A. Cathy Nguyen

he is, maintaining that there *is* an issue with foreigners that are not addressed in japan hence why people vote sanseito 🤷🏻‍♀️ the comments are a bit of a right wing shit fest tbh even though dogen isn't exactly right leaning.

giving dogen the benefit of the doubt, he's trying to be grounded and neutral. unfortunately just one look at this comment section right now reveals how exactly this just further invites nationalist and far right positions. ironically, there's even comments written in Japanese that say how incorrect

aren't people like him - it's marginalised communities like chinese and vietnamese and kurds who are being scrutinised the most. his take is the most "we need to understand both sides" argument ive seen and i just think it's misplaced and fails to address genuine issues in far right extremism here

in general his commentary simply confirms something ive known for awhile from his videos: his perspective is incredibly privileged, and in his attempt to humanise japan and japanese people, he coddles the realities of japanese politics so much. the people most affected by anti-foreign sentiment

repeatedly he implicitly frames the ideal immigrant: the person who moves to japan out of love for the country and who are willing to learn the language. the "ideal" immigrant in this case is someone who unquestionably accepts nationalism of their chosen country. there's so many issues with this

he also says that not all people who voted for Sanseito did so because they are "racist" but are genuinely afraid of foreign influence in the aftermath of the Unification Party and its ties to the LDP. fine, but why is it framed like a legitimate excuse to vote for a party that is inspired by Trump?

he explains that while the relative rise of the far right party Sanseito is high, their actual seat numbers in government are low. unfortunately, branding a far-right party as a fringe party is exactly how many issues started in germany and the U.S.

screenshot of youtuber dogen and the thumbnail of his most recent video titled "On the Rise of Anti-Foreigner Sentiment in Japan"

the way i could write an essay about dogen's (youtuber who does japanese language and culture content) newest video. it has me all up in arms lol. ill have to sort out my thoughts in more detail but just a few comments here

For the past decade, I've been slowly cooking a small and humble book.

Part (alternative) history, part analysis, and part social critique, this is a look at what games also are and have always been.

ZEN AND SLOW GAMES
Out 20/1/2026 by MIT Press

mitpress.mit.edu/978026255356...

i always feel very honoured and grateful when any of my works get cited at all, but to read someone write out my name in full and refer to a concept i had suggested years ago with said author saying "i will expand on suggested concept" just tickled my brain in a very funny way. thank you for that 🥹

a little bit of hope on the horizon

screenshot of text from linked article, reads: And yet I yearned to hear the voices of ­Vietnamese ­people ­because, as an American, I understood how Americans saw and heard, or didn’t hear, ­ Vietnamese ­people, who ­were among the many ­others in the American imagination. I was an American, which meant that Amer­i­ca’s others ­were also mine, born from what the poet William Carlos Williams called the “orgy of blood” that is American history. But I also became aware of myself as an other through watching almost all of Hollywood’s Vietnam War movies, an exercise I recommend to no one, especially if you are Vietnamese. When Americans said Việt Nam, they really meant the Vietnam War, but ­whether they meant the country or the war, “Vietnam” for Americans was an American drama, an American civil war, a conflict in the American soul in which we ­were the extras. This was our country and this was our war, and yet our only place in American movies was to be killed, raped, threatened, or rescued. All we could do was scream, cry, beg, threaten, or curse, and if we could say anything at all, it was ­either “Me love you long time” or “thank you” for being rescued. Of course, we ­were never so rude as to mention, at least in English, that we ­wouldn’t have needed to be rescued by Americans if we ­hadn’t been invaded by them in the first place.

i've very purposefully avoided vietnam war movies for most of my life. as to why - i think author viet thanh nguyen puts it well. source: www.hup.harvard.edu/features/vie...

next week will be a big one for me as I'm slowly warming up to the idea of watching apocalypse now 🫡

peace and quiet (for now)

stuff like this really reveals how pale skin is often assumed the standard - even during game dev. in love&deepspace, there's been cases where new cosmetics were introduced (like a blushing effect on mc's face) and you could see it was never tested on darker skin and looked incredibly off

Love and Deepspace Devs Respond to Player Complaints That Their Dark-Skinned Custom Characters Are Invisible in Cutscenes - IGN Love and Deepspace has been out for almost two years now, but its playerbase is growing increasingly exasperated over a persistent issue impacting players with dark-skinned custom main characters: the...

for the last two years, players with dark-skinned custom MCs in Love and Deepspace have had to deal with their characters being poorly lit and often entirely invisible in some of the game's cutscenes, and they're begging the devs to do something about it:
www.ign.com/articles/lov...

a man is holding a stuffed animal with a chainsaw on it ALT: a man is holding a stuffed animal with a chainsaw on it

i think i need to reread chainsaw man because i already forgot most of what happens but then i vaguely remember part 1 broke my heart so much i tried to forget about it for a reason

😆 it iiirks me when out of everything the typo is in the title of the movie adiueiud

god dammit not the typo!!

other than the "little" hiccup with my grad school my days have been entirely consisting of the following thoughts

- what do I eat today
- should I go to the cinema
- maybe I'll read this book today

and it's been making me very happy

princess mononoke imax poster

my cinema seat

princess monokoke is screening for two weeks as a digital 4k remaster across japan, including imax theatres. it's been going for a week now and my 3pm screening on a friday was nearly entirely booked out 🌸

after my advisor intervening, he sent me a message today telling me today's faculty meeting approved of the submitted materials and additional paperwork for my thesis and it is no longer an issue. jesus christ. i guess my thesis is now finally in the prelim procedures🙄

tempted to turn my air conditioning on already to heat my room but it genuinely feels wrong when just 2-3 weeks ago i was using the same air conditioner to keep my apartment cool ...

im used to bureaucratic stuff being born and raised in germany and all but at least they have like a 20-page book detailing everything you need whereas here it's more like im under some authoritarian whim which makes it no easier 🫣

shoulda asked chatgpt i guess. 😔

my advisor intervened, now he's writing a full letter for me to verify the pdf's validity and that it's the highest form of confirmation possible from a leading uni publisher. mind you, even my japanese advisor says this is odd but said "they wanted it to come from a non-human entity" 🙄

my patience is wearing thin

i sent my grad school a proper pdf from the book's editor confirming its publication plus a publication schedule. and i kid you not they were still not happy with it, requesting more documentation from the publisher themselves!!! do they not know how this works, i dont talk to the publisher😿

Denke immer noch oft an diesen Tweet, wenn ich die täglichen Kojima-Posts in meiner TL habe. "you never know what the man is going to post next" – Wahreres ist über @hideokojimaen.bsky.kojimaproductions.jp selten geschrieben worden.

ok sorry I just needed that brief rant about admin because doom kicked in where I shortly believed my phd submission could be jeopardized just because my grad school is feeling whimsy due to the lack of rules surrounding the paper requirements 🤷🏻‍♀️ it shouldn't be a big deal and I'll be patient