Ugh....

[userj]

So the disconnect between the GAME FFXII and the promotion material for it is really beginning to make me feel ill. For example, I was trying to find an Ashe wallpaper last night, and at this point that means using the promotional art. There are two promotional shots of Ashe. In one of them, you are looking up her skirt. Her actual buttcheek is

Comments

[nightswatch]

"I hate Japan." Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. And yet we're enslaved to them.

I cannot express in mere words the degree of my solidarity with you. From here on out, we are totally referring to the red piece of cloth on Ashe as her flap, because it sure as hell is not a skirt. I really don't get it because the girls' costumes in Vagrant Story and Tactics were so well done. I mean, you could find faults with them, but they were definitely done in very complimentary styles to the men's, such that seeing them, you would be given an impression of a cohesive culture, not a crazy world where the women are desperately creating the illusion they are not naked. Poor Fran. I guess the Viera don't chill easily.

I have also been railing against the pop songs since Eyes on Me became the main theme of VIII. In my naivete, I thought it was actually kind of cool that they had a real vocal song then, but I highly resented that the overworld theme was a version of it, especially coming off of VII's fantastic main theme. Then IX did the same goddamned thing. Let's not even talk about X's stupid fucking underwater romp with the girl who ALWAYS HITS THAT ONE PITCH FLAT ARGH! I was so excited to see they'd drafted Sakimoto to do this game (though I have an essay that I'm saving for when I've beaten the game about his music, and it's a far cry from the raving fanboy of his that I used to be), and pissed to see that they're still grafting on Uematsu pop cheese.

Angela Aki played at that video game concert I went to, incidentally. She's pretty Americanized -- at least her English was flawless. I think she did this song, but it was unmemorable. In her defense, she had a different rendition of Eyes On Me that was the best I'd ever heard.

Now I'm going to go play FF XII and revel in its glory. :-)

[aofclarein]

I managed to ignore the Japanese Pop-Culture infusion until FFX-2 came out... a little bit of me died that day.

[nightswatch]

Hahaha, I bet. I never played it, so I can't really comment on it, but there was a reason I never played it.