More Effective Birth Control

There are times that I worry my children will get involved in dangerous activities. Then I remember that, in fact, they will have my DNA. There's already a fair chance they won't have a chance to get involved in anything dangerous.

Or fun, depending on how nerdishly they might lean.

Looking back, getting into anime and video games was probably exactly what I needed as a teenager. I had a lot of energy. It very well could have been used for evil. Well, actually, it was used for evil. But think of the most evil thing you could do while sitting on a futon and playing your eighth straight hour of "Star Fox 64." It's not exactly super-villainy at its best.

Of course, this all assumes I have children. Either way, that's a ways off. I haven't even begun to consider things like names, religion, or how exactly I plan to grow that sweet mustache in the comic.

My current mustache took twenty-six years to grow, and it's patchy - and that's being awfully generous, too.

In other news, thanks to everyone who took the time to vote! By a fairly overwhelming margin, the consensus is that people want to see lots of comics and comic/articles. As this is what I was hoping to do anyway, things really worked out there. Phew.

I apologize to the one person who voted for "invasive advertising" - if they really want it, maybe you can click on an ad and tell it open in a new window so it feels like a pop-up.

Now Even Avatar-ier?

Next week, the film "Avatar" is being released back into theaters as a Special Edition. At this point, there are two lingering questions on everyone's mind:

1) Will "Avatar: Special Edition" be the next "Avatar?"
2) As James Cameron currently has all money in the world, how will people be paying to go see this?

This particular blog hasn't been around long enough, but my views on Special Editions are well-documented throughout my own history. My commentary has ranged anywhere from "this movie didn't need to be remade" to "this was so bad it ruined the original movie" to non-verbal gagging noises.

Not all Special Editions are rampant grabs for money. Probably. That being said, releasing these do-overs is essentially like mowing someone's lawn badly, having them pay you, mowing it again and then asking to be paid a second time.

In summary, this strategy - at least from a money standpoint - is brilliant.

Oh, and I know I don't normally post on weekends, but this was a special occasion. One, it gives me an excuse to use the phrase "nerding for the weekend." Two, and more importantly, the blog has now reached 2,500 views! Thanks to everyone's eyes - who made all this possible.

Monster Hunter: Cha-Cha Masks

Sorry I've been on such a Monster Hunter Tri kick lately, but the game, frankly, is awesome. At times, there's not really much else I want to talk about. In fact, that being said, I withdraw my apology.

Anyway, it occurs to me that the masks available to Cha-Cha - your little in-game companion - aren't all that helpful. They might help you find a monster or cook meat, but these are all things you can do yourself much better. What you end up with is a tiny little masked helper who tends to run directly in your path when you're about to fire a weapon.

Here are a few new mask ideas I had that might have helped in Tri. At some point, I may do a few more of these, since I had fun with it. In the meanwhile, any others you think would have been useful?

Keep an eye out - I've been getting so much traffic lately I feel tempted to do a weekend edition as thanks.

Monster Hunter: Dragonator

I've been doing this fight enough lately that it really got me wondering.

Why in the world would an ancient civilization build a giant set of hydraulically-powered spikes? I assume it could be for the very same purposes I use it - jabbing big angry monsters. But part of me wonders if it originally had less sinister applications. Perhaps it was a primitive back-scratcher. Or maybe it was a large tool for getting at those hard-to-reach spots between teeth. And why, regardless of its use, was it given the name Dragonator - a name more suited to a heavy metal band?

Oh, and the writing is too small to see, but I can only assume the writing on his cooking apron is hilarious.

Not a Moment to Spare

Today, midway through a bag of Doritos and a marathon session of daytime Food Network, I realized I have no free time.

My lack of free time isn’t in the traditional sense, of course. It would be one thing to have too many obligations to do things. It’s quite another to be tied down by my own laziness. Between video games, cooking, movies, television, writing, drawing and other things that make me happy, I have very little time to get out much.

Case in point: “Inception.” I’ve been meaning to see this movie for at least a month now. My friends tell me it’s good. The critics say it’s good. But short of someone giving me a ride to the movies – most likely a friend and not a critic – I probably won’t make it.

I could claim there were other reasons, but it’s not true. I’m all for lying, certainly. My lies should at least sound plausible, though.

Granted, I’ve been spending a lot of time online lately. And this does eat up sizable portions of my day. Still, I’m not sure I could portray myself as a victim for talking on random forums about the ending of “Cowboy Bebop” or how bad security must be at Princess Peach’s castle for her to be kidnapped in every single Mario game ever.

And I seem like even less of a victim when my only problem is not having time to go to theaters.

In the meanwhile, I’ll just have to find a way to cope. And don’t worry – at least I still have Redbox. Until I find a better solution, I’m sure all your hopes and prayers are with me.

A Rare Adventure

I've never claimed to be the heroic type.

Of course, there are a lot of times I have to be. Though I’m somewhat of a wuss, Jess is a girl. And while that doesn’t make her any less brave, it does leave a lot of tasks like bug and animal killing to me, by virtue of the fact that these things give her the heeby-jeebies.

In the absence of an actual man in our household, these duties generally fall to me. I suppose I have the option of calling her parents to deal with small biting monsters, but I don’t think I’d come out of that looking very good. My general nerdiness is probably about as much as I can ask them to accept of the person dating their daughter these past few years. They’ve already been pretty good sports about my shortcomings, I think.

Spiders and other bugs aren’t too much trouble. This weekend, I had to take on a brown snake. While that may not sound like much, I assure you that it was the biggest brown snake ever seen by human eyes. I can only assume it lumbered – not slithered – out of the Amazon rainforest, where it’s been living for centuries consuming jaguars and other fearsome predators.

I don’t want to exaggerate, but it may have pulled out a lightsaber near the end of the fight.

Luckily, I was victorious. Though, the win was later tarnished when I suffered a severe oil burn trying to fry a piece of salmon. In that sense, though I won against a living snake, I lost badly to a deceased fish. This is only slightly better than the idea that I was also technically wounded by very warm bread crumbs.

Then again, I also made the fried fish into a sandwich. I don’t know a lot about winning fights. But I think I’d rather be a loser than a winner who was later eaten.

And, to be fair, that fish was seriously huge – like a prehistoric monster or something.

A Tool of a Thousand Uses...

Believe it or not, a relationship in mixed nerd/normal couple goes on without a lot of friction most days.

I've heard horror stories. I've even seen some particularly scary videos on YouTube displaying what happens when relationship dynamics get too badly out of balance. I won't go into great detail, but objects of value are thrown at walls, floors or boyfriends. The result is substantial emotional and physical damage.

Playing video games and watching anime has never been a huge problem for Jess. Besides the fact that she's into these things to some degree, I realize there are very set limits. Some boundaries can be nudged. Others should be avoided entirely. Sometimes I rely on subtle cues. When this fails, cries of, "If you watch one more episode of 'Cowboy Bebop,' I'm going to burn myself!" are enough to get the point across. Nerd behavior - like anything else - does not work in infinite doses.

Much of our bliss is also related to the fact that I stay out of the absolute worst nerd behaviors. Marathon play sessions of video games can be stomached. Collecting cards and figurines is more problematic.

Hence, this is why she doesn't have to worry about me buying giant replica swords and then trying to find a place for them. Much. For now.

As I have only my own situation to go by, I'm a little curious - how do your own relationships (friendship or romantic) play out when one of you is a nerd and the other isn't? Compromise? Combustion?

Do tell.

Monster Hunter: Great Jaggi

I won't pretend this joke is all that universal. But rest assured, most games probably have one enemy that's about as hard to finish as the Start Menu. For Monster Hunter Tri, that enemy is the Great Jaggi. While not particularly stronger or faster than its smaller counterparts, it does have a big frill on its neck. It has grown notorious among players as a monster that will die from anything the player does. The joke above, I assure you, is barely an exaggeration.

In more exciting news, the blog has zoomed on past its first 1000 views. I want to thank everyone who's made this possible. (Hint: If you're reading this at any point, it's you!) Here's looking forward to more milestones.

Oh, and incidentally, I write bonus material when I hit milestones - keep this in mind.

Hopefully, my enemies are stupid...

This is based on a future true story, so hopefully my girlfriend will be ready when the time comes.

If there's one thing I can't enough of, it's over-sized swords in anime and video games. The only downside is that the replicas are so horribly unwieldy. I suppose I could always implant myself with Jenovah cells like they did in the game to become a super soldier, but I seem to recall there were some side effects...

And not, like, those harmless headache-type things. I mean, like psychosis. And extremely spiky gelled hair.

Oh, and there's a poll up. What do you want to see more of on the blog? Please answer to the right.

The Ultimate Back-to-School Unlist

Every year starting sometime in July (yes – it’s that early), I’m accosted by the latest back-to-school lists. Call me skeptical, but I find it a little odd that each year, this list is slightly bigger. And this skepticism is tougher to brush aside when these lists are generally written by Target and Wal-Mart. As impartial as these retail giants might be, I have trouble trusting them for some reason.

Still, I’ve been to college. (And I was there for a long time.) I can honestly tell you that if the list includes more than pencils and notebooks, chances are, they’re padding it quite a bit.

Browsing these lists, I compiled a few of the worst offenders. I don’t know how they keep making it on these lists when no one actually uses them. But you’d be better off leaving them at home this year. If you find you need them, the majority can still be won in crooked card games with your roommate.

1) Graphing Calculator
Mark this down as the most useful item no one will let you use. It can make graphs, solve equations and basically make that well-trimmed melon atop your shoulders useless. And that’s exactly why professors ban them on tests.

2) Prepaid Phone Cards
It’s important to stay in touch as a family. But with the Internet alone, there are at least a dozen better ways to keep up in your child’s life. Besides, if you didn’t get your kid a cell phone, you probably don’t love them anyway. In which case, why would they need to call you?

3) Answering Machine
Within a few weeks, you’ll be so hard-pressed to avoid some people you’ll be wishing you’d forgotten it back at home anyway.

4) Entire Medicine Cabinet
Health is key in college. Because you’re crammed in close quarters with at least five thousand other sick people, it’s also impossible. Until your immune system gears up by year three, you’ll be getting sick no matter what – there’s barely any point in treating anything but the symptoms. That’s why all you really need is PM cold medicine. It might not get rid of everything, but it will make you sleep. Most, if not all, symptoms are far more manageable when you’re not there to have them.

5) Alarm Clock
I’ve yet to set an alarm clock for any important occasion where it hasn’t failed miserably. After a few failed attempts to conquer the “AM/PM mystery,” low volume and random power outages, I just gave up. From then on, I just used my cell phone alarm. It’s digital, immune to blackouts and can be (and is) programmed to wake me up with Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’.”

6) Deodorant
That was a test – if you agreed, I either hate you or you’re my first college roommate.

7) College Posters
I’m not against all posters on walls. They’re a quick way to show things you like, what you’re about and your individual taste. But is it really your individual taste when you have the same three posters as every other person who went to college in history?

Either way, you’re probably better off packing with your gut. I mean that in the sense of instinct. Though packing nothing but Easy Mac and instant mashed potatoes isn’t the worst idea I’ve ever heard.

What about you – anything you’d be better off leaving with your parents?

Comic 9: That familiar feeling...

I wanted to post this to showcase some of the latest improvements in my art style.

This is just a little love for the various Monster Hunter communities I happen to take part in at the moment. You don't have to like the game to like the comic, but it couldn't hurt. If you don't get the joke, it's kind of a buy-in along the lines of "you must be at least this big of a nerd to laugh at this."

Should the joke still be incomprehensible, please play old Super Nintendo games until your nerdery improves.

Infomercial Pet Peeves

While it has its drawbacks, insomnia is like an all-access pass to the best of the best infomercials on television. This roughly puts it on par with the worst of any other part of television, but it's tough to be picky when so little else is on. Here are a few things that I've seen lately that got me thinking.

1. How often does this come up?
When it comes to cooking, I know my way around grilling, baking, boiling, broiling, chopping, slicing and dicing. Yet, in five years, I’ve never once had to use a knife sharp enough to cut through a car door. Even assuming I might, what are the chances that – in the next five seconds – I would still need a knife sharp enough to cut bread?

2. Was the old way really so bad?
Some, if not most, of the products offered are actually just improvements over current tools. Sometimes they make old products better. Other times, I’m left wondering if the old versions were as bad as they made them out to be. I’m still skeptical of that commercial that claims fans that chop my air and blow it on me are unsettling. If that was enough to ruin my day, I think therapy would be a better way to spend my money than a new, quieter fan.

3. How is that spokesman so peppy at 4am?
I realize it must be exciting to show the world your new revolution in cheese grating technology. But take a breath and calm down. That punctuation at the end of your sentences is called a “period” – and yes, stopping there is traditionally not optional.

4. Who sits in those audiences?
This is one of those great mysteries. What’s the system for choosing these people? Or does someone just stand outside a studio and awkwardly proposition passersby? “Excuse me. How would you like to come inside this windowless building and clap while someone yells at you about sharp objects?”

My theory involves luring in elderly people on hot days with the promise of a chair and air conditioning.

5. How much is this stuff worth?
Value is king in infomercials, but I have no idea how anyone is making any money. They cut prices. They knock off payments. And next thing you know, they’re offering a second set for free. If your stuff is so valuable, why are you pawning it off like stolen property from the back of your van?

6. …And why would anyone need two, anyway?
The majority of products are marketed as “the only one you’ll ever need.” In many cases, having one of these products is more than you’ll ever need. Of course, you could always give one to a friend. But this also suggests people who buy memory foam mattresses for their cat have friends.

7. Why do you think children are this stupid?
Apparently, actual toys in stores weren’t enough. At some point, out-of-touch adults started marketing new craft-type projects to equally out-of-touch great aunts who know nothing about kids. Decorating their picture frames with bendable color twists isn’t nearly as fun as the kids in the commercial make it out to be. After all, those children are being paid.

I assure you – your children would much rather stare quietly at the wall or possibly even do some light stone quarrying.

8. What school did you say you went to?
There are obvious dangers in using inferior products. And while I’m willing to admit your old knives may not cut bread as well as your new ones, that’s where I draw the line. Instead of buying new cutlery, would you consider just not putting all your weight on the loaf and having a seizure?

And maybe all that fruit would fit in your old, small-mouthed juicer if you stopped trying to shove a banana in sideways.

9. Won’t I still need these things?
A good tactic to sell something is showing everything you already own that it can replace. To some extent, I believe it. Other times, I’m skeptical. Those new stackable storage bins look really nice and all, but I’m not sure I should “throw out my bulky, useless closets.”

10. Why is there always more?
At thirty minutes apiece, most infomercials aren’t too long. Still, why do I have to wait all the way until the end to hear how low they’re bringing the price down? If I’m the kind of person who desperately needs a “Shamwow” at 5am, do you really think I need a price cut and a second set for free?

I’m betting the people who consider spill emergencies like this at this hour of the morning probably don’t need the extra incentive to buy anything.

Do you have any favorites/pet peeves?

No Right Answers

In life, it’s said that there are no wrong answers – they desperately need to extend that rule to job applications.

Those of us old enough may remember that looking for jobs once actually involved speaking to people. Be it by phone or in person, you could make a strong first impression even with no experience. A master job applicant could land a job with something as simple as a winning smile, a strong handshake or just sleeping with someone in upper management.

Of course, the same was true of complete suck-ups and people with no moral compass. That’s my point, though. At least there was a system.

Today, face time has been replaced with computerized personality tests meant to weed out bad candidates. If you haven’t been exposed to one yet, it’s essentially having a robot rummage through your brain for personal shortcomings. And it’s exactly as pleasant as it sounds.

I’m all for having less competition. But these tests full of (seemingly) harmless questions are humiliating. Five years ago, the worst a job could do was say, “You’re not right for the job.” The same is still true, though it may add, “And you’re also a bad person.”

Don’t believe me? I recently took a segment on coping with stress. I scored “problem drinker.”

Even without commentary on your flaws, job ranking can be harsh. Not being right for a position is harmless – you were no better or worse than anyone who didn’t get the job. Being “green” (hirable) or “red” (not hirable/felon) means potentially being ranked among history’s greatest monsters.

A rating of “red” means you physically can’t be hired. In that sense, you are officially tied or worse than the following people – the Hamburglar, ranking members of the Taliban and that guy from “Silence of the Lambs” who wore other people’s skin.

In fact, since the tests rank those who complete them and fail or never complete them on even ground, you’re even worse. In terms of workers, your answers put you in the same bracket as infants, sock puppets or even a mother duck leading a row of baby ducks across a keyboard.

And frankly, if this breaks down into a popularity contest, infants and baby ducks are way cuter than you.

This isn’t to say I’ve had no success on these tests. But I do know a handful of arbitrary questions have kept a lot of people from finding work. It has also, on at least one occasion, labeled me to the people at Movie Gallery as “an angry loner with a streak of dangerous risk-taking.”

Considering most of my riskiest behaviors involve taking or not taking Lactaid with dairy, I’m just not convinced the system works…

Slowly Warming Water

For those of you not paying attention, August is the first stretch of seven days in a long time that Facebook hasn’t been involved in some sort of privacy scandal.

It seems like every few minutes, a news story comes out. Too many people have your details. The site was hacked. Playing applications reduces work productivity. Future workplaces skim your profile for pictures of inappropriate behavior. By the time the story drops that Mark Zuckerberg once stole a baby panda’s ice cream just to watch it cry, I really won’t be too surprised.

The bottom line is that I’ve really stopped caring at this point. My more alarmist friends say this is exactly the problem. Facebook – social networking site and, apparently, secret shadow government – has me right where it wants me now.

My friends put it this way. They claim that the easiest way to kill a frog is to put it in a bathtub and slowly heat the water. This concerns me because, a) It suggests people have actively invested effort into how to kill frogs – one of the world’s least threatening creatures. And, b) It suggests my friends have personally tested this.

The idea (beyond the creepy analogy) is that people will get used to anything if they’re exposed to it slowly. Do you use Facebook? Have you used it for more than three years? Well, if the conspiracy theories are to be believed, you’re in the middle of a very warm tub of water.

I actually see why people say this. After all, my friends still talk about what they were doing when they instituted the feeds to show your friends every trivial activity you did on the site. Believe me. If JFK had been shot later that day, it would have been the second story on the evening news.

More recently, the site creator said his users were idiots for trusting him with our personal details – something far more outraging – and I barely heard about it.

But I don’t think people are getting complacent. They probably just don’t care. I mean, does Facebook really know enough about you to be dangerous? Sure, it has your name and school, but that’s public knowledge. Even if criminals got my social security number, my credit is probably lousy. What are they going to do with my personal information – be declined for credit cards?

And consider this. The Internet was never designed to keep secrets. As far as hiding places go, it’s about as bad as engraving your personal details on the surface of the moon. If you wanted your information hidden, why put it on the most visible place imaginable?

Your details – and that picture from college of you kissing that “girl” with the really big hands at a party – are as accessible as you want to make them.

In the meanwhile, I say we just sit back and enjoy the ride. Join a few groups. Add a few people from countries you’ve never heard of. And if you get a minute, try to work on a replacement for that old “frog-boiling” story. We really need a better analogy for that one.

Comic 8: For Just $3 More...

I'm generally a fan of any sort of new and nerdy technology, but I can't really get into 3-D. I want to say it's some sort of deep-rooted philosophical dislike of the decline of modern creativity within the movie industry. But nah. It's just the $3 more for a ticket.

That, and I want some characters to stay on the screen - a lot of actors and actresses shouldn't be any closer to me than they already are...

Comic 7: The Dangers of Realism

It's only a matter of time before the monsters figure it out. Of course, there would be no weapons based off humans. We're all too squishy.

An Ancient Homage to Nerdery

Wow. So this has been doing its rounds for a while now, but I had to put this up. You either get this or you don't - those who don't get it are missing out on a fine piece of history. For those who don't know, "The Oregon Trail" was effectively the cutting edge of Apple's green-tinted computer screen technology back in the day. If this movie was ever made, it would be the best thing ever.

And remember - when in doubt, resting six days will fix anything. Ever.

Big thanks to Half Day Today.

Anime: Why It's Just as Bad as You Think

Let’s face it. While there’s some excellent anime out there, there’s just as much – if not more – that’s practically unwatchable. I would be remiss to state that anime was good without warning you about a number of problems with the genre. These problems can be neatly summed up as “the reasons most people aren’t watching in the first place.”

It’s not enough to know what’s good. You have to know what’s bad, and exactly how bad it can get. Some things are minor annoyances. Some anime means looking into the Ark of the Covenant afterward just to get some eye relief.

Problem 1: Total Incoherence
Some good series use a lot of difficult words. When things don’t translate exactly right, they tend to keep the Japanese word. You might find it off-putting to hear that someone has to go to Tsubaki Mountain to destroy the Ghubitsu while hounded by Kabu Katsumoto. I realize this is annoying. It’s also the least of your problems.

Some anime series watch more like a mild concussion. “Bobobo” was a particularly nasty offender. While the creators were nice enough to translate it into English, it was obvious after watching a man attack another man with his mustache and fight a giant pancake that something was still lost in the translation.

Specifically, I lost three minutes of my life in that translation.

Problem 2: Endless One-Upping
Ever had a friend that had to top every story you told? That’s tough. Ever had a friend who’s done it for twenty or thirty years? Did he have spiked gold hair and yell a lot?

This is a key flaw even among some of the good fighting series. The bad guy is too tough. The good guy trains to get stronger and beats him. A newer, badder guy appears. The good guy trains again. Not long after, we learn an even badderer guy was pulling the strings.

In the end, what should have been a 12-episode show is stretching into the 300’s and we’re no closer to an outcome. We’re running out of places to put all the corpses of enemies. Our hero is so powerful that he can destroy entire planets with just an angry glance. And yet, the next enemy will shrug off his attack like it was warm breeze. Well…better start training.

Problem 3: Over-the-Top Everything
Any number of famous war strategists over the years stressed the element of surprise. Many tactics involve catching your opponent off guard. As far as I know, none of these men were suggesting you yell the name of your attack loudly while the camera is six inches from your face.

I don’t care if you’re using a “Soul Cutter,” “Iron Reaver Soul Stealer” or even a “Spirit Bomb.” This is a really irritating part of some anime. Maybe the reason your fights last twenty episodes is because your enemies keep seeing your attack coming and dodge it.

Problem 4: Filler Arcs
For those who don’t know, a lot of anime is based on manga – essentially “comics.” This is fine. When it becomes a problem, though, is when a series is going too fast and the manga hasn’t gone far enough to provide it with new material. Think of it as a movie running out of script after an hour, so the characters just stand on camera while new lines are written.

Filler episodes are okay, in small doses. Occasionally, some of the filler material is as good as the rest of the show. Oftentimes, though, it’s pointless and stupid. In the worst cases – ahem, “Naruto,” ahem – the filler lasted several hundred episodes.

At a certain point, you actually forget there’s a main plot amid such episodes as “The Pointless Battle that Doesn’t Affect the Series” and “Hey! Let’s Look Over in These Bushes!”

Problem 5: Non-Epic Battles
I can understand two reincarnated gods doing battle for the souls of everyone on the planet. This is a battle of epic proportions. But conflict isn’t always this good. In fact, it’s much more commonly something like, “The world is doomed…unless we play a children’s card game for some reason!”

“Yu-Gi-Oh” involves saving the world by doing exactly that. (If it’s different, tell me how.) It’s not a good sign of things to come. Inevitably, an anime will come along where champions do battle on the ancient arena known as “Connect Four.”

“I summon my Red Checker in attack mode! Wait! I can’t. You got me here, diagonally! Pretty sneaky, sis…”

The Round-up
Knowing the good and the bad in anime can go a long way in making sure you have a good experience with it. A lot of times, you can avoid some pretty awful stuff just by going with your gut. Specifically, if the show tries to remove the contents of your gut forcefully, it’s probably not for you.

Don’t give up, though. Great anime really is out there. Most of it is looking in the right place. But just as important is knowing where not to look – ever.

Does anything else aggravate you about anime?

Note: This is meant to provide the viewpoint of five first-time anime viewers who walked away thinking all anime was terrible based on one show - it is in no way indicative of the genre as a whole, or based on my own leanings.

Anime: Why It's Not as Bad as You Think

When it comes to anime, most people have an opinion. While it has its followers, a good deal of the populace is unanimous in the decision that it’s terrible. By association, the majority of the populace has labeled those who like it as “weird,” “creepy” and, occasionally, will forgo name-calling of any kind in favor of giving them vigorous wedgies. I’ve personally been on both sides of the stretched elastic.

Of course, everyone is entitled to their own opinion. The problem is that many people haven’t given anime its fair chance. While there is some anime that is poorly-written, poorly-translated or just an affront to all that is good, this shouldn’t turn everyone off from the seven or eight quality shows in a sea of otherwise unwatchable crap.

Hey, I said it wasn’t all bad – I never said most of it wasn’t.

Misconception 1: All Anime Characters Have Swords, Cat Ears or Weird Hair
Many of the anime shows with oddly-dressed characters are…well, odd. Those that portray normal people tend to be a little less weird. And to be fair, Inuyasha has dog ears, so get your facts straight.

I’ll admit that swords are very common. But you also have to consider that it usually makes sense within the setting – a lot of anime happens in feudal times. The only reason you don’t see more swords in most shows is that they happen in modern terms. Believe me. If there was an anime version of “Law and Order: SVU,” I’d be the first to cry foul at a sword-wielding Stabler.

Though, how sweet would that version of the show be?

Misconception 2: All Anime is Poorly-Translated
Not so. In reality, only most anime is poorly-translated. And either way, you have to understand that translation is a universal problem. Whether or not it’s animated, dubbing is never going to fit lip movements exactly. (Think of non-Matthew Broderick “Godzilla” movies.) The same is true, for example, of Mexican soap operas – they just happen to be more hilarious.

Misconception 3: All Anime is Essentially Pornography
This is one of the worst misconceptions, as it’s the least true. The fact is that Japan has censoring standards similar to our own – they couldn’t just put naked people on television. Well, technically, someone could, but only once. The next day, they’d be looking for a new job…or a good lawyer.

Here’s a tip: steer clear on any mention of the words “yaoi” or “hentai.” While I won’t go into great detail about what these are, I can safely say that you won’t watch more than ten seconds without attempting to gouge your eyes out. If you do know what these terms mean, I can only hope the day you found out doesn’t revolve around a friend’s “hilarious” prank.

A friend of mine once tricked me into watching yaoi hentai. I’m still traumatized. But out of the two of us, I’m also the most alive, because I killed him.

Misconception 4: All Anime is “Dragon Ball Z” or “Yu-Gi-Oh”
I’d be lying if I said a lot of anime didn’t go this route. I can name at least a dozen series that fall into a very particular subgenre within anime. This genre is typically referred to as “people screaming during extreme close-ups of fights that destroy planets.”

It’s not a catchy name – it’s just very accurate.

There are a number of good shows that involve fighting. There are even a few that are good where long fights take five or more episodes to resolve. But a good rule of thumb is that if it takes a character more than one episode to finish an attack, you should run. Rest assured, if you get interested in a few years, the same fight will probably be going on.

Misconception 5: You Can Judge all Anime by Watching One
Be fair. If the first and only movie you saw was some low-budget “SyFy” original or (shudder) “Alexander,” you’d probably think all American movies were terrible, too. Your best bet is to find someone who knows anime to ease you into it with something non-threatening. Just hope they aren’t very mean or very “clever,” like the friend I mentioned earlier.

Believe it or not, anime-watchers walk among you – they’re probably even your friends. Just make sure you go to the right person. My advice? Steer clear of people who dress like anime characters or consider one of the characters their “girlfriend.”

The other problem is that many people are judging even good shows by a random episode. If you walk into “Bleach” Episode #92 some random Saturday night on “Adult Swim,” the Vegas odds say you’ll probably be confused. The same could be said of any show. In fact, if you missed the right ten seconds of “The X-Files,” I’m sure you’d never know what was going on again.

The Round-up
Just remember that anime doesn’t have to be your enemy. And while the majority is, unfortunately, about as refreshing as a splash of gravel to the face, it’s definitely not all bad. With the right experiences, such as “Cowboy Bebop,” you could really learn to love it.

Or, in the case of anime-loving boyfriends, you’re at least going to have to tolerate it.

Note: This is meant to be taken as an avid anime watcher's take on the genre - your specific mileage may vary based on the individual show you saw.