Meet Captain Jack Sparrow, professional escapist.

My interests are wide-ranging, as longtime readers of this blog know – anime, sci-fi TV shows, fantasy movies, video games, RPGs, cosplay, comics, fiction literature, and so on. One thing binds all of these interests: they are all escapist forms of entertainment.

According to the great font of all knowledge, Wikipedia:

Escapism is mental diversion by means of entertainment or recreation, as an “escape” from the perceived unpleasant or banal aspects of daily life.

The term ‘escapist’ is usually used in a derogatory fashion, meaning someone who would rather escape to an alternate reality instead of accepting the reality he or she is handed. This tends to be a charge leveled by self-proclaimed realists, people who believe that anyone who isn’t fully engaged in the ‘real world’, meaning the ‘family-workplace-church-potluck-country-club-buddies real world’, is a social cripple who fails or is unwilling to make any ‘meaningful connections’.

But as anyone who reads sci-fi or fantasy knows, good speculative fiction is a way of making a commentary on the ‘real world’ by the allegory of the alternate world. Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series, particularly the first book, is a study of the progression of the rise and fall of empires presented on a galactic scale. EVE Online, an MMORPG I used to play constantly, is simply a hypercapitalist sandbox set in space. George Orwell’s Animal Farm illustrates, through the decidedly-unrealistic device of talking animals, that any revolution can be undone by the corruption and short-sightedness of its leaders. The thoroughly unrealistic anime Gurren Lagann, an anime ostensibly about giant robots, is actually a parable about what it means to be human.

J.R.R. Tolkien himself, in his celebrated essay ‘On Fairy Stories’ noted that telling stories that are ‘not real’ was a way of recognizing the reality of the mundane world without having to mindlessly submit to the way things are:

It certainly does not destroy or even insult Reason; and it does not either blunt the appetite for, nor obscure the perception of, scientific verity. . . . For creative fantasy is founded upon the hard recognition that things are so in the world as it appears under the sun, on the recognition of fact but not slavery to it… If men could not distinguish between frogs and men, fairy-tales about frog-kings would not arise.

J.R.R. Tolkien, Professor of Escapism at Rivendell University

As Joseph Campbell (of Hero of a Thousand Faces fame) has always asserted, humanity has always told itself stories and myths to escape reality long enough to see it from a different perspective, like climbing a mountain to see the broader view. In the Books of Magic, Titania explains to Timothy Hunter:

“The places you will visit, the places that you will see, do not exist. For there are only two worlds – your world, which is the real world, and other worlds, the fantasy. Worlds like this are worlds of the human imagination: Their reality, or lack of reality, is not important. What is important is that they are there. These worlds provide an alternative. Provide a threat. Provide a dream, and power, provide refuge, and pain. They give your world meaning. They do not exist, and thus they are all that matters. Do you understand?”

Besides, as C. S. Lewis said, the usual enemies of escape are jailers.

Welcome to the 'real world'.

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Irony? What's that? This is so educational!

I’m part of the tail end of the generation labeled Gen X, which was really the first generation in recent memory to adopt irony as a stance. In my early twenties I would routinely be told by people that I was the most sarcastic person they’d ever met. Even now my humor sometimes lapses into well-timed, sardonic one-liners designed to deflate egos and elicit uncomfortable laughter from listeners.

Um, Kamina, this is a cool moment and all, but you're naked. And you're wearing a midget mole pig over your crotch.

Irony was our way of coping with our largely impotent fury at the state of things around us. Postmodernism and radical relativism was all the rage, a way of rebelling against the ‘right way’ imposed on us by the over-eager Baby Boomer generation, an intellectual way of being conscientious objectors. Why conform when conformity was just as empty and pointless as nonconformity?

Pop culture was infected by irony. Shows like Daria and Buffy the Vampire Slayer made it cool to be distinct and separate from the quarterback-and-cheerleader popular crowd. Grunge made it cool to wear ill-fitting flannel shirts and sport shaggy hairdos stuck in the awkward phase between short-cropped preppy and glam-rock locks. Gen X kids were suspicious, often rightly so, of anything that presented itself as the right way in the upbeat, earnest, ‘let’s go gang!’ attitude so fashionable in the 80s, saw it as naïve, self-absorbed, even greedy and materialistic. There was a reason we were called the Slacker Generation by our elders: We didn’t buy the polished, glossy consumerist dream sold by mass media, saw it as shallow and superficial (two of the worst insults Gen X could hurl at anything) and we fought against it with our most devastating weapon: Irony.

Unfortunately, when the dust settled and we were done demolishing the Yuppie Dream, we discovered we had nothing to replace it.

So why are there pictures of Kamina, Kintaro, and Captain Jack Sparrow on this post?

These characters, who clearly stand apart from the herd (so far apart that they’re considered idiots, weirdos, and even deviants), didn’t get the Irony memo. They’re obviously nonconformists, but they do it without the hip irony most nonconformists adopt as an ego defense. Kamina is such a glorious idiot that the social pressure to ‘succeed’, that is, become an influential and upstanding member of his little cave-dwelling community doesn’t bother him in the slightest. Kintaro gave up a secure career as a law graduate from Tokyo University because of his addiction to learning, despite being continually underestimated as a consequence. And Jack is too busy being cool to be worried about looking foolish.

It's hard to keep an ironic distance when you're running away from savage cannibals.

So what am I saying?

Yes, the monoculture is stupid, superficial, and shallow, forcing its participants to march lock-step, shoulder to shoulder, or risk being mocked for being ‘different’, for not watching the right shows and movies, for reading the wrong books, for engaging in forms of entertainment it cannot understand or simply refuses to understand. And yes, it is extremely entertaining to stand on the sidelines and mock the ‘robots’ and rest in the knowledge that you and your friends are so much deeper, so much more intellectual and profound, so much more tragically hip.

But it doesn’t change anything.

Irony as an affectation is just as robotic a response as blind conformity. And it’s a response borne out of fear, the fear of being mocked yourself. You’re a non-conformist? You’re apart from the herd? Act like it. Stand out. Be mocked and ridiculed for it by people who are too cool or too afraid to do what you do. Otherwise all you’re doing is seeking safety in a different herd, one that reads Derrida, watches machinima, and listens to obscure J-rock bands.

Lead from the front. Or get back in line.

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Earth to Jaden. Page 5 preview, The Vigilant Issue #1

This is addressed to all of the following, although this is by no means an exhaustive list:

1. Gamers (console, PC, handheld, tabletop, interactive fiction, miniature, CCG, MMOG, LARPers, board);
2. Weeaboo (anime, manga, light novels, niconico, traditional Japanese martial arts otaku, people who only know Japan through samurai films, Zen Buddhists);
3. Genre otaku (fantasy, sci-fi, Star Wars, Star Trek, Firefly, Battlestar Galactica, Lord of the Rings, the various D&D campaign settings, superhero, Vertigo, gothic horror, mystery, pulp, fanfic, K-Dramas, reverse harems, musical theater);
4. Head-in-Cloud-Types (poets, artists, dreamers, philosophers, theoretical scientists, sages, mystics, shamans, prophets);
5. People who play with toys (scale models, dolls, figurines, phones with excessive arrays of features we don’t use, pretend guitars and drum kits connected to consoles, lightsabers, limited edition custom-painted Stitch statues)
6. Any subculture or group I have forgotten to mention that prefers to spend time in imaginary worlds.

Hi. Nice to meet you.

We have something in common: We have vivid imaginations and enjoy spending time in imaginary worlds.

These worlds are off the six-lane highway of the shared world of the monoculture, that bland soup of the mainstream. Some are right off the exit ramp, others take convoluted side streets to get to.

Let’s stop being in denial and just accept ourselves: We’re weird.

We do things that ‘normal people’ would never do. We watch ‘cartoons’. We like to pretend we’re Jedi or magicians or two-dimensional characters or elves or vampires or pirates or ninjas. We roll kinds of dice most people have never seen. Our dialects are incomprehensible to outsiders, and there are so many.

We’re weird.

They don’t understand us. That’s what it means when they say “That person is so weird.” It’s the only way they can deal with us. Sometimes it’s a sign of disapproval. Sometimes it’s simply a sign that someone cannot comprehend our motivations or behavior because they have no cultural context. Weird. Doesn’t make sense – at least sense the way the ‘people who see the world for what it really is’ see it,  the self-proclaimed realists.

We’re the imagination subculture. We’re weird. It’s okay.

We need to stop thinking that we need approval for everything we do. Even different imagination subcultures disagree with each other, sometimes vehemently. We need to accept the fact that we aren’t going to please everybody – and that the monoculture isn’t everybody. Even entire scenes have little tribes that skirmish every now and then. Fine.

Let’s stop trying so hard to make everyone accept us, we lose our identities in the process, our cultures. If everyone was like us, acted like us, thought like us, talked and dressed and hung out in the same places as us, then we would be normal.

And we don’t want that now, do we?

LISTEN UP YOU WHINERS!

I have something to say to the following people, no matter who you are or what you’re into, like anime, or cosplay, or writing a novel, or starting a band, or traveling, or drawing a comic, or making your community a better place, or overthrowing the government, or ‘changing the world for the better’:

To everyone who’s ever claimed to want to change the world, or leave a legacy, or make a mark;

To everyone who says they have a dream or a destiny to fulfill but can’t do anything about it now because of the circumstances;

To everyone who is waiting for the right opportunity but feels the timing just isn’t right;

To everyone who writes on a blog or whines on a video or podcast or to friends over drinks about how bad things are and how different everything would be if they were in charge;

To everyone who believes they should be judged on their potential instead of on their actions and accomplishments;

To everyone stuck doing things they hate because they feel they have no other alternatives;

To everyone who ever traded in their dreams for a sure thing they detest;

To everyone who talks big about their plans but have done nothing about it;

To every special snowflake whose dreams are just not possible because society would frown on it or because their parents didn’t raise them properly or because their significant other doesn’t support them or because their friends would laugh at them or because they just don’t like being laughed at;

BULLSHIT.

If you’d wanted to change you would have done it already. And you would have started with yourself. You wouldn’t just shift employers, or cities, or cars, or uncannily similar-looking girlfriends or boyfriends. You wouldn’t spend more money to get more stuff. You wouldn’t buy clothes that hide the body you’re ashamed of but won’t do anything about. You wouldn’t strive for the next pay grade at the same dead-end job just because you don’t know what else to do. And least of all, you wouldn’t be content with mocking the people who are trying their damndest to achieve their dreams, no matter how foolish it makes them look.

Yeah, I’m talking about you, with your name-calling, with your dismissiveness about broad swathes of people you can’t be bothered to get to know. I’m talking about everyone who’s ever shown up to an event organized by other people just to diss it. I’m talking about everyone who fired off a snarky comment or twitter or plurk about someone instead of doing better than them. I’m talking about people who get off by saying how much everyone else sucks. Fine, we get it, you’re awesome.

Prove it.

“I don’t have to prove anything to you.”

BULLSHIT.

See, the fact is you don’t actually want to fulfill your dreams. You don’t want to make a better anime, a better costume, a better comic, a better novel, a better song, a better band, a better body, a better country, a better world.

If you did, you would’ve written that first chapter by now. You would’ve composed the first few lines of that song. You would’ve checked the Internet for ticket prices. You would have set the date for that trip. You would’ve attended the first class, the first workship. You would’ve lifted the weights, run those kilometers. You would have met or called or emailed the people you need. You would have posted the flyers, practiced for the first gig. You would’ve attended the right parties, shook the right hands, exchanged calling cards.

But you haven’t.

You protest. You say the time isn’t right.

The time is never right.

You don’t have enough money.

You will, if you start now and you know how much you need.

You don’t have enough time.

What are you spending your time on?

You don’t know the right people.

Start meeting them now.

You say you’ll do it someday.

‘Someday’ without a specific date means ‘never’.

You can do one of two things. You can admit to yourself that entertaining the idea that you’ll do everything you want to do ‘someday’ is enough, that you don’t actually want to change, that you would prefer it if all these things fall into your lap while you stay exactly the way you are. Because you’re special and unique. You’re an individual. And somehow that gives you the right to act as if the world owes you a living, owes you the fulfillment of your dreams without you having to lift a finger. You can rest on your laurels, tell yourself that you could do things better if you could only be bothered, except your favorite show is on, or because the job you hate so much takes so much of your time, or because it doesn’t pay you enough, or because it just isn’t the right time, and it may never be the right time, ever. You can resign yourself to the fact that you prefer comfort and security over change, over some vague dream that would be kind of nice if it happened.

Or you can find out what you want, find out the first step to achieve it, and do it. No matter how uncomfortable it makes you feel. If it takes money you don’t have, find a way to make that money, or to do it for less, or for services or barter instead of cash. If it takes time then make the time. If it takes connections then make the connections. Make any connection. If it takes exposing yourself to criticism from other people, then endure it. And if it takes hard work and dedication, then commit.

And if any of this sounds too hard, or too scary, or too uncomfortable, then shut up and admit it to yourself once and for all: You don’t want to realize your dreams. It’s just not worth the trouble, not worth the time, the money, the effort.

Just admit it: Your dreams aren’t worth changing for. Your dreams aren’t worth the time, the money, the effort, the sleepless nights. Your dreams are just broken little toys you like to take out of the toy chest whenever you want to feel better about yourself, especially at the expense of other people, then put away at your convenience. Why do you think other people’s dreams are foolish, or pointless, or misguided, too? Why do you pretend to be better than everyone else, when all the world knows you aren’t? Why do you think your irony and your sarcasm and your mockery and your ennui somehow make you better than the people who try and fall flat on their faces, but pick themselves up and try again, and again, and again?

Because you’re scared. Because you don’t want to expose yourself to the scrutiny of others. Because you’re special and if the world doesn’t see that then it’s the world’s fault, not yours. Take me for what I am, you say, and give me all the money and fame and glory that I deserve without having to even try. Without having to change. Why change? You’re awesome and everyone else sucks.

BULLSHIT.

Here’s an idea: Lead from the front. Lead where everyone can see you. Lead where everyone knows what you stand for, instead of sniping from the sidelines, pretending to be so much better, if only you could be arsed to try. Lead where everyone will know whether you succeed or fail.

Put up. Or shut up.

Shut the hell up.

But their love for the movies despite their ‘age’ is great. One of the boys tells his rapt female audience about the plot of the Truman Show in loving detail, remembering little plot points like Truman’s father being written off the show as ‘lost at sea’. “But the movie is kinda old na,” he qualifies, “nineties pa.”

I remember talking about Star Wars with my law school classmates and one of the girls said, “All I know about Star Wars is like, Yoda. That’s the little guy with the lightsaber, right?”

So, little guy with lightsaber am I?

Indeed.

Is this how my parents feel when I refer to Godfather or Jaws or Star Wars as a classic? What about my grandparents and the stuff on Turner Classic Movies, like Prisoner of Zenda?

It got me thinking: how much of the anime and manga I like is ‘classic’ now? Urusei Yatsura for sure — it was already a classic when I started watching it back in the 90s. Leiji Matsumoto’s stuff too, like Galaxy Express 999. Ranma 1/2 and Oh! My Goddess and Maison Ikkoku and Orange Road and Evangelion — all classic. Otaku no Video itself is eighteen years old. Eighteen! That’s like… pre-moe!

I don’t feel old. I don’t even look old. Judges and other lawyers have trouble taking me seriously because I look like a kid. But I’m not a kid, I haven’t been a kid in a long time.

Should I start ‘acting like my age’? What does that even mean? Should I start resigning myself to calling new music ‘noise’ and calling every new thing kids go crazy over ‘the devil’? Should I limit my movement to the range that a pressed suit allows? Should I stop pretending to be into the latest fads, the newest gadgets? But I’m not pretending! Should I ‘grow up’?

How does something stop being ‘passe’ and start being ‘classic’?

College kid at the next table starts talking about MJ with utter reverence, defending him against all the child molestation charges, the weirdness, and facial reconstruction. He starts talking about how sad and misunderstood the King of Pop was during his last few years. He starts singing Bad and Beat It to the chagrin of his companions.

Michael Jackson used to be a has-been, but now he’s classic.

Classics stand the test of time without having to pander to the changing fashions of the day. Sometimes people adopt older fashions and tropes as an act of parody, as Gurren Lagann Head Writer Kazuki Nakashima said about how hot-blooded mecha pilots shout catchphrases whenever they deliver their attacks, and how modern shows replicate this trope with a tongue-in-cheek attitude. But what if you dispense with the safety and distance of irony? What if you simply love something for its own sake, no matter how dated or anachronistic or out-of-fashion it seems to other people? What if, like using handmade paint splatter or rough crayon lines or mecha battle cries in Gurren Lagann, you bring these old tropes into the modern day with genuine love instead of mocking parody, with reckless enthusiasm instead of hip irony?

Things become classic because we love them no matter how much time passes.

Now if you excuse me, I’m going to rewatch Golden Boy.

(P.S. To all boys trying to make an impression on girls — keep talking, like this kid. His friends were trying to look cool and aloof but this kid got all the attention. He displayed a wide range of knowledge in a variety of topics, displayed his personality well, and wasn’t afraid of looking silly. In contrast, his friends kept sniping at him but would otherwise resign themselves to listening to him take over the conversation. All I’m saying is, cool and distant… only works if you’re staggeringly bishonen.)

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My breath catches in my throat. Because I remember what that’s like.

=====

I’ve talked about my shyness, and about performing for an audience in a previous Manifesto. One of the things I’ve had to do was sing in front of crowds. It started innocuously enough. I was a choirboy. (Try not to look so shocked.) With my unbroken pre-pubescent voice I usually sang soprano. Our school choir would join (and win) inter-school competitions, go caroling around town to raise money, and sing for student masses (which in a Catholic school is at least once week).

But singing in a choir is ‘safer’ because your voice is lost in the chorus, and although the training is still exacting, because a stray voice causes dissonance, you’re surrounded by your peers, all of whom sing exactly the same way you do, at least ideally.

Then I started to sing solo, first at masses, then at programs celebrating the rector’s birthday or the founder’s death anniversary and similar events. My voice would tremble from the nervousness, but at least I was singing simple mass hymns or following ‘minus one’ tapes. I was expected to sing. I wasn’t expected to perform.

Then my voice broke, except it broke into a voice that was well-suited to rock, heavy metal, and grunge. These were the early 90s, and Nirvana and Pearl Jam had only just begun to wrest the crown from the rock gods of the day, Guns n’ Roses and Metallica. I’d discovered that unlike the glam stylings of my classmates (who preferred the ballads of Bon Jovi, Nelson, and White Lion, mostly for the express purpose of wooing girls), I liked more rebellious music. Even then I was otaku, but I was otaku for Metallica, Pearl Jam, U2, and Iron Maiden. I saw rock as an expression of my non-conformity (especially considering that the teachers and half my classmates believed I was listening to ‘devil music’), and when I sang their songs I sang for myself, not to please the crowds. When I sang “Jeremy” I was singing about myself. When I sang “Holier Than Thou” I was singing about my teachers and classmates. And when I sang “Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses”? Well… I need to keep some secrets.

Trouble was, I still looked like a choir boy. I looked more like Doogie Howser than James Hetfield or Eddie Vedder (never mind Bruce Dickinson or Slash). I even had a white sidewall haircut because I joined the officer corps. So when me and my geek friends walked on stage for the high school battle of the bands, people whispered incredulously and giggled and pointed at the silly boys who thought they were a heavy metal band. The nun on the judges panel was sure we were just five nice Catholic school boys who would sing a nice little ballad for all the girls in the audience. The MC announced our band as “A.C.T.” which actually stood for “Association of Computer Terrorists”, further highlighting how geeky we all were. (Why we had that particular name is a story for another day.) We were the first act. The curtain rose.

I stood there for a moment, frozen. This wasn’t like choir or karaoke at all. This was just me and my band in front of the audience, and we would live or die on the basis of our performance. My heart was in my throat. I wasn’t that nervous during the science quiz bee on TV. I wasn’t that nervous at the National Press Con. I had never been so nervous in my life. All eyes were on me.

I took a deep breath. I looked at our drummer, Bert, who nodded and counted off.

We tore up the stage with a rough but spirited rendition of Metallica’s “Unforgiven”. I sang my heart out. I shut out the crowd and I sang like I was singing for myself, like the lyrics were my own words. There’s no room for self-consciousness when you’re performing anything, whether you’re a high school band or a top act at the Budokan. The crowd feeds off your energy, and you feed off theirs.

Seeing our band launch into the song with reckless abandon, the crowd forgave our lack of polish and totally got into our performance, screaming and roaring and clapping their hands, stomping their feet. As for the nun… not so much, considering we smashed a guitar during the solo and a large chunk barely missed her head. But we barely noticed her as we finished our song, shooting devil horns and sticking our tongues out at the audience. We only finished 5th out of 7th that night (although I got top marks for my vocals) but none of us really cared about how we placed. Besides, flying guitar debris had more to do with our poor score than the actual performance.

We came out of the experience changed, and everyone’s perception of us changed too. I wasn’t choirboy anymore. I was ‘Rocker Boy’. We all had street cred now. The other bands kept congratulating us like we’d won. You don’t put yourself through something like that in front of so many people without coming out changed and people recognized that. People kept talking about the guitar smashing, keep talking about it even at reunions. We had guts, and people respect people with guts, no matter what they end up doing because of it. And we would never be ashamed to be onstage ever again.

Most of the other bands that followed had more polished performances. The band who won did Ugly Kid Joe’s ‘Everything About You’, which was also the guest band’s song, by a strange twist of fate. (I ended up being recruited as the guest band’s vocalist for one night at a local club. Story for another time, too. ) Another band did G’n'R’s November Rain, and the vocals were so painful that the vocalist’s sister, who was in the audience, hid her face in shame. We didn’t even care. Every single band on stage deserved credit for being up there.

Besides, we were first. Everyone had a tough act to follow. And the nun was prepared to dodge shrapnel now.

====

As the Light Music Club finish their performance of FuwaFuwa Time, I find myself applauding the TV screen. Sure it was still kind of rough. Sure Yui’s voice was still wrecked from over-practicing. It doesn’t matter. They did it. They got through it.

And they’ll never be the same people they used to be, ever again.

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“If you don’t do it now, you will never do it.”

This is what I tell myself every time I try something new and the fear threatens to stop me.

When I was a child, I was often asked to perform in public. I would act, sing, declaim, orate, compete in academic competitions. I was out of the classroom practicing or preparing more often than I was in it. I would have to be judged by a crowd.

Unfortunately, I was also a painfully shy child. I could barely stand talking to one stranger, let alone dozens, or even hundreds. I was an introvert, still largely am in that I actually like spending time alone with my thoughts. I was a loner who would be pressed into performing for crowds.

Fear would grip me the moments before I was about to go on stage or at the mic or before a panel of judges. I was afraid of what they would think of me. I was afraid they wouldn’t like me. I was afraid I wasn’t any good.

I was afraid they would laugh. Sometimes, they did.

So, yawning uncontrollably (for some reason, yawning was my fear reflex as a child), frozen to the spot, I would brace for the moment like a swimmer about to dive in ice-cold water. It would get worse and worse, until finally I  would grit my teeth and tell myself:

What are you waiting for?

Nothing.

Then if you don’t do it now, you will never do it.

Then I’d take a deep breath, and dive in.

====

It was the same for anything new. Riding a bike. Driving a car. Asking for directions in a foreign country. Attending my first court hearing. Skateboarding downhill. Dating (and everything that comes with the package). Part of me wanted to retreat, every time, stay on certain ground, don’t wander too far from what you know. But where would I be if I hadn’t pushed myself out of my shell, all those times?

Not married, for starters. Never mind getting her to say yes (another emotional bungee jump), how would I pick her up from her place for dates?

Same went for my writing, too: The first time I submitted my stories for workshop was nerve-wracking. What if it sucked? What if they laughed at me? Well, the story was funny, but that’s not what I meant. What if it was terrible? What if I just wasn’t any good?

Oh well. Take the plunge.

I found out this way that I was actually a pretty entertaining writer. Sometimes I would lay an egg, but my friends would simply tell me and I would make the adjustment.  My ego might smart for a while especially if I was particularly proud of the work, but then I would be over it.

What was wrong with bombing? What was wrong with people laughing at you? It happens! We all need it sometimes. Life goes on. We all suck at the beginning of anything new.

=====

If you don't do it now...

Project Otaking is a ridiculous idea. It is my attempt to make an impact on the otaku world by being a producer instead of a consumer. It is my attempt to prove that through vision and determination coupled with action I can turn my delusions of geek grandeur into reality. I see comics and anime and video games figured into my future. I see travel to places I’ve never been, places I’ve always wanted to go. I hear myself speaking fluently in Japanese.

But I have never done anything like this before. No one I know ever has. I already have it made if I stick to the rails, a nice, comfortable, stable life I’ve earned for myself. I don’t have to risk failure. I don’t have to risk getting laughed at. I don’t have to risk not being good enough.

I’m afraid.

But if I don’t do it now, I’ll never do it.

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Shibuya at night. I took this photo while crossing the street, trying not to get elbowed and shoved around.

The Nintendo DS Game The World Ends With You is set in an alternate-reality version of Shibuya, the ultra-trendy fashion capital of the ultra-trendy city of Tokyo. More than anywhere else you will find people dressing according to the subcultures that they belong to — loligoth, urban hip, princess-kei, retro hip, and so on. And unlike more homogenized fashion scenes like, say, Manila, the fashion of one subculture wildly diverges from the fashion of another.

Friendship knows no fashion bounds.

To reflect this, The World Ends With You (or TWEWY, as fans call it) allows the player to outfit their characters with many different outfits from many different brands: D+B, Lapin Angelique, Wild Boar, Jupiter of the Monkey. Some of the more outlandish outfits require a high level of BRAVE.

On one end of the spectrum is the protagonist, Neku, who starts out only just brave enough to wear simple, urban-hip clothes like hoodies, sneakers, and big shorts.

On the other is Joshua, whose BRAVE is so high that he can cross-dress with impunity.

I sat inside the Freshness Burger (bienvenido!) and stared at all the snappily-dressed people, armed with my copy of TWEWY, open to the map screen for help. I decided that many of the best shops were off the beaten path (like they were in the game) and ended up buying a sweet leather jacket from Flash Report.

Then I wondered what I would do with a leather jacket in Manila.

=====

As I attended event after event since returning on the local otaku scene, I realized that I didn’t have a very high level of BRAVE. Since my BRAVE was low, I couldn’t bring myself to wear anything more daring than a Gurren Lagann shirt and some jeans.

Which makes no sense, because I have a secret, burning desire to cosplay as this guy:

The MAN.

This is Sanae Hanekoma, aka Mr. H, aka CAT, the hottest grafitti artist in all of Shibuya, whose identity is unknown. Other characters refer to him as the Producer, the man behind the scenes, behind the Composer, the Conductor, the Game Master, and the Players.

He is a being of such undeniable, effortless cool that he literally comes from a higher plane of being because of his ‘highly tuned vibe’. (This is literally true within the story of TWEWY.)

But I don’t have enough BRAVE to carry that ensemble.

Cosplayers, who widely vary in motivation, physical appearance, and personal hygiene, all have one thing in common: a high BRAVE rating.

It doesn’t matter if they’re dressing like magical girls or giant robots for the attention, for money, for prestige, for influence, or just because their parents didn’t love them enough. The reasons vary, but the effect is the same: They can dress up as whomever they want, in public.

That takes BRAVE I don’t have.

Yet.

What was the worst that could happen?

When I was a kid, I quickly learned that being different in any way meant that the people you were different from were going to pick on you, sooner or later. Sometimes the picking was for harmless fun, like a joke between friends. (I’ve always made fun of my martial artist friend’s bald head, knowing full well that if he really felt that I was dissing him just to diss him, he could kick my butt so hard I can taste his shoe. He’s cool with it. Plus it makes him look like a badass.)

Every now and then in any kid’s life, the picking becomes mean-spirited and vicious, a way for kids to show other kids who’s top dog of the playground. This is fine if you realize that the name-calling is all just a kid’s game, even if it’s one that’s played for keeps. It’s not so good when you start letting the insults wound you.

Ever been made to feel ashamed for being intelligent? For reading books? For liking the wrong color? For watching the wrong cartoons? For not knowing a song? For speaking the wrong language? For having a funny-sounding name? What is particularly different about you doesn’t really matter to kids who want to pick on you. They will pick the first thing they can see and throw that against you. So the key is to realize that it’s all a silly little kid’s game, even if it’s dead serious.

Some kids keep playing this game till they’re older, when they’ve become Important People with Important Opinions, people other people listen to. And they hurt other older kids who don’t realize that they’re still playing the same old tired kid’s game, when there are better games to play now.

Some adults still like to play the ‘Loser’ game they learned in the playground when they were two and a half. It’s simple: pick a kid you don’t like and call him a loser. If the other kids laugh, you win.

Sound familiar?

Like the About Page says, I’m pretty much a professional weirdo. True story: in elementary I once brought a lunch box to school with nothing in it but red kiamoy and a thermos full of iced tea. I got picked on for it. I can see why.

In college I nearly got beat up by a frat guy for giving his girlfriend the ‘wrong’ tarot reading. (The cards don’t lie, sir.)

My favorite authors include a German who liked to write about Eastern philosophy and chicks breaking out of eggs, a mousy Japanese woman whose idea of romantic tension is years of tragicomedy puncutated by a motel room scene, an American ultravagabond who funds his country-hopping with a sports supplement company he runs entirely over the Internet, a postmodern Macchiavelli who collaborates with rap stars, and a dodgy chap from Northampton who looks like Captain Caveman’s evil brother.

I like the Star Wars Universe more than I like the Star Wars movies. Wrap your head around that for a bit.

So this is what I realized: If any kid wanted to make fun of me just because of what makes me different, they already have a lot of ammunition.

I stared at the screen for a moment.

Then I clicked ‘upload’.

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Now imagine how limited my writing would be if I limited myself to a single narrow topic every time I wrote. Say, anime, without talking about the effect of the advent of broadband or the influence of Western animation or its synergy with Japanese music. And yet this is how we used to define things — genres, individuals, movements.

Think about your Pictures folder on your computer and how you sort individual files. Some pictures fall under Family, for example, and some under Friends. What happens when you have a picture that has both Friends and Family in it? Do you upgrade it into a higher-tier (but more general and vague) category, ‘Loved Ones’? Do you decide that the presence of family members in the photo trumps the presence of friends and sort it accordingly, or vice versa? Do you place one copy in each of the folders? What if your sister is your best friend too?

Now think of how simple it is to simply tag the photo with both ‘Friends’ and ‘Family’.

The same thing applies to individuals. Think of someone famous, like Jose Rizal for instance. (I don’t want to debate historical accuracy here. I’m referring to the predominant ‘myth’ of Rizal.) We usually toss him in the category ‘hero’ and think nothing more of him. Categories are shortcuts.

But tags are handles. Rizal was also a novelist, poet, polyglot, fencer, ‘illustrado’, and womanizer. (Maybe some of you would like to throw in the ‘Allegedly Hitler’s Dad’ tag too.) Each of these tags adds resolution to our picture of the guy, much more than the simple ‘National Hero’ category could possibly give.

Now think of yourself. Think of the category people tend to lump you and your interests into. Geek. Jock. Airhead. Weirdo. Otaku. Doesn’t really say much, does it?

Now tag yourself. Tag your interests. I’ll give you some of mine: Computers. Music. Anime. Science. Games. Comic books. Law. Philosophy. Literature. TV Shows. Movies. Personal Finance.

Now let’s drill down and tag one of those broad tags. Let’s take a selection of tags from Games: Console Games. PC Games. Role-Playing Games. Board Games.

Now let’s pick Board Games, because it’s the tag that most non-board-game-geeks assume is all Monopoly and Chess: Monopoly. Chess. (Start with the basics.) The Game of Life. Settlers of Catan. Princes of Florence. Senator. Acquire. Cashflow. Lord of the Rings. Diplomacy.

Head spinning yet? Each one of the tags drill down all the way to specifics like this. And all of those tags add up to me. So does a neat category like ‘Geek’ or ‘Otaku’ encapsulate me? Or are you over-simplifying who I am so you can dismiss me out of hand?

In his book The Long Tail, Wired editor-in-chief Chris Anderson discusses what he calls the Massively Parallel Culture, which is rapidly replacing mass culture. Instead of a homogenous lump of people who are all into the same things (which our current mass media tries to cultivate), we are developing into individual members of many tribes, some which overlap (for example cartoons, comics) and some which don’t (cosplay, basketball, indie rock). So it no longer makes any sense to diss someone because they don’t belong to one of your tribes (ball-jointed dolls) when most likely you both share another (anime).

Yes, I’m part of the Lawyer Tribe (which you may detest). But I’m also part of the Otaku Tribe. So what will it gain you to reduce me to one or the other?

Stop pigeon-holing. Start tagging.

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