Author Topic: EP266: Kachikachi Yama  (Read 27118 times)

eytanz

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Reply #25 on: November 17, 2010, 06:47:19 PM
Like quite a few of the posters before me, I wasn't sold on the story's premises of honor and duty; not because of an inherent prejudice of mine, but because the story itself sent rather mixed messages.

Partially this felt intentional. I think the narrator was supposed to be unreliable - believing in a fantasy of honor when she's really nothing more than a slave, with a bomb in her head ensuring her obedience. The problem is, as was also pointed out before, if she really believed in the honor system she should have taken her own life (just like her father did) before debasing herself. And the ending seems to indicate that the only thing that kept her obeying her own rules was that she was forced to.

So, is this a story trying to create a deliberate irony, about a slave who entertains an illusion of honor until it no longer suits her? If so, it did so in a confused way, introducing the huge red herring of her gender into the fray. I guess the fact that she was a woman gave her a crutch - when she says early on "he treats me as a woman first, samurai second" (or something to this effect), she is denying the reality that her would treat any samurai with equal disdain. Perhaps. But the story doesn't really give us the information we need.

Similarly, the action bit at the end felt like a distraction. Cool fighting moves, an underestimated single heroine who manages to fight a bunch of Yakuza (but spare the life of the one who's a schoolkid)? That belongs in the land of pulpy action movies (in fact, it felt like an abridged version of the last part of Kill Bill volume 1). Now, Kill Bill itself is a brilliant film that uses the conventions of pulp action to actually say something profound about violence. Is this story aiming at the same? That makes no sense, as most of the first half is devoted almost exclusively to her complaints at her treatment, and the action scene comes late and, as I said, feels out of place.

So, at the end, this story was simply deeply unsatisfying to me. I'm not sure what it was trying to do, but unless it was trying to make me confused and unhappy about it, I don't think it succeeded.



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Reply #26 on: November 17, 2010, 07:28:36 PM
This was a satisfying story, made more enjoyable by Lauren Harris's excellent reading.  I loved her vocal characterizations.  The highlight of Kachikachi Yama was the description of the virtual hacker battlefield, filled with Oni demons and paper, scissor, rock tactics.  If this short story were to be reinterpreted into a novel, I'd like the narrative to spend more time with the hackers.         



Devoted135

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Reply #27 on: November 17, 2010, 07:35:32 PM
Have you listened to Escape Pod 192:  "Sumo21"?  You might get a kick out of that one, infinite parallel Japan's sumos dueling in a shared virtual world.

I actually haven't listened to that one, it looks like I started listening just a few episodes later. Thanks for the recommendation, I'll definitely check it out! :)



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Reply #28 on: November 17, 2010, 08:07:06 PM
Hey guys! I've been listening to Escape Pod for about a year now, and the inclusion of the feedback got me to start haunting the boards a couple months ago, but I've never posted before. I must say, I've always been enlightened, challenged, and amused by the discussions that go on here!

... and this is why having feedback in the episodes is a good idea.

"People commonly use the word 'procrastination' to describe what they do on the Internet. It seems to me too mild to describe what's happening as merely not-doing-work. We don't call it procrastination when someone gets drunk instead of working." - Paul Graham


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Reply #29 on: November 18, 2010, 02:45:43 PM
Hey guys! I've been listening to Escape Pod for about a year now, and the inclusion of the feedback got me to start haunting the boards a couple months ago, but I've never posted before. I must say, I've always been enlightened, challenged, and amused by the discussions that go on here!

... and this is why having feedback in the episodes is a good idea.

Agreed!  :)



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Reply #30 on: November 18, 2010, 02:46:25 PM
Have you listened to Escape Pod 192:  "Sumo21"?  You might get a kick out of that one, infinite parallel Japan's sumos dueling in a shared virtual world.

I actually haven't listened to that one, it looks like I started listening just a few episodes later. Thanks for the recommendation, I'll definitely check it out! :)

No problem!  And when you get a chance to listen to that one, don't be shy about posting in that comment thread too.  :)



gateaux

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Reply #31 on: November 18, 2010, 05:59:33 PM

One thing that made me giggle. When Tanuki was trying to get into the Zaibatsu and failing, all I could think was "Magikarp used Splash! But Nothing Happened!" and giggled a little. Was I the only one who made that connection?

Yes! I honestly thought it was a Magikarp at first!

As a former student of Japanese, I was definitely sucked into this story and I really appreciated the narrator's correct pronunciation of the Japanese words. I really liked the idea of a female Samurai in this steampunk setting... I wish the story had gone into just a little more detail about the body mods and the virtual world, but overall I liked the weave and pacing of the story.



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Reply #32 on: November 19, 2010, 02:38:42 PM

One thing that made me giggle. When Tanuki was trying to get into the Zaibatsu and failing, all I could think was "Magikarp used Splash! But Nothing Happened!" and giggled a little. Was I the only one who made that connection?

Yes! I honestly thought it was a Magikarp at first!

As a former student of Japanese, I was definitely sucked into this story and I really appreciated the narrator's correct pronunciation of the Japanese words. I really liked the idea of a female Samurai in this steampunk setting... I wish the story had gone into just a little more detail about the body mods and the virtual world, but overall I liked the weave and pacing of the story.

Ha, I looked up Magikarp and realized I'd seen it before in Super Smash Bros.  You can throw pokeballs to summon random pokemon, and most of them are badass in some way or another, except for magikarp which flops around ineffectually for a while and then disappears.   :D



deflective

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Reply #33 on: November 19, 2010, 06:50:13 PM
I really appreciated the narrator's correct pronunciation of the Japanese words.

wait, tanuki is pronounced ta-NOOK-ee not ta-NA-kee.  right?
that was bugging me through the whole story.



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Reply #34 on: November 19, 2010, 09:14:45 PM
I really appreciated the narrator's correct pronunciation of the Japanese words.

wait, tanuki is pronounced ta-NOOK-ee not ta-NA-kee.  right?
that was bugging me through the whole story.

As I understand it, the first syllable is the stressed one. TA-nu-ki.

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Reply #35 on: November 19, 2010, 09:30:10 PM



neltek

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Reply #36 on: November 21, 2010, 08:29:06 AM
This was the first episode I listened to since I discovered Escape Pod

I am not going to get into much detail - suffice to say I found it a good listen.
I will say the reader was very good and made it interesting - I have found other readers of other episodes since, more difficult to follow and have at time had to rewind a few times to get in to the story.

I am now starting at EP250 onwards and then when caught up will start to hit the back catalogue

Thanks for a great resource




eytanz

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Reply #37 on: November 21, 2010, 09:21:09 PM
This was the first episode I listened to since I discovered Escape Pod

I am not going to get into much detail - suffice to say I found it a good listen.
I will say the reader was very good and made it interesting - I have found other readers of other episodes since, more difficult to follow and have at time had to rewind a few times to get in to the story.

I am now starting at EP250 onwards and then when caught up will start to hit the back catalogue

Thanks for a great resource



Hi neltek! Welcome to the podcast and the forums. I'm glad you're enjoying what you're hearing. Looking forward to hearing what you think of other episodes :)



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Reply #38 on: November 26, 2010, 06:40:12 PM
I enjoyed this one because it wasn't really about Tanuki or Yamagata, it was about one woman's journey discovering her own freedom, self worth, and humanity in a really bad ass way.  I would have liked a little more description of this world, mainly cause I was interested in how this world functioned, but it worked for the story. Two thumbs up.

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ElectricPaladin

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Reply #39 on: November 26, 2010, 07:22:49 PM
I didn't really love this one. At first I thought it was because I'm not a big Japanophile - I like anime and Exalted as much as the next guy, but it's not my favorite set of cultural and aesthetic themes - but then I remembered that I really loved Sumo 21, so that's clearly not it. I think what it was, as some people have already pointed out, that the characters just weren't very sympathetic. I don't need to like all the characters - I'm a fan of the Chronicles of Thomas Covenant, and nobody likes him (wait, is that series still a forbidden topic? Or was that RPGnet? I don't remember...) - but I do find that I need to like someone in the story.

  • I didn't like Tanuki; he was a jerk and borderline rapist, or at least some kind of sexual predator that we don't have a word for because we don't have the technology to go into an innocent woman's heads and make her screw for our amusement.
  • I didn't like Yamagata, as I generally don't have a lot of respect or affection for rich, arrogant assholes.
  • I didn't like what's-her-bucket the samurai. The fact that it was wounded pride and "honor" that made her finally decide to take her fate into her own hands, not the fifty-odd people she'd murdered for the sake of her egomaniac boss's dignity, made her about as execrable a person as Yamagata.

If Tanuki had been more likable, I could have enjoyed his rise and fall - as it was, I was just happy to see him leave the stage. If the samurai had been more likable, I would have really enjoyed this story. I can't imagine how the story would have worked if Yamagata were likable, so I'll leave that possibility aside.

In short, I think I would have more enjoyed a story about the samurai's father, who (if I recall correctly) died for refusing an unjust, rather than merely undignified, order.

That said, I did enjoy the cyberpunk world that the author presented us with. It was an interesting version of an old world, one that I greatly enjoyed getting to see. The Dokigama (or however I'm supposed to spell that) and its various avatars and representations was fun. I even more enjoyed the images of he various weirdly flesh-modded inhabitants of the real world, from the anime-style flesh artists with huge eyes to the creepy, skinny, long-limbed gothic lolitas. Very weird and evocative.
« Last Edit: November 26, 2010, 07:25:52 PM by ElectricPaladin »

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Reply #40 on: November 27, 2010, 12:54:44 AM
...doppel-posts vill be bred und schlautered....  ;D

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kibitzer

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Reply #41 on: November 29, 2010, 02:23:30 AM
Have you listened to Escape Pod 192:  "Sumo21"?  You might get a kick out of that one, infinite parallel Japan's sumos dueling in a shared virtual world.

I actually haven't listened to that one, it looks like I started listening just a few episodes later. Thanks for the recommendation, I'll definitely check it out! :)

Do! Sumo 21 really stands out in my memory as an awesome story. Wonderful stuff.


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Reply #42 on: December 02, 2010, 12:08:00 AM
I enjoyed this one, like I enjoy a comfy old recliner.  Yeah, there are cracks in the leather, a few busted springs, there's that one stain that just won't come out, but gosh darn, is it comfy, and good for a satisfying nap. 

There were flaws to this story, but I just don't care.  Cyberpunk is one of my favorite genres, and this fit in the mold quite nicely. 

I may need to go back and listen again, but I think I like this one better than Sumo21.  I'm a HUGE sumo fan, so I was expecting a little more out of that story than I got, if I remember right. 

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Reply #44 on: December 03, 2010, 04:19:05 PM

The cow says "Mooooooooo"


hardware

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Reply #45 on: December 07, 2010, 03:29:03 PM
This has some nostalgic appeal, no doubt, for an old lover of cyberpunk there are many pleasant images flashing over my retina implants. I agree that it was also very well read. But just as it was a pleasure to get that 80s cyberpunk kick the japanese setting felt a bit like a rehash of a certain set of cultural prejudices towards Japan (honor, samurai, geishas etc.) picked up from the same era, and the plot run through just as expected except perhaps that 'happy end'. As a summary, it worked, but won't linger in my hard drive very long.



yicheng

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Reply #46 on: December 22, 2010, 05:25:01 PM
I found this story really enjoyable.  I've always liked the old-school Gibsonian cyberpunk, and this was a very pleasant revisit to the genre.  I didn't really have a problem with any of the characters, and to be honest I respected that the protagonist was a hardcore practitioner of bushido rather than some toned-down pokemon version of it.  I know a lot of people have chimed in on the immorality of her (and other characters) but to me it seems to be an invalid comparison, as we are judging the feudal bushido code of ethics by our modern moral standards.  To her, a lot of us would probably seem like free-loading parasites that don't stand for any cause, waste our lives away with frivolity, and contribute nothing of value to society.

I do have a tiny complaint about the twist at the end, as it falls into the hackneyed convention of treating hackers and hacking like a deus ex machina.  It's gotten to a point where "hacking" has become synonymous in science fiction with "magic".  Got a brain-implant that's hair-triggered with enough explosive to turn your head into a Jackson Pollock painting?  Solve it with "hacking"!!!  Never mind that any real world military-grade tech of that caliber would most definitely have some hard-wired anti-tampering device to prevent such removal...   because y'know implanting your army of cyber-enhanced ninja assassins with remote kill-switches that can be hacked by anyone that just took a 3 week crash-course makes complete sense.  

Personally, I think it would have made a better ending (more bad-ass bushido-esque) if the protagonist had just cut off Yamagata's head with the full knowledge that her own death would follow microseconds afterwards.  

Oh and on the subject of Japanese Goth Lolitas:
http://www.google.com/images?q=japanese+goth+lolita&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=og&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi&biw=1366&bih=679
« Last Edit: December 22, 2010, 05:26:51 PM by yicheng »



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Reply #47 on: December 29, 2010, 05:20:54 PM
I do have a tiny complaint about the twist at the end, as it falls into the hackneyed convention of treating hackers and hacking like a deus ex machina.  It's gotten to a point where "hacking" has become synonymous in science fiction with "magic".  Got a brain-implant that's hair-triggered with enough explosive to turn your head into a Jackson Pollock painting?  Solve it with "hacking"!!!  Never mind that any real world military-grade tech of that caliber would most definitely have some hard-wired anti-tampering device to prevent such removal...   because y'know implanting your army of cyber-enhanced ninja assassins with remote kill-switches that can be hacked by anyone that just took a 3 week crash-course makes complete sense.  

Personally, I think it would have made a better ending (more bad-ass bushido-esque) if the protagonist had just cut off Yamagata's head with the full knowledge that her own death would follow microseconds afterwards.  

I totally agree with that complaint about hacking as magic.  Used way way too often that way.  And I would've liked the story way better if it had ended as you describe.



yicheng

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Reply #48 on: January 18, 2011, 07:36:31 PM
I'm not sure if anyone's posted it, but I found this on wikipedia that provides some additional insight on the title of the story.

Quote
The trouble-making tanuki
As the story goes, a man caught a troublesome tanuki in his fields, and tied it to a tree to kill and cook it later. When the man left for town, the tanuki cried and begged the man's wife to set him free, promising never to bother the fields again. The wife freed the animal, only to have it turn on her and kill her. The tanuki then planned a foul trick.
Using its shapeshifting abilities, the tanuki disguised itself as the wife and cooked a soup, using the dead woman's flesh. When the man came home, the tanuki served him the soup. After the meal, the tanuki reverted to its original appearance and revealed its treachery before running off and leaving the poor man in shock and grief.
Enter the rabbit
The couple had been good friends with a rabbit that lived nearby. The rabbit approached the man and told him that it would avenge his wife's death. Pretending to befriend the tanuki, the rabbit instead tortured it through various means, from dropping a bee's nest on it to 'treating' the stings with a peppery poultice that burned.
The title of the story comes from the especially painful trick that the rabbit played. While the tanuki was carrying a heavy load of kindling on his back to make a campfire for the night, he was so burdened that he did not immediately notice when the rabbit set fire to the kindling. Soon, the crackling sound reached its ears and it asked the rabbit what the sound was. "It is Kachi-Kachi Yama" the rabbit replied. "We are not far from it, so it is no surprise that you can hear it!". Eventually, the fire reached the tanuki's back, burning it badly, but without killing it.
Boat of mud
The tanuki challenged the rabbit to a life or death contest to prove who was the better creature. They were each to build a boat and race across a lake in them. The rabbit carved its boat out of a fallen tree trunk, but the foolish tanuki made a boat of mud.
The two competitors were evenly matched at first, but the tanuki's mud boat began dissolving in the middle of the lake. As the tanuki was failing in its struggle to stay afloat, the rabbit proclaimed its friendship with the human couple, and that this was the tanuki's punishment for its horrible deeds.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kachi-kachi_Yama



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Reply #49 on: January 20, 2011, 03:28:46 PM
Sheesh... the tanuki in Pom Poko weren't so nasty.

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