I made a video showcasing snippets of various projects I am working on, from big to small. The song used is "What This Could Be" by The Hamster Alliance. I have a lot on my plate!
2014: Upcoming Projects
Japan: Arrival (Episode 01)
I hadn't slept much. The little time I had left that wasn't used preparing for the trip was spent preparing for our return. The few things I kept, such as my game consoles and computer, were strewn about the bedroom floor; the rest of my stuff was on its way to a storage facility in Oklahoma. See, we were to be moved out of our house in Texas and on the road to Fort Sill the day we got back to the States. I wanted more time to get ready, but it was my fault for spending so much time messing with my new Xbox 360 S and watching Lost. (I had set up my own mini home theater in my room after the movers took our projector and spent more time on Netflix than I should have.) I wasn't completely unprepared, though - after spending eight hours trying to find our hotel in France, I made sure of that. This time, I bought two binders, one for me and one for my brother, and made note of some key bits of info to avoid issues later, such as directions to our hotel and a small glossary. I figured the covers of the binders should represent things we like from Japan, so I put some art of Metal Gear Solid 3 by Yoji Shinkawa on mine and a badass drawing of Toshiro Mifune on my brother's.
Our binders.
The stuff I kept in our binders, including our itinerary info, basic phrases, and the aforementioned directions and glossary.
I also brought the menu I had been using for our local Japanese restaurant, Shogun. I've always had an aversion to seafood and was able to count on my fingers the number of times I ate it throughout my life. Figuring this was something I should get over, I started going to Shogun a few months before the trip to try foods I never had before. I circled the things I liked and placed an asterisk by things I didn't like. Having now been to Japan and various Japanese restaurants across the U.S., I can say Shogun has had the best food I have ever had - we once drove six hours just to eat there! Also, I ate more than what the menu shows; I just stopped circling stuff at a certain point.
When it comes to being authentic, Shogun is the Kid Rock of Japanese restaurants. Mmmm, old Giant Bomb memes...
With an 8:20 AM departure, there wasn't a lot of time to mess around. After gathering up our luggage, unplugging all the electronics in the house and taking a stupid picture, we took a cab to the Killeen-Fort Hood Regional Airport.
It's all about the Yukichis, baby.
After checking our bags and getting our boarding passes, we headed upstairs to wait in the food court. Luckily for me, there was an arcade right across from where I sat.
My boarding passes and the book we took on the trip.
A couple of shots of the arcade. On the left is the Global Arcade Classics machine I played Rastan on. On the right is the only full shot of the arcade I had. I was waiting for the announcer lady who interrupted my video to shut up so I could finish talking.
I didn't spend much time actually playing games. The arcade had Global Arcade Classics, T-Mek, Giga Wing (which wasn't working), Tekken 3, Off Road Challenge, Demolish Fist, Ranger Mission, and San Francisco Rush: The Rock (Alcatraz Edition). I played Rastan on the Global Arcade Classics machine, but it was time to go through security so I rushed through the game until I died, hence my terrible playing in the video. A short while later we were on the tiny plane en route to Houston. We arrived about an hour later and took a bus to the actual airport, which is the first time I've ever had to do that. We took a train cart to Terminal E and waited to depart for Tokyo.
We were a little concerned about our flight. Every international flight I've been on had seats in rows of three. On Travelocity, they had an overhead map of the plane and let you click on the seats you wanted, which I thought was pretty cool. There were rows of just two seats in the back of the plane, and I chose to go with those. My brother had recounted a story in which he sat in the back on an international flight before, and the seats didn't lean back at all, which would be pretty bad for a 12-hour flight. It ended up not being a problem, and we had the benefit of not sitting next to someone else.
I was surprised by the variety of people on the plane. I'm sure I would have heard a lot of interesting stories if I asked them why they were going to Japan (though I know there were a few on their way to China), but I decided to indulge in the massive entertainment selection available, instead. Far more robust than when I went to France, there were 192 movies, various TV shows like The Office and The Simpsons, music, and a video game selection that included basic titles like Asteroids. I tried to watch Up in the Air, a movie I have still yet to see, but my headphones couldn't go loud enough for me to hear all the words. I decided to watch movies I liked and already saw before, such as Get Smart and Ratatouille. I went with the beef and rice meal for dinner, which included bread, salad, and a cookie. It was actually pretty good, like most food I've had on planes, contrary to what comedians of the '90s led me to believe. Maybe something about being 34,001 feet in the air makes food taste better. That, or it's improved over the past fifteen years or so.
They brought around fruit and eggs for breakfast. I skipped the eggs, since any eggs that aren't made by me usually aren't very good (the trick is lots of margarine and salt). They soon brought around the customs declarations forms, and we landed at Narita International Airport shortly afterward.
What the customs declarations forms look like. Riveting!
After taking the escalator down past the "Welcome to Japan" sign, we stood in line for about twenty minutes with the rest of the people entering the country. We scanned both our index fingers and had our pictures taken, got our luggage and handed customs our forms and continued on through the airport. They didn't bother looking in our bags or anything, and it was the first of many instances that revealed just how much better dealing with Japanese airport employees was compared to the TSA.
We went to go purchase our Suica & N'EX package from a lady who didn't speak English. Thanks to those handy Arabic numerals, however, we were able to eventually figure everything out and went toward the train heading for Shinagawa Station. We got on the Narita Express and sat in our reserved seats, 7A and 7B, placing our luggage at the front of the cart in a convenient storage area.
Some of the pamphlets we picked up, along with our Suica & N'EX receipt.
Attached to the ceilings were TVs that displayed trip progress, news stories, advertisements, an overhead map of the next station, updates on other train lines, and the time; they would even cycle the information through various languages.
Super useful!
When we weren't looking at the TVs, we were admiring the view out the window. One of things that surprised both my brother and I, even on the flight in, was just how green everything was. There were seemingly miles of perfectly cut grass without a dead patch of brown in sight, not to mention all the lush trees. Passing by dozens of homes with clothes hanging out to dry only reinforced the quaintness of it all. Another unusual sight, though I'm sure it's no different in America (not that I would know since public transportation here is terrible), was seeing everyone playing with their phones at the various stations we stopped at. You would have been hard-pressed to find someone not staring at a tiny screen of some sort as they waited for their ride.
Look at all that green! Also, the first McDonald's we saw.
There were a couple of people reading manga on the train, one of which was a Weekly Shonen Jump. At one of the stops, a white guy with an N7 Mass Effect shirt got on. As we arrived at Shinagawa Station (the entire trip was about 70 minutes) I was sure to say "Awesome shirt." He looked up from his DS (I think he was playing a Pokémon game) and said, "I appreciate it." in an accent that wasn't American, and I gave a thumbs up and simply said "Mass Effect", which I think should totally be a thing.
Shinagawa Station is a large place with various shops for whatever one might need, including a Super Market (That's the name of the store!) that's always crowded. Outside of Shinagawa Station is a large crosswalk that takes you to the Shinagawa Prince complex, which is composed of a few different towers. We stayed in the North Tower, which was a little tricky to find at first as the complex is so big. During my stay, I saw several different stores (including a drug store), a movie theater, a bowling alley, a bunch of restaurants, and that wasn't even close to everything the complex contained. I could have seen Gary Whitta's The Book of Eli with Japanese subtitles!
I accidentally read about the revelation at the end on NeoGAF before seeing the movie. :(
After checking in, we took an elevator to the sixth floor. There was a vending machine as soon as we exited that contained various drinks, such as orange juice, tea, and ... beer. Asahi, specifically. My brother was thrilled.
Our room was right by the elevator, and my brother practically passed out after we got settled. I hadn't slept properly for about 39 hours at this point, but I wanted to get some writing done for the trip. I decided to go to sleep as to not disturb my brother and later awoke a bit earlier than him at 4 AM. I knew trying to rest at this point would be a pointless endeavor. I was too excited, because today was the day we were going to Akihabara.
Japan: The Series
List of Episodes
On July 15th, 2010, my brother and I took a two-week trip to Tokyo, Japan. It was a place I had been wanting to go to since I was in elementary school, and I planned on filming the trip so I could make a series of videos afterward. We purchased a Canon VIXIA HG20 shortly before leaving, giving me just enough time to learn how to use it. It was then that I learned my computer was too weak to play the videos properly, not to mention that I had zero experience with video editing and didn't own a proper program to do so.
It's been nearly 18 months since we returned, and, with assistance from Will and Norm over at Tested.com, I finally have a top-of-the-line computer that can play the 1080p videos at full resolution. I recently got my first video editing program, too, settling on CyberLink's PowerDirector. I'm still amazed at how fast and easy the program is to use, and, though I've just started, I feel like I've learned a lot.
With over 300 videos totaling around 168 gigabytes, my goal is to whittle those down into a series of videos that are hopefully somewhat entertaining. I actually didn't film as much as I had planned to, opting to just enjoy the trip and not focus on documenting it. Because of this, I don't really have a set plan; I'm just organizing and editing these videos as I go, eventually turning them into something I feel comfortable showing other people.
As of right now, I intend to have each video in the series represent one day and be edited in chronological order, though I might throw an extra day in there if there's not enough footage. The first episode, which I'm titling "Arrival", is nearly done and takes place during July 15th and July 16th. Each episode will be accompanied by a blog post that I'll be posting across the various Whiskey sites. I imagine the Giant Bomb and Anime Vice crowds will be most interested in these, as you can't turn a corner in Tokyo without seeing something related to video games or anime. I also spent a lot of time in arcades, though I don't have much footage of that as they don't like people filming or taking pictures inside.
There's no set format for each video, since, as I said before, I'm just now editing them and will be releasing each one when it's done. My shots weren't planned, so the quality of the videos will be dependent on what footage I have and what I can do with it. I kind of prefer it that way, as I have no idea what an episode will be until I'm nearly done with it. I'm really enjoying the process; it's a completely new experience for me and gives a unique satisfaction that I don't get from writing.
On the subject of Japan, it's the only place I've traveled that I can say I would like to live at (though I probably wouldn't want to work there). I was taking Rosetta Stone courses to learn Japanese beforehand, but decided to stop a while before the trip for a very specific reason: that out-of-element feeling one gets when in an unfamiliar environment where they don't speak the language. I experienced it in France and Italy and loved it, and knowing that Japan is a place I'll be going to more than once, figured I could either have the one experience of knowing the language and culture, or have both experiences of not knowing what the hell is going on, and then returning later, fluent and far more knowledgable than before. I chose to have both experiences.
I think that's everything I wanted to say. The videos will be uploaded to YouTube (and my SmugMug account) and posted as blogs. Episode 01 will released on the 7th, and then I'll start working on Episode 02: Electric Town. All in all, this is just something I'm doing for fun to both showcase the trip and learn how to edit video.
Igiari! - The Takarazuka Revue's Phoenix Wright Musicals
This is the Igiari! - The Takarazuka Revue's Phoenix Wright Musicals piece that I wrote for The Luchazine (Issue #5) that was never released. The header is by aurahack.
You may have heard me talk about the Takarazuka Revue and their amazing Phoenix Wright musicals on episode #3 of The Luchacast, but I wanted to delve more into on just what these magnificent shows really are.
Founded by the president of Hankyu Railways in 1913, the Takarazuka Revue is an all-female theater troupe based out of Japan. Often performing musical adaptations of Western works, the Takarazuka Revue has performed shows based on movies like Casablanca and JFK, novels such as The Great Gatsby and Zorro, various plays by Shakespeare, manga, and even video games.
The Cosmos troupe—the newer, more experimental of the five troupes that make up the Revue and the one that did the Phoenix Wright musicals—were performing their rendition of Trafalgar, and I was fortunate enough to attend a showing in July. Though I barely understood any of it, I was enthralled throughout the entire two-hour showing. With a live orchestra located in the lower front, revolving stages, seamless background and scene transitions, crazy lighting effects, beautiful and detailed clothing designs, along with great acting and singing performances, it was quite a show indeed. Now, apply everything I just said to the Phoenix Wright universe and you have something of ridiculously awesome proportions.
YES
The first musical, "Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Truth Resurrected", focuses on Phoenix Wright as he tries to prove the innocence of his former lover, Leona Clyde, who has been accused of murdering a senator. Of course, Miles Edgeworth is there to get in his way, and the results are awesome song and dance sequences featuring some of your favorite characters from the franchise. In fact, the big opening sequence features Phoenix Wright, Miles Edgeworth, Larry Butz, Lotta Hart, Detective Gumshoe, Maya Fey, and Ema Skye all dancing in tandem. My favorite sequence, however, would have to be the Phoenix Wright/Miles Edgeworth dance-off that seamlessly turns into them facing against each other in the court room. The combination of the music, lighting, and general mood due to their history makes it truly special.
Premiering just six months later due to the popularity of the first Phoenix Wright, Phoenix Wright 2 focuses on a young woman whose mother is a suspect in a crime she didn't commit. Well, that's all the official description will give you, anyway; the story actually goes much deeper, but I won't spoil anything for potential viewers. It does do a good job of capturing the twists and turns the games are so known for, however, and even introduces Franziska von Karma herself—carrying her signature whip, of course! The best part of the show comes at the end, when the main characters dress in extra fancy versions of their outfits and do a song/dance number that lasts for a good ten minutes.
It's really all the little touches that help make these musicals so great, though. Working alongside Capcom, the musicals feature a close attention to detail that doesn't go unnoticed and is much appreciated. Using actual songs (particularly from the court room), art assets and sound effects from the game just oozes fanservice, and it totally works. They even go so far as to mimic character mannerisms you're familiar with, such as the way Miles shakes his head and shrugs his shoulders, or the way that Franziska waves her finger back and forth at Phoenix whenever he has screwed up. They also do a great job with the character design, making changes when needed; for example, Ranju Tomu (Phoenix Wright) was originally going to have the same hairstyle as the character does in the game, but they changed it due to it actually looking pretty terrible. Some purists may complain about this, but the changes they make are for the better. It's just like when a movie changes a superhero's costume from the comics—some things just don't translate properly to real life.
I could write an entire Luchazine about these wonderful works of art, but I'll stop here. Words and screens can only express so much, so I highly recommend that you look up these musicals on your own; there are plenty of fansubs just waiting to be watched.
You messed with the wrong prosecutor.
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All images are screencaps I took from the DVDs I got at the Takarazuka Revue gift shop. (The 'u' is silent in Takarazuka, by the way.)
Here are a bunch of images that weren't included in the article!:
Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney - Truth Resurrected
Phoenix Wright 2
Electric Town: An Akihabara Arcade Experience - Part II
This is the Electric Town: An Akihabara Arcade Experience - Part II piece that I wrote for The Luchazine (October 7th, 2010 edition of Issue #5) that was never released. I'm only including a small image of the design (done by JohnRabbit) this time, as the text included isn't final. You can read the full article below! You can read Part I in the fourth issue of The Luchazine.
Waking up at 5 AM, I was too excited to go back to sleep. Yesterday's experience at GiGO arcade left me wanting more, so I made a list of all the greatest arcades in the Akihabara area, including Club Sega and Taito HEY.
My worries of spending more time trying to find these places than actually playing the games in them were instantly alleviated. Turning the first corner after exiting Akihabara Station, I saw this in the distance:
Much like GiGO before it, Club Sega is a six-level arcade that continues the apparent pattern of having the first floor dedicated solely to claw games. Passing by some Hatsune Miku gear and Mickey Mouse pillows, I headed downstairs to B1, only to stand stunned at what I saw next.
"This is what I've been looking for this whole time." I thought to myself. In front of me were twenty-five Virtua Fighter 5 R machines and twenty Tekken 6: Bloodline Rebellion machines. The best part of all was that this place was packed—if someone wasn't in the middle of a furious battle, they were standing around watching matches. Trying my hand at Virtua Fighter 5 R and failing miserably (a series I am most familiar with via capsule toys in Shenmue), I purchased a Tekken-Net ID card and headed to the back corner of the room. My brother had been fighting this one guy for a while, and I decided to see how I would fare against him. As I sat down, I slid the overflowing ash tray to my side—apparently, people smoke a lot more when playing fighting games—and inserted my card. His Steve and my Hwoarang fought for quite some time, and regardless of how close I came, I just couldn't beat him. I guess that's the problem when you rarely play fighting games and then go to a Japanese arcade.
This card holds the proof of my shame.
Coming to the conclusion that I would probably never win and not wanting to waste anymore of my precious 100 yen coins, I headed up to the 2nd floor. If B1 was the fighting floor, than this was the racing floor. Eight Initial D: Arcade Stage 5, four R-Tuned: Ultimate Street Racing, and eight Wangan Midnight Maximum Tune 3 DX Plus machines took up the majority of the floor space. However, it seemed like most of the people there were far more interested in playing Hatsune Miku: Project DIVA Arcade, even if it meant having to stand in a roped-off line for a while. Not in the mood for racing or waiting in line for twenty minutes, I played another rhythm-based game where you hit giant buttons called pop'n music. A 1998 game by Konami that was updated earlier this year with new songs, you select your difficulty by choosing whether to play with five or nine buttons (insanity!). Most of the music was unfamiliar to me, though I did do pretty well when it came to the themes of Gradius and Kill Bill. Another rhythm-based game on this floor was Taiko no Tatsujin 13, which you may be familiar with as "that drum game" from Lost in Translation (though that was an earlier version). I watched a few gaijin play it for future reference (foreshadowing!) and scaled the stairs up to the third floor.
I cannot possibly overstate how popular she is here.
Another room packed with people and fighting games, there was a lot of variety to choose from here. You had your choice of playing: Sengoku Basara X, The King of Fighters 2002, BlazBlue: Continuum Shift, Arcana Heart 3, Melty Blood, Guilty Gear XX Λ Core, The King of Fighters XIII, and Street Fighter IV. It was, to say, complete madness. Getting my ass kicked once again (my Terry Bogard just wasn't strong enough), I went up to the fourth floor to experience even more craziness.
With the exception of the wildly out-of-place Power Smash 3 machines (tennis!), this floor was nothing but seemingly complicated-ass mech games, mostly from the Gundam franchise. Satisfied at being able to grasp Gundam far better than Cyber Troopers, I progressed up the final set of stairs to the fifth floor of Club Sega, only to lay eyes upon one of the greatest arcade setups I have ever seen. Imagine eight players, all with their own arcade cabinets, controlling and managing their football players via collectible trading cards and then seeing the results of their actions on a 100-inch plus screen in front of them which is showcasing the match as if it were a live football broadcast. World Club Champion Football Intercontinental Clubs 2008-2009 must be what Football Manager fans have wet dreams about. I know I would if I were into these types of games.
World Club was so awesome, in fact, that I nearly missed the Shining Force Cross machines. However, due to the awesomeness of the game (it being one of my favorite things I played in all of Tokyo), this author has decided to do a separate feature on it in issue #6.
Leaving the complex in a wave of euphoria, I went in search of Taito HEY wondering if my experience at Club Sega could hope to be matched.
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Obviously, there won't an issue #6 of The Luchazine, but I will continue this series in blog format.
The Luchazine
Cover by Kat Smith (Turbo_Toaster) of Whiskey Media
The Luchazine was a community-run magazine founded on the forums of Giant Bomb by Goran Popović (editor-in-chief) and Abhishek Chaudhry (lead designer).
The first issue was released on the Giant Bomb forums on June 14th, 2010, which is when I first noticed its existence (The E3 Live Stream Thread that I made was mentioned on page 8 under the "Terrific Thread" section). Thinking it was pretty cool and wanting to be a part of it, I applied for a writer position for the second issue, but I had missed the deadline due to going to the wedding of my friend, Jeremiah, in Kansas.
It was on July 9th, 2010 that Matt Kessler, former intern and current news writer on Giant Bomb, wrote a quick article titled "Have You Seen The Luchazine?" and posted it to the front page of Giant Bomb, giving the magazine a lot of exposure. I became even more interested in writing for the magazine, and was sure to send in my application for a writing position on time. I wrote a short piece titled "Four Minutes of Terror", which detailed a recent event where I thought I had lost all my Xbox 360 saves in the process of transferring them over to my new Xbox 360 S. I had written it while sitting in the middle of my storage room's floor in Killeen, Texas, as this had been after most of my and my brother's stuff had been packed up and sent to Oklahoma. It was also right before we left for our trip to Japan, so it was quite a hectic time in my life. It was at the Shinagawa Prince hotel in Tokyo in July of 2010 that I received a reply back from Goran with confirmation that I had been hired to write for The Luchazine. Though it was a little while before issue 3's release and I had yet to do any work, I was credited in the magazine (mistakenly as "Charles Alan Raliffe (Vito_Raliffe)").
It was around this time that a forum had been created for The Luchazine staff via Zetaboards. Before, everything was done through email, and the forums were a clean, organized solution for everyone. When people started to post their drafts for issue 4 on the forum, I started to copyedit them on my own so as few mistakes as possible would be released into the final magazine. I had then been promoted to Associate Editor on August 19th, 2010, which meant that I was to copyedit all first drafts posted. If another version of a draft was posted afterward, I did not work on it.
On August 29th at 2 PM Central Time, I made my first appearance on The Luchacast (The Luchazine's podcast), which also happened to be my first podcast ever. The podcast was released as The Luchacast Episode #3: Mario Might Be Evil on August 30th. It was a lot of fun! I actually had to go out previously and buy a $30 Logitech headset since too much background noise could be heard via my webcam. All my friends I had talked to were surprised this was my first podcast, especially with a bunch of people I had never spoken with before.
Work continued on The Luchazine Issue #4, and on September 11th at 11 PM Central Time, I participated in my second podcast ever, The Luchacast Episode #4: Weak Week. We had previously recorded for about 50 minutes, but started over due to the podcast "running too long". This affected the quality of the released version, with the unheard portion being much better and natural. The episode was released on September 13th.
On the same day, The Luchazine Issue #4 was released. It was the first issue I had actually worked on, and was by far the most successful release The Luchazine had ever seen, mostly because of the incredible work the design team did. I was credited as "Charles A. Ratliff (Vito_Raliffe) - Associate Editor" and had my name placed at the top of the Staff list, even though everyone was usually listed alphabetically. Along with editing first drafts and doing promotional work, I also wrote two articles, both of which can be seen at the previous link.
A couple of weeks after the release of issue #4, I decided to mail in the cover to the offices of Whiskey Media. I went to Walmart, printed out a high-quality version of it, and then went to Hobby Lobby to have it framed with museum glass. I printed out a note I had written to go along with the frame, including The Luchazine logo at the top to make it a little fancier, and shipped it via FedEx. The total cost was nearly $140. The only proof I had that the cover ever arrived was a photocopy of the signature given when it was delivered, until my attention was brought to this Tested video where the cover can be seen between Will Smith and Jeff Gerstmann as they talk about iPhone games. Ethan Lance of Whiskey Media later posted a picture of it in a blog he had written:
This is what I sent in.
Work immediately started on The Luchazine Issue #5 after issue #4 was released. I was promoted to Executive Editor on October 9th (editing drafts, handling schedules and deadlines, promotional work, along with writing). The magazine went through three different versions due to delays imposed by the founders. There was an October 7th version, an October 25th version, and a November 25th version. The Luchazine project was then suddenly and unexpectedly ended by the founders on November 27th. None of these problems had anything to do with my work on the magazine.
I wrote four pieces for issue #5 that were never officially released (I posted them up on Giant Bomb at the same time I posted them here on my blog):
The Ultimate PlayStation Move Breakdown
Electric Town: An Akihabara Arcade Experience - Part II
Igiari! - The Takarazuka Revue's Phoenix Wright Musicals
And that, as they say, was that.