qui tacet consentire videtur

Full disclosure - both writers of this blog are third/fourth-generation ACS alumni, with complete ACS educations.

Malcolm Gladwell would call it a ‘tipping point’ - the Anglo-Chinese School (Independent)’s recent decision to go co-ed. The school’s motto was that every student should be ‘a scholar, an officer, and a gentleman’. Now it will be something like ‘a scholar, a leader, and a global citizen’. Not quite the same ring to it.

There are many reasons why such a move is ill-conceived, some to do with pedagogy, and some to do with strategy. I believe this model, while to be lauded for its inclusivity, is one that is inefficient in terms of specialization and division of labor. The ACS family of schools (which is inclusive of the other Methodist schools) offer a broad range of differentiated products and specialize in different levels of education. Leveraging on economies of scale, coordinating and cooperating in the market can create value and strengthen institutional position. Instead, the school has chosen multiple redundancy.

This decision is only symptomatic of a larger trend in ACS, which I will write more of soon.

In Zyl’s post on Exploring Methodologies in Anime Blogging from an Arts and Humanities perspective, he presents a taxonomy of blogging methods - itself spurred by posts on the subject by Jason Miao and Moyism. I think this blog fits in this particular category:

The critical analysis school, paralleling political science, assumes a knowledge of the series thus dispensing with comprehensive summaries in its writings. Adherents of this school often comment extensively on technical aspects (such as quality of animation, music, voice acting etc.) and / or use the comparative method to situate the anime in question within its topic genre (e.g. action, romance, drama etc.), pedigree (studio or production house), the role of Japanese language, culture and symbolism in fully understanding the plot etc. Often implicitly build theories (E.g. What makes a series a harem series as opposed to merely a romance series? What factors determine a character’s chance of being killed off in Gundam series? etc.) Exponents of this very demanding style include the Memento duo of Garten and Mentar (who are justly famous for their insightful discussions of Mai HiME). A large sub-section of this school includes the witty commentary school which often employs humour (e.g. Sea Slugs, Life Line by Line and / or liberal use of biting wit and sarcasm (KarmaBurn, Cinnamon Ass).

To step beyond my own fanboy interest in the medium, can we say that there is a trend towards ‘mainstreaming’ anime and legitimizing it as a literary medium? The parallels for manga in the West are comics and graphic novels (like Neil Gaiman’s Sandman and its various spinoffs), and these have already been legitimized as a literary/sociocultural medium worthy of academic interest. They have become mainstream, they are no longer confined to a small subculture and niche market. Anime does not quite yet have a similar parallel, though we see a gradual shift in Hollywood’s animated films away from targeting younger demographics to a more mature, intellectual focus - or perhaps I am simply imagining things. Perhaps the reason for this is the positional advantage of Japanese anime and the fansub community in capturing the market here, though I personally do not believe that - barriers to entry are low for the major players in the West.

Anime is part and parcel of otaku culture, which includes obsessions with games and figures and the like. Gamer culture has already been mainstreamed in the West - Penny Arcade/PVP/8-bit Theatre and the webcomic community to Pure Pwnage. Much attention is given to analyzing the games themselves and the gamer culture, particularly on psychological/social impacts (associations with violent crime etc), but also as a literary medium (and even in macroeconomics). Despite the higher barriers to entry into the gaming community (longer time commitments to completing most modern games), the community has gained sufficient critical mass to mainstream/legitimize it to a certain extent.

We can see a parallel shift in anime as a medium with the evolution of the comic book. Increasingly, anime is becoming more sophisticated, and appeals to a larger demographic. The writing is getting better (well, for certain genres). I think we are becoming more comfortable addressing the literary/intellectual merits of certain anime series, and the anime industry at large, from an arts/social sciences perspective.

So the answer is ‘maybe’. Where then does anime blogging come into the picture? Like blogging and academia in general, there is a symbiotic relationship (from an information spreading perspective, not tenure-related). In lieu of writing a thesis on, say Conceptions of the Singularity in Evangelion, and sending it to a top tier journal, I’ll make my small, original contribution to the literature on my blog. As Zyl notes:

Citations and references. The very social and interlinked nature of the web, and consequently, the web-based anime blogging community provides the infrastructure for knowledge-sharing.The basis of all good writing, in literature and the humanities especially, is a lot of reading. It often helps to know what other people are blogging about so as to avoid repetition and sharpen focus. If one likes having hits, comments or citations, doing unto others what one wishes others would render unto to you is a good start. Acknowledgement of debts of reference, inspiration or ideas may not always go reciprocated but it is good etiquette which builds up one’s own awareness of the diversity of views. This is also a useful tool to reduce the amount of work especially when doing comparisons, e.g. Blogger A has speculated on this outcome (link a) and Blogger B disagrees (link b). I feel that it is somewhere in between / both have completely missed the point blah blah. Being social also means making friends and accepting mentoring. Some bloggers will leave friendly and encouraging comments which can be very morale boosting. Others will offer advice and criticisms or set implicit standards, these are often extremely valuable. It’s like how Hikaru grows under the influence of rivalry with Akira, Sai’s tutelage, the patronage of Ogata and Kuwabara and interaction with fellow aspiring go professionals. For myself, Stripey acted as my chief motivator to start blogging and to continue by being a regular reader. Later I found myself strongly influenced by Moyism and Sea Slugs with respect to blog platforms, design, organization and writing style especially for my decision to split the personal and anime blogs into two separate entities.

I suppose the problem is of imperfect/asymmetric information in anime blogging, which (hopefully) will be resolved by better metadata by bloggers. As much as I would like to give due credit to whoever thought of whatever first, the dispersed nature of anime blogs and what little critical analysis there is makes this difficult. Hopefully the anime community will evolve its own focal points by which we can help aggregate all this knowledge - the animesuki forums come to mind. I also wonder if language barriers are blinding us (the english fansub-watching community) to what may already exist among Japanese speakers.

Densha Otoko/The train man - a review

Some people would dismiss it as yet another wish fulfillment fantasy, but I found Densha Otoko to be the best j-dorama I’ve ever seen. Supposedly based on a true story, it is about an otaku who saves an office-lady on the train, and his requests for relationship advice on the 2ch bbs. Classic archetypal cinderella story of personal transformation, ie, a bildungsroman.
Read the rest of this entry »

(yet another convo on the subway)
RC: …that’s why it’s not safe for the well-off to have this class of people.
Me: Enlightened self-interest.
RC: Exactly, it’s in their long term interest to help the less fortunate.
Me: I always felt that this kind of enlightened self-interest was like accepting blackmail.

The correct term I should have used is ‘extortion’. ‘Blackmail’ is specific to extortion with the threat of revealing information. Extortion is also sometimes euphemistically called ‘protection’. So I’m wondering whether the conventional wisdom of charity/redistribution as a moral good here is absolutely true, recognizing the coercion prevention element in rationalizing it.

We tend to focus on evidence that supports our inclinations and filter out the rest. Knowing that is perhaps why this news gives me mixed feelings about my decision over Penn.

Four years ago, the once-formidable economic department at Columbia University was stuck in a rut. Its stars were aging—Columbia had more tenured faculty members over 70 than under 50—and the few first-rate faculty still in their prime faced a constant pull from rival schools. Even junior faculty would jump ship at the first opportunity. Worse, Columbia was bottoming out at a time when economics was becoming a very hot field.

The department had traditionally gone after high-profile economists like development guru Jeffrey Sachs or Nobel Prize winner Joseph Stiglitz. (Both are nominally at Columbia but have little day-to-day involvement with the department.) In 1998, Columbia had stuck with that model, going after Harvard’s Robert Barro, an economics star who writes regularly for BusinessWeek and the Wall Street Journal and occasionally opines on television. “Especially in a place like New York, there is a big temptation to go for assembling people who will be on Charlie Rose, get written up in The New Yorker,” says David Card, who’s credited with helping rejuvenate Berkeley’s economics department. “But that has nothing to do with younger people doing research”—the true measure of a top program.

Though I’m not sure if this is entirely relevant to the value-add in my intended major (or of the issue of a college education as a whole), I suppose I’m glad to be on (what looks like) an uptrend but it would be nice to come in a little further on. Looks like I’ll be getting to know these guys and maybe these guys too.

Sometimes I think I shall always be in doubt about the road not taken. Oh Michelle, to be as brave as you are.

It’s probably hypocritical for me to subscribe to an ideal of hyperrational utility-maximizing individuals yet be unable to live up to the same standards.

The dilemma that has plagued me for the past week is compounded by my inability to ascertain future decision spaces or project future lifestyle valuations - the limits of cognition when it comes to introspection and so-called ’soul searching’. My utility functions extend beyond the monetary material to intangibles. Unquantifiable, unqualifiable factors that may or may not sum to unity. I’m simply not able to perform this complex calculus of determining the distance between the ideal future self and the projected future self to any satisfactory, meaningful degree.

I liken the dilemma to the love triangle in Suzuka (at least up to episode 13 it is a triangle) where the protagonist, having been rejected by his first love, finds solace with the girl-next-door - the next best alternative - yet is getting (mixed) signals from the first girl. Should he risk it all to be with the one he wants, or settle with what he could be happy with? Of course my dilemma has nothing to do with romance - that would be a welcome distraction at this juncture.

In the end, it matters little whether or not the decision was made perfectly rationally - it’s as rational as it’s going to get - but rather, whether it was made based on risk-neutrality or risk-aversion. Which is more about strength of character than intellect.