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🕑 Added 2019-11-04 17:33:07 +0000 UTCHere are the rough drafts to two new scripts that I wrote over the weekend. Don't worry about grammatical errors or some bloated/redundant phrasing, that'll all be fixed once I edit these.
Why Animal Crossing GameCube Is My Favourite One
When I think back to the most joyous times of my childhood, everything seems to blur together with a few sentimental aspects in the foreground. My memories of the early-to-mid 2000’s are almost exclusively taken up by times spent with family, a haze of holiday celebrations, long summers and trips, but there were several specific pieces of media that defined me during these years, ones that I lost myself in again and again. From the early seasons of Spongebob Squarepants, where we watched the same episodes again and again and found more joy in them each time, to playing the ever-living hell out of Pokemon Ruby and Sapphire, I find myself characterizing this period of my life using a few select series that provided me with fun and comfort. But the game that was arguably the most important to me during this time was the first Animal Crossing game for the Nintendo Gamecube.
I was the last out of my four cousins to try out the game. I remember how the first time I booted it up and started a new file, they watched on and exclaimed how lucky I was that I was given the badass-looking flame shirt at the start of the game, and how doubly lucky I was to get the coolest neighbour of them all, Wolfgang. As I slowly discovered the layout of my town, met the neighbours, enjoyed the soundtrack and began to learn of the style and structure of the game, I found myself becoming absolutely captivated and immersed. I had never seen or imagined anything like it in my albeit short. I was doing the most mundane things - running errands, writing letters, fishing, collecting shells - but something about this game hooked me right in, in a very specific sort of way.
As time went on and I continued to play it, I became enthralled with how wacky and weird it was, with how much personality it had. I enjoy all of the Animal Crossing games, but I feel as if the richness of atmosphere and charm of the series has become a bit watered down as the games have become quote unquote better on paper - but that’s just me personally, and that is only in comparison to the Gamecube version, which thrilled me with the things I would constantly discover.
On weekend mornings, when I just started getting hooked, I set my alarm to earlier than I had to get up for school just to play the game. The stores weren’t open, but I figured that there must be some bugs or fish that only come to play in the early morning. And to my delight, I was greeted with the residents of my town doing some morning aerobics. It was nothing special, but it awoke me to the idea of this being a world that fully carried on while I wasn’t playing - which made me want to play it as much as possible to see what went on. There are sports fairs on certain weekends. There’s a Cherry Blossom festival in early spring. A ghost named Wisp appears in the dead of night to give the player a task to do for a reward, lending the game a weird, slightly dark tinge. Sometimes, the town notice board contained treasure hunts for items set up by the residents of the town. Well into Winter, Tortimer, the mayor of your town, would go on vacation and task you with turning on the lighthouse on evenings. There are windsocks outside during the spring, there is an aristocratic, anthropomorphic Giraffe that implores you to wash their car because it’s become filthy. In the summer, there were tents erected with travelling campers taking a stop in your town, and in the winter, there was the same thing but with a cozy igloo. There were a litany of Japanese customs, traditions and holidays that found their way into the game that I naturally wasn’t aware of, so they always caught me off guard. And then aside from these events, there are just layers upon layers of little tiny elements added to the game that add up and really help to immerse. There’s a dump where lost or trash items show up for anyone to take, there are balls that appear around the towns that the animals play with, there is a daily glowing spot which always contains a bag of bells for the player to dig up. Your house is guarded by your own Gyroid, with whom you can leave messages for passers-by, or put up items for auction. If you completely pay off your house, you can get a golden statue modelled after you. And one of my favourite elements of the town is the wishing well, where residents can pray for a bountiful new year and where, on rare occasions, the player can meet Farley, the spirit guardian of sorts for the town, which helps give off a sort of spiritual, mystical tinge to the game. There is much more customization and stuff to do in later entries, but there is more distinctive character here.
As opposed to the other games, where there was only a maximum number of 10 potential animal neighbours, your town in the gamecube version can fit up to 15, which really goes a long way towards making it feel like an intermingling and genuine community. And some of those neighbours have these quaint little rustic log houses, or modest little huts that look especially fitting given the forest setting. The personalities of the inhabitants are incredibly bold too - neighbours are genuinely annoying, snobby or rude, with very variable and colourful dialogue that isn’t afraid to offend. And you can ask these animals if they need favours at any time without restrictions. Not to mention, each player has their own randomized island layout and island neighbour to accompany their town.
And nearly all of that, most of everything I just mentioned, is exclusive to the Gamecube game and not present in the other ones. Animal Crossing Gamecube is just filled with so many little touches and so much flavour. It packs so much thought, care and eccentricity into the content that it really makes the whole thing a richer and more immersive experience that, in my opinion, got slightly watered down with later entries. And one of the most important contributors for this that I haven’t mentioned is the fact that your town is divided into 30 squares, or acres, that the player traverses through. Once they reach the boundary of the acres, the screen switches over and they enter a new acre. Now, I can understand why some may not like this system for how it makes the map feel segmented, but I loved this. It made the town feel richer and livelier, with a mini adventure inside each of these 30 squares really helping contribute to that theme of discovery, mystery and wonder. The rolling log style of future games helped the whole thing feel more integrative and it’s definitely an improvement that you can now look at the sky, but something about these quirky little acres is so comfy and magical. And I haven’t even gushed about the soundtrack, which is so incredibly good; so weird and varied, giving each hour of the day an identity while maintaining a consistent theme overall.
All of these little details are so quirky that, while there are clearly a limited amount of these, I felt as thought each time I booted up the game, there was a new adventure awaiting me. I wasn’t just jumping into an addicting collectathon and a mellow life sim; I was curious to see what would happen in my village. This built a unique sense of personalized intimacy with the game. This was clearly a piece of work that wasn’t afraid to be a bit out there, a little weird. It created a charm that bonded me closer with it, and even though there may not have been as large of a pool of interactions and things to discover as I may have thought at the time, the care put into every detail and the sense of strange identity the game established through these details gave the illusion of endless depth.
To me, Animal Crossing Gamecube is an exercise in perspective. Thinking about times where you played it as an adult is incredibly romantic and carefree because it was something like comfort food in video game form despite being overladen with so-called boring tasks. But playing it as a kid was a unique form of escapism. You do all of the things that adults do. You own a house, buy furniture, get a job, pay off loans, go on trips, meet new people. But the beauty of this is it presents all of it with a carefree attitude and a very clear message to take life at its own pace. There is no rush to do any of this - just live. It presents a lot of grown up things and gives the player total control, but without the tight schedules and OBLIGATIONS of real life. And in doing this, it creates one of the most personalized, comforting, stream-of-consciousness experience I’ve ever seen in gaming.
Animal Crossing New Leaf is terrific and I had a great time playing countless hours through it. It is the optimal Animal Crossing experience in pseudo-objective terms and it has added a lot of features that benefitted the series such as public works projects and an expanded Nintendo-themed furniture catalogue. But it never quite reached the personal, emotional heights that GameCube did. Even aside from my issues with the gameplay direction, the weird charm had gone and replaced itself with neighbours who were all kind of samey, with repetitive dialogue, with a rolling log of a world that doesn’t feel quite as enchanting and interesting as it used to when each 1/30th of the map felt like a new discovery every day. The music is still good but quite unambitious and not as varied, bold and interesting as it was in the original. There are no animals exercising at 6am, or making wishes on New Year’s day, or making you clean their car. These games have expanded, but gotten worse in terms of what made them special in the first place - in allowing the player to immerse themselves in a strange, personalized, quiet little community. It is just not as full of the unique touches that resonate and stick with me personally.
And maybe you can chock this up to nostalgia - maybe if I had played City Folk or New Leaf during that younger period of my life, I’d attribute this personalized charm and quirk that I feel with Population Growing to little details in City Folk. But I somehow don’t think so. As the series has progressed, it’s sprawled brilliantly outwards in terms of features, convenience, accessibility and simple variety of stuff to do. But while it has expanded in breadth, the crux and core of why I love the Animal Crossing experience has not really been expanded upon - in fact, I think it’s lost a bit of the heart and soul that made the GameCube version special.
In terms of immersion, charm, weirdness and atmosphere, there has been nothing quite like Animal Crossing GameCube for me in the series. I don’t suspect that there will be anything quite like it in the future. And somehow.. I’m okay with that. Thanks very much for watching. Happy Holidays, and I’d absolutely love if you shared some of your Animal Crossing experiences for any of the games in the comments if you feel so inclined.
Beastars Recently Released One of the BEST Episodes of 2019!
In the off chance that you’re watching this video without having seen or read any of Beastars, here are my quick thoughts on the show. Beastars has only released 5 episodes at the time that I’m writing this script, but it has already propelled itself into my top 30 favourite anime of all time, and this is the quickest that that has ever happened with any show. I’ve rarely been so confident that I was going to love a story as I have been with this one. From the first second, Beastars has exceptionally beautiful storyboarding and directing, with expressive animation and an innovative and creative use of fluid camerawork and abstract imagery. The sound design is totally great, with terrific voice acting across the board and a musical score that accentuates the tone and emotional context of the scenes to the nth degree. It has fantastic character work so far, establishing characterization swiftly and efficiently for each of the major characters, as well as their deeper thoughts and motivations. It takes place in a great setting - in a world full of anthropomorphic animals - herbivores and carnivores - at Cherryton Academy, a school full of all kinds of these animals. Certain things are expected of certain people because of who they are; carnivores frequently experience bloodlust that they must try to quell and are expected to be rough brutes due to their predatory nature and advanced musculature, but the lot of them are also unfairly ostracized and blamed as an entity when there are attacks on students, mainly due to fear and convenience. Herbivores are expected to be softer and more submissive for the most part, but even the most authoritative and ambitious ones may be left with extra hurdles in their lives due to their fragile bodies. Essentially, society has pigeonholed these characters into set roles due to their blood, and while Cherryton is not nearly as discriminatory and stifling as it could be, having a number of clubs and classes where different types animals co-exist and cooperate, animals are generally given a limited leash for true expression if that expression reaches beyond the boundaries of what’s expected of them. Not only this, but this sort of society that depends and leans on availability heuristics to make judgments of others perpetuates assumptive thinking, and promotes an environment full of individuals that, by and large, don’t really try to get to know each other deep down and instead lazily cling to gossip and easy stereotyping. So far, the story has used all of this to its great advantage to milk every last bit of intrigue and quality out of the premise for the first few episodes, and I can imagine that this is only the tip of the iceberg, so if you’re on the fence with this one then just take the plunge and check it out.
Now, while all of the elements I mentioned are terrific parts of a whole, what I love most about the story is how they all work in seamless harmony and coalesce in these big, impactful and rich story beats for the cast. Haru is a terrific and sympathetic example of the sort of broken bi-product of a person that a society like this can lead to, but more pertinent to the topic at hand here are the characters of Bill, Legosi and Louis, all of whom are part of the drama club. And note that while I’m about to talk about these characters, their big scene, the themes involved and why it was all so good, this is purely just my interpretation and the views of someone who hasn’t read the manga. As such, I could easily end up being incorrect or incomplete with my interpretation, so file this video under speculative analysis or a quasi-reaction video rather than most of my usual stuff.
Bill is a relatively simple character, but he fulfills a very important role. He’s a pretty outgoing and outwardly confident tiger, appearing to be secure and happy. But past his outer layer, Bill has some issues. He is not ashamed of being a carnivore but is secretly insecure, not comfortable with the herbivores being given the limelight and carnivores being shoved to the side, considered to be deviant brutes of sorts. He wants a better reputation for his brethren, and he wants to show everyone that carnivores deserve the glory too.
Louis is a phenomenal character, and a personification of how adeptly the story handles its themes. As the lead actor for the club, he is adored by the masses at Cherryton and admired by all for his charisma, acting prowess and skill. Like Bill, he appears to be confident and secure, but actually harbours deep-seated problems. As a herbivore, he feels a need to maintain a high status, to be looked upon as as mighty as the carnivores. He may be given the spotlight in the way no carnivore is, and he may be more popular, but he is still shackled by the limitations of his blood. His body is more frail, he isn’t as strong or agile, and he injures himself more easily than any carnivore would. Yet, he perseveres through this, shouldering the burden and he wants himself to be better and stronger than anyone to break through this unfair barrier. He doesn’t want pity, he cannot show weakness, and he must continuously succeed. The reasons for this are currently unknown at this point in the anime - it may just be an inferiority complex and bitterness that slowly festered as he went through life, or it may have been something in his backstory that we are as of yet oblivious to. However, the point is that this aspect of his personality dictates the vast majority of his actions.
Lastly, Legosi is the gentlest, kindest soul you’re ever likely to meet. It just so happens that he’s a carnivorous grey wolf who constantly has to fight his predatory instincts to maintain a sense of internal peace. As someone who tries his best to foster connections and relationships with others, he attempts to stifle his carnivorous features and instincts - trying not to bear his fangs, suppressing his urges, not using his full strength when situations call for it. At the end of episode one, he nearly slips and kills Haru out of instinct, and curses his weakness afterwards, hating these urges of his and doubling down on his efforts to stifle them. As a result of these efforts, he is somewhat resented by Louis, being a predator with the natural gifts that come with it, yet hesitant to use them. And because he is all too aware of his own mask, this partly helps him to see past the falsely perpetuated fronts that others create. He finds himself able to judge Haru more fairly than anyone else is willing to, for example, and he is much more introspective and reflective than nearly anyone at Cherryton - fully willing to question things, because he is all too acutely aware that people are not what they initially seem. Yet despite these attempts to normalize himself and his ability to see beyond what is assumed, Legosi is socially awkward and quite lonely. He feels at constant odds with himself and hates his carnivorous nature, which constantly puts him in a state of holding himself back and makes him distant.
Overall, there is just such a great amount of richness in this setting and society - some of it stated, some of it implied, but all of it feeding into the psychology of our characters and how they feel about their place in the world. And so thanks to these foundations, there is so much allegorical depth that can be obtained from the performance in the second half of episode 4.
After Louis’ injury, Bill is cast into the lead role of the play: the character of Adler. He sees this as his chance - his moment to seize glory for all carnivores, to help put them on a glittering pedestal along with the herbivores. So naturally, he is anxious, and resorts to doping to enhance his performance. Beastars’ equivalent for doping for carnivores just happens to be rabbit’s blood, and when Legosi, who is cast to be Bill’s replacement, finds this out, he is overcome with a rage. Not just at Bill for doping, which seems to be implied to be a serious crime - but at himself, as he sees his own carnivore side in Bill. This all sets up for a terrific chance at symbolic introspection for the play, during a scene in which Legosi and Bill are supposed to have a fight. As shown by the little interspersing clips throughout the piece, due to feeling sick and guilty for what he did to Haru, Legosi goes all out and begins beating Bill to a pulp, partly as a substitute for beating up the part of himself that he hates. Bill, who is representative of all that a carnivore is and takes pride in that, is Legosi’s surrogate for the part of himself that he views as a darkness he must reject. So he continuously punches the tiger. Until he is stopped.
In rehearsals, and now, in the play, Bill consistently made a case to Louis that he should embrace and be proud of his carnivore roots as he is. He notes that Legosi is familiar with the scent of rabbit blood, so he must have tasted it before. And as such, he has no right to take any moral high ground in disgust of the doping. He is just as much of a bloodthirsty predator as Bill, and Bill says that’s okay. He scratches him and takes him down a peg to show him that they are the same. And in that moment, Legosi believes him.
“The blood dripping down my back is the same as his. That of a carnivore.”
He laments his weakness, but accepts his role here in a mix of simultaneous grief and resignation. That is, until Louis steps in to save Legosi, both in and outside of the context of the play. He condemns Bill, saying that he sees his true colours - whether that be for the doping or for his aggressive declarations or both is unclear, but he definitely notes the blood and the sentiment seeps through. Louis then calls Bill an imposter and tells Legosi that he was in the right, and what I inferenced from this was that he was saying that Bill was wrong in saying that Legosi is the same as him. This isn’t a condemnation of Bill, but these two animals both being carnivores means nothing in terms of who they are as people, and Legosi is correct in not resigning himself to being the traditional carnivore. He is correct in fighting to find a place for himself, correct in wanting to be his own person, even if it goes against his animal nature. Louis supports Legosi here in more ways than one, and provides him with validation and confidence to continue being the person he wants to be. Now, while all of this is clearly exposited and obtained with just a bit of between-the-lines reading, I’m not sure how much of this sentiment was intended from Louis. It meant a ton for the grey wolf both personally and narratively, but Louis is a bit more mysterious.
I’d like to think that he’s come to a realization that maybe Legosi wasn’t weak by trying to withhold himself. I’d like to think that this display helped him think outside the box a little and gain some perspective. Now I seriously doubt that the story will begin touting the importance of hiding and completely repressing the dark part of ourselves like Legosi is trying to do, and if I had to bet, I’d say that it’ll go something more along the lines of a synthesis of instinct and willpower, of light and dark, one for which Legosi accepts his carnivore nature as a part of him and learns to ingratiate it within himself into something of a compromise, something more productive that reflects who he is without repressing a fundamental part of him. But regardless, I think the key here is that people, and in this case, animals, are not resigned and forced to do what is expected of them. They don’t have to conform to roles that don’t fulfill them. They can be who they want to be, society be damned, and express that wholeheartedly if they so desire.
It’s an incredibly resonant and relevant message, especially in the context of a setting where these ideas of freedom and our genuine selves are somewhat stifled. These thematics just dance back and forth, tipping one way and the next in the midst of such a grippingly directed and visually beautiful scene, communicating all of this subtextually while putting the emotions and motivations of the characters at the forefront, and it’s all able to be presented this efficiently and effectively because of such great establishment. It says so much so richly within just a few minutes and all in all this was one of the very best sequences of 2019. Anyways, I appreciate you listening to my off-the-cuff thoughts on this series and I apologize if I’ve gotten anything wrong, but I did think most of it’s correct as I did think about all this for quite a while.. and I just felt the need to gush about this series. Beastars is absolutely magical so far and I’m totally loving it. Feel free to share any and all thoughts about this series in the comments, and as always, many thanks for watching.
