Giant Bombcast 444: Cricket Mouthfeel

Ooh anime, I'm going to be all up in this.

WOOOO!

I love this.

Here it comes!

Favorite part of Tuesdays!

Taboo Podcast talk (apparently): Wresting, Anime, DOTA, Clash Royale.

I'm so proud of Drew. I'm deep down the DCS hole and would give anything to have the disposable income needed for pilot cert. I can't wait to hear about Drew's adventures in the skies.

Hahahah anime, that's cute. It'll be nice when we get back to wrestling once Dan's back in town.

Wait, is that the right tag in the show notes? Did Alexa talk that much about Ace Attorney 6 (Spirit of Justice)? I thought she was talking mostly about Dai Gyakuten Saiban: Naruhodou Ryuunosuke no Bouken, the Ace Attorney set in Meiji-era Japan that doesn't have an English title because it super duper didn't get localized anywhere because Capcom decided it was too Japanese for anyone but Japan.

OK, I listened through to that part again, and she talked about how she'll have Ace Attorney 6 in the mail soon, but basically none of the discussion is about that game. She mostly talked about how she's using the Meiji-era Ace Attorney to test her Japanese skills.

Yay!

I feel bad for anyone trying to watch Olympic content (or any other big sporting event) who can't access the BBC coverage. Everything they describe wanting is simple the BBCs 'Red Button' option.

And Jeff saying no one's interested in watching it is just ignorance. I feel that's him being stubborn because he doesn't like watching TV.

Whoooop

Dan being in New York is a gift to both coasts. Cool to hear Alexa on the p-cast

For those not in the know, the Rio PD lied about what happened with Ryan Lochte. He didn't vandalize the bathroom. Surveillance proves none of the four swimmers even went into the bathroom much less destroyed it as Rio's investigation initially reported. What actually happened was the four swimmers urinated behind a gas station and Lochte tore a poster off the side of the wall. They were then rushed by two "security guards" who were also off-duty police who pulled their guns and pointed at Lochte's head and started yelling at the four swimmers. A local DJ who speaks English rushed over and translated what the two armed men were saying. They demanded money from them so the swimmers gave the gunmen the money they asked for. At this point the money does not appear accounted for.

Everyone's can make their own conclusions, and Lochte was a drunk jackass, but I would personally call that being robbed at gunpoint by crooked cops.

That's true. I would call that a degree of robbery, but the fact that Locte omitted that he and his cohorts were being abusive to the gas station's property is a decrease in sympathy for the 'victim'.

People have been SHOT and KILLED in the US for less offensive stuff than what Locte did. I've read stories of people being shot for knocking on someone's door. It's madness, and somewhat offensive for Locte to pretend that he was completely innocent in the situation.

@fink said:

Also Destiny, at least when Brad was still playing it and no one else cared.

It's still hilariously taboo on the 8-4 Play podcast, where only Mark ever talks about it and absolutely no one else cares.

@tpoppapuff: Although I've read conflicting reports of what the DJ witnessed. One said there was no gun, while another account said there was.

need the video missed the live show

Dota and anime. This is going to be quite the podcast.

Yo

Maybe

@lurkero: He wasn't completely innocent as he was being a drunken ass, but that's no reason to have a gun pulled on you. I agree people have been shot and killed for less, but usually that ends with a 24/7 news coverage, protests and riots over the victim and the victim is hardly ever blamed. In this instance everyone was more than happy to to partake in victim-blaming. In no case should anyone's life ever be threatened over a poster. That's all I'm going to say on it.

Also there's a snippet of the video surveillance online that Rio PD released. Not surprisingly the three minutes that matter have been edited out of the video.

and the difference is...?

YES!!

Wrestling's obviously for cool people.

yes?

That murderous witch stare.

Does the sound seem low to anyone? I have max volume on my macbook pro and it's a bit low.

WOOO!

Drew is the man!

How did I miss this live?

Edit: no matter what really happened,cRyan Lochte has always been a little douchey. The problem started with him telling his mom he was robbed and then she talked about it. Not sure why he didn't just explain what happened. He must have been covering up for something else, probably to do with some women and partying.

You guys missed some increible stuff in the Olympics. If you watch only one thing I'm begging you to watch the women's 10,000 meter race which is astonishing. There were many great moments at this Olympics and I'm sorry you guys didn't get to see them.

I love you Alexa but in what world is Cowboy Bebop anything like Star Wars?

Alexa talking about Macross makes me incredibly happy. I really should rewatch SDF Macross and/or Macross 7 one of these days.

If Jeff's looking for anime recs, he should totally watch MD Geist. It's not technically good, but it's trashy in the same way that Golgo 13: The Professional is and I feel like he'd appreciate it.

So much ANIME!

This one was great to watch live and yes I would love to see a video of both Brad deleting and testing his new internet as well as a Drew practises for his pilots license playing both real sims and silly games.

Could have at least warned us before you spoiled ffxv.

I would looove for Dan to watch Fighting Spirit!

Is this really quiet to anyone else?

Chiming in with a quick clarification on the Japanese Language Proficiency Test since Alexa brought it up. (Good luck to you on that, by the way! That test can get rough for sure!) The test itself was originally primarily designed for foreigners wanting to study at Japanese universities to ostensibly do coursework natively in Japanese, although it's since apparently been superseded by other standardized tests for that specific purpose. Nowadays, while it's often used as a general gauge of language fluency, certain structural issues with it (e.g.: the lack of any written or speaking sections) make its results arguably of limited use depending on what you want to get out of it. In particular, parts of the business sector are increasingly moving towards other, more specialized tests that provide a more contextual evaluation of a speaker's fluency rather than the very broad, general strokes that the JLPT covers.

More importantly, it's worth noting that attaining a Japanese work visa is not contingent upon taking and/or passing the JLPT. To my knowledge, proven language fluency is, in fact, not a requirement for attaining any of the work visa types. While it is true that many employment listings from Japanese companies that target foreigners often request JLPT certification as part of the application process, it's not otherwise a legal requirement that you have any such certification in order to attain the visa itself. Those inexperienced in these sorts of matters might see this as something of a moot point, but there are actually a lot of valid circumstantial reasons why someone who's bilingual wouldn't necessarily have official certification noting such things. (It's probably not worth someone's time to take the test if they're born in a bilingual household and have grown up around both languages, for instance.)

In a nutshell, while yes, if you're studying Japanese seriously and will almost inevitably give taking the JLPT some serious thought, its importance is increasingly relative and N1 certification specifically as the highest level you can attain isn't needed for most jobs that aspiring speakers would want to get into over in Japan to begin with. It can be a useful guideline for those studying the language for sure, especially those in the intermediate levels like Alexa seems to be, but eventually the returns diminish pretty quickly the higher up you go. Most any respectable prospective employer will gauge your fluency by just outright talking to you, rather than relying on you writing whether or not you have certification in your resume, at least in my experience working in game localization.

Just thought I'd chime in since I thought the work visa remarks especially might otherwise scare some people off from potentially looking into it as an aspirational thing!

@madman356647: no difference, they both aren't real; and they are very similar.

Well 2 hours later, I am very much not all up in this.
Attack on Titan is some of the worst anime I've ever seen, it's exactly the kind of awfulness which frightens people away from anime. It goes no where but circles. I do not need 5 minute internal monologues from characters, pondering if "OMG DO MY FRIENDS ACTUALLY LIKE ME, COULD THEY REALLY, ACTUALLY LIKE ME? *FEELINGS*" It's an exceptionally bad anime.
I'll sit through almost anything to the finish, to give something it's fair dues, but after 11 or 12 eps of AoT nope, that was it, never again.

I went through Darker than Black and Death Note, both of which I don't think are exceptional by any means (but both totally definitely quite watchable) and they destroy Attack on Titan.

I'm going to steal someone elses writeup of it, since they put it much better than I can.

Fuck that show, dude. There is no reason to watch that shit - it's just 100% teasing. There are no major plot reveals throughout the entire series, none that you couldn't have guessed for yourself anyway. Avoid at all costs. If you've seen the first 3 episodes you have seen the entire fucking thing. While watching Attack on Titan I felt like I was part of a research experiment on how high a persons tolerance is for crying, screaming, self-recriminating monologues and self pity in anime. IT SUCKS IT SUCKS IT SUCKS IT SUCKS IT SUCKS IT SUCKS IT SUCKS IT SUCKS IT SUCKS IT SUCKS.

You want to watch some good anime, hit up some Samurai Champloo, Cowboy Bebop, Ghost in the Shell (movies, tv, new series, all of it is good) Akira, Vampire Hunter D, even Ergo Proxy is better than AoT.
Anime recommendation of the week: the criminally underrated Redline (2009) seriously, I didn't know what to expect but god damn, the opening 15 minutes says it all, do it, asap.

If you look at the *world* of Star Wars, rather than the plot the movies follow, you can see the life which Han Solo leads is somewhat similar to Spikes. You know flying the junker around from station to station - lots of beat up ships, etc. It has a 'lived in' feel about it. The cantina from EP IV is definitely somewhere you could see Spike visiting. That element, I guess is like Star Wars.
Bebop is pretty great, I used to think it was the best, then I watched Champloo a second time. It's amazing.

hey bombfriends

Ooh nice Alexa is on the Bombcast!

@abrasion: I haven't watched AoT after the first season. I wasn't quite as negative on it, but there was just nothing really to it once the wow factor of humans fighting giant flesh monsters and that awesome first opening song weared off.

Redline in 1080p is glorious, ditto for Summer Wars.

In case anyone else wants it here is a list of all the anime talked about in this podcast.

• Bubblegum Crisis
• Attack on Titan
• Code Geass
• Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
• Macross Frontier
• Cowboy Bebop
• Sword Art Online
• Thunderbolt Fantasy
• Zillion

Does any one have any opinions on what someone who has watched very little anime should watch?

I'm impressed you finished the first season, once that wow factor wore off, the whining drove me nuts, I followed up with some manga people who told me "yeah the manga does the same, this is going to go nowhere" so once I knew that, I was certain I wouldn't continue.

I only caught Redline for my first time 2 weeks ago, 5* all the way, I'll scope out Summer Wars too. Man Redline was legit, I think Jeff would love the shit out of it.

Cowboy Bebop is an excellent introduction to anime, not overly complicated, it's just really quite good.
Avoid Attack on Titan like the god damned plague.

If you want to watch a movie, the good movies are Akira, Vampire Hunter D, Redline, Ghost in the Shell (watch the original, not the 2.0 thing)

@patmcc19: Is there a specific type of story you like watching? There is a pretty wide array of different anime out there, and while people are bound to recommend the generically very popular series, that's not always the most sensible place to start. I can't really fault people for recommending Cowboy Bebop so much, even if I personally didn't connect that much with the character arc, it just has so much styyyyyyyyyle that you'll probably enjoy your time with its sometimes film noir, sometimes Han-Solo-gettin'-into-trouble-and-wacky-hijinks sci-fi setup.

While you consider your answer, enjoy this clip which I never tire of from Ping Pong (also titled Ping Pong The Animation):