Cripes! That’s it, then! I’ve watched every episode of Gravitation! All 13 of them (not 12, as I wrote in part two, or 16 as I wrote in part one)!

So what the hell happened in the final stretch, and what are my Vital Opinions?

Read on to find out?!? But BEWARE, it’s full of spoilers. That may seem obvious, but what DOESN’T seem obvious is that it also contains a sort-of-near-spoiler for an 8 year-old Tom Cruise/ Jamie Foxx film.

SECTION A: SUPER DRIVE

Well, turns out the head of the record label didn’t fancy main guy, Shuichi, after all. I forgot also that he’s married to Shuichi’s boyfriend’s sister, but seems to be in love with shuichi’s boyfriend? Or he just feels extremely protective of him?

Hmmm. Not sure about that whole storyline? A bit vague. Fair enough! It’s too coincidental, for me, though, that the guy Shuichi met, independently of the whole music scene, who became his boyfriend, was the brother-in-law of the label head. Shoddy writing! Like the final reel of Collateral! Shoddy!

Also, ‘Mr. Droopy Eyes’, who I surmised might be in love with Shuichi also, is never actually mentioned again, other than a brief scene at the end where he is shown watching Bad News play a gig. He gets vague ‘redemption’ in that he looks a bit sad, and then his band show up and they are all pals again. He’s still a prick, though, a prick who arranged for Shuichi to get beaten up just so his band could do well.

(Reminds me of the time a band beat a guy I sort of knew up in the toilets, as he gave them a bad review. Total fucking idiots. I hope their band failed, even on a local level. I hate the music ‘scene’)

The irritating lead singer of ‘Nittle Grasper’ only gets more irritating, and starts talking through his soft toy, which he carries everywhere. I have the theory that he’s in it to make Shuichi seem less annoying, like how Niles is supposed to make Frasier seem less ‘intellectual’ and ‘fancy’, thus endearing him to an American audience, and I suppose that works? I hate him, though.

(Not Niles. I quite like Niles)

Shuichi and Writer Guy (turns out he’s called ‘Yuki’!)? Their relationship continued to be all over the place, with little reason for the viewer to WANT it to succeed, as they didn’t actually seem to get on except for the odd moment. Why are they together? It’s such a one-sided relationship!

Yuki’s always treating Shuichi like shit, Shuichi’s always acting like a lovesick moron with no believable human reactions, and there’s so little actual affection between them that when Shuichi selfishly slacks off from his band because of relationship woes, Yuki gets hassled by the band’s manager into telling Shuichi he’ll go on a date with him if he sells a million copies of his album.

Yes. He has to bribe him with a date. Aren’t they already going on dates? Not judging by Shuichi’s reaction, no. He is overjoyed! A date with Yuki?! Wow! The power dynamics are pretty creepy like that, in places.

Still, it a generally pretty light-hearted animé (I don’t think I’m SUPPOSED to have a problem with their fucked-up relationship), and, nicely, it never gets any racier than the odd kiss. I say ‘nicely’, not because I’m a prude and don’t want to see explicit animated sex (though I kind of don’t), but because it’s always good to have something that deals with homosexuality that pretty much any age group can watch.

Well, maybe not super-young people? There’s a bizarre and genuinely funny bit of not-even-innuendo where the band manager is thinking what Shuichi and Yuki are getting up to on their day off. It goes something like this:

“I’ll bet that they must have spent the entire day mixing it up, licking, and banging.”

Such odd phrasing! “Mixing it up, licking and banging”, indeed. But he’s not REALLY referring to sexy stuff, HONEST. Watch this awful American dub (I accidentally heard the dub a couple of times when I forgot to change the language settings)

Also of a slightly-more-grown-up nature is a pretty distressing scene that explains Yuki’s Tragic Past, though it’s mainly all just implied, not shown. Turns out, when he was a kid, he looked up to and trusted one of his teachers, only to have the teacher betray that trust in a horrible way (taking money from two men in exchange for, from what is implied, getting to rape Yuki) .

It’s a pretty powerful scene, especially in the context of Gravitation, where up until then it has been quite cartoony and upbeat, even the soapy romantic melodrama.

Sadly, Yuki, into adulthood, feels that he somehow led the teacher on, and that it’s all his fault, and as these feelings are never expressed to anyone, the series ends with him still feeling that way.

Gravitation ends otherwise happily – Bad News, the band does well, Shuichi’s grown as a person and as a singer, Guitar Guy’s having a good time with his current girlfriend, and it’s implied Shuichi and Yuki are still together.

The fact Yuki has unresolved issues regarding his past lends a bittersweet quality to the animé, and it’s all the better for it, Gravitation clawing some actual Proper Emotional Response out of me after a sustained barrage of irritating chibi bullshit, immature irrationality and frustrating false drama (Shuichi suddenly losing his voice is as stupid as the bit in series one of 24 where Kiefer’s wife loses her memory for an episode). Though I’m always slightly dubious of the ‘include abuse in their history for instant added meaning’ trope, it works well here, I think.

So, at the end of Gravitation, what had I learned?

Mainly, I’d learned to love the theme tune (repetition ALWAYS helps when you don’t speak the language).

Which brings me onto…

SECTION B: J-POP PROBLEMZ

I like J-Pop (basically: Japanese pop), so I do, but it’s problematic for me, sometimes! The stuff I listen to tends to be music I’ve heard on an animé opening sequence, like Yui, or a band/singer I’ve happened upon while doing a generic internet search for ‘J-Pop’, like the-mighty-but-troubling Kishidan.

Basically, the J-Pop I listen to tends to be Big Chart Stuff, and I sometimes worry that I wouldn’t be listening to it if it didn’t have that allure of being ‘other’? I’m an indie dweeb at heart, and maybe there’s the whole “I want to like music no-one else does, to be coool!” thing, as well, and what’s more obscure than music from another country? Music from Japan, no less, a country which is laden down with a perhaps-patronising cache of cool?

But then, even if that is the slightly dubious origin of my pursuit of J-Pop, genuine curiosity and a basic enjoyment of discovering music must also apply, right? And I do genuinely, genuinely love a whole bunch of the stuff.

I reckon, as well, as I know fuck-all about any musical ‘scene’ politics in Japan or what the cool thing to like is, or what is the total unhip balls, I can approach the music without preconceptions, or something? I mean, there might be something in the UK charts that I won’t even give a listen to as it’s got Will.I.Am attached to it, right? This bit of snobbery wouldn’t apply to my listening of J-Pop!

For all I know, the stuff I like features terrible lyrics of the ‘sky/high/fly’ or ‘find piece of mind’ variety, or be by a returning band with a song written by Coldplay who I hated the first time round, and I wouldnae ken! I can cast snobbery aside and I can enjoy the songs on their own merits (though I think I’m getting better with that sort of thing regarding music in general, it’s still there).

This is good, I think? Maybe? There’s still probably heaps of dubious problems with my attitude to J-Pop, but I’m hoping a lot of it has gone, as I’ve aged, and I just genuinely like the music I like? It’s never that simple, though, is it?

Ocht, I don’t know. I’m sure I’m (Nittle) grasping towards some sort of point, but I’m not entirely sure what it is.

Here’s one of my ‘faves’, anyway, ‘Electric Beach Fever’ by Puffy AmiYumi, from bloody ages ago. It’s an upbeat disco number, but like all good disco, it makes me feel a bit sad, too?

PART C: THE WORST THING ABOUT THE GRAVITATION ANIMÉ

Shuichi never wore the outfit he’s wearing in promo images:

But maybe he will, in the feature length Gravitation OVA that I’m watching next?!?

IT’S NOT OVER YET.

I have always been a poor wretch, who also has deep cravings for ‘interesting’ pop culture. Alas, a few years ago, when faced with the prospect of purchasing the much-maligned ‘Southland Tales’ for a fiver, this was still too expensive. So, in the spirit of sharing, me and my pal went halfers!

But why did we have this very slight need to watch this film? I can’t speak for my friend, but I think I can speak for me?

(Oh yeah, spoilers and that)

Here are some of my reasons for wanting to see this apparent abomination, Southland Tales:

- It’s got Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson in it, who is endlessly charismatic and The Only Handsome Wrestler.

- It’s by Richard Kelly, who made ‘Donnie Darko’, the only film I’ve ever seen twice at the cinema (though the second viewing was perhaps mainly because I was foolishly trying to endear myself towards my ‘crush’ of the time, and is no reflection of the actual quality of the film).

- It has Stifler in it (I’ve never liked that spelling of his name, as it looks like it should be about someone who stifles people, which I suppose he does? But then it’s pronounced like ‘stiffler’ and it’s all wrong!), who is like the anti-Rock, in that he has a curious negative-charisma that I find strangely endearing. He’s really good at playing a loathsome jerk (Stifler is the only thing about ‘American Pie’ that rings true), but he’s sort of awful at everything else. I am a strong believer in the rehabilitation of  ‘niche’ actors, though (Tarantino-style), and I do genuinely feel Stifler’s powers can be harnessed for the forces of good.

- I dunno, the film claimed to have time-nonsense and apocalypso stuff. I am a sucker for those things.

But what were the reasons for the small price tag of five pounds seeming still a bit too much?

- Well, with Donnie Darko, Richard Kelly seemed to sort of make a good film despite himself. The extendo-versions and director’s commentaries that I’ve seen/heard give me the impression that he’s all about over-elaborating things that were left nicely ambiguous in the original cut, like the film exists in his head to a level that needed to stay there for coherence’s sake? Southland Tales is all him, though, I think?

- Stifler’s powers seem difficult to harness for the forces of good.

- Sarah Michelle Gellar’s in it, who I’ve never really liked. A bit bland, maybe? Predictably, I was always about Hannigan and Xander and Giles.

- The trailer and clips all made the film seem pretty rotten (though watching the trailer now, the people that put it together made a pretty good job of straining coherence from the film, and makes it look not half bad!).

(that version of  ‘Wave of Mutiliation’ belongs to Heathers, you film-making fools! You can’t claim it!)

That was ages ago, all this, and we did buy it, and then we watched it!

I remember watching it, too, to some extent. There was boozing involved that night. Boozing and humans. This didn’t really go well with Southland Tales, and so all I really remember is that it seemed to go on forever, there was a revolting scene with Justin Timberlake singing The Killers, and The Rock had a tic where he twiddled his fingers aboot. Oh, and Stifler’s made of magic or something.

It’s been a few years, though, and I haven’t seen it since. My pal has the copy of it, and it’s never felt like it was missing from my life. But! I saw it in a shop for £1 the other day, so I bought it. The chap working there said “it’s a good film, you’ll have to watch it a couple of times”, and I played along that I hadn’t seen it before, as I am terrible at talking to strangers, even amiable ones. I was unconvinced it’s one of those ‘deep’ films you have to have repeat viewings of to ‘get’, but it wouldn’t hurt to gie it a go, would it? £1!

So, last night, I watched it again.

Some New! observations

- It’s got Wood Harris/Avon Barksdale in it! I have an enormous amount of goodwill for the actors from ‘The Wire’, and it’s always a pleasure to see them crop up in other things, as they’re often genuinely good actors who deserve the work. Unless it’s McNulty, as he’s a Tory (though of course there’s always a morbid fascination in seeing him in things where he’s a posh fop or something).

Anyway, Wood Harris doesn’t get much to do in Southland Tales, but he provides one of the few intended laughs in it, where he and Amy Poehler are improvising an ‘arguing couple’ scene in order to frame a cop for some reason. And it cuts to a person listening in, saying “they’re so good at improv”, and I had a chuckle. He seems naturally funny and it’s a shame they didn’t make more of him.

- There’s so much obvious acting in it. Knitted brows, people deliberately playing against type.

- Stifler’s shite but I still like him in this, as a fake cop who is replacing his twin brother who is an actual cop but then oh no! They’re actually the same person, but from slightly different times, due to being thrown through a space/time vortex!

And they/he is the new Messiah and they have glowing hands which make an ice cream truck float through the city like in Repo Man (Oddly, ‘Repo Chick‘ by Alex Cox looks perhaps like it deals with similar themes to Southland Tales, and I’ve got it on order. Overdosing on near-future armageddon artifice-pop?). I like that someone read those events in the script and thought “GET ME STIFLER!”.

They made the right choice.

- While I’m typing this, the Patrick Wolf song that has the same vocal melody as the big hit Tearz4Fearz cover from Donnie Darko’s on. Morrisonian synchro time-magic? Super-tenuous coincidence?

- WordPress keeps insisting I type this in bold, like it somehow wants to force importance on this film.

- The Rock is fucking ace, though not even he could save the utterly shite bit where he says “I’m a pimp. Pimps don’t commit suicide”. Is this a lyric from a song or something? Apparently the film’s peppered with lyrics from songs I am unaware of.

It’s a shit line, anyway, as he is NOT a pimp, which suggests he’s using ‘pimp’ to mean ‘you know, cool and unflappable and stylish’ like some people tend to, which is fucking nonsense as pimps are just pricks, really, for obvious reasons.

-  Nooo,  Sarah Michelle Gellar. While I like her name in it, ‘Krysta Now!’, her whole character feels forced and awful. She’s a porn star who has a current affairs show with other porn stars, and is releasing a song and generally launching her whole ‘brand’.

Fair enough, this sort of stuff actually happens. But the way all these things are portrayed are AWFUL, like Richard Kelly’s suggesting that there’s something inherently ridiculous and absurd about someone who works in pornography having intelligent opinions. And if it’s not supposed to be played for laughs, then Gellar’s not helping by playing her with a cringeworthy mock-seriousness that makes her seem deluded and ridiculous.

It’s not funny or thought-provoking, anyway. “Haha isn’t porn and the pornification of culture funny and ludicrous? Imagine porn actresses having OPINIONS, right?!?!”

- Most of the intended humour falls utterly, utterly flat and feels far too forced. There’s a bit with a Robocop-style future-advert that involves two humvee-esque cars fucking. It is sort of funny, I guess, and is actually almost a worthwhile comment on sex being used to sell even when it’s totally innappropriate, but then, it’s let down by the fact that afterwards, a guy says “did I just watch two cars porking?” in a Mark Millary “no way! that was a crazy thing to put in a comic/film, wasn’t it? Aren’t I GREAT?!?” sort of way.

- There are Neo-Marxists in it, as the chief terrorists who are blackmailing the right-wing politician with photos of The Rock who is a Republican-allied actor blah blah blah and I am not sure where Richard Kelly is going with them (it turns out most of the characters are secret Marxists or something)? Is the whole film a critique of the ludicrous extreme endpoints of the left and right wings? Probably, but it’s clumsy stuff.

- Two absurdo-lines tickled me, as the tone they are played in is so genuinely weird. One is when Stifler says “We’re taking the ATM with us to Mexico”, and another is when The Rock, discussing the space/time rift, and how they needed a human subject to test it, says something with deadly seriousness like “a chimp’s soul wouldn’t be strong enough to survive the dimensional tearing”. I really, really liked that. Stifler and The Rock! I like them both. And that chimp line is the only time a monkey has been funny since maybe Dmitri-9 in ‘The Filth’.

- While I’m talking about bits I actually liked, I really enjoyed the special perpetual motion energy machine, which we see in the background, shooting a beam into the sky, making the clouds into a kind of whirlpool. Nice and RPG-esque. I also liked the science fiction time-stuff in general. It was total nonsense that made me grin more than go “NO WAY!!!” but I love time bullshit. Simon Furman and Grant Morrison’s fault.

- Another thing I love is a good future drug. But ‘Fluid Karma’ in Southland Tales was a letdown as it has too many syllables. It needs a punchy one-syllable name like ‘Kick’ or ‘Nuke’ or ‘Rope’.

- The ‘near future’ stuff in general falls pretty flat. The Krysta Now! parody of a pop song was already pretty dated-sounding when this film was made, though this of course could be a comment on the cyclical trends of pop, the ever-tightening ouroboros of cultural signifiers, things from 2 years ago becoming so ‘retro’ that they’re actually the zeitgeist. But I’m not convinced. And the title “Teen Horniness is Not a Crime” is just another example of jokes in it being shite.

- On a related note, the ‘drug scene’ where scarred war veteran Timberlake has some ‘Fluid Karma’ and it goes into a music video scene of him singing along to The Killers is, well, here it is:

It’s a good critique of the film as a whole, really, that shitey section. It uses a song that features  an incredibly faux-meaningful lyric that means fuck-all – “I’ve got soul, but I’m not a soldier” (this was fun when it came out, as it led to the ‘great’ game of making up new lyrics like “I’ve got bones but I’m not a boner” etc). It has ‘burlesque’ women in fetish nurses outfit, fetish and burlesque of course being a lazy signifier of dystopian sexy edginess, despite that shit being on the way to being done to death culturally even back in 2006. It has someone who is an ‘unexpected’ choice for the part he’s playing. It has music that is superficially ‘cool’ (in that hollywood types probably think it is) but actually isn’t, really.

So, yeah, Southland Tales is pretty much trying so hard to seem like it has depth and meaning, and perhaps it does? But I get the impression Kelly didn’t quiiite manage to get his ‘vision’ into a coherent film, and I feel this muddled nature is perhaps used to try and justify the film being ‘deeper’ than it actually is? Basically – capitalism and socialism are both flawed, society is getting more media-influenced and artificial, war is bad, time travel and stuff is cool.

The film seems to be going for some sort of Pynchon/Brazil/Lynch (yaaawn, Lynch comparisons, I know, but there’s some ‘dreamy’ sort of stuff that doesn’t quite work that seems to be going for the Badalamenti hazy music thing, like that Lana Del Ray) mix, and it’s just not quite there. It never feels like it properly hangs together?

And it’s not really fun, either.

Ocht well.

That said, I would MUCH rather watch something like this, that has some interesting elements, and actually tried to do something vaguely interesting, than, like, I dunno? What’s an example of a film with no ambition that I didn’t enjoy, er, maybe ‘Love, Actually’? A lesser Apatow joint?

But that makes me sound like a snob?

I always ways more of a Finch than I was a Stifler.

I have watched more ‘Gravitation’! Four more episodes, to be precise. In my review of the first four parts, I said it was a 16-part series. Wrong, me! It is 12.

This is good, as it means each episode is PACKED WITH DRAMA. It pure rips along at a braw pace. What sort of shite happens in parts 5-8, though? And what did I think of it all?

Read on to find out, if you can be arsed!

One thing that’s become evident is that I cannot remember the names of any of the characters other than Shuichi, the man-child singer of  ‘Bad News’ (I have no trouble remembering the band names, though).  I think perhaps this is because the characters aren’t consistent in what they call each other, using nicknames and first names and second names, so that there’s not enough repetition of them to hammer them into my thick skull.

I reckon that’s okay, though, as it’s mostly about Shuichi and how the other characters relate to him.

After the first four episodes, I didn’t like shuichi. He’s melodramatic and illogical and generally not like a human being. And when he goes into ‘chibi’ form to do ‘cute’ stuff, I think it’s supposed to be really endearing and adorable, but but but grrrargh I just want him to GROW UP.

Episodes five to eight are going some way to making him sliiightly more endearing.

There’s a scene where weak-willed rival band ‘ASK’, led by the jealous and mean ‘Mr Droopy Eyes’ (though his eyes don’t seem that droopy?) befriend Shuichi, get him drunk, then take him to a car park where hired thugs beat him up, while he takes photos. This is all part of Droopy’s evil plan to humiliate Shuichi,  which also involves threatening him by saying he’ll ruin Moody Writer Guy (Shuichi’s boyfriend)’s career by ‘outing’ their relationship to the press.

It’s a horrible scene, and while they don’t belabour the homophobice nature of the attack, it’s definitely there. I’m glad they didn’t take it further, as it was distressing enough (I think one of the good decisions of Gravitation is that hardly anyone seems to have a problem with non-hetrosexuality, other than maybe this Droopy-Eyes chump).

Anyway, Shuichi takes the beating stoically, and then goes to see his pal, the Guitarist, for help, feeling too proud to go back to Writer guy. Guitarist, being TOTALLY ACE and easily the best character, then motorbikes over to Writer’s house to tell him about it. Writer then goes and beats up the evil band with ease, except Droopy Eyes, who he just intimdates, in a fun scene where Droopy Eyes is terrified due to Writer having the ‘eyes of someone who has killed’.

This whole episode makes Shuichi seem a bit less shit, though it’s crap he has to get beaten up for this to happen (it’s a manipulative, slightly lazy tactic to get me to care). It doooes make Droopy Eyes a bit TOO evil, but I’m nursing the theory that he’s in love with Shuichi, too?

I’m still not toally sure I buy that the relationship between Writer and Shuichi should happen, as Writer treats him like total shit – he’s dismissive and rude and also has a secret fiancée.

Yes.

The secret fiancée messes things up for a while as she is understandably annoyed about the whole thing, but then she and Writer decide to go get married, after all. Bastards! See, I’m starting to care about Shuichi, now!

This leads to Shuichi dressing up as women in two different scenes, as he thinks Writer, who is marrying a woman, would like him better if he wasn’t male (as if it’s that that’s putting him off). I’m all for crossdressing in animé (or in most things), but in this instance it just makes me feel a bit sad that Shuichi should feel he has to! And I suspect it’s all just for the sake of the audience getting to go “Oh, he’s so adorable!”, again.

(this image made by made by http://crystalrobot.deviantart.com/ )

But, yeah, Fiancée sees sense, and Shuichi goes along as a bride instead, much to the priest’s confusion. Him and Writer don’t get married, but they do get back together.

BUT FOR HOW LONG?!?!? Writer, Mysterious Sad Past or no, is such a prick! And though he’s willing to stand up for Shuichi behind his back, he treats him like dirt all of the time he’s there! BAH.

Anyway, there’s a chance Guitarist and Fiancée are getting together, which is fine by me! I like that this show is all over the Kinsey scale.

Another thing I like about Gravitation is that they made the bizarre scene from an earlier episode, where Shuichi smashes himself through a wall instead of using a door, into a recurring joke. It’s stupid but I like it. More smashing of things, Shuichi!

Anyway, things get even juicier, as when the Label Head hears Droopy Eyes from ASK has been a prick, he pushes him in front of a car as a warning to stay away from Shuichi. He doesn’t get hit by the car, but it does serve to scare the shit out of him, and makes things get even more intense! Does Label Head also fancy Shuichi?!?

Incidentally, Label Head is either from or pals with (can’t remember!) the bafflingly/amazingly-named band ‘Nittle Grasper’, who were a big deal, but split up when their singer went solo. Their singer is Shuichi’s main inspiration, and is like him TIMES TEN, and as such is an awful, awful character. If Shuichi is a man-child, this guy is a man-infant. He’s horrible. But he is helping Shuichi’s band do well, and making him feel good about himself, so that’s nice!

A better Nittle Grasper-related person is Promoter Guy (see title image) who is free and easy with threatening people in both the studio and the ‘real’ world with his pistol in a jolly way, which is always played for laughs, but is actually rather sinister what with the whole Phil Spector thing. He is also helping Bad News succeed, just as he did with Nittle Grasper.

Nittle Grasper.

At the end of these 4 episodes, Nittle Grasper reform. Will they now be Bad News’s main rivals? ASK seem pretty much buried, so who knows what new depths Droopy Eyes will stoop to? Or will there be redemption? I do not know!

Only four episodes to go, and I expect them to be EMOTIONAL.

Hmmm. Haven’t shoehorned in any music I like, this time. Maybe we’ll end with gnarly queer-friendly alt-rockers, Imperial Teen, with their bestest video?

Hello! Or, as Kryptonians would say, “hrosh :bem”!

B…but how can I speak Kryptonian? Am I one of the many, many survivors of Superman’s deid planet? Am…am I Nicolas Cage?

No, I just did an internet search, and came across this website. It made me feel a bit ill, probably because my human brain can’t comprehend the fact that a whole planet had only one language. But that’s Krypton for you – banal, sterile, cold.

Unlike this book I saw ages ago in a local charity shop, and finally purchased, then read!

I don’t really like the idea of a ‘guilty pleasure’, as I tend to think you should like what you like without having to justify it in terms of ‘coolness’ or whatever, but, well, sometimes it’s not that simple. There are so many other things I could have read instead of what was basically, for me, a well-written 475-page Wikipedia article about a particluar period of Superman comics. Would I feel less ‘guilty’ about the ‘pleasure’ of reading this if it was about a ‘hipper’ superhero, like, say, Batman?

Probably.

Basically, comics aren’t cool, in particular 90s comics, in particluar Superman. But there is still a vague hipster cache to reading a comic, be it due to irony or kitsch or whatever. I guess that could even be applied to reading a novelisation of a comic?

Nah, I never for one minute felt ‘cool’ reading this book.

Not that it matters.

Honestly.

So why did I buy, and read it? Well, I like pulpy prose, I have gaps in my 90s Superman knowledge, and I have heard Roger Stern is a good comics writer. Plus, it was in a charity shop and was dead cheap, and I can’t deny it DOES have a kitsch value, even though other people might not recognise it.

Why am I trying to justify this to myself? The remnants of high school nerdlinger self-loathing? The shameful inner need to be a ‘cool geek’ instead of just a ‘geek’?

I AM A POP CULTURAL MAVERIIIIICK.

Am I even that bothered, or am I just feeling I should be for space-filling purposes? I do not know. ANYWAY!

PART A: QUICK BOOK REVIEW

It was an enjoyable read! Sturdy prose, well-paced, with Roger Stern showing good instincts regarding which parts of the original comics story to focus on, and which parts to quickly skip through. Solid structure!

RATING: I FINISHED READING IT, IN THE END

A fine review, eh? In-depth.

Here are some other thoughts sparked by this book, like the sparks provided by… the… Electric…Superman?!

PART B: SUPER-THOUGHTS

I remember when Superman died in the 90s! It was on the morning radio, and I was too young to realise that death in comics is no big deal, and that Superheroes always come back.

(one great thing Grant Morrison has in his superhero comics is that this tends to be mentioned at superhero funerals… they’ll be back eventually! And while I liked Peter David making Siryn in X-Factor sceptical of Banshee’s death actually MEANING ‘death’, I did not like that the other characters saw this as delusional as it made them look fucking stupid).

I was also too young to give a flying shite about Superman comics, as I had little exposure to DC Comics and was probably reading Transformers or Turtles or playing Warhammer or something, anyway? So, his death had no effect at all. Neither did Kurt Cobain’s, other than it gave me something to talk to my Cool Big Sister about (no-one cool cared about Superman’s death, though).

But yeah. Eventually, I hit high school, got access to the town library, took out some comics. One of them was ‘The Death of Superman’. Not being a DC guy, as I said, it was weeeeiiiird. The drawings looked really old-fashioned to me, and I had no idea who any of the characters were, other than a basic understanding of the Superman set-up. It sure made the Justice League look shite, anyway! How was I to know Guy Gardner and Blue Beetle were well-regarded by fans? What’s a ‘Booster Gold’? And who the hell was ‘Bloodwynd’ (though I did quite like him as he was generically mysterious and magic)?

I remember enjoying the plot, though: thing in a green suit likes punching stuff, punches the Justice League, punches stuff so much his clothes fall off, then he punches Superman until both Superman and him die.

I’ve heard criticisms that it’s stupit that Superman should get killed by a generic baddie with no prior connections to Superman, or indeed any backstory at all. I dig it, though! There’s something to be said for the “What the-?!?” nature of it. Unexpected thing comes along, fucks everything up. Nooooo! It had a ‘fun’ inevitability. Palatable dread for a kid to enjoy!

And that was pretty much all the Superman I saw or read until maybe a couple of summers down the line? I’ve mentioned my formative family holidays to Ibiza before, and how they’re largely to blame for me getting ‘into’ American comics, as opposed to just getting British reprints. Anyway, this one time, I’d bought and read all the up-to-date comics I could find in shops near the hotel I was staying at. Needing a hott hitt of comics, I found a wad of DC ones from a couple of years previous at the back of a cluttered wee place that mainly sold holiday shite.

There were a bunch of ‘Reign of the Supermen’ issues, and some ‘Knightfall’. ‘Reign’, telling the story of the four Superman analogues (prismatic!) that showed up after Superman’s death, seemed pretty fascinating to me, especially due to my youthful love of different versions of heroes, possibly sparked by seeing Symbiote Spidey in the Transformers comic.

Anyway, the ones I read about were The Last Son of Krypton (humourless guy with a neato visor. Kills criminals), and the Cyborg Superman (grim-looking guy who looks like ‘normal’ Superman but with cyborg bits. Eeeevil Terminator skull-head), and the ones I saw ads for but read nothing of were The Man of Steel (looked like a big metal version of Superman, with a huge hammer. Yes!) and Superboy (who looked like an awful sassy youngster with terrible hair).

It was properly interesting in the run up to Superman coming back to life. Who was the real Superman? The comics were keeping it close to their chests, and it just got more exciting when, having gained the trust of the President, it turned out Cyborg was a badlad. The comic where he aids in the destruction of an entire city by alien forces, while blowing Last Son of Krypton to bits and making everyone think he was the real culprit? That was a good comic. Sinister high stakes ‘what will the heroes do?’ stuff.

And that was all I gleaned from the comics. W…what happened next?!?

I would not find out for yeeears, and I wouldn’t fill in all of my knowledge gaps until I read the Roger Stern novelisation.

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE SUPERMEN OF YESTERDAY (THE 90s)?!?

Well, The Man of Steel (or just ‘Steel’), it turned out, is an actual ace character who is basically Iron Man if Iron Man wasn’t a prick and was instead a socially-conscious good guy with a huge hammer. He’s a decent guy, and I find myself liking that sort of potentially-dull character more and more as I grow older. I just like reasonable people!

Superboy was some sort of Superman clone, and he did some stuff that was annoying and 90s-ish, and it turned out he was basically the clone-mix of Superman and Lex Luthor, or something? Slashy!

The Cyborg? I was dissappointed by the novelisation in that it taught me that the Cyborg hadn’t had any interesting motivations or great origin story or anything, he was just some Fantastic Four-referencing guy who had been driven ‘mad’ and was all boring and “I will destroy Superman! Ooohaahaa!” sort of guy.

The Last Son of Krypton (with the Lady Gaga spexxx) turned out to be an ancient Kryptonian weapon called The Eradicator, who is trying to preserve Kryptonian culture or something? Problem is, ‘The Eradicator’ just makes me think of this:

It’s not much of a problem, to be fair.

I have no idea what The Eradicator is doing now (if indeed he’s doing anything at all in the ‘Nu52‘).

Oh, and Superman eventually came back to life due to being a Kryptonian toughguy with special solar energy-storing skills, and also because his adopted dad had a heart attack and met Superman on the way to heaven and stopped his soul from properly dying, or something (not too keen on that bit, to be honest). When he returned, he had a mullet, and shot some robots with guns.

SUPER-CONCLUSION

Ocht, the book was awfy braw, it reminded me of a period of comics that gets a bad press, and how much I had enjoyed them. Maybe reading it was an exercise in pointless nostalgia for me, but sometimes that’s okay? I’m sure there’s probably an essay out there about the death of Superman, and his replacements, and how it was a metaphor for the changing comics industry and how Traditional Heroes are better than Badass 90s Heroes (in fact, I’m sure I’ve read stuff to that effect). It’s a good companion story to ‘Knightfall’ in that respect, which I might write a bit about soon, as I have recently filled in some of my knowledge gaps from that, too (though sadly not with a novel).

One thing about the book? It doesn’t make any mention of Superman’s 90s mullet.

And it’s all the better for it.

BYE!

OR: THE FURTHER EXPLOITS OF A HOOP-JUMPING YES-MAN

Hello, Jobseekers! I’ve finally been shunted onto one of those awful ‘Pauline from League of Gentlemen’ forced-labour job course thingies. You know, the Jobcentre gets you off their books (and unemployment statistics?), and gives you over to a private company, who humiliate and patronise you for a while, before making you work near-full-time in some menial job that teaches you nothing (and pays you nothing more than your dole), with very little chance of an actual job at the end.

I’m a bit of an old hand at this, as no-one will give me a job (a glib account of complicated circumstances), and I wrote some stuff about it before, here.

I had my first meeting at A4E last friday. I’m not sure what ‘A4E’ means, but I’m sure I could look it up? Angst 4 Everyone? Angry 4 Ever?Affluence 4 Effluence?

(It means ‘Action For Employment’, apparently)

Get ready for a rambling account of a day that may as well not have happened (and I wish hadn’t)!

The letter they sent me informing of this appointment said:

“How does the prospect of rewarding, long-term employment sound?    

Well, that’s exactly what The Work Programme has been created to help you find. And now you’ve been referred we’d   like to invite you to your intial Group About You Appointment within your local branch.”

Look at that opening sentence! If this had arrived via email, I probably wouldn’t have seen it as it would have been shunted away to the spam folder with all the other money-making schemes.

It is also interesting to note that they call it ‘The Work Programme’. It seems to me they change what it is actually called every time it is mentioned. The dole guy who asked me about it at my last appointment said, apologetically, “I see you’ve started ‘Workfare’. Bet you’re enjoying it” or something to that effect.

I like that guy.

Anyway, I went along at the alloted time, to a building I would probably not have found had I not already protested outside it the previous year (I was heartened to see an anti-workfare poster just the other day when I was at a club, too). There was no identification on the building, or directions as to where to go, other than a bit of A4 paper with a tiny logo, which was covered up by some other sheet with opening times or something. In the end, I cautiously followed someone else through the doors, lingered creepily, then slowly walked up the steps and hoped for ‘the best’.

The room I entered was super-depressing. Grim and grey, with thin corridors and the odd poster dotted about with faux-inspirational words on them in clusters. The last Workfare place I was at, Ingeus (who have lost the Workfare contract, the poor buggers), was a bit like this, but was brighter, more open-plan, and less like the most awful doctor’s waiting room in the world. I never thought I’d miss that place!

After talking to the friendly receptionist, who used my first name, I stood and waited for someone to come and tell me what to do, in an area already crammed with people, who I correctly assumed were there for the same reason I was. The room continued to get more and more filled, and I began to feel more self-conscious and rotten.

Overhearing some staff talking about the whole thing already running late, I was not confident that this morning would positively fly by.

Eventually, after standing in a room for ages with a bunch of other folks, in silence (it’s not a situation conducive to upbeat conversation), someone came along and chose some people to be taken away to another room, for ‘induction’. Eventually someone came down and asked the rest of us to come upstairs for the same thing (though I was unsure I was there for ‘induction’ at all, as the letter they sent me called it a ‘Group About You Appointment’.

We were made to queue to get  ‘blue folders’, of which there were nowhere near enough for everyone. The people with the folders were also taken away, and a still-large bunch of us were left behind, and told to go back downstairs again. Then, after another wait, we were told to go back upstairs again, where we were evntually told to go into a room with another group, and wait.

There were not enough seats or tables, so I sat on the desk of the person who was our advisor, or something? I immediately felt incredibly self-conscious, and too scared to move, or glance around for a better desk to sit on or place to stand, one that wasn’t so ‘on show’. Eventually I felt it sensible to move, as the friendly woman whose desk it was came in, so I slunk to a seatless table in the corner.

She then went to get more seats, but no-one was willing to move onto them, as I guess, like me, they didn’t want to draw attention to themselves? Eventually, feeling stupid, I went and sat in one of the new seats. I had deliberately dressed down (didn’t even wear my pink-and-silver Batman belt buckle) so as not to stand out in any way, but soon realised I’d worn the pair of trousers with the fly that sticks out a bit, and immediately became worried it made me look like I was experiencing some sort of arousal. Should I cross my legs, or put something over my crotch area? Or would this make it more noticeable?

It sure is fun having an anxiety disorder.

Anyway, the staff woman returned, and was apologetic. Apparently there was no space or resources, as they hadn’t expected everyone to turn up. The day before, only 25 people out of 100 had, apparently? This might predispose the staff to thinking they shouldn’t prepare for everyone being there, but, well, it’s pretty unprofessional, y’know, and made me feel like dirt (which might be more my problem than theirs).

Over the next hour or so, we were handed forms to sign about letting A4E pass on our details to businesses etc, stuff about health and safety, and some awful-looking and patronising pamphlet that we’ve to fill in as the ‘course’ goes on, which showed a ‘fun’ hippy-esque bus, and was apparently our ‘passport to work’ or something. A look through it shows that we’ll be ‘learning’ such things as how to use a phone, and how to dress for an interview (if this humiliatingly manifests itself in having to put on my interview suit for a meeting at A4E, to prove I know how to ‘look groomed’, I’m going to cry, probably).

Loads of cool shit to look forward to, obviously, and in no way just the same as the things I’d done at Ingeus about a fucking month ago.

The staff member explained all the forms, and it seems, unlike when I was forced to work at a charity shop a while ago, we won’t be getting an extra £15 a week when this happens again, like we used to, in the good old bad days. I quite liked the woman talking to us, she endearingly kept using the wrong words, as if she was quite nervous, and I felt a bit bad for her having to go through the monotony of ‘inducting’ us.

She said to someone, last to get handed her forms, “least but not last”. I assume this was in no way meant, but it made me die a little inside seeing this person be insulted in such a way.

There was a good moment when she referred to the current government as the ‘Tories’, then tried to correct herself, before settling again on ‘Tories’ in a bit of a fluster.

(Incidentally, I have no ill will towards the staff at these things, they’re just doing a job, and maybe some of them are actually wanting to genuinely help people like me get jobs? Maybe they started out with high ideals, and just took a wrong turn somewhere, or were beaten down by the world like everyone else, and so ended up working at a private company that exploits people for the benefit of the government? Hmm, that sounded more bitter than I intended)

I would have quite liked to take the A4E forms home to look at them properly, see how dodgy the stuff I’d signed was, but we had to hand them back in afterwards for them to look after them, to the extent the staff member even ran after someone that had left with theirs. Ocht well, I’m sure it’s all FINE.

One thing is, it seems I am contracted with them for the next two years, and the only way to get out of it is if I die (their words). If I get a job for, say, six months, then go back on the dole,  I can be immediately shunted back to A4E.

Lucky me!

Eventually, all the paperwork was signed, and we then had to have some details put onto their database. This meant sitting in this same room, with people still not talking to one another (and I was certainly not going to start any conversation up), for the next hour+, we had to go and sit beside the staff member and answer her rather loud questions regarding private information we probably didn’t want other people to hear, such as “how long have you been unemployed” and “do you have any illnesses, and are they any of these? (points to screen)”.

There was not any sort of queuing system for this (I like a good queue), we were just expected to go up and sit down in a magical order that we all intuitively understood from our complex system of wordless signifiers, such as lifting our bags, or putting on coats, while trying not to look like our brains were screaming “ME NEXT! I NEED TO GET THIS OVER WITH AND GET OUT OF HERE!”.

I wasn’t looking forward to letting a room know all about the fact I have mental illness, especially after an ex-con with ADHD had been pretty forthcoming and enthusiastic about his details, then been branded a ‘no-mark’ by a guy sitting in the room once he had left. The guy who said this then went and sat down to tell the staff member his own details, and they had a brief discussion about how the previous guy was ‘loopy’ and ‘mental’. I get that the staff try to engage us, the ‘customers’ (I get angry when I hear them use this word, as it implies we are there by choice), and don’t want to appear ‘uncool’ by maybe saying, like, “don’t insult that previous guy, you’re being a total dick”, but, y’know, actively agreeing with him was maybe a bit much.

Luckily, as I had lingered for so long without going forward to give my details, this had been enough time for another staff member to show up, and I got to talk to her in another room, instead of in front everyone in the current room.

This other room still had people in it, but the staff member was friendly and at least had the decency to say things like “are you on medication? write down what” and “does this affect your ability to work?” in a hushed whisper, which wasn’t ideal, and sort of drew attention to me in a different way, but, y’know, it’s nice they recognised the situation was problematic?

In the end, after giving them lots of details the job centre already know (we were also told the jobcentre don’t share details with them, which I suppose will have its pluses and minuses) I was assigned an advisor and a time to see them, at the end of the month. This advisor then gauges what advisor we have to see, or something? I just hope I get to see them in a private room, and can properly talk about what needs I might have, and this meeting I was at just now wasn’t setting anything in stone.

After this, I went back downstairs to claim my travel expenses, and was asked to give them my bus ticket as proof. I had walked there, as I had no idea if we’d get expenses, so had no ticket, though thought I may as well get a ticket home. The receptionist had a chuckle at this, which made me feel like a hideous chancer. Then I got some sort of bus scratchcard thing to use in future. I have no idea how it works, but I am sure I’ll work it out. Haven’t looked at it since, though, as it reminds me of A4E, my hideous future at it, and it makes me sad and angry.

I then stomped home, and used the bus fare to buy myself a therapeutically large can of a popular Scottish soft drink.

What a Dole Maverick I am.

I’ve had my eye on ‘Gravitation’ for a while. It’s a Yaoi animé, I knew that much, and I’d seen some of those awful Youtube things of it, y’know? The things where people badly edit scenes together from an animé, and put Linkin Park over the top? AMVs, I think they’re called?

Why I’m being a dick about them, I’m not sure? I was young once, I probably would have done something like that, had I had rudimentary editing software and immediate access to cool shit (not Linkin Park, though. No good songs, them). I vaguely remember writing some sort of King of Fighters fanfic as an early-teen, a page for each team, describing the events leading up to the fighting tournament. I know what it is like to like things! To have the hunger, the aching need to express love for and identification with cultural product!

(All of the previous shite I have just typed is relevant to Gravitation. Even the stuff about Linkin Park)

But yeah, aye, I was aware of Gravitation but sort of forgot all about it until I saw the DVD in a high street shop. I had absolutely no idea it existed in Europe as anything other than an internet fansub, and seeing it in real life gave it some sort of ludicrous authenticity or something?

Anyway, long story sort of shorter? I bought the boxed set with some Christmas vouchers. There’s the entire series (16 episodes), and a stand-alone OVA thingy. Cool beans, eh?

You know what, here’s a trailer:

Anyway: it’s appealing to me as it features bands, ludicrous outfits, homosexuality (I recognise that seems a bit ‘homosexuality as novelty’ which is problematic in all sorts of ways, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen an animé that deals with it in any way other than “there’s a camp guy over there who is either creepy or near-asexual”, so I am genuinely interested to see it dealt with in any kind of ‘proper’ way? To be honest, ).

I have watched the first four episodes, just as it implies in my masterpiece of a header image. What are my THOUUUGHTS?

Basic plot: There’s some folks in a band called ‘Bad News’. Their singer is a naive, cutesy man-child called Shuichi, and he has fallen for this moody jerk who writes dark romance novels, or something, who has a reputation as a “ladies’ man”. Will romance happen? Huh? But more importantly, will Bad News succeed as a band, in the heady world of sugary rock?

1: LOVEY-DOVEY

It’s really pleasing how the homosexuality is being handled, so far, for one thing. It’s not sensationalised, and everyone seems utterly accepting of it, in a way that suggests NOT accepting it wouldn’t ever be an issue, which is totally great! There’s some very brief vague angst about “b…but he’s the same gender as me!” which is quickly dismissed by the characters in an offhand “doesn’t matter at all. Let’s get on with the plot” sort of way. Hooray! I am hoping there isn’t too much (if any) angst regarding being homosexual in it, so we can just enjoy all the soapy bullshit that’s likely to happen.

The relationship itself isn’t particularly interesting yet, though. Shuichi (guy in the band) is an irrational idiot, and his actions barely seem believably human (assuming he can move in as they’ve shared two kisses or something?), and Eiri is a rude, hurtful bastard with no regard for anyone’s feelings. They are both awful. That said, there’s hints for the reasons behind Eiri’s cold personality. He’s been hurt before! Oh no! And Shuichi at least has grim determination to succeed at music and be a pop maverick, and I fully expect his character to become less grating as we see ‘hidden depths’.

There’s also this  guitarist dude (above) who also fancies Shuichi, but I forget his name? I quite like him, he has a motorbike and a sort of 8os soft-metal doucherock mullet (there’s a lot of endearingly terrible hair in Gravitation). He has accepted that Shuichi has the hots for this other guy, and is now just making sure Eiri doesn’t treat him like crap. Go, guy! NEEOOOWEOOOWOWOWOWOOOOO (guitar noise). Which brings us (me) to…

2. BEING IN A BAND IS HARD

My definite favourite thing about Gravitation so far is the stuff about being in a band. Everything that happens, such as playing a gig, or meeting other bands, or writing a song, is portrayed as being supremely important. It has the message that MUSIC (AND THE MAKING OF IT) IS IMPORTANT.

As the greatest band of all time, and powerful formative influence (and animé-named) Urusei Yatsura once sang in statement-of-intent noise attack, Siamese: take a stand, make a plan, form a gang, a lo-fi band!

Not that Bad News are in any way lo-fi, of course. They are slick, slick bastards, yet still sound like they’d fit in with some sort of John Peely 1996 indiepop night, maybe involving Dweeb and Helen Love and Disco Pistol? They’re nowhere near as catchy as those guys, though.

But yeah, fuuuck! The ‘making music is life-or-death’ thing seems a bit trite and ludicrous, I SUPPOSE, and in many ways it is? I remember though, I remember being a teenager, I remember how being in a band felt back then. A feeling of self-importance, a Last Gang In Town attitude, pals together doing something that makes you feel better about all the shite that might be going on in ‘real’ life. A sense of togetherness! The roar of the crowd (sometimes!)! The sense of possibility!

Then I hit my 20s and got cynical/moved to a city. One thing Gravitation gets right is what I learned by being part of some sort of music ‘scene’ at one point: people in other bands are bastards, and you need to prove you are better than them as YOU ARE (at least in your head). There is rarely an Olympia-style ‘helpful palz’ component. It’s just your team of joyless schlubs festering in bitterness as another identical bunch you pretend to be pals with gets to play above you on the bill/gets a better support slot/gets on the radio/gets a fan that’s someone that doesn’t know them personally, probably just because of SOMEONE THEY KNOW IN THE ‘BIZ’.

I do not miss that backbiting shit. It’s there in Gravitation, though, and it is ridiculous but there’s truth in it and I fucking love it.

SIDENOTE: Sometimes, you grow old, find yourself without a band, so start making ludicrous noise in your bedroom that’s sort of awful but closer to what you want from music, and it’s all you, you, you, and then you perform one set with some pals at an art show and there’s no hideous backbiting or illusion of ‘high stakes’, it’s just pals having fun, and it’s  cool. But will you ever recapture the thrill of being young and in a band? I do not know? Sometimes you just make something ridiculous like this and end up on a Warren Ellis podcast, much to your surprise:

Oh, the joy of being old and nothing mattering anymore.

3. LOOKING GOOD HAS NEVER  LOOKED SO BAD

Sadly, though, Gravitation looks kinda awful. As a Modern Consumer, I’ve not really had to watch much animé that looks bad, I can just turn it off, not like in the old days when I’d lap up any old shite just as it was so difficult to get hold of. Oh, memories of falling asleep on a saturday night as I’d stayed up super-late to watch Doomed Megalopolis on Channel 4!

But yeah, Gravitation is like what dicks say animé is like, to ‘do it down’: re-used scenes, sliding, still shots, general bad animation.

I guess I can live with it. As long as I can understand what’s going on, that’s all I need. I like the character designs, there’s a sort of ‘visual kei meets Benimaru, in an 80s office’ thing going on. Lots of camp buckles and midriffs, big coats and huge hair.

I don’t really want to insult Gravitation too much, as I really get the impression that it means a lot to some people, and I guess there’s no need to shit on that bitterly with my lazy cynicism? I would have been pretty protective of Gravitation when I was younger, like I was with my favourite bands. I wish I still was, and I guess maybe I am in some ways, but my icy-cool exterior is maintained by a disgusting crust of cynicism that I need to pick off, so I can plunge my…hand…back into…the wet, turdy puddle…of…genuine…enjoyment?

That meant nothing, didn’t it?

Anyway, Gravitation: I’m really enjoying it and will keep watching, one episode a night, as I eat tea.

I’ll leave you with a charmingly cheap video by the aforementioned Greatest Band Ever, Urusei Yatsura. Sonic Youth-meets-pop tunes-meets animé references? Cannae beat it.

P.S. How do Linkin Park relate to Gravitation? Well, just like L.Parxxx, Bad News get a new member forced upon them by the record label to make them less shit. Zany!

Aye, I’ve done my fair share of complaining about 2D fighting game, The King of Fighters XIII, and with good reason. Bizarrely, this has even led to being accused of trying to ‘boycott’ the game, which is rather odd given that I point out I’m probably going to buy it in the articles. And buy it, I did! B-b-but what’s my opinion of it, this game I have spent quite a lot of time thinking about?

Despite having it on pre-order for an age, Amazon decided not to send me the pre-order bonus soundtrack CDs, which is a shame, as I could do with having that old Ikari Warriors tune on my mp3 player.

But that’s by-the-by.

I should also point out that the distributors in Europe, Rising Star Games, have been nothing short of tremendous, especially following the terrible way SNK Playmore games were handled by the previous company, Ignition. Supporting gaming tournaments? Offering special editions? Keeping people updated regarding release details? So refreshing! And they seem friendly, too.

But yeah, on with the ‘review’…

No fucking idea how to go about writing stuff, so I’ll make it more like a real games  site, you know, the kind that rarely have the sort of opinions I enjoy? With categories?

1: PRESENTATIA

This game is presented adequately. It has some cutscenes and endings that are not great, but have more animation than other KoFs. My pal saw one of the endings, and said “It’s nearly 2012, and this is it?” and though I share that sentiment, I also know SNK have fuck-all money, so, you know, not too bothered. Good for what they are, the endings, except that shitty Fatal Fury one with the transphobia.

Oops, I’m complaining again.

There’s good pre-and-post-fight text, which is tailored to address the character being spoken to, and that’s cool. Added personality is important in a fighting game, as they tend to be rather slim on story. That said, a lot of the conversations reveal many of the fighters to be total pricks. I’m always wincing when anyone talks to Mai, as there is so much slut shaming going on. I even recall someone being all “If you were my woman, I wouldn’t let you out dressed like that”. I think, in fact, it’s Joe that says that? Fun-loving funny funster, Joe. The same Joe that is also a transphobic fuck.

Basically, I’ve gone right off Joe.

There’s some loathsome stuff about Benimaru thinking how attractive Kula’ll be in a few years, as well. Ewwww. Please do not ruin Beni, dialogue writers!

The pre-fight conversations also serve to remind me of the somewhat dubious nature of huge muscly men fighting much smaller women, as well, and consider how power-imbalanced man-on-woman violence actually happens in real life and such, but I don’t even know where to begin talking about how that relates to video games. Hopefully someone will write an amazing article that helps me consolidate my thoughts? I somewhat problematically tend to just choose to ignore the ‘violence against women’ implications in fighting games, but I cannae really articulate why other than ‘male white privilege’, as usual. Anyway, having musclemen tell women they’ll smash their faces in and such? It makes me uncomfortable, even in the context of a fighting game.

Hmmm.

That said, some of the conversations do give much-welcomed depth to the characters, and there is some genuine humour, like the running joke about Kyo having yet to graduate high school (which actually humanises a character I couldn’t stand before), or if K’ hates the tournament so much, why does he keep appearing in it? It also confirms that King is fucking excellent, as both a person and a fighter. I’ve yet to see any of her dialogue that makes her seem anything other than a mature, reasonable individual who is good to her friends and also loads of fun (which is why it’s so rotten when she loses and her shirt rips off). Kensou and Ryo seem like good eggs, too. And I have no problem with Hwa Jai’s jerky dialogue, as he is supposed to be a jerky jerk. Jerk.

(Hmm, I sometimes justify them being arseholes with “they’re in a fighting tournament, they WOULD be pricks!” but then I remember the guy I know that is a Tae Kwon Do champ, and also the nicest man in the universe, and I wonder where my anti-fighter prejudice actually comes from)

Not enough vaguely slashy stuff in the game, though. KoF should be full-on Yaoi by now.

2. GRAPHICAL SOLUTIONS

I think it is a good-looking game. The backgrounds are well-animated and there is loads of detail. It’s just a shame the bulk of the backgrounds are loathsomely stereotyped/actively racist. But I won’t get into that again. The console-exclusive backgrounds are niiice, especially in HD (which I sadly only get to see if I play it at someone else’s hoose, as I am poor), and I wish they were all like these, showing actual locations, and not ‘hilarious’ parodies of what Nona thinks other countries are like.

I’m nuts for this lovely clock tower background:

I think it is nice.

The sprites are a good size, and are clear and bright and there is a colour edit mode, where you unlock different colour swatches by playing with each character loads (playing ‘versus’ mode against the computer with an autofire controller button taped down did the trick for me). There’s not every possible colour combination, but there are a lot, including the nice olive green that SNK character designs always feature (I have come to call it ‘SNK green’). I really, really like a colour edit feature.

There’s not zooming in an out like in KoF XII, except when you pull off a swell Special Bastard move, some of which make me very happy, such as Iori’s NeoMax:

It means there’s lots of cool cinematic stuff, with actual momentum, and no boredom (not like in Street Fighter IV, which is still ace, incidentally).

Hooray!

The animation is nice. VERY nice in some places (mainly on Ash).

Oh, and Takuma looks cool as balls, now. A tiny brick of violence.

His walking forward animation is great, but I can't find a gif of it.

3. SOUNDTRAXXX

The sound is good. Lots of special move name-shouting, as you’d expect. Hwa Jai makes annoying-but-fun noises ALL THE TIME. The music has old stuff in it, as well as new stuff, and there are two selectable soundtracks. It all sounds fine, to me! Fine!

4. HOW DOES IT PLAY, THOUGH, YOU ARSEHOLE?

Really, really, really well. I absolutely fucking adore how it plays. It is fast and smooth and each character is unique (even the ones that basically look the same as each other) and they have great slimmed-down movesets that you can still do LOADS with.

Seriously, the ability to use a separate ‘bar’ to cancel special moves into each other gives you so much freedom to experiment with combos that are cool-looking, or damaging, or both. Not got the hang of the Glowing Violence Superbia mode yet, though (it is not called this), but I’m getting there. It is basically a bar that, when full, lets you keep cancelling moves into each other until it runs out. Sort of like a fancier version of Street fighter Alpha 2′s custom combos, perhaps?

It feels like the first KoF where I can do proper cross-ups, as well (maybe just due to the sprites being chunky?).

My only real complaint, and it isn’t actually one, really, is that Ryo/Takuma’s Zanretsuken motion is too similar to their one for the Haohshokoken (or however it is spelled). See, minor complaint, and probably more to do with my cack-handedness.

It is such a good game, gameplay-wise!

5. C’MONLINE

No idea if it’s good online, I have no money for online fighting. I have heard it is sometimes good, sometimes not, and there is a patch coming out. Thrilling, eh?

6. IMPORTANT VERDICT

It’s a lovely wee game, and I think I’d be happy if SNK Playmore just kept updating it sporadically instead of releasing a whole new one, as I reckon they got the mechanics just right and any of us could die at any moment. Shame about some of the bawbag backgrounds and the misogyny, though. Maybe they could release a negative patch that removes this?

But, yeah, I reckon this game is as good as KoF 95, KoF 98 and KoF XI (my personal favourites) and I am having a jolly good time with it.

I GIVE THIS GAME LOTS OF POINTS OUT OF A TOTAL OF A LITTLE MORE THAN THAT.

But yeah, more yaoi-wowee, and less weird bigotry, please?

GREAT.

Anyway, as everyone knows, modern computer games are dreary and dark, and feature hypermasculine  ‘space marines’ (as an old Warhammer 40K player, it took me until the post-Halo glut of games featuring this sort of thing to realise just how banal a term ‘space marine’ is), and objectified ladies who pose and strut (I wonder what are more backwards, mainstream computer games, or mainstream comics?). I mean, obviously not all games are like that, but a huge amount are. This is why my gaming habits tend to focus on 2D fighting games, and JRPGs. I am a textbook SNES guy, basically.

Bright colours and a practically-dressed woman in an action pose. Fucking hell!

But hey! I bought Mirror’s Edge for a remarkably cheap price recently, having had my eye on it for a while (“I’ll get it when It’s under £3″, I’d say to myself, being the Cheapskate Consumer King). I guess it’s quite old now, but to me it still looks AMAZING.The graphics are clear and bright, and the colour palette is excellent, being all shining whites contrasted with definite reds and oranges and blues, oh my! I love when games developers actually THINK about colour design, and when they opt for vibrant poppiness, that’s even better (see here for more of me going on aboot that)!

One big draw is also that the main character is ACE. Oddly for a video game, she actually dresses in clothes suitable for what she does (no chainmail bikini for her!), which is RUN AND JUMP ABOUT LOADS. And while she is clearly an attractive woman, she’s never needlessly sexualised! I know, right? Revolutionary!

And speaking of  ‘revolutionary’, the plot concerns a bunch of ‘Runners’ (basically politicised Parkour folks) getting information around in a near-future city, where everything is homogenised, and THE MAN controls THE TRUTH. There’s stuff about an actual decent politician being assassinated, privatisation of the polis, protests being supressed with extreme prejudice… basically, it’s kinda generic ‘dystopia-meets-’Jet Set Radio’ stuff that I would have found trite and eye-rolly a couple of years back. You’ve seen the world were living in now, though, right?

Every day the Tories (sorry, ‘The Coalition’) are pumping out new horror, so fast that we don’t have time to react to yesterday’s bullshit. American cops are pepper spraying peaceful protestors who’re sitting down calmly. We’re in economic meltdown while the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

I know this stuff has always gone on, but fuck, right now, it just feels like it’s reaching some kind of hideous critical mass, like Dick Jones has won and there’s no going back. I sound like a 90s conspiracy theorist, but I honestly won’t be surprised if the Tories get another term, and coppers all get to carry guns.

And I don’t know what to dooooooo.

One thing that helps relieve the psychic pressure for a little while is running around a virtual world,  stealing a gun from a policeman as he tries to pistol-whip me, then running away and DROPPING THE GUN as I’m better than them. Guns are for losers.

Oh aye! You’re encouraged in the game to be non-violent, and that is ACE.

And the game passes the Bechdel Test!

Mirror’s Edge is bloody difficult in places, but yeah, if it’s not Super Mario World, Final Fantasy VI, Super Street Fighter 2, or Super Bomberman, I’m going to be shit at it. Doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy it, though. If this makes me a ‘n00b’ or ‘scrub’, then it’s your idiotic and insulting video-gaming value system that’s wrong, not me.

So! Mirror’s Edge is totally good.

I made this, a while ago

Aaaand, from practical clothing to impractical clothing…

Hey, remember Lady Gaga’s album that came out? ‘Born This Way’? With the amazing cover?

If only it was a concept album about being a motorbike!

I listen to some of it, quite a lot. Not the title track, though, which is so nothingy it almost doesn’t exist, and is like a boring pirate (IT HAS NO HOOK). I like the fact the title track’s all about being yourself and all that, but the sentiment seems a bit off – if someone complains at you for being ‘different’, tell them you were born that way? I know in the context that’s supposed to be empowering, but it’s a bit of an apologetic sentiment. Don’t tell them you were ‘born this way’, Gaga! Tell them to fuck off! You don’t need a reason or excuse for being different from the white, male, hetero-normative borecore bigots that’d dislike you for not being identical to them!

It’s just a niggling thought, is all (one I’m more than willing to discuss if you disagree! My opinion is not set in stone), and it’s still good such a song exists in the mainstream – if it made some people feel better about themselves for not fitting in or whatever, then that is obviously a cool thing! It’s a shit non-song, though, so it is.

I do like that ‘Judas’ song, but. It is fucking hilarious. The obvious criticism is that it is exactly the same as ‘Bad Romance’, but I have no problem with this as Bad Romance is good. It’s like how 36 Degrees and Teenage angst by Placebo are near-identical but still ace (there is no shame in liking things I like, you bastards! I will fight my Placebo-guilt!). I especially enjoy that the lyrics are so unsubtle. It’s not about fancying someone that is A Judas, it’s about fancying THE Judas. Ludicrous. I’m sure you could choose to believe it works on more than the “I fancy Judas” level, but I’m not going to. It’s lazy Madonna-’borrowing’ attempted controversy, and I like it for that! Say ‘no!’ to subtlety, pop music!

Speaking of which, I also fucking love ‘Hair’. It is just a great song about how the way someone dresses is important to their sense of self, and it features the greatest Lady Gaga lyric of all, “I just wannna be free, I just wanna be me, and I want lots of friends who’ll invite me to their parties”, delivered with a sense of yearning that makes it transcend the shitty simplicity of the sentiment. It’s maybe the only Lady Gaga lyric that sounds halfway genuine – which isn’t really a problem, what with artifice being important to pop, it’s just in this case it makes the lyric stand out.

I like an ace pop song, so I do, and I shake my head at Lady Gaga’s need to do dullsville piano performances when she’s on the telly. I don’t CARE if she has musical instrument chops and a ‘good’ singing voice! I don’t need pop stars to somehow be ‘authentic’! I like pop music, and don’t need to justify it to myself by being all “aye, strip it doon an’ you’ll see it works as an actual song!” like all the shite indie covers of pop stuff that happened in the wake of Travis covering Spearz. I WANT studio artifice and dance momentum! ARRRGH.

Hmmm. Sorry about that. I was just thinking about this guy on a dole course I got sent on, he was going on about how he had ‘dismissed’ Lady Gaga until he saw her perform on telly with just piano and voice, and then he realised she was actually ‘talented’. What a load of fucking rockist bullshit. It’s an anti-fun, anti-punk attitude and it’s rife amongst musicians (which this guy was). Just remember, folks – Kenickie beat Oasis, every fucking time.

Hmmm. Yes. Born This Way has, I reckon, about five ace tracks on it, which is quite a good number in this day and age, don’tyouknow? Shame about the Roadhousey bar-rock one everyone seems to like, though.

Music! I like it sometimes.

I suppose that’s as non-committal a point as any to end a blog post on.

BYEEEEEEE

I’m back on this ‘real’ Earth now, so I may as well write a wee bit about some of the games I’ve played/films I’ve seen/comics I’ve read in the last few months, and my unhelpfully-negative opinions of them.

Oddly enough, even though the internet didn’t exist on that parallel earth, everything else was exactly the same, meaning my opinions on the stuff there are just as relevant to this earth as that one.

Don’t think on that too long, though, as it won’t make any sense.

And it’s all a lie (OR IS IT?)

(yes).

New Bleach Characters (because it didn't have too many already)

A new ‘season’ (series) of Bleach started about a month ago, and it’s ‘proper’ manga-derived stuff, as opposed to the months of filler which I have studiously ignored due to it’s non-canonicity (REAL WORD). There’s no doubt a conversation to be had about the relevance of canon, but in the case of Bleach, what I do know is that it has a track record of ‘canon = thrilling adventure; non-canon = placeholding pish’.

I typed ‘canon’ a lot.

Anyway, new Bleach picks up a year and a bit after the end of the Aizen/Arrancar storyline, but I’m not sure it needed to? It ended pretty well with Ichigo losing his magic violence powers, having beaten the main badlad of the series. There WERE loose ends to do with his family and friends, but I was pretty exhausted with the whole thing by the end of the arc, and was happy to just accept that it was finished and things had reverted to a more-or-less ‘good’ status quo.

The new story does seem to be dealing with Ichigo’s family and friends, which is fine, as maybe once this storyline’s done I can abandon Bleach and have it exist as a happy memory before I start to feel guilty for being an adult who still watches cartoons aimed at adolescent boys? I reckon it’ll run and run, though. Tite Kubo seems to enjoy tacking on endless new bits of mythology, that sometimes don’t seem to go anywhere, which is both good worldbuilding, and frustrating X-Men-style “OH GOD IT’LL NEVER END” soap franchisery. LOOOSE ENDS.

The new setup has some interesting stuff. I want to know what’s going on with Ichigo’s sister who seems poised to be the next super-tough Kurosaki. It’s also good to see Ishida’s dad back, after his brief appearance years (!) ago, and I’ll always have time for Tatsuki, despite her new ‘badass’ power-mullet (a hairstyle Tite Kubo seems INCREDIBLY fond of).

There’s a lot of things going on I don’t care about, though – the new characters seem rather dull and on the whole remind me slightly of the Bounto, and I do feel Bleach REALLY doesn’t need any more new characters. Plus, their design is rather unremarkable (see image above), the explanation for their powers (“objects have souls, too!” or something) is a bit eye-rolly, and one of them, who has had a lot of screentime, is that old Bleach standby, the obnoxious young woman who shouts all the time, is selfish and irritating, and punches people when she can’t get what she wants (hilarious!). Even worse, she is immediately lovestruck when she sees Ichigo. BORRRING.

 Obviously, it’s only, like five episodes in, so these characters will probably get humanised at some point (Bleach is pretty good at that), but I don’t know if I really care? I feel sort of ‘done’ with Bleach? Especially if one of the current plot threads is really “Haha look at Orihime acting silly around Ichigo due to her crush as if she’s had negative character growth!”

Hmmmm. Looking for an excuse to ‘drop’ things I apparently enjoy is a recurring theme for me, just now. Perhaps it’s because of my voracious appetite for hott neww culture, but my incredibly low finances that allow me to enjoy very little of what consumerism has to offer? So, to enjoy a new thing, I have to give up an old thing?

Like ‘mainstream’ comics, for instance. And by ‘mainstream’ I guess I mean ‘superhero’, which is rather stupid, as superheroes are sort of just a weird niche fetishy thing? I want to stop buying them in their monthly incarnation, anyway. Luckily, DC Comics have given me the perfect opportunity with their ‘New 52′.

It's 'new' because they've got extraneous lines on their costumes!

As anyone who pays vague attention to superhero comics will doubtless know, DC have decided to start again with all of their titles, which gives them an excuse to strip aside years of confusing continuity, and streamline characters and concepts to make them more accessible to new readers. A good idea, and I hear it works on some of the titles, and doesn’t on some of the others (some TERRIBLE decisions have been made, most notably regarding Amanda Waller).

It’s a perfect jumping-off point for me, and I’ve been looking for an excuse to do just that for quite some time.

But why? Because monthly comics ‘pamphlets’ are grossly overpriced (£3 for the last one I bought), with very little content, and what’s there is stuck between pages and pages of insulting adverts, and printed on pages that are so glossy you have to hold the comic at a certain angle to read them due to the light shining off them.

I’m being kept holding on to buying monthlies by Grant Morrison, who I have a ludicrous amount of time for.

Thing is, the last issue of his ‘Batman, Inc’ that came out was pretty terrible, and I have no idea if the series is even continuing anymore, post-universe reboot.

His current concern is ‘Action Comics’ which is about the ‘New 52′ Superman, and is an ‘okay’ comic but I don’t know if I can be arsed buying it. Not read the latest issue yet, and I in fact have been late in purchasing the first two, as well, which is strangely telling as I used to feel antsy if I hadn’t bought my fix of Grantsy-Pants as soon as possible.

Maybe I’m just growing out of the endlessly-recycling world of superheroes? Doubt it, though the fact remains I more and more am choosing to purchase self-contained stories that’ll be a nice and satisfying to reread, instead of a gigantic maybe-planned-maybe-not story that will never actually end. Stories that won’t have fill-in art, ingrained sexism, terrible production, and adverts for cars and the army.

I don’t watch ‘Neighbours’ anymore, either, so maybe I’m just going off soap opera?

"Don't it make you feel good?" "No, sorry. Not anymore"

Why buy a £3 piece of 20-page glossy shite with faux-’realistic’ art when I can go to a charity shop or Amazon and get a second or third hand trade paperback, digest or manga instalment for the same price? I guess there’s the whole “support your Local Comic Shop, pig!” thing, but, well, I am unemployed, so sometime’s middle class purchaser’s-morality has to be thrown out the window (though I still feel pretty awful about buying non-free range eggs the other day. There’s having no money, then there’s just being an irresponsible prick, y’know?).

That said, when Morrison’s apparent future titles ‘Multiversity’ (Frank Quitely!) and his take on ‘Wonder Woman’ (feminism and fetishism, apparently!) are released, I bet I’ll still buy the bloody things instead of waiting for the trade. There IS something to be said for a ‘single’ comic, a disposable pop artifact which can be rolled up and read on the fly, but how often are they actually like that? 

 Stupid comics nerd grumble grumble.

Oh, for fucksake. What a shit take on Harley Quinn.

Sort of related, I’m mildly interested in the new ‘Batman: Arkham City’ game that’s out. I mean, I really enjoyed the first one, despite the flaws in basic design and setting. Remember ‘Se7en’? Know the boring legacy it’s left behind to designers with no imagination who go for ‘grim and gritty’? Yeah. The new game’s just like that, but more so. So, we get dreary-looking action with added po-faced  ’realism’, full of dirt, clothing seams, EXTRRRREEEEEEM character redesigns (like the awful ‘The Batman’ cartoon but, you, know, ‘REAL’ and ‘ADULT’), and SexXy CatTwOmANn.

Yaaaawn. If it plays like the first one, though, it’ll be a lot of fun, and I’ll look past the ‘modern’ (late-90s) take on the setting and enjoy the closest we’ll come to a great Batman game, where I get to live out my unexamined pukey Libertarian (ewwwww) vigilante fantasies (though I mainly just like the leaping around) .

Will I buy it, though? Naw. Got no fucking money, do I? I’m already wondering how I’m going to pay for my pre-order of King of fighters XIII, which I have complained about in the past (‘King of fighters racist’ is one of the search terms that leads most people to this site, and I genuinely wonder why my blog is about the only one that mentions it. This is not a boast, it’s a concern) , even though I’m paying for a large chunk of it using vouchers I’ve earned from filling in online surveys about grocery shopping…

Everything's better with Beni

I am ludicrously excited for King of fighters XIII, which has been tweaked and improved for the conversion from arcade to home version, and features extra characters, modes, COLOUR EDIT (my favourite), new backgrounds, and so on.

It looked for a while like the racist background was going to be removed, though this was just wishful thinking on my part as I hadn’t seen it in any of the promotional materials. It’s still there, all right. One of the few good choices the developers had made was to cover up Elizabeth’s ‘boob window’ on her costume for the newest KoF games, but there’s now an option to revert to her old outfit. Hooray. And the Mai/King/Yuri (but not the Art of Fighting males) clothes-rip defeat ‘poses’ are still there. And Mai’s hideous waxed scrotal sack of a chest animation.

Also, there’s a ‘nice’ bit of transphobia/homophobia/not-sure-what-phobia in the Fatal Fury team ending, where the  red-blooded ‘hungry wolves’ all get embraced by the women in their lives, except for Joe, who has an admiring fan in the shape of a 5-o’clock shadow-sporting masculine-looking person in traditionally feminine clothes. His response? Run away, of course! And obviously, as queer-types are all FORCING their AGENDAS and SELVES on those poor straights, Joe gets aggressively chased and caught, then embraced by the person who is happy to ignore the fact Joe isn’t interested, as the other characters look on and laugh. SIGH.

Sigh. I’ll still buy it, though. I’ll be embarassed whenever any of the stuff mentioned above happens in it, but I’ll ignore it! White male privilege.

Hey! This has been quite a depressing blog post, full of neg-head bullshit and bringdown wankery. Just be thankful it didn’t mention comics-turd Mark Millar or the Scottish music scene’s current propensity for dreary indie-folk, or the pro-government/anti-blogger hilarity of ‘Contagion’ starring Jude Law, as it was going to!

The next post’s going to be all about positivity, folks, ‘cos I’ve read/seen/played/heard a LOT of supercool stuff recently. YEEEEEAAAAAAAAAH.

Yare yare?

Below is an article I wrote for Bright Green Scotland website, about a small part of the horror of being unemployed. I feel a bit guilty about the article, as I always do when I’m a bit mean about something, but I suppose the meanness is deserved? Anyway, enjoy! There’s a self-portrait of me in it which offers a tantalising glimpse into how I live with my face and body.

(article originally appeared here)

—————————————————————————————————

Trundling through the life of the long-term unemployed, I find myself having to put up with a lot of ridiculous nonsense from the Jobcentre (sorry, ‘Jobcentre Plus’). In the past, I’ve been sent on ludicrous“League of Gentlemen”-style Jobseeker courses, and I’ve toiled on the New Deal for Musicians and some sort of self-employment course, exercises in buying time so the Dole don’t do what you’ve heard about and fear, but don’t truly believe will happen, which is: force you to work for nothing.

Back in 2008, I found myself having to do just that.

Sent along to what I was under the impression was a generic“let’s polish up the turd that’s your CV and spend hours on the internet for nothing”2-week course, I wasn’t in the best of moods, but I at least had an understanding of what was in store, and could steel myself accordingly. Sadly, I’d just begun taking medication for Obsessive/Compulsive disorder and was feeling the full brunt of the side effects, sweating a hideous amount and feeling like I would vomit whenever I yawned (which was often, due to the medication also making me tired).

Further panic started to set in when the advisor (or whatever their official title was) handed out sheets to all the unfortunate souls there. On the sheet was a list of potential places of work, mostly charity shops and warehouses, and we had to tick three or four we’d be interested in having a placement at (or, as was the case, the three or four that seemed the least terrible).

Having chosen the stand-out and actually-possibly-good option of a placement at a video editing place, and some charity shops as last resorts, I handed in my form, then sat twiddling my thumbs until I got called through to see another advisor.

I was informed that the video editing placement no longer existed and shouldn’t have been on the form, and that the first two charity shop placements I’d chosen were already filled, and so I was given the British Heart Foundation (my last choice).

The deal was I’d be working there nine to five, four days a week, with the other day spent in the building I was currently in, doing ‘jobsearch’. I’d be doing all this for my usual Jobseeker’s Allowance, plus a cool fifteen quid to spend on travel expenses. I was to start the following Monday.

I spent the weekend beforehand sulking and feeling very sorry for myself. I was living with my parents at the time, and I kept the whole ‘forced volunteering’ thing a secret until the morning I started the placement, as I felt humiliated and worthless, and couldn’t bring myself to mention it for fear of making it ‘real’.

Declining a lift to the charity shop, I elected instead to embark upon the hour-long walk, in order to have some thinking time, and hopefully work through some of my frustration so I could at least present myself to my new bosses and workmates as a cheery, likable individual.

However, by the time I got there, I was drenched with sweat due to the medication, which acted as quite the knock to my confidence (no first impression as a louche hipster for me!), and was also thoroughly knackered from the walk, which did not serve me well when I immediately had to help load many heavy bags full of clothes onto a delivery truck, with no time for introductions. The fact I was in a shirt and tie didn’t help.

After this was over, I met the manager, who seemed nice enough, and the assistant manager, who was probably nice but it was hard to tell due to her not seeming to understand that myself and the other workers in the same situation were not there as punishment for some crime, and were in fact doing the shop a massive favour by helping out. All day. For free.

I have no problem with the idea of working in a charity shop, and can see the good points. It’s good work experience, you get to meet people (though I don’t really like that aspect what with the anxiety disorder and all), it keeps you moderately fit, you get to aid a charity. Sadly, these plus points are hard to focus on when you’re not there by choice.

Most of my time there over the next thirteen weeks was spent lifting heavy bags up and down two flights of stairs, trying my best to be upbeat and positive, or at least to view the whole situation with some degree of gallows humour.

Life on the scrapheap, eh? At least I got first dibs on buying any cool stuff that was handed in to the shop, and on occasion the Nice Boss would let us workers keep any item that was going to be thrown out (the sheer amount of perfectly good stuff that was going to be thrown out was quite an eye-opener. I dread to think of the genre fiction and cardigans that were disposed of when I wasn’t there to save them!).

Sometimes we’d get to go home early, too, which was great until I remembered I shouldn’t actually be there in the first place.

Sadly, none of the perceived good points could shield me from the knowledge that what I was doing was chiefly manual labour for free in a place where I was regularly treated with something less than respect, where I had been patronisingly shown how to shelve books in alphabetical order by someone who spoke to me as if I was a child, where my co-workers would regularly espouse rank bigotry, and I would feel so demoralised and useless that I would do nothing to challenge it.

Unemployment’s not great for the old self-esteem at the best of times, but being forced to work for nothing, while doing a job that gives you a lot of time to focus on your lowly societal status and disgusting moral cowardice is not exactly the greatest confidence booster in the world.

After a few weeks, however, I started to settle in to my miserable new status quo. In fact, I’d been working so well that the Good Boss assured me she’d give me a great reference, should I need one.

I was not actively dreading work each morning, I was talking to the staff, and I was pathetically grateful for any praise I received (once again, unemployment’s not great for self-esteem). The Bad Boss was actually seeming okay, and I was spending less time staring into space, gritting my teeth and trying not to punch a wall/burn myself with the steamer/openly weep.

These Glory Days were not to last, however, as one Monday I got into the charity shop to find out the bosses had been fired for reasons that were never really explained (there were some rumours about after-hours partying on the premises, as well as stealing from the till, the former of which I believe, the latter of which I do not). Replacing them was the area manager, who was, to be kind, sort of a jerk.

Gone were the perks of going home early, being treated with vague respect, and getting the odd free thing that was going to be chucked out, to be replaced with relentless hard work with little acknowledgement or thanks for the free labour we were providing, and bizarre, expensive prices for things that were worth very little.

Worst of all, when I asked for a reference, I was told this particular charity shop didn’t give references. 

So what was the point of working there? The whole pretence of the placement was that it’d aid me in gaining future employment, but I was to get no reference, and I wasn’t even learning any transferable skills – people sent there by the Dole weren’t allowed to operate the till (apparently we’re basically all common criminals), which is one thing I would actually like to have learned how to do.

My overall experience of my period of forced volunteering at the charity shop is one of hideous negativity and resentment. It was thirteen weeks of my life I will never get back, where I gained nothing but increased feelings of post-adolescent, post-higher education self-hatred, misery, and obsolescence. Instead of making me more suitable for joining the working world, it made me feel less suited for and capable of working a‘real’ job than ever.

That was a few years ago.

The ‘good news’, however, is that the ludicrous ‘course’ I am currently on (weekly CV-polishing and looking for jobs that don’t exist) has been cancelled halfway through, as Labour’s ‘New Deal’ programme ends, and the Coalition government’s plans for the unemployed kick in. I expect to find out next week whether I have been fast-tracked to visit whatever private company handles the current version of the forced volunteering programme (or whatever it’s called).

My Jobcentre Plus advisor will no doubt report this news to me with an apologetic tone (they seem to know it’s a worthless course, a punishment for having no job, something to lower the unemployment figures as you don’t actually count as ‘unemployed’ on these things for some reason), and I’ll die a little more inside.

I’ll try to put a brave face on it, eh?

At least this time I’ll know what I’m in for.