Hello again, everyone's favorite real life anime tennis star has returned. That you summer may be as splendid as the one I, Atobe, am enjoying here in Kanto, is my sincerest wish. Other than helicopter rides through the countryside, and scenic hiking through the mountainous interior, there isn't much reason to leave the Atobe estate now that I've been eliminated at Wimbledon, so I pass the hours reading and playing a few sets against acquaintances new and old. Not a bad way to live. My American friend tells me he's been rather inactive this summer, and I, Atobe, have been somewhat of a bum as well. Oh, minus this deluxe Atobe longboards business I've opened in absentia on the American West Coast. While yours truly is not a great enthusiast for extreme sports, longboards wear my name well, which uniform nomenclature has ensured brisk business, I assure you. I, Atobe, was inspired by Friar Gabriel, the Franciscan legend who uses his skating skills to spread devotion to Our Lady, though I opted to do business in longboards given their superior elegance. Thanks to my armchair entrepreneurship, traditional Catholics now have a foothold in the extreme sports market.

I, Atobe, frequently consider the proper role of Catholics in popular culture. Which brings me to a most intriguing email my American associate sent my way regarding the distinctive character of those otakus who also happen to be traditional Catholics. Rather after the style of Mr. David Letterman's Top Ten--though he could only think up five--they serve as a trite culturo-theological checklist. To quote Crusader:

You are a Traditional Catholic Otaku if:

5. You believe in the Book of Genesis,

and watch Neon Genesis Evangelion:


















4. You believe the West should be proud of the Crusades,

and the East should be proud of Chrono Crusade:

















3. You may think soldiery is not a woman's business,

but have no objections to Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon [yep, that's its full name]:



















2. You pray the Holy Rosary,

and watch Rosario + Vampire:




















and at #1...

1. You both watch, and believe, that The Virgin Mary Watches Over Us:











Now, that last one was pretty good. Maria-sama ga Miteru does indeed mean the Virgin Mary watches over us, and likewise it required just one picture. Yes, that's one anime whose holiness I can vouch for. I, Atobe, am not confident in the overall veracity of these supposedly Top Five. First off, where is The Prince of Tennis? Certainly Leslie could've squeezed my show in somewhere. While I am not really a fan of anything in which I do not star, and hence do not fulfill these specifications, my cursory knowledge tends to contravene his selections. Neon Genesis Evangelion heads the list of animes banned in the Christian Anime Alliance, Rosario+Vampire is a harem anime, and from the picture I found the Chrono Crusade nuns habits are hardly traditional. Sailor Moon, which Crusader is rediscovering from his childhood, would appeal to me more if it weren't so sissy. But perhaps I, Atobe, am overly sensitive. During my Google Image Search--Leslie provided the list, but the pics are de moi--I found this sweet image of Rosario+Vampire's Akashiya Moka betrothed to Black Butler Sebastian. If Rosario+Vampire can inspire such a wholesome Gothic matrimony, it cannot be so bad.

Be awed at the sight of my prowess!

This anime was recommended to me by an Assumption professor of philosophy. Well, sort of. When in the course of a conversation it came up that I was one of the college's resident anime lovers, he immediately blurted out that a younger relative of his was really into Gunslinger Girl. What can I say? The wisdom runs in the blood.

Given the abundance of series to choose from, and a multiplicity even of recommended animes, I put Gunslinger Girl on the to-watch list for some time. Finally, a few days ago, when I couldn't decide whether to select a cute schoolgirl anime, or an action-packed series targeting the shonen demographic, I tried it out, and I attest to you, as soon as I saw the opening, I knew it'd be what we in the industry call a Masterpiece.

So, why are these adolescent Italian girl antagonists gunslinging girls? The Italian government rescued them from their assortment of sad and depressing pasts, and placed them under the tutelage of the Social Welfare Agency it established for just such unfortunates. Which then proceeds to transform them into cyborgs with superhuman strength and agility, and trains them to covertly combat terrorists and the mafia! For a sneak peak of Henrietta, the main girl, and her firepower, see here.

Despite their line of work, they remain cute and innocent at heart. Witness Henrietta, left, beside her violin (she's quite proficient), and Triela, right, embracing a teddy bear gift, at their afternoon tea in their dormitory. Even though they're the best special operations unit the Italian government can manufacture, they can sing Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" by heart (for all the Baby Boomers out there, they also sing "Scarborough Fair") , enjoy their nation's operas, and develop deep bonds with their handlers, the adults who train them and accompany them on missions.

Political aficionados will find Gunslinger Girl relevant and engaging. Versus my bête noire, 24, which I mentioned in the last post, Gunslinger Girl identifies the political players with unmistakable clarity. Though the current prime minister who established the Social Welfare Agency isn't mentioned by name, a later episode clearly identifies him as none other than my beloved Silvio Berlusconi (his media control makes keeping the Agency under wraps much easier). A good thing too: of all the heads of state the world over, the only man with whom I would trust a covert unit of little girl cyborg assassins is Mr. Berlusconi. The Agency focuses its anti-terrorism efforts against the Five Republics Faction, a fictional right-wing Padanian (Northern Italian) nationalist group. Apparently the anime's intriguing depiction of the struggle for independence, for which cause an attractive image featuring a Christian knight is at left, has not gone unnoticed. The entire text of the "In Popular Culture" subsection of the "Padanian nationalism" Wikipedia article (which I swear I didn't write) reads:

The Japanese manga and anime series Gunslinger Girl is set in modern Italy. Creator Yu Aida describes the struggle for northern independence as an ongoing terrorist campaign similar to that of Northern Ireland during the Troubles or Spain's Basque separatist issue. The terrorists involved are referred to as Padania or Republicans (like Ulster's extreme Irish nationalists, such as Sinn Fein-IRA).

While I would prefer the secessionists as the good guys (the anime often portrays their motives solely in economic terms; the North is much wealthier than the South and is sick of sending its tax euros thence), the key villains are very personable and demand just as much sympathy as the adorable cyborg girls. Proud Italian Catholics all, Padanian operatives may be seen at prayer, and a Padania Republic Faction leader specifically instructs his operatives to avoid shooting near churches and museums. The only flaw is: if Silvio Berlusconi is prime minister, why would he go to such lengths to combat the Padanian extremists? They share the ends of the Lega Nord, the right-wing Padanian nationalist party forming an integral part of Berlusconi's coalition, and which he cannot afford to upset.

Whether as a cute alternative to a happily discontinued American television program or a girls-with-guns commentary on Italian regionalism, Gunslinger Girl is not an anime to pass up. The best time to start following Henrietta and Triela's anti-terror campaign is now! And if you're reluctant, then you can join my personal favorite, the bookish Claes, who has to stay at home and read except in one operation where she's the decoy.

Had I a companion at the locale I am about to describe, I would have made the scenery my Wordless Book for the day, to relate a lesson about strength and weakness, vitality and age. A tree is never as healthy as in its days as a green seedling, for the development and growth of the trunk, out from which its leaves may reach over the canopy and best collect sunlight, decays from within as the tree becomes old, engendering a weakness often the cause of the organism's death. The same truth holds for human beings and their political communities.

Sonnet CXLII The Wine Tree

A hilltop hospital espies below
A forest inbetween a road and town.
The trees are verde, the hunglimbs sand-root brown.
They join in stems, share nutrients, and grow.
The leaves are life, the browns decay and age.
With age grows reverence and memory,
But sapwood dries to heartwood in the tree,
Enfeebling corpora that are grown sage.

The viney cwms that buttress mountainsides
Are sawdust bare from here, and sink into
The dipping dale, athirst for summer dew.
The wine tree, best of trees, rests there in shades,
Whose leaves and bark are wine dark, mingling
The wise and vibrant in a single thing.

What tree is the wine tree? No connoisseur in these things, only later did I learn that the tree is a Japanese maple, sadly ironic, for the tree's land of origin have taken exactly the opposite course, and not just in such appearances as the metaphor uses. Although, as I have attempted to document (to the point of your nausea), my beloved anime and manga are really more conservative and less nihilistic than the close-equivalent American television programs (with which I became thoroughly re-disgusted after watching one horrendous episode of 24, a program which somehow counts many conservative fans) and "graphic novels" (socialism illustrated), the Japanese obsession with youth is undeniable. Despite said obsession, Japan is, as Catholics know, demographically moribund. Beneficial influence of and aesthetic affection for it's traditions or not, Japan is probably the modern society whose decay is furthest advanced. Unless the Japanese are converted, they will not renounce the Culture of Death, and will expire in the mantle of a false youth.

For a politico of my caliber, today, tomorrow, and the next day resemble the commercial breaks in the anime Kuroshitsuji, or Black Butler. In keeping with its Victorian setting, Kuroshitsuji frames its midway ads as an Intermission. And truly, these three days are sandwiched by two game-changing elections, which by their nature should but in fact rarely are, held back-to-back. The upper two Low Countries, see, have general elections, yesterday in the Netherlands, and on the Lord's Day in Belgium. Thusfar, I feel rather ambivalent regarding the results. Though Geert Wilders' notorious anti-Islam, immigration restrictionist Party for Freedom grew from 9 to 24 seats, that atheist's party doesn't stand for the sort of moral order which could reinvigorate decadent Dutch society, and Wilders frequently distances himself from more vigorous Right-wing parties like the French National Front and Austrian Freedom Party. In the bigger picture, the Christian democratic parties lost ground to market liberals. Certainly bad news. At least the traditional Protestant-confessional Reformed Political Party, while neither growing nor shrinking its representation, garnered 1.7 rather than 1.6% of the vote as in 2006. (In one's researches, they were rather cheered to discover there's a Dutch Bible Belt!) The outlook for the Belgians is also mixed. While the biggest Flemish language party come Sunday will likely be the New Flemish Alliance, a conservative party of those longing for separation from the welfare-sucking Walloons, it is siphoning off many votes which would otherwise have gone to the further Right, nationalist Flemish Interest.

Verily, this Pundit yearns for the stability of monarchy. where the ascension of one ruler might well set the political tone for decades, and where the heckling of the opposition would perhaps be more limited! The cruel joke, of course, is that the Netherlands and Belgium are monarchies, and Belgium a Catholic monarchy; the monarchs are simply figureheads. Even Iran is enviably free of this dreadful cycle of uncertainty; through the overarching authority of the mullahs, and the regime's almost shameless corruption, the electoral triumph of true sons of the conservative-revolutionary Islamic Republic over the "reformist" liberals celebrated by the West is ensured.

*************

Now that I'm done lamenting the Christian democrats and envying the Iranians, it's time for a long-overdue summer film recommendation! And I do hearken back to the good old days of film--we're going way back! Bill Clinton was president, but hadn't yet committed those regrettable actions which inspire a seemingly endless variety of Ann Counter jokes regarding a stained dress, and Newt Gingrich was House Majority Leader. It was 1996, the year of welfare reform. The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air had just completed its final season, and the career of star Will Smith was on the rise. While the brief-but-timeless My Brother and Me had run its course the previous year, Salute Your Shorts reruns still filled the air, Clarissa continued to explain it all, and The Adventures of Pete and Pete continued to rule the Nickelodeon waves. Space Jam, featuring Michael Jordan, hit theaters in November and did not fail to impress. Just months earlier, however, an even greater film, starring another basketball giant, and released just months earlier, has been poorly received by crass critics ever since, worngly earning a spot on Wikipedia's List of Films Considered the Worst.

The feature whose praises I sing is Kazaam. I was seven. Kazaam is the first film I remember seeing in theaters. Sure, if you press me I may remember some elements of theater films I saw when I was younger, but Kazaam... that's the first time I remember the big screen, the joy of seeing a motion picture on the big screen. Mom hated it, I remember, and it was one of the few times in my life we didn't wait to sit through the credits. I loved it. Always have. At the time we got Kazaam toys at Taco Bell.

Why, you ask, do I find Kazaam so terrible-ly good? Do I consider Shaquille O'Neal is a good actor? I've never been one to care too much about the actor behind the character; I could care less that Shaq is Kazaam, so the whole "bad crossover" criticism has never been comprehensible to me. But on the other hand, who better than that tall, tough Muslim to play an old-style Arabian genie who takes refuge in a boom box when his lamp's out of commission? Whatever the viewer's opinion of Kazaam's rapping--I find it not-over-the-top, which I like: there are so many movies I cannot enjoy because the writers just tried too hard to make the script clever--what better spin on traditional, poetic tales of magic lamps could there be? Kazaam becomes a nightclub sensation simply by telling his 5,000 year story as hip-hop lyrics, and consequently becomes somewhat sidetracked from his wish-granting duties by his fame! Some critics even take issue with the appearance of the average kid-protagonist's appearance and relatable white boy in the 'hood story! No taste, get lives people.

Kazaam, I should note, came to be on a fourth the budget poured into the aforementioned Space Jam, and, after seeing it for my third time last night, in this Pundit's unimpeachable opinion is a far superior film, set to entertain kids and adults alike for decades. A true treasure of the 90s. If you missed out on the 1996 release, you can catch Kazaam in 11 parts on You Tube, starting here. And for those in need of further convincing, here's the fun scene where Max Connor accidently summons Kazaam from the boom box, and here's Kazaam's rap about how he came to be a genie!

Befriend Kazaam on Facebook and boost its ratings on IMDB (I gave it a 9/10)!

Gov. Christie to Teacher's Unions: "YOU PUNCH ME, I PUNCH YOU"

Among all of Chris Christie's recent feats of oratory, this is my favorite. As he says, most teachers are good teachers, but all too often politicians are too cowardly to criticize the unions, let alone those educators who hypocritically claim to work out of love, but demand a raise on an $86,000 salary, with benefits, during a recession; he despatched their ilk here. The union's have already spent millions attacking him, and he didn't even attack public school teachers as a group; for that, read Ann Counter regularly.

Reminds me of my public school days. Every three years, punctually, Northampton's well-paid teachers, rather than re-negotiating their contracts peaceably as common sense might dictate, they would pull out the picket signs and protest that they were "Teachers Working Without A Contract", and implore the mostly ambivalent populace to heckle their public employers to pay them more. Though Northampton's public schools are known for their academic prowess, abundance of AP courses, and the sizable chapter of the National Honor Society, they also know for their liberal pedagogy. The usual stuff, only more intense. Promoting homosexuality as normal from elementary school on, frequent displays of gay pride, disproportionate amounts of feminist history, and an overrepresentation of Black and Latino literature (from the worst representatives of these respective races, usually meritless shows of ressentiment from Jimmy Santiago Baca, Ralph Ellison, etc.; the best I could hope for was Isabel Allende's The House of the Spirits), a good medley of anti-Catholic texts (ex. WIlliam Manchester's A World Lit Only By Fire), teaching the virtues of "safe sex", the usual, irritating anti-smoking propaganda, and numerous unabashed socialists and left-wing activists among the faculty, who were even worse, using their positions to promote their progressivist ideologies on their captive audience. I sometimes thought it'd be better if the city let the picketers talk to the hand, as they say, and went about finding more grateful educators who kept their opinions to themselves.

*************

In Northampton, as you can guess, we also got our share of goddesses. The pagans in Northampton are a-plenty, and their novels were not unrepresented at Northampton High (while I don't quite remember any works wholly devoted to female deities, I did have to suffer through Mary Stewart's The Crystal Cave and Leslie Marmon Silko's Ceremony over two consecutive summers). Thanks to anime, however, I have finally found some goddesses I like. And they're mini-goddesses at that! In just a few days I plowed through all 48 7-minute episodes of The Adventures of Mini-Goddess, an anime of 1998-1999 vintage based on a manga parody of the original Oh My Goddess! manga. In these exquisite shorts we rejoin Belldandy (jumping), Urd (reclining), Skuld (blinking), who use their powers to make themselves small, and befriend Gan-chan (falling) and his rat friends. Oh My Goddess! is a great series, a fine example of the average-guy-gets-gorgeous-girl (left) genre, and pleasantly unusual in that the protagonist is a college student rather than a high schooler. A cute romance, Oh My Goddess! was recommended to me by a fellow member of the Christian Anime Alliance, so you know it's good (it's so good it makes me want to say oh oh oh, oh oh, oh oh oh, oh oh, oh oh oh, oh oh, oh oh my god-dess (alright, no one's made an actual Oh My Goddess! amv to the great Usher song, but you know it's only a matter of time). In Adventures of Mini-Goddess, however, Belldandy and friends put the affairs of love on the back burner, and engage in diverse antics. Believe it or not, it's quite addicting! And while I think the first Oh My Goddess! series, the 1993-1994 OVA, had the best theme music, the Mini-Goddess ending is super-adorable. In my favorite episodes, to give you a glimpse of the series' exceptional antics, Gan-chan the rat eats something moldy, and after a slew of (painful) attempted remedies they think he's finally well--but suddenly, their pal Gan-chan morphs into Gabira: The Giant Monster! Resembling Godzilla, he trashes much of the temple in which they live, and turns anything his breath touches all moldy. How do the mini-goddesses restore their friend to health? Find out in eps. 7 and 8 of The Adventures of Mini-Goddess!

*************

Finally, there's a tidbit of news from Atobe. Though he's mostly been awfully busy besting old rivals, he, Echizen, and Tezuka have reportedly formed a little rock band. Since my efforts to form an SGA boy band haven't gone as well (yet! you'll see!), forgive me for a tad bit of jealously. With regard to the resignation of Japan's Prime Minister, Yukio Hatoyama, Atobe gracefully comments,

Hatoyama became less popular every day he was in office. Like the estimable Syuusuke Fuji's Higuma Otoshi, which drops the ball you've just smashed to the other side of the court behind you before you know what's coming, Mr. Hatoyama received a smashing mandate after the LDP fell from power, but through his lack of will--the only good thing I, Atobe, can say about him is that he honestly acknowledged he'd broken his promises--he sank like, well, a Higuma Otoshi. As you can't read here,

His party's approval plummeted with a swiftness to which you Americans are alien. Sadly, it's back up now that he's gone, which is too bad for the Right. At least the new guy, Naoto Kan (to be appointed Tuesday), seems patriotic and stronger-willed. And though not a Catholic like Taro Aso, he's a pious Buddhist. As you can read here:

"In 1998, he admitted that he failed to make payments into the state pension scheme for ten months. Although the amounts were relatively small, he left to avoid hurting the party. Additionally, his image had been hurt by the revelation of an affair with a television newscaster.

"As atonement for disgracing himself and his party, Kan shaved his head, donned traditional Buddhist garb, and went on a pilgrimage to 88 rural temples around Japan."

Methinks your American President, Obama, should emulate our new leader for transforming your wonderful land into a European socialist dump. Oh, and Be awed at the--

Tonight I write of two sights for sore eyes. In these dreary times when one need only watch Glenn Beck on a given weekday to confirm their suspicions that President Obama has overloaded his administration with communists with a penchant for world government--Where's Joe McCarthy when we need him?--parodies on our sadly probable future, and genuine expressions of love for this country from improbable sources come much appreciated.

1.~As Atobe mentioned on the 7th of last month, our Crusader is presently slogging through Infinite Jest, the mangitudinous novel left us by the late David Foster Wallace, and has reached about page 530 (slight spoilers later in this paragraph). Though the longtime Massachusetts resident's intended audience was never in doubt, his political humor is just as enjoyable for this rightist as for the left-literati (though given the epic's often heavy tone, it could've used something a little more BLAST: War Number for the cover). Even today, those of us fighting to prevent an EU-style North American Union are frequently written off as kooks despite the preponderance of globalists and one-worlders in Washington (again watch Glenn Beck) and the parallels to Europe's postwar economic integration. Wallace, writing in the early 90s, already saw what was coming and rendered a parody of it. In Wallace's future (set about now actually), Quebecois separatists and Albertan far rightists unite in pathetic terrorist campaigns not against the NAU, but against ONAN, the Organization of North American Nations (giggle). The saga begins with the upset election of John Gentle, the hygiene-conscious leader of the Clean US Party, to the presidency. His party, abbreviated C.U.S.P., is indeed quite fringe, the

strange-seeming but politically prescient annular agnation of ultra-right jingoist hunt-deer-with-automatic-weapons types and far-left macrobiotic Save-the-Ozone, -Rain-Forests, -Whales, -Spotted-Owl-and-High-pH-Waterways ponytailed granola-crunchers, a surreal union of both Rush L.- and Hillary R. C.-disillusioned fringes that drew mainstream-media guffaws at their first Convention (held in sterile venue), the seemingly LaRoucheishly marginal party whose first platform's plank had been Let's Shoot Our Wastes Into Space, C.U.S.P. a kind of post-Perot national joke for three years, until

they swept the presidency "in an angry reactionary voter-spasm." Through a series of rashly-made promises and solutions worse than the original problem, President Gentle wrangles Canada and Mexico into ONAN. Never a popular pact, especially in Canada, Gentle used NAFTA as leverage to force it down our neighbors' throats, by the way. The ONAN crest is just too funny:

a snarling full-front eagle with a broom and a can of disinfectant in one claw and a Maple Leaf in the other and wearing a sombrero and appearing to have about half-eaten a piece of star-studded cloth

So much for Old Glory. On the brighter side, the emblem is silk-screened onto the door of a truck, whilst the opposite door bears the odd Latin motto TE OCCIDERE POSSUNT SED TE EDERE NON POSSUNT NEFAS EST, for which Wallace provides the translation "They Can Kill You, But the Legalities of Eating You Are Quite a Bit Dicier." Any Latinists around to provide a more literal translation? Truly, those internationalists should know that we have not yet begun to fight! Though as a numismatist I must confess that the purported patterns for the amero currency are stunning. To be sure, Wallace still has over 400 pages to ruin his master work (as Kurt Vonnegut demonstrates in Cat's Cradle, a promising book hardly needs that many more pages to fall to pieces), but as yet my friend's recommendation has more than paid off, and energized this reader in the fight against the NAU/ONAN. Which brings me to

2.~Doesn't anybody love America any more? Given the post-nationalism plaguing our political and economic discourse, attempts to answer the rhetorical question are often depressing. But then I recall that there's an entire nation of people that demonstrates, again and again, their steadfast love for America: the Japanese. Through thick and thin, their infatuation with all things western, and especially all things American (though not self-denigrating in the manner of our preference for the multicultural), has never wavered. The latest periodic reminder came as i was watching Bleach a few weeks ago, and was pleased to find a new ending (the 23rd!!), wherein all the characters hit the streets of New York. Dining at 5th Avenue and authentic Italian restaurants, hanging around as mafiosos, shooting pool, editing the day's paper as Superman (presumably Don Kanonji) flies by, playing poker, singing as divas, walking down allies in high school football jackets, and of course skateboarding past the Empire State Building. In their eyes, the Big Apple is definitely bright, happy and colorful. You can really feel the love, or should I say the HEART HEART.