was the demand for Lucoa to cover up? If the demand was for her to cover up why would they ask for her to be more revealing in a week? The demands were so much that they were getting on her nerves so likewise are the demands going to be so much that she decides to reveal more instead? Likewise, the response Tohru gives makes her seem less snarky towards Lucoa and more snarky towards society...who's motives I still don't quite understand...I thought men were supposed to like boobs so why tell her to cover up...? Here's a comic that explains everything; Also Please support TriggerHappy, his work is hilarious.

Censorship has always been a thing in anime ever since the days of 4Kids and "Sailor Moon" making Sailors Neptune and Uranus cousins when anyone with 2 eyes and a functioning brain can see that they're clearly NOT cousins. All of that was done to make things palatable for a younger audience, ie, removing guns and cigarettes from "Yu-gi-oh", removing references to Hell, and outright death from "Dragonball Z" (because we all saw The Parachutes...), right or wrong that's always been a thing, but to outright change entirely what a character is saying...that's next level. When confronted on the matter Jamie Marchi the localizer responsible for the "translation" responded to a fan by saying calling the confrontation  “unnecessary hate,” and then proceeded to explain how she's receiving the backlash not because she inserted something that wasn't there but because she happens to be in possession of a vagina and that anyone who doesn't like her interpretation of the scripts needs to deal with it, the "It" being her vagina...I'm guessing. She went on to say how she's a funny, talented, and powerful woman and ordered once again that anyone with a conflict should just deal with it...the "It" I'm assuming once again is her vagina. She referred to anyone who'd like to see actual translations of the work incels (involuntary celibate) told them she was sorry they weren't getting laid and then said it wasn't all about them. Yes, she's absolutely right it isn't about them it's about the honest translation of language and whether or not it's right to insert one's own perspective into someone else's work when translating, I'm not sure where she thinks someone's penis is supposed to go in that concept...perhaps in the vagina they were told to deal with.

I'm being funny but why in the living French toast is this happening? Why is this happening to anime of all things and now can we even trust that the stories we're getting are the stories that are actually being told when someone who works as a localizer says this;

How the Frank's Red Hot are we supposed to take this information?! So the people who receive the scripts DON'T speak the native language in which said the script was produced for them to adapt...so then who does the actual adapting? Because I don't speak Hindi but if I were adapting a TV show from India I'd make damn sure I knew someone who does speak Hindi to adapt actual words written in Hindi to English, that'd make sense...right? Apparently not, and Jamie Marchi says this as a retort. Translation; The people whose job it is to adapt scripts from another language don't speak or understand said language and are somehow still able to be employed as script adapters despite being capable of adapting nothing. Got it. All this makes me sad for the state of anime, I'm not opposed to watching Subs but now I have to put that much more effort into watching a show than I have previously before and that may sound like a very lame thing to say (and it is, not gonna lie) but after coming home from a long day at work the very last thing I wanna do is put effort into watching TV.

Not to mention subtitles are very hard for me and if I do watch something with subs I'd prefer to be immersed 100%. I watched "Death Note" with subs BUT I was alone with no distractions wearing headphones, I can't do that now with kids. This is depressing news and I hate to end a Strange Log on a sad note but there it is. Here's a GIF of me lamenting the current state of affairs, until next time I'll catch you guys later;