The Interrogation Game of Reveal-Hikkikomori

Because I’m totally gonna look like a hopeless attic-bound hikkikomori when I fail to tag five people at the end of this post, my best efforts at excuses notwithstanding (Everyone I know were just already tagged I swear! I have friends, I do! I dooooo….. *echoes in the distance*)

So, starting the story from the beginning, Iso of Nabe!! some time ago kicked off what he called “The Anime Blogger Interrogation Game”, the ultimate goal of which is to humiliate antisocial hikkikomori like me *ahem* “facilitate interaction and exchanging of questions for those who want to know more about another fellow anime blogger, but just don’t have the chance to broach a question or topic to discuss due to various reasons”. Copy-pasta of game rules follow:

Normally you’d expect antisocial attic-bound hikkikomori’s to be safe from terrifying inquisitions like these, since no one’ll tag them, but somehow dai1313 has managed to use his powers in Railgun-verse to shatter my hikkikomori-shield and tag me in a clear feat of violation of the rules of spacetime. Thus cornered, I am now forced to meekly answer his five evil questions, as demanded by Iso’s rules.

Dai1313’s Questions

1) How do you prefer your tea? Hot or cold? Sweet or unsweet? Green or earl gray? (That’s a joke, no one likes earl gray.) Tea is serious business, so your answers better be good.

Indeed tea is serious business, and so the enjoyment thereof must also be subject to the weather conditions of the day. I maintain that everyone and anyone who can enjoy their tea hot amidst the insufferable photon flux Singaporeans call their typical day is off their hooters. Not being myself deranged, I have my tea ice-cold and sweetened while in oversunny Singapore. Simple, straightforward red tea works great.

In the event that I actually find myself in cold weather (or encased in a small room with a great a/c), hot, sweet, red tea brewed with rose petals make awesome reading beverage.

2) If you could answer that one, this next one should be easy. You seem to have forgotten your password, please type the… oh my…

Clearly a trick question, to which the correct answer is to hit “New Code”. You’re welcome.

Okay okay I’ll actually give it a try geez. It looks like “iilj”, cramped into each other then jointly and soundly bashed over the head. Except the ‘l’ could easily be either capital ‘i’ or little ‘L’, and ‘j’ could just be a particularly long ‘i’ given a good kick in the shins. If my life depended on a guess I’d gamble “iilj”, and give it a 42.83% success chance.

3) What anime/manga universe would you most like to be in?

I actually had to think for quite a bit for this one, but after consciously ticking off a list of my better liked shows I found a surprisingly clear answer: Aria. Not a particularly interesting answer I know, but even if I ended up being one of those wretched people still stuck on “Manhome” I would still like it a lot for a place like Neo-Venezia – the entire collective of wind, water and unexplained magic – to exist, to be visitable even if just for awhile. Bonus points if Choro Club and Takeshi Senoo wrote the BGM for all our daily lives.

4) What are the 5 newest videos in your favorites list on youtube?

I don’t actually favorite videos so I’ll just list the most recent 5 videos I “liked” (semantically it’s the damn same anyway right?). Unfortunately you’re gonna need to be something of a Starcraft 2 person to enjoy the first two.

1. Programer Q&A’s at IEM Cologne, where we learn that Kas loves Jessica Alba.

2. White-Ra in a Nutshell, showing that Special Tactics = upgreyds make.

3. Ready!! -Bossa Nova Rearrange Mix-, and I still don’t know what “Bossy Nova” is but this version is nice and Iori/Kugyuu made this work.

4. Michael Jackson – Man In The Mirror (Official Video), chills, chills everywhere (yes I’m something of a fanboy).

5. Air – Natsukage sung by Yukiho, reminding me of how much I love Air TV, and how Yukiho’s a pretty great singer even if she isn’t my favorite Idolmaster girl.

5) What does your desktop look like, (haha, i’m so obsessed with desktops). Post a screenshot. While we are at it, how many GB of anime do you have on your hard drive?

So I have 2 physical screens and 10 desktop activities for a total of 20 different screens. Isn’t Linux just fun like that? :P I’ll just post the 2 screens from my “Anime” activity

Screen 1

Screen 2

Don’t get me started on my various cute gadgets or you’ll be reading til tomorrow.

I’ve got 230.6 GB of anime on my computer, with a good bit more in an external harddrive but with significant overlap with the stuff on my computer.

My Questions

Muahahaha, except I have no idea what to ask. I’m just gonna wing it. Oh wait, I need to answer my own questions too. Damn.

1) How much does art style (not so much production values but the style of the drawings, character designs, background stylistics, even the type of BGM) affect your opinion of a show?

Me: Quite a bit. I won’t drop a good show if I don’t like the style of the art, but I’m a lot more likely to watch a mediocre show if the style suits my tastes. Like how I’m somehow watching YuruYuri S2.

2) Do you see yourself still watching anime 10 years from now?

Me: If Hollywood and Chinese drama remain in their current shabby state, and the good band of Anime remain accessible and stay approximately equal in quality to those of today, yes.

3) Virtual Idols (think Vocaloid, Idolm@ster): Okay or No way?

Me: Okay. “Real” Idols aren’t much more “real” anyway: you can never shake the feeling that there is always more going on behind the scenes. At least everything there is to know about Virtual Idols are generally knowable, and the entire point of idols is to stage out something we can like and/or relate to using beautiful people anyway. Virtual Idols can do that and potentially do that better.

4) Do you play visual novels? What do you think of them as a storytelling medium?

Me: Not many. Only games I’ve actually finished are relatively short renpy ones. I haven’t even finished Katawa Shoujo, but it’s probably common knowledge by now that I’m a slowpoke. I really like the feel of a VN though, it feels unique. It’s like a superset of a novel: it allows the writer as much literary creativity and lyrical prowess as he is capable of, and combines that with elements of a visual medium: colors, music, which I think gives a VN more expressive potential than a regular novel, without taking much away. I think more people should be creating Visual Novels, even outside Japan/Otaku subculture.

5) Do some characters you like capture you on a guttural level? What kind? Or are you so sophisticated you only like characters for their character writing and multidimensional layers?

Sure, I almost always have a nice, intelligent argument thought up for why I like a particular character, but I’ll admit that I liked some of those characters before I even formulated the intelligent reason. I think I’m particularly susceptible to Tsundere’s who are unselfish and ultra-capable: think Kyou, Hinagiku. Maybe it’s a kind of gap moe?

The evil tagging

If you didn’t like my hastily thought out questions, worry not, chances are no one’ll ever answer them :P It happens to be true *cough* that every active aniblogger that I sort of know has already been tagged, so I’m gonna have to tag sleeping ones, who may in fact never come here and actually discover they’ve been tagged.

Keiri, you’re it.

RP, are you still out there?

….

I’m even gonna go out on an audacious leg here and tag Author-senpai, who is probably too manly to participate in nancy games like this one, but who at least drops by once in a good while.

So there you have it. *bow*