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FIRST_ENCOUNTER

                                             October 8, 2013

I've been keeping an eye out for different cases
in my subjective experiment (introspection is
cheap) about whether there's a prejudice toward
preferring the first form of something I               SOUND_AGAINST_VISION
encounter.

The more I look at it, the more it seems to me
to simply be an illusion of circumstance.  If
you *like* the first, you seek out a second
encounter, so you accumulate examples where the
first seems superior to the second.

   And, or course, if you're using the
   reputation of these things as a guide,
   it's not an entirely random set, either:
   one might hope that reputation loosely
   coincides with quality-- or more precisely,
   that I can read the signs left in the
   reputation trails to pick out which artworks        I didn't think all
   I'm likely to percieve as high quality.             that much of the
                                                       (hugely successful)
                                                       anime "Bleach", but
                                                       somehow that didn't
Another case:                                          come as a huge
                                                       surprise, either.
  Detective Wanko (aka Dekka Wanko): the live
  action Japanese television show from 2013
  seems so much better than the manga-- from
  reading the first half-dozen installments
  anyway, after seeing most of the ten episodes
  of the on DVD-- it seems amazing the manga was
  used as an inspiration for the show.

  One of the more brilliant features from
  the show (a comedy-drama about a young
  woman with a gothic lolita fashion sense
  and a super-human sense of smell who               Or perhaps it's
  becomes a police detective), is a                  more like a
  secondary character with a reputation as           "post-goth-lolita"
  a genius-level interrogator who uses a             style?  A little
  crazed, almost dada, approach to shaking           less dark-- she
  suspects and convincing them to confess.           favors bright reds
                                                     with her blacks,
  The manga version has the cops continually         frequently
  getting in trouble for beating up suspects.        decorated in
  More realistic, perhaps, but much less             suit-of-cards
  creative. (Ah: later chapters of the manga         motifs-- but no
  have the brilliant interrogator idea in            where near as
  play.)                                             light as a
                                                     sweet-lolita.



                  Detective Wanko, is a discovery
                  via the esteemed "Japan Town Video"
                  in San Francisco's Japantown.
                  I had heard nothing of it, but the
                  very fact that they chose to carry       What is not good
                  it is a stamp of approval.               about it is the
                                                           quality of the
                      (The proprietor commented            subs (I don't
                       "Oh. This is a good one!"           believe it has
                       as I bought it.)                    a dub version,
                                                           which is fine by
                                                           me).  You have
                                                           to get yourself
                                                           in a frame of
                                                           mind to reach
                                                           for a loose,
                                                           impressionistic
                                                           understanding
                                                           to watch it.

                                                           As is all-too-often
                                                           the case, the
                                                           pirated fan-subbed
                                                           versions on the net
                                                           have much better
                                                           translations.



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