Orochimaru: Worst Change of Mind in Writing Ever

Orochimaru was Too Powerful

Orochimaru of Naruto Anime

For those who do not know what Naruto is,… well have you been under a rock?  Ok seriously.  Naruto is a Japanese anime.  It is a run away smash hit in Japan.  It is watched during prime time t.v. in Japan and entire families sit and watch it.  It had a brief airing in America.  But, due to the Americanization of the anime and the horrible,  HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE voice acting and script rewrites, it was nearly immediately ditched to overwhelming audience backlash.  In fact, while the American version of Naruto was completely shut out by fans, views of the Japanese version of the series nearly doubled.  Apparently anything Americans touch is crap, is the message I guess.  That aside, let’s assume you are an avid watcher of the Japanese version of the anime.  We will be discussing the ultimate villain in any anime ever: Orochimaru.

The author of the series wrote Orochimaru to be the complete antithesis of Naruto.  Naruto is:

• kind
• believes in the goodness of everyone
• believes he can conquer even the worst self imposed demons he has
• believes he can conquer even the worst self imposed demons in others
• believes that everyone can be redeemed
• believes that one day everyone will recognize him as their leader and protector
• believes he can lead his village into peace and prosperity one day

So in the series, the author throws obstacle after obstacle at Naruto, which he overcomes.  He throws monstrous villains at Naruto, who either beats them up or gets them to recognize the goodness in their hearts.  Orochimaru was written to be the embodiment of complete malevolence.  His character has absolutely no redeeming qualities.

Orochimaru Evil Incarnate

Orochimaru Snake Master

Where Naruto is ultimate goodness, Orochimaru is ultimate evil.  But, Naruto isn’t just a kid with ninja fighting training.  In true Japanese larger than life, earth shattering fashion, Naruto has a demon trapped inside of him, that is on par with a force of nature.  It is named the 9-tailed fox.  This demon has the power to annihilate entire cities with its roar.  It can smash mountains.  It can engulf whole forests in flame.  All of this is trapped inside of Naruto.

So Orochimaru, who was originally written to be opposite Naruto, had to be equally if not more powerful than a force of nature.  How could that be accomplished?  Easy!  Orochimaru was written as one of the 3 legendary ninjas of all time.  On top of that, he was more powerful than the other 2.  He knew every jutsu [ninja power and spell] ever known [even the forbidden jutsus] and invented more powers on his own.  So where Naruto was sheer brute force, and an awesome force indeed, Orochimaru was the equal and opposite power of the mind.

The Beginning of the End

The Nine Tailed Fox

It often happens in writing.  The author dreams up the ultimate villain or even just a really good villain, then he realizes that the hero of the story cannot overcome him, because he did not make the hero powerful enough.  So they then set out to detract on the villain.

This is exactly what happened in Naruto.  Instead of building Naruto up, the author decided that Orochimaru would not be the focus of being the arch nemesis to Naruto.

Why?  Because of the way he wrote the Naruto character.  Remember the list above?  All of this is housed inside a little boy.  Even when the anime progresses and naruto is now 12 years old instead of 6 years old, he still has little boy qualities.  These little boy qualities cannot overcome an Orochimaru character.

You would have a scenario where the two would come up against each other and Naruto would have to transform into this logical thinking character, with a penchant to utterly destroy Orochimaru, i.e. Orochimaru would have to be killed.  Why?  Because, Orochimaru has no redeeming qualities and therefore would not ever be remorseful of the things he has done, i.e. human experimentation, torture, murder, mass-murder, etc.  Naruto does not kill people.

So the Orochimaru character was written too perfectly, as a villain.  And, instead of going back on the Naruto character and making him into more of an adult, with the ability to straight up kill someone, the author took the low road and just emasculated Orochimaru.  All of a sudden other villain type characters were able to beat the Orochimaru character and virtually take him out of the picture.

The idiocy of this bad writing is apparent from anyone’s perspective.  Here you have a villain so powerful that he can beat the other 2 legendary ninjas singlehandedly, but two teenagers on separate occassions beat him without effort?

I despise this vehemently.  It happens in movies a lot: The Jackal; most vampire movies.. etc [ I can’t think of more off the top of my head ]  They always start out with a super villain, but by the end of the movie he cannot tie his shoelaces correctly and a fluffy bunny attacks his jugular and he dies in 3 seconds.

This is what was done to this character Orochimaru.  Instead of making the series really interesting and making a coming of age story, i.e. we watch naruto grow up, train and become more powerful than the most powerful legendary ninja, Naruto instead, is kept acting like an imbecile and can barely beat Star Trek red shirts.  It is just plain awful.

Orochimaru: Best Villain Ever

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Pokémon Black and Pokémon White: Two New Games Coming Out in Japan, Sorry America

Pokémon Black and Pokémon White

What’s a kid to do in America when he knows there’s a new Pokémon coming out, but it’s in JAPAN. Hop your happy tail over to Japan, learn Japanese and buy it. The next generation of Pokemon games have been revealed, supposedly heading to Nintendo DS this fall in Japan. The Japanese Pokemon teaser website has formally announced a pair of titles, Pokemon Black and Pokemon White. As Nintendo of America has not yet responded, it is unconfirmed if these will be the American titles or not. The existence of these games was announced in January. There are virtually no details on the games except for the titles. The only thing we know about any new creatures is a black fox Pokémon known as Zorua, along with its monster evolution Zoroark. They’re to be the focus of the next upcoming movie, titled Phantom Champion Zoroark.

The teaser website suggests that we’ll find out more on April 15. The sad part is you have to buy both games, like always, to get all of the monster. They are divided up in both games. Black and White represent the first brand new core Pokemon game since 2006’s Pokemon Diamond and Pokemon Pearl. In March of this year, Nintendo released Pokemon HeartGold and SoulSilver for the DS in America, but these were merely a marketing ploy of 1999 Game Boy games Pokemon Gold and Silver. True fans of the franchise do not consider HeartGold and SoulSilver genuine entries in the series.

Since the first Pokemon game first started in Japan in 1996, new games have always arrived in pairs. This was an idea on Nintendo’s part to encourage interactivity between players of the games, before online play existed. The franchise’s key marketing strategy has always revolved around collecting different types of Pokemon, and a handful of the critters are kept “exclusive” to each version. Players then must trade with owners of the opposite game in order to “catch ’em all.” The Pokemon series is widely credited with single-handedly restoring luster to Nintendo’s waning Game Boy product line in the late ’90s, setting the stage for a rebirth of interest in handheld gaming.

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Remembering Iwo Jima

Raising the American Flag Over Iwo Jima

An invading army sets its flag on your soil. The first such foreign flag in centuries. They came in their boats and we swam behind them in the water and slaughtered them like lambs. They came on our soil to end the war that would end all wars. We didn’t care. They invaded our lands. Let them sue for peace in the great halls, where speeches are made. We will slaughter everyone that comes ashore.

America wanted to attack something that would make it difficult for the Japanese to defend and they found the perfect place to attack Japan. Iwo Jima, a small island about 8 square miles large and 650 miles away from Tokyo on Japanese soil. Benefits of attacking Iwo Jima were that they already had 2 Japanese Airfields. The Distance was much shorter and they could refuel using the Japanese Airfields and B-29s were much more effective at that range.

Before the battle itself, For 70 days the US sent in air and sea bombers to weaken the Japanese defense and make the actual assault much easier, but according to the World War Database “the massive display of fireworks merely made a small dent in the defenders’ numbers”(6). The bombers had no effect on the Japanese soldiers, because they were hidden underground. Their strategy to weaken the Japanese defense before the actual assault had failed. Due to the failure U.S had to send more marines then they expected. The U.S sent 110,000 marines in 880 ships to Iwo Jima from Hawaii. This was the most marines sent by U.S for a battle, this was also one of the biggest battles the U.S had fought at the time.

In 36 days there were nearly twenty-six thousand US casualties, nearly seven thousand Americans soldiers had been killed in action. In contrast nearly all twenty two thousand Japanese soldiers that had been fighting were killed. When the American soldiers reached the top of the hill six of the soldiers decided to raise the American flag to show victory. Joe Rosenthal who was the only photographer at Iwo Jima who took the picture which would later become known as “Raising of the Flag”

This photograph taken on February 23, 1945, by Joe Rosenthal. It depicts five United States Marines and a U.S. Navy corpsman raising the flag of the United States atop Mount Suribachi during the Battle of Iwo Jima in World War II.

“From (left) in the Front are Ira Hayes, Franklin Sousley, John Bradley and Harlon Block. The back two are Michael Strank and Rene Gagnon. “Strank, Block and Sousley would die shortly afterwards. Bradley, Hayes and Gagnon became national heroes within weeks after the picture was published in the newspapers”.

Tuesday, February 23rd will be the 65th Anniversary of the raising of the American flag at the Battle of Iwo Jima. In honor of World War II Veterans and this important date, the National Veterans Foundation (NVF) announces the release of Semper Fi, an historical tribute to the courage, valor, and sacrifice of the U.S. servicemen who turned the tide of World War II, and paved the way to victory.

The video can be seen in its entirety at http://www.iwojima65.org.

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Anime Rant: Why I Hate the Writers of Naruto Punking Orochimaru

Creating the Fall Guy

In America, because Americans are all children and have the brains of infants, Hollywood tests and tests and tests and come up with the same result, “the bad guy can never win.” Regardless that congress rapes us daily. Regardless that Wall Street pillages the land of tax payer dollars and we take it, day in and day out, we can never be presented with even the hint of reality in a movie. Test groups can’t even tolerate the bad guy even getting the upper hand during the movie. They are so childlike that it is enough that you say “this is the bad guy” and then proceed with the movie.

In Asia it is no problem to present a movie where the bad guy walks away scott free. However their reality is quite different. Over there bad guys don’t get away with it. So to see a bad guy win, IS the fantasy. Over here, we are surrounded by incompetent police incompetent leaders, incompetent military. They lock up regular citizens and give the excuse that they broke the law. The actuality is that 75% of the time the law was an infraction that is so inconsequential that locking a citizen up for it, IS the crime. But, they do that to hide their own incompetence, their own inability to stop real crime.

For 50 years they have claimed they needed to lock up 20 times the Americans they used to lock up, all in the name of our safety. When in fact 90% of those they locked up were no evil to begin with and the real criminals are free to do whatever they please. The police know they can’t get to them. The criminals know the police are incompetent, and no one can change that.

Knowing this then, why can’t Americans tolerate seeing a bad guy win? Because they are children and can’t handle the truth. The people they pay to keep them safe have failed and they do not want to be reminded of it. And, the powers that be will not show it to them and avoid it, al all costs.

So what’s my anime rant about? In Naruto they presented the ultimate bad guy as Orochimaruo. Orochimaru was the most powerful ninja. He knew every jutsu there ever was. He even invented his own. He even knew the forbidden jutsu. He used to belong to the all powerful band of outlaw nijas known as the Akatsuki. In fact he was so beyond them that he left them and truely went on his own. He was so powerful that he attacked a country, with his army, all by himself, something normally a whole country would have to do, to even be assured of success. He also was and is one of the 3 legendary ninja in all of the world of Naruto.

With all of that said why oh why would they all of a sudden make him look like a chump? I mean, the guy can bring people back to life. The guy discovered the immortality jutsu. His own retainer even said he could literally take over the entire Naruto world.

Now my problem isn’t that the author wants to all of a sudden go with a different bad guy. My problem is, don’t build up Orochimaru to not just be a powerful bad guy, but build him up to be a god and then make the new bad guy just have an illusion power.

The problem is they already explained in the series that one illusion user cannot ensnare another illusion user. One would have to be superiorly more powerful to best another illusion user. Now, under normal circumstances that wouldn’t be impossible, but we’re talking about Orochimaru vs and Uchiha.

Yes, it’s great that the Uchiha have an illusion power, but Orochimaru is now on his 3rd body. The other 2 legendary ninja are also facing the ravages of time. The female legendary ninja, now the leader of the Hidden Leaf Village, has been shown to use potions to keep herself looking young well beyond her years. So all 3 of them have lived probably 2 generations of a normal human, if not 3. Also, Orochimaru put an entire country under his illusions. He defeated ninja leaders of multiple countries, all at the same time, single handedly. So excuse me if I think it’s ridiculous that some 20 year old and his younger brother, 14 years old, put the legendary ninja Orochimaru under an illusion. It’s like Hitler or George W Bush fighting Jesus. I mean, they’re both bad guys and super powerful, but … come on, it’s Jesus we’re talking about.

I thought the Japanese wouldn’t fall for the “the bad guy loses” shtick. First of all we’re talking a world filled with nothing but ninjas. None of them are “good guys” in any objective sense. There are countless ways to write out and all powerful character anyway. They could simply say he got bored of the world and went somewhere else. Isn’t that what gurus do anyway?

Just stop it with the “Bram Stoker’s all powerful Dracula is killed by a toothpick from some 3rd rate cop that can barely read”. The world doesn’t work like that and don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining.

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The Truth About Long Term Investment

True Dollar Value Over Long Term

Most investors know that there is the ever present inflation that they have to overcome to even break even with their investments. The problem, in our country, is they don’t understand that with continued Federal Reserve interference with interest rates that they are fighting a losing battle, IF they are investing in markets traded by the U.S. dollar. For instance, let’s go over just last years inflation rates, just as an eye opener, per month.

       jan   feb   mar   apr   may   jun   jul   aug   sep   oct   nov   dec  annual
2008   4.3   4.0   4.0   3.9   4.2   5.0   5.6   5.4   4.9   3.7   1.1   0.1     3.8

As you can see, if you weren’t at least getting a 6.0 return monthly on your investments you were not making money. Most investors would want not only an investment to cover inflation however, but actually make a profit. If you’re not in the game to make a profit then you are in the wrong game entirely. The wise investor would be satisfied with a 3% gain over and above the inflation rate. So rounding up to the nearest percentage point, you would want at least a 9% return on your investment. How many investments do you know with such a return?

Clearing stayin in the dollar is the most unwise choice. You should shop around for a currency that places a very high value in either maintaining its currency value or even increasing it. As it stands now, the only places that fit that bill are China, Japan and maybe Australia or Norway or Brazil.

China

China, for all its faults, and clearly manipulating its currency value does, in fact, maintain the Yuan, year after year. If the Yuan then is stable and doesn’t fluctuate then all profits are purely profit and doesn’t have to compete with a monthly inflation rate. In fact, China is now opening up a bond market. This is clearly in preparation of divesting itself of the U.S. dollar.

China controls the value of its currency to give its exporters a price advantage on international markets, arguing it needs to prop up its industrial base to create jobs at a fast enough rate to maintain relative peace in its vast and diverse population.

China is reluctant to let its currency rise more quickly for fear of disrupting its job-rich export industries. Since Chinese officials regard a U.S. recession next year, and thus a sharp fall in their exports to the USA, as a “virtual certainty,” they see no need to compromise on currency, says Nicholas Lardy of the Peterson Institute for International Economics, who was recently in Beijing.

In yet another step to internationalize the yuan as a global currency, China will be selling yuan-denominated bonds on the international market for the first time.

The 6 billion yuan ($876 million) bond sale is slated for Sept. 28, the ministry said. Hong Kong is Chinese territory but has its own currency and regulatory system and often is used by Chinese companies to deal with foreign investors.

The yuan, also known as the renminbi, or people’s money, does not trade on global markets despite China’s huge foreign trade, but Beijing is gradually expanding its use abroad.

Japan

Japan’s new policy is that it seeks to strengthen the Yen. Thus, trading in Yens is a very sound investment.

Japan’s new government has watched but not acted as the yen has risen steadily against the dollar, in a gamble that a strong yen could spur domestic demand and lower the country’s reliance on exports. The Japanese currency gained more ground in Asia after shooting through the symbolic 90-yen-per-dollar level on Friday, with the dollar trading at around 88.73 yen. The yen is now about 30% stronger than its precrisis level.

But the new Japanese government under Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama has dismissed calls to intervene, in contrast to years past, when the Bank of Japan sold yen and bought dollars to keep the currency weak. A rising yen hurts Japanese exporters by making their products more expensive abroad. Instead, the new leadership and the Bank of Japan have made comments suggesting a strong yen, which makes imports cheaper, would help spark a rebound in consumer spending missing in Japan since the 1980s. That would lessen Japan’s dependence on exports for growth, a dependence that caused the economy to go into a tailspin when world trade halted late last year.

It is an idea that feeds into the global agenda outlined by the Group of 20 nations last week to rebalance the world economy away from overreliance on U.S. consumers. Finance Minister Hirohisa Fujii reiterated the strong-yen policy at the G-20 meeting, sparking the yen rally and pushing its value to 89.85 yen to the dollar. “I don’t think it is proper for the government to intervene in the markets arbitrarily,” he said at a meeting with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner before the summit.

The policy’s impact is already evident at Japan’s high-street shops, where signs declare high-yen sales on imported goods such as Italian handbags and French perfumes. A strong yen also means companies can purchase oil and other commodities more cheaply on the world market.

Australia

The Australian dollar has been constantly on the rise. In fact the policy seems to have adopted the same policy as the Japanese, i.e. a strong Australian dollar.

The Reserve Bank of Australia (RBA), seems to have no problem with continued appreciation of the Australian dollar. The Australian dollar is already up more than 50% against the U.S. dollar since the October 2008 lows of US$0.61/A$, and up more than 30% since New Year’s Eve level of US$0.70/A$, yet when asked what to do if the Aussie dollar continued to appreciate to for example US$1.10/A$, then RBA chairman Glenn Stevens simply said it would simply reflect the strength of the Australian economy and that the RBA would have no problem with it.

This means investments in A$ would appreciate and not suffer inflation.

Norway

Talk about a healthy economy. They are already out of the recession completely. However, that is due to the complete health of their economy to begin with. They have low unemployment, higher projected wages, and a sound fiscal policy to again raise interest rates. In fact they are doing so aggressively over the next 3 year.

Norges Bank raised its key interest rate a quarter point from a record low and signaled steeper increases than it previously forecast over the next three years as inflation accelerates and unemployment remains low.

Brazil

Brazil has been under constant attack. It also has outstanding loans by the IMF. This soundly renders it a 3rd world country. Regardless of imports, regardless of exports, if it has a loan to the IMF and conceded to privatization of resources to foreign companies, it is squarely in the 3rd world country category. However, it has a very sound and robust central bank that investors can take advantage of. It has a very definite plan about it currency and it is not marred by the previous ridiculous fluctuations we all used to hear about.

On June 1st 1994, Brazil implemented one of the most important steps of Real Plan: the currency was changed. The old “cruzeiro real” was abandoned, and the new currency, Real (symbol R$) gained course.

As a symbolism to gain confidence, the Brazilian monetary authorities defined that, on launching, the Real would be equivalent to the dollar (R$ 1 = US$1). However, the equivalence should be maintained by fiscal and monetary measures, and not by force of law (shortly before, Argentina had launched Plan Austral, which defined, in the Argentinian Constitution, that the Austral would be legally pegged to the dollar).
In the first few months of existence, the new currency caused a surprise to most Brazilians: it gained value against the dollar. This happened for some reasons: the Central Bank increased interest rates; there was liquidity in the international markets; most important of all, foreigner investors believed in the success of the Plan Real, which would (with the fall of inflation) cause redistribution of income, and Brazil saw a massive influx of foreigner investments.

[ I will admit, I am not sure about Brazil. Several sources give conflicting information about Brazil. Roubini talks down Brazil (what a shocker that is, right?) While other sources point to strong policies that it is now adopting. I include it here, just in case I am completely correct. ]

Conclusion

In essence, staying in the dollar is a zero sum game. While most G20 countries are obviously divesting themselves of the dollar, our own central bank continuously pours fuel on the fire. Inflation isn’t even accurately accounted for. As an investor you want the real number, not the pumped up numbers, the dumbed down numbers nor the look good numbers. How can you accurately gauge your return if you don’t have a sound, real accurate inflation rate to compare it to.

Of course stocks are going up. The value of the dollar is going down. If over the course of the year the dollar value goes down a full 6%, your 5%return is a loss not a gain. If the stock price goes up 4% over the course of a year or even 6% it is barely keeping up with inflation.

So let’s look at your “gains”. [these are all hypothetical]

• Stock appreciates 10% in a year
• broker fees 1%
• short-term capital gains tax rate 10%
• inflation rate 6%

Obviously you are in the hole, in the red and under. You should be able to do the real math for your potential investments before you invest. Obviously you already know the fees you pay, the tax rate, and potential inflation rate. You then have to come up with an investment that can give you such a return as to give you over and above all of the expenses just to get into the investment. Sadly, staying the dollar is the worst possible thing to do currently.

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