The long-awaited animated special of my all-time favorite k-drama MiSa (미안하다, 사랑한다 / Mianhada, Saranghanda) has finally been released on DVD. I want it so bad.

…we received a total of 82 submissions from 22 different countries for the competition this year.

After a strict screening of all the essays, the four submissions below have been selected as the Prize Excellence of the competition in 2007. Unfortunately, however, there was not one that the Selection Committee members should strongly back for the Grand Prize of 1 million yen.

Competitor analysis: I am the youngest of the 4 winners, though not by much. Of the other 2 non-Japanese winners i.e. the English-language entries, one is an exchange student at Nagoya who won this year’s ADB competition, and the other works for a strategy consulting firm in Beijing. I look forward to meeting them both, they have pretty interesting backgrounds.

Going forward: 82 entries is lower than previous years and I predict next year will be less competitive. Also, previous winners (at least the Japanese ones) tended to be much older. I will work harder next time around to clinch the top prize. Before this, there were very few English-language winners to refer to as a model. When I am there I will talk to the judges to assess the relative standing of our essays and thus find out which approach (academic vs mainstream, micro vs macro) is favored.

Reality check: Oh well life goes on, and I’m happy that I won a free trip to Tokyo, which is pretty awesome by itself. Also, it’s pretty cool that I managed to write a serious paper with the made-up word ‘Gundamnomics’ in the title. I really do hope to do empirical studies of the anime industry/subculture someday, and maybe some future scholar will cite my essay. Who knows, I may have coined a term that future reports about the anime industry may use. Or maybe not. It wasn’t that appropriate a metaphor: Generally Gundams don’t really ‘transform’ though some from recent versions like Gundam 00 do.

Thus unfortunately I am not a ‘millionaire’ like Geoffrey is. Even though in nominal Yen/Won-to-USD exchange rate terms my prize is larger, it isn’t when adjusted for purchasing power parity: Given how expensive Tokyo is, I’ll probably end up spending all my prize money on metro fare and instant noodles, while Geoff has a ‘chuka party’ at the Lotte Myeongdong. I wonder if they say ‘omedetou party’.

We would like to express our gratitude to you for submitting your essay to the JFTC Essay Competition 2007. After a strict screening of all the essays, we have selected your essay, “Gundamnomics: Transforming Corporate Japan for the Challenges of Global Capitalism” as a candidate for an award. The final result is scheduled to be announced on Friday, December 14, and the winners will be notified directly. The Awarding Ceremony and our New Year’s Reception will be held from 16:30 to 19:00 on January 9, 2008 at Hotel New Otani, Tokyo, Japan.

During the IHS advanced topics seminar in Washington, I skipped the open bar social, stayed up all night in my hotel room, and fell asleep during the workshops, all because I wrote this essay at the eleventh hour – even at the train station and on the ride back to New York. The only drinks I took from the open bar were cans of coke. (I should really stop this habit of procrastinating about essay deadlines) But it was all worth it if I get to go to Tokyo, which has been my dream ever since my love for Japanese culture began in high school.

The essay abstract:

It is no surprise that in August 2007, Michael Bay’s Transformers debuted in Japan with an opening weekend of ¥631.3 million, the number one at the Japanese box office. The Transformers franchise, from which Bay’s film was adapted, began with a 1980s animated television series that was not only based on designs by Japanese toy manufacturer Takara and produced by Toei Animation, but was also inspired by the classic Japanese animation genre of giant transforming robots that includes Voltron, Super Dimension Fortress Macross, and Mobile Suit Gundam. If this genre was a metaphor for the successful postwar transformation of the Japanese economy into a global powerhouse, Transformers is not merely a part of Japanese cultural imagination, but may well be the history of corporate Japan – and perhaps also its future.

With the passing of the ‘lost decade’, it is time for corporate Japan to undertake a new strategic transformation to meet the dynamic challenges of global capitalism. In this essay, I argue that the collapse of the asset-price bubble and subsequent banking crisis created fundamental systemic changes to Japan’s political economy and institutions, and heightened its sensitivity to international capital markets and global economic forces. These challenges will require Japanese companies to achieve an efficient allocation of physical, financial, and human capital by adjusting their human resource management policies to leverage on foreign and female talent, adopting a more meritocratic and flexible corporate culture, and changing their approach to corporate governance.

If I visit Tokyo, I want to pay homage to the mecca of all anime fans Akihabara, crash a Todai/Waseda class, eat street stand ramen, walk Shibuya crossing and pet Hachiko the dog, climb Tokyo tower… reading about SY-sempai’s adventures, it just blows my mind how many things I want to do there. I also want to visit old friends and classmates, meet local contacts in the libertarian network, and talk to alumni there about investment banking in Japan. Of course, it would mean I have to crash course myself in nihongo, which means postponing my crash course in hangukmal. I really hope I get to go, because there is no way I could justify the expense without airfare and accommodation covered.

The new Sunrise adaptation of Gundam Wing – Gundam 00 (pronounced double-oh) – is my most awaited series each week. It isn’t just the high-definition animation quality or the giant space robots that make it so wonderful, but its presentation of current affairs and contemporary issues through the lens of science fiction. I examine Gundam 00 through the lens of international relations theory.

Gundam 00 takes place in 2307AD, and its global economy is based on access to solar energy and the space elevators that link the orbital array to power stations on Earth. Nuclear and fossil fuels are absent. Even the eponymous Gundams are solar-powered and produce no carbon emissions. It is both an environmentalist’s fantasy and nightmare. The international politics of this world is tripolar, with all countries aligning to 3 hegemonic power blocs that engage in great power rivalries, and you can pretty much guess what the 3 blocs are. The UN is noticeably absent (at least until episode 9). Contemporary conflicts still exist: Northern Ireland, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, and of course Iraq. It perhaps presents the epitome of the positivist, Realist school of international relations and the failure of democratic peace theory. The balance of power is disrupted by a religious fundamentalist paramilitary group ‘Celestial Being’, whose team of Gundams outmatch all conventional mecha forces. Their ideology is a Kantian perpetual peace, fighting a war to end all wars, and we know how that ends.

Interesting view of the future: Gundam 00’s future-EU includes Turkey and Greenland. The future-USA-hegemony includes Australia but not the UK, which leads the EU hegemony. The 3rd-world bloc (Russia, India, China etc) does not seem to mention Singapore, which I suppose was maybe annexed or something, or just too unimportant to feature. Oddly, South Korea is mentioned, but not North Korea, so 1) no unification (otherwise it would be just Korea) and 2) maybe annexed by China? Japan appears non-aligned… now that’s science fiction.

Almost all mecha genre anime series explore the theme of ‘child soldiers’ with their just-past-puberty pilots (Evangelion, Bokurano, Gurren Lagann, Gundam Seed come to mind) and the emotional dilemmas they face, but few have explicitly employed the theme as we know it in contemporary parlance (as popularized by such hollywood films as Blood Diamond). Gundam 00’s protagonist Setsuna is explicitly such a child soldier toting an oversize AK in a future Kurd conflict (i.e. Sunrise’s Iraq war that lasts 300 years).

Unfortunately Gundam 00 doesn’t quite know how to pull at heartstrings the way early Gundam Seed did with the cell phone motif. It seems like it is beginning to with the Setsuna flashback arc, but this doesn’t seem to be the case for the other characters.

I love Gundam 00. I hope it doesn’t turn out like Seed did. This is the only anime series that I hit the refresh button for on the N+1th day.

The male and female leads of a hit Korean drama about the illegal loan sharking industry were appointed public relations envoys for the Finance Ministry on Wednesday. For one year Park Shin-yang and Park Jin-hee of “War of Money” will promote the ministry’s “micro-credit” system which offers low-interest loans to people with bad credit. The government in February will use dormant deposits to establish a W200 billion fund to finance the micro-credit program.

I absolutely adore the SBS k-drama War of Money and I think it is so awesome that the stars of the drama have been co-opted by the Korean finance ministry to promote their microcredit program, which no doubt needs a lot of help, although I think they should pursue a more commercial approach. Also, given the number of SK dramas imported to the north through China, the stars might well be supporting much-needed microfinance/small-business education in NK and paving the way for economic reform and development efforts in the north.

I have only seen the first episode of the drama, but it is incredible: there is this scene in the hospital where the protagonist both makes a huge character transformation (Broken by the loansharks’ psychological games, he swallows his pride to accept help from his love interest) and reveals his tragic flaw (he is too proud to face her as a man after taking her money). The girl then throws the money at him in slow-motion while the theme song takes over.

School Days

I was most interested in seeing how they would integrate the multiple mutually-exclusive storylines of the game into a linear plot for the anime, but having never played the game (language skills required are beyond me, even though it is not text-based as most others in the genre are) it is difficult to appreciate what liberties they have taken with the original. Furthermore, much of the popular appeal of the game has nothing to do with the ‘happy ending’ type romance story but with the multiple-storyline ultra-violent ‘bad endings’ that have made it infamous, and they can’t have those because these really are mutually exclusive and there’s simply no way to integrate the ‘A kills B’ scene with the ‘B kills A’ scene short of a ‘A and B kill each other’, which is completely different altogether. So I suspect this adaptation will be very much of a disappointment to fans of the game, or at least more so than usual.

What I do like about it so far is how psychologically realistic it is (well, as psychologically realistic as a wish-fulfillment fantasy can be). Basically the plot is essentially the same setup as KGNE, except without the accident and timeskip: best friend sets up boy with pretty girl even though she likes him too, love triangle ensues. At the end of the third episode, the protagonist Makoto remarks to his best friend Sekai (i.e. the other love interest) that being with his dream girl Kotonoha is “tiring”. Now this may only be a plot convention to help integrate the multiple storylines, but I think it works very well. Its “tiring” to be with the dream girl, because to do that he has to be her dream guy, and it takes so much effort to be that guy, whereas he is loved for simply being himself with his best friend. Damn, this show just makes me angry.

Dramas:
Tokkyu Tanaka 3 Go should be marketed as the real ‘densha otoko‘ since the overarching metaphor is train-related: the characters are trainspotters and their relationship is like the slow journey along countryside tracks in how it progresses in a roundabout way, both beginning to discover the best things about each other. Rather like the two rails of train tracks, running parallel with each other and never to meet, yet travelling together always. The protagonist is stupid and almost unlikeable but so honest and determined in his love for someone who won’t even give him the time of day that the audience begins to fall in love with him a little bit too. Stars KAT-TUN member Tanaka Koki and Kuriyama Chiaki, though she’s less pretty than Kato Rosa who is in a supporting role. KAT-TUN sings the OP, which is as usual, insanely catchy. My dream is to be as seksay as Kame from KAT-TUN. That, or Rain.

Proposal Daisakusen is starting to really irritate me because the main characters have feelings for each other and the only thing in the way is the protagonist’s stubborn pride. In every other drama, although the match-up is obvious, the conflict is far more plausible or at least substantial. In this case it’s just him not being able to tell her, which irritates someone like me to no end since it implies that all love needs is courage to reveal your cards, which is nonsense. Also, it’s a sign that I’ve been watching far too many j-dramas since this one likes to make references to other dramas, and I’m able to catch them all.

Liar Game gets better with every episode. I am surprised that the viewer ratings for this show are so average. Maybe it’s because it’s not a ‘family’ show – it airs late Saturday night after all.

Anime:
Heroic Age, Bandai’s new space opera epic, is basically Starcraft with Evangelion-style giant mecha. You have your Terrans, Zerg, and Protoss. Incidentally, Starcraft 2 has been announced, and hell it’s about time! So much speculation that it was going to be World of Starcraft. Fortunately I gave up WOW two years ago, otherwise a new Blizzard MMO would consume my life. It’s also a little bit like Battlestar Galactica in how the protagonists are chased around the universe completely outnumbered.

Production IG’s Seirei no Moribito also has incredible production values. I like this one a lot since it appeals to high fantasy.

Otaku favorite Lucky Star is ridiculously cute. The first ten minutes of the first episode was just the four characters discussing how to eat various foods properly. I can’t get enough of the OP either. It’s like Hare Hare Yukai on crack.

I tend to dismiss the Americans on my floor for watching far too much television. It’s like the floor tv is always on and someone’s in the lounge lying on the couch with some reality show airing. But come to think of it, I probably watch as much television… it’s just that mine comes from a different country.

On the k-drama front, since I absolutely detest the current season I’m watching all the good ones I haven’t seen yet, and I’ve seen a lot of them. I started on Delightful girl Choon-hyang, which is well, delightful indeed. I should really stop watching these romantic comedies before they spoil me for real life irreparably.

In episode 16 in the first season of Honey and Clover (you can watch it here but its with mandarin subtitles), Yamada’s gang of childhood friends decide to propose to her simultaneously, which she runs away from without giving an answer. When Hanamoto-sensei asks why she is avoiding her friends. She cries, saying “do I have to tell them what hurt me to hear?” – that she will never see them as more than close friends no matter how hard they try or how long they wait – realizing that refusing to lower her expectations and accept her suitors, while still holding on for Mayama who sees her the same way, would be hypocritical. She finally realizes how Mayama feels, and cannot reasonable blame him for not changing his mind however dedicated she is to it. Hanamoto-sensei tells her that she should just be honest about how she feels, and let the guys decide between making an effort to change her mind (however futile it may be) or giving up – as that is the same choice she has with chasing Mayama. Later on, Hanamoto-sensei cryptically notes that there is a third option, which he doesn’t state, as if one believes that there are only those two options to chose from (fighting on or giving up), one can ‘open pathways’. That option, as Garten at Memento notes, is to long from afar, contenting oneself with friendship while always holding on for the possibility that it might become something more. By never letting go of a futile love, while never acting on it, we can never move on with our lives. That appears to be Hanamoto-sensei’s own choice with regard to Rika and later, Hagu.

So in the few romantic confessions that I’ve been so fortunate to receive, I can’t help but feel like Yamada, not wanting to tell them what hurt me to hear myself, yet unable to do differently. I feel like a hypocrite with my reply: I’m sorry, you’re a nice girl but you’re just not my type, not attractive enough to even begin to consider all your merits and virtues, and that is not likely to ever change no matter how hard you try or how long you wait, barring some dramatic change. I wish it were otherwise but “the truth about cats & dogs” is merely a pleasant fiction. How can I justifiably rail against superficiality when I can’t transcend it myself? How can I reasonably hold on for someone whose heart may never change when I refuse to allow mine to? The only way I can rationalize this is to claim that my attraction threshold is actually pretty low and I weight other merits and virtues far more, but that must be small consolation to those who don’t meet that low threshold in the first place.

She hasn’t said no but she shouldn’t have to. I should be mature enough to know when someone just isn’t interested, and to listen for the signals. I shouldn’t press the issue for a definite answer simply because I refuse to accept what should be obvious. And things like “I’m not looking for anyone right now” and “I’m not interested in guys” are obvious, whether in general or just me (and it’s just me), and the disparity in initiation should also be an indicator. I shouldn’t read too much into how nice she is to me, or the dates we’ve been on… and I should be content with what we are – friends. Instead I’ve let my expectations rise higher than they should, and get in the way of my work – I am writing this instead of working on my papers.

As Hanamoto-sensei notes, I have to move on with my life, and choose to give it up or fight on. And if I refuse to give up, it means that I must put even greater effort into winning her heart – and become that ideal person that I would want to be with myself. It means taking a step back and putting her aside for now to concentrate on what must be done.

So my answer to you isn’t really no. It’s more like not yet – and when that is will depend on how much you care to make it happen. Though I don’t believe you care enough to, I challenge you to prove me wrong.

My all-time favorite k-drama is now animated. What was truly wonderful about MiSa was the tragic irony of the protagonist’s misguided but all-consuming desire for vengeance, and not necessarily the purity of the girl’s love for him (that’s like every other drama) – so don’t be fooled by the trailer, it’s actually pretty dark. Also, it looks almost like a scene-by-scene remake.

I feel like having a MiSa marathon session.

It’s just the trailer but I’m already a little disappointed. Hagu-chan is supposed to be so much cuter, they should’ve got her seiyuu to act. And the scene about seeing for the first time the precise moment that someone falls in love seems a little less poignant than I thought it should be. It’s my favorite part so they had better get it right. I’m also not sure how well it would work as a film when there is so much less time to develop the characters – the slow-paced anime series had absolutely no plot and each episode was just a slice of their lives.

I ran into more people I knew than I had expected: the notorious Char, Choy who was G but not L, Alanna who was a fairy godmother, and dear PL who introduced me to the cosplay subculture so many years ago but only meet up with once a year or less. I also ran into Amanda and Raphael from the JP exchange last year, who kindly gave me a lift out.

Unfortunately I only took a few photos (mostly with friends), but you can have a look at Char’s, Tsubaki’s, Tjhan’s, Tedfox’s, syc77′s, and DarkMirage’s galleries for an idea of what it was like. The indoor lighting was terrible, and the rain prevented most people from having proper outdoor shots in the field.

As expected, most of the cosplayers completely destroyed people’s fantasies (notably one cellulite-surplus mai shiranui wannabe, and some dude crossdressing as KOS-MOS) but there were a few that were more pleasing to the eye, such as the Supergirl and an entire dark legion of GLs. I now present…

Cosfest V Best of Show (photos courtesy of Char and Tsubaki)

Saya from Blood+
It’s like she stepped right out of cel-shaded 2D into our world to slay the vampire hordes. And she’s pretty. Tjhan concurs.

The Twintailed GL
IMO absolutely the cutest girl at cosfest (the G is for genuine), pity about the lighting. I regret not being able to work up the courage to approach her for a photo, not because of the expected outcome (i.e. failure or pointless success) but because it’s what I would have wanted myself to be able to do regardless of the expected outcome. The Game is right: Mystery’s 3-second rule is important because it prevents you from rationalizing your excuses.

Alanna the fairy godmother(?)
Bonus points for taking a photo with me and playing an obscure character I don’t recognize. Unfortunately she did not grant my wish a la eternal Sakura tree and I got the bad/true ending (ref. above para).

Reminds me of Bobbin’s style, just a little bit.

This guy has some serious issues. It’s one thing to signal your appreciation, it’s an entirely different thing to assume the persona.

Other notables include no-idea-who-this-is-supposed-to-be (but she’s cute anyway), a pair of GL meidos, an X-2 Rikku, a Yuffie, and the NekoArc. So now that I have your attention…

AnimEconomics and the market for cosplay

It seems like the 80-20 percent rule of business applies equally to cosplay conventions: 80% of the eye candy comes from 20% of the participants. In a large statistical sample, one can expect 50% of people to be above average by definition. However, cosplayers are a very niche subculture and the self-selection is biased towards a more skewed distribution – cosplay is escapism manifest and tends to reflect low self-esteem or attention-seeking.

There’s something surreal about the interactions between parties at a cosplay convention. How do you explain the phenomenon of people investing time and effort into producing elaborate costumes, many of which are single-use, and then exhibiting them in public to complete strangers (the number of which is potentially unlimited given the internet and 2ch/4chan etc)? I can understand if it was a personal hobby within a circle of friends, but I don’t understand why they would intend to take part in a public setting. What motivates these people to do what they do? Is this a literal form of irrational exuberance?

My hypothesis: Cosplayers are rational actors (pun intended). The market for cosplay trades in the currency of social affirmation. Cosplayers demand attention, otaku willingly supply it. Otaku demand photos with cute poses (for whatever purposes), cosplayers gladly oblige. There is a good deal of overlap between the two parties, with cosplayers also otakus and vice-versa, and they feed off each other in a mutually beneficial exchange. They affirm and validate each other by signaling common interests and contextualizing levels of interest. Casual fans like me (okay, maybe not) can pretend to be ‘normal’ relative to the hardcore otaku, and conversely, the latter gains status and prestige effects.

For example, there was a girl playing nekomimi-mode Arcueid, which only TYPE-MOON enthusiasts would recognize and appreciate, even if the costume was less than perfect. Whereas those cosplaying more mainstream material, such as the numerous Naruto, Bleach, Gundam Seed, and Final Fantasy characters, must differentiate through the authenticity or detail of their costumes in order to gain attention despite catering to a larger potential audience. Scarcity, competition and the price mechanism operate here like they do in any other market.

However, I am not optimistic that as the cosplay community grows in SG, the average quality will rise. Market competition is normally a force for efficiency and quality. Right now the market for cosplay in SG is limited but there are very few barriers to entry, so lack of competition should not be an issue. The problem is that competition does not necessarily discipline poor quality cosplayers, because attention here is not zero-sum to the participants. Quality here is also very subjective and there are many niches. The feedback mechanism may not operate as effectively.

Cosplay is a fascinating subject for study and I welcome comments on its economics and psychology.

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