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> SOA-Japan, it should have a thread.
Snow_Fox
post Oct 11 2005, 01:55 AM
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ok there have been a few comments on this chapter in other threads but it really needs to have it's own thread.

The person who wrote this chapter really took a risk. Japan could full a whole book on it's own. It sure deserves it's own book and in the limited space it would be almost impossible to write something that doesn't just manage to leave out something that someone thinks is vital. The risk of disappointment is high. Someone either in love with a challenge or looking for abuse would offer to do this. but I think they pull it off.

To point out the two things I didn't like (lets get the nasty stuff out of the way first and I am nit picking). Ninja: the Oni way. sure the tradition is to draw from the lowest class but before the current emperor metahumans were not allowed in the ocuntry at all. It is not like in SF or seattle where a target might not pay attention to the ork cleaner, in Japan it would stand out "One of them?yuck.":ork

The other was the translation of soto-uchi as us vs them. It actually is insider/outsider. OK I'm picking.

DLN also expressed to me her...displeasure, with the seciton on Shinto but that is someone else's hand I believe.

Considering how much there is to cover in Japan I think the writer did a wonderful job of hitting the high points. Sure I would like something on food or dress or saki or natural sights, but there was only a limited space. They hit the government, and culture-and the corps are well documented elsewhere.

The key things that are needed to run the culture and such were hit. the ingrained sense of self superiority, the painful emphisis on manners and the fact that Japan sees itself as dominating the 21st century the way the Americans dominated the 20th and the the British the 19th.
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hahnsoo
post Oct 11 2005, 02:09 AM
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Not all metahumans were sent to Yomi, according to canon literature. There are many that still live within Japan, either as SINless squatters, hidden in shame by their families, or in the lowest social class. Heck, if all metahumans were deported, then you wouldn't have things like the CEO of Yokogawa being a dwarf.
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NightRain
post Oct 11 2005, 02:29 AM
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QUOTE (Snow_Fox)
To point out the two things I didn't like (lets get the nasty stuff out of the way first and I am nit picking). Ninja: the Oni way. sure the tradition is to draw from the lowest class but before the current emperor metahumans were not allowed in the ocuntry at all.

Ork Oni mentioned in Year of the Comet, he was only carrying on from already written material on the subject
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hahnsoo
post Oct 11 2005, 02:32 AM
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Weren't they described in the Underworld Sourcebook as well?
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Snow_Fox
post Oct 11 2005, 02:41 AM
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so do these entries mean you agree with me on the good parts guys?
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FiveVenoms
post Oct 11 2005, 04:27 AM
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I enjoyed the Japan section as well. As a basic cultural and social overview, it gives one enough of a basis to go ahead for a Japan run in more detail, combined with information on corporations and people from sourcebooks past.

Some people I believe were a bit distraught that the chapter was too derivative of anime, but knowing what little I do about Japan now, it made sense to me that in terms of the extremes youth would go to, the enormous megaplex-style cities, and other aspects all made sense. I'd need to go back and read it again to really go in-depth, but I still enjoyed that chapter.

Although on the orc/Japan metahuman point, it seems to me that they would work quite well as ninja, since I'd personally imagine that the general reaction for the common populace (ie: neither military or corp security types) would be to ignore them. Which is exactly the kind of response you would want, right?
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Hasagwan
post Oct 11 2005, 10:43 AM
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I said this in another post, but I'll repeat it here and then go in depth. I'm sure almost all of you who have seen the movie, Lost in Translation, thought it was funny. Here's an interesting fact, almost no Japanese person likes the movie. They don't like it because it's shallow and it doesn't show the true Japan, but Japan from a person who doesn't really try to interact with the culture. This is what the section is like to me as a person who has truly delved into the culture and society (and one of my Japanese friends was scratching his head at some of the mess ups).

One major blunder was the miko being called a priest (pg 208). There's a difference between a miko and a priest like there is between a priest and a nun. Also, under shinto religion, the emperor is the direct ancestor of the kami and thus one himself.

Second, it's intereting to note that only metahumans and the Ainu got special notice when there are a wide variety of other groups. The most important of those groups is the bunrakumin, the unclean. Even in modern Japan, they are still second class citizens for the most part and their areas are truly ghettos. It'd have been interesting to see how these people deal with the laws that make metahumans worse than them and then suddenly have the metas suddenly regain their influence.

Third, the yakuza was so under developed. There is so much flavor that can be done with them and they were given less space than the ninja. One thing my japanese friend mentioned was that if they were truly ninja, there wouldn't be that much knowledge about them (it is the art of invisibility after all).

The code of the salaryman was interesting in that it didn't look at how the Japanese actually went about doing this (which does have a lot of shadowrun opportunities). Now the amae section is so far from reality it hurts. There are two type of amae, one is spoiled rotten, and the other has no translation. The first is like a spoiled child who is dependent on the mother for his spoils. The other is a reciprocical nature in a loving relationship (simplified explaination in the extreme).

As someone mentioned, the uchi-soto isn't use versus them but home-outside. Also I couldn't understand what burnable garbage has to do with cosmetic surgery (help please!). The big one is that Japan is isolated from the other cultures. Sure right and they developed the exact same kanji that the chinese have and what not. Actually there's a lot of similarity but with unique twists. I won't even touch on all of the dialects that exist in Japan but they really are a pain (I cannot for the life of me understand kansai or kyoto dialect, but Kagoshima's isn't too hard).

Pop culture, this was a place that confused my friend. "Yes," he asked, "there are a lot of interesting cultural aspects, but why spend so much time on them?" This is where I think the Lost in Translation stuff is at its worst.

To sum up, I felt that the author spent too much time on some subjects, didn't flesh out other more shadowrun oriented (wouldn't you like to know how the police and yakuza get along?) important things and that he didn't really delve into the culture for this.

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Snow_Fox
post Oct 11 2005, 11:30 AM
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Like the corps, the Yaks have been delt with extensively in other books. They did mention in passing the weirdly semi-legal position they enjoy. In RL it was a big news item that the yaks had elected a new boss. It struck me as extremely odd that this would be reported how and where. It was like reading that "at the anual maffia convention in Hilton head the maffia chose the head of the luccesei family to run the business."

For me, the Lost in translation was not about Japanese culture but about a culture so alien that two outsiders were thrust together for companionship. Not in lust, but just friendship. Of course it was a shallow look at Japan. The people didn't understand enough to go deeper.

Other media examples of Japanese culture can be seen briefly in the movie The Grudge as Sarah Michelle Gellar asks for direction on the street and a little girl stares at her in wide eyed fear and if you watch some of the judges on Iron Chef there are some amazingly bigotted statements that would be unforgivable here. In particular the photographer Tenmei Kono is an excellant example of RL Japanese superiority.
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Hasagwan
post Oct 11 2005, 12:37 PM
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All good points Snow_Fox. However I would like to point out that even though the yaks have gotten covered in their own books, we're talking about their home turf here and there are some rules that apply in Japan that don't anywhere else. Some of this stuff would just be great for SR games. As for the yak news, that's actually nothing unusual here. They have some semblance of legitimacy here that you won't see in any other country (did you know that they have to file taxes on their ill gotten gains too?)

Lost in Translation was an example that I thought people would easily relate to. There are tons of movies that do the same thing about Japan, only show the surface or misrepresent. Another example is Memoires (sp?) of a Geisha that came out a while back. That had every geisha in Kyoto on the warpath because of how badly it was done (for example, the geisha were dressed in little girls summer yukata's instead of the proper clothing). The only movie that's really done good recently would be The Last Samurai because they did do their research.

As for the superiority thing, I agree, there is a sense of superiority in Japan. I'd never argued that. However, I do feel that if you want to point out the superiority, you need to do it right, not throw out a concept that as far as I know doesn't exist like uchi-soto. It would have made more sense to argue based on nihonjin-gaikokujin (japanese-foreigner). It just seems to me like the author is trying to sling lingo that he doesn't understand (omae is a good example).

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SL James
post Oct 11 2005, 08:09 PM
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Like Snow_Fox said, it completely misses the point if you think Lost in Translation has anything to do with Japan. It could have been set anywhere and it would be still be "superficial."
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hahnsoo
post Oct 11 2005, 08:59 PM
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QUOTE (Hasagwan)
Third, the yakuza was so under developed. There is so much flavor that can be done with them and they were given less space than the ninja. One thing my japanese friend mentioned was that if they were truly ninja, there wouldn't be that much knowledge about them (it is the art of invisibility after all).

Well, lip-service was given to the Yaks in SoA because aside from the Megacorps, the Yakuza are probably the most written-about section of Japan throughout all of SR canon, given the nature of the typical Shadowrunner's interactions with the underworld. There's already a wealth of information about the Yakuza available for the Sixth World, no need to delve into them further (except for the occasional "big news" update).
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Hasagwan
post Oct 11 2005, 10:34 PM
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SL James, you are right on what the story line is about. My choice of Lost in Translation was for several reasons, it's well known and liked in the US at least, it's the most recent movie that I have watched that uses Japanese culture (took me a few months to find the video), and while you are right about how it could have been placed in many other countries, to the Japanese it was placed in Tokyo and the Japanese see it as just another movie that talks about Japan but doesn't show the real Japan. My entire goal of using the movie was to point out that there is a very large gap between what is written and how it really is. There are other movies out there that I could have used like Memoires (sp?) of a Geisha, that could express the same way.

Hahnsoo, you are right about the yaks being talked about in Shadows of the Underworld in good detail. My counter argument is this, the mob got covered in Underworld Sourcebook too, but in Shadows of Europe, they got their own section. So why didn't the triads and the yakuza? I'm sure the authors of SoE will point out that there is a big difference between the mob in Europe and the one in North America. Don't you think there'd be some differences between NA yaks and Asia yaks?

There is a difference between how they act in NA and how they act in Japan. So why did the author spend so much time on the ninja (which also got covered in the underworld sourcebook) and the pop culture when there is so much more out there?
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Snow_Fox
post Oct 12 2005, 12:38 AM
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The coverage the yaks got in other books do stress the manners, culture and, to some extent, sexism. to be fair a good deal about the Yakuza in Japan has already been expressed here by you and me. To be honest, it's kind of freaky. The book touched on it but to be honest unless you want to spend a lot of time reading about the oddities of the Japanese economy you are not going to cover it.

The Japanese culture like to think it grew up in a vaccum. The great cultural difference between Japan and China is that the chinese were unwilling to admitt anyone could have osmething better then them so they felt there was nothing to learn form barbarians. Since the Japanese were not the center of asia they never had this particular blind spot. they are one of the best "borrowing" cultures in the world, taking the best of other cultures without losing their own.

The japanese didn't like Lost in Translation? Well the amish didn't like Witness, but both were excellant films about a person we could relate to (Bill murray/ Harrison Ford) who has to look within himself while exposed to a culture so alien he cannot get a handle on it. Significantly both actors were nominated for Best Actor Oscars for the roles.
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Hasagwan
post Oct 12 2005, 02:26 AM
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So if I don't have those books where they've been fleshed out, I'm just out of luck? (for the record, I don't have the underworld sourcebook with me in Japan)That doesn't seem right especially with how the mafia and the vory got covered in SoE. Then again, maybe the connection between a group the author doesn't talk about (the bunrakumin) is irrelevent to shadowrun stories.

As for superiority stuff, can you please tell me why you're beating that up? I have yet to argue about it besides the concept of uchi-soto wouldn't be a good analogy.

As for Lost in Translation, you're nitpicking. That it was a good movie is irrelevant. That the story is suppose to be that way is irrelevant. The point I have been trying to make is that there is a large difference between Japan as seen through his eyes in Lost in Translation and how it really is. Likewise there is a big difference between how this book portrays Japanese culture and society and how it works.

I have pointed out amae and how it's misinterpreted and I pointed out that moe is utter BS because as far as I and the Japanese I work with can't find any meaning that makes sense to what he's talking about. As far as I can tell he's throwing words together and trying to weave some sense into something he didn't really research or maybe not understand.
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Adarael
post Oct 12 2005, 02:46 AM
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Point 1: On the swift and small-size treatment of Japan in SoA.

I figure any nation could be its' own book. Hell, China could easily fill five or six. Russia? At least three. But game companies have no bottomless coffers, and most gamers are going to make a mockery of culture to begin with. Hasagwan, I suggest you do what I did: invent your own history of Shadowrun Japan, and your own Shadow encyclopedia for it. I've never really liked the way Shadowrun handled it, so I never used it.

Yes, SoA had some (IMO, rather severe) errors in how it presented Japan. But since I know what's in error, I see no problem with 'correcting it on the fly', so to speak. I know that a miko and a shinto priest are different things. I'm never going to confuse them, just as I would never confuse a sohei with a samurai, or a bosozoku ganger with a yakuza. It's the tabletop equivalent of applying a patch to a computer program.

Point 2: Lost in Translation.

QUOTE
I said this in another post, but I'll repeat it here and then go in depth. I'm sure almost all of you who have seen the movie, Lost in Translation, thought it was funny. Here's an interesting fact, almost no Japanese person likes the movie. They don't like it because it's shallow and it doesn't show the true Japan, but Japan from a person who doesn't really try to interact with the culture. This is what the section is like to me as a person who has truly delved into the culture and society (and one of my Japanese friends was scratching his head at some of the mess ups).


This is not a slam on either Hasegwan or SL James, just my observations...

The problem is trying to look at Lost in Translation as though it were about Japan, which it isn't. Japan happens to be extremely convenient for its' thrust, because Japan is at once very familiar and very foreign to many westerners. The fact that the main characters don't try to interact with the culture is a major part of what Coppola was trying to do; they're not just disconnected from Japan, they're disconnected from themselves, their own lives, and the entire world they're trying to live in. Look at Scarlett Johansson's relationship with her boyfriend: she's as isolated from him as Murray is to any guy in a pachinko parlor.

Oddly enough... if you've ever read Murakami Haruki's "Dance, Dance, Dance," there are some extremely strong themic paralells between it and "Lost in Translation." Altered, to be sure, but I think they're there nonetheless.

As for Memoirs of a Geisha... ergh, yeah. A lot of things about it rub me the wrong way in a cultural sense. In a narrative sense, though, I think it can stand on its' own.
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Janus
post Oct 13 2005, 01:23 PM
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QUOTE (Snow_Fox)
The person who wrote this chapter really took a risk. Japan could full a whole book on it's own. It sure deserves it's own book and in the limited space it would be almost impossible to write something that doesn't just manage to leave out something that someone thinks is vital. The risk of disappointment is high. Someone either in love with a challenge or looking for abuse would offer to do this. but I think they pull it off.

I agree. With cultural barrier, medieval 'Japan as Evil Empire' image and little volume, I daresay it is impossible to convince everyone. But I think he pulled it off fairly.

Personally I felt the text is too biased by Japanology, too laid emphasis on idiosyncrasy between Japan and everyone else except. But I might be biased as a native:)
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Janus
post Oct 13 2005, 01:34 PM
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QUOTE (Hasagwan)
One major blunder was the miko being called a priest (pg 208). There's a difference between a miko and a priest like there is between a priest and a nun. Also, under shinto religion, the emperor is the direct ancestor of the kami and thus one himself.

Second, it's intereting to note that only metahumans and the Ainu got special notice when there are a wide variety of other groups. The most important of those groups is the bunrakumin, the unclean. Even in modern Japan, they are still second class citizens for the most part and their areas are truly ghettos. It'd have been interesting to see how these people deal with the laws that make metahumans worse than them and then suddenly have the metas suddenly regain their influence.

Third, the yakuza was so under developed. There is so much flavor that can be done with them and they were given less space than the ninja. One thing my japanese friend mentioned was that if they were truly ninja, there wouldn't be that much knowledge about them (it is the art of invisibility after all).

The code of the salaryman was interesting in that it didn't look at how the Japanese actually went about doing this (which does have a lot of shadowrun opportunities). Now the amae section is so far from reality it hurts. There are two type of amae, one is spoiled rotten, and the other has no translation. The first is like a spoiled child who is dependent on the mother for his spoils. The other is a reciprocical nature in a loving relationship (simplified explaination in the extreme).

As someone mentioned, the uchi-soto isn't use versus them but home-outside. Also I couldn't understand what burnable garbage has to do with cosmetic surgery (help please!). The big one is that Japan is isolated from the other cultures. Sure right and they developed the exact same kanji that the chinese have and what not. Actually there's a lot of similarity but with unique twists. I won't even touch on all of the dialects that exist in Japan but they really are a pain (I cannot for the life of me understand kansai or kyoto dialect, but Kagoshima's isn't too hard).

Pop culture, this was a place that confused my friend. "Yes," he asked, "there are a lot of interesting cultural aspects, but why spend so much time on them?" This is where I think the Lost in Translation stuff is at its worst.

To sum up, I felt that the author spent too much time on some subjects, didn't flesh out other more shadowrun oriented (wouldn't you like to know how the police and yakuza get along?) important things and that he didn't really delve into the culture for this.

1. Yes, a miko and a priest are different. But YotC described a miko is a magician (See p.102). So I assume miko are Shinto magicians while priests are Shinto religious.

2. Yes, we could describe about 'Korean residents in Japan'(Note) and Burakumin... if volume allow to do so.
Note: They are differ than 'Korean Japanese'. Many of them were born in Japan and no few can speak Japanese only. Even so, they don't have Japanese nationality.

3. The Yakuza has run over in Underworld Sourcebook, and its updated in DotSW. So it is less important.

4. I don't think the role-taking is 'Amae', but I biased toward Japanese perspective. So fell free to decide what is 'Amae'.

About the uchi-soto, remember few can afford high-end skillsoft. Japanese-looking surgery don't work if you don't know how to behave as Japanse.
And don't too mind dialects. Almost all dialect-speakers can speak standard Japanese.

About Pop culture, I think Moe is the most modern and discriminative culture in Japan. And in RL, most Japanese have little education in classic cultures.

As a conclusion, I agree with you due to differ reason. I must admit I like minorities and Yakuza than Japanology.
But others might think it is the best way.
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otaku mike
post Oct 13 2005, 11:46 PM
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Our good friend Janus here is the Masaaki Mutsuki credited in SoA's props. He was our japanese native eye and helped a lot to shape SoA's Japan. It might not be perfect (though personally, I'm quite happy with what's been written), but it would probably have been worse if not for him. So, thanks again Janus.

Mike
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Snow_Fox
post Oct 14 2005, 02:10 AM
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If he is the one responsible for much of the quality, then I'll join you in applauding him.


It has been said , repeatedly, that Lost in Translation is a shallow look at Japan. Most runners who go there will be Gaijan and so will be equally shallow. If the team wants to be natives, the GM will have to do much more research.

to move beyond the films already talked to death there is a great example of culture clash in You Only Live Twice. a late 1960's movie where Sean Connery as James Bond is dropped into Japan. sure he's too cool to be thrown off by the clash but you see lots of settings. Mid 1980's movie The Challengewith Scott glen tells of an American boxer who gets caught in a fight between two brothers, one corp, one classical but again there are setting and scenery. also the closing credits of the cartoon FlCl shows Japanese settings. Most helpful Japanese horror films are now going well. More than the horror, these are films made by Japanese, in Japan and show schools, offices and street scenes. My fav in that genre- The Suicide Club.

DLN turned me on to this site http://www.japantimes.jp/ it is Japanese news in English and is kind of fun.
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Hasagwan
post Oct 14 2005, 08:46 AM
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QUOTE
Point 1: On the swift and small-size treatment of Japan in SoA.

I figure any nation could be its' own book. Hell, China could easily fill five or six. Russia? At least three. But game companies have no bottomless coffers, and most gamers are going to make a mockery of culture to begin with. Hasagwan, I suggest you do what I did: invent your own history of Shadowrun Japan, and your own Shadow encyclopedia for it. I've never really liked the way Shadowrun handled it, so I never used it.


You are right that I can rewrite the Japan file as I see fit. However, I had thought that this was a section on ones opinion about how this section of SoA came out and thus I offered my opinion. When people brought up issues with my post, I tried to clarify where I stand. I'm not sorry that my opinion is different from everyone else, it is after all my opinion.

What gets me is the Lost in Translation stuff. Granted it wasn't the best choice and I wish I could go back and pick a different one, but after me clarifying it in each of my posts, you keep missing what I am saying and are still nitpicking about the same thing and are still missing the point!

I'm glad Janus came on and actually talked about the issues I brought up rather than rant on about Lost in Translation. Thank you Janus for taking the time to post and your effort. おつかれさまでした。 I would like to know where moe is from since me and my coworkers can't find any reference to it if you have the time.

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Snow_Fox
post Oct 14 2005, 11:30 AM
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No, I got your points, but in context they are irrellivent. If you rely on a Holliwood film as your prime source of course you will get it wrong. If your point was that the Japanese didn't like it, I can provide you with numerous films done on subjects I have a degree of expertese in that I think were crap.
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Ancient History
post Oct 14 2005, 11:49 AM
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QUOTE (Snow_Fox)
No, I got your points, but in context they are irrellivent. If you rely on a Holliwood film as your prime source of course you will get it wrong. If your point was that the Japanese didn't like it, I can provide you with numerous films done on subjects I have a degree of expertese in that I think were crap.

I believe, Snow, that good friend Hasagwan was merely surprised at the recurring reference to the movie Lost in Translation, which he only brought up to evoke the paint-thick look at Japan he believed the chapter invoked in parts.

In other words: while you may find his points irrelevant and no one questions your expertise in the matter, why you and everyone else can't seem to let the film go and focus on the matter at hand boggles him. :P
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hyzmarca
post Oct 14 2005, 12:39 PM
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QUOTE (Hasagwan)
What gets me is the Lost in Translation stuff. Granted it wasn't the best choice and I wish I could go back and pick a different one, but after me clarifying it in each of my posts, you keep missing what I am saying and are still nitpicking about the same thing and are still missing the point!

Yeah, that sort of what we do here at Dumpshock. That should be the Dumpshock slogan, in fact.

Dumpshock - Missing the point and changing the subject since 1859.
To be best of my knowledge, only the Drop Bear thread is consistantly on topic.

-----
Back to the point at hand. I don't read RPG sourcebooks to give my an accurate picture of anything, not even their own rules. I havn't read SoA myself but I would be surprised if it were any more accurate than a generic Hollywood ninja movie. I don't expect the Shadowrun version of Japan to be any more accurate than the Shadowrun version of North America. ( If that was accurate the NAN would have a single-digit population.)

I hate to be the one to point at the inconsistancies in this book and say "it fiction, get over it" but its fiction, get over it.

Lost in translation, by the way, was in-freaking depressing, in my opinion......... Drop Bears............
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Grinder
post Oct 14 2005, 02:10 PM
Post #24


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QUOTE (hyzmarca)
To be best of my knowledge, only the Drop Bear thread is consistantly on topic.

Thanks only to our faith and dedication. (And possbily the fact that Drop Bears are lurking everywhere, waiting for off-topic-posters at the Drop Bear thread to devour).

Back to topic: i really enjoyed the japan chapter, it gave me some new ideas. We all have a rough idea how japan looks like in 2070 and i expected that SoA adds some new ideas to this. It did so and i'm fine with that.

:)
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Snow_Fox
post Oct 14 2005, 10:32 PM
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QUOTE (Ancient History)
QUOTE (Snow_Fox)
No, I got your points, but in context they are irrellivent. If you rely on a Holliwood film as your prime source of course you will get it wrong. If your point was that the Japanese didn't like it, I can provide you with numerous films done on subjects I have a degree of expertese in that I think were crap.

I believe, Snow, that good friend Hasagwan was merely surprised at the recurring reference to the movie Lost in Translation, which he only brought up to evoke the paint-thick look at Japan he believed the chapter invoked in parts.

In other words: while you may find his points irrelevant and no one questions your expertise in the matter, why you and everyone else can't seem to let the film go and focus on the matter at hand boggles him. :P

Because he brought it up in every post in this thread.
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