Monday, May 27, 2019

Entertainment: Comparing Mob Psycho 100's Psychic Abilities with Real Life Blessings - An Essay

"If everyone is not special, Maybe you can be what you want to be" - Mob Choir
I used to watch a lot of anime, but I grew out of it in my teenage years. I just don't find it appealing anymore and admittedly, a lot of it's made for a younger audience. Most of the mainstream stuff are Shonen or Moe and I really don't like those genres. I'm not going to get into why I dislike them. Anime that I really enjoy nowadays are stuff like Cowboy Bebop and Samurai Champloo, which makes sense because I fall under the Young Male target demographic now.

More importantly for this essay is I also really like Deconstructions. For those of you who don't know, you can check out its long, elaborate definition in the link I inserted. But to put it shortly and simply, a deconstruction is a type of storytelling that picks apart the commonalities of its peers and what makes it work i.e. it's when you "break apart" and analyze a story. Deconstruction isn't a genre of anime -- you can find deconstructions in any medium. They tend to look like parodies but what differentiates deconstructions from parodies is that they're done with the intent of making the viewer think of other similar works, instead of making the viewer laugh through satire which is what parodies normally do. There are two deconstruction animes I currently love: Mob Psycho 100 and Asobi Asobase. I already wrote about Asobi Asobase so we'll just go straight ahead with Mob Psycho 100.

I'd love to get some of the more official art on this blog
but I have to use the license-free images thanks to copyright issues.

Mob Psycho 100 is a Deconstruction anime that's hilarious and epic as much as it's deep. Lady Geek Girl does a great job explaining how Mob Psycho 100 deconstructs the Shonen genre here. If you're in the mood to philosophically contemplate the media you're consuming, you should definitely check it out! That's not what I want to expound on here.

In a nutshell, Mob Psycho 100 is about Shigeo Kageyama, nicknamed "Mob" by everyone around him. Mob is your average middle-school boy. He's a bit timid, frail, and he's also not the brightest. He has a crush on a girl that everyone says is way out of his league, and he works part-time for a conman. It doesn't sound like a lot of fun being Mob but what makes him unique is he's blessed with the strongest psychic abilities in the world. He's the closest thing to God when he lets his powers fly out of control. He can easily throw cars in the air and destroy buildings with his mind alone (I know I said he isn't the brightest but you don't need to be smart to be psychic!) The catch of the anime is that Mob doesn't want to use his powers. Not at all. Other psychics exist in Mob's universe and unlike Shigeo, they abuse their powers whenever they think it would benefit them. Mob's enemies are psychics who see themselves as special. They believe the world should put them on a pedestal to be worshipped for their specialty. They get a dose of reality after their run-in with Mob and they realize they're not so special after all. Mob beats them because his powers are on a wholly different level. Pitting the other psychic's powers to Mob's is like comparing a bunch of ants to the freakin' Sun.

With that said, Psychic Abilities play an important role in the world of Mob Psycho 100. It's become the general identifier of someone's specialty in the anime. The stronger your Psychic Abilities, the more special you are. Mob doesn't see himself as someone special even though he has God-given powers. This drives the other, weaker psychics mad because they've been completely invalidated. Psychic powers don't exist in real life, though. The theme of the anime is to be as down-to-earth as possible, so it'd be nice to have a reference on what exactly does the show pertain to exactly.

Below I've listed some real life attributes we have in real life. I'll try to compare them to Psychic Abilities in the anime to see which makes the best match.

1) Capacity for Violence

What if they're basically just punching each other with their minds?
This is an obvious one because there's so much destruction and fighting in the anime. It's wrong, but the reality is it's easy to get others to do what you want them to do, and get what you want, by using force. This is exactly what the Scar group (Mob's psychic enemies) do with their powers. Although more or less, an individual's capacity for violence isn't necessarily something someone is born with -- it can be trained -- this fits well given that Shonen anime are also basically about fighting, starring protagonists blessed with inexplicably strong powers.

Mob could be a middle-school boy with unholy bloodlust deep within him that freaks out adults like the Scars. They must think they're so tough just because they have a bit of bloodlust in them too. This situation would be somewhat similar to a bunch of fighters (Scar), who underestimate an up-and-coming street fighter with enormous potential (Mob).

I thought of the equivalence of violence to Psychic Abilities during the scene in one of the last episodes of season 2 where Mob scolded a bunch of weak psychics using their powers to break windows and loot abandoned shops. Mob can do the exact same thing, but he doesn't because he's in control of his bloodlust. He'd rather be a productive member of society.

2) Good Looks

Psychics are just a bunch of Narcissists

Psychic Abilities can be a symbolism for good looks because charisma and attractiveness is just something someone is born with. The reality is some people are born more attractive than others. Sometimes this gets into the heads of the charming people, and they start to think that they're more special than everybody else just because of their good looks.

It's possible that the symbolism here is that all the psychics are much more attractive than the general crowd, so they believe they deserve to be worshipped on a pedestal. Mob can be someone so young and so incredibly handsome who doesn't agree with this worldview, and he prefers to work hard to put some meaning into his life. This upsets the psychics because they know very well that without their charisma they're nothing in life. Mob, who has something going on for him while also being the best looking out of all of them, reminds them of their inferiority.

I'm stretching a bit here, but one of my evidences for thinking this is during Mob's fight with Teru, who proclaimed "I am the main character of the story" because he sees himself as so charismatic.

3) High IQ

Einstein may not have been a psychic,
but at least he contributed to society
High IQ works really well as a match for Psychic Abilities because both of these things are mental in nature. Similar to good looks, this is something that people are simply born with. Some people are gifted with high IQs, while others are not so lucky. IQ doesn't change drastically over the course of a person's life.

I thought of the connection between the two because there are so many pseudo-intellectuals online who like to compare IQs as if they're measuring d*ck lengths. Someone would say their IQ is 117, and another would jump out of nowhere to say their IQ is 121. All they do is spend a lot of time comparing IQs and arguing about esoteric topics on the internet instead of doing anything productive. People with high IQs also lack in the EQ department, so oftentimes they act like buttholes.

That goes exactly against one of the core messages of the anime: Just be a Good Person, okay?

I'm also reminded again of the scene where Mob scolds the weak psychics for breaking stuff and asks them a bunch of questions related to being a productive member of society, like if they know how to craft the glass they broke, manufacture the can they stole, or plant the seeds of the tree that creates the ingredients for the soda they didn't pay for. What's the point of having a high IQ if you're just going to spend all of your time arguing?

4) Money/Social Class

Psychics and the Bourgeoisie have one thing in common:
They're entitled
Out of all the items on this list, I think this is the one where I really stretch out. Regardless, I still see plenty of similarities between what the show's trying to say about Psychic Abilities, and our real life "power" of Money/Social Class.

Status is something we're born with. If we're born middle-class we'll probably die as middle-class. Likewise, if we were born as part of the lower class, we'd probably still be lower-class when we die. Moving up or down a status is actually quite difficult. Obviously, moving up is a lot harder than moving down. Our status carries money, and money is power.

I thought about this when I realized Teru was a popular kid in his own school. Normally it's the rich kids who become popular. The privilege associated with rich individuals give them the upper hand when it comes to sports, getting respect, and talking to the opposite sex. I also see a similarity between Psychic Powers and Money in the last episode of Season 2. Toichiro became so strong because he saved up his powers for over 20 years, kind of like how you can save money up.

5) Mental Illness

This looks nearly identical to that one scene in the opening!
This is the last one on the list because I like to save the best for last.

Mental Illness connects with Psychic Abilities because they're both psychological in nature (duh), and they both play a part when it comes to a person's emotions. Nowadays the term "Mental Illness" is used way too much, to the point that the term has lost both its meaning and value, and maybe that's one thing Mob Psycho 100 is trying to show.

There are many self-proclaimed psychics in the show, but a lot of them are fake. These psychics can be seen as "man-children" who just want to be seen as unique by society to get special treatment. The Scars, although they really do have psychic powers i.e. they really do have mental illnesses, think they deserve special treatment for it. Not Mob. Mob might have a really severe mental illness that he can't control, but he doesn't let that get to his head as him being "entitled". He understands that his mental illness isn't something to be celebrated. In fact, he sees it as a curse, so he tries to live his life as if it doesn't exist.

I thought of this connection between mental illnesses and psychic abilities because of the traumatic experience Mob had with his little brother, when they were bullied. Mob unconsciously used his powers to kill the bullies, but he badly injured his little brother in the process. Ever since that incident, his brother Ritsu's been afraid of him whenever he has episodes. Ritsu doesn't want his brother to be stressed out because he might explode again.

As someone who is mentally ill, I can say with certainty my sisters really don't like it when I have one of my episodes. They try to steer clear from it as much as possible.

Conclusion:

I know just last week I said I made a really long blog post, but apparently this one is longer than my blog post about why video games are a good way to waste your time. What have we learned from all that I've written about Mob and the show's Psychic Abilities?

I think it's safe to say that the author, One, did a good job of choosing Psychic Abilities as the "power type" that makes the special characters in the anime, well... special. Since Psychic Abilities have a lot in common with a bunch of other attributes like the ones I listed above, its very easy to relate to the anime. The show clearly wants us to relate it with our own lives, so it let's us see what we want to see since Psychic Abilities actually don't exist in real life. We're allowed to fill in the gap on what would it really be in real life.

What do you think the Psychic Abilities represent in Mob Psycho 100? Is it different from the ones I mentioned in the list? Let me know in the comments below :)

Thursday, May 23, 2019

Entertainment: Why Video Games are a Good Way to Waste your Time

We've all heard it before: Video Games are a waste of time. A few decades ago the narrative against video games was that they instill violent behavior into the players. Recent studies have effectively debunked this. Nowadays in this hyper-paced society, the stigma against the medium has shifted to calling it out as an incredibly distracting way to past the time. Supposedly it's so distracting that it can put any and all productivity in your life to a halt. Gamers are seen as lethargic wastes of time and space with no redeeming qualities.

Clearly from the title of this blog post, you can see that I disagree with this stance. I don't rebuke it wholeheartedly -- I do think that under certain circumstances, playing video games is a waste of somebody's time -- but video games are a good way to waste your time.

Creating sculptures in Minecraft boosts creativity :)

First, a little bit of background about me: right now I don't play video games as much as I used to, and I'm definitely not young enough anymore to see the appeal in the hottest trending video games like Fortnite and Minecraft, but gaming has been a huge part of my life. I've been playing video games since I was in kindergarten. My dad was a gamer himself in his younger years and he encouraged me to play video games a lot since he wasn't interested in sports at all. So in a nutshell playing video games was something I've learned to do almost since birth.

Nowadays I've grown out of video games a bit. I was able to graduate college and get a job. I go to the gym and practice sports more often than I play video games. And I even participate in volunteer activities for the betterment of my local community.

Other people would be pissed at their younger selves for playing too much video games. Yes, I'm pissed at my younger self for not learning about the outside world sooner, but instead of getting mad at video games for sucking me into an unproductive hellhole for the majority of my childhood, I actually want to thank it for shaping into the person that I am. I don't know who I'd be if you took video games out of my system!

I've thought about this a lot, so below I've listed down some very beneficial things you can get out of playing video games. I wanted to make this list as concrete as possible with original items. As of the writing of this paragraph I haven't taken a look at what others have to say about the benefits of playing video games but I'm 90% sure that "Stress reliever" and "improves hand-eye coordination" are some of those items.

1. You get to appreciate Good Software Design

I want to start off with this benefit because it's something just about everyone takes for granted that I don't see often in these kinds of lists. That's understandable; Good Design is something you don't even notice. When you play video games, the main menu, the controller in your hands, the way the game mechanics are mapped to the said controller, and the layout of the levels are all made by people who graduated with a bachelor's degree in some form of design or another.


Game Maker's Took Kit is a deep dive sort of Youtube channel that delves into the systems that game developers have created for their games. Here's a video of them talking about God of War's fighting system that's nearly 20mins long. It goes to show that there's a lot to be said about the design of the game's combat system. Check out their channel for other videos if you want to learn more nitty gritty technical aspects of your favorite games!

There are constants and variables to the designs of different video games, and the developers in the industry continue to innovate on what's already been built. All of the work is done to provide us gamers with the most seamless and intuitive experience as possible; aren't video games just discs and softwares full of great experiences? I dream of a world where technology's advanced enough that real-life experiences like using our phones and navigating our world is as smooth as playing a video game.

2. Playing a lot of Video Games makes you experience-rich

My first point transitions nicely into my second. Video games aren't materialistic objects. People buy games for the experiences contained in the software design. To the outsider, playing video games look like you're just rotting away on a couch, pushing buttons on a glowing toy. Arguably that really is what's happening but inside the mind of a gamer she's an adventurer, or a fighter, a hunter maybe, or maybe even a hero. It may sound cliche and ironic, but the meme still stands...

"I'm a gamer not because I don't have a life, but because I choose to have many."

Video games let us do what we can't normally do in our lives, risk-free, at an affordable price. Some of us would love to pack their bags and go hiking or exploring, but there are tons of responsibilities and obligations we're tethered to that we simply can't afford to sever for our ultimately short-lived pleasure. Some of us would like to start bar fights without the fear of actually losing any teeth. There are video games that let you skydive, obviously. Video games let us live some of these fantasies of ours.

3. Video Games are immersive, educational toys

I like to call video games "educational toys". These experiences that games gives us, especially the really grand "Triple A" games with millions of dollars in budget, are interwoven together in a way to be as immersive and mind-blowing as possible. Game producers often do this by including an element of learning into the mix.

Everyone knows a little bit of something about Norse Mythology, although I think it's safe to say that only very few of us can discuss it on a deep level. Most people based almost all of their knowledge on that mythos from Marvel's Thor and Loki. That's all well and good but some gamers are able to truly expound their knowledge on this topic if they play God of War for the PS4. The game is gruesome and violent, but at the same time it immerses you into the myths and creatures that Norse mythology has to offer. Personally, I think God of War did such a great job on immersing the player into the mythology that I finished the game with a drive to learn more about the gods and goddesses the characters of the game are based on.

Assassin's Creed II recreates the architecture that perpetuated Renaissance Italy
The entire Assassin's Creed series teaches players a lot about history. The whole game basically has you running around doing parkour and stabbing people in the back, but what makes it educational is the whole setting of where the parkour and stabbing takes place. Unbeknownst  to players who are focused on their primary objective of assassinating the target the game tells them to kill, they learn a little bit more about history, architecture, and culture along the way thanks to the game's backdrop. A specific example of this is Assassin's Creed II which takes place in Italy during the Renaissance. Players are able to appreciate Renaissance architecture around Tuscany, Venice, and the Vatican as they traverse the rooftops. They assassinate real-life political figures like the incestuous Borgia family and the Pope. The player's character, Ezio, is friends with Leonardo Da Vinci, so we even learn a little bit about the personal life of the genius outside of painting, like his desire to learn anatomy, or his sexual preference in a small comment during one of his conversations with Ezio.

There have been education professionals who've dabbled in software design to find interactive ways to teach others. These kind of works always get hit by criticism that the lessons and knowledge the game wants to share are too forced. These professionals can only wish to do it as well as real video games (with million dollars in budget) can.

4. Video Games can make you more outspoken, decisive, and socially competent

Eloquence in a topic is directly proportional to the amount of knowledge the speaker has in that field. Since video games are enthralling experiences filled with precious nuggets of trivia and facts that stick to the players long after they've finished playing the game, they grow as a person who can handle conversations that might include topics that they've seen before. God of War and Assassin's Creed II can definitely help college students with their recitations in their mythology and history classes.

Recently released video games nowadays tend to include an element of decision-making in social settings. These simulated social situations pit players against all sorts of different archetypes of people as either friend or foe. For introverted people who are too afraid to go outside and talk to people, these make-believe interactions at the very least trains the minds of the players on what they could possibly say to steer real conversation in the way that they want it to go.

A really great example of this is the video game Persona 5. The player's power is directly proportional to the strength of the bonds he has with the people he meets in the game, (he is literally running on the power of friendship if you think about it). The only way to get the true ending of the game is to be consistent with your values, and to uphold the friendship your character has made along the way. You get the bad ending if you decide to backstab your friends. This kind of gameplay design reinforces the player's moral integrity so that they decide to uphold their own values in real life instead of betraying their real friends.

Some people have lots of fun in this kind of environment. Not most gamers.
Although gamers will hardly ever be the life of the party, video games have Multiplayer, which allows players to interact with real humans. Overwatch is my prime example for this, because it's a game that focuses entirely on multiplayer to engage players (I also want to add that Overwatch is the perfect example of a game with intuitive design that gives players the smoothest experience possible). Playing Overwatch teaches the player teamwork and communication. Overwatch lets you select from a huge cast of "Heroes" with different strengths and weaknesses. It's up to the player's team to talk it over regarding what role they should play to ensure victory against the other team. It's not very different from playing a team sport like basketball.

5. Playing video games has more takeaways and less costs than going to nightclubs, or browsing social media.

This is my final point that I want to bring home since the whole topic of this blog post is about whether or not video games are a waste of time. It's important to compare video games with other ways to spend your time to see the relative advantages and disadvantages games have over them.

This meme sums up the kind of discussion I want to spur from this blog post

Going to nightclubs occasionally with friends is super fun, I admit, but making it a weekly thing isn't productive at all when you think about it. Nas Daily sums up the problems with partying in one of his videos. First of all, nightclubs are crazy overpriced, so it sucks to be you if  you're always being peer pressured to join these things. Second, the booze is not only expensive, but it's obviously detrimental to your health. You're going to end up with a beer belly from clubbing unless you dance really really hard on the dance floor. Third, you go home in the morning and wake up in the afternoon with a crappy hangover, so you spend the whole day after clubbing doing absolutely nothing. It's even worse when drugs become involved.

So clubbing is expensive and not good for your financial or physical well-being. On the opposite end of the spectrum is browsing social media, which is something almost everybody does in their spare time nowadays. It's become ubiquitous because everyone's already wired into the internet and the algorithms know each individual inside-and-out to constantly give everyone something that they want to see. On the bright side, this is a very low-cost way to spend your time, but on the downside, browsing social media doesn't improve you as well as video games could. From my perspective, Video games can be seen as an investment while browsing social media can be seen as not making an investment at all. Although you can interact on social media, it's not as interactive as video games.

Unlike clubbing or browsing social media, there's a whole lot of self improvement that can be found in video games. The other items on this list are literally the benefits that I mean so I don't have to repeat any of that here.

Conclusion:
This might be the longest blog post I've written ever, so hopefully we've learned something from all of this.

I do agree that video games are a waste of time. This is definitely true if you're playing video games when you have other things you should be doing. It's also most especially true if you play a game for 4 hours or more when it isn't even your day job. But still, video games are a good way to waste your time because they help you grow as a person, whether you know about it or not. video games imprint something on you and in the long-run, games will become a big part of your character that shaped you up as a person thanks to the experiences you get from them.

Only Twitch Streamers, E-sports gamers, and Let's Players have the right to play video games the whole day without it being a "waste of time" because that's their livelihood. It's literally productive for them to keep playing video games.

What are some video games that you think are really beneficial for a gamer to play? Name me your top 5 list in the comments below. Bonus points if each game has a short explanation :)