What? No sex-crazed delusional Tomoyo end? WHAT PATRICK!

That was a gigantic spoiler if you managed to figure it out, lol

• Tomoya and Nagisa. Nagisa catches Magical Hereditary AIDS and is expected to die in 7 episodes.
• Tomoyo and Tomoya.
• Tomoyo and Sunohara. Lulz.
• Moar Tomoyo and Sunohara. Epic lulz.
• Tomoya and Kyou/Ryou. Kyou can cook.
• Tomoya and Kyou/Ryou. Ryou killed Botan. KILLED BOTAN WITH HER COOKING.
• Tomoya and Yukine. Magic Magic LOL.
• Tomoya and Kyou. In a locked room. Filled with phallic items. Massive epic lulz happens. PS Tomoya is ripped.
• Tomoya and Tomoyo. Sunohara is an unwitting representation of the Machivellian adage, “It is better to be feared than to be hated.” Also, the Ordo Hereticus have failed to contain Fuuko.
• Tomoyo and Tomoya. Noes Tomoya don’t risk it you won’t get poon in the end.

…Yeah KyoAni are going to either rush through Tomoyo’s scenario or cut it really short. And yes, the fool Tomoya is hopelessly in love with Nagisa. His thoughts are with her always and all that crap. Have I already mentioned that Tomoyo’s route will be cut short.

TOMOYA LOEV NAGISA. I hope that was clear enough.

And now, I will verbally unleash a maelstrom of hate on Magical Starfish “F**king Mood Killer” Fuuko.

BITCH. DIE. YOU MOOD KILLER. WHY MUST YOU KILL THE MOOD SO? THE WRITERS SHOULD HAVE SCRIPTED YOU TO ANIMU HELL OR SOMETHING.
*takes an AK47 and starts to stab Fuuko repeatedly.

NEXT WEEK: TOMOYO SAYS GOODBYE. BY DOING MANLY THINGS KNOWN TO MAN. AND RYOU WILL RAPE A MAN. ON THURSDAY. WATCH IT. OR ELSE RYOU WILL RAPE YOU TOO. WITH A SPORK.

On apologetics and why I don’t usually take on that mantle.

I think a quote by Charles Spurgeon is in order here.

Who ever heard of defending a lion? Just turn it loose; it will defend itself.

I don’t see the need to jump to the defense of anything. I don’t have to. If it’s good, it’ll defend itself. If it’s bad and people have to defend it from criticism constantly, then it must not have been a very good work, has it?

My role is to provide a correct testimony when anything is scrutinized. If it’s good, I’ll say it is. If it has faults, I’ll voice them. If no one wants to provide a positive testimony, I provide it. Granted the last bit is the work of an apologetic, if it can defend itself from criticism, I usually don’t have to step in.

Besides, who knows what lies in the heart of an apologetic? Does he defend it with a pure heart, or does he have his own agenda to fulfill? I’d rather be a truthful witness than an apologetic. Less stress, hassle, it’s the right thing to do, and when I do get action, it’s usually meaningful.

PS: This was originally applied to the Bible, but it works in any form.

Symbology and You: And something about hope too!

I’m no expert on symbology (I don’t know much about symbology, most of it is lost to the ages), and since poeple have been talking about symbology and stuff, I just have to chime in.

Talking about Gurren Lagann, a lot of people have noted a lot of things. Better storytelling, prettyness, Simon’s less than noticeable yaoi potential with a lot of males (Kamina, Viral, Nia with a PENIS, etc), you get the drill. But then, I read something a lot better.

It didn’t really hit me to write this until I read this.

I’ve never really finished Gurren Lagann, but after watching even two episodes, I knew this show was a winner. Something inside me felt different after each episode. Something good and fine and the world might just turn out to be all right.

That, my friends, is the feeling of hope.

Let us look at a great (but oft-ignored) work, that being the tale of Pandora’s Box, to understand this strange feeling.

As we all know, Pandora was an exceedingly beautiful woman, crafted by the Greek Pantheon, in order to punish Promethus’ work because he stole some sacred fire. (Of course he was punished in a much more gruesome manner, but the mere description of it would send people sucking their thumbs for a week, or wanting guro, I dunno. Let’s just say Prometheus was glad that eagle wasn’t a spleen-craving zombie eagle.)who was presented to Epimethus, his brother, who married her (or something.) It was said that as a wedding gift, the happy couple was given a box (or a jar, a box is easier to remember.). No one was to open that box, those sneaky Greek gods instructed, knowing full well what was inside.  As time passed, Pandora got more and more curious as to the contents of the box. Then one day, curiousity got the better of her and she opened it. Out flew a myriad of dark things, each representing a form of evil and suffering. (It was also rumored that the first victim was a cat who just happened to pass by, thus the saying, “curiosity killed the cat” ). In horror, Pandora slammed the box shut.

But then a little voice squeaked out, “Don’t close the lid!” Pandora lifted the lid enough to see just who this voice belonged to. It was a small white thing, much smaller than the black things that flew out. “What are you?” she demanded. “I’m Hope. The gods put me in here in case someone opened this box.” And with that, the white thing flew out.

Hope is one of the most easily forgotten things the world has. And yet, it is the single most enduring thing in the world.

And we come to Eva. A show devoid of hope. Christian symbols and misappropriated psychoanalysis everywhere. All in a shallow effort to make the show seem deeper than it is. The content? It rails on about hopelessness, the apathy of the Japanese, and probably something else. Most likely the role of women. Yes, it is a good example of deconstructing a genre and there’s probably some great storytelling in there; it’s also one of the best examples of despair.  The show’s nothing but a bastion of hopelessness, at it’s core an ultranationalist message slamming into the minds of the viewers that they have to take action or face the reality that is shown in Eva. In fact, most Eva apologists fail to see such an ultranationalist message of no hope, or pretend to not see it, or do not have the cultural mindset to comprehend it.

And if anyone were to speak up in defense of Eva, you are going to have to acknowledge four things:

• You’re nothing but a worthless, apathetic human being.
• You’re extremely shallow, just like how shallow the symbology in Eva is.
• You’re a corporate whore. Hideaki Anno laughs at your repugnant efforts to worship him.
• There is absolutely no hope in this world. None at all.

For your information, Anno is one of them idiots who think World War 2 was the greatest period in Japan’s history and wants Japan back in that supposed glorious age. He gets paid to rant on and on about the failings of Japanese society and to spew forth rhetortic that would see Japan being nuked back to the Stone Age. Take that information as you will.

And we come to planetarian. To the untrained mind it pretty much looks like the dystopian future Anno said would have happened if no one took action (Short answer: it would have happened whether humanity took action or not. It’s been written in so many books it’s ridiculous. It’s not even funny.). In it’s backstory, it said mankind had, and it paid dearly for its actions. Streets devoid of people, a rain not unlike acid rain pouring down onto the ruined earth, killer robots swarming the streets, the shattered remains of humanity forced to live like rats in order to exist tomorrow…

…And in the midst of all this hopelessness, a lone robot, a relic from another era, silently stands guard over an even older relic, which shows an even much older relic, one unseen by the earth in the story, in the hope that people would fill the streets again. And it so happens, a man from the hopeless present wanders in by accident, and is treated with a glimmer of the hopes of the past. Fuelled by that feeble ray of hope, he tries (unsuccessfully) to save it, and is, in the end, the carrier of hope of not just him, but the robot’s hope too.

In it, we see two completely different characters, the Junker, and Reverie (or Yumemi). The former, a product of the broken present, who slowly (but too quickly, in some people’s eyes) becomes the bearer of hope in a shattered land. The latter, a relic of the past, caretaker of the hopes of the past. Even though she mentions the fact that she is in fact, “Just a little bit broken”, and reveals to the Junker that she knew that no one was coming back, it was her simple faith and hope that drove her to do what she did. Her tragic (and rather overplayed) destruction and evental death did little to dispel her hope.

At it’s core, planetarian is a message about hope, even in a dystopian world. Damn the Key-isms, it’s about hope. Isn’t Reverie’s beliefs almost similar to what Kamina, Kittan, Lord Genome, heck, half of the male cast of Gurren Lagann said to Simon? “Go beyond the impossible and kick reason to the curb!” “Your drill is a drill that will pierce the heavens!” “Don’t believe in yourself! Believe in me, and believe in that I believe in you!” “Believe in yourself. Don’t believe in the you that believes in me. Don’t believe in the me that believes in you. Believe in the you that believes in yourself.” “WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK I AM?!” Aren’t these all messages of hope that is needed in a human world wracked in war, suffering and apathy? Did not King Solomon sum it up most wisely, “For to him that is joined to all the living there is hope; a live dog is better than a dead lion”?

Which one will you pick? Eva, and it’s message of despair, doom and hopelessness, or will you pick Reverie/Simon, and believe in the message of hope?

For me, the choice is clear. I’ve been living in despair for the longest of time, and after reading through a few articles on the issue, I had an epiphany. This is what I have to say after that. Fuck the world and it’s despair and doom. I’ll do as Kamina says and kick reason to the curb, pierce the heavens (lol) and believe in hope. Because hope is all there is to believe in.

I’m home, Reverie. I’m truly am.

PS: It’s a bit strange for a Protestant Christian to be talking about hope in a humanist manner rather than a Christian manner, but then again, if I went on about Jesus and the Resurrection, it would be extremely silly and would not sit too well. While Jesus wasn’t like Kamina, I believe the same sentiments exist, just in completely different manners. Upbringing or study of the Bible does not cut it all the time, it just won’t work for this generation, since salvation and belief in hope and all that jazz is ultimately personal.

PPS: And just to make things clear, while I do some parts of the life of Christ in planetarian, I have never considered Reverie to be Jesus. For one thing, she wasn’t nailed to a tree And another thing, she does not have advanced repair systems.

PPPS: Eva made me angry for no good reason when I watched the first episode. I don’t usually watch shows that make me angry, but I’ll make an exception with this one and watch it all the way to it’s sick, despairing end. I’ll counter it with repeated rewatchings of Gurren Lagann.