Ivan Rakitic – The Best Shirt in the World | Players’ Tribune

via: The Players’ Tribune

Born and raised in Switzerland, Ivan Rakitic explains why he chose to play for his father’s native Croatia instead. A poignant and touching story.

Rakitic will face France tonight in the World Cup finals.

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RWBY at its worst

I have already devoted three consecutive blog posts towards bashing RWBY and how far it has fallen in Volume 5, so I promise this will be the last.

There’s a great quote from the video author at around the 18:24 mark:

“It makes me sad how far this show has fallen. Even though I still love it, I don’t feel like I can justifiably call RWBY a good show any more.

“There is just so much BAD piling on top of the good.”

Further down in the YouTube comments, one user sums up why I dislike Raven so much in Volume 5. What was once a cool, mysterious character has become a complete joke:

“It’s also what agitated me about Raven: They were doing so well on making her seem deeper and flawed… until Yang walked in and not only was able to completely deconstruct her in the span of a single conversation, but, it turned out Raven just had no damn clue what she was doing there, anyway. She didn’t want revenge on Qrow (I guess?), she didn’t want the Relic for power, she didn’t want it for deterrence (because she didn’t think of that according to Yang), and she didn’t want to work with Salem and just hand the Relic over so she could scram.

“So what did she want? Why was she there? So much for it being the only way we can stand a chance against Salem. They trashed Raven’s entire character just so she could take an L.”

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The other day my sister asked me, “Why are you so angry?? It’s just a show.”

You are absolutely right, it’s just an animated show. I once insulted the creators of The Legend of Korra for Book Four’s lousy ending. That blog post has gained some notoriety because of how passionately angry I was, and in retrospect perhaps my vulgar language and F-bombs were a bit unnecessary. But unlike Korra, which had an excellent 48 episodes let down by one big mistake at the finale, RWBY Volume 5 is a complete disappointment from start to finish.

And that’s how this fan’s involvement with the series will end: Not with a fiery, passionate debate, but with a cold, empty void of nothingness and lifelessness. Just like Cinder.

How to do action – A Jackie Chan example

The title of this video is called “How to do action comedy” but also applies to “How to do action”. It explains the basic principles of holding the audience’s attention during a fight scene: Framing all of the combatants in the same shot for as long as possible; Showing the action and reaction of a sequence in the same shot; Cutting away at the right moment to sell the impact of a hit; Showing the hero winning the fight because of their resolve. The last point is the reason why I loved Kill la Kill: The heroine is always fighting as the underdog, but finds a way to win because of her determination.

And this video also explains why I hate Volumes 4-5 of RWBY. The current director has no clue how to create good action scenes, based on the principles above. A major character gets mortally wounded by a bad guy’s weapon, but the entire sequence is so poorly structured that you don’t feel the impact and gravity of the situation.

1. Villain and opponent waste time talking. More exposition, blah blah blah.
2. Villain summons weapon. More exposition.
3. Instead of showing villain, weapon, and target in one shot, the director wastes time cutting back and forth between all three.
4. Villain strikes target, but we don’t see the weapon in the final shot of their target getting struck. The camera suddenly cuts away and zooms in on the target, we can’t even see the weapon hitting the body (?!).
5. By wasting sooooooo much time with this scene, we the viewer, are given the impression that a lot of time has passed from points 1 to 4. Naturally, our first question is: What the hell are the target’s allies doing? Couldn’t they have shouted a warning to try and help them?

I felt absolutely nothing during this scene. Compare this to Volume 3, when another major character is mortally wounded. We see the character, villain, and weapons all in one framed shot. We can see the action and reaction of the entire motion in the same shot — villain counter-attacks and slices off the character’s limb. It all happens swiftly, without unnecessary talking. The end result? You feel a “wtf” moment as a major character is seriously injured, possibly on the verge of death.

Why couldn’t the Volume 5 director replicate this moment in Volume 3? Because he is totally incompetent. We’ll never truly know the answer. All I can say is:

Rest in peace Monty Oum.

Thanks Yao for showing me this video on Steam chat.

How to have an impactful series opening: FLCL Progressive

Frustrated by how lousy RWBY Volumes 4-5 have become, I was looking for some other animated series, any series, to wash away the stench of Miles Luna and Kerry Shawcross’s shitty writing and directing. Then I suddenly remembered that the sequel to FLCL, FLCL Progressive, was scheduled to air this June. I was quite thrilled to discover that four episodes were already out.

Within episode one’s first three minutes, I was instantly hooked. Protagonist Hidomi’s ominous monologue, combined with the wonderful backing soundtrack of Thank you, my twilight from The Pillows, just grabs your attention and sustains your interest. You want to keep watching to find out what happens next — why is Hidomi sprouting horns from her head? Why is she suddenly transforming into a robot with angelic wings? What the hell is going on??

The key to any interesting story, a good story, is to show the viewer what you want to portray. Show us the setting, show us the main characters, show us the themes you are trying to convey. It doesn’t have to be direct, it can be obscure and abstract like FLCL. But just show us. Unlike a written novel, an animation has the power of visuals and audio on its side. SHOW us your story.

The moment you resort to exposition, of telling us your story, then you have failed as a visual storyteller.

And this is why I hate Volume 4 and Volume 5 of RWBY. Or Darling in the Franxx. Every time something interesting is about to happen, it has to be prefaced with a lot of long, unnecessary dialogue and exposition. It totally kills the pacing of the episode.

I am not saying that dialogue isn’t important. But character interactions must serve a purpose — of showing us that character’s personality, their motivations, their emotions, and their relationship to other characters in the story.

The original Samurai Jack Premiere Movie and recently, A Quiet Place, have even showed us that it is entirely possible to tell a story with minimal or no dialogue. This is the power of showing in action.

I am done with RWBY because watching the newer volumes feels like an utter waste of my time. The first three minutes of FLCL Progressive is better than all the episodes of Volume 4 and 5 combined, and that tells you just how much I dislike RWBY now with a passion.

“If your mind breaks, your body will break even easier.”

– Shayna Baszler, WWE NXT

Tomorrow is a better day

“I feel like I’m on the brink of death.”

This was the status update on my WhatsApp profile on Tuesday night. The World Cup is here and unfortunately, the amount of effort needed to cover it for my company had taken its toll on my body over the weekend. I was dead exhausted, to the point that when I showed up for Japanese class this week, a few of my classmates remarked on how tired-looking I was. I don’t have a very good poker face, and I’m not great at keeping my emotions in check — if I look very tired then that’s because I really AM tired.

Reached home after class at 10pm+ and I just blurted out what was at the top of my head to my parents. I wanted to quit my job. My father, being the usual pragmatist that he is, said that it was my choice if I wanted to quit — but I should just go to sleep if I was feeling exhausted. There’s no point forcing myself to watch every World Cup game just to eke out every penny’s worth from our S$92 subscription.

“You’re paying 92 bucks for the convenience of being able to watch the matches live at home, or the replay telecasts the next day. Even I can’t watch every World Cup game.”

The next day I woke up, felt refreshed, and said “fuck it” to the World Cup. Instead of checking the results and getting ready to do my daily routine for work (even though Wednesday was technically my off day), I immediately loaded up Unreal Tournament (UT99) on my computer. I had been replaying the Unreal games to celebrate their 20th anniversary recently, and I was stuck on UT99’s singleplayer ladder mode in one of their Deathmatch maps. The map is called DM-Liandri and it was very difficult to win (I was playing on Masterful difficulty) — I think I had failed at least 20 times.

But something clicked that morning and I won the map on my first try with a +2 advantage over second place. A couple of hours later it was time for daily violin practice and again, somehow I was playing better despite feeling dead tired the day before.

On the way to violin class at 4pm, it rained quite heavily. I brought an umbrella but made the unfortunate choice of wearing sandals. I was starting to feel quite annoyed from my drenched and exposed feet, but then I told myself: “I just fucking cleared DM-Liandri today on MASTERFUL. This is nothing.”

I arrived about five minutes late for class but my violin teacher just told me to sit down and take a 10-minute break. She was in the middle of experimenting with a new vegetarian fritters recipe and wanted me to try it for fun. I was also served some English tea.

My teacher had no knowledge that I was a vegetarian and yet there I was, eating something vegetarian to relax after treading through the heavy rain. It was then when I fully realised that my Wednesday was the complete opposite of the Tuesday before. One moment I was feeling absolutely miserable, at the brink of my physical limit. But the next day was better. I was drinking hot tea on a rainy afternoon.

This sounds like something absolutely cliche, but if you’re ever feeling down, depressed, or demoralised: Just go to bed. Go do something else, go play Unreal Tournament. You might not be able to fix your problems immediately, but tomorrow will surely be a better day.

It’s also the title of one of my favourite songs from Poets of the Fall:

“Rather than lament what you do not possess, you should treasure what you do.”

– L’Arachel, Fire Emblem Heroes

This quote’s meaning can be interpreted in a few ways:

1. Be grateful for what you already have.
2. Instead of complaining, find a way to improvise with whatever tools are available to you.
3. Friends and family are more important than material possessions.

Videogame ending themes: The Heritors of Arcadia (Fire Emblem Echoes)

I swear I will learn to play this on violin one day. The English version of Fire Emblem Echoes’ ending theme caught me totally off-guard because I’ve never listened to it before.

One of the most beautiful and emotionally powerful videogame ending-theme songs I’ve listened to. Only Late Goodbye from Max Payne 2 and Memories of You 「キミの記憶」 from Persona 3: FES can match it.

Forever grateful to Nintendo and Intelligent Systems for including the English version of Heritors of Arcadia in the Fire Emblem Echoes OST.

Playing games vs watching others play

Had a conversation with one of my friends over the phone the other day, we suddenly started talking about videogames.

Friend: I still haven’t touched NieR: Automata.

Me: It’s a great game, if you can reach the true end after five endings.

Friend: I’m not sure if I want to sit through five endings… I’d rather just YouTube them.

I didn’t know how to respond to my friend after that, and just switched to another topic. He does have a valid point though. Games are time-consuming.

But actually playing the game, figuring out how to solve problems, and mastering the skills the game requires of you, is drastically different than spectating it.

Imagine you’re watching a chess match between two grandmasters. You understand what’s going on and who’s winning, and why they are winning. Now imagine after the match is over, you stand up and declare that, “I’m a chess grandmaster too, because I watched two grandmasters play out a high-level match.”

That’s absolutely ludicrous. And the same logic applies to videogames. How can you say that you have truly experienced a game if all you did is watch someone else play it?

I’m not trying to start a grudge against viewers of “let’s plays”. Just bringing up some food for thought: The best way to experience an interactive medium like videogames, is to actually play it yourself — that’s how the developers intended it.

Doki Doki Literature Club (MAS): Monika explains orchestral music

I want to reach out into my computer monitor and give this imaginary character a big hug. Monika gets why I love orchestral music.