To Savor and Suffer

I've suddenly been spending more time with other people than usual, and I find myself once again in marathon mode. Between the first half of the anime series My-HiME, which Alex discussed yesterday, and the first season of the entertainingly off-kilter "Johnny Quest for adults" cartoon series Venture Bros., I've been doing an awful lot of blazing through television shows recently.

Almost all of my exposure to anime has been in marathon settings--at college, I might get together once or twice a week to watch anime with friends, so we couldn't afford to watch a single episode at a time. Yet, I'm perfectly content to watch a single episode of The Simpsons, or Family Guy, or Space Ghost: Coast to Coast, so animation doesn't require marathoning in my book.

I was watching through four or five episodes at a clip of Stargate: Atlantis with a friend for a while (and we'll need to resume that once we're done with My-HiME, buddy), but I don't feel compelled to marathon all live-action or sci-fi. This'll become relevant in a moment.

For quite a while now, I've been gradually working my way through the last season of Star Trek: The Next Generation, the third season of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and Star Trek: The Animated Series, often in back-to-back triple features--a regular Neapolitan evening that samples each of the three series. I'm eager to finish TAS so that I can write a post about it, but I've been savoring the final episodes of TNG, my favorite show on television. DS9, however, has been an entertainment mystery.

I like the show. Percentage-wise, I've seen less of DS9 than any other Star Trek series, so I'm interested to see where things go from here. All signs indicate that I should want to watch more, yet I'm usually a smidge reluctant to sit down and watch an episode. Why? After all this animated marathoning, I've determined that it's because I'm sitting down to watch an episode. Just one. I need more.

In thinking about the TV and films I like to marathon--and those I prefer to watch in bite-sized installments--I've come to the conclusion that I'm impatient when it comes to story development. I have trouble sticking with most novels and television shows because it takes so long to tell a single story or complete one story arc. If I marathon a plot-heavy series, I get to the payoff in hours instead of days or weeks. I don't demand instant gratification, but I need more than just one big payoff at the end to not get terribly antsy along the way.

When I say "payoffs," I'm referring to the satisfaction of vicarious accomplishment, that the characters have achieved something worth celebrating. Stargate: SG-1 is a great example of how a show can have a series of smaller payoffs while simultaneously building toward one big one. Nearly every episode is a self-contained adventure with a conclusion that brings some amount of satisfaction for a job well done, a crisis averted, or whatever it is the heroes are going after.

Yet, there's more to it--there are greater story arcs that need to be resolved, and episodes here and there progress the plot toward a larger satisfaction of bringing a particular chapter or situation to a close. Even then, there's the One Big Plotline that's ever-present in the background, and all the self-contained victories and failures build toward the conclusion you've waited almost ten seasons to see.

Little payoffs in every episode. Larger payoffs every several episodes. A huge payoff at the end. (Or so you hope, anyhow.) With Stargate, I can be just as content to watch one episode or a dozen. Not so with Deep Space Nine, apparently.

The basic framework of the One Big Plotline is already in place, and a number of midsized plotlines have already begun to develop, or at least have been hinted at. There's the anticipation at the start of each new episode that the main plot will kick in, but it always ends up that there's a smaller plotline being pursued or important character development that's setting up for something to come. Two and a half seasons of prelude so far, and the tension is getting to me.

Yes, there are lesser payoffs here and there, but DS9 is not about larger-than-life heroes and death-defying intergalactic escapades. It's about real (fictional) people living in a precariously located powder keg of a space station. There are some days when you just come home and go to bed. There are some days when seemingly nothing good came out of anything you did. There are some days where even the victories feel like losses. If you want a payoff on a show like DS9, one episode isn't going to cut it. You need to see where the story takes you.

Perhaps it's time to start marathoning Deep Space Nine, at least until that main plot kicks in and takes off. Funny that Venture Bros. is teaching me how to better enjoy Star Trek...

Anime Saturday...and Some Other Things, Too

Despite the fact that it's a bitter cold Monday morning and the pile of work for the week is a bit depressing, I'm in a pretty good mood. And for more than one reason.

Firstly, the excellent 11 O'Clock Comics podcast has posted their annual "11 O’Closcars" episode, wherein they run down the best comics and comics-related goodness of the previous calendar year.

Included in the best of 2010 version of the show are old stand-by categories like Favorite Hero, Favorite Writer, and Most Important News. And a new category--Favorite Webcomic--is a nice (and necessary) addition to an otherwise comprehensive list of awards.

This is one of my favorite shows of the the year, mostly because there are always a couple of books that I've never heard of. I'm only about an hour and a half in at this point (the show is a marathon 3-plus hour event), and already my list of new things to check out includes three webcomics I'd never heard of, and a book on the history of horror comics.

Anyway, this is one of the best comics podcasts out there (and there are a ton of them out there, by the way), and the four co-hosts are smart and articulate, and their varying tastes in comics encompasses pretty much the entire medium.

If you've never tuned in, give it a listen (it's free on iTunes or at their site). I think a number of our readers will be interested in the show.

Right.

So, the other reason for my good mood has to do with a successful introduction to Anime this past weekend. As I mentioned on Saturday, Nathaniel and I were invited to a friend's screening of a series called My-HiME.
While I won't go into a full-on review here (we're just about halfway through the series at this point and I'd rather hold off until we finish the show), I did want to quickly bring up the fact that I didn't run away screaming.

Which is a Big Deal.

As anyone who knows me will tell you, it's just not one of my favorite things to sit in front of a television for an extended period of time. In fact, this past Thursday--the only day of the week that I actually watch TV, mind you--my patience was tested when NBC spread out their Thursday night lineup of comedies to three hours of viewing time.

Too long to sit there, waiting for Michael Scott to be funny.

Still, on Saturday afternoon, I sat through a nice little marathon of My-HiME episodes, and I enjoyed myself. The show was fun and dealt with themes I like. Basically, there's this school for gifted youngsters who have special powers (What can I say? My friends know me), and there's some mysterious and looming threat from without (or, possibly, from within). Plus, there are giant robots who punch monsters.

All very cool stuff.

There were certainly some cringe-worthy parts of the show, I must admit, but as I was told, they're to be expected when watching Anime.

So, yeah. Mission accomplished. New fandom Exfanded.

Now all we have to do is figure out a day to watch the rest of the series, and then I will officially be able to say that I watched an entire Anime series.

Which is something I can honestly tell you would not have happened if not for this blog.

Map Quest

For as avid a video game player as I am, there was once a time where I was almost as much of an avid game creator. I have no degree in game design, and the most sophisticated programming I ever did was a little bit of Choose Your Own Adventure-style text adventuring with BASIC way back in elementary school. However, you give me a map editor for a game I like, and you won't see me for the rest of the afternoon.

I've mentioned before that I've created a few multiplayer levels for Star Wars: Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast. The level editing software about as robust and complex as anything I've ever used, and I learned through online training resources and my own fiddling around how to assemble countless 3-D blocks into a functional level with moving platforms and breakable glass.

I also have a homebrew adaptation of Super Mario World that's been in the works since late high school. What started out as a little bit of entertaining tinkering to while away the hours of my senior year free periods (think study hall without an assigned room) evolved into a major side project that held the interest of my college's video game club for four years running. It's been on indefinite hiatus since graduation, but I turn my attention back to it every so often when an interested party volunteers to beta test and give me feedback.

After all this time, though, some of my most deviously clever ideas from several years ago have been used by other level designers, so my work becomes all the more derivative the longer it sits. That's why my favorite editing projects are ones I do for myself, or for my friends and family.

Perhaps my favorite map editing has been for Heroes of Might and Magic III, which has been a hotseat staple for my sister and I since the day I got it. The interface is simple, but there are enough options to thoroughly customize whatever crazy landscapes I have in mind. I find myself once again customizing a map, this time for my significant other, who hasn't had many opportunities to play and could do with a lovingly crafted introductory map that exposes her to all the enemies, items, and locations at a better learning curve than what the preloaded maps have to offer.

It's been quite some time since I've done anything other than play games, write about games, or make videos of games, so it's refreshing to be creating something again. Especially something where I can hide secret love notes and mobs of angry peasants numbering in the thousands.

Something New

Today is a significant day in the history of Exfanding. No, it's not an anniversary of any kind, or even one of those pesky and self-gratifying "Hey! Look at how many hits we have now!" types of posts.

Instead, today will be the day that I sit down to watch Anime. Or, more specifically, an Anime.

I forget the name of the movie, but I know it starts at 2:00 at a friend's house. Nathaniel even offered to drive me there, possibly because he wants to ensure that I won't "get lost" on the way.

I've never watched an Anime--at least, not from start to finish. I've seen clips and things, playing at conventions, and I know the names of a few of the more famous ones.

But I've never taken the time to sit down and watch a full movie.

Hopefully, by the time you read this, that will have changed. And, even...um...more hopefully, I'll like the flick and I'll want to watch more. We'll just have to wait and see, though.

So, wish me luck, Exfanders, and expect a post (about Anime!) from me (!) in the near future (by "near," I really mean probably in a week or so).