Digital Cog

Your children can’t live your dreams

Having been employed for less than a year, I still have not entirely succumbed to the madness of
battery humans. As happens, many of the people I work with have recently had or are about to have
children. In fact, there are only two of us in the particular group of the machine that I labour in that do
not know the joy of ownership of a screaming, insentient, ravenous resource consumer.

Before the Bosses Boss got promoted (to the Bosses new Bosses Boss) I had the privilege of
visiting Bloomberg’s office in the Marunouchi building with him. It is a most beautiful office, enough
to shame me into wanting to at least clear out the several cubic meters of crap that myself and
another accomplice hid under several unused desks at our own office. Apparently their magnificent
fish tank cracked during the earthquake and spilled all over the place, but such is the price of mind
fucking your customers with grandeur.

We were talking to a most engaging man, gainfully employed/enslaved at Bloomberg, and the topic
turned to children. He had recently had a child, as had the Bosses Boss. He asked me if I had any
children, to which I replied “No, I’m still happy.” The Bosses Boss then exclaimed “You don’t know
what happiness is yet!” I then got to hear how awesome it is to have a mini version of oneself run
around the place and bump into things.

But what is this happiness that they speak of? I see exhausted, sleep deprived men snap at each
other over trivialities. Empty gazes at pictures of their offspring as a man driven insane in the desert
might look upon a mirage, filled with false hope. Years of additional slavery to acquire the resources
to feed the helpless thing.

There is significant statistical evidence that people who have children report lower life satisfaction than those who do not. But more than this, what troubles me directly is seeing people forget and give up on their own dreams and pile their hopes and aspirations onto their children, ever before the child even becomes properly sentient. I am starting to believe that in many people (but certainly not all), some fire within them is quenched when they have a child. Why make the effort to chase some mad dream or quest or aesthetic or adventure, why go to the trouble building a tower into the heavens when one can just sink into the lazy subconscious delusion that ones child will achieve everything that you gave up on. But the child is just the same as the parent. In time the child will come face to face with the drudgery and relentless demands of intellectual vigour required to chase its own dreams. If it flinches and abdicates the aspiration of building castles in the sky to its own offspring, then 15 – 50 years after its parent it will have fallen into the same trap and repeat the selfless folly in an endless cycle.

I myself used to actually think in a way resembling the above, and in a more indefensibly conscious
manner than most people. I grew up in Ireland, but hated the place. I planned out my dream to move
to Japan, a country that is much more suited to my mentality and preference set and is filled with
awesome shit that I was told wasn’t possible and continues to blow my mind to this day. I told myself
if I just got to Japan, got a job, got married and had a few children, I could then leave the
responsibility of thriving within Japan and attempting of greater things to my future children and
grandchildren. I figured that I’d never be able to get my Japanese to high enough a level to be able
to properly achieve my full potential and my intellectual laziness lead me to push the hard work onto
my dreams for my future children.

Looking back at my thought process now, I can say I am pretty disgusted at my past self for
displaying such a lack of vigour. I achieved my dream of escaping to Japan, and it has turned out to
be even slightly better than my excessively high hopes. I must admit, as anticipated by my
unvigourous past self, raising my language ability comprehensively to the point of being able to
have proper intellectual discussion and to truly thrive is really hard. But that is no excuse to
surrender the most exciting and worthy quests to false hope for my potential future children.
Everything cannot be put on hold because of an unfortunate, but correctable with enough heroic
effort, case of illiteracy. I have spent much of the past months in a sort of catch up phase, as the
realisation came upon me that voluntary failure is a disgusting way of life. I may even still have
children, but if so it will be a side quest of merit in its own regard and not a glorified tool for
surrendering to mediocrity.

Before I get lynched by a mob made up of every human who is considering having or has had a child, I would stress that I am not making some ridiculous condemnation of the decision to procreate. Rather I am giving a sincere warning against losing oneself to false hope and false comfort, which will end in profound disappointment in oneself. I am sure there are many wonderful experiences related to having offspring. But if you want to live in the place of your dreams, if you don’t want to work as a slave for your whole life,  if you want to create something beautiful, if you dream of having an elegant tea party with top hats and cigars made of ￥10,000 notes on top of a mountain, you have to get the hell out there and make it happen yourself. Your future children cannot live your dreams for you, and you will end up feeling empty and disappointed to the extent that you remap your own hopes and aspirations on to them.

What I would do were I to become Prime Minister of Japan

This post is largely unreadable but would make things more awesome.

Assuming the exact same conditions as of today:

1. Change the electoral system to a single transferable vote system with the entire country as one constituency. All voting would be electronic and for convenience it would be possible to also put a party block for any numbered preference. E.g. one could vote for an individual in the DPJ as 1, put second preference as the LDP bloc, third preference the Communist Party bloc, fourth an individual from the Komeitou etc. This would encourage a broader country based mindset, instead of one mired in trivial local lobbying, while still allowing individuals or parties with primary support in narrow geographical areas to be elected. It would also give an extremely proportional outcome. I won’t clog this post up with the detailed mechanics of the system.

2. I would merge the Ministry of Finance and the BoJ and proceed to cease issuing government debt. Outstanding government bonds would be paid as scheduled. Government payments would be made by crediting bank accounts while taxes would be taken by debiting bank accounts. The government would not match the net credits pushed into the private sector (the budget deficit as it is called) by issuing an equal amount of self replicating government liabilities (government bonds), rather it would allow the reserves to pile up in the banking system. The Finance Minister would set the interbank rate (the interest rate at which the government is effectively willing to lend unlimited overnight funds to members of the banking system) though primarily macro economic management would be carried out through adjusting tax rates.

3. The vast majority of exemptions and deductions from income tax would be abolished and rates would be significantly lowered but a highly and steadily progressive structure would remain. Corporate tax would be reduced to a token level, probably around 5% but the separate taxation of dividends and capital gains would be ended and they would be taxed as regular income. As the present rates on dividends and capital gains are flat and relatively low, the changes in the tax code (lowered rates, no exemptions, including dividends and capital gains as regular income) would equalise the burden on equivalent incomes. Thus rich workers and poor capitalists would benefit significantly, poor workers would benefit slightly and rich capitalists as well as those able to exploit present exemptions and deductions would lose significantly. On a net basis there would be a significant fall in tax revenue.

4. To offset large reductions in corporate and income tax rates I would implement a very high land tax, taxing the unimproved assessed value of the land. This would encourage the development of land, as the value of improvements (such as gigantic skyscrapers (…which will probably fall over in a big earthquake…)) would not be included in the calculation of the tax liability incurred from ownership of the land. Zoning rules would be greatly relaxed to encourage massive developments and driving down the cost of rent.

5. Sub-national government entities would be funded directly and banned from issuing their own debt. The level of funding would be determined by the central government as that necessary to implement all the responsibilities and development goals of the government in an efficient but rigorous manner. Local taxes would be abolished. Existing prefectures carrying debt would receive a one off per capita cash infusion equal to the level of debt per capita of the least indebted prefecture. Those prefectures with debt remaining (all but one) would be required to implement a temporary local tax until such time as the remaining debt is paid down. The same system would be applied to cities.

6. The level of government spending would not be used as a macroeconomic tool. Rather, the government would spend whatever necessary funds in order to create or acquire the real resources needed to carry out its obligations to the populace and development goals. Rates of taxation would then be adjusted in a counter-cyclical manner to manage the macroeconomic condition of Japan. Should inflation and supply capacity constraints manifest themselves, the government would raise taxes to extract purchasing power from the private sector. This would reduce the private sector’s ability to command real resources and hence extinguish inflationary pressures and preserve the relative purchasing power of the government liability used by the private sector as a unit of exchange and  account  (the Japanese Yen). Similarly should a chronic shortage of demand cause a slump in activity the government would cut taxes and push large amounts of Yen into the private sector (some people would call this running a large budget deficit, but the important point is that the size of a budget deficit is irrelevant for an entity that issues in its own liabilities and it would be utter foolery to target a specific level of deficit/surplus as the policy goal).

7. Outrageously large incentives would be created to have children. In addition I would formulate a propaganda campaign encouraging people to have children highlighting various different positive aspects from multiple different angles. E.g. some parts of the campaign would emphasise “oh aren’t children so nice”, while others would appeal to young women by showing babies as a glorified fashion accessory, while yet more would play to the patriotic duty of continuing the existence of Japan etc. etc.. Also, though it would not be a practical measure and may indeed be somewhat reckless, as a sort of publicity stunt/effort to sear into the minds of the populace the need to reproduce, I would implement a special tax on condoms.

8. Measures would be implemented to consolidate Japanese farms into super-large argri-businesses in an effort to raise efficiency to the level found in other developed countries. Tariffs on food imports, including that of rice, would be gradually cut as the consolidation process progressed in order to maintain strong competitive pressure and a feeling of momentum behind the reforms.

9. Related to this, the population is declining and urbanisation continues relentlessly. In such a situation it is foolish and hopeless to attempt to maintain rural populations at the present level. I would take an “organised retreat” mentality towards this process and actually plan and encourage migration away from unsustainably small villages and towns into cities. High density population results in much greater efficiency and economies of scale as well as positive network effects. Since the agricultural reforms would be improving efficiency and reducing employment in the countryside in any case, such a planned urbanisation makes even more sense. Of course any individuals would be free to remain in their homes in the countryside, but should they wish to join the migration to the technotopian cities, the government would actively assist them.

10. The alliance with the USA would be scrapped and all of their bases would be removed from the country. A defense pact would be pursued with South Korea, Taiwan and possibly Singapore obliging each of the powers to come to the defense of the others. This pact would be primarily based on the threat from North Korea, though unfortunately there is always the possibility that a conflict with China could also arise. While the Chinese have much more in common with the Japanese than the Japanese have with the USA (the society in the USA and the outlook of the American people is the polar opposite of Japan’s), such as a desire to build a harmonious society like Japan and little desire to impose its own cultural preferences on other countries, the Chinese government has unfortunately insisted on holding two absurd positions in regards to the occupation of Tibet and the denial that Taiwan is an independent country, of which it clearly is. Both of these positions have the capability to cause international conflict and in both cases the Chinese government is so clearly in the wrong that they must be opposed should such situations arise. However over time I would hope that the Chinese government will back away from such absurdity so that the whole of East Asia can concentrate on building Japan-like utopias without having to worry about potential military conflict.

11. While homelessness and unemployment are already low compared to other countries, I would not relent until both were annihilated. Jobs would be provided to any that could not find employment in the private sector or in the regular section of the public sector, doing various socially useful work. The wage would be poor but basic accommodation would also be provisioned (similar to how some Japanese companies have company dormitories and such) if necessary. Should an individual be unable to work because of lack of education and training, then such training would be given. Suits would even be provided to give dignity and encourage discipline and a sense of solidarity.

12. Prohibition would be abolished. All drugs would be heavily regulated and heavily taxed. Smoking in public would be banned. Though it is already rampant, prostitution would be legalised, regulated and taxed.

13. Taxes on fuel would be increased to at least the levels found in many European countries. Taxes on cars would be gradually increased in an attempt to tax the majority of people off the road in the long run, similar to what is currently done in Singapore. Public transport is already excellent, but it would be expanded moderately to offset the decline in private vehicle ownership. As Prime Minister I would also appeal to Japanese companies to stop wasting their ingenuity developing cars and to instead expend their efforts on something that does not result in the output of a grossly inefficient murderous death wagon that leaves the nation dependent on fuel imports.

14. Home ownership would be discouraged, as it is more efficient to have a sub-segment of the populace specialise in providing and managing accommodation for the rest of the populace. As previously mentioned in the general comment on tax deductions and exemptions, any properties of the tax code that artificially increase the incentive to own a home would be removed.

ペンギン娘MAX１

I meant to post a review of this manga last August but never got around to it. The title translates to “Penguin girl”. This is the first volume in the second set for this series. So it’s actually the fourth volume from a story perspective. Since the first three titles covered the storyline that I had already watched in the anime version I just started from this one. It’s also interesting to note that stylistically the author has progressed massively, to the extent that compared to the first volume, this volume looks like it was written by a different person.

The story revolves around a 14 year old girl called “Nankyoku Sakura” (Sakura being her first name) that is the eldest daughter of a Zaibatsu family. Zaibatsu is the term used to refer to the pre-war conglomerates in Japan. In the post war period the intra group relations have become less tightly bound and they are now referred to as Keiretsu. Anyway, Sakura is basically an extreme Otaku who frequently gets overwhelmed by the cuteness or moeness of someone/something and ends up doing something outrageous. The whole thing is riddled with fanservice based gags.

The above is her “normal clothes.”

The rival Zaibatsu’s eldest daughter (Mari) is also in Sakura’s class. Sakura just wants to be her friend but previously Sakura also somewhat inadvertently bankrupted them so not only does Mari hate her, she also doesn’t have enough money to buy a school uniform so has to come wearing the school swimming apparel. The moeness of this sends Sakura into an uncontrollable frenzy:

In this scene she declares her tomboyish friend Etorofu as being her “future husband”:

Miko-san:

Sakura and Etorofu go the their friend Nene’s shrine to help out. But Sakura makes herself a custom Miko outfit with appropriate mini-skirt, knee socks and gigantic ribbon. This is the type of modern reinvention of beautiful old culture that all countries should be aiming for!

Sakura is frequenly scolded by her younger sister (Kaede) for squandering her pocket money on figures of anime characters. Sakura tried to get a job doing a paper round so she can buy the figures out of her own money, but she gets caught when her sister gets up early for a school trip. After that she goes to work in a clothes shop (as usual dragging along Etorofu) but invariably gets caught up in various disasters.

But for all the scolding and constant giving out to her older sister for embarrassing the Zaibatsu, Kaede still comes looking for advice after a guy in her class asks her out. I found this quite moving, at least until Sakura screws it up by giving “advice” that is just direct quotes from the anime she watches.

As for the difficulty of this manga, it is certainly much tougher than Tsukiyo no Furomaaju. On a chapter per chapter basis there was probably three times as much vocabulary that I didn’t know. If one was just starting out trying to learn Japanese through reading manga, I would strongly suggest looking elsewhere for beginners material. There’s also the issue that alot of people learning Japanese aren’t so interested in “this kind of thing”!

Anyway I must say this left me thoroughly entertained. I’ve already gone through the second volume and have the third and fourth bought and ready. Will post up reviews when I get the time.

iPad

I had the great fortune of being in the evil empire on the 3rd of April 2010. It was a searingly hot day with no clouds. I walked across a long bridge in a rather pleasant manner. Eventually I came to a cafe where I was to meet three friends. I was soon exposed to the most majestic of scenes. The three of them had iPads. I was handed one and told to play with maps. zOMG. I had been totally wrong. This slate of goodness was a complete bag of win.

Within five minutes without any effort on the part of my friends, purely by experiencing the reality of the device I had been utterly convinced not only that I must acquire one with all haste, but that this was a clear turning point, a clear arrival of something I had completely lacked the foresight to anticipate but now seemed inevitable in retrospect. I hurried down to the shop, burst through the door and started waving liabilities of the US government, and a card capable of converting liabilities of the European Central Bank into liabilities of the US government, at the various men of industry present, hoping to entice them to surrender one of the devices from their great warehouse. I was in luck, and gushed vigorously about my own lack of prescience as the payment was handled.

On paper the iPad is crap. Its hardware is too slow, it’s a rubbish laptop, it’s a media player that doesn’t fit in ones pocket, it needs a device running a full blown operating system to sync with etc. On such a basis I dismissed the concept before encountering it in person as some sort of fools adventure, where some visionary with no grounding in reality had lead a design team down the path of constructing a solution in search of a problem. It is so rare to find such a device where the end result is so vastly greater than the sum of its parts.

In actuality the device is a far superior media consumption device than say a PSP, iPod touch or some other device with a crippled screen. One must experience it to understand. Having watched my own blu-ray rips of Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children on my PSP and iPad, both encoded at recklessly high bit rates, I can say the experience on the PSP is an utter joke compared to the iPad. To be able to hold such a magnificent window into the universe in ones very hands, to be able to carry it anywhere and gaze into the viewing delights it provides, it now invokes almost a feeling of revulsion in me when I see scrawny characters stooped over the screen of a small device attempting vainly to “experience” something through a tiny keyhole.

One can read a whole library of content at leisure using the iBooks app, every page turn an immensely satisfying visual experience. My eyes have never tired using the device and I can report no real crippling issue or even annoyance. Again, compared to trying to read something on any other of those numerous small devices, one just has a whole new paradigm, a whole new exponentially superior ease of existence. Even listening to music is a more pleasant experience, one having a proper interface through which to select the desired tune.

While it is said by some that the iPad is a crap laptop, it might be more accurate to state that any laptop taken outdoors is a bloated, poorly designed iPad with numerous inconveniences and stressful annoyances, and any laptop remaining indoors is but an expensive box of compromises relative to a desktop computer with most of its advantages counting for naught in such an environment. To show a friend some pictures one need only pass the iPad in a simple motion and the friend is free to physically manipulate the device with the utmost freedom and intuitively browse through the picture collections, sharing with others various moments by merely twisting their wrist in the direction of the individual they seek to share with. Contrast this to lugging out the battleship laptop and passing it over, trying to not poke out the eye of anyone nearby with one of the edges as they clatter and wallop off various obstacles. The thunderous weight of the device requires an annoying effort for all who physically manipulate it. Browsing through the pictures will be slightly more difficult owing to the lower suitability of a trackpad and keyboard for the task. While I may be accused of gross exaggeration or outright whinging, it is only the reckless rationaliser who will try to pretend that there is no difference in the pleasantness of using these two devices for this task.

An iPad is a much neater and easy to carry device than all but the most crippled laptops. Unless the laptop is huge and horridly inconvenient, the viewing experience on an iPad for much content will be almost as good, with reading a book arguably being much superior on an iPad. It seems a strange and perhaps unintended effect, but the iPad seems to have made laptops a somewhat less attractive choice in general. For an iPad and desktop do both the tasks of a laptop in a superior manner. In fact I dare say I will never buy a laptop again.

But there is one caveat to all this: The iPad is useless for productive people. Or rather, it is useless for all those who are productive outside of “base”. The road warriors, war drivers, programmers who take off at full speed doing real work once the seat belt sign is turned off, basically men who still create when non-stationary, shall find little in the iPad. For the iPad is a device that enables the best possible mobile consumption experience. It is a magnificent window through which one can consume the works of others with the least of physical inconvenience. In this sense it is the opposite of a laptop, which is a poor mobile consumption device but an excellent mobile production device.

I find myself as one who only really produces when at home in my bunker. There are too many distractions, inconveniences, uncomforts in the outside world to set oneself in the mood for production, and since I leave my oasis relatively infrequently, even if I was of the mind to engage in productive endeavours, the opportunities to do so would not justify the tradeoffs in using devices suited to mobile production. So for me, when I do find myself travelling or otherwise in the outside world, I only wish for a device that relieves me of some of the tedium of travel, or allows me to easily share with others some content, such as emails, pictures or videos. For this the iPad is ideal and far more suitable than a laptop. Back in the bunker, a desktop then has a clear advantage over a laptop, as the laptop scores no points for allowing mobile consumption, while it makes sacrifices in price and components to fulfil the restrictive needs of full mobility. So I find myself coming to the conclusion that, at least for those who do the vast majority of their productive activities at “base”, the iPad has the curious effect of making the desktop far more relevant in 2010 than it was 2009.

Having acquired an iPad and greatly desiring to program it, while simultaneously tiring of trying to use programming languages much inferior to that of Objective-C in other endevours, I resigned myself to the fact that I would have to purchase a Mac mini. While waiting and hoping for an update of the hardware I frequented macrumors.com. I was amazed at the amount of people who had almost the exact same “story” as me, that is, “dumping my laptop for an iPad and Mac mini.” Once the device was updated I purchased it and a wireless keyboard from Japan as it was cheaper there than in Ireland, it allowed me to get a Japanese keyboard and my friend’s parents who were visiting him in Japan were kind enough to be bring it back for me. While it may sound as if I am some sort of Apple fan or enthusiast from these actions, I must say that it is only with a new found sense of productive pragmatism that I purchased these devices. The Mac mini provided the most superior means to write programs useful for both work and play in a beautiful language and environment, it provided a means to program the iPad itself, it is very power efficient and space efficient (significant concerns as I will likely be living in quite a small apartment in the future) and has a most beautiful design. OS X 10.6 is arguably moderately more pleasant to use than Windows 7 aswell.

And in the spirit of pragmatism and lack of irrational love, I can name many things I significantly dislike about my two new delightful devices. The lack of inclusion of a blu-ray drive on the Mac mini is backwards and almost embarrassing. Apple is engaging in a juvenile reality denying exercise trying to force people to buy recklessly compressed 720P pseudo-HD shite off iTunes by crippling its own computers. This is a prime example of how different divisions of a large company can cause anti-synergy. The fear of competition with its direct download iTunes model has lead Apple to gimp its own hardware. If these two sections of the company were separate businesses this destruction (or rather, deliberate uncreation) of wealth would not occur. Blu-ray has succeeded, has been universally adopted across the consumer electronics industry, offers far higher quality than direct download and is the only choice possible for those who have poor internet access. Apple is trying to leap to a medium-less future far too early, before the necessary infrastructure is in place. This just needlessly cripples the present experience, and won’t make the medium-less future come any faster as it is dependent on huge factors outside of Apple’s control. And if Apple really believed that the medium-less future is here today, then why do they not drop DVD and CD support aswell, which unlike blu-ray actually are at the point of being realistically made obsolete by the internet. In the end it all comes down to trying to shovel that low quality iTunes crap, but crippling my Mac mini isn’t going to make me pay for that rubbish.

Another complaint is the price of the device, which is clearly unreasonable for the hardware contained. But one can justify that by the value of the software in allowing the user to better get real work done, which was certainly the judgement I made when deciding to buy it. As for the iPad, while I of course consider it a revolutionary device, it is only the start of good things to come. Web browsing is annoyingly slow (at least by my standards) and syncing with iTunes is a disaster if one ever changes computer and it can be a colossal pain having to setup everything in the way iTunes wants. One cannot just drag and drop a video onto an iPad, it has to be copied into the iTunes library (and often converted to an iPad friendly format before this) resulting in numerous duplicated files and inability to use an iPad to transfer data to and from computers that one does not own. The more I think of it, iTunes seems to be the source of all my woes. Such a terrible piece of software, in fact I’d go as far as to say iTunes as a whole represents a terrible design philosophy I most wholeheartedly detest.

On that miserable note I end this article of praise for two excellent devices.

月夜のフロマージュ１

I got this manga last December. It’s called 「月夜のフロマージュ」 which translates to “Moonlit night’s Fromage”. It’s about a boy who plays alot of bishoujo games getting transformed into one of the girls in the games by a “dream eater” girl, who also transports him to her world by accident in the process. A beautiful table of contents:

I really love the style this is done in. The characters are like fragile dolls, so perfect that one is almost afraid to touch. The Japanese in this is really easy, reading it gives me an incredible ego boost. There are just enough words I don’t know in it to pleasantly note down for future learning without killing the pace or getting too bogged down with a dictionary.

As this is the first manga in this series, much of the stories involve the main character getting used to the new world he lives in…and dealing with the complex emotions from getting transformed into a beautiful girl. Basically the girl, called Meari, who brought him to this new world survives by eating the pleasant dreams of humans. The main character (Miu) was dreaming about a girl from a game he was playing. When Meari ate his dream, something went wrong and he melded with the girl from the game in his dream and got sucked into Meari’s world. Meari is trying to find a way to send him back, but also tells him that for the time being she will take responsibility for ensuring he becomes an “Exquisite lady”. So she gives out to him for walking like a guy and buys him clothes that are so cute as to make him horribly embarrassed to go outside.

While the plot may sound a bit off the wall, there was actually some wisdom etched in this manga. In this scene, Miu complains about Meari insisting that he wear fashionable cute clothes. But she bursts out, basically along the lines of “A flower’s life is only short! If you’re not going to wear fashionable things now, when will you!?” People only really have until their early thirties to really shine out full blast, and I found myself feeling very thankful that Japanese people take their appearance so seriously and give us such wonderful eye candy in public. One should not squander opportunities when young, or a life of slow decay and regret will follow…

Anyway on to the obligatory swimsuit scene:

In this scan Meari and her friend Fiyu (who Miu has falled head over heels for, much to the chagrin of Meari) are both trying on swimsuits to help Miu decide which one to buy, though in reality he doesn’t want to go to the beach at all as it’s mortifying.

Here Fiu and Miu are talking about Meari. パンツ！This drawing style really is just beautiful, though no doubt there’d be moral hysteria if something like this was released in the West owing to the depiction of “underage” people in a “sexualised” manner. Oh the outrage, oh the irrational panic! I can see the lynch mob nailing me to a cross. Anyway, the failure of the west aside, back to beautiful things:
和ロリキターーー！！Here is an example of how the Japanese continually cycle out new embodiments of their own culture (often also infused with their own interpretation of aspects of foreign culture) in a timeless and continuous manner. This girl is wearing a garment that is a sort of fusion between a Yukata, a dress and maid clothes. This traditional Japanese inspired goth-loli infused fashion is known as wa-loli, with wa meaning “Japan”. I love this stuff. Such elegant harmony.

As for the girl herself, she is another type of non-human, but her kind hunts Meari’s kind and claims to be protecting humans from the dream eaters. She attacks Meari but then gets a fever from being out in the rain, so they take care of her for awhile. After this she calls Miu “Master” and decides she wants to stay with them.

More bonus points here for the girl on “girl” borderline behavior. This first volume closes on this happy note, though the author kindly leaves us more fan service with these two pullout illustrations:


The second volume was released last February I believe. I’m looking forward to getting my hands on it. Asides from being entertaining, the level of Japanese is just right to assist in study.