3DS Review

As mentioned in previous entries, nothing in a foreign country is as easy as in your native country.  After doing my research I had decided to buy a Nintendo 3DS.  I knew that they were going to be sold on the island.  I knew what day they would come out.  I didn’t know if I was actually going to be able to buy one without serious inconvenience or embarrassment.

I woke up Saturday morning ready to head out and promptly dragged my coworker along for moral support.  As we walked to the store all I could think of was everything that could go wrong.  The store would be sold out.  Every student would be in there and my shameful gaming habit would be revealed thus dooming my last six months in Japan to be a constant litany of “you have video games in America too??”  The sign had said “3DS arriving on February 26^th,” but maybe I had misread what actually said that three DS consoles were coming.

Long story short, they had the consoles.  I bought one, my wallet cried.  They had three games available, the variations of Nintendogs+cats, a magician game, and an historical fighting game called Sengoku Musou Chronicle.  I didn’t buy the magician game, but Nintendogs and Chronicle are well worth it.  Nintendogs is adorable, and the graphics are head and shoulders above the original Nintendogs incarnation.  It’s much more realistic, and the mini-games have been re-mastered to be more interactive and less repetitive.  It also appears that the earlier “point system” where you unlock new breeds and items through winning contests and going on walks has been abolished.  Instead, carrying your 3DS around in sleep mode seems to be the way to get special items, and all the breeds appear to be available.  I recommend it.

Word of warning to those playing Chronicle in Japanese; the Japanese is old-school Japanese as it’s set in the 1500s.  Don’t lose heart, you can still manage the game if you don’t have a lot of Japanese because they helpfully have pictographic maps and they put “Target” over the head of whatever guy you have to kill.  The graphics are breathtaking and the music is beautiful.  The 3D is pretty useful, but I’ve found that I have trouble in fight scenes as I inadvertently change visual angles as I button mash.  That warps the 3D and I end up trying to slice my own guys half of the time.

For Chronicle, the joystick is more of a plus than the 3.  For one thing, there’s no more mashing the D-pad until your thumb cramps.  I also find it easier to fight because a joystick is much more intuitive to move than the D-pad which means pretty much all my attention can focus on button mashing fight combos.  It really gives the illusion of the game being an extension of your body, which is a new sensation for me.  When I play Chronicle I feel the same kind of immersion as when I saw Tron: Legacy thanks to Daft Punk’s soundtrack and the trippy worldscape.

Still, the most mind-bending part of the 3DS is the AR or Augmented Reality card system.  Using the twin cameras on the front of the machine 3D images are projected into the real world using the real world.  You can play an archery game that warps and deforms your kotatsu table to make the targets.  Watch as the table ripples like real water as you go fishing.  Play 3D pool as the table deforms and melts to make the shot more difficult.  I was shocked when I entered the obedience contest in Nintendogs and found my dachshund projected into thin air right on top of my laptop case, panting and scratching a flea!  It really is a huge step forward towards virtual reality.

All in all, I’m glad the 3DS has come out when I’m already an adult.  I can see why there are concerns about lines being blurred between reality and video games are revving up again as a system that actually interacts with reality hits the stage.  I’m glad that the sleep-mode points system exists because it encourages kids to close the system and go for a walk, or close the system and shake it up and down to simulate walking, I guess.  I’m definitely going to be keeping an eye on it, because I can see it going both ways.  I can see this bringing video games further away from the stereotype of someone living in a basement and avoiding human contact or the sun.  Unfortunately, I can also see it as a continuing trend in electronic entertainment over using one’s own imagination.  Thoughts?

Where were they going without ever knowing the way

Hello, loyal readers.

Apologies for the radio silence, a lot has been going on lately.  Interestingly enough, as my time on the JET Programme comes to a close my insight into the students gets deeper and deeper.  I had no idea the number of broken homes here, and the effect on the students is just devastating.

My advice to ALTs in Japan; always assume that the child acting out has something going on at home.  The teachers may not necessarily tell you, but I've found it's often the case.  Only two weeks ago I was told that the little boy who pulled his pants down to show me his willy and was constantly punching me doesn't have a mom.  The next time I went to his school he started acting out as per usual, and I gave him just a little bit more attention whereas before I was more stern with him about how punching is bad.  He immediately calmed down, behaved, and did his group work without complaint.  I walked around the classroom checking groups, and whenever I checked his group he would just lean against me, as if I were a tree.  No punching, no kicking, no climbing on me and trying to ride me around like a horse; he just needed some human closeness, what the Japanese call "skinship." As his vice-principal said "he needs love."  It breaks my heart.

Another student, a junior high school girl, was temporarily abandoned by her only parent, her father, and left to live on her own.  She stopped coming to school and was confirmed to be living by herself with no support at all.  After reading about the state of child abuse in Japan I wasn't surprised at the lack of response by staff members, but I was saddened by it.  I got her contact information from one of the few teachers actively worried about the girl, and have been in contact with her ever since.  She's been chronically bullied her whole life, and from what she's said the lack of action by her teachers (which she was fully aware of) has damaged her trust in the one group of people she used to believe in.  She's been going to school regularly again and as far as I know her father has returned.  I still don't know why he left in the first place.  She graduates in two weeks, and I am praying that high school brings her more friends and happiness.

As an ALT my options are limited.  As a foreigner I am an outsider.  As an assistant language teacher I don't have the same clearance and authority as my Japanese colleagues.  I am well aware that my reaching out to these kids in distress can also be damaging to them, by encouraging potentially harmful dependencies or leading them to be further ostracized from the group.  Unfortunately, these two children are just examples of an alarming trend that seems to take Darwinism to a Lord of the Flies conclusion, which leads to the real power that ALTs have.

We can step outside of the cultural boundaries.  We can be the tree that the kids lean against for a few minutes in class.  We can be friendly and receptive to the lonely students who are just looking to make friends but don't quite fit in.  We can be kinder to the rough students because we rotate schools and have days or weeks to cool down before we see them again.  Possibly the most important thing we can do is give them a glimpse of a wider world where they might fit in, too.  So let's try to help these kids.  Let's be there for them so that they can grow up to be healthy, happy adults.